Author: Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Annie Ilonzeh (S.W.A.T.), Marques Houston (You Got Served) and Erica Mena (Love & Hip-Hop) lead the upcoming sci-fi thriller Run from . The film is directed by Chris Stokes and is expected to be released in theaters in May. In addition to Ilonzeh, Houston and Mena, the cast includes Erica Pinkett, Drew Sidora, Ken Lawson, Claudia Jordan and Obba Babatunde. Run follows Melissa after she leaves her fiancé Andre at the alter, and her best friends convince her to go to a cabin on a much-needed “Girls Trip” to get her mind off things. But things take a huge…

Beware novel psychological therapies from Austria: You never know where they may lead. In the curious case of German director Tom Tykwer’s The Light, which opened the Berlin Film Festival, such a quacky therapy — mostly involving a flashing LED light and an egg-timer — is Syrian refugee Farrah’s comfort, an escape hatch from the horrors of her life and, ultimately, a tool to heal the multiple afflictions tearing apart the German family for whom she is keeping house. The parents are in failing couples therapy, the kids are disaffected, and Farrah appears from nowhere to sort them out. Sort…

Editors note: Since solidifying its place on the Oscar shortlist and being nominated for Best Live Action Short Film, Anjua is now streaming on Netflix. Check out Deadline’s interview with writer-director Adam J. Graves that originally published in December 2024. In Adam J. Graves and Suchitra Mattai’s Anuja, resilience in the face of hardship is the central heartbeat. The short film, doubling as both a heartwarming tribute to sisterhood and as a social awareness campaign about the effects of unchecked child labor, focuses on Anuja (Sajda Pathan), a young girl who lives with her older sister, Palak (Ananya Shanbhag), in Delhi,…

EXCLUSIVE: After scoring massive viewership with Carry-On, his Netflix action-thriller starring Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman, which drew rave reviews in its December launch, director Jaume Collet-Serra has found his next project in Play Dead, a survival thriller described as Don’t Breathe meets 1917, sources tell Deadline. Specifics as to the film’s plot are under wraps. Script is by Peter Stanley-Ward & Natalie Conway. Nocturnal is fully financing the project and producing alongside Ghost House Pictures, BoulderLight Pictures, and Bad Grey, with production to kick off at NantStudios in Docklands Studios Melbourne in May. Akiva Nemetsky and Keaton Heinrichs will…

Colman Domingo is addressing rumors that he was set to replace Jonathan Majors in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and take over the role of Kang the Conqueror. Social media was abuzz about Domingo possibly joining the MCU, which prompted the Euphoria actor to meet with Marvel Studios to find out if any rumors were true. “I think there had been conversations of me coming to Marvel in some way,” Domingo said according to Slash Film. “So we [Domingo and his PR team] did follow up with a sit-down meeting with the heads of Marvel. So we did do that, and…

Super Bowl weekend is notoriously tough for cinemagoing but fans turned out and tuned in for music documentary concert film Becoming Led Zeppelin from Sony Pictures Classics, which rocked the top ten. A Complete Unknown and The Brutalist are holding. Neon saw a bump for its Parasite re-release. Documentary No Other Land had a nice expansion. Long-gestating Becoming Led Zeppelin, an early version of which premiered at Venice in 2021, charged to more than $2.6 million on 369 Imax screens and the no. 7 spot, the only indie in the top 10 this weekend. That’s the biggest ever opening weekend…

There’s something special about DreamWorks Animation‘s The Wild Robot, which earned three Oscar nominations for Animated Feature, Sound and Original Score. “I knew from the moment I read the book that we had to move in a completely new direction in order to faithfully get this narrative up on the screen,” writer-director Chris Sanders says during a panel for Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees. One of the more unique aspects of the film is the lack of dialogue, which allowed for more reliance on sound design and score. Even in the beginning of the film, only the main character Roz, voiced…

RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes will receive the Writers Guild of America West’s 2025 Paul Selvin Award for their work as the screenwriters of Nickel Boys, the Amazon MGM Studios drama they adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning book. The honor will be bestowed during the guild’s WGA Awards on February 15 at the Beverly Hilton. The award, named for the former WGAW general counsel and given each year to a member or members whose script best embodies the spirit of the constitutional and civil rights and liberties, is the latest for the film and the duo. Ross made his narrative…

Don’t expect another Back to the Future film, as co-writer Bob Gale seemingly shoots down the possibility despite fan desires. On Sunday, February 2, the Saturn Awards honored Back to the Future on its 40th Anniversary with the George Pal Memorial Award. Gale, Christopher Lloyd, and Emma Thompson received the honor, and the writer addressed fan desire for a fourth installment of the sci-fi film. “People always say, ‘When are you guys going to do Back to the Future 4? And we say, ‘F*** you!’ Gale jokingly said while accepting the honor. “You can quote me on that.” He continued,…

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s a novel package that should generate some heat in the cold of Berlin’s EFM next week. Black Bear is launching Bad Boy, a new breed of genre film that charts a young woman’s fight to escape a deadly serial killer through the eyes of man’s best friend, his faithful dog. There have been plenty of kids films and some dramas told from an animal’s perspective, but not many horror films. From the producer of Longlegs, Dave Caplan, and M3gan, Divide/Conquer’s Adam Hendricks and Greg Gilreath, the film is set to star Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once) and…