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The Bold and the Beautiful (B&b) spoilers tease that Taylor Hayes (Rebecca Budig) spills all about her fatal heart condition to her baby daddy Ridge Forrester (Thorsten Kaye).

It’s the reason she’s back in LA, and she had every intention of keeping her health status secret. But after Ridge sees her collapse, he needles her until she spills that a Euro doc gave her a grim prognosis.

The Bold And The Beautiful Spoilers – Taylor Haye’s Grim Prognosis

Ridge is blindsided by the sad news and pushes her to get a second opinion. You would have thought that Taylor, being a doctor herself, would have realized the wisdom of confirming her diagnosis but let’s let that go for now.

What matters is that Ridge has the good sense to insist that she have another consultation being as how his dad Eric Forrester (John McCook) was saved from...

On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.

First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.

Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.

The Pitch: Kate Winslet Brings the Heat to a Wild, Well-Dressed Revenge Dramedy

To paraphrase Moira Rose, “If you love female rage as much as I do, you’ll thrill to Kate Winslet in the underseen Australian movie ‘The Dressmaker.‘”

“The Dressmaker” exists in an odd lull in Winslet’s career. Post-Oscar win for “The Reader,” she appeared in a slew of Ok period films and the “Divergent” series — which meant no one was really looking for the next great Winslet performance. Too bad, because one of her best is at...

Acorn TV has announced the titles that will be available on the AMC-owned streaming service in September 2024. The Acorn TV September 2024 slate adds to the service’s various acclaimed English and foreign-language dramas, engaging comedies, documentaries, and more.

The September schedule includes new episodes of Under the Vines Season 3, Candice Renoir Season 10, The Long Shadow, and more.

Under the Vines Season 3 Acorn TV September 2024 Highlights

Under the Vines Season 3 (Acorn TV Original Series) – New Episodes Premiere Every Monday Until the Season Finale on September 16

Former Sydney socialite Daisy Monroe (Rebecca Gibney) and ex-London lawyer Louis Oakley (Charles Edwards) continue to run a small vineyard in New Zealand while navigating their complicated love lives. Six months after we last saw them, Daisy and Louis are trying to oust William, the mysterious stranger who arrived at the end of season two claiming half of Oakley.

But it seems the annoying shanty...

Earlier this summer we had to endure the misbegotten Summer Camp which was yet another attempt by Diane Keaton, joined by Kathy Bates and Alfre Woodard, to mix comedy and later-in-life drama in an older female bonding flick. Keaton had great success in the first film that announced this subgenre, 2018’s Book Club, which smartly matched four veteran actresses including Jane Fonda that led to a more mixed-results sequel set in Italy. Fonda also found real success in the subgenre with the entertaining 80 For Brady with Sally Field, Rita Moreno and Lily Tomlin along for the ride. Thus it seemed natural that other beloved female stars of a certain age would also want to jump on board in this game attempt to reverse Hollywood’s youth obsession and provide a little something-something for aging boomers everywhere.

The Fabulous Four is the latest to try out the formula, and at least...

Whether they travel in groups of three or four, accomplished women of a certain age and their wacky adventures are having a movie moment. The latest entry in this subgenre is a frothy outing that sometimes falls flat, but at least The Fabulous Four doesn’t oversell its theme of friendship or its aha moments of catharsis.

Whatever the feature’s shortcomings, its title is not false advertising; there’s nothing ho-hum about the central quartet of characters, longtime friends who gather when one of them decides, on very short notice, that she’s getting married. As with Book Club, though, the fabulosity is more about the actors — in this case, two true icons (Susan Sarandon and Bette Midler) and two supreme masters of quippery (Sheryl Lee Ralph and Megan Mullally). The opening credits are a valentine to all four.

Director Jocelyn Moorhouse is no stranger to powerhouse female casts,...

Bleecker Street’s new comedy “The Fabulous Four” finds Bette Midler doing what she does best: broad comedy with a touch of poignancy peeking out from just beneath the surface.

It’s a quality that characterizes many of Midler’s most memorable performances in films like “The First Wives Club,” “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” and “That Old Feeling,” and according to Midler, it’s been part of her approach since the beginning.

“When I worked live, starting from the time I was 19, I was very much aware of the melancholy underneath certain kinds of scenes,” Midler told IndieWire in a recent interview. “There’s a musical term for it: contrapuntal. ‘Miss M’ is loud and boisterous on the outside, but there’s an undercurrent of despair because it’s very hard to be a human being.”

In “The Fabulous Four,” Midler plays a widow who surprises her friends...

Bleecker Street released the first trailer for The Fabulous Four, a wedding comedy with an iconic bridal party, during Sunday’s 77th Tony Awards.

The sneak peek sees Bette Midler, Susan Sarandon, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Megan Mullally‘s hilarious dynamic as a group of college friends who reunite for a last-minute destination wedding.

The Fabulous Four follows life-long friends who travel to Key West, Florida, to be bridesmaids in the surprise wedding of their best college girlfriend Marilyn (Midler). Over the course of one outrageous trip, sisterhoods are rekindled, the past resurfaces, and there are enough sparks, raunch, and romance to change all their lives in unexpected ways.

Midler, Sarandon and Mullally were announced to star in the comedy from director Jocelyn Moorhouse (The Dressmaker) in May 2022. Bleecker Street acquired the North American rights to the film that October, when Sissy Spacek joined the cast.

The trailer for “The Fabulous Four,” starring Bette Midler, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Megan Mullally and Susan Sarandon has dropped, wedding bells galore.

Per the film’s logline, “‘The Fabulous Four’ is an uproarious comedy about a group of life-long friends who travel to Key West, Fla., to be bridesmaids in the surprise wedding of their best college girlfriend Marilyn (Midler). Over the course of one outrageous trip, sisterhoods are rekindled, the past resurfaces and there are enough sparks, raunch and romance to change all their lives in unexpected ways.”

The trailer sees Marilyn remarrying just two months after her husband died, Lou (Sarandon) coming out of her cat-lady shell and Kitty (Ralph) questioning Lou about a kegel ball Marilyn gave her. The four gear up for Marilyn’s wedding, although not without some bumps in the road, like Marilyn getting dethroned on TikTok by Lou.

The film comes from Southpaw Entertainment and Hantz Motion Pictures,...

Bette Midler, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Megan Mullally and Susan Sarandon are having a very good time in the first trailer for The Fabulous Four.

The comedy follows lifelong friends who come together for what they think is a Key West vacation, only to find out it is the surprise wedding for their recently widowed girlfriend (Midler).

The new spot sees the four friends film TikToks, go parasailing and imbibe some champagne and weed. “Emotionally prepare yourself, Marilyn is on TikTok,” warns Mullally’s Alice, with Ralph’s Kitty offering a worried, “No!”

Jocelyn Moorhouse, who was behind Kate Winslet movie The Dressmaker, directed the movie from a script by Ann Marie Allison and Jenna Milly.

The Fabulous Four will hit theaters July 26 via Bleecker Street.

Exclusive: Sheryl Lee Ralph (Abbott Elementary), Timothy V. Murphy (Appaloosa) and Bruce Greenwood (The Fall of the House of Usher) have boarded The Fabulous Four, a new comedy from Bleecker Street, which has entered production in Georgia under an Interim Agreement from SAG-AFTRA.

Timothy V. Murphy and Bruce Greenwood

The actors join an ensemble that also includes Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, and Megan Mullally, as previously announced. Ralph takes over the role of Sissy Spacek, who was attached as of last fall but was forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Bleecker Street nabbed North American rights to the pic last October and will release the film in U.S. theaters in 2024. UTA Independent Film Group and CAA Media Finance arranged the financing and brokered the deal for U.S. rights, with Sierra/Affinity repping international sales.

Written and directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, the Cannes prize-winner best known for...

Exclusive: In a competitive situation, Australian actor James Mackay has signed with Elevate Entertainment.

Mackay made his feature film debut in Guillermo del Toro’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) starring alongside Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce. In the remake of the 1973 TV movie of the same name, a family moves to Rhode Island where the patriarch Alex Hurst (Pearce) and his girlfriend (Katie Holmes) are restoring a 19th-century mansion. Alex’s daughter Sally (Bailee Madison) discovers a hidden, long-undisturbed basement and unwittingly unleashes a race of dark-dwelling creatures. Mackay portrayed the librarian.

In the 2015 film The Dressmaker, Mackay starred as William Beaumont working opposite Kate Winslet and Sarah Snook. Other film credits include Searchlight’s Battle of the Sexes alongside Emma Stone and Steve Carrell, Hacksaw Ridge for Lionsgate opposite Andrew Garfield and Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, among others.

On the television side,...

Rebel Wilson is setting her eye on the director’s chair.

The actress is set to make her directorial debut with a screen adaptation of the hit musical The Deb.

The film will be a joint production between Wilson’s Camp Sugar Productions and award-winning Australian producer Bunya Productions.

Read More: Rebel Wilson Shares New Photos Of Baby Daughter In Adorable Mother’s Day Post

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“’The Deb’ is my type of movie — full of humour, full of heart, and uniquely Australian but with universal themes. It came out of my scholarship program at the non-profit Australian Theatre for Young People, a program that I’m very proud of and has had incredible success. If there was ever a movie I was going to direct, it would be this one,” said the actress. “This project is just so special and original.

Rebel Wilson is getting behind the camera and has lined up her first feature as director.

The Deb, in which Wilson will also co-star, will be a musical comedy set in rural Australia, produced by Amanda Ghost, Len Blavatnik, and Gregor Cameron via their company Unigram (Tetris) and sister company AI Film (I, Tonya, Hacksaw Ridge).

Adapted from of the original hit musical of the same name — which debuted to critical acclaim in Australia — The Deb will be produced in partnership with Rebel Wilson’s Camp Sugar Productions (Senior Year, The Hustle) and award-winning Australian producer Bunya Productions (The Drover’s Wife, Mystery Road). Danny Cohen executive produces on behalf of Blavatnik’s Access Entertainment.

Originally premiering at Sydney’s Australian Theatre for Young People (Atyp) in 2022, The Deb stage production was written by Hannah Reilly (Sheilas, Growing up Gracefully) and includes original songs from singer-songwriter Meg Washington (The Beach...

Sales company also takes on Janis Pugh’s Great 8 selection ‘Chuck Chuck Baby.’

The Yellow Affair has boarded international sales for Mark Leonard Winter’s feature directorial debut The Rooster starring Hugo Weaving (The Lord Of The Rings) and Phoenix Raei (The Night Agent).

When the body of his oldest friend is found buried in a shallow grave, a small-town cop, forms a strange relationship with a volatile hermit who may have been the last person to see his friend alive.

Winter is an acclaimed actor who previously appeared in The Dressmaker, Elvis and Top of the Lake: China Girl.

When it was announced that "The Hunger Games" star Liam Hemsworth would be replacing Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia on "The Witcher," fan reactions ranged from perplexity to downright rage. Cavill has served as the leading monster slayer on the hit Netflix series' first two seasons and upcoming third, but due to what is presumably scheduling conflicts regarding Cavill's return to the DC Extended Universe as Superman, Hemsworth will be stepping into the role for season 4. In Cavill's statement regarding the replacement, he called Hemsworth "fantastic," and indicated he found him to be a worthy successor as the White Wolf.

"As with the greatest of literary characters, I pass the torch with reverence for the time spent embodying Geralt and enthusiasm to see Liam's take on this most fascinating and nuanced of men," he said. "Liam, good sir, this character has such a wonderful depth to him, enjoy diving...

Bleecker Street has acquired “The Fabulous Four,” a feel-good comedy featuring Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler and Megan Mullally.

Sissy Spacek has also newly joined the cast as the final member of the titular fearsome foursome.

The film, directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse (“The Dressmaker”) from a script she co-wrote with Jenna Milly and Ann Marie Allison, is going into production in early 2023 in Australia. Bleecker Street is planning a nationwide theatrical release, though the exact timing is yet to be determined.

“The Fabulous Four” will follow three life-long friends who travel to Key West, Fla., to be bridesmaids in a surprise wedding of their college girlfriend Marilyn (Midler). Once there, sisterhoods are rekindled, the past rises up again in all its glory, and there’s enough sparks, drinks and romance to change all their lives in ways they never expected.

Richard Barton Lewis of Southpaw Entertainment will produce “The Fabulous Four...

Bleecker Street has taken North American rights to the comedy The Fabulous Four, starring Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon (Feud: Bette and Joan), two-time Academy Award nominee Bette Midler (Hocus Pocus 2) and two-time Emmy winner Megan Mullally (Will & Grace), with Academy Award winner Sissy Spacek (Sam & Kate) coming aboard to round out its core cast.

Production is scheduled to kick off in Australia in early 2023, with Bleecker Street planning a nationwide theatrical release. Sierra/Affinity is repping international rights.

The film from director Jocelyn Moorhouse (The Dressmaker) follows three life-long friends who travel to Key West, Florida to be bridesmaids in the surprise wedding of their college girlfriend Marilyn (Midler). Once there, sisterhoods are rekindled, the past rises up again in all its glory, and there’s enough sparks, drinks and romance to change all their lives in ways they never expected.

The Fabulous Four...

Rising star Phoenix Raei joins Hugo Weaving as the lead of “The Rooster,” an Australian mystery drama film in which a small-town cop discovers the dead body of his best friend.

The film, which has just completed principal photography in Victoria state, is directed by actor Mark Leonard Winter (“Escape From Pretoria”), making his debut as a feature director.

As performers, Weaving and Winter have previously appeared together in “Measure for Measure” and “The Dressmaker.”

Raei, who has recent credits in “Clickbait,” “Stateless” and “The Night Agent,” stars in “The Rooster” as the cop who confronts Weaving’s volatile character, a forest-dwelling hermit who was the last person known to have seen his pal.

Other cast include: Helen Thomson, Rhys Mitchell, Bert La Bonte, John Waters, Camilla Ah Kin, Robert Menzies and Deirdre Rubenstein.

“ ‘The Rooster’ is a gripping story about friendship and how hope can come from unlikely places.

A comedy for older audiences is entering the Cannes market as Sierra/Affinity announced on Wednesday that it will launch international sales next week for “The Fabulous Four,” which will be directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse (“The Dressmaker”) and stars Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler and “Will and Grace” Emmy winner Megan Mullally.

Sarandon and Mullally will play two lifelong friends who are invited by an old college mate, played by Midler, to be bridesmaids at her wedding in Key West. Filming is currently scheduled to begin in Key West in September with Richard Barton Lewis producing through Southpaw Entertainment with Gabrielle Jerou-Tabak as executive producer.

Sarandon, who won an Oscar for her famous performance in “Thelma & Louise,” is also slated to play the DC Comics villain Victoria Kord in next year’s “Blue Beetle,” as first reported by TheWrap’s Umberto Gonzalez. Midler, an Oscar nominee for “The First Wives Club,...

Exclusive: Oscar winner Susan Sarandon (Thelma & Louise), Oscar nominee Bette Midler (The First Wives Club) and Emmy winner Megan Mullally (Will And Grace) are attached to star in The Fabulous Four from director Jocelyn Moorhouse (The Dressmaker).

The feel-good comedy will follow two life-long friends who travel to Key West to be bridesmaids in a surprise wedding of their college girlfriend Marilyn (Midler). When there, sisterhoods are rekindled, the past rises up, and sparks, drinks and romance fly.

The plan is to start pre-production in July and begin filming in September in Atlanta, Georgia and Key West, Florida.

Sierra/Affinity is launching international sales next week in Cannes and the project will likely have strong appeal for those in need of humour and diversion and looking to tap into the mature audience quadrant. CAA Media Finance and UTA Independent Film Group are representing the North American distribution rights.

Laura Dern (Jurassic World Dominion) and Liam Hemsworth (Poker Face) have signed on to star in the film Lonely Planet, which Susannah Grant (Unbelievable) is writing and directing for Netflix.

Lonely Planet is billed as a love story set in Morocco. Specifics with regard to its plot are being kept under wraps. Grant is also producing alongside Sarah Timberman and Liza Chasin for 3dot Productions, with VP Studio Film Kira Goldberg serving as creative lead for Netflix.

The film continues the creative partnership between Netflix and 3dot, which has thus far produced the streamer’s upcoming thriller series, Anatomy of a Scandal, based on the book by Sarah Vaughan. 3dot entered into a multi-year, first-look film deal with Netflix in 2019, with adaptations of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestseller The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Diane Cardwell’s memoir Rockaway also upcoming.

Grant is an Oscar- and three-time Emmy nominee...

Production in Australia’s Victoria state has begun on “Savage River,” a six-part crime thriller being directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the U.S. distributor Dynamic Television.

The show, about a female ex-con who is accused of a fresh murder in her small-town home, stars Katherine Langford. As she attempts to prove her innocence she discovers long-buried secrets that cast doubt on everything she thought she knew.

Langford is joined by Jacqueline McKenzie, Cooper Van Grootel, Nadine Garner (“The Doctor Blake Mysteries”), James Mackay (“Dynasty”), Bernard Curry (“Wentworth”), Mark Coles Smith (“Mystery Road: Origin”), Virginia Gay, Daniel Henshall (“Snowtown”), Amesh Edireweera (“The Serpent”) and Osamah Sami (“Ali’s Wedding”). Additional cast, some undertaking their first major role, include Miranda Anwar, Maia Abbas, Haya Abbas, Bill Zeng and Hattie Hook.

The 6×57 minute series is co-created by writers Belinda Bradley, Franz Docherty and lead writer Giula Sandler. After...

The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (Aacta) has announced winners of the 11th Aacta International Awards, with Netflix’s The Power Of The Dog scoring three trophies. (Scroll down for the full list of laureates.)

The Jane Campion-directed western took prizes for Best Film, Best Lead Actor in Film (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Best Supporting Actor for Australia’s own Kodi Smit-Mcphee.

Aaron Sorkin’s Amazon Studios’ biopic Being The Ricardos won two AACTAs, for Lead Actress Nicole Kidman and for Sorkin’s screenplay. This is Kidman’s 7th Aacta.

Coming into the awards, Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast led the pack of nominees, converting one to a win for Judi Dench’s Supporting Actress turn.

Last year, Aacta extended the awards to include global TV, giving Best Drama Series to Succession this year while The White Lotus was voted Best Comedy Series. Murray Bartlett took the prize for Best...

The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (Aacta) announced the winners for the 11th annual Aacta International Awards, with Nicole Kidman nabbing her 7th Aacta award for her portrayal of Lucille Ball in “Being the Ricardos.”

Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” dominated the film categories with three wins — best film; best lead actor for Benedict Cumberbatch; and best supporting actor for Australian actor Kodi Smit-McPhee.

“Belfast” star Judi Dench won the best supporting actress prize, while “Dune” filmmaker Denis Villeneuve picked up the award for best direction in film. Aaron Sorkin won the screenplay prize for his “Being the Ricardos” script.

In the television categories, Kidman and Smit-McPhee’s fellow Australian, “The White Lotus” star Murray Bartlett was named best actor in a series, revealing his win exclusively to Variety’s Marc Malkin on his “Just For Variety” podcast.

“Your home country celebrating you and acknowledging...

In the Aquarius Films and ABC drama Savage River, Jocelyn Moorhouse was offered the kind of mini-series she’d love to watch herself.

The Dressmaker director is an enthusiastic binge watcher of crime mysteries and Scandi-noir – particularly those with great female characters – so the Katherine Langford-led series was right up her alley.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve always wanted to do one of these, and here it is.’ It’s dark, brooding and really well plotted,” she tells If.

Now three weeks into pre-production, Savage River was officially announced as part of the ABC’s upfronts today. Production will begin early next year in Melbourne and regional Victoria.

Langford plays Miki Anderson, a young woman who returns to her hometown in rural Victoria after eight years in prison.

She’s determined to finally move on with her life, getting a job in the local meatworks, but the...

This year’s Mill Valley Film Festival marks the much-anticipated return of movies, and audiences, to theaters, but the Northern California event founded in 1977 retains some lingering influences of the pandemic, with both in-person and online viewing options. With the Delta variant raging, the festival’s founder and director Mark Fishkin notes that the logistics for the fest’s hybrid-style return are even more challenging than before.

“This year everything has been changing so rapidly it has caused a lot of sleepless nights,” he says.

But the fest, which runs Oct. 7-17, also features a bevy of screenings and events that stand to make the Bay Area gathering one of its most hotly anticipated. Joe Wright’s “Cyrano” will bow opening night, with Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” closing the fest. Mike Mill’s “C’mon C’mon” is the centerpiece feature film. The fest will also spotlight Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino,...

U.S. TV distributor Dynamic Television has picked up worldwide distribution rights to Australian crime thriller series “Savage River.”

The show, about a female ex-con who is accused of a fresh murder, is directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse and stars Katherine Langford.

The 6×57 minute series is co-created by writers Belinda Bradley, Franz Docherty and lead writer Giula Sandler. After being developed and commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the show is produced by Aquarius Films, whose principals Angie Fielder and Polly Staniford also take writing credits.

The production, filming in Melbourne and regional Victoria state, received major production investment from the federal government’s Screen Australia and additional financial support from Film Victoria and The Post Lounge.

The crew is top notch. It includes: Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Don McAlpine; production designer Jo Ford; costume designer Maria Pattison and composer David Hirschfelder.

The story involves a woman who returns to her hometown after eight years in prison.

Joan Washington, a veteran dialect and voice coach and the wife of Oscar nominee Richard E. Grant, died Wednesday. Grant posted the news on social media Friday morning but did not provide details.

“Only You Joan – Love of my Life & Giver of Life to our daughter Olivia,” Grant wrote in a tweet that includes a video of the couple dancing and smiling (see it below). “Our hearts are broken with the loss of your life last night. 35 years married and 38 together. To be truly known and seen by you is your immeasurable gift. Do not forget us, sweet Monkee-mine.”

Washington began her career working as a dialect coach on Barbra Streisand’s 1983 movie Yentl. She had worked steadily in film and TV since then, contribution voice and/or dialect instruction on such titles as The Dressmaker, Highlander, Brassed Off, 101 Dalmatians and its sequel, Elizabeth, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,...

Actor and director Wayne Blair and producers Rosemary Blight, Kylie du Fresne and Darren Dale are among the Australians that have been invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

Other invitees include VFX artists Genevieve Camilleri and Matt Everitt, who were nominated for an Oscar this year for their work on Love and Monsters, costume designer Margot Wilson and composer Amanda Brown.

Joining the short film and animation branch is Charles Williams, whose All These Creatures won the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Palme d’Or in 2018.

This year the Oscars body invited 395 new members from 50 countries. Forty-six per cent of all invitees identify as women, while 39 per cent are from underrepresented ethnic/racial communities. More than half (53 per cent) come from outside the United States. Some 25 are Oscar winners, and 89 nominees.

Blair has been invited to join the directing branch, recognising his work in...

We’re not even halfway through the year, but 2021 is shaping up to be a record-breaker for Australian films at the box office.

So far, the 25 local films and documentaries to screen theatrically have grossed $67.5 million, according to Numero.

That number means this is already the second highest year for Australian film on record, having overtaken 2001’s annual result of $63.1 million (not adjusting for inflation).

Our best year at the box office was 2015, when ticket sales tallied $88 million, spurred on Mad Max: Fury Road, The Dressmaker, Oddball, The Water Diviner, Paper Planes and Last Cab To Darwin.

With more than half the year to go, that record could be surpassed come December. By way of comparison, in the first six months of 2015, receipts stood at $34 million.

This is an incredible result at the best of times, but is made more so by the fact exhibition is still disrupted by the...

As Fremantle gears up for a busy year ahead, it has made three new appointments to its development teams across Sydney and Melbourne: Warren Clarke, Monique Keller and Nikki Tran.

Clarke will be the head of development, scripted, reporting directly to Fremantle Asia Pacific CEO Chris Oliver-Taylor.

Co-creator of ABC’s The Heights, Clarke joins Fremantle from Matchbox, where he also helped to develop projects such as Secret City, Wanted and Hyde and Seek. He was also script producer for Oddlands, and wrote for Mustangs Fc.

Clarke said: “Fremantle has long been a creative powerhouse both domestically and internationally and I’m delighted to be joining their highly talented scripted team. I’m looking forward to collaborating with the industry’s leading writers and emerging creative talent and utilising Fremantle’s vast international network to take brilliantly crafted Australian stories to the global television landscape.”

Reporting to Clarke will be Tran,...

The first clapperboard is set to slam at the end of April on this movie which is directed by Thierry Binisti, steered by Ts Productions and sold by Be For Films. 29 April will see Thierry Binisti commence filming on his 3rd fiction feature film Le Prix du passage. Mostly known for A Bottle In The Gaza Sea, the director has assembled a cast composed of Alice Isaaz, Adam Bessa (seen in Blessed and hitting screens this year in Haute couture) and Belgium’s Catherine Salée (nominated for the Best Supporting Role Magritte in 2013, 2014, 2015 and...

The foundations have been laid for Docklands Studios Melbourne’s $46 million sixth sound stage.

Set to measure 3,700 sqm, construction company Kane Constructions is now erecting the steelwork for the main structure.

When completed, the stage will feature a 900,000 litre sub-floor tank (more than one third the capacity of an Olympic pool) for filming of underwater scenes.

Construction on the stage comes as production around the country booms, putting unprecedented demand on infrastructure, particularly studio space.

The stage’s construction has been supported by the Victorian state government, who unveiled the plans back in October 2019.

Docklands Studios Melbourne CEO Rod Allan said: “The stage will bring large international film and TV projects to the state, providing skills development and a long pipeline of work for cast and crew.

Artist’s impression of the stage’s interior.

“Stage Six will expand total stage capacity at the complex by more than 60 per cent,...

With continued paucity of product from the US and other international territories, Australian films remain the main event at the box office.

Showing incredible legs, Robert Connolly’s The Dry is still the no. 1 title, earning just under $1.2 million across its sixth weekend, a drop of just 18 per cent.

The mystery drama, based on the novel by Jane Harper, has now made $16.2 million in total for Roadshow Films. That figure makes The Dry the 17th highest grossing Australian film of all time (without adjusting for inflation), and the fourth highest performing local film of the last decade behind Lion, The Dressmaker and Red Dog.

Fellow Roadshow drama Penguin Bloom, directed by Glendyn Ivin and produced by the same production company as The Dry, Made Up Stories, remains in the number two spot. In its third frame, the Naomi Watts-starrer earned $729,269, a fall of 43 per cent, to bring takings to $5.2 million.

Justin Kurzel has assembled a high-profile cast to shoot “Nitram,” a feature film about a mass murder. He has also reteamed with writer Shawn Grant, who previously delivered the screenplay for Kurzel’s incendiary feature debut, 2011’s “The Snowtown Murders.”

The picture is now shooting and will play in theaters and screen as an original show for local streamer Stan in 2021. Overseas rights sales are being handled by Wild Bunch International.

The cast features Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis (“The Dressmaker”), Essie Davis (“True History of the Kelly Gang”) and Anthony Lapaglia (“Lantana”).

Stan describes “Nitram” as “a scripted feature film that looks at the events leading up to one of the darkest chapters in Australian history in an attempt to understand why and how this atrocity occurred.” But it avoids identifying the specific factual basis of the picture.

Australian media, however, have revealed that the film depicts the build...

The cast also includes Sabine Azéma, Maud Wyler and Laurent Poitrenaux. Produced by 31 Juin Films, this third feature from the director will be sold by Pyramide. Three more weeks of filming for Aurélia Georges’ La place d’une autre, the third feature from the director, after L'Homme qui marche (selected in the Acid competition in Cannes in 2007) and La fille et le fleuve (2014). The cast includes Lyna Khoudri, Sabine Azéma (winner of the Best Actress César award in 1985 and 1987 and nominated four other times), Maud Wyler (very well received in The Bare Necessity and a stand out in Alice and the Mayor) and Laurent Poitrenaux. Very freely...

Zac Efron has joined survival thriller “Gold,” an original film out of Australian streamer Stan.

Shopped to buyers at next week’s American Film Market (AFM), the film turns on two strangers traveling through a desert who stumble upon the biggest gold nugget ever found. When dreams of unimaginable wealth take hold, they devise a plan to protect and excavate their bounty with one man leaving to secure the necessary equipment.

Efron plays the man left behind, who comes up against unforgiving desert elements, ravenous wild dogs and mysterious intruders, all while wondering whether his partner is ever going to come back for him. Principal photography on the movie will begin in Australia this month — where film and TV production has been able to continue relatively unscathed during the Covid-19 crisis.

London-headquartered Altitude Film Sales will co-represent domestic sales on the film with CAA Media Finance. “Gold” will be released...

‘Lion’. (Photo: Mark Rogers)

What’s your favourite Australian film of the last decade?

That’s one of the questions Aacta is putting to the general public over the coming week as voting opens for its new Audience Choice Awards.

In contention for the film award are: Peter Rabbit, Red Dog, The Sapphires, The Great Gatsby, The Water Diviner, The Dressmaker, Lion, Ride Like A Girl and Mad Max: Fury Road.

While many of those nominated correspond to the Academy’s own ‘Best Film’ winners over the past 10 years, there are some notable exclusions – 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge, 2018’s Sweet Country and 2019’s The Nightingale.

The Favourite TV Drama of The Decade category sees each broadcaster score two nods – bar Sbs, who were snubbed. They include 10’s Offspring and Neighbours, ABC’s Mystery Road and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Foxtel’s Top of the Lake and Wentworth, Seven’s Molly and Home and Away,...

Frank Woodley.

Many producers fear the Federal Government’s sweeping media reforms will spell the death knell of Australian features, forcing them and some writers and directors to focus on content for streamers or free-to-air broadcasters.

Lowering the Producer Offset for films to 30 per cent from July 2021 will leave a gap of at least 25 per cent of the budgets which most producers will find impossible to fill, according to producer/distributor Sue Maslin.

“The exceptions will be largely foreign-financed films or local films with cast led by foreign actors making the most of Australian financial incentives, cast, crew and locations. That or extremely low budget films with little hope of competing in the cinema market,” the Film Art Media principal tells If.

“I find this summary dismissal of Australian cinema devastating and will be forced to relegate all feature films currently in development to the bottom drawer until we see...

From a washerwoman chased by De Sade to mindbending romcom with Jim Carrey, via Titanic: as Winslet reaps more acclaim for the forthcoming Ammonite, we put the free-spirited actor’s starry career in order

Points for ambition as Kate Winslet joined the comeback effort of Australian director Jocelyn “Proof” Moorhouse, who had not released a film since the mid-90s. Winslet plays a star dressmaker on a gruesome revenge trip back to the outback town where she grew up. Tonally, The Dressmaker is all over the place, but Winslet is game.

Stan Original ‘I Am Woman.’ (Photo credit: Lisa Tomasetti).

Stan has warned the Federal Government that mandating minimum levels of spending on Australian content would undermine the streaming industry’s ability to generate the revenues needed to invest in high-quality Australian productions.

Similarly, Amazon Prime Video opposes regulation that would oblige it to screen a prescribed number of hours of Australian programming on its service, claiming that would reduce the non-Australian content selection or lead to the “inclusion of low quality or low viewership content.”

In their submissions to the government’s ‘Supporting Australian Stories on Our Screens’ options paper review posted online this week, both endorse Netflix’s call for a voluntary investment model.

“This model would also mitigate the risk of introducing a new regulatory regime that suffered from the same shortcomings that have led to this review, which became necessary largely because the current content quota system...

Samuel Goldwyn Films has taken North American rights to Paul Ireland’s feature drama Measure for Measure starring Hugo Weaving. An on-demand and digital release is planned for Sept. 4.

The Paul Ireland directed, written and produced movie is inspired by the William Shakespeare play of the same name and follows the love affair between a modern Muslim girl and a local musician against the background of racial tension and gang culture in the city’s notorious housing estate. Daniel Henshall (Okja), Harrison Gilbertson (Upgrade), Megan Smart (Breathe), and Mark Leonard Winter (The Dressmaker) also star.

Damian Hill also produced with EPs Mark Forytarz, Jeff Harrison, Ari Harrison, Keran Wicks, John Kearney, Clement Dunn, Tony Nagle, Bryce Menzies, Thea Mcleod, and Ian Kirk.

“In the current racial climate the world finds Itself, Measure for Measure becomes even more relevant to a society reaching out for love and equality,” said the filmmakers.

Heather Rose’s novel Bruny and Nicole Haddow’s book Smashed Avocado: How I Cracked the Property Market and You Can Too have each been optioned by high-profile producers.

Film Art Media’s Sue Maslin and Charlotte Seymour bought the rights to Bruny, which is set in a near-future in a place where the inhabitants are inoculated against change and a bridge to connect Bruny Island to mainland Tasmania is blown up by terrorists.

Astrid Coleman, a Un troubleshooter, is called home to Tasmania to manage the fallout and finds herself caught between political foes, foreign interests and island families.

Good Thing Productions’ Nick Batzias, Virginia Whitwell and Charlotte Wheaton optioned the book by Haddow, a former Australian Financial Review journalist, which details her account of buying her first home and interviews with others who found diverse ways to enter the property market, including ‘rentvesting,’ flipping, Airbnb, tiny homes and buying regionally.

“It was my absolute worst nightmare,” says “Making the Cut” designer Jonny Cota about the fourth assignment of the competition, “Fight for Your Life,” the aptly titled episode in which the designers only had seven hours to make a whole look using leftover fabric from previous challenges. He thought, “Okay, Cota, this is when you go home.” But instead, this was when he won his first assignment of the season, which meant his look was made available for sale on Amazon. Watch our exclusive video interview with Cota above.

See‘Making the Cut’ cast: Who are the 12 designers competing on Amazon, and when were they eliminated? [Updated April 3]

The victorious “Fight for Your Life” challenge was a complete 180-degree turnaround for Cota, who just two episodes earlier in “Haute Couture” was blasted by the judges for his use of leather and was almost eliminated. “Episode two was so brutal. I was on my deathbed right there,...

Jocelyn Moorhouse with Dop Martin McGrath on the ‘Wakefield’ set.

Jocelyn Moorhouse was shooting the ABC’s Stateless when Jungle Entertainment offered her the gig of set-up director of the ABC drama Wakefield.

The concept was unlike anything she’d ever heard of, centering on the interaction between staff and patients at a Blue Mountains psychiatric hospital, leavened with musical numbers and tap dancing, so she was hooked.

Brit Rudi Dharmalingam plays Nik, a gifted psych nurse in the eight-episode show created by Kristen Dunphy, who is the showrunner with Sam Meikle, produced by Shay Spencer and Ally Henville for Jungle Entertainment and BBC Studios.

The sanest person in a pretty crazy place, Nik is confronted by a dark secret from his past when a song gets stuck in his head.

Reuniting with the director after collaborating on the Seven Network’s Wanted, Geraldine Hakewill plays a psychiatrist, with Mandy McElhinney as the head nurse.

‘Ride Like a Girl.’

The Australian films and feature docs released in cinemas last year, including minor contributions from holdovers, generated more than $40.2 million.

While that trailed the 2018 total of $57.4 million, there are several positives for the screen production industry.

The not-so-good news for the broader screen sector is that the 2019 calendar year B.O. seems certain to fall below $1.2 billion for the first time since 2014.

Ten titles including three feature docs – Damon Gameau’s 2040, Richard Lowenstein’s Mystify: Michael Hutchence and Daniel Gordon’s The Australian Dream – each grossed more than $1 million.

Rachel Griffiths’ Ride Like a Girl was the stand-out, raking in $11.5 million. Arguably, Wayne Blair’s Top End Wedding ($5.2 million), Shawn Seet’s Storm Boy ($5 million) and Rachel Ward’s Palm Beach ($4.4 million) fulfilled their potential and reaped the benefits of wide releases and hefty marketing campaigns – a level of support denied to numerous local films.

Magnolia Pictures has just released the trailer for Little Joe, the english-language feature debut from Jessica Hausner that is due out in theaters on December 6th:

Little Joe follows Alice (Emily Beecham), a single mother and dedicated senior plant breeder at a corporation engaged in developing new species. She has engineered a special crimson flower, remarkable not only for its beauty but also for its therapeutic value: if kept at the ideal temperature, fed properly and spoken to regularly, this plant makes its owner happy. Against company policy, Alice takes one home as a gift for her teenage son, Joe. They christen it ‘Little Joe.’ But as their plant grows, so too does Alice’s suspicion that her new creation may not be as harmless as its nickname suggests.

Directed by Jessica Hausner, Little Joe stars Emily Beecham, Ben Whishaw, Kerry Fox and Kit Connor (“Rocketman”).

Official Site: http://littlejoefilm.

AMC announced today casting and the start of production for its upcoming, untitled episodic anthology series that wryly examines the nature of romantic love, written by Emmy® Award-winner Will Bridges and Brett Goldstein (Superbob, Adult Life Skills). Currently shooting in Madrid, Spain, the series will star Sarah Snook (Succession, The Dressmaker, Steve Jobs), David Costabile (Breaking Bad, Billions) and Sonya Cassidy (Lodge 49, Humans, The Woman in White), among others. From AMC Studios, the Untitled Bridges/Goldstein Project is set fifteen years into the future, when science has made a discovery that changes the lives of everyone on the planet – a test that unequivocally tells you who your soulmate is. In the first-ever format for AMC, each of the six episodes features a different cast and explores an entirely new story around discovering (or opting not to discover) the results of this new test and the impact of those results on a myriad of relationships.

Ranger’s Apprentice, The Alchemyst based on books.

Dick Cook, the former chairman of Walt Disney Studios, has struck a deal to establish the Asia Pacific headquarters of Dick Cook Studios at Melbourne and announced two projects that authorities said would inject A$200m (Usd $137m) into the state of Victoria.

At the same time it emerged that Docklands Studios Melbourne is to build a new “super stage” at its facility that is expected to be ready by late 2021. Construction will not affect work at the other five sound stages and filming will continue into 2020 on Apple TV+ show Shantaram,...

‘Ride Like a Girl’.

Graeme Mason recognises the structural challenges facing independent films but does not subscribe to the view that this is a down year for Australian cinema.

While the Screen Australia CEO acknowledges 2019 has yet to produce a breakout hit like Peter Rabbit, Lion or Ladies in Black, he rates the year to date as very successful on a number of fronts, including:

Seven films have each grossed each more than $1 million. Exhibitors have high hopes for Rachel Griffiths’ Ride Like a Girl, the Michelle Payne biopic staring Teresa Palmer, which Transmission Films launches on September 26; some pundits think it can make upwards of $10 million. The consistent popularity of feature doc such as Damon Gameau’s 2040 and Richard Lowenstein’s Mystify: Michael Hutchence. Australian films are making their marks at the Sundance, Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals. Shannon Murphy won the gig of directing two episodes of...