Latest in The French Dispatch

Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race. The French Dispatch isn't even half the full title of the movie. On screen, it's The French Dispatch of the Liberty Kansas Evening Sun. Wes Anderson's latest film is a…

Production designer Adam Stockhausen admits that when he first read Wes Anderson’s script for The French Dispatch and felt its sense of “scale” and “scope,” his response was one of “slight panic.” “Because…you know what you know about the timing and how long it’s going to take to get this together…the panic begins and…

As the cinematographer for The Tragedy of Macbeth, Bruno Delbonnel looked to help director Joel Coen explore “theatricality” within cinema, without making a film that was itself too much like a play. “I’m really interested in formal ideas, conceptual ideas—more than light, in some ways,” the French DP says in the…

Belfast, Kenneth Branagh's intensely personal story of one boy’s childhood in tumultuous late 1960s Northern Ireland, earned an estimated $1.8M in 580 locations this weekend for a PTA of $3,111 – a solid showing for a black-and-white film in a specialty market that’s waging what one distribution exec calls an "an…

Neon's Spencer with Kristin Stewart rang in an opening weekend of $2.149 million on 996 screens, a per screen average of $2,158 as the film failed to connect in a market that remains a stubbornly hard sell for specialty and independent films. The well-reviewed (with raves for Stewart as Lady Diana) reimagining by…

With the majors eagerly seeking franchises rather than films, their executives might now pay some attention to a courtly Texan who lives in Paris. For 25 years, Wes Anderson has quietly but systematically built his unlikely and fragile franchise around 10 movies that filmgoers profess to enjoy but not understand. His…

Edgar Wright's Last Night In Soho is an arthouse film that opened on 3,000 screens — a gamble in a theatrical market where multiplex-goers have been mostly turning out for big-budget, high-octane studio franchises. (Dune, Halloween Kills and No Time To Die took top spots this weekend, a soft one overall where…

Focus Features presents Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho, a twisty psycho-thriller with a great soundtrack, as Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch goes wider, testing the appeal of a director whose films have been called the arthouse equivalent of Marvel. Last Night, a time-bending genre tale, unspools on just over…

EXCLUSIVE: Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has named In Kim, a 30-plus year veteran of the franchise industry, its chief operating officer as the chain expands rapidly post-bankruptcy and audiences return to theaters. The Austin-based exhibitor just opened its first Manhattan location and has plans for new theaters in Staten…

UPDATED, Monday AM: A bit of positive news that HBO Max didn’t completely wipe out the weekend box office on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. Warner Bros reported Monday morning that Legendary’s Dune had a much better Sunday than anticipated: $9.78 million, off 29% from Saturday’s $13.7M, instead of $8.9M, down 35%. This will…

UPDATED to include comments by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse: Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch did what a glum arthouse market was waiting for, revved it up with a smashing three-day average. "If Wes builds it, they will come," said an elated Searchlight Pictures after a long wait to get the film into theaters. It…

After a long Covid delay, The French Dispatch opens this weekend with distributor Searchlight Pictures and the industry hoping the whimsical Wes Anderson's film brings a touch of Grand Budapest Hotel-ish coin to the specialty box office. Hoping, but not counting on it, as the box office take beyond studio tentpoles…