National Basketball Assn. legend Michael Jordan was not an easy sell on the docuseries The Last Dance. Producer Mike Tollin told a Producers Guild panel of Non-Scripted Television producers that the NBA had kept 500 hours of footage from Jordan's final season,1997-1998, pending Jordan's approval to release it. Tollin…

Nominees for the Producers Guild of America Darryl F. Zanuck award each had challenges financing their nominated films. They detailed their stories in a PGA panel on Saturday. Sound of Metal producer Sacha Ben Harroche said financing fell through multiple times. Harroche said many financiers were promising…

Producers of One Night in Miami, Promising Young Woman, and Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm spoke about how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted their films at a panel staged by the Producers Guild. Miami producer Jess Wu Calder, Woman producer Ashley Fox and Borat producer Monica Levinson participated in a Producers Guild of…

Monica Levinson, producer of Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm, said the film's infamous Rudy Giuliani scene was even more harrowing for the filmmakers after the former mayor left the hotel room. The film features a scene in which Giuliani goes to the hotel bedroom with Maria Bakalova after an interview, appearing to expect…

The creators of Happy Endings crafted an all-new episode featuring original cast members Elisha Cuthbert, Zachary Knighton, Damon Wayans Jr., Eliza Coupe, Adam Pally and Casey Wilson. After premiering it on Sony Pictures Television's YouTube channel Monday, the cast and creator David Caspe participated in a Q&A during…

There have been many film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, but writer-director Greta Gerwig's new version makes one crucial change: a nonlinear timeline. She told the crowd recently at Deadline’s The Contenders New York why it was important to focus the film on Jo (Saoirse Ronan), Meg (Emma Watson), Amy…

Netflix’s Dolemite Is My Name tells the true story of the efforts in the 1970s by Rudy Ray Moore (Eddie Murphy) to make a movie based on his stage persona Dolemite. Murphy's co-stars and collaborators told the crowd recently at Deadline’s The Contenders New York how they filled in Moore's crazy ensemble. Wesley Snipes…

Ford v Ferrari tells the true story of how Ford built a race car that defeated Ferrari at the 1966 Le Mans. The film's cinematographer, Phedon Papamichael, during 20th Century Fox’s panel for the film at Deadline’s The Contenders New York, discussed some of the real race venues they used in the movie, and how speed…

When director Olivia Wilde found out that Delta Airlines had removed the LGBTQ elements from her movie Booksmart in October, she demanded they be reinstated. By November, Delta committed to showing both Booksmart and Rocketman with LGBTQ scenes intact. Wilde told the crowd recently at Deadline’s The Contenders New…

As Netflix viewers discover Marriage Story, one of the standout scenes is Laura Dern's monologue. She plays Scarlett Johansson's cutthroat divorce lawyer in the Noah Baumbach film, which recently received the most nominations at the Golden Globes. Near the end of the divorce, Dern's character unleashes her true…

DreamWorks Animation’s films have taken families to the fairy tale worlds of Shrek and the fantasy worlds of How to Train Your Dragon. Abominable takes its young heroes on an adventure through real landmarks of China, with a lovable yeti named Everest in tow. Abominable director Jill Culton told the crowd recently at…

Writer-director Rian Johnson took inspiration from his favorite Agatha Christie mysteries for Knives Out, which has has been holding its own with adult audiences at the fall box office. But he told the crowd at Deadline’s recent The Contenders New York that he also wanted to write a modern-day original. In the…