Katherine Parr Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

EXCLUSIVE: Heating up the AFM market: Firebrand, a psychological horror tale set in the bloody Tudor court with a focus on Queen Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of Henry VIII, and the only one to avoid banishment or death. Michelle Williams will play her, and Jude Law will play her notorious husband.

The trailer for Alicia Vikander and Jude Law‘s Firebrand has debuted online.

Sometimes, there are films that feature actors that are too good to pass up. “Firebrand,” which stars Alicia Vikander and Jude Law, is one of those movies.

Liam Neeson crime thriller In The Land Of Saints And Sinners opens on 896 screens this weekend, joined by Sean Penn in Asphalt City — the Godzilla vs. Kong of the specialty market?

Roadside Attractions and Vertical have acquired U.S. rights to Firebrand, a historical thriller starring Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) and Jude Law (The Talented Mr. Ripley) that world premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The film directed by Karim Aïnouz (Invisible Life) is slated for an exclusive theatrical release on June 21, 2024, when it will go up against Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders and an as-yet-undisclosed title from Universal.

Caroline Brew editor Roadside Attractions and Vertical have acquired the U.S. rights to the historical thriller “Firebrand,” which will open in theaters on June 21. Based on the historical novel “Queen’s Gambit” by Elizabeth Fremantle, the film stars Alicia Vikander and Jude Law and is directed by Karim Aïnouz.

As tensions rise in Hollywood over an imminent update on SAG-AFTRA’s negotiations with the studios, thousands of miles east, the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary is gearing up for its annual influx of industry insiders, curious film fans, and stars.

Ewan McGregor and Alicia Vikander will be the featured guests during the first weekend of this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where they will both receive the fest’s honorary President’s Award.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Scottish actor Ewan McGregor and Swedish actor Alicia Vikander will be honored at the 57th Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where they will receive the President’s Award, and present their latest films. The festival will open with “Firebrand,” in which Vikander has the leading role of Katherine Parr. McGregor will present “You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder,” in which he stars alongside his daughter Clara McGregor. McGregor’s role in Danny Boyle’s dark comedy “Shallow Grave” (1994) earned him an Empire Award for best British actor, and their next joint film, “Trainspotting” (1996), was an international sensation. McGregor and Boyle teamed up again for the 1997 romantic comedy “A Life Less Ordinary,” in which McGregor appeared alongside Cameron Diaz.

for minutes of applause. So entrenched is this French farce that trade publications routinely time the euphoria and judge the response to the new films based on the length of the cheering at the Grand Théâtre Lumière. Cannes’ longest-ever roar? Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which premiered there in 2006, at 22 minutes. This year’s fest is in full swing, and so is the ceaseless hand-slapping.Here are Cannes’ standing ovations so far, from triumphant to tepid.The most ecstatic response to a film so far at this year’s festival, which runs until May 27, was for Martin Scorsese’s latest drama. The historical movie from Apple and Paramount brings together two popular Scorsese stalwarts, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, plus last year’s Best Actor Oscar winner Brendan Fraser and Jesse Plemons.

Brent Lang Executive Editor When his agent first suggested that Karim Aïnouz direct an adaptation of Elizabeth Fremantle’s “Queen’s Gambit,” a historical novel about Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of Henry VIII, he thought she was joking. The Brazilian director of “The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão” wasn’t a natural choice to bring 16th century England to life on screen. For one thing, Aïnouz didn’t really know anything about the oft-married monarch. “I could barely identify who Henry VIII was, and I’m not into the monarchy,” he says on the eve of the Cannes premiere of “Firebrand,” the movie he made from Fremantle’s book. “I’m not into British history. I was very puzzled.”

Jude Law wore a horrifying concoction of scents, a pungent blend of “blood, fecal matter and sweat,” to play Henry VIII in “Firebrand,” a historical drama about the final days of the king and his sixth and last wife Katherine Parr. “I read several interesting accounts that you could smell Henry three rooms away. His leg was rotting so badly. He hid it with rose oil,” Law said at Monday’s Cannes Film Festival press conference for “Firebrand,” which debuted at the Palais a day prior. “I thought it would have a great impact if I smelt awful.” So, he went to perfume specialist to create a custom, revolting blend of smells. “She makes wonderful scents, and she also makes awful scents. She somehow came up with this extraordinary variety of blood, fecal matter and sweat.”

Most movies about England’s King Henry VIII like to focus on the mercurial monarch’s failed marriages. His six wives have been collectively described as divorced, died, beheaded, divorced, beheaded, survived. That last one, the little talked-about Katherine Parr, had the distinction of outlasting Henry — their marriage was about four years as he started to succumb to the result of hard living. She was there during that time, but also a wife who if she weren’t so connected to the King easily could have qualified as a feminist. She not only was the first English woman to have a book published, was privately a radical Protestant in an England that had been staunchly Catholic, but also a sharply intelligent woman who had a head on her shoulders and was determined to keep it there.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Tudor, or not Tudor. That is the question in “Firebrand,” a revisionist royal portrait of Henry VIII’s last wife, Katherine Parr (played here by Alicia Vikander), that features all the pageantry you’d expect from a lavish costume drama, while showing the ahistorical audacity to call “Time’s Up” on the gluttonous king (Jude Law). Never mind that Henry VIII died — of very different causes than the movie depicts — all of 476 years ago. When it comes to art, there’s no statute of limitations on taking toxic masculinity to task, which can be both encouraging (since history has excused no shortage of monsters) and frustrating. There’s a big difference between exposing the truth and rewriting what came before to suit a contemporary political agenda, the way this movie does. Liberally adapted from Elizabeth Fremantle’s fast-and-loose historical fiction “The Queen’s Gambit,” director Karim Aïnouz’s tony British production needn’t try hard to demonstrate that Henry was a notoriously bad husband.

It’s a solemn command from Firebrand’s first assistant director Lydia Currie: “When you bow to the king, bow straight down,” she announces. “Don’t look at him; you’ll get your head cut off.” The fearsome monarch Currie is referring to is Henry VIII, and on this particular day, Jude Law’s king is in an ax-swinging mood. The background artists on Karim Aïnouz’s set comply to orders and stare down at their toes. Before them, seated on thrones arranged on a raised plinth, is the potentate in question, and Katherine Parr, his queen.

Manori Ravindran Executive Editor of International In Britain, schoolchildren learning about Tudor history are taught a handy rhyme to remember the order of King Henry VIII’s six wives: “Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.” Hollywood has for decades been transfixed by the “beheaded” and “died” bits — essentially, the stories about women suffering — but what moviegoers are rarely reminded of is the wife who outlived Henry. In Karim Aïnouz’s hotly anticipated “Firebrand,” it’s the notorious Tudor king’s final companion, Katherine Parr, who finally takes center stage. “What’s mostly been dramatized are the wives who didn’t make it,” says Swedish star Alicia Vikander, who plays the surviving queen opposite Jude Law’s ailing monarch. “[When I read the script] I immediately thought, ‘Huh, isn’t it interesting that most people know more about the other wives.’ It’s almost like people are drawn to quite grim stories.”

Firebrand,” a period drama about Katherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of Henry VIII, has sold out internationally ahead of its world premiere on Sunday. Sources tell Variety that the film has sold into STXInternational for the U.K. and to Sony Pictures for most other overseas markets. FilmNation has sold remaining international markets to independent international distributors. In the U.K., Variety understands that Prime Video is in the process of buying the film from STX. This could mean that STX is handling a theatrical release, while Prime Video takes the film for streaming, or that the streamer will also handle theatrical in the territory. Sources indicate that Prime Video is also picking up streaming rights in a number of other international markets.

Cannes Film Festival isn’t just a hub of red carpet premieres, champagne-drenched parties, and stars, stars, stars. It’s also a vibrant locus of dealmaking, with studio executives, agents and filmmakers descending on the Riviera to secure financing for their upcoming projects or to find a distributor for their latest movies. The 2023 edition is playing host to several compelling packages and potential awards contenders that could spark heated bidding wars. Here are 11 films that could leave buyers reaching for the espresso instead of the rosé as they engage in all-night battles to land the next big thing. Cast: Sean Penn, Tye Sheridan, Katherine Waterston, Michael Pitt, Mike TysonDirector: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire Agency: CAA, WMEWhy Buyers Care: Penn and Sheridan have crackling chemistry as disgruntled mentor and doe-eyed mentee in the edge-of-your-seat thriller, which takes audiences into the often harrowing, always intense reality for paramedics in New York City. A gentle warning, though, that “Black Flies” isn’t for the squeamish. Expect plenty of blood, disturbing and graphic injuries, extreme violence…and a lot of yelling.

As the 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival looms, a cavalcade of previews for films in competition for the coveted Palme d’Or arrives. Here’s one from the first wave of titles: Karim Aïnouz‘s “Firebrand,” which stars Alicia Vikander as Katherine Parr, the sixth and last wife of England’s King Henry VIII.

Michelle Williams will play Katherine Parr, the last of Henry VIII’s six wives, in Firebrand, the English-language debut from Karim Aïnouz, who is in Cannes this year with Special Screening Mariner of The Mountains. Pic comes from Gabrielle Tana (The Dig) of Magnolia Mae Films and us written by Henrietta and Jessica Ashworth (Killing Eve); shoot will take place in early 2022 in the UK. Screen first had news of Williams’ casting.

Naman Ramachandran Michelle Williams will play Katherine Parr, the last of Henry VIII’s six wives, in Karim Aïnouz’s “Firebrand.”The film marks the English-language debut of Karim Aïnouz, and goes into production in the U.K. in early 2022.