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Exclusive: After bringing Searchlight Pictures its strongest limited opening since 2019 Oscar winner Jojo Rabbit with the acclaimed musical comedy Theater Camp, Topic Studios has announced an expansion of its creative ranks with the appointment of Jasmine Daghighian to the newly created role of Vice President of Film.

Daghighian comes to Topic from 500 Blows, the production company of Frankie Shaw and Zach Strauss fka Our Lady Productions, and in her new position will help build out the studio’s slate on the film side, shepherding projects from development through completion. She’ll be based out of the company’s NYC headquarters, reporting to Executive Vice President, Film and Documentary, Ryan Heller.

Topic’s hiring of Daghighian follows its appointment of Jennifer Westin to the role of Senior Vice President, Physical Production. An executive formerly overseeing production management for the Original Independent Film division at Netflix, Westin now oversees production for Topic...

It was excitedly announced in 2016 that The Bell Jar, the only novel by writer and poet Sylvia Plath, was to be adapted into a movie directed by Kirsten Dunst, in what would have been her directorial debut. It was also announced that Dakota Fanning would star in the film. The project had progressed to the extent that Dunst had co-written a screenplay with Nellie Kim, but since then, we've seen drastic changes to this promising line-up. So what has happened to Kirsten Dunst's The Bell Jar movie, and what are we to expect?...

Soap opera actress Elizabeth Hubbard, who dominated in the role of businesswoman Lucinda Walsh in CBS’ “As the World Turns,” had died. She was 89 years old.

Her son Jeremy Bennett confirmed the news in a Facebook post Monday, saying that she “passed over the weekend.”

“I’m sorry to say with a broken heart mi mum passed over the weekend,” the post reads. “Thank you for being an unmovable rock that guided me through life. I will try to honour your memory for as long as I live.”

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Hubbard received eight Daytime Emmy nominations for her character on the soap opera, which told the fictional story of the wealthy Walsh and Stewart families of Oakdale, Illinois.

The actress won two Daytime Emmys — one award for Best Actress in a Daytime Drama for a Series in 1974 for the role of Dr. Althea Davis in “The Doctors,...

Elizabeth Hubbard, who appeared 14 times on Broadway and had long runs as Dr. Althea Davis and the cutthroat Lucinda Walsh on the daytime soap operas The Doctors and As the World Turns, respectively, has died. She was 89.

Hubbard died Saturday of cancer at her home in Roxbury, Connecticut, her son, Jeremy Bennett, told The Hollywood Reporter.

On the big screen, Hubbard played the gynecologist girlfriend of Gene Hackman’s character in I Never Sang for My Father (1970) and appeared in The Bell Jar (1979), Ordinary People (1980), Cold River (1982) and Center Stage (2000).

She portrayed Dr. Althea on NBC’s The Doctors from 1964-82 and the manipulating mogul Lucinda on CBS’ As the World Turns from 1984 until the show’s conclusion in September 2010. (Lucinda and Larry Bryggman’s John Dixon headed off to Amsterdam at the end.)

“I’ve been so lucky playing Lucinda — a character who could do anything,” she told TV Guide in 2010. “She could lie,...

Elizabeth Hubbard, who earned eight Daytime Emmy nominations for her indelible performance as trouble-making businesswoman Lucinda Walsh on CBS’ As The World Turns, died over the weekend. She was 89.

Her death was announced by son Jeremy Bennett on Facebook. Additional details were not immediately available.

Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2023 Photo Gallery

“I’m sorry to say with a broken heart mi mum passed over the weekend,” Bennett wrote. “Thank you for being an unmovable rock that guided me through life. I will try to honour your memory for as long as I live.”

Although best known for her portrayal of the tough-as-nails Lucinda, Hubbard won two Daytime Emmys for other performances: She won her first in 1974 for her role as Dr. Althea Davis on NBC’s The Doctors, and her second in 1976 for the daytime drama TV movie First Ladies Diaries: Edith Wilson.

Born in New York City, Hubbard began...

One of the most memorable faces on daytime TV has died.

Elizabeth Hubbard, best known for her work on As the World Turns, passed away over the weekend.

She was 89.

Hubbard's son Jeremy Bennett shared the sad news via Facebook.

"I'm sorry to say with a broken heart my mom passed over the weekend," he wrote.

"Thank you for being an unmovable rock that guided me through life."

"I will try to honor your memory as long as I live."

Hubbard was a daytime TV staple, scoring 11 Daytime Emmy nominations throughout her impressive career.

Most of those nominations stemmed from her work on As the World Turns in the role of Lucinda Walsh.

The actress appeared in the show from 1984 until 2010.

She also worked on the NBC soap The Doctors as Dr. Althea Davis.

Hubbard appeared on that show from 1964 until 1969 before returning for two more stints before the show...

Actress Elizabeth Hubbard, an 11-time Daytime Emmy nominee known for her work on As the World Turns, has passed away at the age of 89.

Hubbard’s son, Jeremy Bennett, shared the sad news in a Facebook post on Monday: “I’m sorry to say with a broken heart mi mum passed over the weekend,” he wrote. “Thank you for being an unmovable rock that guided me through life. I will try to honour your memory for as long as I live.”

More from TVLineMarnie Schulenburg, Who Played Alison on As the World Turns, Dead at 37Atwt Vet Kathryn Hays Dead...

Gerald Fried, the Oscar-nominated, oboe-playing composer who created iconic gladiatorial fight music for the original Star Trek series and collaborated with Quincy Jones to win an Emmy for their theme to the landmark miniseries Roots, has died. He was 95.

Fried died Friday of pneumonia at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Bridgeport, Connecticut, his wife, Anita Hall, told The Hollywood Reporter.

After meeting Stanley Kubrick on a baseball field in the Bronx in the early 1950s, Fried wound up scoring the filmmaker’s first four features: Fear and Desire (1953), Killer’s Kiss (1955), The Killing (1956) and Paths of Glory (1957).

Fried also supplied the music for such cult Roger Corman classics as Machine-Gun Kelly (1958), The Cry Baby Killer (1958) and I Mobster (1959). He also worked with directors Larry Peerce on One Potato Two Potato (1964) and The Bell Jar (1979), as well as with Robert Aldrich on The Killing of Sister George (1968), What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?...

Composer Gerald Fried, who won an Emmy for the landmark miniseries “Roots” and whose 1960s scores, from “Star Trek” to “Gilligan’s Island,” left an indelible impression on a generation of TV watchers, died of pneumonia Friday at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Bridgeport, Ct. He was 95.

His wide-ranging career included scoring five early Stanley Kubrick films, including “Paths of Glory” and “The Killing”; receiving the only Oscar nomination ever given for a documentary score, 1975’s “Birds Do It, Bees Do It”; and earning five other Emmy nominations for music in specials, TV movies and miniseries.

The prolific Fried scored approximately 40 films, some three dozen TV-movies and miniseries, and episodes of another 40 TV series during a career that spanned more than six decades.

Among his most famous TV series music was from the original “Star Trek.” He scored five episodes of the series, most famously the Spock-in-heat episode “Amok Time,” which...

Dir: Olivia Wilde. Starring: Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Chris Pine, Olivia Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, Nick Kroll, Kate Berlant. 122 mins

Do worry darling. Olivia Wilde’s new film has generated large amounts of negative buzz in advance of its world premiere in Venice today. Its star Florence Pugh appears to be distancing herself from the project amid rumours of a “falling out” between herself and Wilde. Shia Labeouf has disputed Wilde’s claims that he was fired from the production and released a video of the director that seemingly proves his story. The gossip columnists have been in a frenzy about Wilde’s relationship with pop idol Harry Styles, who took over Labeouf’s role. On top of all that are the allegations that Styles was paid three times more than Pugh despite the fact she plays the main character. Morbid anticipation has therefore been building that Don’t Worry Darling...

It would be easy to kick off a review of Olivia Wilde’s sophomore feature, “Don’t Worry Darling,” by toe-dipping into the world Wilde created — one that boasts some of the year’s most gorgeous craft work, from Arianne Phillips’ costumes to Katie Bryon’s production design to John Powell’s score — by tossing off something like, “In Olivia Wilde’s glittering ’50s fairy tale, set in the fictional desert idyll of Victory, all is not what it seems,” because that’s the entire point of this transparently designed cinematic nightmare.

It also would be incorrect, because everything actually is what it seems in Victory. “Don’t Worry Darling” is so clearly, so obviously not set in an idyllic ’50s community that to say the film packs a twist is not at twist at all. It’s disingenuous, easy, cheeky — much like the film itself, which starts off strong before crumbling...

Tulapop Saenjaroen's Squish! is showing exclusively on Mubi starting August 8, 2022, in the series Brief Encounters.Abstract Notes On Squish!1.I had a chance to read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath many years ago. As I remember, I was immensely touched by it emotionally. Though I cannot recall the details and plot so well, there is one monologue that is still stuck in my mind ’til this day. Plath writes, "The only reason I remembered this play was because it had a mad person in it, and everything I had ever read about mad people stuck in my mind, while everything else flew out."Everything else is missing but the subject. The initial idea of Squish! is derived from my personal urge to question how depression is usually represented on screen and how it could possibly be done otherwise. It is often ironic when contemporary representations utilize depression as a “subject” while,...

Zendaya made history in 2020 when, at age 24, the “Euphoria” star became the youngest actor to win the Emmy for lead actress in a drama for her role on the first season of the HBO show. The victory was a highly celebrated upset that proved acclaim for a show centered on teens is possible when on the rare occasion it breaks through with older audiences.

While “Euphoria” is still in the game, Showtime’s “Yellowjackets” has also buzzed its way into the awards conversation, and roughly 50 of that is thanks to the show’s younger stars.

“‘Yellowjackets’ is so unique in showing just how complicated and messy humans are, never mind teenagers,” says Samantha Hanratty, who plays teen Misty vs. Christina Ricci’s present-day version of the character in the survivalist thriller. “We have so much going on already, and then you add a plane crash element to it and survival and then it becomes,...

This is the right way to do Emmy campaigning. In a historic move, CBS’ “Mom” is foregoing an Emmy campaign this year and is instead donating it’s $250,000 to Planned Parenthood. Let’s hope other shows follow suit as the organization needs support now more than ever. (Hollywood Reporter) Joss Whedon continues his tour of wokeness. Speaking of Planned Parenthood, the director teamed up with the organization to produce a short film about what happens when Pp is shut down. You would think that with all the high-profile pro-Planned Parenthood campaigning taking place, the current administration would take a hint and realize what a huge mistake defunding it would be. (EW) Kirsten Dunst on Hollywood: 'It's always harder for women.'In conversation with director Sophia Coppola to promote their new film “The Beguiled,” the actress got candid about how the industry changes as women age and her difficulty finding funding for “The Bell Jar,...

There are a few things filmmaker Sofia Coppola hasn’t done yet: she hasn’t made a sequel (to her own films or anyone else’s), she hasn’t jumped into the blockbuster pool, and she hasn’t gone the superhero route. And the way she tells it, she’s probably not going to. Ever. In a revealing new Variety cover story with Coppola and her frequent star Kirsten Dunst, the Oscar-winning filmmaker gets honest about what kind of films she wants to make.

Or, perhaps more directly, the kind of films she doesn’t want to make.

When asked by the outlet about making a sequel, “The Beguiled” helmer responded, “I can’t imagine.” (Admittedly, however, it’s kind of tempting to fantasize about a followup to “Lost in Translation,” though we’ll keep that opinion mum in the face of Coppola.)

Read More: Female Filmmakers Want to Direct...

The Bell Jar, Kirsten Dunst’s upcoming feature film debut, has added three: Patricia Arquette (Boyhood), Bel Powley (The Diary of a Teenage Girl) and Stacy Martin (Nymphomaniac).

First reported by Screen Daily, the casting coup means that this troupe of newcomers joins Dakota Fanning and Fargo‘s Jesse Plemons, as Dunst’s modern adaptation of the titular Sylvia Plath novel begins to coalesce. In what would be one of the author’s final creative efforts before her untimely death – Plath took her own life a month after The Bell Jar was published – the story centers on a young woman (Esther Greenwood) who uproots and moves to the city.

Tackling themes of mental illness and crippling depression, The Bell Jar has been held up as a “haunting American classic,” and Dunst has certainly brought together an enviable ensemble to repackage that story for the big screen. The cameras are set...

If you’re an actor making your feature directorial debut, it doesn’t hurt to surround yourself with really good talent. Paul Dano is doing just that with this currently filming “Wildlife” starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan, and Kirsten Dunst has put together some excellent actors for her turn behind the camera with “The Bell Jar.”

Patrica Arquette, Bel Powley (“The Diary Of A Teenage Girl”) and Stacy Martin (“Nymphomaniac”) have joined Dakota Fanning and Jesse Plemons in the adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s novel.

Continue reading Patricia Arquette, Bel Powley & Stacy Martin Join Kirsten Dunst’s ‘The Bell Jar’ at The Playlist.

As Kirsten Dunst gears up for her directorial debut next year with an adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s landmark 1963 novel The Bell Jar, she’s been expanding her cast. With Dakota Fanning on board to lead as Esther Greenwood, Jesse Plemons recently joined, and now ScreenDaily reports that Oscar-winner Patricia Arquette, Bel Powley (The Diary Of A Teenage Girl) and Stacy Martin (Nymphomaniac) have all been added to the ensemble. The story follows Greenwood, who suffers from a mental illness, returning to her Boston home after interning at a magazine in New York City. Production begins early next year for a hopeful festival premiere later in 2017.

In other cast expansions, production has now begun on David Robert Mitchell‘s follow-up to It Follows, the Andrew Garfield-led modern-day noir thriller Under the Silver Lake. We got word earlier this week that Riley Keough (American Honey, Mad Max: Fury Road) had...

Exclusive: Oscar winner Patricia Arquette joins adaptation of Sylvia Plath novel.

Oscar winner Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) and rising stars Bel Powley (The Diary Of A Teenage Girl) and Stacy Martin (Nymphomaniac) are to join Dakota Fanning (American Pastoral) and Jesse Plemons (Black Mass) in Kirsten Dunst’s directorial debut The Bell Jar.

Fanning will play the lead role in the adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s classic 1950’s-set novel of the same name about a young woman who finds her life spiraling out of control as she struggles with mental illness.

Priority Pictures optioned the re-make rights to the film from Studiocanal. Lizzie Friedman, Karen Lauder and Greg Little (The Stanford Prison Experiment) will produce together with Dakota Fanning and Brittany Kahan from Echo Lake Entertainment (Nebraska) with Celine Rattray (American Honey) and Kirsten Dunst as executive producers.

Dunst is co-writing the screenplay together with Nellie Kim. The film is due to go into production in early 2017.

Cornerstone...

For many distributors, producers and sales agents, the American Film Market is the movie business equivalent of the Super Bowl. Billed as “Hollywood’s global deal-making event” and “the film industry’s largest international conference,” this year’s Afm will draw more than 1,500 film buyers from 80 countries, all of whom will converge upon Santa Monica hoping to close deals for projects in every stage of development and production.

But how important is Afm to the independent film ecosystem? Unlike Sundance, Cannes or Berlin, Afm has no festival, and therefore no flashy premieres to start bidding wars among distributors. While this year’s event will include more than 70 world premiere screenings and roughly 250 market premieres, Afm is known more for pre-sales and getting projects off the ground than finding homes for theatrical titles.

Here are four ways this year’s Afm could have an impact on the independent film world.

1. Hot new projects.

It’s been a relatively quiet year for Tom Hardy, at least compared to a rather flurried 2015 that saw the English-born actor earn his first Oscar nomination for his performance in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s The Revenant and swing across countless screens in George Miller’s critical and financial behemoth Mad Max: Fury Road. Now, it looks as if Hardy will be anything but idle in 2017.

With shooting complete on Christopher Nolan’s WWII epic Dunkirk, set for a July 21, 2017 release, Deadline is now reporting that Hardy has come aboard Studiocanal’s Ernest Shackleton biopic to play the man himself. Shackleton, a polar explorer, led three British expeditions to the Antarctic between 1901 and 1917. With the third expedition nearly costing Shackleton and his crew their lives when their ship, the Endurance, was decimated by ice floes. Shackleton led his comrades to safety through brutal, sub-zero conditions, further cementing his status as a heroic figure.

Sound the Fargo reunion klaxon! For The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Jesse Plemons – star of Breaking Bad, Bridge of Spies and Black Mass – will reteam with actor/director and real-life girlfriend Kirsten Dunst for The Bell Jar, a new spin on Sylvia Plath’s literary classic of ’63.

There, Plemons will join Dakota Fanning, who landed the lead role of Esther Greenwood during the summer months. Meanwhile, Lenny Shepherd is the name of Plemons’ character, and we understand that production is expected to kick into gear early next year.

Acting as the directorial debut of Kirsten Dunst, there are precious few story details available for this new interpretation of The Bell Jar. That being said, we’re inclined to believed Dunst will remain fairly faithful to Plath’s novel, as opposed to churning out a modern redo of Larry Peerce’s own film adaptation from 1979.

What we do know for...

In July it was revealed that Kirsten Dunst was making her directorial debut with the film adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar.” Dakota Fanning landed the lead role of Esther Greenwood, who goes to NYC for an internship and almost immediately had a mental breakdown. And now another actor is boarding the film.

Read More: Sofia Coppola Directing ‘The Beguiled’ With Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning

Dunst’s “Fargo” co-star and Irl boyfriend Jesse Plemons has now been cast as Lenny Shepherd, the boyfriend of Esther’s friend Doreen.

Continue reading ‘The Bell Jar’ Gets A ‘Fargo’ Reunion As Jesse Plemons Joins Kirsten Dunst’s Directorial Debut at The Playlist.

Fargo season 2 co-stars (and real-life paramours) Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons are set to reunite, but not for Fargo season 3. Plemons has joined Dakota Fanning in The Bell Jar, which Dunst plans to direct as her feature debut. Dunst is also co-writing the script with Nellie Kim. Based on Sylvia Plath‘s semi-autobiographical 1963 classic, The Bell Jar centers on a […]

The post Jesse Plemons Joins Kirsten Dunst’s Directorial Debut ‘The Bell Jar’ appeared first on /Film.

Jesse Plemons, who starred in Black Mass and Bridge of Spies, has joined the cast of Kirsten Dunst's directorial debut feature The Bell Jar. The duo last worked together in FX’s hit series Fargo. Plemons joins Dakota Fanning in story, based on the literary classic written by Sylvia Plath. Priority Pictures optioned the remake rights from Studiocanal and Lizzie Freidman will produce with Fanning, Echo Lake Entertainment's Brittany Kahan. Celine Rattray and Kirsten Dunst…...

One of the most intriguing directorial debuts on the horizon is Kirsten Dunst’s first foray behind the camera, in which she’ll take on Sylvia Plath’s landmark novel “The Bell Jar.” News broke in late July of Dunst’s adaptation, which casts Dakota Fanning in the lead role of Esther Greenwood, a wayward young woman whose descends into mental illness, but further developments have been pretty quiet until now. According to Cornerstone Films, the sales agent that has boarded the project, Dunst has cast “Fargo” co-star Jesse Plemons to play Lenny Shepherd.

Read More: ‘The Bell Jar’: Kirsten Dunst’s Entire Career Has Been Leading Up To Her Feature Directorial Debut – Girl Talk

Published in 1963, “The Bell Jar” follows Esther during a summer in New York City. Tormented by the death of her father, Esther arrives to take part in a prestigious internship at a magazine, but...

Cornerstone boards drama based on Sylvia Plath’s classic.

Cornerstone Films has boarded international sales on Kirsten Dunst’s (Melancholia) directorial debut, The Bell Jar.

The film is based on the literary classic written by Sylvia Plath and stars Dakota Fanning (American Pastoral) in the lead as Esther Greenwood and Jesse Plemons (Black Mass) as Lenny Shepherd.

Dunst is co-writing the screenplay together with Nellie Kim and the film is going into production early 2017. Cornerstone Films will commence sales at the American Film Market with UTA handling the North American rights.

Priority Pictures optioned the re-make rights from Studiocanal and Lizzie Friedman (The Stanford Prison Experiment) will produce together with Dakota Fanning and Brittany Kahan from Echo Lake Entertainment (Truth) with Celine Rattray (American Honey) and Kirsten Dunst as executive producers.

Set in the 1950s, Esther Greenwood (Dakota Fanning), a young woman from the suburbs of Boston, wins a summer internship at a prominent women’s magazine...

BMW Films has released a new trailer for the short film “The Escape,” starring Clive Owen, Dakota Fanning and Vera Farmiga, Coming Soon reports. Directed by Academy Award-nominated director Neill Blomkamp (“District 9,” “Elysium”) the short features Owen reprising his role as The Driver, which he first played as a rising star in a series of eight short films between 2001 and 2002.

Read More: ‘The Bell Jar’: Kirsten Dunst to Direct Dakota Fanning in an Adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s Classic Novel

The new short pays homage to the original as part of the 15th anniversary of the critically-acclaimed BMW Films series, entitled “The Hire.” The shorts starred Owen as a mysterious Driver completing a series of missions, and were directed by filmmakers including Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Ang Lee, Joe Carnahan, Wong Kar-wai, Guy Ritchie, John Woo, John Frankenheimer and Tony Scott.

“The Hire” also starred Hollywood talent including Gary Oldman,...

20th Century Fox’s upcoming historical drama “Hidden Figures,” about three African-American women working at Nasa in the 1960’s, looks primed for takeoff in 2017. The true story starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe has crowdpleaser written all over it, so much so that it’s a wonder the film has taken this long to get made. The movie hits theaters in January.

Read More: Octavia Spencer Joins Taraji P. Henson in Film Based on Story of Black Women Mathematicians Who Worked for Nasa During the Space Race

Here’s the official synopsis: “Hidden Figures” is the incredible untold story of Katherine G. Johnson (Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Monáe)—brilliant African-American women working at Nasa, who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation’s confidence,...

Though latest superhero film “Suicide Squad” has garnered mostly mixed-to-negative reviews, it’s nevertheless sweeping the nation as well as the Internet. But while fans of the film or the DC Comics Universe might be sharing memes to express their adoration or displeasure, one actress in particular shared a clever meme that harkened back to a film that was released 20 years ago.

On her Instagram, Kirsten Dunst shared a picture of herself and the cast of Sofia Coppola’s “The Virgin Suicides,” and proclaimed that there’s “only one Real Suicide Squad.” The meme was originally created by Twitter user Carter Nixon. Check it out below.

Read More: Kirsten Dunst’s 13 Best Performances, From Child Vampire to Manic Pixie Dream Girl

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A photo posted by Kirsten Dunst (@kirstendunst) on Aug 9, 2016 at 6:42am Pdt

Kirsten Dunst first rose to prominence in her role as Claudia in the 1994 film “Interview with the Vampire.

Having worked with Sofia Coppola, Lars von Trier, Michel Gondry, Jeff Nichols, Sam Raimi, Joe Dante, Cameron Crowe, and a number of other accomplished directors, Kirsten Dunst is now set to step behind the camera for her directorial debut. She let it slip earlier this year while on the press tour for Midnight Special, but now it’s confirmed she has set her sights on an adaptation of Sylvia Plath‘s landmark 1963 novel The Bell Jar.

Deadline reports that Dakota Fanning will take the lead role of Esther Greenwood in the film, which follows her character, who suffers from a mental illness upon returning to her Boston home after interning at a magazine in New York City. It’s set to begin production early next year, and we’re looking forward to seeing Dunst taking on something quite ambitious and widely praised for her debut. As we await more details,...

The Lego Batman Movie: Our first look at Joker (above left, voiced by Zach Galifianakis) and Robin (above right, voiced by Michael Cera) in The Lego Batman Movie presents a different appearance for both characters. In the movie, which will open in theaters on February 10, 2017, Batman (Will Arnett) insults the Joker, prompting the criminal to start a crime spree. [USA Today]   The Bell Jar: Dakota Fanning will star in a new version of The Bell Jar. Published in 1963, Sylvia Plath's acclaimed novel follows a young woman as she becomes mentally unstable. Kirsten Dunst will make her directorial debut; she cowrote the screenplay with Nellie Kim. The book was previously adapted into a 1979 movie starring Marilyn Hassett. [Deadline]   Queen of Katwe...

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Girl Talk is a weekly look at women in film — past, present and future.

In the spring of 1999, Sofia Coppola’s feature directorial debut, a big screen version of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel “The Virgin Suicides,” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. A delicate, deeply feeling and achingly human portrait of suburban ennui and teenage depression, the film was anchored by a performance by a then-17-year-old Kirsten Dunst. As Lux Lisbon, the prettiest and wildest and most broken of the five Lisbon sisters that the film so intimately chronicles, Dunst was tasked with straddling the gap between deep pain and flickering hope.

The film follows the Lisbons after their youngest sister, Cecilia, twice attempts suicide, completing the act on her second try, all during party thrown by her terrified parents in hopes of cheering her up enough to keep her alive. The Lisbons, by and large, are suffocated by their...

The Melancholia actor is to make her directorial debut with a version of Sylvia Plath’s 1963 novel

Kirsten Dunst is to make her debut as a director with an adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.

Dakota Fanning has been announced in the lead role of Esther Greenwood, a young woman who takes an internship at a magazine in New York before suffering a breakdown and returning home to Boston.

Continue reading...

The Lego Batman Movie: Our first look at Joker (voiced by Zach Galifianakis) and Robin (voiced by Michael Cera) in The Lego Batman Movie presents a different appearance for both characters. In the movie, which will open in theaters on February 10, 2017, Batman (Will Arnett) insults the Joker, prompting the criminal to start a crime spree. [USA Today]   The Bell Jar: Dakota Fanning will star in a new version of The Bell Jar. Published in 1963, Sylvia Plath's acclaimed novel...

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Deadline brings word that Kirsten Dunst is set to make her first foray behind the camera with The Bell Jar, a new adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name that has already secured Dakota Fanning to headline.

Johnson, who has lined up roles in Brimstone and Ewan McGregor’s crime drama American Pastoral (which, incidentally, also marks McGregor’s directorial debut), will lead the feature film as Esther Greenwood. Nellie Kim, meanwhile, penned the script opposite Dunst.

For those unfamiliar with Plath’s source material, The Bell Jar is set against a post-war 1950s, where Greenwood secures an internship with a high-profile magazine in New York City. However, a crippling mental illness begins to take hold as Greenwood returns home to Boston.

This isn’t the first time that The Bell Jar has found its way onto the silver screen; in 1979, a movie adaptation placed Marilyn Hassett in the lead role,...

Kirsten Dunst is going to chase that (well-deserved) Emmy nomination high by tackling her first feature film in the director’s chair. The Fargo actress has a couple of shorts under her belt—Welcome and Bastard, which screened at Sundance and Cannes, respectively—but now Deadline reports that she’ll helm an adaptation of The Bell Jar. And with that, a collective, not-quite-contented sigh just went up across English literature classrooms everywhere, or at least the ones that are in summer session.

Dunst and co-writer Nellie Kim (no, not the Russian Olympic athlete, though that was our guess, too) have already adapted Sylvia Plath’s powerful novel into a script. Dunst has also landed Dakota Fanning in the lead role of Esther Greenwood, the novel’s protagonist who descends into madness following an internship in New York. Esther chafes at the idea of marriage, an aversion that helps get her...

Kirsten Dunst has signed on to direct a big-screen adaptation of “The Bell Jar,” the 1963 novel of the same name by Sylvia Plath, TheWrap has learned. Dakota Fanning has been cast in the lead role of Esther Greenwood. Having only directed two short films, this will be Dunst’s first time helming a feature-length movie. “The Bell Jar” is about a young Bostonian woman who lands an internship with a major magazine in New York City. She is ultimately unimpressed with the big city and has some frightening experiences during her time there. Upon her return home, she ends up struggling with depression.

Here’s some fitting news for the “queer, sultry summer” we’re currently in the midst of: Kirsten Dunst is stepping behind the camera for the first time to direct “The Bell Jar.” Dakota Fanning will star in the actress-turned-filmmaker’s adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s melancholy classic, which Dunst co-wrote with Nellie Kim. Deadline first broke the news.

Read More: Report: Sofia Coppola Directing ‘The Beguiled’ With Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning

Long a favorite among forlorn teens and undergrads the world over, Plath’s only novel (originally published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas) remains her best-known work, though her two poetry collections, “Ariel” and “The Colossus and Other Poems,” are revered as well. Plath, who famously struggled with depression throughout her life, committed suicide in 1963 at the age of 30; “The Bell Jar” wasn’t released in the United States until eight years later, owing to the wishes of her mother and husband,...

Exclusive: Kirsten Dunst is set make her feature film directorial debut with The Bell Jar, an adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s famed 1963 novel. Dakota Fanning has been set to play the lead role of Esther Greenwood in the pic, which Dunst has co-written with Nellie Kim. The Stanford Prison Experiment producer Priority Pictures optioned remake rights from Studio Canal, and production is eyed to start in first-quarter 2017. Priority’s Lizzie Friedman, Karen Lauder and Greg…...

Kirsten Dunst will make her feature film directorial debut on an independent film adaptation of Sylvia Plath's iconic 1963 novel "The Bell Jar" at Priority Pictures.

Dunst has adapted the script with Nellie Kim in which Dakota Fanning will play the lead role of Esther Greenwood. Greenwood takes an internship at a magazine in New York City and then begins to suffer a mental breakdown when she returns home to Boston. The novel is the only book ever published by Plath who committed suicide in 1963.

Fanning, Brittany Kahan, Lizzie Friedman, Karen Lauder and Greg Little will produce. Production aims to begin in the first quarter of 2017.

Source: Deadline...

40 years ago today, “The Bionic Woman” premiered on ABC. A spin-off of “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “Bionic Woman” gave Jaime Sommers her own series. For three seasons (starting on ABC, then moving to NBC), viewers watched Jaime on spy missions where, thanks to her bionics, she can run faster than 60 miles per hour, use advanced hearing and extraordinary strength in her right arm. “Bionic Woman” got an NBC remake in 2007 but only aired eight episodes before the WGA Strike halted production. Other notable January 14 happenings in pop culture history: • 1990: Giacomo Puccini opera “Tosca” premiered in Rome. • 1952: “The Today Show” debuted on NBC. • 1963: Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” was published in England under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. • 1966: David Bowie’s single “Can’t Help Thinking About Me” was released in the U.K. It later became the first record of his to be released in the U.

Chloë Grace Moretz has revealed that she's leaving behind her iconic Hit-Girl role.

Speaking to Digital Spy, the actress said that she doesn't believe Kick-Ass 3 will happen and suggested that piracy resulted in the underwhelming box office performance of last year's sequel.

"Sadly, I think I'm done with the character," Moretz said. "Hit-Girl was a very cool character, but I don't think there will be any more movies. You make these movies for the fanboys, but nowadays everyone seems to pirate them rather than watch them in the movie theatre.

"Kick-Ass 2 was one of the number one pirated movies of the year, but that doesn't help us because we need box office figures. We need to prove to the distributors that we can make money from a third and a fourth movie - but because it didn't do so well, we can't make another one.

"If you want more than one movie,...

On the day I’m scheduled to talk to Chloë Grace Moretz about her new movie If I Stay I get a call asking if we can push it back a couple hours. When I arrive at Toronto’s Four Seasons Hotel later that day I learn the reason for the delay. Hillary Clinton was in town to sign her book Hard Choices and 17-year-old Moretz really, really, really wanted to meet her.

“It’s very exciting! I’m more excited about this than anything,” Moretz says when we finally sit down. Taller than expected and looking gorgeous in skinny jeans and a chic, army-inspired shirt, she opens her signed copy of Hard Choices to a page that reads, “Chloë, good luck! Hillary.”

Aside from Hard Choices, Moretz is reading Gillian Flynn’s thriller Gone Girl and she just finished Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Very adult choices for a high school senior.

Award-winning actor renowned for her work on Broadway and roles in classic films such as East of Eden and The Haunting

Unable to make sufficient money from her novels, the great American writer Carson McCullers took advice from Tennessee Williams and allowed one of her masterpieces to be adapted for the theatre. The resultant success of The Member of the Wedding (1950) widened her fame, and made a Broadway star of Julie Harris, who has died aged 87.

The play's main character is Frankie Addams, a gawky 12-year-old who longs for companionship and the "we of me". Although the second juvenile role, in what is essentially a three-hander, went to a child actor, Brandon de Wilde, the complex part of Frankie fell to Harris, who was then 24. Born in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, and trained at the Yale School of Drama, Harris had made her Broadway debut in It's a Gift in...

The novelist talks to Emma Brockes about friendship, rivalry and being a '30-year overnight success'

Fiction asks a lot of people, says Meg Wolitzer, "to tell them that you need to learn about these characters, to take time out in your day from being frightened for your livelihood and your children, to think about Susan and Bill, who don't exist. It's a nervy thing to ask." She asks it of herself every time she sits down to write – "What fiction ought to do" – and the answer had better be good. "The anxiety makes me a stronger writer."

The Interestings, Wolitzer's ninth novel, is more ambitious than any she has written so far, tracking a group of friends from the moment they meet, at summer camp, up through the decades of their lives. It has done very well in the Us, so that at 54, Wolitzer has become, as a friend joked to her recently,...

From a full programme of film and stage adaptations to a new James Bond novel, unpublished works by Rs Thomas and Wg Sebald and a new prize for women writers, 2013 is set to be a real page-turner

January

10th The Oscar nominations are announced unusually early this year. Keep an eye out for a bumper crop of literary adaptations, including David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Yann Martel's Life of Pi, the David Nicholls-scripted Great Expectations, as well as Les Miserables, Anna Karenina and The Hobbit.

18th A new stage adaptation of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw at the Almeida theatre in London. In the year of the centenary of Benjamin Britten's birth, his musical version will also feature around the country in both concert and stage performances.

24th The finalists for the fifth Man Booker International prize will be announced at the Jaipur festival.

Magic carpets, Superman, and lewd encounters with barbers: Kelley's life's work is on show at this Amsterdam retrospective – and his rancid humour shines through

What is hidden under the big Afghan blanket on the floor? Those bulges tease the imagination. Nearby, grubby old knitted dolls and stuffed plush animals sit around holding conversations. I hear animal noises. So what's going on under the blanket, in Mike Kelley's 1991 Lumpenprole – are they humping? What muffled whispers do they share, what furtive games are they playing?

This is a children's game played by an adult – the artist at work. The Lumpenprole of the title won't grow up, or rather, the play he is indulging in has been consciously dragged too far into adulthood. At the same time, it is a very conscious play on floor-bound sculpture; a refusal of the normative. This seems to be the message, and it's a message as...

Each week within this column we strive to pair the latest in theatrical releases to worthwhile titles currently streaming on Netflix Instant Watch. This week we offer alternatives to The Iron Lady, We Need to Talk About Kevin and Beauty and the Beast 3D.

In theaters this week, one of Disney’s biggest hits faces off against a brutal tale of motherhood’s dark side and a poetic portrait of problematic politician. Simply put, there’s some truly sensational cinema to be had. But if this won’t satisfy your film-seeing thirsts, we’ve got you covered with with a selection of bold biopics, alluring adventures, and dauntless dramas.

Meryl Streep makes her bid for Oscar gold playing one of Britain’s most controversial contemporary political figures: Britain’s first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Phyllida Lloyd directs. [Full Review]

Biopics need not be a boys’ club.

Check out these daring dramas...

Despite her young age, turning just twenty-seven in a few days’ time, Scarlett Johansson already has a slew of major roles in her credits, along with a long list of awards and nominations to her name, including a BAFTA for her part in Lost in Translation, and four Golden Globe nominations.

Johansson is now set to make her feature directorial debut, The Playlist report, in an adaptation of Truman Capote’s Summer Crossing, an early Capote novel that was published for the first time posthumously in 2005, having been set aside after a decade of adjustments following its conception in 1943.

“Taking place over the course of a hot summer in 1945 New York City, the story centers on the 17 year old Grady, from a well-to-do family living on Fifth Avenue, who enters a torrid affair with a parking attendant, winds up marrying him, and becomes pregnant”

Though I’ve not read any of Capote’s work,...