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All hail the possible “Idol” Season 2. Despite a Page Six report that HBO already canceled “The Idol” amid production issues and poor ratings, actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph told Variety that a second season has always been the “intention” for the series. “I think that everyone’s intention is to have a second season. This was never intended to be a limited series,” Randolph said. “Nothing is official, but HBO is quite happy.” Randolph, critically applauded as one of the best parts of the series, portrays the manager of pop star Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp). HBO denied the Page Six report earlier this month, tweeting in response, “It is being misreported that a decision on a second season of ‘The Idol’ has been determined. It has not, and...

There are a new crop of contenders for “Squid Game” Season 2. The official cast list for the much-anticipated second season has been announced by Netflix. Jo Yu-ri, a member of South Korean-Japanese girl group Iz*One, is among the new cast members, including Netflix stars Park Gyu-young (“Sweet Home,” “Celebrity”) and Kang Ae-sim (“Move to Heaven”). The cast also includes Choi Seung-hyun, Roh Jae-won, Won Ji-an, and fellow “Sweet Home” actor Lee Jin-uk, who previously worked with “Squid Game” creator Hwang Dong-hyuk on “Miss Granny.” Another Hwang collaborator cast in “Squid Game” is “The Fortress” breakout Lee David, who additionally collaborated with “Squid Game” lead Lee Jung-jae on “Svaha: The Sixth Finger.” Returning cast...

Sundance Institute has laid off 11 employees — about six percent of its 180-person staff — on Wednesday, with the non-profit organization citing a drop in earned revenue, rising inflation, and a “more challenging fundraising climate.” Sundance Institute CEO Joana Vicente informed the team on Wednesday in a memo sent to staff and obtained by IndieWire, and the laid off employees were informed earlier today. The cuts impacted multiple departments, but no specific names or roles were revealed. Vicente said one other staff member is moving to a “reduced work schedule,” and the organization has had to make other tough decisions regarding seasonal labor requests. A source said the moves are necessary in the changing economic landscape and...

It’s almost impossible for Brian Cox to be in a bad movie because, well, he’s giving a Brian Cox performance every time. Simply put, Cox is the saving grace of his latest feature, “Prisoner’s Daughter,” a predictable family drama that has heart thanks to grounding performances by Cox, Ernie Hudson, and breakout child star Christopher Convery. The rest, however, leaves a lot to be desired. However, there are still other pleasures to be found in the final product. Catherine Hardwicke (“Twilight,” “Thirteen”) is building out the perfect frothy cinematic universe where “Prisoner’s Daughter” and her recent Toni Collette vehicle “Mafia Mamma” could beautifully coexist — and make for an enjoyable wild ride. Hardwicke previously spoke with...

Tom Cruise is continuing to save movie theaters. Earlier this year, the “Top Gun: Maverick” star was praised by Steven Spielberg for having “saved Hollywood’s ass” at the box office. Now, Cruise has taken to Twitter to encourage audiences to see this year’s summer blockbusters on the big screen. “This summer is full of amazing movies to see in theaters,” Cruise tweeted. “Congratulations, Harrison Ford, on 40 years of Indy and one of the most iconic characters in history. I love a double feature, and it doesn’t get more explosive (or more pink) than one with ‘Oppenheimer’ and ‘Barbie.'” Cruise allegedly also applauded DC tentpole film “The Flash” ahead of its premiere. His own summer action film “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning...

“That’s not art. A striptease isn’t art. It’s too direct. It’s more direct than art.” That line from Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” sums up a lot of feelings people seem to have about nudity in film. The history of painting and sculpture is full of nude portraiture, which is regularly and comfortably classified as art. But the nude scene in movies is rarely discussed alongside a Canova marble statue or Manet’s “Olympia.” Movies blur the boundaries between “real life” and artistic indirection so thoroughly that people discuss nude scenes in movies as practically everything but art. It’s “content” that deserves an “advisory,” or something akin to “porn,” however the Supreme Court is classifying that these days. As many have noted, the very...

“Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke hopes the upcoming TV series adaptation sinks its teeth deeper into the forbidden romance at the center of the teen vampire saga. Hardwicke helmed the first film that was released in 2008 and starred Kristen Stewart as high schooler Bella and Robert Pattinson as undead bloodsucker Edward. The director stepped away from the franchise after the initial film’s mixed reception and was replaced by Chris Weitz. Lionsgate recently announced a TV series adaptation in early development over a decade since the film series concluded in 2012. “I think it’s exciting,” Hardwicke told MovieWeb of the upcoming show. “I think we see that it’s an enduring story that people keep engaging with. You know, the TikTok...

Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis) always comes out on top. Since Lewis stepped away from the series in 2021, the original lead star of the hit Showtime series returns as Wall Street savant Bobby in the seventh and final season of “Billions.” Per the official synopsis, in Season 7, alliances are turned on their heads. Old wounds are weaponized. Loyalties are tested. Betrayal takes on epic proportions. Enemies become wary friends. And Bobby Axelrod returns, as the stakes grow from Wall Street to the world. Paul Giamatti, Corey Stoll, and Maggie Siff lead “Billions,” with David Costabile, Asia Kate Dillon, Dola Rashad, Jeffrey DeMunn, Sakina Jaffrey, Daniel Breaker, and Toney Goins also starring. Season 7 of “Billions” will stream weekly...

James Gunn has been one of the most prolific comic book filmmakers of the 21st century, but even he understands why people get bored of the genre. In a new appearance on the “Inside of You” podcast, the newly minted DC Studios co-CEO explained how he hopes to avoid the franchise fatigue that has led to waning public interest in some superhero properties. “We’re going to be very careful with the product that we put out and making sure everything is as good as it can possibly be,” Gunn said. Gunn offered his diagnosis for what he sees as a decline in superhero movie quality, explaining that he thinks studios often push ahead with sequels and reboots before finding the narrative justification for the films. “People have gotten really...

The honest answer for why Hello Sunshine had such a prolific TV season is the pandemic. “The timing has a lot to do with COVID because there was this moment where everything was quiet, but we were still working, so we were driving all these different things forward,” said Lauren Levy Neustadter, President of Film & TV of the media company co-founded by actress and mogul Reese Witherspoon. “When it was safe to go back and shoot, we had all of these shows that started production, and they all came together in a very similar window.” Now the company has entered the 2023 Emmys season with not only one Television Movie contender and two Drama Series submissions but a whopping four Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series entrants — even...

[Editor’s Note: The following review contains spoilers for “The Idol” Episode 4, “Stars Belong to the World.”] “The Idol” Episode 4 paints a convincing picture of the chaos wrought by Tedros Tedros (Abel Tesfaye). Opening on armed guards patrolling the mansion and maids pulling dildos out of shower drains, “Stars Belong to the World” only amps up the atmospherics from there. Psychological torture, physical torture, and whatever kind of torture you want to call listening to Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) and Tedros Tedros making music — it’s all here. Teeing up what’s intended to be a tense episode of television is the one and only Destiny (Da’Vine Joy Randoloph), who — before being sent undercover to investigate the goings-on at Camp Tedros...

The Academy Board of Governors voted to present Academy Honorary Awards to Angela Bassett, Mel Brooks and editor Carol Littleton and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to the Sundance Institute’s Michelle Satter. They will accept the four Oscars at the Academy’s 14th Governors Awards event on Saturday, November 18, 2023, at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles. “The Academy’s Board of Governors is thrilled to honor four trailblazers who have transformed the film industry and inspired generations of filmmakers and movie fans,” said Academy President Janet Yang in a statement. “Across her decades-long career, Angela Bassett has continued to deliver transcendent performances that set new standards in acting. Mel Brooks lights up...

When HBO’s “The Idol” premiered earlier this month, it quickly became clear to fans of series co-creator Sam Levinson‘s “Euphoria” that they weren’t going to get a continuation of that show’s stylistic motifs. “The visual language is fundamentally different,” editor Julio C. Perez IV confirmed to IndieWire. The change in strategy, from a more intentional single-camera methodology derived from the work of Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson to an improvisational multi-cam approach, was dictated by factors both artistic and pragmatic — and it had profound implications for Perez’s work as an editor. Where “Euphoria” often feels influenced by ’90s masterpieces like “Casino” and “Magnolia” in its elaborately choreographed tracking...