Director Jay Roach first saw the script to Bombshell (Lionsgate) when actress/producer Charlize Theron sent it to him to provide notes. “I was so hooked by the story. After, I spoke so passionately about why it mattered and encouraged her to do it,” recalled Roach who added, “I cared so much about what these women were up against, what their predicament was. I don’t watch a lot of Fox (News). I have a lot of skepticism about a lot put out by Fox. I didn’t think it would be a place where a big... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has unveiled the shortlists in consideration for the 92nd Academy Awards® in nine categories: Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, International Feature Film, Makeup and Hairstyling, Music (Original Score), Music (Original Song), Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film and Visual Effects. Here’s a rundown of the shortlists: DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Fifteen films will advance in the Documentary Feature category for the 92nd Academy Awards... Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- "Game of Thrones" was both an unprecedented achievement and old-school role model in the TV decade that's rolling its final credits. Installments of the elaborately produced hit were doled out one at a time by an established outlet, premium cable channel HBO. That was standard TV operating procedure until, suddenly, it wasn't. The new era arrived in 2013 when a full season's worth of "House of Cards" popped up amid Netflix's on-demand movies and old TV shows. The drama's unexpected home... Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Hallmark Channel's decision to pull, then reinstate a commercial that featured a same-sex couple kissing shows how controversy can generate more publicity than simply ignoring it. The company also didn't help matters by reversing its decision following the backlash. "It's hard to keep everyone happy, but flip-flopping doesn't help," said Allen Adamson, co-founder of the marketing consultancy Metaforce. "These are difficult issues to navigate but when you're going to make a call one way or... Read More 

NEW YORK -- Devika Bulchandani has been promoted to president of McCann North America. She has been president of McCann New York and retains that office leadership role while broadening her responsibilities across the U.S. and Canada. “Devika has demonstrated in her New York leadership role that she has the vision and energy to drive multiplatform growth and creativity on behalf of our mix of global, regional and local clients,” said Harris Diamond, chairman and CEO of McCann Worldgroup. “Under her... Read More 

RICHMOND, Va. -- The Martin Agency has significantly expanded its production capabilities and hired noted industry veteran Dick Gordon to serve as director of editorial at its newly launched SuperJoy, an advanced production playground that replaces Martin’s Running with Scissors postproduction group. “We’re producing three times the amount of content we did just a year ago, and it’s not going to slow down,” explained Tasha Dean, Martin SVP and head of integrated production. “We have to work faster and smarter... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- The Producers Guild of America (PGA) unveiled nominations in its television specialty categories for the 31st Annual Producers Guild Awards. Additionally, the PGA announced the nominees for the inaugural Innovation Award, which will honor an outstanding entertainment endeavor across the emerging mediums of VR, AR, experiential and more. The winner of the Innovation Award and the winner in the Short-Form category will be announced at a PGA nominees event on January 16 at the Hollywood Museum in... Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- When Disney bought Lucasfilm for more than $4 billion in 2012, there were lofty expectations of reviving "Star Wars" in spectacular hyper-speed fashion with a new trilogy that continued the story of Luke Skywalker and other beloved characters. The space saga has been a smart investment, starting with "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," which in 2015 became the fastest movie to reach $1 billion. Despite the financial success, there's been a dark side — fierce criticism of the new trilogy amplified... Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Audiences rose to their feet giving the latest "Star Wars" film a standing ovation after the credits rolled at the ending of the franchise's third trilogy. Cheers often erupted with enthusiasm throughout while viewing "The Rise of Skywalker" on Monday night. After the screening, the film was met with a slew of positive reviews after director J.J. Abrams told the audience before the film played that he was "mostly terrified" to show the movie, which ran for nearly 2 ½ hours. Seated in the Dolby... Read More 

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- Thanks to its Film & TV Tax Credit Program 2.0, California has gotten two more TV series to relocate from other states. Additionally, California will serve as home to four new series. According to the California Film Commission, the Universal Television series Dream will relocate to California from Texas, while Horizon Scripted Television’s Special will relocate here from New Jersey--both for their second season of production. With the latest round of tax credits, California has lured a... Read More 

NEW YORK -- Publicis Groupe has named Louis-Phillipe “LP” Tremblay chief creative officer of One Publicis Team Samsung. In this newly created role, Tremblay will shape creative vision and partner closely with key One Publicis Team Samsung leadership to drive creative excellence and performance of the Samsung mobile business globally. Under Tremblay’s leadership, One Publicis Team Samsung will continue to embrace the Power of One approach by bringing together creative talent from across the Groupe dedicated... Read More 

LONDON -- Park Pictures has signed director Justyna Obasi for commercials and branded content in the U.K. market. This marks her first representation in the U.K. She continues to be represented by Anorak in Germany. To date, Obasi has created films for Ahoj Brause, Friedberg and Bioré. Both a visual artist and performance director by training, Obasi studied at the National Film and Television School (NFTS) in Beaconsfield, U.K. Her vision combines a vivid display of color and texture with a sensitive eye... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- More Media, under the aegis of CEO/exec producer Stephen Buchanan, has added creative director and filmmaker Kate Hollowell to its directorial roster for U.S. representation spanning commercials and music videos in the U.S. market. This marks her first official production company representation as a director. Hollowell began shooting fashion and music videos in 2017. She spent the past 10 years as an art director, content creator, and photographer for fashion brands like Revolve, Barneys, and... Read More 

LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK -- Bicoastal production company ArtClass has signed director Shahana Khan for commercials and branded content in the U.S. This marks Khan’s first directorial representation as she had previously been working freelance. With a filmmaking background spanning live action, creative direction and visual effects, Khan brings a multidisciplinary perspective to the director’s chair. Her recent credits include music videos for Kingdom, Maluca, Michah James and Poolside, which have garnered acclaim in Paper... Read More 

STUDIO CITY, Calif. -- The Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) has unveiled the nominees for the 67th Annual MPSE Golden Reel Awards. Among the feature films to receive nominations are Joker, 1917, Toy Story 4, The Irishman, Rocketman, Ford v Ferrari, The Lion King and Jojo Rabbit . TV nominations include such shows as Chernobyl, The Handmaid’s Tale, Game of Thrones, The Mandalorian, Succession, The Watchmen, True Detective and The Watchmen . “Sound artists continue to push boundaries for artistry and technical... Read More 

LOS ANGELES -- The USC Libraries named the finalists for the 32nd-annual USC Libraries Scripter Award, which honors the year’s most accomplished film and television adaptations, as well as the works on which they are based. The finalist writers for feature films are: --Matthew Carnahan and Mario Correa for “Dark Waters” (Focus Features) based on the New York Times Magazine article “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare” by Nathaniel Rich --Steven Zaillian for “The Irishman” (Netflix) based on the... Read More 

PHOENIX (AP) -- With its multiple teenage characters, the Netflix movie "Let It Snow" is a mix of holiday feels and a John Hughes comedy. But unlike those genres, the movie, about a small town besieged by a Christmas Eve snowstorm, has Asian American characters front and center who aren't there just to be comedic relief. Jacob Batalon (Marvel's "Spider-Man" movies) and Anna Akana ("Ant-Man") play an aspiring deejay and closeted lesbian cheerleader, respectively. For Akana, nothing felt token about the role. "I... Read More 

It's probably a testament to the makeup artists of Jay Roach's Fox News docudrama "Bombshell" that the movie opens with a disclaimer announcing that the people depicted within are played by actors. Films don't ordinarily require a heads up that that's, you know, Charlize Theron. But "Bombshell" is a savvy and flashy kind of docudrama that trades equally on recent headlines as it does the star power of its cast. Roach has a light hand with topical political stories ("Recount," "Game Change"), as... Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- There is a wild urgency to Greta Gerwig's "Little Women" that hardly seems possible for a film based on a 150-year-old book. But such is the magic of combining Louisa May Alcott's enduring story of those four sisters with Gerwig's deliciously feisty, evocative and clear-eyed storytelling that makes this "Little Women" a new classic. While no shortage of "Little Women" adaptations exist, Gerwig makes hers modern and sharp, while still adhering to its traditional roots. And in playing a bit with... Read More 

By now, we shouldn't be too surprised by this cultural contradiction known as Adam Sandler. It's obvious that Sandler, the actor, is capable of extraordinary range — not in the traditional, Meryl Streep sense, but a range of incredibly good ("Punch-Drunk Love") to painfully bad (the horrendous "Jack and Jill") and incredibly good again, as in "Uncut Gems," a frenetic, compulsively watchable, exhausting and exhilarating collaboration with Josh and Benny Safdie. What's less discussed, perhaps, is... Read More 

Terrence Malick's "A Hidden Life" resides above the clouds in a small Alpine hamlet. Franz Jägerstätter lives there, in Austria, with his wife, Franziska, and their young daughters. They spend their days working and playing in the hillside fields, enraptured by their humble mountain idyll. The enormous peaks that surround them make a kind of open-air cathedral. The Nazis don't arrive all at once. Hitler's rise at first seems very distant. (Malick opens the film and occasionally intersperses... Read More 

There's apparently enough groundbreaking technology used in "Cats" for NASA to send a rocket to unexplored parts of the universe — perhaps to a far-off planet where cats sing, dance on two legs, and recite T.S. Eliot poetry in half-Cockney accents. But let's forget the much-discussed "digital fur technology" used to turn stars like Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift and Idris Elba into state-of-the-art, fabulous felines. Spoiler (or spoiled milk) alert: It's not the technology that makes a whisker... Read More 

Not much has caused a disturbance in the "Star Wars" galaxy quite like Rian Johnson's "The Last Jedi," an erratic but electric movie that, regardless of how you felt about it, was something worth arguing about. The same can't be said for J. J. Abrams' "Rise of Skywalker," a scattershot, impatiently paced, fan-servicing finale that repurposes so much of what came before that it feels as though someone searching for the hyperspace button accidentally pressed the spin cycle instead. A laundry list... Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- "Jumanji: The Next Level" puts "Frozen 2" on second-place ice, while Clint Eastwood's "Richard Jewell" opened with one of the worst box office debuts for the director. The Sony film starring Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart brought in $60.1 million in the U.S. and Canada to break a three-day record for a comedy in December for the production company. The sequel is a followup to 2017's "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle," which grossed $962 million worldwide. A week before it opened in North America,... Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) -- The impeachment drama surrounding President Donald Trump, or at least various spins on it, is a compelling television draw. Fox News Channel, MSNBC and CNN collectively averaged just under 5.4 million viewers in prime time last week, the Nielsen company said. It was a week dominated by the news of the House Judiciary Committee's vote to impeach Trump. That puts the news on par with the NBC, Fox and CBS entertainment networks, which each averaged between 5.4 and 5.9 million viewers last week... Read More 

In collaboration with FCB Canada, Cole Webley via Toronto production house Soft Citizen (he is handled in the U.S. by Sanctuary) directed this charming three-minute holiday story about a group of young friends who discover a lost reindeer in the woods and set to work on getting the animal home to the North Pole for Christmas. Titled “Lost Reindeer,” this ambitious ad for Air Canada conveys the unique emotional pull of being home with loved ones during the holidays. VFX/animation house was Cape... Read More 

Directed by David Shane of O Positive and conceived by Wieden+Kennedy New York for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), this short film titled “Naughty or...” depicts Santa Claus coming to terms with outdated notions of “naughty.” He acknowledges that the old ways of dealing with our kids’ behavior problems no longer reflect the troubling issues they face daily — “the news, the lockdown drills, the internet.” Santa poses the idea that there are many other possibilities to consider... Read More 

Everybody loves toys. For Christmas, there’ll be several billion toys purchased. But behind the toys hides an ecological disaster. In France, for example, more than 40 million toys are thrown away every year. That’s because in most cases, they can’t be repaired in that spare parts don’t exist. To make toys repairable, Dagoma, a European leader in 3D printing, and TBWA\Paris have launched Operation Toy Rescue. Spare parts for toys that didn’t exist until now have been recreated as 3D printable... Read More 

Nike’s latest Just Do It film highlights the inspiring story of Manchester City and England winger and attacking midfielder Raheem Sterling, who’s taken a lead role in supporting the next generation of athletes in England and beyond. As a kid from the London borough of Brent, Sterling grew up dreaming of playing at Wembley Stadium. But he wasn’t expected to win his first England cap at age 17. He wasn’t expected to play more than 50 times for his country, or to win two premier league titles by... Read More 

Los Angeles County is home to nearly 2 million people living with food insecurity and 60,000 homeless, many unsure of where their next meal will come from. Combating this are organizations like the Manna Room, a local nonprofit that serves daily hot meals to the hungry and distributes unclaimed food from Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods to the Los Angeles community. To bring awareness to the Manna Room’s mission, global food-specialist creative production company Chuck Studios donated its team and... Read More 

Patrick Sherman of production house Slash Dynamic directed a three-spot package for Zaxby’s as part of its promotional tie-in with the film Jumanji: The Next Level . The humorous campaign from ad agency Tombras features Jumanji’s Rhys Darby and includes this commercial titled “The Console” in which a couple of players are sucked into their video game and ultimately end up at a Zaxby’s restaurant. Read More 

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