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A new musical featuring the songs of James Taylor is in development.

The project, entitled Fire & Rain, will feature an original story written by Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts and direction by Tony Award winner David Cromer.

The show is in early development stages and a production timeline has not yet been announced. Gail Berman, Sam Feldman, Michael Gorfaine and Broadway theater owner Jimmy Nederlander are producing in association with Frank Marshall and Jere Harris.

The title for the show comes from Taylor’s well-known song, “Fire and Rain,” which was released in 1970 on his second album, Sweet Baby James, and reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The six-time Grammy Award winning singer and songwriter, whose hit songs include “You’ve Got a Friend” and “Sweet Baby James,” has not previously had his catalog used in a major theatrical production. However, two selections from his album...

Standing ovations are rare at SXSW, but the Matthew McConaughey starring western/musical/drama The Rivals of Amziah King was far more than all right, all right, all right, earning one from the Paramount Theatre crowd in Austin on Monday.

On a sleepy night when all the big studio movies already have played, from out of the blue comes this heartwarming, unconventional feature from filmmaker Andrew Patterson. SXSW launched an Oscar Best Picture winner three years ago in A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once, and it could have another one on their hands if a buyer gets off their butt and takes this WME sales title. There’s been some deliberation and waiting by buyers when it comes to acquiring movies. No need to wait on this one, studios or streamers: This played in the heartland to rolling laughs, tears and cheers tonight.

Not only is the pic another...

Matthew McConaughey is to star in 'The Rage'.The 55-year-old actor has just been working on 'The Lost Bus' with Paul Greengrass and he is to reteam with the director again on his next project, which was originally known as 'The Hood', Deadline reports.The movie - which Paul will also write the script for - is set during the 1381 Peasants Revolt in England, which took place amid high taxation and socio-economic and political tensions, and Matthew will play a farmer who becomes the leader of the uprising, suggesting he is likely to be portraying Wat Tyler, who was ultimately killed by forces loyal to then-King Richard.As well as recently filming 'The Lost Bus' - which is based on Lizzie Johnson's book 'Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire', about the horrific 2018 California wildfires that claimed over 100 lives and destroyed much of the town...

The late William Friedkin had a reputation for his wild, whirling, aggressive personality on film sets. He was so blustery and temperamental that he earned the nickname "Hurricane Billy" from his co-workers. Stories from the set of his 1973 horror masterpiece "The Exorcist" are recounted frequently, and many actors, photographers, and writers have talked about the things that happened off camera while making that movie. Friendkin, it seems, thrived in a chaotic environment, and played loud audio cassettes of tribal chanting in between takes. Someone even alleged that Friedkin would occasionally fire blanks into the air, making sure everyone was a little jumpy. That kind of behavior would be considered too reckless today, but in the hoary days of the 1970s, it was considered kinda metal. 

Friedkin made several horror films and thrillers in his career beyond "The Exorcist," which is still often considered one of the scariest films of all time.

Matthew McConaughey Marvel Hulk (Photo Credit – Facebook)

Imagine Matthew McConaughey as Bruce Banner. The guy who crushed it in Magic Mike and won an Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club almost played the Hulk. But Marvel didn’t have it. He spilled the rejection on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, saying, “Wanted it.” He threw his hat in the ring, but Marvel passed with a “No, thank you.” Ouch.

By the time the MCU hit, McConaughey was at the top of his game—A Time to Kill, rom-coms, then the “McConaissance” in Magic Mike, Killer Joe, and Interstellar. With superhero films everywhere, he thought, why not him?

McConaughey’s love for the Hulk goes back to the classic The Incredible Hulk TV show. So when Marvel was casting, he figured he was the guy. But nope. Marvel went with Edward Norton in The Incredible Hulk (2008), and by The Avengers (2012), Mark Ruffalo was the one smashing it.

Did Ghosts of Girlfriends Past make Matthew McConaughey’s take a break? (Photo Credit – Instagram)

Having spent the ‘00s charming audiences with swoon-worthy roles, McConaughey decided he’d had enough. For about a decade, he was the rom-com leading man. From making hearts flutter in The Wedding Planner to teaching Kate Hudson how to lose a guy in 10 days and even helping Sarah Jessica Parker with a Failure to Launch, McConaughey dominated the feel-good romance scene. But by 2009, after wrapping up Ghosts of Girlfriends Past with Jennifer Garner, the Texan heartthrob hit a creative crossroads.

“I wanted to try some other stuff,” he later shared, but Hollywood didn’t feel it. The industry had him pegged as the rom-com golden boy, and stepping out of that lane wasn’t encouraged. So McConaughey made a bold call: he quit. For two years, he ghosted Hollywood entirely.

The hiatus wasn’t exactly glamorous.

During a recent podcast appearance, actor Matthew McConaughey shared a critical milestone in his professional trajectory, detailing how he broke free from romantic comedy stereotypes by making a brave career move.

In the late 2000s, McConaughey found himself locked in what he dubbed the “rom-com lane,” starring in successful films like “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” and “The Wedding Planner.” Despite his financial success, he was unhappy with Hollywood’s refusal to cast him in more serious roles.

“When I was rolling with the rom-coms, that was my lane,” McConaughey told podcast host Nick Kyrgios. “I was so strong in that lane that anything outside it — dramas I wanted to do — were met with resistance.”

His solution was dramatic. McConaughey moved to his Texas ranch and agreed with his wife to not return to acting until he was offered the desired roles. This dedication was demonstrated when...

Matthew McConaughey may be a king of rom-coms, but all was not all right, all right, all right at one point in his acting career.

While speaking with Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios on his Good Trouble podcast, the How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days star recalled a time in his professional life when he felt was on “autopilot” and not producing performances that resonated with him.

“The devil’s in the infinite yeses, not the nos,” he began. “‘No’ is just as important, if not more important. Especially if you have some level of success and access. ‘No’ becomes more important than ‘yes.’ Because we can all look around and see we’ve over-leveraged our life with yeses and going, ‘Geez, oh man. I’m making C-minuses and all this sh– in my life because I said yes to too many things.’”

The Interstellar actor continued, “When...

Matthew McConaughey has proven himself as a jack of all trades in Hollywood. He's starred in everything from a handful of 2000s romantic comedies to heavy-hitting dramas like The Lincoln Lawyer and Dallas Buyer's Club (for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor), not to mention his role as a stripper in Magic Mike, a disturbing villain in Killer Joe, an animated koala in the Sing franchise, or his iconic role in Dazed and Confused. McConaughey is able to fully embody any role he takes on.

However, in U-571 and Free State of Jones, the celebrated star takes on a totally different genre: War. Portraying rugged men who manage to be compassionate yet headstrong leaders while running head-first into battle seems to come naturally to him. Though one film is fashioned more as a blockbuster with giant explosions and nail-biting turns and the other a more zoomed-in analysis of...

Taylor Sheridan brought a whole new world out in the open with his neo-western drama Yellowstone. The show featuring the fictional Dutton family quickly gained popularity when it premiered in 2018. And with the upcoming Season 5 Part 2, the show is all set to create magic on the screen for one last time.

With the anticipation soaring high, the fact that actor Kevin Costner is no longer part of the Yellowstone universe has been a point of heartbreak for the fans. He played the patriarch John Dutton in the show and was part of the drama series since 2018. However, due to several scheduling conflicts and behind-the-scenes drama, the actor left the project after filming the first part of the fifth season.

Kevin Costner in Yellowstone | Credits: Paramount+

The trailer for the upcoming season also used up his stills and shots from previous seasons, which gave the fans hope that he might be back in Part 2. However,...

There’s not much in common between Minnesota housewife Dorothy “Dot” Lyon and British model turned marketing executive Keeley Jones, but Juno Temple has a theory about the two women. And she should know, since she played Dot in “Fargo” and Keeley in “Ted Lasso” and earned Emmy nominations for both.

“I think that Dot and Keeley would probably be quite great friends,” the London-born actress said. “They’re both strong little women and they’ve got a lot of surprise elements.”

You could say the same for Temple herself, a former child actress and daughter of director Julien Temple who worked for almost 15 years before receiving the Rising Star Award from BAFTA in 2013. Temple has loaded up on the kudos in the past four years: three Emmy nominations for “Ted Lasso”and one for “Fargo,” four SAG Award noms and one ensemble win for “Ted Lasso”and a Critics...

Gina Gershon is revealing how her first sex scene didn’t necessarily go as planned.

The Borderlands actress made a recent appearance on Watch What Happens Live, where she shared that her “first love scene ever” was with Tom Cruise in 1988’s Cocktail, noting that he was a complete “gentleman.” However, she was left mortified after she accidentally “kneed him right in the nose” while filming.

“At one point, he starts off under the covers, and I told him I was very ticklish,” Gershon recounted to host Andy Cohen. “I said, ‘No, no, don’t ever do that.’ And in one take — I think he wanted a reaction — and he grabbed my stomach, and I kneed him right in the nose.”

She continued. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I just broke Tom Cruise’s nose.’ He’s like, ‘No, no, you told me.’ I’m like, ‘I’m so sorry,...

Quick Links Plot and Cast of Killer Joe Matthew McConaughey's Killer Joe Is Downright Dirty Should You Watch Killer Joe?

Taking place in Dallas, Texas, famed director William Friedkin and writer Tracy Letts were able to create one of the nastiest Western villains of all time with the crime-thriller Killer Joe. But what makes the movie so downright nasty, that it has become a polarizing film both revered and despised? While there are many elements of the movie to discuss, Matthew McConaugheys performance as the titular Joe is certainly unforgettable, just not in the right way for some.

We will dive deep into Killer Joe's filth and violence, regardless of how dirty it gets, to examine the film's strengths and how it crafted one of the nastiest characters ever, rivaling the likes of Lt in Bad Lieutenant or Denzel Washington's Alonzo Harris in Training Day. We will...

In recent years Michael Shannon has begun to emerge as one of film’s most versatile and ubiquitous actors. Often cast his villains or law enforcement agents Shannon always brings a brooding intensity to his roles and manages to use that intensity for both good characters and bad that often know a lot more than they are saying.

Shannon first started his career as a stage actor in Chicago. He gained a great deal of notice and other roles from his appearances in the plays of a then little-known actor turned playwright named Tracy Letts. Shannon credits his work in the plays of Letts for the film and television opportunities that came his way after he appeared in two of Lett’s acclaimed plays “Bug” and “Killer Joe.”

He returned to the stage, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role as Jamie...

Exclusive: Manager and producer Doreen Wilcox Little has joined Echo Lake Entertainment after more than a decade at Anonymous Content.

A protégé of Steve Golin, Wilcox Little executive produced Killer Joe during her run at Anonymous, the thrilling drama directed by her late client Oscar winner William Friedkin, starring Matthew McConaughey. She was also an EP on Mapplethorpe, the biopic about the iconic photographer, directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Ondi Timoner. Wilcox Little’s film credits include the adaptation of Mason Deaver’s YA novel, I Wish You All The Best, written and directed by her client Tommy Dorfman. Alongside the Oscar-winning producers at Macro, Wilcox Little is currently producing I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter for Orion Pictures. The film adaptation of the popular novel is being directed by Oscar-nominated actress America Ferrera this year.

Wilcox Little’s client roster includes notable actors such as Sophie Thatcher, known for her roles in Yellowjackets,...

This article contains spoilers for "The Bear" season 3.

Previous seasons of "The Bear" have established that Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) is something of a cinephile bro. The dude loves Michael Mann -- his "gofastboatsmojito" WiFi password is a hilarious shout-out to Mann's 2006 "Miami Vice" movie -- and he has a "White Squall" poster on the wall of his home, signaling his appreciation for one of director Ridley Scott's biggest box office bombs. In season 3, we find out that Richie is a fan of another uber-masculine director: the late, great William Friedkin.

In episode 4, "Violet," Richie walks into Sugar's (Abby Elliott) office and tapes a photo of a Japanese zen garden to her wall. When she asks what the photo is, he tells her a story:

"Oh, Zen garden. Kyoto, Philosopher's Path [...] well, this director that I admire, he visited this. And when he got there, he was like, 'What is this?...

Few living actors have had as many distinct eras to their career as Matthew McConaughey. After becoming a breakout star and the ultimate stoner in Dazed and Confused, his handsome looks and charm soon saw him typecast as the go-to male lead in seemingly every romantic comedy between 2001 and 2009.

After Matthew McConaughey finally grew tired of going through the motions of starring in routine comedies, he set his sights on something more significant: winning an Academy Award. In 2011, he starred in a trio of films meant to course-correct his career: The Lincoln Lawyer, Bernie, and Killer Joe. Two years later, he'd win the Oscar for Best Actor after starring in Dallas Buyers Club. Since then, McConaughey has appeared in even more critically acclaimed films, some of which have offered the best performances of his career.

Related 10 Best Movies With Surprisingly Small Casts

Although ensemble films are arguably more popular, there...

Hitman movies have remained popular for decades, with Glen Powell's "Hit Man" on Netflix earning praise. Films like "The Protg" and "The Mechanic" showcase strong performances in action-packed narratives. Lesser-known hitman movies like "Blast of Silence" and "Killer Joe" offer unique perspectives on the genre.

Movies centered around hitman characters have been popular within the action thriller genre for years now, leaving some films to fall through the cracks. Netflix's latest release, Hit Man, starring Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, has earned positive reviews from critics and is a top movie on the streaming service. Regarded as one of Richard Linklater's best films, the conversations surrounding Hit Man are an excellent opportunity to bring up some hitman-related films that haven't received a shared amount of attention.

From the '60s to the late 2010s, action films that follow a leading hitman show the popularity of these storylines is undying.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

Stanley Donen’s Funny Face plays on Friday and Sunday, the latter day bringing a program of work by Nicola Tyson and Son of Kong on 35mm.

Paris Theater

Prints of Prizzi’s Honor, The Mechanic, Grosse Pointe Blank, and Killer Joe play in a hitman retrospective; Yi Yi shows on 35mm this Sunday.

Museum of Modern Art

A massive overview of Bulle Ogier continues with films by Fassbinder, Rivette, and more.

IFC Center

Man Ray: Return to Reason begins; After Hours and the Bob Fosse retrospective begin; Labyrinth, Flashdance, and Tank Girl play late.

Japan Society

America’s largest-ever Hiroshi Shimizu retrospective migrates to Japan Society (watch our exclusive trailer debut).

Museum of the Moving Image

Two more Shimizu films play; House on Haunted Hill screens Friday and Sunday, while The Right Stuff shows on 35mm this Saturday.

Exclusive: Lizzy Greene (A Million Little Things) is set to star in and executive-produce High Tide, a survival thriller that strands a group of friends on a swiftly submerging tidal island deep in the Pacific, where they are soon hunted by the ocean’s greatest predator.

Greene will play Hannah who, mourning the death of her sister, takes off around the world. Her journey leads her to Fiji and on a tour of an isolated atoll – a volcanic island that disappears with each high tide. But when the group are stranded, the rapidly rising ocean begins to reveal its terrifying inhabitants.

Having led five seasons of ABC’s popular drama A Million Little Things, Greene is next set to star in Netflix’s upcoming series Ransom Canyon, which is currently in production, across from Josh Duhamel, Minka Kelly and James Brolin.

High Tide, which is due to launch production this fall in South East Asia,...

Before he made the disastrous Batman & Robin, Joel Schumacher helmed the summer blockbuster film A Time to Kill starring Matthew McConaughey. The Interstellar actor was still a newcomer at the time, only having the cult film Dazed and Confused popularly in his portfolio. He was cast in the role after Schumacher pulled some strings, but two other famous stars were rejected before McConaughey’s casting.

Matthew McConaughey with Samuel L. Jackson in the Joel Schumacher film A Time To Kill

Kevin Costner was a contender for the role and a much older actor than McConaughey. Costner was rejected because the film needed someone younger to play the up-and-coming lawyer. Interestingly, McConaughey is rumored to appear as the next big star in the Yellowstone franchise after Costner.

Matthew McConaughey’s Breakout Film Rejected Kevin Costner Before Considering Him

JFK star Kevin Costner was considered for the role in A Time to Kill...

Tubi, Fox’s free streaming service, has announced its list of May titles. The May 2024 slate features new Tubi Originals as well as numerous action, art house, Black cinema, comedy, documentary, drama, horror, kids and family, romance, sci-fi and fantasy, thriller, and Western titles.

As a leading ad-supported video-on-demand service, Tubi engages diverse audiences through a personalized experience and the world’s largest content library, which includes over 200,000 movies and TV episodes, a growing collection of Tubi Originals, and nearly 250 Fast channels.

You can watch the Tubi May 2024 lineup for free on Android and iOS mobile devices, Amazon Echo Show, Google Nest Hub Max, Comcast Xfinity X1, and Cox Contour.

You can also watch the service on connected television devices such as Amazon Fire TV, Vizio TVs, Sony TVs, Samsung TVs, Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and on the Tubi site.

Tubi Originals

Action...

Emile Hirsch has had one of the more interesting careers of the many talented heartthrobs who arose at the turn of the millennium, and he's outlasted most of them. It's been two decades since his very good teen sex comedy, The Girl Next Door, and about 15 years since he won vast acclaim for Into the Wild, which kicked off an run of big films with great directors — Milk (Gus Vant Sant), Speed Racer (the Wachowski sisters), Taking Woodstock (Ang Lee), Killer Joe (William Friedkin), Savages (Oliver Stone), and Prince Avalanche (David Gordon Green) among them.

These days, four or five films are released with Emile Hirsch every single year; in fact, two of them came out on the same day: Prey and State of Consciousness. "We shot it almost three years ago. So I'm prolific, but this one did kind of get bottlenecked with another release," explained Hirsch about State of Consciousness.

Earlier this week, Carrie Coon became ever more beloved among film fans when she told Jimmy Fallon that she and her husband Tracy Letts have over 10,000 movies on Blu-ray, praising physical media. Recently, we sat down with Coon to discuss her role in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and couldn’t help but ask her to elaborate on her physical media comments. She took the opportunity to double down on the importance of collecting movies:

“I guess I didn’t understand what we would be losing with streaming. Tracy (Letts) really did educate me about the fact that so many of these films now are completely inaccessible if you don’t own them yourself.” She also took the opportunity to give a shout-out to boutique labels like Kino Lorber, Arrow Video, Criterion, Shout Factory and more: “And, of course, there are all these companies putting out new imprints of original films and doing beautiful work.

Emile Hirsch is a very capable actor. He’s done amazing work in films like Freaks and Killer Joe, so he is, let’s say, the kind of person a beleaguered film critic might take a chance on even when he’s appearing in the kind of film they’d normally avoid. This particular critic reminded this critic of why that rule was in place, but also of how the best actors are capable of salvaging something even in the worst situations.

There have been good films about mentally ill people confronted with a series of possibly hallucinatory, possibly real scenarios which they are determined to escape – [film]Shutter Island/film] springs to mind – but they are few and far between. It takes a sharp script and a talented director to make them work. In this case, the script appears to have been assembled by committee. The idea behind these things,...

True Detective shows hints of greatness but ultimately borrows heavily from better films, books, and thinkers. Rust Cohle, the standout character, was the first embodiment of the series' tendency to steal its greatest moments. Each season of True Detective draws inspiration from different genres and sources, often resulting in a watered-down imitation. Especially season four.

Pretty much every artist steals. Culture is an ongoing communication between people across centuries and countries; it's a dialogue between artists of the past and present. It's a dialectical process in which things are imitated, mixed with different copies, and eventually become something different. But there's a line between simply being unoriginal (most art is to varying degrees) and being egregiously parasitic, taking far more than it gives and without any credit. It's the difference between a paraphrase and copying a quotation without citation. That's the line True Detective walks.

For many of us, True Detective...

Exclusive: Ld Entertainment will partner with Variance Films on the theatrical release for National Anthem, the queer ranching drama marking the feature directorial debut of Luke Gilford, which debuted at last year’s SXSW. Pic starring Charlie Plummer, Eve Lindley, Mason Alexander Park, Rene Rosado and Robyn Lively will be released in the U.S. on July 12.

Immersed in the world of a rural queer ranching community, and set against the exuberant, real-life International Gay Rodeo Association, National Anthem is billed as a celebration of first love and chosen family. The protagonist of the film is Dylan (Plummer), a 21-year-old working in construction in New Mexico who joins a community of queer rodeo performers in search of their own version of the American dream.

CAA Media Finance is repping worldwide rights, with Decal Releasing handling home entertainment for the film.

Said Variance’s Dylan Marchetti and Kristen Osborne: “Variance...

Exclusive: Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County playwright Tracy Letts has signed with UTA for representation in all areas, the agency said today.

A prolific playwright and actor, Letts’s career in theater has spanned decades, including the Tony- and Pulitzer-nominated The Minutes, which he wrote and starred in. The dark comedy opened on Broadway on April 17, 2022.

Letts’ other recent Broadway productions include his play Linda Vista in 2019. The same year, he starred opposite Annette Bening in a Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, and he won a Tony for his portrayal of “George” in the 2012 revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Letts was honored with the Pulitzer in 2008 for his August: Osage County, winner of five Tony awards including Best Play.

In 2019, Letts played Henry Ford II in James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari and starred in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women.

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2023, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

One of the problems of the award season industrial complex that takes over film discourse in the early months of the year is that it tends to reduce great films to talking points. It also encourages groupthink, even if some of the nominated films are, well, deserving of those nominations. There’s the predictable pattern of acclaim, backlash, backlash to the backlash, and then maybe a few awards and the hopes of a short memory about how the awards campaign went.

Thus, creating a top-ten is always a bit tough. It’s a mixture of subjective and objective critiques, personal preferences mixed with universally regarded favorites. With that, there’s been more than enough written about Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer, Barbie, The Holdovers, etc. that...

Emile Hirsch, the actor who rose to fame with movies like The Girl Next Door, and Into the Wild, has been missing in action over the past few years. Well, he has been making some films, but they are not as good as the ones I just mentioned. Hirsch acts like Leonardo DiCaprio, and I have seen the news that they are friends, so there should be no problem. But DiCaprio should avoid seeing Hirsch’s new film Walden, where it looks like he is doing a DiCaprio impression, almost mocking his intense look and insulting his intelligence. Walden is a story about Walden Dean, a devout Christian and a stenographer at the Georgia District Court who works under Judge Boyle. Walden gets news that he is suffering from a brain tumor, and this sparks a change in his mundane life, and he resolves to kill all those who he thinks have escaped justice.

The Caine Mutiny is an old classic that has been rewired to fit many different moments. Herman Wouk's novel tells the story of the U.S.S. Caine during an extreme weather event, in which a mutiny was staged against the Commander by the executive officer, resulting in a tense Naval trial concerning the Xo's possible court-martial. The novel became a film (featuring an Oscar-nominated Humphrey Bogart), and then a Broadway play, in which Wouk stripped his text of everything but the court-martial process itself. The result is a tense courtroom drama which asks more questions of the audience than it answers.

That play was turned into a couple of made-for-tv movies, including one directed by the great Robert Altman in 1988, starring Jeff Daniels and Eric Bogosian. Now, Showtime has aired a new version 35 years later, and it's a strange event. This is the final from the acclaimed director William Friedkin,...

Long before he made Popeye Doyle race a Brooklyn subway and Regan MacNeil’s head spin, William Friedkin began his career doing live TV. He’d move on to an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, short documentaries, a Sonny-and-Cher joint (Good Times), theatrical adaptations (The Birthday Party, The Boys in the Band), and then an all-guts-all-glory double shot that instantly made him a New Hollywood power player. But like a lot of directors coming up in the early 1960s, his roots were with actors, words, conflict, and not much more.

Plot: A Naval officer (Jake Lacy) is on trial for mutiny. His court-appointed attorney (Jason Clarke) must prove that his captain (Kiefer Sutherland) was dangerously unbalanced and that mutiny was the only solution to protect the crew.

Review: The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is an interesting final film for the late William Friedkin. While most know him for his seventies epics, having directed at least three or four of the greatest films ever made, many don’t know that he started his career with a couple of films based on stage plays: The Birthday Party and The Boys in the Band. His most recent work, Bug and Killer Joe, were also stage adaptations (of works by Tracy Letts), but The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is more traditionally mounted than those. This is basically a stage play put to film, with no exteriors, no music and only two sets.

The play was written...

The film industry lost a visionary talent this year. On August 7, at the age of 87, New Hollywood icon William Friedkin passed away from heart failure and pneumonia. His filmography was one of the most impressive and eclectic in cinematic history, ranging from Best Picture-winning cop drama The French Connection to cult thriller Sorcerer to controversial dark comedy Killer Joe.

But one of Friedkin's films clearly stands hands and shoulders above the rest with its influence on filmmaking. The Exorcist, even 50 years later, remains Friedkin's terrifying magnum opus, one that single-handedly legitimized supernatural horror as a commercially viable genre, which it has continued to consistently maintain in the years since.

A Breakout Hit

As hard as it is to believe today, Warner Bros. didn't expect much from The Exorcist commercially. Stories of its troubled production had run rampant; William Friedkin's perfectionist tendencies on set led to injuries for stars Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair,...

The modest aims of director William Friedkin’s final film, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, are evident from the start. The film is an adaptation of Herman Wouk’s 1954 two-act play of the same name, which the author adapted from his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1951 novel The Caine Mutiny. And both Wouk’s play and Friedkin’s film jettison the book’s maritime actions to focus solely on the military tribunal that results from it.

That means that nearly the entire film takes place within a small hearing room where military judges hear arguments for and against Lieutenant Stephen Maryk (Jake Lacy), who faces both discharge and imprisonment for usurping the command of Lt. Commander Phillip Queeg (Kiefer Sutherland) during a storm. Maryk and a handful shipmates argue that Queeg lost control of his senses and had to be displaced, but the burden of proof for upending the military’s fiercely maintained chain...

After debuting in The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002), American actor Emile Hirsch found himself cast as the lead in numerous Hollywood productions throughout the following decade. He garnered widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike thanks to his work in Sean Penn's magnum opus Into the Wild (2007). Those two became frequent collaborators in the following year, both appearing in Milk (2008) by Gus Van Sant.

Those are the two most acclaimed films of Hirsch's career. But less hardcore audiences may associate Hirsch with films such as The Girl Next Door (2004), Lords of Dogtown (2005), and Alpha Dog (2006). Released in consecutive years, all three films featured Hirsch in the lead role, and they really ran the gamut of genre. Girl Next Door is a romantic comedy, while Alpha Dog goes down as a crime drama. They both hold up wonderfully today. But throughout those well-known releases, Hirsch has appeared in...

Somewhere, at any given moment, there’s a film director adapting a stage play to the big screen. Yet it’s rare, and fascinating, to see a filmmaker steeped to the gills in cinema as cinema who also has a grand obsession with the theater. Robert Altman was like that. His great films of the ’70s were so naturalistic they seemed to dissolve the edges of the movie frame, yet in the ’80s, starting with “Come Back to the Five & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean,” he adapted nine plays in a row, the last of which, in 1988, was a darkly solid made-for-tv version of “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.”

William Friedkin, the legendary director who passed away last month, just before his 88th birthday, represents another case like Altman’s. In the early ’70s, when Friedkin commandeered Hollywood and the world with the extraordinary one-two punch of “The French Connection” (1971) and...

Republic Pictures President Dan Cohen and producer Annabelle Dunne were among the main representatives of William Friedkin’s last film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial at its posthumous world premiere at the Venice Film Festival over the weekend.

Taking place less than a month after Friedkin died at the age of 87 on August 7, it was an emotional night for both.

Alongside tributes from this year’s jury president Damien Chazelle and Venice director Alberto Barbera, Dunne took to the stage to share anecdotes, including how Guillermo del Toro and J.J. Abrams became involved as back-up directors after Friedkin’s age made it impossible to secure a completion bond.

Deadline caught up with the pair on the terrace of the Venice Lido’s Excelsior Hotel the next day, ahead of a screening of Friedkin’s The Exorcist in Venice Classics.

“It was really emotional for everybody. It was important to us that...

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, William Friedkin's final movie, has been picked up by Paramount Plus for international distribution. The film will release on Showtime in the U.S. The film is a legal drama starring Jason Clarke and Kiefer Sutherland based on a 1953 play by Herman Wouk, following a naval officer on trial for leading a mutiny aboard a ship. The movie features a notable cast and marks a posthumous release for Friedkin, Wouk, and Lance Reddick.

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, the final movie from late Exorcist director William Friedkin, has found a streaming home. Friedkin, who passed away on August 7, is best known for The Exorcist, but has also directed other hits like The French Connection, Rules of Engagement, and To Live and Die In L.A., among many others. After 2017's The Devil and Father Amorth, Friedkin's final movie is a legal drama based on a play by Herman Wouk.

William Friedkin’s last film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial will premiere on Paramount+.

The upcoming movie, which premieres out of competition at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday, will be available in all international markets where the streaming service operates which are: the UK, Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean, Australia, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France and South Korea. The French Connection director died on August 7, 2023, at age 87. His last film Killer Joe was released over 10 years ago in 2011. Friedkin also wrote the screenplay for the American legal drama, which is based on a book of the same name. The movie is produced by Annabelle Dunne and Matthew Parker.

Related: The Exorcist Director William Friedkin Dies at 87

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial follows a U.S. Naval captain who exhibits worrisome signs of mental instability, endangering the safety of his ship, the first officer takes the bold step of relieving him of command.

Damien Chazelle paid a moving tribute to the late William Friedkin at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday (03.09.23).The 'Exorcist' filmmaker passed away last month at the age of 87 but was able to complete his final movie, 'The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial', before he died and it premiered at the event over the weekend.And Damien praised the legendary director for his passion for cinema and his visionary way of working.The 'Babylon' filmmaker, who is presiding over this year's Venice jury, said: “When I first became aware of the name Billy Friedkin I was a child, and the name itself filled me with fear.“I probably had ‘The Exorcist’ in my mind. I hadn’t see the film yet, but I’d seen the letters written in that typeface, and the sound of the word “Fried-kin” seemed to suggest to me the darkest, most forbidden recesses of the imagination.

Damien Chazelle paid tribute to late great director William Friedkin on Sunday in a moving speech at the Venice Film Festival where Friedkin’s last film “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” premiered out-of-competition to warm applause.

Friedkin, who died on Aug. 7 in Los Angeles at age 87, completed the film – which stars Kiefer Sutherland as Lt. Commander Queeg who stands trial for mutiny for taking command from a ship captain he feels is acting in a mentally unstable way that is endangering both the ship and its crew – shortly before passing,

“When I first became aware of the name Billy Friedkin I was a child, and the name itself filled me with fear,” said Chazelle, who is presiding over this year’s Venice jury.

“I probably had ‘The Exorcist’ in my mind. I hadn’t see the film yet, but I’d seen the letters written in that typeface, and the sound...

The last works by artists who have just died often acquire a strange patina of significance. Whether the deceased knew the work would be their last or not, it’s almost impossible not to read into them a foreshadowing of the maker’s imminent departure, a railing against the dying of the light or a tidy return to earlier themes.

The storied director William Friedkin passed on Aug. 7 at the age of 87, just weeks after he completed his last feature film, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. I don’t know if Friedkin was aware this would be his last when he decided to make it, but it does feel like a fitting final artistic word in many ways. Like so many of his other movies, it’s pithy, punchy, a little shouty at times, but made with brio and swagger.

From the earliest days of his filmmaking career, he was drawn to theatrical material.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Circus Maximus

Before their collaboration Aggro Dr1ft heads to the fall festival circuit, Travis Scott and Harmony Korine’s Utopia album companion Circus Maximus is now available to stream for free. Also featuring segments directed by Gaspar Noé, Nicolas Winding Refn, Valdimar Jóhannsson (Lamb), and music-video maestro Kahlil Joseph, the release follows a brief theatrical run a few weeks back.

Killer Joe (William Friedkin)

Somewhere between greasy leftover fried chicken and stale half-finished beer cans sits Killer Joe, filmmaker William Friedkin’s fresh adaptation of Tracy Letts’ 20-year-old play. Young Chris (Emile Hirsch) has an idea: have his mother killed and collect on her insurance in order to pay off a batch of drugs that’s gone missing. Chris’ father Ansel shrugs in agreement,...

TCM is honoring William Friedkin's career with a two-night event showcasing five of his best films, including The French Connection and The Exorcist. Friedkin had a successful Hollywood career, directing acclaimed films across various genres such as Sorcerer and Killer Joe. Hollywood mourned Friedkin's death and praised his genius and influence, with collaborators and actors from The Exorcist speaking highly of him.

Turner Classic Movies will celebrate the life and career of the late, great William Friedkin with a two-night event. TCM's tribute will showcase five films, the first three airing on Thursday, September 14, and the remaining two airing Sunday, November 26. September's event will feature The French Connection, To Live and Die in L.A., and The Boys in the Band; while November's event kicks off with the TCM premiere of Friedkin Uncut, a documentary about Friedkin's life and work, and concludes with The Exorcist.

Early in his career, Friedkin...

Most directors would be more than happy to make a single touchstone genre film at some point in their careers. William Friedkin? He made two in just as many years. His 1971 crime thriller "The French Connection" established the template for car chase scenes that's still being used today. Then, in 1973, he made "The Exorcist," the film that got the world to start taking horror seriously as a high art form.

As if that wasn't enough, Friedkin also made not one but two quintessential pieces of queer cinema with "The Boys in the Band" and the controversial but undeniably important "Cruising." Even in his twilight years as a filmmaker, Friedkin was tackling provocative material in the forms of the stage play adaptations "Bug" and especially the twisted "Killer Joe" (a film that played a less-acknowledged yet key role in the McConaissance era of Matthew McConaughey's run as an actor).

With...

William Friedkin, who died August 7 at the age of 87, will get a programming tribute courtesy of Turner Classic Movies in a two-part block on September 14 and November 26.

There will be a triple feature on September 14 of the Gene Hackman-starring “The French Connection,” to air at 8pm, followed by “To Live and Die in LA” at 10:00 pm.

The night will be capped off with “The Boys in the Band” from 1970, a pre-“French Connection” feature concerning a birthday party that was an, at the time, ground-breaking feature for LGBTQ representation.

Night two, over Thanksgiving weekend, will feature the TCM premiere of the 2018 documentary “Friedkin Uncut,” followed by “The Exorcist.” For those who still need more Friedkin gems, “Bug,” “Killer Joe” and “The Hunted” will fit the bill.

One of Friedkin’s first breakthroughs jobs was directing one of the last episodes of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” Hitchcock would reportedly scold...

Director Edgar Wright pays tribute to William Friedkin, sharing a letter from the acclaimed filmmaker and acknowledging his impact on cinema. Friedkin reveals the inspiration behind The French Connection's iconic car chase scene and credits the influence of Buster Keaton on chase scenes in general. The French Connection was a major success for Friedkin, earning him an Academy Award for Best Director, and he went on to direct other notable films like The Exorcist.

Director Edgar Wright honored the late William Friedkin by sharing a letter from the Academy Award-winning filmmaker.

Wright paid tribute to Friedkin in a post on Instagram. "When I programmed The French Connection in 2017 at the British Film Institute for a season of car movies to tie in with Baby Driver, I asked William Friedkin to write a little something to read out before I introduced the screening," he wrote. "This is his reply to...

Actor Emile Hirsch attempts to hold his life together and loses his temper in this exclusive clip from the upcoming thriller, Inside Man. Based on true events, Inside Man follows Hirsch as a disgraced police detective seeking redemption by going undercover to expose a violent and bloody crime syndicate. Coming courtesy of Vertical, you can check out the exclusive clip from Inside Man below.

“Based on true events, Inside Man follows disgraced New York Police Detective Bobby Belucci (Emile Hirsch) as his life falls apart when he discovers his wife (Ashley Greene) is having an affair,” reads the official synopsis for Inside Man. It continues:

“After beating her lover to a pulp, she leaves him and Bobby gets demoted at work, triggering his determination to prove he’s worthy of redemption. His plan is to go undercover as a grunt and infiltrate the Gambino crime family’s notorious “DeMeo Crew,...

As Hollywood commemorates the life and career of the late William Friedkin, fans are sharing clips and memories of the “Exorcist” director’s famously unfiltered and foul-mouthed takes on cinema… including an expletive-laden strike at the DC film “Batman v. Superman.”

One clip that has gone viral on social media since news of Friedkin’s death broke came from a 2018 documentary “Friedkin Uncut,” a retrospective of the filmmaker’s career as told through his words and those of his collaborators and peers.

At the end of the documentary, Friedkin discusses his then-recent visit to the Venice Film Festival, where he premiered “The Devil & Father Amorth,” a documentary about Catholic priest and exorcist Gabriele Amorth.

While Friedkin loves traveling to Venice and presenting his films there, he says in the documentary that he does not like screening them in competition. While some of his films have been entered into competition at Venice,...