Pete Hammond: Last News

Universal Pictures has set the streaming premiere date for its Chris McKay-directed horror comedy Renfield, starring Nicholas Hoult and Nicolas Cage, announcing that the film will bow exclusively on Peacock on June 9th.

The American Film Institute said today that its annual honorees-only AFI Awards event is set for Friday, January 5, at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills.

Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera absolutely charmed the Cannes Film Festival audience at its world premiere in competition this afternoon, receiving a 9-minute standing ovation inside the Palais’ Lumière theater. For those keeping score, that ties for the longest of this year’s event with Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon which played out of competition.

A24 has unveiled a raft of key territory deals for Jonathan Glazer’s hotly tipped Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or frontrunner The Zone Of Interest ahead of the awards ceremony on Saturday.

Mubi has snapped up rights to the acclaimed feature Fallen Leaves, written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki, in a competitive situation, following its world premiere in Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

Yesterday we told you that Netflix has picked up Todd Haynes’ latest Cannes Competition title, May December, and it looks like the filmmaker has already lined up his next project.

“It felt like this bloody world needed some love stories now,” Fallen Leaves director Aki Kaurismäki said of his Palme d’Or contender this afternoon.

EXCLUSIVE: CAA has signed Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller, the filmmaker collaborators behind the acclaimed dramedy BlackBerry, which made its domestic premiere at SXSW after world premiering in competition at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.

Refresh for updates…Sean Penn, asked about the current state of big wig studio chiefs and the plight of writers and directors, said today at the Black Flies presser, “The industry has been uspending the writers and directors for a long time. I fully support the situation with writers guild, of course.”

Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s seventh go-round in Cannes competition, Monster, received a six-minute standing ovation Wednesday in the Grand Theatre Lumiere. He won the Palme d’Or back in 2018 for Shoplifters. Can he do it again?

In its first win of the evening, Paramount/Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick scooped the Oscar for Sound with the prize going to the team of Mark Weingarten, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor.

Nicole Kidman arrives at the Chanel/Charles Finch Pre Oscars soirée and dinner at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills and makes clear that she’s just stopping by to say hello. ”I have two daughters at home, and they’ll be up all night unless I put them to bed!”

After weeks of speculation, Oscarcast director Glenn Weiss said today that Lady Gaga will not perform her Best Song nominee “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick at Sunday’s 95th annual Academy Awards.

For the first time since2020, just before Covid dealt a devastating blow to the industry, exhibitors and awards season, it feels like this year’s Oscar show may return to some sense of normalcy. And with box office hits mixed with acclaimed indies among the 10 Best Picture nominees, this could be the turning point in the recovery of the Academy Awards. At the nominees’ luncheon, in fact, Steven Spielberg was overheard telling Tom Cruise that he may have saved the movie business with Top Gun: Maverick, 2022’s No. 1 movie and a billion-dollar rescue for the industry. On Maverick’s tail came Avatar: The Way of Water, which became the third biggest global-grossing film of all time. And shock of shocks, both of those long-gestating sequels are Best Picture contenders with 10 nominations between them.

Where does it come from, that shiver of doubt about Everything Everywhere All At Once and its Best Picture prospects? (Almost) everyone says it’s the winner, far and away. The picture is unbeatable. The Directors Guild, the Producers Guild, and the Screen Actors Guild have crowned it already, and the Writers Guild is likely poised to do the same tonight. The Spirit Awards did it yesterday. The Critics Choice Awards had already gone thumbs up. As Deadline’s Pete Hammond points out, all six prognosticators on the Los Angeles Times “Buzzmeter” have Everything Everywhere in for the win.

Briana Middleton, one of the leads of Apple TV+’s upcoming movie Sharper, has been tapped by the streamer to headline its high-profile drama series Metropolis, inspired by Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 science fiction film. Middleton is the first actor cast in the project, from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail and UCP where he is under an overall deal.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Monday hosted its annual Oscar Nominees Luncheon to celebrate this year’s crop of hopefuls.

Director Benjamin Caron says that he was “yearning to flex a different muscle” and go from the “historical period drama” that is The Crown to the thrills and spills of Andor and on to the delicious deceit at the heart of his accomplished first feature film Sharper, starring Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, John Lithgow, Justice Smith and Briana Middleton, giving a star-in-the-making performance.

 Michael J. Fox looked in good spirits as he was joined by his wife Tracy Pollan at the premiere of his documentary.The 61-year-old actor proudly posed next to his wife of nearly 35 years  at the event for STILL: A Michael J.

Jennifer Lopez's latest marital rom-com Shotgun Wedding has been branded 'capably mediocre' and an 'interminable slog'  by critics in first reviews.The film follows couple Darcy (Jennifer) and Tom (Josh Duhamel) as their 'extravagant destination wedding is hijacked by criminals'. Lenny Kravitz and comeback queen Jennifer Coolidge also star in the Jason Moore-directed flick.However, the Amazon Prime film was slammed by critics over the 'lack of chemistry' between its leads, its 'lazy rehashing of wedzilla tropes' and for 'wasting the talent' of its star-studded cast.Deadline critic Pete Hammond wrote:  'Its biggest problem is a complete lack of credibility or sense of reality that might make any of this over-the-top affair remotely plausible.  Oh dear: Jennifer Lopez's latest marital rom-com Shotgun Wedding has been branded 'capably mediocre' and an 'interminable slog' by critics in first reviews (pictured with Josh Duhamel in the film)'The incredulity of it all won’t matter much to non-discerning viewers, however, who put pace and fun above logic and recognizable human beings.'Variety critic Guy Lodge likened the 'capably mediocre' flick to an episode of The White Lotus 'directed by Sylvester Stallone' due to a plethora of explosive scenes centered around wealthy characters.

Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.