Fukunaga denies the claim, with his attorney Michael Plonsker issuing a statement that notes, “There is nothing salacious about pursuing friendships or consensual romantic relationships with women.” Plonsker continued that “no one ever — not once — voiced such sentiments to” Fukunaga over harassment claims. “He creates a work environment that is creative, collaborative and welcoming to all,” Plonsker said in a statement. IndieWire has reached out to representatives for Fukunaga and at Apple TV+ for comment....

Here’s the book’s synopsis, according to Penguin Random House: “On an unnamed island, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses. . . . Most of the inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few able to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young writer discovers that her editor is in danger, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards, and together they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past....

The move comes at a tumultuous moment for CNN after a 2021 that saw the cable network bogged down with scandals from both its on-air talent and c-suite executives. Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was suspended for eight months for inappropriately exposing himself on a Zoom call. Primetime anchor Chris Cuomo followed that by secretly advising his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, on his sexual harassment scandal while also covering the story for CNN....

There’s some progress: On the horizon are Destin Daniel Cretton’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” a “Ms. Marvel” Disney+ series starring Marvel’s first Muslim character to headline her own comic book, and the Chloé Zhao-directed “Eternals.” On the DC side, Angel Manuel Soto (“Charm City Kings”) will direct “Blue Beetle,” the studio’s first Latinx superhero movie, but there’s room for much more. Each sequel, prequel, and spin-off provides an opportunity for the introduction of new, original characters of color that could shake up the superhero landscape....

The story, in which Love detailed that she was initially cast in the role of Marla that went to Helena Bonham Carter in David Fincher’s 1999 film, went viral this week. A source disputed the claim in Variety, specifying that while Love auditioned for the film, she was never actually cast. “You cannot be fired for a job you didn’t get,” the source said. “It’s common knowledge that roles are not decided by other actors but by the director....

On the one hand, there’s no denying that Nadeem was lying to his Pakistani parents for a long time before he began to work on this project (which would take almost seven years to complete), just as there’s no denying that we ultimately see him find the courage required to tell them the truth. On the other hand, Nadeem’s film makes it hard not to be skeptical about how he got from A to B....

“Dan and Waldron had done a first draft of the script that was really great. It was truly epic, both from an action standpoint and from a story standpoint,” McKay said. “The structure was ‘The Godfather Part II,’ a story about Batman’s relationship to the Justice League [and Superman] now as well as the formative moments of the Justice League [and Batman’s relationship with Superman] then.” Waldron confirmed the news by posting on social media a photo of the screenplay draft he wrote with Harmon....

“I’ve given a lot of thought to inspirational stories I could play, interesting stories I could play,” Bautista said. “And the one that seems to keep coming back to me is Ernest Hemingway. If I could play any character, I still think it would be him. I think I could do him justice. I think he’s so interesting, everything about his life, and the way he lived, and also the way he died....

Sources told the publication that Morgen has been working on the Bowie film — which has yet to announce a title — for the past four years. A source also said the film is “neither documentary nor biography, but an immersive cinematic experience built, in part, upon thousands of hours of never before seen material.” That’s not unlike Morgen’s 2015 “Montage of Heck,” which blended more traditional documentary elements with expressionistic collages and artwork to explore the life and times of Nirvana frontman Cobain....

The “Green Knight” star and Oscar nominee intervened after witnessing a fight during which a woman stabbed a man in the chest. Patel’s representatives confirmed to IndieWire that, as first reported by 7News Australia, that the incident took place in Adelaide, Australia and added that there were ultimately “no heroes” in the situation. “Dev acted on his natural instinct to try and de-escalate the situation and break up the fight,” Patel’s representatives said....

“I’m still blown away. It hasn’t hit me yet. It hit me like, ‘Holy shit, I can’t believe I’m getting an Oscar,’ but I think the night of the event, it’s gonna really be emotional. I mean, it was emotional when I found out. I cried when I heard about it,” said Warren during an interview with IndieWire in her Hollywood recording studio. The songwriter has built up enough of a reputation at the Oscars, famously going zero for 13 in the Best Original Song category....

The Directors Guild of America started to award a prize for first-time feature filmmaking beginning in 2015 and have done so again in 2021. The five winners of the DGA’s first-time prize are Alex Garland for “Ex Machina,” Garth Davis for “Lion,” Jordan Peele for “Get Out,” Bo Burnham for “Eighth Grade,” and Alma Ha’rel for “Honey Boy.” As previously announced this week, the Directors Guild of America nominated the following five movies for its Best Documentary prize: Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw for “The Truffle Hunters” (Sony Pictures Classics), Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed for “My Octopus Teacher” (Netflix), David France for “Welcome to Chechnya” (HBO Max), Benjamin Ree for “The Painter and the Thief” (Elevation Pictures), and Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss for “Boys State” (Apple / A24)....

The rest of the upfront focused on adventures of a different kind, including the big reveal that the company is sending someone to space. Discovery unveiled a slew of new and returning shows during the company’s upfront, including “Who Wants to Be an Astronaut?” (working title), which Discovery is touting as the first show of its kind to feature the real-life adventures of space tourism. Per Discovery, the series offers ordinary people the chance to do something extraordinary – travel from Earth into space where they’ll live aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for eight days....

According to The Hollywood Reporter: “The Thomas brothers are seeking to exploit copyright law’s termination provision, which allows authors to cancel transfers after waiting a period of time, typically 35 years for newer works…Jim and John Thomas say they served a termination notice all the way back in 2016 — and for four and a half years heard no objection.” The legal battle comes months after reports hit last November that Disney’s 20th Century Studios was hiring “10 Cloverfield Lane” director Dan Trachtenberg to develop a new “Predator” movie....

Hertzfeldt never looked back. 2017’s “World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts” found him diving even deeper into the ever-expanding universe he’d created with these characters, and earlier this month he released the much-anticipated “World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime,” a 34-minute epic that follows Emily’s clones into new folds of the space-time continuum, while also providing an entry point for people who are unfamiliar with her previous adventures....

“Our annual review of Emmy rules and procedures is more important than ever,” said Television Academy Chairman and CEO Frank Scherma in a statement. “Our Awards Committee and Board of Governors undertake this annual evaluation with a very thoughtful and analytical approach to ensure that the Emmys remain relevant and in step with our industry’s ongoing evolution.” In one of the biggest changes announced, Variety Talk and Variety Sketch series are again being collapsed into a single category: Outstanding Variety Series....

“We spent a lot of time trying to recreate the unique sounds of the game that stand out while playing, and ended up discovering that we could just use those iconic sounds as is and they worked,” Eliot Connors, co-supervising sound editor, told IndieWire. “But overall we tried to get as many original sounds as possible when building the sound library for the show, while picking from the library at Riot which they’ve amassed for a long time....

The mega-production company, which was founded in 2017 using sales, production, and distribution assets within Endeavor, WME, and IMG, has officially rebranded as Fifth Season following a new partnership with Korean studio CJ ENM. CJ ENM, the media conglomerate behind Oscar winner “Parasite,” paid $785 million to acquire an 80 percent stake in Endeavor Content before the rebrand. The new name is inspired by Eastern medicine, which recognizes a “fifth season” as a celebratory time of harvest in the late summer....

Oscar winner Chloé Zhao tried to shake up the Marvel Cinematic Universe with her debut in the franchise, “Eternals.” The cosmic, time-spanning epic about an advanced race of aliens living on Earth in secret netted a respectable pandemic box office, topping $300 million worldwide. While the film had its fans and detractors, no MCU entry from the director of such vérité, magic hour–burnished tone poems as “Nomadland” and “The Rider” was going to please everybody....

In recent years, some have suggested that the ability to use previs — that is, previsualization — allows special effects artists to sort out action scenes in 3D animatics long before production, while directors focus on other aspects of the story. Zhao relied heavily on previs for “Eternals,” which follows a team of cosmic superheroes across many millennia and action scenes that traverse beaches and cityscapes alike. However, she said she was involved in the process from the start....