Latest in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

When composer Nate Heller was asked to score A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, he says he felt "equal parts joy, excitement and terror," knowing that the music he'd create would have to stand up to the legacy of Fred Rogers. "He was an extremely musical person. He wrote all the original songs for the show, which…

EXCLUSIVE: Noah Harpster and Micah Fitzerman-Blue’s journey with their script for Sony’s awards-season pic A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood began 10 years ago, even before the pair were Emmy-nominated for their work on Amazon’s Transparent and co-wrote Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil with Linda Woolverton. It…

Director Marielle Heller describes convincing Tom Hanks to play Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood "the biggest miracle I’ve ever performed. I’ll never perform another miracle that good again!" She explained recently at Deadline’s annual The Contenders New York how the casting coup came about. "I know…

Filmmakers behind the slate of Sony's awards hopefuls this year took unique and fascinating paths to creating a sense of meaning in complicated worlds. Those messages were central to their films covered Saturday afternoon at Deadline’s The Contenders New York event at the DGA Theater. For Quentin Tarantino and Once Upo…

EXCLUSIVE: Hot off the success of this fall’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, screenwriters Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster are set to make their feature directorial debut with their scripted adaptation of Dash Shaw’s graphic novel Bottomless Belly Button. I hear that Bow…

6th Update Sunday AM: And so Thanksgiving 2019 ends with Disney’s Frozen 2 collecting a 5-day estimate of $126.3M, the most ever for any film that has played the holiday –opener or holdover– besting Lionsgate’s 2013 Hunger Games: Catching Fire ($109.9M). Plus, it was a fantastic win for auteur-driven original IP from…

Marielle Heller, an actor-turned-director, has been behind the camera so far on only three films: Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015), Can You Ever Forgive Me?  (2018) and now this year’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. In each case there has been awards recognition, critical acclaim and Rotten Tomatoes scores all in…

On Marielle Heller's A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, production designer Jade Healy was tasked with recreating the iconic set of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, engaging in a complicated process of detective work to get each small detail of it right. "Even though it seems really easy to think, 'Oh, we're just going…

Marielle Heller's A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood has already been labeled a biopic, since, ostensibly, it tells the true story of children's TV host Mr. Rogers. Many were surprised, then, that Tom Hanks, who plays Mr. Rogers, is being considered for Best Supporting Actor, rather than the lead. But that's because…

It’s going to be a really rich week for Disney’s Frozen 2, so exhibitors expect a lot of popcorn sales. Let’s start with the build of it all: The pic’s official weekend came in at $130.2M, which as we’ve been sayin’ is the best animated pic launch ever in November. Today, with 41% of K-12 schools out and 14% of…

5th Update, Monday AM: Frozen 2 is coming in exactly where we expected to: $130M. Disney reported that the sequel to the 2013 movie had a better Sunday than they anticipated, $38.4M to yesterday morning’s $35.4M which put their 3-day at $127M. Frozen 2 scored the best November opening for an animated pic ever at the…

Man, do we need a hit. Right now, November domestic ticket sales are at a four-year low with around $447M per ComScore, down 27% from the same period a year ago before the 10-day Thanksgiving stretch rings in. Last November grossed $1.065 billion, which turned out to be the third best result for the month and the…