McKinnon announced her departure from “SNL” during the finale of Season 47 earlier this year. Fellow cast members Pete Davidson, Aidy Bryant, and Kyle Mooney all exited the Lorne Michaels-produced sketch series in May. “I thought about [leaving] for a very long time, and it was very, very hard,” McKinnon said during the July 21 episode of “Live With Kelly and Ryan” (via TVLine). “All I ever wanted to do in my whole life was be on ‘Saturday Night Live....

“Saoirse and I choreographed the scene ourselves,” Winslet told THR about one of the film’s explicit sex scenes. “It’s definitely not like eating a sandwich. I just think Saoirse and I, we just felt really safe. Francis was naturally very nervous. And I just said to him, ‘Listen, let us work it out.’ And we did. ‘We’ll start here. We’ll do this with the kissing, boobs, you go down there, then you do this, then you climb up here....

Smith dished on his “Hollywood Babble-On” YouTube show that HBO should reassess releasing “Batgirl,” the shelved $90 million DC Comics installment starring Leslie Grace, Brendan Fraser, and J.K. Simmons. “It’s an incredibly bad look to cancel the Latina ‘Batgirl’ movie,” Smith lamented. “I don’t give a shit if the movie was absolute fucking dog shit – I guarantee you that it wasn’t. The two directors [Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi] who directed that movie did a couple of episodes of ‘Ms....

“I love you Kirstie. I know we will see each other again,” Alley’s “Look Who’s Talking” co-star wrote on his Instagram. He also shared a video to his Instagram Stories of the two dancing together in a ballroom dance number. Perlman, who starred alongside Alley for years on the classic sitcom “Cheers,” said in a statement to IndieWire via a rep that Alley was “a unique and wonderful person and friend....

Yet the decision to revive Neo and Trinity for “Resurrections” was a simple one for writer/director Lana Wachowski. After her parents died close to a month apart, Wachowski needed the comfort of her two most iconic characters. “My dad died, then this friend died, then my mom died,” Wachowski recently said at the International Literature Festival Berlin (via /Film). “I didn’t really know how to process that kind of grief....

So learned Lily James when prepping to play Pamela Anderson in Hulu’s highly anticipated series, “Pam & Tommy,” premiering February 2. “I really wanted to pull out of this a week before,” James explained to Variety, recalling a sinking feeling of “I can’t do it. I can’t do it,” before production. “It just felt too frightening,” James added. “But I think that’s a good place to work from because it keeps you growing and getting better, I hope....

“That was the amazing thing, that people responded and reacted to that in such an emotional way,” said McQueen. “It was a celebration of all the senses, and I think that was pretty amazing that abstraction of the narrative through color and movement could be celebrated in that way.” When McQueen and his “Small Axe” cinematographer Shabier Kirchner were on the Toolkit podcast, the director gave his young DP a great deal of the credit....

David Fincher pal Steven Soderbergh often consults on early cuts of his movies (including the friendly product placement of Soderbergh’s imported Singani 63 brandy in “Gone Girl”) — and “Mank” was no different. Turns out Soderbergh’s only complaint about the “Citizen Kane” biopic was the execution of the costume party set piece, where drunken screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) goes on a long tirade against Machiavellian publisher William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) in front of his Hollywood friends at San Simeon....

During Kimmel’s April 5 opening monologue for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” the comedian said of Greene, “This woman, Klan mom, is especially upset with the three Republican senators who said they’ll vote yes on Ketanji Brown Jackson, who’s nominated for the Supreme Court. She tweeted, ‘Murkowski, Collins, and Romney are pro-pedophile. They just voted for KBJ.’” He added, “Wow, where is Will Smith when you really need him?” Georgia Republican representative Greene later tweeted at ABC, the network that airs Kimmel’s show....

Burnett announced the news to staff in an internal memo, which IndieWire has obtained and can be read below. Burnett has been with MGM Television for eight years, when he was named president of MGM Television. He was named chairman in 2018. Under his direction, MGM Television vastly expanded its output by acquiring production companies like Evolution Media, which develops shows in the “Real Housewives Franchise,” and Big Fish Entertainment....

“We are thrilled to finally start production on ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ in Oklahoma,” Scorsese said in a statement. “To be able to tell this story on the land where these events took place is incredibly important and critical to allowing us to portray an accurate depiction of the time and people. We’re grateful to Apple, the Oklahoma Film and Music Office and The Osage Nation, especially all our Osage consultants and cultural advisors, as we prepare for this shoot....

But all of that previous success would never have happened if the youth hockey team that helped get the whole thing started almost 30 years ago didn’t feel like an actual team. So even though this new “Mighty Ducks” TV show finds the Ducks as a junior hockey powerhouse made up of heartless bullies, the new ragtag squad that forms in its wake is a club that’s instantly worth rooting for....

Celebrating movies, and our ability to see them in public after a pandemic, is normal. What made it strange was the real world was not on display. Everyone knows that the theatrical release is an option, not a necessity. Consider everything that’s happened in the two years since the last CinemaCon in 2019: We have reached a point where “major movie studio” has begun to sound like an anachronism. Certainly, Warners and Universal and Paramount and Disney and Sony remain premier global suppliers of films that generate billions — but the studio bosses occupy a lower position on the power charts because it’s no longer the movie business that drives the industry....

It appears that the same kind of trickery went into making “Thor: Love and Thunder.” In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Natalie Portman revealed that one of her favorite scenes in the film was shot in the unlikeliest of places. “There’s one scene that’s one of the most visually beautiful scenes I’ve seen on film, and we shot [it] in real life in a Best Buy parking lot,” Portman said....

“When I did ‘Game of Thrones,’ I agreed toward certain nude scenes or nudity within the show,” Emmanuel said (via Insider), “And the perception from other projects, when the role required nudity, that I was just open to do anything because I did it on that one show.” Emmanuel continued, “I’ve had people challenge me and be like, ‘But this part requires that,’ and I said, ‘That’s fine if you require that in the part; I don’t feel comfortable doing that level of nudity....

Co-creator and executive producer Aziz Ansari will still appear in the series, but his main duties have shifted to writing and directing; he helms all five episodes and co-writes the scripts, as well. Can Season 3 capture the old spark that saw “Master of None” honored with three Emmy Awards and 12 nominations? Bonus Reason: Ansari’s investment in romance is far from a fleeting endeavor. The former “Parks and Recreation” goofball is much more serious about his studies in real-life, having published a research book titled “Modern Love” with American sociologist and New York University professor Eric Klinenberg shortly before “Master of None” Season 1 came out....

The official “Nightmare Alley” synopsis from Searchlight Pictures reads: “When charismatic but down-on-his-luck Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) endears himself to clairvoyant Zeena (Toni Collette) and her has-been mentalist husband Pete (David Strathairn) at a traveling carnival, he crafts a golden ticket to success, using this newly acquired knowledge to grift the wealthy elite of 1940s New York society. With the virtuous Molly (Rooney Mara) loyally by his side, Stanton plots to con a dangerous tycoon (Richard Jenkins) with the aid of a mysterious psychiatrist (Cate Blanchett) who might be his most formidable opponent yet....

Inspired by the George Floyd protests, rapper Joey Bada$$ stars in “Two Distant Strangers,” which refocuses attention to police brutality and the BLM movement through a “Groundhog Day” inspired storyline. The high-concept 30-minute film marks the first narrative written and directed by comedian and “The Daily Show” writer Travon Free, and counts Sean “Diddy” Combs, Adam McKay, and NBA star Kevin Durant as producers. Free applies a satirical lens to the dark scenario, but very deliberately doesn’t let anyone off the hook....

Last Updated February 10: The editing Oscar nominees — “Don’t Look Up” (Netflix), “Dune” (Warner Bros.), “King Richard” (Warner Bros.), “The Power of the Dog” (Netflix), and “Tick Tick Boom” (Netflix) — all employ different rhythmic styles to convey their bizarre worlds and to get inside the heads of their troubled protagonists. For those wondering about editing as a Best Picture predictor, particularly since “Belfast” is not included here, they’ve only overlapped twice since 2012 with “Argo” and “Nomadland....

“I have to confess, I sort of forgot about my political leanings and dedicated myself to finally enjoying the things denied me,” the 72-year-old director said in an interview with IndieWire from New York, where his latest movie “Parallel Mothers” would soon close the New York Film Festival. He recalled the rambunctious hedonism of his early features, 1978’s “Fuck…Fuck…Fuck Me, Tim!” and 1980’s punk rock “Pepi, Luci, Bom,” which echoed the unruly underground sensibilities of John Waters and Andy Warhol....