Latest in Weekly Best of Film

UPDATED, 4:23 PM: Relativity today set a May 8 release date for Somnia. It will go up against Warner Bros’ untitled comedy starring Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara. PREVIOUS EXCLUSIVE, April 4: As it whips up buzz for the April 11 launch of the genre thriller Oculus, Relativity has acquired U.S. distribution…

UPDATE: Times of London journo James Dean says that he did not report last Friday that Sony production had shut down because of hacking, even though his article was hotly refuted by Sony after it was aggregated around the world. Dean says he was talking about agencies that shoot for Sony, not actual Sony film…

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.  BART: Big stories are usually nasty stories – that's one of the realities of the news business. The Sony episode is a prime example…

COMMENTARY: I am not a film critic. I'm usually the guy they don't want in the room. I've spent a long career asking tough questions and looking for chicanery in places like Sony Pictures. I was asked by my editors to attend the premiere of The Interview because of the possibility that something terrible might happen…

As 20th Century Fox opens its Moses epic Exodus: Gods And Kings on Friday, it faces a locust storm at the marketplace. Not only does the Ridley Scott film have to part the red sea of the sluggish B.O. frame as well as contend with a heavy-duty holiday shopping weekend, but the question remains whether faith-based…

EXCLUSIVE: It’s fair to imagine that Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Amy Pascal hasn’t had a peaceful moment since November 24, when a hacker’s skeleton emblem appeared on Sony Corp. computers around the world and signaled the arrival of a hack attack that has created unprecedented havoc for a media empire. The…

EXCLUSIVE: Producer Scott Rudin has issued a public apology for the racially insensitive comments that surfaced last night in an exchange of hacked private e-mails between him and Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Amy Pascal. Joking references they made to black-themed films that President Barack Obama might like…

UPDATE: Amid the morning news that Adam McKay has backed away from talks of directing Marvel‘s Ant-Man, the Anchorman director took to Twitter to say the following: And yes, met w/Marvel. Kirby & Lee r my Lennon Mccartney so it was awesome. But have other projects I’m committed to. Not sure it can work. — Adam McKay…

EXCLUSIVE: In competitive bidding, Relativity has acquired Fearless, based on the Eric Blehm bestselling book on SEAL Team Six operative Adam Brown. Brown battled personal demons, including drug addiction and jail time, to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a Navy SEAL. With the support of his wife and family…

Sony Pictures Imageworks announced late Thursday that its headquarters will relocate to Vancouver, leaving the fate of its 270 Culver City VFX workers in question. The Oscar-winning VFX and digital animation wing of Sony recently handled effects on WB’s Tom Cruise sci-fier Edge of Tomorrow and Sony-Columbia’s The Amazi…

EXCLUSIVE: Now that Pitch Perfect 2 has its original stars back, director Elizabeth Banks is adding some new aca-flavor to her cast. German DJ, comedian, musician, actor, hype-man, host, and YouTube personality Flula Borg is the latest to join the Universal Pictures and Gold Circle Films musical sequel about college a…

EXCLUSIVE: Producer Neal Moritz and StudioCanal are ready to move forward with Cliffhanger, a re-imagining of the 1993 Renny Harlin-directed mountain climbing film that starred Sylvester Stallone. They’ve set Joe Gazzam to write the screenplay after he was among a group of screenwriters who pitched their take on a…