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Correction: An early version of this article indicated that Studiocanal had acquired global rights to 11 River Road Entertainment, but Searchlight holds domestic U.S. and Canada rights to “12 Years a Slave” and U.S. and U.K. rights to “The Tree of Life.”

Studiocanal and River Road Entertainment have announced an exclusive international distribution deal for 11 celebrated films, including Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning “12 Years a Slave,” Terrence Malick’s Palme d’Or-winning “The Tree of Life” and Sean Penn’s critically acclaimed “Into the Wild.”

The partnership brings together Europe’s leading production and distribution house, Studiocanal, and the American independent film production giant, River Road Entertainment, in a multi-territory arrangement covering TV, SVOD, theatrical and other media platforms.

Under the agreement, Studiocanal will distribute nine feature films and two documentaries, a roster of prestigious titles that have collectively earned over $440 million at the global box office.

Juliette Hochart,...

It feels like we have a steady stream of scream queens right now, with the likes of Mia Goth, Samara Weaving and Melissa Barrera all eligible for a crown. But we don’t have many going for the scream king title. Really, the biggest name that comes to mind is Finn Wolfhard, but even he isn’t sure he’s deserving.

When People asked him about the so-called “scream king” designation, Finn Wolfward replied, “That’s such a huge compliment….I’ve never heard that before. You’re the first to say it, but that’s really nice. I’m not sure. I don’t know if I’ve done enough horror movies yet.” This coming from the guy who seems to have made a pretty good living so far in plenty of horror and sci-fi fare, including the It movies, the most recent Ghostbusters entries and Floria Sigismondi’s The Turning.

Peaky Blinders and Malignant star Annabelle Wallis is ready to join Jason Statham to co-headline the forthcoming action thriller Mutiny from Lionsgate. The hard-boiled project finds Statham producing through his newly established Punch Palace Productions banner alongside Marc Butan of MadRiver Pictures. Jean-François Richet directs Mutiny from a script by J.P Davis and Lindsay Michel.

When principal photography begins this fall in the UK, Mutiny aims to tell the story of Cole Reed, a man set up to take the fall after his billionaire boss is murdered in front of him. Fearing for his life, Cole goes on the run while trying to uncover an international conspiracy at the heart of the crime.

Of course, Annabelle Wallis is a seasoned actor with many memorable characters to her credit. She plays Grace Shelby in the BBC-Netflix series Peaky Blinders, Rebecca Crosby in one of my comfort watches, Tag, the character...

From the neon-haired pin-up of 2010’s “California Gurls” to the metal-mouthed teen of 2011’s “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” to the strawberry-blond hippie of 2019’s “Never Really Over,” Katy Perry’s career has been largely defined by her outrageous video fashions. The singer’s latest reinvention for “Woman’s World,” the lead single from her seventh studio album, 143, has sparked some backlash. But even a car crash is hard to look away from, and Perry’s videography remains one of the most eye-popping of the 21st century. We took a look back at some of her wildest video looks.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on March 5, 2020.

“California Gurls”

Prior to Perry’s 2010 smash “California Gurls,” she relied on her girl-next-door-cum-pinup good looks, but this Matthew Cullen-directed video (inspired by the work of artist Will Cotton) reset the bar for her visuals. Sporting a violet-hued wig and,...

Chlorophyll, the feature debut of Italian director Ivana Gloria, played in the Proxima Competition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

The film centres on a young woman Maia, whose hair and blood are naturally green, and who finds herself inexplicably and constantly drawn to seek a direct contact with nature, trees and flowers.

Chlorophyll is written by Marco Borromei, whose credits include hit Italian drama Skam Italia. It stars Sarah Short and Michele Ragno and is produced by Italy’s Albedo Production and Do Consulting & Production.

Gloria is a Rome-based director, cinematographer, animator and storyboard artist. Her 2022 short Con...

Annabelle Wallis is set to join Amazon MGM Studios’ upcoming sci-fi thriller “Mercy,” starring opposite Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson.

The movie, directed by Timur Bekmambetov (“Wanted”) from a script penned by penned by Marco van Belle (“Arthur & Merlin”) is set in the near future “when capital crime has increased.” It “follows a detective (Pratt) who is accused of a violent crime and forced to prove his innocence.” Details of Wallis’ role are being kept under wraps.

Wallis is well known for her role on the critically acclaimed BBC/Netflix series “Peaky Blinders.” She most recently starred in James Wan’s “Malignant” for New Line/Warner Bros, in addition to “Silent Night” opposite Keira Knightley. Her credits also include Universal’s “The Mummy” opposite Tom Cruise, “Annabelle,” “King Arthur,” “Come and Find Me,” “Tag” and “The Brothers Grimsby”; plus she starred in Showtime’s “The Loudest Voice” and the independent film “The Silencing.

Yorgos Lanthimos drama ‘Poor Things’ won two prizes.

Warwick Thornton was awarded the Golden Frog at Poland’s Camerimage International Film Festival on Saturday (November 18) for drama The New Boy.

The Australian Indigenous filmmaker received the festival’s top prize at a ceremony in the Polish town of Torun, where the director was recognised for his role as cinematographer on the film. Accepting the award, Thornton paid tribute to his fellow filmmakers and said: “I’ve had tears in my eyes the whole week and it’s not because of the alcohol or the cold weather. It’s the love of cinematography,...

Cinematographer and director Warwick Thornton scored top honors Saturday at the Camerimage cinematography film festival for his magical tale of an aboriginal youth, “The New Boy,” which film jurors called a distinctive “portrait of an extinguished spirituality.”

Thornton, in accepting the Golden Frog, said he had been so moved by the cinematography work onscreen at the fest, a top global event for directors of photography, he’d been “tearing for a week.”

Ed Lachman, director of photography for Pablo Larrain’s horror fantasy “El Conde,” inspired by the life of Chilean tyrant Augusto Pinochet, won the Silver Frog for what the jury called “cinematic high poetry,” while the Bronze Frog and Audience Award went to cinematographer Robbie Ryan for his Gothic dream-like imagery in Emma Stone-starrer “Poor Things,” directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.

Actor Peter Dinklage, honored with a festival director’s prize, expressed his gratitude for the Frog statuette,...

The New Boy — the story of a young Aboriginal Australian orphan boy that was written, directed and lensed by Warwick Thornton — collected the Golden Frog in the main competition of the 31st EnergaCamerimage international cinematography film festival, which closed Saturday night in Torún, Poland.

Cinematographer Ed Lachman received the Silver Frog for Pablo Larraín’s El Conde, which positions Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a vampire. Robbie Ryan’s lensing of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, the story of a young woman (Emma Stone) brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist, claimed the Bronze Frog as well as the Audience Award. (Ryan collected the Golden Frog two years ago, for Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon, and Lachman won the Golden Frog in 2015, for Todd Haynes’ Carol.).

The Fipresci Prize was awarded to Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, a chilling look at the life of Auschwitz concentration camp commander Rudolf Höss and his family,...

Actress Tilda Swinton has revealed she had a candid conversation with legendary musician David Bowie three years before he died in which he confessed he did not believe in an afterlife.

The actress worked with the legendary musician on the music video for his 2013 single ‘The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’ and she’s opened up about a candid conversation they had in which Bowie gave his thoughts on life after death – and insisted he simply didn’t believe in it, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Tilda explained: “He was very ill at the time [of making the music video], which I knew about – although I didn’t know quite how ill. And he started to talk about an afterlife and he said, categorically, that he didn’t think there was one.”

Tilda revealed she formed a solid friendship with the ‘Heroes’ star and they often shared jokes together. She recalled: “I...

Actress Tilda Swinton has revealed she had a candid conversation with legendary musician David Bowie three years before he died in which he confessed he did not believe in an afterlife.

The actress worked with the legendary musician on the music video for his 2013 single ‘The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’ and she’s opened up about a candid conversation they had in which Bowie gave his thoughts on life after death – and insisted he simply didn’t believe in it, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Tilda explained: “He was very ill at the time [of making the music video], which I knew about – although I didn’t know quite how ill. And he started to talk about an afterlife and he said, categorically, that he didn’t think there was one.”

Tilda revealed she formed a solid friendship with the ‘Heroes’ star and they often shared jokes together. She recalled: “I...

Just weeks before the 31st edition of Poland’s EnergaCamerimage gets underway, there was a groundbreaking for the planned European Film Center Camerimage, a Pln 600 million (roughly ($144 million) cultural center that will be built in host city Toruń and used in future years as the international cinematography film festival’s main venue. Plans call for the center to include a main screening room with seating for roughly 1,500, as well as three 200-300-seat screening rooms, a soundstage for production and postproduction facilities.

The new center underscores the growth of the festival, which has become a bellwether for what’s to come in the cinematography Oscar race. In three of the past four years, the winner of Camerimage’s Golden Frog has gone on to earn an Oscar nomination in cinematography, including 2019’s Joker and 2020’s Nomadland and 2022’s Tár.

According to festival director Marek Żydowicz, more than 1,000 films were viewed...

Exclusive: Brittany Kahan Ward and Graciella Sanchez are leaving Echo Lake Entertainment after a decade as partners to join Tfc Management where they also will be partners.

The high-profile arrival of Ward and Sanchez — who launched and built Echo Lake’s talent management division, with Sanchez also serving as the Co-President — marks an expansion into on-camera talent representation for Tfc, founded in 2020 by UTA and WME partners Ben Jacobson and David Stone with initial focus on literary clients, including creators, showrunners, novelists, producers, and filmmakers.

Ward and Sanchez’s formidable roster of clients include Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning, Liz Hannah, Jd Pardo, Shira Haas, Ivana Milicevic, Marguerite Moreau, Phoebe Tonkin, Greg Smith, Alisha Wainwright, Momona Tamada, Golden Brooks, Colton Ryan, Marlo Kelly, Jordan Gavaris, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Jamila Gray, Maria Dragus, Lina El-Arabi, Tarryn Wyngaard and Floria Sigismondi. The majority of them are expected to follow them to Tfc.

During their stint at Echo Lake,...

The 31st edition of the Camerimage Film Festival, Europe’s top cinematography event, will welcome a host of stellar guests to the Gothic Polish town of Torun, including Adam Driver, Sean Penn and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences CEO Bill Kramer.

Driver and Penn will screen their latest films, respectively, the high-octane biopic “Ferrari” and the portrait of Eastern Europe’s most remarkable wartime president, Volodymyr Zelensky, “Superpower.”

As regular fest guests have learned, the calendar of film screenings is just as important to study as the schedule for panels, seminars and masterclasses. That’s because Camerimage, with limited event space for now, strategically holds filmmaker talks following film projections, often in the same hall of the Jordanki cinema space.

Which means opening-night audiences who linger after Camerimage screens Robbie Ryan-shot “Poor Things,” the Frankenstein-esque fairytale by Yorgos Lanthimos, starring Emma Stone, will be able to...

Dakota Fanning's career in film and television has been remarkable, starting at a young age and working with notable directors and stars. While known for her film work, Fanning has also made a mark on TV with roles in shows like The Alienist and The First Lady. Fanning has been involved in a range of projects, from light-hearted cameos in Ocean's Eight to powerful dramatic performances in films like The Secret Life of Bees and The Runaways.

Despite not even being 30 years old, Dakota Fanning has had an incredible career in film and television that has spanned decades. Fanning got her first acting job when she was just six years old, having a brief appearance on the medical drama ER, and she has been a mainstay of popular culture ever since. Since then Fanning has worked with some of the biggest movie stars and most notable directors of the 21st century.

Speaking at the press conference announcing the Monterrey Film Festival’s 2023 edition, Lorena Villarreal, the festival’s president of the board, hailed the event’s ambitions for its @Nuevo León industry section, “which will undoubtedly be an important hub connecting Mexican and global cinema,” she said.

With newly hired Diana Cadavid, a seasoned programmer at TIFF and artistic director-programmer of the Laliff and Cali film festivals managing the section, Ficmonterrey has signaled its intent to become a new, unmissable appointment for the international entertainment industry.

This year’s edition will include over 15 industry events, encompassing panels, masterclasses, workshops, and conversations with prominent industry professionals. The plans for next year will include Works in Progress and Screenwriting Labs, says Cadavid.

@Nuevo León industry will present four programming tracks: The Voices of Female Directors with its guest country, Korea; In Conversation With…; Panoramas: Industry Encounters and Visions Nuevo León.

The Voices of...

Believe it or not, the 2023 VMAs have officially arrived. On Tuesday, the biggest names in music gathered for the MTV Video Music Awards to see who would take home the night’s top prizes.

Swift led all nominees this year with eight, while Sza picked up six, and Doja Cat earned five, as did Kim Petras, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, Olivia Rodrigo, and Sam Smith. All of these artists will also compete in the Video of the Year category, which comprises Doja Cat’s “Attention,” Cyrus’ “Flowers,” Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl,...

Mexico’s Monterrey Film Festival (ficmonterrey) is chasing new ambitions in a bid to raise its international profile. Buttressed by generous state, local and private backing as well as some federal funding, the festival, running Sept. 28 – Oct. 4, aims to become Mexico’s most prominent international film festival and a key creative hub in Mexico.

This year’s 19th edition boasts a new director, Janeth Aguirre, also its first female director, and new hires: Diana Cadavid, a programmer for Toronto (TIFF), LA Latino Int’l Film Fest (Laliff) and Colombia’s Cali, who has taken charge of the festival’s burgeoning industry section, and LA-based PR agent Alvar Carretero of Joshua Jason Public Relations.

In recognition of its country guest of honor, South Korea, the fest will open with “Little Forest” by Yim Soonrye, one of the few prominent women film auteurs in South Korean New Wave cinema. Five of her...

The nominees for the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards were announced on August 8, and they’re led by Taylor Swift with eight bids, followed by Sza with six, and many others with five apiece including Sam Smith and Kim Petras, Doja Cat, Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, and Nicki Minaj. Effective immediately fans can cast their votes in 15 gender neutral categories — including the brand new Best Afrobeats award — at vote.mtv.com. Scroll down for the complete list of contenders.

The 2023 VMAs will be held on Tuesday, September 12 at 8:00pm Eastern and Pacific from New Jersey’s Prudential Center.

See‘Barbie’-mania could extend to the Grammys

Video Of The Year

Doja Cat – “Attention”

Miley Cyrus – “Flowers”

Nicki Minaj – “Super Freaky Girl”

Olivia Rodrigo – “vampire”

Sam Smith, Kim Petras – “Unholy”

Sza – “Kill Bill”

Taylor Swift – “Anti-Hero”

Artist Of The Year

Beyoncé

Doja Cat

Karol G

Nicki Minaj

Shakira

Taylor Swift

Song...

Pink’s latest music video is something of a throwback.

In an interview with Et Canada’s Keshia Chanté, the singer was asked about her new video “Trustfall” featuring dance moves from her first-ever video, for 2000’s “There You Go”.

Read More: Pink Shares The Insecurities She’s Learned To Let Go Of, No Longer Worries About Being A Certain Weight

“I love that you got that,” Pink remarked. “That’s exactly what I wanted. I told the choreographers, ‘Go watch the ‘There You Go’ video and give me a dance.'”

As for her memories of that video, which featured some pretty impressive motorcycle stunts, Pink was all smiles.

“It was so fun. Christian, the cute boy, I remember him,” she laughed. “I just remember going like, ‘I can’t believe they’re gonna put enough money into this video that I get to launch two motorcycles off of...

Take another look at a series of 1-minute "Horror Shorts", directed by Floria Sigismondi, showcasing Nicole Kidman, Andy Serkis, Jake Gyllenhaal and a whole lot more:

Shorts include Nicole Kidman as "The Possessed"...

...Andy Serkis as "The Demented Clown", Floria Sigismondi as "The Mannequin"...

...Daniela Vega as "The Vampire"...

...Jake Gyllenhaal as "The Damned"...

..."Brooklynn Prince as "The Demon Child"...

...and Tiffany Haddish as "The Macabre Dancer".

Click the images to enlarge...

Girls, gays, theys: this one is for you. On Friday, Sam Smith and Kim Petras released the sexy, high-production, cinematic video for their song “Unholy,” and it features everything from strippers to burlesque dancers to drag queens.

The Floria Sigismondi-directed visual opens with a woman saying goodbye to her partner after he drops her off at a strange location. The woman then finds a condom-themed invitation to “The Body Shop.” Upon her arrival to said location, she’s escorted to “something unholy:” a clandestine sex club cabaret, where her man often escapes to.

Film editors Lillian E. Benson and Richard Chew will receive Career Achievement Awards for their outstanding contributions to film editing at the 72nd Annual Ace Eddie Awards, taking place on March 5 at the Ace Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles.

“Lillian and Richard are rock star editors and represent the very best of our craft and profession,” said Ace president Kevin Tent. “Just look at those credits! Not only have they had incredibly prolific careers, but they’ve given back to our community in many ways, not the least of which by mentoring the next generation of editors. We are thrilled to honor these two special editors and look back at their amazing careers.”

Past recipients of the Ace Career Achievement Award include Alan Heim, Thelma Schoonmaker, Dede Allen, Janet Ashikaga, Craig Mckay, Margaret Booth, Carol Littleton, John Soh, Mark Goldblatt and Leon Ortiz-Gil, among many others.

Benson made history as...

Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul has crafted a trance-like tale of a woman haunted by strange sounds in Colombia

On the eve of what would have been David Bowie’s 75th birthday, Tilda Swinton told me that she had always considered him to be her spiritual “cousin”. Nowhere is this connection clearer than in Floria Sigismondi’s 2013 video for The Stars (Are Out Tonight), in which Bowie and Swinton play a suburban couple haunted by their alien-like alter egos – the ghosts of fame. Significant, too, that one of Swinton’s early starring roles saw her playing an extraterrestrial visitor in Friendship’s Death (1987), a film that could easily have been titled The Woman Who Fell to Earth.

Like Bowie, Swinton has always possessed an uncanny ability to meld the natural and the supernatural – the down-to-earth and the out-of-this-world. That’s a quality put to perfect use in the latest film from the Thai maestro Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Buffalo 8 has acquired worldwide rights at the just-wrapped Cannes virtual market to Givers of Death, an apocalyptic sci-fi thriller written and directed by and starring Addison Henderson. The pic, which is coming off its world premiere at the American Black Film Festival, will hit U.S. theaters and Premium VOD sometime in 2022.

The film, which is set in a world obliterated by a deadly virus that has killed a third of the population, centers on a the quest for peace for a hitman (Henderson) in a post-apocalyptic world where those who are too afraid to end their own lives from the painful virus hire hitmen to do it for them. Jonathan Sterritt, Lou Lombardi, JJ Alfieri, Jason Delane Lee and Yvonne Huff Lee also star.

Henderson said his film “was born from my own personal tragedies and was inspired by the citizens of Otsuchi, Japan who lost loved ones to a horrific tsunami.

Exclusive: Talent manager Graciella Sanchez and literary manager Zadoc Angell have been named Co-Presidents of Echo Lake Entertainment’s management division.

Their promotion to these new leadership positions comes on the heels of the division’s growth to over 20 managers.

Mike Marcus will continue to serve as Chairman of Echo Lake Management, with Partner and Founder Doug Mankoff and twenty-year vet Andy Spaulding continuing to oversee parent company, Echo Lake Entertainment.

The Beverly Hill-based management company became the first to reopen its offices on June 15. Amidst the turbulence of the Covid-19 pandemic, it has kept all of its assistants employed and even managed to grow, welcoming five new talent and lit managers.

“I am so proud of our team. Every single employee chose to get vaccinated, which made reopening all the more easy,” said Mike Marcus in a statement. “During the beginning of the pandemic, our managers stepped up, organized themselves,...

Exclusive: Max Beesley has joined the cast of Guy Ritchie’s latest action thriller formerly known as Five Eyes at Miramax and STX, opposite Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Josh Hartnett and Cary Elwes.

Bill Block is producing for Miramax, which is also fully financing the film, and STX acquired worldwide distribution rights. The feature follows MI6 guns-and-steel agent (Statham) who is recruited by a global intelligence agency to track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology that threatens to disrupt the world order. Beesley plays a respectable lawyer and consigliere to a billionaire arms broker (Hartnett), who can also handle himself in a fight.

Beesley recently starred opposite Ben Mendelsohn and Paddy Considine in the HBO series The Outsider. Prior to that, her starred in the Carnival TV series Jamestown. Beesley is repped by Authentic Management, APA and Independent Talent Group in the UK.

*******

Agnes Born...

Exclusive: Luma Features has launched an independent film company under the oversee of CEO & Chief Creative Payam Shohadai and COO Grady Gamble with a string of projects, and new hires.

Luma’s first movie that’s come together and set for filming in January is The Silence of Mercy directed by The Runaways and The Handmaid’s Tale episodic director Floria Sigismondi. The movie, which is produced by Shohadai and executive produced by Gamble in partnership with The Black List Production’s Franklin Leonard and indie producer Marc Joubert, follows a woman who chooses a life enclosed, to face her personal demons as she’s challenged to break the walls of morality.

Annabelle Wallis, who just wrapped James Wan’s Malignant, stars in a screenplay written by Chris Basler. The script was developed as part of The Black List’s Features Writers Lab. Sigismondi is repped by WME,...

Tilda Swinton is basically the David Bowie of film, a multi-faceted, eccentric chameleon who is equally comfortable in experimental, art house cinema, character driven indies and massive blockbusters. It helps that she’s a spitting image of Bowie too. In a 30+ year career between acting, performance art, theatre and more, it’s less that Swinton has gotten increasingly adventurous and more that now even mainstream audiences have come to accept her frequent innovations and daring transformations. She’s pulled her biggest gambit yet in Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria,” opening Oct. 26. Here’s how Swinton has evolved up till now.

Caravaggio (1986)

Tilda Swinton’s first film was the experimental drama “Caravaggio,” kicking off a long, working relationship with director Derek Jarman. It’s a fictionalized look at the life of Michelangelo and also is the film debut of actor Sean Bean.

Orlando (1992)

Tilda Swinton landed the lead role in Sally Potter’s Elizabethan-era drama “Orlando,...

What is it about Henry James’ 1898 horror novella The Turn of the Screw? The Gothic ghost story has been the subject of not one, but two adaptations in the past year, first with Floria Sigismondi’s horror film The Turning and now with the upcoming Netflix series The Haunting of Bly Manor, the follow-up season to Mike Flanagan‘s acclaimed […]

The post ‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’ Trailer: ‘The Turn of the Screw’ Joins Netflix’s ‘Haunting’ Horror Anthology appeared first on /Film.

The Haunting of Bly Manor, the spiritual successor season to the hit 2018 Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House, has finally started to stir, making proverbial noises in the night with the reveal of a fall release window. Moreover, Netflix has released the very first images from the anthology iteration.

After nearly a year since the last real update, which left viewers wondering if the show had become another pandemic-pushed production, Netflix revealed that The Haunting of Bly Manor will premiere on the streaming platform this fall on a date to be revealed. In keeping with its ghostly motif, the season will manifest as an adaptation of Henry James’s 1898 gothic horror novella, The Turn of the Screw, a tale set in a creepy English manor, focused on the ordeal of governess hired to care for two young children seemingly possessed by ghosts. Check out the official images just below.

by Cláudio Alves

Ten years ago, Floria Sigismondi's The Runaways was released. The film's a rock biopic and literary adaptation of Cherie Currie's autobiography - Neon Angel. It portrays her life in the late 70s when she became the vocalist for the all-female rock band for which the film is named. Influential and memorable, the Runaways burned too bright and too soon, dissolving after two years of fame, a modicum of success and a whole lot of controversy. Joan Jett, a rock icon and the Runaways' guitarist, helped produce the film and, maybe because of that, Sigsimondi's script makes her a coprotagonist.

Matters of shambolic narrative structure aside, I'm glad The Runaways is so entranced by the mythos of Joan Jett. Otherwise, I might have never woken up to the genius of Kristen Stewart…...

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are showing plenty of staying power at North American multiplexes with about $31 million for its second weekend, estimates showed Saturday.

Sony’s third installment of the “Bad Boys” action comedy franchise is crossing the $100 million mark at the box office on Saturday, its ninth day of release, and will finish the weekend at about $117 million. “Bad Boys for Life” topped expectations over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday with $73 million and has jolted the North American box office back to life after a disappointing 2019 saw a 4% overall decline.

Universal’s fifth frame of World War I epic “1917” will finish second with about $14.1 million at 3,937 sites amid plenty of awards season buzz, including receiving 10 Academy Award nominations and the top film award from the Producers Guild of America on Jan. 18. “1917” will also cross the $100 million mark this weekend.

Universal’s second weekend of its...

Finn Wolfhard and Brooklynn Prince impress as the children, but this haunted house film lacks the nuance of its source material

This contemporary adaptation of The Turn of the Screw takes the ornate enigma of Henry James’s gothic novella and whittles it down into something rather more flat and conventional. This version, directed by Floria Sigismondi, is a fairly basic haunted house horror flick, complete with jump scares, possessed mirrors and a score that sounds as if somebody pushed a children’s choir into a well. A false ending and a clumsily grafted alternative version is all that acknowledges the psychological ambiguity of the source material, and of previous film adaptations, notably Jack Clayton’s The Innocents in 1961.

Mackenzie Davis stars as Kate, the primary school teacher turned live-in governess for an orphaned eight-year-old and her older brother. She arrives at a gloomy manor house that has been production-designed...

“The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless” — so begins Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, an 1898 novella that’s the closest thing to a template for every haunted house story to thrill and chill you. If you’ve seen the 1961 classic The Innocents, or really any movie featuring spooky mansions where things that go bump in the night and your psyche, then you know the basics. Floria Sigismondi’s The Turning updates James’ tale to the early ’90s (one of the first things we hear is...

Sony’s “Bad Boys for Life” is dominating North American moviegoing with about $26 million at 2,155 sites, early estimates showed Friday.

Universal’s World War I epic “1917” will finish at a distant second with about $13 million in the wake of receiving 10 Academy Award nominations and the top film award from the Producers Guild of America on Jan. 18.

Stx’s launch of Matthew McConaughey crime comedy “The Gentlemen” is headed for third place with about $10 million — in line with forecasts — after taking in a moderate $725,000 at 1,885 North American locations on Thursday night. Universal’s second weekend of its costly family adventure “Dolittle” appears to be finishing fourth with between $9 million and $10 million. That leaves the Robert Downey Jr. vehicle with about $42 million in its first 10 days in North America.

Sony’s durable “Jumanji: The Next Level” is pegged for fifth place at around $7 million in its seventh weekend. That should edge...

Don Kaye Jan 24, 2020

Director Floria Sigismondi and star Mackenzie Davis on why The Turning’s century-old source material is still relevant.

In 1898, British-American author Henry James published The Turn of the Screw, a novella about a governess who begins to believe that the two young children she has been hired to care for have come under the influence of malignant spirits. The book is considered one of the great ghost stories, as well as a literary landmark, thanks to its subtle yet escalating sense of inescapable dread and the ambiguous, unreliable nature of its narrative, which calls everything in the story into question.

Naturally, the book has been adapted many times and in several mediums, including stage plays, an opera, a ballet, TV productions and films. The most famous is arguably The Innocents, a 1961 movie starring Deborah Kerr as the governess that remains one of the most chilling horror films ever made.

If anyone’s going to score a horror movie, it should be Girl in Red. Norwegian singer-songwriter Marie Ulven wrote the spooky-sweet “Kate’s Not Here” for the new Henry James adaptation The Turning, which is out Friday — along with its Nineties inspired soundtrack.

Ulven’s characteristically haunted vocals implore the song’s namesake to “not disappear” against a soundscape that’s somewhere between a waking dream and a nightmare. Her voice is the ghost in the dark, the voice in your head telling you to keep it together while...

Take another look at "Horror" shorts directed by Floria Sigismondi, showcasing Nicole Kidman, Saoirse Ronan, Andy Serkis, Jake Gyllenhaal and a whole lot more:

Shorts include Cynthia Nixon as the "Ghost Bride"...

Nicole Kidman as "The Possessed"...

...Andy Serkis as "The Demented Clown"...

...Saoirse Ronan as "The Mannequin"...

...Daniela Vega as "The Vampire"...

...Jake Gyllenhaal as "The Damned"...

..."Brooklynn Prince as "The Demon Child"...

...and Tiffany Haddish as "The Macabre Dancer".

Click the images to enlarge...

Stx’s Matthew McConaughey crime comedy “The Gentlemen” has opened with a moderate $725,000 at 1,885 North American locations on Thursday night.

Horror thriller “The Turning” launched with $425,000 at 2,200 sites on Thursday night. The movie, based on Henry James’ 1898 novella “The Turn of the Screw,” stars Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard and Brooklynn Prince.

Neither new entry is expected to top Sony’s “Bad Boys for Life,” which has over-performed with $83 million domestically in its first six days. The third installment in the Will Smith-Martin Lawrence franchise beat expectations over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday with $73 million and could add another $30 million during its second session.

“The Gentlemen” has been pegged to earn around $10 million when it debuts in 2,100 theaters. That would be a solid start, since Stx shelled out $7 million to buy U.S. rights from Miramax. McConaughey stars as an American expat looking to cash out of the...

Despite older guys indulging greatly in Will Smith and Martin Lawrence’s reteam Bad Boy for Life last weekend, Stx and Miramax are hoping that there’s a little bit of spillover from that into Guy Ritchie’s R-rated all-star ensemble The Gentleman.

Stx took U.S. rights from Miramax for $7M, and the hope is that the pic can clear $10M-$12M. Stx opened the Gerard Butler caper Den of Thieves to $15.2M two Januarys ago, which finaled at just under $45M (which the distrib has always said was a success). No question, Sony’s Bad Boys for Life will dominate its second frame with around $28M, -55%. Of course, the threequel was the big guy at the B.O. yesterday with $3.5M, -4% from Wednesday, ending its week with an estimated $86.6M.

Last night, The Gentlemen, which is a throwback to Ritchie’s gritty Brit shoot ’em ups,...

‘The Turning’, ‘The Grudge’ among other new openers.

Armando Iannucci’s The Personal History Of David Copperfield is the prominent new title this weekend, as the latest Charles Dickens adaptation looking to make a mark with UK audiences.

Dickens’ oeuvre has inspired over one hundred film adaptations across theatrical, TV and streaming releases. His most frequently adapted book is his 1843 novel A Christmas Carol, which has formed the basis of almost 50 screen works.

Iannucci’s film, which launched at Toronto 2019, marks the ninth time Dickens’ 1849 book David Copperfield has been reproduced on screen. It takes its name from the novel’s full title,...

This new, jump-scary adaptation of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw is a contrived and spiritless disappointment

Henry James’s classic 1898 ghost story The Turn of the Screw is splodged with unsubtlety in this jump-scary new screen version, wasting a lot of acting talent. It is a bag of very familiar horror tricks from the screenwriting brothers Chad and Carey Hayes, who scripted so-so chillers such as The Reaping (2007) and The Conjuring (2013), and it’s directed by Floria Sigismondi.

The Hayeses top off their by-the-numbers movie with a bizarre trick ending that explains their take on James’s title – sort of – and messes with the timeline in a way that’s certainly unexpected, yet exasperatingly contrived and involves suddenly and unsatisfyingly promoting a minor character. This finale may also be there to set up a pointless new franchise: The Turning 2, 3 etc.

Floria Sigismondi’s The Turning, based on Henry James’ novella The Turn Of The Screw, is the exact spookless blunder that gives “January Horror” a pitiful reputation. Chad and Carey Hayes seem utterly lost without James Wan’s partnership since their screenplay barely reflects basic three-act structures. Scares are beyond stale, Mackenzie Davis is walled within a dusty structure of haunted tropes, and to top it all off, there’s no finishing punch. Really no third act at all given how Sigismondi’s “exit, stage left” into the credits crawl is laugh-out-loud incompetent. I deeply, sincerely, hate this movie, and “hate” is a word this critic rarely allows into play.

Spoilers to follow, because I have some major thoughts on the film’s ending. It’s impossible to gloss over or ignore. You’ve been warned.

Ms. Davis plays Kate, a hired governess who becomes live-in caretaker to siblings Flora...

So far, the 2020 box office rebound is real. Time will tell. But early signs remain positive, with this weekend continuing to build on the 12% increase to date over the same period in 2019. Last year the weekend between King Birthday and the Super Bowl took in $105 million. This year has a shot at $125 million, which would be close to a 20% improvement.

If so, thriller “The Turning” (Universal) and action comedy “The Gentlemen” (Stx) will play a minor role in that result, along with the calendar, once again. For distributors setting release dates, the second weekend box-office can be as important as the first. With the Super Bowl looming, opening now is risky.

Fortunately current titles should make up the slack, with newbies doing better than last year, when the combined gross of long-forgotten “The Kid Who Would Be King” and “Serenity” totaled under $12 million. At best, new entries could double that number.

Ever since #MeToo opened the world’s eyes to the horrors of toxic masculinity, horror filmmakers — particularly female ones — have been finding increasingly creative ways to imbue their work with fears unique to women. This past year alone, both Jennifer Kent’s “The Nightingale” and Sophia Takal’s “Black Christmas” used rape-revenge tropes as plot points, though to vastly different degrees of success.

In her stylish if not entirely bone-chilling new movie “The Turning,” director Floria Sigismondi shrewdly updates Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw” to haunt her young protagonist with unwanted male attention and obsession. Updating the story that inspired Jack Clayton’s 1961 classic “The Innocents,” which followed the text more closely,

The film’s opening hews closely enough to the original novella, as the fresh-faced Kate (Mackenzie Davis) accepts an unusual position as governess for absurdly wealthy orphan Flora (Brooklynn Prince), who lives in an extravagant manor home.

Starring: Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard Written by: Carey Hayes and Chad Hayes Directed by: Floria Sigismondi Based on the Henry James novella The Turn of the Screw, The Turning stars Mackenzie Davis as Kate, a schoolteacher who takes a job as a governess […]

The post The Turning Review – Does a Poor Job Adapting a Classic appeared first on Dread Central.

Director Floria Sigismondi’s “The Turning” is like the alt-rock cousin of author Henry James’ novella “The Turn of the Screw.” From its grunge-infused soundtrack and period setting to its fiery feminist overtones, this is an ambitious contemporary take on the iconic, claustrophobic thriller. Concerning two young orphans who psychologically torment their caretaker in a spooky, sprawling mansion, it comes across as a fuzzy, frayed adaptation courtesy of a gimmicky, ambiguous climax that undermines the journey. Lacking spine-tingling dread, taut tension, and the deservingly provocative ending needed to make its modern sentiments land, this re-imagining is less than a classic.

Bubbly teacher Kate (Mackenzie Davis) has taken a position at Bly Manor as governess for 7-year-old Flora (Brooklynn Prince), who’s suffering from trauma associated with the death of her parents outside the gates of the palatial estate. The family’s former live-in nanny, Miss Jessel (Denna Thomsen), abruptly left...

Henry James’s novella “The Turn of the Screw” has inspired many screen adaptations, most notably Jack Clayton’s “The Innocents,” which starred Deborah Kerr, and a live TV version with Ingrid Bergman that was directed by John Frankenheimer. In the early ’70s, Marlon Brando headlined a memorably nasty prequel called “The Nightcomers,” and movies from this story have been made all over the world. You have to go out of your way to screw up this material.

“The Turning” is an adaptation of “The Turn of the Screw” that takes place in 1994; we hear over the radio that Kurt Cobain has just committed suicide as we meet our heroine Kate (Mackenzie Davis), a cheerful, slightly nerdy woman who has just received a job as a nanny to an orphaned young girl and boy. In most versions of this story, the governess goes to meet the uncle of these orphans,...

If you read my piece on The Innocents from last October, then you know that I’m a pretty big fan of both Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw as well as Jack Clayton’s timeless 1961 adaptation, which means that I am the prime audience for Floria Sigismondi’s new take on this classic tale, The Turning. And for the most part, I really enjoyed what Sigismondi as well as screenwriters Carey and Chad Hayes were able to bring to the table here, with Floria’s visual flair adding a lot to the material, and a trio of strong performances from the film’s lead actors: Mackenzie Davis, Brooklynn Prince, and Finn Wolfhard.

Where The Turning ended up falling a bit short for me was in its finale, where the pieces of the narrative’s puzzle don’t quite all lock together in the film’s final moments. But overall,...