Want to get Generation Alpha into movie theaters? Look to video games.
Kids still like to go to the movies, according to a high-profile new research report. But the franchises they care about are not the traditional Hollywood popcorn fare.
Seven of the top 10 entertainment franchises that the youngest generation of moviegoers cares about are video game properties, according to a recent study by National Research Group (NRG).
The top five titles that Gen Alpha kids, generally considered to be those ages 12 and under, say they talk most about were Roblox, “Minecraft,” “Fortnite,” “Grand Theft Auto” and “Pokémon,” all of which originated from the world of video games. The highest-ranked non-video game property was Marvel and Walt Disney Co.’s “The Avengers,” at No. 6.
Studios have started to catch on. Spring’s “A Minecraft Movie,” based on the popular game where users build and explore different worlds, was such a huge success. The film, adapted by Warner Bros. and Legendary Entertainment for the big screen, grossed $955 million at the global box office, according to Comscore. Young fans packed the theater, cheering during scenes important to gamers.
“Gaming is a deeply important part of Gen Alpha culture because it provides an essential venue for socialization,” said Fergus Navaratnam-Blair, NRG’s vice president of trends and futures. “Social gaming platforms like Roblox and Fortnite give them the opportunity to spend time with their friends, build communities, and develop a sense of their own identity.”
That could present a shift in the way theaters and studios cater to Gen Alpha, a key demographic born 2013 onward, to their future survival. Compared with millennials and Gen X, a higher percentage of Gen Alpha members (38%) said they would see a movie in a theater instead of waiting for it to come to a streaming service if their friends were talking about it, NRG said.
Nearly 60% of Gen Alpha members said they enjoy watching movies in theaters more than at home, according to NRG, which surveyed more than 6,000 U.S. moviegoers in May and June of this year. The majority of kids surveyed ages 6-to-12 said the reason why they go to the theater is to spend time with friends and family and “to make seeing the movie feel like a special event,” according to NRG.
“We are seeing the signs within this demographic that they do really value the experience of watching movies in theaters,” Navaratnam-Blair said. “The fact that they have grown up surrounded by phones, tablets, other sorts of devices, if anything, that seems to have made them more appreciative of the opportunities that they do get to switch up from all of that.”
Stories that resonate with Gen Alpha can come from franchises they are already familiar with, like “Minecraft,” or ones such as “Wicked” that inspire them to create fan fiction or show off their fandom by dressing up like the characters, he said.
Already, studios are marketing their films to reach younger consumers on platforms they frequent including Roblox and TikTok.
Movie theaters can help cater to Gen Alpha by making the viewing an experience, such as selling food that is matched to what characters are eating on screen, Navaratnam-Blair said.
Younger audiences also can still be attracted to seeing a movie in a theater if it’s a special event that happens after the title has started streaming. For example, many people attended sing-along showings of the popular animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” in theaters even after streaming it first on Netflix. The sing-along version of the film was the No. 1 movie domestically during the weekend it was briefly in theaters, with an estimated $18 million in ticket sales.
“This is a generation that does offer hope for the future of theatrical moviegoing,” Navaratnam-Blair said. “We just need to understand what it is they’re looking for, that experience, and play into it in a way that gives them what they’re looking for out of that.”
In recent years, film festivals haven’t felt all that festive. Audiences have dwindled, streaming has upended viewing habits and the pandemic and Hollywood strikes have rattled the industry, leaving even the most glamorous events to fight for their place on the cultural calendar.
Then there’s Telluride. For more than a half-century, the tiny mountain gathering has thrived as a kind of anti-festival: no red carpets, no prizes, no tuxedos, just movies. Perched 8,750 feet up in a box canyon in the Colorado Rockies, it’s reachable only by twisting roads or a white-knuckle drop into one of the nation’s highest airports. Festival passes are pricey and limited in number, which makes Telluride feel at once intimate and exclusive. With its mix of industry insiders and devoted film lovers, that isolation and tight-knit atmosphere have become part of Telluride’s mystique, and the promise of early Oscar buzz keeps filmmakers, stars and cinephiles making the pilgrimage. Since 2009, only five best picture winners have skipped Telluride on their way to the top prize.
“It’s so hard to get to Telluride — you don’t end up here by accident,” festival director Julie Huntsinger says by phone. “We’ve always felt it’s incumbent on us to show either brand-new things or extraordinary things that make your time worth it. You know how cats will bring you a mouse? I always feel like I’m bringing you a mouse or a bird, and I just hope you’ll like it.”
Rolling out over Labor Day weekend, the 52nd Telluride Film Festival will supply a slate of fresh offerings, including a handful of world premieres. Scott Cooper’s “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” drops Jeremy Allen White into the boots of the Boss, tracing the creation of his stark 1982 album, “Nebraska.” Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet” unites Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal in a haunting portrait of grief. Edward Berger’s “Ballad of a Small Player” finds Colin Farrell wandering Macau as a gambler chasing luck and redemption. And Daniel Roher’s “Tuner” gives Dustin Hoffman a rare return to the screen in a crime thriller about a piano tuner who discovers his ear is just as effective on safes as on Steinways.
Also in the mix are a number of films coming from Cannes and Venice: Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia,” Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly,” Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind” and Richard Linklater with a double bill, “Blue Moon” and “Nouvelle Vague,” proof that Telluride remains a haven for auteurs.
At last year’s Telluride, politics dominated the conversation on- and off-screen. Hot-button issues, from abortion access to climate change to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ran through the program, while guests such as Hillary Clinton, James Carville and special prosecutor Jack Smith joined the usual roster of actors and filmmakers. Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice,” a searing portrait of Donald Trump’s early years, was one of the buzziest titles.
This year the lineup is broader, though politics still runs through it. Ivy Meeropol’s “Ask E. Jean” follows writer E. Jean Carroll through her legal battles with Trump, while Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent” uses a 1970s-set thriller to revisit Brazil’s military dictatorship, with Wagner Moura (“Narcos”) as a professor on the run. “This year is pretty political too,” Huntsinger insists. “There are a couple of films that, if you’re paying attention, have important things to say. I just hope everybody feels a little braver after a lot of the things we show.”
German-born director Edward Berger, who brought his papal thriller “Conclave” to last year’s edition, returns with a strikingly different film in “Ballad of a Small Player.”
“I would defy anyone to stack up his films and say they’re by the same filmmaker,” Huntsinger says. “This is a beautiful, very dreamlike, nonlinear exercise in spirituality and introspection. ‘Conclave’ felt disciplined — not that this film is undisciplined but it exists on a totally different plane.”
Zhao, who won the directing Oscar for 2020’s “Nomadland,” has adapted “Hamnet” from Maggie O’Farrell’s acclaimed novel about the death of Shakespeare’s only son in what Huntsinger describes as one of the festival’s most emotionally powerful selections.
“Chloé is a person of immense depth,” Huntsinger says. “She has such a deep feel for human beings. This is a sad, mournful but beautiful meditation on loss. People should be prepared to cathartically cry. There isn’t a false note in it.”
Another festival favorite, Lanthimos makes his third trip to Telluride with “Bugonia,” a darkly comic sci-fi satire that reunites him with Emma Stone following their earlier collaborations on “The Favourite” and “Poor Things.” A remake of the 2003 Korean cult film “Save the Green Planet!,” it follows a conspiracy-minded beekeeper (Jesse Plemons) who kidnaps a powerful pharma executive (Stone) he believes is an alien bent on destroying Earth.
“Be prepared to get your a— kicked,” Huntsinger says. “Emma is outstanding, and we should never take her for granted, but Jesse Plemons steals the show. He next-levels it in this one.”
Baumbach also marks his return to Telluride with the dramedy “Jay Kelly,” which centers on an actor (George Clooney) and his longtime manager (Adam Sandler) as they journey across Europe, looking back on the choices and relationships that have shaped their lives. Huntsinger likens the film to a cinematic negroni: “It’s substantial but also fun, with an almost summery feel. It’s about where you’re headed after a certain stage in life, told without heavy-handedness.”
The filmmaker and screenwriter, who previously brought “Margot at the Wedding,” “Frances Ha” and “Marriage Story” to the festival, will be honored this year with a Silver Medallion. He shares the award with Iranian director Jafar Panahi, whose drama “It Was Just an Accident” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and Ethan Hawke, represented in the lineup with Linklater’s “Blue Moon” and his own documentary about country singer Merle Haggard, “Highway 99: A Double Album.”
Few films in the lineup will be more closely watched than Cooper’s Springsteen biopic, with Emmy-winning “The Bear” star White channeling the Boss during the making of one of his most uncompromising albums. “Jeremy delivers in the same way that Timothée Chalamet did in [the Bob Dylan biopic] ‘A Complete Unknown,’ where you just think, Jesus, what can’t this kid do?” Huntsinger says. “Scott’s a great filmmaker, and the movie delivers on its promise.”
The music thread continues with Morgan Neville’s documentary “Man on the Run,” drawn from never-before-seen home movies Paul McCartney shot in the early 1970s, not long after the Beatles’ split. The footage shows McCartney retreating to Scotland with his family and offers what Huntsinger describes as a revelatory glimpse at a less-mythologized moment. “You also understand there wasn’t a villain in the Beatles breakup,” Huntsinger says. “It’s an expansion on history that’s really needed.”
Elsewhere in the documentary lineup, Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras returns with “Cover-Up” (co-directed by Mark Obenhaus), an exploration of investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s career that builds on her politically charged films like “Citizenfour” and “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.”
For all its flannel-and-jeans ethos, Telluride isn’t immune to the economics of 2025. Lodging and travel costs have soared, amplifying concerns that the showcase has become a festival largely for the well-off. Huntsinger concedes the expense but points out pass prices haven’t budged in more than 15 years as she works to keep it accessible.
“I was concerned for a while because our audience was aging, but we’ve really worked on making sure that younger people and people on fixed incomes can come,” she says. “I can see the difference — it’s not just people of means. And I promise you, I’ll keep fighting for that. I hope the lodging people will realize they got a little out of hand and start lowering prices too.”
For all the turbulence and doomsaying that has rattled Hollywood in recent years, Telluride has managed to hold fast to its identity.
“The devotion people have to this weekend makes me think there’s hope,” Huntsinger says. “They’re not coming here for anything but film-loving. To hear people say, ‘I would not miss this for the world’ makes me really proud and hopeful. After everything we’ve all been through, I think we still have reason to keep doing this crazy little picnic.”
By Tim Greiving Oxford University Press: 640 pages, $40 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.
Only John Williams could have put me in the orbit of one of history’s most famous basketball players. Kobe Bryant, like so many others, was a huge fan of Williams’ music; he befriended and sought out the composer for career advice and, when he made his post-athletic pivot to filmmaking, hired Williams to compose a short score.
And because I cover film music for a living, I was able to interview Bryant — along with Williams and Disney animation legend Glen Keane — for The Times in the spring of 2017. I even got to meet Bryant in person, backstage at the Hollywood Bowl, when he rehearsed his narration of “Dear Basketball” at an all-Williams concert. It was an obscenely hot day, and I waited outside Bryant’s dressing room while they finished drying his sweat-soaked shirt with a hair dryer before he came out and cheerfully shook my hand.
I gave Bryant and “Dear Basketball” a fair amount of real estate in my new book, “John Williams: A Composer’s Life,” not because of his fame or athletic prowess, but because I feel that his short film inspired one of Williams’ most beautiful works of the last decade, and also because there was something poetic and moving about the whole affair, and about saying goodbye to the thing you love the most — especially as the film became a kind of eulogy for Bryant after his untimely death in 2020.
[The below excerpt is from Tim Greiving’s “John Williams: A Composer’s Life,” out Sept. 2. Greiving is a frequent contributor to The Times.]
Tim Greiving
(Laura Hinely)
Kobe Bryant, the 18-time NBA All-Star, was an unexpected admirer of John’s music: as a boy, Bryant would tie a towel around his neck and run around to the theme of Superman; as a player, he used the Imperial March to hype himself up before games; and as a father, he would rock his infant daughters to sleep on his chest listening to Hedwig’s Theme. The six-foot-six athlete from Philly could hardly have been less like John, but he recognized mastery when he heard it. “I asked myself a question,” Bryant said: “What makes a John Williams piece timeless? How is he using each instrument? How is he using the space between them? How is he building momentum, and then how is he taking it away to build it again?” As a basketball player, Bryant said he was “essentially conducting a game,” “so I just wanted to talk to him about how he composed music and try to find something similar that I can then use to help my game as a leader and winning championships.”
Bryant first contacted John for counsel just before the 2008 NBA season. “The first thing I told Kobe was, I’d never seen a basketball game,” John confessed. “High school, college, professional, or television. And of course he laughed.” “But once I had told him my reason for reaching out to him,” Bryant said, “he saw the connection immediately…If we look in our same industry and we just look at things from that funnel, then you wind up essentially recycling information. So sometimes you look outside of that discipline to have a new point of view, a new perspective on it. [John] was digging it.”
They continued to see each other over the years, with Bryant often visiting John backstage after shows at the Hollywood Bowl. When Bryant retired from basketball in 2016, he turned his attention to entertainment. He wrote a sentimental open letter, “Dear Basketball,” as a retirement announcement, and one of his first post-game projects was turning that text into a short film. He wanted it crafted by undisputed masters of their fields, so he commissioned Disney animation veteran Glen Keane— who designed and animated Ariel in The Little Mermaid, among other achievements— and he asked John to write the score. The first thing John said to Bryant was, “I do classical pieces, and it’s all by hand,” almost as a warning. Bryant answered: “The piece will be hand-animated by Glen Keane, who is you in the animation space. I want it to have the human touch. I don’t want it to be poppy, I don’t want it to be hip-hoppy. I want timeless, classical music.”
Somehow, these three disparate artists—with two decades between each of them—hit it off. Keane was an avid fan of Lost in Space growing up in the 1960s, and when he told John how much he loved the music, John was completely embarrassed. “But it’s wonderful, John!” Keane said. “It held the promise of wonder and excitement and fun and quirky and scary and dangerous, and it was all in this one score. And John— the roots of your entire career are in that score.” Keane asked if he could play some of the old music. John said, “No, please don’t!” “No, I really gotta play it for you,” Keane insisted. “So I did.” The unlikely trio sat around a table in Keane’s office “and we just talked,” said Bryant. “John talked about how [the letter] made him feel, Glen how it makes him feel, and we all centered on the same thing, which is why I wrote it in the first place: the beauty of finding what it is that you love to do, and then finding the beauty of knowing that you will not be able to do that forever. Once they saw the nature of the piece, there was really nothing else to discuss.”
(Oxford University Press )
Keane illustrated the five-minute film with graphite on paper, depicting the arc of Bryant’s letter— from young Kobe tossing rolled-up tube socks, to NBA glory, to retiring at 37. John was equally inspired by Bryant’s childlike enthusiasm and Keane’s artisanal process. “The drawings have great fluidity and, in the best sense of the word, great simplicity,” John said. “They really are gorgeous, not only to look at, but rhythmically they’re fabulous.” Keane always animated while listening to music, and for this story it was selections from Empire of the Sun. John used that score as a reference point, but initially he wrote something that was too big, “and he went back and he rewrote it for something that was more understated,” said Keane, “in a similar way that Kobe’s delivery, his narration, is very personal, uninflected, not trying to sell anything. More like revealing. Kobe’s got a very quiet voice, and that also had a big impact in how we animated.”
John took a short break from The Last Jedi and spent two weeks in March 2017 to write and record this short piece—a gift for Bryant. When the towering baller arrived at the Sony scoring stage, John said: “I hope that you like what I’ve written.” Bryant just looked at John and said, “I feel pretty confident that it’s going to be just fine.” When Bryant heard John’s piece for the very first time, emanating from a symphony orchestra, “Oh my God,” he said. “I almost lost my mind. As soon as his hands went up and then the music started, I almost yelled out loud— but I had to remember that the red light was on and we’re recording… It was the most unreal experience I could ever have.” Bryant looked over “and just put his head on my shoulder,” said Keane, “like, ‘I can’t believe it.’ It was so beautiful. Then when it was done, John turned to us and said, ‘I promise it’s going to get better.’”
It was one of the simplest, yet most inspired pieces John wrote during this decade: a brief journey taken by a humble, hummable tune that bottled a young boy’s guileless dreams and aspiration for greatness and glory. His hymnal theme begins as a gentle woodwind duet, which is passed to strings and then accelerates into soaring triumph to accompany Bryant’s heyday. Then it grows small again, a lonely keyboard wandering a broken chord as Bryant’s voiceover admits that his body can only play for so long. John’s knack for noble flying music closes the loop, with heraldic horns and rolling timpani connecting Bryant’s story to his music for American heroism— concluding with a bittersweet reprise of the theme on piano and an uplifting coda as the credits roll. Like the letter itself, the score is part valentine, part elegy—and John put his heart into it. He premiered it at the Hollywood Bowl in September, and Bryant surprised the audience by joining John onstage to narrate. The short film won an Oscar in March 2018—and then very shortly afterward, it became a poignant eulogy for Bryant when he died, age 41, in a helicopter crash on a foggy Sunday morning in Calabasas that also killed his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna. John’s wistful, symphonic poem suddenly took on a new shade. “It is elegiac, but it isn’t weepy,” John said of the film when he first scored it, never imagining the sudden tragic fate of his young friend.
It strikes its own manner of saluting the man and the game and the accomplishments with a lot of modesty, I think. It’s very touching, and in the end that may be its highest achievement, that it’s able to praise this man the way it does, without a lot of false vanity or hubris that could easily have spilled into it. That’s my take on it in any case.
Actor Floyd Levine, whose career spanned numerous decades and a variety of projects ranging from films “The Hangover” and “Norbit” to TV shows “Melrose Place” and “Murder, She Wrote,” has died. He was 93.
Levine died Sunday, surrounded by family and “probably wishing someone would bring him a martini,” his daughter-in-law Tracy Robbins announced Tuesday on Instagram. Robbins, who is married to Levine’s son, former Paramount executive Brian Robbins, said Levine was “the best father-in-law, grandpa, and all around jokester.”
Levine began his screen career in the early 1970s and appeared in almost 100 productions. His notable credits also include films “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Bloodbrothers,” “Super Fly” and TV series “Kojak,” “Starsky & Hutch,” “Baywatch” and “Days of Our Lives.” He often played minor characters, including police officers, detectives, tailors, doctors and a crime boss.
A former taxi cab driver from New York City, Levine also collaborated with his son on Eddie Murphy starrers “Norbit,” “Meet Dave” and “A Thousand Words.” Robbins was inspired by his father to pursue an entertainment career and was also an actor, director and longtime producer before he became an industry executive. The father-son duo also both appeared in “Archie Bunker’s Place” and “Head of the Class.” They also worked together on “Good Burger,” “Kenan & Kel” and “Coach Carter.”
“Brian is basically his twin, and we will see Floyd’s grin every time we look at him,” Tracy Robbins added in her Instagram post.
“You all have made my life sugar, and I love you all so much,” he tells loved ones in a video shared by Robbins. “If I could do it, I’d hug you and kiss you all. God bless you all and keep punching.”
Levine was laid to rest on Wednesday. In addition to Brian and Tracy Robbins, survivors also include daughter Sheryl, son Marc and several grandchildren, according to the Hollywood Reporter. His wife, Rochelle, died in May 2022 at age 85.
“I would like to think there’s a casting call in heaven, and you showed up early, script in hand,” Tracy Robbins added in her post. “I will miss him dearly, but i know he’s making the angels laugh already and back together with his beautiful wife Rochelle.”
It’s time to revisit the age-old question that’s been debated for years: Are you Team Edward or Team Jacob?
Lionsgate will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the “Twilight” novels by bringing the entire film saga back to the big screen from Oct. 29 through Nov. 2, The Times confirmed.
The love triangle tale starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner — a human, a vampire and a werewolf, respectively — grossed more than $3.3 billion worldwide during its first run, according to Box Office Mojo.
The films, based on the four-part book series written by Stephenie Meyer, follow the story of Bella Swan (Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Pattinson). Their relationship is tested by Edward’s instinct to harm her and by Bella’s friend Jacob Black (Lautner), who belongs to a rival werewolf clan.
There are five films in the series: “Twilight” (2008); “New Moon” (2009); “Eclipse” (2010); “Breaking Dawn — Part 1” (2011); and “Breaking Dawn — Part 2” (2012). Round-table chats with Meyer, producer Wyck Godfrey, former co-president of Lionsgate Gillian Bohrer and others will accompany each film.
As part of the festivities, Meyers is scheduled to be the honored guest at this year’s Forever Twilight in Forks Festival, an annual celebration in Forks, Wash., the setting of the book series. The fest will take place Sept. 11-14.
The films have remained in pop culture through TikTok trends where fans announce their “gay awakening” using scenes of Bella. Stewart, who came out as queer and married screenwriter Dylan Meyer in April, said the films are “gay” during an interview with Variety in January.
“It’s all about oppression, about wanting what’s going to destroy you. That’s a very Gothic, gay inclination that I love,” the actor said.
Stewart starred in last year’s romantic thriller “Love Lies Bleeding” (2024) and will next appear in her wife’s directorial debut, “The Wrong Girls,” which is written by the couple.
Pattinson played the titular character in 2022’s “The Batman.” He last appeared in Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi comedy “Mickey 17” (2025) and will appear later this year in Lynne Ramsay’s psychological dramedy “Die, My Love.”
Lautner took a few acting jobs after the end of the saga, in films such as “Grown Ups 2” (2013) and “The Ridiculous 6” (2015), but his most recent credit was in Netflix’s “Home Team” (2022).
Audiences once adored big adult comedies. Jay Roach’s champagne-fizzy “The Roses” is a seductive attempt to lure them back into theaters.
As bright, mean and ambitious as its lead characters, Theo and Ivy Rose (Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman), this resurrection of the ’80s-style R-rated crowd-pleaser is a remake of — or really, an across-the-room nod to — the 1989 hit “The War of the Roses,” which starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner as divorcees who fight to the death over their fancy chandelier.
Inspired by the venomous novel by Warren Adler, both films are metaphors for building a home and then tearing it down, although the chandelier this time is merely incidental. This snarky, self-aware couple is the type to build themselves a smart house and name its system HAL.
The Roses meet-cute in a posh London restaurant when Theo asks to borrow Ivy’s knife to slash his wrists. He’s a morose architect who aspires to build risky, revolutionary designs. She’s a kooky chef whose signature seasoning is a mix of powdered anchovy and blueberry. In the cocktail of their marriage, he adds the bitterness and she adds the spice, qualities that can be either overbearing or harmonious. Their version of sweet talk is Ivy chirping, “Never leave me — but when you do, kill me on the way out.”
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Brutal humor and obstinacy bind these malcontents together for almost 15 years. Then her career takes off and his flops, upending their equilibrium. Now, they’re battling over who gets custody of their California dream mansion. Twins Hattie and Roy are secondary. (Delaney Quinn and Ollie Robinson play their kids at 10; Hala Finley and Wells Rappaport at 13.)
The script by Tony McNamara (“Poor Things”) unleashes the hilarious spouses to aim insults at each other like explosive corks. (McNamara is so skilled at putting cruel words in Colman’s mouth that he’s already helped win her an Oscar for “The Favourite.”) Theo and Ivy open the film skewering each other at marriage counseling, only to be aghast when the therapist advises them to split up. For a while, they stick together mostly to stick it to her, in defiance of the fact that contempt is the No. 1 indicator of divorce. “In England, we call that repartee,” Theo insists.
You wonder if their jokes keep them from honest communication and then you wonder if Roach, who came to fame as the director of “Austin Powers” and “Meet the Parents,” has ever been afraid of that himself. (For the record, Roach has been married to the Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs since 1993 and she here sings two cover songs for the soundtrack, “Happy Together” and “Love Hurts.”)
Mostly, you just enjoy the jokes. Colman, who burst into my awareness in the 2003 TV cringe comedy “Peep Show,” is fantastic throwing jabs around in costume designer PC Williams’ nouveau hipster wardrobe of bold, baggy lines. The actor even does an Ian McKellen impression just because. Yet, the surprise here is Cumberbatch, who seizes his rare opportunity to be flat-out funny, while occasionally rolling over to show Theo’s vulnerable belly. Flirtatiously pouting his lips at Colman, he coos, “How about a three-hour circular argument that goes nowhere?” How about three more Cumberbatch comedies for every awards-baity drama he does?
The story originally satirized materialistic baby boomers stymied by shifting gender roles. Both make interesting time capsules of the traditional man and the liberated woman who revert to smashing fusty china figurines like Neanderthals, although my sticking point with the first movie is that both Roses are too despicable. It’s hard to care about either one once you see how they treat each other’s pets.
But Roach has insightfully made this about people, not societal scapegoats. He and McNamara have changed up nearly everything in this disaster except its vibrations of dread. Since we already know that Theo and Ivy are in for a world of hurt, the film spends much of its running time rewinding to the past to prove how wonderful they could be together — and, more painfully, how sincerely they’ve tried to work out their kinks. We like Cumberbatch and Colman’s Theo and Ivy, even after they’ve become tantrum-throwing twits.
The details of their dissolution — career pressures, childcare clashes, petty jealousies — and its credible tit-for-tat dynamic are discomfitingly relatable. If this version has a larger sociological statement, it’s an indictment of how today’s quest for success is so all-consuming and exhausting that even if you can fit two egos in one house, you probably can’t merge their day planners. In the modern, highly visible, online-viralized game of life, earning money is merely Stage 1. Both Roses are driven to leave their permanent mark on the world.
Meanwhile, their two sets of American friends, Amy and Barry (Kate McKinnon and Andy Samberg) and Sally and Rory (Zoë Chao and Jamie Demetriou), are equally miserable and toxic. All four are such shallow snobs that they can’t imagine why Ivy would want to own Julia Child’s old stove when it’s, well, old. McKinnon’s Amy toggles through obnoxious progressive stereotypes: She’s a self-professed empath who pretends to be in an open marriage to wheedle Theo into bed. Barry, a depressive, gives Samberg a chance to show a deeper level of comic maturity, and also eventually doubles as Theo’s personal attorney. Otherwise, the script prunes the couple’s legal battle down to one scene with Ivy’s viperous lawyer, played by Allison Janney, who brings a rottweiler to the showdown and claims it’s her service animal.
The gags can be silly. There are two vomit scenes and a pratfall where Colman lands on her face. Yet, Roach and his team have put serious effort into their lovely symbology: a shot of Theo glumly walking down an airplane aisle from first class to coach, images of the cold Pacific crashing against rocks that recall his confession of feeling “waves of hatred” toward his wife.
When the film finally gets to its Grand Guignol climax, it rushes through the barbarity, taking no delight in it. I wanted to laugh but realized I’d fallen too much in love with Theo and Ivy, who are both so pitifully certain they’re in the moral right. The schadenfreude is just sad. It stings how much we root for them to kiss and make up. Still, despite the hasty ending, this splashy comedy deserves to woo grown-ups back to the multiplex. The Roses are estranged, but they’ve reunited us with our love for a genre — and it feels so good.
‘The Roses’
Rated: R, for language throughout, sexual content, and drug content
A Hollywood producer bilked film and business partners out of $12 million, claiming he was using their money to work on movies or other legitimate enterprises, but instead using it to buy expensive cars, houses and even a surrogate, prosecutors alleged Wednesday.
David Brown worked for years as a producer of indie Hollywood productions, burnishing his credentials as a producer of the film festival darling “The Fallout,” starring Jenna Ortega, which won the narrative feature competition at South by Southwest, as well as of “The Apprentice,” the movie about the rise of Donald Trump.
But even as Brown seemed to be putting together a successful producing career, federal prosecutors said, he was also defrauding numerous victims by siphoning funds that belonged to production companies and transferring the money to himself or businesses he controlled.
In an email to The Times for a 2023 article that documented the trail of fraud allegations that dogged him, Brown said he had made mistakes in the past, but denied defrauding anyone.
“I had to work really hard to get where I am today,” he said. “I had to overcome a lot. I had to fight for my place. … I’m not some bad guy.”
Brown was indicted Wednesday on 21 counts of wire fraud, transactional money laundering and aggravated identity theft. He had his first court appearance in South Carolina.
Prosecutors alleged that Brown, who lived in Sherman Oaks, used a series of tactics to defraud his business partners out of their money.
He convinced one victim to put money into a company called Film Holdings Capital, which was supposed to finance film projects. But Brown instead took the person’s money and used it for “maintaining his lifestyle and repaying prior victims … in a Ponzi-like scheme,” prosecutors said.
In other instances, Brown used production company funds to pay Hollywood Covid Testing, a company he controlled, “for services never rendered or already paid for,” prosecutors said.
He also told one victim that they could pool money and make a business flipping houses. He contributed little to the business and used some of the victim’s money for other purposes, prosecutors said.
Brown made sure to conceal his checkered past from potential business partners. He tried not to let them know about the 2023 article in The Times, or about the extensive litigation filed against him, according to federal prosecutors.
The 2023 article — for which The Times interviewed more than 30 people — detailed a series of allegations against Brown from his film partners, including that he forged Kevin Spacey’s signature and told film investors that Spacey had agreed to act as a main character in a film for just $100,000. But Spacey had not signed on to the film and did not even know what it was, his former manager told The Times. Brown denied forging Spacey’s signature.
Brown used the money he stole from his victims to make extravagant purchases, prosecutors said.
He bought a 2025 Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon and three Teslas, including a 2024 Cybertruck, prosecutors alleged. He used the funds to make mortgage payments on his home and to remodel the home and used about $100,000 to install a pool, prosecutors said.
He even bought a house for his mother using the ill-gotten cash, prosecutors alleged.
On top of that, Brown also allegedly used stolen money to pay $70,000 for surrogacy, private school tuition for his child and other services.
In all, he stole more than $12 million from his victims, prosecutors alleged.
Brown is in federal custody in South Carolina and will enter a plea to the charges at his arraignment in the coming weeks, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California.
More than two and a half years after she took office, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has fulfilled a nagging campaign promise to film industry advocates.
She is appointing Board of Public Works president Steve Kang to serve as a liaison between city bureaucracy and the film industry, she said Wednesday. The mayor made the announcement while speaking to a private Zoom meeting of her entertainment industry council Wednesday afternoon, according to three attendees.
Kang will be the chief film liaison, assisted by Dan Halden — who serves as acting director of external relations at the city’s Bureau of Street Services (StreetsLA) — and producer Amy Goldberg.
The city’s film liaison role was established under former Mayor Eric Garcetti.
In the past, the liaison has served as the point person for film and TV productions looking to shoot in L.A., helping filmmakers navigate the city’s vast bureaucracy.
“I have full confidence that President Steve Kang will deliver in his role as City Film Liaison by finding solutions that protect our signature industry and ensure that local filming of TV shows, movies and commercials can successfully continue and expand,” Bass said in a statement. “With the successful expansion of the California Film & TV Tax Credit and our ongoing efforts to improve local processes, our work continues to keep production jobs here and support small businesses who rely on the industry.”
Bass’ decision not to prioritize the appointment of a film liaison had long frustrated industry advocates. Those concerns were sharpened at a moment when L.A.’s future as a film capital is in peril.
Amid a broader slump in overall film and TV production, the city has long been bleeding production jobs to states and countries that offer generous tax incentives, cheaper labor and more filming-friendly bureaucracies.
Most of those issues are outside the mayor’s control. But some industry advocates felt that naming a film liaison would be an easy move that could make shooting in L.A. a little less of a headache.
Since Bass took office in December 2022, those advocates have pressed the mayor’s office on the issue, with no clear answers about the delay.
“There’s been a clear sense of need, and frustration that it hasn’t happened,” said one industry advocate, who had been present during the mayor’s office’s regular meetings with representatives from film studios, labor groups and other industry interests.
Garcetti had several film liaisons during his administration.
Members of the industry often point to City Hall veteran Kevin James — who held the role for several years beginning in 2015 — as an ideal model, since he had deep City Hall experience, as well as ties to the industry. James served as film liaison while president of the Board of Public Works. The board governs the city’s Department of Public Works, which is responsible for StreetsLA, as well as the street lighting, sanitation and engineering departments.
The mayor’s office has had to navigate a historically difficult 2025, beginning with a catastrophic firestorm, followed by immigration raids and an unprecedented military presence in the city — all of which have necessitated 24/7 crisis responses from her office. But the frustrations over the lack of a named point person far predate the recent crises.
While signing an executive directive to support local film and TV production in May, Bass was asked about the position and said she planned to appoint someone within the next few days.
Nearly two dozen television shows will receive incentives for shooting in California — including two series that relocated from Texas and Canada — in the first award period since the state bolstered its film and TV tax credit program earlier this summer.
The 22 shows were chosen amid a massive amount of interest in the state’s incentive program, which now has an annual cap of $750 million, up from $330 million. In this round, the California Film Commission saw a nearly 400% increase in applications, said Colleen Bell, the agency’s executive director.
“These enhancements to our program, they’re not just about curbing runaway production,” she said in an interview. “We’re building momentum to grow and expand production here in California.”
In total, the 22 shows were allocated $255.9 million in credits and are expected to generate about $1.1 billion of economic activity in California, she said. The productions are estimated to employ 6,500 cast and crew members and more than 46,000 background actors.
Of the 22 awarded series, 15 were new projects, five were recurring shows and two relocated from outside of California, including Tom Segura’s darkly comedic Netflix series “Bad Thoughts,” which previously filmed in Texas.
Apple TV+ comedy “The Studio” and legal thriller “Presumed Innocent” received production incentives, as did CBS’ “NCIS: Origins,” a new HBO series by comedian Larry David, a pilot called “Group Chat” from “black-ish” creator Kenya Barris and a new Hulu drama from Dan Fogelman of “Paradise” and “This is Us.” All of the qualified projects that applied were able to get a tax credit in this round, Bell said.
“California has long been the entertainment capital of the world — and the newly expanded film and TV tax credit program is keeping it that way,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “We’re not just protecting our legacy — we’re reminding the world why the Golden State remains the beating heart of film and television.”
Newsom called for an expansion of the state’s film and TV tax credit program late last year in an attempt to stem the tide of productions moving to other states or countries with lucrative incentive packages. Hollywood studios, producers, unions and other workers rallied around the issue for months, traveling up to Sacramento to lobby legislators about the importance of the entertainment industry to California’s economy.
In addition to the higher cap, the revamped program broadened the types of productions eligible for incentives, including half-hour television shows, certain large-scale competition shows and animated shorts, series and films.
For this round of incentives, the California Film Commission was able to consider all of the new categories except for animated shows and large-scale competition shows because those require new regulations that are being drafted, Bell said. Those categories could be eligible starting early next year, she said.
The new program provisions also upped the tax credit to as much as 35% of qualified expenditures for productions filmed in the greater Los Angeles area, and up to 40% for projects shot outside the region. For this application period, most of the series will shoot in the L.A. area, except for four that will shoot at least partially outside of that zone, Bell said.
“People want to shoot their projects here in California,” Bell said. “Now, decision makers are giving California a second look because we have made these important programmatic changes that have made us much more competitive with other jurisdictions.”
Alix Lapri, who portrayed Effie Morales on the Starz show “Power,” was arrested last week in Atlanta on suspicion of cruelty to children in the third degree and disorderly conduct, according to county records.
The actor, whose full name is Alexus Lapri Geier, was released the following day. Details on the circumstances surrounding the Aug. 17 arrest were not immediately clear.
The 28-year-old actor appeared in several episodes of “Power” as well as its sequel, “Power Book II: Ghost.” She also had a role in the film “Den of Thieves.” But Lapri hit the limelight as a singer.
She released an EP in 2012 titled “I Am Alix Lapri.” Lapri also appeared on BET’s sitcom “Reed Between the Lines” alongside Tracee Ellis Ross and Malcolm-Jamal Warner.
The state of Georgia considers cruelty to children in the third degree to be a misdemeanor.
It occurs when a person “intentionally allows a child under age 18 to witness the commission of a forcible felony, battery, or family violence battery,” according to Child Welfare.
Lapri’s manager did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment by The Times. Calls to the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office were not immediately returned.
Director Ryan Coogler and artist Mary Corse will be honored at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s 14th annual Art+Film Gala, the museum announced Sunday.
The splashy, high-fashion dinner is co-chaired by LACMA trustee Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio, and is scheduled to take place on Nov. 1. It will be the last such event to occur before the museum opens its new Peter Zumthor-designed building next spring.
Los Angeles is uniquely suited for the gala, which seeks to highlight and strengthen the connections between film and visual art by bringing the two communities together in grand style. Last year’s honorees were Baz Luhrmann and Simone Leigh, and per usual, a host of celebrity guests attended the party including Blake Lively, Kim Kardashian, Laura Dern, Viola Davis, Andrew Garfield and Sarah Paulson. Charli XCX closed out the night with a banger.
LACMA Director and Chief Executive Michael Govan called last year’s event, which raised $6.4 million, its most successful ever. Proceeds go toward LACMA’s mission of making film more central to its programming, as well as toward funding exhibitions, acquisitions and educational programming.
Mary Corse will be honored at LACMA’s Art + Film gala.
(Indah Datou)
Other previous honorees include artists Helen Pashgian, Betye Saar, Catherine Opie, Mark Bradford, Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Barbara Kruger, David Hockney, Ed Ruscha and John Baldessari. On the film side there has been Park Chan-wook, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, George Lucas, Kathryn Bigelow, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick and Clint Eastwood.
Coogler — who directed “Black Panther,” “Creed” and “Fruitvale Station” — is having a stellar year. His gory Southern-vampire horror film “Sinners,” which was released in mid-April, has been a massive hit. The film, which had a budget of $90 million, grossed $48 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada during its opening weekend, and has gone on to gross more than $365 million worldwide.
Topanga-based painter Mary Corse is known for her connection to Southern California’s Light and Space movement, but her career has been defined by her willingness to experiment with form and various materials, including ceramics and acrylic on canvas. Corse devoted much of her life to her “White Light” series, which involves layering tiny glass beads — called microspheres — over white acrylic paint for a constantly shifting, reflective effect.
“Mary Corse has continually expanded the possibilities of painting in her exquisite works, which invite us to think deeply about the nature of perception,” said Govan in a statement. “Ryan Coogler’s films do something equally transformative. Through masterful storytelling and visual innovation, he reframes history, redefines narratives and opens new worlds of possibility.”
We’re a week away from Labor Day weekend and we have one movie slotted in as a best picture Oscar nominee.
That leaves nine spots and whole lot of sharp elbows as we begin the fall film festival circuit next week in Venice and Telluride.
I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. Worst freeway in Southern California? There is only one correct answer, but it’s not the one in our rankings. And that answer is just another reason why, like Sal Saperstein, we dread going anywhere near LAX.
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Fall festivals preview
In case you were wondering — but I think you already know — the movie already assured a best picture nomination is Ryan Coogler’s exuberant horror hit, “Sinners,” a film as entertaining and provocative as anything I’ve seen in a theater in the last couple of years. It was my favorite summer movie, even if it did come out in April. Watching it in Imax 70mm felt like an event, the kind of blockbuster moviegoing experience I’ll remember years from now.
The Venice Film Festival starts Wednesday. On Thursday, I’ll be flying to Telluride. The 50th Toronto International Film Festival begins the following week. Dozens of movies will be premiering at these festivals. Standing ovations will be meticulously — and ridiculously — timed. And when the smoke clears, we’ll have the makings of a slate of contenders that we’ll be covering and debating for the next six months.
Here are some of the world premieres at each festival that I’ll be watching most closely, movies that could be made — or broken — by the next time you hear from me.
Venice
Haute couture. Water taxis. Endless Aperol spritzes.
“Frankenstein”: For Guillermo del Toro, Pinocchio and Frankenstein have always been two sides of the same coin, creations made by an uncaring father, released into the world without much care. Del Toro tackled Pinocchio with his last film, which won the Oscar for animated feature. And now he’s adapting the Mary Shellley classic, promising to include parts of the tragic story never before seen on screen. If anyone can make us shout “it’s alive” again, it’s Del Toro.
“A House of Dynamite”: A new political thriller from Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is an event, particularly because it’s her first film since “Detroit” eight years ago. “Dynamite” deals with U.S. leaders scrambling for a response after a missile attack. I’m hoping to embark on a two-hour ride firmly fixed in the fetal position.
“Jay Kelly”: Famous actor (George Clooney) and his devoted manager (Adam Sandler) travel through Europe, pondering regrets (they’ve had a few) and the times they’ve loved, laughed and cried. Noah Baumbach directs from a script he co-wrote with Emily Mortimer. His last movie, 2019’s “Marriage Story,” earned six Oscar nominations, with Laura Dern winning supporting actress. Time for the Sandman to finally get an invitation to the party?
“No Other Choice”: Park Chan-wook adapts the provocative Donald Westlake thriller “The Ax,” which Costa-Gavras adapted in 2005 — but Park apparently wasn’t aware of that movie when he decided to make his own film. Park has been working on it for years, calling it his “lifetime project,” the movie he wanted to stand as his “masterpiece.” He has made some great films — “The Handmaiden” and “Decision to Leave” among them — so it’s hard not be intrigued.
“The Smashing Machine”: I have seen the trailer for this Benny Safdie drama about MMA fighter Mark Kerr so many times that I feel like I have already seen the movie. The blend of Safdie grittiness and Dwayne Johnson star power is sure to generate buzz, but there are whispers that the film simply isn’t all that good. From that trailer, I’m inclined to believe them … but hope to be proved wrong.
Telluride
High altitude, fleece pullovers, repeated discussions about hydration. Lineup not officially announced until Thursday. These are just “rumors.”
“Ballad of a Small Player”: Edward Berger premiered “Conclave” at Telluride last year and it worked out fine, going on to earn eight Oscar nominations and emerging as a viable, sillier alternative for those looking to vote for something other than “Anora.” Berger’s latest is about a high-stakes gambler (Colin Farrell) holed up in China, desperate for a way out of his debts and past sins. As awards voters loved “Conclave” and Berger’s misbegotten “All Quiet on the Western Front,” attention must be paid.
“Hamnet”: Paul Mescal is everywhere. And now he’s playing William Shakespeare in a drama about the Bard and his wife rediscovering each other after the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet. Why not? Especially when the film is directed by Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) and has the brilliant Jessie Buckley on board as Shakespeare’s better half.
“Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere”: Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce! Jeremy Allen White plays Springsteen as he goes lo-fi making his acclaimed album “Nebraska.” History tells us that actors starring in music biopics are rewarded handsomely, and, given what we’ve seen of White on “The Bear,” he seems a perfect choice to play a brooding Bruce.
Toronto
Weather that veers between spring, summer and fall in the course of a week. Poutine. Splashy premieres of movies that have already played at other festivals.
“Christy”: Sydney Sweeney has been in the news lately. Maybe you’ve heard? But she’s about to make a serious awards-season play in this sports biopic about boundary-shattering boxer Christy Martin, a young gay woman fighting to establish an identity that runs counter to her conservative upbringing. Will the work be good enough to rise above the noise around the actor?
“The Lost Bus”: Paul Greengrass, like Bigelow, has been absent from the conversation for a bit. His last movie, the fine western “News of the World,” was swallowed by the pandemic. Now he’s back with a survival drama, one with California roots, as a father (Matthew McConaughey) and a teacher (America Ferrera) try to bring a bus full of school children to safety during the deadly 2018 Camp fire.
“Splitsville” lands at a moment when every comedy released to theaters feels like a battle cry, an attempt to defend audiences’ rights to have a good time at the movies.
Directed by Michael Angelo Covino, who also produces, co-writes and co-stars alongside Kyle Marvin, the film continues the duo’s comic exploration of bad choices, in which men predictably make poor decisions and are depicted as vain, infantile and often motivated by their worst impulses. (It’s funny because it’s true.)
As the movie begins, Carey (Marvin) is married to Ashley (Adria Arjona), who tells him she has been seeing other people and wants a divorce. He seeks solace from his best friend Paul (Covino) and his wife, Julie (Dakota Johnson), who tell Carey they are in an open relationship. Soon Carey sleeps with Julie and all sorts of jealousies and complicated feelings arise among the four of them.
“Splitsville” — the title appears briefly onscreen as the neon sign of a dessert stand — is outwardly a satire of bourgeois aspirations, modern marriage and how no one really understands the dynamics of what goes on with other couples. But the film is actually more concerned with the absurdities of male friendship, to the extent that Covino and Marvin are perennially enamored of themselves and can’t help from centering their own antics.
Their previous movie, “The Climb,” was also about two friends locked into an up-and-down relationship alternating between of moments of betrayal and gestures of support. While they are not playing the same specific characters from “The Climb,” they are very much playing the same type. Covino is seemingly more smooth and together, though riddled with insecurities, while Marvin initially appears hapless and vulnerable, with an emotional intelligence that reveals him to be savvier than he first appears. So they basically meet in the middle.
The entire movie has a disappointing air of smug self-regard about it, with an expectation the audience will adore everything about the characters as much as they do. What at moments feels like a nascent interrogation of contemporary masculinity ultimately suffers from the very impulses it seems to want to parody. (We hear numerous times that one of them is generously endowed.)
Both Arjona and Johnson are asked to play variations on personas they have depicted elsewhere. Arjona has the same earthy warmth she did in “Hit Man,” while Johnson exhibits a placid air of controlled chaos similar to what she showed earlier this year in “Materialists.” They undoubtedly elevate the movie, though too often their characters feel like game pieces manipulated on a board controlled by the film’s male leads.
Johnson and Arjona are movie stars, beguiling and captivating. Covino and Marvin seem like a couple of guys who somehow wandered onscreen. The tension is never reconciled and is constantly throwing the story off balance.
In “The Climb,” there is a moment where Covino and Marvin briefly wrestle, a ludicrous sight of two grown men tussling on the ground. Here that beat expands into a full-blown fight scene that goes on for more than six minutes, as Paul attacks Carey after learning he slept with Julie. Smashing furniture, breaking drywall, destroying a fish tank (while saving the fish) and somehow singeing off Carey’s eyebrows, the fight scene is the movie’s centerpiece, one of its major selling points and indicative of everything that both works and doesn’t. It is funny, escalating ridiculously, but it is also too outlandish for the characters and the story and only really exists as something that Covino and Marvin simply wanted to do for themselves.
They’re good at jokes but much weaker on meaning, stumbling when it comes to making it all add up to something. With a background in advertising, Marvin and Covino are strong on short, punchy ideas conveyed through strong visuals. They may eventually be better served by making work they do not appear in — their performances are the weakest thing about their movies so far. Even as they remain a promising duo, “Splitsville” never quite fully comes together.
‘Splitsville’
Rated: R, for language throughout, sexual content and graphic nudity
A wave of purple and hot pink hair and cartoon K-pop bops is taking over multiplexes.
With summer blockbusters in the rearview mirror and only a few new films out, movie theaters expected a bit of a lull at the box office this weekend.
Then Netflix dropped a bombshell. The streamer would release its hit animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” — already a viral phenomenon on streaming — in theaters Saturday and Sunday for sing-along screenings.
The movie will be shown on more than 1,750 screens in the U.S. and Canada, with 1,150 shows sold out as of Thursday, according to industry sources. It’s an unusually high-profile move by Netflix into cinemas, which is using the big screen experience to capitalize on and promote one of its biggest wins.
Packed houses include the theaters of Dallas-based Look Dine-In Cinemas, which has locations in Glendale, Redlands, Downey and Monrovia.
“This will be the dominant force for the weekend,” said Look Chief Executive Brian Schultz. “We could put it on every screen in our auditorium.”
But is this theatrical release really gonna be golden, to paraphrase one of the musical’s most infectious earworms? We won’t know for sure. Or at least how golden.
Los Gatos-based Netflix will not release box office figures, sticking with the company’s long-standing policy that has long frustrated industry pros. All the same, based on presale numbers, the movie could haul in $16 million to $22 million, according to estimates from analysis site Box Office Theory. That total, if Netflix reported it, would unseat the expected official No. 1 domestic movie, “Weapons.”
The release is a welcome surprise for theater owners — particularly in the doldrums of summer, when even late breakout hits like Warner Bros.’ horror film “Weapons” have been out for weeks. But it also underscores the tricky relationship between exhibitors and Netflix, which has famously eschewed traditional theatrical film releases.
But the streamer has long been adamant that its focus is on growing its subscriber base — not on developing a theatrical business. Earlier this year, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the theatrical movie experience was “outdated” for most people. When the company does theatrical releases, it views them as marketing efforts.
That has led to long-standing complaints from theater owners, who argue that streaming has lessened their business and trained audiences to wait until films are available at home.
“Netflix and a sizable share of theatrical exhibition have spent so many years toeing the line as frenemies, if not outright adversaries,” Shawn Robbins, director of movie analytics at ticket seller Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory, said in an email. “This is a weekend that again highlights how they could, and perhaps should, start working together more often to the benefit of both sides.”
The film, produced by Culver City-based Sony Pictures Animation, is the most-watched original animated movie in Netflix’s history, according to the streamer.
It’s also now the second-most-watched film ever on Netflix behind the 2021 action-comedy “Red Notice” starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot. The movie’s soundtrack has also been a hit, with the song “Golden” peaking at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and continuing to hold onto a high ranking.
“KPop Demon Hunters” focuses on a popular girl group called Huntr/x that uses its music and dance moves to battle evil, including a demon boy band. The movie has spawned a number of memes, including close-ups of the characters’ expressive faces.
The music, as well as the film’s strong female characters, were a draw for Heather Hollingsworth and her 10-year-old daughter, Kayleigh, who have now watched “KPop Demon Hunters” multiple times and are planning to see a screening this weekend with Kayleigh’s best friend and her mom. “Golden” is Hollingsworth’s favorite song from the film, and the one that gets stuck in her head most.
“The songs are really catchy,” said Hollingsworth, 41, a speech language pathologist who lives in Littleton, Colo. “Also the characters’ vulnerability being their strength — that strong friendship — it’s a very powerful message.”
Though they could continue watching “KPop Demon Hunters” at home on Netflix, Hollingsworth said the appeal of the theatrical screening was the social experience.
“There’s something about having it in a movie theater that is way more fun for the kids, especially,” she said.
The sing-along screenings follow similar showings for “Wicked,” as well as concert films such as Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” and Beyonce’s “Renaissance World Tour.” Unlike “KPop Demon Hunters,” those films were exclusively in theaters first, resulting, in the case of “Wicked” and Swift, in hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket sales.
For Look Cinemas, sing-alongs have long been big business and often result in a demand for party bookings, Schultz said. Indeed, tickets for “KPop Demon Hunters” have been selling in large groups.
“It’s going to make for a very fun weekend,” he said.
Times staff writer Kaitlyn Huamani contributed to this report.
Doctor Who star Karen Gillan is set to star in an upcoming reboot of classic 1986 fantasy film Highlander, joining Henry Cavill, Russell Crowe and other stars in the cast
Karen Gillan is set to star in a reboot of an 80s classic(Image: Getty Images)
Doctor Who star Karen Gillan has been cast in Amazon MGM’s upcoming reboot of Highlander – the 1986 fantasy classic starring Sean Connery. The reboot was announced earlier this year, with the likes of Henry Cavill, Russell Crowe, Dave Bautista and Marisa Abela joining the cast.
The original action-fantasy film starred Christopher Lambert as a swordsman in 16th century Scotland who becomes immortal after initially dying in 1536. The film also starred Sean Connery, Clancy Brown, Roxanne Hart and Celia Imrie.
In the reboot, The Witcher’s Henry Cavill will star as lead Connor MacLeod, while Russell Crowe plays his mentor, immortal warrior Ramirez.
Karen Gillan in her Doctor Who days as Amy Pond(Image: PA)
Now, Karen Gillan has been announced to take on the role of Heather, Connor’s immortal wife. Karen shared the news on Instagram today.
“My dialect coach can sit this one out… so excited to be an actual Highlander in Highlander.”
Karen is best known for playing Amy Pond alongside Matt Smith’s Doctor Who in the popular BBC sci-fi series. After leaving the breakout role after three years in 2013, Karen appeared in the Jumanji film series an the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Nebula.
Last December, she welcomed her first child – a daughter named Clementine – with her American comedian husband Nick Kocher.
Christopher Lambert in the original Highlander
The Highlander reboot is set to see Karen’s Marvel co-star Dave Bautista take on the role of ruthless warrior The Kurgen. Industry’s Marisa Abela will also be playing a leading role.
Back in May, it was revealed that Karen would be returning to Doctor Who for a special episode of its behind-the-scenes show Unleashed. She’ll be joining co-star Arthur Darvill, who played Rory Williams during her stint on the show.
This week, the BBC shared a huge update on the future of Doctor Who after star Ncuti Gatwa’s sudden exit a few months back.
The BBC’s new head of content Kate Phillips squashed rumours that the show wouldn’t return if Disney did not choose to fund future series. She said at the Edinburgh TV Festival: “Rest assured Doctor Who is going nowhere.
“Disney has been a great partnership and it continues with The War Between The Land And The Sea next year.”
She added: “With or without Disney, Doctor Who will still be on the BBC.”
Millie Bobby Brown and Jake Bongiovi have started a family, welcoming their first child a year after they tied the knot.
“Stranger Things” star Brown and Bongiovi (son of singer Jon Bon Jovi) announced in a joint Instagram post shared Thursday that they had adopted “our sweet baby girl” over the summer. The young pair — Brown is 21 and Bongiovi is 23 — did not share additional information about their little one. Their post also featured a drawing of a willow tree.
“We are beyond excited to embark on this beautiful next chapter of parenthood in both peace and privacy,” the couple said, adding, “And then there were 3.”
Brown, who famously broke out in 2016 for her portrayal of the telekinetic Eleven in Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” has hit a number of personal milestones in the time between the series’ fourth season in 2022 and its fifth and final chapter, which will touch down later this year.
The British “Enola Holmes” and “Electric State” actor reportedly struck up a romance with fellow actor Bongiovi over social media in 2021, and they got engaged in April 2023. A year later, Bon Jovi confirmed rumors about his son and Brown’s wedding, telling BBC’s “The One Show” it was an intimate affair and that his son “is as happy as can be.”
The couple also had a second ceremony in Tuscany in September, according to Vanity Fair. Brown later confirmed her marriage to Bongiovi, sharing in October several photos from that luxurious event.
In the years since her Netflix debut, Brown has also turned her focus to her studies, other business ventures — including her makeup and clothing lines — and running her own farm in Georgia, which also serves as an animal rescue. Bongiovi, on the other hand, made his acting debut in 2024 with the film “Rockbottom” and is set to appear in the upcoming film “Poetic License,” according to IMDb.
Brown enters motherhood as she prepares to close a chapter that defined most of her teen years. Netflix will release the final episodes of “Stranger Things” in three batches: the first on Nov. 26, the second on Christmas and the finale episode on New Year’s Eve.
“I am nowhere near ready to leave you guys,” Brown told her “Stranger Things” crew and cast in a video shared in December. “I love each and every one one of you and I’ll forever carry the memories and bonds we’ve created together as a family.”
It seems Brown will now also have the comfort of her baby girl when that grand finale comes around.
Sterlin Harjo perfected the “art of the hang” with the co-creation of his first television series, “Reservation Dogs.” The FX drama followed a group of Indigenous teens living on a fictional Oklahoma reservation, turning their everyday routine into high art — and is one of the best television shows of the 2020s.
Now, Harjo, 45, is tackling another type of genre: crime. His forthcoming series “The Lowdown,” premiering Sept. 23 with two episodes on FX, follows self-proclaimed “truthstorian” Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke) on a mission to unearth buried truths about Tulsa’s problematic history while exposing present-day corruption. He’s a disheveled figure who drives around town in a tattered van and lives above the rare bookstore that he also happens to own. But when his latest exposé for a local publication calls into question a prominent Tulsa family, his investigation takes him on a dangerous road from the city’s seedy underbelly to its highest corridors of power.
Fall Preview 2025
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“‘Rez Dogs’ was my love letter to rural Oklahoma and where I grew up. ‘The Lowdown’ is my love letter to Tulsa, where I currently live,” says Harjo, who produces, writes and directs on the new series. “You see the beauty and the darkness. You see everything.”
The eight-episode drama, best described as Tulsa noir, also stars Oklahoma expats Tim Blake Nelson, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tracy Letts as well as Keith David. Appearances by “Rez Dog” alumni include Kaniehtiio Horn (a.k.a. the Deer Lady).
Harjo, who is a citizen of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and is of Muscogee descent, spoke with The Times about his love for Oklahoma, the challenges of following a celebrated show like “Reservation Dogs” and how “The Lowdown” is loosely based on his own experience working with a guerrilla journalist.
“Rez Dogs” was such an exceptional series that garnered critical acclaim across all four seasons. With “The Lowdown,” was it hard to not compete with that previous success?
I didn’t think about it. My experience in this industry has been people telling me that whatever the thing is that I want to make can’t be made, and me thinking, I’m going to make it anyway, then forging ahead. Then it finds an audience, and people enjoy it. I had pitched “Rez Dogs” a few different times, and it was always soft pitches because I was nervous of being laughed out of the room. No one was interested. But having the confidence of my friend [“Rez Dogs” co-creator and writer] Taika Waititi and FX … they were open to the way that we told the story. I think they were kind of blown away. So they made it. They never said no. But I’ve had many ‘no’s and many eye rolls.
Ethan Hawke stars in “The Lowdown” as Lee Raybon, a self-proclaimed “truthstorian” and owner of a rare bookshop. He’s based on Tulsa journalist Lee Roy Chapman.
(Shane Brown / FX)
Hawke plays Lee Raybon in “The Lowdown,” a figure who is obsessed with getting to the bottom of things, to the point where he neglects many other aspects of his life. What inspired the creation of that character?
The story is fictional, but the character was inspired by someone I worked with named Lee Roy Chapman at This Land Press magazine. He was very much a soldier for truth and I would ride shotgun and make these videos about the underground, unknown histories of Tulsa. The series was called “Tulsa Public Secrets.” We were this startup, full of piss and vinegar, trying to tell the truth and write about our community and make documentaries about our community. It was about a pent-up need for truth in this city. That push to tell the truth and find truth and tell our story and create a narrative around us. It gave us and the city an identity, something to hold on to.
“The Lowdown” unfolds at a really brisk pace, yet it also has the kick-back vibe of “Rez Dogs.”
There’s the art of the hang, where the genre is people hanging out. Look at “Rez Dogs” or “Dazed and Confused.” There’s an art to hanging and being with characters, and it feels OK to just sit there with them. I think “The Lowdown” has a good balance of that, where you could just hang with [Raybon] on his block. But there’s also this unfolding story so things never get boring.
Did the making of “The Lowdown” and “Rez Dogs” overlap?
No, but it was toward the end of “Rez Dogs” that I dusted a script off that was like 10 years old. It was a feature [film], but I thought I would love to do a crime show, so I just made it into an hourlong pilot, and it became “The Lowdown.”
Sterlin Harjo says his new series was originally a script for a feature film: “I thought I would love to do a crime show, so I just made it into an hour-long pilot, and it became ‘The Lowdown.’”
(Guerin Blask / For The Times)
Ethan Hawke starred in the last season of “Rez Dogs.” Is that how you two connected?
I had a mutual friend who introduced us because Ethan had written a graphic novel about the Apache Wars and Geronimo. It was originally a script that he couldn’t get made in Hollywood because it was told from the Native side of things. Out of frustration, he made it into a graphic novel. I read it and was interested in adapting it for a show. I met up with Ethan, and I pitched my idea of the adaptation and he loved it. We spoke the same language. So we started writing together and our friendship came out of that. And then “Rez Dogs” came out, and he wrote me to say that he really loved it. He said, “If you ever have anything for me …” Of course I’ll write something [for him]! So he became Elora’s dad.
“The Lowdown” was shot on location in Tulsa and you used much of the same crew from “Rez Dogs.” But I also hear your own family was involved, as well as some “Rez Dogs” alums.
The crew and I know how to work together at this point. It’s like a big family. And my [actual] family was there. My brother was doing locations. My kids came on set. We’re shooting on some of my land. My dad was hired to brush-hog it. My mom’s an extra. There’s a couple of “Rez Dogs” cameos. You’ll see Willie Jack [Paulina Alexis] in the opening. Graham Greene’s in it. But I don’t know how much I’m supposed to say yet. I better not say …
You started out as an indie filmmaker. Can you talk a little about that journey to series TV?
I’ve always felt like an outsider. I’m a small-town Native kid from rural Oklahoma. I never felt like I had a foot in this industry. I was an independent filmmaker forever. I sometimes felt like everything was against me, like there’s no money, and I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, so it felt like the industry at large didn’t care about the work I was doing.
Before “Rez Dogs,” I never worked in TV and I never worked for anyone else doing films. I only had the education I got with the Sundance Directors Lab, which is the most freedom any filmmaker is ever going to have. Then I was lucky enough to make films that were so low-budget. It meant the stakes weren’t high because no one saw them. So if they hated them, I wasn’t destroyed.
Your films and previous series were rooted in Indigenous viewpoints and experiences. Those cultures have been so misrepresented across all aspects of American entertainment. What gave you the confidence to keep pitching those stories?
I attribute that to not having anything to lose. “Rez Dogs” came at this time when I thought I was going to have to move on. I was at the end of my career road, where I was about to start a nonprofit or find the next chapter of what to do. I had been the freelance filmmaker for a long time and it just got hard to pay bills. With “Rez Dogs,” it was like, I could try to play it safe right now or I could swing for the fences. I had seen opportunities come and go, but I have this shot and this one at-bat. I need to just go for it. Luckily, FX is a place that allowed me to do that. And I did it. Luckily, I’d been making independent films for years and figured out my voice, so it wasn’t hard to ground “Rez Dogs” in my voice.
“With ‘Rez Dogs,’ it was like, I could try to play it safe right now or I could swing for the fences,” Sterlin Harjo says. “I had seen opportunities come and go, but I have this shot and this one at-bat.”
(Guerin Blask / For The Times)
Were there outside influences that also helped you get there?
“Atlanta” and “Louie.” Those cracked my mind open to what TV could be and allowed me in. Because to tell an Indigenous story about a community, I had to go to different places. If I was just focused on the kids [in “Rez Dogs”], it would be one thing and that’s it. I needed to expand. And so [it was] taking some of what “Atlanta” did but having this relay, like passing the baton off to different segments of the [Indigenous] community. I was also inspired by “The Wire.”
And “Rez Dogs” was a story that I always wanted to tell. Taika [who is of Maori descent] and I would end up talking about how similar they were from both of our homes, and if you could just kind of capture what it felt like to hear your aunts and uncles telling stories and lying and exaggerating and talking about mythology and superstitions. If you could capture all that, as Indigenous people, that’s what we wanted and craved.
The key to that was making it about this community, but it was a bit of a Trojan horse. It’s about these teenagers that are dealing with life and that’s a subject that everyone knows. So you start with that, and then expand out once you have people on your side.
The motto you mentioned— “Nothing to lose”—can you still use it now that you’ve had some success, and if so, why does it still work for you?
I think it has to do with people close to me dying when I was young. It’s a big community, a big family, and I was always at a funeral. I’ve been a pallbearer like 15 times or something. It gave me the sense that you can’t be afraid to put stuff out there. I’ve always had a way of diving off a cliff. It’s like, if everything fails after this, I’m OK with it. If everything dries up, that’s cool. At least I gave it a shot. This is going to sound hippie-dippie, but I think the energy that it takes to dive off a cliff and just go for it is an act in itself that creates energy. Something good will come out of it. So as long as you’re moving forward, something comes out of it.
With the 1980s came an influx of Western women ascending in white-collar professions — and their increase in power demanded some formidable work wear to match.
As ruthless as she is seductive, Spanish businesswoman Marioneta Negocios (voiced by Pepa Pallarés) is among them. We meet her when she lands in Quito, Ecuador, to wreak havoc in Gonzalo Cordova’s stop-motion animated show, “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads,” Adult Swim’s first-ever Spanish-language program, which premiered Sunday.
In the South American country, cuys (guinea pigs) are part of the local diet, but the conniving Marioneta wishes to change the local mindset so that the creatures are seen as pets. Her plan angers Doña Quispe (Laura Torres), who makes a living selling cuys to be eaten, leading to a melodramatic feud.
True to her name, Marioneta is a puppet whose look is immediately recognizable as that of Carmen Maura’s character Pepa in Pedro Almodóvar’s 1988 “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.” The show is profoundly indebted to Almodóvar’s universe.
Cordova, 39, lived in Ecuador and Panama until he was 6 years old, when his family moved to South Florida. He discovered American culture through copious hours of TV, with “The Simpsons” and comedian Conan O’Brien becoming key influences on his sensibilities.
“It’s just such a joy to have this TV show that mixes together all these childhood memories of Ecuador, but also TV and movies, smashing them together into one thing,” he says during a recent video interview from his home in Pasadena.
“Women Wearing Shoulder Pads” from creator Gonzalo Cordova.
(Warner Bros)
The genesis of “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads” occurred at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cordova had been working on a Mexican American project, but he ached to create a story that specifically reflected his Ecuadorean background.
Having worked as a story editor and producer on the animated series “Tuca & Bertie,” Cordova had a relationship with Adult Swim, Cartoon Network’s programming block aimed at mature audiences. He pitched them his idiosyncratic idea inspired by Almodóvar’s ‘80s films, Ecuadorean culture and his love of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, an L.A. institution.
At first, Cordova did not tell Adult Swim that he intended for the show to be in Spanish. He tried to ease them into the idea. “I did not mention that in the pitch,” he admits. “They showed some interest and when I was writing the script, I started telling them, ‘This really should be in Spanish.’ But I always knew that was the correct way to do it.”
Executives were surprisingly receptive and allowed him to move forward with the pilot, with the caveat that they could change course. “I’m not going to lie and say that it was just smooth sailing,” Cordova explains. “But Adult Swim really listened to me and was very supportive. It has taken a big risk.”
The funniest version of this TV show had to exist in Spanish, he thought. His conviction derived from his experience writing jokes and testing them in front of an audience.
“I did stand-up comedy for eight years in New York, and if you don’t believe in the thing you’re doing and don’t fully commit, it’s not going to work,” he says. “The audience feels it. And to me, doing it in Spanish was just part of the commitment to the bit that I’m doing.”
The HBO Max show “Los Espookys,” which set the precedent that a U.S. production could premiere in Spanish, deeply emboldened Cordova in his creative impulse. “That show gave me a little bit more of chutzpah in asking for this,” he adds.
For Cordova, “Los Espookys,” created by Julio Torres, Ana Fabrega and Fred Armisen, conveyed “a Latin American sensibility and sense of humor,” which he describes as “a little offbeat and a little quirky.” That tone is also what he sought for his show.
First, Cordova wrote “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads” in English over two months with an all-Latino writers’ room, where each person had different levels of Spanish proficiency. Writing in English, their dominant tongue, allowed them to “shoot from the hip,” as he puts it. “The show really relies on absurdism, which heavily relies on instinct,” he explains.
To ensure that the jokes were not getting lost in translation, Cordova worked closely with Mexico-based Mireya Mendoza, the translator and voice director on the show. Once they had made way in the Spanish translation, the production brought on Ecuadorean consultant Pancho Viñachi to help make the dialogue and world in general feel more authentic.
“Pancho started giving us these very specific, not only slang, but also Quechua words and things that would make it feel very specifically Ecuadorean,” Cordova says. “I took that very seriously too. We spent maybe as long translating it as we did initially writing it.”
That “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads” is decidedly a queer show with no speaking male characters came from Cordova’s desire to further exaggerate the fact that in melodramas or classic “women’s pictures” the male parts are secondary to their female counterparts.
“Once you go, ‘No male characters,’ your show’s going to be queer,” he says smiling. “You wrote yourself into a corner because you can’t do a parody of these kinds of work without sex in it and without romance or passion. I was like, ‘The next step is to also make this very queer.’”
As for the decision to use stop-motion, Cordova credits Adult Swim for steering him in that direction. “Initially, when I pitched the show I wanted to do an Almodóvar film with marionettes and Adult Swim very wisely said, ‘This is going to create more complications for you,’” he recalls. “They suggested stop-motion and connected me to Cinema Fantasma.”
Based in Mexico City, Cinema Fantasma is a studio that specializes in stop-motion animation founded by Arturo and Roy Ambriz. The filmmaker brothers are also behind Mexico’s first-ever stop-motion animated feature, “I Am Frankelda.”
Cordova visited the studios throughout the production, gaining a deeper appreciation for the painstaking technique in which every element has to be physically crafted.
For Cordova, creating “Women Wearing Shoulder Pads” entailed mining his memories of Ecuador in the late ‘80s, including growing up hearing over-the-top, partially fictionalized family stories. Those recollections also helped shape the look of the puppets.
“We used a lot of film references. That’s why some of the characters just looked like they come straight out of a Pedro Almodóvar’s film,” he says. “But I also sent Cinema Fantasma a large Google Drive folder with tons of family photos. And we started finding like, ‘Doña Quispe is going to look like this relative mixed with this drawing from ‘Love and Rockets.’”
In this scene, Marioneta leads a “guinea pig rights group.”
(Warner Bros.)
The prominence of cuys in the show also stemmed from remembering how seeing them at restaurants or in cages would shock him when he returned to Ecuador as a teen after living in the U.S. for many years. Now he looks at the practice with a more mature perspective.
“I understand that this is a food and it’s no different than being served duck in a restaurant,” he says. “The show tries to make that point, but also preserves my childhood perspective on it through other characters.”
The line between the creative and the personal blurred even further because many of the costumes were based on designs that Cordova’s mother created when she was studying fashion in Panama and thought would never see the light of day.
Though she was delighted by this homage, her thoughts on the show surprised him. “My mom’s reaction has been interesting because she was like, ‘This is just a good drama.’ The comedy elements are not on the forefront for her,” Cordova says with a laugh. “For her it’s like, ‘I want to know what happens next,’ which I didn’t really expect.”
By putting Ecuador in the forefront of his mind and of this hilarious work of collage, Cordova made a singular tribute to his loved ones.
“There are so many weird little moments in the show when my family was watching and they were like, ‘Oh, that’s your tía’s name, that’s your sister’s nickname.’” Cordova recalls fondly. “It’s almost like how in superhero movies they’ll put Easter eggs, these are Easter eggs for my family only.”
But there’s another opinion Cordova is eager to hear, that of Almodóvar himself. His hope is that, if the Spanish master somehow comes across the show, he feels his admiration.
“I hope that if he does watch it, that he knows it is just very lovingly inspired by his work and that it’s not a theft,” Cordova says. “I make it very obvious who I’m taking from. I may have borrowed from him quite a bit, so I hope he sees that it’s done out of a deep respect.”
What’s the one thing from your childhood that your mom threw away that haunts you to this day?
Ben Stiller has one, a souvenir from what today would be called a riot but back in the 1970s registered as perfectly normal behavior.
I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, host of The Envelope newsletter and the guy still holding out hope that those baseball cards are going to turn up in a box someday.
In this week’s newsletter, let’s look at what our Envelope cover star Ben Stiller misses.
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Cover story: Ben Stiller has no time to waste
(Shayan Asgharnia / For The Times)
For this week’s cover story, Stiller and I talked a lot about his love for the New York Knicks, a passion kindled early and one that became an “addiction” this year as the team tried to win its first NBA championship since 1973. His dad, Jerry Stiller, took him to lot of games as a kid. Two of Jerry’s friends, Stanley Asofsky and Carnegie Deli co-owner Fred Klein, had season tickets, and they knew all the players and refs and would introduce them to Ben.
Jerry also took his son to baseball games, both the Yankees and the Mets. The Yankees were Ben’s favorite — though his commitment to them was nowhere near his love for the Knicks — and when they won the American League championship series in 1978, Stiller ran out onto the field with his friend Jonathan Harris, as one did in New York. (Or, really, anywhere else … but especially New York.) He even scooped up a chunk of the right-field turf and took it home with him on the D train.
“I had it in my room for two years,” Stiller says.
“And then,” I guessed, “your mom threw it away.”
“My mom threw it away,” Stiller affirms. To be fair to Anne Meara, the sod was old and crumbling and probably had bugs in it. And yet …
“It was a prized possession,” Stiller says. “I had it on a piece of tinfoil on a shelf. Maybe if I had been really lucky and had picked up a base, my mom wouldn’t have made me get rid of that.”
Stiller told me he wouldn’t be directing any episodes of “Severance’s” upcoming third season to free him up to make a feature film, a World War II survival story about a downed airman in occupied France who becomes involved with the French Resistance. Stiller has spent most of this year helping prep the third season and wants to be clear that the show is “a real priority.” But after a long break, he’s ready to return to feature filmmaking.
“Severance” star Adam Scott understands, though he finds it hard to imagine the set without Stiller. Scott remembers exactly what he told Stiller when they were shooting the jaw-dropping, mood-shifting Season 2 finale.
“I was just like, ‘Dude, this is our ‘Temple of Doom,’” Scott told me, referencing the second “Indiana Jones” movie. “And I was in absolute paradise the entire time, not just because ‘Temple of Doom’ is my favorite movie, but because we were getting to do it all. There’s the marching band. There’s a fight scene. There’s the running in the hall. We had the big scene where Mark talks to Outie.”
“And when we finished it, we were all so tired,” Scott continues. “But I could see how happy Ben was. It was such a showcase for him.”
And now, he’ll be returning to making movies — the one thing as a kid he always wanted to do.
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Madigan’s diabolical turn deserves a champion
Julia Garner and Josh Brolin in “Weapons.”
(Quantrell Colbert / Warner Bros. Pictures)
I’m going to tread lightly when it comes to spoilers for Zach Cregger’s horror movie “Weapons,” currently the No. 1 movie at the box office.
But I’m also of the mind that you should see “Weapons” knowing as little as possible about it. So anything I write could be considered a spoiler, though I should also note that I’m someone who never watches movie trailers and will go so far as to close my eyes and cover my ears in a theater to avoid them. Sometimes I think the only reason I’m still writing about movies is that the job allows me to see films in advance and not have them ruined. I love flying blind.
You probably know that “Weapons” follows what happens in an American town after 17 children disappear one night, all of them simultaneously running out the front doors of their homes, arms outstretched, at precisely 2:17 a.m. Cregger unravels the mystery from multiple, often overlapping points of view, calling to mind Paul Thomas Anderson’s audacious epic “Magnolia,” right down to the presence of a clumsy, mustachioed cop.
Well into the movie, we meet Madigan’s Aunt Gladys in a principal’s office at the school that the missing kids attended. All of the children were in the same class. Gladys says she is the aunt of the one child from the class who didn’t run off into night. There’s some understandable curiosity and concern over this boy, Alex (Cary Christopher, another standout in a very good year for child actors), and Gladys is here to reassure everyone that Alex — and his parents — are doing just fine.
Gladys is perhaps not the most reliable messenger. She is wearing a bright-red wig and multiple layers of makeup, a presentation that suggests she has spent a lifetime watching Bette Davis in “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” Something is off, and, hoo boy, are we about to find out what that something is.
Madigan is excellent, disarming and adept at concealing, to a point, the hidden core of good ol’ Aunt Gladys. Again, I’m treading lightly. If you’ve seen it, as I’m sure many of you have, you know just how delightfully insane her work in the movie is.
Critics groups love to reward the delightfully insane. They also love to champion genres, like horror, that tend to be marginalized at the Oscars.
So I’d expect some group — perhaps New York, maybe L.A. — could be eager to plant a flag for Madigan as a much-deserved, out-of-the-box supporting actress choice. She’s 74, has enjoyed a fine career on stage and screen and, along with her husband, Ed Harris, made a principled stand (or sit) at the 1999 Academy Awards, refusing to applaud when Elia Kazan took the stage to receive an honorary Oscar.
It’s easy to get swept up in the success of “Weapons” and the countless stories sifting through its ending and themes. Once the film leaves theaters and the fall festival awards contenders start dropping, Madigan will need a champion or two to put her back into the conversation.
History might be on her side, though: Davis earned a lead actress Oscar nomination for “Baby Jane.” And Ruth Gordon won the supporting actress Oscar for “Rosemary’s Baby” for the same kind of deliciously diabolical turn that Madigan gives in “Weapons.”
