James Gray Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

The 60th New York Film Festival unveiled its main slate from established and upcoming directors with Cannes’ Palme d’Or-winner Triangle of Sadness by Ruben Östlund, Claire Denis’s Stars at Noon (tied for Cannes Grand Prize), Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave (Cannes Best Director), and Charlotte Wells’ debut feature Aftersun (Cannes’ French Touch Jury Prize).

James Gray’s Armageddon Time will be a main slate selection of the New York Film Festival as well as a special 60th anniversary screening event celebrating the history of the fest.

With the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals having unveiled their line-ups, and Telluride always keeping theirs under wraps until Labor Day, it’s time for the New York Film Festival to flex and show off their wares. And that’s exactly what they are doing.

EXCLUSIVE: Kristen Konvitz has joined UTA as an Agent in the Independent Film Group division. She will work from the agency’s Los Angeles headquarters, reporting to Partners Jim Meenaghan and Rena Ronson, who serve as Co-Heads of the Independent Film Group. 

One of our favorite films of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, writer/director James Gray’s new intimate drama, “Armageddon Time,” is getting dropped into awards season this year. Focus Features announced today that the film will open in limited release on October 28, 2022.

Focus Features announced today that it will release James Gray’s semi-autobiographical drama Armageddon Time in limited theaters on October 28. The film will expand domestically on November 4 before going nationwide on the 11th.

Manori Ravindran International EditorJessica Chastain turned down a fee for her surprise cameo as Donald Trump’s politician sister, Maryanne Trump, in James Gray’s “Armageddon Time” — but she had one condition.The actor told Variety that she agreed to play a small part in the Focus Features movie, but only if her involvement was never formally announced.“Armageddon Time” is based on writer-director Gray’s own childhood in the early 1980s at the Kew-Forest School in New York City — where Donald Trump also attended in his youth. Co-starring Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong as the film’s young protagonist Paul’s parents, and Anthony Hopkins as his grandfather, the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last month where Chastain’s cameo surprised audiences. “When James reached out to me, I hadn’t read anything yet, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it,’ because he told me it’s his story.

EXCLUSIVE: Two-time Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins (Armageddon Time) has boarded Rebel Moon—the sci-fi adventure film that Zack Snyder (Army of the Dead) is directing for Netflix.

In May, Jeremy Strong and Anne Hathaway dazzled the Croisette as they appeared on the red carpet of the Cannes Film Festival to promote their roles in James Gray’s critically hailed new film “Armageddon Time.” Two weeks prior, though, they are together in New York discussing their small-screen work. Strong has reached new heights of acting as Kendall Roy, the abandoned and confused scion of a media dynasty, on the third season of HBO’s “Succession.” (He already has an Emmy on the shelf for his work on the series.) Elsewhere in the universe of broken-spirited corporate animals, Hathaway played Rebekah Neumann, first lady of a doomed co-working company, on Apple TV+’s “WeCrashed.” The pair, who first met on the set of the 2019 film “Serenity,” launch right into conversation about shared memories and their mutual passion for the craft. JEREMY STRONG: We’ve never sat down and talked about acting.

Refresh for latest…: The 75th Cannes Film Festival draws to a close tonight as the main awards, including the Palme d’Or, are soon to be handed out in the Palais. Scroll down for the list of winners which is being updated as prizes are announced.

Naman Ramachandran Revered cinematographer Darius Khondji loves to shoot on film but has made his peace with digital, he revealed in a masterclass at Cannes on Thursday. “It’s just so sexy to shoot on film, the texture is beautiful, it looks great on skin tones,” Khondji said.

Here are some of the key talking points from the Cannes Film Festival and market at half-way.

EXCLUSIVE: Jeremy Strong (Succession) has revealed to Deadline at the Cannes Film Festival that he’s determined to build time into his schedule so that he can perform on the London stage. “I missed an opportunity to do The Shining for Ivo van Hove, and so next time I have to be ready,” he declared.

CANNES, France -- When the Cannes Film Festival audience stood to applaud James Gray's richly observed autobiographical drama “Armageddon Time," about the director's own 1980s childhood in Queens, Gray's voice quivered as he addressed the crowd.“It’s my story, in a way,” said Gray. “And you guys shared it with me.”“It took every last bit of control not to burst out into tears," Gray said, still recovering the next day in Cannes. “It’s been a really strange journey making the film and my father died two months ago of COVID.

Anne Hathaway is looking so chic for her second appearance at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival!

It’s early days at the Cannes Film Festival, so awards prognostication might seem a little premature, but still, it’s hard to imagine that the phenomenal performance given by Swedish-Lebanese actor Fares Fares in Tarik Saleh’s searing political thriller Boy from Heaven will go entirely unnoticed by this year’s jury. Topping the work he did in Saleh’s 2017 Sundance hit The Nile Hilton Incident, Fares commands the screen from the moment he arrives, playing a character whose disheveled appearance conceals a ruthless efficiency, a laser-focused mind and an entirely pragmatic concept of morality.

Clayton Davis James Gray’s “Armageddon Time,” a deeply personal look at how the auteur became the auteur we, or at least the French, came to know and love, debuted to warm applause on Thursday. However, the film’s problematic depiction of racial inequalities in the Reagan era may turn off awards voters.

CANNES – James Gray’s new film, “Armageddon Time,” is an autobiographical tale recounting the systematic racism he witness at the age of 12-years-old over four decades ago. His parents are played by Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong, while he’s reimagined as Paul, an artistic dreamer portrayed by Banks Repeta.

Manori Ravindran International EditorLotfy Nathan, the director of Un Certain Regard title “Harka,” is set to make an elevated horror feature with the producers of “Armageddon Time.”Following the Cannes premiere of “Harka,” Nathan is moving forward with his sophomore film, which is tentatively titled “Son,” based on the apocryphal infancy gospel of Thomas, about the childhood of Jesus.The film continues the relationship between the U.S. director, Spacemaker Prods.

Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals in France. The French model, 27, wore a baby pink tiered mesh floor-length gown as she walked the red carpet on Thursday.

Anne Hathaway is looking incredible on the Cannes red carpet!

James Gray returned to Cannes for the fifth time with what was a personal story inspired by his childhood during 1980s Queens, NY, and the premiere tonight was nothing but emotional.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterAnne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong made the end of the world seem pretty fabulous on Thursday night, hitting the Croisette for the Cannes Film Festival premiere of writer-director James Gray’s “Armageddon Time.”Gray’s semi-autobiographical film about growing up in 1980s Queens stars newcomers Banks Repeta (as the Gray surrogate) and Jaylin Webb (as his best friend). Hathaway and Strong play solid a Jewish couple with dreams of upward mobility.

Kenneth Branagh’s childhood was transformed by the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Mike Mills had very eccentric parents and Cameron Crowe was a teenage rock critic — and we know these things because all three directors have made films that drew upon their own childhoods. And now it’s James Gray’s turn to offer his own look back with “Armageddon Time,” which premiered to a rousing ovation in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday.And what does the film tell us about the young Gray? For starters, he was a dreamer, he was a brat, he didn’t understand the privileges he was born into and he went on his own path.

A new film by Scottish director Lynne Ramsay is always a cause for celebration. And now, her first movie since 2017’s “You Were Never Really Here” hits the market at Cannes, with Julianne Moore and Sandra Oh set to star.

“You can’t ever forget about the past,” Anthony Hopkins says with gentle heed and caution, in a key moment in writer/director James Gray’s intimate new film, “Armageddon Time,” a compassionate movie in perpetual contemplation of our collective accounts, both personally, socially and historically. After venturing out into the jungle (“The Lost City Of Z”), exploring the unfathomable unknowns of deep space (“Ad Astra”) and coming to the same conclusions about the dark heart of human nature, Gray returns to the pavement of his New York City roots for one of his most emotionally honest works regarding the elemental moments of life, love and loss.

Writer-director James Gray has been to the Cannes Film Festival in competition on four previous occasions with We Own the Night, The Yards, The Immigrant, and Two Lovers but has yet to walk away with a prize. Maybe the fifth time will be the charm? It certainly would be deserving as Gray comes back to his beloved New York City roots with the highly autobiographical and intriguingly titled Armageddon Time. 

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticWhen I watch a movie by the writer-director James Gray, I often have the sensation that I’m seeing two films in one: the story being told and the one hovering offscreen — the one that’s all about his aspiration to be something larger than a mere storyteller. Early Gray films like “The Yards” (2000) and “We Own the Night” (2007) were modest tales suffused with his desire to be making “a ’70s movie.” “Ad Astra” (2019) was a lavishly scaled outer-space thriller suffused with his desire to be making “2001: A Space Odyssey.”“Armageddon Time,” Gray’s eighth feature, marks a break from most of what he has done before.

William Earl Variety will partner with Campari to bring the Variety Studio to the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. The interview studio will run May 18 – 25 and feature conversations with top directors and stars attending the 75th annual fest.Talent participating in the interview studio includes Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, Michael Banks Repeta, Jaylin Webb and writer/director James Gray from “Armageddon Time” (Focus Features), a coming-of-age story about family and the generational pursuit of the American dream; Julianne Moore and Jesse Eisenberg from his feature directorial debut, “When You Finish Saving the World” (A24), a comedy-drama about a mother (Moore) and her teenage son’s (Finn Wolfhard) complex relationship; Paul Mescal and writer-director Charlotte Wells from “Aftersun” (Pastel), an intimate drama following Sophie (Frankie Corio) as she reflects on a holiday she took with her father (Mescal) 20 years earlier; Alicia Vikander and writer-director Olivier Assayas from “Irma Vep” (HBO), a remake of the French silent film classic “Les Vampires”; and writer-director Park Chan-wook, and actors Tang Wei and Park Hae-il from “Decision to Leave” (Mubi), a thriller following a detective’s investigation of a man’s death in the mountains.

A new film by Scottish director Lynne Ramsay is always a cause for celebration. And now, her first movie since 2017’s “You Were Never Really Here” hits the market at Cannes, with Julianne Moore and Sandra Oh set to star.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentPresiding over the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, director Thierry Frémaux has assembled some serious Hollywood star power, world cinema auteurs amid indications that despite COVID, the film world is buzzing with anticipation for the films, the deals and most of all the glamour the fest brings.While Frémaux has been credited with expanding the horizons of the Cannes Film Festival since taking over the reins of its Official Selection in 2001, he’s also been praised for building relationships with American studios and filmmakers.This year, he’s lured them back in spite of the ongoing pandemic, with a lineup including James Gray’s “Armageddon Time,” David Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future,” Joseph Kosinski’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up,” George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing” and Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” “My first red carpet was for ‘Moulin Rouge!’ with Baz Luhrmann and Nicole Kidman in 2001 and it will be engraved in my memory forever,” says Fremaux. “I’m happy to reunite with Baz this year.

Neon, the Best Picture Oscar-winning studio behind Parasite, has acquired U.S. rights to the psychological thriller Mothers’ Instinct starring Academy Award winners Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway.

Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaNeon, the Oscar-winning studio behind “Parasite,” has acquired U.S. rights to “Mothers’ Instinct,” a psychological thriller starring Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway. It’s a pretty acclaimed group.

Jeremy Strong, star of the critically acclaimed and award-winning drama “Succession,” is set to star in and executive produce a series for Amazon Studios revolving around Boeing’s contentious 737 Max airplanes. Coming off the heels of 2021 which saw Strong star in the third season of HBO’s darkly comedic family portrait, the actor is set to create this new series alongside Chris Terrio, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Argo,” and Plan B, the studio responsible for Adam McKay’s “Vice” and James Gray’s “Ad Astra,” amongst other titles.

“We have our own superheroes here at Focus Feature and they are going to bring older filmgoers back to your movie theaters,” Lisa Bunnell, Focus Features distribution chief, promised thousands of cinema execs at the Universal presentation today.

After what was rumored to be a long search, Thierry Fremaux has found his president for the 2022 Cannes Film Festival Jury. Legendary French actor Vincent Lindon, who starred in last year’s Palme d’Or winner, “Titane,” will take the mantle following Spike Lee‘s reign last year.