Author: SD

Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher has been selected to preside over the Caméra d’Or jury at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, running May 13-24. The Caméra d’Or (golden camera) is awarded to the best first feature film in Cannes’ Official Selection, or in the parallel Critics’ Week or Directors’ Fortnight sections. Last year’s prize went to Norwegian director Halfdan Ullmann Tøondel for his Un Certain Regard premiere Armand. Rohrwacher is a Cannes regular whose own debut feature Heavenly Body premiered in Directors’ Fortnight in 2011 and her follow-up film The Wonders won the Grand Prix in Competition in 2014. Her 2018 film Happy As Lazzaro screened in Competition and…

UPDATE: Warner Bros./Legendary’s A Minecraft Movie has extended its rule over North American box office in the second weekend thanks to a confirmed $78.5m that boosted the running total to $278.9m. The mighty second weekend produced the highest sophomore session by a video game adaptation behind only The Super Mario Bros. Movie on $92.3m almost exactly two years ago. It also helped swing box office into a slender 0.58% year-to-date lead over 2024 after it had fallen approximately 13% behind by the start of April. The family smash plays in 4,289 locations and dropped a decent 50%. Screen will report in more detail on the…

Two Hollywood features have retained their release dates in China despite restrictions recently announced by authorities on the import of US films amid escalating tariff disputes. Warner Bros Animation’s The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie is set to open this Friday (April 18) and Marvel’s latest superhero film Thunderbolts* is scheduled for release on April 30, ahead of its May 2 release in the US, according to ticketing platform Maoyan. Whether they will be the last US films to secure a theatrical release in China for the foreseeable future remains unclear as the escalating trade war…

EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate has lined up key territory buyers for Hurry Up Tomorrow, the psychological thriller that marks the lead acting debut of The Weeknd alongside Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan that will open in the US on May 16 day-and-date with most international markets. Trey Edward Shults’ feature will release through Lionsgate in North America and the UK, while distribution partners include Village Roadshow for Australia & New Zealand, Wild Bunch for Germany, IDC for Latin America, and Metropolitan in France. Launching in more than 65 international markets, Hurry Up Tomorrow centres on an insomniac musician whose world is turned…

Worldwide box office: April 11-13 RankFilm (distributor) 3-day (world)Cume (world)3-day (int’l)Cume (int’l)Territories 1 A Minecraft Movie (Warner Bros) $160.2m $550.6m $79.6m $269.6m 77 2 The Amateur (Disney) $32.2m $32.2m $17.2m $17.2m 53 3 The King Of Kings (various) $19.7m $19.7m $618,000 $624,000 24 4 Good Bad Ugly (various) $10.3m $16.8m $9.7m $15.7m 18 5 Drop (Universal) $10m $10m $2.5m $2.5m 48 6 A Working Man (Amazon MGM/various) $8.4m $79m $5.4m $45.5m 68 7 Warfare (A24/various) $8.4m $8.4m $96,400 $96,400 13 8 Snow White (Disney) $7.5m $181.6m $4.7m $99.7m 52 …

Hsu Fu-Hsiang’s campus romance drama Lovesick opened strongly as the first local film to cross $302,000 (NT$10m) this year at Taiwan’s box office and scored a rare near day-and-date release with mainland China. The coming-of-age film follows a high school troublemaker who finds it convenient to be sick and goes to great lengths to fake it, only to realise that a fellow classmate suffers from a terminal illness. It explores first love, teenage confusion and mental health though the lens of high school life. The cast is led by Zhan Huai-Yun, Chiang Chi, Liu Hsiu-Fu and Huang Guan-Zhi. It opened…

Worldwide box office: March 24-30 RankFilm (distributor) 3-day (world)Cume (world)3-day (int’l)Cume (int’l)Territories 1 Snow White (Disney) $36.3m $143.1m $22.1m $76.3m 52 2 A Working Man (various) $30.2m $30.2m $15m $15m 64 3 L2: Empuraan (various) $12m $19.4m $10.7m $17.2m 23 4 The Chosen: Last Supper – Part 1 (Fathom) $11.4m $11.4m     1 5 Ne Zha 2 (various) $10.9m $2.2bn $10.9m $2.1bn 12 6 The Woman In The Yard (Universal) $9.4m $9.4m     1 7 Mickey 17 (Warner Bros) $7.1m $121m $5.2m …

Filming is underway on Philip Barantini’s Enola Holmes 3 in the UK for Netflix. The third instalment of the Sherlock Holmes spin-off film franchise is shooting at Shepperton Studios before moving to Malta for the final few weeks. Millie Bobby Brown stars as the titular character, Holme’s younger sister, and also produces the feature via her production company PCMA Productions.  Plot details are under wraps but it will reportedly be a darker iteration than the previous two instalments. Unconfirmed returning cast include Henry Cavill, Louis Partridge and Helena Bonham Carter. It marks Barantini’s second collaboration with Netflix following the hit…

China is to cut the number of US films allowed to enter the country.  The move was announced by the China Film Administration shortly after President Donald Trump hiked tariffs yesterday (April 9) on Chinese products to 125%. “The wrong action of the US government to abuse tariffs on China will inevitably further reduce the domestic audience’s favorability towards American films,” the China Film Administration said in a statement. “We will follow the market rules, respect the audience’s choice, and moderately reduce the number of American films imported.” Once the largest overseas market for US films, Hollywood films have struggled…

Film production remained buoyant in France in 2024 with a total of 309 films produced in the country, 3.7% more than in 2023, according to the annual report of the CNC, the country’s national film organisation. Total investment in French films reached €1.44bn, up 7.5% on 2023, the second best in history after 2008’s record €1.49bn. The total number of French films produced remained stable at 231, on par with 2023’s 236 films and the pre-pandemic average of 233 films per year.  The number of co-productions increased to 130 titles, 10 more than in 2023, driven by an increase in…