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The enigmatic, elusive genius of The Bard, Bob Dylan, has long fascinated the world, not at least filmmakers, D.A. Pennebaker, Martin Scorsese, Todd Haynes, John Hillcoat, and even the Coen Brothers. No one’s really dared to do a straight biopic version of the Dylan legend because it’s too mythological, too monumental—too many evolutions, too many twists and turns—but filmmaker James Mangold (“Ford Vs.

Continue reading ‘A Complete Unknown’ Review: James Mangold & Timothée Chalamet Electrify In Superb, Punk-Rock-Spirited Bob Dylan Drama at The Playlist.

Whether it be by utter obliteration, acts of deities and demons, or merely the ruination of the environment for human habitation, the world's end has fascinated filmmakers for as long as special effects have allowed it to be visualized. In general, audiences are drawn to see such mass destruction at a fictional remove as well, though some tales of the end times can hit a bit too close to home to feel good as escapism.

Not every movie on this list actually depicts the end, but they all, in some way, reckon with it. What do the characters do with their imminent fate? What would you do? Most of these films ask the questions; others might use the demise of the globe as a surprise twist. As such, we must warn that there are spoilers below, if discussing the individual approach to world-ending developments necessitates them. In most cases, you...

The romanticized notion of the cowboy, of ranchers who live by their own rules and represent the very idea of freedom, is something shared between Americans and Australians. Around the middle of the 19th century, both countries had an untamed "wild west" that spanned as far as the eye could see, and cattle ranching became a way to "settle" those wild lands. There's a reason why there are so many great Australian westerns, from Jennifer Kent's "The Nightingale" to John Hillcoat's "The Proposition," and those cowboy stories have turned into ranching stories. So of course the land Down Under is getting in on the latest and greatest cowboy-flavored fad, with a Netflix miniseries that clearly looks to be Australia's answer to the Taylor Sheridan juggernaut "Yellowstone." 

That show is the six-episode miniseries "Territory," created by Australian outback drama experts Timothy Lee (the writer behind "Mystery Road") and Ben Davies,...

If you’ve just finished watching Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End on Amazon Prime Video, you’re probably looking for something else to keep that post-apocalyptic vibe going. Well, you’re in luck, because two movies that would make for a perfect follow-up are The Road (2009) and 28 Days Later (2002). Both of these films share the same intense survival themes and emotional depth that make Apocalypse Z so gripping, but each has its own unique spin on the end-of-the-world chaos.

Let’s start with The Road, a film that’s all about survival in a destroyed world. Directed by John Hillcoat and based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, The Road takes place in a bleak, post-apocalyptic setting where a father and his young son try to stay alive in a world with nothing but ash and cold. Like Manel in Apocalypse Z, the father and son in...

Exclusive: Black Bear’s management arm has signed writer, director, actor, and producer Jordan Firstman, whose credits include Sundance 2023 black comedy Rotting in the Sun.

Firstman first rose to prominence by sharing short skits, impressions, and impersonations on Instagram Live during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He is also known for writing for Alia Shawkat’s Search Party and he was a consulting producer on Netflix’s animated series Big Mouth. As a filmmaker, Firstman directed the narrative short Men Don’t Whisper, which was shortlisted for the Grand Jury Prize at both Sundance and SXSW in 2018. He has also written for Comedy Central’s The Other Two and directed multiple episodes of the Peabody-nominated Sundance TV series This Close.

On the acting side, Firstman joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2022 via Ms. Marvel on Disney+. He also recently appeared in FX’s Dave and the Netflix comedy You People with Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy.

Cormac McCarthy’s grim Pulitzer Prize-winning post-apocalyptic novel “The Road” was previously adapted for film in 2009, starring Viggo Mortensen and directed by John Hillcoat. Now the story is getting a renewed artistic interpretation in a hardcover graphic novel adaptation from French cartoonist Manu Larcenet, published in the United States by Abrams.

“The Road” features a father and son traveling through a dark dystopia, with the father looking to teach his son the lessons he’ll need to survive in a world where other survivors have become disconnected from their humanity. The original novel’s minimalist prose makes it a striking fit for the graphic novel world, with artwork taking the lead in telling playwright and novelist McCarthy’s tale.

Larcenet made a personal appeal to McCarthy to allow him to adapt “The Road.” Praising its atmosphere, Larcenet wrote, “I enjoy drawing the snow, the chilling winds, the dark clouds, the sizzling rain,...

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is now available on VOD. There’s no way around it – the film’s theatrical release was a huge disappointment, as it earned back only a fraction of its reported budget and has put the release of the second film in major jeopardy. However, now that it’s streaming, the hope is that people will be able to discover it at home, perhaps paving the way for this saga to continue. If you’ve watched Horizon and are jonesing for more modern westerns to check out, here are some we really like here at JoBlo.

Tombstone (1993):

This is perhaps an ironic one to put on a list that pays tribute to Costner’s Horizon, as the star’s own big-budget western epic, Wyatt Earp, was badly overshadowed by this competing story about the same historical events. The fact is, George Pan Cosmatos and Kurt Russell...

Black Bear’s management arm has signed Mikko Mäkelä, the Finnish-British writer and director of “Sebastian.” Mäkelä is a rising force in international queer cinema having made movies that explore sexuality and identity.

Mäkelä’s directorial debut “A Moment in the Reeds” premiered at the BFI London Film Festival and screened at nearly a hundred festivals worldwide, including Göteborg Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival and Frameline in San Francisco. The film was nominated for the “Discovery Award” at the 2018 British Independent Film Awards.

Mäkelä’s sophomore feature, “Sebastian,” premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at Sundance 2024 and was embraced by critics. The film will be distributed by Kino Lorber and will be released on Aug. 2, 2024.

Mäkelä was named by IndieWire as an “LGBTQ Filmmaker on the Rise.” In its review out of Sundance, the site went on to praise “Sebastian” as a “provocative, explicit, and ultimately tender drama.

Black Bear’s management arm has signed Swedish creator, writer and showrunner Oskar Söderlund for international representation.

Söderlund is best known for creating the Swedish crime thriller, “Snabba Cash,” which was a hit series for Netflix. He was recently tapped to write and showrun a television adaptation of the John Le Carré spy novel “A Most Wanted Man” from production companies The Ink Factory, founded by Le Carré’s sons Stephen and Simon Cornwell, and Amusement Park, which produced “All Quiet on the Western Front.”

Söderlund currently serves as the head writer on TV4’s “Cry Wolf,” a thriller based on Hans Rosenfeldt’s novel of the same name, and on Netflix’s series “The Breakthrough” — both of which are set to premiere early next year. His previous work includes award-winning television series “The Fat and the Angry” directed by Johan Renck; thriller series “Greyzone”; and the five-part psychological drama series “The Dark Heart,...

When it comes to novels being adapted into movies and television shows, Stephen King’s name stands on a throne for the gripping horror stories. Each and every book finds a place within the fans and their adaptations too get a twist like no other. Having seen so many different adaptations, there was one that he kept urging Warner Bros. Discovery to make but to no avail, Salem’s Lot.

Image via Stephen King In His Own Words Featurette | YouTube

While his own works keep getting adaptations, so much so that the year 2019 saw 4 of his books being adapted. Seeing so many of his own books getting adapted. There is one particular novel by another author that he wants none other than Taylor Sheridan to make. Interestingly enough, Blood Meridian was once almost adapted by Ridley Scott.

Stephen King Wants a Blood Meridian Movie Adaptation

Blood Meridian is an acclaimed novel by Cormac McCarthy.

When news broke last year of John Hillcoat adapting Blood Meridian, I had expressed some hope for similar treatment bestowed upon Cormac McCarthy’s final novels The Passenger and Stella Maris. This desire was almost entirely quixotic; his swan song is an über-nihilistic encyclopedic thriller, at least one-third of which is a two-person dialogue on the history of math, physics, the Manhattan Project (far more compellingly than Oppenheimer), God’s existence, and wanting to fuck your own brother, with a protagonist rather convincingly written as the smartest person alive. It is really not suggestive of a financeable movie.

No doubt emboldened The Bikeriders, however, Jeff Nichols will give it a shot. Speaking to Awards Watch, the writer-director revealed New Regency will back the effort, whether it’s one film or two (I can take a guess) or even arrives anytime soon; Nichols is also planning to adapt David Grann’s...

First announced in 2023, the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s classic novel Blood Meridian is still in the works, with John Logan announced as its screenwriter.

Announced last year, the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s bracing western novel Blood Meridian: Or The Evening Redness In The West is still quietly moving ahead.

In the works at production company New Regency, the movie will be written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan, who’s produced some remarkably varied scripts across his career, ranging from Alien: Covenant to Skyfall to Gladiator.

Logan’s adapted screenplay will be directed by John Hillcoat, who has form when it comes to making films based on McCarthy’s poetic, witheringly harsh work – he previously made post-apocalyptic mood piece The Road in 2009, starring Viggo Mortensen. That film was also produced by New Regency.

“Blood Meridian has been one of my favorite novels since first reading it in 1985,” Logan said in a statement to Deadline.

Of all the famously unmade and never materialized film projects, an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s bleak and brutal Western, “Blood Meridian,” has to be near the top of the list. But as you likely know by now, if you’re a fan of this supposedly “unadaptable” book, a new film version is already in the works. And now, a new writer has been attached.

According to new reports, Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan (“Skyfall”) has been tapped by New Regency to work on the script for a feature film adaptation of McCarthy’s novel.

Continue reading ‘Blood Meridian’: Veteran Writer John Logan Boards John Hillcoat’s Adaptation Of Bleak Cormac McCarthy Western at The Playlist.

Considered by many to be the magnum opus of author Cormac McCarthy – whose works include No Country for Old Men, The Road, All the Pretty Horses, and Child of God, among others – the violent Western Blood Meridian (you can pick up a copy Here) was published in 1985… and in the years since, several filmmakers have made unsuccessful attempts to bring the story to the screen. Adaptations have passed through the hands of Tommy Lee Jones, Ridley Scott, and James Franco, with Franco getting the furthest with it, shooting 25 minutes of test footage before the producer shut down the project. With unrelenting violence and a dark tone, Blood Meridian has been said to be unfilmable. But director John Hillcoat, who previously helmed the feature based on The Road (pictured below), is pushing an adaptation forward at New Regency, and Deadline reports that John Logan, who received Oscar nominations for his work on the scripts for Hugo,...

Acclaimed writer John Logan will adapt Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” novel into a feature film for director John Hillcoat.

Hillcoat is also producing along with Keith Redmon for New Regency. Cormac McCarthy’s son, John Francis McCarthy, will serve as executive producer, while Cormac, who died in June 2023, will receive a posthumous executive producer credit.

“It’s incredibly exciting to have John Logan on board,” John Francis said. “Very reassuring in the seemingly long list of good news concerning what was originally such an intimidating undertaking.”

The project was originally set up with director James Franco and star Russell Crowe in 2016, but fell apart over rights to the book.

Based on historical conflicts along the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, “Blood Meridian” follows the journey of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old from Tennessee, as he navigates the brutal and harrowing landscape of this new era.

Logan, a three-time Oscar nominee,...

Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan has come aboard New Regency’s adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel Blood Meridian.

Logan, whose credits include Skyfall, The Aviator, Gladiator, and the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic, joins previously announced director John Hillcoat on the project.

Hillcoat will produce alongside Keith Redmon for New Regency. McCarthy’s son John Francis McCarthy will serve as executive producer, and Cormac McCarthy will receive a posthumous executive producer credit.

Blood Meridian is based on historical conflicts along the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s and follows the journey of the Kid, a 14-year-old from Tennessee, as he navigates the...

Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” has been one of the trickiest classic novels to adapt for the screen, but it now has a three-time Oscar nominee who may finally crack it.

John Logan, the writer of “Gladiator,” “The Aviator,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Skyfall,” and the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic “Michael,” has been tapped to adapt “Blood Meridian” into a feature film.

Last year, New Regency announced it was developing a feature film based on the 1985 Western novel, and the studio attached John Hillcoat — who previously directed McCarthy’s “The Road” — to direct the film. Hillcoat is also directing and producing “Blood Meridian” alongside Keith Redmon for New Regency.

Cormac McCarthy is getting a posthumous executive producer credit on the film, and his son John Francis McCarthy is also serving as an EP.

“Blood Meridian” is based on historical conflicts along the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s. The story follows the journey of The Kid,...

John Logan — the writer behind Aviator and James Bond movie Skyfall — has been tapped to adapt Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian for New Regency.

The synopsis for the Western, known for its descriptive violence, reads: “Based on historical conflicts along the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, the story follows the journey of the Kid, a 14-year-old from Tennessee, as he navigates the brutal and harrowing landscape of this new era.”

As previously announced, John Hillcoat, who directed McCarthy adaptation The Road, will helm. Hillcoat will produce along with Keith Redmon for New Regency. McCarthy’s son, John Francis McCarthy, will serve as executive producer with McCarthy receiving a posthumous credit.

Said Morgan, “Blood Meridian has been one of my favorite novels since first reading it in 1985. It’s a majestic, beautiful and uncompromising book and I’m thrilled to be able to help bring Cormac McCarthy’s dark masterpiece to the screen.

Three time Oscar-nominated scribe John Logan is adapting National Book Award-winning author Cormac McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West for the big screen for New Regency.

John Hillcoat, who previously adapted McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road, will direct and produce along with Keith Redmon for New Regency.

The sprawling novel is widely considered one of the greatest works of American literature. Published in 1985, Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West is an epic tale of the violence and depravity that attended America’s westward expansion which brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the Wild West. Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of a 14-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into a nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.

Fans speculated that there was tension between Tom Hardy and Shia Labeouf during the filming of Lawless, a sentiment echoed by the director who sensed something was off. However, despite these rumors, the 2012 film was a success and received strong reviews. Years later, in a 2019 interview with Sean Evans, while munching down some pretty hot wings, Shia Labeouf finally revealed the truth about what happened behind the scenes. Tom Hardy’s sweet words towards his co-star also squashed the beef even further.

Tom Hardy as Bane in a still from The Dark Knight Rises

The Alleged Beef Between Tom Hardy and Shia Labeouf

Despite the success of the film Lawless, it was often overshadowed by the alleged feud between Shia Labeouf and Tom Hardy, both of whom starred in the movie together. Although director John Hillcoat confirmed Labeouf did not knock out Hardy, he did acknowledge the existence of the conflict,...

Naomi Watts, Tye Sheridan, Michael Imperioli and Norman Reedus are set to star in The Housewife, a psychological drama and feature debut from director Ben Shirinian.

Neon International will start shopping the film to foreign buyers at the Berlin Film Festival, with production set to kick off in June 2024. Based on a true story from 1964, The Housewife will see Sheridan play a young New York Times journalist tracking down a potential Nazi officer living secretly in Queens.

When he befriends the suspect’s charming wife, played by Watts, his investigation goes off track. Watts recently wrapped production on Audrey Diwan’s Emmanuelle, and is currently starring as Babe Paley in Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Capote vs. The Swans. Her other film credits include Penguin Bloom, Birdman, St. Vincent and Netflix’s The Watcher.

Sheridan also starred in The Tree of Life, Mud, the X-Men franchise, Ready Player One and most...

Bosnian-Dutch writer and director Ena Sendijarević has signed with Black Bear’s management arm.

Sendijarević’s second feature “Sweet Dreams” was selected as the official Dutch submission for this year’s Academy Awards and deemed a “startlingly accomplished sophomore film” by Variety. She was also one of Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch for 2024.

Sendijarević’s feature debut, “Take Me Somewhere Nice,” an absurdist European road trip movie, won the Special Jury award at the 48th International Film Festival in Rotterdam, as well as the “Heart of Sarajevo” award at the 25th Sarajevo Film Festival. The film was then selected for the 72nd Cannes Film Festival Acid selection. Sendijarević has also made several short films, the latest of which, “Import,” had its world premiere in Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight section and was the official Dutch entry for Live Action Short Film at the 89th Academy Awards.

Next for Sendijarević is “The Possessed,...

Comer plays a young woman whose baby arrives just as environmental crisis begins to break the society around her

Here is a post-apocalyptic drama of survival, a fiercely acted and unnerving real-time demonstration of law and order breaking down. It is all the more disturbing, credible and immediate in that, unlike other examples of genre, the narrative isn’t heading for an abyss of unknowable chaos. Rather, it envisions society’s grim normalisation of disaster and loss, an evolutionary leap downwards but one in which a kind of rebirth is not ruled out.

In contrast to the American post-apocalypse of John Hillcoat’s The Road, or the European apocalypse of Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf, this film is a very British world-ending – because the populace are unarmed, or mostly. First-time director Mahalia Belo and screenwriter Alice Birch (who has adapted the novel by Megan Hunter) may have taken...

Kerry Howley, a screenwriter, author and essayist, has signed with Black Bear for representation. The news comes as Howley is about to make waves at Sundance, where “Winner,” a comedic coming-of-age story that she wrote, is going to debut. Howley adapted the story from her own New York Magazine profile on Reality Winner, an Air Force vet and Nsa translator who leaked an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The film is directed by Susanna Fogel (“Cat Person”). It stars Emilia Jones, Connie Britton and Zach Galifianakis. “Winner” will debut in Sundance’s Premieres section.

Howley authored the non-fiction book “Bottom’s Up and The Devil Laughs,” which was recently picked as a New York Times 2023 Top Ten Book of the Year and a Vanity Fair Best Book of the Year. She is currently a staff writer at New York Magazine, most recently contributing the cover...

By now, you should be aware that Nick Cave is more than just a singer/songwriter, artist, and musician. On top of his many bands, The Bad Seeds, Birthday Party, and his solo projects, Cave has been involved in dozens of film projects; he and creative partner Warren Ellis have scored over two dozen films—for filmmakers like John Hillcoat, David McKenzie, David Michôd, and Taylor Sheridan—and he’s been the featured player in two documentaries by Andrew Dominik (Cave and Ellis’ score to the “Assassination of Jesse James” remains one of the decades best).

Continue reading Matt Smith To Star In Limited-Series Adaptation Of Nick Cave’s Darkly Comic ‘The Death of Bunny Munro’ at The Playlist.

Exclusive: Black Bear’s management arm has signed the Swedish actor and model Simon Lööf for representation.

Lööf is currently on set in the lead role of Netflix’s Swedish thriller An Honest Life, directed by Mikael Marcimain, which is due to be released globally 2024.

Based on a thriller by Joakim Zander of the same name, the buzzed about production revolves around a disillusioned law school student who finds himself on the wrong side of the law, when he falls under the thrall of an anarchic, young woman he meets a political demonstration.

Simon Lööf made his acting debut in 2020 in teen ice hockey drama Eagles, which he followed with a co-starring role in the critically acclaimed Swedish series Threesome opposite Matilda Källström.

Aside from An Honest Life, Lööf’s will soon be seen in the series So Long, Marianne about the relationship between...

Above: first US teaser poster for Poor Things. Design by Vasilis Marmatakis.I don’t know whether it’s because of the power of Yorgos Lanthimos, or the popularity of Emma Stone, or the sheer genius of designer Vasilis Marmatakis, or a combination of all of them, but three out of the four most liked posters on my Movie Poster of the Day Instagram over the past six months have all been posters for Lanthimos’s latest, Poor Things. The teaser above is now the most liked poster ever on my feed.Breaking up the Poor Things monopoly at number two is Polish designer Maks Bereski’s fan-art design for Ridley Scott’s yet-to-be-released Napoleon, which also went through the roof with over 4,000 likes when I posted it in June in conjunction with my article on Bereski and his favorite movie posters. Instagram likes are a fickle thing but it...

Black Bear’s management arm has signed award-winning Quebec director Sophie Dupuis for representation. Most recently, Dupuis’ third picture, “Solo,” premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the award for best Canadian film. The film, which was written and directed by Dupuis, stars fellow Black Bear client Théodore Pellerin. It is set in Montreal’s drag queen scene.

Critics embraced the film with SlashFilm calling it “a vibrant portrait of queer nightlife” and the Toronto Star praising the work as a “dexterous film that combines bold images with the quiet beat of a heart torn asunder two ways.”

Dupuis’ previous work, which also showcases her impactful storytelling and her focus on human complexity, has been widely lauded. Her feature film debut, the crime drama “Family First,” earned four Canadian Screen Awards. It was selected as Canada’s submission for best foreign language film at the 2018 Academy Awards.

“Special Ops: Lioness” is one of the most intense shows currently streaming and this exclusive clip, which you can watch above, is no different.

The moment comes from Sunday’s upcoming episode (streaming exclusively on Paramount+), “Wish the Fight Away,” and sees Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira), a former fry cook turned Marine who is recruited for the Lioness program to help infiltrate a terrorist network (by befriending the terrorist’s young daughter), interrogated by her superiors, who just so happen to be played by Zoe Saldaña and Nicole Kidman. Saldaña and Kidman are trying to figure out if Cruz’s cover has been blown and things get … heated. Has Cruz gotten too close to her target? And will she be able to successfully carry out her mission?

“Special Ops: Lioness” is the latest Paramount+ original series from mastermind Taylor Sheridan, the man behind (among other things) “Yellowstone” (and its spinoffs “1883” and “1923”), “Tulsa King,...

Igor Martinovic is an Emmy-nominated cinematographer whose work includes “House of Cards,” “The Night Of,” “What Happened, Miss Simone?” and the Showtime limited series “George & Tammy,” but the best advice he ever got was not from a fellow cinematographer, a teacher or even a director he was working with.

Instead, Martinovic told TheWrap, it came from “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull” screenwriter and “American Gigolo” and “First Reformed” director Paul Schrader, in an interview Schrader gave about what he and director Martin Scorsese were trying to do when they made “Taxi Driver.”

“He was talking about (Robert De Niro’s character) Travis Bickle, and he said they were trying to make a documentary of Travis’ mind,” Martinovic said. “That was the idea that taught me the most about filmmaking, the idea that you’re actually making visuals that represent somebody’s state of mind.

“So on ‘George & Tammy,...

Exclusive: Black Bear, the production, management and financing company founded by Teddy Schwarzman, on Thursday announced its signing of Simona Tabasco, one of the breakout Italian stars of The White Lotus‘ second season.

The news follows the firm’s introduction to Tabasco as the producer of Immaculate, a forthcoming psychological horror film in which she stars opposite fellow White Lotus alum Sydney Sweeney.

In the Sicily-set second installment of Mike White’s HBO satire The White Lotus, examining the dynamics between employees and guests at luxury hotels around the world, Tabasco starred alongside Adam Dimarco, Michael Imperioli, Beatrice Grannò, Theo James and more. The 10x Emmy-winning series had her playing the role of Lucia Greco, a prostitute enjoying the high life alongside aspiring chanteuse Mia (Grannò), as she builds her business on the grounds of The White Lotus Sicily. For her performance, the actress was recognized with an Emmy nom...

One film we’ve been waiting to see pop up on the fall festival circuit is Mothers’ Instinct, the directorial debut of acclaimed cinematographer Benoît Delhomme, who has worked with Tsai Ming-liang, Anton Corbijn, John Hillcoat, Julian Schnabel, Anthony Minghella, Tran Anh Hung, and more. Led by Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway, the Greek distributor Spentzos Film has now unveiled the first trailer though the U.S. release from Neon has yet to be announced.

A remake of Olivier Masset-Depasse’s 2018 French-language psychological thriller, the Sarah Conradt-scripted film follows the friendship of two 1960s housewives that rapidly deteriorates after a tragedy. Also starring Josh Charles, Anders Danielsen Lie, and Caroline Lagerfelt, cinematography comes from, of course, Delhomme himself.

“Annie and I, we have a lot of fun in that movie. And it’s a throwback to another… I like to think of it like a little bit of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?...

Exclusive: Taylor Sheridan might have more ratings royalty on his hands with Special Ops: Lioness.

The espionage thriller premiered with two episodes on Paramount+ on July 23, and Paramount Global is now touting it as the streamer’s most-watched global series premiere in its first 24 hours, topping a previous record set by Halo in March 2022.

In addition to debuting on Paramount+, the first two episodes also aired on Paramount Network across the last two weekends. The first episode debuted on July 23 to coincide with the series’ streaming debut, and Episode 2 aired on July 30. The remaining episodes will only be available on Paramount+.

After three days of delayed viewing, Episode 1 scored a combined audience of nearly 6M across viewing on Paramount+ globally and linear viewing on Paramount Network in the U.S., according to Paramount Global.

(For reference, Samba TV reported that 918,000 U.S. households watched Episode 1 on Paramount+ on release day,...

[Editor’s note: The following interview was conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike began on July 14, 2023.]

Jessica Chastain is not easily shaken. She faces her fears and whittles them down to something she can handle. And takes a shot of whiskey if need be. She landed an Oscar for daring to become the mascara-loving title character in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” Actors understood that she had to love the outlandish TV evangelist, who was a joke in many quarters, in order to understand her.

And the same is true of Tammy Wynette. However, “George & Tammy” (Showtime) presented another order of high-diving-board difficulty. It was one thing to sing like Tammy Faye. It was another to take on live-performing, opposite musician-actor Michael Shannon as country icon George Jones, as an all-too-familiar country superstar.

That was never the plan. Chastain was first approached back in 2011 at the Golden Globes by Josh Brolin, who was developing the story of Jones and Wynette. “I had never been in...

There’s a moment late in Barbie when a character lays out all the contradictory demands placed on women: to be strong but not too strong, pretty but not too vain, ambitious but never aggressive, and on and on and on. It’s an inconceivable standard for anyone to meet, even a perky toy doll, and the film’s conclusion is that the only way to live with them is by letting go of the pressure to try.

But the thing about cultural scripts is that they’re damnably hard to shake. There are always going to be people trying to thread that needle, no matter how clearly impossible it is. And so we get stuff like Paramount+’s Special Ops: Lioness, a series that tries so hard to meet some broadly palatable ideal that it largely forgets to do anything interesting.

The new non-Yellowstone Taylor Sheridan thriller centers on Lioness,...

Now that Taylor Sheridan has won the TV Western revival with “Yellowstone” and its universe of prequels, he’s pivoting to the Middle East. “Special Ops: Lioness” is a female-driven contemporary espionage thriller where the white hats are CIA special forces, and the black hats are Middle Eastern terrorists. Helicopters and heavy artillery have replaced horses and shotguns.

Setting aside Sheridan’s recent inexplicable Emmy nomination snubs, the multi-hyphenate can tell an engrossing story that entwines flat-out action and interpersonal drama. Here, as showrunner and sole writer, he’s created an eight-part series that recalls movies like Kathryn Bigelow’s breathless yet intimate “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Hurt Locker.” We’ve got the fog of war, and the way that warps reality when the warrior returns stateside.

At its center is the athletic beauty Zoe Saldaña. She plays Joe, a kickass CIA special ops team leader accustomed to, if not entirely comfortable with,...

Exclusive: Black Bear’s management arm has signed Danish-American actor Elliott Crosset Hove for representation.

Hove is best known for the well-received Danish/Icelandic feature Godland, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival last year.

His lauded performance in the picture earned him Best Male Actor at Denmark’s 2023 Bodil Awards, as well as a Best Actor nomination at the European Film Awards.

Hove’s previous feature roles include Rasmus Heisterberg’s 2016 feature film In the Blood, for which Hove was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Bodil Awards, and Hlynur Pálmason’s Winter Brothers, which won him a Danish Robert Award and Best Actor at the Locarno Film Festival. He has also appeared in Journal 64, Before the Frost, Parents and Wildland.

Most recently, Hove starred in Katrine Brocks’ The Great Silence and Simon Jaquemet’s Electric Child, which is currently in post-production, alongside Rila Fukushima.

Busan Funding Revealed

The Busan festival’s Asian Cinema Fund has announced 14 film projects to which it will give financial support. Three projects at script stage, black comedy “Chronicles of a Confession,” by Prateek Vats (India), “To Kill a Mongolian Horse” by China’s Jiang Xioaxuan and Suraj Paudel “Where the Rivers Run South” (Nepal) each receive a KRW10 million cash grant and will be invited to the 2023 edition of the festival’s Asian Project Market.

Four projects receive post-production funding and are expected to make their world premieres at Busan this year. They are “Concerning My Daughter,” by Lee Mirang, and “Lay Off” by Park Hongjun, both from Korea. They are joined by “Solids by the Seashore,” from Thailand’s Patiparn Boontarig and “The Spark,” by Indian veteran Rajesh S. Jala.

Seven feature documentary projects each receive up to KRW20 million from the Asian Network of Documentary Fund. The...

Zoe Saldana as Joe In Special Ops: Lioness streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Credit: Greg Lewis/Paramount+ Paramount+ has released the official trailer for the highly anticipated original series Special Ops: Lioness, which will premiere with two episodes on Sunday, July 23 in the U.S. and all Paramount+ international markets exclusively on the service. From Academy Award nominee Taylor Sheridan, the espionage thriller features a star-studded cast, including series lead and executive producer Zoe Saldaña, Laysla De Oliveira, Emmy Award nominee Michael Kelly, with Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman, and Academy Award winner and executive producer Nicole Kidman. Special Ops: Lioness is produced by MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios for Paramount+. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution outside of Paramount+ markets. Special Ops: Lioness, inspired by an actual U.S. Military program, follows the life of Joe (Saldaña) while she attempts to balance her personal and professional...

Zoë Saldana and Nicole Kidman aim to stop global terrorism in Paramount+’s new series.

The two star in the original series “Special Ops: Lioness” which is based on an actual U.S. Military program. The network released the official trailer for the series today.

“You up for playing outside the lines?” Kidman’s character asks Saldana in the clip.

Read More: ‘The Burning Girls’: Samantha Morton And Ruby Stokes Unearth A Small Town Mystery In Adaptation For Paramount+

Nicole Kidman as Kaitlyn Meade In Special Ops: Lioness, episode 5, season 1, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. – Photo Credit: Greg Lewis/Paramount+

Saldana plays Joe, an elite agent with the CIA who is spearheading the agency’s fight against terrorism. Kidman plays Kaitlyn Maede, who oversees The Lioness Program, along with Michael Kelly’s Donald Westfield. They enlist the help of an aggressive Marine Rider Cruz, played by Laysla De Oliveira, who must...

Paramount+ just released the official trailer for Special Ops: Lioness, the latest addition to Taylor Sheridan’s roster of dramas on the streaming service. The minute-and-a-half trailer introduces Zpe Saldana’s character and the world in which the espionage thriller operates.

The season one cast also includes Laysla De Oliveira, Emmy nominee Michael Kelly, Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, and Oscar winner Nicole Kidman. Additional cast members include Dave Annable (Sheridan’s Yellowstone), Lamonica Garrett (Sheridan’s 1883), Jill Wagner, James Jordan (Sheridan’s Mayor of Kingstown), Austin Hébert, Jonah Wharton, Stephanie Nur, and Hannah Love Lanier.

The series will premiere on July 23, 2023 with the release of the first two episodes. New episodes follow on subsequent Sundays.

Series creator Taylor Sheridan, David C. Glasser, Zoe Saldaña, and Nicole Kidman executive produce. Ron Burkle, Bob Yari, David Hutkin, Jill Wagner, Geyer Kosinski, Michael Malone, and John Hillcoat also serve as executive producers. Special...

Taylor Sheridan is a force to be reckoned with. The acclaimed writer/creator/director has been able to get a laundry list of impressive actors involved with every one of his projects. The list has included Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Emily Blunt, Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Angelina Jolie, Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Kevin Costner, Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, Sam Elliott and Sylvester Stallone. And that’s just to name a few. Sheridan’s new series for Paramount+, Special Ops: Lioness, employs the likes of Zoe Saldaña, Morgan Freeman, Nicole Kidman, Laysla De Oliveira and Michael Kelly. The new Sheridan drama is produced by MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios for Paramount+.

The new trailer for the series that begins later this month has just been unveiled.

The official synopsis from Paramount+ reads,

Special Ops: Lioness, inspired by an actual US Military program, follows the life of Joe (Saldaña) while...

Paramount+ today debuted the official trailer for the highly anticipated original series “Special Ops: Lioness,” which will premiere with two episodes on July 23 exclusively on the service.

“Yellowstone” co-creator Taylor Sheridan’s latest show, an espionage thriller features a star-studded cast, including series lead and executive producer Zoe Saldaña, Laysla De Oliveira (“Locke & Key”), Michael Kelly, Morgan Freeman and executive producer Nicole Kidman.

“You have no family, no friends,” Saldaña tells De Oliveira at the beginning of the trailer between cuts of De Oliveira’s character Cruz’s life. “You were abused until you gave yourself to me. Now you have a purpose, and it is noble.”

Also Read:

15 Shows Like ‘Yellowstone’ to Watch While You Wait for the Final Episodes

“Special Ops: Lioness” was inspired by a real-life U.S. Military program. Saldaña’s Joe — who spearheads the CIA’s war on terror, answers to Kidman’s Kaitlyn Meade,...

Paramount+ has dropped a new sneak peek of Taylor Sheridan’s next joint.

The latest trailer is out for Special Ops: Lioness, which will premiere with two episodes on Sunday, July 23, in the U.S. and all Paramount+ international markets.

Inspired by an actual U.S. military program, the new Sheridan drama follows Joe (Saldaña) as she attempts to balance her personal and professional life as the tip of the CIA’s spear in the war on terror. The Lioness Program, overseen by Kaitlyn Meade (Nicole Kidman) and Donald Westfield (Michael Kelly), enlists an aggressive Marine Raider named Cruz (Laysla De Oliveira) to operate undercover alongside Joe among the power brokers of state terrorism in the CIA’s efforts to thwart the next 9/11.

Special Ops: Lioness also stars Dave Annable, Jill Wagner, Lamonica Garrett, James Jordan, Austin Hébert, Jonah Wharton, Stephanie Nur and Hannah Love Lanier. The series is executive produced by Sheridan,...

In the early days of pre-Netflix Black Mirror, there was a thrill (for some of us at least) that came along with easily being able to rattle off one’s favorite episodes.

There were only six at the time so it was easy to gather them all up in your brain and spit them out in the order you preferred.

Now Netflix has stepped in to start mass producing Black Mirror‘s as fast as creator Charlie Brooker can produce them. The episode number (now at 28 with season 6) has become a bit more unwieldy so it’s finally time to put some pen to paper on this bad boy.

What follows is our official list of every Black Mirror episode from worst to best. You will disagree with it because how could you not? Just be sure to let us know how foolish we are in the comments.

28. The Entire History of You...

From the exemplary adaptation of No Country for Old Men to the offbeat screenplay for The Counselor, McCarthy’s sparse style lent itself to cinema

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The late and great Cormac McCarthy’s most famous novel is probably The Road, a hauntingly well-written and shattering story of a father and son trekking across a lawless America, wiped out by an unspecified cataclysmic event. Much has been made of the author’s sparse style, which combines poetic and surreal descriptions with lithe plotting and bleakly surreal settings: an appealing combination for a motion picture adaptation.

The Australian director John Hillcoat brought it to the screen in 2009 with a film that impressively translates the book’s heaving sense of sadness, using an anemic palette to evoke the look of a dying, inconsolable world, memorably navigated by Viggo Mortensen (billed as “the Man”) and Kodi Smit-McPhee (“the Boy...

Acclaimed writer Cormac McCarthy is dead at age 89. He died at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, of natural causes, his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, confirmed to multiple outlets.

McCarthy, who won both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award, was the author of a long list of celebrated novels that often explored dark and violent themes. He published his first book, The Orchard Keeper, in 1965 and achieved widespread critical acclaim in 1985 with the bleak revisionist Western Blood Merdian in 1985. His other novels include All the Pretty Horses and The Road.

In addition to being a celebrated figure in American literature, McCarthy also made his mark on film. Several Cormac McCarthy novels were adapted into movies, including No Country for Old Men, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture in 2008.

‘All the Pretty Horses’

The first big-screen adaptation of McCarthy’s work was All the Pretty Horses (2000). The movie,...

One of the giants of contemporary literature is no more. Deadline is reporting that Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of No Country for Old Men and The Road, has died at 89. No specific cause of death other than natural causes has been revealed. McCarthy was one of a kind, being considered by many as one of the finest living Western authors. His books, which adopt a spare yet poetic prose, are all unified by the theme of a violent, sometimes contemporary (and sometimes not) West, as depicted perhaps most famously in No Country for Old Men. That was adapted into a stunning film by Joel and Ethan Coen. McCarthy’s apocalyptic novel, The Road, was turned into another great film by John Hillcoat (starring Viggo Mortensen). At the same time, he also wrote the screenplay for the divisive Ridley Scott film, The Counselor.

McCarthy kept busy until the end,...

Cormac McCarthy, the literary giant whose violently nihilistic visions of America influenced a generation of writers and filmmakers, has died at the age of 89. His death was confirmed by publisher Knopf. McCarthy passed away at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The news was first reported by Publishers Weekly.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1933, McCarthy published his first novel, “The Orchard Keeper,” in 1965. He slowly rose to prominence in the literary world and eventually became known as one of the most important American authors of the 20th century for novels such as “Blood Meridian” and “The Road.”

In 2005 he published “No Country for Old Men,” which Joel and Ethan Coen adapted into a 2007 film that elevated their status as dramatic filmmakers and cemented McCarthy’s Hollywood legacy. Cinematographer Roger Deakins recently reflected on the making of the film, recalling that “Joel said we’re doing this script, ’No Country for Old Men.

Cormac McCarthy, generally considered one of America’s greatest living authors, has died. His death was confirmed by his son, John McCarthy. He was 89.

McCarthy is best known for books such as Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West; The Road, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and No Country For Old Men, which was adapted into the Coen Brothers’ Oscar-winning film.

His other published works include The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, Child of Dark, Suttree, All the Pretty Horses – which won the National Book Award – The Crossing and Cities of the Plain. All the Pretty Horses, The Road and No Country were adapted for film by Billy Bob Thornton, John Hillcoat and Joel and Ethan Coen, respectively.

McCarthy told the Wall Street Journal that No Country for Old Men was originally a screenplay, but failed to gain traction in that form. “In fact, they said, ‘That will never work.