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Jeremy Strong is set to star in Netflix’s upcoming series “The Boys From Brazil,” which hails from “The Crown” creator Peter Morgan, according to media reports.

Strong will star in the series, which is based on Ira Levin’s 1976 novel of the same name. The novel, which centers on infamous Nazi hunter Yakov Liebermann, was adapted into a 1978 film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, which starred Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier.

“The Boys From Brazil” marks Strong’s next TV role after starring in HBO’s “Succession” as Kendall Roy. His performance in the drama series, which also starred Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, Brian Cox and Matthew Macfadyen, scored Strong three Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, which he won in 2020.

Strong is expected to star as Liebermann, the role played by Olivier in the film.

Netflix declined to comment.

The new series from Netflix...

Pass the margaritas, and keep them coming! Sweet Magnolias fans, we're getting some less than thrilling news from Netflix out of the streamer's most recent Top 10 viewership report. While two of its most recent action-packed original series continued to thrive, the latest season of the fan-favorite romantic drama series returned from its two-year hiatus with less than stellar numbers.

In its first three days of release during the week of Feb. 3-Feb. 9, Sweet Magnolias season 4 (which premiered on Feb. 6) brought in 4 million views globally, which translates to 33.7 million hours viewed. The series ranked in fourth place for the week behind The Night Agent season 2, The Recruit season 2, and American Manhunt: O.J. Simpson.

While the opening numbers for Sweet Magnolias season 4 seem impressive at first glance, they're much lower than both The Night Agent and The Recruit, which are in their third and second weeks respectively. The romantic drama also opened...

There’s a party in Eternia, and Morena Baccarin and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson are ready to bust a groove! Amazon MGM Studios‘s Masters of the Universe movie is preparing for battle with Baccarin playing The Sorceress, while Jóhannesson plays the role of Malcolm, aka Fisto.

Baccarin and Jóhannesson join previously announced cast members Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man, Camila Mendes as Teela, Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn, Jared Leto as Skeletor, Idris Elba as Duncan/Man-at-Arms, Sam C. Wilson as Trap Jaw, Hafthor Bjornsson as Goat Man, and Kojo Attah as Tri-Klops. Laika CEO and filmmaker Travis Knight directs Masters of the Universe from a screenplay by Chris Buttler, based on a first draft by David Callaham and Aaron and Adam Nee.

Plot details for Knight’s Masters of the Universe remain a mystery. However, you can count on the live-action adventure revolving around Prince Adam of Eternia, who transforms into...

This season of Sweet Magnolias focused a lot on Maddie Townsend (Joanna Garcia Swisher). Maddie and Cal had a Halloween-themed wedding and then dealt with her ex-husband’s death shortly after.

Through it all, the Townsend-Maddox family dealt with it together. This was also the first season the series explored more career options for Maddie.

Therefore, we were eager to chat with Joanna Garcia Swisher since she teased that this was her favorite season. As always, it was enjoyable talking to her as she talked about her love of Sweet Magnolias Season 4 and her pride in her TV children.

(Courtesy of Netflix)

She loved how they approached Bill’s death and the epic storylines that came from that.

Check out the interview below.

Hi, Joanna. It’s great to see you again. So, Sweet Magnolias Season 4 felt like Maddie’s season. You teased it was your favorite earlier. What...

Steven Knight has written the long mooted feature film adaptation of his hit television drama, Peaky Blinders, coming soon to Netfilx.

Netflix has officially confirmed that the Peaky Blinders film is happening, and we won’t have long to wait before we see it – cameras begin rolling later this year. Tom Harper, who directed half of Peaky Blinders series one, is directing the film from a screenplay by Knight. Netflix is co-producing with BBC Film.

Cillian Murphy, who led all three series as Tommy Shelby, is reprising the role on the big screen and is also producing, along with Knight, Caryn Mandabach and Guy Heeley.

Murphy told Deadline, “It seems like Tommy Shelby wasn’t finished with me. It is very gratifying to be re-collaborating with Steven Knight and Tom Harper on the film version of Peaky Blinders. This is one for the fans.”

Harper added that, “When I first...

A life without Sweet Magnolias would be depressing. We all need feel-good TV shows, and watching the happenings in Serenity fills us with joy, tears, and laughter.

Fortunately, three seasons are available on Netflix, following the drama of leading ladies Maddie Townsend, Dana Sue Sullivan, and Helen Decatur.

Season four is also coming; we can confirm that filming has begun. Read on for everything we know about Sweet Magnolias Season 4, including the release date, possible spoilers, and more.

Has Sweet Magnolias Been Renewed?

Yes, Netflix renewed Sweet Magnolias for Season 4 in October 2023. Even though it had only been three months since it aired, the fanbase had started getting worried because Sweet Magnolias Season 3 didn’t end on a major cliffhanger.

Ending on a cliffhanger sometimes speeds up the renewal process, but there were two months between the air date and the renewal decision for the other seasons.

Sweet Magnolias has...

These days, it seems like almost everyone aspires to be famous at some point. In light of this, it makes sense that a large number of people are curious about how wealthy celebrities get. Of course, this is a topic of great interest because some TV stars have made at least $1 million a season. For example, fans of Alexi Hawley’s police procedural crime drama series The Rookie are curious to know about the income of the cast members.

And it seems that the leading face of the series, Nathan Fillion, is no ‘rookie’ when it comes to earning big bucks in the TV industry. According to Celebrity Net Worth, the Canadian-American actor, who portrays John Nolan, the oldest rookie, is said to be raking in a whopping $100,000 per episode for his work on The Rookie. Talk about a payday!

The Rookie (Image via ABC) How Much Does Nathan Fillion...

Geared towards sci-fi fans, Resident Alien boasts star-studded cameos, including Alan Tudyk, Linda Hamilton, George Takei, and more. Series creator Chris Sheridan's background in Family Guy may be an influence on Resident Alien's ability to attract big-name guest stars. With a mix of seasoned veterans like Terry O'Quinn and rising stars like Nicola Correia-Damude, the show offers a diverse cast of talent.

Resident Alien starring Alan Tudyk boasts an impressive lineup of famous faces from some of the biggest sci-fi franchises in TV and movies. Since Resident Alien began airing on SyFy in 2021, the series has steadily grown in popularity thanks to its quirky sci-fi concept, and the performances of the leading actors on the show. Alan Tudyk is one of the most popular actors to appear in sci-fi, with credits in Firefly and the spin-off, Serenity, onto roles in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, DC TV shows like Doom Patrol,...

Everyone has a TV character death that struck a raw nerve -- like Tara suddenly getting killed on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Or Cordelia abruptly dying on "Angel." Or Wash's shocking demise in the "Firefly" movie "Serenity." Being sadistic to his fans was kind of Joss Whedon's thing long before his fall from grace, is what I'm getting at.

Lance Sweets (John Francis Daley) being murdered on the orders of the corrupt Dr. Glen Durant (Jd Cullum) in the "Bones" season 10 premiere, "The Conspiracy in the Corpse," was another gut-punch of a TV death. Unless you knew what was going on behind the scenes, it must have come as a rather unexpected blow. It wasn't like he got offed in the lead-up to a season finale or at a point where his story appeared to be drawing to a close organically. Quite the opposite; things were going swimmingly for the boyish FBI psychologist,...

More than 20 years since the show ended, any Firefly season 2 news gets fans excited about the return of a beloved show canceled too soon. When Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel were still on the air, Joss Whedon created a new series with Firefly running for one season on Fox in 2002. But Firefly was unrelated to the world of magic and vampires; taking place in 2517, the show chronicled the adventures of Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) and his crew aboard the Serenity, a small transport spaceship on the outskirts of the galaxy after Mal lost a civil war.

Sadly, the show never found an audience during its original run and Firefly was canceled after only one season. But the show would become a cult hit through DVD and streaming viewers, and even spawned a follow-up film, Serenity, in 2005, and multiple comic book series to round out the story. However, even after all these years,...

Firefly came to an abrupt end after just one season, and in the era of reboots and revivals, Firefly is better off without being revived. The entertainment industry is still riding the wave of reboots, requels, and revivals in both film and TV, and the latter has seized this trend to bring back popular TV shows. Some of the TV shows that have gotten the revival treatment have returned to give proper closure to their characters’ stories or carry on with a new generation of characters, while others have simply returned briefly out of pure nostalgia.

One TV show that has been rumored to join the trend is Firefly, the space Western drama created by Joss Whedon. Firefly premiered in 2002 and it had a short-lived run as it was canceled after 11 of the 14 produced episodes aired. Still, Firefly has earned a loyal fanbase, and it made way for a franchise with a movie,...

Originally, a pilot episode was a marketing tool used by the creators of a show to sell the first season to networks. As such, they needed to establish characters and tone, and even give a taste of possible season-long arcs. With so much to accomplish it's no surprise that most pilots have the equivalent run time of a TV movie.

However, with the current prevalence of the "Binge Watching" model, sites like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu are slowly transitioning away from the traditional pilot episode and instead expect viewers to vote for the content they want to see more of with their attention. Now while they may be dying out, many pilot episodes remain benchmarks of great television, but which are considered the best of all time?

Updated on January 25th, 2023 by Colin McCormick: With 2022 at an end, fans can look back on the amazing year of television. Among the many returning shows,...

Today would have been XXXTentacion’s 25th birthday. The quarter-century mark is a milestone that too many artists don’t get to see due to the type of gun violence that XXX succumbed to on June 18th, 2018 (the same day that rapper Jimmy Wopo was shot and killed at age 21). The shooting was an abrupt end to the whirlwind life of one of the rap world’s most polarizing artists. The Florida-raised musician allegedly committed abuses that made him a reviled figure in many circles, but his legacy isn’t...

It’s always a letdown when shows don’t get to shine. Even worse is when a series shows so much potential, but gets canceled after only one season. Many of them go on to become cult classics, but we still have to wonder what could’ve happened if they went on for longer. C’est la vie.

Get Down

The Baz Luhrmann Netflix series about the rise of hip-hop contains great music and set pieces that make it easy to binge-watch and enjoy. That’s not including the great leads, which instill the characters with an electrifying innocence and humanity. However, the streaming service canceled it after one season.

Firefly

The cult TV show to top all cult TV shows. The one-season Joss Whedon sci-fi epic told the tale of a crew of smugglers on the spaceship Serenity and their adventures on the fringes of a broken society. It...

Filmmaker Jack Dunphy makes personal films. His shorts Serenity, Chekhov and now Revelations, tell stories from his life with a dash of fiction. He uses construction paper as a base material for his animated films and seemingly does detail work with whatever bachelor-pad rubbish he has on hand. These stop-motion worlds are grubby and handmade; there’s no handsome veneer getting between us and Jack’s emotions, though they’re beautiful in their own right. In Revelations, now streaming as part of the Slamdance Film Festival, he combines animation with video footage and photos from his past to tell the story of his high […]

The post "So Many Movies Are Disingenuous About [Death] and it Pisses Me Off": Filmmaker Jack Dunphy on His Slamdance-Premiering Short, Revelations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Filmmaker Jack Dunphy makes personal films. His shorts Serenity, Chekhov and now Revelations, tell stories from his life with a dash of fiction. He uses construction paper as a base material for his animated films and seemingly does detail work with whatever bachelor-pad rubbish he has on hand. These stop-motion worlds are grubby and handmade; there’s no handsome veneer getting between us and Jack’s emotions, though they’re beautiful in their own right. In Revelations, now streaming as part of the Slamdance Film Festival, he combines animation with video footage and photos from his past to tell the story of his high […]

The post "So Many Movies Are Disingenuous About [Death] and it Pisses Me Off": Filmmaker Jack Dunphy on His Slamdance-Premiering Short, Revelations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Casual TV and movie viewers know Jose Whedon for his work in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the first two Avengers movies. But back in 2002, he helmed the space Western drama Firefly on Fox. But despite getting amazing reviews, Firefly was canceled after one season. The show grew even more popular after its cancellation, garnering a cult following and generating plenty of revenue from DVD sales.

Related: Firefly: D&d Classes Of The Main Characters

Firefly even won an Emmy for "Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series." Due to its popularity, a movie sequel titled Serenity was later developed. Despite the brilliance of the original series, it was littered with continuity errors. The following are the ones that stand out the most.

Matthew McConaughey’s 2014 Oscar win for Best Actor didn’t come as a huge shock as he had already won the Golden Globe and Screen Actor’s Guild prizes for “Dallas Buyers Club” ahead of the Academy Awards. Plus, the actor’s extreme physical transformation for the role was considered catnip for Oscar voters. Still, McConaughey had to fend off tough competition from Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Wolf of Wall Street” and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Best Picture winner “12 Years a Slave.” The secret to McConaughey’s Oscar win? “True Detective,” maybe.

In a new interview with GQ magazine this week to promote his memoir “Greenlights,” McConaughey said the first season run of “True Detective” was probably the most helpful campaign tool during the Oscar race for “Dallas Buyers Club.” McConaughey not only earned some of the best reviews of his career for “True Detective,” but his portrayal of Rustin...

It’s no secret that the 2010s saw some incredible science fiction movies. Between crowd-pleasing blockbusters, like Edge of Tomorrow and Avengers: Infinity War, and more thought-provoking movies, like Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, and Ex Machina, the 2010s had a lot to offer.

Related: 10 Gorgeous Sci-Fi Movies To Watch If You Loved Blade Runner 2049

For every great sci-fi movie that came out of the decade, however, there were countless terrible ones. Every single year of the decade saw more than its fair share of critical disasters, with movies as awful as Jupiter Ascending, Independence Day: Resurgence, and Serenity not even making this list. This calls into question exactly what the worst sci-fi movies of the decade actually were.

Firefly is the rare science fiction classic that comes along once in a generation. Despite only running for a single season and airing its episodes out of order, the series has had a lasting impact. Unfortunately, after Fox prematurely cancelled the show, the only other piece of media filmed in the Firefly universe was the movie Serenity, named after the ship the main characters live on.

Related: Firefly: Best & Worst Supporting Characters

Truth be told, it is quite an impressive ship, continually managing to astonish both Reavers and the Alliance military with all the tricks it is capable of. Here are 10 details about Serenity even the most dedicated Browncoats don't know:...

Airing from 2002-2003, Joss Whedon's infamous show Firefly has maintained a cult following, even after all these years.  The show, which follows a ragtag group of rebels as they navigate the expanses of space in a future beset with war and oppression, was canceled tragically after just one season.  Later, the movie Serenity was released to tie up loose ends and offer some cathartic release for longtime fans of the show.

Related: Firefly: 10 Funniest Characters, Ranked

Even now, Firefly graphic novels continue to be released, eighteen years after the show's premiere.  If you're a fan of the show and looking for more ways to re-experience the iconic space opera, then perhaps you'll need this guide to the main characters of Firefly and their corresponding D&d classes. After all, the story will never be canceled if it's happening in a tabletop game.

This Roswell review contains spoilers.

Roswell Season 2 Episode 2

Over and over, Roswell is a better show than it needs to be. They don’t need to squeeze in a line about the military facility being an abandoned Indian boarding school, giving Alex a reference to this country’s continuing history with genocide that at times parallels or criss-crosses the relationship between the aliens and their home world, or ours, depending on whose perspective you take. From a technical standpoint, the opening montage could have been standard fare, rather than juxtaposing Liz’s diner job slinging milkshakes with her nightly scientific exploits dealing in specimen jars as she tries to save Max.

Amber Midthunder and Jeanine Mason continue to anchor this show emotionally. In a truly good fictional argument, both sides have merit within the narrative, and we’ve got that with miles to spare here. We get why Rosa is pissed at Max – like Liz,...

The 40th Annual Razzie Award winners were announced on Monday, March 16 — two days after they were originally scheduled to be announced — so which film won Worst Picture: “Cats,” “The Fanatic,” “The Haunting of Sharon Tate,” “A Madea Family Funeral” or “Rambo: Last Blood”? Scroll down to see the complete list of winners, and watch the announcement above.

The musical “Cats” was adapted by Oscar winner Tom Hooper from the Tony Award-winning Broadway show, but its visuals creeped out critics and scared away audiences. It earned a leading nine nominations at this event: Worst Picture, Worst Director (Hooper), Worst Actress (Francesca Hayward), Worst Supporting Actress (Judi Dench and Rebel Wilson), Worst Supporting Actor (James Corden), Worst Screenplay, Worst Screen Combo (for any two half-feline/half-human hairballs) and Worst Screen Combo again (for Jason Derulo and his CGI neutered bulge).

SEERazzies: Every Worst Picture Winner 1981 to Today

“Madea” and “Rambo” followed close behind with eight nominations,...

The Razzie Awards ceremony, the Golden Raspberry Foundation’s annual skewering of the worst in cinema, was scheduled for tonight at the Barnsdall Theatre in Los Angeles. But the event is either “cancelled/postponed,” according to a statement from the producers.

The reason? “Because the Mayor of Los Angeles shut down all city-owned venues where more than 50 people could gather, including our site, The Barnsdall Theatre,” said the statement from John Wilson, co-founder of the awards. “Without a hall, we could not proceed with the show. But we are hoping to have something to disseminate by tonight – Perhaps even by what had been our original “curtain time” of 8 p.m. tonight. Obviously, if there is no live show, there is nothing to be streamed, either.”

More from Deadline'First Love' Lands At Indie Rights; Comedy Dynamics Acquires Mockumentary 'The Social Ones'Comedy Dynamics Acquires Feature Film 'Lost Holiday'...

“Cats” will sweep the 2020 Razzie Awards. That’s according to the combined predictions of well over 1,000 Gold Derby users who have placed their bets here in our predictions center. But it won’t quite be a clean sweep. Scroll down for our complete forecasts in all 11 categories, listed in order of their racetrack odds (our projected winners are highlighted in gold).

SEERazzies: Every Worst Picture Winner 1981 to Today

The feline musical, based on the Andrew Lloyd Webber stage production, was not greeted nearly as well on the big screen as it was on Broadway, where it won seven Tonys including Best Musical for its original run. Despite its strong pedigree (including direction by “The King’s Speech” Oscar winner Tom Hooper), the film’s unsettling character design was greeted with bafflement at the first sign of the trailer, and then the film was released in December to negative reviews and poor box office.

“Cats” looks like it’ll dominate the Razzie Awards this weekend, but there’s one category where it will probably be mercifully passed over: Worst Actress. The movie musical’s leading lady, newcomer Francesca Hayward, will be spared the ignominy of a win at these kudos. According to the combined predictions of Gold Derby users, Hilary Duff will win for playing the title role in “The Haunting of Sharon Tate” instead.

SEERazzies: Every Worst Picture Winner 1981 to Today

As of this writing Duff gets leading odds of 17/5 for playing the real-life film actress, who was the victim of a horrific murder by the Manson Family in 1969. That shocking crime was also the subject of an Oscar-winning film this year, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” but this take was met with almost universal derision, scoring 8 out of 100 on MetaCritic and 19% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes for what Rt describes as an...

We’ve got ourselves another fan trailer to share with you today and while the last few have been more relevant ones showcasing upcoming movies like The Batman or Venom 2, this one’s for a sequel that we’re probably never getting.

As you can see above, YouTuber Smasher has given us a new fan trailer for Interstellar 2. The original, of course, was written and directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Matthew McConaughey as a pilot who leads a crew to space in search of a new home for all mankind.

This trailer actually borrows heavily from last year’s bonkers movie Serenity which also stars McConaughey and Anne Hathaway. In fact, I remember when the preview for that released and showed the two actors and a corn field I thought it was a promo for Interstellar 2. Unfortunately, it wasn’t, and if you thought the plot for Interstellar was ludicrous,...

Aventura’s reunion tour is doing very well in the U.S., further proving that the influence of Latin music in America is stronger than ever. The Romeo Santos-fronted group, which experienced stratospheric success in the early 2000s with the global bachata hit “Obsesión,” is now back on the road for the first time in 10 years.

The group just debuted at Number Three on Pollstar’s LIVE75 Chart — a list that ranks worldwide active tours by the average tickets sold — for the week of March 2nd. Based on six sold-out...

Back Lot Music has digitally released the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to Universal Pictures’ The Invisible Man, a Blumhouse/Goalpost production directed by Leigh Whannell from his screenplay and screen story. The film’s original score is by Grammy® and Golden Globe-nominated composer Benjamin Wallfisch. A vinyl release will be available March 4 through Mondo featuring two 180g discs housed inside a gatefold sleeve and an etching on side 4. The Invisible Man will be theatrically released in the U.S. on February 28th.

Starring Emmy Award winner Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale), The Invisible Man is a terrifying modern tale of obsession inspired by Universal’s classic Monster character.

Trapped in a violent, controlling relationship with a wealthy and brilliant scientist, Cecilia Kass (Moss) escapes in the dead of night and disappears into hiding. But when Cecilia’s abusive ex, Adrian Griffin, commits suicide and leaves her a generous portion of his vast fortune,...

The Razzie nominations are out and Cats, A Madea Family Funeral, and Rambo: Last Blood cleaned up.

The Golden Raspberry Foundation announced its picks for 2019’s worst achievements in film, a day before the Academy Awards honor the industry’s best.

Cats, which the Razzie folks described as a “widely derided feline flop,” picked up eight nods. A Madea Family Funeral and Rambo: Last Blood also received eight nominations. All three films landed in the worst picture category.

Tyler Perry, who wrote, produced, directed and played four roles in A Madea Family Funeral, received multiple nods — worst screenplay, worst actress, worst screen combo, and two worst supporting actor nominations.

The Razzie Award winners are usually announced the day before the Oscars. But according to the Golden Raspberry Foundation, the schedule was changed this year due to the Oscar ceremony being moved up. The Razzie Awards date will be announced later.

Although shunned by the Oscars, Cats racked up eight nominations to lead the 2020 Golden Raspberry Awards, a.k.a. the Razzies, the annual celebration of Hollywood’s worst.

The big screen adaptation of the Broadway musical, a box office and critical disaster, earned nods for Worst Picture, Worst Actress (Francesca Hayward), Worst Supporting Actress (both Judi Dench and Rebel WIlson), Worst Supporting Actor (James Corden), Worst Screen Combo (for “Any Two Half-Feline/Half-Human Hairball” plus Jason Derulo and “his CGI-neutered bulge”), Worst Director (Tom Hooper) and Worst Screenplay. Taylor Swift and Idris Elba escaped unscathed.

You knew this was coming. The 40th annual Golden Raspberry Awards dishonored the cinematic feline felony known as”Cats” with eight nominations, including one for no less than Dame Judi Dench herself. In fact, the organization even felt the need to describe her Old Deuteronomy as looking suspiciously similar to the Cowardly Lion from “The Wizard of Oz.” Somewhere, Bert Lahr is crying.

But incredibly, there were two other 2019 releases that proved egregious enough to also be pelted with eight nominations: Sylvester Stallone‘s “Rambo: Last Blood” and Tyler Perry‘s 12th and purportedly last appearance in a wig and dress, “A Medea Family Funeral.”

As per usual, the competitors for disgraced excellence were announced on the eve of the Academy Awards, which airs live on ABC on Sunday. The cheeky Razzies also had the nerve to slap around two other Oscars winners besides Dame Judi: Anne Hathaway, up for both “The Hustle” and “Serenity,...

Tom Hooper’s movie musical “Cats,” Sylvester Stallone’s “Rambo: Last Blood,” and Tyler Perry’s “A Madea Family Funeral” topped this year’s nominations list for the worst movies and performances of 2019, scoring eight nominations a piece.

Other “honorees” on this year’s list include the remake of “Hellboy” starring David Harbour, John Travolta in the thriller “The Fanatic” and the James Franco-directed period drama “Zeroville.”

The Razzies are now in their 40th year, and the group typically announces its nominees a day ahead of the Oscar nominations. But with the Oscars moving to its earliest date ever, it also pushed back the Razzies, which are only just announcing the nominees list. The awards ceremony for the winners will be announced at a later date.

Also Read: John Travolta Gives 'Cringe-Worthy' Performance in 'The Fanatic' as Borderline Autistic Character, Critics Say

This year the organization accompanied its nominees with a video sketch,...

The 2020 box office keeps chugging along with positive results, despite a lackluster $120 million box office total for this weekend, which will likely place in the bottom third for this year’s results. But there’s continued evidence of real strength in the market.

Grosses were up about around 16% from the same weekend last year, typically a dead zone between a big-release holiday weekend and the Super Bowl, when studios don’t want their top films facing that on their second weekend. If box office stays on track, the market could sustain the promise of a better than expected year.

Wide openers “The Gentlemen” (Stx) and “The Turning” (Universal) were a decided improvement over the two duds opening last year (the quickly forgotten “The Kid Would Be King” and “Serenity”).

But the holdover heroes are led by repeating #1 “Bad Boys for Life.” It’s not unusual for older titles to perform...

So far, the 2020 box office rebound is real. Time will tell. But early signs remain positive, with this weekend continuing to build on the 12% increase to date over the same period in 2019. Last year the weekend between King Birthday and the Super Bowl took in $105 million. This year has a shot at $125 million, which would be close to a 20% improvement.

If so, thriller “The Turning” (Universal) and action comedy “The Gentlemen” (Stx) will play a minor role in that result, along with the calendar, once again. For distributors setting release dates, the second weekend box-office can be as important as the first. With the Super Bowl looming, opening now is risky.

Fortunately current titles should make up the slack, with newbies doing better than last year, when the combined gross of long-forgotten “The Kid Who Would Be King” and “Serenity” totaled under $12 million. At best, new entries could double that number.

Exclusive: As we step foot on the ground at the Sundance Film Festival today, we’ve confirmed that 12 people of the near 30-person staff at Aviron Pictures were pinkslipped on Friday and issued their final paychecks. Domestic theatrical distribution president Greg Forston and his team were eliminated, in addition to Evp Publicity and Promotion Claire Heath.

This melee comes in the wake of BlackRock, Aviron’s senior lender, alleging impropriety in the company’s structure in a contentious lawsuit that was filed December 17 in the Supreme Court of New York (read it here), specifically accusing the company’s founder and owner William Sadleir of forgery and fraud. This resulted in Sadleir being removed by BlackRock as the operating manager of his company’s subsidiary Aviron Pictures as well as other arms of his company.

At this point in time sources inform us that Sadleir is prepping a defense, and counter-claims against these accusations.

The Informer scheduled to open in Us although no firm date set.

As Sundance Film Festival 2020 prepares to get underway, the early talk at the bastion of independent cinema will be future of Aviron Pictures following a report that 12 out of the company’s 30-strong staff have been laid off.

While it understood the company remains operational and intends to release Ana de Armas, Rosamund Pike and Joel Kinnaman thriller The Informer in the Us within the next 90 days, the future looks uncertain following lay-offs, a backdrop of lawsuits, and the firing of Aviron Pictures founder, chairman and CEO William Sadleir.

One of the few all-female awards season voting bodies, the 92 members of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists went all in for Bong Joon Ho‘s South Korean dark comedy “Parasite.” The film won four categories — Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Non-English Language Film.

Also winning in multiple categories in the 13th annual awards was Greta Gerwig‘s “Little Women,” which won for adapted screenplay, supporting actress for Florence Pugh and Best Ensemble Cast. Gerwig also won a gender-specific category for Best Woman Screenwriter.

Discuss Oscars and BAFTAs with Hollywood insiders in our notorious forums

Best Actress went to Lupita Nyong’o in “Us,” Best Actor was handed to Adam Driver in “Marriage Story” and Brad Pitt walked away with the supporting actor prize for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” The documentary trophy went to “Apollo 11” and the animated winner was “I Lost My Body.

“Firefly” executive producer Tim Minear recently reawakened fans’ demand for a revival (or maybe just made their cries louder than they already were) when he tweeted out a picture from the final day of shooting on Joss Whedon’s short-lived, cult-classic Fox series. And then Whedon added fuel to their fire by retweeting this.

Since Minear started this whole thing, TheWrap asked both him and Fox’s president of entertainment, Michael Thorn, what it would take to revive the Nathan Fillion-led space western at the Television Critics Association press tour Tuesday.

“The macro answer is, any time we look at one of our classic titles, if there’s a way to reinvent it for today so it’s as resonant now as the original was, and is, to the fans, we’re wide open,” Thorn said. “I loved ‘Firefly,’ personally, and I watched every episode. I didn’t work on it,...

Mark Harrison Jan 22, 2020

Guy Ritchie tramples around his old stomping ground in his star-studded shaggy-dog crime movie, The Gentlemen.

If not for a couple of distinguishing marks, it would be difficult to guess that The Gentlemen was released in 2020. Granted, the insistent vintage tone of the caper shows that it was never meant to be a current, up-to-the-minute crime movie, but given how long writer-director Guy Ritchie has been around, this seedy anachronism feels more like a throwback to the bad old days between Snatch and Sherlock Holmes.

More self-conscious than self-aware, The Gentlemen is framed by private investigator and would-be screenwriter Fletcher (Hugh Grant) telling big-time enforcer Raymond (Charlie Hunnam) a story in his swanky London home. The explosive tale concerns Raymond’s boss, a U.S. ex-pat and marijuana mogul named Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) and his bid to liquidate his UK-based empire and pocket a cool £400 million.

Aviron Pictures Chairman and Founder William Sadleir has been let go from the indie distributor for undisclosed reasons according to reports tonight.

Apparently, Sadleir was fired due to a contractual provision given to Aviron’s senior lender, BlackRock according to Variety who had the news.

Separately, we heard murmurs tonight that BlackRock is in the process of evaluating its position in independent film companies like Aviron; that the asset manager is looking into possibly increasing its financing in entertainment mergers and acquisitions.

Deadline first broke the news about the launch of Aviron back in May 2017. Out of the gate, they started off quite well with the rescue of Halle Berry suspense feature Kidnap from Relativity. The movie opened to $10M and made close to $31M at the domestic box office in August of that year. Aviron also had the sequel to the Rogue Pictures movie, The Strangers: Prey at Night...

William Sadleir, the founder and chairman of indie distributor Aviron Pictures, has been ousted by the fledgling company’s financier, two insiders familiar with his exit told Variety.

It’s unclear under what circumstances Sadleir left, both sources said. He was removed under a contractual provision given to the shop’s senior lender, reported to be asset management company Black Rock, one individual noted. No immediate replacement was named, the insiders added.

A spokesperson for Aviron did not immediately comment on the matter. Sadleir and a spokesperson for Black Rock did not immediately return Variety‘s request for comment.

The company is said to be undergoing an internal assessment of projects and workflow as a new chairman search begins. One of the insiders said Black Rock is also considering a third-party firm to review Aviron’s assets and library thus far — which includes Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway’s “Serenity” and Halle Berry’s “Kidnap,...

Some members of the film industry have spoken out against Worst lists in recent years, deriding them as being merely snarky and negative. But I think they’re part of the yin and yang of good movies and terrible ones, laudatory criticism and constructive criticism. If, as a creator, you’re going to revere and appreciate a good review, then you also have to acknowledge that a negative review has equal merit. And without exploring our mistakes, we are doomed to make them again and again. Here’s hoping we don’t get a repeat of these low points of the year just past:

10. “Yesterday”

Richard Curtis and Danny Boyle, each talented in his own right, seemed on paper like a strange team, and their resultant collaboration indicates they should have quit when it was still on paper. The alternate-timeline notion of a world without The Beatles gets subsumed into...

Keep in mind that we haven’t seen “Cats.” Or a single one of the half-dozen Nicolas Cage movies released “on demand” (to zero demand?) this past year. Still, in the ongoing quest to find the next masterpiece, film critics inevitably have to sit through a lot more turkeys than your typical moviegoer. Rather than let all that “cinemasochism” go to waste, we might as well amuse you with the fruits of our suffering. Below, Variety taste-makers Peter Debruge and Owen Gleiberman name — and shame — the most ill-conceived, ineptly executed, and all-around disappointing films of 2019.

Peter Debruge’s Five Worst Movies:

1. “Dumbo”

In a decade or two, we’ll look back at this period as the moment that Disney went through its archive, identified its most beloved classics, and rebooted them all as bombastic CG eyesores. Whereas the re-imagineering process has yielded mostly charming results on stage and ice (e.

Get a look at Firefly #11 from Boom! Studios as it hits shelves today! Follow the crew aboard Serenity 500 years into the future as they travel throughout space taking on challenges and adventures. Also in today's Comics Corner: Lucifer #14 and Weatherman Vol. 2 #5.

Firefly #11: "Boom! Studios unveiled Firefly #11 from New York Times best-selling writer Greg Pak and artist Dan McDaid (Judge Dredd), along with series creator & story consultant Joss Whedon continue the iconic worldwide pop culture phenomenon’s sold-out return to comic books in partnership with 20th Century Fox. Available in stores in November 2019.

War has come to the small planet, and Mal finds himself caught between the two sides. Will Mal be able to stem the tide of war, or is he already too late to stop it? And how will the sudden appearance of his outlaw mother, Maude Reynolds, affect Mal’s ultimate choice?

Firefly #11 features a main cover...

Locusts will screen at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar) Thursday, Nov 14 at 9:30pm as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival.. Ticket information can be found Here

In “Locusts,” a dark thriller set in Australia’s Outback, estranged tech entrepreneur Ryan Black returns to his desert hometown — the ironically named Serenity Crossing — for his father’s funeral. Ryan is reluctantly reunited with his ex-con brother, and the pair soon becomes the target of an extortion scam at the hands of desperate criminal associates of their reprobate dad. The Aussie movie site FilmInk writes: “Boasting a tight and twisting script and stunning imagery, ‘Locusts’ is the kind of film that we don’t see nearly enough of in Australia: a classy crime B-movie in the style of John Dahl or (early) James Foley. It’s elevated even further, however, by the stellar performances. Ben Geurens is totally empathetic as the harried hero,...

There have been plenty of box office hits in 2019 from “Avengers: Endgame” to “Joker” to “Us.” But as always, there are films that end up taking a dive once they hit theaters. Some have been failed attempts to revive flailing franchises. Others are poorly reviewed films that moviegoers barely notice on the cinema marquee. Either way, they’ve made this list.

“Replicas”

$9.2 million grossed ($30 million budget) — Keanu Reeves has had a great 2019. “John Wick: Chapter 3” was a hit, a viral video of his E3 appearance became a meme, and sequels to “Bill & Ted” and “The Matrix” are in his future. But back in January, he starred in this critically panned sci-fi tale of a neuroscientist who defies the law and scientific ethics to create clones of his dead family.

“The Kid Who Would Be King”

$32 million ($60 million budget) — Unlike other films on this list, critics were pleasantly surprised by this...

It's pretty unusual that any television series has a lasting impact on the culture or builds up a fanbase that sticks around for years after the show has concluded, and it's even more unusual that a series is so successful that it warrants it's own feature film. But a story like that of Firefly and Serenity is virtually unheard of.

Related: 10 Hidden Details Everyone Missed In The Original Alien

Firefly was a unique "space western" TV series that was very prematurely canceled by Fox after only only eleven episodes on air, but the uproar over it's cancellation was so great and the fandom was so passionate that Firefly was eventually given a chance at a feature film to wrap up it's story. And that film was Serenity. Now, the fanboys and fangirls who have been obsessing over Firefly and Serenity for years probably know almost everything about it, but there...

ABC is once again looking to mine Nathan Fillion‘s Firefly past for present-day ratings gold (or at the very least a modest demo gain).

Alan Tudyk, who co-starred alongside Fillion in Joss Whedon’s beloved sci-fi series, has been tapped to guest star in a Season 2 episode of The Rookie. He will play Ellroy Basso, a bioremediation specialist who schools Nolan on the art of crime scene cleaning.

More from TVLineThe Rookie: Afton Williamson Calls Investigation Findings 'Heartbreaking'Fall TV Ratings: Which New Shows Are Enjoying the Beefiest DVR Gains?How to Get Away With Murder Recap: How Michaela Got...

Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart — why not Snoop Dogg and Nick Cave? The rapper has covered the theme song for BBC’s gangster drama “Peaky Blinders.” Originally performed by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “Red Right Hand,” opens each episode of the series, and has been covered by a lineup of music legends, from Iggy Pop and Jarvis Cocker to Pj Harvey, as well as Arctic Monkeys and Laura Marling. Watch Snoop’s take on the song below.

The video mixes footage from the series, starring Cillian Murphy, with snippets of Snoop Dogg in his element. The opinionated “Peaky Blinders” fanbase, however, isn’t entirely happy about Snoop’s take. Other fans are pretty into this version, which brings a breath of freshness to the early-20th-century-set period series.

Eerie and propulsive, the song “Red Right Hand” first appeared on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ 1994 album “Let Love In,...