Author: Deadline

UPDATED, 2:15 PM: In less than 24 hours, the New York jury in Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial will begin deliberations. In all likelihood, the seven-woman, five-man panel could be behind closed doors by mid-morning East Coast time to decide whether the once-swaggering producer will be sitting in a state prison cell for the rest of his days. The defense concluded its long closing argument earlier Tuesday, and now the prosecution has just a bit more to go in its final pitch to the jurors. Whether it takes less or more to reach a verdict than the five days it took the…

Ryan Coogler has no plans for a Sinners sequel, which is by design. In a resurfaced interview posted before the Michael B. Jordan-starring film was released in theaters, the filmmaker said he thought of Sinners as a “full meal.” “I’ve been in a space of making franchise films for a bit, so I wanted to get away from that,” Coogler told Ebony in an interview posted on April 15. “I was looking forward to working on a film that felt original and personal to me and had an appetite for delivering something to audiences that was original and unique.” The…

Refresh for latest…: With a pair of phenomenal holds, Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning continued to dominate global turnstiles this weekend. To wit: Disney’s Lilo & Stitch added $113.1M from 52 offshore markets, lifting the international box office cume to $330.7M. The overseas drop was just 28%. The worldwide total through today is $610.8M. Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible 8’s sophomore offshore session was good for $76.1M, a great 33% dip from opening. The international total on the Tom Cruise-starrer is now $231.2M, and global is $353.8M.  Before we dig into details on the above, note that…

Renée Victor, the actress best known for her voice role as Abuelita in the beloved animated film Coco and arc as Lupita on Showtime’s Weeds, died surrounded by her family at her Sherman Oaks, Calif. home last night, her agency told Deadline. Her cause of death was lymphoma. “Renee is perhaps best known as the voice of ‘Abuelita’ in Disney’s 2017 blockbuster Coco,” a statement from her daughters Raquel Victor and Margo Victor read in part. “Renee was loved by so many & had fans all over the world. Her memory will be cherished by all who knew her.” Born in San…

Loretta Swit, who played Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan on the hit comedy series M*A*S*H, died today at her home in New York City. She was 87. Her death was announced by her representative Harlan Boll, who said a New York City police report indicates Swit died just after noon today of suspected natural causes. Swit was a mainstay on the classic and beloved comedy series for its entire 11-year run, nominated for Emmy Awards every year from 1974-83, winning in 1980 and 1982. Born Loretta Jane Szwed on November 4, 1937, in Passaic, New Jersey, studied drama in New…

Studios celebrate their box office hits — unless it’s Paramount, where even success becomes opaque. Tom Cruise’s $400 million Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning was produced by Skydance Films for Paramount, but Skydance also wants to acquire Paramount, an ambition mired in layers of Trumpian and dynastic complexity. Indeed, the intrigues are reminiscent of those of Barry Diller, the onetime Paramount chief whose dealmaking forays ended in defeat, but then success.  Diller’s new memoir, titled Who Knew, details double-crosses and plot twists among Hollywood majors that could justify its rebranding as Who Cares.     Despite the success of Mission: Impossible, the Skydance…

As NewFest kicks off its fifth annual Pride film series in New York City, the country’s largest LGBTQ film festival is teaming up with AMC Networks. Part of the network’s ‘Future of Film’ initiative, which showcases emerging talent from festivals across the country, NewFest has curated a collection of six shorts by LGBTQ filmmakers to stream on AMC+ during Pride Month. “We’re thrilled to partner with AMC Networks to bring NewFest’s programming to a national audience through the Future of Film initiative,” said NewFest executive director David Hatkoff and director of programming Nick McCarthy. “These powerful shorts highlight the depth…

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights in North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and India for Cannes Caméra d’Or winner The President’s Cake by Iraqi director Hasan Hadi. The film, which debuted in Directors’ Fortnight, also proved a crowdpleaser in the Cannes parallel section, winning its People’s Choice audience award. Deadline critic Pete Hammond also fell for the film describing it as a “a true gem and a real discovery”. Check out his review here. New York-based Hadi has tapped into his own childhood in southern Iraq in the 1990s, growing up under the regime of President Saddam…

Seeds is planting itself firmly in the hearts of critics around the country. Brittany Shyne’s documentary about Black farmers in the South won the Grand Jury Prize in Competition at the 2025 Seattle International Film Festival, the latest honor for a film that has won awards at Sundance, RiverRun in North Carolina, and the San Francisco International Film Festival. The jury, comprised of David Ansen, Megan Griffiths, and Garineh Nazarian, saluted the film for “its lyric and compassionate evocation of an underrepresented community, filmed with great intimacy over 8 years.” Eight fiction and nonfiction films contended for the Grand Jury…

When it comes to getting indie films made, Richard Linklater lives by the golden rule of “fake it until you make it.” The 5x Oscar nominee recently opened up about the struggles of financing as an indie filmmaker, explaining that they have to “be a cheap hustler” and “have some charm” in order to convince financiers to invest in their work. “If no one wants to support you, that just means you are not ready yet,” said Linklater at IndieWire‘s Future of Filmmaking Summit at Cannes. “Maybe you don’t have the confidence or something’s not exuding from you that needs…