Author: SD

The Walt Disney Studios will become the first studio in 2024 to cross the $4bn threshold this weekend, fuelled by five hits including Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine. The studio’s other major drivers are Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes, Alien: Romulus, and The First Omen. This is the tenth time the studio has passed the milestone since 2010 and its third successive year to do so. Inside Out 2 will overtake Jurassic World on $1.671bn to become the eighth highest-grossing release of all time, the latest in a string of accolades that has seen the Pixar…

Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door won the Golden Lion for best film at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. Almodóvar’s first English-language feature marks the first time he has won the top award at one of the three major film festivals (Cannes, Venice and Berlin). Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore star in the story of a woman who makes the decision to end her life, and the friend who re-enters her world around this time. Scroll down for the full list of winners Sony Pictures Classics will release the film in the US on December 20; with Warner Bros handling…

The third season of Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens is understood to be going ahead as planned at Amazon Prime Video, even though Disney has paused a feature adaptation of Gaiman’s novel, The Graveyard Book, following allegations of sexual assault against the UK author and screenwriter. On July 3, UK news platform Tortoise Media published a podcast with accounts of claims of sexual assault against Gaiman by two women, with three more women subsequently coming forward. The allegations span the period of 1986 to2022. Gaiman denies the allegations. Amazon officially greenlit the third season of fantasy drama Good Omens in December…

Full programme details have been revealed for Screen International’s ‘The Future Of Film’ Summit taking place in London on September 24 at BFI Southbank. Click here for the full schedule. The day will start with the latest news on the UK Independent Film Tax Credit (IFTC). Insights will come from experts who are helping with the development of the IFTC and others who are cash-flowing it. They are Neon Films’ producer Nicky Bentham, Coutts’ executive director of media banking Judith Chan, BFI deputy CEO Harriet Finney, and partner, film and TV team, at Saffrey, Moses Nyachae. ‘State Of The Nation’ will see…

US buyers have not been in an adventurous mood as the last few markets will attest. However hope springs eternal and acquisitions teams will be on the hunt at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to bulk up pipelines following the Hollywood strikes of 2023. How theatrical buyers fare against streamers remains to be seen. Financiers and sales agents, many of whom are avowed fans of the theatrical experience, must recoup. The lure of a worldwide deal with a platform can be hard to resist, and while the North American summer box office rallied well and there are lucrative opportunities for…

Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey have described their preparation for the sex scenes in Luca Guadagnino’s Venice Competition title Queer. “There’s some choreography in the movie which is a very important part of the movie,” said Craig, speaking at the film’s Venice press conference. “Drew and I started rehearsals on that months before we started filming. Dancing with someone is a great ice-breaker. “There’s nothing intimate about filming a sex scene on a movie set,” continued Craig. “There’s a room full of people watching you. We just wanted to make it as touching and real and as natural as we…

RankFilm (distributor)Three-day gross (August 23-25)Total gross to dateWeek  1. Alien: Romulus  (Disney) £2m £8.8m 2  2. It Ends With Us  (Sony) £1.8m £16.3m 3  3. Deadpool & Wolverine  (Disney) £1.78m £52.6m 5  4. Despicable Me 4  (Universal) £1.4m £42.4m 7  5. Blink Twice  (Warner Bros) £746,332 £955,863 1 GBP to USD conversion rate: 1.32 Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap has grossed  £1.1m at the UK-Ireland box office, after opening to £136,909 in England, Scotland and Wales this weekend for Curzon as Disney’s Alien: Romulus held top spot on…

The Brutalist director Brady Corbet says it is “silly” to talk about film runtimes, at the press conference for his 215-minute Venice Competition feature. “The film does everything we are told we are not allowed to do,” said Corbet. “It’s quite silly to have a conversation about runtime; that’s like criticising a book for being 700 pages vs 100 pages. For me, it’s about how much story there is to tell. “Maybe the next thing I’ll make should be 45 minutes and I’ll be allowed to do that,” continued the director. “The idea we should fit inside a box is…

My Hero Academia: You’re Next, the fourth film based in the popular manga and anime franchise, has become the 10th highest grossing film of 2024 to date at the Japanese box office after just three weekends on release. The film, which is distributed by Toho and animated by Studio Bones, has earned $16.25m (¥2.38bn) and sold 1.65 million tickets since opening in Japanese cinemas on August 2. It has overtaken films stronger performers such as anime Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – To The Hashira Training, which has taken $15.5m (¥2.31bn) since opening on February 2; Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which…

The Apprentice, Ali Abbasi’s Cannes premiere that explores Donald Trump’s formative relationship with fixer Roy Cohn, will open in the US on October 11 through Briarcliff Entertainment prior to the November presidential election, it is understood. Reports that Briarcliff, which was first linked to the film in June, is moving ahead with the release and planning an awards push came amid speculation on Friday that the controversial film might be a surprise screening at Telluride Film Festival, which kicks off today and runs through September 2. Briarcliff and Telluride had not replied to inquiries at time of writing. The Apprentice is scheduled to open…