Murray pressed on, explaining that despite the Marvel Cinematic Universe not really being his normal thing, he was wooed to join the movie by director Peyton Reed.
Tag: The French Dispatch
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Actor Adrien Brody joins director Wes Anderson’s next movie
By PTI
LOS ANGELES: Filmmaker Wes Anderson has roped in frequent collaborator Adrien Brody for the cast of his next feature film.The new film will be the fifth project that the duo have worked together on after “The Darjeeling Limited”, “Grand Budapest Hotel”, “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” and Anderson’s latest “The French Dispatch”.
Brody joins Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton in the untitled project, which is set in Spain, according to Deadline.
Anderson will be writing and directing the movie.
The filmmaker’s latest, “The French Dispatch” recently had its world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.
The movie, which comes from Disney-owned Searchlight Pictures, features an ensemble cast of Benicio del Toro, Lea Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothee Chalamet, Lyna Khoudri, Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric, Steve Park, Owen Wilson, Murray, Brody and Swinton.
Brody has a busy slate going forward as the Oscar winner will star in two HBO shows — “Succession” season three and the untitled Los Angeles Lakers limited series.
The actor will also feature in Epix series “Chapelwaite”.
On the film front, Brody will star in Netflix movie “Blonde”, which is being headlined by Ana de Armas, and Searchlight’s untitled murder mystery, starring Sam Rockwell.
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Wes Anderson’s ‘The French Dispatch’ receives nine-minute standing ovation at Cannes
By ANI
WASHINGTON: Wes Anderson’s film, ‘The French Dispatch’, had its long-awaited premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday and earned one of the biggest standing ovations so far at the 74th edition of the event.As per Variety, the applause continued for nine minutes for Anderson and his cast in attendance, which included Timothee Chalamet, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Stephen Park, and Benicio Del Toro.
But one actor couldn’t make the trip. Lea Seydoux was absent from the movie premiere, as she is quarantining in Paris after testing positive for COVID-19.
As the event began, there were signs that this wasn’t going to be a regular Cannes premiere. Instead of a black car, the cast, along with composer Alexandre Desplat, arrived together in a giant gold party bus, escorted by French motorcycle police. Murray took off his mask (which had an imprint of a chin on it), basking in the flashing lights.
Anderson stopped his ensemble at the bottom of the carpet to take a group photo. Many of the actors also seemed to be doing their own camera work. Wilson filmed the crowds at the bottom of the carpet, and Brody pulled in Chalamet for a selfie at the top of the stairs (violating the festival’s no-selfie rule, although none of the ushers tackled his phone — as they do with regular attendees attempting the same).
Swinton, who has five movies playing at Cannes, wore a pink gown with shimmering gold sequin-covered sleeves. Chalamet leaned his head on her shoulder.
Once Anderson entered the theater, the Cannes crowd welcomed him with a rapturous standing ovation. Chalamet and Swinton held hands walking down the aisle, and he mouthed “Queens baby!” to the cameras as he clapped along.
After the lights went back up, Murray walked from seat to seat hugging every person in the cast. Swinton was caught playing a hilarious prank on co-star Chalamet as the audience gave the film a standing ovation.
A video of the comical incident shows Swinton sneakily sticking a “Tilda Swinton” sign on Chalamet’s back while pretending to hug him.
The Searchlight film follows a weekly magazine that covers global politics, culture, art, and food in a special interest section of a daily newspaper from Kansas. Murray plays a devout editor to a gang of expatriate writers who must package their final collection of stories.
Through the feature write-ups, comic strips, and pictorials, Anderson weaves several vignettes and plot threads.
The film is a love letter to journalism, although ironically Anderson declined to hold a press conference with his cast or conduct any interviews with reporters in Cannes.
The end credits are dedicated to a list of editors and writers that inspired the film, among them The New Yorker’s Harold Ross, William Shawn, Lillian Ross and Janet Flanner; James Baldwin; Ved Mehta, and more.
‘The French Dispatch’ was acquired by Searchlight in September 2019 and was meant to play Cannes 2020, which was scrapped as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The release date was pushed to October 2020 only to be delayed again.
The movie is now scheduled to open in theaters in the United States on October 22.
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Netflix yet to discover a great film director: Cannes Film Festival chief
By AFP
CANNES: Netflix and the other streaming giants have yet to discover one great director, the head of the Cannes Film Festival said Monday.Thierry Fremaux threw petrol on the simmering feud between the French festival– the world’s biggest — and the US platform when he challenged reporters to “name me a director who has been discovered by a platform” on the eve of Cannes’ opening.
“Not yet, even after 10 years…”, Fremaux added archly as journalists struggled to come up with a name.Netflix has effectively boycotted Cannes since 2018 after being told it had to show its films on the big screen in France if it wanted them to compete for its Palme d’Or top prize.
While Fremaux praised Netflix — which began streaming in 2007 — for their”extraordinary work”, he was quick to turn the knife in his defence of the magic of the big screen.
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“We just celebrated the 125th anniversary of the invention of cinema. Let us see if in 100 years we will celebrate the birthday of the platforms. “I don’t think Netflix or the others can skip the Cannes film festival,” he warned. “Youwillseethe names of the future in our line-up…,” he added. “That is why the dialogue must be opened.”Relations between Cannes and the Californian tech giant began to turn sour in 2017 after French cinema owners protested over the inclusion of two of the streamer’s movies in the main competition.
‘A bigger situation’The following year Cannes changed its rules requiring a French release for films competing for the Palme d’Or, but allowing streaming-only movies out of competition.
Netflix retaliated by withdrawing three films from Cannes at the last minute in a move that seemed to be timed to cause maximum chaos.
With the cinema world aghast, and Cannes cast as the defender of the big screen and traditional cinema, Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings later admitted that they had gone too far.
“Sometimes we make mistakes. We got into a bigger situation with Cannes than we meant to,” he said.
In public, both sides have seemed keen to kiss and make up. Fremaux said Monday that they were “friends… We talk all the time”.
Yet three years on, Netflix is still giving Cannes Film Festival the cold shoulder while rival Amazon is happy to play by the rules.
Amazon has two movies at Cannes this year, including the opening film”Annette” starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard.
While Netflix insists a French law stopping streamers showing movies there for three years after their release is too restrictive, Fremaux’s patience appears to be wearing thin.
The French law was already being reviewed, he said, and Cannes’ own rule” is not that tough…”But Netflix does not want to abide by even that, nor does it want to bring films that are not in competition.”