movies

“On Borderlands, nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong: it sat on the shelf for “On Borderlands, nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong: it sat on the shelf for too long during the pandemic, and reshoots and rising interest rates took it outside the safety zone of our usual strict financial models,” Feltheimer said. With a budget of around $120 million, Borderlands stands to lose the studio a lot of money. Although Lionsgate did mitigate some of the risks by selling foreign rights, sources told Deadline that Borderlands could still lose as much as $30 million. “The success of our financial models doesn’t take the place of also getting the creative right,” Feltheimer added long during the pandemic, and reshoots and rising interest rates took it outside the safety zone of our usual strict financial models,” Feltheimer said. With a budget of around $120 million, Borderlands stands to lose the studio a lot of money. Although Lionsgate did mitigate some of the risks by selling foreign rights, sources told Deadline that Borderlands could still lose as much as $30 million. “The success of our financial models doesn’t take the place of also getting the creative right,” Feltheimer added

The new story is not meant to be a continuation of the Skywalker Saga, the name of the overall arc of the popular and pop culture-dominating Star Wars movies known as Episodes 1 through 9. The intent here is to have brand new characters and a new story, and not have it be a continuation, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. (Although that does not mean that some characters could not or would not pop up.)

Kinberg already has strong Star Wars ties. He co-created the animated series Star Wars: Rebels with Dave Filoni as well as Carrie Beck. The Emmy-nominated ran for four seasons, from 2014-2018.

He also helped out on the relaunch of Star Wars after Disney bought Lucasfilm, acting as a consultant on 2015’s The Force Awakens.

Kinberg is an established presence in the genre space. He had a hand in the Fox X-Men movies, being one of the producers of Logan and the first two Deadpool movies, among many other creative duties. And he is about to go into production on Edgar Wright’s take on Stephen King tale The Running Man for Paramount.

How long before this project is cancelled, or we never hear of it again! 😆

The article finishes with a reminder:

Lucasfilm has tried to chart paths forward before. Kennedy previously signed filmmaker Rian Johnson (Knives Out) to develop a trilogy as well as Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. None of those came close to fruition, with the company facing occasional scrutiny over the years.

One of the wilder Joaquin Phoenix stories to have emerged recently involved his threatening to leave Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” unless Paul Thomas Anderson was brought in to do rewrites.

In an interview with Total Film, Scott added that Phoenix getting cold feet on the film happened just 10 days before production was set to begin on “Napoleon” Scott had also told Empire that he literally rewrote the entire “Napoleon” script based on Phoenix’s relentless notes.

We weren’t really sure if Scott actually agreed to Phoenix’s demands in hiring PTA to help out with rewrites, but Scott seems to have confirmed just that to the New York Times):

Tommy was doing “Licorice Pizza,” advising me how to do “Napoleon.” It turned into a lot of fun, actually. Three of us in this room screaming with laughter.

So, there you have it, at some point during “Napoleon” pre-production, PTA, Scott and Phoenix were working together on the script and having a grand-ol time with it.

Mubi cancels four-day event in protest as local government blocks screening of Luca Guadagnino-directed movie Queer

Matrix is a secure open source chat system. I wondered if anyone was interested in setting up a chat room for people in this community to get real time chatting.

Just an idea.

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2024/11/5/juror-2-ends-theatrical-run-on-thursday

Clint Eastwood's 'Juror #2' is now confirmed to end its theatrical run this Thursday after just one week in theaters. It’s supposed to hit VOD by the end of the month. Despite the vocal backlash, Warner Bros couldn’t care less, and they’ve decided one week was enough for this film in theaters.

Speaking with Gad about his new Dark Horse comic, The Writer, the Wolf Like Me actor said MGM would lock him in a Culver prison cell if he shared too many details about his Spaceballs sequel. Still, he did say, “Everybody who’s read it has been blown away. The process of working on this with and alongside Mel Brooks has been one of the highlights of my career.”

When pressed for more details, Gad continued, “It was sort of a fever dream that this all happened. Mel has been so unbelievably supportive, involved, and electrified by this because it’s the one that surprisingly got away. It’s a dream to be able to finally make the reality prophesied by Yogurt in the first movie happen. I can’t say more than that. I can’t tell you anything beyond [the] process at this point, but I can tell you every hour of every day right now is spent making this project closer and closer to reality — and I think we’re nearing the end zone here.”

Had recently watched the 1970 Movie and found the following [trivia from IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066026/trivia/

*According to Johnny Mandel and Robert Altman, the film's famous theme song was intended to be the "stupidest song ever written." After attempting to write the lyrics himself, Altman said he found it too difficult to write "dumb enough," and instead gave to the task to his fourteen-year-old son. Mike Altman allegedly wrote the lyrics in five minutes, not even expecting to be paid, since he was the director's son. He ended up making millions in royalties off the song.

The fourteen-year-old son of director Robert Altman, Mike Altman, wrote the lyrics to the theme song "Suicide is Painless." Because of its inclusion in the subsequent television series, he continued to get residuals throughout its run and syndication. His father was paid $75,000 for directing, but his son eventually made about $2 million in song royalties, with payments continuing, from first syndication through the present day, as MASH (1972) continues in syndication around the world.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21643919

Tom Hanks says moviegoers are no longer interested in VFX spectacles and are returning to good storytelling.

Box-Office: “Venom” Sinks & “Here” Bombs by Garth Franklin

The first weekend of November, once a booming time for movie ticket sales, was more of a bust this year.

“Venom: The Last Dance” looks set to fall to $22.2 million in its second weekend – a decent drop of around 56% from its domestic debut – and will retain its crown as there are no other real contenders for now.

Rober Zemeckis’ new poorly-reviewed, VFX-heavy, Tom Hanks-led “Here” is looking to be a bomb on impact with just $5.2 million for the weekend – just over 10% of its production budget. It will debut in fourth.

“The Wild Robot” looks to be back in second place with $6.7 million, while “Smile 2” will be third with $6.4 million for its third weekend. “Conclave” closes out the top five with $5 million.

Out of the top ten, the Liam Neeson-led “Absolution” is looking to open at just $1.1 million, pretty much confirming his action film days are over.

Warner Bros. Pictures os not reporting grosses on Clint Eastwood’s “Juror #2” which is playing on 35 screens and reportedly did $90,000 on Friday night alone. That film scored very strong reviews but Warners seems intent on burying it.

During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast to promote his new film, Here, Zemeckis was asked if there was anything that he'd like to tackle before he retires, such as a genre that he hadn't worked in before, or an actor that he hadn't worked with yet. The director responded by saying that he would like to produce Back to the Future: The Musical as a feature film, not unlike the filmed version of the Broadway production adapting Mel Brooks' The Producers.

The stage musical version of Back to the Future opened in London's West End in 2021 to rave reviews, receiving the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 2022. The show moved to Broadway in August 2023, with a national touring production beginning in June of 2024. However, it doesn't look like the movie adaptation will happen, as Zemeckis has already pitched the idea at Universal and "they don't get it."

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19494046

In the hit 1990 film The Krays, the East End gangsters were portrayed as “identical twins who rose from poverty to power”, “from obscurity to fame” and “from the back streets to the attention of the world”. They were “special” boys, the film claimed, who loved their mother.

But the producer now says he regrets glamorising them and is making another film that will portray the mobsters as they really were.

Ray Burdis said he wants to put the record straight: “They weren’t folk heroes. They were just a pair of cowardly psychopathic bullies, who terrorised the East End of London in the 1960s.”

He said that films such as The Godfather, the Marlon Brando classic about the mafia, had made it fashionable to idolise gangsters.

The Krays, which starred brothers Gary and Martin Kemp in critically acclaimed performances, was a huge box-office success, taking more than £100m globally.

...

The new film, which he is writing and directing, is titled Last Kings of London. It will be much darker, depicting swinging 1960s London, “where corruption plagued the police force and crime families ruled the streets”, he said.