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In September 2024, news broke that silver screen superstars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi were slated to headline Emerald Fennell's adaptation of Emily Bront's literary classic Wuthering Heights. While there is no denying that the talented duo can master any role they're given and deliver riveting performances in every project they tackle, the casting of the Hollywood greats has set the internet ablaze and people are not hesitating with voicing their collective criticism.

While there are some who are hopeful and excited to see Robbie and Elordi help bring the spellbinding tale to life and portray star-crossed lovers, Cathy and Heathcliff, many can't help but express their frustration and disdain for the casting choices. Fans are upset that Elordi will be playing a character who was written as a person of color and is essentially being white-washed, and others are scratching their heads over Robbie appearing as a troubled teenager in the buzzed-about picture.

Margot Robbie is making moves!

The 34-year-old pregnant Barbie star stepped out on Thursday (September 26) in Los Angeles.

Margot looked pretty in a beige maxi dress while running errands in Los Angeles with a bandage under her ear. She also wore a chic black and white patterned cardigan, beige slide sandals, dark sunglasses, and a black tote for the outing.

A few days before, she was spotted heading to a business meeting alongside her production partner and husband, Tom Ackerley, with whom she’s expecting her first child.

Keep reading to find out more…

If you didn’t know, Margot has some other exciting news: it was announced that Margot and Jacob Elordi will be starring in Oscar-winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell‘s upcoming movie adaption of Wuthering Heights! Get all the details.

Saltburn director Emerald Fennell has caused a stir with her project to remake Brontë’s classic – but the novel has been provocative for more than 170 years

When Andrea Arnold imagined the opening shots of her film of Wuthering Heights, she saw heavy mists ­swirling around the outline of a misshapen creature as it scaled a hillside. The figure would slowly be revealed as a climbing man, his back laden with dead rabbits for skinning.

On the day of the shoot, however, it was bright and sunny – and there were only three rabbits. “People keep saying one day I will come to like it,” she said later of her 2011 screen version. “It was a difficult experience making it, for various reasons. I find it hard to look at it.”...

Hilary Swank has been cast in the upcoming third season of Yellowjackets. According to Deadline, she'll be a recurring guest star with an option to bump up to a series regular should the show get renewed for a fourth season. No details have yet been released as to who Swank will play.

Emerald Fennells decision to cast Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff in her upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation has sparked backlash online. Deadline revealed that Elordi and Margot Robbie will star in the film as Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. Fennell is set to write, direct, and produce.

Based on the classic novel by Emily Bront, the character Heathcliff's ethnicity is somewhat ambiguous in the novel. In Wuthering Heights, the character is described as having dark skin, dark hair, and a wild appearance. He is also referred to as a "dark-skinned gipsy." Many fans had hoped to see a Romani actor portray the role, or at least an actor of color, as the general consensus among readers and literary experts is that Heathcliff is not white.

Wuthering Heights (2011) NRDramaDocumentaryRomance Release Date September 9, 2011Director Andrea ArnoldCast James Howson, Solomon Glave, Paul Hilton, Shannon Beer, Simone Jackson, Steve EvetsRuntime 128Main Genre DramaWriters Andrea Arnold, Olivia Hetreed,...

Although director Emerald Fennells upcoming Emily Bront adaptation has secured two major stars in Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, the initial announcement of this Wuthering Heights casting has already caused a lot of controversy and backlash. Wuthering Heights is a seminal work of Gothic tragedy penned by Emily Bront. Wuthering Heights follows the multi-generational story of the Earnshaw family. Frequently listed among the greatest novels of all time, its plot is chiefly concerned with the tortured love affair between its heroine, Cathy, and her lover and adopted brother, Heathcliff. Wuthering Heights has several movie adaptations, released to varying degrees of acclaim.

Related Twilight: Every Wuthering Heights Reference Explained

Are Twilight's Edward and Bella closely based on Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff and Cathy? Or are their love stories too different to compare?

After the mixed reaction to 2023s mystery Saltburn, Promising Young Woman director Emerald Fennells next movie was revealed...

A new film version of Emily Brontë’s classic novel “Wuthering Heights” has sparked debate over its casting of the lead character Heathcliff. Director Emerald Fennell chose Jacob Elordi, a white actor, to portray Heathcliff in the upcoming movie. However, many argue this overlooks clues in the book suggesting Heathcliff had darker skin.

The production, scheduled to start filming in the UK next year, will see Margot Robbie star as Catherine Earnshaw. Fennell is handling writing, directing, and producing duties. But the casting of Elordi as Heathcliff has drawn significant criticism. Experts note Brontë described Heathcliff as having “dark-skinned” appearance and being found abandoned in Liverpool, a major slave port. This has led scholars to believe Heathcliff was possibly a person of color.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Michael Stewart of the Brontë Writing Centre said past adaptations have often featured white actors in the “more ambiguous ethnic” role of Heathcliff.

Emerald Fennell’s decision to cast Jacob Elordi in Wuthering Heights has raised eyebrows in the UK.

Deadline revealed on Monday that Elordi and Margot Robbie will star in the Emily Brontë adaptation as Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. Saltburn director Fennell is set to write, direct, and produce, with filming taking place in the UK next year.

Heathcliff’s ethnicity is famously ambiguous in Brontë’s 1847 novel, but there is some consensus that his description as a “dark-skinned gipsy” — as well as his abandonment as a baby at the slave port of Liverpool — likely means he was not white.

Commenting on Elordi’s casting, Michael Stewart, director of the Brontë Writing Centre, told The Daily Telegraph newspaper: “With Wuthering Heights, you’ve had many years of white actors playing the more ambiguous ethnic character… But things are different now, the way we represent certain people in art and culture comes...

Margot Robbie is getting to work.

The 34-year-old Oscar-nominated actress, who is pregnant with her first child, and her husband Tom Ackerley headed to a business meeting on Tuesday (Sept. 24) in Brentwood, Calif.

For their meeting, Margot dressed her growing baby bump in a black sheer top paired with comfy black pants and sandals while Tom, also 34, coordinated in an all-black outfit.

The day before, it was announced that Margot and Jacob Elordi will be starring in Oscar-winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell‘s upcoming movie adaption of Wuthering Heights!

Margot and Tom will be producing the movie through their production company LuckyChap, which also produced two other Emerald movies: Saltburn and Promising Young Woman. Emerald also made an appearance as Midge in alongside Margot in Barbie.

It was also recently announced that Margot and Tom will be turning a fan-favorite video game into a movie!

Click through the gallery for 80+ pictures...

As Hollywood continues to dish out one star after the other, one actor has been drawing the attention of fans and critics the most, the alluring and charming Jacob Elordi. Having gained attention for his role in the teen comedy romantic film, The Kissing Booth, his career trajectory is one for the history books.

Jacob Elordi in Saltburn | Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

From his troubled dramatic role in Euphoria to playing Elvis Presley in Priscilla, Elordi is now expected to headline several genres and roles as far as his recent upcoming projects are concerned. While we celebrate his spectacular success, it also sheds light on his fellow actor Tom Holland’s Hollywood career.

Jacob Elordi’s Impressive Hollywood Trajectory: From a Teen Star to a Versatile Actor Jacob Elordi plays Nate Jacobs in Euphoria | Credit: HBO

Jacob Elordi might have garnered fans’ and critics attention as the bad boy Noah Flynn in The Kissing Booth,...

After producing Emerald Fennell’s first two films, it appears that Margot Robbie is ready to step in front of the camera for the third film.

According to Variety, Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are set to star in Emerald Fennell’s film adaptation of “Wuthering Heights.” We’ve known for a few months now that Fennell was working on an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel. The film is based on the novel of the same name and tells the story of two English families in the mid-19th century.

Continue reading ‘Wuthering Heights’: Margot Robbie & Jacob Elordi To Star In Emerald Fennell’s Next Film at The Playlist.

Emerald Fennell has cast her first film since Saltburn, as she takes on adaptation of Wuthering Heights. More here.

Despite being one of the greatest novels written in the English language (apart from The Da Vinci Code), it’s probably fair to say that we’ve never had a definitive screen version of Wuthering Heights. Sure, you might well have a favourite Heathcliff, whether that’s Timothy Dalton, Tom Hardy or otherwise, but given just how iconic the novel is, we’ve yet to see a version that fully does it justice.

Enter Emerald Fennell then. The director behind Promising Young Woman and Saltburn is tackling Emily Brontë’s seminal gothic romance, or as the immortal British sitcom, Peep Show once called it, ‘not a love story but a clucking cluck story’.

Or words similar to that effect, anyway.

We’re pretty convinced that Fennell’s version will contain plenty of erm,...

Barbie star Margot Robbie lands another leading role following her revered performance in the Warner Bros. fantasy comedy. The Oscar-nominated actor is set to anchor the upcoming film adaptation of the gothic romance novel, Wuthering Heights, alongside one of the stars of HBO's Euphoria.

According to Deadline, Robbie will be one of the main stars in the Wuthering Heights adaptation alongside Euphoria's Jacob Elordi, with Saltburn helmer Emerald Fennell directing the film. Robbie's production imprint, LuckyChap, will produce the movie adaptation alongside MRC. Along with producing, MRC will also finance the feature-length project.

Related Mattel Reportedly Wants to Make Animated Barbie Movie After Live-Action Film's Success

A new report reveals Mattel is seriously considering making an animated Barbie film, though Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig don't seem keen.

LuckyChap worked with Fennell on Saltburn, the Golden Globe-nominated black comedy psychological thriller released last year, which starred Elordi alongside Barry Keoghan and Rosamund Pike.

Emerald Fennell is gearing up for her next feature film, an adaptation of Emily Bront's Wuthering Heights, and she has cast a few familiar faces. After starting as an actor in projects like The Danish Girl and The Crown, Fennell has become one of the most exciting creative voices in the industry behind the hit series Killing Eve and her two feature films, Promising Young Woman and, most recently, Saltburn. Given the status of Wuthering Heights as a staple in English literature, much attention has been paid to her upcoming film adaptation, and the casting process has begun by adding two major names: Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.

Deadline reports that Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi have joined the cast of Wuthering Heights. Robbie will star as Catherine Earnshaw, while Elordi will play Heathcliff, Catherine's star-crossed lover and a classic anti-hero. Behind the scenes, Robbie's production company, LuckyChap, will also produce the film,...

Renowned filmmaker Emerald Fennell will direct a new adaptation of Emily Brontë’s famous 1847 novel “Wuthering Heights.” Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are set to star as Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, the passionate yet destructive lovers at the center of the Gothic romance. Production is scheduled for 2025 in the United Kingdom.

Fennell revealed the project last July on social media and secured Robbie and Elordi for the lead roles. Robbie previously worked with Fennell on the hit films “Promising Young Woman” and “Saltburn,” earning her an Oscar for the former. Elordi also appeared in Fennell’s “Saltburn.” LuckyChap Entertainment, Robbie’s production company, will help produce the adaptation.

“Wuthering Heights” was highly influential but difficult to bring to screen due to its complexity. Previous adaptations like those by William Wyler and Andrea Arnold received praise but balancing the novel’s darkness and emotion proved challenging. Fennell’s take is highly anticipated,...

Out on the wily, windy moors... Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights is starting to take shape. Having announced back in July that her follow-up to last year's spicy satire Saltburn will be a fresh take on Emily Brontë's literary classic, everybody's favourite British provoc-auteur has it seems found her Cathy and Heathcliff — and found them down under, no less. Per Deadline's reporting, Aussie stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are set to take on the roles of the doomed lovers in Fennell's upcoming film, which is currently in pre-production and eyeing a 2025 UK shoot.

For Elordi, who'll be following in Tom Hardy, James Howson, and Ralph Fiennes' footsteps to bring Brontë's Byronic hero to life here, Wuthering Heights will be a quick reunion with his Saltburn director. And given the themes of that similarly Gothic tale — passion, revenge, obsession, death — and Elordi's tragic part to play within it,...

The Australian stars will head up a new adaptation from the Promising Young Woman and Saltburn film-maker

Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are set to lead a new adaptation of Wuthering Heights from Emerald Fennell.

The Oscar winner, known for Promising Young Woman and last year’s Saltburn, had teased the project on social media but Deadline is now reporting the two actors attached to the project.

After making men confront their past behavior with Promising Young Woman and giving Barry Keoghan a chance to hang out with his wang out in Saltburn, Emerald Fennell is tapping Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi to lead her upcoming adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel Wuthering Heights. In addition to starring in the romance film, Robbie’s LuckyChap is producing alongside MRC. LuckyChap has a history of collaborating with Emerald Fennell. They teamed up for Fennell’s unsettling empowerment thriller Promising Young Woman and her high society orgy of manipulation and murder, Saltburn.

Margot Robbie will play Catherine Earnshaw, and Jacob Elordi will play Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Production is ramping up for a 2025 UK shoot. Brontë’s world-famous novel is considered by many to be one of the most outstanding examples of literature on the planet. Brontë’s story follows two families, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and...

In mouth-watering casting news, MRC said on Monday that Margot Robbie will star as Catherine Earnshaw opposite fellow Australian Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights. The film will shoot in the UK.

Robbie’s LuckyChap will produce the adaptation of Emily Brontë’s mid-19th century gothic tale of obsession and desire which has fascinated film and television producers for nearly a century.

Fennell will write, direct and produce Wuthering Heights, which MRC said on Monday is in pre-production ahead of a UK shoot in 2025. MRC is financing the production.

The upcoming feature is heavy on reunion.

Emerald Fennell has found her Cathy and Heathcliff. The “Saltburn” and “Promising Young Woman” director had set up an adaptation of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” at MRC, and now it’s full speed into the moors as Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi have joined the project in the lead roles of the doomed lovers.

Elordi is reuniting with Fennell after starring in her nuclear reactor of a social media buzz generator “Saltburn” in 2023, with Robbie’s LuckyChap producing for MRC. LuckyChap produced both “Saltburn” and Fennell’s Oscar-winning debut “Promising Young Woman.”

The film is now in pre-production, gearing up for a UK shoot in 2025. Fennell had already teased the project in a cryptic way, with an Instagram post featuring the title and the tagline “Be with me always. Take any form. Drive me mad.”

Emily Brontë’s only novel, “Wuthering Heights,” published in 1847, established a type of Gothic...

Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi will star in the upcoming film adaptation of Emily Bront's classic Gothic romance novel Wuthering Heights. The project is directed by Emerald Fennell, who previously helmed Saltburn and Promising Young Woman.

As per Deadline, in addition to Robbie and Elordi being cast, Robbie's production company LuckyChap will produce the film alongside MRC, who will finance the adaptation.

More to come...

Source: Deadline...

Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are set to star in Emerald Fennell’s feature adaptation of Wuthering Heights, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

MRC has tapped LuckyChap Entertainment to produce the film that is based on author Emily Brontë’s classic novel of the same name. Fennell is writing, directing and producing the project that is currently in preproduction and preparing to shoot in the U.K. later this year.

Robbie is set to play Catherine Earnshaw, while Elordi will portray Heathcliff. First published in 1847, the book centers on the tempestuous relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff that encompasses passion and revenge after they meet while living at the eponymous residence.

THR reported in July that Fennell was set to direct an adaptation of Wuthering Heights as her next feature.

Wuthering Heights marks Fennell’s third collaboration with LuckyChap, which Robbie runs with Tom Ackerley and Josey McNamara. LuckyChap also produced...

Actress and producer Margot Robbie is set to star as “Catherine Earnshaw,” and Jacob Elordi as “Heathcliff,” in Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of “Wuthering Heights.” Fennell is set to write, direct and produce.

MRC is tapping LuckyChap to produce the upcoming feature film, based on the iconic romance novel by Emily Brontë, which was initially published in 1847 under her pen name “Ellis Bell.” This marks LuckyChap and Fennell’s third collaboration together.

Movie is in pre-production gearing up for a UK shoot in 2025. Widely considered to be one of the greatest novels ever written in English, “Wuthering Heights” is a gothic story that centers on anti-hero Heathcliff as he pursues revenge against the people who kept him away from his love, Cathy Earnshaw.

Fennell’s most recent film was psychological thriller “Saltburn” for Amazon MGM Studios, which starred Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi. She is repped by UTA, United Agents in Britain,...

Exciting casting news: Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are co-starring in an adaptation of Emily Brontë‘s classic novel Wuthering Heights, with director Emerald Fennell!

Margot‘s LuckyChap is also on board to produce, while Emerald will write, direct and produce. LuckyChap also produced two other Emerald movies: Saltburn and Promising Young Woman.

The film is in pre-production at this time, and will shoot in the UK next year.

Keep reading to find out more…

Margot is set to play the female lead, Catherine Earnshaw, with Jacob in the iconic role of Heathcliff, Deadline reports.

No plot details about this version of the adaptation have been made public at this time. This actually isn’t Margot and Jacob‘s first time acting together. They star in the new short film, See You at 5, directed by Call Me by Your Name‘s Luca Guadagnino, as part of a new Chanel No.

Academy Award winner Emerald Fennell’s anticipated “Wuthering Heights” adaptation just got buzzier with Academy Award nominee Margot Robbie and BAFTA nominee Jacob Elordi attached to star as Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff.

MRC has tapped LuckyChap to produce the upcoming feature film — written, directed and produced by Fennell, based on the classic romance novel by Emily Brontë. This marks LuckyChap and Fennell’s third collaboration following 2020’s “Promising Young Woman” (which won Fennell the Oscar for best original screenplay) and 2023’s “Saltburn.” Fennell also had a featured role in LuckyChap’s $1.4 billion-grossing and Academy Award-winning “Barbie” movie, which Robbie produced and starred in last year.

“Wuthering Heights” is in pre-production, gearing up for a 2025 shoot in the U.K.

Fennell announced her plans to adapt “Wuthering Heights” as her third feature in July, posting a surprise announcement to social media with a graphic that reads, “Be with me always – Take any form – Drive me mad,...

"Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy, I've come home, I'm so cold." In casting news that an algorithm could have perfected for the buzzy, TikTok world that we live in, Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi have been cast in an adaptation of Wuthering Heights, directed by Emerald Fennell. MRC has enlisted the acting and producing talents of Robbie to help get the project off the ground via her production company, LuckyChap, all according to an exclusive report from Deadline.

Exclusive: In what is gearing up to be an A-list pairing for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights movie, MRC is tapping Oscar-nominated actress and producer Margot Robbie and BAFTA-nominated actor Jacob Elordi to star in the adaptation of the classic novel.

LuckyChap also will produce Fennell’s upcoming feature film adaptation based on the iconic romance novel by Emily Brontë. Besides being the studio on the project, MRC also will finance the pic.

This marks LuckyChap and Fennell’s third collaboration together, having also produced her most recent pic Saltburn and Promising Young Woman, which won Fennell an Oscar for original screenplay.

Robbie is set to star as Catherine Earnshaw, and Elordi will play Heathcliff. Fennell is set to write, direct and produce. The film is in pre-production gearing up for a UK shoot in 2025.

The original novel by Brontë is considered by many to be one of the great...

If there's anything good in this world, Emerald Fennell will let Margot Robbie scream "naur!" as she runs along the moors chasing after Jacob Elordi. The two Australian actors have been cast as Catherine and Heathcliff in the director's upcoming adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, a novel pretty...

Update: The official video for Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” is enjoying a spike in views, thanks to the momentum from her song’s inclusion in Season 4 of Stranger Things.

YouTube reports the official video has now gone past the 100 million views mark. That’s below the level of BTS and a few other young artists, but is remarkable for a video first issued in January 2011. The views have more than doubled since the TV show aired.

Earlier: The power of television compels you.

Kate Bush has now broken three UK chart records by hitting No. 1. It’s No. 4 in the U.S. on the BIllboard Hot 100 singles chart, and Bush’s 1985 LP Hounds of Love tops the Billboard Catalog Albums chart this week.

In the UK, Bush is the oldest woman to top the singles chart, and her achievement of doing so after 37 years is the longest...

“Mr. Malcolm’s List” has a scrumptious light charm. It’s a Regency romance set in London in 1818, where someone in the film is being fooled at every moment. The deceptions and symmetries are standard, but this is the kind of movie that rises or falls on whether the actors can carry the duplicity — and the innocence — aloft. And the actors here are marvelous: tart, stylish, emotionally vibrant, never more knowing than when they’re being duped.

The film, directed with an alluring blend of badinage and upper-crust sensuality by Emma Holly Jones, is based on a novel by Suzanne Allain (who wrote the screenplay), which was published in 2020 and designed to be a playful riff on Jane Austen. Yet it’s funny how big-screen adaptations in the “Masterpiece Theatre” genre can work. “Mr. Malcolm’s List” is Jane Austen Lite, but if you watch, say, the 2005 film version of “Pride and Prejudice,...

"Crafts a hypnotic spell." IFC Films has revealed a new US trailer for the acclaimed documentary film Cow, following the lives of two cows on a dairy farm in the UK. This premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival last summer, where it received rave reviews (read ours here). It's made by filmmaker Andrea Arnold, best known for her films Red Road, Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights, and American Honey. She explains why she made this: "This film is an endeavour to consider cows. To move us closer to them. To see both their beauty and the challenge of their lives. Not in a romantic way but in a real way... It's a film about one dairy cow's reality and acknowledging her great service to us. When I look at Luma, our cow, I see the whole world in her." It is "a mesmerizing and emotional work of cinema vérité." Its power lies in its transparency,...

When you’re a streaming service, there’s only one way to celebrate the New Year. And that’s by IP mining to bring back a franchise that had no business in coming back!

With its list of new releases for January 2022, Hulu is raiding CBS’s closet and premiering How I Met Your Father, a continuation of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Complaints about unnecessary rebooting aside, perhaps its worth giving the Hillary Duff starring series a chance. If nothing else, telling a story about 2022 from a future perspective might play well.

Aside from Himyf, there aren’t any other Hulu original series to speak of. Instead, Hulu is opting to once again beef up its film library. January 1 sees the arrival of Master and Commander, Seven, and a whole bunch of Star Treks. Hulu will also be the streaming home of some recently released film Indies,...

"Nearly wordless, yet extremely loud." Mubi has debuted the first trailer for the acclaimed documentary film Cow, following the lives of two cows on a dairy farm in the UK. This originally premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, which is a prestigious place to premiere a film that has no dialogue and is only about animals (and how much they suffer at the hands of humans). It's made by filmmaker Andrea Arnold, best known for her films Red Road, Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights, American Honey. "This film is an endeavour to consider cows. To move us closer to them. To see both their beauty and the challenge of their lives. Not in a romantic way but in a real way... It's a film about one dairy cow's reality and acknowledging her great service to us. When I look at Luma, our cow, I see the whole world in her." I...

After Maggie and Rebecca showcased their skillset behind the camera for 2021 premieres, we continue that trend with veteran British-Australian actress Frances O’Connor making her directorial debut. Production took place across the pond on Emily in the month of April for an acquisitions friendly title featuring Emma Mackey as Emily Brontë and Fionn Whitehead as Branwell Brontë. O’Connor apparently starting working on the project a decade ago.

Gist: This focus on the life the world of author Emily Brontë in the years leading up to the creation of her seminal novel “Wuthering Heights.”

Production Co./Producers: David Barron, Piers Tempest with Arenamedia’s Robert Connolly, Robert Patterson.…...

The expanding Antalya Film Forum dedicated to fostering a new generation of Turkish directors seems poised to really have the goods this year for buyers and festival programmers who would like to know what’s coming down the pike.

The Antalya Film Festival’s industry section – which will run online Oct. 6-8 — features a fresh batch of projects spanning a wide range of often innovative genres mostly germinated from rookie producer-director teams that provides a sharp snapshot “of what’s to come,” vows the Forum’s new co-chief Müge Özen.

Özen, who is a young but experienced producer of standout titles from Turkey such as recent Istanbul hip-hop scene drama “When I’m Done Dying,” which was a Forum project in 2017, has now taken the section’s reins with Pınar Evrenosoğlu.

She points out that “the selection is very different from previous years” since seven out of the eight feature projects...

Exclusive: IFC Films has taken North American rights to Andrea Arnold’s well-received Cannes Film Festival documentary Cow.

Cow, which made its world premiere earlier this month in the newly created Cannes Premiere section, reps IFC and Arnold’s second teaming together after her award-winning Fish Tank, which starred Katie Jarvis and Michael Fassbender.

U.S. sales rep Submarine Entertainment brokered the deal for Cow on behalf of the filmmakers. Submarine sold Todd Haynes’ The Velvet Underground to Apple TV+ back in October; that doc also made its world premiere at Cannes this year.

Cow was shot over seven years, and repped Arnold’s return to Cannes after her 2016 young-adult movie American Honey. It was produced by Kat Mansoor of Halcyon Pictures and executive produced by Rose Garnett of BBC Film and Maxyne Franklin and Sandra Whipham of Doc Society.

This film is an endeavour to consider cows. To move us closer to them.

Andrea Arnold has refused to speak about her experience on season 2 of “Big Little Lies” — her last major credit before her Cannes-premiering documentary “Cow” — despite subtly hinting that all was not kosher in post production.

Asked how long she was editing on “Cow,” Arnold said there was “a lot of stopping and starting” because “we were trying to edit it at the same time I was editing ‘Big Little Lies,’ which was not happening,” the British director smirked. “It had five editors, ‘Big Little Lies.'”

Arnold directed season 2 of HBO’s “Big Little Lies,” taking over for Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée who helmed season 1. After the show premiered in 2019 it quickly became clear that sequences were disjointed and scenes felt uneven — highly uncharacteristic of Arnold’s normally raw but robust style. In an exposé by Indiewire, it was later revealed that HBO, executive producer David E. Kelley and Vallée...

“Cow” opens with the closeup of a gooey calf yanked from the vaginal canal, and follows her all the way through her rough, solitary existence. The small miracle of director Andrea Arnold’s experiential documentary is that it enacts its simple premise in straightforward terms, but assembles them into a profound big picture. Her subject, a dairy cow named Luma, grows up under the tutelage of farmers who seem, for all intents and purposes, looking out for her best interests. However, with Arnold centralizing her subject’s gaze, even their kindly background roles come into question. As Luma endures the monotony of her routine, “Cow” grows into a stirring, often sad contemplation of a life reduced to resources.

Arnold apparently spent years filming Luma’s life, as she grew from calf to dairy cow, mated with bulls, and roamed with her herd. Cinematographer Mada Kowalczyk’s camera gets close to the action at every chapter,...

Frances O’Connor is in week two of the edit for her debut feature as writer-director, “Emily,” which brings to life the world of author Emily Brontë in the years leading up to the creation of her seminal novel “Wuthering Heights.” Variety speaks to O’Connor about the film, which has been pre-sold by Embankment Films to multiple major territories.

As an actor O’Connor has had a successful career, appearing in such films as “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” and series such as “Madame Bovary” and “The Missing,” with the latter two each earning her a Golden Globe nomination.

About 10 years ago, a love of Emily Brontë led her to start writing a script about the author’s life. “She’s a very inspirational character, but we know so little about her,” she says. “And there are certain issues that I was interested in exploring about being authentic as a woman,...

For most of those involved in the film pre-sales business, the virtual Pre-Cannes Screenings, running June 21-25, is the main event, with the in-person Cannes festival and market in July almost a sideshow. The mood of those approaching this month’s bazaar is mostly upbeat, but with a note of sober caution.

“I would say that [the independent film business] is back on track in a way that is almost boring, in how — but for a few quirks of things like travel — it would be hard to distinguish it from many of the years prior. It’s a very adaptable business by nature because producers, financiers, sales agents and distributors in this space are used to being entrepreneurial and flexible and quick to react. And that’s just the nature of the business,” Benjamin Kramer, co-head, CAA Media Finance, says.

In the territories where movie theaters have reopened, the box office numbers are “encouraging,...

In the Netflix TV series “Bridgerton,” Regé-Jean Page plays Simon Basset, the Duke of Hastings, a throwback to previous heartthrobs in literature — ranging from Heathcliff in Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights” to Mr. Darcy in Jane Austin’s “Pride and Prejudice.” But the 31-year-old actor didn’t want the character to be stuck in the past.

“And so, in carrying the torch, we need to make some ground with it,” Page tells “The Crown” star Emma Corrin in Variety’s Actors on Actors TV issue, on newsstands now. “Because Simon’s an archetype that already exists. He’s Darcy. He’s Heathcliff. He’s a tall, dark, brooding, emotionally stunted man.”

In building the character — based on Julia Quinn’s novels set in 1800s England — for modern audiences, Page tried to subvert previous tropes associated with toxic masculinity seen in literature.

“The idea of romantic heroes,” Page says. “When you say the word ‘hero,...

In one of its biggest plays to date, Rainmaker Content, the London-based distributor founded last June by former Kew Media Distribution execs, has acquired international rights to “The Bone Season,” an eight-hour epic thriller series based on Samantha Shannon’s international bestsellers.

Designed as a series franchise – Shannon’s book series now runs to four novels with another three planned – “The Bone Season” is set up at London’s Little Hat Productions.

Well-known for her work as head of production at Bad Penny Prods., Little Hat founder Harriet Hammond will produce the adaptation. “The Bone Season” is executive produced by Hammond and Victor Glynn at Gcb Films.

A potentially high-end production – folding a Gothic fantasy world into a dystopian alternative London, which mixes Victorian and futuristic detail – “The Bone Season’s” cast and crew will begin to be announced in the coming weeks with agencies currently attaching talent, Rainmaker and...

Displaced men dream of Europe but are stuck on a Scottish island in Ben Sharrock’s spot-on sophomore feature

“A musician who doesn’t play music is dead” is an aphorism that gets mentioned several times in “Limbo,” but Syrian oud player Omar isn’t dead; he’s just stuck on an island off the coast of Scotland, hoping for asylum.

In writer-director Ben Sharrock’s exquisitely crafted sophomore feature, Omar is one of several men from around the world caught between past and future, between despair and hope, sustained only by the possibility of leaving families and cultures behind and creating a new home for themselves. In the meantime, there is waiting, there are English lessons, and there are “Friends” reruns.

Omar spends most of the film carrying around his bulky oud without being able to play it — like most of the metaphors in “Limbo,” it’s more graceful...

Here’s your first look at Emma Mackey – BAFTA-nominated today for Sex Education – in new UK feature Emily, the origin story biopic of Wuthering Heights scribe Emily Bronte.

Production is underway in the UK on the film which marks the writing and directing feature debut of actress Frances O’Connor (The Missing). We first broke news of the movie last summer.

Also starring are Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk), Oliver Jackson-Cohen (The Haunting of Hill House), Alexandra Dowling (The Musketeers), Amelia Gething (The Spanish Princess), BAFTA nominee Gemma Jones (Ammonite) and Adrian Dunbar (Line Of Duty). Emily Beecham and Joe Alwyn are no longer aboard.

UK sales firm Embankment, which is executive-producing and arranging financing, has pre-sold multiple territories including UK to Warner Bros; France, Germany, and Switzerland to Wild Bunch; and Italy and Spain to Wild Bunch subsidiaries Bim and Vertigo, respectively. Deals have also closed for Portugal (Nos), Benelux (Cineart), Scandinavia...

Principal photography on Emily, the biopic of famed Wuthering Heights author

Emily Brontë, has begun in the U.K., with a first look of Sex Education star Emma Mackey in the lead role released, alongside new casting additions and a number of key international sales.

Joining Mackey — who picked up her first BAFTA nomination for the Netflix teen comedy earlier on Wednesday — are Oliver Jackson-Cohen (The Invisible Man, The Haunting of Hill House), Alexandra Dowling (The Musketeers), Amelia Gething (The Spanish Princess), as well as BAFTA nominee Gemma Jones (Ammonite, Rocketman) and Adrian Dunbar (Line of Duty).

Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk) was previously announced as appearing ...

Principal photography on Emily, the biopic of famed Wuthering Heights author

Emily Brontë, has begun in the U.K., with a first look of Sex Education star Emma Mackey in the lead role released, alongside new casting additions and a number of key international sales.

Joining Mackey — who picked up her first BAFTA nomination for the Netflix teen comedy earlier on Wednesday — are Oliver Jackson-Cohen (The Invisible Man, The Haunting of Hill House), Alexandra Dowling (The Musketeers), Amelia Gething (The Spanish Princess), as well as BAFTA nominee Gemma Jones (Ammonite, Rocketman) and Adrian Dunbar (Line of Duty).

Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk) was previously announced as appearing ...

In addition to racking up Oscar buzz for Zendaya and John David Washington, Malcolm & Marie garnered an inevitable flurry of controversy centering on the rant delivered against the film critics. While writer and director, Sam Levinson may or may not have drawn from his personal experience, emphasis on one name in particular in Malcolm's monologue left viewers wondering who William Wyler is and how his mention was relevant to the plot, so let's break it down.

How William Wyler Is Referenced in Malcolm & Marie

Malcolm & Marie opens with the namesake couple returning from a seemingly successful and well-received premiere of the movie made by Malcolm. This is the first project that has the potential and authenticity to put him on the map of Hollywood for good, so he is keenly awaiting the critics to put in a positive review in their respective publications. As he frantically prowls around the living room,...

There’s a delicate line that so much of the best gothic and neo-gothic fiction walks, one where the supernatural seems just around every corner, as literal or metaphorical as you want it to be. There are interpretations of Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre that bring in all manner of unexplainable phenomena, not that any of that is there in literal readings. And there are interpretations of The Turn of the Screw or most of Edgar Allan Poe’s work where everything that seems paranormal is just a metaphor writ large.

A little flexibility in literary analysis is often a good thing, because ...

There’s a delicate line that so much of the best gothic and neo-gothic fiction walks, one where the supernatural seems just around every corner, as literal or metaphorical as you want it to be. There are interpretations of Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre that bring in all manner of unexplainable phenomena, not that any of that is there in literal readings. And there are interpretations of The Turn of the Screw or most of Edgar Allan Poe’s work where everything that seems paranormal is just a metaphor writ large.

A little flexibility in literary analysis is often a good thing, because ...

Patricia Healey, who was married to singer Engelbert Humperdinck for 56 years and had a strong UK acting career, has died. She was 85 and died Thursday from complications related to Covid-19.

Humperdinck, 84, announced in a social media post shared Friday that his family was “heartbroken over the loss of my darling wife,” who died “surrounded by our children, Louise, Jason, Brad, with Scott on FaceTime.”

“Her earthly limitations no longer hold her down as she is freely running the glorious gardens of Heaven, reunited with so many loved ones,” Humperdinck wrote. “We prayed as a family, blessed her with the water from Lourdes and off she went … ushered into the arms of Jesus with help from the generous heart filled prayers from all around the world.”

Healey had Alzheimer’s disease for more than a decade, Humperdinck said. On Jan. 26 he revealed that he, Healey, their son Jason and two of...