Latest news with #AlfonsoCuarón
New York Times
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Emmy Nomination Snubs and Surprises: ‘Squid Game,' ‘The Handmaid's Tale' and John Mulaney (Again)
Awards shows are handicapped more accurately these days than presidential elections, but here are some at least mildly surprising results gleaned from the Primetime Emmys nominations announced on Tuesday. Snub: 'Squid Game' Apparently the voters had soured on the bloody South Korean drama, which was nominated for outstanding drama and won for lead actor and director in its first season on Netflix. The second season, which debuted in December, was shut out of the drama series field. (Because of the Emmys' June-to-May calendar, the recently released final season will be eligible for next year's awards.) It was the only unexpected result in the major series categories, allowing the Hulu thriller 'Paradise' to sneak in. Surprise: Uzo Aduba Netflix's murder-in-the-White-House comedy 'The Residence' did not attract a ton of attention and was quickly canceled after one season. Aduba's performance as a quirky, bird-watching police consultant was noticed, however, and she made it into the comedy lead-actress field over the former nominees Natasha Lyonne ('Poker Face') and Selena Gomez ('Only Murders in the Building'). Snub: Alfonso Cuarón Cuarón, the winner of four Oscars, was thought to be a lock for at least a directing nomination for his spooky limited series 'Disclaimer' on Apple TV+. Cuarón was left out, however, as was the series and its lead actor, Kevin Kline. Cate Blanchett picked up a lead-actress nomination. Surprise: 'Common Side Effects' HBO Max's lo-fi conspiracy thriller about little people battling Big Pharma was an unexpected and very welcome nominee for outstanding animated program, taking a spot expected to go to Amazon Prime Video's 'Invincible' or Netflix's 'Big Mouth.' Snub: 'The Handmaid's Tale' Hulu's adaptation of Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel never regained the heights of its first season, when it won the award for best drama and its star, Elisabeth Moss, won for best actress. In their sixth and final season, both the show and Moss were left out. Surprise: Jeff Hiller In the third and final season of the melancholy, autobiographical HBO comedy 'Somebody, Somewhere' starring Bridget Everett, Hiller came out of nowhere for a supporting-actor nomination. (Sorry, Tyler James Williams of 'Abbott Elementary.') The show, previously unnominated, also got a nod for comedy writing. Snub: John Mulaney (again) Mulaney keeps trying to tweak the nighttime talk-show format, following up last year's 'John Mulaney Presents: Everybody's in L.A.' on Netflix with the apparently more permanent 'Everybody's Live With John Mulaney.' Breaking through the Colbert-Kimmel-Stewart gas ceiling in the variety talk series category is a tall order, though. (Also left out, with the category limited to three slots, was the three-time nominee 'Late Night With Seth Meyers.')
CNBC
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- CNBC
How Netflix keeps luring big-name directors away from the traditional box office
Netflix isn't interested in bringing movies to theaters. The company's leaders have said they see theatrical movie releases as an "outdated" model. Yet for more than a decade, the streamer has lured in some of Hollywood's biggest directors to make content exclusively for its platform. Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuarón, Bong Joon-ho, Spike Lee and Guillermo del Toro, darlings of the big screen, have all directed films for the streaming service without the promise of a wide theatrical release. More recently, Netflix has wooed Greta Gerwig into the director's seat after acquiring the rights to C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" book series, signed Rian Johnson to make two sequels to 2019's "Knives Out" and made itself the home of Kathryn Bigelow's first film release in nearly a decade. Many of these creatives have touted the importance of the theatrical experience, but few of the Netflix projects are expected to garner a wide release or a long run in cinemas. Most of the time, Netflix's films are launched in a limited number of theaters for a week, just long enough to be eligible for Academy Award contention. In fact, Gerwig's "Narnia" film is getting an exclusive two-week global debut in IMAX starting Thanksgiving Day 2026, something that has never been done before. Netflix has been able to bring Hollywood talent away from the traditional theatrical model by offering lucrative contracts, creative freedom and an audience pool of more than 300 million subscribers, Hollywood insiders, who requested anonymity to discuss industry moves, told CNBC. It's also become a haven for auteurs whose films might not otherwise get made, either because of pricey budgets or risky genres. "What Netflix offers filmmakers is an irresistible combination of deep financial pockets and wide creative latitude," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. "This is enough to draw some of the biggest names in filmmaking today both behind and in front of the camera, and it's striking since most of these notable names have built their careers on the canvas of the big screen in the movie theater." For as long as Netflix has been disrupting the traditional Hollywood model, analysts and box-office proponents have argued for why the streamer should embrace a more conventional theatrical approach. Every year or so, a study appears from a box-office analytics company or on behalf of one of Hollywood's theatrical trade groups concluding that audiences are more likely to stream a movie that's been released in theaters. "It seems like for most of the other traditional media companies the pendulum has flown back to the idea that, yes, theatrical does enhance the value of a movie," said Robert Fishman, analyst at MoffettNathanson. Hollywood insiders told CNBC that Netflix's leaders have long admitted that money is being left on the table by not employing a typical theatrical model. But Netflix's co-CEO, Ted Sarandos, has said he has no plans to change the company's box-office strategy. "It would be complicated for Netflix, a distraction from what they're trying to do," said industry analyst David Poland. "And it would be potentially money-losing." Sarandos has repeatedly said that Netflix's purpose is to provide content for its streaming subscribers, noting that the audience that pays for its service should get it as soon as possible, not wait for an extended theatrical window to elapse. Netflix has benefited from its partnership with Sony, which gives the streamer exclusive U.S. streaming rights to the studio's theatrical releases after they wrap up in theaters. With the deal, Netflix gets fresh content without the box-office risk. Of course, keeping subscribers happy is only part of the strategy. Netflix saves millions in marketing costs by skipping theaters, industry experts said. Typically, a film's marketing budget is half of what it spent on production. So a film like the Russo Brothers' "The Electric State," which reportedly cost $320 million to make, could have had up to a $160 million marketing budget if it went to theaters. That's a nearly $500 million investment before a theatrical opening, and a studio would then split ticket sales with cinemas. Notably, the film was originally slated to be produced under Universal Studios but was transferred to Netflix after executives at Universal balked at its steep budget, people familiar with the matter told CNBC. Success of a Netflix film is based on viewership, a metric that is not comparable to box-office dollars. "The Electric State" was streamed by 25.2 million subscribers in its first three days on the platform, according to Netflix's Tudum site at the time of its release. That is about one-third of what Netflix's "Red Notice" generated during its three-day launch in 2021. "Red Notice" is Netflix's best-performing film to date with more than 230.9 million views. It's hard for directors and other creatives to dismiss the kind of viewership Netflix brings, Hollywood insiders told CNBC. It's one of the reasons that Netflix has been able to draw in big-name directors, writers and producers over the last decade. Netflix has also been more flexible with its purse strings. "The Electric State" is just one example. Scorsese's "The Irishman" also saw studios pass on the film because of its ballooning budget, but Netflix stepped in and acquired the rights. The film went on to garner 10 Oscar nominations, although it ultimately went home empty-handed during the 2020 ceremony. "Netflix, because they have interest in getting awards and nominations and all that stuff, have funded and purchased and been involved with directors who are really high-quality filmmakers worldwide," Poland said. "It's a tribute to Netflix that those movies exist." The streamer has had at least one best picture contender at the Academy Awards since 2019. The company has not been shy about spending money to secure top talent either. It's signed dozens of lucrative first-look deals with creators, which give it the exclusive right to review and potentially purchase or distribute a new project before it is offered to other buyers. Past deals have run the gamut between television and film and included creators like Tyler Perry, Antoine Fuqua, Shonda Rhimes and Jennifer Lopez. Netflix has even been more targeted in its contracts, as was seen when it penned a two-picture deal with Johnson for sequels to his 2019 film "Knives Out," which reportedly was for more than $400 million. "It would be tough for any creative to turn down the offer of the financial resources to realize their creative vision. And despite wanting their movies to be seen on the biggest screen possible, [they] have made the calculus that getting their works realized on film and presented on a major streaming platform is a bargain worth making," Dergarabedian said. Wall Street doesn't seem to mind Netflix's movie strategy. The company's stock is valued at nearly $1,300 a share and has soared 45% since January and more than 90% in the past year. Netflix is expected to spend around $18 billion on content this year, according to the company. It does not disclose what percentage of that funding goes to its movies versus its television productions. The company currently projects that its full-year 2025 revenue will be between $43.5 billion and $44.5 billion. Insiders said that with those kinds of investments, consumers might need to watch out for more price hikes. MoffettNathanson's Fishman noted that Netflix will continue to weigh its value proposition to determine if it needs to increase the cost of its services. If Netflix keeps creating content from top-tier creators, then the analyst firm expects prices to increase.
New York Times
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Story of Movies in the 21st Century Is One of Context Collapse
It's mostly the internet's fault, but in the past 25 years, the lines we drew in the 20th century got blurry. Time and space have collapsed. Now you can attend a meeting across the country, text your long-distance boyfriend halfway around the world, and watch a decades-old movie from another hemisphere on TV at home, all in one day. We've learned to make friends with people we've never met and develop obsessions with things we'd never have known about had we lived at any other point in human history. The story of the 21st century, among other things, is a tale of crumbling contexts and newly porous boundaries. Small wonder, then, that our 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century list, created by polling hundreds of directors, stars and other film professionals, shows the same trend. Every list tells a story about its maker or, in this case, makers. It's clear, for instance, that the movies they remember were mostly not reboots, remakes or franchise fare, which have become Hollywood's bread and butter. Star vehicles are fading. And while streaming has elbowed in and upended how we watch movies, there's only one film on the list produced by a streamer — No. 46, Alfonso Cuarón's 'Roma,' which Netflix gave a respectable theatrical release. All interesting trends, some encouraging and some troubling. But what strikes me most about the list is this: Long-held categories in the movie business are fading, just like they are in the broader culture. Until pretty recently, for instance, common wisdom held that commercially successful genre fare and self-serious awards films didn't overlap, and that auteurs would pick a lane and stay there. Christopher Nolan's 'The Dark Knight' (No. 28) seemed like an outlier in this respect, a Batman movie so good that when it failed to be nominated for best picture in 2009, the academy changed the number of nominee slots from five to 10. But since then, other horror, superhero and action flicks have increasingly sneaked into awards conversations, including 'Get Out' (No. 8), 'Mad Max: Fury Road' (No. 11), 'Black Swan' (No. 81) and 'Black Panther' (No. 96). That may explain the triumph of 2022's best picture winner, 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' (No. 77), a whimsical and occasionally deranged pastiche comedy blended with a sincere-hearted family story that pays obvious, sometimes ironic homage to a number of genres: martial arts, melodrama, science fiction, surrealism, even video games. In fact, some of its references also appear on the list, like Wong Kar-wai's 'In the Mood for Love' (No. 4) and Ang Lee's 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' (No. 16). Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
You Really Need To Watch One Of The Best Dystopian Movies Ever Made — It's More Relevant Than Ever
Children Of Men In the opening moments of Children Of Men, a man walks into a coffee shop. A crowd has gathered to watch the news. The world's youngest human, an 18-year-old man, has been killed. Nobody seems interested in coffee except for Theo (Clive Owens) who pushes to the front of the line, gets his order, and then leaves. As he walks down the street, there's an explosion. Rubble and smoke blast into the street. The coffee shop and everyone inside have been the target of a bombing. There are echoes of The Troubles here; that long, dark period in the UK when the Irish Republican Army targeted numerous similar soft targets across Britain in a bid for independence. But this is a different conflict, even more dire. The film released in 2006, but takes place 21 years later in 2027. Now that we're just a stone's throw from that date, it's worth taking a look back on this important piece of cinema, based on the novel by P.D. James. Directed by Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón, Children Of Men tells the story of a world laid low by infertility. People can no longer have babies, and haven't been able to for nearly two decades. As humanity hurtles toward extinction, social collapse follows. War rages across the globe, and Great Britain has become an isolated, fascist regime. Little environmental details tell this story. Signs urging people to report illegal immigrants flash on the street. Propaganda videos play on buses. We see immigrants in cages, guarded by soldiers with assault rifles. Theo's near-death experience doesn't seem to phase him much. Neither does the death of Baby Diego, the world's youngest human who he describes to his friend Jasper (Michael Caine) as a 'wanker.' Jasper is an old pot-growing hippie who lives in a secluded house in the countryside with his wife. She's now bound to a wheelchair, unable to speak or care for herself. The effervescent Jasper tends to her needs lovingly, always in high spirits. We learn that he was once a political cartoonist and that Theo was once an activist, before he lost his child. Many of these details are presented in shots of photographs. But Theo's day-to-day routine is disrupted when he's kidnapped by masked men and thrown into a van. He's taken to a secret location where he meets his ex, Julian (Julianne Moore) who asks him to help her acquire transit papers for a young woman who we later learn is an illegal immigrant refugee (or 'fugee' as they're called in the film) named Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey). From here, Theo finds his life of solitude and apathy entirely upended, thrust into a quest that gives his life new purpose and places him and Kee and everyone he ever loved in terrible danger. It's a great story, but what makes this movie so compelling is both the performances from its stars and the phenomenal direction from Cuarón and the stunning cinematography from Emmanuel Lubezki. The use of 'oners' – or long, single-shot takes – has been in frame recently, with shows like Adolescence and The Studio making great use of the technique. But few films have given us shots as stunning as the oners in Children Of Men. Of course, there is also the political message here. This is a near-future dystopia that is so terrifying because of how likely it seems, how possible this crumbled world feels, especially in a day and age where climate change, anti-immigrant sentiment and social breakdown are all very real. While we may not be facing a worldwide infertility crisis, it's easy to see how something like it could happen and tip the scales toward chaos and collapse. I won't spoil the rest of the film in case you haven't seen it yet, but please do yourself a favor and go watch it immediately. It's dark but also uplifting in its own way. The best dystopian films are the most plausible ones, and Children Of Men feels all too real, from the political factions to the way humanity both descends into despair and miraculously comes together to help those who need it most.
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Disclaimer' Editor Adam Gough on His Shorthand With Alfonso Cuarón: ‘We Don't Need to Talk Much'
When Alfonso Cuarón stepped into the world of series to direct AppleTV+'s 'Disclaimer,' he called on Adam Gough to assemble and cut the series. The two had previously worked together on 'Children of Men,' with Gough serving as an apprentice editor. In 2018, the two joined forces again to co-edit the Netflix film, 'Roma.' Through it all, they had developed a shorthand where minimal communication was key to their collaboration. More from Variety Finneas on Scoring 'Disclaimer' For Alfonso Cuarón - 'I Didn't Know How to Score For a String Quartet, So, I Had to Learn' 'An Almost Christmas Story' Director David Lowery on His First Animated Short and Choosing CG Over Live-Action 'Disclaimer': Why Cate Blanchett Wanted to Wear Something Red for Every Scene 'Disclaimer' is based on the novel of the same name by Renée Knight. It follows acclaimed journalist Catherine Ravenscroft, played by Cate Blanchett, who receives a novel from an unknown author. She is horrified to realize she is now the main character in a story that exposes her darkest secrets and forces her to confront her past. Sacha Baron Cohen plays her husband, Robert, and Kodi Smit-McPhee plays their son Nicholas. As the series straddles a non-linear structure, going between present, telling Catherine's story, Steven's story (Kevin Kline's) and flashbacks. Gough found episode 5 to be the most compelling. 'It's where we introduce Nicholas' perspective. This is when the entrapment of the catfishing kicks in with this Instagram sequence between Steven and Nicholas.' He adds, 'This is also where we start cutting between two perspectives.' Previously, every scene had been a standalone perspective. In finding the editorial rhythm, Gough says it took a moment because the show's cinematographers, Bruno Delbonnel and Emmanuel Lubezki, offered him different styles. 'But we're in the same time, same lighting, so we've got the sun going behind clouds in one scene, and we back out again to the other character, and they had this beautifully complicated lighting arrangement, which I can't get my head around, but was always having to keep that in mind.' As the Instagram sequence was scripted, Gough explains, it was 15 pages of script. Delbonnel and Lubezki shot every perspective. 'We had options to go to any character at that moment. So when Nicholas and Stephen were talking, we had both sides of the conversation.' That allowed him to increase tension and speed up interaction between the two as the messages were being sent. It also allowed Gough to jump to cuts and closeups with the actors to get reactions because 'we wanted to avoid using the graphic overlays, that has kind of become a little bit like a cliché.' In editing the finale, once again, everything Gough needed was in the script. This episode reveals what really happened to Catherine and what needed to be changed editorially. The episode flips the narrative on its head when Catherine gets to tell her side of the story. This is no longer a story of a woman who supposedly seduced a younger man and let him drown when he saved her son, it turns out, Jonathan, the young man, sexually assaulted her. Says Gough, 'We start introducing jump cuts and making it very rough, and the sound there wasn't important. We play into memory.' In his first assembly for the episode, Gough says as the flashbacks return to Italy, the voices are lowered and muffled. 'That story structure was always based on Catherine's perspective from that kitchen; you always still felt present in her story.' In cutting the assault sequence, Gough knew it was going 'to be absolutely horrendous and horrible.' The question was how long did he hold on Catherine's face? Gough admits, 'It was difficult to cut and something that I really appreciate working with Alfonso. When we can hit these heavy moments, we have the beautiful shorthand where we don't need to talk much. We can do very minimal communication.' Gough recalls cutting the birth sequence in 'Roma.' He says, 'It was pretty much just a session of looking at each other, head nods, very minimal answers, just very serious. We want to get through this once and do it right.' By the series ending, when Catherine is back at the house with Nicholas, Gough notes, 'It's brighter and more relaxed, and this build-up of Nicholas still not knowing. It's that crescendo of moments of completing his story, and that he is the heart of 'Disclaimer' as well.' He adds, 'I love that long push in the track that they do in at the end, and we go to white. It was knowing we'd gotten to a place of definitive punctuation at the end. For me, it was that final breath to settle any answers or doubts.' Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week 'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts? 25 Hollywood Legends Who Deserve an Honorary Oscar
