‘Spectre’: Sam Mendes Blames The Quick Turnaround Time & “Pressure” After ‘Skyfall’ For The Poor Reception Of His Bond Sequel

During my time working in a cinema, we used to joke that we needed our reality show. From making popcorn, shifting candy, getting stocklists, making sure the projectors are set, climbing up on a marquee to make sure it is up to date, joking about the things that you find while ushing, and the pure rush of adrenaline when you’re selling out showtimes left and right, a unique bond is formed behind the concession stand at a movie theater.

EXCLUSIVE: Brian Cox (Succession), Nicola Coughlan (Bridgerton), Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) and Emilio Villa-Muhammad (The Man Who Fell to Earth) are heading up the all-star cast of Audible Original title Oliver Twist, produced by Oscar winner Sam Mendes (1917). 

Aaron Taylor-Johnson has entered the running to replace Daniel Craig as the new James Bond.

Aussie actor Hugh Jackman was best known for musicals like “Oklahoma” when the Wolverine role was offered to him in the early 2000s. At the time, director Bryan Singer and 20th Century Fox had lost their original choice, Dougray Scott, to Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible II.” After “X-Men” became a huge hit, Jackman was briefly considered for the role of James Bond in what would end up being 2006’s “Casino Royale.” He turned down the part paving the way for Daniel Craig to ultimately take the reins from Pierce Brosnan.

[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]

[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]

EXCLUSIVE: Sam Mendes has cast Johnny Flynn (Emma, Beast), Tuppence Middleton (Downton Abbey, Mank) and Sherlock’s Mark Gatiss to portray legendary stars Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and John Gielgud in The Motive and the Cue, a mouth-watering new play by Jack Thorne that explores how acting giants Burton and Gielgud staged Hamlet on Broadway in 1964.

Not on their team. Larsa Pippen was heckled about her romance with Michael Jordan‘s son Marcus Jordan while attending a football game.

The Florian Hoffmeister lensed thriller Tár from director Todd Field topped the Camerimage main competition, collecting the Golden Frog during the closing ceremony of the cinematography film festival Saturday.

Three rite-of-passage movies are vying for attention this week at a moment when the rewards of maturity seem to be offering more gratification than the agonies of youth.

After racing to finish his upcoming Empire of Light and seeing Searchlight launch at festivals leaning into the Cinema Paradiso-style movie love letter element, Sam Mendes is ready to come clean about what his first solo-scripted film is really about, and the experiences that informed it. The grandeur of the seaside 1980 London movie palace is certainly the backdrop for an unlikely romance between a middle-aged theater manager (Olivia Colman) and a dashing young ticket taker (Micheal Ward, whom you’ll recognize from the opening episodes of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe mini). The youth is dealing with the rampant racism that put young men like him in danger in the UK.

With one Oscar, four BAFTA, and three Golden Globe wins, now seems as good a time as any for director Sam Mendes to make an ode to the art form that made his name. Like Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast” and Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” Mendes’ latest film, “Empire of Light,” is not only about the power of cinema as an escape, but also its magical facility to bring strangers together.

Olivia Colman is everywhere right now. Coming off her third Oscar nomination in four years, Best Actress in “The Lost Daughter,” she’s also the lead in Sam Mendes’ “Empire Of Light” and surely will be in the Oscar conversation.

Outlander star Sam Heughan has revealed that he would love to star in the new Amazon series Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

EXCLUSIVE: Sam Mendes, the Oscar and Tony award-winning director, has chosen three London theater stars – Michael Balogun (National Theatre Live: Death of England-Delroy), Hadley Fraser (Donmar Theatre’s Coriolanus), and Nigel Lindsay (Chichester Festival Theatre’s Woman In Mind) to bring his much-garlanded production of The Lehman Trilogy back into the West End. That’s following triumphant runs at the UK’s National Theatre, the Park Avenue Armory, and Broadway, and a phenomenal 16-week, sold-out run at London’s Piccadilly Theatre in 2019.

Sam Mendes was the guest of honor at the opening of the 30th EnergaCamerimage Film Festival Saturday evening, where he picked up the Krzysztof Kieslowski career award and introduced a special screening of his latest film, Empire of Light.