Wes Anderson fans have reason to be excited today. Focus Features has acquired the rights to the filmmaker’s latest, espionage adventure film The Phoenician Scheme, and have set it for limited theatrical release on May 30th with a wider rollout beginning June 6th.
Described vaguely in the press statement as “The story of a family and a family business”, is said to have a dark espionage component and center on a father-daughter relationship.
The script was co-written by Anderson and Roman Coppola.
A three-hander, the lead roles are taken on by Benicio Del Toro as Zsa-Zsa Korda, one of the wealthiest men in Europe; The Buccaneers actress Mia Threapleton as Zsa-Zsa’s daughter, Sister Liesel; and Michael Cera as their tutor, Bjorn Lund.
As usual, Anderson has assembled one Hell of an ensemble that includes Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed, Mathieu Amalric, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Richard Ayoade, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Focus Features reteams with Anderson for the third time following Moonrise Kingdom and his latest feature, Asteroid City. Anderson has been working at a rapid clip lately. He also recently directed The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More for Netflix.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Anderson brought The Phoenician Scheme to Cannes as he did with Asteroid City.
It’s been a long time coming for The Accountant 2‘s arrival. The original movie was a surprising $155M hit back in 2016, and director Gavin O’Connor struggled for years to get a sequel going. Amazon MGM coming aboard last year kicked things into overdrive, and now we’re only a month away from the film’s world premiere at SXSW. But first, some new images emerged featuring stars Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal.
Affleck returns as autistic hitman Christian Wolff, who loves big numbers as much as he loves big guns. Bernthal is back as Christian’s mercenary brother, Brax, in a role that has been greatly expanded.
Also returning are Cynthia Addai-Robinson and JK Simmons, joined by Daniella Pineda and Allison Robertson.
Bill Dubuque is back as screenwriter, with Affleck and Matt Damon as producers.
SYNOPSIS: Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) has a talent for solving complex problems. When an old acquaintance is murdered, leaving behind a cryptic message to “find the accountant,” Wolff is compelled to solve the case. Realizing more extreme measures are necessary, Wolff recruits his estranged and highly lethal brother, Brax (Jon Bernthal), to help. In partnership with U.S. Treasury Deputy Director Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), they uncover a deadly conspiracy, becoming targets of a ruthless network of killers who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets buried.
Amazon MGM will open The Accountant 2 in theaters on April 25th.
While Natalie Portman is known for her dramatic, Oscar-winning chops, she’s done quite a lot of comedy, too. Along with Thor: Love & Thunder, she also starred in Your Highness, No Strings Attached, and more. Following her acclaimed performance in May December, Portman has signed on to star in the new romantic comedy from Lena Dunham, Good Sex.
Deadline confirms that Portman will produce and star in Good Sex, an original rom-com from Girls creator Lena Dunham. Dunham will write and direct the film, the latest to feature an age-gap romance between and older woman and a younger man.
Here’s the synopsis: After spending a decade in a failed relationship, successful couples’ therapist Ally (Portman) is turning 40 and is pushed, kicking and screaming, by her best friend back into the hopeless New York dating scene. But Ally finds her life pulled in opposing directions as she falls into a steamy fling with a 20-something Brooklyn hipster just as she begins a promising, more conventional relationship with Alan, a successful 50-something in Manhattan. As a romantic crossroads blossoms into a full-blown identity crisis, Ally juggles to keep these two very different men separate and to make sense of her own conflicting desires before she risks losing them both.
Dunham has been out of the spotlight of late. She recently directed the sex comedy Sharp Stickand the period comedy Catherine Called Birdy.
Coming up for Portman is Guy Ritchie’s adventure film Fountain of Youth, opening later this year.
Dating can be tough, and sometimes one is in need of some spiritual guidance to find love. That’s the case in Picture This, the new British rom-com from director Prarthana Mohan that stars Bridgertonbreakout Simone Ashley popular actor Hero Fiennes Tiffin of the After film series.
Picture This stars Ashley as a young photographer who receives the unexpected prediction from a guru that she will meet the love of her life in the next five dates. Tiffin plays her ex, who unexpectedly returns to her life and throws it into chaos.
The film also stars Anoushka Chadha, Luke Fetherston, Sindhu Vee, Adil Ray, and Phil Dunster.
Gifted author Nikita Lalwani wrote the screenplay, based on the 2024 Australian rom-com Five Blind Dates by Shaung Hu and Nathan Ramos-Park. Mohan’s previous work includes indie comedies The MisEducation of Bindu and Christmas is Cancelled.
SYNOPSIS: In this heartfelt rom-com, struggling photographer Pia (Simone Ashley) receives a prediction: true love and career success await her in the next five dates she goes on. With her sister’s wedding looming and family playing matchmaker, her ex (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) reappears, throwing both her love and professional life into chaos.
The planet of Eternia is getting crowded, as Deadline reports the live-action Masters of the Universe has two more key additions. Deadpool star Morena Baccarin has landed the role of The Sorceress, while Vikings: Valhalla actor Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson will play Malcolm aka Fisto.
The duo joins stars Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man and Camila Mendes as Teela, along with Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn, Idris Elba as Man-At-Arms, Jared Leto as Skeletor, Sam C. Wilson as Trap Jaw, Kojo Attah as Tri-Klops, and Hafthor Bjornsson as Goat Man.
Behind the camera is Travis Knight (Bumblebee) working from a script by Chris Butler who he worked with on ParaNorman.
Official plot details are unknown, the film is rumored to center on a young man on Earth who discovers his secret legacy as prince of the far off planet Eternia. He must recover his long-lost Power Sword and return to his home planet to defend it against the forces of the evil Skeletor.
Sorceress is the keeper of Castle Grayskull and all of its secrets. She is one of the most powerful figures in all of Eternia and a crucial ally to He-Man. Fisto is the older brother of Man-At-Arms and a powerful warrior with a metal fist.
Baccarin had a busy 2024, reprising her role as Vanessa in Deadpool & Wolverine, while also starring in Elevation and Millers in Marriage. Jóhannesson will be seen this week as Copperhead in Captain America: Brave New World.
Masters of the Universe will hit theaters on June 5th 2026 from Amazon MGM Studios.
The older you get, the tougher it is to make friends. But if you were going to try and make friends with anyone, you’d want it to be Paul Rudd. A24 has debuted the trailer for Friendship, a nightmarish comedy from writer/director Andrew DeYoung, and starring Rudd and Tim Robinson.
A24 acquired the rights to Friendship in a pricey deal last fall, and now they’ve given it a plum release date to show their faith in it. The film centers on a suburban Dad who is trying really hard to become friends with his charismatic new neighbor, and of course it’s going to go horribly, hilariously awry.
The film stars Tim Robinson, best known for the Emmy-winning sketch comedy series I Think You Should Leave. And then there’s Rudd, who might be the most likeable actor in the world? Is there anyone who doesn’t dig Paul Rudd? He’s also been known to have a hit comedy or two, including I Love You, Man which seems an apt comparison here other than the obvious horror vibes.
Also in the cast are Kate Mara and Jack Dylan Grazer.
SYNOPSIS: Suburban dad Craig (Robinson) falls hard for his charismatic new neighbor, as Craig’s attempts to make an adult male friend threaten to ruin both of their lives.
I love a good unlikely friends story and there’s nothing more unlikely than a mother bonding with her daughter’s goofball ex-boyfriend. Filmmakers Dane Clark and Linsey Stewart take this concept to hilarious and unexpectedly poignant places in Suze, a slightly uneven Canadian comedy starring the always pitch-perfect Michaela Watkins.
Watkins plays Susan, a single mom, still reeling after finding her husband (Sandy Jobin-Bevans) and his mistress (Sorika Wolf) in their pool several years before. As a result, she clings to her daughter Brooke (Sara Waisglass), who is about to head off to college. Brooke knows how to manipulate her mom and, despite promising to spend time with her this summer after lying to her about attending school at home, spends every waking minute with her friends and slacker-musician boyfriend, Gage (Charlie Gillespie, Totally Killer). Susan or “Suze” as Gage calls her, does not like him and begs Brooke to break up with him.
When Brooke finally does all the way from her cushy school in Toronto, Gage tries to take his own life by jumping off the town’s water tower. Clark and Stewart don’t play Gage’s mental health issues for laughs and instead use it as a moment of bonding between the film’s leads. When Susan finds out about it from Brooke, she heads to visit him and is eventually roped into watching him by his absent father (Aaron Ashmore). As she forces him into a more structured life, he, albeit predictably, pushes her to find a life outside of her daughter.
Michaela Watkins knows how to be the slightly bitchy, ball-busting, mother figure but she’s never played it as a lead. This wider scope gives her more to do and more chance for Suze’s humanity to shine through. When her character is faced with Gage’s mental health issues, her performance stays grounded, going through a whole subtle range of realistic emotions without going over the top. Her impeccable comedic timing is still on point, but she gets to stretch more dramatically, something she has been doing in projects like You Hurt My Feelings and the Theranos scandal miniseries The Dropout.
Charlie Gillespie plays Gage as a loveable dummy and god, is he fun to watch. With his long hair, shirt off most of the time, and the way his voice goes up at the end of a sentence, he’s the perfect definition of a himbo — until you remember why Gage is at Suze’s house. A sweet and understandable vulnerability underneath his performance indicates the character’s larger mental health issues at play. By the end, you, like Suze, just want the best for him and to get the help he needs.
Together, Gillespie and Watkins create this enticing push-and-pull energy you can’t stop watching. If they had a podcast, I would definitely be listening every day. While the Suze plot is somewhat predictable and doesn’t always know what tone to hit, Watkins and Gillespie are an expected comedic duo worth watching again and again.
Suze is available On Demand. Watch the trailer below.
Rumors that Colman Domingo might join the MCU, possibly replacing Jonathan Majors as Kang, have been around for months. The two-time Oscar nominee has even expressed interest in doing so. But Marvel went in a different direction, casting Robert Downey Jr. to play Doctor Doom, and seemingly sending Kang into the trash bin.
How close was Domingo to actually taking on the role, though? Speaking with Josh Horowitz, Domingo admitted that he spoke with Marvel after the rumors became too loud to ignore.
“Listen, after a while, when it was constantly in the press and on places like Twitter, I was like, ‘Wait a minute, is this true? Am I being talked about for Kang?'” the actor said. “I called up my team and said, ‘Are you having conversations I don’t know anything about?’ They [said], ‘No.'”
“There had been conversations about me coming into Marvel in some way so we did follow up with a sit-down meeting with the heads of Marvel, so I did do that,” Domingo confirmed. We talked openly about the landscape of Marvel and even the Kang rumours.”
So while the discussions took place, Domingo ultimately felt like it wasn’t the right fit to replace Majors…
“I personally knew, I’m just all about energy and want to do things that make sense and bring gentle energy…I want a role to be mine, whatever that role is. Whatever I develop something doesn’t feel right about me [replacing someone].”
“I want to build something from the ground up that’s my own. [Kang] was never a conversation from my point of view. If I was discussed, I still don’t know…there’s still talks,” Domingo said.
That said, Domingo is still part of Marvel by voicing Norman Osborne in the animated Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. It’s a role that he says will see Osbornei evolve “nto the Green Goblin in the coming seasons.”
Coming up for Domingo is his second straight Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his performance in Sing Sing.
There have been many films about childhood and being a teenage girl, but I have never seen anything like Jazzy before. A spiritual sequel set in the same universe as filmmaker Morrisa Maltz’s The Unknown Country, the film follows an older elementary school student
For those who remember the previous, Lily Gladstone played Tana, a young woman traveling south from Wyoming to Texas to honor her grandmother’s memory. At her pitstops, she would interact with real people — nonactors— who would reveal some story or inner truth about their lives. The whole film operated like a cinematic poem.
At one such stop, Tana visited her cousin who was about to get married and became enamored by her little girl, Jasmine (Jasmine Shangreaux). Jazzy, named after the titular character follows her a few years later, in late elementary school, when crushes and best friends make up your entire world.
Instead of traveling around, Maltz keeps us in Jazzy’s neighborhood where she lives with her best friend, Syriah (Syriah Fool Head Means). Both indigenous, they talk about learning their native language in between gossiping about their friends at school. When Syriah mysteriously stops talking to her one day, Jazzy is devastated, trying to get them to reconnect.
The relationship between Jazzy and Syriah is easy and lived in. In 2024, a quiet, yet brilliant documentary called Hummingbirds followed two friends as they navigated immigrant life in Laredo, Texas. On paper, the concept seemed slow and boring, but the dynamic between the two leads is what kept you watching. The same can said for this film. We watch their heartbreaks and their triumphs — the way their eyes move when their moms give them news they can’t quite comprehend. We quickly become immersed in their playful banter, so much so that we are laughing along with them in the film’s final moments.
Lily Gladstone, who also produced the film, reprises her role as Tana for a featured cameo towards the end of the film’s runtime. The always charming Raymond Lee returns as her partner Isaac. Maltz is very smart in how she depicts Tana. Up until this point, adults are just heard not seen. We never see a teacher, parent, or any other authority figure’s face. This changes when everyone heads to the reservation for a funeral. When Jazzy wants to connect to the parental figures in her life, like Tana or Grandpa August (played by Richard Ray Whitman aka “Old Man Fixico” on Reservation Dogs, again reprising a role) we finally see them. Their bond, like so many aspects of Jazzy, is a small particular part of girlhood and growing up that isn’t always captured. The friend of your parents that you don’t always see but are in awe of and want to impress. The boy who has a crush on you but you don’t know how to let them down easy. The absolute insanity and pain you go through when a friend just stops interacting with you out of nowhere. All are such a distinct and essential part of being a preteen girl. It’s a visual privilege for Maltz to honor that time.
Jazzy is available in select theaters and On Demand. Watch the trailer below.
A week full of Valentine’s Day-fueled genre films was led by Heart Eyes with $8.5M. Directed by Josh Ruben of Scare Me and Werewolves Within acclaim, the slasher horror-romance was led by rising stars Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding, with Fast & Furious star Jordan Brewster the biggest name. Reviews were strong for a horror flick from critics and audiences alike, but it remains to be seen if this is enough to launch a sequel.
On the other hand, Love Hurts got a hurtin’ put on it at the box office with just $5.8M. The action-comedy starring Oscar winners Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose got killed by critics and audiences alike, holding just 18% and 63% respectively, and the poor word of mouth had an impact.
4. Mufasa: The Lion King– $3.9M/$235.2M
5. Companion– $3.02M/$15.4M
6. One of Them Days– $3M/$39.3M
7. Becoming Led Zeppelin– $2.62M
Sony Pictures Classics has a hit on their hands with Becoming Led Zeppelin. The music doc is the first officially sanctioned doc about the iconic band, and fans came out in support. At $2.6M, the film earned the biggest opening weekend ever for an IMAX-exclusive music release.
