Updated every Friday 12:00 PM
October 13 - October 19

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Apple TV+ debuted the trailer and key art for new drama, “The Buccaneers,” premiering November 8 and inspired by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton’s final novel...

“DreamWorks Animation reduced its workforce by approximately 70 positions,” a spokesperson told THR. “Roles affected were across corporate functions, feature, television and technology departments as part of an overall cost reduction.” The news comes as DWA readies its Nov. 17 release of Trolls Band Together, the third film in the hit franchise. Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake reprise their roles in the film, which also features the first new ‘N Sync song in more than two decades....

Following the exhilarating Sept. 29 launch of Sphere with U2’s residency, on Friday, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky‘s transportive Postcard from Earth became the first movie to premiere at the new Las Vegas entertainment venue. A sort of narrative and doc, it immerses viewers in a range of experiences, for instance allowing them to feel as though they are walking alongside elephants on a safari, swimming with sharks beneath the ocean’s surface, or viewing Earth from a distant planet. This movie also demonstrates the potential of this new canvas for filmmakers. Sphere is coated with a 160,000 square-foot 16K LED display that extends beyond audience members’ peripheral vision and high above and behind their heads. The visuals – shown at a high resolution create a sense of depth and of being there and are accompanied by a powerful new beamsplitting sound system and 4D features such as wind and haptic seats...

The Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film has seen advance global ticket sales cross the $100 million mark a week before the film opens in over 8,500 theaters worldwide, including in the U.S. market, on Oct. 13, AMC Theatres said Thursday. The concert pic is expected to open to $100 million to $125 million in North America. The mega-exhibitor’s AMC Theatres Distribution division and its American and international partners Variance Films, Trafalgar Releasing, Cinepolis and Cineplex have reached agreements to show the Taylor Swift concert film in around 100 countries....

A new research brief from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative tested the various factors thought to contribute to box office performance. Although movies starring white men indeed grossed the most both domestically and internationally, the authors of the AI2 study argue that this is more a case of a self-fulfilling prophecy than a real correlation, given that movies starring men are given greater production and marketing budgets and are released in more theaters than those starring women. “These findings reveal that protagonist identity in films is directly related to the financial support received from studio executives and financiers,” the authors write. “Consequently, it is impossible to know whether the gender of the protagonist (and/or underrepresented status) drives box office performance of films or the financial support the storyline receives. These variables are confounded.” So when the researchers statistically controlled for production budget, marketing spend and distribution, they found that gender and/or race was not statistically related to box office performance domestically or internationally, after all. “We also found that stories with women of color at the center perform as well at the box office as stories with white males at the center, when financial support variables are controlled,” the authors continued, adding that stories centering women of color actually had the highest median Metacritic scores among the four identity groups...

After a tumultuous few months at TCM, the network’s Classic Film Festival will return to Hollywood on April 18-21 for its 15th edition with the theme “Most Wanted: Crime and Justice in Film,” it was announced Wednesday. “Like Turner Classic Movies itself, the TCM Classic Film Festival is a destination for cinephiles, and the 2024 edition will undoubtedly be among the best yet,” Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chairs and co-CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy said in a statement. “We are so thrilled to invite TCM fans to celebrate the very best in cinema in the heart of Hollywood and to be amongst the filmmakers and casts who have lit up the silver screen for us all over the years.”...

The Sundance Institute and Sandbox Films announced eight projects selected for the 2023 Sundance Institute | Sandbox Fund. The filmmakers selected receive nonrecoupable grants totaling $325,000 for their projects in the stages of development, production and post-production. “This exciting new group of projects showcases an incredibly diverse tapestry of artistic approaches and daring creative visions that continue to redefine what a ‘science film’ can be,” said Paola Mottura, director of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Fund in a statement. “From India to the Caribbean, Madagascar to the Everglades, the people and stories spotlighted in these films shed light on the deeply collaborative nature of scientific practice and its crucial role in working toward a brighter future for humanity and its planet.”...