Movie News

Philip Gips, a graphic designer, advertising executive and creator of posters for hit films including Alien, Rosemary’s Baby and more, died Thursday in White Plains, NY. He was 88 and his death was announced by the Endeavor agency.

Gips was born in the Bronx on March 28, 1931. After graduating from the Cooper Union and the Yale School of Art and Architecture, he worked with some of the most influential artists of the era, including Saul Bass. In the early 1960s, he opened a Manhattan-based advertising firm with Lou Klein, then later partnered with Steve Frankfurt and created Frankfurt Gips Balkind, a highly successful venture that lasted until the early 1990s.

During his career, Gips was the principal art director and creative visionary on some of the most recognizable movie posters and corporate logos of the era, many of which remain cultural touchstones today. Among his best-known posters is the ad for

Disney has set in motion a new Inspector Gadget live-action film, which is being produced by Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich, the producers of the live-action Aladdin released earlier this year. Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell have been tapped to adapt the script based on the famous dense cyborg police inspector, who was first introduced to audiences in the 1980s animated series.

Matthew Broderick played the character in the 1999 David Kellogg-directed live-action adaptation which was met with negative reviews and performed moderately at the box office with a take of almost $135 million worldwide. A direct-to-dvd sequel followed in 2003.

This project adds to Disney’s growing slate of forthcoming live-action versions of aminated films including Lady and the Tramp, Mulan, Cruella, Little Mermaid, and Lilo & Stitch.

THR was first to break Inspector Gadget news.

Updated, Late Friday Pm w/chart: Joker continues to rob a record amount of cash from the October box office with Friday looking at an increased $39.8M, now putting the Warner Bros./Village Roadshow/Bron Studios pic’s 3-day at $94M. One rival distribution source believes that Joker, in play at 73 offshore territories, is heading to a worldwide opening between $188M-$194M. That would be right behind Venom‘s opening October global record of $207.4M.

For director Todd Phillips, Joker reps a career opening record, besting the 3-day domestic start of The Hangover 2 ($85.9M). It’s also an opening record for Joaquin Phoenix, far exceeding the $60.1M 2002 opening of Signs, and a great major studio comeback for the three time Oscar nominee who has starred of late in a string of indie pics like Mary Magdalene, the Sisters Brothers and You Were Never Really Here. And for Robert De Niro,

Pedro Almodóvar gets it: “Pain and Glory” looks like a swan song. The movie finds revered Spanish filmmaker Salvador Mallo — a fragile Antonio Banderas, who could be cosplaying Almodóvar at Comic-Con — battling drug addiction, inner demons, and an aging body as he struggles with an existential crisis. It’s not hard to conclude that the 70-year-old auteur is ready to throw in the towel.

“I suspect there might be something in the movie that feels like I’m saying goodbye,” Almodóvar said, sitting down for an interview in New York a few days before the movie’s release. He let go with a gentle laugh. “Eh, I hope not. You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but no, I absolutely want to keep on making movies.”

In fact, Almodóvar said he had ambitious plans to direct his first English-language feature, in a nearly completed screenplay adapted from

The Philadelphia Film Festival has announced the program for its 28th edition, kicking off on Oct. 17 with Destin Daniel Cretton’s “Just Mercy,” starring Michael B. Jordan.

Also screening on opening night are “Parasite,” “Cunningham,” “Come As You Are,” “Bikram: Yogi, Guru” and “The Lodge.”

Sponsored by the Philadelphia Film Society, the festival wraps on Oct. 25 with Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out,” starring Daniel Craig, Chris Evans and Jamie Lee Curtis. Johnson is scheduled to attend the screening.

The festival will screen 120 feature and short films, including gala presentations for Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” along with “Harriet,” “Marriage Story,” “Jojo Rabbit,” “Motherless Brooklyn,” “The Two Popes” and “Waves.”

An expanded selection of films made around greater Philadelphia will include Sundance prize-winning “Clemency” as well as Philadelphia Eagles docu “Maybe Next Year.”

“I couldn’t be more excited with the lineup for this year’s Festival,” said the festival’s executive director J. Andrew Greenblatt.

Warner Bros presented a very eclectic but solidly awards-friendly slate at The Contenders London today, headed up by Todd Phillips’ recent Venice Golden Lion winner Joker. “Most composers have a director they work with, but I — accidentally — had an actor,” laughed Joker composer Hildur Guenadóttir. In this case, the actor was Joaquin Phoenix, who’d played Jesus Christ in one of Guenadóttir’s previous projects, Mary Magdalene. This time, though, the mercurial actor plays a very different kind of messiah. Taking the title role in Phillips’ controversial new release, Phoenix stars as an embattled clown who accidentally becomes the face of a violent anarchist movement in early-80s Gotham City.

Speaking to Deadline’s Andreas Wiseman, Guenadóttir revealed that, initially, she’d been hired by Phillips simply to come back to him with some ideas rather than a full score. “Todd contacted me probably half a year before they started shooting,

Weeks of controversial headlines aren’t getting in the way of a record-breaking weekend for Warner Bros.’ “Joker.”

After taking home a record $39.9 million in Friday domestic ticket sales — the biggest October opening day ever — the R-rated supervillain film is eyeing a huge $92 million weekend total.

That’s on the higher end of initial box office projections, which saw the film debuting in the $80 million to $95 million range. Either way, the film is likely beat previous October opening weekend record holder “Venom,” which opened to $80.3 million last year.

“The Joker” has generated widespread controversy for its villainous depiction of evil, prompting some theaters to increase security with an increased police presence.

Additionally, the families of the 2012 Aurora shooting — a mass shooting that occurred at a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises — signed a letter to Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff expressing concerns about the film’s release. Although the families

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: What better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? This week, […]

The post This Week In Trailers: Somewhere in the Middle, Serendipity, Spirits in the Forest, Everybody’s Everything, We Believe in Dinosaurs appeared first on /Film.

There may be a chill in the air as we head into the fall but things are beginning to heat up at the box office as director Todd Phillips' latest, Joker, earns $40 million in its first two days. Joker can now boast one of the best first 48 hours in theaters this year, joining the ranks of other recent, impressive debuts including It: Chapter Two ($37M), Toy Story 4 ($47M), and Disney's The Lion King live-action remake ($78M). [caption id="attachment_807518" align="alignright" width="360"] Image via Warner Bros./caption] Joker made a jaw-dropping amount of …

Welcome to another edition of The Discourse, the show where we discuss film news, reviews, and anything in the pop culture zeitgeist that we feel the need to weigh-in on.

After a brief paternity leave hiatus—and thank you all for your patience and to the teams behind The Fourth Wall and Be Reel for keeping the lights on while I was away—we are back at the same Bat-Time and same Bat-Channel with regular episodes.

Continue reading Takashi Miike’s ‘First Love’ And The September Films We Missed [The Discourse Podcast] at The Playlist.

Everyone has an opinion about “Joker,” and today, it’s Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. The outspoken director sounded off on the most controversial movie of the year via a Facebook post Saturday morning. Todd Phillips’ revisionist DC origin story, starring Joaquin Phoenix, has already collected $40 million for its opening day, and is on track to become the biggest October opener ever. Below, read Moore’s Facebook post, pasted and embedded.

“On Wednesday night I attended the New York Film Festival and witnessed a cinematic masterpiece, the film that last month won the top prize as the Best Film of the Venice International Film Festival. It’s called ‘Joker’ — and all we Americans have heard about this movie is that we should fear it and stay away from it. We’ve been told it’s violent and sick and morally corrupt — an incitement and celebration of murder. We’ve

It’s hard to believe that Alex Wolff is still only 21 years old. A former child actor—he got his start on the popular Nickelodeon series “The Naked Brothers Band“—Wolff has assembled an impressive collection of starring and supporting roles in a short time. These range from prestige television (“In Treatment“) to blockbuster summer films (“Patriots Day“) and best-of-decade caliber horror (“Hereditary“).

Continue reading ‘The Cat and the Moon’ Trailer: Alex Wolff Writes, Directs, And Stars In This New York City Drama at The Playlist.

The first poster for No Time to Die, the next chapter in the 007 saga, has arrived just in time for James Bond Day. October 5 marks the day that the very first film featuring the James Bond character, Dr. No, debuted in theaters back in 1962. So, why not mark this momentous occasion with a look at the forthcoming installment? The poster was first revealed on the James Bond Twitter account early Saturday morning. Front and center is the current 007, James Bond, played by Daniel Craig. Craig's Bond looks extremely dapper, as he is wont to do, …

Happy Saturday! Finally, we can take a break from the onslaught of HBO Max announcements: It’s got “Sesame Street”, it’s got Ava DuVernay doing DC Comic Dmz, casting for a pilot from Sharon Horgan (“Catastrophe”), three new shows from Ellen DeGeneres, that teen dramedy from Lena Dunham, an adaptation of Ray Romano’s novel…

And, it’s got new staff. HBO Max has hired execs from Nickelodeon and Disney to oversee its family offerings, the CEO of Otter Media to handle digital, and new staffing for its nonfiction department led by Lizzie Fox, most recently VP of CNN Original Series.

But increasingly, here’s what it doesn’t have: Many of the people who made HBO a powerhouse in the first place. And if anyone thinks that’s just a paean to the good old days (“I remember when it meant Home Box Office!”), corporate parent AT&T has

Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” is one of the most emotionally wrenching movies of the year—or, frankly, any recent year. So it comes as something of a shock to hear that when Baumbach conceptualized what our own Rodrigo Perez dubbed a “full-bodied and red-blooded story of marital collapse,” he was thinking of his story in far rosier terms. “I was thinking about writing and making a love story,” he explained at Friday’s press conference following the film’s press and industry screening for the New York Film Festival, where it is the Centerpiece selection.

Continue reading Noah Baumbach And The ‘Marriage Story’ Cast On Collaboration, Singing Sondheim, And Making An Unlikely Love Story [Nyff] at The Playlist.

Distribber, a service that acts as a middleman between independent filmmakers and streaming platforms, has tapped a firm that specializes in bankruptcy reorganization as clients say they’re owed thousands in royalty payments they worry they might never see.

Aggregators like Distribber receive filmmakers’ work and, for a fee, will encode and post it on multiple platforms for streaming, rental, or purchase, then collect the revenue and cut the checks. In theory, anyway.

In December, director Todd Jenkins used the service to send his horror comedy “Cherokee Creek” to iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, and Google Play. He went on to collect about $2,150 for the few days that remained in the final quarter of 2018. But he hasn’t received a dime for 2019 sales, he said.

Distribber, which recently stopped accepting new orders, kept its users abreast of sales though an online dashboard — they have no access to direct information from the sales platforms.

It would please Roman Roy, Kieran Culkin’s unctuous, cocky, spoiled-brat character on “Succession,” to know that Culkin has been featured among Variety’s New Power of New York List.

Culkin plays the sniveling but charming Roman in the HBO series, one of Waystar Royco’s chief and most incompetent leaders. As played by Culkin, Roman is impotent, locked in a bizarre, can’t-turn-away-from, downright Oedipal relationship with his colleague Gerri, who in turn gets off on sending him to the bathroom to wank it. She’s played by J. Smith-Cameron, the wife of Academy Award winner Kenneth Lonergan, who’s worked with Culkin onstage, as well as in the director’s sprawling and famously beleaguered film “Margaret,” which finally saw the light of day in 2011 after a bout of post-production hell.

For Variety’s New Power of New York list, playwright turned Oscar-winning screenwriter Lonergan (“Manchester By the Sea

After months of anticipation, “The Irishman” launched as the opening night selection at the New York Film Festival, and it did not disappoint. Martin Scorsese’s long-gestating, three-and-a-half-hour epic could have gone wrong in a lot of ways, but it turns out that Netflix was the ideal partner to bring this passion project to fruition. “The Irishman” finds Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino in top form in this behind-the-scenes look at Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance, and the enthusiasm suggests that everyone involved is heading into awards season with a lot of reasons to feel confident about the months ahead.

On the other hand, “Joker” faces an uphill battle. A few weeks ago, the Venice winner seemed like a major fall contender, but while it could perform well commercially, this political hot potato suddenly must contend with backlash that could really limit its potential as total Oscar bait.

Sitges, Spain — Spaniard Alberto Gastesi’s “Singular” snagged the big prize at the 5th Sitges Pitchbox, a horror-fantasy-sci-fi showcase taking place on Friday at the Sitges Intl. Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, which hosted the event in partnership with online marketplace Filmarket Hub.

Following in the footsteps of Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman, Vincenzo Natali godfathered the Sitges Pitchbox, delivering a heartfelt master class to the Pitchbox’s largely young filmmakers.

A feature debut, “Singular” was presented by director and co-screenwriter Gastessi and screenwriter álex Merino.

Mixing sci-fi, drama, and thriller; it follows Diana– who is about to present a thesis on Artificial Intelligence– and Martin, her ex-boyfriend and father of their deceased son. Martin invites Diana to spend a weekend in his lake house and there appears Andrea, a young boy with a patent resemblance to deceased son. Diana suspects that Martin might have spent the last years

The Film Development Council of the Philippines (Fdcp) on Saturday launched a package of measures intended to facilitate international co-productions and to attract location shooting to the country.

The measures, which include the creation of a new structure known as FilmPhilippines were launched on Saturday at the Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Film Market.

FilmPhilippines will be run under the aegis of the Fdcp and will be headed by executive director David Fabros. Agathe Vincent a consultant from France helped in putting the technical aspects of the incentives together.

Under the new Film Location Incentive Program (Flip), feature films of any genre, television series, and web content are all eligible for rebate, provided that the production is a partnership with a registered Philippine line producer.

Alternatively, projects can apply to the just-launched International Co-Production Fund (Icof). Feature length live action, documentary or animation films become eligible if they sign