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Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Movie Theater Owners Want to Vote for Oscars and Push to Join the Academy: ‘We Watch Everything… It's a No Brainer' (EXCLUSIVE)
At the end of June, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is expected to extend invitations to a new class of members who meet the professional qualifications to join the most prestigious club in Hollywood. This annual membership expansion is attracting particular attention this year from theater owners — a group that hopes to see more of its colleagues included among the people who vote on Oscar nominations and winners. Historically, the Academy's membership has skewed toward creative professionals, including directors, writers, actors, producers, and craftspeople, as well as studio executives and technicians. While a handful of exhibitors are already members of the organization, many in the theatrical exhibition community argue that their unique perspective is underrepresented, particularly at a time when the Academy is doubling down on the importance of theatrical releases. More from Variety How Hollywood Finds Its Stars: Behind the Scenes With Casting Directors, the Most Important and Least Understood Job in Movies From the Oscars Red Carpet to Open Heart Surgery: What Variety's Marc Malkin Wants You to Know About His Life-Saving Journey Jeff Margolis, Emmy-Winning Director and Producer of Live Event Broadcasts, Dies at 78 It's not unusual for professional groups within Hollywood to lobby for greater recognition or inclusion in the Academy. A decades-long campaign to acknowledge casting and stunt professionals has made notable progress: a new Oscar category for casting will debut in 2026, followed by a stunt category in 2028. These milestones followed years of advocacy, member petitions, and internal deliberations among Academy governors. Currently, the Academy is composed of 18 branches, each representing a specific discipline within the industry, with the newest Production and Technology Branch created in 2023. Committees within each branch are currently meeting to decide on membership recommendations in 2025 — a class that will help shape the Academy's future leading up to its centennial celebration in 2028. Unlike a typical guild or association, Academy membership is not open to applications. It is invitation-only, with most candidates required to secure sponsorship from two existing members within the branch they wish to join. Exceptions include Oscar nominees, who are automatically considered for membership without requiring a sponsor. The final decision rests with the Academy's Board of Governors. Multiple sources tell Variety that there is a considerable push to include more theater owners and exhibitors within the new class of members. 'The Oscars have a new requirement for voters to watch all the movies, right? So why wouldn't you include the group you know for certain watches everything?' says one anonymous exhibitor. 'It's a no-brainer.' The Academy declined to comment. Currently, only five exhibitors are among the Academy's estimated 11,000 members: Richard Gelfond, CEO of IMAX Corporation (Executive Branch); Tim League, founder of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema (Executive Branch); Greg Laemmle, CEO of Laemmle Theaters (Associate Branch); and David and Patricia Keighley, both of whom hold executive roles at IMAX and belong to the Production and Technology Branch. Notably, some of the five individuals have credentials beyond operating theaters. League, for example, is a co-founder of the indie distribution company Neon — the studio behind Oscar-winning films such as 'Parasite' and 'Anora' — as well as the founder of genre-focused Fantastic Fest. He is also a film producer with credits on several independent features. Still, exhibitors say the number of members with deep roots in theatrical operations is far too small — especially at a time when the Academy is tightening its standards around theatrical release requirements. This calendar year marks the second cycle of the Academy's expanded theatrical release rule for best picture eligibility. Under the updated criteria, films must still complete a one-week qualifying run in one of six U.S. markets — Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami or Atlanta — but they must also meet new standards for broader theatrical distribution. The changes were crafted following detailed analysis and consultation with distributors and exhibitors of varying sizes, aiming to protect and promote the theatrical experience in an era dominated by digital streaming. The ripple effects most directly impact the streaming giants. In 2023, Apple announced a $1 billion annual investment in theatrically-targeted films, and Amazon committed to releasing 12 to 15 movies per year in cinemas before the updated rule change. As the Academy reevaluates its internal structure, a central question remains: How large or influential does a theater chain need to be for its executives or operators to qualify for membership? In the U.S., major exhibition companies include AMC Theatres, led by Adam Aron; Cinemark, helmed by Sean Gamble; and Regal Cinemas, under the leadership of Edward Acuna. Globally, industry leaders include Alejandro Ramirez Magaña of Mexico's Cinépolis and Pavan Jain of India's PVR INOX, both of whom oversee thousands of screens across multiple territories. Yet the conversation doesn't end with the industry's most prominent players. Independent exhibitors — many of whom play a critical role in platforming indie and specialty films that often become awards contenders — are wondering whether the doors will open for them, too. Could someone like Doreen Sayegh, owner of the nearly 100-year-old Cranford Theater in New Jersey (a five-screen cinema beloved in its community), find sponsors within the Academy? What about The Moviehouse in Millerton, New York, a longstanding cultural institution in the Hudson Valley region, founded in 1978 and currently owned by David Maltby and Chelsea Altman? The Academy has repeatedly emphasized that a strong theatrical ecosystem is vital to the health and future of the film industry. Including more exhibitors in the conversation could be a logical next step — one that not only strengthens the Academy's credibility but ensures that those most directly connected to moviegoers have a seat at the table. Matt Donnelly contributed to this report. Variety Awards Circuit: Oscars Best of Variety What's Coming to Netflix in June 2025 New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week 'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts?
Daily Mail
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Saoirse Ronan prepares for next major role as a new mum as she is spotted taking a stroll in London with husband Jack Lowden for the first time since announcing pregnancy
She's been nominated for an Oscar four times, but Saoirse Ronan 's next major role will be as a mother. The Irish actress debuted her baby bump on the red carpet in France last week, and these exclusive pictures show her stepping out in London with her husband, Slow Horses star Jack Lowden, for the first time since she revealed her pregnancy. The couple, who married last year and are famously guarded about their private life, were seen taking a stroll with their dog, Fran, near the £2.5million home they share in Islington. Saoirse, 31, who has been critically acclaimed for her roles in Little Women and Lady Bird, surprised fans by appearing heavily pregnant in a black silk Louis Vuitton gown at an event for the French luxury fashion house in Avignon. But the couple's outing this week was considerably more low-key – which is perfectly in keeping with their laid-back relationship. Scottish star Jack, 34, who plays River Cartwright in the Apple TV+ spy drama, wore a sports jacket with tracksuit bottoms and trainers, while Saoirse wore a comfortable outfit of leggings, cap and padded jacket. The couple are said to be 'thrilled' at the fact they are to become a family less than a year after they married in Edinburgh in July 2024. They met on the set of historical drama Mary Queen Of Scots, where Saoirse had the leading role and Jack played Lord Darnley, Mary's husband. In a rare insight into her private life last year, Saoirse described how it was her dream to be a parent. 'I became successful when I was quite young,' she said. 'It meant that by the time I found my partner, I'm at the stage where if it happened, I would like to have a kid. I've always wanted that.' Jack has described his wife as a 'force of nature, on and off screen'. Saoirse will next star as a teacher in thriller Bad Apples, and Jack – who has been tipped as the next James Bond – is to play Mr Darcy in the new Netflix adaptation of Pride And Prejudice.
Gizmodo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Les Dilley, ‘Star Wars' and ‘Indiana Jones' Art Director, Dies at 84
From 'Star Wars' to 'Alien,' 'Exorcist 3,' and countless others, Les Dilley was all over movies as an art director and production designer. Les Dilley, the award-winning art director and production designer on a number of films, passed away on May 20 at age 84 from Alzheimer's complications. Born July 11, 1941 in Rhondda, Wales, Dilley began his film career with a construction and plastering apprenticeship at the Associated British Picture Corporation when he was 15. At age 23, he was a plaster worker on 1963's From Russia With Love, then an assistant art director on Jesus Christ Superstar and Kelly's Heroes. After being an art director for 1973's Three Musketeers and its 1974 sequel, he joined the UK team for Star Wars: A New Hope, and helped to create a physical build for R2-D2, the sandcrawler, and Luke's landspeeder. He proceeded to direct art for its sequel, Empire Strikes Back, along with Raiders of the Lost Ark, Alien, Superman, and An American Werewolf in London. His production designer credits include The Abyss, Exorcist III, Invaders From Mars, Casper, Black Knight, and Deep Impact. While Abyss, Empire, and Alien each earned him Oscar nominations, New Hope and Raiders earned him wins for Best Art Direction, both shared with fellow art director Norman Reynolds, who passed in 2023. After working as a production designer on the British kids' show Teacup Travels ended in 2017, Dilley retired. (IMDB and Mubi credit him on a web series called New-Gen, which at time of writing, has yet to release.) In 2020, BAFTA's Welsh branch—the British Academy Cymru Awards—honored him with an Outstanding Contribution to Film and Television Award. There, he was heaped with praise from George Lucas, Ridley Scott, and others who'd worked with him over the years. Lucas described him as his 'main contact with the art department, and an all-around great guy. […] If anybody deserves this award, it's you.' Les Dilley's survived by his wife Leslie and five children. In a statement, the family said his legacy 'lives on in the many iconic films he helped bring to life for over six decades and in his family home he personally built as an homage to his work. His love for the motion picture business was evident to the very end. In addition to his incredible work ethic, quirky British humor, and love of life, he was a dedicated and loving husband, father, grandfather and friend to many. He will be greatly missed.' [via The Hollywood Reporter]
BBC News
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
'I'm not interested in happy endings': How Midnight Cowboy became the only X-rated winner of the best-picture Oscar
When Midnight Cowboy came out 56 years ago this week, it instantly upended Hollywood's idea of a mainstream hit. A bleak tale of loneliness, sexuality and survival in New York, it was powered by career-defining performances from its lead actors. "I did have problems with it as I now see the movie," actor Dustin Hoffman confessed to the BBC in 1970 as he reflected on his performance as the sickly New York grifter Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy. "I can see where I am inconsistent in the character." The film, released in cinemas on 25 May 1969, would go on to earn Oscar nominations for both Hoffman and his co-star Jon Voight, who played a naive young Texan with aspirations to be a rich woman's gigolo. Based on James Leo Herlihy's 1965 novel, Midnight Cowboy's bleak tale of loneliness, sexuality and survival in New York was very different from the film in which Hoffman had his breakthrough role, The Graduate. Having played a clean-cut middle-class young man, fresh out of college, Hoffman did not strike its director John Schlesinger as the obvious choice to play the story's down-at-heel streetwise conman. "Jerry Hellman [the film's producer] had seen him in a play by Henry Livings, Eh?, off Broadway and said, 'He's a wonderful character actor, don't just go by The Graduate, you had better go and meet him,'" Schlesinger told the BBC's On Screen in 1994. "So, I went to New York, and Dustin met me in a dirty old raincoat and we wandered around the 42nd Street area and the Hell's Kitchen area, which is sort of a largely Italian area, and he blended in so perfectly with the background that by the end of the evening, there was absolutely no question that he had got the part." But to play the ailing Rizzo, who suffers from a disabled leg and tuberculosis, Hoffman felt that he needed to keep checking the film's rushes while filming to ensure his performance was consistent between takes. "I had to try and keep a posture, a gait going, a way of walking, a dialect going. I was very worried about the fluctuation of that," he told the BBC's Film Night in 1970, when he was interviewed on the set of his revisionist Western, Little Big Man. The actor later told Vanity Fair in 2000 that he ended up putting a stone in his shoe to ensure that he would limp on camera without having to think about it. "I think the average person will see work like that and think it is very difficult," said Hoffman. "But my own feeling is that Jon Voight's part was far the more difficult role in Midnight Cowboy because it was somehow a little more foggy, it didn't seem to really have a razor's edge to it as written, and it's to his credit that he brought what he did to it." Voight, too, was far from a shoo-in for the role of an out-of-his-depth would-be hustler who ends up broke and desperate in New York, and forms an unlikely bond with Rizzo. The actor had initially been dismissed by Schlesinger, who felt that he didn't have the right look for the role. "We turned down Voight, and a wonderful casting director in New York in those days, Marion Dougherty, said, 'You are missing something, why won't you see Jon Voight?' We said, 'That face it isn't what we were thinking,' and she said, 'Meet him, read him one scene,' so we agreed and he came in and he seemed to us to be quite extraordinary, and so we added him to the list of people we were going to test." The battle for the perfect cast and music But the director still chose Canadian actor Michael Sarrazin for the role instead. Luckily for Voight, Sarrazin was under contract with Universal Pictures, and when they tripled their price for him, Schlesinger looked at the screen tests again. Voight, who was willing to be paid scale – the Screen Actors Guild minimum wage – was then cast. "He had a kind of belligerence in his personality as well as a total sweetness and innocence that I think the part needed," Schlesinger said. Midnight Cowboy did not seem an obvious contender for box-office success. Schlesinger's usual producer Joe Janni turned the project down, warning the director that the film could ruin his career. But Schlesinger, who was himself gay, told the BBC in 1994 that the story of outsiders struggling to survive on society's margins was something he could identify with. "I'm not terribly interested in sort of pseudo-happy endings of people walking hand-in-hand into the sunset because I don't think it is true. So, most of the films that I made have question marks at the end," he said. Midnight Cowboy, which juxtaposes flashbacks, reality and fantasy to hint at the motivations driving its protagonists, was edited to Harry Nilsson's cover version of Everybody's Talkin'. The song would become synonymous with the film, seeming to encapsulate its wounded characters' longing, aimlessness and desire for a better future. "I always put music on at a very early stage in the cut," said Schlesinger. "I thought not only is it musically and rhythmically right, it's lyrically right, it has a wonderful apt lyric, so we put it on an early cut, and we went to the head of music at United Artists and said, 'This is what we want.'" But a United Artists executive did not want to use a song that was already published and, believing that its feel could be easily replicated, he instructed the film-makers to work with a songwriter to come up with something new. "We went to various people from [Bob] Dylan to Joni Mitchell, who wrote a song that had far too many words," Schlesinger said. Dylan would ultimately write Lay Lady Lay for the film, but submitted it too late for it to be used. "When we first showed the film to the distributors," Schlesinger continued, "we had Everybody's Talkin' on it, and the same man got up from the screening and said, 'My God, where did you get that song from? It's so terrific.' And we said, 'Well, we played it to you several months ago, and you said anybody can reproduce it.' So, he said, 'Well, we've got to have it.'" An adults-only audience Because Midnight Cowboy had explicit depictions of gang rape, prostitution and drug use, it was always destined to be limited to an adult audience upon release. And when it was reviewed by the Motion Picture Association of America, it was duly given a Restricted rating, meaning that in 1969 no one under the age of 16 could see it without an accompanying adult. But the studio's boss, Arthur Krim, was nervous: he had consulted a psychiatrist who denounced the film's "homosexual frame of reference" and its "possible influence on youngsters". It was Krim who then decreed that the Restricted rating wasn't enough: Midnight Cowboy should be X-rated instead, so that no one under 16 would be admitted, even if they were with an adult. An X rating, a category typically associated with pornography, would usually be the commercial death knell for a mainstream film. Many cinemas refused to show X-rated films, while many newspapers and TV stations refused to run advertisements for them. But Universal Studios made the rating a selling point, paying for advertisements that trumpeted: "Everything you hear about Midnight Cowboy is true!" More like this:• The risqué rom-com that defined a genre• Jean-Luc Godard on the film that changed cinema• The 'obscene' banned book that became a bestseller When it was released, the film became a surprise hit. It made back 10 times its modest $4m (£3m) budget and became the third highest grossing film of 1969. "It had an extraordinary reception," said Schlesinger. "I didn't realise we were sitting on top of something that was going to be that successful." Midnight Cowboy was also critically lauded, earning seven Oscar nominations the following year. It would go on to win three Academy Awards, with Schlesinger taking home the prize for best director, and Waldo Salt for best adapted screenplay. The film also scooped the Oscar for best picture, becoming the first and only X-rated film to do so. (The MPAA replaced the X rating with the NC-17 rating in 1990.) Alongside other films of the era such as Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate and Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy helped set off the New Hollywood movement, which would see US cinema embrace more narratively complex, morally ambiguous and stylistically innovative film-making in the 1970s. In 1994, it was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress due to its being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Despite Midnight Cowboy's box-office success and critical acclaim, Schlesinger told the BBC that there was "no way" it would get made in 1994. "Recently I was having dinner, amongst the guests was the head of Columbia [Pictures] and I tried out just a precis, just the dramatic points of the story. And I said, 'If I brought you that, would you do it?' And he said, 'Absolutely no way, I'd show you the door.'" -- For more stories and never-before-published radio scripts to your inbox, sign up to the In History newsletter, while The Essential List delivers a handpicked selection of features and insights twice a week. For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Independent
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
On 100th anniversary of 'The Gold Rush,' Cannes tips hat to Charlie Chaplin
One hundred years after Charlie Chaplin made dinner rolls dance and ate his shoe like it was a fine meal, 'The Gold Rush' has been vividly brought back to life in a new restoration that premiered Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival. On the opening day of its 78th edition, Cannes debuted a 4K restoration of 'The Gold Rush,' one of Chaplin's most beloved silent masterpieces. The screening, held just before the festival's official opening ceremony, was part of a new day-one tradition for restored films, festival director Thierry Fremaux said before the screening at Cannes' Debussy Theatre. Years in the making, this 'Gold Rush' pristinely restores Chaplin's Tramp to all his downtrodden glory. The 1925 Alaskan frontier comedy may be marking its centenary, but it looks bracingly fresh in the restoration carried out by La Cineteca di Bologna. The restoration was more complicated than most because it included an extensive search for any missing footage. In 1942, Chaplin edited the film and re-released it with sound effects, music and narration. That version landed two Oscar nominations, but the restoration sought to get as close to the 1925 original as possible. In 'The Gold Rush' Chaplin's lone prospector ambles through the snowy Alaskan wilds in pursuit less of gold than some food and perhaps companionship. His antic, cliff-dangling struggles make up much of the film's deft slapstick, but the Little Tramp's humble, sweet hopes for romance greatly exceed his strike-it-rich ambitions. The film's premiere drew two grandchildren of Chaplin: Kiera Chaplin and Spencer Chaplin. 'What to say about 'The Gold Rush?' said Spencer Chaplin. 'It was his biggest production to date. He built the set — it was almost like a tourist attraction in L.A. at the time. He built the mountains.' The screening in Cannes drew a packed house in one of Cannes' largest theaters, a crowd that the Chaplin descendants warmly surveyed. 'Our grandfather would be really proud to see this, a hundred years later, to see all you here and interested in seeing the film,' said Kiera Chaplin. 'The Gold Rush' will roll out in theaters worldwide on June 26 in a release organized by mk2 Films. ___ For more coverage of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, visit
