Film

AB 1836, which requires studios to get express consent from dead performers’ estates before producing digital replicas of them, passed the state Senate yesterday, reports Variety.

The bill’s passage yesterday came days after California’s legislature passed AB 2602 with similar consent requirements for living actors. SAG-AFTRA released a statement calling the bill a “legislative priority” and encouraging Governor Gavin Newsom to sign it.

Ridley Scott’s Napoleon was already huge (runtime-wise) when it hit Apple TV Plus back in March, but with “48 minutes of new, never-before-seen footage,” the new Director’s Cut that has just hit the streamer (right on time for Labor Day weekend) is even bigger.

The upcoming stop-motion film Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will include some creepy new tech in the form of a robotic garden gnome named Norbot.

Emma Corrin’s Cassandra Nova was the highlight of Deadpool & Wolverine, and this new behind-the-scenes VFX breakdown shows off how crucial her performance was to making the movie’s disgusting take on telepathy work.

George Clooney and Brad Pitt “...gave money back to make sure that we had a theatrical release” in thousands of theaters, but just ahead of a big Olympics marketing push, the Wolfs plan changed to a limited one-week run before its Apple TV Plus debut.

NYT:

Apple executives in Cupertino were already questioning the entertainment units over the amount of money being spent on movies, and the people said there was a thought within the company to not risk a public disappointment should the movie not succeed at the box office.

Edgar Bronfman Jr., who put in a $6 billion bid for control of Paramount last week, would want to partner with a company like Amazon or Apple to bolster Paramount’s streaming service, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Paramount is expected to decide whether Bronfman’s offer beats its merger deal with Skydance on August 28th.

Actor Jenna Ortega talked about mental health struggles and called her experience on Wednesday and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice — and with co-star Winona Ryder — “a very transformative time” in this New York Times interview.

She also mentions her own major (and personal) conflicts with AI and being on Twitter when she was very young.

The Watchers, a supernatural thriller based on the book A.M. Shine, hits Max on August 30th, reports Deadline.

Prior to The Watchers, Shyamalan served as a second unit director on father M. Night Shyamalan’s film Old and directed six episodes of Servant, his Apple TV Plus series.

But that won’t stop the legendary film composer from getting his own documentary film about his life and career, produced by (and featuring interviews with) Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Ron Howard, and many more.

“Music by John Williams” will premiere at AFI Fest on October 23rd and hit Disney Plus on November 1st.

In a letter seen by The Wall Street Journal, Skydance’s lawyers accuse Paramount of breaking their merger agreement by dragging out the amount of time it can review other bids, and said:

While Skydance is not currently exercising its right to terminate the Transaction Agreement, we reserve the right to do so in the future.

Paramount extended its “go shop” period after receiving a $6 billion bid from media investor Edgar Bronfman Jr.

Rotten Tomatoes says its new “Verified Hot” badge is meant to help users find movies with high audience approval. But as Engadget points out, the whole system hinges on people using Fandango for verification that they’ve actually seen the films, which — given that both Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango are owned by Comcast — kinda makes the badges seem like a ticket-selling marketing ploy.

Megalopolis’ latest trailer makes it even harder to get a good read of what to expect from the film, but it’s worth it just for Lionsgate’s selection of quotes about Francis Ford Coppola’s previous work.

Update: Lionsgate has removed the trailer, saying it “screwed up,” after people called out the quotes for being made up or misattributed.

Though Todd Phillips’ Joker franchise wound up being something of a hit for Warner Bros., in a recent interview with Variety the director said that after two films, “I think we’ve said what we wanted to say in this world.”

The somber Studio Ghibli film, which follows two young siblings navigating a post-WWII Japan, arrives on Netflix on September 16th.

The world of Pacific Rim already includes an animated show set after the events of the films, but Variety reports that one of the first projects ouf of Legendary’s new deal with Eric Heisserer (Arrival, Bird Box) will be prequel series.

We’ve already seen the story of Research In Motion’s BlackBerry turned into a cinematic drama, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, director Eddie Schmidt is in the early stages of production on a documentary about the iconic smartphone.

Though Sony’s upcoming Kraven the Hunter feature probably won’t feature any Spider-Man cameos, the movie’s latest trailer is a reminder that at the very least, we’ll be seeing another Rhino variant when the movie hits theaters on December 13th.

She played both Ash’s companion and Team Rocket’s female lead from 1997 to 2015 across TV, film, and commercials. She also voiced some Pokémon like Jigglypuff and Goldeen, including in the Smash Bros. games.

Her sister Laurie Orr and her “Ash” co-star Veronica Taylor both confirmed the news. Here’s her IMDB page with other roles, including Your Lie in April and Hunter x Hunter.

Correction: Lillis was 55, not 46.

The world likes Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman’s team-up, which injected Deadpool into the MCU and brought Jackman’s Wolverine (and lots of other Marvel characters) along for the ride.

Deadpool & Wolverine has made $1.029 billion at the global box office, through today, putting it just a little behind 2019’s Joker as the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, according to Deadline.

Correction: Deadpool & Wolverine made $1.029 billion, not $1,029 billion.

But Disney’s live-action/CGI Lilo and Stitch feature will hit theaters next summer.

If Rachel Zegler’s live-action Snow White wasn’t so busy humming and whistling while she worked in the film’s new trailer, she might notice that Gal Gadot’s Evil Queen is clearly trying to poison her.

We knew Disney Plus’ new Star Wars: Skeleton Crew series (out December 3rd) would feature Jude Law as clever Force user, but the show’s first trailer is all about the kids getting into Goonies-style space mischief.

Disney chief creative officer and Frozen co-director Jennifer Lee took to the stage at this year’s D23 to announce that the Frozen 3 will debut some time in 2027, and be followed up by a subsequent film.

Pixar closed out its D23 presentation with some solid news: Incredibles 3 is in the works.