Author: Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: 20TH Century Studios won a heated auction for Persona, a novella by Marc Guggenheim, co-creator and EP of Arrow and one of the architects of the Arrow-verse franchise. Paul Feig, the Bridesmaids helmer who is coming off the hit The Housemaid, will direct. Deal is 7-figures. Studio is keeping the concept under wraps, but Deadline hears this is a Fatal Attraction-style thriller with a very modern twist. Guggenheim lands his second 7-figure deal in the past half year; he co-wrote and is EP on An Innocent Girl, a movie filming now and starring Keri Washington, James Marsden, Chloe East…

At a Cannes where some have grumbled about a paucity of studio movies (and thus stars), the absence of Scarlett Johansson at last night’s premiere of Paper Tiger was notable. During the movie’s rousing 10-minute standing ovation director James Gray tried to make a call to the actress, according to reports and social media videos. The call wouldn’t connect or he couldn’t get through. At least one report had the actress missing the premiere because she was filming Universal’s radical redo of The Exorcist, her involvement in which was first reported by Deadline. Today at a press conference, Gray took a moment…

Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream director Darren Aronofsky has revealed he is pushing on with American Revolution-themed AI project On This Day… 1776, the first part of which was widely panned on its release in January. The director told the AI for Talent Summit in Cannes on Saturday that the spirit of the project, made under the banner of his AI-based studio Primordial Soup, was purely experimental. He explained he had hit on the idea of the project in November 2025 in the lead-up to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. “I…

After a somewhat quiet few days, the Cannes Film Festival is heating up with two big audience responses to buzzy films. The first, earlier this afternoon was Jordan Firstman’s out-of-competition Club Kid, which got a lot of laughs and a 7-minute standing ovation. Just minutes later came director Ryusuke Hamaguchi‘s All of a Sudden, which saw an effusive 11-minute cascade of applause punctuated by screams of “bravo” from the enthusiastic crowd. And that’s after sitting through the 3-hour-and-16-minute film, which is the longest in the competition this year. Related Stories During the acknowledgment, Hamaguchi grabbed the hands of his cast…

EXCLUSIVE: Britt Lower (Severance), Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value), and Selton Mello (I’m Still Here) are set to star in Michael Almereyda’s upcoming feature Zero K, joining previously announced cast members Caleb Landry Jones and Peter Sarsgaard. Based on Don DeLillo’s novel of the same name, Zero K centers on a tech billionaire (Sarsgaard) preparing his dying wife (Lilleaas) for cryonic preservation in an advanced medical facility while his estranged son (Jones) searches for stability with a woman raising a young son (Lower). The dramatic sci-fi premise shows them toggling between worlds — weighing faith in the present against the…

Mattel is banking on Gen X to pass the torch and give the Masters of the Universe movie and toys a multi-generational boost. The MGM and Mattel Masters of the Universe big-screen adaptation hits movie theaters in the U.S. on June 5. Describing He-Man as a niche fan-favorite IP, Jess Kirkman, Global Head of Brand Creative at Mattel, broke down how it hopes the original Masters of the Universe fans will open up that world for a new generation. “There’s a specific audience that knows the He-Man era, and it’s a lot from the ’80s, the Gen X’ers, mostly. These…

Jerome Levy and David Atlan-Jackson – co-founders of growing pan-European theatrical feature film-focused Vuelta Group – hit the Cannes Film Festival’s red carpet this evening with opening film The Electric Kiss. The group’s Paris-based subsidiary Playtime is handling international sales on Pierre Salvadori’s period romantic-comedy starring Pio Marmaï, Anaïs Demoustier, Gilles Lellouche, and Vimala Pons, while Vuelta Germany has taken rights for its territory. It is among 15 films debuting in Official Selection and the parallel sections with Vuelta connections. Competition title A Woman’s Life is being sold by its Brussels-based company Be For Films. Rights for James Gray’s Paper…

Oscar nominee Florence Pugh (Dune franchise) is set to star in and produce fantasy drama The Midnight Library, which will be directed by Lion filmmaker Garth Davis, we can reveal. In the big-budget “love letter to life,” Pugh per the logline will play Nora Seed, who finds herself in a library between life and death with the chance to experience all the potential lives she could have lived. Studiocanal and Blueprint Pictures are behind the project, which the former is launching for the Cannes market. The regular collaborators optioned Matt Haig’s popular novel, which has a screenplay by Olivier Award…

The artistic director of Millennium Docs Against Gravity in Poland is offering a rebuttal to Wim Wenders after the German director said filmmakers should “stay out of politics.” “I’m not going to take issue with the person that said it, but with the sentiment,” Karol Piekarczyk said on the opening night of the international documentary festival in Warsaw, referring to remarks Wenders made as president of the Berlinale jury in February. “I don’t know since when the basic human rights have become political. We didn’t make them political.” Piekarczyk added, “I think there is a deep misunderstanding about how filmmakers…

The first weekend of Millennium Docs Against Gravity – the prestigious international film festival in Poland – is underway after opening with Closure, the new film directed by Warsaw native Michał Marczak. The wrenching documentary about a father’s desperate search for his missing teenage son won the Golden Alexander at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in Greece in March and premiered in World Cinema Documentary Competition at Sundance. Marczak’s journey to make the film began as he spent time on the Vistula River in Warsaw. While on a raft with his family – the director was scouting locations for a…