News

Chris Pratt will always be known for his role as Star Lord in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, but a few years ago, he starred in a major blockbuster that has returned to streaming charts. Pratt stars alongside Anya Taylor-Joy and Jack Black in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the 2023 animated hit that sees Pratt voice the titular character, with Taylor-Joy voicing Princess Peach and Black as the villainous Bowser. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is currently streaming on Prime Video in America and both Prime and Netflix globally, where it’s charting in the top 10 in over 25 countries. The film earned a “rotten” 59% from critics but a “verified hot” 95% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, and it also grossed $1.3 billion at the global box office on a $100 million budget.

Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Pierre Leduc, and Fabien Polack all co-directed The Super Mario Bros. Movie with a script from Matthew Fogel.

Jack Black was surprised by the negative reviews of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, recalling thinking after a screening that the movie would go over well. The film ultimately earned mixed reviews from critics, with criticism aimed at the film's weak story and over-reliance on Easter eggs and references. The audience response to The Super Mario Bros. Movie was overwhelmingly positive, and helped push the film to $1.36 earned at the global box office.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie star Jack Black shares his candid thoughts on the negative reviews the movie received upon its release. Directed by Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, and Pierre Leduc, Illumination Entertainment's adaptation of the hit Nintendo video game franchise hit theaters in April 2023, with Chris Pratt providing the voice of the eponymous plumber. While an immediate hit with audiences, the Super Mario Bros. Movie critic reviews were far more mixed.

Now, in an interview...

Exclusive: The Super Mario Bros. Movie has set its Netflix premiere date for the U.S., Deadline has learned, which is the same day the film is set to leave Peacock: December 3rd. At Netflix, the record-breaker from Uni/Illumination joins a slate of titles with which the whole family can engage.

With the holidays on the horizon, it’s the time of year when locking down titles of this sort is critical, given the promise of a huge surge in viewership. In 2022, family-friendly series and films were in the Top 10 TV or Film lists in 59 countries every week from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Throughout the same period, family-friendly films also made up at least three of the global Top 10 English Films each week.

Other family-friendly fare soon to debut on Netflix includes Best. Christmas. Ever! (November 16), Adam Sandler’s animated pic Leo (November 21), The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday...

For 40 years, intrepid plumber Mario and his brother Luigi have captivated gamers of all ages, taking them on whirlwind adventures in which they teleport through pipes, stomp evil mushrooms and rescue princesses. Why do they do this? Dozens of games, several television shows and a truly terrible 1993 movie have failed to give an answer … the plumbers just warp from our reality to the next, shooting fireballs and competing in go-kart races without any deeper mythology.

There’s no real answer provided in the new Super Mario Bros. Movie, either, so don’t get your hopes up. Mario and Luigi are swooped from Brooklyn to a mystical world for reasons never really explained and embark on a quest that makes little sense but accurately captures the games’ color, energy and humor. As cinema, it’s a mess. As simulation, it works.

Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are trying to make their bones as plumbers,...

Although it came as no surprise to the Illumination animators in Paris that live-action director Garth Jennings wanted them to approach their first musical extravaganza, “Sing,” more like “The Commitments” than “Despicable Me,” only with animals, they had no idea what they were in for. Long takes, wild camera work, off-beat song and dance performances and naturalistic acting required greater teamwork and more time than any of their previous movies.

“It was an acting breakthrough because of Garth,” animation director Pierre Leduc told IndieWire. “He pushed us to add more feeling to the characters and to push the way they moved in a more particular way.”

Read More: Why This Year’s Animated Oscar Race Has Become the Most Competitive Ever

And what a diverse ensemble had to work with, thanks to both Jennings and Illumination founder/producer Chris Meledandri: Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey), the impresario koala; Rosita (Reese Witherspoon...

Pierre Leduc (Patrick Drolet) is a professor of literature and an academic translator who lives in Quebec City. He resigns from his university job to translate the works of Polish poet Edward Stachura, who was hit by a train under mysterious circumstances (wandering on the tracks) and later committed suicide. Pierre translates Stachura's poems into French on spec, even though no Quebecois market exists for the international writer's work. Meanwhile, he begins to give away all of his possessions and wander along train tracks. A portrait emerges of a man who has isolated himself from the world almost completely. Whatever existential crisis he is experiencing inside, his outer self betrays almost no emotion. Patrick Drolet plays Pierre with exactly one facial expression (blank detachment) for most of the movie, but that's the character. [Continued ...]...

Bernard Émond's otherwise cheerful introduction to his new film at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival included soundly attacking an “excess of images,” inciting the first round of booing I heard in response to Tiff's pre-screening L'Oreal ad—inoffensively brief after the umpteenth time any critic inevitably sees it, but whose fashions, models and locations combined surely cost more than some Tiff-selected features.

While All That You Possess grapples with materialism, its careful generosity belies Émond's ferocious sentiments. A standout amongst the fest's world premieres, All That You Possess possesses the numerous pros and sparse cons we've come to expect from Émond's films over the past decade: exacting control over actors, modestly expressive use of space, and intelligent, if slightly schematic story construction. Because of Émond’s affectless performances and minimalistic mise en scène, Bresson comparisons abound; but next to, say, Darezhan Omirbaev’s Student, which adheres so...