Latest in The 355

Editor’s Note: Wall Street Journal reporter Erich Schwartzel’s new book Red Carpet: Hollywood, China and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy includes a chapter on Fan Bingbing, one of China’s biggest global stars who disappeared from public view in 2018 shortly after she was cast to star in the female action spy…

EXCLUSIVE: Two-time Emmy-nominated writer Theresa Rebeck is set to pen The Faithful for Concordia Studio, based on the true story of how a fight over land between St. Stanislaus Church and the St. Louis archdiocese became a battle to define the future of Catholicism. The story is based on the life of Father Marek…

German production house and distributor Leonine Studios has signed an expanded partnership with local broadcaster Sky Deutschland. The multi-year license deal sees Sky acquire exclusive first pay-TV rights and SVOD rights in Germany for a period of 12 months to upcoming titles from Leonine Studios, as well as a number…

UPDATE, writethru: Arachnomania continues to grip the globe as Sony/Marvel's Spider-Man: No Way Home has increased its worldwide cume to $1.53B through four weekends. Tom Holland's Peter Parker now fronts the No. 8 movie on the all-time global chart with No Way Home leaping past Marvel's The Avengers, Furious 7, Frozen…

SUNDAY AM WRITETHRU: Despite Omicron sending many back to the comfort of their households for January, people are still going to the movies. Specifically, Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, which is snatching a fourth weekend of $33M at 4,012 locations, a -41% ease from weekend 3. Proof that Spidey is immune to…

I remember being in Cannes in 2018 as five top female stars announced with great fanfare an action movie project that would reverse the time-honored tradition of almost exclusively male ensemble films in the genre. The quintet — Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Lupita Nyong’o, Fan Bingbing and Diane Kruger (who subbed…

Lupita Nyong’o has bowed out of virtual interviews for her upcoming Universal pic The 355 after testing positive for Covid, Deadline has confirmed. While the Oscar winner didn’t make specific reference to her exit from the presser, she confirmed her positive test in a post published to Twitter on Tuesday. “I too have…

Warning: This podcast contains spoilers about the season one finale of Apple TV+’s Invasion. “It’s especially hard to launch original things on the big screen,” exclaims multi-hyphenate Simon Kinberg on the latest episode of Crew Call. “It’s harder to get movies made, and harder to get people to come to the movie…

Update: Simon Kinberg’s femme action feature The 355 is no longer being released over MLK 2022, rather a week earlier, on Jan. 7. The only title slotted there on Jan. 7 is an untitled 20th Century Studios feature according to Comscore’s latest release calendar. If Disney decides not to fill that slot, that makes The 35…

Jessica Chastain revealed that The 355 came out of seeing little to no action films featuring women ensembles. After learning about the women involved in international espionage while working on Zero Dark Thirty, the producer and star said she knew a story about women spies was worth telling. During the New York Comic…

Universal has dropped the official trailer for espionage thriller The 355 (aka 355). The female-fronted globetrotting actioner stars Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong'o, Penélope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Fan Bingbing, Sebastian Stan and Edgar Ramírez. Check out the first look above. Universal still has this one dated on…