Peter Bart: Upcoming Spielberg, Mendes & Gray Movies Could Teach Newly Troubled Tech Titans Some Old Tricks

Armageddon Time director James Gray’s got a tip for aspiring filmmakers: If you want to look good as a director, work with gifted actors, like Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong.

There was something particularly nerve-racking about playing a young Steven Spielberg in The Fabelmans, the director’s semi-autobiographical movie base on his own family and upbringing. For starters, star Gabriel LaBelle said during an appearance at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles awards-season event that he never actually sat down with the director to get the 411 on what Spielberg was like as a young kid.

Deadline is offering up a record number of titles in the lineup for Contenders Film: Los Angeles, which kicks off this morning live and in-person at the DGA Theater on Sunset Boulevard.

Bradley Cooper has signed on to play the iconic Frank Bullitt character in director Steven Spielberg's new Bullitt project.The 47-year-old actor has closed a deal to play the iconic San Francisco cop from the 1968 classic Bullitt, considered one of Steve McQueen's best movies, via Deadline.While little is known about the story, sources were, 'adamant' that the project is not a straight-up remake of Bullitt, but instead, 'a new idea centered on the character.' Bradley as Frank: Bradley Cooper has signed on to play the iconic Frank Bullitt character in director Steven Spielberg's new Bullitt project No remake: While little is known about the story, sources were, 'adamant' that the project is not a straight-up remake of Bullitt, but instead, 'a new idea centered on the character'The film was adapted from the 1963 novel Silent Witness by Robert L. Fish, following McQueen's Frank Bullitt, a hard-nosed San Francisco detective.The story follows Bullitt as he tries to track down the crime kingpin who killed the witness who was under his protection.  The film also stars Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn, Don Gordon, Robert Duvall and Norman Fell, and features arguably one of the greatest cinematic car chases ever.

Projects come and go, some get announced and never happen, and sometimes filmmakers lose interest. But Steven Spielberg’s remake of Steve McQueen’s action car chase classic “Bullitt” (1968) looks like it is not only moving forward, but his next film as Bradley Cooper has been cast in the lead role.

EXCLUSIVE: Steven Spielberg looks to have found his Frank Bullitt as sources tell Deadline Bradley Cooper has closed a deal to play the no-nonsense San Francisco cop in the new original Bullitt story centered on the classic character famously played by Steven McQueen in the 1968 thriller, which is set up at Warner Bros. Cooper will also produce the pic along with Spielberg and his producing partner Kristie Macosko Krieger (marking their second collaboration after Maestro), with Josh Singer on board to pen the script. Steve McQueen’s son, Chad ,and granddaughter Molly McQueen will exec produce the new movie.

After racing to finish his upcoming Empire of Light and seeing Searchlight launch at festivals leaning into the Cinema Paradiso-style movie love letter element, Sam Mendes is ready to come clean about what his first solo-scripted film is really about, and the experiences that informed it. The grandeur of the seaside 1980 London movie palace is certainly the backdrop for an unlikely romance between a middle-aged theater manager (Olivia Colman) and a dashing young ticket taker (Micheal Ward, whom you’ll recognize from the opening episodes of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe mini). The youth is dealing with the rampant racism that put young men like him in danger in the UK.

EXCLUSIVE: In a competitive situation with multiple bidders, Apple TV+ has landed a comedy starring, co-written, directed and executive produced by Seth Rogen with a straight-to-series order, Deadline has learned. The project hails from Rogen, Evan Goldberg & James Weaver’s Point Grey Pictures and Lionsgate where the company is based.

Sam Mendes is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers working today. It seems that every time he releases a new film, it is in the awards season discussion.

With one Oscar, four BAFTA, and three Golden Globe wins, now seems as good a time as any for director Sam Mendes to make an ode to the art form that made his name. Like Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast” and Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” Mendes’ latest film, “Empire of Light,” is not only about the power of cinema as an escape, but also its magical facility to bring strangers together.

EXCLUSIVE: Sam Mendes, the Oscar and Tony award-winning director, has chosen three London theater stars – Michael Balogun (National Theatre Live: Death of England-Delroy), Hadley Fraser (Donmar Theatre’s Coriolanus), and Nigel Lindsay (Chichester Festival Theatre’s Woman In Mind) to bring his much-garlanded production of The Lehman Trilogy back into the West End. That’s following triumphant runs at the UK’s National Theatre, the Park Avenue Armory, and Broadway, and a phenomenal 16-week, sold-out run at London’s Piccadilly Theatre in 2019.

At just 19 years of age (reportedly), Gabriel LaBelle is already at the pinacle of Hollywood cinema. The relatively unknown Canadian actor is turning heads as Sammy Fableman, a fictional version of the legendary director Steven Spielberg in the new period drama “The Fabelmans.” A movie that is arguably the frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar and will put LaBelle under a massive global spotlight in the weeks and months to come.

The Fabelmans grossed an estimated $160k this weekend at four theaters in NY and LA. That’s a $40K per screen average, on par with recent strong (for post-Covid) specialty openings like The Banshees Of Inisherin (at $45k PSA) and Tár (also $40k), both on four screens too, reflecting a definite pickup in the specialty space. Spielberg’s written, directed and produced semi-autobiographical tale debuted into one of the biggest openings of the year with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Merhan Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian man who lived for 18 years in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport and inspired the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks film The Terminal, died Saturday at the airport, officials said. He was believed to be 80 years old.

Universal Pictures is giving Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans a platform release starting with four locations in NYC (Lincoln Square, Union Square) and LA (The Grove, Century City) with a robust media campaign aimed at cinephiles, but also capitalizing on the broad appeal of a Spielberg production, testament to unusual pedigree of the semiautobiographical film.

Steven Spielberg‘s latest movie, “The Fabelmans,” is all about the power of film and the theatrical experience. But in a new interview with The New York Times in the leadup to the film’s release, Spielberg argued the magic of moviegoing took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Warner Bros.

The “what if?” game has always fascinated me: What if Donald Trump had been cast in Shark Tank rather than The Apprentice (it was Mark Burnett’s call)? He likely would have been broke rather than president.

Steven Spielberg‘s latest movie, “The Fabelmans,” is all about the power of film and the theatrical experience. But in a new interview with The New York Times in the leadup to the film’s release, Spielberg argued the magic of moviegoing took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Warner Bros.

At just 19 years of age (reportedly), Gabriel LaBelle is already at the pinacle of Hollywood cinema. The relatively unknown Canadian actor is turning heads as Sammy Fableman, a fictional version of the legendary director Steven Spielberg in the new period drama “The Fablemans.” A movie that is arguably the frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar and will put LaBelle under a massive global spotlight in the weeks and months to come.