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The landscape along the road from Mellieha to the west coast of Malta is pretty sparse until you reach the sea by the old World War II pill box and look down into the bay below. There, you will be greeted with a remarkable and incongruous sight: a picturesquely ramshackle village that looks like it has sprung fully-formed from the pages of a comic book. That was, of course, the intention, as it was specially built for "Popeye," Robert Altman's notorious comedy musical based on the classic comic strips by E.C. Segar.

The Popeye Village doesn't take long to walk around, but it is a marvel of production design. Indeed, it was perhaps unnecessarily over-designed for the needs of the film. Logs were brought in from the Netherlands and wooden roof shingles were shipped all the way from Canada for the seven-month construction, which employed 165 tradespeople and required eight...

Matthew Goode has played a wide variety of roles before he played the tormented detective in Dept. Q. One of his recent roles was playing former Paramount head Robert Evans in the biographical drama series, The Offer. The show explored the making of one of the greatest movies in history, The Godfather. Goode recently shared that it was terrifying when he landed the role.

The Offer wasn’t widely accepted as a true biographical drama. Some people didn’t like what was portrayed in the series about the epic movie. Even Francis Ford Coppola shared that the series wasn’t an accurate depiction of the events that transpired during the film.

Matthew Goode was terrified when he landed the role of Robert Evans in The Offer Matthew Goode as Robert Evans and Miles Teller as Albert Ruddy in The Offer | Credits: Paramount+

The making of The Godfather was its own famous story,...

Everyone loves a good crime thriller, and there's a new one racing up the Netflix top 10 from the creator of the hit 2020 limited series "The Queen's Gambit." Scott Frank co-created the wildly popular chess drama with Allan Scott (who owned the rights to the eponymous book on which the show was based), and now he's delivered the Scotland-set crime procedural "Dept. Q," and fans are eating it up. "The Queen's Gambit" broke viewership records for the streamer, so it looks like anything Frank brings to Netflix is almost guaranteed to be a hit, even if the projects are wildly different from one another.

Frank co-created "Dept. Q" with Chandni Lakhani, based on the "Department Q" book series by Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen. The series stars Matthew Goode as fallen detective Carl Morck, who is tasked with putting together a cold case team in the basement of an Edinburgh office. Morck...

With Netflix series Dept Q., Matthew Goode stars as Dci Carl Morck, a curmudgeonly cop afflicted by Ptsd and almost Sherlock-level powers of deduction. Based on the novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen, which have also been made into a series of Danish-language films, the Netflix series is developed by and partially directed by Scott Frank, of The Queen’s Gambit fame. Frank moves the action to Scotland, with Goode starring as the English outsider alongside such Scottish favorites as Kelly Macdonald, Chloe Pirrie, Mark Bonnar, Shirley Henderson and Kate Dickie.

As Morck reels from an incident that almost killed him and paralyzed his colleague Di Hardy (Jamie Sives) he finds himself sidelined to a ‘lost cause’ basement cold case unit with his sidekicks Akram (Alexei Manvelov) and Rose (Leah Birne). Here, in a Zoom chat from his home in the U.K. with his wife and children making excellent background appearances,...

After Kevin Smith’s Dogma returned to Cannes last month and received a seven-minute ovation, per Deadline, the portrayal of God on screen is back in the public consciousness. While Dogma is definitely a comedy — serious religious films don’t feature Jay and Silent Bob as foretold prophets — Smith didn’t hire a comedian for his Almighty, choosing Alanis Morissette instead “because I always thought God would be Canadian.” But other films and TV shows have tapped comic actors for their Gods, correctly imagining that He has an epic sense of humor.

Here are five comedians who’ve taken their turn at playing God…

1 Groucho Marx

What happens when a bunch of comedians in their 50s and 60s try to make a movie about 1960s counterculture? You get a mess like Skidoo, featuring Groucho as a mob boss (and maybe more?) named God. Groucho says his performance as God was “God-awful,...

The combination of a 29-year-old Robin Williams, legendary filmmaker Robert Altman and a cartoon icon probably should have led to one of the greatest movies of all-time. Instead, we got 1980’s Popeye, a big budget family musical that turned out to be about as fun as a trip to the mortuary.

But at least the people making Popeye had a good time.

Per Page Six, billionaire and former Paramount Pictures CEO Barry Diller was recently interviewed by Anderson Cooper for an event at the 92nd Street Y, and he spent at least some of the talk describing just how coked out the set of Popeye was. “You couldn’t escape it,” Diller said of the rampant nose candy.

The cast and crew even came up with inventive schemes to import drugs to the filming location in Malta after producer Robert Evans was busted for possession at the airport. “Film cans...

Seth Rogen has been the talk of the town lately thanks to his performance in The Studio, the Apple TV+ series that’s already been renewed for Season 2. The show is a delectable commentary on filmmaking in Hollywood and how a movie studio is run, which is often dictated by someone hoping to “change the course of Hollywood” by taking a big swing. The last phenomenon to completely alter where Hollywood was going was when both Barbie and Oppenheimer premiered at the same time in an event dubbed “Barbienheimer.”

Rogen recently featured as a guest on the Howard Stern Show, and the two began chopping it up about The Studio and the state of Hollywood at the moment. Rogen admitted that either one movie or one weekend could completely “change the entire outlook of the entire industry” in a flash, which is what happened with Barbenheimer. Rogen even confessed that The Studio,...

Exclusive: You haven’t really made it as a mogul until you’ve written a memoir. Few rise to that rarefied space and have lasted there as long as has Barry Diller, a first-ballot Hall of Fame exec whose Simon & Schuster memoir Who Knew I happened to lay hands on. It hits bookshelves Tuesday.

It takes a special set of skills and accomplishments to make one care enough to read one of these. Deadline has heard that Ari Emanuel, of WME, Endeavor, UFC and WWE fame, might be quietly writing one of these with J.R. Moehringer, the Pulitzer winner who fashioned his life into The Tender Bar and who ghost-wrote Prince Harry’s Spare. The agency has ghosted us on numerous inquiries, but if true, that tale would also qualify as a future must-read. I’d buy it just for an honest explanation of how he got the brain trust...

Director Nanette Burstein is known for bringing bold, intimate portraits of iconic figures to life, and her latest work, Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes, is no exception. The HBO documentary takes audiences on a revealing journey through the life of one of Hollywood’s most iconic actresses, using never-before-heard audio tapes recorded with journalist Richard Meryman, alongside personal footage from Taylor’s archive.

Burstein’s involvement in the documentary was serendipitous. When asked how she was chosen for this ambitious project, Burstein explains, “Originally the tapes themselves were found by Richard Meryman's estate — his wife found them. A producer had approached me about making this film, and I was very interested because I've always been an Elizabeth Taylor fan, and I thought, 'What a treasure trove of potential, very confessional recordings that she had.'”

Separately, Taylor’s estate realized the tapes existed and approached Burstein to create the documentary...

Pam Brady is a comedy writer’s comedy writer, her Hollywood career starting in the mid-1990s. If you don’t recognize her name, you know her credits: She was integral to the early years of South Park — she was also co-writer of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and Team America: World Police — and she wrote the cult classic Hot Rod and co-created the Maria Bamford sitcom Lady Dynamite. And if all that wasn’t enough, she’s got stories about Robert Evans, the notorious producer and studio head responsible for some of the great American movies of the 1970s, like The Godfather. That’s what she wants to talk about first when we meet up over Zoom.

“I did the animated show Kid Notorious,” she says, referring to the short-lived 2003 Comedy Central sitcom that featured Evans as the swaggering main character. “I had to quit before we even...

This article contains spoilers for Episode Four of The Studio.

This week’s episode of Seth Rogen’s Hollywood satire The Studio found perpetually awkward Continental Studios head Matt Remick investigating a mystery involving a missing reel of film. The footage was seemingly stolen from the set of director Olivia Wilde’s new movie, an obvious Chinatown rip-off.

After donning a trench coat and fedora, breaking into trailers and disguising himself as a Chateau Marmont server, Matt eventually cracks the case and discovers that the reel was, in fact, stolen by Wilde herself! It seems that she was unhappy with the footage they shot for one sequence and came up with a scheme to convince Remick to pay for the pricey reshoots.

Some have interpreted this episode’s twist ending as a meta-nod to Wilde’s real-life on-set drama during the production of 2022’s Don’t Worry Darling. But it’s...

[This story contains some spoilers for the first two episodes of The Studio on Apple TV+.]

The idea of a movie studio considering a film based on Kool-Aid — the sugary drink with an anthropomorphic pitcher as logo — sounds just plausible in the current IP-obsessed era of the entertainment business. It’s also just crazy enough to be the inciting incident of Apple TV+’s Hollywood satire The Studio.

The series opener, written by creators Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck and Frida Perez, finds movie executive Matt Remick (Rogen) elevated to the head of the fictional Continental Studios after his predecessor, Patty Leigh (Catherine O’Hara, whose character, Rogen has said in interviews, is inspired by former Sony Pictures head Amy Pascal), is ousted following a string of flops. Matt professes over and over to be a cinephile who really, really wants to make great films, but he only gets the top job after assuring his CEO (played by Bryan Cranston...

Stanley R. Jaffe, the Oscar-winning producer and studio executive known for films such as “Kramer vs. Kramer” and “Fatal Attraction,” has died at his home in Rancho Mirage at the age of 84. His daughter, Betsy Jaffe, confirmed his passing.

Born in New Rochelle, New York, Jaffe was the son of Columbia Pictures chairman Leo Jaffe, who received the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1979. He pursued a career in the entertainment industry, earning an economics degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1962 before starting at Seven Arts as an assistant to co-founder Eliot Hyman.

Jaffe’s early success as a producer came with “Goodbye, Columbus” (1969), based on Philip Roth’s novella. The film, directed by Larry Peerce and starring Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw, became a hit for Paramount and led Gulf & Western president Charles Bluhdorn to offer Jaffe a leadership role at the studio.

At...

Stanley R. Jaffe, the veteran producer and studio executive who won the Best Picture Oscar for “Kramer vs. Kramer,” has died at his Rancho Mirage home at the age of 84, according to his daughter, Betsy.

Born in New Rochelle, New York, Jaffe was the son of Columbia Pictures chairman Leo Jaffe, who received the Film Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award in 1978. The younger Jaffe decided from an early age to follow his father in showbiz and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1962 before getting his start at Seven Arts as an assistant to studio co-founder Eliot Hyman.

Jaffe’s first film as a producer was the 1969 romantic drama “Goodbye, Columbus,” which stars Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw as an army vet who ends up in a turbulent relationship with the daughter of an entrepreneur who struck it rich.

Directed by Larry Peerce and based on the 1959 novella by Philip Roth,...

Stanley R. Jaffe, the producer and studio executive who won an Oscar in 1980 for Kramer vs. Kramer and shepherded other acclaimed films like Fatal Attraction, Goodbye, Columbus and The Bad News Bears, died Monday. He was 84.

Jaffe died peacefully at his home in Rancho Mirage, his daughter Betsy Jaffe announced.

A son of Leo Jaffe, an executive who spent more than a half-century at Columbia Pictures, Jaffe also received an Academy Award nomination for Fatal Attraction (1987), which he produced alongside Sherry Lansing during their fruitful eight-year partnership at Jaffe-Lansing Productions.

At age 29, Jaffe was named executive vp and COO of Paramount Pictures in October 1969, becoming the youngest head of a major studio in Hollywood history. Before he departed as president in August 1971 to return to independent producing, he greenlighted such films as Love Story (1970) and The Godfather (1972), projects also championed by chief of production Robert Evans.

Jaffe returned to the...

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Jenelle Evans is sort of in mourning.

This past Thursday, the Teen Mom alum’s estranged sister, Ashleigh, revealed on Facebook that her and Jenelle’s father had passed away in December after a battle with lung cancer.

The 37-year old has not seen her dad in 18 years, while Jenelle did not have a relationship with him, either.

Jenelle Evans attends the Indonesian Diversity FW19 Collections: 2Madison Avenue, Alleira Batik, Dian Pelangi and Itang Yunas front row during New York Fashion Week: The Shows at Industria Studios on February 7, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images for Indonesian Diversity)

Ashleigh learned about the death from her mother just this week — while she added in a subsequent Facebook message that her infamous sibling was annoyed that she broke this news to the public.

“I’ll be going to be off-line for a little while,” Ashleigh wrote.

Francis Ford Coppola's impressive filmography is just as well known as the director's varied history when it comes to troubled behind-the-scenes productions of those very same cinematic classics. The iconic filmmaker has made such masterpieces as Apocalypse Now, The Conversation,The Outsiders, and is perhaps best recognized for his trilogy of Godfather films that would set a new standard for Mafia and crime films for decades to come. There are plenty of iconic moments in the films that would be referenced or paid homage to in various forms, but, it turns out, the production on the first film was a struggle for Coppola, who fought to keep the creative integrity of his adaptation of Mario Puzo's novel intact.

In fact, Paramount wanted one line spoken early on by Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) in the opening wedding sequence of the film to be removed. In an excerpt from "The Godfather Treasures" by Peter Cowie,...

Quick Links Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby Contained Intentionally Modern Elements Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby Had a Stellar Cast With a Subpar Script Baz Luhrmann Changed The Great Gatsby From a Social Commentary Into a Love Story

Director Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby film was a feast for the eyes. In true Luhrmann fashion, it presented the 1920s F. Scott Fitzgerald novel as an over-the-top visual smorgasbord with glitzy costumes and modern music. Its stylistic choices set it apart from other adaptations and, in doing so, it has cemented itself a place in the public consciousness for years following its release. Luhrmann also boasted an all-star cast who embraced their roles with verve and fervor. Truly, Luhrmann's adaptation comes so close to being one of the greatest, if not the greatest, in capturing the tone of Fitzgerald's novel.

Still, despite its glittering cast and execution, major...

Shortly after a starring turn in Arthur Hiller’s 1970 classic Love Story opposite Ryan O’Neal made her a Hollywood phenomenon, Ali MacGraw found her place in Malibu. She mostly loved a small home, something close to the water with its fresh ocean air with easy access to Pacific Coast Highway. MacGraw shared a stunning home on the sand during much of the mid-to-late 1970s while married to screen icon Steve McQueen. But even after they split, MacGraw stayed on the coast and never planned on leaving. That changed when a catastrophic fire ripped through Malibu in 1993, destroying her modest rental in the Rambla Pacifico neighborhood, taking with it all of her belongings, save for two dogs and a cat rescued by a friend of her only son, Josh Evans, from a marriage to producing legend Robert Evans. It proved to be a life-altering disaster that ultimately led her to a forever home in Santa Fe,...

No one stays canceled forever, it seems. After being accused by seven different women of sexual misconduct and assault, Brett Ratner's Hollywood career was effectively over. Warner Bros.'s studio dropped him and all future projects in 2017, and he hasn't worked since. That is, until January 5, 2025, when news came of Ratner's big comeback: directing a documentary on former and future First Lady Melania Trump for Amazon Prime Video.

Filming has already begun, Variety reports. An Amazon spokesperson said the film is "an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look" at Trump, with the First Lady set to executive produce the project alongside New Element Media’s Fernando Sulichin. The spokesperson continued: "Prime Video will be sharing more details on the project as filming progresses and release plans are finalized. We are excited to share this truly unique story with our millions of customers around the world."

Related Sean Penn Bashes the Oscars and...

I’ve always avoided New Year’s resolutions, but this week I happened to recall one that was brief but resolute: I resolved to quit Hollywood.

And I did. Almost.

That decision seems relevant today for reasons that require a bit of history. Consider January 1975, 50 years ago: It was a Hollywood moment that was the opposite of the present, both in numbers and nuance. It was a great time to be around – and not to be.

The audience was expanding and was determined to get scared: Jaws was a smash. But millions also were welcoming the weirdities of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. TV fans were puzzled over something new called SNL, and music fans continued to discover Elton John (still are).

As box office kept growing, opportunity was abundant. Words like “downsizing” or “contracting” were still unknown.

There were hints of quantum change, but just hints: The Hollywood...

Image Source: Amazon When Robert Evans passed away in October 2019, Hollywood said goodbye to one of its most captivating and influential figures. Evans was a trailblazer, a man who defied conventions and blazed his own path to the top of the film industry. His evolution from a clothing retailer to a legendary film producer showcased his relentless ambition, unshakable confidence, and ability to reinvent himself. Evans legacy in cinema is unmatched. As the head of Paramount Pictures, he championed some of the most iconic films of all time. Classics like The Godfather (Parts I and II), Chinatown, Harold and Maude, and Love Story became cultural cornerstones, with Evans vision driving Paramount into a new golden era. But his influence wasn’t confined to the movies themselves—Evans left an undeniable mark on Hollywood’s culture. His larger-than-life personality inspired memorable fictional characters, such as Dustin Hoffman’s manipulative producer in Wag the Dog,...

Hollywood has seen its fair share of feuds, but few can rival the fiery clash between Sharon Stone and Billy Baldwin. Behind the scenes, this rift was born from both personal and professional tensions. Like a movie script gone wrong, the conflict simmered for years before reaching the boiling point.

Sharon Stone and William Baldwin in Sliver (1993) | Credit: Paramount Pictures

The roots of their dispute stretch back to 1993, when both actors starred in Sliver, a film directed by Phillip Noyce. Known for its steamy scenes and intensity, the thriller was as much about the drama off-camera as it was on.

But what really fueled the fire was a shocking suggestion from Sliver’s producer, Robert Evans. But the story doesn’t end with Stone’s words. Enter Daniel Baldwin, Billy’s brother, who took to The Tonight Show to air his grievances about Sharon Stone’s alleged unprofessional behavior during the film’s production.

In the late 1960s, Paramount Pictures was getting a young-gun makeover with upstart producer Robert Evans taking the reins of the struggling studio. With the New Hollywood movement exploding thanks to provocations like "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Easy Rider," Evans was keen to hire exciting young filmmakers to apply their unique talents to the day's bestsellers. When he hit critical and commercial paydirt with Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby," he turned his attention to another hot novel owned by the studio, one that had the potential to revitalize the gangster film.

Author Mario Puzo hadn't even finished "The Godfather" when Paramount executive Peter Bart offered him $115,000 for the manuscript. His instincts proved spot-on. Within two years of its 1969 publication, "The Godfather" had become a phenomenon, selling in the neighborhood of nine million copies. A feature film adaptation was inevitable. All Evans and Bart had to do was find the right...

Call the super. This unit needs repairs. Apartment 7A, like many prequels, sequels, companion pieces, and reboots, exists solely to revisit a far superior creation. That would be Rosemarys Baby, the bone-chilling 1968 masterpiece directed by Roman Polanski (Chinatown) and starring Mia Farrow (The Great Gatsby). At the time, the story about a young woman braving a sinister plot designed to make her birth the Antichrist was a one-of-kind, gut-punch movie experience. Not since Psycho, which hit theaters in 1960, had audiences experienced such suspenseful terror, nor such a story laced with evil. Unless they read Ira Levins bestseller.

Here, Julia Garner plays the ambitious young dancer Terry Gionoffrio, a minor character in the original film, whose dreams of fame and fortune in New York City are shaken after suffering a devastating injury. When an older, wealthy couple (Dianne Wiest and Kevin McNally) welcome her into their flat in the Bramford building,...

Hundreds of gangster movies have been made in Hollywood. Yet, The Godfather remains the sharpest, caustic take on the Cosa Nostra world and the extensive assortment of hoodlums, hangers-on, and businessmen that populate it. The behind-the-scenes facts about the production process of the gangster classic are as interesting as the movie itself.

Paramount saw the potential in the story before Mario Puzos novel had even matured from manuscript to paperback, but the journey to completion would take many interesting turns. From the Colombo crime family interfering with production to Francis Ford Coppola being fought by some of his crew members during filming, there was no shortage of chaos.

The Godfather Release Date March 14, 1972Director Francis Ford CoppolaCast Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard S. Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling HaydenRuntime 175Main Genre Crime

Ultimately, the hurly-burly paid off. Though everyone feuded viciously throughout the manufacturing process, all the participants threw...

If the presidential campaign stirs your appetite for still more political noise, here’s a quick solution: Catch the new biopics of Donald Trump or Ronald Reagan. Trump calls the movie about him “a hit job”; Reagan likely would find his biopic a sleeper..

Is there an audience for political movies? Perhaps it’s no coincidence that two movie stars known as policy activists instead have created caper films for the popcorn crowd, or the streaming subset.

George Clooney glibly glides through Wolfs, co-starring Brad Pitt, while Matt Damon ambles through the chaos of The Instigators, co-starring Casey Affleck. The paydays are formidable, but their Tomatoes will whither on the vine.

But then political movies always have had a troubled history in terms of impact and accuracy: One helped obliterate an entire studio regime, another triggered a bitter creative feud. But none became a major audience hit.

Michael Corleone in The Godfather, played by Al Pacino, is hailed as one of the finest performances in world cinema. His memorable character transition in the Francis Ford Coppola film is still discussed among worldwide fans. But interestingly, Al Pacino was never the original choice for the role. They had their eyes on another legendary performer, Robert Redford for the role.

Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather | Credits: Paramount Pictures

The Godfather presented a beautiful amalgamation of popular and lesser-known stars who looked straight out of Mario Puzo’s bestselling novel. However, the 1972 masterpiece had a very problematic production schedule due to an intense conflict between Paramount and Francis Ford Coppola. Paramount wanted it to be a more star-studded affair with better-known stars.

Al Pacino almost lost his historical role in The Godfather because of Paramount

A still featuring Vito Corleone and Michael Corleone in The Godfather | Credits:...

Shelley Duvall's roles in The Shining and Popeye showed her versatility, from a terrorized wife to an iconic cartoon character. Both films faced challenges but eventually gained acclaim, with Duvall's portrayal of Olive Oyl shining as a standout performance. Duvall's Olive Oyl combines humor and strength, showcasing her talent in capturing the character's essence and saving the film in the process.

1980 was a banner year in the career of the late Shelley Duvall, who passed away on July 11 at the age of 75. She appeared in perhaps her two most notable roles: the abused spouse Wendy Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining, and as the irrepressible Olive Oyl in the musical adaptation of Popeye directed by her longtime collaborator Robert Altman. The two films -- and her roles in them -- couldn't be more different. One is a deadly serious horror classic about a crumbling marriage...

Quick Links How Paramount Has Struggled in the Age of Streaming Why Skydance Media and David Ellison Are Right for Paramount Global The Skydance and Paramount Global Merger Is Not a Done Deal The US Government Could Stop the Skydance and Paramount Merger

After nearly a year of back-and-forth negotiations, Paramount Global will merge with Skydance Media, with the production company effectively bailing out one of America's oldest studios. Yet, the studio as it is today is very different from the company that got its start in nickelodeon machines in 1912. Skydance Media's founder, David Ellison, will take over as Paramount's chairman and CEO with Redbird capital and ex-NBC president Jeff Schell as president, if the deal ultimately goes through.

Paramount will, technically, acquire Skydance Media which will then spend $6 billion to payout to shareholders and invest into the future of the company. As part of the deal, Paramount's board...

When Paramount Pictures was finally absorbed by a conglomerate in 1966, it had been a long-running Hollywood powerhouse that was now contending with a new set of challenges.

Perfectly described by historian Robert Sklar as “the house Adolph Zukor built,” Paramount was one of the first major studios. As its leader, Zukor set in motion both industrial vertical integration along with a carefully constructed machinery for curating and maintaining celebrity image. Though Zukor was no longer chairman of the board by the time Gulf + Western swept in to take over Paramount, the founding mogul’s influence still permeated the studio gates.

At a time when Hollywood was searching for a new identity — founding moguls were gone or largely retired, shattered self-censorship practices were making way for a modern ratings system, studios were being gobbled up by companies outside of the entertainment realm — Paramount managed to prevail in glorious fashion. Within a couple years,...

Due to its troubled production, The Godfather should've never been the classic it is today. Writer-director Francis Ford Coppola and Paramount head Robert Evans butted heads over nearly every creative decision, with the director on the brink of being fired at all times due to his unwavering vision. History proved that Coppola was right all along, whether it came to casting Marlon Brando and Al Pacino or setting the story in a period setting. The studio was so opposed to Brando's casting as Don Vito Corleone that it's possible that they looked for any opportunity to reduce his screen time, which would explain their demand to cut Vito's famous death scene from the script. Of course, this did not stop the rebellious Coppola from realizing his vision.

The Offer, a new Paramount+ series, takes a deep dive into the making of The Godfather. While the show is based on true events, it takes some creative liberties to make the story more dramatic. Here are some of the biggest inaccuracies in the series: The character of Barry G. is a composite of multiple people. Paramount's disinterest in Al Pacino was mainly due to his looks.

Making a show about one of the greatest movies of all time is bound to be looked at quite closely by fans and those familiar with the subject matter and the Paramount+ series The Offer certainly does change a lot in this behind-the-scenes look at The Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Mario Puzo's best-selling crime novel is an iconic movie and the stories about what it took to bring it to the big screen are the stuff of Hollywood legend.

Robert Towne – who died Monday at 89 – was more than just an Oscar winner, more than a mere successful screenwriter. He was the acknowledged master of the craft itself who achieved something no other writer has been able to match (before or since): he earned Academy Award screenplay nominations for three critical and commercial hits in successive years, all released in a single dizzying 14-month period. There was “The Last Detail” in 1974, “Chinatown” (for which he won his lone writing Oscar) in 1975 and “Shampoo” in ’76. He would also earn a bid in 1985 for “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.” But it was that remarkable run in the Seventies that established Towne as a screen wordsmith without peer.

In fact, Towne would become known as much for his writing on films for which he received no screen credit than the ones he did. A look at his IMDb...

Robert Towne, the acclaimed screenwriter best known for his Oscar-winning script for “Chinatown,” passed away on Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 89 years old.

Towne’s death was confirmed by his publicist, Carri McClure. The news marks the end of a career that spanned six decades and left an indelible mark on American cinema.

Born on November 23, 1934, Towne began his career in the early 1960s, writing for television series such as “The Outer Limits” and “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” However, it was his work in film that would cement his legacy as one of Hollywood’s most talented writers.

Towne’s breakthrough came with 1973’s “The Last Detail,” a military dramedy starring Jack Nicholson. This success paved the way for his most celebrated work, “Chinatown,” released the following year. The neo-noir thriller, directed by Roman Polanski and starring Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, earned Towne an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Robert Towne, who won an Oscar for his Chinatown original screenplay and was nominated for his Shampoo, The Last Detail and Greystoke scripts, died Monday at his home. He was 89.

PR firm McClure & Associates announced the news on behalf of Towne’s family.

Towne also earned BAFTA, Golden Globe and WGA awards for Chinatown, the L.A.-set 1974 thriller starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. It was one of three Writers Guild Awards he won during his career, along with Shampoo and the drama series Mad Men, on which he was a consulting producer during the final seventh season. He also was nominated for The Last Detail (1973) and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1985). He was honored with the guild’s Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement in 1997.

Thoughtful and soft spoken, Towne was a perfectionist who hated studio meetings and script notes and famously would disappear for...

A motion picture screenplay is by nature imperfectible, and time, tide, and taste will have their say. The Oscar-winning script written for 1974’s “Chinatown” by Robert Towne — who passed away Monday, July 1, at age 89, according to his publicist (via THR) — makes its own case for being as perfect an example of the form as we may ever see. That it was the first original (as opposed to an adaptation) Towne ever authored, coming along at the age of 40, is itself remarkable.

It’s no coincidence that his great friend Jack Nicholson, an artistic comrade in arms since they met as neophytes in a Hollywood acting class, was the center of “Chinatown’s” dark beauty and also of the ribald, corrosive and mordantly funny Towne script for 1973’s “The Last Detail.” Another friend, Warren Beatty, was the centerpiece of 1975’s “Shampoo,” which joined the previous two to notch Towne’s third...

"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse." Don Vito Corleone

For more than 50 years, The Godfather directed by Francis Ford Coppola and based on the novel by Mario Puzo was and still is widely considered to be one of the greatest works of cinema ever made. While it is primarily seen as a Mafia movie (though the word is never uttered in the film), it's also a story about how achieving the American Dream can be a nightmare. The lasting legacy of this picture, one of a string of successes for Paramount under the leadership of Robert Evans, is how it forever changed the way people viewed gangster movies.

Two years ago, Paramount+ debuted The Offer, a series that reenacted the making of The Godfather from the perspective of producer Albert Ruddy. Known for creating the World War II-era comedy Hogan's Heroes, Ruddy wanted to make the jump to being a movie producer,...

There are the classics — and then there’s “Chinatown.” First released on June 20, 1974, the seminal noir feature was a resounding success at its time: a big hit for producer and Paramount heavy Robert Evans, a renowned return to Hollywood for director Roman Polanski and an Academy Award winner for screenwriter Robert Towne, plus Oscar nominations for stars Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.

But the film has only become more enshrined in the canon in the decades since, in particular for Towne’s script: a grim portrait of uninhibited greed shaping Los Angeles in the 30’s, celebrated as one of the best — and often cited as the best — screenplay in history. Key to its legacy is its terrifying ending, which sees Nicholson’s detective J.J. Gittes return to his old stamping ground of Chinatown. There he witnesses another deadly miscarriage of justice that he’s helpless to stop.

That Towne...

Chinatown is a masterclass in filmmaking and screenwriting, paying tribute to classic Film Noir with an unforgettable performance by Jack Nicholson. The movie delves into themes of corruption and entitlement, with characters like Noah Cross embodying the greed and evil that plagued 1930s Los Angeles. Despite its timeless quality, some character actions in Chinatown, like Jake's violence towards Evelyn, may not sit well with modern audiences.

The following contains brief discussion of child abuse and sexual assault, including director Roman Polanski's guilty plea for unlawful sexual contact with a minor.

50 years ago, cinema was in a unique position as both an industry and an art form, and Chinatown was a film that bridged two eras of Hollywood. Movies were changing in the '70s thanks in part to the burgeoning New Hollywood movement. Instead of the clean and palatable movies of Hollywood's Golden Age, these new auteur filmmakers told...

The implosion of talks between David Ellison’s Skydance and Shari Redstone has cast a pall on the town. Beyond Paramount Global’s share price inching down to below $10 a share, enthusiasm does not seem high over the rival bidders or Redstone relying on a troika of George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins, who are proposing $500 million in cuts as a remedy. That won’t strengthen the asset, and hasn’t stopped the stock slide as many fear another deal might lead to Paramount Global being stripped down and sold for parts including its historic lot.

What might work? How about some creative courage and doubling down on ambitious projects? Or even keeping going CBS signature procedurals like Blue Bloods, whose Tom Selleck-led cast is kicking and screaming to stop the show from fading away at season’s end? Blue Bloods might not be a sexy Emmy magnet like Succession,...

On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.

First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.

Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.

The Pitch: Peering Eyes and Multiple Endings

Sliver really should be mandatory viewing for any “Basic Instinct” fan — or any lover of Sharon Stone noirs, for that matter. Stone reunites with “Basic Instinct” screenwriter Joe Eszterhas for this 1993 erotic thriller that feels more like a Brian De Palma-esque satire on the genre itself. Mixed with the paranoia of surveillance technology, the voyeurism of “Body Double,” and the dual campy performances from Billy Baldwin and Tom Berenger as part of a twisted love triangle, “Sliver” is the ‘90s film you’ve never heard of but will adore.

Al Ruddy, who co-created the famed CBS sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, then captured Academy Awards for producing the best picture winners The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby, has died. He was 94.

Ruddy, also credited as one of the creators of the long-running CBS police drama Walker, Texas Ranger, died Saturday following a brief illness at UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center, a publicist announced.

On the heels of The Godfather (1972), Ruddy produced another box-office hit with the original The Longest Yard (1974), the prison-set football movie that starred Burt Reynolds. The pair then reteamed for the action road films The Cannonball Run (1981) and its 1984 sequel, both directed by stuntman-turned-helmer Hal Needham.

The personable Ruddy also produced such films as Bad Girls (1994), the first Western with all female leads (Madeleine Stowe, Mary Stuart Masterson, Andie MacDowell and Drew Barrymore); the baseball comedy The Scout (1994), starring Albert Brooks and Brendan Fraser; and Matilda (1978), a comedy...

Documentarians Brett Morgen and Alex Gibney paid tribute to “Super Size Me” filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, who died at 53 on Thursday of complications from cancer.

Morgen — whose films include “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” about legendary producer Robert Evans; “Jane,” about celebrated anthropologist Jane Goodall; and “Moonage Daydream,” about David Bowie — wrote that the Oscar-nominated Spurlock “actually changed the world with his art.”

He was referring to the 2004 film “Super Size Me,” in which Spurlock ate only at McDonald’s for 30 days. After the Oscar-nominated movie’s release and gargantuan success, the fast food chain discontinued its “super size” promotional campaign.

“Morgan Spurlock achieved what most artists only dream: he actually changed the world with his art. He was an amazing father, brother, friend and one of the most important and influential filmmakers of my time. My heart breaks for his family and friends,” Morgen wrote on social media.

“Going Clear” director Alex Gibney tweeted,...

Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone was met with mixed reviews upon its premiere but the show went on to age like fine wine with its subsequent seasons. The neo-western series also got itself two prequel series, 1883 and 1923. Soon, fans will get to see two more spin-offs – 6666 and 1944 – which have already been confirmed by Paramount. Clearly, Taylor Sheridan is not coming in slow.

A still from Yellowstone

In a recent interview, Taylor Sheridan was asked about the level of creative freedom he has had while working with Paramount. To this, the creator of the show had nothing to say except unending praise for the former chief of Paramount, the late Robert Evans, who was responsible for some of the best movies that the company had made, including The Godfather.

Taylor Sheridan Talks about Paramount’s Robert Evans

Taylor Sheridan as Travis Wheatley in Yellowstone

Taylor Sheridan is a once-in-a-generation creative powerhouse. He...

Paramount is celebrating Chinatown's 50th anniversary with a limited set that has a new transfer and restoration, special features, the sequel film, and a commentary track with writer Robert Towne and David Fincher. The neo-noir classic, inspired by the California water wars, remains a cinematic masterpiece with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway delivering exceptional performances. Paramount's 4K Ultra HD restoration vividly captures the film's unique look and atmosphere, promising a new viewing experience.

Forget its original release, Jake. It's Chinatown's 50th anniversary. That's right, Paramount is celebrating one of its flagship films with a meaty limited edition set that is filled with incredible special features, releasing June 18, 2024. Regardless of those features, though, the main draw is the first 4K Uhd transfer of the legendary film, which should let audiences experience it with completely new eyes. Additionally, the set includes a commentary track that is sure to be golden, combining...

According to reports, Chernin Entertainment and King Features are developing a new ‘patriotic’, live-action “Popeye the Sailor” feature, to be scripted by Michael Caleo (“The Sopranos”):

"...created by cartoonist Elzie Crisler Segar, ‘Popeye’ debuted in the 1929 comic strip “Thimble Theater”.

“The comic was then turned into a series of theatrical cartoon shorts by Fleischer Studios for Paramount Pictures…

“…and featured in comic books, video games, advertisements and a whole lot more.

“Robert Altman directed a live-action ‘Popeye’ movie in 1980. Produced by Robert Evans for Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions, it starred Robin Willams as Popeye, Shelley Duvall as ‘Olive Oyl’, Paul L. Smith as ‘Bluto’, Paul Dooley as ‘J. Wellington Wimpy’, Richard Libertini as ‘George W. Geezil’ and Ray Walston as ‘Poopfeck Pappy’…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

The live-action movies based on comic book storylines or animated characters are either hugely successful or a massive disappointment as we have witnessed in the recent adaptations. It seems like we’re all set to witness another adaptation of a very popular cartoon character, as it was recently announced that Michael Caleo is allegedly working on a live-action adaptation of Popeye the Sailor Man.

Popeye the Sailor Man Popeye the Sailor Man is getting another live-action after 40 years

Popeye is one of the most popular cartoon characters the world has ever seen and many generations grew up watching the animated series based on the popular sailor man who gained superhuman strength by eating Spinach. The character even celebrated its 95th anniversary earlier this year as it was first released in the 1929 comic Thimble Theater.

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The films of Francis Ford Coppola, at their core, are all about family. That theme goes for behind the camera as well as in front of it; according to interviews with Coppola on the Blu-Ray and 4K Ultra HD special features of the "Godfather" films, the director wished for the actors portraying the Corleone crime family to feel as much like a real family as possible before cameras began rolling. So, prior to making "The Godfather," Coppola arranged for the primary family members — Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, John Cazale and Talia Shire — to meet at an Italian restaurant in New York City, have dinner together and improvise as their characters the entire time.

With all that preparation, and the fact that the filmmakers were adapting Mario Puzo's 400-page novel into what became a three-hour movie whose narrative spans the length of a decade on screen,...

Appearing on the Louis Theroux podcast, as Sharon Stone took Hollywood by storm with her controversial claims of being forced to sleep with Billy Baldwin, new revelations suggest partial involvement of Brad Pitt in the picture. According to recent reports, it has been found out that Pitt supposedly had something to do with Stone and Baldwin’s rivalry.

Sharon Stone in Sliver (1993)

Taking to the epicenter, Sliver director Phillip Noyce broke his silence on Sharon Stone and Billy Baldwin’s escalating feud. Dragging Brad Pitt into the war over allegations, Noyce reported that the initial disappointment began after Pitt refused to star alongside Stone in the box office bomb.

Sharon Stone’s Bombshell Revelation Surrounding Billy Baldwin

Following her career-launching performance in the 1992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone proceeded to appear in a similar movie – Sliver – in 1993. But unlike the first film, Phillip Noyce’s erotic thriller surprisingly turned...