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April 3 - April 9

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David E. Kelley's next project for Apple TV will take on one of the quintessential novels of the 1980s. The prolific showrunner is teaming with director Matt Reeves for a series based on Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities. The project is in development at Apple TV, with Warner Bros. TV as the studio. Kelley (Big Little Lies, Apple's Presumed Innocent) is adapting the novel, and Reeves (The Batman, War for the Planet of the Apes) is on board to direct. They'll executive produce along with Sarah Geismer of Reeves' 6th and Idaho Productions and Matthew Tinker of Kelley's eponymous company...

"Gachiakuta," "The Rose of Versailles" and "The Summer Hikaru Died" are among the Crunchyroll Anime Awards 2026 nominees. The largest global celebration of excellence in Japanese animation, the winners will be announced by celebrity presenters like Asuka Saito, Danna, RZA and more at the awards ceremony on May 23. The tenth iteration of the awards includes a wide range of categories, spanning best continuing series, best opening sequence and best action, among others. Anime of the year nominees Include "Dan Da Dan" Season 2, "Gachiakuta," "My Hero Academia," "Takopi's Original Sin," "The Apothecary Diaries" Season 2 and "The Summer Hikaru Died." Film of the year nominees include "100 Meters," "Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc," "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle," "Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II — The Ashes of Rage," "Scarlet" and "The Rose of Versailles. The Crunchyroll Anime Awards is a global celebration where fans share their love and appreciation with the creators behind their favorite titles. This year's slate of nominees represent nearly 50 unique series and films, all chosen by fans as the most beloved over the last year," said Rahul Purini, president of Crunchyroll, in a statement. "As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Anime Awards, we also extend our gratitude to the nominees of the past decade, which include more than 110 animation studios that produced nearly 290 unique series and films, and more than 220 voice actors who contributed their talent to beloved characters"...

Streaming subscription profits have skyrocketed and are projected to go even higher. The top global streaming services include Netflix (320+ million subscribers), Prime Video (200+ million), Disney+ (135+ million), and HBO Max (roughly 128 million), and many services are seeing big upticks in their revenue numbers. Leading the charge, Netflix has raised its subscription prices again, and many other companies are following suit. According to a new survey from Ampere Analysis, streaming subscription revenue surpassed $150 billion for the first time in 2025, up from $50 billion in 2020. Looking forward, global streaming subscription revenue is projected to break $200 billion in 2030. In this framing, the United States contributes roughly half of global streaming subscription revenue. This implies that moving forward, although the US has a smaller share of global household members, companies will continue to focus on maximizing revenue through pricing methods and package mixes versus simply increasing subscriber scales...

John Landis' 1980 musical comedy "The Blues Brothers," which made one of my /Film colleagues a lifelong fan of the action genre, is based on characters created for "Saturday Night Live" and is a miniature blues hall of fame unto itself. There are cameos from musical legends like James Brown, Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, John Lee Hooker, and, of course, the inimitable Aretha Franklin. The makers of "The Blues Brothers" came up with the flimsiest possible excuses to get these musicians to perform, and the audience doesn't mind the contrivance. Any excuse will do if it gets Aretha Franklin to sing "Think." In the context of the movie, Franklin plays Mrs. Murphy, the co-owner of a soul food diner and wife of Matt "Guitar" Murphy (himself), the ex-guitarist for the Blues Brothers' band. The Blues Brothers (Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi) have arrived at the Murphys' diner to recruit Matt for their band in the hopes of playing a reunion show and earning enough money to save the orphanage where they were raised. Mrs. Murphy implores that Matt not rejoin the band, and she sings "Think," asking him to, well, think about it. It's a standout musical sequence in a film full of standout musical sequences. Franklin loved making the movie. She was no stranger to cameras, having first performed on "The Tonight Show Starring Jack Parr" all the way back in 1962. "The Blues Brothers," however, was one of only four instances wherein Franklin played a role other than herself. In Mark Bego's biography "Aretha Franklin: The Queen of Soul," the legend was quoted as enjoying herself quite a bit on the set of "The Blues Brothers," objecting only to one thing. "'The Blues Brothers' I enjoyed making tremendously. [...] It was my debut film. The only thing I really didn't like about it was the hours. I had to get up at seven o'clock in the morning to get ready to be on the set. But once you get there, and once you started rolling, then everything fell into place. I had a lot of fun with Belushi, and Dan Aykroyd — great guys — big sense of humor, and very, very professional and astute. So I had a good time. It makes everything so much easier [when] you're having fun and you're enjoying what you're doing." ..

After Sergio Leone finished rewriting the rules of filmmaking with 1966's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," he envisioned making several more movies with Clint Eastwood. But Leone didn't necessarily want to continue the saga of the Man with No Name. In fact, his first post-"Dollars" trilogy idea revolved around the writer Herschel Goldberg, aka Harry Grey, whose book "The Hoods" had inspired the director. The semi-autobiographical novel focused on Jewish-American organized crime during the Prohibition era, but Leone wanted to expand the story into something more broad; an exploration of American gangsterism in general. There was only one man Leone wanted for the project: Eastwood. The director envisioned his "Dollars" trilogy star as playing an Irish gangster, but without a script or even a treatment, the actor himself was less than enthusiastic. Eastwood recalled the never realized project in a post from the official Clint Eastwood Archives, "He had this idea about doing a gangster movie. He said, 'What about Irish gangsters? You could play an Irish gangster.'" But the idea never evolved into anything more — at least it didn't do so quickly enough for Eastwood. "It was always just there," he added, "always hanging there." Ultimately, the actor wasn't interested in something barely-even half-formed. "I like to know the joke," he said. "I don't want someone to tell me a joke and not give me the punch line." With his star non-committal, Leone moved away from the gangster epic idea and drifted back towards Westerns...

The Lord of the Rings: The King's Gambit isn't just an epic tabletop board game simulating the massive battles of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Return of the King." As some gaming aficionados may have picked up from the title, it's also the long-awaited return of "Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit," considered by many tabletop enthusiasts to be a "Holy Grail" game – much sought after, much admired, but rarely played, with used copies going for hundreds of dollar on online shops. While publishers Restoration Games and Space Cowboys were able to secure the rights to the game's famous sprawling design (it was a true table-eater long before complex board games became cool), the "Star Wars" name was not part of the package. But if you're going to lose one beloved fantastical universe, it's hard to imagine a more fitting replacement than Middle-earth, with its myriad of heroes, villains, monsters, and landscapes. Specifically, the license is for the literary version of the classic fantasy epic, which gives The King's Gambit a chance to put its own spin on this beloved world without being beholden to Peter Jackson's iconic film series. Restoration Games will oversee a crowdfunding campaign for a deluxe edition of The Lord of the Rings: The King's Gambit that is set to begin in September 2026, with Space Cowboys releasing a retail edition later in 2027. Ahead of both of those dates, /Film was given an exclusive sneak peek at the new game and everything that will make the deluxe edition a must-have for every board game geek ... and every Tolkien nerd with a big table...

A very bizarre box office showdown is coming our way this summer involving two very different dinosaur movies. Most peculiar of all? Neither of them have anything to do with the multi-billion-dollar "Jurassic Park"/"Jurassic World" franchise. Instead, get ready for "Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie" vs. "The End of Oak Street." Paramount Pictures plans to release its dino-centric entry in the "Paw Patrol" franchise on August 14, 2026. That's the same date that Warner Bros. intends to unleash "The End of Oak Street, an original, high-concept sci-fi thriller that also centers around dinosaurs. So, again, we're getting a high-profile cinematic dino showdown featuring two radically different movies, neither of which are part of the most noteworthy dino movie property out there. Let them fight, as it were. "Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie" is precisely what it sounds like and sees the Paw Patrol pups crash landing on an uncharted tropical island filled with dinosaurs. It's an easy sell for its intended audience, aka young children and the parents who will take them to the theater to watch their favorite pups interacting with prehistoric creatures. In comparison, "The End of Oak Street" looks like a "Cloverfield" movie featuring dinosaurs. It's an ambitious swing from Warner Bros. Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell ("It Follows"), the film explores what happens when a mysterious cosmic event transports the entirety of an otherwise ordinary suburban location known as Oak Street to a mysterious place that's filled with (spoiler alert) dinosaurs. Anne Hathaway ("The Devil Wears Prada") and Ewan McGregor ("Obi-Wan Kenobi") lead the cast...