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Future Academy Awards ceremonies will look a little differently. Ahead of the 2024 Oscars, which will take place March 10, the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted to make Short Films and Feature Animation Branch two distinct branches. “The Academy is dedicated to advancing and evolving with our growing global membership and with the film industry,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang said in a press statement. “Creating distinct identities for these unique and vital components of our cinema community is part of this needed progress.” The Animation Branch represents appro...... Read Full article on HadNews

Prompt: Hollywood loses its minds over an advanced new generative AI model called Sora that can create lifelike, movie-trailer quality videos from a few short lines of text in minutes. That scenario unfolded last week when OpenAI, the San Francisco-based tech company behind the text-generating app ChatGPT and the image-generating tool DALL-E, teased its latest project, text-to-video AI model Sora. (The name is a Japanese word meaning sky that the creators chose because it “evokes the idea of limitless creative potential.” Or maybe they’re “Kingdom Hearts” fans). After seeing what Sora could do, Tyler Perry was the biggest name to sou...... Read Full article on HadNews

Tyler Perry is reevaluating where to put his resources amid the rise of OpenAI technology. The mega-producer told The Hollywood Reporter that his $800 million plans to expand his Atlanta-based studio have been put “indefinitely on hold” after he saw the “mind-blowing” capabilities of the artificial intelligence company’s text-to-video model, Sora. Perry spent four years planning the pricey expansion at his studio, which would have added 12 soundstages on the backlot. “All of that is currently and indefinitely on hold because of Sora and what I’m seeing,” Perry said. “I had gotten word over the last year or so that this was coming, bu...... Read Full article on HadNews

Steven Spielberg‘s Oskar Schindler almost looked vastly different. The auteur’s Oscar-winning 1994 film “Schindler’s List” was led by Liam Neeson, who portrayed the real-life German businessman who saved more than 1,200 Jews from the Nazis during World War II. However, according to CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz, Mel Gibson was briefly considered for the title role. “Mel Gibson’s name came up. He was interested. His agent put him forward,” Ovitz told The Hollywood Reporter in a 30th anniversary retrospective cover story. “But it wasn’t going to happen. Steven wanted a non-movie star for the part.” At the time, pre-“Braveheart,” Gibs...... Read Full article on HadNews

Sam Mendes is going to have to work “Eight Days a Week” to pull this one off. Backed by Sony, Mendes is going to make “four distinct theatrical feature films,” one from each member of the iconic band’s perspective, a February 20 press release reads. It is the first time that Apple Corps Ltd. and The Beatles — Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison — have granted full life story and music rights for a scripted film. (Note: Apple Corps is not Apple the gigantic iPhone maker. It is the name of the band’s conglomerate.) Mendes will direct all four biopics, which promise to “intersect” with each oth...... Read Full article on HadNews

Yorgos Lanthimos‘ “Poor Things” was one of the biggest arthouse hits of 2023 and remains a frontrunner in several major Oscar categories. But as the film‘s award season run comes to a close, Lanthimos might already be looking ahead to his next directing gig. According to a new report in Variety, Lanthimos is planning to direct a remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2005 sci-fi satire “Save the Green Planet” for Element Pictures, which also produced “Poor Things.” The genre-bending film, which has long been a source of inspiration for cinematic provocateurs like Ari Aster, follows a man who captures and tortures a pharmaceutical executive that he b...... Read Full article on HadNews

Matt Damon has already played Jason Bourne four times, most recently in the appropriately titled 2016 film “Jason Bourne,” but the 53-year-old actor is eager to return to the Robert Ludlum espionage franchise once again. In a recent appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Damon addressed the state of the “Bourne” franchise and his future involvement with it. He confirmed that “All Quiet on the Western Front” director Edward Berger is in the early stages of developing a new entry in the series, and expressed openness to starring in the film if it materializes. “There is a great director named Edward Berger,” Damon said. “ — ...... Read Full article on HadNews

Four years of writing about domestic box office during “a challenging period” makes it tempting to go with the glass half-full view (and even more). This weekend, Paramount’s “Bob Marley: One Love” provides the necessary evidence with an estimated $49 million gross by Monday, six days into its Valentine’s Day opening run. Its three-day total is about $27.7 million. That’s a terrific performance against a $70 million production cost, and it’s an original biopic. Despite a depressed marketplace, there’s an audience for mainstream movies that can make a profit. “Bob Marley” showed a strong cross-demographic draw, female slightly ahead of ma...... Read Full article on HadNews

Over a quarter century has passed since the release of “Titanic” turned Kate Winslet into a superstar, but she hasn’t forgotten the negative impact that the film’s success had on her mental health. In a new interview with Net-A-Porter, Winslet reflected on the massive boost of fame that she received from starring alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in James Cameron’s blockbuster. While she appreciated the financial benefits and career opportunities that came with it, she revealed that the constant media attention began to wear on her. The experience prompted her to devote her attention to working on smaller films. “I felt like I had to look a...... Read Full article on HadNews

As we enter the final home stretch of the Oscar season, each week brings a new award show that offers a closer look at the tea leaves of the most important races. Today marks one of the biggest events on the award season calendar, the BAFTA Awards. The British film industry’s biggest night of the year is often seen as a predictor of the Oscar race, and this year is no exception. Keep reading for a complete list of nominees at the 2024 BAFTA Awards. Winners will be updated in bold as they are announced. BEST FILM “Anatomy of a Fall,” Marie-Ange Luciani, David Thion “The Holdovers,” Mark Johnson “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Da...... Read Full article on HadNews

For Ben Affleck fans who thought his small role as Phil Knight in “Air” just needed to be a little BIGGER, Prime Video has a film for you. And yet, “film” isn’t exactly the right word. The 65-minute “narrative-driven cinematic odyssey” (press release’s words) for Jennifer Lopez‘s wannabe-“Lemonade,” “This Is Me…Now: A Love Story,” follows her search for love, set alongside music videos for several songs off her new album of the same name (also out today!). It’s a bombastic, simplistic misfire. Opening with a Puerto Rican myth about roses and hummingbirds, viewers are treated to J.Lo working in a steampunk love factory (complete ...... Read Full article on HadNews

In the summer of 2022, Netflix released “Halftime,” a glossy, shiny, and intermittently revelatory documentary focused on global icon Jennifer Lopez. That offering found unexpected (if highly unrelatable) pathos in the star’s distress over not being nominated for an Oscar for her (quite good) turn in “Hustlers.” Just twenty months later, and yet another streamer (in this case, Prime Video) is now releasing its own glossy, shiny, and intermittently revelatory film project focused on global icon Jennifer Lopez. The pathos, though? That’s mostly missing, but certainly not for lack of trying. The project (it seems disingenuous to call this a...... Read Full article on HadNews

When Robbie Robertson and The Band performed their final concert at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom in November 1976, it was clearly an ending for the group, as expressed in the title of the 1978 film Martin Scorsese made about the event, “The Last Waltz.” While that movie — by virtually any imaginable criteria, the greatest rock and roll film ever made — documented a farewell, it itself represented a new beginning: a collaboration between Scorsese and Robertson that would last nearly 50 years and yield an astonishing series of masterpieces including “Raging Bull,” “The Wolf of Wall Street,” and most recently “Killers of the Flower Moon,...... Read Full article on HadNews

One of the surprise breakout hits of the 2023 film festival circuit, Weston Razooli’s directorial debut “Riddle of Fire” charmed audiences around the world by blending the aesthetics of classic family adventure movies with a modern midnight movie sensibility. After premiering in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival, the film went on to close the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival and screen at Fantastic Fest. Now, thanks to Yellow Veil Pictures and the legendary boutique Blu-ray label Vinegar Syndrome, the film will receive a domestic theatrical release this spring. The official sy...... Read Full article on HadNews

Although the long road toward Bradley Cooper making his directorial debut with “A Star Is Born” in 2018 has been well-documented, the writer, director, and star revealed a new detail about who he considered for his female lead before landing on Lady Gaga. “I thought about Adele for a while,” said Cooper in conversation at the 2024 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, where he was there to accept the Outstanding Performer of the Year Award for his performance as Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro.”  Mimicking his thought process at the time, trying to figure out how his “A Star Is Born” character would come into contact with a woman pl...... Read Full article on HadNews

Taylor Swift may or may not be aligned with the interests of the U.S. government (she’s definitely not), but she does wield immense cultural power. Every time the 14-time Grammy winner includes an obscure lyrical reference in her songs, it creates an opportunity for the nerds who recognize it to say something like, oh, “But do you know what’s really cool about Clara Bow?”  So … do you know what’s really cool about Clara Bow?  Until this week, Clara Bow was just another silent movie star whose career got reduced to a persona in popular culture (the hedonistic “It Girl” both in the movie “It” and in her real life). But now that her name ...... Read Full article on HadNews