Led by René Ridinger, the new VP, Awards, the team encompasses publicity, creative, and media for awards campaigns for projects produced by Disney Live Action, Disney Animation, Pixar Animation, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, and more. The only exception will be Searchlight Pictures, which will remain in-house at Searchlight. The new group will work under Michelle Sewell, EVP, Global Publicity, as part of the marketing team led by Disney Studios President of Marketing Asad Ayaz....

“What we want to do is leave it to a group of folks who can really see objectively,” said Disney CEO Bob Chapek in an October 12 interview with CNBC shortly after announcing the reorganization after market close. “[We want to] make the optimal decision for the company, as opposed to somehow have it predetermined that a movie is destined for theaters or that a TV show is destined for ABC....

The next D23 Expo was originally scheduled to take place in summer 2021 but will now be held on September 9-11 in 2022. Disney did not specify why the expo had been delayed, but stated that the revised date would coincide with the company’s founding in 1923 and be used to kick off Disney’s 100th anniversary. The event will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. Recent D23 Expos have been glitzy, star-studded affairs, as well as significant marketing opportunities for Disney....

The performance of Gina Prince-Bythewood’s African female warrior film, which cost $15 million more than Olivia Wilde’s much-discussed 1950s “Stepford Wives”-adjacent drama with Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, and Chris Pine, was regarded as strong, in part because of lower expectations. After the barrage of publicity surrounding its Venice showing, “Darling” became a box-office cause celebre with consensus of an opening weekend of $20 million or higher. However, it faced an above-average drop from its combined preview and Friday results....

Now, even as he stands in support of dissident Russian filmmakers, the director of films including 2012 Palme d’Or nominee “In the Fog” is getting a reconsideration in the West. His pitch-black 2018 satire “Donbass” won the Best Director in the Un Certain Regard category that year in Cannes, but hasn’t seen a U.S. theatrical release since. It was also Ukraine’s Oscar submission that year. Now, Film Movement is finally releasing the film stateside for the first time in New York and L....

“I maybe unwisely went on a first date to see ‘Seven’ — a first and last date,” Wright said. “‘Seven’ is maybe not a great idea for a date movie. People mention the Sloth moment, which is an expertly engineered shock — and the ending. With twist endings, you always get this little wave of anticipation of what’s coming. And ‘Seven’ is an interesting one, because when you watch that with a crowd and people don’t know where it’s going, you can feel people getting what’s going to happen at different times — it’s catching in the audience....

But overall, this year’s Eurovision has been devised and executed like a cultural institution that needed to come back. There’s no small amount of hubris in insisting on holding the yearly in-person singing competition with certain areas of the world still very much dealing with a global health crisis. With those giant caveats, the lead-up to today’s final — streaming stateside on Peacock — shows why this continent-spanning contest has endured for so long, as well as plenty of reasons why it made sense for it to return in grand fashion....