Netflix has greenlit a remake of Stephen King’s novel “Cujo,” a horror story about a mother and son who get trapped in their car while protecting themselves from a rabid dog.

Roy Lee (“Barbarian”) will produce the reboot, which has yet to attach a writer, director or cast members, per Deadline, which broke the news of the project. King’s 1981 book was first adapted for the screen in the 1983 feature film of the same name, directed by Lewis Teague and starring Dee Wallace, Daniel Hugh Kelly and Danny Pintauro. At the box office, “Cujo” earned $21 million worldwide (not adjusted for inflation) against a $6 million budget.

King’s novels, in genres ranging from horror and sci-fi to crime and fantasy, have been rich material for Hollywood, with films such as “Carrie,” “The Shining,” “Shawshank Redemption,” “Stand By Me,” “It” and the sequel “It: Chapter Two.”

Edgar Wright is currently adapting...

Moviegoers will have to wait a little longer for the Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell-led romantic fantasy “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” as Sony has shifted the film’s domestic theatrical release from May 9 to Sept. 19.

Sources close to production tell Variety that a September release was more appealing to the studio, as it’s filled with more horror and male-centered titles, allowing the female event film to stand out.

“A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” is described as “an imaginative tale of two strangers and the extraordinary emotional journey that connects them.” Lily Rabe, Jodie Turner-Smith, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Hamish Linklater also star.

The film is directed by Kogonada, who also helmed the TV series “Pachinko” and the sci-fi drama “After Yang.” “The Menu” scribe Seth Reiss penned the script.

30West is financing “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” with Sony Pictures releasing the film in theaters globally. It is produced by Dan Friedkin,...

“The Perfect Neighbor” has found a home.

The film, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it won the directing prize in the U.S. Documentary competition, has been acquired by Netflix. A sum for the acquisition has not been disclosed but earlier reports from February had the number around $5 million. The streaming giant is planning a release for later this year.

The Geeta Gandbhir-directed film uses police bodycam, investigative interviews and dashcam footage to tell the chilling story of Susan Lorincz, who in 2023 fired a gun through her locked door, killing her Black neighbor, Ajike “Aj” Owens. Lorincz used self-defense and Florida’s “stand your ground” laws as an excuse. The official Sundance synopsis described “The Perfect Neighbor” as “a remarkable exploration of one horrific event that has profound implications for the challenge of living in community with the monsters who might live next door.

Málaga, Spain, is primed to take center stage in the world of pop culture when it hosts the first-ever international edition of the iconic San Diego Comic-Con (Sdcc).

For over five decades, Sdcc has been a can’t-miss event for fans and creators of comics, films, television, and all other mediums of pop culture distribution. Now, for the first time, Sdcc is stepping outside the U.S. with Malaga, Spain, chosen as its European host city. The milestone was officially unveiled today during a star-studded event held at the Gran Hotel Miramar in the Spanish coastal city.

Thanks to an agreement facilitated by Img Licensing, Sdcc will hold its first-ever licensed event outside the U.S. from Sept. 25 to 28 of this year. This move marks the beginning of a new chapter for the convention, bringing its celebrations of comics and culture to a European audience. The commitment to Malaga’s...

China’s box office maintained its robust pace, with “Ne Zha 2” continuing to dominate. The Cococartoon release grossed RMB274.9 million ($38.2 million) over the March 3–9 period, bringing its cumulative total to $2.04 billion, according to Artisan Gateway. The animated epic has become the first Chinese film to surpass $2 billion at the box office, marking a historic milestone.

“Ne Zha 2” also continued its record-breaking run in Imax. The film added $4.2 million in Imax earnings over the week, pushing its cumulative total in the format to $148 million in China and $150.6 million worldwide. This achievement has elevated “Ne Zha 2” to 6th place in the all-time Imax rankings, surpassing “Interstellar” ($145 million), “Avengers: Infinity War” ($145.8 million), and “Dune 2” ($146.5 million). The film is set for further expansion with Imax releases planned in the U.K., Ireland, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand in the coming weeks.

“Ne Zha 2” has also passed “Avengers: Infinity War...

Don't swing by the coastal — and fictional — town of Salt's Neck if you're not current on season 2 of "Severance," because this article contains spoilers!

In the eighth episode of its second season, Dan Erickson's critically adored series "Severance" took audiences far, far away from the severed floor at Lumon Industries — where we usually spend time with Mark S. (Adam Scott), Helly R. (Britt Lower), Dylan G. (Zach Cherry), and, until his recent "firing," Irving B. (John Turturro) — so that viewers could finally reunite with Harmony Cobel, the pivotal yet mysterious character played by Oscar winner Patricia Arquette. In the episode, titled "Sweet Vitriol," Harmony goes back to what we learn is her hometown, a chilly and run-down coastal hamlet called Salt's Neck. So where is Salt's Neck in real life, considering that no such town exists in the United States?

According to the Canadian Broadcasting Company, or CBC, the...

Spoilers for "Daredevil: Born Again" to follow.

As star Charlie Cox has stressed, "Daredevil: Born Again" is named that because it's a revival of the previous "Daredevil" TV show, not because it's adapting Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's "Born Again" story. (It isn't.) Mind you, that's not to say the series is ignoring the "Daredevil" comics either.

Unlike some Marvel premieres, "Daredevil" writers and artists got to stroll the "Born Again" red carpet, including Charles Soule, Ron Garney, Chip Zdarsky, Alex Maleev, Michael Lark, David Mack, and the aforementioned Mr. Miller. Absent, though, was Brian Michael Bendis (who wrote "Daredevil" from 2001 to 2006), even though "Born Again" is adapting one of his key stories, "Trial of the Century" ("Daredevil" Volume 2 #38-40).

"Daredevil: Born Again" episode 2 featured Hector Ayala aka White Tiger (Kamar de los Reyes) being arrested for the murder of a police officer. He's innocent, of course; he saw...

This article contains spoilers for "Daredevil: Born Again" season 1, episode 3.

Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) has always been a complex guy, as befits a devil who's playing for the side of the angels. The character's first headliner gig in the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to lean heavily into this characterization, depicting his charm, smarts, guilt, and determination with equal gusto. However, when Matt deals with the Hector Ayala murder case with the best intentions at heart, one particular call he makes ends up becoming one of the most stellar MCU examples of sheer moral ambiguity. 

In the second episode of "Daredevil: Born Again" (read our review), Hector attempts to stop two men roughing up someone and the ensuing fracas causes one to stumble in front of an oncoming train. Matt chances upon the case when his super-senses notice the arrested Hector's peril. The lawyer is quick to realize that the man is not only innocent,...

This article contains major spoilers for the third episode of "Daredevil: Born Again."

If there's one thing that would satisfy fans of Marvel Studios' latest TV series "Daredevil: Born Again" more than watching Charlie Cox bend henchmen like warm pastries, it's throwing in major Marvel names to get us into full "Buddy the Elf mode" and frantically crying out, "I know him! I know him!" The third episode of Matt Murdock's massively violent new story sees him do just that while defending his new client, Hector Ayala (Kamar de los Reyes), and explaining to the court just how much of a hero he truly is.

After revealing to the jury that Ayala is the vigilante known as White Tiger, a series of testimonies come from those saved by this new hero in town, demonstrating that the incident at the subway station was accidental, after all. To further establish Ayala's character,...

During my interview a while back with a director of small-budget Westerns, he explained to me that if you keep your costs down low enough and, better still, cast a recognizable character actor or country music star — not a superstar, but someone recognizable — to promote in packaging and advertising, you could turn a profit just on DVD and Blu-ray sales. “You do it right,” he said, “and you make your money back from Redbox and big-box stores. You do it wrong — you get ‘Rust.’”

It’s a theory that might seem dated today — more than likely, that director now relies heavily if not exclusively on sales to streaming platforms — but the industrial-strength pressure to pinch pennies and stretch dollars continues apace for indie genre filmmakers. As director Rachel Mason makes abundantly clear in her exceptional Hulu documentary “Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna,” such measures can have fatal consequences.

Zak Hilditch’s Australian disaster feature “We Bury the Dead” wrestles with how much it wants to be a zombie movie. It’s at its most interesting and exciting when it approaches the well-worn subgenre with brand-new spins, resulting in haunting scenes that open a cinematic window into the darkest, most mysterious parts of the human condition. Unfortunately, it keeps swerving back toward traditional horror territory at breakneck speed, resulting in a lopsided structure and half-baked philosophical musings clashing against riveting dramatic moments.

Making use of its minimal budget, “We Bury the Dead” creates an immediate sense of scale and spectacle, starting with its central premise, in which the United States accidentally deploys an experimental weapon of mass destruction off Australia’s southern coast. The large-scale Emp has caused up to half a million people to drop dead by shutting down their brains — only for reasons unknown, some of them come“back online,...

It isn’t hyperbole to say that Amanda Peet gives the performance of a lifetime in “Fantasy Life.” There probably shouldn’t be any confusion between the actress and the role she inhabits as Dianne, a one-time screen star now in her early fifties who stopped booking parts a decade ago when the material wasn’t up to snuff. But there’s a wisdom and weariness to suggest Peet’s seen some things, and it can be unnerving to realize that it’s been about as long since she has been on the big screen herself. Her luminous return in Matthew Shear’s lightly comic drama about two people at a crossroads reminds that her fearlessness has been sorely missed as she throws any vanity out the window to play a walking tangle of anxieties, despite living quite comfortably with homes in New York and Martha’s Vineyard.

Seen as...

At its core, cult phenomenon “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is a movie about conservative values versus transgression. The audience surrogates, Brad (asshole!) and Janet (slut!), are two naïve virgins and the living embodiment of the word “stuffy” who are thrown into a world of mad scientist transvestites, hunky Frankensteins, and alien butlers and maids. Sure, the kinky, queer world the two squares fall into is dangerous, but it’s also a lot of fun, and “Rocky Horror” makes it clear that it’s also liberating for the young virgins to escape their conservative world, don some fishnet tights, and embrace their inner freak.

“Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror” is a documentary that loudly, and proudly, celebrates the freaks and the misfits who have found solace in the rock ‘n roll musical film since its 1975 premiere. And yet, it fits more in the “square” category than it should.

The new documentary “Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna,” which premieres Tuesday on Hulu, examines the 2021 gun accident that claimed the life of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of indie film “Rust” and was directed by Hutchins’s friend, Rachel Mason.

Hutchins is remembered fondly in the doc as a friend, wife, mother and aspiring cinematographer. The accident occurred when Alec Baldwin’s prop gun fired a live bullet during production on Oct. 21, 2021, and the film also includes interviews with those on set, subsequent lawsuits, criminal trials and investigations into lapses in on-set safety protocols.

The doc was previewed last week during an FYC event that also provided reflection about Hutchins. The event additionally exposed the challenges of tackling this high-profile story when “Rust” director Joel Souza, who was additionally injured in the accident and was interviewed for the doc, admitted during the Q&a, “I hoped it...

When H.E.R. won an Oscar for Best Original Song for “Judas and the Black Messiah” in 2021, she used her acceptance to thank some of her biggest influences, including Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, and Curtis Mayfield. But when articles about her speech began popping up online, she noticed that Mayfield was the name that websites always cut from the headlines.

That experience convinced H.E.R. that Mayfield, a soul legend whose legacy spanned ’60s hits with The Impressions to a solo career that included the influential “Super Fly” soundtrack, hadn’t received the appropriate recognition from modern audiences. She attempts to rectify the problem with her directorial debut, “The Makings of Curtis Mayfield,” a documentary that sees her join an A-list roster of her musical idols to discuss Mayfield’s ongoing legacy.

As the film tells it, Mayfield was ahead of the curve on just about everything.

How basic and hipster dumb and derivative is the SXSW slasher movie “Clown in a Cornfield?” Like many a slasher film before it, the movie is trying to launch its own iconic masked killer. But check out if any of this sounds overly familiar. The killer, named Frendo, wears the face of an evil leering clown, like Pennywise from “It,” topped by a small cocked hat like the one worn by Art the Clown in the “Terrifier” films. Frendo does indeed dispatch many of his victims in a cornfield, which means that the film’s title is perhaps the most self-consciously literal piece of high-concept branding since “Snakes on a Plane.” “Clown in a Cornfield” is based on a YA novel, but before you assume it’s the “Stranger Things” of mayhem, what the pedigree comes down to is that the victims — a group of teenagers in the small-town farm...

In 2020, film critic Alissa Wilkinson started working on a book project about Joan Didion. She wanted to explore the iconic essayist, reporter, novelist and playwright through an angle that hadn’t been considered much before — Didion’s connection to the film industry. That became the book, “We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine.”

Wilkinson, who has been a critic at The New York Times since 2023 and wrote for Vox before that, was not interested in delving into Didion’s “persona or her celebrity, as much as what ties all her work together.”

“I came up with this notion of writing about her through the lens of Hollywood, both because she worked in Hollywood and wrote movies that have been produced and that we still watch today, but also because she wrote about Hollywood,” Wilkinson told Variety in a recent phone interview.

“We Tell Ourselves Stories,” which was published Tuesday,...

Disney's first-ever feature-length animated motion picture, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," was a big gamble that helped cinema evolve as a medium. It proved that animation could be more than just short, slapstick fluff that played before the main attraction. On top of that, the film's animators used then-new technologies such as larger cels and multiplane cameras to create fine details and ethereal watercolor backgrounds, breaking new ground along the way. Be that as it may, it's the studio's second animated feature, 1940's "Pinocchio," that remains its most well-reviewed movie.

"Pinocchio" is, of course, based on Carlo Collodi's 1883 novel "The Adventures of Pinocchio," which originated as a children's magazine serial. Its story centers on the titular character (Dick Jones), a wooden puppet who is magically brought to life yet still longs to be a flesh-and-blood boy. However, he soon discovers that human life isn't easy; dangers lurk around every corner,...

“Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” is the only movie playing SXSW 2025 that requires 17 years of context to fully appreciate. But man, it’s worth it.

For the uninitiated, Nirvanna the Band couldn’t have less to do with Kurt Cobain. Launched as a webseries in 2008, the ongoing comedy project stars Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol as fictional versions of themselves who are dying to break into the Toronto music scene. Specifically, they’re dying to play a show at a legendary club known as the Rivoli. The duo is so focused on landing a gig that they don’t have time to practice music. Instead, they spend every day engaging in complex publicity stunts that demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of the music industry and often end up mirroring tropes from classic films.

The scale of the project has gradually expanded as it morphed from a DIY webseries to...

This article contains spoilers for "Paradise."

Mystery boxes are notoriously hard to pull off. You have to balance the big mystery while introducing new elements and questions at the same time as you provide answers, lest the audience grows bored and stops watching. And yet, you don't want the entire story to be explicitly and singularly about the mysteries, as that makes for a good Wikipedia entry but not necessarily a good narrative. It's the difference between "Lost" continuing to captivate audiences 20 years after its premiere and "Severance" severely slowing down to answer a dumb question no one was asking.

Then we have "Paradise," which is one of the best TV shows of the year and a great example of the mystery box done right. That is because the show treats them not like lore mysteries but narrative mysteries. The one big question this season is who kills President Bradford...

If I had to compare "Friendship" to any sketch from Tim Robinson's "I Think You Should Leave," it'd be the one from the season 2 premiere with the haunted house. The tour guide jokingly tells the guests they're allowed to say "whatever the hell" they want, only for Robinson's character to take this as an opportunity to ask about "jizz" and "horse co*ks." We later find out the poor guy just wants to make friends, and he's grasping at whatever strategy he can think of to make a human connection.

It's tragic stuff, especially since it doesn't seem like he'd be able to hold onto a friend if he found one. If he did manage to trick someone into befriending him, it'd only be a matter of time before he did something wrong, be it by badly misreading a situation or by letting one of his many insecurities get the best of him.

Only Meryl Streep would take rehearsing so seriously for “Saturday Night Live.” The “Only Murders in the Building” star made her “SNL” debut during the recent “SNL50” special, when the lauded actress appeared in the alien abduction “Close Encounters” skit with Kate McKinnon, Woody Harrelson, and Pedro Pascal.

According to “SNL” alum Amy Poehler, who was also featured in “SNL50,” Streep rehearsed so “hard” prior to the live taping. Poehler and Streep shared a dressing room during the show, where Poehler witnessed some of Streep’s acting process.

“It was a night of famous alumni and people,” Poehler said during a recent appearance on the “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” podcast in the below video. “There were so many people that people had to share dressing rooms, so I was sharing my dressing room with Meryl Streep. Just like a fan, I was taking a picture of the door that...

Amazon has taken creative control of the James Bond franchise, wresting control from the Broccoli family, the family that has overseen the 007 movies for decades. There is some speculation as to what this means for the franchise, as many presume that Amazon, following the current filmmaking trends, will try to launch an expansive, multimedia cinematic universe. Some fear the onslaught of tiring over-commercialization that will no doubt be attached to Ian Fleming's noted spy, but others may be excited that a new James Bond movie is coming at all. 

The last Bond film, "No Time to Die," was released in 2021, and it brought the five-film Daniel Craig cycle to a definitive end. This means the next film will have to recast 007 with a new actor, and speculating which actor could potentially play James Bond -- in any generation, really -- is a speculative sport played by cineastes everywhere.

Today the anticipated new documentary about the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the Western “Rust” premieres on Hulu. For all the reporting and very public court cases searching for who was culpable in actor Alec Baldwin accidently shooting Hutchins during filming with what he believed to be a prop gun, what distinguishes “Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna Hutchins” is access.

With the documentary being directed by Hutchins’ close friend Rachel Mason (“Circus of Books”) and originating with the cinematographer’s widow Matt Hutchins, who is an executive producer on the film, those involved with the “Rust” production and the subsequent court cases felt free to speak openly on camera. With the exception of Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the latter of whom was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, Mason received unfettered access from the entire cast,...

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Throughout "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) wore a Visor on duty. It was explained early in the series that Geordi was born blind thanks to a birth defect, so he requires a specialized appliance to see. Hence, Geordi was given a series of small electronic implants in his temples, which reached into the visual cortex of his brain. The Visor would then hook onto the implants and feed visual information directly into his brain, effectively bypassing his missing optic nerves.

The fact that "The Next Generation" had a disabled main character was a boon for representation, and the show's writers never made his disability the central part of a storyline. Geordi's blindness was wholly incidental, so his Visor became a mere detail in his costume. It was much more notable that Geordi was...

There’s no shortage of big ideas on offer in Amy Wang’s feature directorial debut, “Slanted,” but like the tragic heroine at its center, this ambitious outing might have fared better had Wang more keenly considered the overall package that holds it together. Often styled as a satire — with generous shades of both “Mean Girls” and “Bottoms” to boot — Wang’s film is far more sad and strange than all of that. Mostly, it’s a sort of blunt-force spin on “The Substance” that never quite allows itself to go past those references into something more honest and, frankly, more terrifying.

Despite all those references — and even a few scenes that do more than just nod to such films — Wang’s film does tout an original and compelling idea. The filmmaker’s take on body horror transplants the genre into the hellscape of high school, perhaps the only setting...

James Gunn seemingly reached the nerd mountaintop upon becoming the co-chairman (with Peter Safran) of DC Studios in 2022. Nearly 30 years before that, however, he was just another struggling screenwriter slugging it out in the film industry trenches. Gunn earned his first screenplay credit as the co-writer of Troma Entertainment's "Tromeo and Juliet," which was not the calling-card effort that put him on Hollywood's radar. That would be his script for "The Specials," a superhero comedy that became a film under the direction of Craig Mazin in 2000.

Before that film was even made, though, Gunn found himself pitching projects to the major studios, one of which was a Silver Surfer movie at 20th Century Fox. Gunn knocked out a treatment that he once claimed was a "huge story, cosmic as hell," and he might've hung around to write the screenplay had another project not been dropped on his doorstep.

In 1999, filmmaker Jay Roach,...

A crew member on the Netflix film “Me Time” has settled a lawsuit over a near-fatal fall that left him with a traumatic brain injury.

Michael Oronoz was working as a grip at Sunset Gower Studios in September 2021, when he fell from the catwalk to the floor 33 feet below. He was in a coma for three weeks, and had to relearn how to talk and how to walk over the course of a long recovery.

He sued Hudson Pacific Properties, the facility owner, in 2023, alleging that the company had failed to properly maintain the 1957 building.

The suit was dismissed on Monday. Attorneys on both sides declined to comment on the resolution, and terms were not disclosed. Netflix, which was not a party to the suit, also declined to comment.

A similar accident took place in February 2024, when J.C. “Spike” Osorio fell 41 feet to his death at Radford Studio Center.

The Songwriters Hall of Fame will recognize Stephen Schwartz — the arranger and composer behind the music from “Wicked,” “Godspell” and “Pippin” — as the recipient of the 2025 Johnny Mercer Award at the Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala, slated for June 12 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.

The Johnny Mercer Award is the most prestigious honor bestowed by the Songwriters Hall of Fame, is exclusively reserved for a songwriter or songwriting team who has already been inducted in a prior year and whose body of work is of “such high quality and impact that it upholds the gold standard set by the legendary Johnny Mercer,” per the Shof. Schwartz was first inducted into the Hall in 2009.

“With every lyric and melody, Stephen invites us on an unforgettable journey,” said Shof Chairman Nile Rodgers. “From his iconic list of award-winning musicals, including ‘Godspell’, ‘Wicked’ and ‘Pippin,’ Stephen...

Cartuna x Dweck, the new distribution venture formed by Cartuna and Dweck Productions, has acquired North American rights to Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover following screenings at SXSW.

This is the first all-rights buy from the new company, which plans a theatrical release and aims to champion bold visions and emerging voices. The deal comes less than two weeks after Oscar-winningAnora director Sean Baker issued a clarion call urging support of independent filmmaking and the theatre-going experience.

Cartuna launched a distribution arm last year and found success with the Sitges and Morbido slapstick fantasy comedy Hundreds Of Beavers, which grossed...

“It’s alive!” — as the mad scientists would say. Grace Glowicki’s grotesque, 16mm-shot romance “Dead Lover” has been acquired for North American distribution by Cartuna and Dweck Productions, operating under a new venture Cartuna x Dweck. The deal comes after the film’s selection at SXSW, following a premiere at Sundance in January.

“We firmly believe that we are at the early stages of a historic creative movement,” says James Belfer, founder and CEO of Cartuna. “Inventive, boundary-pushing storytellers need more distribution support now than ever. This collective of producers has opted to take matters into our own hands and it’s our sincere hope that it will inspire others to do the same.”

“What Grace and her collaborators have dug up from their creative depths is like nothing I’ve ever seen before and we are so honored to be a part of this infinitely imaginative team,” said Hannah Dweck,...

In the first sale of the SXSW Film Festival, Grace Glowicki’s Midnight movie “Dead Lover” has found theatrical distribution from a new boutique distribution venture, Cartuna x Dweck, which is a partnership between physical media company Cartuna and Dweck Productions, the company behind films such as “Christmas Eve at Miller’s Point” and “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.”

Cartuna x Dweck acquired North American rights to “Dead Lover” following its Texas premiere at SXSW, and this will be the first release from the new venture, as the two companies have quietly been building an initial slate of films to be announced later this year. No release date for “Dead Lover” was announced.

“Dead Lover” is Glowicki’s sophomore feature, which she wrote, directed, and starred in, and it made its premiere in the Midnight section of this year’s Sundance film Festival. The film is a campy,...

Look, up in the sky! It's not a bird, it's not a plane, and it's not even Superman. What it is, incredibly enough, might be Warner Bros.' last chance at salvation amid a 2025 slate of risky blockbusters. As the fresh reboot that DC Studios needed to (mostly) wipe everything clean and start over from scratch again, James Gunn's impending "Superman" movie was always going to represent a major gambit to get things off on the right foot. But nobody could've anticipated the perfect storm of factors leading to the dire straits that the entire studio now finds itself in, particularly after a series of box office missteps in recent months. Now, rather fittingly, the future of all of Warner Bros. might very well rest on the shoulders of the Man of Steel. What else is new?

According to the latest edition of the Puck newsletter, written by industry veteran Kim Masters,...

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Despite being wildly popular for decades, both as an author and as a source of inspiration for on-screen media, Stephen King is more popular now than he's ever been. Case in point, Netflix is once again teaming with the prolific author for a new adaptation of his 1981 novel "Cujo." It seems this deadly dog will once again have the chance to show his teeth for a new generation.

According to Deadline, Netflix has closed a deal to make a new movie based on "Cujo," with Roy Lee, of "Barbarian" and "It" fame, producing. No writer or director is currently attached, but the report notes that they will be going out to writers "immediately." Clearly, Netflix doesn't intend to let this languish in development hell. Netflix has partnered with King several times before on movies such as "1922" and "Gerald's Game,...

During his stint playing Commander William Riker on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Jonathan Frakes (seen above left) underwent a rudimentary director's boot camp. Frakes was interested in directing episodes of the show, and the producers said he would only be allowed to do so after shadowing other directors for 300 hours. Frakes put in his due diligence, and he ended up directing eight episodes of the series. The producers were so impressed that they also hired Frakes to direct two of the "Star Trek" feature films. 

His directorial experience on "Next Generation," he found, could be parlayed into other directing gigs. For one, he remained with the "Star Trek" franchise for decades, coming back to helm episodes of "Deep Space Nine," "Voyager," "Discovery," "Strange New Worlds," and "Picard." He directed the family friend sci-fi adventure film "Clockstoppers" in 2002 and "Thunderbirds" in 2004, eventually moving exclusively into television, overseeing episodes of "Leverage,...

We are firmly in the era of streaming and rapidly moving away from what was once the dominant force in TV. Cable is dying a slow death and traditional TV networks are increasingly becoming less relevant. It's a streaming-dominated world. Netflix spends nearly $20 billion annually on original movies and TV shows as the king of the streamers, and it's just one of many. Still, as often as new stuff gains traction on streaming services, it's often older shows (or movies) that give any single service value. This is increasingly becoming part of the strategy for these companies, and there's even a name for it. Welcome to the age of newstalgia.

During a panel at this year's SXSW in Austin, Texas titled "Measuring Film & TV Streaming Viewership," Tubi Chief Content Officer Adam Lewinson talked a lot about the popular free streamer's strategy. That has increasingly involved originals, such as "Killer Body Count...

“The Princess and the Frog” actress Anika Noni Rose is “disappointed” in Disney after the IP did not get its happily ever after, as promised.

Rose was set to reprise her lead voiceover role as Princess Tiana for an eponymous Disney+ sequel series. The show was announced in 2020, more than a decade after “The Princess and the Frog” debuted in 2009. In March 2025, “Tiana” was officially scrapped by the streamer; a source told IndieWire that the series went through several different creative teams, and the production costs were too high to continue. In lieu of the series, a short-form project titled “Tiana Special Event” is now in the works for Disney+.

“I too am deeply disappointed that the continuation of Tiana’s journey in series form has been cut short,” Rose wrote on social media. “The series was a long time coming, and a lot of beautiful work was put into...

Fans of Freida McFadden’s novel “The Housemaid” shouldn’t worry about being unhappy about the film adaptation, Michele Morrone told Variety at the SXSW TV Film Festival.

“I think the film is going to be very faithful to the book. That’s all I can actually say,” Morrone, who portrays Enzo in the upcoming film, said while promoting “Another Simple Favor.” As for what he could tease about his character, there wasn’t much except that Enzo is “a weirdo.”

“I like to play weirdos as you know,” he quipped. “But I’m proud of myself to be part of that project and being a weirdo!”

The Lionsgate film, set to debut on Christmas Day 2025, stars Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar and Morrone and is directed by Paul Feig. The story follows Millie (Sweeney), a young woman who, in desperate need for a fresh start, takes a job...

Based on the novel “Memory” by Donald E. Westlake, “The Actor,” a Kafka-esque crime-noir fantasy about identity and memory, is the latest directorial effort by filmmaker Duke Johnson, known for his work in animation and co-directing “Anomalisa” with screenwriter/director Charlie Kaufman (“Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind”).

But as Johnson reminds you, you’re more than just your IMDb page, and while “The Actor” is his feature-length live-action directorial debut, the filmmaker went to film school, directed his fair share of shorts, and learned his live-action chops in college.

Continue reading Director Duke Johnson Talks ‘The Actor,’ Learning From Charlie Kaufman & André Holland As Collaborator For Life [Exclusive] at The Playlist.

In life, things have to get a lot worse before they can get a little better. In “For Worse,” the versatile and immensely watchable “Transparent” star Amy Landecker’s good-natured narrative feature debut as a writer and director, life gets considerably chaotic for Lauren, a sober and recently divorced West Coast mom trying to give a different direction to her life with her newfound freedom.

It used to be that characters like Lauren — usually defined by that somewhat cringe-inducing and overused “women above a certain age” phrase — were a rarity in cinema. But these days — especially considering several terrific recent releases of all sizes like “Suze,” “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,” “The Idea of You” and even “Babygirl” — we don’t seem to be living in that same cinematic world anymore, one that refused to acknowledge the existence, realities and complex sexual desires of women, well, above a certain age.

From world-changing snaps to jaw-dropping debuts, the Marvel Cinematic Universe delivers magical moments. The storylines aside, none of it would matter without the characters -- the heroes and rogues -- but woof, the worst MCU villains don't do the franchise any favors. In fact, they only add credence to accusations from the likes of Martin Scorsese that superhero movies aren't real cinema. Like a skunk in a perfume store, these antagonists stink up the joint and bring down the value of everything else around them.

Sure, not every swing results in a home run, but these villains are the worst of the worst. Think of Tim Blake Nelson's Samuel Sterns from "Captain America: Brave New World" -- he doesn't come across as the scary Leader from "The Incredible Hulk" comics, but more like Ivan Ooze's long-lasting cousin from "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie." Similarly, what a waste of...

One of the more mysterious films making the rounds is the next feature from writer/director Martin McDonagh (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) as the pic, “Wild Horse Nine,” reunites him with actor Sam Rockwell after the two previously working together on “Seven Psychopaths” and “Three Billboards” (the latter earning Rockwell a Best Supporting Actor Oscar win). More casting news has arisen while we patiently wait for plot details from the studio.

Continue reading ‘Wild Horse Nine’: Steve Buscemi Replaces Mark Ruffalo In Martin McDonagh’s Next Dramedy Starring Sam Rockwell at The Playlist.

Clowns are scary. Despite largely being associated with children's entertainment, people have a deep-rooted fear of these painted performers, so, naturally, quite a few horror movies have made good use of that over the years. In recent years, "Terrifier" slasher Art the Clown has become a straight-up horror icon. All of this to say, the scary clown sub-genre is an enduring one. And now "Clown in a Cornfield" instantly makes a case for being one of the best scary clown movies ever.

I had the good fortune of catching the world premiere of this one at SXSW in Austin, Texas. Directed by Eli Craig, known best as the man behind "Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil," this adaptation of Adam Cesare's popular novel of the same name is nothing shy of a horror/comedy delight. It's funny, it's gory, it's well crafted, and it occupies a unique space in the scary clown sub-genre.

A new documentary on Marvel Comics co-creator Stan Lee claims that Lee was mistreated and exploited by some of those in his inner circle during the last few years of his life.

Jon Bolerjack, a comic book artist and a former assistant to Lee during the last four years of Lee’s life, filmed the documentary and on Tuesday launched a Kickstarter campaign looking for funding to complete the film, titled “Stan Lee: The Final Chapter.” In a trailer for the movie, Bolerjack says Lee spent “his final years enduring mistreatment, manipulation, and betrayal at the hands of a few very bad actors.”

Bolerjack says the film includes interviews with other witnesses close to Lee and with comic book creators like Rob Liefeld and Roy Thomas. It also concludes with a string of interviews with other comic book artists who have seen an early cut of the footage discussing what...

Anthony and Joe Russo's new sci-fi film "The Electric State" -- a $320 million ultra-blockbuster sneaking its way onto Netflix this week -- has an arch set up that takes many words to explain. Based on the illustrated retro-futurist novel by Simon Stålenhag, "The Electric State" posits that Disneyland, back when it opened in the 1950s, didn't merely construct animatronic robots for entertainment, but actual, high-tech, artificially intelligent robots. Uncle Walt, it seems, was less a movie mogul as he was Dr. Soong from "Star Trek." The world soon became populated by servant robots, each painted with a friendly, cartoonish face. Robot versions of corporate mascots were built, and cartoons were given robotic, real-world counterparts. 

In the early 1990s of this universe, however, there was a robot uprising, and the smiling corporate mascots demanded liberation. A war broke out. Humans were able to win the war thanks to a new...

One of HBO's biggest original series in the 2000s was "Entourage," created by Doug Ellin in 2004 and loosely based on the up-and-coming experiences of executive producer Mark Wahlberg. The comedy series followed Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), a breakout movie star whose close friends not-so-subtly rode the coattails of his success in Hollywood. After the show's eight-season run and feature film continuation, "Entourage" was remade for South Korean audiences in 2016 as a K-drama, or scripted Korean television show of any genre. Also titled "Entourage," the Korean version wasn't particularly successful with local audiences, but it remains an interesting watch, especially for fans of the HBO original series.

The Korean "Entourage" follows popular 20-something actor Cha Young-bin, who is accompanied by his three friends as he enjoys life in the spotlight. Young-bin is closely monitored by his agency's CEO Kim Eun-gab, who frequently clashes with Young-bin's childhood best friend and manager Lee Ho-jin.

Liam Neeson is, if nothing else, a very candid interview subject. Sometimes he's candid to a problematic fault. Regardless of how you feel about the man, however, you cannot accuse him of giving canned answers, which is what renders too many interviews unworthy of a reader's time.

With a film acting career that spans over 40 years, stretching back to his portrayal of the knight Gawain in John Boorman's Arthurian "Excalibur," the Irish-born Neeson has put together a career that prompts many questions. He went Hollywood early, and seemed stuck in a rut acting in forgettable films like "Suspect," "Satisfaction," and "The Good Mother." I didn't really take measure of him as a performer until he played Patrick Swayze's vengeful, incredibly lethal hillbilly brother in "Next of Kin." His high-pitched voice and not-entirely-hidden Irish lilt is actually perfect for an Appalachian hill person, and even though the film is just a studio programmer,...

Steven Soderbergh’s cooly romantic “Black Bag” might present itself as a chatty little thriller in the vein of John le Carré, but this slinky movie’s semi-compelling spycraft is almost entirely in the service of testing the marriage between two of Britain’s most elite security operatives — of asking just how much full transparency really matters between two people who have always been faithful to each other where it counts. Every couple has its secrets, but at what point does love threaten to become a cover story for each partner’s own private missions?

It’s often said that every strong relationship is based on a foundation of trust, but trust isn’t necessarily the same thing as truth. On the contrary, trust can be the sum of a million different falsehoods, omissions, and selectively told stories — trust is knowing that someone will only hide something from you because...

“Hacks” is back baby! The popular and critical-darling series starring six-time Emmy-winner Jean Smart (three of those wins for “Hacks”) and three-time Emmy nominee Hannah Eindinder is making a grand return to HBO and Max on April 10. Not only that but there is a brand new trailer announcing the fourth season is on the way next month.

Joining the gals in the upcoming season is a slew of previously seen actors.

Continue reading ‘Hacks’ Season 4 Trailer: The Award-Winning Comedic Series Returns April 10 With Two-Episode Premiere at The Playlist.

One of the trademark elements of the "Dune" movies is Frank Herbert's ability to world build. Let's not take points away from Denis Villeneuve, either. The director of the two-part box office-breaking "Dune" adaptation created an incredible iteration of a sci-fi setting that has enthralled fans for decades. Villeneuve delivered so well that "Dune: Part Two" already ranks 54th on IMDb's top 250 movies of all time list.

One element of "Dune" that gives it that gritty realism is the Fremen culture, which comes replete with traditions, habits, and even its own language. That native tongue is called Chakobsa, and since the entire "Dune" saga takes place in the distant future of our own human existence, the isolated desert lingua clearly draws inspiration from real-life languages, including Arabic and languages from the peoples of the Caucasus.

Indeed, one of the best moments in "Dune: Part Two" is when Paul Atreides...