Australian cinema chain co-owned by Mel Gibson to screen US conservative hit Sound of Freedom

Dendy cinemas says they will screen movie promoted by American right wing ‘due to overwhelming demand’, despite questions as to actual popularity

An Australian cinema chain co-owned by actor Mel Gibson will screen the QAnon adjacent Sound of Freedom film in August, after the film became a hit among the far right and conservatives in the United States.

Sound of Freedom is based on the true story of Tim Ballard, a former homeland security department agent who tried to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia. Ballard is played by Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus Christ in Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

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Netflix lists AI job worth $900,000 amid twin Hollywood strikes

Company lists highly paid machine-learning project manager role while actors and executives at odds over future of AI in Hollywood

As actors and writers strike over fair compensation and protections from the encroachment of artificial intelligence, Netflix has listed a position for a machine learning product manager that will compensate somewhere between $300,000 and $900,000 a year. According to the Screen Actors Guild (Sag-Aftra), 87% of the guild’s actors make less than $26,000 per year.

The use of AI in the production of film and television – either to write scripts, generate actors’ likenesses, or cut corners in paying creative work, has been a major point of contention in negotiations between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and Sag and the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Writers have been striking since May; the actors joined earlier this month. The first joint strike since 1960 threatens to bring Hollywood to a complete standstill.

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Venice film festival picks starry films despite actors’ strike

Hollywood films vying for Golden Lion include Bradley Cooper’s Maestro and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things, with non-competition films by Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater

The Venice film festival appears to have largely shrugged off issues caused by non-attendance of Hollywood actors due to the Sag-Aftra strike as it unveiled its lineup for its 2023 edition.

Venice has traditionally functioned partly as a platform for major American releases looking for strong positioning in the autumn awards season, and it has already seen its originally announced opening film Challengers, a tennis drama starring Zendaya, drop out after it was forced to delay its release date.

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‘The Barbenheimer effect’: Barbie and Oppenheimer smash Australian box office records

Both blockbusters broke a variety of opening weekend records, in a double feature that’s enticing film lovers back to cinemas

The “Barbenheimer” effect has taken its hold over the Australian box office, with the release of blockbuster movies Barbie and Oppenheimer breaking a slew of local cinema records across their first weekend.

The Greta Gerwig-directed Barbie movie has made $21.5m at the box office since the film opened on Wednesday night. It was the biggest opening weekend for a movie released in Australia in 2023, more than double the nearest rival, The Super Mario Bros Movie, which collected $10.5m in ticket sales.

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Greta Gerwig makes history as Barbie has biggest opening weekend for film directed by a woman

Barbie made $377m while Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer took home $174m, making ‘Barbenheimer’ biggest box office weekend of 2023 so far

Greta Gerwig has made history as Barbie scored a US$377m (£293m, A$560m) opening weekend around the world, making it the biggest debut ever for a film directed by a woman.

At the North American box office – combining the US and Canada – Barbie claimed top spot with a massive $155m in ticket sales from 4,243 locations, surpassing The Super Mario Bros Movie and every Marvel film released this year to become the biggest opening of the year.

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Iran authorities ban film festival over poster of actor without hijab

Government blocks event after release of publicity featuring Susan Taslimi in 1982 film The Death of Yazdgerd

Iranian authorities have banned a film festival that issued a publicity poster featuring an actor who was not wearing a hijab, state media has reported.

The move came after the Iranian Short Film Association (ISFA) released a poster for its upcoming short-film festival featuring the Iranian actor Susan Taslimi in the 1982 film The Death of Yazdgerd.

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Sound of Freedom passed the $100m mark. Who’s really watching the movie?

The ‘QAnon adjacent’ film, co-opted by the right wing, has a ‘pay it forward’ scheme resulting in sold-out shows but empty theaters

Sound of Freedom, the religious, “QAnon adjacent” child-smuggling film that has enthralled conservatives across the US, passed the $100m mark in ticket sales on Thursday.

But as the movie continues to cause controversy – with its star touring conservative media to peddle conspiracy theories about unnamed persons harvesting chemicals from children’s blood and anti-trafficking experts criticizing the film’s entire premise – questions are also being asked about who is actually watching it and whether that many people are watching it at all.

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Barbie release delayed in Pakistan’s Punjab province over ‘objectionable content’

Film being reviewed to ensure it is not violating the country’s social, cultural and religious values

The launch of the highly anticipated Hollywood movie Barbie has been delayed in Pakistan’s Punjab province over “objectionable content”.

Officials said the film would be reviewed and needed clearance from the provincial boards that censor scenes violating the country’s social, cultural and religious values.

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Unseen ‘log fight’ footage from Bruce Lee film Game of Death to be released

Scene which has long been the holy grail for fans will feature in a new box set marking the 50th anniversary of the star’s death

Long-lost unseen footage of the celebrated “log fight” scene from the Bruce Lee film Game of Death is to be released in a new box set marking the 50th anniversary of the famed actor and martial artist’s death.

Lee, who shot to fame around the world with the 1973 film Enter the Dragon, died on 20 July 1973 before he could complete shooting on Game of Death, which eventually emerged in 1978, incorporating some of the original footage in a largely reshot and rewritten version.

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Jane Birkin, actor and singer, dies aged 76

Best known for the sexually explicit 1969 hit Je t’aime … moi non plus, her adopted France took her to its heart

France’s favourite “petite Anglaise”, the British-born singer and actor Jane Birkin, has died at her home in Paris aged 76.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, paid tribute to Birkin, saying she “embodied freedom and sang the most beautiful words in our language”.

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Hollywood actors’ strike: entertainment desert looms and pain will spread wider

The walkout by writers and screen stars won’t affect just the US film industry but production in UK and Europe

There will be no fresh helpings of The White Lotus, The Last of Us or even Emily in Paris beaming into front rooms when summer fades. Nor will a screen version of the musical Wicked, starring Ariana Grande, be showing in your local cinema in the spring. And all shooting on Gladiator 2 in Morocco is likely to be indefinitely paused. Already, the wails are almost audible.

On this, the first weekend of the American screen actors’ strike, the level of frustration registered by film and TV drama fans around the world has dwarfed earlier reactions to the equivalent writers’ strike, running since the beginning of May.

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French film-maker’s family fight to keep link to chateau that inspired his stories

Marcel Pagnol based his famous movies on a Provencal manor he’d known as a child. Now his legacy is at risk, says his grandson

In 1941 the French novelist, playwright and film-maker Marcel Pagnol bought a chateau in a Provençal valley outside Marseille on the advice of his solicitor without even seeing it.

He proposed to transform the property into a “cinema city”, a French Hollywood set in the hills and lavender fields of southern France where he had holidayed as a child.

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Hollywood on the Tiber: stars return to Rome studios once home to Heston and Fellini

Sprawling Cinecittà complex is in demand again thanks to tax breaks and boom in film and TV production

Walk through the 1930s-built, dusty pink gates of Cinecittà, the legendary film studios in Rome, and the magic of its golden era is immediately palpable. This is where Charlton Heston rode to victory in his chariot race in Ben Hur, which went on to win 11 Oscars. It is where the real-life love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton played out on the set of Cleopatra, and where Federico Fellini produced classics including La Dolce Vita and Amarcord.

The sprawling Cinecittà was opened with great pomp by Benito Mussolini in 1937, in part to make films promoting the dictator’s fascist propaganda. During the second world war it was first occupied by the Nazis and later became a refuge to the thousands made homeless by the allied bombing of the Italian capital.

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Fran Drescher’s fiery speech against Hollywood studios goes viral as actors strike

The Nanny star turned Sag-Aftra union president wins praise for her passion as performers join writers in action expected to halt majority of US film and TV production

Fran Drescher has blasted Hollywood studios in a fiery speech after talks between the actors’ union and studios failed to avert a strike, calling them “disgusting” for claiming “they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs”.

In a speech that was widely circulated on Thursday – particularly among many who did not know The Nanny star was heading up Sag-Aftra, Hollywood’s biggest union – Drescher said actors were being “marginalised, disrespected and dishonoured” by a business model that has been drastically changed by streaming and artificial intelligence.

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Hollywood actors announce strike in first joint action with writers in over 60 years

Simultaneous strikes by WGA and Sag-Aftra are expected to halt the majority of Hollywood’s film and TV production

The union representing Hollywood actors formally announced a strike on Thursday, expanding the standoff between Hollywood workers and studio executives over wages, AI technology and how to divide the profits of the new digital streaming era.

The strike by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (Sag-Aftra) marks the first time in 63 years Hollywood writers and actors are striking simultaneously.

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Hollywood actors are going on strike. Here’s what that means

Shooting for House of the Dragon, Andor and Gladiator 2 will be delayed and many award shows and premieres will be postponed

After negotiations between studio representatives the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and the US actors’ union Sag-Aftra (Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) failed to make a breakthrough, Hollywood actors are going on strike.

The decision means that actors will be joining writers on the picket lines, marking the first time in over six decades that both unions have taken simultaneous strike action.

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Philippines allows Barbie film but wants ‘childlike’ map lines blurred

Country’s censors give green light for film to be shown amid South China Sea controversy

Philippine censors have allowed the Barbie film to be shown in the country’s cinemas after asking its Hollywood distributor to blur lines on a brightly coloured drawing of a world map allegedly showing China’s claims to the disputed South China Sea.

The fantasy comedy film about the famous doll, directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is to open in the south-east Asian nation on 19 July.

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View to a killing: Roger Moore auction to sell James Bond memorabilia

Famously suave actor’s family selling items ranging from Lamborghini skis to luxury watches, cufflinks and numerous silk ties

If you ever wanted to dress, schuss or tell the time like James Bond, now might be your only chance: a selection of items including dinner suits, silk cravats, Lamborghini skis and a special edition Omega Seamaster watch are up for auction, all from the personal collection of 007 himself, Roger Moore.

Moore, who died in 2017, played Bond in seven films between 1973 and 1985, beginning with Live and Let Die and ending with A View to a Kill. His family are selling 180 lots of Moore’s own memorabilia, with part of the proceeds going to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), which appointed Moore as a goodwill ambassador in 1991.

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‘Give Ryan Gosling an Oscar nom!’: first Barbie reactions suggest film is a doll

Reviewers rave about Greta Gerwig’s ‘funny and smart’ satire, whose all-star cast includes Gosling as Ken alongside Margot Robbie’s Barbie and singer Dua Lipa

Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s ambitious satire in which Margot Robbie’s titular blonde escapes Barbieland to experience the real world, has drawn ecstatic reactions from audiences at an early screening.

Variety’s social media editor Katcy Stephan called the movie “perfection” and added: “Greta Gerwig delivers a nuanced commentary on what it means to be a woman in a whimsical, wonderful and laugh-out-loud funny romp. The entire cast shines, especially Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in roles they were clearly born to play.”

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