William Friedkin Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

“The Exorcist: Believer” hits theaters this weekend, fifty years after the release of William Friedkin‘s 1973 original. And given Friedkin’s passing earlier this year, David Gordon Green will never know what the late director thinks about his film.

When the late, legendary filmmaker William Friedkin called Kiefer Sutherland to gauge his interest in playing the lead in the Showtime and Paramount+ film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, the actor hung up almost immediately. But not because he wasn’t interested in working with the director he’d long revered, Sutherland explained. “I thought it was one of my friends making a joke.”

Pat Saperstein Deputy EditorMovie, TV and music fans are already remembering notable figures who have died since the start of 2024. “An Officer and a Gentleman” Oscar winner Louis Gossett Jr., “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actor Richard Lewis, “Starsky and Hutch” star David Soul and “Honeymooners” star Joyce Randolph, who played Trixie, are among celebrities from the world of television who have died. In film, cinephiles are remembering “Moonstruck” director Norman Jewison and “Mary Poppins” actress Glynis Johns.Last year, the entertainment community said goodbye to celebrities including musicians Jimmy Buffett, Shane McGowan, Robbie Robertson and David Crosby, actors Andre Braugher and Matthew Perry, writer-producer Norman Lear and director William Friedkin.David Soul, who starred as Sergeant Kenneth Richard “Hutch” Hutchinson in the TV series “Starsky & Hutch,” died Jan.

The Independent Iranian Filmmakers Association (IIFMA) has written to AMPAS to protest the omission of murdered director Dariush Mehrjui from the In Memoriam segment of the Academy Award on Sunday night.

Sunday night’s 2024 Oscars, angry viewers at home ripped the R.I.P segment online.The ABC broadcast, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, made it challenging to see the names and faces of deceased stars in the emotional In Memoriam, put dancers in front of the screen and frequently showed Italian singers Andrea Bocelli and son Matteo Bocelli instead of the dead.“The direction of this In Memoriam is shocking,” wrote user @LoganKenny1 on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The entire image should be the people who’ve died, not the dancers and the stage.

Andrea Bocelli performed a rendition of the song ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ with his son Matteo Bocelli to accompany the Academy’s annual obituary section. Perhaps mindful of previous years, in which eagle-eyed viewers have jumped on omissions, this year’s “In Memoriam” seemed both comprehensive but at the same time not enough, with a bizarre postscript that lumped together artists as diverse as (in alphabetical order) Kenneth Anger, Terence Davies, Carl Davis, David McCallum, Sinead O’Connor, Paolo Taviani and Treat Williams in a well-meaning but unintentionally backhanded postscript.

Day 2 in Edinburgh saw the European premiere of William Friedkin’s KILLER JOE and the opportunity to talk to both director and one of the stars, Gina Gershon, about their time on the project.EIFF Artistic Director Chris Fujiwara spoke on his choice of KILLER JOE as the Festival’s opening film, saying that “there’s nothing wrong with being unconventional,” with his decision to choose Friedkin’s film down to the fact that it is both “accessible to a large audience and a beautiful piece of filmmaking.”While it may be accessible to a large audience, Friedkin made it very clear that his film was “not targeting teenagers,” and that it is “the kind of film that challenges an audience,” while joking that he hoped he hadn’t lowered the level of the Festival set in Edinburgh’s “casual blend of the old and new.”It is clear to see that Gina Gershon doesn’t believe Friedkin should be worried, stating how she wouldn’t “have done this movie with anyone else.” She went on to explain that she was “offered the play of this a long time ago, but doing eight shows a week would have been too brutal. But when I heard he was doing it, I thought that would be a great person to be directed by.”It is a constant point of amazement that KILLER JOE is directed by a seventy-six year old.

EXCLUSIVE: RTG Features, the sister studio to basketball media company Slam, is partnering with arts organization Heartland Film to launch the first annual Slam Film Festival dedicated to basketball-themed movies.

EXCLUSIVE: Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County playwright Tracy Letts has signed with UTA for representation in all areas, the agency said today.

Ethan Shanfeld David Gordon Green has exited “The Exorcist: Deceiver,” the 2025 sequel to last year’s poorly received sequel in the horror franchise. Universal and Blumhouse are searching for a new director.

Well, this isn’t much of a surprise given the recent box office result of 2023’s “Exorcist: Believer” movie, a reboot and legacy sequel to the original William Friedkin “Exorcist” movie from 1973 made by Blumhouse and Universal. Filmmaker David Gordon Green is exiting the franchise, the search is on for a new filmmaker, and in the interim, Universal has taken the sequel, “The Exorcist: Deceiver” sequel, off the calendar.

Very rarely do iconic horror movies escape the remake treatment at some point in their franchise legacy. Such classics as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween and The Omen have all been treated (or fallen victim to, depending on your opinion) to a remake, but there are some that simply seem to be untouchable. The Exorcist, directed by the late great William Friedkin 50 years ago, is one such sacred text. However, just because everyone respects it, doesn’t mean you can’t franchise it, with The Exorcist inspiring a number of sequels, prequels and TV shows, stopping short of going for a full-blown remake.

IT, The Shining, Christine, Carrie and Misery have all been adapted into acclaimed films, with recent examples including The Boogeyman and Doctor Sleep from director Mike Flanagan.Throughout the years, King has also frequently recommended the works of others, whether through press interviews or on X (formerly Twitter).The below list compiles the author’s movie recommendations as featured on a list published on Bloody Disgusting, as well as a BFI listing of his favourite movies from September 2017. Check his picks out below.In the BFI list, King describes William Friedkin’s 1977 film Sorcerer as his “favourite film of all time”.

What To Watch. Today we recommend a mix of new releases and newly available titles, from movies and shows, all available to stream on the most popular platforms.What to watch Halloween edition: 7 movies and shows to stream — Oct 13What to watch: 7 movies and shows to stream this week — Oct 20Starring Chris Evans and Emily Blunt, the film follows a single mother who starts working in a pharmaceutical company in order to make ends meet. Before she knows it, she’s involved in a complicated racketeering scheme.

J. Kim Murphy Nearly 50 years after William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” landed in theaters to leg out a run as the highest-grossing feature of 1973, a new sequel to it is opening on top of the box office. Universal’s “The Exorcist: Believer” compelled audiences to the tune of an $11.9 million opening day from 3,663 locations, a number including $2.85 million in previews.

release of “The Exorcist: Believer,” filmgoers will once again witness young, possessed girls blaspheming, shrieking and levitating as their parents try to wrest a godless demon from their bodies.What they likely won’t see, however, is their fellow audience members fainting, vomiting and fleeing the theater in terror. That chaotic scene was what was widely reported to have happened all over the world when “The Exorcist” hit theaters nearly 50 years ago in December 1973.In early 1974, a security guard at a Midtown East cinema described screenings of the horror flick to the New York Times.

the 1954 big-screen classic starring Humphrey Bogart as Lieutenant Commander Philip Queeg, he of the nervously-twirled metal balls and questionable sanity.The movie premieres Oct. 6 on Paramount+ with Showtime (paramountplus.qflm.net/9WG5D0) — and Oct. 8 on Showtime (9 p.m.) — and features an all-star cast, including Kiefer Sutherland as Queeg and the late Lance Reddick, all of whom deliver bravura performances.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic The sequels — or, in two cases, prequels — to “The Exorcist” have all been unqualified turkeys. There is now a movement at hand to declare that John Boorman’s crackpot insect-swarm fantasia “Exorcist II: The Heretic” (1977) was some sort of misunderstood masterpiece, but that’s an act of revisionism every bit as loony tunes as “Heaven’s Gate” revisionism.

In the long history of horror films since the dawn of cinema, it would be hard to imagine any of them quite having the particular impact of 1973’s The Exorcist which became the first horror film ever to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, along with nine other nominations including Best Actress for Ellen Burstyn. It eventually won two Academy Awards for William Peter Blatty’s screenplay based on his 1971 novel, and for the bone chilling Sound work. When I saw it as a young kid in its original incarnation at the National Theatre in Westwood (now no longer existing), there were lines like you have never seen wrapping completely around the block. Warner Bros. even put a nurse on duty in the lobby for those who passed out, no mere gimmick because it actually happened. Nothing I have seen since in the genre has matched that one for me, but it wasn’t for Hollywood not trying. There are countless imitations, even a couple of failed direct sequels including the dreadful 1977 followup, Exorcist II: The Heretic, and the forgettable Exorcist III: Legion in 1990. There have been TV series attempts, an origin angle with Exorcist: The Beginning in 2004, and countless others using the come-on Exorcist in their title. Earlier this year we even had another film, based on the Vatican’s longtime real life demon slayer, The Pope’s Exorcist which thanks to a dedicated performance by Russell Crowe worked quite well on its own terms

The power of Taylor Swift compels you. And it’s also worked its ways on producer Jason Blum, who cast out his The Exorcist: Believer to an earlier October release date to avoid a clash with Swift’s concert film.

The power of Taylor Swift compels you. And it’s also working its ways on producer Jason Blum, who is casting out his The Exorcist: Believer to an earlier release date to avoid a clash with Swift’s concert film.

Naman Ramachandran Disney’s Agatha Christie adaptation “A Haunting in Venice” stayed atop the U.K. and Ireland box office for the second successive weekend with £1.4 million ($1.8 million), per numbers from Comscore. The film, directed by Kenneth Branagh, where he plays detective Hercule Poirot, now has a total of £4.9 million after two weekends in release.

The movie world lost one of its greatest living directors when William Friedkin passed away in early August. And Friedkin’s death happened just weeks before his last film, “The Caine Mutiny Court-Marshal,” had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Somewhere, at any given moment, there’s a film director adapting a stage play to the big screen. Yet it’s rare, and fascinating, to see a filmmaker steeped to the gills in cinema as cinema who also has a grand obsession with the theater.

Republic Pictures President Dan Cohen and producer Annabelle Dunne were among the main representatives of William Friedkin’s last film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial at its posthumous world premiere at Venice Film Festival over the weekend.

The upcoming film, “The Exorcist: Believer,” holds significance for film fans for a number of reasons. First, we are just about one month past from the death of the original film’s director, William Friedkin, and secondly, we are 50 years past from the debut of the 1973 classic.

William Friedkin’s last film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial will make its U.S. premiere on October 6 on Paramount+ with Showtime.

The Exorcist: Believer has had its US release date moved to avoid competing with Taylor Swift‘s live concert film Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour.Believer is the first of a planned trilogy and serves as a direct sequel to William Friedkin’s 1973 classic The Exorcist. The Blumhouse-produced film was originally set for release on October 13, 2023 but will now premiere a week earlier on October 6 in countries including the US.Blumhouse founder Jason Blum announced the news on Twitter, writing: “Look what you made me do.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Damien Chazelle paid tribute to late great director William Friedkin on Sunday in a moving speech at the Venice Film Festival where Friedkin’s last film “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” premiered out-of-competition to warm applause. Friedkin, who died on Aug. 7 in Los Angeles at age 87, completed the film – which stars Kiefer Sutherland as Lt.

The plan was for renowned director William Friedkin to be appearing at the Venice Film Festival presenting the out of competition World Premiere of his latest production, an adaptation of Herman Wouk’s 1954 play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. Unfortunately Friedkin died August 7th, but the show goes on anyway.

A quote by William Friedkin himself opens “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” describing the film, as well as all the filmmaker’s other works, as being about “the thin line between good and evil.” This line is all the thinner here, in the American director’s final feature, for it is entirely a matter of opinion. We are not given to see the facts of this story as they unfolded; we cannot watch and make up our own minds as to whether the people involved were right or wrong to act the way they did.

The late William Friedkin’s last project, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, will have its world premiere out of competition at the Venice Film Festival this evening. This afternoon, collaborators on the Showtime/Paramount Global film including producer Annabelle Dunne and editor Darrin Navarro, offered insight into Friedkin’s style of working and what it was like during the shoot. Dunne also spilled more details about Guillermo del Toro’s involvement in the project.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Guillermo Del Toro acted as back-up director for his friend, the late great William Friedkin, during the shoot of Friedkin’s last movie “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” which world premieres on Sunday at the Venice Film Festival. Friedkin, who died on Aug. 7 in Los Angeles at age 87, contractually needed a back up in order for the movie to be made.

Paramount+ has announced it will premiere William Friedkin’s last film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial in all international markets where the service is currently live.

The 80th Venice Film Festival officially kicked off Wednesday evening with the world premiere screening of Edoardo De Angelis’ Italian World War II submarine drama Comandante. Running in competition, the film took over the slot vacated by Luca Guadagnino’s tennis drama Challengers, which backed out of the spot amid the actors strike.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent It’s official: Adam Driver, Caleb Landry Jones, Mads Mikkelsen and Jessica Chastain are among the stars set to attend the upcoming Venice Film Festival. Following multiple unsourced reports, the festival has confirmed that Driver is expected on the Lido’s red carpet to promote Micheal Mann’s “Ferrari,” in which he plays the titular character, Italian car racing pioneer Enzo Ferrari; Landry Jones is coming for Luc Besson’s “Dogman”; Mikkelsen will make the trek for Danish director Nikolaj Arcel’s “The Promised Land” and Chastain for Mexican auteur Michel Franco’s “Memory,” her first role since her Oscar-winning performance in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” Also expected on the Lido are Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi, who play Priscilla and Elvis Presley in Sophia Coppola’s “Priscilla.” as well as Priscilla Presley herself.