A Superman actor makes a big announcement; a secret Star Wars film has a Lost connection; greetings from the Louisiana Film Prize and the SCAD Savannah Film Festival. All in today’s Movie News Rundown
But First: Thanks to everyone who made Margeaux Sippell’s interview with Eric Appel, the director of Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, a massive viral success over the weekend. Appel earned a lot of approving nods for promising the film involved “absolutely no research on Al’s actual life.” As a totally independent operation, we’re always grateful for your shares, posts, upvotes and comments. No joke.
Viva La Prize: I’m just back from the Shreveport-based Louisiana Film Prize, a truly one-of-a-kind festival that awards $50,000 for the best short shot in Louisiana. The team there instills an astonishing sense of love and community — I was really impressed by all the filmmakers who came together to support and work on each other’s films. The big winner was John F. Beach, who took home top honors and best performance for the wild, mind-bending parenthood comedy “They Grow Up So Fast.” But as founder and executive director Gregory Kallenberg said over the weekend, the real prize is meeting all the incredible, supportive people you meet at the fest. We’ll be writing more soon about more of the many shorts that blew us away. There are more than 50,000 reasons it’s one of our 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee.
SCAD: The SCAD Savannah Film Festival, which is now underway, is the kind of magical place where Alan Cumming agrees to be in a student film, Terrence Malick talks shop with a student filmmaker for an hour, and Mahershala Ali gives lessons on grace. Those are just a few of the remarkable moments SCAD founder and president Paula Wallace recounts in this piece looking back on her five favorite memories in the 25 years of the festival — which is also one of our 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee.
Speaking of SCAD: Here’s some of Margeaux Sippell’s coverage from Savannah, including Q&As with Ron Howard’s about his new film Thirteen Lives, and film critic and historian Elvis Mitchell on his new Netflix documentary Is That Black Enough For You?!?, which rewrites a false narrative about Black cinema.
Superman Spoiler: Seriously — spoiler. Henry Cavill confirmed on Instagram today that he is “back as Superman” following his cameo in the post-credits scene of Black Adam, which opened on Friday. “I wanted to wait until the weekend was over before posting this because I wanted to give you all a chance to watch Black Adam,” Cavill said in a video posted to his Instagram feed. “But now that plenty of you have I wanted to make it official: I am back as Superman.”
Secret Star Wars: Between Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, The Mandolorian and everything else on Disney+, you probably don’t feel like you’ve been taking a break from Star Wars. But the franchise hasn’t actually been on screen since 2019’s Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, which was — may I editorialize? — terrible. Now Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof and Ms. Marvel director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy hope to revive the Star Wars cinematic universe — they’re working on a secret Star Wars film that Obaid-Chinoy is set to direct for the big screen, Deadline reports.
Main image: Two lost stars of Star Wars
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