LOS ANGELES -- Years ago while in the throes of collaborating on the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave , director Steve McQueen told editor Joe Walker, ACE, what he envisioned as his next project--a feature adaptation of the early 1980s’ British television series Widows created by Lynda La Plante. “I remembered that original TV series well, having grown up in Ealing, a suburb of west London,” said Walker. “It was a landmark piece of must-see television. On reflection it made a big impact... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Annette Bening plays Senator Dianne Feinstein, Zac Efron takes on Ted Bundy, Awkwafina dives into a dramatic role, and Harvey Weinstein gets a documentary spotlight in films that will premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in January. The Sundance Institute revealed on Wednesday 112 feature films, culled from 4,018 submissions, set to screen at the annual festival this January in Park City, Utah. From incisive documentaries to groundbreaking dramas and edgy genre fare, films that launch at... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- In what may be the just the first of many such sweeps, Alfonso Cuaron's masterful, memory-drenched drama "Roma" dominated the New York Film Critics Circle Awards on Thursday, winning best film, best director and best cinematography. The overwhelming show of support for "Roma" by the critics group wasn't a surprise. Cuaron's film has been hailed as a masterpiece since winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It's widely expected to contend for best picture, among other categories, at... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- The National Board of Review (NBR) named Green Book the Best Film of the Year, additionally honoring it with Best Actor distinction for Viggo Mortensen. Copping the most honors was A Star is Born with three: Best Director for Bradley Cooper, Best Actress for Lady Gaga, and Best Supporting Actor for Sam Elliott. Like Green Book , If Beale Street Could Talk scored a pair of honors: director Barry Jenkins for penning the Best Adapted Screenplay (from novelist James Baldwin’s seminal work), and... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- Director Chloé Zhao’s spiritual western drama The Rider (Sony Pictures Classics) earned Best Feature distinction at the 28th annual Independent Feature Project (IFP) Gotham Awards on Monday night (11/26) in New York. The other two big Gotham winners were First Reformed (A24) and Eighth Grade (A24) which garnered two honors apiece. First Reformed won Best Screenplay for Paul Schrader and Best Actor for Ethan Hawke. Meanwhile Eighth Grade copped the Breakthrough Actor Award for Elsie Fisher and... Read More, Comment

VENICE, Calif. -- Saville Productions has signed two-time Academy Award and three-time Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy for her first U.S. commercial and branded entertainment representation. She brings to the Venice-based Saville more than 15 years of experience as a director along with a lineup of multi-award-winning films from around the world. Most recently, Obaid-Chinoy collaborated with Lebron James on the HBO Sports documentary Student Athlete to raise awareness about the... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- WPP has announced that Wunderman and J. Walter Thompson will unite to form Wunderman Thompson, a creative, data and technology agency. Wunderman Thompson will be an agency of more than 20,000 people in 90 markets. It will be fully operational in early 2019. Wunderman and J. Walter Thompson share many core clients, who will now have simpler access to the expertise of both agencies. And, as technology reshapes marketing, Wunderman Thompson will also capitalize on close and longstanding... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- DDB New York, part of Omnicom (NYSE: OMC), has made three key hires, bringing Lance Parrish aboard as executive creative director, and Katie Jensen and Ani Munoz as group creative directors. All three will report to Lisa Topol and Derek Barnes, co-chief creative officers of DDB NY, and will lead creative across DDB’s portfolio of clients. As the first batch of new hires for Topol and Barnes since the pair joined the agency in March, the move signifies a new era of creative leadership for DDB NY... Read More, Comment

LONDON -- Pulse Films has signed director KLVDR to its roster for commercials and music videos globally. The Zimbabwean-born, U.K.-based KLVDR has created visuals for the likes of Stormzy, J Hus, Wiley and Giggs as well as for such brands as Beats by Dre, Footlocker and the NBA. KLVDR also directed the visuals for Krept & Konan’s 2018 U.K. shows which led on to further collaborations with buzzed-about artists like MØ. KLVDR has kicked off his tenure at Pulse with “One Night Only,” a music video for... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Mahershala Ali's life changed in more ways than one the week of the 2017 Oscars. Four days before he won best supporting actor for his performance in "Moonlight," his wife, Amatus-Sami Karim, gave birth to their first child. "When I won, all I could think about was: I just want to get home," Ali says, grinning. It wasn't just Ali's soulful, tender performance as a drug dealer in Barry Jenkins' "Moonlight" that illuminated Ali to audiences. It was his incredible poise through awards season,... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Roger Ailes might not always have been a household name during his time at Fox News, but many media commentators believe he changed the TV landscape forever. As the architect of the conservative cable news channel, Ailes created a beacon for what he deemed as an underserved news market. Now the world that Ailes created is the subject of a new documentary, "Divide and Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes." Directed by Alexis Bloom, the film deconstructs the rise and fall of the late head of Fox... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES -- Interrogate, which maintains shops in L.A., NY and Sydney, has added director Lee J. Ford to its roster for commercials and branded content. The production company will rep him in the U.S. and Australia. Ford’s inaugural project at Interrogate--working with its exec producers/partners George Meeker and Jeff Miller--was a spot for Blizzard Games’ Diablo III out of L.A. agency Omelet. Based on the experience, Ford said of the two EPs, “They understand passion, and aren’t afraid to get their hands... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- Indie production studio Bindery has signed Selina Miles, an Australian director with experience in over 20 countries, for U.S. representation spanning commercials, branded content and music videos. This marks the first time she has been repped in the American ad market. She continues to be handled by Mindseye in the U.K., Art Bridge in France, and Exit Films in Australia and New Zealand. A multi-faceted filmmaker, Miles began her career as an editor of online content before moving into... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK -- The ADVERTISING Club of New York’s International ANDY Awards, now in its 54th year, has appointed as its new jury chairman Nick Law, chief creative officer of Publicis Groupe, and president, Publicis Communications. Law will lead a diverse, global, integrated jury that will evaluate and distinguish the best ideas and the bravest creative work from around the world. The ANDY Awards are paving the way for greater transparency and an awards process that better serves the creative community. In... Read More, Comment

LONDON -- Helvetica, a directorial duo composed of Hans Vercauter and Francois Mercier, has signed with Nexus Studios for exclusive representation in the U.K., U.S. and the Netherlands for spots, music videos and branded content. Nexus also non-exclusively handles the helming team worldwide--except in Italy, Germany, Belgium and France where they are repped by LOVO Films. Vercauter and Mercier formed Helvetica in 2013 and since then have aimed their cinematic and occasionally surrealist style at... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Eric Bana is bringing the popular true crime podcast "Dirty John" to TV with a weekly series on Bravo. Bana plays John Meehan and Connie Britton plays Debra Newell, a couple in California who met online and fell in love. John claimed to be a doctor, just back from volunteering his services for Doctors Without Borders in Iraq. Newell, who had already been married multiple times and had grown children, thought John was the man she had always been looking for. Her kids, however, immediately didn't... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- On the surface, the new film "Bodied" may not seem like the right fit for an actor known for the Disney Channel's "Austin and Ally." But for Calum Worthy, it couldn't be more perfect. "That's one of the things coming out of a Disney Channel-type show or I think any TV show, you get kind of typecast as the character that you're playing on the show," said Worthy. "I really wanted to make really strategic decisions because I want to act until I'm 80, and I know that the only way to have longevity... Read More, Comment

ROME (AP) -- Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci, who won Oscars with "The Last Emperor" and whose erotic drama "Last Tango in Paris" enthralled and shocked the world, died Monday. He was 77. Bertolucci's press office, Punto e Virgola, confirmed the death in an email to The Associated Press. Italy's state-run RAI said Bertolucci died at his home in Rome, surrounded by family. "He will be remembered among the greatest in Italian and world film," the Venice Film Festival, which awarded Bertolucci a lifetime... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Stephen Hillenburg, who used his dual loves of drawing and marine biology to spawn the absurd undersea world of "SpongeBob SquarePants," has died, Nickelodeon announced Tuesday. Hillenburg died Monday of Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as ALS, the cable network said in a statement. He was 57. He had announced he had the disease in March 2017. His death comes just weeks after the passing of another cartoon hero in Marvel creator Stan Lee. Hillenburg conceived, wrote, produced and directed the... Read More, Comment

Consider it an early Christmas gift: "Anna and the Apocalypse" is the zombie horror holiday musical you didn't know you needed. Just imagining that first pitch meeting is entertainment in itself. "It's 'High School Musical' meets 'World War Z!' No no, it's 'Glee' meets 'Shaun of the Dead!' Hold on ... it's Christmas! OK, 'Love Actually' meets 'The Walking Dead!'" Whatever its cinematic antecedents, "Anna," which boasts an appealing cast of fresh-faced newcomers and a quirky Scottish sensibility... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- Have you heard the one about the girl who didn't care about Christmas but found herself in a small town for the holidays surrounded by decorations, cookies and carolers, and found a new boyfriend and her Christmas spirit by Dec. 25? Hallmark Channel has, and they're airing 22 original movies this year built around plots similar to that. The premise may vary, but the themes are the same and Hallmark is very OK with that. "Yes, you can pretty much guarantee that when you meet our two leads in the... Read More, Comment

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Movie sequels are having their own Thanksgiving feast at the box office and fueling record industry-wide grosses for the long weekend. "Ralph Breaks the Internet" and "Creed II" took the top two spots on the North American charts, beat the openings for the original films and helped the five-day Thanksgiving box office totals cross the $300 million mark for the first time ever. Studios on Sunday said Disney's "Wreck-It Ralph" sequel earned an estimated $55.7 million over the three-day weekend... Read More, Comment

NEW YORK (AP) -- At some point, a television sensation becomes just another show. The numbers illustrate how that's become the case with AMC's drama, "The Walking Dead." The zombies are taking a break at the halfway point of their ninth season, following an episode on Sunday that was seen by 5.1 million people. The Nielsen company said that at a similar point last year, the midseason finale reached 7.9 million people. For the first seven episodes of the season, the show's viewership was down 23 percent compared... Read More, Comment

A young man sinks the winning shot in a basketball game to the delight of the home crowd. But in the post-game locker room, the story takes a turn as the hardwood hero, now alone, is confronted by two men in suits. A fight ensues in which the lad throws one of the men literally through a wall. The other guy retaliates, slamming the basketball player against a wall of gym lockers. It’s then revealed that our game-winning jump shooter is a robotic creature. Now disabled, he is dragged out of the... Read More, Comment

Mark Zibert of production house Skin & Bones, Toronto, directed three spots, including this “We Rise” anthem piece for Right to Play out of BBDO Toronto. The campaign anchor :90 is built around images of young children forced into cruel situations at the hands of adults. The images are accompanied by a voiceover, presented as slam poetry, which begins, “They think they can traffic us, abuse us, marry us and use us. They think that our futures are their own to shape, that they can determine... Read More, Comment

Central to Apple’s holiday campaign from TBWA\Media Arts Lab is this moving long-form animated film about a young woman who hides her creativity. The film, “Share of Your Gifts,” conveys the highs and lows of creative expression, and is an ode to having the self-belief to put yourself out there and share your creativity. Up and coming 16-year-old singer and songwriter, Billie Eilish, lends her voice and music writing skills with an original song she created for the film aptly titled, “come out... Read More, Comment

This film portrays all that can go wrong during the Xmas season--getting stuck in the snow, long shopping lines, coping with the fights that flair up during family get-togethers, the perils of preparing holiday meals, airport layovers--as people struggle to sing along in unison the Andy Williams classic, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” The pairing of the song with the pitfalls of the holidays makes for a delightfully ironic pairing to promote the Wonderful Christmas by Orange, the... Read More, Comment

Transporting musicians from one culture to another, United Airlines’ “World Orchestra” demonstrates the power of music--and travel--to unite the world. The spot is part of the “Uniting the World” fall campaign for United Airlines from mcgarrybowen New York. It features Gershwin’s iconic “Rhapsody in Blue,” a signature element of all United’s commercials, but in a fresh new way. Highlighting United’s launch of new global hubs, the film depicts musicians from one culture transported to another. A... Read More, Comment

Footcare brand Dr. Scholl’s is celebrating the joy of movement, from halting first steps to graceful pirouettes and everything in between, as part of a new campaign that marks a bold evolution in the brand’s marketing strategy. The new “Born to Move” platform signals a shift away from advertising focusing on the functional benefits of Dr. Scholl’s products to one that recognizes their role in facilitating freedom of movement. A key component of the campaign is this emotional short film titled... Read More, Comment

This spot directed by Bryan Buckley of Hungry Man for McCann New York shows that there is only one carrier that can deliver cards and gifts as reliably and in time for the holidays as Santa Claus and his team of reindeer: the United States Postal Service. Titled "Surprise Encounter," the holiday ad depicts what happens when a USPS carrier and Santa Claus meet at the front steps of the same address. The two are first surprised to see each other, but proceed to swap stories and tricks of the... Read More, Comment

---