Movies

Los Angeles County inn Friday reported 1,107 new Covid-19 infections, double the number it reported a week ago and the county’s highest daily figure since March. Those higher cases counts are being detected despite a big fall in testing since the start of the year. There are 320 people with COVID-19 currently hospitalized; an increase

EXCLUSIVE: Television movies are starting to get a bit of heat in the digital age. The classic movie of the week genre was a staple of the 1980s but has subsided over the last few years. Lionsgate and MarVista Entertainment are hoping to kickstart the made-for-television movie trend with a new deal that will see

Andrea Arnold turns her astute observational skills to the bovine world in Cow, a Cannes Premiere with a difference. It’s a documentary that follows a cow on an English farm over time, watching her intently as she gives birth and gives milk. Humans are only featured when they enter her orbit, and snatches of dialogue

EXCLUSIVE:  In response to this past weekend’s hugely successful global streaming debut of The Tomorrow War, Skydance and Amazon Studios are in discussions, I hear, on the development of a sequel to the Chris Pratt sci-fi pic. I understand discussions are in place to bring the whole creative gang back both in front of and

Saturday Night Live director Paul Briganti will helm Monarch Media’s Chris Pratt indie feature comedy The Black Belt. The 2020 Black List script by Randall Green follows a shy, unassuming teen boy on a quest for an expertise in karate, and the unorthodox uncle who guides him along the way. Pratt, as we previously told you, will

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures announced on Wednesday that timed advance admission tickets for the new venue will be available beginning August 5, 2021 at 9 a.m. PT at academymuseum.org and on the museum’s new app. Opening on September 30, 2021 in Los Angeles, the museum will be the largest institution in the United

One day after stepping down as Amazon CEO, the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, got even richer. Bezos ceded the CEO reins to protege Andy Jassy on Monday. He is still the company’s largest shareholder at 11% compared to the next-largest shareholder, Vanguard Group, which holds around 6.5%. With his title now executive

Judas and the Black Messiah director-producer and co-scribe Shaka King, producers Ryan Coogler and Charles D. King and star Lil Rel Howery are collaborating on an untitled original movie centering around an American political insurrection. King will direct and also produce along side Coogler’s Proximity label and Charles D. King’s MACRO alongside Howery. Details are being kept

Lauren Shuler Donner, the wife and sometimes producing partner of husband Richard Donner, who died Monday at age 91, was understandably emotional when I spoke with her today. She expressed sadness at the loss, as well as sympathy for the loss of movie lovers everywhere who were fans of Superman, The Omen, The Goonies, Ladyhawke, Scrooged,

Quentin Tarantino has purchased Los Angeles’ the historic Sunset Boulevard venue Vista Theatre, the director and film buff announced on a podcast. “I bought the Vista on Sunset,” Tarantino said today on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. “We’ll probably open it up around Christmas time. And again: only film. It won’t be a revival house.

A quarter-century ago, Will Smith’s Capt. Steven Hiller was “a little anxious to get up there and whoop ET’s ass” and save Earth from alien invaders in Independence Day. In 2021, the actor paid it forward in a less-dramatic but equally cool way: He paid a reported $100,000 to save New Orleans’ Fourth of July fireworks

Refresh for latest…: Universal’s F9 is gearing up to hit the $500M mark globally, a milestone it will cross on Monday as it becomes the first Hollywood movie to do so during the pandemic era, and the first since any studio film originally released during 2019. The Justin Lin-helmed title will also join China’s Hi,

On Saturday, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported 7 new deaths from Covid-19 and 644 new positive cases. 275 County residents are currently hospitalized with Covid-19; 26% of them are in the ICU. While data showed that deaths from Covid remain low, hospitalizations are up slightly, and there has been a tripling

Friday AM Update: Universal had not one, but two wide release previews last night as they head into the four-day Independence Day weekend, with both DreamWorks Animation’s The Boss Baby: Family Business, and Blumhouse’s The Forever Purge grossing $1.3M apiece. Those looking for more technicality: Boss Baby 2 took in $1.31M at 2,700 theaters from shows which began

On July 2 of 2020, when the initial spring surge of Covid-19 was fading, local elected officials across Southern California ordered virtually every beach shut down from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. Cities around California cancelled fireworks displays. Governor Gavin Newsom closed bars and mandated masks in public spaces. What officials couldn’t stop, however,

Questlove’s Summer of Soul is up to 753 theaters as the doc about the 1969 ‘Black Woodstock’ concert in Harlem that debuted in two locations last weekend crossed into arthouse, commercial and urban venues. Not that it was easy, said Frank Rodriguez, SVP General Sales Manager, Searchlight Pictures. “Exhibitors are eager to get back on

California Governor Gavin Newsom will face a recall election on September 14, 2021. That date was announced on Thursday by the state’s Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis. Kounalakis said in a statement that Sept. 14 was be a “fair and reasonable date.” “It has always been my intention to choose an election date that gives election

EXCLUSIVE: In her second directorial feature for Universal, Elizabeth Banks has set quite the cast, tapping Keri Russell, Ray Liotta, Alden Ehrenreich, O’Shea Jackson and Jesse Tyler Ferguson to star in Cocaine Bear. Production is set to begin August 23 in Ireland. Jimmy Warden wrote the script that’s described as a character-driven thriller inspired by true events

The film and TV industry’s return-to-work protocols have been extended until “a new agreement is reached,” labor and management said tonight as the protocols were about to expire. The protocols were established last September in an agreement between the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers and the DGA, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE, the Teamsters and the

Now you’re going to see what he sees. That’s the tagline for Don’t Breathe 2, a sequel to the 2016 horror thriller starring Stephan Lang. Watch the first trailer above. Lang returns as Norman Nordstrom, a blind man living in quiet solace — until his past sins catch up with him. A half-decade after the home