Latest in The Contenders London

Deadline’s movie awards-season showcase The Contenders returned in-person this past weekend with Contenders Film: London, an all-day event that put 19 of the year’s buzziest movies from nine studios in the spotlight. A total of 44 panelists from George Clooney and Jennifer Hudson to Denis Villenueve, Dakota Johnson…

Cyrano star Haley Bennett joined production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer on stage at Deadline’s Contenders Film: London event to discuss the film. In discussing director Joe Wright, Bennett said, “this is the kind of material that Joe really excels at. I've always been interested in Joe's…

Cary Joji Fukunaga, director of No Time To Die, is evidently pleased that the latest James Bond film – the last featuring Daniel Craig as 007 – was released theatrically. The helmer told Deadline's Contender London that it was a "major, major relief that it didn't end up on a streaming platform and that audiences are…

Clio Barnard took inspiration from two people she met while filming previous films for Ali & Ava, which premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. “I knew I wanted it to be a love story,” Bernard said to Anna Smith at Deadline’s Contender’s Event: London. She also described the idea behind the film as a “bio-fiction.&#8221…

Titane filmmaker Julia Ducournau didn't just make history this year as the first female director to win Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or solo, she was also the first to find out she had won the prize twice during the ceremony. Jury president Spike Lee famously inadvertently lifted the lid on the film's triumph at the…

Kenneth Branagh's Belfast tells the story of a fictional nine-year-old version of himself during the Troubles in late 1960s Northern Ireland. Today, he told Deadline's Contenders Film: London event that he had long wanted to write something about the city, but was thinking "perhaps there was a story about my…

Siân Heder's coming-of-age drama CODA, which was the first feature in Sundance history to win all the top prizes, has made audiences cry, but it's also made them laugh. The film tells the story of a high school senior who is the only hearing person in her deaf family and is torn between holding together that unit or…

Director Edgar Wright and writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns told the audience at Contenders London today that bringing their own experiences of living in London was integral to the making of their upcoming Focus Features pic Last Night In Soho. "In the 27 years I lived in London, I spent more time in Soho than any sofa or…

George Clooney has described his The Tender Bar lead Ben Affleck as “a really wonderful actor who hasn’t been given a lot of great parts to show that off.” Making an in-person appearance at today’s Deadline Contenders London alongside his producing partner Grant Heslov, Clooney said Good Will Hunting star Affleck is…

Denis Villeneuve told the audience at Contenders London today that embarking on an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic 1965 sci-fi book Dune was the "project of a lifetime" for him. Speaking to Deadline's Executive Awards Editor Joe Utichi, Villeneuve said he'd read the book at 13 or 14 when he was first discovering…

Fresh from blowing open the London Film Festival with his irrepressible Netflix title The Harder They Fall, director Jeymes Samuel came to Deadline’s Contenders Film: London today for a lively panel with his leading man, Jonathan Majors. Set in the American West around the turn of the last century, the film stars…

Kirsten Dunst and Benedict Cumberbatch were so deep in character for Jane Campion's upcoming Netflix thriller The Power Of The Dog that they didn’t speak to each other on set. Speaking at today’s Deadline Contenders London, Dunst described the on-set dynamics as “interesting”, with Cumberbatch relishing the role of…