Author: Deadline

Fresh off the back of a set of better-than-expected financials, Disney is seeking to splash the cash in Europe. The Mouse House plans to spend at least $5B on blockbuster movies and TV shows in the continent over the next five years, according to its EMEA boss Jan Koeppen, who was interviewed in the FT this morning. Set in context, however, the spend won’t be much of an increase on the past five years and could amount to less. In June, Koeppen revealed that Disney had spent around £3.5B ($4.5B) on production in just the UK over the last five…

Billy Bean, a former Los Angeles Dodger who went on to become the first diversity chief for Major League Baseball, died on Tuesday. He was 60. Major League Baseball said in a statement that the cause was acute myeloid leukemia, but gave no location details. Bean was the second major league player to come out as gay. Glenn Burke, an outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics, announced his sexual orientation after he retired in 1982. Bean retired in 1995 after playing for the Dodgers, Detroit Tigers and San Diego Padres. Bean was named Major League Baseball’s first…

Bodies representing the UK’s directors, writers and actors have written to big tech firms challenging them for using their work to train generative AI models. The Creators Rights Alliance (CRA) has today penned the letter, citing the need to “safeguard human creativity, truthful content and the rights of authors, creators, and performers.” The CRA represents more than 500,000 members of bodies and unions including those from Directors UK, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and British Equity, all of whom have been active in the artificial intelligence debate space of late. The issue, according to the CRA, is the use…

The Hulk Hogan vs Gawker court case looks to be getting the movie treatment as sources tell Deadline Gus Van Sant is in early talks to direct the pic Killing Gawker with Artists Equity producing. Artist Equity co-founders Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are just producing and are not attached to star in the film at this time. Artists Equity had no comment. The film is based on a script by Charles Randolph, Killing Gawker, and is based on the book Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker and the Anatomy of Intrigue by Ryan Holiday. The book details the landmark…

The indie/arthouse market is showing some breadth as Kneecap has a great debut, CatVidoFest as well, and holdovers like Didi and Sing Sing are kind of raking it in considering how few screens they’re on. As more wide releases and tentpoles show up and take flight a rising tide may be raising indie boats – maybe not as much or as many as distributors hope, but some. Theater chain CEOs on quarterly earnings calls last week insisted they need all kinds of movies and that’s what they’re getting, including Indian specialty fare that continues to pop at the box office.…

Vince Vaughn made his Hollywood bones in R-rated comedies like Wedding Crashers, Old School and Swingers. He had a hot take on why they’re no longer making them like that on the Hot Ones podcast. “They just overthink it,” Vaughn told host Sean Evans “And it’s like, it’s crazy, you get these rules, like, if you did geometry, and you said 87 degrees was a right angle, then all your answers are messed up, instead of 90 degrees. So there became some idea or concept, like, they would say something like, ‘You have to have an IP.’” Vaughn used the…

In an interview today on the Rich Eisen Show, Matt Damon admitted he still has strong interest in making a second Rounders movie. The 1998 cult classic drama starring Damon and Ed Norton explored the underground world of high-stakes poker. The story is about two friends who need to win at high-stakes poker to quickly pay off a large debt. A rounder is a person seeking high-stakes card games. The film opened in September 1998 and did $22.9 million against a $12 million budget, but remained popular thanks to the growth of poker. “The one we’ve been talking about for years,…

Wesley Snipes recalls how the idea of reprising his superhero role as Blade in Deadpool and Wolverine came about. Snipes opened up about a call he got from Ryan Reynolds and how he questioned if it would ever happen. “It started with a text from Ryan Reynolds,” Snipes told Entertainment Weekly. Snipes joked that when he saw the text and he said, “I hate this guy,” telling Reynolds directly, “You know, this is a joke. We’ve been playing this for like two decades. We’ve actually liked each other the whole time.” RELATED: ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Soundtrack: All the Songs You’ll Hear The actor said…

Ryan Reynolds has just found himself one step closer to Spider-Man in the MCU‘s six degrees of separation. After Deadpool & Wolverine stunt coordinator George Cottle shared a behind-the-scenes photo of Tom Holland‘s younger brother Harry Holland in a Deadpool costume while performing on the movie, the Golden Globe nominee reacted to the discovery on his Instagram Story. “When @slevydirect and @vancityreynolds set the bar so f’ing high, even the stunt team needed a special guest star!!” wrote Cottle. “It may not [be] the Holland the wold wanted, but it was the Holland we all needed!! @harryholland64 you smashed it…

Ryan Reynolds doesn’t quite know how to process to his historic weekend at the box office. After Deadpool & Wolverine became the biggest opening of his career and broke a slew of other records, the Golden Globe nominee shared his shock and gratitude in a statement on his Instagram Story. “This is kind of hard to process,” wrote Reynolds. “But thank you to everyone who went to see the film this weekend.” Hugh Jackman also celebrated the news, sharing fan art of his Wolverine longingly looking at a framed image that reads “#1 MOVIE IN THE WORLD,” which he captioned,…