Typical of Sony’s policy, “Ghostbusters” spent seven weeks in theaters before it moved to PVOD; this weekend, it was #8 on the box office charts and dropping 24 percent for one of the best holds. Universal took a much more aggressive stance with “Sing 2.” At $24.99, it’s more expensive than its standard $19.99 PVOD rental price. It also took advantage of the film’s midweek opening to technically comply with the 17-day window agreement with theaters — one that was understood to mean three weekends....

On Thursday afternoon, within a span of 15 minutes, Warner Bros. Discovery revealed it lost $2.3 billion in the July-September quarter of 2022 and Lionsgate reported an operating loss of $1.8 billion from the same time period. Better make it a double. The good news for Warner Bros. Discovery is that a loss of $2.3 billion is better than a loss of $3.4 billion, which is the unfortunate figure it posted last quarter....

How wide the movie will go is a question in this odd year. The movie has its charms, especially Benicio Del Toro as an impish, growling prisoner who paints his winsome guard (Lea Seydoux) and tangles with art experts Adrien Brody and Tilda Swinton, as well as older single journalist Frances McDormand, who writes about and sleeps with radical protester Timothée Chalamet. In fact “The French Dispatch” supplied such star wattage for the red carpet (after being part of the official selection for the Cannes that never was last year) that festival director Thierry Frémaux relented and allowed Anderson and his ensemble to skip the usual de rigeur press conference....

Director Wes Craven had already had to be coaxed into working on the feature, not necessarily wanting to work in the horror genre again. But once Craven came aboard and the feature started shooting he nearly ended up being fired. According to those who worked on the film, production studio Miramax and Bob Weinstein, didn’t like the legendary opening sequence with Drew Barrymore. “Wes got the phone call from the studio, and I was sitting behind him in my chair, and I just saw his back slump....

“It’s a huge movie,” Dafoe said. “It’s a muscular movie. My involvement isn’t nearly as expansive as ‘The Lighthouse.’ I’m in a supporting role, but it was thrilling. The level of research and detail is there, but on a much bigger scale. During the pandemic, they continued to work and to research things to build, and somehow they did. We gave them the time to prepare for this huge jump in budget and size of production....

That memorable scene is included in “Writing with Fire,” a sleeper success playing at over 100 festivals that ultimately landed a North American distributor (Music Box) as well as a surprise Documentary Feature Oscar nomination. The film focuses on Meera Devi, a pioneering lower-caste woman journalist who teaches other Dalit women how to use their iPhones as a tool to interview, photograph, and post video footage online. “We walked into a beautiful moment in time,” said Thomas....

Deschanel, whose filmography has all but embodied the lovable, goofy, and whimsically edgy stereotype, slammed the concept in an interview with The Guardian. “I don’t feel it’s accurate. I’m not a girl. I’m a woman,” Deschanel responded to a fan-submitted question. “It doesn’t hurt my feelings, but it’s a way of making a woman one-dimensional and I’m not one-dimensional.” She continued, “I think the tendency is still to make women one-dimensional, so you have to add dimension, if you can....