Focus Features, in partnership with Indian Paintbrush, has set a limited theatrical release for “Asteroid City” on June 16, 2023. The film will go wide a week later on June 23. The out-of-this-world premise for Anderson’s “Asteroid City” was recently revealed, with Focus Features handling the distribution for the dramedy. This marks the first collaboration between Focus and Anderson since Oscar-nominated 2012 coming of age story “Moonrise Kingdom.” His films since — “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Isle of Dogs,” and last year’s “The French Dispatch” — were all distributed by Searchlight....

This has always been the brilliance of the Film Independent Spirit Awards, the idea of curating and elevating more intimate productions, shining a bright light on otherwise overlooked projects and sometimes boosting them into a position to reach a wider audience, both within the community and without. Seeing performers included like Abby McEnany from Showtime’s “Work in Progress”, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan from Netflix’s “Never Have I Ever,” and the entire ensemble of HBO’s “I May Destroy You” is energizing, a reminder that the Emmys or Golden Globes are not the only arbiter of quality TV programming....

Premiering September 2, the prequel series is co-created by showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay using appendices and footnotes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novels to focus on a fresh story in Middle-earth, set thousands of years before the events of “The Lord of the Rings.” “We were not interested in doing a show about the younger version of the same world you knew, where it’s a little bit of a prequel,” McKay told Entertainment Weekly in a cover story....

As Appelhans watched a friend in Shanghai “struggling with family and class and concepts of success, it seemed like that timeless [‘Aladdin’] story… about a peasant boy who lives with his mother, meets a wish-granting genie, falls in love with a princess, loses himself, and finds himself again, could have newfound relevance today,” he said. “It made me think a lot about the world. In a naive way, I tried to recreate that experience through this story and hope people get a better understanding of China....

For MacKay, an actor often touted as a Method performer, it was not an entirely out of character event. In fact, that’s exactly what it was: something done to get in character for one of the most transformative roles of his career, which has already been marked by stellar turns in such diverse fare as “Captain Fantastic” and “1917.” As MacKay and filmmaker Nathalie Biancheri ready to premiere their remarkable “Wolf” at the Toronto International Film Festival this week, the pair sat down (via Zoom) with IndieWire for their first interview about a wild project....

IndieWire’s Kate Erbland described the unusual premise: “The film follows MacKay as Jacob, a young man who suffers from ‘species dysphoria’ and believes himself to be a wolf. Sent to a clinic that specializes in the disorder, Jacob is forced to confront his true nature, while also falling under the spell of Wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp), a mysterious fellow patient at what’s blithely termed ‘the zoo.’” Though not currently recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, species dysphoria is an umbrella term applied to a disorder in which individuals believe they have been born into the body of the wrong species....

Variety reported that Dolan is working on “The Night Logan Woke Up,” a psychological thriller miniseries that is adapted from Michel Marc Bouchard’s eponymous theater production. Dolan will write and direct the five-part series and is teaming with film production company StudioCanal, the Canal Plus premium TV network, and Quebecor Content for the project. The miniseries will star original cast members from Bouchard’s play, including Dolan, Julie Le Breton, Magalie Lépine-Blondeau, Éric Bruneau and Patrick Hivon, and Julianne Côté....