It's been approximately 1,000 years since our last link roundup. It's always tough to keep up with news during Oscar season when more important things (shiny gold statues!) are on the mind.
• Variety Disney is shifting release strategies and dates again for Black Widow, Luca, and Cruella among others. We're disappointed that Adrian Lyne's long awaited return with erotic thriller Deep Water is now a 2022 movie (that's well over a full year since it was first supposed to come out.)
• IndieWire meanwhile Warner Bros announces that it will end the opening simultaneously on HBOMax treatment for its new movies starting in 2022 which will play in theaters for 45 days first. (We're guessing the people behind Dune are pissed that this doesn't apply to them) since none of their deals imagined a non-theatrical world.
• Towleroad Lady Gaga has already upset the woman she's playing in Ridley Scott's Gucci biopic
More after the jump including Oscar Isaac, Helen Mirren, Elliot Page, Steven Spielberg, and Clint Eastwood...
• /Film as you may have heard Steven Spielberg is making a drama inspired by his own childhood. Michelle Williams will be playing his sort of mother and Seth Rogen his sort of uncle.
• MNPP Oscar Isaac doing some fight training for Moon Knight
• Deadline Helen Mirren joins the Shazam franchise as a villain
• Time Elliot Page is on the cover of Time magazine
• /Film Clint Eastwood has a new movie called Cry Macho that's due in October. His movies haven't been big at the Oscars in a while but you never know.
• Coming Soon The DC Universe has snatched up fresh Oscar nominee Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) to write one of their upcoming superhero films, Zatanna
• Deadline Naomie Harris and Chiwetel Ejiofor are headlining a reworking of the David Bowie picture The Man Who Fell to Earth, this time as a series on Showtime. Ejiofor has the alien role.
• Out LGBTQ holiday romcoms won't just be a one year thing. Single All The Way announced for 2021 on Netflix.
perhaps unsurprisingly Promising Young Woman is doing well after a price drop. It's the kind of genre-tinged movie that would have found an audience even without awards play
A Bit on Box Office
• IndieWire Interesting details on what's hot on various streaming services but we object to the very misleading picture painted about both theatrical box office and Netflix. The article posits that Oscar nominations mean nothing to consumers while failing to note that no Netflix titles suddenly resurge for any reason really after their initial week. The nature of Netflix is that you're only hot for your first week (or two if you're lucky). What's more the coasts and big urban markets are the places where Oscar contenders that aren't four-quadrant titles tend to earn most of their bank theatrically and most of those markets are just not open or are just now reopening. So of course the movies are packing them in!
Finally
• Daily Beast Sean Young is speaking out again, this time against Ridley Scott but it is a bit bizarre to hear someone badmouth a production (in this case Bladerunner 2049) and reveal details of her deal while also revealing that she signed an NDA. Seems a bit dangerous legally... (doesn't that mean she shouldn't be allowed to tell us these details?) but we are not lawyers so we don't know how these things work! Anyway she's always been a fun celebrity primarly because she seems to have no filter with journalists (Barbra Streisand will not be pleased about this interview!) and was just A+ electric onscreen until that toxic affair with James Wood and subsequent legal battles sidelined her career.
Exit Videos
Here's the new trailer for Japans' Demon Slayer, now their all time box office champ. It was eligible for the Oscars this year but is getting its US release in April, R rated, with both subbed and dubbed versions. We really wish animated features would start joining live-action films in (mostly) sticking to the calendar year for their eligibility.
And the trailer for a new Joss Whedon series called The Nevers. Very excited to see Olivia Williams, Ben Chaplin, James Norton again (underutilised all). Not yet familiar with the lead Laura Donnelly but we hear she's great on stage. Hope it's good.