(CNN)In the 13 years since “Taken,” Liam Neeson has worked practically nonstop, including a pair of sequels. Yet watching his latest action vehicle “The Ice Road” — a by-the-numbers chase movie, which turns him into an ice road warrior — it’s easy to wish that this talented actor would, well, slow down a little.
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Fast & Furious 9: ‘We’re not just doing the same thing’
“We made a commitment early on. If we were lucky enough to earn another chapter, let’s not just do the same thing, let’s try to really grow and evolve. And since then, it’s 15 years for me, you’ve seen our characters get together, start families, now they have kids, and that’s something that drives me more.”
Back open! Regal opens back up again to moviegoers
GREENVILLE, S.C. —
If you have been waiting to head back to the movie theater– here’s your chance.
Regal Hollywood RPX in Greenville is opened Friday.
The theater on Woodruff Road will headline new movies including “The Unholy” and “Godzilla vs. Kong,” along with a strong slate of highly-anticipated movies opening in the coming weeks including “Spiral,” “A Quiet Place Part II” and “F9.”
For movies and showtimes, click here.
Reopening plans include a wide range of health and safety measures that adhere to the CinemaSafe protocol and guidelines.
Orpheum Theatre announces movie screenings – FOX13 News Memphis
HERE and on the Orpheum’s social media channels.
Tickets are $8 for adults and $6 for kids 12 and younger.
All tickets are sold as general admission, and buying in advanced is encouraged.
Cox Media Group
Apple debuts trailer for award-winning TV+ movie ‘CODA’
Apple paid a record-breaking $25 million for the film after it cleaned up at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. From the announcement:
Written and directed by Siân Heder (“Tallulah,” “Little America”), “CODA” was presented in the U.S. Dramatic Competition category at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and went on to be honored with an unprecedented four awards at the festival: the Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast, the Directing Award, the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize.
“CODA” stars Emilia Jones (“Locke Key”), Eugenio Derbez (“The Casagrandes”), Troy Kotsur (“The Number 23”), Ferdia Walsh-Peelo (“Vikings”), Daniel Durant (“Switched at Birth”), Amy Forsyth (“Beautiful Boy”), Kevin Chapman (“City on a Hill”) and Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin
The film follows a 17-year old girl, Ruby, who is the sole hearing member of a deaf family (CODA, or child of deaf adults), she works as an interpreter for her parents and on their fishing boat every day before school, before discovering her passion for singing:
But when Ruby joins her high school’s choir club, she discovers a gift for singing and soon finds herself drawn to her duet partner Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). Encouraged by her enthusiastic, tough-love choirmaster (Eugenio Derbez) to apply to a prestigious music school, Ruby finds herself torn between the obligations she feels to her family and the pursuit of her own dreams.
The acclaimed movie will debut on AppleTV+ on August 13, which is available on the new Apple TV 4K (2021) and the best TVs for Apple TV 2021.
Extras Needed: New movie filming in Savannah needs high schoolers, teachers, parents, more
Above file video: SCAD alumni worked on more than 20 films up for Oscars in 2021
A new movie is filming in Savannah. And you — and your kids — could be in it.
Forchetti Casting is looking for a wide range in background actors for an upcoming TV Movie “Killer Close Up” shooting in the Savannah area, according to the Savannah Regional Film Commission.
They need actors to play roles varying from high school students, to soccer players, to teachers, parents and hotel guests.
Regardless of the role, everyone must be over 18 years of age.
Here’s what they are looking for:
1) “High school students”: Male and female; ages 18-25, any ethnicity. Must look like a high school student and be able to shoot on May 15 and/or May 16. The rate is $110/10hr day or $80/up to 6 hours (non-union/non-speaking).
2) “Teacher Parents”: Male and female, ages 30s-50s, and any ethnicity. Shoot Dates for this role are May 15 and/or May 16. The rate is $110/10hr day or $80/up to 6 hours (non-union/non-speaking).
3)”Soccer Players”: Females only, 18-25 years old, and any ethnicity. Must be able to play soccer well. Shoot dates are May 18 and 19. Individuals must be able to be there both dates, and will need a few hours on May 20 and May 21. The rate is $150/day (non-union/non-speaking).
4)) “Hotel Guests”: Male and female, 30s-60s, any ethnicity. The shoot dates for this are May 25 and/or May 26. The rate is to be determined and you should expect the same as teachers/parents roles above.
Those interested can send headshots or recent photos to casting@forchetticasting.com and note which role and dates are of interest. A recent COVID-19 test and/or vaccination information should be noted.
For more information, see below:
‘Pacerville’ movie starring Brian Austin Green films in Sacramento
A new feature film inspired by the pandemic and starring Brian Austin Green is being made in Sacramento.
McKinley Park’s basketball court is the setting for one of the scenes in the feature film, called “Pacerville.”
“Sacramento is amazing. The people are really kind. It’s a beautiful city,” Green said.
After years of playing a student on TV in the popular ’90s show “Beverly Hills, 90210” Green says he’s “no longer the baby.”
He said it’s “surreal” that he’s now playing a teacher struggling during the pandemic.
“I’m the old guy with a beard,” he said.
“Pacerville” is about a teacher who is dealing with students on his Zoom class not paying attention.
Sacramento native and filmmaker Nick Leisure is the movie’s director.
He said he came up with the idea during the pandemic as something he could shoot with a small cast.
Green said that after trying to help his own three kids, ages 4, 6 and 8 with distance learning this past year he has a new understanding and respect for teachers’ importance.
“They’re not just babysitting our kids during the day and casually showing them things to do and giving them assignments,” he said. “It’s a way of keeping a child’s attention for as long as they do for months out of the year. I think we should pay them more.”
The movie is filming for the next three weeks in Sacramento. It’s set to hit theaters in the fall of 2021.
How the streaming wars will change movies in 2021
There’s a moment near the beginning of Wonder Woman 1984 where General Antiope says, “The time will come, Diana, and everything will be different.”
How right she was.
This Christmas, the sequel to 2017’s Wonder Woman, which smashed box-office records, will open in theatres — but also on the streaming service HBO Max.
In Canada, with theatres closed in many major cities due to COVID-19 restrictions, customers can rent the film online for $29.99. For film fans who’ve gone a year without any big-screen comic-inspired chaos, it’s a convenient option.
But for the theatre industry, it’s a dramatic change to the way the public consumes “tentpole pictures” — that is, movies made to be shown in theatres.
For decades, the exhibition business has fought to protect the theatrical window, that period of time when movies are exclusive to cinemas before appearing on streaming and rental services.
Studios now want shorter, more flexible windows, but they still need movie theatres to make a profit. With Blockbuster budgets regularly soaring over $200 million US, breaking even isn’t enough.
After the costs of marketing and distribution are added, a billion-dollar box-office take is the goal and only a global theatrical release delivers that kind of payout.
Or, at least, it did.
WATCH | Senior reporter Eli Glasner describes his screening of Tenet during the pandemic:
What it’s like to go to the theatre during the pandemic
CBC News
10 months agoCBC News film critic Eli Glasner went to the Cinesphere at Ontario Place to see Tenet, a new film by Christopher Nolan. Here’s how it went. 4:08
In August, Warner Bros. released director Christopher Nolan’s time travel film Tenet. As of this writing, it has earned $460 million worldwide. By comparison, Nolan’s 2008 film, The Dark Knight, earned $1.3 billion.
With theatre attendance expected to stay soft in 2021, Warner Media CEO Jason Kilar made a stunning announcement on Dec. 3, writing, “We see an opportunity to do something firmly focused on the fans, which is to provide choice.”
Canadians will need to wait for most Warner Bros. films to finish their theatrical screenings before they move to streaming platforms.
Some directors not happy
Many filmmakers did not take kindly to the so-called fan-first approach.
Tenet director Nolan let loose in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, saying, “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service.”
Meanwhile, Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, whose remake of Dune has been delayed until October 2021, wrote in Variety that the focus on streaming could destroy a potential Dune franchise.
“Streaming alone can’t sustain the film industry as we knew it before COVID. Streaming can produce great content, but not movies of Dune’s scope and scale.”
For directors, the shift to streaming also affects their earnings. Many A-list directors negotiate contracts that include lucrative residual payments based on ticket sales.
Brandon Katz, the senior entertainment reporter for Observer said that while he sympathizes with the directors’ frustration, the problem is how the change was communicated.
“I don’t blame Warner Bros. for innovating and driving subscriptions to HBO Max. But the way they went about rolling out this seismic change is just so sub-par,” he said.
Disney shifts spotlight to streaming
A week later — with the Warner Bros. strategy shift still reverberating — Disney signaled the importance of its own streaming moves with an epic four-hour-long investor day presentation. When it was all over, the House that Mickey Built had revealed 10 new Star Wars shows, 10 new Marvel series and a host of Disney- and Pixar-inspired programs — all to premiere exclusively on the Disney+ platform.
With Disney’s stock hitting an all-time high following the announcement, Katz said the studio has moved beyond kid’s stuff.
“[They’ve] rewritten our expectations of what a generalist streaming service can be. What we’re seeing is what [executive chair] Bob Iger promised in 2018: direct-to-consumer business is their No. 1 priority.”
WATCH | Warner Bros. to stream all 2021 movies in the U.S.:
Warner Bros. to stream all 2021 movies in U.S.
CBC News
7 months agoWarner Bros. Pictures has announced that all of its 2021 film slate — including a new Matrix movie, Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong — will stream on HBO Max at the same time they play in U.S. theatres. HBO Max is available only in the U.S., so the studio’s films will launch theatrically in Canada and other regions worldwide. 5:22
With more choice comes cost
What’s clear is that whether it’s Warner Bros. (which is owned by ATT), Disney, Netflix, Apple or Amazon, the forces driving the movie business have changed.
These companies “have very different motivations from traditional movie studios and that is to attract people into those monthly paid subscriptions,” said Peter Nowak, vice-president of Insight and Engagement at TekSavvy and a long-time observer of the entertainment industry.
But as choice grows, so does the cost of those subscriptions. Netflix hiked prices for Canadian subscribers in October. Recently, Disney+ announced that along with the addition of Hulu content (Star for Canadian users), subscriptions will increase by three dollars to $11.99 a month.
As the streaming wars escalate, Nowak predicts a rise in piracy. “People generally don’t like to miss out,” he said. “If a major film is released in the U.S. on a streaming platform and it’s not out here in Canada, Canadians aren’t necessarily content to wait a couple of months.”
Beyond the rise of illegal downloads, Nowak expects to see a lot more churn, which includes “people quitting services, subscribing to HBO for a month or two, watching everything they want, then cancelling that and moving over to Disney.”
Disney is hoping the constant flow of new content from Marvel, Star Wars and more will keep customers hooked. But Nowak warns that the Canadian government’s plans to modernize the rules around broadcasting and the internet could have a knock-on effect.
With Ottawa set to begin charging Netflix and other streaming services HST, plus plans for future corporate taxes on technology giants signaled by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, Nowak says streaming is likely going to become a lot more expensive for subscribers.
Back to the big screen?
While Disney is focused on streaming in the near term, Katz doesn’t think the company will ever remove Marvel movies from the theatrical marketplace. “There is simply too much money to be made in the multiple windows that accompany a global theatrical release.”
The effects of the pandemic have hit Canada’s largest cinema chain, Cineplex, hard — it saw revenue in the third quarter fall by 85 per cent.
In speaking with CBC News, Cineplex CEO Ellis Jacob emphasized there have been zero cases of COVID-19 traced back to theatres, and that he remains optimistic about the industry’s future.
WATCH | Cineplex CEO talks about the future of the industry:
Cineplex CEO Ellis Jacob on the impact of streaming
CBC News
6 months agoCBC News senior entertainment reporter Eli Glasner speaks with Cineplex CEO Ellis Jacob about the future of movie theatres as streaming platforms increase in popularity. 1:53
“Having been in this business for over 30 years, I’ve got to be honest with you. When the VCR came out, everybody said it’s the death of the movie business. You know what happened? More people became aware of movies and started to go into the theatres more often,” Jacob said.
Jacob pointed out that in Japan, the weekly box office is already at higher levels than it was pre-pandemic. He said huge attendance from audiences in Australia, where pandemic containment measures have also been more effective, suggests film fans are eager to return to theatres.
While streaming platforms are here to stay, Jacob said theatres still have a role to play in this $42 billion industry.
“We are the engine that drives the train. We create the value for sequels, for merchandising, for theme parks. There’s so much that is just beyond the theatrical release.”
Hey film fans. When do you think you’ll feel comfortable returning to a movie theatre? a href=”https://t.co/5caJMpuaOt”pic.twitter.com/5caJMpuaOt/a
mdash;@glasneronfilm
Social media isn’t just affecting humans. It’s having an impact our wildlife, too.
22 June 2021
A social media trend has threatened local duck populations over the past
weeks and campaigners fear the development is part of a wider detrimental move
to domesticate wildlife.
Reports surfaced in late May that ducklings were being sold on city
streets for as little as €5 and prospective
sales of the birds were circulating on TikTok. Globally, videos on the popular
platform with the hashtag “ducklings” have amassed over 280 million views.
According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
(PETA), there are detrimental effects to the mental health of ducklings if they
are separated from other ducks.
They suffer from extreme loneliness and depression
if they are kept without at least one other member of their species.
Speaking to The Green News Gillian Bird,
head of education and media at the Dublin Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
(DSPCA) condemned the practice and warned that it was the latest trend
contributing to an obsession with domesticating wildlife.
“We tried to kill the [duckling] trend as quickly as possible and I
think we managed to do that quite well.
“There are regular trends like this, unfortunately. Film and TV shows
have a huge influence on stuff like this. Like if Disney produces a film that
has animals in it, we will always see a trend related to that,” said Ms
Bird.
When she started working at the DSPCA, she noticed the link between whatever
the latest animal featured in a Disney movie was and public insistence on
owning that specific animal, regardless of whether it was domesticated or
wildlife.
The popularity of “Finding Nemo was a nightmare for not just the
clownfish but the goldfish.” And when Disney released the hit film Tangled,
“everybody wanted a chameleon,” she continued.
However, trends for owning wildlife go well beyond the latest animated
creature to grace our screens.
“A lot of the time what can happen is people see Tik Tok videos and
YouTube videos of people with wildlife [pets] and they get the idea to do it
themselves,” said Ms Bird.
When it comes to adopting wildlife animals as ‘house’ pets, a lot of
people don’t consider the long term implications and whether they can care for
the precise needs of that animal, she added.
The interference not only wreaks havoc on wildlife, it also is against
the law.
The Wildlife Act 1976 was established in Ireland with the purpose to
protect and conserve wild fauna and flora. Caring for and rehabilitating
wildlife requires a special licence.
And despite whatever good intentions people may have, taking in a wild
animal has long-standing repercussions.
“Once you start to domesticate them [wild animals] you can’t release
them back into the wild,” said Ms Bird.
“If you bring a wild animal inside away from its wild habitat … it’s not
going to get the correct nutrition it needs and it’s going to get used to
humans.
“They become so used to humans and they associate humans with food and
therefore they don’t shy away from them, which is all well and good if you’ve
got somebody friendly,” she added.
There is often confusion among people when they see ‘stray’ animals in
the wild, assuming that the animal is lost.
A common mistake is for people to find a baby hare, a leveret, and
assume that it is a baby rabbit lying in the middle of a field. Hares are born
out in the open and are left in nests by their mothers, but people often assume
that it’s been abandoned and ‘rescue’ the hare.
At the DSPCA, Ms Bird said that there are constant instances like these
whereby people think they are doing the right thing and “saving wildlife”.
Another instance that is quite common is people removing mother animals
from a natural habitat, believing the animal is lost.
“You could be taking a mother hedgehog and she’s got babies that are
starving to death in a nest somewhere,” said Ms Bird.
Staff at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Ireland (WRI)
hospital are also advising the public to think twice before bringing baby
wildlife into the hospital.
The rehabilitation hospital said that there was a
danger of healthy young animals coming into their care and dying from the stress
of being separated from their parents and natural habitat.
According to the Irish Wildlife Matters, the signs
of an injured or lost wildlife will be immediately clear. If the animal appears
cold, limp and has obvious injuries, it needs to be rescued.
Before attempting to capture a wildlife casualty, access, observe and decide whether intervention is appropriate, according to their recommendations.
If the animal looks warm, healthy, alert and
appears active, it doesn’t need to be rescued.
Story by Shauna Burdis
Sonic the Hedgehog: ‘I’d never seen anything like it in a video game’
After the success of his debut, Sonic’s popularity continued to rise with the release of sequels, spin-offs, merchandise, comic books and TV cartoon series.