Timur Bekmambetov Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Sony has pushed its reboot of Karate Kid from December 13 this year to May 30, 2025. This has created a bit of a backward domino effect but won’t rob the year of theatrical releases.

Chris Pratt is off to a rough start on his latest film.

EXCLUSIVE: The Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson sci-fi thriller Mercy is adding four with A Star Is Born‘s Rafi Gavron, Chris Sullivan, Kenneth Choi and Kylie Rogers.

EXCLUSIVE: True Detective star and World Boxing Council middleweight champ and Independent Spirit nominee Kali Reis has boarded Amazon MGM Studios’ upcoming thriller Mercy opposite Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson and Annabelle Wallis. The pic is looking to roll cameras this spring for an August 15, 2025 theatrical release.

The partnership between Amazon and MGM Studios has birthed many various genre projects. One of the latest is a sci-fi thriller starring Chris Pratt (“Guardians of The Galaxy”) titled, “Mercy,” The new pic hails from Timur Bekmambetov, the Kazakh-Russian filmmaker likely best known for the Mark Millar comic book adaptation “Wanted” starring James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie superhero-level assassins.

Rebecca Ferguson‘s next movie role is booked!

Chris Pratt will be working with a familiar face on one of his next movies!

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon MGM Studios has just landed a big sci-fi film package which they’re setting a global theatrical release on, and that’s Mercy, starring Chris Pratt, directed by Timur Bekmambetov and produced by Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning producer Charles Roven. I understand the deal closed in the last week with a spring start of production planned.

The story of Walt Disney’s successful career in Los Angeles began in the Los Feliz area of the city, with his first studio nestled on a side street.

EXCLUSIVE: XYZ Films has secured North American rights to the sci-fi thriller Resurrected, starring The Vigil‘s Dave Davis, from international sales agent Pulsar Content. Plans for the film’s release have not yet been disclosed.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Alan Ritchson (“Reacher,” “Fast X”) has been set as the lead in “Motor City,” an action thriller from director Timur Bekmambetov (“Wanted,” “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”). Black Bear Intl. will launch sales at Cannes. Ritchson will play John Miller, a Detroit man released from prison, who unleashes a rampage of brutal vengeance on those who framed him. The Detroit-set film will be “characterized by immersive visual storytelling, with stunningly choreographed and stylized action sequences,” according to a statement. Greg Silverman and Jon Berg will produce for Stampede Ventures, alongside Cliff Roberts and Chad St. John, who also penned the script. Executive producers include Chris Bosco and Gideon Yu for Stampede Ventures and John Friedberg for Black Bear Intl.

EXCLUSIVE: Los Angeles-based Russian-Kazakh director and producer Timur Bekmambetov has secured Turkish backing for his animated feature about iconic Middle Eastern and Asian folk hero Hodja Nasreddin.

EXCLUSIVE: We hear that Netflix has preemptively picked up scribe Greg Russo’s spec script Seismic for six figures.

The only new wide studio release this weekend is the Stage 6 and Screen Gems thriller Missing which collected $760K yesterday off of showtimes that began at 4PM at 2,650 locations. The movie, which is from the creatives behindSony’s micro-hit, Searching, is expected to do in the mid single digits off 3,000 theaters.

EXCLUSIVE: Siddiq Saunderson has signed with M88 for representation.

Good news exhibition: Sony is moving up Missing from Feb. 24, 2023 to Jan. 20, 2023. That’s the weekend after the long MLK holiday frame and the only other wide release is an untitled Crunchy Roll film.

Happy Friday International Insiders, Tom Grater here with your weekly round-up of our top international headlines.

EXCLUSIVE: Timur Bekmambetov, the high-profile Russian-Kazakh director who is credited as the creator of the Screenlife genre with projects including Searching and Unfriended, has condemned the “tragedy” in Ukraine and is working on a project analyzing the digital aspects of the conflict.

Christopher Vourlias “Gotham” star Ben McKenzie and “Instinct” actress Bojana Novakovic are attached to star in the new J-horror film “Bloat,” Variety can reveal.Produced by Bazelevs, the production banner of Screenlife pioneer Timur Bekmambetov (“Unfriended,” “Searching,” “Profile”), “Bloat” is a co-production with Russian streaming platform Okko, French production and sales house Pulsar Content (“The Deep House”), and Japanese production company flag Co., Ltd.Filming has already started in New York and will continue in Japan. Pic marks the first time Okko has co-financed an international production.

EXCLUSIVE: Wanted filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov and his production banner Bazelevs are in development on a new cinematic universe based on the unexploited horror works by Stan Lee.

Christopher Vourlias Russian-Kazakh multi-hyphenate Timur Bekmambetov has teamed up with MarVista Entertainment, Endeavor Content and Pulsar Content on a slate of feature films in his pioneering Screenlife format that will be presented to buyers at the TIFF market.Bekmambetov told Variety during the Toronto Film Festival, that the rapid growth, critical recognition and box-office success of Screenlife films – which take place almost entirely on smartphones and computer screens – prove the

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentTimur Bekmambetov, the Russian writer-director-producer behind such pics as 2004’s “Night Watch” and 2008’s “Wanted,” has just started shooting the English-language sci-fi thriller “Resurrected” in L.A. with Dave Davis (“The Vigil,” “True Detective”).Up-and-coming Russian director Egor Baranov, whose credits include the Russian B.O.

Timur Bekmambetov, in recent years, is a name synonymous with the filmmaking technology Screenlife.

Moscow International Film Festival Unveils PlanThe Moscow International Film Festival is set to run as a physical event in the Russian capital from April 22 to 29, making it one of the first international film festivals to take place in physical form this year. The event will run on site for the Russian public and virtually for international delegates.

The new movie Profile looks like it’s going to be a nail-biting thriller based on the suspenseful trailer that was just released!

On paper, the idea of Screenlife technology could be written off as a gimmick. Why would anyone want to see an entire film take place on a computer screen? However, when done in a clever way, as in the recent thriller “Searching,” the format is inventive and shocking.

Focus Features has taken the worldwide rights for Timur Bekmambetov's Profile, setting a May 14 release. It's the filmmaker's latest movie in the "screenlife" format— a feature that looks as if it plays out entirely on a computer screen.Profile follows an undercover British journalist in her quest to bait and expose a terrorist recruiter through social media while trying not to be sucked in by her recruiter and lured into becoming a militant extremist herself.

Focus Features has taken global rights to Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov’s thriller Profile which made its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 2018 and won the Audience Award. A theatrical release date of May 14 has been set. Universal Pictures will distribute internationally, excluding CIS/Russia.

EXCLUSIVE: Timur Bekmambetov, who is best known for the hyperviolent Angelina Jolie-led thriller Wanted and the bonkers first-person live-action shooter Hardcore Henry, is set to transform the scares of Julian Terry’s horror short Don’t Peek into a full-length feature.

EXCLUSIVE: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…and while God was doing that, Timur Bekmambetov created the series iBible — which will be premiering its first five episodes at SXSW starting March 16.

EXCLUSIVE: Russian director and producer Timur Bekmambetov, whose creation of the innovative Screenlife format has spawned hit movies such as Profile and Unfriended, is setting his sights on India by striking a partnership with local players Graphic India and Reliance Entertainment.

Dave McNary Film ReporterEva Longoria has joined Ice Cube in an untitled science fiction movie for Universal Pictures with Patrick Aiello and Timur Bekmambetov producing.Rich Lee will direct from a Kenneth Golde script that contains themes of privacy and surveillance.

Justin Kroll Senior Film ReporterEXCLUSIVE: Eva Longoria is set to join Ice Cube in the untitled grounded sci-fi movie for the studio with Patrick Aiello and Timur Bekmambetov producing. Rich Lee will direct from a script by Kenneth Golde.Plot details are vague other then it being described as a grounded sci-fi film in the vein of District 9already that touches on themes of privacy versus surveillance.

Justin Kroll Senior Film ReporterEXCLUSIVE: Following the successful Ride Along films and upcoming Flint Strong biopic, Ice Cube and Universal look to have found their next high-profile project as Cube is set to star in the untitled grounded sci-fi movie for the studio with Patrick Aiello and Timur Bekmambetov producing.

MTV's Scream co-stars Carlson Young and John Karna have teamed up to play the leads in a new lockdown short from Timur Bekmambetov and Adam Sidman, producers of Searching and Unfriended. Love in Isolation sees Young, who has also appeared in True Blood, Pretty Little Liars and Key and Peele, and Karma, who recently appeared in Valley of the Boom, play two singletons who meet on the dating app Bumble and see their plans to meet in real-life dashed by the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

Dave McNary Film ReporterIn today’s film news roundup, Stephen Lighthill becomes president of the American Society of Cinematographers, Universal is teaming with Timur Bekmambetov and the DGA health plan is offering three months of free coverage to some members.NEW PRESIDENTThe American Society of Cinematographers’ board of governors has elected Stephen Lighthill as president, replacing Kees van Oostrum.The ASC noted that van Oostrum had served the maximum four terms and recently was appointed