Scheduled for release next week, Paramount's Annihilation is stirring expectations despite its unsettling title. The cerebral sci-fi genre thriller represents the last in an anomalous slate of films left behind by the late Brad Grey's ill-starred regime at Viacom. The movies represent a defiant, if not dizzying…

Familiar with George Clooney as an actor, and even as a producer, costume designer Jenny Eagan got acquainted with Clooney as a director on Suburbicon, a dark portrait of quintessential ’50s suburbia. Working for many years as an assistant costume designer under Oscar nominee Mary Zophre’s tutelage, Eagan has become a…

Tackling a period project that feels true to life, rather than an imitation of the past, is no easy feat for any production designer—but it doesn’t hurt to have lived through the period being depicted. Such was the case for Oscar-nominated production designer Jim Bissell, who has spent much of his career depicting…

Writethru Sunday AM after Friday/Saturday posts: This weekend clearly proved the challenges in launching films during the pre-Halloween weekend span — even if you have a horror movie. With $75M in total ticket sales, this weekend was the second lowest of 2017 to date after the last frame of August which hit rock…

Jigsaw is expected to keep Lionsgate’s box office domination going this weekend with a take in the low $20 million range at 2,800 theaters, while the studio’s cash cow Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween will ease to second with a projected $11M, down 48% from its No. 1 opening. Jigsaw is the eighth installment in…

It saddens me to say, because he is such a terrific multi-faceted filmmaker (I am a big fan of George Clooney’s Good Night And Good Luck, and I was on The Monuments Men team too, to name a couple of his behind the camera efforts), but with the weirdly detached experience of watching  Suburbicon, Clooney has sadly…

UPDATED with video: “You only had to spend five minutes with Harvey Weinstein to know he was a bully; he was intimidating,” Matt Damon told Michael Strahan on Good Morning America this morning. “That was his legend; that was his whole M.O.: Could you survive a meeting with Harvey?” Damon said, seated next to George Clo…

BAFTA LA has set Matt Damon as the recipient of its Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film. Presented by Newegg, the prize is given to “a unique individual, upon whose work is stamped the indelible mark of authorship and commitment, and who has lifted the craft to new heights,” BAFTA said. Damon joins…

It's hard to recall a season when Hollywood has been so harshly at odds with so much of its potential audience. On Wednesday, Robert Redford became the latest in a growing string of celebrities to pepper the summer/fall film promotions with reprimands and recrimination. "We've lost our moral foundation," the Oscar…

It was the story of a black family moving into a white neighborhood in Levittown, PA, in 1957 that first set George Clooney on a path toward directing Suburbicon, which had its world premiere in Venice before traveling to Toronto this week. When the mailman got wind that the family unpacking in Dogwood Hollow was…

EXCLUSIVE: “This is a tale of very flawed people making very bad choices.” That’s how Paramount describes Suburbicon, the George Clooney-directed satirical noir starring Matt Damon, Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac. Scripted by Joel and Ethan with Clooney and his Smokehouse partner Grant Heslov, the pic drew hearty…

Following well-received morning screenings of George Clooney's Suburbicon, the filmmaker and stars Matt Damon and Julianne Moore discussed the 1950s-set crime comedy/drama with international journalists at the Venice Film Festival. The SRO press conference quickly turned to the current state of America which the movie…