Latest in Mike Nichols

EXCLUSIVE: Fox has fast-tracked a movie adaptation of the Tony-winning Broadway smash musical Spamalot. The studio has Eric Idle writing the script, and they’ve set Casey Nicholaw as director . He is arguably Broadway’s hottest helmer, having just opened Mean Girls — with Tony noms for Best Director and Best…

Writers are warned never to give away the ending of a movie or play. But beginnings are fair game. This is how Paul Dooley opens his one-man show, Movie Dad: ‘I am a character actor. That's the definition of me. For the past 60 years, I've been pretending to be other people. Tonight, I'm going to pretend to be myse…

FilmRise has acquired worldwide distribution rights to Mike Nichols: American Masters, the documentary directed by Nichols’ longtime comedy partner Elaine May that premiered on PBS. Under the pact, FilmRise is selling the film for distribution, including theatrical, in territories outside the U.S. via its…

EXCLUSIVE: Frank Rich recently had an email conversation with Deadline’s Jeremy Gerard about his upcoming HBO documentary Becoming Mike Nichols. In addition to executive producing the film, Rich is a creative consultant for HBO and an executive producer of Veep. Becoming Mike Nichols was unveiled at Sundance and will…

“In your life, you get lucky in various strange ways,” Mike Nichols tells fellow director Jack O’Brien in this HBO documentary, filmed shortly before Nichols’ death in November 2014. Becoming Mike Nichols — which was unveiled at Sundance — is an apt title for a film about Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky, who was born in…

HBO said today that the documentary Becoming Mike Nichols will debut on the premium cabler on February 22. But if you're attending the Sundance Film Festival next month. you might be able to see the intimate Douglas McGrath-directed interview with the Oscar winner a little earlier. The world premiere of the portrait…

It’s great to see Charles Grodin acting again. For about 11 years, the legendary screen actor who sublimely segued between comedy and drama, took a break from acting for a career in the TV news realm. Grodin returned to the big screen in 2006 in the Jason Bateman-Zach Braff comedy The Ex, and lately he’s been guest…

If you can picture Dustin Hoffman’s mother in The Graduate, or Ralph Fiennes’ in Quiz Show, or, in her best known, if least characteristic film role as the treacherous foil to Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in 9 To 5, you can probably summon Elizabeth Wilson’s face more quickly than her name. A ubiquitous presence in…

Somehow it feels like 2014 was an especially harsh year for Hollywood passings. From Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman to Joan Rivers and Mike Nichols, the year that just ended saw some iconic names with iconic resumes leave us before they were supposed to. Here’s a list of some notable RIPs in 2014, with…

When a creative giant like Mike Nichols passes away, friends and colleagues expect to carve out time for the inevitable memorial organized by friends and family. There most certainly will be a proper memorial held for Nichols, but because of the suddenness of his passing, and the proximity to the holidays, his friends…

Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this occasional column, two old friends get together and grind their axes, mostly on the movie business.  BART: Critics don't like to admit it, but the conditions under which you see a film strongly influence your opinion. Birdman is…

UPDATED: Legendary film and theater director, writer and producer Mike Nichols has passed away. An Oscar winner for 1967’s seminal The Graduate, he also was nominated for such films as Working Girl, Silkwood and Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? For his stage work, he amassed 10 Tony Awards including as director for…