Here is our final group of directors whom we have categorized as The New Breed, the ones we have watched in recent years and will continue to over many years to come.
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Live From Hollywood...
Sept16
'The Life of Chuck' wins the Toronto Film Festival's People's Choice Award
by Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
The Toronto International Film Festival's People's Choice Award went to "The Life of Chuck," handing Mike Flanagan's Stephen King adaptation one of the most-watched prizes of the fall film festival circuit.
The award for "The Life of Chuck" was announced Sunday as North American's largest film festival drew to a close. "The Life of Chuck," based on King's 2020 novella of the same name, stars Tom Hiddleston as Charles "Chuck" Krantz, an ordinary man living through apocalyptic cataclysms. Mark Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan and Jacob Tremblay co-star.
TIFF's People's Choice Award is regarded as a reliable Oscar harbinger. Since 2012, every winner of the festival's top prize has gone on to be nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards. Last year, Cord Jefferson's "American Fiction" won, and went on to be a major awards contender.
But "The Life of Chuck" could test that track record. The film is up for sale and doesn't yet have distribution. It could be acquired and quickly readied for release this fall, or it might end up a 2025 release. "The Life of Chuck" drew mixed - though mostly positive reviews - out of Toronto, though audiences were clearly charmed by the uplifting drama.
Box Office: 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' Stays No. 1 as 'Speak No Evil' Impresses and 'Killer's Game' Bombs
Michael Keaton in a scene from Tim Burton's 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' (image courtesy Warner Bros. / Everett Collection)
by Pamela McClintock
Tim Burton and Warner Bros.' Beetlejuice Beetlejuice lost none of its ghostly mojo in its second weekend and easily stayed atop the box office chart with an estimated $51.6 million as it hurtles toward the $200 million mark domestically.
The pic, playing in 4,575 theaters domestically, fell just 54 percent for a 10-day domestic total of $188 million. Overseas, the sequel took in another $28.7 million from 76 markets for a lukewarm foreign tally of $76.3 million and $264.3 million globally.
Blumhouse and Universal's new horror-thriller Speak No Evil was also good news for the early fall box office. The pic opened in second place with an estimated $11.5 million from 3,375 locations against a budget of just $15 million before marketing. The movie follows an American family as they spend the weekend at a plush British estate only to discover that their host, played by James McAvoy, has a rather sinister side. McAvoy is earning strong marks for his performance.
Speak No Evil boasts an 85 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a B+ CinemaScore from audiences. Overseas, it started of with $9.3 million from 73 markets for a global launch of $20.8 million.
Marvel and Disney's Deadpool & Wolverine held at No. 3 all the way in its eighth weekend, with an estimated $5.2 million for a domestic cume of $621.5 million and $1.305 billion worldwide, the seventh-biggest showing of any MCU title.
In the biggest surprise of the weekend, conservative provocateur Matt Walsh's Am I Racist? opened in fourth place with an estimated $4.8 million from 1,517 locations, the top debut of 2024 so far for a doc and the third biggest of the past decade. Am I Racist? is doing big business in conservative markets in the South, Midwest and Mountain States.
The Justin Folk-directed film, described as a "social experiment," comes from Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing's The Daily Wire and marks the company's first theatrical launch for an in-house production with distribution handled by SDG Releasing.
In the film, which is drawing comparisons to Borat in terms of its tactics, Walsh tricks his subjects by assuming the role of a DEI trainee who attends anti-racism workshops, crashes private intellectual dinner parties and conducts sit-down interviews with experts and everyday Americans alike on the topic of racism (some of those events were reportedly organized by the filmmakers). The film also discloses the fees paid to certain experts, including Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. In recent days, DiAngelo blasted Walsh and said she had donated her $15,000 fee to the NAACP.
'Venom: The Last Dance' New Trailer: Tom Hardy's 'Spider-Man' Villain Sacrifices All as This Crazy Trilogy Comes to End
by Michaela Zee
Sony Pictures has released the final trailer for "Venom: The Last Dance."
Tom Hardy returns as Eddie Brock, better known as the symbiote Venom from the "Spider-Man" comics, for the final film in the trilogy. Per the official logline, "Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie's last dance."
Along with Hardy, the cast includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach and Stephen Graham.
Kelly Marcel, who wrote and produced the first two "Venom" movies, directed "The Last Dance" from a screenplay she wrote. Marcel and Hardy developed "Venom 3's" story and produced alongside Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, Amy Pascal and Hutch Parker. Joe Caracciolo Jr. is the executive producer.
Hardy's previous two comic book tentpoles, 2018's "Venom" and 2021's "Venom: Let There Be Carnage," both opened at the start of October. The first "Venom" film, directed by Ruben Fleischer, grossed $856 million at the worldwide box office, while the Andy Serkis-directed "Let There Be Carnage" earned $502 million globally amid the pandemic.
Check out the final trailer for the new "Venom" here:
Cast and crew of 'Saturday Night' at the TIFF 2024 Canadian premiere (image courtesy Sony / Getty)
by Anthony D'Alessandro, Antonia Blyth, Damon Wise
TIFF isn't a festival known for its standing ovations, but it's arguable that tonight's Canadian premiere of Sony's behind-the-scenes SNL movie Saturday Night came close with arguably the most rapturous response here at the 49th edition, which included the audience clapping rhythmically through the end-credits.
Said one industry insider not connected to the pic, "I won't be surprised if it wins the Audience Award" - a historical bellwether for Oscar winners.
A multitude of the cast from the Jason Reitman-directed pic were in tow at the Royal Alexandra Theatre including Nicholas Braun (who plays Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson), J.K. Simmons (Milton Berle), Willem Dafoe (NBC exec David Tebet), Matt Wood (John Belushi), Gabriel LaBelle (Lorne Michaels), Lamorne Morris (Garrett Morris), Dylan O'Brien (Dan Aykroyd), Cory Michael Smith (Chevy Chase), Ella Hunt (Gilda Radner) and Rachel Sennott (Rosie Shuster) as well as the pic’s co-scribe and producer Gil Kenan.
While the film's Telluride world premiere had SNL vet Bill Murray (whose character isn't portrayed in Saturday Night) introducing it, there weren't any vets from the NBC late-night sketch show in attendance, despite some of their connections to Toronto, including Michaels, a hometown native. Word is the SNL creator is quite busy on the upcoming 50th season.
During the post-screening Q&A, Reitman told TIFF boss Cameron Bailey that Michaels "reminded me a lot about being a film director - someone who has a vision, and it's almost impossible to articulate that idea until you can actually see it onscreen. Every time I heard about him trying to describe SNL to people while he was trying to create it, "Oh, that's what's it like to be a movie director.'"
James Earl Jones, Authoritative Actor and Voice of Darth Vader, Dies at 93
A portrait of James Earl Jones in recent years (image courtesy StarWars.com)
by Jacqueline Mansky, Mike Barnes
James Earl Jones, a commanding presence onscreen who nonetheless gained greater fame off-camera as the sonorous voice of Star Wars villain Darth Vader and Mufasa, the benevolent leader in The Lion King, died Monday. He was 93.
Jones, who burst into national prominence in 1970 with his powerful Oscar-nominated performance as America's first Black heavyweight champion in The Great White Hope, died at his home in Dutchess County, New York, Independent Artist Group announced.
The distinguished star made his big-screen debut in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) and was noteworthy in many other films, including Claudine (1974) opposite Diahann Carroll; Field of Dreams (1989), as the reclusive author Terence Mann; and The Sandlot (1993), as the intimidating neighborhood guy Mr. Mertle.
For his work on the stage, Jones earned two best actor Tony Awards: for originating the role of Jack Jefferson - who was based on real-life boxer Jack Johnson - in 1968 in Howard Sackler's Great White Hope and for playing the patriarch who struggles to provide for his family in a 1986 Pulitzer Prize-winning production of August Wilson's Fences.
Jones, the recipient of an honorary Oscar at the 2011 Governors Awards and a special Tony for lifetime achievement in 2017, was one of the handful of people to earn an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony and the first actor to win two Emmys in one year.
The latest Saturday Night trailer is for the comedy nerds
by Mary Kate Carr
If there was any doubt that Saturday Night was made by real comedy nerds, look no further than the first few lines of the latest trailer. "Okay, let's see if we can get through one of these skits," the director says, before Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) quickly interjects: "Sketches, Davey, please." The rest of the trailer is similarly filled with winking references to behind-the-scenes history in addition to the exasperation of those on the outside. "Okay, so this is a bit?" someone else in the control room wonders. "I don't get half the shit that they do," a co-worker replies. Saturday Night Live in a nutshell, coming to theaters everywhere October 11!
Jason Reitman's passion project to (further) immortalize his dadis comedy buddies takes place in the 90 minutes before showtime of the very first SNL, when even the cast and crew didn't fully know what the show was supposed to be. LaBelle's Lorne is depicted as the one guy who really gets it, but even he has trouble keeping the thing on the rails: in this depiction, the premiere is nearly thwarted by dangerous technical difficulties, cast in-fighting, and network interference. The trailer is a real litmus test for how deeply you know your SNL lore. Sure, network exec David Tebet's sneering observation that "you kids aren't ready for primetime" is an easy one, but did you clock the sexual tension between Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O'Brien) and Lorne's wife Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott)?
Saturday Night premiered at Telluride Film Festival to mixed-to-positive reviews. Particular praise has been given to the young ensemble cast playing larger-than-life comedy legends, including O'Brien as Aykroyd, Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris, and Nicholas Braun as both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson. If you are an SNL buff, the movie is sure to be a real "Leo pointing at the screen" meme extravaganza. If you're not, at the very least you'll walk away knowing the difference between a skit and a sketch.
Kevin Costner addresses future of his 'Horizon' movies after first film bombed at the box office
Kevin Costner at the 2024 Venice Film Festival (image courtesy Getty)
by Eric Todisco
Kevin Costner doesn't care about box office numbers.
The actor, 69, was at the Venice Film Festival over the weekend for the premiere of his sequel to "Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter One," which bombed at the box office when it came out in theaters in June.
Still, Costner confirmed that he plans to direct and star in the third film of the planned four-part "Horizon" series.
"I have to hurry and not let the rock fall back downhill," he said at the press conference for the second film, per Variety.
"I've gotta go put my hands on it again and start to push it up," the Oscar winner continued. "It's a rope that I cannot let go of. I don't know how I'm gonna make 3 right now, but I'm gonna make it."
According to Variety, principal photography on "Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 3" began in May and is expected to finish next year.
The "Yellowstone" alum reportedly said at the press conference that all of the "Horizon" movies have been written. He also teased the third film as "devastating."
The first movie, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May before hitting theaters on June 28, grossed $36 million on a $100 million budget. Costner reportedly spent $38 million of his own money on the film.
It also received scathing reviews from critics. It has a 49% critics approval score on Rotten Tomatoes.
After "Chapter One" tanked, its sequel was taken off the theatrical schedule and instead had its world premiere in Venice.
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