One of the earliest 2016 releases to be included in our big annual awards-season event The Contenders Presented By Deadline is Eye In The Sky, a March opener that poses moral and ethical questions about the use of drone technology in modern warfare. In front of a packed audience of Oscar and key guild voters last…

Eye in the Sky marked the last film from the late beloved actor Alan Rickman, which did not go unnoticed at during Bleecker Street’s panel at the Contenders event today. In a discussion with Deadline’s Pete Hammond, director Gavin Hood lauded Rickman’s final performance. “He was a man of great intelligence, great…

EXCLUSIVE: “You’re popping our cherry,” Colin Firth laughed as I sat down to lunch with him and his production partner Ged Doherty last week at the Four Seasons. He was referring to the fact that he and Doherty had not done any interviews to date about Raindog Films, the production company they founded in 2011. It has…

A column chronicling conversations and events on the awards circuit. “This is Marty’s best movie,” Silence producer Irwin Winkler told me when I ran into him at the Motion Picture Television Fund’s 95th anniversary event. Sure, he is high on the film because he produced it, but keep in mind this is also the man who…

The Academy has fattened its ranks in the last couple of weeks with all sorts of diverse and international filmmakers in a grand plan to, among other things, avoid a threepeat of no actors of color nominated among the 2016 class in the upcoming Oscar race. Of course, bringing in new members — no matter what the…

Forget about the teens. The most dependable and growing demo at the box office is the 50-plus crowd. That was the takeaway at the CinemaCon panel “Movies for Grownups: Films for Older, Loyal, and Growing Theater-Going Audience.” The over-50 bunch didn’t just account for 37% of movie ticket sales or 330M tickets sold…

8TH UPDATE/WRITETHRU, MONDAY 8 AM: Warner Bros.’ Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice is finishing lower than its $52.4M weekend estimate yesterday, now at $51.8M. That 69% drop ties with Fox’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine as one of the steepest second-weekend drops for a superhero film ever. BvS weathered a post-Easter…

With the compelling and thrilling new drama Eye In The Sky, we finally have a drone movie worth cheering about. After last year’s rather lame Ethan Hawke attempt The Good Kill, which mixed a soap operatic subplot into a genuinely potentially interesting story on the human emotional toll taken on Las Vegas-based drone…

The folks at Bleecker Street were giddy Sunday morning watching the results of their latest release, Eye In The Sky starring Helen Mirren. The title topped 2016 platform bows with a $23,410 per theater average in five New York and Los Angeles theaters. Roadside Attractions and Sony's Stage 6 Films were not far behind…

In his very first film, Alan Rickman’s intelligence and droll humor created the prototype for a decade’s worth of blockbuster action film villains with his turn as Hans Gruber in 1988’s Die Hard. He brought that confidence and style to a startling range of characters, from the caddish philanderer who broke Emma…

For the first time this year, the Specialty space is packed full of new features vying for crowds who have been released from the shackles of Awards contenders. Many of the newcomers hail from last year's SXSW Film Festival (this year’s starts this weekend).Sally Field takes on the starring role in comedy Hello, My Nam…

EXCLUSIVE: Eye in the Sky — the drama about drone strikes — is so timely that distributor Bleecker Street is using President Barack Obama’s speech about the new technology as the voice-over for the film’s TV spot, which is debuting tonight during the Republican debate (watch it above). How? Insiders said the President…