After an Avengers: Endgame premiere screening that packs as much intricate storytelling and surprises as any Hollywood blockbuster you’ve ever seen, there was another surprise right after at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Every current Marvel Comic Universe star was onstage, making speeches and taking bows. The…

Following a week-long Las Vegas field trip, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live returns to Disney's El Capitan Theatre Monday night to begin a week-long promotion fest for Marvel Studios Avengers: Endgame. Monday night’s show features a reading about the latest iteration of the wildly popular franchise by the movie’s Mark…

Florence Pugh is about to get some red in her ledger. Deadline has confirmed that the Fighting With My Family star is in talks to join Scarlett Johansson in the forthcoming Black Widow stand-alone movie at Marvel Studios. Details about the film have been kept under wraps, so Pugh’s role in the film remains a mystery…

Forty years ago the big holiday hit was Superman, Hollywood’s very first superhero blockbuster. Warner Bros marketed the movie by promising the sky to moviegoers: “You’ll believe a man can fly.” Now, four decades later, that promise should be rewritten to reflect a new era of superhero blockbusters: “You better believe…

Glenn Close, who starred in the 2011 film Albert Nobbs as a woman living life as the male title character, weighed in on the recent controversy over Scarlett Johansson’s casting in a transgender role. "My thinking right now is that people who are producing and directing properties like that need to go out of their way…

Peter Bart and Mike Fleming Jr. worked together for two decades at Daily Variety. In this weekly column, two old friends get together and grind their axes, mostly on the movie business. FLEMING: We haven't done this back and forth for a while, but it’s worth addressing the dangerous corner Hollywood studios have been…

Scarlett Johansson’s withdrawal from Rub & Tug, in which she’d been cast as a transgender man, is a game changer in Hollywood’s portrayal of the transgender community, GLAAD said today. The LGTBQ media-advocacy organization also cited “the transgender voices” who spoke out about the film. “Hollywood changed how…

Scarlett Johansson, who endured cries of whitewashing when she played the lead in last year’s Ghost in the Shell, this time has given in to public pressure. The actress today exited Rub & Tug, the Rupert Sanders-directed film in which she was to play the trans owner of a massage parlor. Johansson’s role in the project…

Deadline told you on June 20 that it was in the works, and now Cate Shortland has closed her deal to direct Scarlett Johansson in the freestanding Black Widow film, giving the actress and Marvel its first stand-alone movie after she played supporting roles in a slew of superhero films including The Avengers…

The backlash following Scarlett Johansson’s recent casting in New Regency’s mob drama Rub & Tug as a woman who identifies as man is not abating. Johansson was set last week to play the real live Dante “Tex” Gill in the pic to be directed by her Ghost in the Shell helmer Rupert Sanders. The plot centers on Gill, a…

Actress Scarlett Johansson is in hot water once again for her recent choice to play massage parlor owner Dante “Tex” Gill in the upcoming mob drama Rub & Tug. The real-life Gill was born as Lois Jean Gill, but identified as a man — which is a detail in the role that has sparked backlash. April Reign, who is known for…

EXCLUSIVE: New Regency has won an auction for Rub & Tug, an American Hustle-like true story in which Rupert Sanders will direct Scarlett Johansson in the fact-based story of a woman who flourished in a male-dominated business of massage parlors and prostitution by essentially taking on the physical identity of a man…