Despite being set in the early 1980s (its story spanning from “The Blues Brothers” to “Being There”), Sam Mendes’ scattershot and moribund “Empire of Light” is a movie born out of two simultaneous but unequal reckonings that erupted in the summer of 2020: The Black Lives Matter movement, and the existential threat to the future of movie theaters. Looking at those phenomena through the (not particularly nostalgic) lens of his teenage years in “there’s no such thing as society” England — a time when racism and cinema were both thriving in popular culture — Mendes strives to tell a plaintive yet poignant little story about the simple power of community....

The #ReleasetheFuquaCut campaign can only get so far, though, as Hawke revealed he’s been begging director Antoine Fuqua for over half a decade. “In some ways, I see all his films [as] a collective scream against authority,” Hawke told The Hollywood Reporter of his collaborations with Fuqua. “[It’s] 107 [degrees] in Louisiana and there were more studio execs than our 100-person cast. He just put his head down and made his movie....

A new report from The New York Times reveals Universal Pictures and its streaming service Peacock “have closed a $400 million-plus megadeal to buy a new ‘Exorcist’ trilogy.” The price tag is at the same level that Netflix paid for Rian Johnson’s two “Knives Out” sequels earlier this year. Morgan Creek Entertainment has held the rights to “The Exorcist” franchise and is working with Green and Blumhouse’s Jason Blum on the new movies....

The author of multiple current New York Times and USA Today bestselling novels has not one but TWO different “Bridgerton”-related series that you can start next: the Smythe-Smith Quartet books, about a group of amateur musicians frequently mentioned in her novels, and a set of “Bridgerton” prequels about the Rokesby family (called, incidentally, the Rokesby Series). “The Smythe-Smith quartet is seen in the ‘Bridgerton’ books. It’s this awful musicale that people go to, and I finally wrote a series of books about the poor young ladies who have to play that terrible music,” Quinn explained to IndieWire....

If the name Dayna Grant does not ring a bell, then you certainly know her work. Grant was Charlize Theron’s stunt double on “Mad Max: Fury Road” and served as a stunt performer on films such as “Wonder Woman 1984,” “The Meg,” “Mulan,” and “Snow White and the Huntsman” (again serving as stunt double for Theron). Grant’s television work includes a long history playing stunt double for Lucy Lawless on series such as “Xena: Warrior Princess,” “Spartacus,” and “Ash vs....

Criticism was widespread, swift, and unrelenting. Among the organization’s immediate fixes was expanding membership to include more diverse journalists — of its 21 new members this year, six are Black, six are Latinx, five are Asian, and four are Middle Eastern — eliminating submission eligibility requirements, and moving to allow non-English language films to compete in top categories. In October, the HFPA hired nonprofit executive and consultant Neil Phillips to the newly created post of Chief Diversity Officer....

“There are many answers to what the future is. The one I know is not what we have right now. It is not sustainable. In so many ways, what we have belongs to an older structure,” del Toro said, adding later that we are in many ways in a moment similar to the advent of sound in the 1920s. “That’s how profound the change is. We are finding that it is more than the delivery system that is changing....