Prince Harry On Taking News Group Newspapers To Court - "The Cover-Up Is So Large That People Need To See It For Themselves"
An army of indies are populating the last few weeks of the year in a fall box office that's the most buoyant it's been in years but still picks and chooses among specialty fare which travels from festival standouts to the Odyssey to Y2K.
The latter is A24's dial-up disaster hijinks, the directorial debut of SNL veteran Kyle Mooney, opening on about 2,100 screens. Premiered at SXSX, see Deadline review.
On the last night of 1999, two high school juniors crash a New Years Eve party, only to find themselves fighting for their lives in this disaster comedy. Stars Rachel Zegler, Jaeden Martell, Julian Dennison, Mason Gooding, Lachlan Watson, The Kid Laroi, Fred Durst and Alicia Silverstone. The distributor's cross-country nostalgia-fueled takeover included partnerships with Yahoo!, a throwback college tour packed with 90s-themed parties and screenings, and a Y2K microsite.
Bleecker Street revisits Homer's epic in the The Return by Umberto Pasolini on 600+ screens. Ralph Fiennes' Odysseus, back from the Trojan War, washes up on the shores of Ithaca after 20 years away, haggard and unrecognizable. Much has changed in his kingdom. His wife Penelope played by Juliette Binoche is a prisoner in her own home hounded by suitors vying to be king and threatening their son Telemachus. Odysseus, no longer the mighty warrior from years past, must rediscover his strength to win back all that he has lost.
Jack Huston's The Day Of The Fight from Falling Forward Films stars Michael C. Pitt - Huston's former Boardwalk Empire colleague -- as a once celebrated boxer about to fight for the first time since leaving prison. Before the bout, he takes a redemptive journey through the streets of 1989 black-and-white Brooklyn, reconnecting with loved ones. Also stars Nicolette Robinson, John Magaro, Steve Buscemi, Ron Perlman and Joe Pesci. Premiered at The Horizons Extra section at Venice, see Deadline review.
Vertical opens thriller The Order on 600 screens. A string of violent robberies in the Pacific Northwest leads veteran FBI agent Terry Husk (Jude Law) into a white supremacist plot to overthrow the federal government. Based on a true story, The Order follows Husk and his team into the tangled world of domestic terrorism as they try to head off a violent uprising that could shatter the nation. As the militia builds a war chest of over $4 million, Husk pursues the malevolent racist Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult) to a final bloody standoff that will go down in U.S. history. With Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Alison Oliver and Marc Maron. Premiered at Venice, see Deadline review.
IFC Films is going vacation horror-comedy with Get Away written by and starring Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead) in about 500 theaters. Follows a dysfunctional family on a vacation to a Swedish island, who find their trip becoming an increasingly creepy, violent nightmare and try their best to ignore the Midsommar-like vibes. With Aisling Bea, Sebastian Croft and Maisie Ayres.
Kino Lorber opens Paul Schrader's Oh, Canada on three screens - AMC Lincoln Square, IFC Center and Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn. Premiered at Cannes, see Deadline review. The film sees star Richard Gere and Schrader reuniting 44 years after they last worked together on the seminal 1980 film American Gigolo. Gere is documentary filmmaker Leonard Fife, sitting for an interview with another filmmaker, Malcolm (Michael Imperioli), a former student, and telling his story including flashbacks with Jacob Elordi as the younger Fife.
Mubi is out with Cannes-premiering The Girl With The Needle, Denmark's submission Best International Feature Oscar, in New York at the IFC Center and in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Royal. Expands nationally throughout December and into January. The dark fairy tale about a young factory worker woman's search for morality in a cruel post-WWI Copenhagen. Unemployed, abandoned and pregnant, she finds a place helping to run an underground adoption agency for unwanted children, until a sudden revelation changes everything. Stars Vic Carmen Sonne and Trine Dyrholm. Cinematography by EO's Michał Dymek. Based loosely on one of Denmark's most notorious serial murder cases, it's a 90% with Rotten Tomatoes critics, see Deadline review.
Joshua Oppenheimer's The End from Neon stars Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon in a musical set 25 years after the world has ended due to a cataclysmic environmental disaster and the only people left on earth are a very wealthy family, partly responsible for the catastrophe, living in a plush underground bunker. Premiered at Telluride, see Deadline review. Opens at Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn, Angelika Film Center, and Landmark Nuart.
Film Movement has Loïe Fuller documentary Obsessed With Light at the Quad Cinema in NYC. Ads the NuArt Theater in LA Dec. 20. Directed and produced by Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum (Letters From Baghdad), the doc delves into the influence of the early modernist performer on contemporary culture including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Taylor Swift, Bill T. Jones, Shakira and William Kentridge, among many others. It uncovers commonalities that connect these creative luminaries to Fuller -- voiced by Cherry Jones -- and each other.
Features choreographer/dancer Jody Sperling; theater director and playwright Robert Wilson, choreographer Bill T. Jones, creative director at Dior Maria Grazia Chiuri, theatrical producer Jordan Roth, Shakira's choreographer Maite Marcos, visual artist Marcel Dzama, lighting designer Jennifer Tipton, puppeteer Basil Twist and more.
Magnolia opens crime drama Lake George at 15 locations and on VOD. Written and Directed by Jeffrey Reiner, it stars Shea Whigham, Carrie Coon, Max Casella, Glenn Fleshler.Tasked by a mobster with putting an end to the life of his disloyal ex-wife Phyllis, Don is unable to pull the trigger, and instead, the two set off on a road trip that evolves into something much more. Phyllis has designs of her own and proposes a little tag team action to Don -- combine forces with the aim to steal all the money from the people who want her dead.
Netflix is putting Tyler Perry's The Six Triple Eight, inspired by the first and only Women's Army Corps unit of color to serve overseas in WWII, in about 50 theaters in 30 markets.
Briarcliff opens Steven C. Miller's horror Werewolves on 1,351 screens. Starring Frank Grillo. Written by Matthew Kennedy. A supermoon event triggers a latent gene in every human on the planet, turning anyone who entered the moonlight into a werewolf for that one night. Chaos ensues and close to a billion people died. Now, a year later, the Supermoon is back.
Standing on the Shoulders of Kitties: The Bubbles And The Shitrockers, based on the popular Netflix Canadian series, opens in 285 North American theaters (151 U.S/134 Canada) via Blue Fox Entertainment. Stars Mike Smith (who also penned the screenplay) as Bubbles with his Trailer Park Boys franchise co-stars Robb Wells, John Paul Tremblay and Patrick Roach alongside Billy Bob Thornton. The film also features a special appearance by Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones and Duff McKagan of Guns 'n Roses, with guest appearances by Martin Freeman, Robert Sheehan and others. It is directed by Charlie Lightening.
Follows the band after a performance in Nova Scotia went viral, earning them a spot on a European tour opening for Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters. With Randy as their trusty roadie, the group heads to Prague only to find themselves kicked off the tour, and busking to survive. With their European dream in jeopardy, Ricky and Julian race to save the day.