Updated every Friday 12:00 PM
June 20 - June 26

APPLE TV
Apple just introduced a technology that could become a premium personal viewing option, the home equivalent of buying a ticket to IMAX or Dolby Cinema. Earlier this week, the tech giant dropped what they're calling a "haptic trailer" for the upcoming Warner Bros./Apple Original Films movie "F1," and it's a feature that is designed to only work on smartphones. Yet it might be enticing enough that it could establish interest in having a more active personal viewing experience for films in the future...

Speaking with CAA agent Alex Mebed, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman traced a familiar pattern: From the printing press to podcasts to generative AI, new tech lowers the barrier to entry and opens the door to more creators. And with that comes aggressive competition, major disruption, and redistribution of jobs, power, and income. There are going to be new industries. The thing is it’s really hard to understand those industries. We have never experienced them before. Trying to understand visual effects in the 1920s was unthinkable until we got there.” “We are now training for jobs that do not yet exist,” said Bruce Markoe, IMAX’s head of post and image capture, speaking at the AI Film Festival in Santa Monica...

Illustrator Ugo Bienvenu's debut feature, about a boy from the future trying to find his way home, took the Cristal for best feature film at the 2025 Annecy international film festival. The feature debut of famed French illustrator Ugo Bienvenu, which premiered in Cannes and counts Natalie Portman among its producers, follows Arco, a 10‑year‑old boy from the year 2932 who inadvertently travels back in time, via a rainbow, to 2075, where he encounters Iris, a young girl living through environmental collapse. Their burgeoning friendship becomes a tender yet urgent bond across time, rooted in innocence, curiosity and shared heartbreak...

Hollywood A-lister Al Pacino became the first movie star to meet with Pope Leo XIV. The 85-year-old had an audience with the new American pope, elected after the death of Pope Francis, at the Vatican on Monday.The meeting was “a moment of profound spiritual and cultural inspiration,” the producer continued, saying that the discussion centered around “shared values that lie at the heart of both the Catholic Church and the film: family unity, love, compassion and the importance of contributing to the common good.”...

Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li and a legion of the all-time greats of martial cinema are about to get an AI makeover. In a sign-of-the-times announcement at the Shanghai International Film Festival on Thursday, a collection of Chinese studios revealed that they are turning to AI to re-imagine around 100 classics of the genre.Lee’s classic Fist of Fury (1972), Chan’s breakthrough Drunken Master (1978) and the Tsui Hark-directed epic Once Upon a Time in China (1991), which turned Li into a bone fide movie star, are among the features poised for the treatment, as part of the “Kung Fu Movie Heritage Project 100 Classics AI Revitalization Project.”...

After constantly pondering if a Spaceballs 2 would actually happen, fans jumped for joy a year ago when Josh Gad teased he was writing a script for the anticipated sequel. With Gad’s comedic talents and Mel Brooks’ signature parodying magic coming into play, the Schwartz is strong with this long-awaited film! So, when Brooks displayed a Spaceballs sweatshirt during Spaceballs 2's hilarious teaser, it naturally made the internet’s week. Like Yogurt said in the original Mel Brooks movie, merchandising is important for a film's success. So, someone has already created their own merch with their fake popcorn bucket for Spaceballs 2 that needs to be a reality. However, Brooks was really already ahead of the merchandising game, wearing a “Spaceballs the Sweatshirt” sweatshirt at the end of the teaser that announced Spaceballs 2's upcoming release. Born in 1926, Brooks is an example of a director who made a really good movie on their first try with The Producers and then continued making a name for himself with comedy gold like Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, History of the World, Part 1, and, of course, Spaceballs...