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Billy Magnussen is used to playing a beefcake. His first big job was on the soap opera As the World Turns. In Into the Woods, his version of Rapunzel’s Prince wore leather pants even when riding a horse. He served as the resident hunk among the ensembles in Game Night and The Big Short. These castings, flattering as they might be, haven’t always reflected the man himself, a classically trained actor who has a Tony nomination (for 2013’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike).

But in his latest role, Magnussen, 39, finally has found something a little more relatable, one that simultaneously fuels his character’s ego and leaves him plagued by self-doubt.

The satirical series The Franchise centers around the ill-fated production of a fictional superhero film whose big-budget snafus (an emergency pro-feminism rewrite, disputes over which actors get the biggest superpowers) poke fun at Hollywood’s IP obsession.

The Off Broadway world premiere of the new Robert O’Hara play Shit. Meet. Fan. will feature a cast headed by Garret Dillahunt, Billy Magnussen and Debra Messing, McC Theater announced today.

The play, which will also star Tramell Tillman and Constance Wu, begins previews Thursday October 10, at McC Theater’s Newman Mills Theater, with an opening night on Monday October 28. The limited engagement runs through Sunday November 17.

O’Hara will direct his play, which is based on Paolo Genovese’s 2016 Italian comedy-drama Perfect Strangers. The movie holds the Guinness record for most remade film in cinema history, with more than 24 remakes in different languages.

Also in the cast will be Genevieve Hannelius, most recently seen in the Netflix original film Along for the Ride and the Netflix original series American Vandal. She is perhaps best known for starring on the three-time Emmy-nominated Disney Channel series Dog with a Blog.

Additional casting will be announced shortly.

Here’s a look at this week’s biggest premieres, parties and openings in Los Angeles and New York, including events for The Instigators, Bel-Air and Coup!

Avaline’s anniversary dinner

Avaline wine co-founders Cameron Diaz and Katherine Power hosted an East Hampton dinner on July 26 to celebrate the brand’s four-year anniversary, with support from Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rachel Zoe and Molly Sims.

Gwyneth Paltrow, Cameron Diaz and Reese Witherspoon The Instigators premiere

Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Hong Chau and Jack Harlow joined director Doug Liman at the New York premiere of their Apple TV+ movie on Wednesday.

Celia D. Costas, Kevin J. Walsh, Chuck MacLean, Casey Affleck, Doug Liman, Luciana Damon, Alison Winter and Matt Damon Alexia Barroso, Isabella Damon, Gia Damon, Matt Damon, Luciana Barroso and Stella Damon Bel-Air Summer BBQ

Peacock hosted a Summer BBQ at the Universal Studios Backlot on Thursday to celebrate...

From a shady district attorney in “The Batman” to a real-life rapist in “Boys Don’t Cry” and a harrowing disembodied voice in “The Guilty,” Peter Sarsgaard is often known for characters teetering on the edge of morality. But the actor is quick to shrug off any black-and-white labels of good versus evil.

Sarsgaard, who recently appeared in the Apple TV+ series “Presumed Innocent” and now leads the indie “Coup!,” told IndieWire that he’s wary of the villain label despite audiences wanting to classify characters a certain way.

“It’s funny because for me, obviously with ‘Presumed Innocent’ now, to me I’m not a villain in that. I’m just a guy who lives by himself. I’m playing a decent person in that,” Sarsgaard said. “I’m playing a decent person in ‘Memory,’ the movie that I won the Golden Cup [the Best Actor award at the 2023 Venice Film Festival] for. I’m playing a decent person in ‘Dopesick.

Billy Magnussen is still riding out that magic carpet at Disney.

The actor told IndieWire that his long-awaited “Aladdin” spinoff is still in the works, despite the Disney+ feature being announced back in 2019. The film will center around Magnussen’s character Prince Anders from Guy Ritchie’s live action remake of the Disney classic, and was billed as being a standalone feature separate from the slated “Aladdin” sequel.

“The pandemic happened when we were really putting it together,” Magnussen told IndieWire of the Prince Anders film when promoting his upcoming indie “Coup!,” which he stars in and produced. “There were a few changes with a few companies. It’s not dead. Every day is creating these beautiful stories. In my career, I just like doing fun stuff. What would I want to see and what would I want to hang out and do? So no, it’s not dead. It’s still going.

Peter Sarsgaard is more than presumably done with “Presumed Innocent.”

The Apple TV+ series, which also starred Sarsgaard’s frequent collaborator and brother-in-law Jake Gyllenhaal, was renewed for a second season in July 2024. While Gyllenhaal will return as an executive producer along with David E. Kelley and J.J. Abrams, there is no casting news yet. It is likely the limited legal-thriller series will be reimagined as an anthology series: Apple’s announcement teased only that Season 2 will “unfold around a suspenseful, brand new case.”

Either way, it will be without Sarsgaard as prosecutor Tommy Molto. The actor told IndieWire that he will not be appearing in “Presumed Innocent” Season 2, and instead opts to never revisit any of his past roles.

“I’m not really that interested in sequels. I think I’ve only ever done one season of anything… I think I’m a one-season person,” Sarsgaard said while promoting his upcoming indie film “Coup!.

A chef starts a revolt against the wealthy people he serves. Does that premise sound familiar? We’re not talking about the Anya Taylor-Joy vehicle The Menu; we’re talking about Coup!, a new comedy by Joseph Schuman and Austin Stark that premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival. Although Coup! has a strong premise and a talented cast, its dark humor or themes don’t go far enough to make a lasting impression as a social satire.

Coup! Review

Coup! is a satirical comedy following a mischievous cook who takes a job as a private chef for a wealthy family on an idyllic seaside estate as the world shuts down due to the outbreak of the Spanish flu in 1918. The premise seems like it would be ripe for hijinks, but the conflict is much tamer than one would expect.

It’s admittedly difficult — if not impossible — to watch...

For a film that opens with a sepia-toned newsreel montage aimed at situating its plot at a precise historical moment, and includes Upton Sinclair (Fisher Stevens) among its cast of characters, Joseph Schuman and Austin Stark’s Coup! feels strangely dislocated from time. Given that the setting is an island off the mid-Atlantic coast during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, this comes off as intentional, if only to a degree. In isolation, as anyone who experienced a Covid lockdown knows, time becomes a strange beast indeed. When we’re cut adrift from the routines of work and social obligation, our sense of historical continuity begins to wink out like a dying fluorescent bulb, and the film’s characters experience the same phenomenon.

Coup! follows an enigmatic rogue, Floyd Monk (Peter Sarsgaard), who passes himself off as a cook in order to gain employment at an island estate a boat ride from New York City.

"You're blaming everyone but yourself" Greenwich Ent. has revealed the official trailer for a wacky indie film called Coup!, from filmmakers Joseph Schuman & Austin Stark. This originally premiered at last year's 2023 Venice Film Festival in the Directors' Fortnight (Giornate degli Autori) sidebar. Set during the Spanish Flu of 1918, a rebellious servant leads a revolt against his wealthy employer. It's now ready for an art house release starting in August this summer - it's opening in less than a month. Isolated on a seaside estate, an entitled journalist (Billy Magnussen) and his socialite wife (Sarah Gadon) take in a mysterious grifter as a private cook (Peter Sarsgaard). When a plague descends on the island, the wily cook rouses his fellow staff to rebel and take over the mansion. Their wealthy employer suspects the cook's coup is part of a dangerous agenda, and mind games between master and servant escalate into boisterous class warfare.

Billy Magnussen always understands the assignment. Whatever the medium or genre, the actor manages to stand out with an impressive range. He has literally played a Disney prince — twice! — in the film versions of “Into the Woods” and “Aladdin.” He earned a Tony nomination for his role as a dimwitted young lover in “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” and has stood out in ensemble films like “Game Night” and “The Big Short.”

But Magnussen also excels at playing the bad guy, such as the tech billionaire who installs a tracking device in his ex-wife in “Made for Love” to a Nazi officer in “The Survivor.” But never more deliciously than in “Road House,” a reimaging of the 1989 Patrick Swayze classic. The new version, hitting Amazon Prime Video this week, stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a former UFC fighter who becomes a bouncer at a roadhouse in the Florida Keys.

The upcoming Peacock series adaptation based on the Liz Moore novel “Long Bright River” has added three new series regulars, Variety has learned.

Ashleigh Cummings, Callum Vinson, and John Doman have all joined the show alongside previously announced lead Amanda Seyfried as well as Nicholas Pinnock.

The series is described as a suspense thriller that “tells the story of Mickey (Seyfried), a police officer who patrols a Philadelphia neighborhood hard-hit by the opioid crisis. When a series of murders begins in the neighborhood, Mickey realizes that her personal history might be related to the case.”

Cummings recently appeared in the Amazon epic spy series “Citadeal” and also starred in the AMC series “NOS4A2” and the 2019 feature “The Goldfinch.” Vinson previously appeared in the Syfy series “Chucky,” based on the “Child’s Play” franchise, and the 2023 film “Coup!” among other titles. Doman is known for his roles on shows like HBO’s “The Wire,...

Exclusive: Annette Bening is joining Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Frankenstein lore feature at Warner Bros; the studio making it official that this is a go-project. Cameras roll in Q1. This package with its attachments has been out there since it was at Netflix, and the deals have finally closed with everyone. Jessie Buckley is the star of the movie which follows Frankenstein’s pursuit of love.

There’s already been word out there about the cast, including Buckley, and it’s a murderers’ row with Christian Bale, Penélope Cruz, and Peter Sarsgaard. Bale and Buckley have been circling this project well before the strikes.

Logline: A lonely Frankenstein travels to 1930s Chicago to seek the aide of a Dr. Euphronius in creating a companion for himself. The two reinvigorate a murdered young woman and the Bride is born. She is beyond what either of them intended, igniting a combustible romance, the...

Exclusive: Billy Magnussen (Coup!) and Alexandra Shipp (Barbie) will topline Violent Ends, a Southern revenge thriller written and directed by John-Michael Powell that has wrapped production in Northwest Arkansas.

Actors rounding out the cast of the film from Midnight Road Entertainment include James Badge Dale (Hightown), Nick Stahl (Showtime’s Let the Right One In), Emmy winner Kate Burton (Dumb Money), and Academy Award winner Ray McKinnon (Knox Goes Away). Check out a first look still below.

A tale of star-crossed lovers set against the backdrop of the Ozark Mountains, Violent Ends chronicles the life of Lucas Frost (Magnussen), an honest man brought up in a crime family whose only legacy is violence. As Lucas tries to make his own life with his fiancée, Emma (Shipp), he is suddenly pulled back into the family business he so despises when his cousin, Eli, perpetrates an armed robbery on a local scrap...

Neo Sora’s concert documentary “Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus,” a standout at the Venice Film Festival, has sold for theatrical distribution in North America to Janus Films ahead of its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival.

The theatrical release will be followed by a Blu-ray Disc release on the “Janus Contemporaries” label.

This is the latest deal inked by London and Paris-based production, finance and sales outfit Film Constellation, following a slew of sales to Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Midas Filmes), Germany and Austria (Rapid Eye), Scandinavia (NjutaFilms), Baltics (Kino Pavasaris), South Korea (Media Castle), China (Jl Vision Films), Hong Kong and Macau (Edko Films), Taiwan (Cai Chang) and Singapore (Anticipate Pictures). Bitters End will release the film in Japan in 2024.

On March 28, 2023, legendary composer Sakamoto Ryuichi died after his struggle against cancer. In the years leading up to his death, Sakamoto could no longer perform live. Single concerts,...

That perky exclamation point sets the tone for “Coup!,” a story of murder, class struggle, One Percent entitlement and a global pandemic that nonetheless unfolds with all the eager, scrappy energy of an off-Broadway musical, minus most of the songs. The pandemic in question is not the one you’re thinking of — Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman’s puckish comic thriller unfolds against the dire backdrop of the 1918 Spanish Flu — but it also sort of is, as its study of wealthy exceptionalism in a time of national crisis is clearly intended to chime with more recent memories of regimented distancing and mixed safety messages from on high.

Starring Peter Sarsgaard as a wily cook entering the quarantined estate of Billy Magnussen’s upper-class journalist — and taking advantage of their isolation to start a servant uprising — this is quick, nippy entertainment that raises plenty of sociopolitical talking points without digging too deep into any of them.

Although Coup! has a small cast and unfolds mostly in a secluded mansion during the 1918 influenza pandemic, it packs a lot of flavor, suspense and droll comedy into its slim 97-minute running time, making it fun enough to deserve an exclamation point in its title. Peter Sarsgaard offers a sly, juicy performance as a shady chef who weasels his way into the home of an entitled young heir (Billy Magnussen). Soon, the upstart is turning the servants and family members against the hypocritical patriarch, who fancies himself a progressive. A collaborative effort between writer-directors Austin Stark (The God Committee, The Runner) and Joseph Schuman, this satirical work is hardly profound or subtle about the parallels with the present-day class conflict, but it wears its screw-the-rich subtext with insouciant breeziness.

In the opening minutes, Sarsgaard’s Floyd Monk is met shaving off his beard and styling his mustache, seemingly to make...

The life of an idiotic leftist journalist, isolating in his mansion, is upended by the real world in the form of Peter Sarsgaard’s mutinous chef in this broad, fun caper

The revolution begins at home in Coup!, an energetic, bantamweight drama from directors Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman that brings down the curtain on this year’s Venice Days sidebar at the film festival. Specifically, in this case, it begins at the seaside home of Jc Horton (Billy Magnussen), a crusading leftist journalist at the time of the 1918 Spanish flu.

Horton bashes his typewriter keys in a righteous fury. Sheltering on his estate, he reports on life inside the plague-ridden city, describing the brave proletariats and the brutal police officers; the bodies heaped in the street and the rain of billy clubs upon heads. His wife turns the pages and is suitably impressed. She says: “It does feel like you were really there.

The kind of self-flaggellation the Left does is something you never see from the Right.

The Left’s fears about being in a bubble, about not doing enough to understand the other side, about their own overreach, are a phenomenon unique to liberals. There does not need to be a New York Times Pitchbot for the Right. Ben Shapiro is not issuing a blistering movie review takedown of a Dinesh D’Souza documentary that went too far and didn’t listen enough to the other side.

And now there’s “Coup!” Politically muddled at best, something Ron DeSantis would happily introduce at Cpac at worst, this populist satire from directors Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman is an Adam McKay-lite class-war confection looking to have it both ways. Its “eat the rich” message is certainly strong enough for those with an extremely niche grievance: Those who, three years later, want to...

London and Paris-based Film Constellation has taken international sales on Egyptian director Abu Bakr Shawky’s hotly anticipated Saudi-set adventure movie “Hajjan,” ahead of its Toronto Film Festival world premiere.

“Hajjan,” which will launch from Toronto’s Discovery section, is a followup to Shawky’s first feature “Yomeddine,” which had the rare distinction of making the competition cut for Cannes.

Somewhat similarly to “Yomeddine” – which involved the desert voyage of a leper, a donkey, and a child – “Hajjan” also involves a journey across the desert, this time embarked upon by a young orphan boy and his beloved camel. The big-budget film, which was shot mostly in the sprawling area situated along Saudi’s Red Sea coast in Tabuk, in the northwest of the kingdom, is about a young boy named Matar who, after the death of his brother on the camel race track, tries to avenge his death. To do...

The 1 percent may be enjoying some serious #lifegoals at the minute, but they’ve been having something of a tough time on screen. Parasite, Triangle of Sadness and The Menu are just a few recent films that have shifted the power dynamics away from the super wealthy and into the hands of those grubby lower classes, with sometimes deadly results. Coup! — from Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman, who both wrote and directed, and closing the Venice Days sidebar — is set to join this growing list.

Set during the 1918 Spanish Flu, the darkly comic thriller stars Billy Magnussen as Jay, a progressive, velvet-slippered U.S. journalist sheltering from the chaos with his family — and their servants — on a swanky island estate (all the while penning angry articles that suggest he’s in the thick of it in New York). But when Peter Sarsgaard’s mysterious grifter Floyd shows up as their cook,...

Exclusive: There has been mystery for weeks over which Hollywood talent will attend the Venice Film Festival amid the two strikes but the clouds are finally starting to lift.

We’ve confirmed with sources that Ferrari star Adam Driver will be on the Lido next week to promote Michael Mann’s anticipated new movie, thus becoming the biggest U.S. actor to date to commit to the festival. The Daily Mail first reported that news.

Ferrari secured an interim agreement from SAG a while back so this isn’t hugely surprising but there was still a question over whether SAG actors would feel uncomfortable over the ‘optics’. They may still. But SAG-AFTRA leadership were adamant yesterday that actors in movies with interim agreements should be at festivals to promote them. Their message: this is helpful to independent cinema and the cause. That affirmation from SAG helped a number of actors make up their minds.

The Giornate Degli Autori — the independently run event that takes place alongside the Venice Film Festival and is often referred to simply as Venice Days — has unveiled the lineup for its 2023 edition (also it’s 20th).

Among the 10 titles world premiering in competition is Elise Girard’s drama Sidonie in Japan, starring Isabelle Huppert as a French writer mourning her husband’s death while on a book tour. Out of competition, Coup! — a satire set during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic and starring Peter Sarsgaard and Billy Magnussen — will bow, while special events include the world premiere of This Is How a Child Becomes a Poet, a short from Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma (who was previously president of the Venice Days jury). There will also be a special daylong event in honor of late Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée, including a screening of his 2005 drama C.R.A.Z.Y.

Venice...

French director Élise Girard’s “Sidonie in Japan,” starring Isabelle Huppert as a French writer mourning her husband’s death while on a book tour of Japan, is among titles set to launch from the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori.

The section, also known as Venice Days, has unveiled its lineup comprising 10 titles world premiering in competition – six of which are first works – and in other sections displaying a wide range of genres and visual styles, but tied together by “a common discourse,” said the section’s artistic director Gaia Furrer.

The selected films “with all their thematic or formal eclecticism, still dialogue with each other,” Furrer said in a statement.

Opening the section in competition is Italian director Tommaso Santambrogio’s black-and-white drama “Oceans Are the Real Continents,” set and shot in decadent contemporary Cuba (see image below). This is Santambrogio’s first feature, but...

Exclusive: Billy Magnussen (No Time to Die) has signed on to star alongside Zach Galifianakis and newcomer Maia Kealoha in Disney’s live-action Lilo & Stitch film directed by 2023 Oscar nominee Dean Fleischer Camp (Marcel the Shell With Shoes On), Deadline has learned.

The studio had no comment, and the roles of both Galifianakis and Magnussen are under wraps, though it’s understood that Kealoha will be playing Lilo in the feature bound for Disney+. And while it’s unclear how the sequel’s plot will compare to the original 2022 animated film, that Hawaii-set story charted the friendship between a lonely girl named Lilo and the alien, Stitch, engineered to be a force of destruction.

Chris Kekaniokalani Bright wrote the forthcoming film, from a previous draft by Mike Van Waes. Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich will produce for Rideback, with Ryan Halprin exec producing for the company.

Magnussen has recently been...

Exclusive: Principal photography has wrapped in New Jersey on Coup!, a period satire starring Peter Sarsgaard and directed by Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman.

Deadline can also share a first-look image from the pic above.

London and Paris-based production, finance, and sales company Film Constellation is handling world sales and is bringing the pic to the EFM.

Set on a seaside estate in the United States during the 1918 Spanish Flu, the pic follows a rebellious servant who spearheads an uprising against his wealthy employer.

Sarsgaard stars alongside Billy Magnussen, Sarah Gadon, and Skye P. Marshall (Matlock).

Coup! is produced by Brian Levy for Entertainment 360, Warner Davis and Todd Friedman at Hemlock Circle Productions, and Molly Conners, Amanda Bowers, and Jane Sinisi for Phiphen alongside Harris Gurny.