News Analysis India

Tag: Searchlight Pictures

  • The Hunchback Of Notre Dame satire ‘Quasi’ gets a release date

    By Express News Service

    A release date has finally been set for Quasi from Searchlight Pictures and Broken Lizard. The upcoming satirical comedy will debut on April 20, 2023. The film will serve as a satire on the classic story, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo. It will debut exclusively on all Disney-related streaming services worldwide, such as Hulu in the U.S., Star+ in Latin America, and Disney+ everywhere else.

    Though additional information about the upcoming project remains under wraps, the film’s logline states, “Quasi is the story of a hapless hunchback who only yearns for love, but finds himself in the middle of a murderous feud between the Pope and the King of France when each order the hunchback to kill the other.”

    Kevin Heffernan, who serves as director, pens the screenplay alongside Broken Lizard members Steve Lemme, Jay Chandrasekhar, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske. The team will also star in the film alongside Adrianne Palicki (The Orville) in undisclosed roles. With the release date being announced, a trailer of the film is expected soon.

    Initially published in 1831, the original novel remains one of the most popular stories in French literature, with several films and stage adaptations. Quasi will debut exclusively on Disney’s streaming platforms on April 20, 2023.  

    A release date has finally been set for Quasi from Searchlight Pictures and Broken Lizard. The upcoming satirical comedy will debut on April 20, 2023. The film will serve as a satire on the classic story, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo. It will debut exclusively on all Disney-related streaming services worldwide, such as Hulu in the U.S., Star+ in Latin America, and Disney+ everywhere else.

    Though additional information about the upcoming project remains under wraps, the film’s logline states, “Quasi is the story of a hapless hunchback who only yearns for love, but finds himself in the middle of a murderous feud between the Pope and the King of France when each order the hunchback to kill the other.”

    Kevin Heffernan, who serves as director, pens the screenplay alongside Broken Lizard members Steve Lemme, Jay Chandrasekhar, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske. The team will also star in the film alongside Adrianne Palicki (The Orville) in undisclosed roles. With the release date being announced, a trailer of the film is expected soon.

    Initially published in 1831, the original novel remains one of the most popular stories in French literature, with several films and stage adaptations. Quasi will debut exclusively on Disney’s streaming platforms on April 20, 2023. 
     

  • Hollywood actress Blake Lively to make directorial debut with ‘Seconds’

    Blake Lively will be directing a feature film for the first time with Seconds. She is famous for starring in Gossip Girl and films like The Shallows, she’ll be behind the camera for a film for the first time with Seconds. Filmmaker Edgar Wright has adapted the screenplay for the film and is joining her as a producer.

    Her first feature will come under the banner of Searchlight Pictures. Seconds is adapted from a graphic novel by Bryan Lee O’Malley, the creator of the classic Scott Pilgrim comics, which were then adapted by Wright into the 2010 smash hit film Scott Pilgrim vs the World.

    The story follows Katie Clay, a head chef at the titular restaurant Seconds, who receives the power to fix her past mistakes by writing them down in her notebook, eating a mushroom, and falling asleep. She tries to use this new ability to make her deepest dreams come true, but in making her life better, she finds herself running away from the life she once led and desired.

    Eventually, things get so out of control that the entirety of space and time is thrown off by Katie’s actions, threatening to destroy everything. The film is produced by Marc Platt.

  • Mockingbird: Alma Har’el to direct sci-fi novel adaptation

    By Express News Service

    The critically acclaimed filmmaker Alma Har’el will helm the adaption of Walter Tevis’ 1980 novel, Mockingbird. The Honey Boy director will work alongside Searchlight Pictures to bring Tevis’ Nebula Award-nominated fiction to life. 

    Set in an apocalyptic future, Mockingbird tells the story of a dull and gloomy time for Earth and humans. That hope rests on the shoulders of a complicated love triangle between a man, woman, and android.Backing Har’el in the production of Mockingbird will be producer J Miles Dale and Robert Schwartz. Har’el will also serve as a producer alongside her longtime collaborator Christopher Leggett. 

    Har’el rose to fame when she helmed the Shia LaBeouf led film Honey Boy in 2019. Next, she’ll direct and executive produce Apple TV+’s limited series Lady in the Lake, starring Natalie Portman and Lupita Nyong’o. A release date is not yet set for Mockingbird.

  • Sterling K Brown to act as lead in biopic of African-American lawyer Scipio Africanus Jones

    By Express News Service

    Searchlight Pictures has acquired the rights to The Defender, an upcoming drama on Scipio Africanus Jones, the late African American lawyer, judge, and philanthropist. The project has actor Sterling K Brown set to play Jones.

    Written by E Nicholas Mariani, the film will be directed by George Tillman Jr. The latter is best known for directing the Barbershop film series, The Hate U Give, Notorious, and Men Of Honor.

    The Defender is a period drama that will focus on Jones’ involvement in the defence of the eighty-seven men accused of murder after the 1919 Elaine race riot and massacre in Arkansas, in which he risked his life and career in the process. His involvement in the case earned Jones historic acclaim.

    Brown will also produce the film under his Indian Meadows banner, alongside Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen of 21 Laps. Writer Miriani will executive produce beside Danielle Reardon, Dantram Nguyen, and Katie Goodson-Thomas.

    Brown is best known for his roles in This is Us, Black Panther, Frozen II, and for notable guest roles in Insecure, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

  • Searchlight Pictures’ film ‘Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ adds Minnie Driver

    By PTI

    LOS ANGELES: Oscar-nominated actor Minnie Driver has joined the cast of Searchlight Picture’s movie “Chevalier de Saint-Georges.”

    Driver will feature alongside Kelvin Harrison Jr, Samara Weaving and Lucy Boynton in the movie, which will be directed by Stephen Williams from an original script by Stefani Robinson, reported Deadline.

    The true-life period drama centres on Joseph Bologne, or the Chevalier de Saint-Georges (Harrison Jr), who is known as the Black Mozart.

    Born in the Caribbean, Bologne was the illegitimate son of a plantation owner and a slave who was then educated in France and became a fencing master, which served as an entree into French high society.

    With his music and operas, he ascended to the upper echelons of Marie Antoinette’s Paris society until a court scandal laid him low.

    Driver will play La Guimard, a favourite dancer of Queen Marie Antoinette (Boynton) who took exception to the Chevalier’s rise.

    Weaving will be starring as Marie-Josephine, a woman who yearns for creative fulfilment outside of her empty, loveless marriage and defies her controlling husband to become the voice of Bologne’s opera.

    The movie will be produced by Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe of Element Pictures along with Robinson and Dianne McGunigle.

    Driver, who was nominated for an Oscar for performance in “Good Will Hunting”, currently stars in Amazon’s anthology show “Modern Love”.

    She will be next seen in “Cinderella”, alongside Camila Cabello, Pierce Brosnan, James Corden and Billy Porter.