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It appears “Willow’s” magic has already run out again. The Disney+ fantasy series, a sequel to the 1988 Ron Howard film of the same name, will not return for a second season, IndieWire has confirmed. The news comes two months after the show, which premiered on November 30, concluded its eight-episode run on Disney+ in January. Like the film, “Willow” was produced by Lucasfilm, which has been one of the main drivers of content for Disney’s core streaming service through shows based on the “Star Wars” franchise; others include “The Mandalorian,” “The Book of Boba Fett,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” “Andor,” and the upcoming “Ahsoka,” “Skeleton Crew,” and “The Acolyte.” Disney+ ended 2022 with 102.9 subscribers; another 61.3 million are in the...

Outfest Fusion, LA nonprofit Outfest‘s film festival dedicated to queer BIPOC storytelling, has unveiled the full lineup of films for its 20th anniversary festival. 10 features, 93 short films, and four TV presentations will screen during the March festival in Los Angeles, including Sundance documentaries “Little Richard: I Am Everything” and “The Stroll.” Documentary “Kenyatta: Do Not Wait Your Turn,” produced by Lee Daniels and Al Roker, will make its North American premiere during the festival; in total, 23 films will make world premieres, five will make their U.S. premiere, four their international premieres, and three their North American premieres. Over half of all films were directed by women, non-binary, two spirit, or...

This year’s South by Southwest Film & TV Festival has officially unveiled the 2023 winners list. With buzzy titles such as “Bottoms,” “Beef,” “Swarm,” and “Air” debuting at the festival, the 2023 conference in Austin, Texas proved to be a memorable time. “What an extraordinary week of film and TV premieres here at SXSW, and there is more to come through Saturday,” Claudette Godfrey, VP, Flm & TV, said. “Our theaters have been brimming with enthusiastic audiences celebrating the exceptional and diverse work in our lineup, and we’re so excited to celebrate this year’s jury and special award winners!” The Narrative Feature Competition, presented by Panavision, bestowed the top honor to “Raging Grace,” written and directed by Paris...

A nun teams up with an enemy AI to find the Holy Grail. That synopsis sound like it was written — well, by an AI, but actually comes from Damon Lindelof and Tara Hernandez, who premiered their eclectic drama at South by Southwest on Tuesday. At the premiere, star Betty Gilpin described the show as “No country for old Looney Tunes” and laughed afterward, saying they had just shared “the two normal episodes.” Costar Jake McDornan described the scripts as “mad libs that snowballed out of control.” “The missive here is ‘Keep Austin weird,'” Lindelof said ahead of the March 14 premiere. “‘Mrs. Davis’ is hopefully going to do just that.” The first two episodes had the crowd laughing at scripted jokes, visual gags, and general absurdity...

It’s looking prettay, prettay, prettay good for “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Season 12. Actress Cheryl Hines shared a behind-the-scenes photo alongside co-star Susie Essman to mark production on the hit HBO meta sketch series. “Off to work,” Hines captioned. “Carpooling with Susie. I’m one lucky lady. S12.” HBO confirmed the renewal of Larry David’s Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning meta comedy series for a 12th season set to be released later this year. After debuting on HBO in 2001 and completing 110 episodes to date, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” stars “Seinfeld” co-creator David as an over-the-top version of himself in a tongue-in-cheek (and merciless) depiction of his fictionalized life. Along with Hines, who plays David’s ex-wife, and Essman...

With news about artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT making headlines, Damon Lindelof’s newest drama is coming out at the perfect time. The official trailer for “Mrs. Davis,” Lindelof’s upcoming Peacock series about fighting the rise of AI, has been released ahead of the show’s premiere at the South by Southwest festival on Tuesday night. “Mrs. Davis” is named not after any of its actual characters, but after the central “villain,” a highly advanced Artificial Intelligence program slowly gaining power across the world. As more and more people begin falling under the influence of the all-knowing program, Simone (Betty Gilpin), a young woman and nun, resists its spell, until she’s told by a Mrs. Davis agent that she’s destined...

Jake Johnson is vowing that there is no new unexpected ending to “New Girl.” The heartwarming finale that saw Johnson’s Nick end up with Jess, played by Zooey Deschanel, would still stand if there was ever a reunion or revival, Johnson said during a 2023 SXSW panel. The “Self Reliance” director noted that Nick and Jess would not break up since fans last saw the characters in 2018. “I think they would definitely make it work. I don’t think they would break up,” Johnson said. “They have a kid, they’re jumping around on that bed, you guys know it way more than me. I don’t think Nick or Jess would ever fall out of the commitment to do this thing together.” He continued, “Liz Merriweather has created a very optimistic show, it’s people...

To have a film centered on a Chinese American family, and more specifically the conflict between an immigrant mother and her queer daughter, win the Oscar for Best Picture is undeniably a sign of progress in the movement to get the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize more art that comes from people from marginalized backgrounds. On Sunday night, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” made Academy Awards history on multiple fronts, most of all with lead Michelle Yeoh becoming the first Asian woman to ever win Best Actress. Her victory ended a 21 year streak of all white winners since African American actress Halle Berry became the first woman of color to win the award in 2002. Similarly, her co-star Ke Huy Quan became...

Three years after “Parasite” became the first non-English-language movie to win Best Picture, the Oscars went international across many categories, and turned the ceremony into a global village. The evening reflected an awards season and industry where Hollywood matters more as a portal and less as a source. Not everyone is happy about this — on Facebook, Paul Schrader groused about “the scramble to be woke” and a loss of the ceremony’s “provincial” origins — but that’s selective memory: Hollywood is the invention of immigrants. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” made the most noise, but one of the biggest historical achievements was played off the stage. In the acceptance speech for documentary short film “The Elephant Whisperers,”...

Another year, another eight months of dogged campaigning, and another Oscars season is over. Last night’s 95th annual Academy Awards ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood unfolded in a mostly predictable fashion, with “Everything Everywhere All at Once” dominating the affair and walking off with seven prizes. And that included Jamie Lee Curtis’s last-minute win over Angela Bassett in a moment now viral for just how palpably disappointed Bassett’s reaction was: she hardly smiled and did not clap or stand for her fellow nominee. Yet there was plenty to celebrate, what with historic, record-shattering wins for Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan and a huge comeback moment for Brendan Fraser, triumphing for “The Whale” over Austin Butler...

Though it became all too predictable by the end of awards season that “Everything Everywhere All at Once” would take home the Oscar for Best Picture, its win points to a surprising trend among the 2023 Academy Awards winners. A24 and Netflix, two studios that are barely a decade old, completely dominated at the Oscars, winning 15 out of the 24 categories. It seems awards season has ushered in a new guard. Their feats being this year in particular comes as a surprise as the overall narrative around 2022 as a year in cinema has been celebrating the films that brought people back to movie theaters after the COVID-19 pandemic waned. While that had mostly been driven by nominees from major studios like “Avatar: The Way of Water” (Disney)...

After a whopping three hours and 35 minutes, the 2023 Oscars ended with a wave. Best Picture (and Director and Screenplay) winner Daniel Scheinert used his few seconds of stage time (following “Everything Everywhere All At Once” producer Jonathan Wang and fellow director Daniel Kwan) to look directly into the camera, thank the audience for watching, and wave goodbye. Like his movie, the parting words were a little cheesy, and like the ceremony that honored the A24 hit with seven trophies, it was delivered with low-key sincerity — maybe you won’t remember his wave next year, but that’s OK. Why? Because it wasn’t a slap. The less said about last year’s Oscars incident the better — after a year of reacting, analyzing, investigating, and...

“Scream VI” (Paramount) opened to a surprisingly high gross of $44.5 million this weekend. That’s 48 percent bigger than 2022’s initial franchise reboot, which took in $30 million its initial weekend. This comes on top of the debut of “Creed III” (MGM) last weekend ($58 million), which went way beyond expectations and similarly showed improvement over its previous series sequel. All this is additional positive news in a month that still has two promising titles — “Shazam: Fury of the Gods” (Warner Bros. Discovery) and especially “John Wick: Chapter 4” (Lionsgate) — still to come. The uptick for “Scream” is impressive, particularly since its January 2022 predecessor opened against far less competition and on a holiday weekend...