Updated every Friday 12:00 PM
May 5 - May 11

APPLE TV
Apple TV revealed the trailer for the second season of the award-winning natural history series “Prehistoric Planet,” inviting audiences on a journey of new dinosaur discoveries and ancient habitats. The series, from executive producers Jon Favreau and Mike Gunton and BBC Studios Natural History Unit (“Planet Earth”), and narrated by Sir David Attenborough with an original score by Hans Zimmer, Anže Rozman and Kara Talve from Bleeding Fingers Music, is set to debut globally on May 22, 2023 on Apple TV+...

James Gunn wants to take full advantage of the multiple aspect ratios available in today’s cinemas when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 opens May 5 in theaters. To do that, the filmmaker took an ambitious approach by creating multiple versions of the movie for a more custom experience for each type of theater configuration to “give every exhibitor in the United States and in most international territories [the ability to] maximize their screen size for the audience. So wherever you go to see it, you’re gonna see the best version.” With this approach, Gunn is taking a page from James Cameron and Jon Landau’s playbook, who created an unprecedented 1,065 versions of Avatar: The Way of Water, including combinations of 3D, HDR, 4K, varying light levels, aspect ratios and high frame rates (as well as, of course, local languages), to offer a customized experience for each type of theater configuration...

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav was a conquering hero in the eyes of theater owners as he traveled to Las Vegas to personally reaffirm his commitment to the big screen during CinemaCon. “We believe in full windowing. We are in no rush to bring movies to Max. It is a great service. Movies that open in theaters perform substantially better than any of the direct-to-streaming movies,” Zaslav said in his first appearance at CinemaCon, drawing huge applause when pronouncing that his company doesn’t believe in streaming movies. “We have to rally right now. It’s a moment in time when people need to be entertained...

This year’s Cannes Film Festival might need a few extra torches, France’s main energy workers union has warned. As part of ongoing protests over president Emmanuel Macron’s hugely unpopular pension reforms, the Fédération National des Mines et de l’Enérgie has said it plans to pull the plug on several major events set to take place in France next month. The Cannes festival, the Monaco GP, Roland-Garros, the Avignon festival could end up in the dark,” the union posted on social media. Several unions have pledged to keep fighting the pension reforms, which would see the retirement age in France increase by two years, to 64 by 2030, and the period workers need to make social security contributions to increase from 42 to 43 years by 2027 in order to draw a full state pension...

Global box office revenue in 2023 could now hit $32 billion instead of a projected $29 billion, according to leading analytics firm Gower Street. The London-based outfit released its updated forecast on the eve of CinemaCon, the annual gathering of theater owners and Hollywood studios in Las Vegas. This year’s edition runs April 24-27. Throughout the week, studios will address the ongoing box office recovery, celebrate their successes from the past year and tout their upcoming releases. The mood at this year’s show is expected to be upbeat overall. No one expects moviegoing to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024 or beyond when there are roughly the same number of releases as before, but there is steady progress. Global revenue hovered around $26 billion in 2022, up 23 percent from $21.3 billion in 2021 (and if Gower is right, this year will again be up 23 percent)...

While corporations like Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery may see movies as just “content” only good for tax write-offs or promoting other pieces of “content,” every aspect of a motion picture is important. That includes the credits, where every artist who puts their blood, sweat, and tears into the proceedings gets a moment to be recognized. Bloopers can offer some last-minute giggles to viewers, but they also offer an incentive to stick around and appreciate every single valuable crew member. Plus, the renewed love for bloopers (an element absent from the world of streaming cinema) suggests people are more stoked than ever to experience comedies on the big screen. While they were once dismissed as shorthand for dismal comedies, end-credit bloopers, in the modern film landscape, may prove to be a helpful indicator of people’s enduring love for theatrical yukfests. (Courtesy Douglas Laman...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Monday its “most significant overhaul” of the campaign promotional regulation and awards rules for the upcoming 96th Oscars. Some of the most notable changes include allowing private events and gatherings that have members, which the Academy does “not consider” FYC events. Motion picture studios and companies are prohibited from funding, organizing, or endorsing such events. All this comes in the wake of a “messy” season that included but was not limited to “Top Gun: Maverick,” producer Jerry Bruckheimer opening his Beverly Hills home to power player and former Paramount chief Sherry Lansing, who threw a cocktail party for star Tom Cruise, not to mention the Andrea Riseborough nomination controversy that was bookended with Academy President Janet Yang tweeting a presumed endorsement of eventual actress winner Michelle Yeoh from “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” who herself stepped into the spotlight when she shared an article on Instagram...

Paramount Global President and CEO Bob Bakish likes writers, but he doesn’t sound all that concerned about the WGA strike “We’ve been planning for this,” Bakish said on Thursday, adding that Paramount has “many levers to pull” to offset any major financial impact. Those pulleys include deploying his new productions already in the can, writer-less reality/unscripted programming (“Where we’re definitely a leader”), a large library, and live sports. “And so we can do more in those areas, if necessary,” Bakish continued. He also pointed to Paramount’s pile of international production, which it’s “been moving to leverage pre-strike anyway.” “We’re even doing things like adopting AI for content localization. With all that, “consumers really won’t notice anything for a while. At the time of this writing, the company’s stock is down more than 23 percent...