Author: Hollyood rep

Paramount and the revived Republic Pictures are betting on indie films to complement their tentpole movies like Mission Impossible and Gladiator II. The studio’s chief content licensing officer Dan Cohen spoke at a MIPCOM Media Mastermind Keynote Session in Cannes Tuesday afternoon, confirming the U.S. and Canadian rights to their “Coen brothers-esque” noir film Adulthood, directed by Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure Star Alex Winter, has been picked up by Republic Pictures. “You get an announcement today,” Cohen, also president of Republic Pictures, told World Screen’s Anna Carugati, who was moderating. “We have a film coming called Adulthood. It’s a…

Spain‘s most prestigious film school has launched the second phase of its annual Dream Makers Contest to open doors for a new generation of talent. The Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (ESCAC) has confirmed submissions are open for a chance to win a full 4-year scholarship at the school and almost half a million euros to produce the short film. Applicants are first required to create an original eight-minute film based on three words chosen by J.A. Bayona, ESCAC and Spanish automobile company Cupra: Barcelona, film and eye. The school was attended by Bayona (Jurassic World, The…

The 68th edition of the BFI London Film Festival (LFF) is wrapping up Sunday night with Piece by Piece, the animated LEGO biopic of Pharrell Williams by Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, 20 Feet From Stardom) following the unveiling of this year’s various competition winners, led by Adam Elliot’s claymation feature Memoir of a Snail. Set in Australia in the 1970s, the movie, which had already won the animation-focused Annecy Film Festival, stars Succession‘s Sarah Snook as Grace Pudel, a shy girl born with a cleft palate who grows up with her wild and occasionally pyromaniac twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) but…

At a special screening on the Paramount lot on Friday, Gladiator II stars Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, Connie Nielsen and Fred Hechinger offered a first look at their new film and opened up about their experiences working on Ridley Scott‘s sequel. The film sees Mescal playing a grown-up Lucius Verus II, a nephew of emperor Commodus from the original film played by Joaquin Phoenix. Lucius returns to Rome after being forced into slavery to battle not as a ruler but as a gladiator out for revenge and power, seeking to return the glory of Rome to its people. “I suppose…

Tripoli/A Tale of Three Cities, a documentary by Lebanese director Raed Rafei, will celebrate its world premiere in the Frontlight section of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), which runs Nov. 14-24. The Hollywood Reporter is revealing the first official trailer for the film, produced by Rafei via his company Anwar Film and Eliane Raheb. “Queer director Raed Rafei returns to Tripoli, Lebanon to confront a hometown that once rejected him,” a synopsis for the doc explains. “He interviews the city’s inhabitants about their cultural and social beliefs and their embrace of new ideas. This contemplative urban symphony paints…

When Andy Goodrich’s wife, Naomi (Laura Benanti), tells him that she’s checked herself into rehab and plans to leave him, few people are surprised. Everyone knew the mother of his two elementary school-aged children reached for pills at night to lull her to sleep and indulged in extra glasses of wine. That the news nevertheless shocks Andy, played with an endearing clumsiness by Michael Keaton, speaks more to his own distracted state. The gallerist has never been a present partner or parent, as evidenced by his relationship to his eldest daughter (Mila Kunis) with his first wife (Andie MacDowell). Now that his…

Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman find a way to make holiday travel even more challenging than usual in the trailer for the Netflix thriller Carry-On. Director Jaume Collet-Serra‘s airport-focused action film hits the streaming service on Dec. 13. Rounding out the cast are Sofia Carson, Danielle Deadwyler, Sinqua Walls, Logan Marshall-Green, Theo Rossi, Josh Brener and Dean Norris. Carry-On centers on an inexperienced TSA agent (Egerton) who ends up in a battle of wits with a mysterious traveler (Bateman) after the stranger blackmails him into allowing a dangerous package onto a flight on Christmas Eve. Collet-Serra (Black Adam, Jungle Cruise)…

The increasing predominance of streaming content over theatrical releasing continues apace with Brothers, a Legendary Entertainment production that distributor Amazon MGM Studios dropped into a handful of theaters for a week without critics’ screenings, ahead of its Oct. 17 debut on Prime. That strategy will likely turn out to be fortuitous for a mildly amusing feature that lacks the heft to compete at the early awards-season box office, leaving the film to find a less-committed audience in the streaming-verse. Josh Brolin and Peter Dinklage play mismatched siblings with heavy jaws (enhanced in Dinklage’s case by a handlebar mustache) in Max…

Irish actress Clare Dunne (Herself, Kin), Once Upon a Time actor Michael Socha (Showtrial, This Is England), and Dexter Sol Ansell, who has been cast in a Game of Thrones prequel A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, have joined Bill Nighy, Jojo Rabbit standout Roman Griffin Davis, and Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) in road movie 500 Miles, which has started shooting in Ireland. Directed by Morgan Matthews (X+Y, Williams), 500 Miles is about a broken family that is forced to come together. A synopsis describes the film as “a life-affirming road movie that follows runaways Finn (Davis) and his livewire…

Art house streamer and distributor Mubi has snatched up all U.S. rights, as well as exclusive global SVOD rights, to Grand Theft Hamlet, Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane’s award-winning documentary mashup of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and ultra-violent video game Grand Theft Auto. The doc follows two unemployed actors during the 2021 COVID lockdown who attempt to state Hamlet entirely within the GTA virtual game world. Grand Theft Hamlet premiered at SXSW this year, where it won the documentary feature jury award. It also won The Hollywood Reporter critic Leslie Felperin, who called the experimental film “innovative, highly amusing and often touching.”…