The 46-year-old Chilean filmmaker will direct Maria, a biopic about the life of American-born Greek soprano Maria Callas as his next feature, and he’s locked in Academy Award-winner Angelina Jolie in the starring role.
Based on true accounts, the film will tell the tumultuous, beautiful and tragic story of the world’s greatest opera singer, relived and reimagined during her final days in 1970s Paris.
The film was written by Oscar-nominee Steven Knight, who wrote Larraín’s Princess Diana biopic Spencer. The filmmaker’s brother and creative partner Juan de Dios Larraín will produce for Fabula Pictures, alongside Lorenzo Mieli for The Apartment Pictures, a Fremantle Company, and Jonas Dornbach for Komlizen Film.
“Having the chance to combine my two most deep and personal passions, cinema and opera, has been a long-awaited dream,” said Larraín. “To do this with Angelina, a supremely brave and curious artist, is a fascinating opportunity. A true gift.”
“I take very seriously the responsibility to Maria’s life and legacy. I will give all I can to meet the challenge,” added Jolie. “Pablo Larraín is a director I have long admired. To be allowed the chance to tell more of Maria’s story with him, and with a script by Steven Knight, is a dream.”
Larraín is best known for features including Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, andJackie, which had Natalie Portman portraying Jackie Kennedy.
He also directed and executive produced the Apple series Liseys’ Story, based on the Stephen King novel. Other notable directorial credits includeEma,Neruda,The Cluband No.
Penelope Cruz’s latest performance is already earning her some hardware…
The 47-year-old Spanish Oscar-winning actress was awarded the Volpi Cup Best Actress prize at the Venice Film Festival.
Cruz, in an upset for Spencer star Kristen Stewart, won the award for the performance in Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers.
In her acceptance, she said the honor was 100% his, saying, “thank you once again for your trust in me, for inspiring me every day with your search for truth inside and outside the set… you have created magic again.”
Cruz further dedicated the win to her husband Javier Bardem and their children as well as to Bardem’s recently deceased mother. Pilar Bardem “did so much for actors and actresses in our country and her love and passion for this wonderful profession was huge,” said Cruz, adding, “At the end of our last conversation she told me, ‘I love you.’ She was very fragile and I thought those were her last words to me, but then very quiet and very soft and with a smile on her face she said to me two more words ‘Coppa Volpi’… This is for all the mothers.”
Parallell Mothers centers on two single women, who meet in a hospital room where they are both going to give birth. One is middle aged and doesn’t regret it, while the other is adolescent and scared. The two women form a strong bond with one another as they both confront motherhood.
Chilean filmmakers Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña won the Best Short Film prize.
They took home the award for their film Los Huesos, a fictitious take on the world’s first animated film, which uses a three-person melodrama as a metaphor for Chile’s turbulent socio-political regime. Dated in 1901 and excavated in 2021 as Chile drafts a new constitution, the “found” footage shows a young girl performing a ritual with human body parts. The corpses are revealed as the bodies of Diego Portales and Jaime Guzmán, central figures in the construction of authoritarian and oligarchic Chile.
French-Lebanese filmmaker Audrey Diwan won the Venice Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, for her 1963-set abortion drama L’Evénement (Happening).
Here’s the list of the award winners:
VENICE 78
Golden Lion L’Evénement, dir: Audrey Diwan
Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize The Hand Of God, dir: Paolo Sorrentino
Silver Lion, Best Director
Jane Campion, The Power Of The Dog
Volpi Cup Best Actress
Penelope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Volpi Cup Best Actor
John Arcilla, On The Job: The Missing 8
Best Screenplay
Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
Special Jury Prize Il Buco, dir: Michelangelo Frammartino
Marcello Mastroianni Award for for Best New Young Actor or Actress
Filippo Scotti, The Hand Of God
HORIZONS
Best Film Pilgrims, dir: Laurynas Bareisa
Best Director
Eric Gravel, A Plein Temps
Special Jury Prize El Gran Movimiento, dir: Kiro Russo
Best Actress
Laure Calamy, A Plein Temps
Best Actor
Piseth Chhun, White Building
Best Screenplay
Ivan Ostrochovský, Peter Kerekes: 107 Mothers
Best Short Film Los Huesos, dirs: Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociña
Lion of the Future – Luigi De Laurentiis Award For A Debut Film Imaculat, dirs: Monica Stan, George Chiper Lillemark
VENICE VR EXPANDED
Grand Jury Prize for Best VR Goliath: Playing With Reality, dirs: Barry Gene Murphy, May Abdalla
Best VR Experience Le Bal De Paris De Blanca Li, dir: Blanca Li
Best VR Story End of Night, dir: David Adler
HORIZONS EXTRA
Audience Award The Blind Man Who Did Not Want To See Titanic, dir: Teemu Nikki
Aubrey Plaza is ready to ring in the holiday season…
Hulu has released the first trailer for Happiest Season, a holiday-themed romantic comedy starring the 36-year-old actress/comedian and former Parks and Recreation star.
“This is why I avoid Christmas — it brings out the worst in everything,” says the trailer for the film, which also stars Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis.
Here’s the logline: Meeting your girlfriend’s family for the first time can be tough. Planning to propose at her family’s annual Christmas dinner — until you realize that they don’t even know she’s gay — is even harder. When Abby (Stewart) learns that Harper (Davis) has kept their relationship a secret from her family, she begins to question the girlfriend she thought she knew.
Plaza, Stewart and Davis are joined by Alison Brie, Daniel Levy, Mary Holland, Burl Moseley, Victor Garber and Mary Steenburgen in a film that captures the range of emotions tied to wanting your family’s acceptance, being true to yourself and trying not to ruin Christmas.
Sample dialogue: “I’m scared that if I tell them who I really am that I will lose them,” Harper tells Abby. “Do you know how painful it is to watch the person I love hide me?” she replies. Harper: “I’m not hiding you — I’m hiding me.”
Clea DuVall directs from a script she wrote with Mary Holland.
Hulu will premiere the holiday rom-com on Wednesday, November 25 — the day before Thanksgiving.
Pablo Larraín is taking on the portray of another legend…
The 43-year-old Oscar-nominated Chilean filmmaker will direct Kristen Stewart in the drama Spencer about Princess Diana.
The Steven Knight-scripted film covers a critical weekend in the early ‘90s, when Diana decided her marriage to Prince Charles wasn’t working, and that she needed to veer from a path that put her in line to one day be queen. The drama takes place over three days, in one of her final Christmas holidays in the House of Windsor in their Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England.
“I’ve always been intrigued and fascinated by the Royal Family and how things are in that culture, which we don’t have where I come from,” Larraín said. “Diana is such a powerful icon, where millions and millions of people, not just women, but many people around the world felt empathy toward her in her life. We decided to get into a story about identity, and around how a woman decides somehow, not to be the queen. She’s a woman who, in the journey of the movie, decides and realizes that she wants to be the woman she was before she met Charles.
The film won’t deal with Diana’s tragic death after she left that palace life, but will examine the fraying of the relationship with her husband, and her ferocious love for her sons Prince William and Prince Harry.
“It’s about finding herself, about understanding that possibly the most important thing for her is to be well, and to be with herself and by herself,” Larraín explained. “That’s why the movie is called Spencer, which is the family name she had before she met Charles. It’s very contained, set over a few days in Sandringham. They spent Christmas there for many years and that’s where we set the movie in the early ‘90s, around 1992, we’re not specific. It’s Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day, three days, very contained. We get to understand what it is she wants and what she will do.”
“How and why do you decide to do that? It’s a great universal story that can reach millions and millions of people, and that’s what we want to do. We want to make a movie that goes wide, connects with a worldwide audience that is interested in such a fascinating life,” he adds.
Production is expected to begin in early 2021 on the film, which Larraín will also produce.
Larraín previously directed Natalie Portman in Jackie. The film follows Jackie Kennedy in the days when she was First Lady in the White House and her life immediately following the assassination of her husband, U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The film earned Portman an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
Larraín’s other credits include Neruda, about poet Pablo Neruda, as well as the Spanish-language film No, Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, and The Club.
The 35-year-old Puerto Rican actress and Parks and Recreation alum has joined the cast of the TriStar Pictures and Entertainment One romantic comedy Happiest Season, starring Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis.
Plaza joins a list of newcomers that includes Mary Steenburgen, Victor Garber, Alison Brieand Dan Levy.
Directed and co-written by Clea DuVall, and co-written by Mary Holland, Happiest Season follows a young woman (Stewart) whose plan to propose to her girlfriend (Davis) while at her family’s annual holiday party is upended when she discovers her partner hasn’t yet come out to her conservative parents (played by Steenburgen and Garber).
The film is set to hit theaters on November 20. eOne will distribute the film in UK and Canada.
Filming is currently underway in Pittsburgh, PA.
Plaza’s film credits include Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Monsters University,Dirty Grandpa, Ingrid Goes Westand Child’s Play.
Luis Gerardo Méndez will be appearing in Chinese theaters…
Sony‘s reboot of Charlie’s Angels starring Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and Ella Balinska, with the 37-year-old Mexican actor appearing in a supporting role, has landed a China release date of November 15, which is timed exactly with the film’s domestic release.
No other Hollywood titles are opening in the PRC on that date. Charlie’s Angels will face local titles Beautiful Teacher, Hunt Down, Marnie’s Welt and Somewhere Winter.
While the film was originally scheduled to go during the first weekend in November, which is where the first 2000 movie bowed, Terminator: Dark Fate elbowed its way on to that date.
Sony moved Charlie’s Angels to November 15 domestic release date for various reasons: better access to premium screens, aiming to stoke Stewart’sTwilightfanbase (that film also launched in mid-November), plusa China release date.
And this $48M production is going to need China with its global start after landing on domestic tracking last week with a $16M projection to Fox/Disney’s Ford v. Ferrari‘s $23M-$30M forecasted opening. The second movie from Sony Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttlemade just over $2M in a nascent China exhibition market before the Avatar 3D/Imax boom in the PRC. Ford v. Ferrari will play most of the IMAXglobal network on the Nov. 15-17 weekend, but Charlie’s Angels will be booked on select IMAX domestic screens and in some offshore markets.
Mendez portrays The Saint in the film, which also features Noah Centineo as Langston.
The 22-year-old part-Puerto Rican actor will star in Sony Pictures’ Charlie’s Angels reboot.
Directed by Elizabeth Banks, the film stars Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scottand Ella Balinska and will focus on the next generation of elite crime-fighting detectives working for the mysterious Charlie.
Centineo’s character develops romantic sparks with one of the Angels.
Since the earlier Charlie’s Angels films, the Townsend Agency has grown considerably and gone global, providing security and intelligence services to a wide variety of private clients with offices and highly trained teams worldwide. The new film focuses on one of those teams.
Banks, Djimon Hounsou, Sam Claflin, Jonathan Tucker, Luis Gerardo Méndez and Patrick Stewart co-star in the reboot, which was scripted by Jay Basu and Banks based on earlier drafts by Craig Mazin and Semi Chellas.
Sony has set a September 27, 2019, release date for the reboot.
Centineo, known for his roles in the final three seasons of the television series The Fosters, recently starred in back-to-back Netflix rom-coms To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Sierra Burgess Is a Loser.
Centineo next appears in rom-com feature The Stand-In.
The 42-year-old actor, singer-songwriter and director will make an appearance at the Hollywood Film Awards.
Leto, who won an Oscar last year for his critically acclaimed performance in Dallas Buyers Club, be joined by Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Steve Carell, Laura Dern, Jennifer Lopez, Mike Myers, Robert Pattinson, Eddie Redmayne, Chris Rock and Hilary Swank at the annual awards ceremony, held at the Hollywood Palladium on Friday, November 14, from 8:00 to 10:00 pm ET and broadcast on CBS. Queen Latifah willhost the 17th annual gala.
Previously announced attendees include Amy Adams, Gerard Butler, Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Jonah Hill, Keira Knightley, Michael Keaton, Julianne Moore, Jack O’Connell, Chris Pratt, Kristen Stewart, Channing Tatum, Jean-Marc Vallée, Reese Witherspoon and Shailene Woodley.
A half-hour red carpet show will kick off the evening at 7:30 pm ET. Following the two-hour awards show, a one-hour aftershow with interviews and highlights from the evening, hosted by CBS This Morning‘s Charlie Rose, Norah O’Donnell and Gayle King, starts at 10:00 pm.
The Hollywood Film Awards is produced by Dick Clark Productions.
John Leguizamo is about to cause a little trouble on the border…
The 49-year-old Colombian American actor/comedian has joined Lynn Collins and Jim Belushi for Atlas Independent‘s latest feature project The Man on Carrion Road.
The film, directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego, will star Patrick Wilson and Ian McShane.
From a screenplay written by Nils Lyew, the story chronicles a botched Mexican cartel deal in the back roads of a border town.
The town’s new sheriff (Wilson) must team up with the retired lawman (McShane) he replaced to investigate the source of the deal in order to stop a mysterious cartel butcher (Leguizamo) and his systematic brutalization of the town’s residents.
He’ll also star alongside Uma Thurman, Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in the upcoming action-comedy film American Ultra, directed by Nima Nourizadeh.
Her character is one of the military crew trying to escort a scientist to Washington, DC with hopes of finding a cure for the zombie infection.
Serratos is best known for portarying Bella’s (Kristen Stewart) best friend Angela in Summit Entertainment’sTheTwilight Saga series. Her other credits include appearances on The Secret Life of the American Teenager and American Horror Story.
The fifth season of The Walking Dead Season 5 is set to debut in October.
Based on true accounts, the film will tell the tumultuous, beautiful and tragic story of the world’s greatest opera singer, relived and reimagined during her final days in 1970s Paris.
