Author: Deadline

How do you live when Vladimir Putin wants you dead? That’s the dilemma facing Christo Grozev, a man often described as a “rock star investigative journalist.” The story of how he became persona non grata — песона нон грата, if you prefer – with the Kremlin is told in the documentary Antidote, directed by James Jones, which just made its world premiere at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen. “Someone asked me the other day, how many people are on Putin’s kill list? And I was like, ‘I have no idea,’” Jones says as he and Grozev join Deadline at a café at…

With her new presidential action flick G20, Viola Davis understands the desire to politicize her role. Noting they made the movie before Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election to Donald Trump, the Oscar winner can see “probably in hindsight” how her butt-kicking politician character President Danielle Sutton might make voters long for what could have been. “I do not think it’s a suspension of disbelief to imagine someone who looks like me as the president,” Davis told UK’s The Times. Davis also explained why President Sutton’s political party is never clarified in the film. “If you get down to the…

FRIDAY MIDDAY UPDATE: Mr. Zaslav, I’d like to direct your attention over to the motion picture executive suite where co-chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy have an absolute, jaw-dropping hit on their hands in Legendary‘s A Minecraft Movie. Let the record show. Today is $50M alone, and that includes last night’s near-$11M in previews. The weekend is well north of $100M at 4,263 theaters, with some rivals seeing $130M+. It’s clearly the biggest opening YTD on a 3-day basis ahead of Captain America: Brave New World‘s $88.8M. That also means it will be the biggest weekend of 2025 YTD…

EXCLUSIVE: House of Gods director Fadia Abboud is directing a “boundary pushing” sci-fi feature about under-represented communities in Australia. The feature from not-for-profit outfit Co-Curious follows the story of five unique characters: a Samoan fa’afafine landscaper, a high-powered Arab property developer who is also a fulltime carer, a Lebanese matriarch with a secret younger lover, a socially marginalised cleaner wrestling with his past, and a dreamer who is pulled into the orbit of her mother’s Orthodox church. The characters and stories of the film draw on the cultural backgrounds of the writers and provide a commentary on what it means…

Billboard Women in Music 2025 EXCLUSIVE: The Ron Howard-directed survival thriller Eden has been acquired in a U.S. rights deal by Vertical, with the distributor plotting an August 22 nationwide theatrical release. Scripted by Noah Pink (Tetris) from a fact-based story he wrote with Howard, the drama from Imagine Entertainment and AGC Studios stars Jude Law (The Order), Ana de Armas (Ballerina), Vanessa Kirby (The Fantastic Four: First Steps), Daniel Brühl (All Quiet on the Western Front), Sydney Sweeney (Immaculate), Toby Wallace and Felix Kammerer (All Quiet on the Western Front). They are the members of three parties who flee post-World…

Billboard Women in Music 2025 EXCLUSIVE: Kate Hollowell, the Sundance-winning multihyphenate creator, is coming on board to direct Something Murdered for Amblin Entertainment. The project is an original idea written by Liz Benham that Amblin picked up last year. Hollowell will rewrite to direct as a feature. Amblin is producing alongside Chad Villella, with Benham, Tyler Gillett and Matthew Bettinelli-Olpin executive producing. Plot details are unknown. Hollowell’s short film Say Hi After You Die, which she directed, wrote and starred in, won the Sundance Short Film Jury Award in 2024 and won Best Director at HollyShorts. She is also a…

Warner Bros Discovery said Monday that it plans to add veteran tech investor Anton Levy as an independent director on its soon-to-expand board of directors. The company’s existing board, which consists of 13 directors, today approved an expansion to 14 timed to the annual shareholder meeting later this spring. Levy is currently an Advisory Director at General Atlantic and previously served as General Atlantic’s Co-President and Chairman of Global Technology. He has led many of General Atlantic’s most notable investments in leading tech firms, among them Airbnb, Alibaba Group, Crowdstrike, Facebook, Klarna AB, Mercado Libre, Slack, Snapchat, Squarespace and Uber.…

Richard Norton, a legendary Hollywood trainer and bodyguard, fight choreographer, stuntman and actor in the Mad Max franchise, has died at the age of 75, his wife Judy Green announced on Instagram. “I am numb and devastated, I have no words I have lost my everything,” she wrote in the caption, alongside a photo of her, Norton and their Husky. “I know there is, and will be lots of love and shock that we have lost this incredible human being. The love ❤️ of my life. I’m using this time to come to terms with my great loss.” In the…

CPH:DOX has crowned winners at the latest edition of the renowned nonfiction film festival in Copenhagen. The DOX:Award, the festival’s top prize, went to Always, the directorial debut of Deming Chen. The film tells the story of a young poet, 8-year-old Youbin, who lives “deep in the lush mountains of Hunan province” in southern China. “There’s a huge difference between nothing and small things. But life is in fact made up of many, often unnoticed, small things. We need the sensibilities of artists to show us the greatness of the little things,” noted the DOX:Award jury comprised of Rikke Tambo…

This is a nifty indie weekend with a busier and higher profile limited release schedule than we’ve seen in some time. The Ballad of Wallis Island, The Friend, Grand Tour, Viet And Nam, Holy Cow and documentaries The Encampments, which is super timely, and Secret Mall Apartment are peppering theaters in major markets. Many have festival imprimaturs from Cannes on down and great Rotten Tomatoes critics scores. In moderate release, Sony Pictures Classics is out with Steve Coogan in The Penguin Lessons. Limited openings: Watermelon Pictures debuts Macklemore-produced The Encampments at the Angelika, which has been adding shows, and the…