Vincent Cassel to Star in Netflix's Next Big French Movie, ‘Quasimodo,' Directed by ‘Mesrine' Helmer, Produced by Mediawan's Radar Films
The film will shoot this summer in France with Jean-Francois Richet ('Mesrine') on board to direct, with a script penned by Eric Besnard ('Delicieux'). 'Quasimodo' is being produced by Clément Miserez and Matthieu Warter at Radar Films, a Mediawan company.
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Set in Paris on the eve of the July Revolution in 1830, the epic movie reimagines the life of the man who inspired the fictional character of Quadimodo, a disfigured man who as the bell-ringer for Notre Dame cathedral in Hugo's 'The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.'
'As the cholera epidemic spreads through the city, he's caught between political turmoil and an impossible love,' reads the synopsis. While the plot remains under wraps, the movie is believed to have a dark edge.
The movie reteams Richet with Cassel, who starred in the hugely successful two-part crime thriller 'Mesrine' as gangster Jacques Mesrine, and 'The Emperor of Paris,' in which he played François Vidocq, an ex convict considered as the father of the French national police force.
Cassel has recently played in other period films in France, notably 'The Three Musketeers,' based on Alexandre Dumas' classic novel.
A number of illustrious actors ave played Quasimodo in fictional works, including Lon Chaney, Charles Laughton, Anthony Quinn and Anthony Hopkins.
Besnard, who penned the script for 'Quasimodo,' is also directing 'Valjean,' a project that charts the origin story of Jean Valjean, the protagonist of Victor Hugo's masterpiece 'Les Misérables.'
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Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The Internet Is Obsessed With KPop Demon Hunters' Music, And I Had One Big Question For The Directors About It
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Right now, KPop Demon Hunters is captivating those who watch it with a Netflix subscription, it's breaking Netflix records, and it's dominating the music charts. This entry on the 2025 movie schedule has taken the world by storm, and now a bunch of its songs are probably stuck in millions of people's heads, which I love to see. Seeing all this success also reminded me of a question I asked the directors about this movie and its music: Is this a musical? Before KPop Demon Hunters premiered on Netflix's 2025 schedule, I had the chance to interview its directors, Chris Appelhans and Maggie Kang. During that discussion, I asked them a question that could easily spark debate, which was: Is their movie a musical or a movie about music? In response, they told me it's both; however, they came to that conclusion, especially the musical part, 'reluctantly,' as Appelhans told me: I think we would reluctantly consider it a musical now, because it was such an education for us. You had to progress the scene with every song; the lyrics needed to not repeat themselves, all while staying cool, being a good pop song, and that was really hard. We had an incredible executive music producer, Ian Eisendrath. And I think beyond his musical gifts, he's a good storyteller, and he would ask really hard, annoying questions about, 'Yeah, but what does this character want?' Think about it, 'Your Idol' tells us exactly how the Saja Boys are here to take everyone down by making them swoon for their music. 'Takedown' literally explains and shows exactly how frustrated Huntrix is with the Saja Boys and the challenges they're presenting. 'Golden' introduces us to the girls' vulnerable sides and their drive as artists while also being the single Huntrix releases in the film. As all musicals do, this movie's music drives the plot forward. Therefore, it's a musical. It's also worth noting that the executive music producer the director mentioned, Ian Eisendrath, is no stranger to working on musicals. His Broadway credits for music supervision and arrangements include Diana, A Christmas Story and Come From Away. Along with that, he was the executive music producer on the live-action Snow White, and he was an executive music consultant on one of the great musicals and best movies of 2024, Wicked. So, he knows how to tell a story with music and helped do so masterfully on KPop Demon Hunters. However, this movie isn't just a great musical. It has great music, point blank. What they did was craft excellent pop songs that also serve as story devices. So, rather than feeling like you're in a conventional musical, you are hearing these incredible, radio-worthy K-pop tracks that also happen to drive the narrative forward, which was the goal, as Appelhans told me: But I think that ultimately, if we did it right, then it shouldn't feel like a musical. It should feel like a concert film. And then you slowly realize, like, 'Wait, this song is story,' but never break the pop spell. Well, they never broke that 'pop spell'; if anything, they used it to get all this music stuck in everyone who watches the movie's heads. Need proof of that? According to Billboard, 'Golden' is No. 1 on the Global 200 and No. 2 on the Hot 100, while 'Soda Pop,' 'Your Idol' and 'How It's Done' sit at No. 5, 6 and 7, respectively, on the Global 200. The film's soundtrack is No. 3 on the Billboard 200. That's not it either; many of the film's other songs are charting too, showing the adoration this music has. On top of that, many of the movie's tracks have tens of millions of views on YouTube, with 'Golden' sitting at 106 million. So, I'd say this team accomplished exactly what they set out to do. They made a brilliant, and I mean brilliant, movie that uses its music to propel the story of this iconic girl group forward, which makes it a musical. However, they also created incredible pop songs that make you feel like you're at a K-pop concert. It really is the best of both worlds, and I think it's one of the many reasons why KPop Demon Hunters is dominating the world right now. Solve the daily Crossword
Newsweek
9 minutes ago
- Newsweek
'Love Is Blind' Fans Sick of Dating Apps Try New Way—For Some, It Works
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The format sees around 20 contestants separated by gender into living quarters for 10 days during which their sole focus is to date the other contestants without ever seeing them, with the goal of getting engaged and progressing to the next stage of the show. The engaged couples go on a trip, then live together in their home towns, meet friends and family, and ultimately decide whether or not to go through with a wedding, determining whether—as the hosts frequently remind viewers—love really is truly blind. Tolu's friend, Ife, a solutions architect at a cloud tech company, based in North West London, was thrilled at the chance to step into the real-life pods as part of the promotional event hosted by Netflix in collaboration with Thursday Dating, a UK-based app that organizes weekly singles events. "Love is Blind is my dream reality TV show to be on. I feel like it's a very good style of dating," she said. 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Both Tolu and Ife said they've been making an active effort to attend more in-person dating events, believing it cuts out the nonsense and is a foolproof way of immediately ascertaining whether there is a connection. It appears they are part of a wider shift as more people are stepping away from swiping. A Forbes-backed survey from May 2025 found 79% of Gen Zers who had used dating apps in the past year experienced "dating app burnout," and Eventbrite reported over 1.5 million searches for "dating" and "singles events" in just one year. Tami, 30, from Camden, who works in finance, was trying out the pods after ending a long-term relationship last year. "I'm not on dating apps, so I prefer to meet people in real life and chat to see if we get on," Tami told Newsweek. "Every time I've been to one of these events before, we always meet really nice people, and you never know where it can go. You'll know straight away whether you get on with someone, so you're not wasting your time small-talking back and forth and trying to arrange a date." The Love is Blind UK hosts, Matt and Emma Willis. The Love is Blind UK hosts, Matt and Emma Willis. Lydia Patrick/Lydia Patrick Kajal, 29, and Cameron, 26, are also disillusioned with dating apps, which led them to try the pods. "It's empty. There's nothing in it. On dating apps, there's no soul in it. These are photos, these are words, but even when you talk to them, it's an incomplete form of communication. There's nothing really coming back and forth," Cameron told Newsweek. "I've been single since December, and I've dated two people since. Honestly, I feel like they tend to end not respectfully, and I don't feel like I was treated the way that I deserve through apps," added Kajal, a support engineer. Kajal entered the pod and caught a quick glimpse of Cameron's black size 11 sneakers under the curtain—something she "approved immediately." "The pod experience felt quite natural to me. I felt like it had quite a calming energy," she told Newsweek. The two began with general conversation before moving on to the prompt cards, which sparked deeper discussion. One card read: "Would you go to bed angry?" Cameron said he would, preferring to wake up emotionally regulated and with a fresh perspective. Kajal preferred resolving issues before bed—though she respected her partner needing time to process. Despite their different approaches, the discussion helped them find common ground, and they plan to keep talking and see where their initial spark might lead. Does the Experiment Work? Love Is Blind premiered in February 2020 on Netflix, and instantly caused a stir. 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The Verge
9 minutes ago
- The Verge
Is streaming about to have a Wordle moment?
It's game time for streaming services: a growing number of streamers are betting on casual games as a way to keep viewers hooked when they've run out of things to watch. Toronto-based Zone-ify added free casual games to its ad-supported streaming service in June. Last month, close to 70 casual games arrived on Happykids and Fawesome, two ad-supported streaming services run by streaming startup Future Today. And later this year, Netflix is expected to expand its own gaming efforts with what company executives have called party games — casual titles that could turn movie night into game night. It's not the first time that companies have tried to blur the lines between gaming and leanback entertainment. But while prior efforts were largely focused on turning streaming devices into would-be game consoles, this new push focuses much more on casual gaming. Think Connect 4, not Counterstrike. Casual games have been a huge hit on mobile, where breakout hits like Candy Crush and Wordle, the uber-popular word game the New York Times acquired in 2022, have turned hundreds of millions of people who would never describe themselves as gamers into habitual players. Can the same happen in the living room? And what does it take for streaming services to have their Worlde moment and launch a title that gets tens of millions of people to play every day? For this week's edition of Lowpass, I chatted with Zone-ify's chief content officer John Orlando and Volley CEO Max Child to find out. I also spent a little too much time playing casual games on my TV … When I first heard about streamers adding casual games, I thought: here we go again. Over the years, there have been many attempts to turn streaming into more than just passive entertainment. Roku, for instance, struck a partnership in 2011 to bring Angry Birds to its platform. At the time, Roku even released a limited-edition Angry Birds-themed streaming device. Amazon released its first Fire TV device with an optional game controller in 2014. And when Nvidia entered the streaming device market with the Nvidia Shield in 2015, it initially didn't even include a remote control in the box, with the company betting that the device would appeal to gamers first and foremost. None of those efforts succeeded, for obvious reasons: hardcore gamers want powerful hardware and AAA titles, something that streaming devices simply couldn't offer. And people who buy a Roku do so primarily to watch TV, not to play mobile games in their living room. Netflix's first attempt to expand beyond leanback viewing with interactive titles like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch failed, as well, in part because the titles lacked the stickiness and replayability of video games. 'As a novelty, it's incredibly fun to do those interactive things,' Orlando tells me. 'But it's not something that you want to do all the time.' 'Gaming is different,' Orlando says. 'You're going to keep playing for hours, and you'll want to come back.' Chances are you've never heard of Orlando's Zone-ify service, which looks a bit like Tubi did 10 years ago: a few high-profile titles and lots of older catalog content you'll likely find elsewhere, as well. At this point, the company's game library matches that vibe, with a bunch of knock-off versions of popular games like Connect 4 and Candy Crush, all of which can be played with a remote control. And yet, I quickly found myself sucked in, solving level after level in a game called Crazy Lot, which looks a lot like Rush Hour. To add games to streaming, Zone-ify partnered with ES3, a company that has been building interactive advertising experiences for major media companies. However, this was the first time that a service used ES3's tech for gaming inside a free streaming app. 'I was shocked that there wasn't another ad-supported video service that was doing it,' Orlando says. Zone-ify didn't remain the only ad-supported service with casual games for very long. In late July, Future Today announced that it was adding puzzles, word games, and things like pool and air hockey to its Happykids and Fawesome apps on Roku devices. And some time later this year, Netflix is expected to launch a first crop of party games. 'We want to reimagine what social engaging experiences can unfold in the living room,' said Jeet Shroff, Netflix's vice president of game technology, at a Netflix Game Developers Conference event earlier this year. Netflix's party games are an extension of the company's massive push into gaming, which also includes dozens of mobile games and cloud gaming to bring AAA titles to the TV. Netflix did scale back some of its more ambitious indie gaming efforts and closed down an in-house game studio last year. However, the company is still heavily invested in gaming as a whole, with its gaming head Alain Tascan telling reporters at the GDC event that Netflix was on its way to become the Netflix of gaming. As part of those efforts, Netflix has built its own mobile game controller app. In the context of party games, that controller is poised to become a dedicated second screen, complete with prompts and clues that could make things like multiplayer quizzes more fun. 'You have information that perhaps is only available to you,' Shroff said. 'There's all this amazing social gameplay that can unfold.' Incorporating phones into TV-based game play works surprisingly well, according to Child, whose company Volley has been building voice-centric multiplayer games for smart TVs. 'We were worried about the friction of having people go get their phones,' Child says. But in a world where people cling to their mobile devices all day, that worry turned out to be unfounded. 'We found that people are happy to use their phone,' he says. Volley makes use of phones to extend voice input to multiple players (few people own a TV with built-in far field microphones, and sharing a single voice remote can be awkward during a fast-paced game). For some games, they also offer dedicated controls: the company's Jeopardy adaptation turns your smart phone into a buzzer, making the game feel a lot more like the real thing. 'It really replicates that actual experience of being on the game show,' Child says. Volley's experience with games like Jeopardy seems to validate some of Netflix's ideas. 'The live multiplayer family game night experience is really compelling,' Child says. 'You have kids playing with their parents, playing with their grandparents.' And once they start, they keep playing. 'Our average session is well over an hour,' he says. However, Child also cautions that bringing games to the TV can't be a one-and-done kind of affair. Even for casual games, players want regular updates — something that may require streamers to treat games much like the rest of their content. 'If a streaming service had only one show you wanted to watch, once you finished that show, you wouldn't come back,' he says. This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a column on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Janko Roettgers Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Column Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Gaming Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. 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