Movies

The mountains are as gorgeous as ever, the deal climate not so much as boutique investment bank Allen & Co. prepares to host its annual Sun Valley retreat. After guests arrive on Tuesday, official activities get under way Wednesday. The annual ritual of media-mogul whitewater rafting and shop talk is a 40-year, post-July 4 tradition.

Residents of the vast majority of California’s 58 counties should be wearing masks, according to the CDC. That’s because 40 of those counties are now designated communities with “High” Covid levels. Less than one month ago, the number was 13. The decision to return to mandated face coverings is not up to the CDC, however,

After releasing early in Australia last weekend, Universal/Illumination’s Minions: The Rise Of Gru is looking groovy at the international box office, adding $14.6M in 39 new offshore market openings across Wednesday and Thursday. Coupled with Oz’s first week, the running offshore cume through yesterday is $22.5M. A further 21 markets open today including the UK

SAG-AFTRA and Netflix, which have been negotiating under a media blackout for a new contract, have agreed to extend their current contract through July 31 to allow bargaining to continue. Their current contract – known as the 2019 Netflix Agreement – had been set to expire today. “During this time, all terms and conditions of

The WGA’s historic reshaping of the talent agency business will take full effect at the end of business today, after which agency packaging fees will no longer be permitted under the guild’s franchise agreement. “The agency campaign was founded on the simple truth that agents are our fiduciaries,” said WGA West president Meredith Stiehm, who

Ahead of the July 4 weekend, Los Angeles County today reported 6,529 daily Covid infections, which is very nearly the highest total the county has seen since early February. Only the 7,209 recorded on May 31 is higher. L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said earlier this week that daily infection numbers may be

Cameron Diaz (Charlie’s Angels) is coming out of retirement for a Netflix film titled Back in Action, in which she’ll star opposite Jamie Foxx (Day Shift). The storyline for the action-comedy is being kept under wraps. But Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) is directing from his and Brendan O’Brien’s (Neighbors) script. Beau Bauman (Central Intelligence) is producing for

Dakota Johnson is setting the record straight about her time on the set of the Fifty Shades of Grey movies which were adapted from E.L. James Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy of books. The first film debuted in 2015 followed by the second film Fifty Shades Darker in 2017, and Fifty Shades Freed in 2018.

EXCLUSIVE: Lionsgate has hired public relations executive Laurel Pecchia as their VP, Corporate Communications, reporting to EVP, Corporate Communications Peter Wilkes. Pecchia will be helping with corporate media relations, executive speeches and presentations, employee communications, preparation for Board presentations and earnings calls, and liaison with the publicity teams of Lionsgate’s business units. She will also

The 2022 American Black Film Festival (ABFF) today announced the Best of the ABFF Award winners. The presentation hosted by three-time Emmy-nominated actor and author Dondré Whitfield was an on-point wrap to the  five-day festival with producer/director/actress Issa Rae acting as the Festival Ambassador. The 26th annual festival returned live to Miami, June 15-19 and

Jason Schwartzman (Asteroid City) is the latest addition to the cast of Lionsgate’s Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. He joins an ensemble led by Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler which also includes Josh Andrés Rivera, Hunter Schafer, Jerome Lance, Ashley Liao, Knox Gibson, Mackenzie Lansing, Aamer Husain, Nick Benson, Laurel Marsden, Lilly Cooper, Luna Steeples and Hiroki Berrecloth, as previously announced.

Alec Baldwin, no stranger to controversy, doesn’t seem to have a problem courting those on the fringe of public opinion. Baldwin announced that embattled director Woody Allen is coming onto his Instagram account for a live interview this Tuesday at 10:30 AM EST. “This coming Tuesday. The 28th. I’m going to be doing an Instagram

If you happen to care about the history of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (at least in its first fifty years), you’ll have no shortage of reasons to read Bruce Davis’ forthcoming book, The Academy and the Award. The boardroom fights—Davis, the Academy’s former executive director, got access to the secret files.

On-set still photographer Lorey Sebastian, who worked on such movies as Crash, Twilight, Wild Hogs, Blow, St. Elmo’s Fire, I Am Sam, In the Valley of Elah and A Million Ways to Die in the West died May 9 in New Mexico after a brief illness. She was 78. Sebastian was born in 1944 in

UPDATED with Range Media Partners, APA, more: As reaction to the Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion rights in America sweeps the nation, Hollywood studios are focusing on the protection of employees’ access to health benefits, including travel. As of yet, they haven’t opined on the controversial decision by the conservative court. A Warner Bros. Discovery

EXCLUSIVE: Filmmakers Ricki Stern and Anne Lundberg have seen this day coming. For a long time. Their 2108 Netflix documentary Reversing Roe examined how right-wing activists, politicians and jurists were steadily chipping away at abortion rights across the country, with the goal of eventually overturning Roe v. Wade. Today it happened, in a 6-3 Supreme

EXCLUSIVE: Emmy nominee Madeline Brewer (The Handmaid’s Tale) has signed on to star alongside Peyton Kennedy, Anjali Bhimani, Jeremy Radin, Akilah Hughes and Ben Gleib in the indie Pruning. In Lola Blanc’s psychological horror film, which is currently in production in the Los Angeles area, a far-right political commentator Sami Geller (Brewer) discovers that her rhetoric

Apparently The Man From Toronto, which was in production around the start of 2020, became a victim of Covid as Sony Pictures moved it around the release schedule before finally giving up and handing it off to Netflix in a deal earlier this year. So let’s see here: You have an action comedy with Kevin

EXCLUSIVE: It looks like Spy Kids creator Robert Rodriguez has found his new spy family for his beloved family adventure franchise. Gina Rodriguez, Zachary Levi, Everly Carganilla and newcomer Connor Esterson are set to star as the franchise’s new family in the upcoming film from Netflix, Skydance and Spyglass. Rodriguez will write, direct and produce the

Distribution sources are saying there’s a chance that Paramount/Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick could top the box office this weekend in its fifth session with $32 million, a 28% decline week over week. This will easily send the Tom Cruise movie past the half-billion point at the domestic box office; the pic already is the actor’s highest