Barry Levinson Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterRobert De Niro will be sharing the screen with Hollywood legend Robert De Niro in the upcoming gangster drama “Wise Guys.”The movie, set at Warner Bros., will be directed by Barry Levinson, the veteran filmmaker who is best known for “Rain Man” and “Wag the Dog.”Nicholas Pileggi, the co-writer of Martin Scorsese’s crime epic “Goodfellas,” which starred De Niro, is penning the screenplay for “Wise Guys.” The story follows Italian American crime bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, who ran their respective families during the 20th century. In 1957, Genovese tried (and failed) to assassinate Costello, who was ultimately injured and attempted to retire from the mafia.

Clarence “Frogman” Henry, the New Orleans R&B singer whose 1956 hit “Ain’t Got No Home” showcased a vocal range that could soar to falsetto and plummet to the croak that provided his nickname, died Sunday. He was 87.

EXCLUSIVE: The Bear creator Christopher Storer is shooting Season 3 of the 10-time Emmy-winning show in Chicago, but he’s lined up a big feature project at Warner Bros: the big-screen take of Amor Towles’ The Lincoln Highway.

Matt Reeves‘ The Batman 2 is no longer opening on Oct. 3, 2025 –a new launchpad for Comic Book movies– rather Oct. 2, 2026. We hear the new date is due to the aftermath of the dual strikes.

Naman Ramachandran Film and TV studio Fifth Season has secured international distribution rights to “Monsieur Spade,” the crime drama series starring and executive produced by Clive Owen. Fifth Season will represent the title at the upcoming Berlin European Film Market. The six-episode series is based on Dashiell Hammett’s hard-boiled private detective Sam Spade, the protagonist of 1930 novel “The Maltese Falcon,” adapted several times for the screen, most notably in 1941 by John Huston with Humphrey Bogart as the sleuth.

Annette Bening is still smitten with her husband Warren Beatty after all these years.Bening, 65, recalled first being infatuated with Beatty’s mind upon meeting the actor to play a role in his highly anticipated 1991 film, “Bugsy.”During an appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show,” Bening said Beatty’s intellect was initially what drew her to Warren.“He was making this movie. So, they hired me to play the woman in the movie, and, yeah, we fell in love,” she told Drew. When Barrymore asked if it was a “love at first sight” situation, Bening laughed and claimed that’s exactly what Warren thought.“So, for me, I have to be honest,” Bening explained.

To some, it may seem blasphemous to go anywhere near new content that centers Sam Spade. Who would dare pick up the pen of Dashiell Hammett or step into the shoes of Humphrey Bogart? Luckily, the pedigree behind AMC’s excellent “Monsieur Spade” is one of the highest in years.

EXCLUSIVE: Multi-Emmy and Tony winner Judith Light is set to star opposite Billy Crystal in Apple TV+‘s Before. Crystal also is executive producing the limited series, from Paramount TV Studios, which has tapped Adam Bernstein as director of the pilot episode.

What is it with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom? Is it Wednesday? Is it Friday? The DC sequel will now open on Friday Dec. 22 this year instead of Dec. 20.

J. Kim Murphy Warner Bros. has given its upcoming theatrical slate a small shake-up.

EXCLUSIVE: Tim Daly (Wings) and Veronica Ferres (Hector and the Search for Happiness) have been tapped for roles in Unholy Trinity, rounding out the ensemble for the Western helmed by Robert the Bruce‘s Richard Gray. The actors join an ensemble that also includes Pierce Brosnan, Samuel L. Jackson, Brandon Lessard, and Q’orianka Kilcher, as previously announced.

J. Kim Murphy Steven Weisberg, a film editor whose career through the ’90s onward led him to collaborations with directors like Alfonso Cuarón, Barry Sonnenfeld and Barry Levinson, died Oct. 16 at the Motion Picture & Television Fund hospital in Woodland Hills, Calif.

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winning filmmaker Barry Levinson is stepping in to direct the David Mamet scripted drama, Assassination, we hear, and is putting his own stamp on the project. Deadline first reported about the movie out of Cannes.

Everyone’s gone to the festivals. But here on the home front, one thing still leads to another.

PI Sam Spade (Clive Owen) finds his quiet life in retirement interrupted in Monsieur Spade, AMC’s upcoming six-episode crime drama series from Owen, The Queen’s Gambit creator Scott Frank and City on a Hill showrunner Tom Fontana.

EXCLUSIVE: Another show is pausing production until the WGA strike is over. This time it’s Before, the Apple TV+ limited series headlined by Billy Crystal, which hails from Paramount Television Studios.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor U.S. actor Robin Wright will be awarded the President’s Award at the 57th Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s closing ceremony. In honor of Wright, it will screen “The Princess Bride.” Wright is best known for her performance in Netflix series “House of Cards.” She earned three Golden Globe nominations and a win in 2014. She earned five Screen Actors Guild award nominations for the show, and received five consecutive Emmy nominations. In 2017, Wright played Lieutenant Joshi in “Blade Runner 2049,” and Amazon warrior General Antiope in “Justice League” and Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman.” The following year, she reprised her role as Antiope in “Wonder Woman 1984.” She will be seen this Fall starring opposite Millie Bobby Brown in the fantasy film “Damsel,” and co-starring with Tom Hanks in “HERE,” directed by Robert Zemeckis.

NBCUniversal has entered into a partnership with Indian streaming service JioCinema, owned by Viacom18, bringing thousands of hours of NBCU films and series to India. 

EXCLUSIVE: Blumhouse’s Jeff Wadlow-directed horror movie Imaginary will be released by Lionsgate on February 2. It’s the first time in quite some time that the two studios have teamed up.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Michael Douglas will receive the Honorary Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Cannes revealed on Tuesday that the “Basic Instinct” star will return to the Croisette this month for the festival, and will be honored as part of the May 16 opening ceremony. Douglas’ first time in Cannes was the 32nd edition of the festival in 1979, with James Bridges’ “The China Syndrome.” He returned for “Basic Instinct” in 1992 and again in 1993 for “Falling Down.” He was most recently in Cannes for Steven Soderbergh’s “Behind the Candelabra.”

AQUAMAN & THE LOST KINGDOM moves from 12/25/23 to 12/20/23

Robert De Niro is slated to star in “Bobby Meritorius,” a new crime drama in the works at Paramount+. The series comes from Paramount Television Studios, which made a commitment to develop the show in a competitive situation.

Goldie Hawn – whose debut in the silver screen was 1968's The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band when she was 23 years old – has successfully gone from Hollywood starlet to Hollywood icon.Her roles in classic movies like Overboard, The First Wives Club, Private Benjamin, Foul Play and more made her a household name, but she is also known for her epic, 40-year romance with Kurt Russell.The two raised the actress' kids with her ex Bill Hudson, Kate and Oliver Hudson, as well as their son Wyatt Russell. While they're certainly one of Hollywood's most beloved couples, there's one question they have never been able to escape: why have they never tied the knot?WATCH: Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell tease a marriage proposal in adorable throwback videoMORE: Kate Hudson's son Ryder supported by famous mom and Goldie Hawn for glimpse of life away from homeIn a new interview with Variety, Goldie touched on the neverending conversation about their relationship, and recalled the time she and Kurt made it the butt of the joke when presenting an award at the 1989 Academy Awards.Before presenting the Best Director award to Barry Levinson for Rain Man, the two pretended to have a tense moment between each other over the fact that Kurt hadn't proposed; they had been together for nearly a decade at that point.MORE: Goldie Hawn looks tiny alongside supertall grandson for family reunionIt was an off-script moment they came up with just hours before the Oscars – while taking a shower together, Goldie, 77, revealed – because they didn't like what had been prepared for them.

The Idol is the most controversial show in town, and it doesn't even have a premiere date yet. But maybe that's how the creators like it.

While Hollywood chased pulp-era nostalgia, smaller superhero films centered on Black heroes to relative success. The industry spent the 1990s mistaking the success of Tim Burton’s “Batman,” which often played like a hardboiled post-World War II film noir, for an interest in 1930s and 1940s pulp heroes. Whether this was a willful pursuit of nostalgic super heroics to avoid reckoning with present-tense issues or just a matter of effects technology not yet catching up to the needs of most modern-day superheroes, the post-“Batman” comic book superhero movie was dominated by sequels to Burton’s feature and period piece wannabes.

Sure, Peacock is only a couple of years old, so the streamer isn’t on the same level as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

Sure, Peacock is only a couple of years old, so the streamer isn’t on the same level as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

EXCLUSIVE: Kathrine Narducci will be working again, not just with Robert De Niro, but also filmmaker Barry Levinson, in the latter’s mob pic Wise Guys at Warner Bros.

Hans Zimmer is set to be explored in BBC documentary Hans Zimmer: Hollywood Rebel.The hour-long film will chart the composer’s 40-year career from post-war Germany to Hollywood royalty. Over his career, he’s composed scores for blockbuster films like The Lion King, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Gladiator, The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Dune and many others.Along with his work in Hollywood, the documentary will cover his work on BBC projects like Planet Earth II, Blue Planet II and Frozen Planet II.Hans Zimmer: Hollywood Rebel also features interviews with directors Ron Howard, Denis Villeneuve, Christopher Nolan, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Barry Levinson, James L Brooks, Gore Verbinski, Steve McQueen, Stephen Frears and Tim Bevan.Speaking about the documentary, Zimmer said: “I’m honoured to be sharing this insight into my career and life with the BBC audience.

Naman Ramachandran The life and work of Hans Zimmer, the Oscar-winning composer of “The Lion King” and “Dune: Part One,” will be celebrated in BBC Two documentary “Hans Zimmer – Hollywood Rebel.” The 60-minute film looks back at Zimmer’s 40-year journey from post-war Germany to Hollywood royalty. It will seek to reveal the musical secrets of Zimmer over a career that includes scores for films “Rain Man,” “Pirates of The Caribbean,” “Gladiator,” “No Time To Die,” “The Dark Knight,” “Batman Begins” and “The Thin Red Line” plus the music he created for BBC Studios Natural History films, including “Planet Earth II,” “Blue Planet II” and “Frozen Planet II.”

David E. Kelley’s investigative drama series “The Calling” were released Monday by Peacock, offering a glimpse into the show ahead of its Nov. 10 debut on the streamer. Adapted from a series of novels by author Dror Mishani, the show’s plot follows a New York Police Department detective named Avraham Avraham (Jeff Wilbush), who typically relies on spirituality to guide his pursuit of truth until one investigation makes him rethink his beliefs. The series stars Wilbush, Juliana Canfield, Karen Robinson and Michael Mosley. One image highlights a particularly tense, yet slightly absurd moment where Wilbush is locked hands with a man wearing a hotdog suit in what looks like the context of an interrogation.

EXCLUSIVE: Justine Juel Gillmer, exec producer of Amazon’s big-budget series The Wheel of Time, has scored a studio home.

Emmy’s Outstanding TV Movie category this year featured one traditional awards film, Barry Levinson’s harrowing WWII tale The Survivor for HBO, joined by four followups to canceled series, Disney+’s Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Showtime’s Ray Donovan: the Movie, Paramount+’s Reno 911!: the Hunt for QAnon and Roku’ Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas.

Clayton Davis The second night of the Creative Arts Emmys will take place on Sunday night, where hot races such as guest acting, music and stunts will be revealed. History could be made with “Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers” from Disney+ could be the first animated movie to win for outstanding television movie, after becoming the first ever to be nominated. However, we could see if HBO will be in line to make history if it takes the category for Barry Levinson’s “The Survivor.” HBO is able to win all the top series categories for drama (“Succession”), comedy (“Barry” or “Hacks”) and limited (“The White Lotus”). It would be the first network in history to win all four if achieved.

Don DeLillo’s post modernist 1985 novel, White Noise has been long desired by filmmakers trying to crack the nut of how to bring the complex dark comedy to the screen. Barry Levinson made an attempt that didn’t come to fruition in 2004. Director Michael Almereyda was announced in 2016, also going nowhere. James L. Brooks’ Gracie Films had it optioned at one point. But it seems entirely appropriate that it should finally land into the hands of Noah Baumbach, a self-professed mega fan of the book he read first in college in the late 80’s  and saw it as a very satiric yet accurate account of the sad state of affairs of the world at that time. However by 2021 when he got around to adapting and directing the first of his own films he didn’t write as an original screenplay, the multiple themes running though the book not only were still relevant, they seem more of this time then the 37 years since the book’s publication.

Wise Guys, according to reports.The actor, who made his name in crime dramas like Goodfellas, Casino and The Godfather Part II, will return to the genre for a film directed by Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Bugsy).Wise Guys will follow the lives of Italian-American crime bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, who both operated their respective families in the middle of the 20th century. In 1957, Genovese attempted and failed to assassinate Costello.