The 51-year-old Mexican actress will star opposite Dave Bautista in the action film Trap House.
del Castillo is among a roster of new cast additions that includes Jack Champion, Sophia Lillis, Tony Dalton, Whitney Peak and Bobby Cannavale.
Inde Navarrette, Zaire Adams and Blu del Barrio have also joined the cast.
Principal photography is set to begin today.
Michael Dowse will direct a script written by Fast & Furious creator Gary ScottThompson and Tom O’Connor. The action film follows an undercover DEA agent and his partner who embark on a game of cat and mouse with an audacious group of thieves: their own rebellious teenagers, who have begun robbing from a dangerous cartel, using their parents’ tactics and top-secret intel to pull off their heists.
Trap House is produced by Marc Goldberg and Sarah Gabriel of Signature Films, Michael Pruss and Rebecca Feuer of Scott Free Productions with Ridley Scott executive producing alongside Bautista and Jonathan Meisner of Bautista’s Dogbone Entertainment and Todd Lundbohm of 828 Productions.
The feature is financed and executive produced by Christian Mercuri’s Capstone Studios, Signature Entertainment, Creativity Media and Koala, and Ashland Hill Media Finance.
Dogbone and Signature developed Trap House after working together on 2018’s actioner Final Score, which starred Bautista alongside Pierce Brosnan.
del Castillo currently stars in Fox’s The Cleaning Lady.
Cannavale’s film credits include Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and Old Dads.
The National Society of Film Critics has announced the winners of its 58th annual awards, with the 58-year-old Mexican Oscar-nominated cinematographer among the honorees.
Prieto earned the Best Cinematography award for lensing Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
Critics convened Saturday in New York and Los Angeles to vote on the year’s best movies and performances.
Here’s the complete list of honorees:
Best Picture: “Past Lives”
Runners-up:
“The Zone of Interest”
“Oppenheimer”
BestDirector: Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest”
Runners-up:
Todd Haynes, “May December”
Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”
Best Film Not in the English Language: “Fallen Leaves”
Runners-up:
“The Zone of Interest”
“Anatomy of a Fall”
Best Nonfiction Film: “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros”
Runners-up:
“20 Days in Mariupol”
“Kokomo City”
Best Actor: Andrew Scott, “All of Us Strangers”
Runners-up:
Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”
Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer”
Best Actress: Sandra Hüller, “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest”
Runners-up:
Emma Stone, “Poor Things”
Lily Gladstone, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Best Supporting Actor: Charles Melton, “May December”
Runners-up: Robert Downey, Jr., “Oppenheimer”, and Ryan Gosling, “Barbie” (tie)
Best Supporting Actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”
Runners-up:
Penélope Cruz, “Ferrari”
Rachel McAdams, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret”
Best screenplay: Samy Burch, “May December”
Runners-up:
Celine Song, “Past Lives”
David Hemingson, “The Holdovers”
Best cinematography:
Rodrigo Prieto, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Runners-up:
Łukasz Żal, “The Zone of Interest”
Hoyte van Hoytema, “Oppenheimer”
Best experimental film: Jean Luc-Godard’s “Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars”
Film heritage award: Criterion Channel
Film heritage award: Facets, Kim’s Video, Scarecrow Video and Vidiots
Special citation for a film awaiting U.S. distribution: Víctor Erice’s “Close Your Eyes”
The 44-year-old Cuban-Guatemalan actor will star in the crime thriller In the Hand of Dante, with Oscar nominee Julian Schnabel directing and Martin Scorsese among the executive producers.
Isaac will star opposite Jason Momoa and Gerard Butler in the film, which is in production in Italy and recently landed an Interim Agreement from SAG-AFTRA allowing it to film during the actors strike.
Based on the novel by Nick Tosches, it follows the story of the original manuscript for The Divine Comedyemerging in the clutches of a black-market smuggling ring in the dangerous underbelly of New York City, and weary scholar Nick is called by the mob to authenticate it.
Overwhelmed by temptation, Nick defies the mafia and steals the manuscript in a frenzied bid to have it all. He follows a dark and violent path from a metaphorical Hell into Paradise with his love Giulietta, while a parallel tale unfolds: the odyssey of Dante himself, a man who is trapped in a loveless marriage with Gemma and bolstered only by his mentorship under an austere intellectual. He escapes to Sicily and creates his greatest work, immortalizing his lost love, Beatrice.
Nick and Dante’s timelines weave separate paths, and yet the two men are inextricably linked — both lose themselves chasing love, beauty and the very promise of the divine.
Scorsese will executive produce alongside DreamCrew, Screen Capital/Screen One and Tribune Pictures, with Isaac (through his production company Mad Gene Media) and Schnabel also executive producing.
The 52-year-old half-Cuban American actor has signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
Cannavale has moved from WME, after just opening alongside Ana De Armas at the Venice Film Festival in the Andrew Dominik-directed Blonde.
He next will star in Gracie Otto’s Seriously Red, and opposite Robert De Niro in the Tony Goldwyn-directed Inappropriate Behavior.
Cannavale has had memorable turns in projects from Martin Scorsese’s The Irishmanto Boardwalk Empire, Motherless Brooklyn, I, Tonya, Ant-Man, The Station Agentand many others.
In television, Cannavale will next star in Ryan Murphy’s limited series The Watcherwith Naomi Watts. He was recently seen in Hulu’s limited series Nine Perfect Strangers, alongside Nicole Kidman and Melissa McCarthy. His other TV credits include Homecoming, Angie Tribeca, Mr. Robot, Master of None, Nurse JackieandVinyl.
On the stage, Cannavale is a two-time Tony Award-nominee for Mauritius and The Mother F*cher With The Hat. A member of the LAByrinth Theater Company, the New Jersey-born Cannavale last appeared on stage in the 2020 production of Medeaat The Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is ready to start spreading the news…
The 42-year-old Puerto Rican Tony Award-winning Broadway star will co-write music for a new musical loosely based on Martin Scorsese’s 1977 film New York, New York.
The musical will begin performances on Broadway, in a theater yet to be announced, in March 2023. Opening night will be in April, with Tony and Olivier Award winner Susan Stroman on board to direct and choreograph.
The show —called New York, New York — will feature numbers written for the movie by legendary songwriting duo John Kander and Fred Ebb. Miranda will write additional lyrics for new Kander tunes.
Four Kander and Ebb songs were used in Scorsese’s MGM film, including the fabled title track that will certainly feature big in the Broadway show.
Casting breakdowns for New York, New York were being issued last week. The production is believed to have a cast of 31 and an orchestra of 19 musicians.
Producers Sonia Friedman and Tom Kirdahy have assigned David Thompson, a frequent Kander and Ebb collaborator to write the book. Sharon Washington will co-write the show.
Other members of the creative team include Sam Davis, music supervision and arrangements; Daryl Waters and Davis, orchestrations; David Loud, vocal arrangements; and music direction by Alvin Hough Jr.
The new New York, New York musical will feature little of Scorsese’s storyline, according to Deadline.com/
It will still be set in postwar 1946, but the focus will be about a city in recovery, plus the casting and story will be inclusive.
Deadline has been tracking the show for some time; it’s been in development for four years; a fully-staged, hush-hush workshop was done in New York several months ago.
A Broadway powerhouse who attended the workshop but who declined us permission to use their name told us that the performance was “profoundly beautiful and special.”
They continued: “It’s about this city; this social experiment of people from all walks of life. Simply put, it’s about New York with a big band, big cast and show-stopping dance numbers. The thing to remember is that it’s not the film, it’s a million miles away from the film, just to be clear.”
New York, New York will be the first new Kander and Ebb musical to arrive on Broadway since The Visit in 2015.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is ready to Met a new challenge…
The 42-year-old Puerto Rican actor, singer-songwriter, rapper, playwright, producer and film director will as one of the hosts and co-chairs of this year’s Met Gala.
Miranda will host the event, which will reflect the strong Hollywood theme, alongside Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively and Regina King.
The Met Gala, set for May 2, a primary source of income for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, follows last September’s scaled-back, pandemic-restricted “mini-gala” that launched the Met’s two-part exhibition “In America: An Anthology of Fashion.”
The exhibit will include “cinematic vignettes” exploring the roots of American fashion and designed by film directors King, Sofia Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Chloé Zhao, Tom Ford, Janicza Bravo, Julie Dash and Autumn de Wilde.
Ford, Adam Mosseri and Anna Wintour will continue their roles as honorary co-chairs for the May event.
The “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” exhibit will open to the public on May 7.
The late Jerry Garcia’s band life story is headed to the big screen…
Jonah Hill is set to play the late half-Spanish American guitarist, singer and songwriter in a feature about The Grateful Dead from director Martin Scorsese.
Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the writers behind biopics like Dolemite Is My Name and Big Eyes, penned the screenplay about the infamous jam band.
Apple, where the project is set up, has acquired the right to use the Grateful Dead’s music in the film.
The Grateful Dead was founded in the Bay Area in the 1960s as a part of San Francisco’s burgeoning counter-culture movement.
Garcia acted as the lead guitarist, as well as vocalist. He died in 1995 after the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
It’s unclear what part of the band’s history will be covered in the film, but Scorsese has already been a part of bringing the band’s story to the screen, executive producing the 2017 rock doc about the group, Long Strange Trip.
Scorsese will produce via his Sikelia Productions under a first-look deal with the tech giant. Hill will produce via his Strong Baby banner with Matt Dines.
Rick Yorn will also produce, with Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Trixie Garcia, Eric Eisner and Bernie Cahill executive-producing.
Scorsese is currently working on his next feature, The Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. It will also be a reteaming for the director and actor, who previously worked together on The Wolf of Wall Street.
The 55-year-old Mexican Oscar-nominated cinematographer is the recipient of the 2021 Vilcek Prize in Filmmaking, according to the Vilcek Foundation.
The award is part of the Vilcek Foundation Prizes, which are bestowed in a range of categories each year, in celebration of the outstanding contributions of immigrant trailblazers, within the arts and sciences.
Prieto, a Mexican native, has established himself over the years as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after DPs. Boasting credits including Amores Perrosand Brokeback Mountain, he’s known for his collaborations with renowned directors including Martin Scorsese, Ang Lee, Julie Taymor, Oliver Stone and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
A three-time Academy Awards nominee most recently recognized by the Academy for his groundbreaking work on Scorsese’s The Irishman, Prieto has also received accolades for his work from BAFTA, the American Society of Cinematographers and the Independent Spirit Awards.
Known for his unconventional camerawork, and his remarkably detailed, evocative compositions, the DP grew up with a visual artist for a mother and an aeronautical engineer for a father. Thus, in his own career, he would come to balance technology with artistry, aiming with each new project to create a distinctive and visceral, cinematic experience. “That combination…is something that I have in my DNA,” Prieto says, “utilizing technology and different techniques to create art.”
Established in 2006, as a means of championing diverse perspectives—thereby advancing the arts and sciences—The Vilcek Foundation has thus far awarded over $5.8 million to immigrants from 56 different countries.
“As leaders in the arts, we have a responsibility to promote diversity by making space, providing access, and amplifying the artistic contributions of marginalized groups and individuals,” Vilcek Foundation President Rick Kinsel says. “The Vilcek Prizes in the arts and humanities enable us to speak to the value of immigration for our society in a non-politicized way.”
This year, other prize recipients include geneticist Ruth Lehmann, chemical biologist Mohamed Abou Donia, entrepreneur (and former presidential candidate) Andrew Yang, and a number of filmmakers—among them, Juan Pablo González, Miko Revereza and Nanfu Wang.
González has been awarded the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking for the artistic rigor and deep emotional engagement that he brings to his immersive and intimate explorations of his hometown in rural Mexico.
Up next for Prieto is Scorsese’s sprawling crime drama, Killers of the Flower Moon. Set in 1920s Oklahoma, the Apple Original Film centers on an investigation into a string of brutal murders within the Osage tribe. Eric Roth wrote the script, adapting an acclaimed work of nonfiction by David Grann.
HBO has given a green light to Scenes From a Marriage, a limited series adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s classic miniseries, starring the 41-year-old Guatemalan & Cuban actorand Michelle Williams.
The project hails from Hagai Levi, Michael Ellenberg’s Media Res and Endeavor Content.
Written and directed by Levi, the series adaptation re-examines the show’s iconic depiction of love, hatred, desire, monogamy, marriage and divorce through the lens of a contemporary American couple, played by Isaac and Williams.
Ingmar Bergman wrote and directed the original 1973 Swedish miniseries Scenes From A Marriage, which starred Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson. Bergman’s teleplay, the story of a disintegration of a marriage, drew on his own experiences, including his relationship with Ullmann.
Isaac, star of the HBO miniseries Show Me A Hero, will next be seen starring in the Dune reboot, an adaption of the bestselling novel of the same name by Frank Herbert. He’s also set to star in James Gray’s period drama Armageddon Time, alongside Robert De Niro, Donald Sutherland, Anne Hathaway and Cate Blanchett and Paul Schrader’sThe Card Counter, with Martin Scorsese executive producing.
Isaac is set to produce Lionsgate’s upcoming filmLondon,under his Mad Gene Media Banner, with Ben Stiller set to direct. He’s also set to star in and produce the adaptation of Brian K. Vaughn’s Ex Machina comic retitled The Great Machine.
Nicolás Pereda is bringing the faunato this year’s reimagined Toronto Film Festival.
The 38-year-old Mexican filmmaker’s latest film Fauna will be among the film’s screened at the festival, which is North America’s largest festival.
The film is an exploration of the impact of “narco” culture on Mexican society.
It’ll be Fauna’s official global premiere. An excerpt from the film was screened as part of the “Works in Progress” section of the Los Cabos International Film Festival in 2019,and won the Cinecolor Mexico Award.
This year’s edition will run from September 10–19. As expected, the festival will look different due to the coronavirus.
Organizers say the 45th TIFF will be “tailored to fit the moment,” with a combination of physical screenings and drive-ins, digital screenings, virtual red carpets, press conferences and industry talks.
There’ll be considerably fewer movies — a selection comprising 50 new features — and the festival isn’t expecting large numbers of international press or industry to attend in person.
In addition to Pereda’s Fauna, this year’s strong crop of early movies confirmed to screen at the festival are the Kate Winslet-starrer Ammonite, Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round, Concrete Cowboy with Idris Elba, Good Joe Bell starring Mark Wahlberg, Suzanne Lindon’s Spring Blossom, True Mothers by Naomi Kawase and Halle Berry’s directorial debut Bruised. More titles will be announced over the summer.
The movies will play over the event’s first five days as physical, socially distanced screenings. There will also be five programs of short films, interactive talks, film cast reunions, and Q&As with cast and filmmakers.
However, the festival has acknowledged that its plans for an in-person festival will be contingent on the local government’s “reopening framework to ensure that festival venues and workplaces practice, meet and exceed public health guidelines.” Large gatherings still aren’t permitted in Toronto.
TIFF temporarily closed its year-round offices and cinemas at TIFF Bell Lightbox in March due to the pandemic. The organization is now taking steps to prepare for reopening and working with medical advisors and public health officials to ensure safe conditions.
Meanwhile, TIFF is launching a bespoke digital platform for the festival. The organization has partnered with Shift72 on the platform, which will host digital screenings, talks and special events.
The Industry Conference will be online-only this year, with screenings for press and industry taking place on the digital platform only. The fest says there will be “advanced security and anti-piracy measures, access to buyers, and opportunities for networking.”
For 2020, TIFF says it will welcome 50 filmmakers and actors as TIFF Ambassadors to help the festival deliver its program. They will include Ava DuVernay, Taika Waititi, Anurag Kashyap, Nicole Kidman, Martin Scorsese, Nadine Labaki, Alfonso Cuarón, Tantoo Cardinal, Riz Ahmed, Isabelle Huppert, Claire Denis, Atom Egoyan, Priyanka Chopra, Viggo Mortensen, Zhang Ziyi, David Oyelowo, Lulu Wang, Rosamund Pike, Sarah Gadon and Denis Villeneuve.
TIFF will also present its annual TIFF Tribute Awards, acknowledging and celebrating outstanding contributors to the film industry.
Now in its third year, TIFF’s Media Inclusion Initiative will continue to accredit eligible black, indigenous, people of color, LGBTQ+ and female emerging film critics. New this year, TIFF is also offering companies and individuals the opportunity to gift industry access to 250 underrepresented emerging filmmakers from around the world.
del Castillo is among a roster of new cast additions that includes Jack Champion, Sophia Lillis, Tony Dalton, Whitney Peak and Bobby Cannavale.
