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After Fountain of Youth's explosive streaming success, director Guy Ritchie addressed the movie not being released in theaters. The action adventure film was exclusively released on Apple TV on May 23, 2025 and has continued to consistently be in the streamer's ranking of top 10 most-watched movies for the past year. It also spent more than 200 consecutive days on the platform's top 10 U.S. chart: Now, I'd say there are merits to both of those experiences, but principally, cinema is about going to the cinema. I do like the fact that you can make films for a smaller format, though, and I feel as though there's room for both of those expressions. When it comes to theatrical versus streaming, Ritchie also doesn't limit the actors he works with to one or the other. A perfect example of this is González, who stars in both Apple TV's Fountain of Youth and the theatrically released In the Grey and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. In the Grey also reunites Ritchie and González with Cavill, who is another frequent collaborator of Ritchie's, and the cast features Jake Gyllenhaal, Rosamund Pike, Kristofer Hivju, Fisher Stevens, and Carlos Bardem as well...

Greta Gerwig's Narnia, moving from a Thanksgiving 2026 release to open in theaters on Feb. 12, 2027, before heading to Netflix, has left Imax having to fill a now-open exclusive Thanksgiving berth later this year. And Imax CEO Rich Gelfond was chomping at the bit on Tuesday to announce his exclusive replacement release for Thanksgiving 2026, but decided against making that the headline. "Obviously it's a good time of the year to release a movie, and I was hoping on this call to be able to announce what's going into that slot, and we're really close," Gelfond told the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference in Boston during a session that was webcast. "We're on the verge of replacing it," Gelfond added as he appeared via a video link, as he continues to recover from a temporary medical leave to undergo treatment for pneumonia and cannot do air travel. The original pact Imax had with Netflix for Narnia was to have seen  the C.S. Lewis book series adaptation get a global release in Imax theaters during the key Thanksgiving holiday period, two weeks before the online debut. Gelfond added that, absent Imax screens for Avengers: Doomsday, Disney branding PLF screens as Infinity Vision was little more than a marketing play. "They created kind of a marketing vehicle called Infinity Vision, which enables them to 'brand' their release. It's important to note there's no additional screens. It's just kind of a branding move on their part," he insisted...

French director, Xavier Gens, said that AI tools could have cut the visual effects budget of his Netflix hit Under Paris in half and shaved eight months off the schedule. Morgan Stanley analysts have estimated generative AI could reduce film and TV production costs by as much as 30 percent. The broader absurdity of current industry economics drives Nikola Todorovic. Bosnia-born co-founder, of Wonder Dynamics, now an Autodesk company, to add: "we think it's normal that a film should cost $90 million, $100 million, $200 million — which to me is absolutely absurd," he says. "A hospital will cost you $20 million to build, and it's there for two hundred years. And one movie, maybe based on a terrible idea, can cost $200 million plus marketing. And it could flop."But Todorovic is equally clear-eyed about the disruption that is coming regardless of how the debate is framed. "I think a lot of you'll hear people saying, 'Oh, we're accelerating, we're not replacing' — I think there's just being politically correct. There's a shift, 100 percent, and I think visual effects get hit first, because it's very tech dependent." The jobs that were created because CGI was slow and difficult — character creation artists, rigging artists, texture artists — face real risk. "Those are the jobs that are in danger," he says. "It would be a lie to say otherwise." And yet he remains, by his own account, optimistic about the longer arc. His vision is less about Hollywood's incumbents and more about the filmmaker who currently has no path into the industry. There is, however, a precondition. "I think we need to step in and build AI how we want it to be used," Todorovic says, "otherwise we're going to have the tech industry leading it for the wrong reasons — to create videos for TikTok in a day versus creating an actual film."Seth Rogen, here to present Tangles — the hand-drawn animated film he co-produced with his wife Lauren Miller Rogen about a family navigating Alzheimer's disease — was direct when asked about AI in filmmaking. "Every time I see a video on Instagram that's like, 'Hollywood is cooked,' what follows is the most stupid dog s— I've ever seen in my life," he told Brut. "And if your instinct is to use AI and not go through that process, you shouldn't be a writer. Because you're not writing. Go do something else." On Tangles specifically, Rogen was unequivocal: "Not at all. It's hand-drawn animation. Every frame has a human touch to it."...

As animation continues to show off its muscle on the big screen and in streaming, Netflix has snapped up one of the medium's marquee creative teams into its fold. The streaming giant has entered into a creative partnership, also known as an overall deal in Netflix parlance, with Michael Jelenic and Aaron Horvath, the creators of the long-running Teen Titans Go! series and more recently the duo behind the billion dollar-grossing Super Mario Bros. movies made by Universal and Illumination. The deal will see Jelenic and Horvath develop both animated series and films exclusively for Netflix. And, as a bonus, the pair will also dip their toes into the live-action pool, with Netflix getting a first look at those projects. Jelenic and Horvath gained attention for their fast-paced, inventive work over the course of nine seasons (and counting) on Cartoon Network's Teen Titans Go!, which launched in 2013 and is based on the DC characters. A spinoff movie, Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, was released theatrically by Warners in 2018. The duo also worked on and directed, with Pierre Leduc, 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which became a surprise juggernaut, opening to a $146.3 million domestically and grossing $1.3 billion. The sequel, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, opened this year and has made $966.5 million since its release on April 1...

It seemed like one of those perfectly executed viral marketing moments that Disney does so well: Pedro Pascal, disguised as his Mandalorian character, surprises a group of unsuspecting tourists at Disneyland as they were about to board the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run ride. In the viral clip released Sunday (below), Pascal removes his helmet and the tourists go wild — cheering with shock and excitement at unexpectedly seeing The Mandalorian and Grogu actor. Disney's Instagram caption read, "Pedro Pascal creates the surprise of a lifetime at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at @disneyland." Except the jaw-dropped tourists weren't exactly a random group. As quickly spotted by online sleuths, the people consisted of Star Wars bloggers, influencers and fan creators. The revelation has led to some backlash against the studio, which has leaned heavily on influencers in recent years to generate hype ahead of releases...

Like the entertainment industry everywhere, Ontario's film and TV business has absorbed its share of external shocks — the L.A. strikes, the Peak TV hangover, a streaming boom going in reverse. But production beyond greater Toronto has emerged as a welcome buffer, with regional bonus incentives, cheaper labor and a diverse array of iconic locations helping the province weather Hollywood's pullback. Cities and towns across northern Ontario, having already pivoted from mining and manufacturing to hosting major film and TV shoots, are rising to the logistical challenges of turbulent times. And while talent, crews and infrastructure remain a draw, tax credits, currency savings and government rebates are the real superpower. "Beautiful locations and strong infrastructure get you into the conversation, but incentives are what help close the deal," says David Anselmo, CEO and president of Sudbury-based Banner Hideaway Pictures. Provincial incentives can be stacked with the federal rebate to a bonus tax credit rate of 45 percent — a significant lever in an era when every greenlight is being scrutinized. "License fees are tighter, buyers are more selective," Anselmo adds. "But I actually think that favors places like northern Ontario, because we're no longer selling a theory. We're offering a proven production ecosystem."...

Mick Jagger is set to star in Italian director Alice Rohrwacher's adaptation of U.S. author Audrey Niffenegger's novel "Three Incestuous Sisters," alongside previously announced cast members Dakota Johnson, Josh O'Connor, Saoirse Ronan, Jessie Buckley and Isabella Rossellini. The Rolling Stones frontman touched down in a helicopter earlier this week on the volcanic island of Stromboli, off the coast of Sicily, where Rohrwacher's gothic drama is shooting, according to an inside source who confirmed Italian press reports. He is staying in a villa on the island where Isabella Rossellini's father, Roberto Rossellini, famously began his scandalous affair with her mother Ingrid Bergman on the set of his film by the same title in 1949. "Three Incestuous Sisters" marks the first English-language feature by Rohrwacher who is a two-time Cannes prizewinner with "The Wonders" (2014) and "Happy as Lazzaro" (2018). The buzzy film is based on Niffenegger's illustrated gothic novel about three sisters living in isolation, whose relationship is disrupted by the arrival of a lighthouse keeper's son. Other plot details are being kept under wraps.Jagger's standout acting roles comprise his debut in Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's "Performance," in which he toyed with his public persona playing a burned-out, decadent rock star; a ruthless corporate mercenary in Geoff Murphy's 1992 sci-fi flop "Freejack," which is now a cult-classic; a drag queen in Sean Mathias's 2015 "Bent"; a jaded business exec running an escort agency in George Hickenlooper's "The Man From Elysian Fields" (2001); and, more recently, a reclusive art collector in Italian director Giuseppe Capotondi's 2019 noir "The Burnt Orange Heresy" that bowed from Venice...

Producer Peter Jackson has confirmed the upcoming installment of The Lord of the Rings saga is inspired by Joaquin Phoenix's Joker, unpacking how the two movies are connected. The Hunt for Gollum movie will be the first live-action Middle-earth movie since The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in 2014. The story will focus on Gollum (Andy Serkis), who is being sought after by figures like Gandalf (Ian McKellen) in the years leading up to The Fellowship of the Ring. Phoenix's Joker movie approaches the villain with nuance, showcasing his perspective through a psychological lens that allows for various, unique approaches to the storyline. This includes numerous shifts in reality, a deeper look at the way he thinks, and reasons why he does what he does. This translated to Gollum's character in The Hunt for Gollum would provide a deeper perspective from the character that hasn't been seen in much other content in The Lord of the Rings franchise. The movie arrives in theaters December 17, 2027...