Two powerful producers, Ryan Coogler (“Black Panther”) and Charles King (“Mudbound”), backed director Shaka King, who kept on track a complex story that kept changing, especially after two people joined the team who knew it better than anyone: Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. and his mother, Deborah Johnson, now known as Akua Njeri. This collaboration yielded a film that debuted at Sundance 2021 to rave reviews, landed in theaters and HBO Max on February 12, and on March 15 earned six Oscars including Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield), Original Song, and Cinematography (Sean Bobbitt)....

“It turned out that the company is growing much, much faster than we anticipated,” said Cogan during an interview with IndieWire at the Telluride Film Festival alongside Garbus. “Right now, we have 21 projects between development and things about to go into release, including the three things that are here. And we projected that we would have half of that. It’s not just about us, it’s the way the industry is growing....

The show is doing all of this while drawing on Jeff Lemire’s “Lunatic” run from the “Moon Knight” comic, using a psych ward as the staging ground for visionsthat include Marc/Steven’s troubled childhood and a fight with vengeful sand spirits aboard the deck of a ship sailing through the Egyptian afterlife. IndieWire spoke with cinematographer Gregory Middleton about how the show’s camerawork keeps the viewer grounded even when Marc and Steven aren’t sure what’s going on....

Launched early in 2020, Framestore Pre-production Services (FPS) delivered 90 minutes of postvis for David Yates’ director’s cut, as well as using virtual production tools to help plan and visualize some of the film’s key set pieces, including the chaotic Berlin political rally, and the final battle in Bhutan between Dumbledore (Jude Law) and dark wizard Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen). FPS utilizes virtual scouting and virtual cameras to interactively stage previs via fARsight, Framestore’s proprietary virtual production tool....

Featuring 30 dancers and filmed in South Pasadena, California, “When the Kids Are Away” required Brooks to use a crane and shut down a street for the first time in her career. Now, two decades later, “In the Heights” showcases scenes with up to 300 dancers; instead of trees in SoCal, the George Washington Bridge frames the NYC spectacle. Brooks and Chu honed their collaboration with other musically themed projects, most notably the feature “Jem and the Holograms” and the reality TV series “The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers....

Deadline notes “this is a huge break with tradition and comes as the Spirit Awards look to get more traction with the viewing public, as well as exert more possible influence on potential Oscar winners as this new date falls the day before the Oscar nominees luncheon and also before final balloting begins for the Academy on March 17.” Still, it’s not the first break in tradition for the awards which, last year, opted to air a full three days before the Oscars, thanks to a televised virtual event hosted by Melissa Villaseñor....

But the facts may not bear that out. Two years on, the Rowling business remains great for her publisher Scholastic, Universal’s Harry Potter theme parks, and Warner Bros., which is releasing the latest Potter-adjacent movie, “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” on Friday. Data shows that U.S. sales of Rowling’s books increased over the last few years, and the two previous “Fantastic Beasts” movies have over-performed on streaming. Rowling’s Twitter feed remains an endlessly scrolling anti-gender theory compendium....