Ming-Na Wen & Esai Morales Join Brianna Hildebrand In Jeffrey Morris’ Sci-Fi Thriller ‘Persephone’; Highland Film Group Launching Sales At Cannes

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Julianne Moore (Still Alice) and Killing Eve star Sandra Oh are set to star in hot Cannes market package Stone Mattress, which Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here) will direct from the acclaimed New Yorker short story by The Handmaid’s Tale scribe Margaret Atwood.

Wilson Chapman editorLess than a month after the highly anticipated “Top Gun: Maverick” flies into theaters, director Joseph Kosinski is reuniting with star Miles Teller for the Netflix sci-fi thriller “Spiderhead.”Based on the George Saunders short story “Escape From Spiderhead,” which was originally published in The New Yorker, “Spiderhead” stars Teller as a prisoner at the titular state-of-the-art penitentiary, designed by inventor Steve Abnesti (Chris Hemsworth). Located on a gorgeous island, the island offers its prisoners reduced prison sentences and good accommodations at a price; every inmate wears a surgically attached experimental device that administers mind-altering drugs in their brain.Although Abnesti is convinced that his work will save lives, the experiments he carries out on his patients begins to test the boundaries of free will.

John Legend has called for Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to be “de-platformed”, accusing the presenter of espousing a racist theory that the Buffalo mass shooting suspect allegedly posted online.Payton S. Gendron, 18, is accused of carrying out what authorities have said was a racially-motivated attack at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York on Saturday (May 14) that left 10 people dead and three injured.

EXCLUSIVE: Vertical Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Hans Canosa’s film, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, from international sales agent Mister Smith Entertainment. Currently in post-production, the film is slated for release in theaters this fall.

scream for her life once again.The “Heroes” star is reprising her role as Kirby Reed in the upcoming “Scream 6.”The sixth film of the famed horror franchise marks a big comeback for the 32-year-old amid her various legal and relationship troubles.Panettiere starred as the teenager-turned-final-girl in 2011’s “Scream 4.”The newest feature will mark the actress’ first big-screen role since she ended a six-season run on the musical series “Nashville” in 2018.The fifth “Scream” film was released in January 2022 and the next is set to begin principal photography later this summer.Melissa Barrera, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding and Jenna Ortega are also returning for the sixth installment.The foursome famously survived Ghostface’s killings in the last movie. OG cast members Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox will also be coming back to battle Ghostface.

EXCLUSIVE: Boardwalk Empire actor Michael Pitt has joined Open Road and Sculptor Media’s drama-thriller Black Flies opposite Sean Penn, Tye Sheridan and Katherine Waterston.

David Birney, an actor who found early success on Broadway before landing the co-starring role on "Bridget Loves Bernie," a 1972 sitcom that would be one of the most controversial TV shows of its era, died Friday of Alzheimer’s disease at his home in Santa Monica. He was 83.

EXCLUSIVE: Fantastic Beasts franchise star Katherine Waterston is boarding the drama thriller Black Flies opposite 2x Oscar winner Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorIFTA (The Independent Film & Television Alliance) announced Tuesday that American Film Market managing director Jonathan Wolf would step down when his term ends on June 30. Wolf has led the AFM for 24 years, and will continue as an advisor for the 2022 AFM, set to return to Santa Monica in person on Nov.

EXCLUSIVE: Sony Pictures’ 3000 Pictures has preemptively acquired film rights to I Think My Mother-In-Law Is Trying to Kill Me—a psychological thriller, based on a Reddit short story by Nick Moorefox.

William Earl David Birney, who starred on the first season of the buzzy medical drama “St. Elsewhere,” as well as the short-lived but controversial sitcom “Bridget Loves Bernie,” about a Catholic woman marrying a Jewish man, has died at 83.

Loose Women presenter Kéllé Bryan has looked back on being encouraged to lose weight while in the band Eternal after Kim Kardashian revealed she lost weight to fit into her Met Gala gown. Last night, Kim was one of the many A-listers who descended upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for the fashion spectacle of the year, the theme for which was Gilded Glamour. The entrepreneur, 41, donned the exact dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in 1962 when she sang Happy Birthday to President John F Kennedy, explaining that the garment couldn’t be altered at all to fit her.

David Birney, an actor who found early success on Broadway before landing the co-starring role on a 1972 sitcom, Bridget Loves Bernie, that would be one of the most controversial TV shows of its era, died of Alzheimer’s disease Friday, April 29, at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 83.

The New York Times reported that Birney died Friday at his home in Santa Monica of Alzheimer’s, citing life-partner Michele Roberge. The Times said he was diagnosed with the degenerative disease in 2017.Birney played the titular Bernie Steinberg on “Bridget Loves Birney,” a ratings hit in 1972-1973 that was nonetheless canceled after just one season.

New York Times reported.Birney first gained mainstream fame in 1972 opposite his future wife Meredith Baxter in the CBS sitcom “Bridget Loves Bernie.” The show was popular — slotted between ratings juggernauts “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “All in the Family — but short-lived thanks to controversial protests by Jewish groups who disagreed with the “intermarriage” of Birney’s Jewish cabbie character, Bernie Steinberg, and Baxter’s Bridget Fitzgerald, a Catholic grade school teacher from a wealthy family.Both divorced at the time, Birney and the futxure “Family Ties” matriarch, who had two children from her first marriage, got hitched for real in 1974. The pair had three kids of their own before getting divorced in 1989.Baxter later claimed that Birney was emotionally and physically abusive in her bombshell 2011 book “Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering.” He vehemently denied her claims, deeming them an “appalling abuse of the truth.”The son of an FBI agent, Birney was born on April 23, 1939, and raised in Cleveland, Ohio.

Taylor Swift will appear at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival next month to discuss and screen her All Too Well short film.Last year, the pop star released the 15-minute film to accompany the release of ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)’, which featured on the re-recorded version of her 2012 album ‘Red’.Tribeca Film Festival will host a special screening of All Too Well: The Short Film, which was directed, written and produced by Swift. After the screening, an “in conversation” event will be held where she will discuss her approach to filmmaking.The event will take place at New York’s Beacon Theater on June 11 and is one of a handful of music-related features at this year’s festival.Elsewhere, Pharrell will discuss his career at the Borough of Manhattan Community College on June 10, while Common will take part in a conversation with journalist Charles Blow.

Emilio Mayorga Fernando León de Aranoa’s Oscar-shortlisted “The Good Boss” and Argentine Netflix series “The Kingdom” proved the main winners Sunday night at the 9th Platino Awards, which also prized Javier Bardem for his lead performance in Leon de Aranoa’s workplace comedy.Already scoring an Oscar nomination, Penelope Cruz won an Audience Award for Pedro Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers” at the Platinos, the biggest kudocast for movies and series from Latin America, Spain and Portugal whose ceremony was held at Madrid’s IFEMA Palacio Municipal.In all, “The Good Boss” walked off with best film, director, screenplay and actor (Bardem), original music (Zeltia Montes) and editing (Vanessa Marimbert), adding new honors to a feature which cleaned up at Fenruary’s Spanish Academy Goya Awards, taking six major nods from a Goya record of 20 nominations. Starring Javier Bardem in one of the main achievements of his career, “The Good Boss” is a darkly humoured depiction of a seemingly benevolent but finally sinister patron as well as workplace power dynamics.   The feature was also shortlisted for the Academy Awards in the international feature film category.

EXCLUSIVE: TV and film investment fund APX Capital is expanding into Latin America with a co-financing deal with Cenya Productions, the investment group founded by a financier behind films such as The Revenant.