Author: SD

Longtime Lionsgate senior executive and strategist Amanda Kozlowski has been promoted to president of worldwide marketing at the studio’s motion picture group after serving as interim head of marketing. The 18-year veteran will continue to report to Lionsgate motion picture group chair Adam Fogelson and will work closely with the group’s president Erin Westerman shepherding films from development to release. As interim head of marketing, Kozlowski worked on Michael and The Housemaid – two of the studio’s current and recent smashes that have earned $430m (factoring in the international release through Universal), and close to $400m worldwide, respectively. Lionsgate International…

Twenty years after the original, 20th Century Studios’ female-led The Devil Wears Prada 2 glided back onto the scene in an estimated $77m North American debut that delivered the fourth-highest opening weekend of the year to date. Buoyed by a returning lead cast of Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci alongside returning director David Frankel and co-writers Aline Brosh McKenna and Lauren Weisberger – a world-class package that will have been essential to the opening weekend – the launch through Disney far outstripped that of the original’s $27.5m debut in June 2026 (even beating the $44.8m inflation-adjusted number)…

Netflix is pushing Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew from November of this year to February 2027 in a move that honours an exclusive Imax slot but crucially will make the fantasy feature available to exhibitors for a 49-day exclusive theatrical window before it debuts on the streamer. The C. S. Lewis adaptation will now open for one day exclusively on Imax on February 10 2027 before opening globally in participating cinemas on February 12 and debuting on the platform on April 2. AMC and Cinema United were aming the first to respond positively to Friday’s news.  Netflix said in a statement,…

The Academy board has ruled that starting this season, films not in the English language that win top awards at qualifying international festivals including Cannes, Venice, and Sundance will qualify for the international feature film Oscar. The rule tweak for the upcoming 99th Academy Awards on March 14 2027 appear to be an acknowledgement by the board that geopolitics has in prior years made it difficult for certain filmmakers to get the official sanction of their country in the form of a submission. Screen understands the Academy is keen to support filmmakers around the world and ensure global cinema is…

Lionsgate International will begin sales talks in Cannes next month on The Blair Witch Project reboot at Lionsgate and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster. Dylan Clark, who has built up a YouTube following through his horror shorts, will direct from his rewrite of an original screenplay by Chris Devlin. Sources said the project brings “the full mythology and legacy of the franchise to a new generation of storytelling”. The 1999 original remains a pioneering found-footage horror film about an ill-fated documentary crew that set out to investigate the folklore surrounding a witch inhabiting the Maryland woods. Made for less than $60,000 and distributed in…

EXCLUSIVE: Tessa Thompson, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Owen Cooper are attached to star in Foxfinder, a psychological thriller from Severance director Aoife McArdle. Production will begin this summer in Bavaria, Germany on the film, which is based on Dawn King’s 2011 play of the same name, with a screenplay co-written by McArdle and King.  Foxfinder will follow Jude and Sam, a grieving couple clinging to routine and survival, whose lives are upended when William, a coldly devout government “foxfinder,” arrives at their struggling farm with a mission to root out the designated enemy – the fox. As paranoia festers and absurd regulations tighten their grip,…

Annecy International Animation Film Festival has unveiled its 2026 lineup, which includes 11 features in the main competition and previews of upcoming work from studios including Pixar, Universal and Netflix. The festival will open on June 21 with the world premiere of Pierre Coffin’s Minions & Monsters, ahead of its worldwide rollout from July 1 through Universal. It is the seventh feature in the Despicable Me/Minions franchise, and follows the small yellow creatures in the 1920s as they search for creatures for their monster movie, but must then save the planet after unleashing monsters. Scroll down for the Official, Contrechamp…

San Sebastian International Film Festival (SSIFF) has announced that Maialen Beloki will replace José Luis Rebordinos as director in 2027. Rebordinos, who has been in charge of the festival since 2011, previously confirmed that the upcoming edition (September 18-26) will be his last in the post. Beloki will start in her new role on January 1, 2027. The festival’s executive board – comprised of City Council of San Sebastian, the regional government of Gipuzkoa, the Basque government, and the Spanish ministry of culture – voted unanimously. The formal process to name the successor to Rebordinos began in March. Born in San…

Movistar Plus+ chief exec Daniel Domenjó has been dismissed from his role at the Spanish pay TV and streaming giant. The move from Marc Murtra, president of Movistar parent Telefónica, comes 14 months after the former Satisfaction Iberia boss took up the position. According to Spanish business title El Economista, the position will be filled by Alfonso Gómez Palacio, currently the executive president of Telefónica in Latin America. In addition to becoming the new chief exec of Movistar Plus+, the Colombian-born executive will also join the management committee of Telefónica Spain. Rumours that Domenjó would be dismissed began circulating in…

South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook will direct the English-language western The Brigands Of Rattlecreek starring Matthew McConaughey, Pedro Pascal, and Austin Butler. 193 will commence pre-sales in Cannes next month. Park, whose credits include recent South Korean Oscar submission No Other Choice, Oldboy, and Decision To Leave, will helm from a screenplay by S. Craig Zahler. Bradley J. Fischer is producing. McConaughey plays Sheriff Bill Adams, who witnesses the massacre of his wife and their townspeople by a gang of gunslingers led by Henry Lee (Butler). Adams must team up with the enigmatic Dr. Abraham Weiss (Pascal) who is himself hell-bent…