Villeneuve + Bond, part two

in

Finding this bit interesting. Can’t help but wonder if they’re following a pre-McQuarrie MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE formula, with a different director helming their own style of film. A more anthology-esque, continuity-be-damned approach could be rather refreshing.

Puck’s Matt Belloni is reporting that Villeneuve’s leap into the Bond-verse is going to be a one-off affair. Additionally, he won’t have final cut on the film and isn’t locked in for any sequels, spin-offs, or streaming offshoots. Still, there are hints that the new regime, headed by Amy Pascal and David Heyman, isn’t interested in micromanaging auteurs into studio yes-men.

That said, Villeneuve’s leash here is notably short. No final cut. No creative continuity beyond this one film. Amazon doesn’t want to hand over the entire sandbox after just one movie, a trend we’ve seen across the industry as studios grow wary of directors planting long-term flags in valuable IP.

tick tick tick

in

Count me in the 10-15 year camp (optimistically).

We’re not talking about critics or streaming evangelists sounding the death knell. This is coming straight from the exhibition side itself. These are the folks booking screens, selling popcorn, and living off ticket sales. And yet, nearly 55% of them think the model has fewer than 20 years left. Some were even more pessimistic, clocking the death watch closer to five or ten years.

The data came out of a survey by industry analyst Stephen Follows, in collaboration with Screendollars. They reached out to nearly 250 execs across the American film sector—people working in exhibition, production, distribution, sales, and television—to take the pulse of where things stand post-COVID.

It’s not just theater owners sounding the alarm. Sales and distribution heads were even more cynical about the future—over 60% of them also think the clock is ticking, fast.

12 favorite films, currently

in

  • ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (Sergio Leone, 1968; 20+ year reign at the top continues)

  • HEAT (Michael Mann, 1995)

  • THE MALTESE FALCON (John Huston, 1941)

  • ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (Peter Hunt, 1969)

  • PARASITE (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

  • REAR WINDOW (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)

  • CHILDREN OF MEN (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)

  • PARIS, TEXAS (Wim Wenders, 1984)

  • CHUNGKING EXPRESS (Wong Kar-Wai, 1994)

  • HIGH AND LOW (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)

  • PERSONA (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)

  • ALPHAVILLE (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)

David Lynch's "Unrecorded Night"

in

Alas, another Lynch project we’ll never get to see. Adore the title.

Among the very few who saw “Unrecorded Night” in any form is cinematographer Peter Deming, who collaborated with Lynch on “Twin Peaks: The Return.” Speaking to The Film Stage, Deming is giving us the first, and maybe last, details about “Unrecorded Night.”

... definitely its own original thing… It was going to be a lot of episodes, because David really liked what he called ‘the continuing story.’… Twin Peaks: The Return, we weren’t really sure how many episodes there were going to be until it got into post-production, because it wasn’t really written that way; it was written as a 550-page film. So how that was sliced and diced really was a post-production question. “Unrecorded Night” was the same way. It took me three sittings to read it because it was so thick, but it was definitely not Twin Peaks. It was definitely a really interesting… mystery, I would say.

When asked about the story, Deming was cautious but revealed it was “another LA canon” for Lynch—an original mystery blending filmmaking and Old Hollywood, likely intended as a sprawling, multi-episode narrative much like “Twin Peaks: The Return.”