Rebel Wilson responds to 'The Deb' controversy
Washington [US], May 21 (ANI): Actress Rebel Wilson cleared the air after social media posts about 'The Deb' made headlines amid the ongoing legal fight surrounding the movie.
In response to a video of 'The Deb' actress Charlotte MacInnes singing at Cannes from the yacht owned by the film's financier Len Blavatnik, The Deb's Instagram account posted stories with captions critical of MacInnes. Wilson is said to be in control of the account for the movie that does not have a release plan in light of the project's legal battle, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
'Charlotte MacInnes in a culturally inappropriate Indian outfit on Len Blavatnik's luxury yacht in Cannes -- ironically singing a song from a movie that will never get released because of her lies and support for the people blocking the film's release,' read one caption.
A follow-up post included the message, 'So glad you got your record deal, Charlotte, at the expense of the 300 people who worked on The Deb and really wanna see it released,' as per the outlet.
Wilson's team noted in a statement shared to address the posts, 'The entire Deb crew is looking forward for the film to finally be shown to the world. Rebel is so proud of this film and in awe of all of the hard work everyone involved put into the creation of her directorial debut.'
Earlier, Wilson shared a video on Instagram accusing producers Amanda Ghost, Gregory Cameron and Vince Holden of embezzlement and sexual harassment. She also accused them of preventing the film from premiering at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The producers then sued Wilson for defamation and claimed that she was attempting to land a writing credit on the film, which led Wilson to countersue months later, as per the outlet.
'The Deb' is a musical film centring on a high school outcast played by Natalie Abbott, who teams up with her cousin (MacInnes), as the pair aim to shake up the upcoming debutante ball. Marking her feature directorial debut, Wilson helmed the movie from Hannah Reilly's screenplay, adapting the stage show that debuted in Sydney in 2022, according to The Hollywood Reporter. (ANI)
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Toronto Sun
24 minutes ago
- Toronto Sun
Stephen King on 'The Life of Chuck,' end of the world and, yes, joy
Published Jun 04, 2025 • 6 minute read Author and screenwriter Stephen King appears at the premiere of "The Life of Chuck" during the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on Sept. 6, 2024. Photo by Christopher Katsarov / The Canadian Press via AP, File Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. NEW YORK — Stephen King's first editor, Bill Thompson, once said, 'Steve has a movie camera in his head.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account So vividly drawn is King's fiction that it's offered the basis for some 50 feature films. For half a century, since Brian De Palma's 1976 film 'Carrie,' Hollywood has turned, and turned again, to King's books for their richness of character, nightmare and sheer entertainment. Open any of those books up at random, and there's a decent chance you'll encounter a movie reference, too. Rita Hayworth. 'The Wizard of Oz.' 'Singin' in the Rain.' Sometimes even movies based on King's books turn up in his novels. That King's books have been such fodder for the movies is owed, in part, to how much of a moviegoer their author is. 'I love anything from 'The 400 Blows' to something with that guy Jason Statham,' King says, speaking by phone from his home in Maine. 'The worst movie I ever saw was still a great way to spend an afternoon. The only movie I ever walked out on was 'Transformers.' At a certain point I said, 'This is just ridiculous.'' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Over time, King has developed a personal policy in how he talks about the adaptations of his books. 'My idea is: If you can't say something nice, keep your mouth shut,' he says. The most notable exception was Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining,' which King famously called 'a big beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside.' But every now and then, King is such a fan of an adaptation that he's excited to talk about it. That's very much the case with 'The Life of Chuck,' Mike Flanagan's new adaptation of King's novella of the same name published in the 2020 collection 'If It Bleeds.' In 'The Life of Chuck,' which Neon releases in theaters Friday (nationwide June 13), there are separate storylines but the tone-setting opening is apocalyptic. The internet, like a dazed prize fighter, wobbles on its last legs before going down. California is said to be peeling away from the mainland like 'like old wallpaper.' Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. And yet in this doomsday tale, King is at his most sincere. 'The Life of Chuck,' the book and the movie, is about what matters in life when everything else is lost. There is dancing, Walt Whitman and joy. 'In 'The Life of Chuck,' we understand that this guy's life is cut short, but that doesn't mean he doesn't experience joy,' says King. 'Existential dread and grief and things are part of the human experience, but so is joy.' Stephen King, the humanist It's telling that when King, our preeminent purveyor of horror, writes about doom times, he ends up scaling it down to a single life. While darkness and doom have, and probably always will, mark his work, King — a more playful, instinctual, genre-skipping writer than he's often credited as — 'The Life of Chuck' is a prime example of King, the humanist. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'An awful lot of people assume, because he writes so much stuff that's so scary, they kind of forget the reason his horror works so well is he's always juxtaposing it with light and with love and with empathy,' says Flanagan, who has twice before adapted King ('Doctor Sleep,' 'Gerald's Game') and is in the midst of making a 'Carrie' series for Amazon. 'You forget that 'It' isn't about the clown, it's about the kids and their friendship,' adds Flanagan. ''The Stand' isn't about the virus or the demon taking over the world, it's ordinary people who have to come together and stand against a force they cannot defeat.' King, 77, has now written somewhere around 80 books, including the just released 'Never Flinch.' The mystery thriller brings back King's recent favorite protagonist, the private investigator Holly Gibney, who made her stand-alone debut in 'If It Bleeds.' It's Gibney's insecurities, and her willingness to push against them, that has kept King returning to her. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'It gave me great pleasure to see Holly grow into a more confident person,' King says. 'She never outgrows all of her insecurities, though. None of us do.' 'Never Flinch' is a reminder that King has always been less of a genre-first writer than a character-first one. He tends to fall in love with a character and follow them through thick and thin. 'I'm always happy writing. That's why I do it so much,' King says, chuckling. 'I'm a very chipper guy because I get rid of all that dark stuff in the books.' Contemporary anxieties Dark stuff, as King says, hasn't been hard to come by lately, he grants. The kind of climate change disaster found in 'The Life of Chuck,' King says, often dominates his anxieties. 'We're creeping up little by little on being the one country who does not acknowledge it's a real problem with carbon in the atmosphere,' King says. 'That's crazy. Certain right wing politicians can talk all they want about how we're saving the world for our grandchildren. They don't care about that. They care about money.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. On social media, King has been a sometimes critic of President Donald Trump, whose second term has included battles with the arts, academia and public financing for PBS and NPR. Over the next four years, King predicts, 'Culture is going to go underground.' In 'Never Finch,' Holly Gibney is hired as a bodyguard by a women's rights activist whose lecture tour is being plagued by mysterious acts of violence. In the afterward of the book, King includes a tribute to 'supporters of women's right to choose who have been murdered for doing their duty.' 'I'm sure they're not going to like that,' King says of right-wing critics. The original germ for 'The Life of Chuck' had nothing to do with current events. One day in Boston, King noticed a drummer busking on Boylston Street. He had the vision of a businessman in a suit who, walking by, can't resist dancing with abandon to the drummer's beat. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. King, a self-acknowledged dancer (though only in private, he notes), latched onto a story that would turn on the unpredictable nature of people, tracing the inner life of that imagined passerby. In the film, he's played by Tom Hiddleston. Chuck first appears, oddly, on a billboard that haunts and confuses a local teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who's struggling to get his students to care about literature or education with the possible end of the world encroaching. Sincerity for a cynical world It's a funny but maybe not coincidental irony that many of the best King adaptations, like 'Stand By Me' and 'The Shawshank Redemption,' have come from the author's more warm-hearted tales. 'The Life of Chuck,' which won the People's Choice Award last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival, is after a similar spirit. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. When King reached out about attending the TIFF world premiere, Flanagan was shocked. The last time King had done that for one of his own adaptations was 26 years ago, for 'The Green Mile.' That movie, like 'The Shawshank Redemption' were box-office disappointments, King recalls, a fate he's hoping 'The Life of Chuck' can avoid. 'He views this movie as something that's a bit precious,' says Flanagan. 'He's said a few things to me in the past about how earnest it is, how this is a story without an ounce of cynicism. As it was being released into a cynical world, I think he felt protective of it. I think this one really means something to him.' The Stephen King industrial complex, meanwhile, keeps rolling along. Coming just this year are series of 'Welcome to Derry' and 'The Institute' and a film of 'The Long Walk.' King, himself, just finished a draft of 'Talisman 3.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. If 'The Life of Chuck' has particular meaning to King, it could be because it represents something intrinsic about his own life. Chuck's small, seemingly unremarkable existence has grace and meaning because, as Whitman is quoted, he 'contains multitudes' that surprise and delight him. King's fiction is evidence — heaps of it — that he does, too. 'There are some days where I sit down and I think, 'This is going to be a really good day,' and it's not, at all,' says King. 'Then other days I sit down and think to myself, 'I'm really tired and don't feel like doing this,' and then it catches fire. You never know what you're going to get.' Crime Celebrity Toronto & GTA World Sunshine Girls
Toronto Sun
an hour ago
- Toronto Sun
TIFF reveals John Candy doc will open 2025 festival
'Colin Hanks has made a hugely entertaining film packed with some of Hollywood's biggest stars' Get the latest from Mark Daniell straight to your inbox John Candy seen during an appearance at the 1988 Just For Laughs Comedy Festival. Photo by Just For Laughs Comedy Festival / Just For Laughs Comedy Festival The Toronto International Film Festival will kick off its 2025 edition with a heartfelt documentary dedicated to the life and career of the late Canadian comedic icon John Candy. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Directed by Colin Hanks and produced by Ryan Reynolds, John Candy: I Like Me will feature stories and memories from Candy's family, closest friends, and longtime collaborators. 'Comedy fans all over the world grew up on John Candy's humour,' said Cameron Bailey, CEO of TIFF. 'We love that John's global career started in Toronto, and we can't wait to share John Candy: I Like Me with everyone at this year's Opening Night Gala premiere. Colin Hanks has made a hugely entertaining film packed with some of Hollywood's biggest stars, but like John, this movie is all heart. For us, it's the perfect way to kick off TIFF's 50th edition.' Colin Hanks' documentary 'John Candy: I Like Me' will open the 50th edition of the TorontoInternational Film Festival. Photo by Courtesy of the Candy Family Estate 'When you hear the name John Candy, your face lights up,' Hanks and Reynolds said in a joint statement. 'He wasn't just a great actor; he was an even better person. People loved his everyman qualities, but they didn't know how relatable John really was. He went through the same struggles we all do, except now we talk about them. We are incredibly honoured to have gotten to know the man better through this process and to bring the real John Candy to audiences starting with his hometown of Toronto.' Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The film, which will debut on Prime Video this fall, will give audience a glimpse into Candy's life on-and-off the camera with Hanks getting access to never-before-seen home videos and candid recollections from the comedian's collaborators and family. 'It's the story of a son, husband, father, friend, and professional driven to bring joy to audiences and loved ones while battling personal ghosts and Hollywood pressures,' reads a logline for the upcoming film. In conjunction with the premiere, TIFF's Film Reference Library will have a collection of objects related to Candy's professional career and personal life from the 1970s to the early 1990s that has been donated by his wife Rose Candy. Reynolds announced that work had begun on the doc back in 2022 telling his 21 million followers on X that he was big fan of the actor, who died of a suspected heart attack at the age 43 while filming Wagons East in 1994. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'With John Candy trending, I'll just say I love him,' Reynolds wrote in a X post that generated nearly 16,000 likes. 'So much so, @maximumeffort is working on a documentary on his life with @colinhanks. Expect tears.' Reynolds has previously spoken about his love for Candy. To mark the 25th anniversary of his death in 2019, the Deadpool star shared a montage of Candy's screen roles calling him 'a comedic genius and Canadian hero.' The following year, Reynolds again paid tribute to Candy's 20-year career on Instagram writing, 'He always walked that tightrope between hilarious and heartbreaking. His movies mean so much to me. If you haven't seen his work, check it out. He's absolutely beautiful.' Colin's father Tom worked several times with Candy, appearing alongside the funnyman in 1984's Splash and 1985's Volunteers . The 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, presented by Rogers, runs Sept. 4–14. mdaniell@ Read More Celebrity Columnists Crime Sunshine Girls Columnists
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘John Candy: I Like Me' to open 50th edition of Toronto International Film Festival
TORONTO – A documentary about late Canadian comic John Candy will open the 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. The festival says 'John Candy: I Like Me' traces the comedy star's personal and professional life with never-before-seen home videos and candid recollections that reveal a son, husband, father and friend who battled personal ghosts and Hollywood pressures. The film was directed by Colin Hanks and produced by Ryan Reynolds, who say in a joint statement the 'SCTV' was a great actor and an even better person. Candy appeared in some of the biggest comedies of the '80s and '90s, including 'Uncle Buck,' 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles,' 'Cool Runnings' and 'Splash,' a comedy classic that catapulted his big-screen career along with co-star Tom Hanks, Colin's father. Candy was just 43 when he died in 1994 of a heart attack in Mexico while working on a film. 'John Candy: I Like Me' makes its world premiere at TIFF on Sept. 4 before streaming on Prime Video in the fall. The 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 4 to 14. 'We love that John's global career started in Toronto, and we can't wait to share 'John Candy: I Like Me' with everyone at this year's opening night gala premiere,' TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey said Wednesday in a release. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. 'Colin Hanks has made a hugely entertaining film packed with some of Hollywood's biggest stars, but like John, this movie is all heart. For us, it's the perfect way to kick off TIFF's 50th edition.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 4, 2025.
