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Jennifer Lawrence hit the Cannes Film Festival red carpet in a very unexpected shoe.

On May 21, the Oscar-winning actor hit the Croisette in a crimson Christian Dior couture gown with a ruffled bust, corseted bustier, and elegant shawl draped across her arms. Paired with a statement diamond choker necklace and subtle wine-stained lips, the 32-year-old Huger Games star embodied Old Hollywood glamour for the premiere of Anatomy of a Fall, save for one minor, deliciously relatable detail.

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Underneath Lawrence’s gown was a pair of everyday black flip-flops, which could be seen as the actor descended the Palais des Festivals steps in photos from the event—and we can’t help but think Kristen Stewart would be proud. The Twilight star is known for kicking off her shoes on the French red carpet and has spoken out about the strict dress code, which at one point reportedly required women to wear heels. 

“There’s definitely a distinct dress code… People get very upset at you if you don’t wear heels or whatever,” Stewart told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017. “If you’re not asking guys to wear heels and a dress, then you can’t ask me either.”

Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Getty Images

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Jennifer Lawrence hit the Cannes Film Festival

What to Watch

The Mad Max: Fury Road prequel, titled Mad Max: Furiosa, will focus on the origins of Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa character, and the Furiosa Mad Max spinoff updates are coming in quick. 2015’s critically acclaimed Mad Max: Fury Road was the fourth installment in George Miller’s Mad Max universe, and it introduced the badass IMperator Furiosa, who often stole the show from the titular character. However, the origins of Furiosa weren’t fully revealed. Furiosa is a war captain working for leader Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) but betrays him to free Joe’s concubines and forms an alliance with Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy).

SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAYSCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

While Max is the title character in Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa is the de facto protagonist, and the movie centers around their relationship. The prequel Mad Max: Furiosa is closer to release than ever before, with production fully underway and a confirmed release date. Mad Max: Furiosa will be directed by George Miller, who is co-writing and producing with his longtime producing partner Doug Mitchell. Because the movie is a prequel, Charlize Theron will not be returning to the role, and despite the movie not having any official images or videos released, there are still tons of Furiosa Mad Max spinoff updates.


The Latest Mad Max: Furiosa News

While promoting her role in The Menu in late 2022, Anya Taylor-Joy remarked that her role as Furiosa is, “the dirtiest and the bloodiest I have ever been.” While the Mad Max franchise has a reputation for showcasing the gritty violence of an apocalyptic landscape, the earlier movies in the franchise, which began in 1979, didn’t actually include a lot of on-screen violence. Mad Max: Fury Road, on the other hand, was the bloodiest, which means Furiosa might surpass that installment when it comes to brutality and gore.

Furiosa Mad Max spinoff updates arrive in the form of on-location photos featuring Taylor-Joy with a CGI sleeve over one arm, indicating Furiosa may already be missing an arm in what’s being dubbed her origin story. Viewers of Mad Max: Fury Road might have been interested in learning how Furiosa lost her arm, but that might not be part of her story here. In the past, George Miller and original Furiosa actress Charlize Theron discussed why the audience didn’t need that backstory. The loss of an arm didn’t define Furiosa but was just a part of her, and it appears that Mad Max: Furiosa could follow that same idea.

Charlize Theron has finally voiced her opinion about being recast, and she’s in extremely positive spirits about Taylor-Joy replacing her, even though Theron once said that Furiosa was one of the most important roles she ever played. Theron “can’t think of a better actress” to replace her, adding, “I met her years ago and I haven’t really been around her at a function or anything like that… I think she’s going to be totally OK. Without talking to me, she’s going to be absolutely fine.” Actors replacing other actors in particular roles often meet to discuss the character, and though that never happened, Theron still has faith in Taylor-Joy.

Mad Max: Furiosa Release Date

Furiosa and Max sitting in a vehicle in Mad Max: Fury Road.

In October 2020, Mad Max: Furiosa was originally confirmed as in development and announced with a 2023 theatrical release. Delays in the production process and shuffling of the Warner Bros. release schedule, however, caused the movie to be pushed back. In September 2021, Warner Bros. announced a new release schedule for several movies, and the Furiosa Mad Max spinoff was one of them. The apocalyptic-set Mad Max: Furiosa is now set to release on May 24, 2024, putting it on the screen just in time for Memorial Day weekend in the U.S., which is traditionally a big kick-off in blockbuster movie releases for the summer.

The movie will likely land on a streaming platform later that same year. Most of the Warner Bros. new releases have been available to stream on HBO Max shortly after their theatrical debuts for subscribers, but that could change with the Warner-Discovery merger as well.

Mad Max: Furiosa Cast

A blended image features Charlize Theron as Furiosa and Anya Taylor-Joy in The Witch.

Anya Taylor-Joy will be taking over the part of Imperator Furiosa from Charlize Theron after George Miller announced that Theron would not be reprising her role. Taylor-Joy previously appeared in The Northman and The Queen’s Gambit, as well as the long-delayed New Mutants. Chris Hemsworth (Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman, Watchmen) were both initially announced in undisclosed roles. Hemsworth is said to be playing Furiosa’s villain, but since the movie is thought to depict the power struggle between two potential villains, one of which is Mad Max: Fury Road’s Immortan Joe, he could play either of the two characters.

When Abdul-Mateen had a scheduling conflict after the movie’s filming date was pushed back, he had to leave the project. The role he vacated went to Tom Burke, known for his roles in BBC projects such as the network’s recent War & Peace miniseries. Like Hemsworth, Burke could be playing either of the warlords that are part of Furiosa’s story. However, there will be a couple of familiar faces too. Mad Max: Furiosa will feature Nathan Jones and Angus Sampson, who played Rictus Erectus and the Organic Mechanic, respectively.

The most recent Furiosa Mad Max spinoff update unfortunately isn’t a positive one, as Nicholas Hoult revealed that he isn’t returning as Nux, the eccentric Way Boy member in Mad Max: Fury Road. Hoult sarcastically explained, “Obviously as a prequel, it’s earlier. Nux would’ve maybe just about been born and I don’t think I could play a six-month-old or a year old. It would be a stretch for me.” However, he could still have played a totally different character just like how Immortan Joe actor Hugh Keays-Byrne played Toecutter in the very original Mad Max.

Mad Max: Furiosa Story Details

Furiosa stands in front of a truck in Mad Max Fury Road

Mad Max: Furiosa will still feature Immortan Joe, but it will follow Furiosa after she’s been kidnaped from the “Green Place of Many Mothers.” Furiosa ends up in a Biker Horde led by a warlord named Dementus. Dementus and his bikers travel through the Wasteland, only to find the Citadel where Immortan Joe is in charge. Furiosa will be caught in their battle for power in the movie.

Though the audience knows where Furiosa ends up in Mad Max: Fury Road, the journey to get there will still be an interesting one. Despite the rough and immoral nature of the Wasteland, Furiosa still holds her morals intact and strives to protect those around her. Mad Max: Furiosa will showcase how she maintains the strength to do so.

According to Taylor-Joy, Mad Max: Furiosa is way more epic than Mad Max: Fury Road. Where the 2015 movie was ultimately a road trip that took place over three days, the prequel takes place over a much longer period of time. Taylor-Joy explained, “This is an epic. This takes place over a long period of time, and you kind of get to know [Furiosa] better in that way. I love that character so much. That whole experience was mind-boggling.” While the prequel will likely still feature tons of car chase mayhem, it sounds like there’ll actually be time for audiences to catch a breath this time around.

Mad Max: Furiosa Trailer

Charlize Theron behind the wheel of the war rig in Mad Max: Fury Road.

Because Mad Max: Furiosa is still in post-production, and another Mad Max movie hasn’t entered production yet, there currently aren’t any trailers for any new Mad Max movie. With a release for Mad Max: Furiosa in mid-2024, there’s a good chance that fans will get, at the very least, a teaser trailer by the end of 2023. A full-length trailer for the Mad Max spinoff for Furiosa will likely land in early 2024.

Will There Be More Mad Max Movies?

Tom Hardy as Max in Mad Max Fury Road

Outside of Furiosa Mad Max spinoff updates, while George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, and Nico Lathouris worked on Mad Max: Fury Road, they had a lot of extra material that didn’t make it into the final script. That extra material was worked into two scripts, one for the Mad Max: Furiosa spinoff, and another for a project with the working title Mad Max: Wasteland. Wasteland might not end up as the final title of the script, and there’s no word yet on what the movie will be about other than it’s set to be a sequel to Mad Max: Fury Road. So, there will be at least one other movie in the Mad Max universe.

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The Mad Max: Fury Road prequel, titled

Awards

The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is in full swing with world premieres from Johnny Depp’s Jeanne Du Barry, Pedro Almodóvar’s queer western short Strange Way Of Life, Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s film Monster, James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Tantoo Cardinal, Lily Gladstone, Cara Jade Myers, and Janae Collins.

The feature film Firebrand, directed by Karim Aïnouz and starring Alicia Vikander as Katherine Parr and Jude Law as Henry VIII, presented its world premiere at the Cannes film festival, Sunday, May 21st.

The film follows Catherine Parr attempts to navigate English politics when she becomes King Henry VIII’s sixth wife. The premiere was attended by Sam Riley, Junia Rees, Amr Waked, Mina Andala, Gabrielle Tana, Michael Fassbender, Michelle Yeoh, Carla Bruni, Marion Cotillard & more.

The Hope Awards were announced at a special event during the 76th Cannes Film Festival last night, and were presented to: amfAR Global Fundraising Chairman Miltin Gatsby, who was recognized for his unparalleled philanthropic efforts as a champion and essential leader for amfAR and its mission to end the AIDS epidemic worldwide and documentary filmmakers Bianca Stigter, Sahra Mani and global non-profit Reporters Without Border for defending free speech across the globe.

RELATED: Cannes Palme d’Or Winners: Photos From Every One Of The Festival’s Top Films Through The Years

Vanity Fair Editor-in-Chief Radhika Jones and Prada hosted an exclusive dinner and afterparty, Saturday, May 20th, celebrating the 76th annual Festival de Cannes. The soirée was attended by Robert De Niro, Hank Azaria, Bryan Cranston, Jeff Bezos, Naomi Campbell, Rachel Sennott, Noah Jupe and more at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc.

Press conferences today included the films Killers Of The Flower Moon attended by Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Director Martin Scorsese, and Robert De Niro; May December attended by Cory Michael Smith, Julianne Moore, director Todd Haynes, Charles Melton, and Natalie Portman; Director Mona Achache and Marion Cotillard for Little Girl Blue; Le Temps D’Aimer (Along Came Love); Jennifer Lawrence at Bread And Roses; Omar La Fraise (The King Of Algiers); Robot Dreams; Banel E Adama; If Only I Could Hibernate and Goodbye Julia.

 

Other buzzy premieres taking place at the festival are HBO’s The Idol, Firebrand and Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City.

Check back here for up-to-date photos from festival parties, press junkets and premieres. The Cannes Film Festival runs from May 16-27.

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The 76th edition of the Cannes Film

Music

For nearly a decade after Donna Summer’s death in 2012, her home in Nashville remained like a shrine to the Queen of Disco’s decades-long music career.

Beaded gowns that she had worn onstage remained tucked away along with designer pumps in the upstairs closet; ephemera such as an annotated album cover design for “She Works Hard for the Money” were stored downstairs; and in the basement, there was an accumulation of brightly colored paintings, awards and gold records.

Never eager to talk about death, Summer — who died of lung cancer at 63 — had not given directions for what should be done with her possessions, her husband, Bruce Sudano, said recently. It was only in the past few years that Summer’s family was ready to fully comb through her belongings at the Nashville home, many of which will go up for sale at Christie’s next month, the auction house announced Friday.

“You’d go into these spaces and it would be almost a time capsule of your life,” said Brooklyn Sudano, one of Summer’s three daughters.

One of the items up for sale is a silver goblet that Summer often had onstage with her, filled with caffeine-free Pepsi. Brooklyn Sudano remembered that when she and one of her sisters were on tour with their mother in the 1990s, one of their jobs would be to stir the soda inside the goblet to get rid of any bubbles. (“While she’s singing she can’t be burping,” she explained.)

The singer drank flat, caffeine-free Pepsi from this silver goblet during performances, her family said. Christie’s estimates that the cup will sell for between $400 and $600.Credit…Courtesy of Christie’s

A versatile singer-songwriter whose music spanned funk, dance, rock and gospel, Summer shot to fame in 1975 with the erotic extended cut of “Love to Love You Baby,” followed by the pioneering electronic song “I Feel Love,” whose pulsating club beat can be heard in Beyoncé’s “Summer Renaissance.”

The announcement by Christie’s comes shortly before HBO’s release on Saturday of a new family-backed biographical documentary, directed by Roger Ross Williams and Brooklyn Sudano. Chronicling Summer’s rise from a cast member in a German production of “Hair” to an international superstar, the film, called “Love to Love You, Donna Summer,” is as much about her personal life as her career, discussing her struggles with depression, physical abuse by a boyfriend, and her chapter as a born-again Christian.

The auction includes glamorous possessions and others that are more mundane. On the glamorous end: a glittering blue and green dress Summer wore in the music video for her 1983 song “Unconditional Love,” a rhinestone-studded dress and bolero jacket that she wore at a concert in 1995, and a collection of the diva’s sunglasses.

As for the mundane — but perhaps intriguing to the most devoted of fans — the sale includes unworn shoes and a dozen unused Louis Vuitton towels.

“There are people in the world who love her,” said Bruce Sudano, who is in charge of caring for her estate. “It felt like we can’t just hoard all of this stuff for ourselves.”

The online sale, which Christie’s expects to garner about $200,000 to $300,000, begins on June 15. A portion of the proceeds from the sale will go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Save the Music Foundation and the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the auction house said.

One item, a poster for a 1998 concert supporting the nonprofit Gay Men’s Health Crisis, gestures to the history of Summer’s at times strained relationship with L.G.B.T.Q. fans, many of whom boycotted her music in the ’80s after they had helped to fuel its rise.

The documentary briefly addresses that history, with Summer’s husband recounting how an off-the-cuff comment onstage — “God didn’t make Adam and Steve, he made Adam and Eve,” he recalled her saying — deeply hurt many gay fans. Summer worked to repair her relationship with the fan base, especially after New York magazine wrote that she had described the AIDS crisis as a “divine ruling” on gay people, a report she fiercely denied and ultimately sued over.

The sale also includes about 15 paintings and manuscripts with scrawled lyrics, including for the 1977 song “Now I Need You,” written on stationery from a hotel in Munich, as well as edits in pencil to the lyrics for the hit “On the Radio.”

Brooklyn Sudano scrutinized documents like those while piecing together the HBO film, which she said bolstered her belief that her mother was not a pop star engineered by outside forces, but rather an artist who was deeply involved in creating the hits that made her famous.

“People just saw her as this persona,” she said. “I don’t think that they truly understood that she was an artist and had an active role in creating the Donna Summer that people knew.”

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For nearly a decade after Donna Summer’s

Global

West Ham goalkeeper Alphonse Areola and his wife have hailed the fearless fan who defended the families of the Premier League team’s players from a mob of Dutch hooligans last night.

Chris Knoll, dubbed the ‘Angel of Alkmaar’, is a 58-year-old father-of-four recovering from hip replacement surgery, MailOnline can reveal.

He has been widely praised for putting himself in harm’s way as hooded thugs tried to storm the seating area where the players’ partners and children were seated.

He refused to allow the ‘ultras’ to reach the terrified group – as concerned West Ham players, including striker Michail Antonio, rushed from the pitch after their victory over AK Alkmaar.

On Friday afternoon, West Ham and France goalkeeper Areola called Knoll a ‘legend’ while his wife Marrion Areola Valette added he was the ‘biggest hero’ on a historic night for the Hammers.

Sporting a swollen left eye and red scrapes on his face, Chris told MailOnline: ‘I’m not a hero. I just did what I had to do. There was another guy who was fending them off. I don’t like bullies and just had to try and stop them.

The hero West Ham fan who defended the families of West Ham players from a mob of Dutch hooligans last night is 58-year-old father-of-four Chris Knoll, who is recovering from hip replacement surgery, MailOnline can reveal

The Briton, known as 'Knollsy', can be seen holding off the Dutch hooligans at the top of a set of stairs as they attempt to flood into the seating of the family stand

The Briton, known as ‘Knollsy’, can be seen holding off the Dutch hooligans at the top of a set of stairs as they attempt to flood into the seating of the family stand

‘I just thought the best form of defence was to attack. You could see they were intent of causing trouble and I did not want them to get to those behind us.’

Chris, known to his friends as ‘Knollsy’, stood atop a stairwell to prevent the Dutch hooligans from reaching other fans.

Footage of Chris fighting off at least half a dozen AK Alkmaar ultras has gone worldwide. He was pictured afterwards with his shirt torn, but still smiling.

He has been widely praised on social media for his heroic stand, being likened to heroic figures in history and characters from ‘Games of Thrones’.

Chris, who has supported the East London club since he was a teenager, said he had travelled to the semi-final match with his son-in-law and a close friend.

The match had passed off without trouble until West Ham sealed victory to secure a place in the Europa Conference Final in the closing minutes – leading to the AK Alkmaar thugs dressed all in black to burst through stewards and attempt to climb up into the stands where the families of players were seated.

Chris said: ‘We were in our seats and we just scored and I saw all the flares go off. It was getting a little bit rowdy.

‘I saw them all congregated on the side of the pitch and then they broke down the barriers and headed to the first group of West Ham fans. I know what they were intent on doing and was not going to let it happen.

‘It was fairly obvious what was going to happen because they were intent on coming to us. They were the ultras, you could see that from what they were wearing. I just decided I wasn’t going to let them come up.

‘I just thought the best form of defence would be to get to the top of the stairs where they were coming up and just stood there and tried to stop them. I know they were swinging punches and I just did my best to stand there and take it.’

West Ham goalkeeper Alphonse Areola called Knoll a 'legend' on Instagram

Areola's wife added he was the 'biggest hero' on a historic night for the Hammers

West Ham goalkeeper Alphonse Areola called Knoll a ‘legend’ before his wife added he was the ‘biggest hero’ on a historic night for the Hammers

Areola and wife Marrion Areola Valette took to social media to share their thanks with Knoll

Areola and wife Marrion Areola Valette took to social media to share their thanks with Knoll

Chris was praised on social media for springing to the defence of West Ham defender Thilo Kerher's girlfriend

Chris was praised on social media for springing to the defence of West Ham defender Thilo Kerher’s girlfriend 

A fan holds off the mob of AZ Alkmaar supporters as they tried to make their way up the steps to clash with West Ham fans after the Dutch side lost the Europa Conference League semi-final

A fan holds off the mob of AZ Alkmaar supporters as they tried to make their way up the steps to clash with West Ham fans after the Dutch side lost the Europa Conference League semi-final 

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Knollsy is seen after the confrontation still smiling and in fine fettle despite his torn shirt

Footage captured Chris and another fan trading blows as they were swarmed by the Ultras.

Chris said he was able to fend off at least four of the thugs but two could behind him and landed several blows on his face.

His left eye is badly bruised and red scrape marks are clearly visible on the side of his face.

He said: ‘If you’ve seen the pictures, there’s about five or six guys in front of me and I’m sort of trying to fend them off.

‘Somehow, I don’t know how, two got behind me, right. And as I’m dealing with the other guys, there’s one guy who’s just constantly bagging me in the side of the head. That’s what caused the bruised eye. Its not too bad, but I might go to hospital to get it checked out.’

Chris’s actions have been praised by other fans on social media for his heroism despite being outnumbered.

Others have said the club – or players who were so concerned they tried to reach their family – should give him tickets for the final in the Czech capital Prague as a way of thanks for his heroism.

Speaking at his home in West London he said some of the comments on social media suggesting he is an ‘old school’ hooligan who was part of the notorious ICF (Inter City Firm) gang are wide of the mark.

‘I’m not involved in any trouble, just an ordinary season ticket holder who goes to every home game,’ he said.

West Ham fans fended off the hooded attackers

West Ham fans fended off the hooded attackers

Pulling down his green West Ham club short to reveal a 10-inch-long scar on his right hip from his recent operation he joked: ‘Not really a hooligan am I. I’m in my late 50s and just had a hip replacement surgery.’

Chris, an electrician, stayed overnight in an Amsterdam hotel before flying back to his home to his wife Karen in West London.

He said she was not surprised that he had stood up to protect women and children.

‘She knows what I am like, and I don’t like bullies. My kids are the same, they will always stand up and be counted,’ he said.

‘I’ve been a season ticket holder for about five years and always go to the home games. I can’t go to the away games as it takes over your life, and I’m not sure the wife would be too happy as I’ve got work as well.

‘Apart from what happened at the end it was a fantastic night, and so pleased we are in the final.’

Chris said he has not been able to get tickets for the final in two weeks time.

He said: ‘If I can get a ticket and a couple for the two who were with me in Amsterdam I will be there to cheer on the Hammers.

‘I’d love to be at the final. Hopefully it will be trouble free and we can just enjoy and fantastic match.’

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West Ham goalkeeper Alphonse Areola and his

Trending

Top tennis player Daniil Medvedev on Sunday claimed his first clay-court title by winning the Italian Open. As the Russian hoisted the trophy at the award presentation, the speakers at the stadium blasted Pet Shop Boys’ 1992 dance hit Go West, a rendition of Village People’s song of the same name.

While a popular selection at sporting events, Pet Shop Boys’ tune is a peculiar choice to mark Russian Medvedev’s victory.

First off, the melody of the Village People original and especially the Pet Shop Boys redux with its intro, were made to resemble the Soviet Union anthem (now the Russian anthem which uses the same music.)

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian sports competitors, including tennis players, are not allowed to represent their country or carry the national flag, with no Russian anthem performed at any occasion.

Secondly, the song has a not-so-subtle message. While the Village People’s original is more about finding opportunities in the American West, the Pet Shop Boys take, which came out three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was clearly about the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and the former Soviet block embracing the Western values and way of life. The video of the song used images of the Statue of Liberty and a lot of symbols of communism and Soviet landmarks, like the Red Square. (You can watch it below)

The irony was not lost on some viewers who watched the trophy presentation.

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Top tennis player Daniil Medvedev on Sunday

Video

Who was Katherine Parr? Henry VIII’s final—and surviving—wife was somewhat eclipsed by the dramatically beheaded Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. But no longer. As Firebrand Director Karim Aïnouz told Deadline on Sunday, “I was just really interested that there were so many things that were done about Henry and his other wives, but nothing about Katherine.”

Firebrand tells the tale of a Queen that broke the mold.

Alicia Vikander, who plays Katherine, said, “It’s like just because she survives, it’s almost like it’s not as interesting [in history]. One of the first things that I read up about was realizing she was the first ever woman who published under her own name in British history.”

And at its heart, this is a story of domestic abuse and how Katherine came to survive that. As the king (Jude Law) rages with paranoia and persecution, taking it out on those around him, Law points out, it’s not a story that’s confined to the history books.

“I think the approach that Karim had just immediately engaged me,” he said. “He saw it as a film about this marriage and this surviving a marriage, rather than seeing it as this untouchable historical fable. I like the idea of humanizing Henry and understanding when someone is behaving so appallingly… there’s other things going on,” he said.

Law walked with a cane and used a prosthetic leg to show the vicious ulcers that plagued the king, and he remained in costume whenever he was on set.

“Michael O’Connor, our wonderful designer, found a team who made it authentic so we could wear [the costumes] very loosely and open and play with them and take them on and off and all the underwear and everything was authentic so we could really live in them,” Law said. “Just personally, how that helped me was just that the scale of it all added so much volume to me and impact.”

“To me, the really important thing with him was the pain and just finding a physicality that showed both the weight he was carrying and the pain he was enduring. Because as much of a monster as he is, it is an extraordinary fact that he survived as long as he did with that much pain, without anesthetic, without painkiller.”

Vikander said there were moments when she felt close to the sheer terror of being a woman facing brutality. “[There was] one particular scene, when I deep down had a sense of what a lot of women go through out there, just this very deep fear that never, never leaves. That’s what acting does. And the wonderful thing is that it’s able to kind of get yourself into the perspective, and you use your imagination with these sets and these actors to make you really understand people even deeper.”

Aïnouz said he hopes the film will promote an understanding of the violence women have endured over centuries. He views this story as a call for the end of oppressive patriarchal systems, stating, “certain things need to end. Patriarchy needs to stop, and tyrants need to go.”

Check out the conversation in the video above.

The 2023 Cannes Film Festival runs May 16-27. Follow Deadline’s complete coverage of the deals and doings on the Croisette here.

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Who was Katherine Parr? Henry VIII’s final—and

Entertaintment

New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino is acknowledging the impending competition coming her way this summer as Instagram works on a text-based app.

Yaccarino shared her reaction on the social media platform retweet a story talking about the Twitter clone that is already being tested out.

“Game on!” she tweeted.

Instagram’s Twitter clone comes as Yaccarino takes the reigns of the company owned by Elon Musk. Twitter has become unstable since Musk took over with many advertisers pausing their spending or fleeing the app altogether. Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal advertising executive, will be tasked to welcome advertisers back following months of uncertainty with the platform.

Twitter users that feel uncomfortable on the app have been looking for alternatives to the platform finding refuge in similar apps like Mastodon, Hive and Bluesky, which has Twitter founder Jack Dorsey on its board of directors.

Instagram is known to take inspiration from social media competitors like Reels, based on the popularity of TikTok and Stories based on Snapchat. Their new stand-alone app will mimic Twitter’s capabilities.

Meta has been testing out the app with high-profile influencers like actors and athletes who have had early access. The app will be tied to Instagram with usernames and verifications being carried over to the new platform. Although the new decentralized app doesn’t have an official name, its codename is reportedly P92 or Barcelona, according to MoneyControl.

“We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests,” a spokesperson for Meta said in a statement to the publication.

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New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino is acknowledging

MCU

Gabriel Luna, who played the Robbie Reyes version of Ghost Rider on Marvel TV’s Agents of SHIELD, just changed his tune on a potential return to the role in the MCU.

Ghost Rider has a prominent history in Marvel Comics along with a presence on the big screen prior to the MCU’s introduction, with Nicolas Cage bringing Johnny Blaze to life before Gabriel Luna embodied Robbie Reyes for Marvel TV.

Agents of SHIELD‘s place in the MCU’s continuity remains a mystery, with its canon status coming into question by the time Luna’s Robbie Reyes first fires up his story during Season 4.

And then, even if the show is fully regarded as canon with the MCU’s big-screen movies and the shows developed for Disney+, there’s never been a guarantee that Luna would play the role again if asked.

Ghost Rider Star Now Open to MCU Return

Marvel

Speaking with Forbes, Agents of SHIELD star Gabriel Luna expressed his readinesss to return to his role as Ghost Rider in the MCU should the opportunity arise.

Luna made it clear that he “[loves] the character” and that he still gets asked about Robbie Reyes on a daily basis after his run in Season 4:

“Oh, I love that character. It was really special. It had only come into existence in 2014 (Robbie Reyes’ Ghost Rider), created by Felipe Smith, and then it was in 2016 that we did the show and literally not a day goes by that somebody doesn’t ask me about it.

He sees the demand for the character’s return, and while it may still be “a few years out” if Marvel makes the decision to bring him back he’s, “always open” to making it happen:

“It feels like the demand may be there and if the creative is there and it makes sense… I think with Marvel right now, it’s so intricately woven that it would be a few years out if they started to think about it, to do the character. I’m always open.”

Luna used to answer this kind of question with far less eagerness, responding that he was “very happy” with what he and the show’s team achieved and could look back fondly on his experience with Marvel, but was okay not playing the character again:

“My stock answer used to be, ‘I loved what we did, I’m very happy with what we accomplished and I can be happy leaving it on the shelf and admiring what we did and have the audience remember it fondly, the way they do. To do the character again just gives me another opportunity to screw it up.'”

He’s even willing to keep up with the physical responsibilities that come with the role, looking back to the work he did with Arnold Schwarzenegger for 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate. and confirming that “a good story” will get him on board:

“So there’s that mindset, but now I feel that I’m a lot more open should it come around. If it makes sense, I’m more than happy to…I try to keep myself in shape, Arnold demands it. So I’m still certainly physically capable of doing it and if it’s a great story and they’d have me, of course.”

The source material for his roles has helped him develop a deep connection with these stories as well, noting his time as Ghost Rider and Tommy Miller in The Last of Us as key moments that he’s enjoyed:

“With characters like Robbie, the Ghost Rider, and Tommy (‘The Last of Us’), they’ve been established and I’ve been able to access the source material, fall in love with it in a lot of ways and sometimes when you love something that strongly, it may interrupt your process and what you’re trying to accomplish.”

This comes as a major change of pace from how Luna used to answer the question of coming back to Marvel, although the actor has changed his tune on the matter over the last year.

Speaking with ComicBook.com in January while promoting The Last of Us, the actor noted that “there’s definitely a lot more to say” with Robbie Reyes and confirmed that he’d “absolutely be happy to continue” if he got the chance.

Will Gabriel Luna Return to the MCU as Ghost Rider?

Even with Agents of SHIELD‘s place in the MCU canon being somewhat uncertain, there seems to be a clear desire to see some form of Ghost Rider join the franchise before too long.

This is especially true with the MCU planning to dive into more supernatural storylines with movies like Blade and with the Multiverse opening doors to other universes filled with classic Marvel heroes.

Hearing Luna be so open to reprising his role as Ghost Rider is certainly encouraging for Marvel fans who want to see new expansions to the MCU narrative, particularly with the Rider’s popularity in other forms on the big and small screen.

The MCU has already referenced Ghost Rider in an episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and there was reportedly a fight scene including the fiery hero that was cut from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as well.

And while Luna may not get to fully realize his MCU potential for a few years, these quotes could speed up the process and get the thrilling hero into the story in the not-too-distant future.

Gabriel Luna can be seen as Ghost Rider in Season 4 of Agents of SHIELD, which is now streaming on Disney+.

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DCU

The WGA writers’ strike has been going for three weeks now, and many shows and movies have halted production due to the studios’ unwillingness to negotiate in good faith. And the latest project to be affected is The Batman spin-off series, The Penguin, starring Colin Farrell.

According to Deadline, The Penguin was set to film Tuesday in Westchester, NY, but WGA East picketers, Teamsters, and local guilds refused to cross the picket line.

The series picks up where Matt Reeves’s The Batman left off.  A power vacuum has been created in the wake of Carmine Falcone’s murder at the hands of The Riddler, and Oswald Cobblepot is bound and determined to fill it. However, that is not to say that the rest of Gotham’s criminal underworld will let him.

“It starts a week after The Batman ends, so Gotham is still somewhat underwater,” Farrell previously told Extra, referring to The Batman’s third act that saw Paul Dano’s Riddler instigate a plan to flood Gotham.

Craig Zobel, who directed the limited series The Mare of Easttown, is set to helm the eight-episode series. Lauren LeFranc (Impulse, Agents of SHIELD) is set to pen the script. Farrell will also executive-produce along with director Matt Reeves and producer Dylan Clark. Colin Farrell reprises his role as Cobblepot from the film, and is joined by Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone and Clancy Brown as Salvatore Maroni. Maroni is infamous among comics fans as the man who disfigured D.A. Harvey Dent in court with acid, unleashing his dual personality of Two-Face.

The Penguin joins Daredevil: Born Again, Billions, P-Valley, Pretty Little Liars: Summer School, and several others on the list of shows that have temporarily shuttered production because of the strike. The writing work has also ceased on Stranger Things, Cobra Kai, Abbott Elementary, Severance, Good Trouble, and Yellowjackets.

The Penguin does not yet have a release date.

 

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87 The WGA writers’ strike has been going

Comics

VGChartz’s Lee Mehr: “While it’s a shame to see a repeat of the GaaS structure that limited Dungeons’ launch-window appeal, Minecraft Legends also doesn’t command this action-strategy template with the intense care required. It’s striving to pare down real-time strategy to its basic elements, but can’t avoid feeling repetitive with its mission design and effective tactics. It’s neat how 3rd-person action is incorporated, but confounding design decisions limit its ultimate utility and fun. The building blocks of its personality and hybrid design are there, but Mojang & Blackbird fumbled with the blueprint.”

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VGChartz's Lee Mehr: "While it's a shame

Festivals

Late last month the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to condemn the Taliban for systematically depriving Afghan women of their rights, demanding the country’s fundamentalist Islamic rulers provide “full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of women and girls” in Afghan society.

It was an acknowledgement of how quickly the situation for women and girls has deteriorated since the Taliban retook control of Kabul in August 2021, following the departure of U.S. military forces. The dire reality for the distaff population of Afghanistan becomes heartbreakingly clear in the documentary Bread and Roses, which premiered today at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is directed by Afghan native Sahra Mani and produced by actress Jennifer Lawrence, Justine Ciarrochi, and Mani.

Director Sahra Mani (in white), producer Jennifer Lawrence, producer Justine Ciarrocchi (in silver necklace), Dr. Zahra Mohammadi (in white headscarf), and guests at the Cannes Film Festival Sunday, May 21, 2023.

Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

“Do not forget about Afghan women!” Dr. Zahra Mohammadi implored the audience at the Salle Agnès Varda in Cannes as she, Mani and Lawrence introduced the film. Before the Taliban takeover, Dr. Mohammadi operated a thriving dental practice in Kabul, but soon after the Taliban return to power she was ordered to remove her name from her own clinic. Women across the country were told they could no longer go out in public without a male escort; schools for girls and women were shut down.

The documentary includes cell phone video of brave women who defied the stay-at-home order and protested in the streets, calling on authorities to re-open schools. “Down with the terrorists!” shout some of the demonstrators, clearly meaning the Taliban. Disturbing videos show the brutal reaction of security forces who attack protestors and what appear to be Western journalists trying to cover the demonstrations.

A protestor records a protest against Taliban rule by Afghan women.

A protestor records a protest against Taliban rule by Afghan women.

Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival

In another cell phone video, a man off camera is heard threatening to summarily execute women protestors. One of the women tells him flatly, “You’re desperate for power over us.” That sums up the grim situation in Afghanistan, where the Taliban, guided by an extreme interpretation of the Quran, is obsessed with subjugating more than half of its people.

In what could be considered a ray of hope – perhaps a very faint one – Bread and Roses shows safe houses where some women are offered shelter, at least temporarily, as they try to get to Pakistan to escape the suffocation of their freedoms. And some men of a more enlightened nature make stray appearances, including Zahra’s devoted husband, Omid, and the husband of another key woman in the film who notes succinctly at one point, “In Afghanistan, women are slaves.”

One of the most harrowing cell phone videos comes from an anguished woman who speaks into the camera, saying through tears, “I have a Talib living in my house.” That’s a reference to her husband, whom she says has administered terrible beatings on her, worse even than what she would experience were she to venture unescorted into the streets.

Dr. Zahra Mohammadi (in green headscarf).

Dr. Zahra Mohammadi (in green headscarf).

Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival

The film unfolds in a fractured narrative, jumping between several different women who are faced with the prospect of having to flee their homeland. It coheres around Zahra, a charismatic woman who grew up in a conservative family (at one point her father is heard telling her he strongly disapproves of her growing activism and that as a result of her high profile he can no longer go out in public himself. He sounds like the embodiment of male privilege and self-pity). Despite the disapproval of her family and great risk involved, Zahra convenes meetings in her dental office where women discuss their plight and write out protest slogans to display during public demonstrations. In one scene, Zahra tells her young nieces that if they are questioned about her they should deny knowing their aunt.

The film rises to an even greater level of tension when Zahra is arrested by authorities, leaving family and friends wondering if they will ever see her alive. She is later released (the film doesn’t explain under what circumstances), but she recounts torture that she and other detainees endured while in detention. She says one woman with whom she was incarcerated had been beaten so badly Zahra didn’t recognize her, only realizing later that they had known each other before.

Director Sahra Mani

Director Sahra Mani

Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival

Mani, the filmmaker, directed an earlier film about women in Afghanistan, A Thousand Girls Like Me, released in 2018 before the final Taliban onslaught. During his introduction of the cast, Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux noted that Mani is living in exile in Iran (a place not exactly known for treasuring women’s rights either, but one where women have taken a leading role demonstrating for an end to domination of society by Islamist clerics). Frémaux saluted Mani for creating a film that he said serves as both a contemporary witness of Afghanistan, and a witness for history.

Jennifer Lawrence at the Cannes Film Festival Sunday, May 23.

Jennifer Lawrence at the Cannes Film Festival Sunday, May 21.

Photo by Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Lawrence and Ciarrocchi produced the film through their banner Excellent Cadaver, and it’s the company’s first documentary. Bread and Roses is eligible for the L’Oeil d’or (Golden Eye) award, which goes to the top documentary in the Cannes Film Festival. The L’Oeil d’or jury attended the premiere screening (earning a shoutout from Frémaux), and afterwards the jury president, filmmaker Kirsten Johnson, could be seen wiping tears from her eyes.

Whether a documentary about women in Afghanistan can effect any change in the country seems too much to hope for. But at the very least, as Dr. Mohammadi urged, it will help ensure their ordeal is not forgotten.

Title: Bread and Roses
Festival: Cannes (Special Screenings)
Director: Sahra Mani
Running time: 90 min.
Sales agent: LBI Entertainment

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Film

FilmHedge CEO and Founder Jon Gosier L and Riveting Entertainment Group Partner Scott Sheridan R

FilmHedge and Southbox Entertainment Founder and CEO Jon Gosier Joins Group as Investor and Strategic Advisor

Film and TV finance company FilmHedge<https://filmhedge.com/> has entered into a $25 million first-look financing production partnership with Riveting Entertainment Group<https://rivetingentertainment.com/> to significantly expand Riveting Films, the companies announced today from the Festival de Cannes, where FilmHedge is a hosting sponsor of the Producers Network. The companies will collaborate on a broad slate of feature length films with the first one planned to begin production within the year.

As part of the partnership, film and television production company Southbox Entertainment<https://southboxent.com/> (COLLATERAL DATA, WITCH HUNT, RISE, PHOBIAS, SKYLINES) has the option to provide additional equity financing to the premiere collaboration, as well as future productions from Riveting Films. Jon Gosier, who helms both FilmHedge and Southbox Entertainment, joins Riveting as investor and strategic advisor. Gosier brings  deep knowledge and connections in the film and music industries to his role having founded Audigent<https://audigent.com/>, a music-tech platform providing artists Camila Cabello, Eminem, Post Malone, Blake Shelton, Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, Shakira, Rihanna, Jay-Z, and others with new ways of understanding and monetizing audience data.

“Riveting Entertainment Group is one of the industry’s most well-respected creators of music videos and documentaries, having produced videos for many of this generation’s chart-toppers,” said Jon Gosier, Founder and CEO of FilmHedge and Southbox Entertainment. “Our investment in Riveting Films will propel the company’s transition to  the production of original feature length film and TV content. We look forward to working with the incredibly talented team at Riveting as they expand their pursuit of creating culturally-relevant stories.”

Riveting has produced content for Drake, Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga, Jack Harlow, Missy Elliott, Ludacris, Redman, and other top talent.

“A world of opportunity lies ahead for Riveting as we enter an aggressive expansion phase in partnership with Jon Gosier, FilmHedge, and Southbox Entertainment, whose investment speaks volumes to our shared filmmaking vision,” said Andrew Listermann, Founder and CEO of Riveting Entertainment Group. “We are particularly excited about building our film and TV catalog alongside Jon and his team, who will be instrumental as we grow.”

FilmHedge is a title sponsor of the Marché du Film International Film Finance Forum and the Festival de Cannes Producers Network. Gosier will be a Guest of Honor at the Producers Network Breakfast on Monday, May 22, at 9 am local time, during which time he will host a discussion on private film finance. Festival badge holders are invited to attend.

About FilmHedge

Founded in 2020, FilmHedge is a fintech platform that provides private credit and financing solutions to qualified TV and Film producers, offering up to $10 million per film or TV production. In addition to financing, the company uses data to track film and TV production financial data, interest rates, and the creditworthiness of producers and production companies. In 2022 FilmHedge closed $100 million in financing to meet growing demand.

About Southbox Entertainment

Southbox Entertainment is focused on important true-to-life dramas, thrillers, comedies that draw from intellectual property acquired from around the globe. Southbox is an independent motion picture and television production company that specializes in financing, co-financing, and developing original scripted and unscripted content.

About Riveting Entertainment Group

Riveting Entertainment Group the parent company for its multi-award-winning production company, music label, film division and talent management services. Founded in 2008 by CEO Andrew Listermann, Riveting touts a roster of top-level film and music directors, and has produced content that generated over 20 billion views online. Riveting’s client list includes the likes of Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Drake, DJ Khaled, Chris Brown, Redman, Backstreet Boys, Diddy, Mary J Blige, Post Malone, G-Eazy, Nicki Minaj, Tyga, Usher and many more. Riveting released the feature film documentary “Mary J Blige: Strength of a Woman.”

About Riveting Films

Riveting Films is an independent film development, production and distribution studio. Utilizing its 15+ years of experience and connections in the entertainment industry, Riveting Films works with top level talent, directors and producers to create compelling and impactful films that shape culture. From documentaries to scripted feature films, Riveting Films prides itself on its ability to deliver engaging, high-end productions that connect to a global audience.

About Riveting Music Group

Riveting Music Group is an independent music label that partners with artists to create, release and market music, visuals, merch and concerts. Riveting Music has released a large catalog of content with Redman, Lyrica Anderson, Nessly, Eric Bellinger, Chanel West Coast, Cal Scruby, Baker Grace, and many more.

Media Contact:

Julie Mathis

Julie@TheCrooksGroup.com<mailto:Julie@TheCrooksGroup.com>

310-428-5305

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FilmHedge CEO and Founder Jon Gosier

TV

Arian Moayed is just like the rest of us in one glaring way: He’s in denial about the end of Succession. The actor, who has played the fast-talking, deal-making Stewy Hosseini since season one, never had time to truly close that chapter of his life — he wrapped production on the series finale and went directly to the tech rehearsal of his next project, the (now Tony-nominated) Broadway adaptation of A Doll’s House. Plus, there was the whole will-they-won’t-they element hovering over the season. “Even though we were all reading the scripts as they came in and seeing where the season was going, in my hopeful mind I was just like, oh this can’t end,” he says, noting that he learned definitively about the show’s ending during the final week of filming. “I was just texting like, no no, there must be more episodes!”

But, taking a cue from his onscreen counterpart, Moayed has negotiated a healthy exit package of sorts: His turn in A Doll’s House will run through June 10 (coincidentally the day before the Tony Awards, where he’s also nominated for Featured Actor), and he’ll be seen in Nicole Holofcener’s highly-anticipated A24 comedy You Hurt My Feelings. Here, he takes a moment to reflect back on his time as the Number One Boy’s occasional number-one boy.

So, how much does it really feel like Succession is over?

Not at all, because the episodes are still airing and we’re texting about them weekly. But the reality is that we’re never all going to be in the same room together again. Maybe at the Emmys, but the crew won’t be there. That group of people will not go to the Hamptons again to shoot a helicopter scene. That’s a bummer. On the last day I was a little blacked out, but I will say that the main thing I felt was gratitude. All I could say to everyone was just thank you. It has genuinely changed my career and my life in so many different ways.

So you’re predicting some Emmys…

I think we’ll probably get some Emmys (laughs), and to be honest, I think we deserve a bunch. I think Jesse Armstrong should get all the flowers in the world. This is a once-in-a-lifetime writer. And all the actors, too. I know that Sarah’s just moved up from the supporting category, but if she hadn’t, I’d say they should just do a triple-tie this year.

One of the things I’m struck by in interviewing you is how different you seem from Stewy — do you get that a lot?

I’ve heard that I’m the most different from my character of everyone on the show. But Matthew [Macfadyen] is completely different. He’s just such a British gentleman. I don’t know how else to explain it other than saying he’s a proper British man. The joke they say in the wardrobe department is that he’s the only one who, after they get the clothes back, they smell better.

I know you can’t say really anything at all about how the show ends or what we’ll learn, but I really want to know if we find out if Stewy and Kendall’s (Jeremy Strong) friendship is genuine. More than ever, it feels like Kendall doesn’t really have anyone.

I genuinely believe Stewy and Kendall are friends. And I genuinely believe Stewy will always pick money over the friendship. And I genuinely believe that Stewy wishes Kendall did the same thing. He’s not going to go behind your back. Even in the bachelor party scene in season one, he said something like “I love you man but you know I had to follow the money.” That is the game we’re in. Kendall has the legacy, but I don’t have that in the show. I’m latching onto other companies. That’s why those Logan-and-Stewy scenes were always so dynamic.

Is this the kind of thing that you ask the writers about specifically, or do you just know the characters well enough by now?

I think of episode four, when they’re at the wake. I was just looking back at the script, and there were a few lines that were cut. When Stewy is asking Kendall if he really wants to go back in to the business and Kendall says “yes, I’m two-track” or whatever it was. Stewy starts talking about how shitty his dad was. He says, “Do you remember Pop Quiz? We come home from high school, and he asked you the capital of Ghana. You got it wrong and he threw a shoe at your head.” In that scene I started rattling off games he used to play, and the last one was Dinner for Winners. I don’t remember what the game was, but I won and I got to have dinner with Logan and Kendall had to serve us. So even though the audience isn’t getting any of that, it’s imbued into these relationships.

You’re pretty vocal about your own political opinions, and I believe you’ve spoken before about believing that Succession is ultimately an anti-capitalist manifesto in the sense that it’s revealing all of the dark elements of the way this country runs — do you ever have trouble squaring these beliefs of yours with the machinations of Hollywood and what it requires of all of us to participate in it?

At this point in my career I can make decisions for my career based on which projects I feel good about. Even though everything is about money in some sort of way, in my youth, I will be honest, it was so much more about capitalism. I was signed by a big agency at 25, 26 years old, and as an Iranian guy they were only seeing me for Iranian things. I said I wouldn’t do terrorist roles, so I didn’t work in film and TV. Period. I did some Law & Order, a few little things. But if you take out the main source of income for the middle Eastern acting community, which on the heels of 9/11 was playing terrorists, there’s not much left. I said no because I didn’t want my parents to see me in that shit. It doesn’t represent who I am. I stuck to it, and I was poor. I did a lot of theater. I did a play with Robin Williams and people were saying, you’re on Broadway, so let the nonprofit stuff go. I talked to Robin, who was a huge service guy, and he said: Double down on your shit. I did, and I got dropped by those agents.

Do you ever still feel like people are trying to pigeonhole you into those types of roles?

Now, there’s more roles for someone who’s Middle Eastern, but there’s still a lot of TV shows and movies that show Middle Eastern cities as war zones. I read a script within the last six months where it took place in a conglomerate of Middle Eastern countries. A year and a half ago I was offered something, and I won’t say what it was or with who, but I took the meeting and they said the character was Iranian and he was on a revenge plot. Do you remember the movie Not Without My Daughter? It was one of the most detrimental things to happen to our culture. Iranians are notoriously over-kind, but you make a movie with one sociopathic, truly hateful man and suddenly that idea is everywhere.

This is a tough transition, but I’m very curious if you kept any of Stewy’s very luxurious wardrobe items?

Fuck, yes! I have the leather jacket. That mysteriously fell off the rack. I have a bunch of his suits too, they’re gorgeous. I have some Logan Roy business cards, which are just for fun. I also got the Sonos speakers from Logan’s apartment. That was a practical memento.

When I think about the things about Stewy that I’ll remember long after the show, food comes up for some reason. Is it my imagination or is he always the only one eating? Besides maybe Hugo with his plateful of pastries at the GoJo retreat.

He’s got some sort of oral fixation. And that’s just me and Monica, the props master, just kind of having fun, because I thought he would always be always chewing on something or just getting ready to. I remember that scene on the island in Croatia in season two. Which, first of all that island was made up of just a single bed and breakfast that cost who-knows-how-much per night. They shot the Roys getting off the boat and coming towards us, and that part of the scene was physically very far away from where I was sitting at a table. There was this beautiful octopus plated in front of me, and it was such a long-angle shot that I thought, I’m just going to start eating. And then when Jeremy came up I was still eating, and he says, “Don’t wait for us or anything,” and I say “I was hungry!” That was all spontaneous but it made it into the show.

Okay, here’s a trick question. When the finale airs after this interview, what am I going to wish I had asked you about?

Oh, I think you’re going to have a million questions. That’s what I’m going to say about that. By episodes nine and 10, shit goes kind of bananas. It’s just delicious. Maybe in five years Jesse will be like, “You know what, I have an idea. Let’s bring it back together again.” But my gut is that Jesse is so conscious that he doesn’t want the show to ever be stale. He’s just going to be like: Bye.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

Succession releases new episodes Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO and Max. Follow along with THR‘s Succession final season coverage.

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Arian Moayed is just like the rest

What to Watch

As the second season of Prime Video’s original series The Rings of Power finishes filming, fans eagerly await what will come next in this new series based on J.R.R Tolkien’s famous Lord of the Rings series. The Rings of Power takes us back to Middle Earth, where we have met the ancestors of the beloved hobbits, known as the Harfoots. The first season also introduced us to the mysterious Meteor Man, who we now know to be the wizard Gandalf the Gray. And, of course, we have met a major villain in the Lord of the Rings series, Sauron, or as he is known in The Rings of Power, Halbrand.


With all this brought to us in season one, we can expect that more new characters will be introduced to us in season two. In fact, another villain has been reported to make an appearance, although a brief one. How this character will be used and in what manner she will appear, we don’t know yet, but we can certainly speculate.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAYSCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

We can be sure that this villain will pose some threat to our main characters, and we might get the chance to see a bit more of her backstory. And who is this villain? You might shudder to hear that it is, in fact, Shelob, the giant arachnid who will be making her debut in the newest season of The Rings of Power.

Related: Netflix Sets Premiere Month for Squid Game: The Challenge


Young Shelob Is Rumored to Make an Appearance in Season 2

New Line Cinema

In the original Lord of the Rings series, Shelob makes an appearance as Frodo and Sam are on their way to destroy the One Ring. As the hobbits pass through the mountains, Gollum leads them into Shelob’s lair of webs. Gollum was aware of her lair after surviving an encounter with her while making his escape from Mordor.

He had promised her that he would bring her fresh new victims to make meals from since he was scrawny and not worth the time for her to eat. Making good on his promise, he abandons Frodo and Sam in the lair, with another motive as well, to get the Ring back from the hobbits.

Upon entering the lair, Frodo uses his Elvish sword Sting to cut through the webs so the two can make their way through. When they encounter Shelob, they use the Phial of Galadriel to fend her off, casting its light on her and overwhelming her senses.

As they reached the exit of the cave, Shelob returned to attack Frodo, poison him with her stinger, and wrap him in her web. Paralyzed Frodo was unable to fight back, and it was Sam who came to his rescue, fighting and injuring the spider until he managed a fatal wound to her abdomen, which caused her to flee.

However, her appearance in The Rings of Power will predate this encounter, and we will get the chance to meet a much younger Shelob. Perhaps it will be in this series that Sauron will become aware of how she might be useful to him. Whether or not he makes an official alliance with her, we will have to find out.

But we do know from the original series that Sauron was fond of Shelob and allowed her to remain in the mountains to feast upon those who passed through. She acted as a more effective guard for the pass of Cirith Ungol than the orcs stationed there. Sauron was also known to send prisoners and servants to her when he was done with them.

Related: Prime Video’s Medellin Trailer Breakdown: Mike Tyson Stars in This Explosive French Action Comedy

A Chance to Dive Into Shelob’s Origin Story

Return of the King
New Line Cinema

Although not much is known about Shelob’s early history, there is some lore around her origin that The Rings of Power might get to explore that would further connect the series to The Lord of the Rings. Shelob is said to be part spider and part demon and is the last daughter of a powerful and monstrous spiritual being known as Ungoliant. Prior to Sauron’s rise in power, Ungoliant partnered with Sauron’s original master, the Dark Lord Morgoth, and the two worked together to destroy their enemies.

Eventually, they turned on each other, and Ungoliant was forced to flee from Morgoth’s army. According to the lore, Ungoliant spent some time in the Valley of Dreadful Death, where she mated with giant spider creatures and produced her own offspring, which is how Shelob came to be. Ungoliant’s fate is largely unknown, but many believe she eventually devoured herself.

From there, the lore is not too specific about Shelob’s early history except that she came to Mordor long before Sauron and, by this point in The Rings of Power, has likely already established her lair in the mountains. It is almost certain that Shelob will make her debut in the new season by attempting to kill some poor traveler who wanders into her caves.

We may also see where Sauron meets her or comes to know of her territory as he takes the land of Mordor for himself. Regardless, The Rings of Power has a unique chance to dive into Shelob’s character even more and bring a familiar (yet terrifying) face to the series.

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As the second season of Prime Video’s

Awards

Todd Haynes is the latest auteur to use Cannes as a launching pad for a potential Oscar contender, debuting his delicious dramedy “May December” at the festival on Saturday.

Premiering less than one hour after Martin Scorsese’s 202-minute “Killers of the Flower Moon” conquered Cannes, the torrential downpour on Saturday night couldn’t keep many patrons away from taking in the Haynes movie. And not just because the movie reunites the director with his muse Julianne Moore, who he worked wonders with on “Safe” (1995) and “Far from Heaven” (2002), the latter which earned an Oscar nomination for Moore’s performance and one for Haynes’ script.

Add the excitement of Moore acting opposite Natalie Portman; how can this not be a winning recipe for success? With a whip-smart script from feature debut screenwriter Samy Burch (and a “story by” credit by Alex Mechanik), as well as a surprising standout turn from heartthrob Charles Melton, “May December” more than delivers on those sizable expectations. The film is looking for a distributor, so depending on which studio picks up rights to the film and when they opt to release it, this could be an all-around awards player in multiple categories at the next Oscars, including best picture.  

The film tells the story of actress Elizabeth Berry (Portman), who is set to portray Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Moore), a Georgia woman who became a notorious tabloid figure when she engaged in a sexual relationship with a 12-year-old boy, Joe. Twenty years have passed and Grace is trying to keep the past in the past. But in order to prepare for her upcoming role, Elizabeth visits Gracie and a now 36-year-old Joe (Melton), who are married with children, and her arrival exposes the fractures beneath their carefully constructed surface. “May December” is very loosely based on the story of teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, who had an affair with and married her teenage student Vili Fualaau.

A two-hander in its purest form, Moore and Portman deliver the acting equivalent of an Olympic fencing match. Using Burch’s words and Haynes’ direction as their blades, with one woman feinting while the other flinches, the two execute a masterclass of technique — one of the best performances of their acclaimed careers. No kidding, they are that good.

Moore, a five-time Oscar nominee – “Boogie Nights” (1997), “The End of the Affair” (1999), “Far from Heaven,” “The Hours” (2002) and “Still Alice” (2014), which finally landed her the best actress prize – gives Gracie an endearing lisp and a brittle edge (as well as an icy resolve). It’s a brave performance, making you care at various points for a woman who did something unthinkable. There’s so many breathtaking scenes for awards voters to dig into.

The same goes for Portman, who’s picked up three career noms for “Closer” (2004), “Jackie” (2016) and her best actress winning “Black Swan” (2010). At first, Portman’s Elizabeth is ingratiating and unfailingly polite. But her Hollywood chic barely covers up a certain voyeuristic ruthlessness. It’s her delivery of a bracing line, “This is what grown-ups do,” towards the end of “May December” that bring all the film’s themes back into focus.

So, here’s the thing… how do you campaign such equally talented and charged female roles for Oscar attention?

In best actress history, only five movies have managed to receive double noms in that category – “All About Eve” (1950) with Anne Baxter and Bette Davis, “Suddenly, Last Summer” (1959) with Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor, “The Turning Point” (1977) with Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine, “Terms of Endearment” (1983) with MacLaine (who won) and Debra Winger and “Thelma & Louise” (1991) with Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon.

There’s been a growing disdain for actors, widely thought of as leading performers, being campaigned for supporting recognition, more widely known as “category fraud.”

Sprinkled throughout history, the worst offenses can be seen with Al Pacino’s supporting actor nominated turn for 1972’s “The Godfather” (which resulted in the actor boycotting the ceremony) or Tatum O’Neal winning supporting actress for 1973’s “Paper Moon,” despite being in just about every scene. In recent years, the topic bubbled up when Rooney Mara successfully campaigned as a supporting actress for Haynes’ “Carol” (2015), with her co-star Cate Blanchett pushing for lead actress. That awards campaign sparked a debate within the industry community. According to Matthew Stewart, who professionally tracks screen times for Oscar nominated performances on his website Screen Time Central, Mara appears in nearly 60% of the film. She is the second-longest performance ever recognized in the category. Mara eventually lost to Alicia Vikander for “The Danish Girl,” another performance many deemed lead.

For movie studios and awards strategists, it’s about putting an actor (and a film) in the best position to garner Academy attention. Is it right or fair? No, because this prevents other performers who do give supporting performances from getting recognized. Take Sarah Paulson, also from “Carol” or O’Neal’s nominated “Paper Moon” co-star Madeline Kahn. So will Portman go lead while Moore competes for supporting actress or vice versa?

Francois Duhamel

With all this chatter about the two powerhouse women from “May December,” Melton, best known as Reggie Mantle on CW’s television series “Riverdale,” nearly steals the movie. The best supporting actor category has been a welcoming place for Hollywood newcomers and relative unknowns – such as Troy Kotsur for “CODA” or Kodi Smit-McPhee for “The Power of the Dog” (2021). Melton’s choices to embody a man who never really had a chance to be a teenage boy are remarkably executed, which speaks to Haynes’ astonishing touch with his actors and what he can bring out of them.

It’s been 21 years since Haynes picked up his sole Oscar nom for writing “Far from Heaven.” So how long will the Academy wait to recognize one of our greatest living filmmakers? Hopefully, not too much longer.

The film could find the most love from the Writers Branch members. We know how much the Academy loves movies about movies, and a film that follows an actor’s process could be the tipping point that propels it into front-running consideration.

Even though the music is one of the movie’s best features, it’s likely not eligible as it uses previously recorded material. The music branch rules state a film must have a minimum of 35% original music to qualify. However, you can still look for the movie in other artisan contender lists, such as cinematography by Christopher Blauvelt and film editing by Affonso Gonçalves.

Fun fact: Will Ferrell, who was in attendance at the premiere, could garner his first Oscar nom as a producer of the film if it’s nominated for best picture. But, of course, it’s a long way from May to December – in the awards landscape, that is.

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Music

The 2023 Cannes Film Festival has officially rolled out the red carpet!

Every May, the elite film festival kicks off in the South of France and draws a star-studded crowd. Unlike other film festivals like Tribeca or TIFF, Cannes takes a relaxed approach to the fanfare—how can you not feel at ease overlooking the French Riviera? Though the films are the main event, luxurious fashion is the real star of the show.

Year after year, celebrities serve iconic looks that live in my head rent-free all year round. In 2022, Viola Davis shone like the sun in a bright yellow Alexander McQueen gown and eye-catching Boucheron jewels. Katherine Langford matched Davis’s ’fit by wearing head-to-toe hot pink Valentino. On the other side of the style spectrum, Elle Fanning looked like a fairy princess in soft baby pink sheer fabric.

The looks for the 2023 festival, which kicked off on May 16, are to die for—I’m looking at your blue hair, Helen Mirren! Here are some of the best-dressed stars lighting up the red carpet.

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The 2023 Cannes Film Festival has officially

Global

Police investigators in Coquitlam, B.C., have released more information related to a brazen shooting that left a man in critical condition.

On May 17, Coquitlam RCMP said a targeted shooting took place around 7:30 p.m. at a strip mall near David Avenue and Coast Meridian Road.


Click to play video: 'Police-involved shooting in Duncan'


Police-involved shooting in Duncan


On Sunday morning, Mounties said the victim is a 37-year-old man who was shot while sitting at an outside table in a heavily populated area.

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The suspect is believed to have fled in a stolen grey 2022 Honda Civic Touring, which was later found engulfed in flames near Cape Horn Avenue and United Boulevard.

Investigators are once again asking the public for help in hopes of pushing forward their investigation.


Click to play video: 'Man injured in Surrey shooting well-known in community'


Man injured in Surrey shooting well-known in community


“We are asking anyone who may have seen the suspect or suspect vehicle, to contact our investigators,” said Sgt. Karrie Ellis.

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“We are asking anyone who may have residential or dash camera video in the area of Cape Horn Avenue and United Boulevard in Coquitlam from Wednesday, May 17, 2023 between 7:45 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. to contact the Coquitlam RCMP.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact Coquitlam RCMP at 604-945-1550.

&copy 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Taylor Swift Photos


Taylor Swift and rumoured new boyfriend, 1975 frontman Matty Healy, spotted leaving her studio session together in New York City . Pictured: Taylor Swift,Matty Healy Ref: SPL6752198 160523 NON-EXCLUSIVE Picture by: Claude Yao Sahi @hijoshotit / SplashNews.com Splash News and Pictures USA: 310-525-5808 UK: 020 8126 1009 eamteam@shutterstock.com World Rights


Taylor Swift and rumoured new boyfriend, 1975 frontman Matty Healy, spotted leaving her studio session together in New York City . Pictured: Taylor Swift,Matty Healy Ref: SPL6752198 160523 NON-EXCLUSIVE Picture by: Claude Yao Sahi @hijoshotit / SplashNews.com Splash News and Pictures USA: 310-525-5808 UK: 020 8126 1009 eamteam@shutterstock.com World Rights


Taylor Swift says she’s “never been this happy.” The singer, 33, made the declaration during her Boston Eras Tour show on Saturday, May 20 amid on-going rumors that she is dating Matty Healy, 34, following her split from longtime boyfriend Joe Alwyn, 32. “I’ve just never been this happy in my life in all aspects of my life ever,” she said at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough in videos posted to social media. “And I just want to thank you for being a part of that,” she then added to the roaring crowd.

@bethany_pendleton13

I love her so much I’m so happy shes so happy♥️ #taylorswift #swifttok #erastourtaylorswift #tstherastour #swiftie #taylorsversion #greenscreen #theerastour #TSmidnighTS #taylornation #foxboroughtstheerastour #tstheerastour #boston #gillettestadium

♬ Question…? – Taylor Swift

The bold statement was made just before she went into her surprise song of the evening, choosing “Question…?” from her latest album Midnights. While Taylor rarely says who inspired a song, fans largely believe the catchy tune is not about Joe, but about a way back ex: Harry Styles, whom she dated in late 2012 when she was just 22 and Harry was 18. “Did you ever have someone kiss you in a crowded room? / And every single one of your friends was making fun of you (You) / But fifteen seconds latеr they were clapping, too?” she sings on the song, possibly a reference to their public New Year’s Eve kiss in NYC.

Claude Yao Sahi @hijoshotit / Shutterstock

In recent weeks, Taylor has seemingly been inseparable from Matty. The pair first sparked romance speculation just before he attended not just one but all three of her Nashville concerts — even driving back to her Gulch area condo at around 12:30 a.m. after the second show.

Back in New York City the following week, the duo were photographed at members-only club Casa Cipriani holding hands on the outdoor balcony. Taylor stunned in a yellow sun dress with a beverage in hand. Per reports, Taylor and Matty were also “cuddling” and “kissing” at the venue — seemingly confirming that the pair are more than friends. On Thursday night, he was spotted with an overnight bag heading up the stairs of her New York City condo where he was let in by a private security guard.

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View gallery Taylor Swift says she’s “never been

Tech

After rumors that Samsung might be switching its in-house browser app’s default search engine from Google to Bing – perhaps in time for the Galaxy S24 – a new report suggests that the change is no longer happening, which is no doubt a relief to Google.

This comes from the Wall Street Journal (via The Verge), and like the original rumor, there’s not a whole lot to go off. The WSJ says that an internal review into whether Samsung should jump from Google to Bing has now been suspended, with Samsung apparently worried about disruption for users and souring its relationship with Google.

Those clearly negative aspects of any potential switch made the idea of it pretty inconceivable in the first place, though it sounds as though Samsung was thinking about it – perhaps impressed by the swift rolling out of various Bing AI features.

Staying number one

Another factor to consider in all of this is that we’re talking about Samsung’s own Internet Browser app: Google would of course still have been front and center in Chrome for Android. Nevertheless, the move would’ve made plenty of headlines.

We know that Google actually pays Apple to be the default search engine in Safari, an arrangement that’s perhaps easier to swallow for Apple as it doesn’t have a search engine of its own. Google then rakes in billions in ad revenue through searches run on iOS (and indeed Samsung handsets).

All that said, the WSJ cites “people familiar with the matter” as saying that Samsung “isn’t permanently closing the door” on switching to Bing in the future – so Google executives might have some work to do yet.

Analysis: search is changing

One of the ways in which OpenAI and ChatGPT have changed the tech landscape is in giving Microsoft an intelligent chatbot that can return better search results in some situations. Google has since plugged its own Bard chatbot into various products, including its flagship web search engine.

That means that in future years, we might be spending less time opening up a web browser and typing out our queries, and more time interacting with a bot to get the information that we need. That in turn is likely to impact advertising revenues – both for Google and for web publishers.

It’s difficult to predict how this is all going to play out, but we might get to a point where it’s not so important for Google to be the number one search engine in Samsung’s Internet Browser or Apple’s Safari, if it’s attracting users in other ways. In fact, it’s something of a surprise that it’s taken this long for web search to evolve beyond its original form.

There are all kinds of uncertainties going forward around how these bots grab their information and how the human beings who provide the content get compensated, but it’s going to be interesting to see how the search landscape changes – and whether or not Bing (or anyone else) can truly challenge Google.

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After rumors that Samsung might be switching

Video

As the June 1 deadline to raise the debt ceiling approaches, NBC News’ Chuck Todd blasted Republican Congressman Byron Donalds for defending Donald Trump’s flip-flopping on whether debt negotiations should be used as a way to push partisan agendas.

During Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Todd asked Donalds to respond to a clip of the former president saying in 2019 that he “can’t imagine anybody ever even thinking of using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge,” specifically prompting the Florida representative to explain why he disagrees with Trump in this case.

Before getting down to business on the issue, Donalds noted that despite Trump’s comments from several years ago, the former president also recently mentioned when asked why he was contradicting now what he said then, explained his pivot was “because he’s not president,” referring to last week’s CNN town hall moderated by Kaitlan Collins.

“Do you realize how absurd that sounds?” Todd interjected to ask Donalds, who quickly shot back “That is not absurd.”

Todd cut in again to ask, “How is that not absurd?” and confirmed “it’s absurd,” before Donalds proceeded to unequivocally support the former president’s whims.

“He is always negotiating, Chuck. That’s what he does,” Donalds said. “It’s actually one of the reasons why so many deals for our country worked out to our benefit as compared to his predecessors, both Republican and Democrat, because he’s always negotiating.”

Donalds’ defense clearly did not do the trick for Todd as he pushed the Florida rep once again to see why Trump’s back-and-forth statements are problematic, asking “but do you realize how partisan that sounds?”

“He is, basically, saying ‘when I’m president, there’s no negotiating on this, but hey, when somebody else is president, screw them,’” Todd said.

Donalds had his last shot defending Trump, who is gearing up to go head-to-head with Ron DeSantis for the 2024 President Republican nominee spot, noting that the “environment” regarding the debt ceiling was very different at the time as compared to this year’s negotiations.

“Let’s be realistic now, when Donald Trump was negotiating debt ceiling with Nancy Pelosi, mind you, they negotiated that —“ Donalds said, but Todd cut in to reject the statement, noting the administration raised the ceiling “without any restrictions” before letting Donalds finish his thought.

“When they were doing that, our economy was thriving, our debt levels were not where they are right now … we weren’t having massive deficits the way we are right now, it was a very different environment,” Donalds continued. “Now you have $32 trillion on the credit card and all house Republicans are saying is ‘let’s go back to pre-pandemic spending,’ — that’s common sense stuff.”

Chris Hayes Urges Journalists ‘Not to Collude’ With Republican Climate Deniers (Video)

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As the June 1 deadline to raise

Entertaintment

About The Author

Andrew Jeffrey joined Realscreen in 2021 as its news editor. Here, he helps to oversee assignment, reporting and editing for Realscreen’s daily newsletter. Prior to his work covering documentary and non-fiction film and TV, he worked as a reporter and associate producer for CBC Edmonton, and as a reporter for The Star Calgary, where he covered daily news on beats such as local and provincial politics, health care and harm reduction, sports and education. His work has appeared in other Canadian news outlets such as TVO, the Edmonton Journal and Avenue Magazine.

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Movies

Last Updated: May 21, 2023, 21:55 IST

Thalapathy Vijay and Anurag Kashyap

Thalapathy Vijay announced his next film on social media and Anurag Kashyap revealed who was his first choice for Kennedy.

Kalpathi S. Aghoram, Kalpathi S. Ganesh and Kalpathi S. Suresh of AGS Entertainment, the power-house production banner of South Indian cinema, have teamed up with Thalapathy Vijay for their 25th venture. The film to be made on a grand scale will be directed by Venkat Prabhu. Archana Kalpathi will be the Creative Producer for the film. After the blockbuster success of ‘Bigil’, AGS Entertainment will associate with Thalapathy Vijay for the 2nd time for his 68th movie tentatively titled #Thalapathy68. This will be AGS’s 25th venture and the production house’s biggest film thus far.

For more: Thalapathy 68: It’s Official! Thalapathy Vijay And Venkat Prabhu Team Up, Eye 2024 Release

Anurag Kashyap’s Kennedy is a highly-anticipated film of this year It’s a story based on the insomniac cop who dwells in different circumstances while looking for redemption. After being selected for the screening in the ‘Midnight Screening’ category at the Cannes Film Festival 2023, the makers left fans stoked when they released the first poster that indeed encapsulates all the enigma the film is about to bring to the screen for the audience. In a recent interview, Anurag Kashyap dropped a bombshell when he revealed that Chiyaan Vikram was the first choice for Kennedy.

For more: Anurag Kashyap Reveals Writing Kennedy For THIS South Indian Actor But He Never Responded

Telugu star Ram Charan put an end to rumours claiming he and Jr NTR had a fall out. For a while now, there were speculations doing the rounds claiming that the RRR stars have had a fall out. However, on Saturday, Ram dismissed the rumours twice. First, the actor attended the NTR Centenary, showing his respect to the Sr NTR at the NTR centenary celebrations in Hyderabad. The event coincided with NTR’s birthday celebrations. In a video going viral now, Ram pointed out that while Telugu film industry has reached new heights, it was Sr NTR who first took the industry to the national level. Ram Charan remembered having breakfast with NTR at his Hyderabad home while returning from a class along with Purandeswari’s son Hitesh and thanked Purandeswari for being the catalyst of the memorable meeting.

For more: Ram Charan SHUTS DOWN Jr NTR Fall Out Claims at NTR Centenary, Says ‘Though People Are Talking…’

Is Rashmika Mandanna dying in Pushpa 2? A viral photo claims that Srivalli might be dying in the Allu Arjun starrer. Fans are aware that Pushpa 2, formally known as Pushpa: The Rule, is currently under filming. The sequel of the Telugu blockbuster not only confirmed that Allu Arjun’s Pushpa Raj will return on the big screen but had also revealed that Rashmika will reprise Srivalli. While Allu Arjun’s first look from the Telugu film was released a few weeks ago, the makers are yet to reveal Srivalli’s look from the film. As fans eagerly wait for an update from the film, a photo from the sets has now surfaced online showing a woman appearing similar to Rashmika’s Srivalli in the frame dead and a funeral processsion is underway. It is unclear if the scene is from the film, however, the photo has many fans convinced that Rashmika’s character dies in the film.

For more: Pushpa 2: Rashmika Mandanna To Die In Allu Arjun Starrer Film? Viral Photo Leaks Spoiler

Priyanka Chopra who has cemented her place in Hollywood now after a slew of projects like Quantico and The Matrix Resurrections can be seen in Russo Brothers pan-global series Citadel. The thrilling series also features Richard Madden in the lead and has managed to enthrall the audience till now, as evident from the rave reviews it has garnered. Adding to that excitement, Varun Dhawan who’ll play a key role in the Indian installment of Citadel surprised the fans with his brief cameo in the fifth episode.

For more: Varun Dhawan SURPRISES Fans By Making A Special Appearance In Priyanka Chopra Starrer Citadel, Watch

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Last Updated: May 21, 2023, 21:55 ISTThalapathy

MCU



This week, we have ALL the casting information in MarvelBlog News!

Venom Gets Its Villain

Mordo Multiverse of Madness

Source: Marvel Studios

We’ll soon have a rare double entry in the Marvel movie library!

Venom 3 has cast a familiar face as the main antagonist. Chiwetel Ejiofor will join Sony’s Spider-Man Universe after spending the past several years in the MCU.

Source: Comicbook.com and Marvel Studios

As a Marvel performer, the Academy Award nominee has previously portrayed Karl Mordo in Doctor Strange and its sequel, Multiverse of Madness.

In both films, Mordo started as a hero of sorts. The character aided the flailing Stephen Strange in Kamar-Taj.

Source: Marvel Studios

Eventually, Mordo decided that Strange’s actions were an abomination and turned on the character and also stole the life force from another sorcerer.

In Multiverse of Madness, Mordo’s alternate universe version stood as a hero to the people after Strange fell in an allegedly noble act.

We later learned that the Illuminati had brought their version of Strange to justice after he caused a potentially universe-destroying incursion.

Source: Marvel Studios

Mordo wasn’t a friend to the MCU’s version of Dr. Strange, either. So, Ejiofor is plenty used to upsetting the delicate balance of the MCU. He’s also a terrific heavy.

If you’ve never seen Serenity, the movie sequel to the Firefly television series, I implore you to do so.

Ejiofor is a revelation as the nefarious but dedicated Operative.

Source: Marvel/ Redwolf

Long story short, Ejiofor embodies everything a production could want from a villain.

So, this is terrific news for Venom 3, which frankly needs to be better than the last film.

As far as I know, Ejiofor is NOT playing Mordo in Venom 3, though. THAT would be a big deal.

More Marvel Casting News

Sue Storm

I don’t have any additional updates about Fantastic Four and likely won’t until July 22nd. That’s when Marvel probably holds its San Diego Comic-Con panel.

Most insiders expect Disney to reveal the Fantastic Four cast on that date, although that might sound familiar to some of you.

Source: @VancityReynolds

I’ve said the same thing in a previous MarvelBlog update about a different San Diego Comic-Con. Blade, X-Men, and Fantastic Forward all seem stuck in the mud.

Still, we have learned about Deadpool 3 casting as well. The first Disney-fied version of the Deadpool franchise has already brought back Hugh Jackman.

Source: @VancityReynolds

I’m happy to report that Brianna Hildebrand and Shioli Kutsuna will join him.

These two actresses have previously portrayed Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Yukio, the kawaii lesbian couple in Deadpool 2.

Well, Yukio is kawaii. Hildebrand’s character was slightly less broody in the sequel after she got a girlfriend.

Source: Fox/ Marvel

In the first Deadpool movie, the character was teen angst personified.

Yukio’s return also means that we’ll get this bit again in the third film:

Presumably, the story will fill in the blanks a bit more about Yukio’s character. All we know so far is that she’s a mutant Japanese lesbian ninja.

While I’d totally watch that band in concert, Yukio herself remains mostly a mystery.

Her presence here alongside Wolverine somewhat increases the hope that we’re about to learn more about the MCU’s mutants as well.

More MCU Casting News

Source: Marvel

In other news along these lines, Deadline has indicated that the Scarlet Scarab is about to level up.

According to the story, May Calamawy has joined Gladiator 2. As part of that update, the reporter learned that Marvel has big plans for her MCU character.

Image: Marvel

We don’t know what those plans are, but it’s not a surprising proclamation. As the first Egyptian superhero in the MCU, the Scarlet Scarab matters to many.

The other casting news this week is just plain weird. Colby Lopez, whom the world knows as Seth “Freakin’” Rollins has joined the MCU.

The small-ish but charismatic wrestler will appear in Captain America: New World Order. As usual, Marvel hasn’t indicated a specific role yet.

However, some attentive fans have pointed to his gear in this Instagram post. It hints that Rollins is a member of the Serpent Society.

Nobody has confirmed that the Serpent Society appears in Captain America 4, but that’s been a rumor for quite some time. So, this picture arguably confirms it.

Becky Lynch

The funny part here is that Rollins’ real-life wife, Becky Lynch, theoretically appeared in Eternals as a different MCU character.

I say theoretically because Marvel cut the post-credits scene that introduced Lynch. She’s apparently still a part of the MCU, though.

Source: Marvel

This casting could feasibly be a kind of make-good to their family for the previous snafu.

Either way, Rollins is bound to be a better actor than John Cena. I mean, who isn’t?

Marvel Miscellany

Venom

Photo: Sony Pictures

We also learned this week that Venom 3 will start filming in late June. So, it’ll happen about four weeks from now.

All these comments come with the caveat that the Writers Guild of America strike could wreak havoc with filming.

Venom 2's Michelle Willams as Anne

Now that’s something to drink about! Photo: Sony Pictures

Also, the lack of a writer on-set during the shoot is problematic. I worry about the quality of any project filming right now.

In Disney+ news, Kevin Feige used the platform of Disney’s upfronts to reveal more details about Secret Invasion. You can listen here:

Disney also revealed the release dates for Loki season two and Echo. You can read more about them here.

The surprise involves Echo, which will release all its episodes on the same date, an unusual release strategy for an MCU title.

Source: Marvel Studios

Finally, we should discuss the happy news of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’s box office.

The film is a bona fide juggernaut, with strong word-of-mouth carrying it to one of the best second-weekend holds for a Marvel movie to date.

Image: Marvel

During its third weekend, GotG3 earned $31.9 million domestically and has a running total of $266 million.

Worldwide, its current box office of $659 million suggests that it may cross $1 billion at some point, thereby becoming the MCU’s first release since 2019 to do so.

Thanks for visiting MarvelBlog.com! Want to go to Disney? For a FREE quote on your next Disney vacation, please fill out the form below, and one of the agents from MickeyTravels, a Diamond-Level Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, will be in touch soon!

Featured image: Marvel




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DCU

DC Studios co-lead and Superman: Legacy director/writer James Gunn just announced a new debunking plan when it comes to the many rumors that tend hit the web.

Recently, Gunn called out a Twitter user for blatantly fabricating rumors, asking point blank, “Why do you just keep posting lies?” The filmmaker chalked it up to them “lying for attention” but made it clear how some of that nonsense is “potentially harmful.”

Astonishingly, the account in question even admitted to making everything up, going as far as asking Gunn if he “found some of [their] lies okay.” As one would imagine, Gunn did not.

James Gunn Is Tired of Debunking Rumors

DC

On Twitter, Superman: Legacy writer and director James Gunn went off about all the rumors hitting the web regarding his upcoming Man of Steel film, and the many other DCU plans in the works.

The filmmaker called out how he’s “getting barraged with bullshit DC rumors,” and announced that, moving forward, he plans to “slow down on calling shit out” and debunking false reports:

“I’m getting barraged with bullshit DC rumors this morning. I’ll just reiterate the general rule not to believe anything unless it comes from me or Peter. But, unless it’s especially egregious, I’m going to slow down on calling shit out. (Sorry, I know, it’s one of my favorite traditions).”

There are a few reasons why Gunn is choosing to slow down on this front. He “[doesn’t] want to encourage” people making up lies, he wants to avoid being used to weed out what’s actually true, and he simply doesn’t have the time as “[he’s] storyboarding Superman: Legacy:”

“There are three reasons for this: 1) Some people are making up lies to get attention from me or to get clicks & I don’t want to encourage that. 2) I’ve read a hundred rumors this morning. ONE of them is half-true. So I don’t want to be used as a way for people to throw nonsense at the wall until something sticks. 3) I’m storyboarding ‘Superman Legacy’ and don’t have time! Have a great day!”

Gunn Is Slowing Down on the Debunking

So what triggered James Gunn to say this now?

Well, it’s likely something to do with the big moderator post on the DCEULeaks subreddit.

The post is filled with clearly fabricated fanfiction, such as claims that James Gunn will be bringing back Stephen Amell, Melissa Benoist, and Grant Gustin as their respective heroes in the DCU. 

However, some intriguing possibilities are mentioned in the more verified section, such as Damon Lindelof being an executive producer on Lanterns and Tom King coming aboard as the writer.

The fact remains, most of the rumors that hit the web are fabricated to get attention—so the more Gunn responds to them, the more those lies are successful. With his new position co-leading DC Studios with Peter Safran, it’s honestly surprising that it took him this long to pull back on his habit of debunking whispers amongst fans.

Superman: Legacy hits theaters on July 11, 2025.

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Comics

With its long-awaited System Shock remake slated to , Nightdive Studios has a first look at System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition. The game doesn’t have a release date yet, but those who pre-order System Shock will get a copy of the remaster at no extra cost when it’s released by publisher Prime Matter.

On Friday, Nightdive said System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition features updated cinematics, textures, character and weapon models. The developer also partnered with so that it could integrate the best community-made patches and mods into the remaster. Thanks to the fact Nightdive brought the game’s original source code over to its in-house engine , System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition will be available on current generation consoles. Judging from the teaser trailer, the studio did a commendable job of preserving System Shock 2’s art style and atmosphere while increasing the quality of the game’s assets. Here’s hoping Nightdive can avoid a repeat of .

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With its long-awaited System Shock remake slated

Festivals

Indian auteur Aribam Syam Sharma’s “Ishanou,” which screened at the Un Certain Regard strand at Cannes in 1991 is returning to the Croisette in a restored version.

The Manipuri-language film is the only Indian film at the festival’s Cannes Classics section this year.

“Ishanou” (“The Chosen One”), follows Tampha, a young woman with a loving husband and a small daughter, who leads a tranquil existence in the Manipur valley and is occupied with the mundane details of life. Suddenly she begins to behave in a strange manner, talking to flowers, becoming afflicted with dizzy spells and wandering out of the house in the dark of the night. The family tries to find a cure for her malady and finally realize that she does not have a sickness, but rather is responding to the call of a deity who has chosen her.

The story, screenplay and costumes are by M. K. Binodini Devi and the cast includes Anoubam Kiranmala, Kangabam Tomba, Baby Molly, Manbi, Soraisam Dhiren and Baby Premita.

The film is restored by India’s Film Heritage Foundation whose restoration of Aravindan Govindan’s 1978 film “Thamp̄“ screened at Cannes Classics in 2022.

The restoration was a challenging process that took a year. When Film Heritage Foundation conservators checked the negative, they realized that the negative had vinegar syndrome decay on certain reels, mould and warping, broken perforations, scratches, halos on the emulsion and base distortion.

Another challenge was the use of portions of inter-negative in the original camera negative which resulted in wide variations in the image quality, making it very grainy in parts and not matching the other portions of the film. Additionally, there was no sound negative so the conservators had to work on the sound from the two 35mm prints, which Sharma had. The film had been shot on 16mm on a low budget in fluctuating available light conditions as a result of which there were focus and lighting issues that impacted the image.

The picture was restored by Film Heritage Foundation at the L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna and Prasad Corporation Pvt. Ltd.’s post studios, Chennai, in association with Sharma and Manipur State Film Development Society. The sound was digitized from the 35mm acetate print and the grading was supervised by Sharma. Funding was provided by Film Heritage Foundation with the support of Dr. Richard Meyer and Susan Harmon.

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, director, Film Heritage Foundation said: “It has been a challenging journey, but the result has been more than worth it. The beautiful restoration will remind cineastes of the work of a doyen of Manipuri cinema and a renaissance man like Aribam Syam Sharma who has placed Manipuri cinema on the world map.”

Sharma added: “It has been a journey of discovery to work with Film Heritage Foundation and to see my film restored so beautifully and respectfully, and given a new life after over thirty years. I have seen the time and painstaking effort put in by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur over the past one year to work closely with me to ensure that the film is restored keeping in mind my original vision.”

“Ishanou” screens on May 19.

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Indian auteur Aribam Syam Sharma’s “Ishanou,” which

Film

Actors Who Played Moms Despite Being Same Age As Their Male Co-Stars

We all know Hollywood has a problem with women, especially older women. From Meryl Streep to Elizabeth Banks, numerous actors have spoken out about the way they’ve been mistreated by the industry because of their gender and age.

As if it wasn’t enough that there are plenty of women speaking on the issue, here are nine almost unbelievable instances of women playing the mothers of men, when both actors are the same exact age or thereabouts.

1.

Jennifer Robertson and Tim Rozon in Schitt’s Creek

2.

Tom Hanks and Sally Field in Forrest Gump

3.

Angelina Jolie and Colin Farrell in Alexander

4.

Jason Momoa and Nicole Kidman in Aquaman

5.

Jennifer Coolidge and Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

6.

Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate

7.

Samuel L. Jackson and Charlayne Woodard in Glass

8.

Mel Gibson and Glenn Close in Hamlet

9.

Winona Ryder and Zachary Quinto in Star Trek

Did any of these surprise you? Perhaps you have other thoughts on the matter? Let us know in the comments below!

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Actors Who Played Moms Despite Being Same

TV

Ramona Singer will be returning to television with The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: RHONY Legacy, the fifth installment of the UGT franchise.

Singer will be reuniting with some of her former co-stars from The Real Housewives of New York City that includes Luann de Lesseps, Kelly Bensimon, Kristen Taekman, Dorinda Medley and Sonja Morgan.

“We are going to shoot in St. Barts. We’re going to revisit that famous pirate scene where Luann got busted with a pirate,” Singer said while appearing on Access Hollywood’s Housewives Nightcap. “It probably won’t air until next year but it’s going to be fabulous.”

Singer continued, “To me, doing a whole show again for three months, 20 episodes, is too daunting for me. That’s why I built this podcast with Avery [her daughter] ’cause I could be in touch with my fans and be totally unfiltered and not edited. But now, just to go on a fabulous trip for one week, it’s like the perfect thing — it’s fabulous. I thought it was a brilliant idea.”

‘RHONY: Legacy’ cast: (L-R) Ramona Singer, LuAnn de Lesseps, Kelly Bensimon, Kristen Taekman, Dorinda Medley

Heidi Gutman/NBCUniversal/Getty Images

However, Singer didn’t always think a RHONY Legacy idea was “brilliant” being cited as calling it the “Loser Legacy” because they wouldn’t have all the stars that made the franchise famous. At one point, Singer said she was done with reality TV and would not be part of the spinoff.

The entrepreneur and Turtle Time podcast host walked her words back saying, “That was unfiltered and I spoke without thinking. Nothing Bravo does is a loser.”

“Bravo has been very good to me and this is a brilliant idea,” she added. “Our best ratings were when we went on these trips to Morocco, or St. Thomas… wherever we went, so this is gonna be great.”

The Legacy idea was something that came about after Bravo opted to completely revamp RHONY with a new cast. The former RHONY stars would get a spinoff but contract negotiations halted the project and the idea was spun off again to attach it to The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip format on Peacock, which unites housewives from across all franchises.

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Ramona Singer will be returning to television

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Great news! “Catch! Teenieping” is available to watch on Netflix USA!

 

Date Added: 30th October 2021

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History:

   10/30/2021: 1 Season (2020)

   05/21/2023: 2 Seasons (2021)

 

Watch Season 2 now

Description:

Set free on Earth, fairies with magical powers begin influencing people’s emotions. Now, it’s up to a princess from a faraway kingdom to stop them!

 

Certificate: TV-Y7
Suitable for ages 7 and up

 

Year: 2021

Duration: 2 Seasons

Available Seasons: Season 1 (52 Ep)

Audio: English, Korean [Original]

Subtitles: English, Korean

Episode Length: 13min

 

Cast and Crew

Cast: Lee Ji-hyun, Jo Kyoung-i, Moon Nam-sook, Kim Sun-hye, Park Ji-yoon, Lee Myung-hi, Kim Eun-ah, Kim Hyun-uk, Um Sang-hyun, Kim Myung-jun, Kim Chae-ha, Jang Ye-na, Lee Bo-hee, Sa Moon-young, Yeo Min-jeong, Shin Yong-woo

 

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Status: In Production”Catch! Teenieping”

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Awards

Cannes is the birthplace for any number of future Best International Feature Film Oscar nominees, like last year’s Grand Prize winner “Close,” or winners like 2021 Competition entry “Drive My Car.” This year’s possibilities include the UK’s rapturously received German-language from UK filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest;” Argentina’s Un Certain Regard entry “The Delinquents,” a three-hour existential heist movie picked up by Mubi; or Japan’s “Monster,” the latest film from Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose “Shoplifters” scored both the Palme d’Or and an Oscar nomination. However, before they can be nominated they must be submitted — and that, as Academy members well know, is the rub.

The demand for reform boils down to this: Too often the decision of Oscar submissions belongs to decision-makers instead of filmmakers, and that can lead to some… frustrating choices. Last year India did not submit “RRR” and Italy declined to select well-reviewed Cannes entry “The Eight Mountains,” which was directed on location in Italy by the Belgian team of Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch. “If I could change [the Oscars], it’d be this idea to have the category be more open, so any movie could apply for it,” van Groeningen told IndieWire. “Then it would be a process of natural selection.”

Countries choose their Oscar picks in different ways. Some appoint small committees; some have a national Academy. In Brazil, Iran, and Russia, the committee are dominated by their governments; even in a democratic country like France, the selection process is dominated by industry powermongers. Cannes director Thierry Fremaux was on the committee for years and was often accused of favoring Cannes titles.

This year, among the myriad Academy rule changes was a new rule for Best International Feature Film that requires each country’s Oscar submission selection committee be comprised of 50 percent “artists and or craftspeople from the field of motion pictures.” This doesn’t exactly qualify as radical reform: Prior to its codification as a rule, a 50 percent “guideline” (one that was unavailable to public view) was in place for years. Still, to the extent that countries around the world care about the Oscars, most are likely to comply.

Even so, the new rule does little to address how AMPAS should deal with exiled and banned filmmakers, or with otherwise orphaned films that have no home. International Feature Film executive committee co-chairs Danish Oscar-winner Susanne Bier (“In a Better World”) and MoMa’s chief curator of film, Rajendra Roy, who have been deeply researching the processes behind making international Oscar selections, have yet to figure out a solution to these issues. So they started with a smaller step.

Jonathan Glazer's "The Zone of Interest"
“The Zone of Interest”A24

“The thing that was clear to both of us was that there was a real need for more transparency for submitting countries,” said Roy on the phone. “There’s obviously a need for transparency… there still seemed to be confusion amongst the countries about how to submit. There just wasn’t a lot of consistency, but the thing we needed to be true was that people who make movies, and all those in whatever form that takes, are part of at least 50 percent of that process.”

Every year, questions to the Academy abound from selection committees about International Feature Film category awards rules, committee guidelines and criteria, and the submission process. When Bhutan tried to submit for the first time, they had no approved official selection committee. The country needed help from the Academy to establish a selection committee and submit a film. Ultimately, Bhutan earned a surprise nomination for Pawo Choyning Dorji’s “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom.”

LUNANA: A YAK IN THE CLASSROOM, 2019. © Samuel Goldwyn Films / Courtesy Everett Collection
LUNANA: A YAK IN THE CLASSROOM©Samuel Goldwyn Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

Attempts to reform the Academy’s foreign-language selection process have included the 2006 change in which a submitted film no longer had to be in the language of its own home country. That allowed Denmark, for example, to submit the country’s Profile Pictures production “Holy Spider” last year; the film was shot in Persian in Jordan. After Palme d’Or winner “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” was passed over for a 2008 nomination, the Academy formed a foreign committee that weighs in on the final selection. That committee was abandoned in 2021, but the Academy expanded the shortlist to 15 and added online viewing to a wider slice of global voters.

To manage international submissions, in April 2022 the Academy hired former Sundance programmer Dilcia Barrera as the Academy’s new senior VP of member relations, global outreach, and administration. She works closely with Meredith Shea, a former AMPAS membership and awards exec who returned to the Academy fold this April as chief membership, impact, and industry officer. “It was an important step for the Academy to find the right staff person to step into the role, someone to focus on international,” said Roy.

While the Academy has long asked countries to submit selection committee memberships to scrutiny, the official rule plus an identifiable enforcer provides more heft.

PALM SPRINGS, CA - JUNE 20: Short Film Programmer for the Sundance Film Festival Dilcia Barrera speaks on a panel at the 2015 Palm Springs International ShortFest on June 20, 2015 in Palm Springs, California. (Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images)
Dilcia Barrera at the Palm Springs International ShortFestGetty Images

If Roy has his druthers, the next guideline-that-could-become-a-rule will ask the countries to impose term limits on their selection committees, much like the AMPAS board of governors’ three years. (The Academy suggests six-year cycles separated by two-year hiatuses.) Filmmakers have expressed frustration, Roy said, that there’s often no room for their inclusion.

One step at a time. Clearly, the Academy has no plans to throw out the entry model of one film per country anytime soon. For now, Roy said, it’s a matter of finding “ways of making it work better.”

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Cannes is the birthplace for any number

Music

Sometimes all you need is an expertly crafted power-pop chorus to slice through the garbage and ground you in the simple pleasures of this life on Earth. Australian singer-songwriter Alex Lahey has spent the past seven years churning out sharply observed pop-punk confections about bad relationships, self-doubt, and bad relationships leading to self-doubt; it’s all been leading up to “You’ll Never Get Your Money Back,” a tour de force of post-breakup catharsis from her new album The Answer Is Always Yes. The guitars chime and swell into the kind of sweaty, beer-soaked nirvana that Japandroids or Titus Andronicus (or, hell, even the Replacements) could whip up in their heyday, leaving it all on the barroom floor. “Give all you have, get nothing back/Love never leaves you in the black,” Lahey sings with a sneer, coming to terms with the fact that her ex is never actually going to Venmo her for that back rent they owe. And she is just going to have to be OK with that.

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Sometimes all you need is an expertly

Trending


Prince William Rui Viera/WPA Pool/Shutterstock

A natural athlete! Prince William got in a rigorous rowing exercise alongside members of the Royal Navy — all for an important cause.

“Joining the past, present and future crews of HMS Oardacious for a very important conversation about mental health,” the Prince of Wales, 40, captioned a Sunday, May 21, Instagram video. “For #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek we headed out onto the water, chatting everything from teamwork to food rations and just what it takes to look after your mental health when rowing across the Atlantic.”

The full video — which was shared by William and wife Princess Kate’s YouTube channel — saw the Duke of Cornwall team up with the HMS Oardacious squad for a rowing workout.

“When you see it like this, you realize how, actually, it’s not a very big boat,” William joked during the outing, sitting in the middle of the four-person vessel.

Prince William Jokes ‘I Need the Exercise’ After Rowing With Royal Navy Submariners

Prince William Babiradpicture/Shutterstock

The Duke of Cornwall looked athletic in his blue pullover and dark shorts, complete with a pair of sunglasses and sneakers. While they rowed, William asked the group about their experience racing and the importance of prioritizing mental health. By the end of the sail, the group turned the questions back to the duke to ask how he felt about joining them on the water.

“Good! [It was] a good warm-up,” William noted with a laugh. “I need the exercise, good!”

William learned a lot from the HMS Oardacious crew, especially how they balance prioritizing their physical fitness with their mental well-being.

“Submarine service, you know, you have to have a certain mentality to do your job,” the Duke of Cambridge — who previously served in the British military as a pilot — said in the Sunday video. “You’re in a metal tube for month son end, lots of your life’s pleasures away. You don’t have sunlight [or] fresh air.”

He continued: “Understanding our support networks is crucial because a lot of people don’t have a support network. So I think in the military, we’re very good at being able to form close bonds and realize that the only way we can get through all this is to help each other and support each other through.”

William— along with wife Kate, 41 — has long been an advocate of supporting mental health platforms, especially as a veteran.

“The relation between the job and the personal life was what really took me over the edge,” he said during the This Can Happen conference in November 2018. “And I started feeling things that I’ve never felt before. And I got very sad and very down about this particular family.”

The prince — who shares three kids with the Princess of Wales — further explained that working on “traumatic jobs involving children” impacted him. “You start to take away bits of the job and keep them in your body,” William added at the time. “And of course, you don’t want to share with your loved ones because you just don’t want to bring that sort of stuff home.”

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Prince William Rui Viera/WPA Pool/Shutterstock A natural

Tech

Universal’s “Fast X” is not bringing in the box office riches that past “Fast & Furious” films used to in North America with a $67 million domestic opening, but it is still finding great success internationally with a $253 million overseas launch to earn $319 million worldwide.

In the U.S., “Fast X” isn’t showing signs that it will top the $173 million final total of its predecessor “F9,” a film that came out during the early stages of box office rebuilding in summer 2021. Its $67.5 million opening has met pre-release projections but is below the $70 million launch of “F9.”

The film also received a B+ on CinemaScore and 82% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes. With only one weekend of premium format play, that good-but-not-excellent audience reception may not be enough to give the film legs to reach $200 million domestically.

But “Fast & Furious” historically has been a franchise that has earned its tentpole status thanks to strong play throughout the world with over $5 billion in lifetime franchise international grosses. “Fast X” is demonstrating that again as its worldwide opening is topping that of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and stands sixth among all films in the post-shutdown era.

China, of course, leads the way among all global markets with $78.3 million. While that is 42.5% below the the $136 million opening of “F9,” that is still the highest Chinese opening for a Hollywood film this year, a sign that “Fast & Furious” is still a draw in the country even as Chinese audiences have largely lost interest in American films.

Meanwhile, “Fast X” is outperforming “F9” in several major markets, including a $16.7 million opening in Mexico and strong results in Brazil, India, Germany, U.K., Japan and South Korea. Several of those markets are also showing stronger audience reception to the film than in the U.S., with an 8.9/10 rating on China’s Maoyan and 94% positive on Korea’s CGV Egg score.

“Fast X” will need to keep legging out internationally against tough upcoming competition like “The Little Mermaid” and “The Flash” to turn a theatrical profit against its franchise-high $340 million budget.

In second place on the box office charts is Marvel Studios’ “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” which keeps holding well with $32 million in its third weekend. That’s nearly identical to the $32.3 million third weekend of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” last year, and unlike that film was able to do it without the help of premium format surcharges.

With a domestic total of $266 million domestic and $659 million worldwide, “Guardians Vol. 3” is on pace for a final box office total of $325-340 million domestic and around $800 million worldwide, a solid rebound for Marvel from the box office failure of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” that will put “Guardians Vol. 3” alongside last year’s solid results from “Thor: Love and Thunder” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”

In third is Universal/Illumination’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” with $9.8 million in its seventh weekend, bringing the smash hit Nintendo movie’s total just shy of $550 million in North America. With $1.24 billion grossed worldwide, the film has now passed Pixar’s “Incredibles 2” to become the fourth-highest grossing animated film in box office history, sitting only behind Disney’s remake of “The Lion King” and its two “Frozen” films.

More to come…

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Universal’s “Fast X” is not bringing in

Video

Night Boat to Tangier

Section: Market
Director: James Marsh
Screenwriter: Kevin Barry
Panelist: James Marsh
Logline: Michael Fassbender and Domhnall Gleeson play two Irish gangsters, both in the hashish-smuggling game, who go to Algeciras in Spain to search for a young woman.
Premiere date: 2024
Key quotes: “It’s not quite what you expect it to be in terms of the usual tropes of the gangster film. It has, I guess, some similarity to Sexy Beast: you’ve got these two Irish guys, and you see them in Ireland and you see them in Spain. They’re like fish out of water, to say the least. It becomes a series of love stories, ultimately. It’s a realistic film, not an ironic, cartoonish gangster film. The dialogue between the two is very funny, so it will definitely make you laugh, but I think it’ll break your heart as well. And along the way, there’s lots of action to enjoy. Some violence to savor, if you like that sort of thing!”

The 2023 Cannes Film Festival runs May 16-27. Follow Deadline’s complete coverage of the deals and doings on the Croisette here.

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Night Boat to Tangier Section: MarketDirector: James MarshScreenwriter:

Entertaintment


Taylor Swift is clearly in love, revealing to fans this moment is the happiest time of her life.

TS was in Foxborough, MA Saturday night, and right out of the box, she told the packed crowd … “It’s insane. I kind of just feel like telling you, that I don’t know, that just … I’ve never been this happy in my life in all aspects of my life ever before.”

taylor swift crying

She went on … “And I just want to thank you for being a part of that. It’s not just the tour, like, I don’t know, my life finally feels like it makes sense. So I thought I’d play this song which brings me a lot of happy memories.” Then she began singing “Question…?”



5/6/23

MEGA

As you know by now, Taylor’s in a new relationship with Matt Healy, who’s been a fixture at her Eras concerts.



5/16/23

BACKGRID

They’ve also been seen together coming out of several recording studios. We don’t know if Healy was just an observer or a participant.


Joe Alwyn is clearly in Taylor’s rearview … well, except for the whole breakup song thing.

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Movies

Recognizing the internality Schrader was asking him to portray, Isaac recruited one of his teachers from Juilliard, Moni Yakim, and did mask work. “I was like, well, my face is going to literally be a mask, so how can I tell the story just through the body and through energy,” Isaac said.

And then there’s the writing. Schrader asked each actor to copy out his character’s journal in his own hand. Isaac believed that William would write in cursive, so he took a penmanship course. For Edgerton the task was in line with his usual approach: “I always want my own handwriting to be my own handwriting” onscreen, he said, even before “Master Gardener.” All described the process as meditative, in a way.

“You know in Acting 101 they tell you to write your character’s biography, try to write a journal in character,” Hawke said. “Those are very challenging exercises to do that help find the voice of the character and help integrate yourself with the person. For me it was literally delivered to me in a box with an assignment of what to do, so I loved it.”

Isaac noted that Schrader, for all of his hard edges and tough themes, has a soft side as well. While “Master Gardener” ends in a different way, a number of Schrader’s films, including “The Card Counter” and “Light Sleeper,” conclude with the hero in prison reaching out to a woman he loves. “He believes in the truth and purity of what love is and what love can do,” Isaac said. “So no matter how dark and grueling things can get, he has that spark in him, too. He’s not a nihilist.”

Edgerton has not yet had the opportunity to discuss his time in Schraderland with Hawke or Isaac, but the latter two have swapped stories. Schrader pulled out his phone to show me a photo he received of them alongside another one of his actors, Dafoe, huddled together with middle fingers raised. He suggested it should accompany this article.

Hawke and Isaac worked together on a Marvel Cinematic Universe television show, “Moon Knight,” but Isaac, in conversation, thought of another potential franchise. “It’s an incredible badge of honor to be part of Paul Schrader’s extended universe, the PCU,” he said, laughing. “It’d be one hell of a convention of all those characters coming together. We could do a team movie. I’m going to pitch him on that.”

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Recognizing the internality Schrader was asking him

Latest News

The hottest package at this year’s Cannes Film Festival stars a 76-year old action star and is a reboot of a movie that first dazzled moviegoers in 1993. That’s a time, in case you forgot, before TikTok or smartphones, Facebook or Amazon, or any number of technological changes that have reshaped our world and the movie business along with them.

And yet, “Cliffhanger,” with Sylvester Stallone bravely summiting the mountain again, is seen as one of the most commercial scripts out there for buyers hoping to make an adventure film that can traverse borders and bring crowds. With a nod to the younger audiences who will be needed to turn up if the movie is going to replicate the original’s blockbuster status, the producers teased that casting is currently underway for a (presumably younger?) actor to share the screen with Sly. But who will that be?

“Over the last 10 years, we’ve done a really shitty job of creating a new generation of movie stars,” groused one sales agent.

And a look at some of the projects on offer or premiering at Cannes seems to bolster that argument. There’s “Breakout,” an action-thriller featuring 75-year old Arnold Schwarzenegger that will be directed by “Expendables 4” filmmaker Scott Waugh; “Lords of War” with 59-year old Nicolas Cage returning to a role as an amoral arms dealer that he first played nearly two decades ago; “That’s Amore,” a rom-com with a 69-year old John Travolta; and “The Rivals of Amziah King,” a crime story featuring a 53-year old Matthew McConaughey. In most cases, these actors have been famous, globally so, since the 1970s or ’80s (McConaughey, a relatively newbie, had to wait until 1996’s “A Time to Kill” to make his mark).

On Thursday night, the increasingly geriatric nature of the star system was on full display at the Cannes Film Festival as an 80-year old Harrison Ford walked the red carpet for the premiere of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” for which he donned the fedora he first wore in 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and is still well-preserved enough to unabashedly doff his top (“I’ve been blessed with this body,” he said sheepishly when asked about his shirtless scene at a press conference). Ford does get an assist from some of those technological breakthroughs, appearing 35 years younger in key scenes thanks to the magic of de-aging CGI.

So why hasn’t there been a flowering of new A-listers to rival the Fords, Schwarzeneggers and Stallones of yesteryear? Protagonist Pictures COO George Hamilton points to the collapse of the DVD business in 2008 as the moment when Hollywood stopped being able to reliably make movie stars.

“Nearly all of the actors and actresses who are [bankable] now had very successful films when DVD and video was still a huge force,” said Hamilton, who is selling several films at the festival including Polly Findlay’s debut feature “Midwinter Break,” starring Lesley Manville (“Phantom Thread”) and Ciarán Hinds (“Belfast”). “You could see that as a dividing line shift in terms of older or newer generation. With the new generation, there’s more divisions between success because you could have the most-watched show or film on a streamer. But there might be a whole swath of society who might not subscribe, and they’re not part of that.”

In 2008, just as DVD sales began its death spiral, the first “Twilight” movie debuted, and the franchise’s next-gen stars became the centerpiece of market packages for years to come. But nearly all of those packages ultimately fizzled in the marketplace. Today, only Robert Pattinson, 37, could carry a big-budget package to the goal line on his name alone at a market like Cannes, and only because he because of his combination of box office credentials (“The Batman”) and critically acclaimed indie performances (“Good Time”). Kristen Stewart has earned critical raves in films such as “Spencer,” but hasn’t been as focused on tentpole adventures.

“Obviously, the ‘Twilight’ IP was the star there,” said director-producer Aaron Kaufman, who has worked with a number of alums from the vampire-human love story. “The shift to promoting IP over stars may have sounded like a good idea because IP doesn’t overdose or tweet about Nazis. However, this shift has left the cupboard bare when it comes to next-generation stars. This is an issue now that the IP stores have been cleaned out and all that’s left is Tube-Sock Man or whatever Marvel has yet to make.”

The most promising members of the up-and-coming A-list set often need to check multiple boxes like a Sydney Sweeney, 25, who boasts not one, but two talked-about series with “The White Lotus” and “Euphoria” as well as superhero cred via her starring role in the upcoming “Madame Web,” a spinoff in Sony’s “Spider-Man” franchise.

“There’s much, much, much less people in that younger age bracket who are household names by virtue of the way in which their films or TV have reached audiences because of streaming,” Hamilton added. “So, you have to maximize the value of the new generation of stars and really ensure that there is clarity of concept, clarity on genre, really knowing who the audience is so you can really appeal to distributors.”

Meanwhile, the sales agent thinks that some of shrinking movie star phenomenon has to do with the longterm contracts that rising actors like Tom Holland (26), Chris Hemsworth (39) and their ilk have signed to appear in Marvel movies. Others such as Ryan Gosling, 42, have been inconsistent at the global box office despite commanding passionate followings, while Timothée Chalamet, 27, scored with “Dune” but remains something of an untried commodity. Michael B. Jordan, 36, has two franchises under his belt with “Black Panther” and “Creed,” but it remains to be seen whether he can carry a film without well-known IP. Likewise, Jennifer Lawrence, 32, will face a huge test with regards to her bankability with the upcoming R-rated comedy “No Hard Feelings.” Post-“Hunger Games” she was a huge draw, but has not been as active on screen in recent years.

But the agent also believes that streaming services don’t know how to apply the right amount of varnish on promising talents, in part because the movies that debut on Netflix or Prime Video don’t have the kind of massive global marketing campaigns that accompany major theatrical releases.

“We used to treat our movie stars like gods,” the agent said. “But the marketing of these streaming movies is so limited that it doesn’t really create stars. Actors aren’t burned into the minds like they once were, and they don’t have this larger-than-life image any longer.”

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The hottest package at this year’s Cannes

MCU

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige celebrated the success in viewership that MCU titles on Disney+ have had against stiff competition from other shows.

Even considering the struggles that the MCU has faced in theaters and on Disney+ in recent months, the franchise still remains one of the top names in the streaming business against other franchises on streamers like Hulu, Amazon Prime, and HBO Max.

Both WandaVision and Loki set new records for viewership on Disney+, and even with other series not living up to that same hype, the MCU continues to hold steady next to some of the biggest streaming shows on the air.

Amid the negativity surrounding the MCU as of late, this accomplishment is one that Kevin Feige isn’t taking lightly.

Kevin Feige Hypes Up Marvel’s Disney+ Viewership

Marvel

Speaking at the 2023 Disney Upfront event, as shared by Variety, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige highlighted the success that Marvel Studios has seen through its efforts on Disney+.

Feige made the claim that even the MCU’s smallest series garner “two to three times [more] viewers” across international markets compared to the most popular series from competing streamers, although the studio head didn’t specify specific titles:

“Thanks to Disney+, we’ve expanded the Marvel Cinematic Universe into genre and formats new to us that we haven’t done before. We’ve been able to introduce exciting new heroes and villains, locations and storylines into the MCU. And I’m pleased to share that when you compare our Marvel series to some of the buzziest shows on competitive services, even our smallest series are reaching much more international audience – often two to three times the number of viewers.”

This announcement comes alongside impressive viewership numbers for Marvel Studios’ movies on the service, even while the studio looks into making changes to the process in which the films move from theaters to streaming.

Will Marvel Viewership Reign Continue on Disney+?

Despite some of the MCU’s shows haven’t earned the best reception or viewership numbers, Kevin Feige remains confident in his franchise’s ability to reach the masses at an impressive level compared to other shows.

This is a particularly exciting feat when looking at the way series like Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law faced review-bombing before they even hit the air, with fans flocking to Disney+ to see how the MCU would evolve at every turn.

Now, the question is whether Marvel Studios will be able to continue this run on Disney+ as the studio looks to make some tangible changes to its release process, which even includes releasing fewer Disney+ shows per year.

The first of these changes was just confirmed with Echo‘s confirmed November 29 release date, which will actually see all six episodes dropped at once for the first time in MCU history.

This will be the final of three shows released this year after Secret Invasion in June and Loki Season 2 in October, although there’s a chance that Marvel may also look to bring a Special Presentation by the end of the year as well.

And with Marvel continually looking to adjust its process in order to gain the most success financially and critically, fans are looking for the studio’s next round of Disney+ shows to keep seeing improvements with each new release.

Marvel Studios will return to Disney+ with the release of Secret Invasion, whose first episode will premiere on June 21.

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DCU

Superman is the crown jewel of DC Studios. James Gunn and Peter Safran understand that he is the most important note to hit in their symphony. And as rumors of casting calls and screen tests for the superhero begin to circulate, we can’t help but think of all the things DC has done wrong in the past. Superman is the DCU’s biggest opportunity and biggest risk. If he isn’t cast right, the rest of the DCU falls apart. So the pressure is on to get him right.


Superman is not a difficult concept to get correct. The public could see that Henry Cavill’s performance was perfect for the character. But DC’s latest generation of heroes failed due to poor planning and a rush to achieve what Marvel had done slowly over the previous decade.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAYSCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

Before him, Brandon Routh in Superman Returns made his attempt at what quickly became the defunct aesthetic of superhero movies. Tom Welling in Smallville was a good fit for a creative take on a story that never escaped television. And Christopher Reeve played Superman excellently in the 70s and 80s.

But despite how powerful the Man of Steel might be, he can’t lift an entire franchise on his own. If James Gunn and DC want to get Superman right, they’ll have to do something differently.


The Man of Tomorrow

@bobby_art

James Gunn has made his goals clear for the next Superman. He wants a young actor, someone probably in their twenties, who can be a part of his ten-year plan to remake the DCU. A lot of rumors have been going around about James Gunn getting together a shortlist for the role of Superman. Rumors say there are three actors advancing to a screen test stage, David Corenswet being one of them, and two others who remain a mystery.

It’s easy to say what qualities Superman needs: someone with a strong jaw line, a sense of morality, and the strength of character it will take to lead the DCU. After all, it’s like asking someone to lead a football team with a guaranteed spot in the Super Bowl that year. The old DC had cast an excellent actor but wrote stories for him that cut corners in the narrative and jumped at an executive need for MCU-level profits.

Gunn is making a good decision casting a young actor, not just so they can remain in the role for ten or so years, but so the writers at DC can build a narrative around the character slowly. Avengers: Endgame didn’t happen overnight. And if DC wants that kind of success, Superman, the linchpin of their cinematic universe, will have to have a story that grows slowly. Constructing this type of narrative requires a time commitment spanning years or even decades. And whichever actor they get will also probably end up signing their soul away for at least the next ten years.

Whoever gets signed will also have to be the face of the DCU. Back when the MCU was beginning to become popular, actors played different versions of themselves on and off-screen. In an interview with the cast of The Avengers, Chris Evans would walk on stage with the strength and humility of Captain America, whereas Robert Downey Jr. would come out throwing roses. The next Superman will have to walk this line. Not weak, but not overly prideful. The actor will have to play Superman, Clark Kent, and himself for the media.

Related: MCU: 9 Roles Henry Cavill Could Play in the Franchise

A Different Man of Steel

Superman Legacy
@JamesGunn
DC Comics

The DCU will also have to do something different for the next Superman. Henry Cavill’s Superman was a take on the character that fits into this modern age of superheroes, but because it didn’t work, the narrative was more or less wasted. What will need to happen is the introduction of a new story, not Cavill’s Man of Steel, not Tom Welling’s Smallville, but something that creates a different opportunity for the character.

David Carradine’s famous monologue in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 described a reversed perspective on Superman. One where most heroes dress up to hide their human identities, but Superman must dress up to hide that he’s a superhero. His natural state is one superior to the average person. And James Gunn seems to understand this on a different level. He told The Hollywood Reporter:

“I completely relate to Superman because he’s everything I am. He’s somebody who is an outsider who feels like an alien, but also the ultimate insider, because he’s fucking Superman. And that’s kind of like what I feel like.”

Superman’s story as an immigrant, a hero, and the strongest person in the universe, are all part of his character. But just as every Batman is intrinsically different from the other, so too must this Superman give us something different from what we’ve seen before. James Gunn has to find a story in Superman’s history that hasn’t been told yet. While we can only guess what Gunn’s particular flavor of Superman will be, it’s clear that he has a difficult job ahead of him.

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Superman is the crown jewel of DC

Comics

Nintendo has released The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s first post-launch patch.

Version 1.1.1 fixes an issue that could prevent players from completing the main quest ‘The Closed Door’.

It also tackles several other unspecified issues, according to the platform holder. We’ve republished the patch notes in full below.

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom | VGC Review

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom guides:

Master Sword location | How to increase inventory space | How to increase hearts and stamina  | How to get warm clothes | Wingsuit location | Hylian Shield location | Duplication glitch

Version 1.1.1 patch notes

General Updates

  • Fixed issue where, sometimes, the player could not clear main quest “The Closed Door,” even if they fulfilled the conditions to advance the quest.
    • If you have already encountered this issue, you will be able to clear the quest by downloading this update data.
  • Several issues have been addressed to improve the gameplay experience.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was released on May 12 and sold 10 million copies worldwide in its first three days, according to Nintendo.

That made it the fastest-selling game in the history of the series and the fastest-selling Nintendo game for any system in Europe and the Americas.

Nintendo said the Zelda franchise has now sold over 130 million units since launching in 1986.

VGC’s The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom review called the title “easily one of the very best games on Nintendo Switch”.

Other critics heaped praise on the game in their write-ups too, with most agreeing it’s a worthy sequel to one of the generation’s best games and one of the long-running franchise’s high points.