NEW YORK John Mescall was recently appointed global chief creative partner at Dentsu Creative. Based in New York, Mescall partners with Yasu Sasaki, dentsu’s global chief creative officer, to align and elevate creative standards across offices worldwide. Together with creative leaders in markets, Mescall will spearhead initiatives focused on: Prioritizing creative excellence and craft; building a thriving Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) It’s been eight years since Daniel Day-Lewis announced his retirement from acting and said he wanted to “explore the world in a different way.” But the big-screen absence of the actor many would peg as the greatest one alive ends with “Anemone,” a new film directed by his son, Ronan Day-Lewis. The two of them Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) Like thousands of actors, Tilly Norwood is looking for a Hollywood agent. But unlike most young performers aspiring to make it in the film industry, Tilly Norwood is an entirely artificial intelligence-made character. Norwood, dubbed Hollywood’s first “AI actor,” is the product of a company named Xicoia, which bills itself as the world’s first artificial Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) President Donald Trump says he will slap a 100% tax on movies made outside the United States — a vague directive aimed at protecting a business that America already dominates. Claiming that movie production “has been stolen” from Hollywood and the U.S., Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that “I will be imposing a Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” isn’t part of the New York Film Festival’s lineup, but its agitated sense of inheritance and keeping a fighting spirit alive are all over this year’s cinematic convergence at Lincoln Center. The New York Film Festival kicks off Friday, the same day Anderson’s antic American epic lands in Read More 

LOS ANGELES The American Film Institute (AFI) has unveiled the full lineup of 161 films screening at this year’s AFI Fest, taking place in Los Angeles from October 22-26. This year’s festival lineup includes 7 Red Carpet Premieres, 12 Special Screenings, 14 Luminaries selections, 15 Discovery films, 20 World Cinema selections, 15 Documentaries, 6 After Dark titles, Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) In what could become the largest-ever buyout funded by private equity, video game maker Electronic Arts has agreed to be acquired in a deal valued at $55 billion. Beyond the potentially record-breaking price tag, the deal could bring wider shifts in the gaming world. Electronic Arts (EA) owns popular titles like Madden NFL, Battlefield and Read More 

LOS ANGELES Rakish–a commercial production company I co-founded in 2019–was launched with idealism, first and foremost. It was to be an experiment; one where the pervasive question was “what if we tried it this way?” There were common threads woven into each experiment: “No company I’ve ever worked at has done it this way, let’s try it.” Read More 

LOS ANGELES Glenn Kaino, the internationally celebrated conceptual artist and filmmaker whose work bridges art, activism, and global media, has joined the director roster at RadicalMedia for global representation in branded content. RadicalMedia becomes the first company to rep Kaino in the branded space. Kaino’s career defies categorization, establishing himself as one of the most influential conceptual Read More 

LONDON Director Stanley Brock has joined Biscuit Filmworks for global representation spanning commercials, branded content and music videos. Brock is a North Londoner who cut his teeth making videos about skateboarding and the unique characters he grew up observing. He has since taken his passion for storytelling into narrative films, helming projects for Palace x Stella Read More 

NEW YORK Droga5, part of Accenture Song, continues to bolster its leadership ranks, elevating Julia Albu to chief transformation and operations officer, Ruben Mercadal to global chief production officer, and Lauren Tomlinson to executive director of global accounts. All three have instrumental roles in the agency’s evolution as a global network and will work to ensure that Read More 

PARIS Publicis Groupe has appointed Deepti Velury as CEO of global production. In this newly created role, Velury will oversee all of the Groupe’s production capabilities, spanning global content studios, proprietary AI technology platforms, including GenAI partnerships and global production hubs. At a time when it’s never been cheaper or easier to produce content en masse, Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) Brett Goldstein might want to break your heart. Or at least give you a proper ugly cry. In the new film “All of You,” which began streaming on Apple TV+ on Friday (9/26), audiences are presented with a sticky conundrum: What if your soulmate, and your best friend, were different people? Reactions might differ about Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) Benny Safdie’s “The Smashing Machine” isn’t what you think it is, especially if you think it’s a movie about a British guy who thinks his typewriter is the tops. “The Smashing Machine” would seem to bear all the hallmarks of something grittier, darker and more disturbing than it is. It’s the solo directorial debut of Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) Filmmaker Raoul Peck uses George Orwell’s writings to weave together a biographical portrait of the author and a dispiriting picture of power and truth in the modern world in “Orwell: 2+2=5.” He’s hardly the first to connect the dots between Orwell’s prophetic writings and the current state of things — remember, sales for “Nineteen Eighty-Four” Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) It is often said of our greatest actors that they could compellingly recite the phone book. There’s no doubt, just to continue that thought for a moment, that Daniel Day-Lewis is one of our greatest living actors — perhaps truly the best of them all. And so the first and most important thing to say Read More 

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif. The International Cinematographers Guild (ICG, IATSE Local 600) presented eight aspiring DPs with 2025 Emerging Cinematographer Awards (ECA) during a ceremony, screening and reception held this past Sunday (9/28) at the Television Academy Saban Media Center Wolf Theatre. Selected from 100 submissions, the class of 2025 ECA honorees consists of: –Isaac Banks for his short Read More 

NEW YORK M+C Saatchi North America has appointed Piper Hickman as executive creative director for M+C Saatchi SSK. With more than two decades of experience in the advertising industry, Hickman will help lead creative development for the agency’s diverse portfolio of clients, including JPMorganChase, Mount Sinai Health System, and L’Oreal. Hickman joins M+C Saatchi at a pivotal Read More 

LOS ANGELES In a move that significantly bolsters its commercial footprint, boutique visual effects and finishing studio Mr. Wolf has added two key team members and opened a new studio in New York. Michel Waxman joins the company as executive producer of branded content, and Ashley McKim will serve as a strategic and business development driver for Read More 

DUBLIN, Ireland Award-winning producer David Lynch is rejoining the BBH fold, this time heading up the agency’s Dublin office as its new production director. He returns after spending time at such creative shops as 72andSunny LA, Wieden+Kennedy NY and most recently, Uncommon where he worked on a campaign for Lagavulin Whisky. Lynch will be leading the charge Read More 

CHICAGO Commercial, cine-doc, and content production company PARAGON has expanded its creative and strategic reach with additions to its directorial roster and the hiring of executive producer Tom Leonard. Coming aboard the directing roster on a nonexclusive basis for national representation with a focus on the Midwest are Christian Vergara, Marshall Burnette, Sha Collier, Brian Myers, Read More 

LONDON Droga5 London, part of Accenture Song, has promoted Dan Roberts and Matteo Alabiso to co-creative directors of design, underscoring the agency’s commitment to placing design at the center of its creative practice. In their new roles, Roberts and Alabiso will lead the studio’s design vision and output, reporting directly to chief creative officer Tara Ford, Read More 

LOS ANGELES (AP) Nexstar Media Group joined Sinclair Broadcast Group in bringing Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show back to its local TV stations on Friday night, ending a dayslong TV blackout for dozens of cities across the U.S. The companies suspended the program on Sept. 17 over remarks the comedian made in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) Taylor Heine, 35, is often multitasking when she watches TV shows or movies at home. “I’ll be playing on the phone, loving on my animals, maybe cleaning, picking up,” she says. So she watches with the subtitles turned on. “That way I can kind of switch back and forth, be able to listen to it Read More 

NEW YORK (AP) “One Battle After Another,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s widely acclaimed American epic of rebellion and resistance, opened with $22.4 million in ticket sales from North American theaters over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. Anderson’s ultracontemporary opus signifies a major gamble by Warner Bros. With “One Battle After Another,” the studio is making a $130 Read More 

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