Kaepernick had previously collaborated with Ava DuVernay on a six-part Netflix series about his teenage years called “Colin in Black and White.” This series for ESPN Films will tell a complete biographical story, from his childhood in central California to his record-setting college career for Nevada to his selection by the 49ers in the 2011 draft and subsequent tenure in the NFL. Kaepernick helped start a movement with his decision to kneel during the national anthem before games to protest endemic nationwide violence against African Americans by police....

But, in the spirit of Marvel-induced multiverse madness, that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to ask… “What if?” In a new interview with Esquire, Patrick McKay and John D. Payne, who worked on “Star Trek Beyond” before creating “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” opened up about a sequel they wrote that never made it to production. “We worked on a couple of ‘Star Trek’ movies. The one you’re asking about would have been the fourth in the franchise, reuniting Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pine,” McKay said....

The new trailer will likely have many fans counting down the days until the last two episodes drop on July 1. But if you are not caught up yet, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. If there’s one word that can describe “Stranger Things 4,” it would be “long.” The new season of the Duffer Brothers’ show has a running time that’s more than double that of any previous season, and it took two entire years to film (while working from nearly 800 pages of scripts)....

“I think the maximum would be five seasons, but possibly more like four,” Pritchett said. “We’re at the end of filming season three, so at this point Jesse is saying only one more. But that happens every time. We’ve got a good end in sight.” Pritchett was brought on to “Succession” by Armstrong after the two worked together on two Armando Iannucci comedy series: HBO’s Emmy winner “Veep” and the BAFTA-nominated “The Thick of It....

You can see why: Making the Oscar shortlist for 2022 were Sundance 2021 debuts from Nanfu Wang (HBO’s China Covid exposé “In the Same Breath”), Danish filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Neon’s animated immigration saga “Flee”), self-taught Jessica Beshir (Janus’ dive into Ethiopia’s khat industry “Faya Dayi”), Camilla Nielsson (Greenwich Entertainment’s Zimbabwe expose “President”); and rookie filmmaker Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (Searchlight/Hulu’s 1969 concert film “Summer of Soul”). This year’s new pandemic era Sundance crop is just as impressive....

This year, in the Indie Episodic program, characters are searching for answers. The six distinct entries in the 2022 lineup of independent TV pilots are bound together by a few themes: Most center on women. Childhood reflections play their part, as do early emergences into adulthood. Every project sports at least one extra Sundance-y plot point, be it an assassin dressed like a preacher, a blunt, location-based metaphor, or a secret Sea Monkey formula....

It’s hard to believe that Mahershala Ali has never been the lead role in a film before, but Benjamin Cleary’s elegiac “Swan Song” is eager to make up for lost time: Not only does Ali get to play the protagonist in this somberly moving sci-fi drama about a dying man who secretly clones himself in order to spare his family the heartache of living without him, he gets to play him twice....