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Most behind-the-scenes documentaries function as extended advertisements, carefully curated to enhance a film’s mythology. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse is something else entirely. It stands as a harrowing chronicle of a film production actively imploding, a psychological thriller where the monster is artistic ambition itself.

The film documents the notoriously difficult creation of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, a production that descended into a state of chaos so profound it began to eerily reflect its subject matter. Coppola’s famous declaration at Cannes, “My film is not about Vietnam.

It is Vietnam,” was less a boast than a weary confession. Built from an archive of shockingly candid 16mm footage shot by the director’s wife, Eleanor Coppola, the documentary offers an unfiltered look at a creative process pushed past the brink of disaster. It is a story not of how a movie was made, but how it...

Coppola said his masterpiece Apocalypse Now ‘is not about Vietnam; it is Vietnam’ – this superb film shows how little he was exaggerating

The greatest ever making-of documentary is now on re-release: the terrifying story of how Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam war masterpiece Apocalypse Now got made – even scarier than Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams, about the making of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. The time has come to acknowledge Eleanor Coppola’s magnificent achievement here as first among equals of the credited directors in shooting the original location footage (later interspersed with interviews by Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper), getting the stunningly intimate audio tapes of her husband Francis’s meltdown moments and, of course, in unassumingly keeping the family together while it was all going on.

With his personal and financial capital very high after The Conversation and the Godfather films, Coppola put up his own money and...

The Eternal Daughter: Lenkiewicz Ladles the Milk of Sorrows

Screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz makes her directorial debut with Hot Milk, an adaptation of Deborah Levy’s comically menacing 2016 novel about a daughter tethered to a mysteriously ailing mother. Or, rather, it’s narrative about the point of un-tethering, fashioned a bit like the reverse situation of the Joseph Conrad novella The End of Tether (1902), wherein an aging sea captain lives solely for the happiness of his child. Having penned a number of high profile femme centered scripts, such as Disobedience (2017) for Sebastian Lelio and She Said (2022) for Maria Schrader, Lenkiewicz returns to a distilled, sinister sense of uneasiness which she mined so eloquently in Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida (2013), where a relationship between women remains weighted down by a past they’ve been unable to articulate.…...

The second half of “28 Years Later” is a surprise, not because of some enormous plot twist, but in how the film’s violent zombie frenzy is interrupted by the introduction of Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), who injects an unexpected poetic poignancy into the film. And the turning point is sharp. Ilsa (Jodie Comer) and her son Spike (Alfie Williams) are running for their lives when their attacker, the ferocious Alpha zombie Samson, crumbles to the ground from Kelson’s homemade tranquilizer dart.

“He inoculates Samson and the whole thing just stops,” said director Danny Boyle, when he was a guest on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, as he highlighted how important it was to cast an established actor with Fiennes’ gravitas in the role. “It’s an essential ingredient that Ralph has that ability to hold the picture, and by hold the picture I mean it’s almost like...

Joseph Conrad’s classic novella “Heart of Darkness” is being adapted into an animated feature, with Michael Sheen, James Norton and Bill Nighy having already lent their voices.

The project is being directed by Welsh-based BAFTA-winning filmmaker Gerald Conn using an animation technique he specializes in using sand on glass and will be the first feature-length sand animation. Described as a “close adaptation” of Conrad’s novella, first published as a three-part serial in 1899 and regarded as a scathing critique of Western imperialism in Africa, the film script was written by Mark Jenkins and Mary Kate O Flanagan.

The “Heart of Darkness” project was actually first announced in 2019, but after a period in limbo is now moving forward with BreakThru films, the Polish-based production company founded by Hugh Welchman on board as a co-producer. BreakThru was behind the Oscar-nominated 2017 animation “Loving Vincent,” directed by Welchman and Dorota Kobiela and the first fully-painted animated feature,...

A Bridge Too Far: Laxe Enters the Zone

“The Zone wants to be respected. Otherwise it will punish.” Aleksandr Kayadonvsky’s line from Tarkovsky’s existential sci-fi classic Stalker (1979) comes to mind when viewing Sirat, the fourth and arguably most accessible feature from French-Spanish director Óliver Laxe, who once again returns to the metaphorical glories of a spiritual odyssey as previously explored in 2016’s Mimosas. But his latest is a pulsating, techno drenched mixture of mythological soul searching and contemporary intentional drug use all catalyzed by the search of a missing young woman. Layered, almost kaleidoscopic metaphors evolve through religious and politically minded themes, and the end result feels like a Gaspar Noe adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.…...

Any student of cinema is also, by extension, a student of history. In other words, it's always informative to not just know what a film has to say, but at what point it was saying it. To anyone who's observed both American history and American cinema, the way that the Vietnam War was discussed and portrayed during the years just before, during, and after the conflict is fascinating. Most of us Millennials and younger have grown up during an era of people crying "too soon!" when it comes to openly political commentary in media, and indeed, in some cases it feels like films addressing national issues have taken their sweet time to emerge. For instance, despite being five years into the Covid-19 pandemic, and excluding the handful of films which have used the pandemic as a backdrop, it still feels like a largely unaddressed aspect of our modern life.

However,...

Tracker spoilers and updates tease in the next episode of the show, “Nightingale,” Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) embarks on a mission to locate a fellow survivalist.

This journey could provide Colter with valuable insights into his own identity through the experiences of another; however, first, he must confront a menacing biker gang-will he be prepared?

Colter Tracks Someone Like Himself

In the thrilling upcoming episode of Tracker Season 2, Episode 10 titled “Nightingale,” Colter Shaw faces a formidable challenge as he hunts down an individual whose abilities match his own.

As reported by Collider, the premise reveals that this elusive target is deemed a fugitive, accused of murder. The pursuit intensifies due to the target’s survivalist nature; when a survivalist chooses to vanish, they become nearly impossible to locate.

This scenario echoes the introspective themes found in classic Joseph Conrad literature and has influenced iconic films like Apocalypse Now.

When Colter...

Audiences love to feel as if they are truly engulfed in the moment, and war films give fans the chance to experience the traumas of international conflict in the comfort of their own homes. While it might seem strange, these films allow storytellers to express the reality of war and step aside from the typical patriotic stories. Plus, war movies allow directors and producers to experiment with a series of exceptional sets and special effects, wowing audiences on the big screen.

Yet, a lot of the best war films only focus on WWI and II. But there are a ton of other hidden gems that are begging to be discovered, especially by avid movie buffs. These films showcase history from an entirely different perspective and give actors the chance to portray a wealth of exciting characters.

A Hit Novel Is Transformed Into a Blood-Curdling Classic Apocalypse Now

Loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novel,...

Space exploration movies have the power to grip audiences more than many other genres, because they speak to the deep human sense of wonder and trepidation. As the world gets more connected and less mysterious, outer space represents the few mysteries still remaining in our universe. The scale of the cosmos lends itself to stories of both optimism and despair, and space exploration movies can be science-fiction or more realistic dramas.

1902's A Trip to the Moon shows that space exploration has been a part of sci-fi cinema since the dawn of film. Although movies have gotten longer, more complex and more sophisticated since the time of Georges Méliès, the basic idea that space holds untapped riches and strange creatures is the same. The best space exploration movies can inspire a sense of awe and majesty, but they should also tell a grounded human story.

Ad Astra (2019) Ad Astra Deserves...

This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks."

"Star Trek: Lower Decks" season 5, episode 3, "The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel," sees Lieutenant Boimler (Jack Quaid) assigned to a covert, potentially dangerous spy mission. He is to join Commander Ransom (Jerry O'Connell) and Lieutenant Commander Billups (Paul Scheer) on a mission to the Cosmic Duchess, an ultra-swanky, high-end resort-like cruise ship, floating gently through deep space. His assignment is to penetrate deep into the hotel to retrieve Admiral Milius (Toby Huss), a Starfleet officer who has gone Awol thanks to "a touch of vacation madness." The writers of "Lower Decks" missed an opportunity in not saying that he had been infected with Paradise Syndrome.

The Cosmic Duchess, however, is such a massive ship that it incorporates artificial recreations of every possible vacation-ready biome. There's a tropical beach biome, a skiing resort biome, and a water park biome.

The multiple Apocalypse Now versions that have come out over the years have offered a lot of different ways to watch the acclaimed question as well as a lot of questions about which is the best version. Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War film stands out within the genre at least partly because of the different versions that exist and the debate that has cropped up as a result. Coppola has his own opinions of each, which can differ from and line up with some of the widely accepted attitudes towards each version.

The movie not only goes down in history as one of the best war movies ever made but one of the most controversial behind the scenes. Martin Sheen had a heart attack, Francis Ford Coppola fired a key actor and had a nervous breakdown, and Marlon Brando showed up overweight and underprepared. Despite the difficult time making the movie,...

On social media, artist Liam Sharp shared concept art from an unproduced Superman series for DC Comics, which he says would have been a Heart of Darkness type story, with Supes gone mad. Putting in the role of Kurtz, made famous by Marlon Brando in the film Apocalypse Now, which in turn was adapted from the Joseph Conrad novella Heart of Darkness.

Liam Sharp shared the piece of art on Instagram, explaining that the project sadly fell through. Replying to a fan in the comments on his post, Sharp explained the premise for the story, which he said was to be written by iconic author Tom King.

View this post on InstagramA post shared by Liam Sharp Gallery (@liamsharpofficial)

Sharp further elaborated that marketing didnt believe it would sell, which is why the proposed Superman story by Tom King and Liam Sharp never came to fruition. Its a shame, as...

Director Ridley Scott told Deadline in 2023 that he’d been offered to direct superhero movies, but that it wasn’t for him, after telling them in 2021 that modern superhero movies are “no fucking good” and “boring as shit.” He said he’d already directed at least 3 superheroes: Ellen Ripley in Alien, Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, and Maximus Decimus Meridius in Gladiator. “The difference is,” Scott said, “the f*cking stories are better.”

The case can certainly be made that Ridley Scott has brought some of the best stories to screen that we’ve ever seen, and Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator are among them, but what about his more modern fare? Are the stories for House of Gucci, The Last Duel, and Napoleon “better”? Ridley Scott hasn’t had a movie achieve both critical and commercial success since 2015’s The Martian, which begs the question: Wtf happened to Ridley Scott?...

Patrick Stewart vetoed the involvement of the Romulans in Star Trek: Insurrection, pushing for new villains like Admiral Dougherty, the Son'a. Michael Piller's original concept for Insurrection drew inspiration from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Stewart's Romulan veto led to the Son'a as villains in Insurrection, reducing Insurrection's impact on the wider Star Trek universe.

Star Trek: Insurrection almost had more compelling villains than the Son'a, but they were turned down by Patrick Stewart. Released in 1998, Insurrection was conceived by Rick Berman and Michael Piller as a lighter movie, following the dark tone of Star Trek: First Contact. However, the development of the third Star Trek: The Next Generation movie was a somewhat tortured process.

Michael Piller's posthumously published book Fade In: From Idea to Final Draft details the various treatments he wrote for Star Trek: Insurrection, many of which sound better than the finished film. Piller's...

Speaking to Film International in 2004, "Alien" screenwriter Walter Hill revealed the secret of why he decided to name the ill-fated spaceship in the movie "Nostromo" (after the novel by Joseph Conrad): "No particular metaphoric idea," said Hill. "I just thought it sounded good."

"Alien: Romulus" director and co-writer Fede Álvarez had slightly more to say about the significance of "Romulus" in a new interview with SFX magazine. The main action of the film takes place on a derelict space station, the Renaissance, after it drifts into the orbit of a colony world called Jackson's Star. The Renaissance is divided into two sections: one called Romulus, the other called Remus. The names are lifted from the Roman myth of twin brothers who were raised from infancy by a she-wolf. According to the story, Romulus slew his brother, Remus, and founded the city and kingdom of Rome -- named after himself,...

A faux-elegant fable about how not to resolve your differences, made for dudes, by dudes, “The Duel” arrives at a time of intense division (and no small amount of scrutiny over gun use) in America. Releasing as a one-night-only screening via Iconic Events on July 31 before hitting streaming in August, the edgy comedy looks sharp enough, but lands like a rapier with a cork on it, as Dylan Sprouse and Callan McAuliffe play longtime besties who try to settle a dispute the old-timey way … by blowing each other away with pistols.

“The Duel” feels like a pretty clever idea at first, to the extent I found myself wondering why nobody had thought of it before, only to wind up asking why its two writer-directors didn’t think of it more. As it happens, my library contains no fewer than four books called “The Duel,” the shortest of which (by Joseph Conrad) runs a slender 112 pages,...

Roy Lee is busy working on the Bioshock movie, which he confirmed is still in the works with none other than Francis Lawrence directing it. Although the film will be a smaller version than its initial format due to budget cuts, the Netflix original will make the light of day. Yet, the same isn't applicable to other projects the producer wished to back up. Despite being responsible for recent horror hits like Barbarian, Lee did admit that his dream project is a long ways away from getting made. During his appearance at the Producers on Producing panel at the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con, hosted by Collider's own Steve Weintraub, he shared that his greatest wish is to make a film based on Joseph Conrad's classic novel, Heart of Darkness.

In the trailer for the reimagined Western The Thicket, released Tuesday, Peter Dinklage and Juliette Lewis star as ruthless killers. The Elliot Lester-directed film follows bounty hunter Reginald Jones’ (Dinklage) tireless efforts to track down killer Cutthroat Bill (Lewis). After Cutthroat Bill’s gang kidnaps Jack’s (Levon Hawke), sister, the two men pair up.

“You ever shoot a man?” Reginald asks Jack, to which he responds he’s a Christian. “God knows how many this Cutthroat has.”

After Reginald rallies a troop of unsuspecting heroes, including a grave-digging ex-slave and a street-smart woman-for-hire,...

In the 1970s, American films underwent a massive shift, thanks to a new generation of talent infiltrating the business. Filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Brian De Palma introduced a new, more energetic language into films, largely thanks to their studious backgrounds studying movies and reading the essays of Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut; this generation of filmmakers is traditionally called the Film School Generation. These artists tended to look after each other, seemingly understanding their mutual unspoken goal of revolutionizing movies and exploring the limits of what the medium was capable of. 

Two Film School Generation directors once entered an alliance one might not expect. Francis Ford Coppola had already won many, many Oscars for his "Godfather" movies and for "The Conversation," making him a legitimate Hollywood darling. George Lucas, meanwhile, rewrote the language of the Hollywood blockbuster with "Star Wars" in 1977. Aesthetically, the two filmmakers could not have been more different,...

Behind-the-scenes drama in filmmaking can mirror the intensity of on-screen stories. Apocalypse Now faced setbacks like actor replacements and logistical challenges. The Shining's demanding director pushed actors to the brink, leading to a grueling filming experience.

In the world of filmmaking, drama isn't limited to what unfolds in front of the camera. Often, there's even more drama behind the scenes. From heated rivalries between lead actors to directors pushing their cast and crew to the brink, the production process can be filled with tension, controversy, and unexpected challenges. Movies like Apocalypse Now, The Shining, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? are notorious examples of films where the off-screen drama rivaled the intensity of the stories being told on-screen.

These behind-the-scenes conflicts, whether stemming from creative differences, personal feuds, or the relentless pursuit of perfection, have often added to the mystique and fascination surrounding these films. In some cases, the...

In 1976, Francis Ford Coppola was riding high in the world of cinema. The previous four years saw the critical and commercial success of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, both of which took home Oscars for Best Picture, and the latter winning Coppola additional awards for his direction and adapted screenplay. As one of the premier filmmakers working in Hollywood, it seemed as though the sky was the limit, and with his next project, Coppola would test his creative, financial, and psychological capacities in adapting Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella, Heart of Darkness. Penned by fellow scribe and director John Milius in the late '60s under the title Apocalypse Now, the film would shift the setting of Conrad's story from the jungles of Africa at the turn of the century to the deadly landscape of the Vietnam War.

Chronicler of the making of her husband’s Apocalypse Now whose footage and recordings were the basis for a documentary and book

In March 1976, Eleanor Coppola arrived in the Philippines, her three young children in tow, to film behind-the-scenes footage on the set of her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie Apocalypse Now, which transposed the plot of Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness to late-1960s Vietnam.

No one could have known then that production on this war epic would stretch on for more than a year, delayed by catastrophic weather, medical emergencies, military conflict, an incomplete script and plain old creative differences, making it one of the most infamously turbulent shoots in cinema history. As it rumbled on, newspaper headlines plaintively asked: “Apocalypse When?”...

“Exterminate all the brutes!” With these words, borrowed from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Hunter S. Thompson concluded his violent, macabre 1967 book Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga. Thompson had spent months with the outlaw biker gang and ultimately paid for his persistence when members gave him a brutal beatdown (which, Thompson being Thompson, he seemed to enjoy just a little). The king of Gonzo had gotten closer to the Angels’ inner sanctum than just about anyone else had, a feat that the new A&e docuseries Secrets of the Hells Angels...

Making a strong antagonist in monster features is always a tough task, especially when human association isn’t involved. Aside from the risk of writing becoming pretty generic and turning the characters into one-toned, motiveless evils, connecting with the audience remains a challenge. In Legendary’s Monsterverse, aside from the iconic King Ghidorah, no other adversary had managed to make that much of an impact in viewers’ minds, which is why Godzilla X Kong needed a well-written opponent to justify the team-up of the eponymous behemoths.

Spoilers Ahead

During the early production stage, the first mentions of Skar King as an evil, degraded version of Kong didn’t go down well with the fans, who considered it lazy to not come up with a new Kaiju and just use established characters as templates to create a new one. However, after Godzilla X Kong hit theaters, the reasons for making Skar...

Benedict Fitzgerald, the co-writer of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, has died. He was 74.

Fitzgerald died Jan. 17 after a long illness at his home in Marsala, Sicily, his cousin Nancy Morgan Ritter told The Hollywood Reporter.

Best known for his work on Gibson’s 2004 Biblical epic, the highest-grossing Christian film, as well as the highest-grossing independent film of all time, Fitzgerald’s other credits include co-writing the screenplay for John Huston’s Wise Blood (1979), the adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s novel.

Born on March 9, 1949, in New York, Fitzgerald was born into a literary household. His deeply Catholic mother, Sally, was a writer and editor and his father, Robert, was a poet, United States Poet Laureate (1984-1985), critic, and famed translator of classic ancient Greek and Latin texts, who was responsible for perhaps the most well-known translation of Homer’s The Odyssey.

In the late 1950s, Fitzgerald’s family...

Benedict Fitzgerald, best known as the screenwriter of The Passion of the Christ, died at home in Marsala, Sicily after a long illness on January 17, 2024. He was 74 and no cause of death was given by his family.

He first won acclaim for his screenplay adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s novel Wise Blood, cowritten with his brother, Michael. The film, produced in 1979 by Michael and Kathy Fitzgerald and directed by John Huston, starred Brad Dourif, Harry Dean Stanton, and Ned Beatty.

Fitzgerald specialized in literary adaptions, among them Zelda, (starring Natasha Richardson and Timothy Hutton) in 1993; Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in 1993 (starring John Malkovich); a television mini-series of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood in 1996 and Moby Dick in 1998 (starring Patrick Stewart as Ahab and nominated for 5 primetime Emmy awards).

The Passion Of The Christ (2004), the...

Benedict Fitzgerald, co-screenwriter of “The Passion of the Christ,” died Jan. 17 in Marsala, Sicily, after a long illness, his cousin Nancy Ritter told Variety. He was 74.

Fitzgerald co-wrote 2004’s “The Passion of the Christ” with director and producer Mel Gibson. The biblical epic remains the highest-grossing independent film of all time.

Fitzgerald first received acclaim for his screenplay adaptation of the Flannery O’Connor novel “Wise Blood,” which he co-wrote with his brother Michael. Michael and Kathy Fitzgerald produced the John Huston-directed film, which starred Brad Dourif, Harry Dean Stanton and Ned Beatty.

“Wise Blood” marked the beginning of Fitzgerald’s many literary adaptations, including 1993’s “Zelda” with Natasha Richardson and Timothy Hutton, and Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” (1993), starring John Malkovich. He wrote the miniseries adaptations of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” (1996) and Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” (1998), starring Patrick Stewart as Captain Ahab. Both series were nominated for several Emmy Awards.

Jonathan Frakes' 1998 film "Star Trek: Insurrection" is hardly the most celebrated of the 13 extant "Star Trek" movies. The film wasn't terribly well-reviewed when it was released, and a general fan consensus seems to dictate that it may be the least of the four films based on "Star Trek: The Next Generation." 

Notably, "Insurrection" looks cheap. The bulk of the film's action takes place on the Ba'ku homeworld, but the filmmakers were unable to do anything to make it look appropriately alien. The exteriors were filmed in Thousand Oaks, California, as well as the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and, well, it looks like they just shot the film in California. Additionally, the Ba'ku were given no alien makeup, leaving them looking like regular old people. Worst of all, the Ba'ku costume designs were unbearably boring, as everyone was draped in loose-fitting, off-white hippie-wear that even mannequins would be embarrassed by. 

The...

Francis Ford Coppola's bleak Vietnam War picture "Apocalypse Now" is not only one of the best films of 1979, but is handily one of the finest, most important films of its decade. Using Joseph Conrad's 1899 novella "Heart of Darkness" as a template, Copolla transposed the book's action from the late 1800s Congo to the jungles of Cambodia, and, in so doing, exposed the madness and horror of the Vietnam War in harrowing, soul-hollowing terms. As Captain Willars (Martin Sheen) treks deeper and deeper into the chaos of the natural world -- drifting ever closer to the insane, cult-founding rogue Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) -- reality begins to dissipate. Eventually, madness and violence are all that remain, and war is reduced to its base function: brazen, meaningless destruction and cruelty. "Apocalypse Now" is a great, great film.

Curiously, a lot of war enthusiasts love "Apocalypse Now," seemingly ignoring the film's...

Napoleon is an epic war drama film directed by the legendary director Ridley Scott, from a screenplay by David Scarpa. The biographical film follows the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, as he rises from the status of a young army officer to becoming an emperor. The film also focuses on his volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine. Napoleon stars Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role of Napoleon Bonaparte with Vanessa Kirby, Edouard Philipponnat, Youssef Kerkour, Matthew Needham, Cormac Hyde-Corrin, and Anna Mawn starring in supporting roles. So, if you loved the war drama film here are some similar movies you could watch next.

The King (Netflix) Credit – Netflix

Synopsis: Hal (Timothée Chalamet), wayward prince and reluctant heir to the English throne, has turned his back on royal life and is living among the people. But when his tyrannical father dies, Hal is crowned King Henry V and is forced to embrace...

Ridley Scott's career has spanned over 40 years and includes 27 feature films, making him one of the most prolific filmmakers of our time. Scott's willingness to tackle different genres and subject matter has resulted in frequent new releases and some absolute greats like Blade Runner and Gladiator. Scott's debut feature, The Duellists, set in France during the Napoleonic Wars, showcases his talent for crafting historical epics and remains a captivating and visually stunning film.

With 27 feature films throughout a career that has spanned over 40 years, Ridley Scott is without a doubt one of the most prolific filmmakers of our time. Scott has never been afraid to tackle different genres or subject matter. His determination to his craft and his willingness to take risks have resulted in frequent new releases. Whether you like Scott's work or not, there is no denying that he has made some absolute greats. Blade Runner, Gladiator,...

Ridley Scott‘s wildly ambitious “Napoleon” might be the director’s last word on its subject, but it’s not the first time he tackled both the glory and the absurdity of the Napoleonic era. One could say that “Napoleon” has been 46 years in the making, since Scott first began thinking about and researching the French emperor during the making of his debut feature, “The Duellists,” in 1977. That film tells the story of two officers (Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel) in Napoleon’s army who engage in an obsessive ritual of duels that goes on for so long that they ultimately forget what even started the grievance; in its setting, visual style, and themes, it’s an exceptionally well-realized template for most of the Ridley Scott epics that would follow — and he shot this historical extravaganza on a budget of around $800,000.

By the time Scott made “The Duellists,” he had...

The Marvels is a triumph that tells a big story in the best way, building out the MCU with new characters and implications for the larger universe. Nia DaCosta's decision to keep the film under two hours was intentional, drawing inspiration from classic New Hollywood directors. While the film is great, a few more minutes of runtime could have better established characters' lives and relationships, and allowed for more awe-inspiring moments.

The following contains spoilers for The Marvels, now playing in theaters.

Regardless of the eventual box office returns for The Marvels, the film directed by Nia DaCosta is a triumph. It tells a big, over-the-top story in the best way, while building out the Marvel Cinematic Universe with some of its newest and most promising characters. The Marvels is very close to a perfect superhero film, though its director may have made one mistake when it comes to the film's runtime.

Argentina ‘s Pampa Films and Lungo Films are teaming up with U.S.-based Bravura Media to produce a series based on the novel “Fordlandia, a Dark Paradise” by Argentine scribe, Eduardo Sguiglia.

The series project, titled “Fordlandia,” is among the 10 series pitches to be presented at this week’s Iberseries & Platino Industria’s Co-Production and Financing Forum in Madrid.

The series is based on a little-known event that began in 1928 when automobile tycoon Henry Ford who, fed up with the rubber supply shortage for tires, opted to start producing them in the Amazon, launching a messianic project dubbed “Fordlandia.”

After a year, the company failed to take off as it faced a critical shortage of local labor for its plantations. Buarque, a Brazilian adventurer, was hired to address the various issues. But the jungle, which Ford hoped to tame and colonize became a hotbed of recurring conflicts that only invited madness and violence.

Clockwise from upper left: Superman II (Warner Bros.), Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (Paramount), Gremlins (Warner Bros.), The Last Airbender (Paramount), Twister (Warner Bros.), Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time (Disney)Graphic: AVClub

What we think of today as summer blockbuster movies arguably began in 1975 with Jaws.

Ridley Scott, known for his ambitious and visually stunning films, started his career as a commercial director before making his first Napoleonic-themed film, The Duellists, which showcased his skill in creating intimate and intense duel scenes. Scott's success with The Duellists propelled him to bigger projects, including Alien and Blade Runner, showcasing his ability to jump between different time periods and genres while maintaining a focus on creating believable and immersive worlds for his characters. With his upcoming film Napoleon, Scott reunites with actor Joaquin Phoenix and returns to his fascination with duels of honor, highlighting his continued interest in exploring the core themes that permeated his debut film. Despite the incredible scale and advancements in filmmaking technology over the years, the contrasting archetypes portrayed by Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel in The Duellists remain a standard for Scott's films to surpass.

Pulling off what Stanley Kubrick never could, British...

Some literary works are so powerful that they keep echoing centuries after they first became public. That's the case with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, a novella that helped define the Western view on colonization and which inspired dozens of other works of art. Snake Gas (Hadí plyn) is the latest movie inspired by Heart of Darkness, using Conrad's provocative story to investigate racism, sexism, and immigration in Europe. Unfortunately, director David Jařab fails to capture the same enthralling energy of Conrad's original story, resulting in an experimental film that too often misses the mark.

Francis Ford Coppola is a titan of American cinema, an architect of the New Hollywood movement that changed the way films are made. Alongside filmmakers including George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Brian de Palma, Coppola defined a new era of film that reflected the auteur’s vision. These guys didn’t want to churn out stale movies with mass appeal; they wanted to create cinema with something to say. For Coppola, this amounted to a wide catalog of over 20 films that reflect a seminal push and pull between the studio, culture, and the artist’s life.

As happens to just about anyone with a decades-spanning career, Coppola has faced his fair share of struggles. The most famous of these was the cursed production of Apocalypse Now, captured in the behind-the-scenes documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse. But this is just one film in a long and storied career; how else is Coppola cursed,...

The 57th Karlovy Vary Film Festival has unveiled its competition lineup for its 57th edition, set to run in the bucolic Czech spa town from June 30 to July 8.

Among this year’s competition highlights are Fremont, from Iranian-born, London-based director Babak Jalali, a dramedy based around Donya, a former Afghan translator for U.S. troops who now works in a fortune cookie factory in Fremont, USA. Empty Nets, from Iranian filmmaker Behrooz Karamizade, a love story set in a small fishing village in contemporary Iran, is also in the running for the festival’s Crystal Globe honor for best competition film.

Outside the competition, Karlovy Vary this year has put a focus on independent Iranian cinema, with a selection of recent works by directors working outside the Tehran regime.

Other 2023 competition highlights include Red Rooms, a Canadian darknet thriller from director Pascal Plante, Itsaso Arana’s Spanish drama The Girls Are Alright...

While appearing on Tuesday’s episode of “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” actor Emilio Estevez revealed that when he was 14 years old, Laurence Fishburne saved him from drowning.

The incident happened in the Philippines, where Estevez had accompanied his father, Martin Sheen, for the filming of “Apocalypse Now.” Fishburne, who like Estevez was only 14 at the time, also appeared in the film; he had lied about his age to get the part of Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class Tyrone “Mr. Clean” Miller.

“We’d only known each other a couple of days,” Estevez explained. “And this was in the Philippines. And he says, ‘Hey there’s this little boat. Let’s go out on it.’ I said, ‘Sure,’ and we were both 14 at the time. So we were out on this boat together, and we started getting too close to the shore, and I said, ‘Well, let me jump out, I’ll push us offshore.

The short stories of Haruki Murakami are becoming an increasing fixture on the big screen––it may have taken considerably more time since their initial publications, but not since Stephen King’s earliest collections has an author’s back catalog found itself getting adapted so rapidly. After Lee Chang-dong and Ryusuke Hamaguchi managed to weave epic tales of obsession and grief from two comparatively conversational works (in their respective masterpieces Burning and Drive My Car), a handful of other tales are adapted far more faithfully for the screen in Pierre Földes’ animated anthology.

Named after Murakami’s 2006 collection of the same name, Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman recontextualizes several of his more fantastical short stories, relocating them to a Tokyo still reeling from the devastating earthquakes of March 2011. In doing so, Földes creates something of an unofficial MCU (Murakami Cinematic Universe), tying together several narratives unrelated in their source materials via...

Toward the end of the Lucasfilm Showcase panel at Star Wars Celebration, Kathleen Kennedy talked about how George Lucas's vision for "Star Wars" going forward was to explore the past, present, and future of the timeline and the universe. To that end, the television projects that were announced only mostly fit that bill. "The Acolyte" will take us deeper into the past of "Star Wars" than we've ever seen in live-action to the era of "The High Republic."

The Second Season of "Andor" will show us a growing Empire in the time before the battle of Yavin. The continuing adventures of "The Mandalorian," "Ahsoka," and "Skeleton Crew" will show us a galaxy in the midst of resurgence after the end of the Empire. These are all really safe periods of time. But when they made announcements for the films, Lucasfilm swung for the fences with movies set in three...

In 2005, Hollywood did the unthinkable—it launched a remake of the 1933 cinematic masterpiece, King Kong. This was not the first attempt to do so, although if anything the previous attempts were cautionary tales about why you should never attempt to remake King Kong.

The first, in 1976, replaced the original’s groundbreaking stop-motion effects with a guy in a gorilla suit and a hugely expensive, life-sized mechanical gorilla that provided a total of 15 seconds of usable footage. The second was an attempt in the late ‘90s to remake the film with an up-and-coming indie horror director better known for what the press at the time called “video nasties” than big, family-friendly blockbusters. However, with a Godzilla remake in the works, alongside the rival big gorilla movie remake of Mighty Joe Young, the project was canned and the director moved on to adapt a series of fantasy novels.

Nonetheless, in 2005 King Kong...

Spoiler Alert: After an explosive Season Two finale of The Mosquito Coast, a decision looms imminently on whether Apple TV+ reups. It so, the third season heads right into the territory of Paul Theroux’s 1981 novel that Peter Weir turned into a cult classic movie with Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix. The one where Ford’s brilliant counterculture inventor Allie Fox becomes so obsessed with imposing a vision of utopia that he nearly takes down his family. Here, the author discusses seeing his famed novel pre-quelized by Neil Cross (Luther), the improvements over his book, his nephew Justin starring, and why he’s so rooting for one more season.

Deadline: How do you feel about the Fox family possibly heading down the same rabbit hole they did in the Peter Weir film, in search of utopia.

Paul Theroux: I was delighted when Fremantle and Apple first picked it up at,...

In the early days of filming “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” nonfiction filmmaker Laura Poitras didn’t have a clear grasp on what the shape of her latest documentary would be, but she was clear what her portrait of famed artist and activist Nan Goldin wouldn’t be.

“We weren’t gonna make a biography,” Poitras told IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “One thing I try to do as a filmmaker is to not hear the story that people repeat about their life over and over. We all do that. We all tell a story and we go into a kind of a mode of repeating, but how could it feel in the present in a really meaningful way.”

While Poitras filmed Goldin risking her career by challenging global art institutions to cut ties with the Sackler family — major philanthropic donors who fueled the opioid epidemic through the manufacturing...

Frank Miller ("Sin City") will develop a new TV series adaptation of Hugo Pratt’s 1967 "Corto Maltese" graphic novels, as a six-episode live action-adventure series in partnership with StudioCanal and Canal+:

"...'Corto Maltese', an adventurer from Valetta, Malta, was born in 1887 to a British sailor and an Andalusian gypsy prostitute/witch.

"Seeking excitement and wealth, Corto traveled the world, befriending people from all walks of life, while participating in many hair-raising historical events, including the 'Russian Civil War', 'World War I' and the 'Russo-Japanese War', with the likes of Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Jack London, Herman Hesse and Joseph Conrad..."

Click the images to enlarge...

Ahoy! Who’s ready to embark on an adventure with some of literature’s most influential figures? Studiocanal and legendary comic book creator Frank Miller will join forces for a live-action adaptation of Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese. Miller created the project, which he will write and executive produce. Studiocanal and Canal+ are developing the series, which is comprised of six hour-long episodes.

Launched in 1967, Corto Maltese revolves around an intrepid sea captain whose thirst for adventure landed him in plenty of trouble in the early 20th century. Corto Maltese combines fantasy with reality as the captain partners with world-famous literary characters, including Ernest Hemingway, Rasputin, Joseph Conrad, the voodoo priestess Gold Mouth, and more.

“I first discovered Corto Maltese reading the books at Forbidden Planet in New York as a young man,” Miller explained to Deadline. “Then on my travels, I studied and discovered an edition at a newsstand in Rome.

Talent involved includes Joshua Oppenheimer, Tilda Swinton and Odessa Young.

Fourteen film and TV projects have received a combined £2.2m in funding through the latest round of international co-production funding from the UK Global Screen Fund (Gsf).

The biggest award of £250,000 has been given to Iceland-Ireland-uk-Belgium feature The Damned, which will shoot early next year. Protagonist Pictures is selling and executive producing the film.

Individual awards range between £250,000 to £95,000,

Scroll down for the full list.

Set on a remote fishing outpost in the 19th century, the psychological horror is written by Jamie Hannigan, will be directed by Icelandic-uk director Thordur Palsson,...

Exclusive: Downton Abbey star Jessica Brown Findlay is leading a podcast based on Joseph Conrad’s 1911 spy thriller Under Western Eyes.

The Razumov Files, from True Spies producers Spyscape and Cup & Nuzzle, will approach events leading to the 1917 Russian Revolution from the perspective of a contemporary investigative podcast, with Brown Findlay playing Jess, a journalist whose family appears to be implicated in a multiple murder case by an unknown assailant.

Under Western Eyes takes place in St. Petersburg and follows Razumov, a young student preparing for a career in the Tsarist bureaucracy who unwittingly becomes embroiled in the assassination of a public official. Asked to spy on the family of the assassin ― his close friend ― he must come to terms with timeless questions of accountability and human integrity. The novel is seen as a response to the themes explored in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and is one of...