‘Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes’ Rounds Out Cast With Fionnula Flanagan, 10 Others

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Hold onto your bucket hats: Sony’s action-thriller “Bullet Train” crossed $100 million at the domestic box office. It’s an impressive milestone (in post-COVID times) for an original movie that doesn’t involve marquee comic book heroes or intergalactic adventures. It helps, of course, that a bankable actor like Brad Pitt stars in the film, as a heavily therapized assassin named Ladybug. “Bullet Train” reached $101 million in domestic ticket sales on Friday, making it only the 14th release this year to hit that benchmark. With another $130 million at the international box office, the film has now earned $231 million in global ticket sales to date.

Lorne Michaels is gearing up for a transitional season of Saturday Night Live after a massive cast shakeup ahead of Season 48. The NBC sketch comedy series lost a total of 8 cast members and Michaels is talking about how that came about.

The BFI London Film Festival has unveiled its full industry lineup, which will include keynote conversations with the Italian producer and CEO of Apartment Pictures Lorenzo Mieli and Fionnuala Jamison of MK2 Films.

EXCLUSIVE: The cast of Amazon Studios’ rom-com Sitting in Bars With Cake is growing by 12 with the addition of Bette Midler (Hocus Pocus), Ron Livingston (The Flash), Maia Mitchell (Good Trouble), Aaron Dominguez (Only Murders In The Building), Rish Shah (Ms. Marvel), and Odessa A’zion (Hellraiser).

Naman Ramachandran Filmmaker R. Balki and actor Dulquer Salmaan are teaming for the first time on “Chup,” a thriller where a serial killer brutally murders Bollywood film critics and carves star ratings on their foreheads. The cast also includes Bollywood veterans Sunny Deol (“Gadar: Ek Prem Katha”) and Pooja Bhatt (Netflix’s “Bombay Begums”), Shreya Dhanwanthary (Amazon Prime Video’s “The Family Man”) and Tamil-language cinema stalwart Saranya Ponvannan (“Viruman”). Balki, whose credits include “Cheeni Kum” (2007) and “Paa” (2009), both starring Amitabh Bachchan, last directed “Pad Man” (2018), starring Akshay Kumar.

Few ’90s bands have as devoted a fanbase as Sublime. Now, the Long Beach, California ska band will get a biopic all about the band’s rise to fame and the tragic passing of its frontman, Bradley Nowell.

EJ Panaligan editor Sublime is the latest rock band getting the biopic treatment. Sony’s 3000 Pictures is developing a movie with “Hunger Games” director Francis Lawrence about the group from Long Beach, Calif. The band is best known for its fusion of reggae, punk, ska and hip-hop, all wrapped into a subgenre of alternative rock that they were at the forefront of throughout the 1990s. Songs like “What I Got,” “Santeria” and “Doin’ Time” became radio hits on local rock stations such as Los Angeles’ KROQ. The band’s lead singer, Bradley Nowell, died in May 1996 from a drug overdose, with the band’s final self-titled album releasing shortly after.

“What I Got” and “Santeria” became breakthrough chart-toppers and made Sublime one of the most successful bands of the decade.Lawrence will also produce with Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, and David Ready from Chernin Entertainment, Dave Kaplan of Surfdog/DKM and Peter Paterno of KHPS. Wilson and Gaugh will be executive producers on the film with Nowell’s wife and son, Troy and Jakob.

Naman Ramachandran “Vikram Vedha,” starring Hrithik Roshan, Saif Ali Khan and Radhika Apte, is releasing worldwide in over 100 countries, making it one of the widest openings for a Bollywood film. Besides India, the film is releasing in territories where Bollywood films normally release day-and-date, including North America, U.K., the Middle East and Australia and New Zealand, on Sept. 30. What is remarkable is that the film is also releasing day-and-date in countries where Bollywood fare releases after it has had its initial run in the traditional territories. “Vikram Vedha” is opening across 22 countries in Europe and 27 countries in Africa and Latin America, including Japan, Russia, Panama and Peru, all non-traditional territories for Bollywood.

Jennifer Lawrence came to fame playing Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games. Now she’s sharing some wisdom she picked up along the way with the cast of the prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.