Deadline reports that Peacock has an exciting project in development: “Excellence: 8 Fights,” an eight-part events series about boxing legend Muhammed Ali. But it’s more who’s involved with the series that’s exciting.
18.02.2023 - 21:59 / deadline.com
Now in his mid-80s, Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski proved that age is just a number when his film EO premiered in Cannes last year, earning him the Jury Prize for this picaresque story of a donkey on the move, from good situations to bad. His lucky streak continued this year when the film was Oscar-nominated for Best International Feature — surprisingly, his first nod from the Academy in a career spanning 60 years.
Accompanied by his wife and writing partner Ewa Piaskowska for a panel at Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees event, Skolimowski revealed the inspiration behind his decision to make a film with an animal at its center.
“I owe quite a lot to Robert Bresson and his [1966] film Au Hasard Balthazar,” he said. “One of the main characters is a donkey, but it’s a completely different story. Bresson’s film tells the story of a few people located in a French village, and the donkey plays a rather supporting part. EO is a road movie where the donkey is the main character. He goes from place to place and meets different people, and we see the world around him through his eyes. Basically, he’s the protagonist of the film, with his own ideas, imagination, dreams, hopes and fears. He’s a fully-fledged character.”
Piaskowska admitted that, while writing the script, they were blissfully unaware of the challenges they would face during the shoot.
“We were terribly optimistic when we were writing it,” she said, “because we had scenes in which the donkey behaved like an ordinary actor — looking at things, appreciating things, fearing things, reacting to things. So it was quite a big surprise to us when we got on set and realized that a donkey actually has a pretty stoic face. There’s not much expression going on! So
Deadline reports that Peacock has an exciting project in development: “Excellence: 8 Fights,” an eight-part events series about boxing legend Muhammed Ali. But it’s more who’s involved with the series that’s exciting.
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Ellise Shafer An eight-part event series about boxing icon Muhammad Ali is in the works at Peacock from Regé-Jean Page, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Willmott, Variety has confirmed. Hailing from writer and executive producer Willmott (“BlacKkKlansman,” “Da 5 Bloods”), the drama is titled “Excellence: 8 Fights” and is based on Jonathan Eig’s definitive biography “Ali: A Life.” “Bridgerton” breakout Page and Freeman are both on board as executive producers. According to the show’s official description, “Excellence: 8 Fights” will “chronicle eight distinct and defining moments in the iconic life of Muhammad Ali. Each episode will be framed by one fight from Ali’s life, but the essence of the episode, what it’s really about, is the internal fight – the drama outside the ring – where we will explore the struggle going on in the heart and mind of one of the most consequential and controversial figures of the 20th century.”
K.J. Yossman Florence Pugh and Zach Braff reunited in London on Wednesday evening for the premiere of their movie “A Good Person,” which Braff wrote, directed and produced and which Pugh starred in and produced. In the film, Pugh stars opposite Morgan Freeman as a young woman who descends into opioid addiction after a car she is driving is involved in a serious crash. During a Q&A session after the screening, Braff told the audience he wrote the screenplay for Pugh during the COVID-19 lockdown while still grappling with grief over the deaths of his sister and father in 2018 followed by his close friend Nick Cordero, who died from COVID complications in 2020.
EXCLUSIVE: As we mark the 52nd anniversary of the Ali-Fraser fight today, Deadline can reveal that Peacock is developing Excellence: 8 Fights, a scripted eight-part event series about boxing great Muhammad Ali, based on the definitive biography Ali: A Life by Jonathan Eig. The project hails from Oscar-winning BlackKklansman co-writer Kevin Willmott, Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary’s Revelations Entertainment, Regé-Jean Page and Emily Brown. Page is executive producing; there is currently no deal in place for him to star as Ali. CBS Studios and UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, serve as the studios. Eig is producing.
It’s contest time again! Earlier this week, on February 28, 2023, DreamWorks and Universal Home Pictures released the newest film from the “Shrek” universe, “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” on 4K UHD, Blu-Ray, and DVD. For the first time, though, everyone’s favorite adventurous cat is found in a collectors edition featuring exclusive bonus content! READ MORE: Antonio Banderas On ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ & Whether He’s Down for ‘Shrek 5’ [Interview] The film, directed by Joel Crawford and co-directed by Januel Mercado, has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Film.
It’s contest time again! Earlier this week, on February 28, 2023, DreamWorks and Universal Home Pictures released the newest film from the “Shrek” universe, “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” on 4K UHD, Blu-Ray, and DVD. For the first time, though, everyone’s favorite adventurous cat is found in a collectors edition featuring exclusive bonus content! READ MORE: Antonio Banderas On ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ & Whether He’s Down for ‘Shrek 5’ [Interview] The film, directed by Joel Crawford and co-directed by Januel Mercado, has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Film.
EXCLUSIVE: A second season of smash John le Carré adaptation The Night Manager is in the works at Amazon Prime Video and the BBC with Tom Hiddleston set to reprise his role as protagonist Jonathan Pine.
Inventing Anna’s and Rihanna’s beau , to announce the faces of its new Gucci Guilty campaign. The teaser image sees Elliot wearing a Hawaiian shirt and looking straight at the camera. (You can see it .) “Oscar-nominated actor, director and producer Elliot Page stars alongside A$AP Rocky and Julia Garner in the new Gucci Guilty campaign.
Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is getting a self-titled MSNBC news program, “Inside With Jen Psaki,” an hour-long news show that aims to cover the most pressing political and cultural stories. The show will launch Sunday, March 19 at 12 p.m.
Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Jen Psaki is about to test whether MSNBC viewers are ready to embrace another political aide who hopes to make a jump from the White House to their house. MSNBC plans to launch “Inside With Jen Psaki,” a new program led by the former White House Press Secretary, on Sundays at noon, starting on March 19. The program will stream on the NBCUniversal Peacock hub a day later. Psaki is also developing “a new original streaming and social show, both set to launch this spring,” MSNB said in a statement Monday. Psaki’s program will replace an hour long anchored by weekend veteran Alex Witt, who will continue to hold forth Saturdays from noon to 2 p.m. and Sundays between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.
EO, the Sideshow/Janus films release told from the point of view of a donkey, is set to pass the $1 million mark in week 14. The Cannes-premiering film by Jerzy Skolimowski, Academy Award nominated for Best International Feature, will gross an estimated $27.6k for the four-day President’s weekend on 37 screens for a cume of just over $1M.
Bridgerton star Regé-Jean Page took a rather awkward stumble as he, and girlfriend Emily Brown, arrived at the lavish Charles Finch x Chanel pre-BAFTA dinner in London. As the pair arrived at 5 Hertford Street ahead of Sunday's awards ceremony, the actor, who is thought to be in the running to play the next James Bond, was snapped as he appeared to fall off the pavement. Sporting a blush pink suit and a white T-shirt, Regé-Jean, 34, arrived to the glitzy event in style, however his entrance was perhaps not as glam as he expected as he tripped over the pavement.
Guild award season got serious Saturday night as the Directors Guild of America handed out its annual honors for directorial achievement. With a potential work stoppage in the months ahead, the 2023 DGA Awards were a moment of requisite celebration for the nominees, winners, and guild overall.
Looking out for his partner in crime! Anthony Mackie had some sound advice for David Harbour when it came to working with pal Sebastian Stan — and warned him not to take anything too personally.
Hannah John-Kamen's Ghost is not a character that appears in, director Peyton Reed couldn't be more excited that he'll get to see her in the MCU again soon.The character, whose real name is Ava Starr, was introduced as the antagonist of 2018's, which Reed also directed. Ultimately, it was revealed near the end of the film that she wasn't really a villain at all -- Ava had a painful condition that made her molecularly unstable and her battles with Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) were merely just her efforts to stay alive.John-Kamen is set to reprise the character in Marvel's upcoming, which will team her up with Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Wyatt Russell as John Walker/U.S. Agent and Olga Kurylenko as Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster. «I love it,» Reed said of the casting.
David Harbour is a relative newcomer to the MCU — he debuted his role as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian in 2021's and is set to reprise the character in the upcoming team-up. So when it came time to learn everything he could about his future castmates, he turned toco-star Anthony Mackie, who had some particular advice about his franchise frenemy, Sebastian Stan, who will also be appearing in as Bucky Barnes, aka The Winter Soldier. «Sebastian is a very nice person,» Mackie said with a grin as he and co-star Jahi Di'Allo Winston spoke with ET's Ash Crossan this week.«Don't take his quietness and standoffishness as him being mean or rude. You just have to warm him up a little bit,» he teased. «You know, give him some almond butter, talk to him a little bit.
Florence Pugh might have a new beau.
Has Florence Pugh found herself a new man?!
EXCLUSIVE: EO, filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski’s Oscar-nominated tale about a wandering donkey, has found a streaming home.