Author: Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Emmy winner Nick Offerman (The Last Of Us), Emmy nominee Amy Sedaris (BoJack Horseman), AACTA winner Nina Oyama (Utopia), Grammy nominee and American Idle winner Jordin Sparks (Sparkle), SAG winner Miranda Otto (The Lord Of The Rings), and AACTA nominee Remy Hii (Spider-Man: Far from Home) have been set to voice animated film The Pout-Pout Fish. The film adaptation of Deborah Diesen’s popular preschool book franchise has been boarded for sales by German outfit Sola Media, which will be looking to reel in buyers at the upcoming American Film Market in Las Vegas. The Pout-Pout Fish is the story…

EXCLUSIVE: Filming is underway in Los Angeles on under-the-radar feature drama The Red Mask, starring Inanna Sarkis (After) and Helena Howard (The Wilds). The film marks the feature debut of Ritesh Gupta who has previously made commercials for brands including Budweiser and Beats. Writers are Samantha Gurash and Patrick Robert Young. Jake Abell (Malignant) also stars. The synopsis reads: “When outspoken queer screenwriter Allina Green (Howard) is chosen to pen the final installment of legendary slasher franchise The Red Mask, anger, outrage and online death threats from die-hard fans causes a rift in her relationship with reticent fiancé Deetz (Sarkis). Desperate for…

J.A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow is one of Netflix‘s most-watched movies of this year so far yet the director revealed today it was mainly intended for an older audience. Speaking at MIPCOM, the Oscar-nominee said his creative team were “surprised” when the movie about the Uruguayan rugby team’s survival experience after their plane crashed in the Andes proved to be a “phenomenon” with younger audiences. “Society of the Snow was meant to be for a more mature audience,” said Bayona. “When I look back it makes sense because it had young actors going through a difficult situation and the…

Filmmakers Chris and Justin Copeland, aka The Copeland Brothers, have been tapped to develop new animated feature projects for the award-winning Oregon studio Laika. No further details on the pair’s work for Laika has been disclosed. Their work for the studios comes on the heels of a five-year period in which the Copelands have been developing for both the feature and television divisions of DreamWorks. Previously, Chris has directed on DreamWorks’ Emmy, GLAAD and NAACP-nominated series Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, with Justin directing on the DC original films Wonder Woman: Bloodlines and Batman: Hush. Together, the pair have…

Eva Mendes says the only movie project that would persuade her to return to acting is one alongside her husband Ryan Gosling.  The couple have appeared in two films together, Drunk History Christmas (2011) and The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) Mendes, whose other hits include Training Day (2001), Hitch (2005) and The Other Guys (2010), walked away from the industry in 2014, and she explained in an interview with The Sunday Times newspaper that it wasn’t a challenge for her to leave the profession:  “I was never in love with acting. I don’t mean this in a self-deprecating way,…

Pedro Almodóvar believes that both his two latest leading actresses should be Oscar-nominated for their performances in his latest film The Room Next Door – and he adds he wouldn’t mind one for himself.  The Spanish director’s first full-length film in the English language, it received an 18-minute standing ovation when it screened at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. It stars Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore as two old friends, war correspondent Martha and her friend Ingrid. They stay together in a country mansion while Swinton’s terminally ill character prepares to take her own life in the room next…

Dutch drama series The Night Watch has prevailed in the MIA Market drama development category in Rome, as the tenth edition of the Italian fest drew to a close. The show, written by Steven Friedman and produced by Edvard van’t Wout for Continent Studios, was a winner of the MIA Development Awards at the Co-Production Market and Pitching Forum, along with the Guillermo de Oliveira-directed Death in Your Eyes, which landed the film project award. Reborn-Perfect Love took the doc prize and Belgian-Polish-French co-produced animation Big Bang Parade won in the kids category. Over 600 projects were received this year in…

EXCLUSIVE: China Lion Film Distribution has acquired all rights from Hong Kong outfit Universe Films to the Andy Lau-starrer High Forces for release in North America. China Lion has set an October 25, 2024, release for the film throughout Canada and the United States. The action-thriller, recently released in mainland China and throughout Asia, has been a popular title during the Chinese Golden Week holiday. Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau leads the cast as Gao Haojun, a professional bodyguard by trade. Distanced from his family after a car accident takes the sight of his daughter, he is pulled back into their circle when a flight they’re…

The events leading up to July 1978 and the birth in Manchester of the world’s first “test tube baby” — the tabloid term for the process known more soberly as I.V.F. (in vitro fertilization) — are fascinating by any metric. It’s a story of determination, skill and genuine genius, focusing on three modest and largely unsung heroes driven in the main by a spirit of pure human kindness. Fascinating as that is, however, Ben Taylor’s warm, intelligent and never less than respectful movie, which received its world premiere at the London Film Festival this week, struggles to harness the same…

EXCLUSIVE: Ahead of the AFM, LA-based Great Escape is launching sales on horror film Monkey’s Magic Merry Go Round, the first project on the Terror Town genre slate from producer Joe Swanberg and Yale Productions. Michael Gilio, whose screenwriting credits include MGM’s Dark Harvest and Paramount’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, stars in the movie. From first-time feature director Aidan Leary, the film will get its world premiere next month at the Leeds International Film Festival in the UK. The synopsis reads: “Something really bad happened to James Jensen when he was a kid.  While hosting the latest episode of his…