‘Ezekiel Moses’: James Gray’s Next Film At Focus Is A Depression-Era Ghost Story

Welcome to another edition of Deadline’s International Disruptors, a feature where we shine a spotlight on key execs and companies outside of the U.S. shaking up the offshore marketplace. This week we’re talking with British indie film veteran Phil Hunt, who is the founder of a raft of companies including production outfit and film financier Head Gear, international sales business Bankside and, more recently, New Zealand and Australian distribution genre label (Yet) Another Monster Company. 

So what does the ever-prolific Steven Soderbergh have up next? He has the series “Full Circle” on deck as part of his overall deal with Max, and “The Pendulum Project,” which he also shot last year. However, after those shows, Soderbergh’s next project is wide open.

Elemental.” Positioned as the closing night film of the fest’s 76th edition, “Elemental” marks Pixar’s return to the Croisette, following world premieres of “Up,” “Inside Out” and “Soul.”“For many years, the Cannes Film Festival has welcomed animated films from around the world,” Thierry Frémaux, the festival’s general delegate, said in a statement Wednesday. “Pixar Animation Studios, with ‘Up’—directed by Pete Docter—made Cannes history by opening the 62nd edition of the Festival in 2009.

has no regular host.

EXCLUSIVE: Even at 92 years old, Clint Eastwood isn’t ready to slow down as he has set the thriller Juror #2 as his next film with Nicholas Hoult and Toni Collette in negotiations to star. While it isn’t official sources also add that with schedules and budget figured Warner Bros., Eastwood’s long-time home, is coming close to officially green-lighting the film. Jonathan Abrams penned the script.

Katie Reul editor Premiering the night before Easter, the latest episode of “Saturday Night Live” opened with a serene image of the sketch show cast members sitting at a long table, perfectly costumed and positioned to parallel Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” But the tranquility was short-lived with the arrival of cast member James Austin Johnson, who took over the cold open by telling the story of Easter as a monologue delivered by Donald Trump. Last week’s episode also opened with a Trump spoof after the former president was indicted by a grand jury. On April 4, Trump pled not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. His arrest and arraignment made him the first president in U.S. history to ever be charged with a crime after leaving office. And this milestone was also addressed with this week’s cold open.

James Gunn has a unique perspective on both the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), having directed movies for both Marvel (his trio of “Guardians of the Galaxy” films) and DC (“The Suicide Squad”), and, of course, in his new role as co-head of DC Studios.

Johnny Depp will be making his comeback in a big way this year.

Emanuel Okusanya Nigerian superstar Davido is set to take over as a guest host on Apple Music’s “Africa Now Radio” on April 7, the platform announced today. Fresh off a sold-out concert at New York’s Irving Plaza, Davido will take over the radio show to talk about the creative process behind his latest album “Timeless,” and will additionally highlight a long list of his favorite rising artists. These include such acts as Lojay, Victony, and Asake, with the latter being featured on his focus track “No Competition.” Davido will further highlight Lojay — whose song “Monalisa” scored a top ten slot on Billboard’s U.S. Afrobeats songs chart — as his Africa Rising artist to watch on Friday’s show. “I’ve chosen Lojay because I feel like he’s very into his craft, he’s diverse, and I love when artists really get into their production,” Davido said of the pick in a statement. “He does everything, he reminds me of myself in the early stages.”

The final “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie is going to get dark.

Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge is rumoured to be in talks to both co-write and direct the next James Bond film, according to reports.As noted by The Mail, Waller-Bridge is reportedly Bond producer Barbara Broccoli’s “first choice” to co-write and direct the upcoming new Bond movie.Waller-Bridge was brought in for the last Bond film, No Time To Die, and helped to write parts of the script for that. According to a source who spoke to The Mail, they were impressed with how she brought “humour and pathos to the film.”The source reportedly added: “Everyone adored working with her.

EXCLUSIVE: It’s been nearly three decades since Michael Mann’s crime classic hit theaters and it now feels like Mann and Warner Bros. are finally feeling more heat around the corner for a sequel to Heat. While rumors have been swirling for weeks, Deadline is hearing Warner Bros. is now in negotiations to come on to develop Heat 2, the sequel to the 1995 classic that Mann recently turned into a novel that became a New York Time #1 best-seller when it was published last August. On top of Warner Bros. in talks to return, insiders add that Adam Driver, who recently starred in Mann’s Ferrari pic, is in discussions with Mann to play young Neil McCauley in the movie.

Last October, news broke that James Gray‘s follow-up to “Armageddon Time” would be a biopic about John F. Kennedy‘s time in World War II.

EXCLUSIVE: James Gray and Focus Features are reuniting as Gray has come on to direct Ezekiel Moss for the studio from a script by Keith Bunin. Likely Story is producing the film. Bunin recently delivered a draft that blew the studio and Gray away with the director recently committing to it. Gray and Bunin will now team to develop the full the story as they get ready for the pre-production process.

David Cronenberg returned to filmmaking after an eight-year hiatus with “Crimes Of The Future” last year. And the body horror maestro, now 80, hasn’t lost a step, with critics loving the film at its world premiere at Cannes.

Earlier this month, news broke that Quentin Tarantino was ready to prep and shoot his tenth and final film, “The Movie Critic.” THR’s story about the film describes its plot “as being set in late 1970s Los Angeles with a female lead at its center.” And almost immediately, fans speculated that “The Movie Critic” was about Pauline Kael, the late, great movie critic for The New Yorker who had a brief stint in Hollywood during the movie’s time period.

One of the most anticipated films of 2023 is, without a doubt, Ari Aster’s “Beau is Afraid.” Not only is it the third film from the writer-director of “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” but it also stars Joaquin Phoenix in what looks to be another tour-de-force performance. And according to Aster, the joy found in making ‘Beau’ has changed him as a filmmaker and will likely lead to yet another film collaboration with Phoenix in the future.

“Beau Is Afraid,” next month, but he has his eyes set on a very different genre for his fourth movie: the Western.Aster told the New York Times that his next film will “almost certainly” be a Western, declining to give further details but also alluding to the fact that he and “Beau Is Afraid” star Joaquin Phoenix have another project in development. It’s unclear if that project is this Western or something else entirely.The “Midsommar” writer/director has spoken of his desire to make a Western before.

Without seeing one frame of Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City,” people were already predicting two things. 1) The film is going to be quirky as hell (duh).

1804 Films announced today its release of film, Phels High. The film is written by Kevin J. Nelson and serves as his directorial debut.