Luc Besson Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

EXCLUSIVE: Primetime Emmy award-winning VFX expert Sophie Leclerc is returning to France after more than two decades in L.A. to co-head Rodeo FX’s new Paris office in the role of executive producer.

Cillian Murphy thriller Anna has emerged as a surprise hit on Netflix, with the film becoming the fourth most-watched movie globally on the streaming platform.Anna, which is available to stream on Netflix US, sees Sasha Luss star as a former KGB agent-turned-model who is forced to return to her old profession, become a double agent and avenge the death of her previous employer in exchange for her freedom.Oppenheimer‘s Murphy plays CIA agent Leonard Miller, with Helen Mirren and Luke Evans also starring.The official synopsis reads: “Beneath a Russian woman’s striking beauty lies a hidden secret that will unleash her indelible strength and skill and lead to her becoming one of the most feared assassins on the planet.”At the time of its release, Anna performed poorly with critics, receiving a score of 33 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. However, it was far more popular with fans, receiving an audience rating of 81 per cent on the same site.The film is directed by Luc Besson, who is known for the 1994 action-thriller Léon: The Professional, starring Jean Reno, Natalie Portman and Gary Oldman.

Quentin Tarantino has reportedly decided to drop The Movie Critic as his final film.According to a report from Deadline Hollywood, undisclosed sources have allegedly told the outlet that filmmaker “simply changed his mind” about making The Movie Critic. Deadline‘s report also notes that there were rumours of Tarantino rewriting the script, and that the film’s production had been delayed due to last year’s writers’ and actors strikes.Instead, Deadline reports that Tarantino will be focusing on an entirely new project for his tenth and final film.

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s some more intriguing casting for Luc Besson‘s big-budget reimagining of the Dracula story, Dracula – A Love Tale.

Luc Besson has claimed he gave Quentin Tarantino the idea to retire after 10 movies.Tarantino’s next movie, The Movie Critic, is expected to be his last. The director has long spoken about his desire to retire after his tenth movie.In an interview on The Discourse Podcast (via The Playlist and IndieWire), Besson claimed that Tarantino got the idea to retire after 10 films from him.While Besson did not stick to his plan – his film DogMan that premiered in 2023 was his 21st – he claims Tarantino used it as a blueprint for his own career.“What’s funny is that I said that to Tarantino a long time ago…So, he copied me. No, I was honest when I said that.

In this week’s episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo digs into the film “DogMan” with writer/director Luc Besson (“The Fifth Element,” “Leon: The Professional,” “Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets.”). The film follows Doug (Caleb Landry Jones), a young, crippled, abandoned man, beaten down by a tough life who has a supernatural connection to his canine companions.

Barbenheimer. Barbie, listed in our 2023 spring movie preview, and Oppenheimer, which was not, had yet to assert their primacy over the year’s box office and pop culture conversation.Few conceived those two films would spark a phenomenon that rippled through media, fashion, merchandising, music, and awards show after awards show after awards show.After all the hype and hot takes, red carpet looks, historic victories and milestones, the Barbenheimer convo only really finally abated with the Oscar wins that shuffled Barbie, Ken, and Oppy off the stage in March, ushering cinema into the spring/summer season.Now, new cinematic fascinations await, new soundtracks of the summer, your next new favorite character or performance, some star-making smash that’ll keep the world talking until 2025.

It’s been a tumultuous few years for French filmmaker Luc Besson, to put it mildly. But with #MeToo allegations outwardly behind him and the director seemingly exonerated, it appears to be full steam ahead for the “Fifth Element” and “Leon: The Professional” director.

Luc Besson is back in US theaters with “Dogman,” and he’s already hard at work on his upcoming adaptation of “Dracula” with Caleb Landry Jones. “I started shooting it already,” Besson said in an upcoming interview with The Discourse Podcast.

EXCLUSIVE: Briarcliff Entertainment has acquired domestic rights to the comedy Not Another Church Movie, starring Jamie Foxx, Vivica A. Fox, Kevin Daniels, Mickey Rourke and more, slating it for a wide release in theaters on May 10th.

The champagne may be flowing at the kickoff for the 27th Annual Sonoma International Film Festival – for more reasons than one.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Natalie Portman revealed on a recent episode of the “Smartless” podcast (via People) that Jodie Foster once reached out to her after she heard Portman giving a speech about being sexualized as a young actor. Foster famously skyrocketed at 12 years old when she was cast in Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” as a child sex worker. Portman, meanwhile, was 11 years old when she was cast in “Léon: The Professional,” which served as her own acting breakthrough.

Luc Besson is back in theaters with his first film since 2019’s “Anna.” And from the looks of its new trailer, “DogMan” is another ultra-stylish, semi-deranged action thriller from the French director. But how will it hold up against Besson’s best films like “The Fifth Element,” “Le Femme Nikita,” and “Taken“? Audiences find out when “DogMan” hits theaters next month.

Alex Ritman If there was one puzzle from the 2023 Venice Film Festival, it concerned Caleb Landry Jones and the actor’s curious decision to conduct all his press arrangements for the Luc Besson thriller “Dogman” with a Scottish accent. As was later revealed, the Australian had taken a quick break from shooting U.K.

EXCLUSIVE: One of the last big European Film Market pre-sales projects to be revealed is one of the most intriguing as SAG winner Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri) has been set to star with two-time Oscar winner Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) in a big-budget reimagining of the Dracula story from Lucy filmmaker and Taken creator Luc Besson.

Luc Besson is now set to venture into epic fantasy territories with one of the most famous big screen characters of all. The French director is to direct an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s’ “Dracula,” telling the story of 15th century Prince Vladimir who cursed God following the death of his beloved wife and is turned into a vampire.

French director Maïwenn has been fined $435 (€400) for assaulting a leading French journalist in the lead-up to the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, according to French media reports.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Choi Min-sik, the veteran Korean actor who previously starred in “Oldboy” and Korea’s all-time box office record breaker “Roaring Currents,” heads the cast of upcoming mystery-thriller film “Exhuma.” The title, which will debut in Korean theaters in February, also released its first-look images and an atmospheric trailer. Choi appears as an exorcist who unleashes unexpected supernatural forces. According to a synopsis supplied by Showbox, “A wealthy family living in Los Angeles calls on a pair of young shaman, played by Kim Go-eun and Lee Do-hyun, to save their newborn child after they are visited by a series of paranormal events. [The shaman duo] senses that the dark shadow of an ancestor has latched on the family, a so-called ‘Grave’s Calling’.

Briarcliff Entertainment to release writer-director Luc Besson‘s Dogman in theaters March 15, 2024 and expands on March 22, 2024. The film stars Caleb Landry Jones, Jojo T. Gibbs, and Christopher Denham.

Luc Besson, the award-winning writer, director and producer who founded Paris-based studio EuropaCorp in 1999, is returning as interim CEO after the company’s chief executive Axel Duroux resigned.

forced to keep her cool when King (then-Prince) Charles mistakenly thought she was in the original “Star Wars” films from the 1970s and ’80s.The Oscar winner, 42, recalled meeting the royal, 75, at the 1999 London premiere of “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace” on a recent episode of “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.”Portman recounted the galactic incident on the Bravo chat show, saying: “I remember Prince Charles asked me — he was then Prince Charles — if I was in the originals.”“I was like, ‘I’m 18,'” she joked. “But he was very friendly.”The “May December” star portrayed Padmé Amidala in the space opera prequel.She further described the “amazing” experience shooting the flick, telling Cohen, 55, “It was the first time I had shot digitally.The Long Island native went on: “I don’t think anyone was shooting that way then.

Wei Shujun’s Only The River Flows was presented with Best Film in the Fei Mu Awards at this year’s Pingyao International Film Festival (PYIFF), while Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell, directed by Vietnam’s Pham Thien An, won Best Film in the festival’s Roberto Rossellini Awards.

Lise Pedersen The coveted Lumière Classics label is today as sought-after in the heritage film industry as any prestigious film festival label for contemporary film fare. Launched back at the 2019 edition of the Lumière Film Festival, Europe’s leading classic film event, the label was created to showcase a carefully curated selection of restorations of 20th century films with the aim of highlighting the work carried out by archives, cinematheques, rights holders and foundations around the world.

The co-heads of Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, which was rescheduled at the eleventh hour this week due to the Israel-Gaza crisis, have vowed that the event will go ahead in some shape or form.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival is back after a one-year hiatus with a rich mix of Arabic and international titles launching into the Middle East and plenty of promising projects from Arab countries set to be unveiled to prospective partners at its CineGouna industry side. The event launched in 2017 by Egyptian telecom billionaire Naguib Sawiris – whose brother Samih built the El Gouna resort in a swathe of desert near the tourist town of Hurghada 250 miles south of Cairo – was put on pause in 2022 ostensibly due to the country’s economic crisis following five editions during which fest co-founder Amr Mansi and chief Intishal Al Timimi had managed to rapidly put El Gouna on the international festival map while also making it a favourite with the local crowd.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Korea’s Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has been through a fair amount of drama this year. 

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic (“Quo Vadis, Aida?”) will preside over the main jury of the 6th edition of Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival, which has announced its full lineup, featuring a rich mix of Arabic and international titles making their Middle East premieres as they compete for top prizes. Following a one-year hiatus, the Oct.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Natalie Portman may be an outspoken feminist and co-founder of a female-driven soccer club (Angel City FC), but she isn’t a believer in the so-called “female gaze.” In an interview with Vanity Fair France for the magazine’s 10-year anniversary issue, conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike, Portman argued that “to say that a female director has a particular gaze is reductive of women’s individuality and points of view.” The Harvard-educated actor also said that gender isn’t a factor when she chooses projects. “Female directors should have the same opportunities as their male counterparts.

EXCLUSIVE: Distributor-producer Lucky Red is one of Italy’s most respected independent film and TV companies. Run by former actor Andrea Occhipinti since 1987, the firm has released more than 500 titles and produced more than 50 films.

Woody Allen‘s film Coup de Chance was interrupted by protesters, who urged the Venice Film Festival to “turn the spotlight off on rapists”.As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, a group of around 20 people began demonstrating at the event on Monday (September 4) just as Allen stepped onto the red carpet. As they lined up just beyond the carpet, the group took off their shirts and chanted slogans like “no rape culture” and “no spotlight for rapist directors”.As documented by film journalist Luke Hearfield on X, the protesters handed out fliers headlined “turn the spotlight off on rapists”.

Busan International Film Festival (BIFF, October 4-13) has unveiled its full line-up, including opening and closing films, and announced that Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat has been named as Asian Filmmaker of the Year. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Busan International Film Festival put aside many of its recent internal and local political problems to Tuesday unveil a large selection ranging from bleeding edge art titles to international festival favorites. “The difficult times are not behind us, but hard work has made this year’s festival better than ever,” said programmer and interim festival chief Nam Dong-chul, speaking at an online press conference. International guests expected to attend the festival include Luc Besson, Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing, Japanese directors Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Kore-Eda Hirokazu, Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and Korean Americans Justin Chon (“Gook”) and Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”). Hong Kong-based superstar Chow Yun-fat has been named as Busan’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year and will be in person to receive the award.

Woody Allen received a three-minute standing ovation at the Venice premiere of “Coup de Chance” on Monday night, which would have gone on longer had the filmmaker not started to exit. After two minutes and 30 seconds of sustained applause once the film finished, Allen began to make his way toward the door, cutting the standing ovation short.

Luc Besson is getting candid about his career.

The Venice Film Festival began August 30 with opening-night movie , an Italian World War II drama, kicking off a lineup for the venerable fest’s 80th edition that includes world premieres of Michael Mann’s Ferrari, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, David Fincher’s The Killer, Ava DuVernay’s Origins, and new films from lightning-rod directors Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Luc Besson.

Caleb Landry Jones hits the red carpet with longtime girlfriend Katya Zvereva for the premiere of Dogman during the 2023 Venice Film Festival on Thursday (August 31) in Italy.