Villeneuve On His Long Road to 'Dune: Part Two'

►"For foreign directors, Hollywood can be frightening." THR's Brian Davids spoke to Denis Villeneuve about the journey that led to Dune: Part Two. The Canadian filmmaker, a THR Titan, reveals why he took a nine-year break from directing, shares his hopes for Dune Messiah, discusses why he won't ever work in "someone else's universe" again after Blade Runner 2049, and reflects on his fears about working in Hollywood: "You hear all those stories of great filmmakers getting crushed by the system." The interview. 

—The movies are back, baby! Dune: Part Two delivered on its promise to reenergize the box office after a terrible early winter and opened to an estimated $81.5m in North America this weekend, double the first film and the biggest opening of the year to date. The film is likewise whipping up a sandstorm overseas, where it opened to $97m from 71 markets for a global start of $178.5m — it doesn’t land in China until next weekend and Japan the week after that. THR's Pamela McClintock writes that the opening is a major win for Legendary in broadening the audience for its Dune franchise, and is the biggest opening to date for Villeneuve and star Timothée Chalamet. The box office report. 

—Looking good. The rerelease of Dune: Part One brought in $674,000 in China this weekend, beating out Sony’s superhero misfire Madame Web. Dune: Part Two opens in China on March 10 and will be Hollywood’s best chance in months to restore some excitement around U.S. movies in the world's second-biggest movie market. Part One earned $39.5m of its $435m worldwide total in China. The China box office report. 

Teamsters, IATSE Hold Rally Ahead of AMPTP Talks

►"F—k around and find out." A coalition of Hollywood’s below-the-line unions rallied Sunday on the eve of their latest contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. THR's Gary Baum and Katie Kilkenny report that the "Many Crafts, One Fight" event brought the industry labor movement together just months after the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes ended as the below-the-line unions threatened yet another paralyzing work stoppage. The story. 

—"It has impacted millions of European consumers." The European Commission, the main executive body of the European Union, has fined Apple $1.95b for "abusing its dominant position on the market for the distribution of music streaming apps." The decision came in an antitrust case that was the result of a complaint filed by music streaming giant Spotify. Apple said it plans to appeal the decision, arguing that it was reached "despite the Commission’s failure to uncover any credible evidence of consumer harm." The story. 

—Tax hit. A federal judge in Philadelphia has ordered Empire star Terrence Howard to pay a penalty of $1m in back taxes. The Academy Award-nominated actor has been pursued by the Justice Department for over a year for non-payment of a $578,000 income tax bill covering what he owed from his 2010–2019 returns. Howard had previously justified his non-payment of taxes in a voicemail to a DOJ official, where he asserted that it’s “immoral” for the government to tax the descendants of slaves. The story. 

—🤝 Deal done 🤝 UTA is expanding its marketing division, acquiring JUV Consulting, a company that specializes in connecting brands with Gen Z and youth culture. JUV Consulting and its more than a dozen employees will join UTA’s Entertainment Marketing division, reporting to co-heads David Anderson and Julian Jacobs from offices in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The story. 

—"You definitely did not see me in Madame Web." Sydney Sweeney decided to share her "five-point plan" to break into Hollywood during her Saturday Night Live monologue, as well as joke about the romance rumors with her Anyone But You co-star Glen Powell. Sweeney went on to express that she wanted "everyone to get to know the real me" adding that "I feel like people only see me as the girl on TV who screams, cries and has sex. Sometimes it’s all three at the same time." The recap. 

—"It is one of those questions to which the answer should really be obvious." John Oliver had some advice for the Supreme Court on Sunday's episode of HBO's Last Week Tonight. Oliver tackled the news of the court’s move last week to decide whether Donald Trump has presidential immunity against being prosecuted on charges he interfered with the 2020 election — with the host arguing that of course he can. The recap. 

Jimmy Kimmel Talks Oscars Plans

►"It was a big relief to us as joke writers to have movies nominated that the home audience has seen, like Barbie and Oppenheimer." THR's Lacey Rose spoke to four-time Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel and his wife, executive producer Molly McNearney, about the fast approaching 2024 ceremony. The couple talk about courting cameos, ideal audience members, and why they just can't quit the Academy Awards. The interview. 

—"I won't get a budget of Babylon size any time soon." Damien Chazelle is weighing what it means for him following the box office failure of his big-budget film Babylon. “Certainly, in financial terms, Babylon didn’t work at all,” the Oscar-winning filmmaker admitted to Ben Mankiewicz during an interview on his podcast, Talking Pictures. Made for a reported $80m before marketing costs, Babylon opened to a disastrous $3.6m before topping out at $15.3m domestic. With international grosses, it finished at $63.4m worldwide. The story. 

—🎭 Bunk's on board 🎭  Wendell Pierce has been cast as Perry White, the iconic editor-in-chief of The Daily Planet, in James Gunn’s Superman. Pierce, whose credits include The Wire, Treme and Jack Ryan, joins a cast that includes David Corenswet as Clark Kent/Superman, Rachel Brosnahan playing Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. The new feature began shooting in Atlanta on Thursday. It was previously titled Superman: Legacy. The story. 

—🎭 Back on the big screen 🎭 Joshua Jackson has joined the cast of Sony Pictures’ latest installment of Karate Kid. Details on the role, the actor's first feature film in almost 10 years, were unavailable, but he is described as one of the main characters in the piece. Ben Wang, who led the cast of Disney+ series American Born Chinese, is starring in the coming-of-age martial arts drama, which also has Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio reprising their iconic characters to continue the mythology of the original franchise. The story. 

Why Kate Winslet Keeps Returning to TV

►"I’d never come across a character so unique, so unusual, so sort of unimaginable and dislikable." THR's queen of chat Jackie Strause spoke to Kate Winslet about her new HBO drama, The Regime. The Oscar and Emmy winner discusses playing the populist leader of a fictional country in the six-part limited series, and gives an update on Mare of Easttown season two. The interview. 

—Brutal. The Brothers Sun will not be returning for a second season on Netflix. While the reasons behind the cancellation are unclear, the show had a solid opening on Nielsen’s streaming charts, and the series took a notable leap forward in its second week, growing by 38 percent compared to its debut week. The action comedy series, starring Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh as well as Justin Chien and Sam Song Li, premiered on Jan. 4 and was created by Brad Falchuk and Byron Wu. The story. 

—📅 Dated 📅 Sex and the City has landed a premiere date on Netflix. All six seasons of the hit HBO series, which have previously only been available on Max, will now be streaming on Netflix for the first time starting April 1. Warner Bros. Discovery made a content agreement with Netflix last July, which included a licensing deal for several series. Other shows that were part of the deal included Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Six Feet Under, Ballers, Insecure and True Blood. The story. 

—🎭 Four more 🎭 HBO is building out the cast for season two of The Last of Us. The hit series has added four actors to its ensemble: Danny Ramirez, Ariela Barer, Tati Gabrielle and Spencer Lord. Their casting comes as the show is gearing up to begin production in the spring, for a likely 2025 premiere. The new additions to the cast join the previously announced Kaitlyn Dever, Isabela Merced, Young Mazino and Catherine O’Hara. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are set to return in their lead roles of Joel and Ellie. The story. 

—The good ol' days. The premiere of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live — which features the returns of Andrew Lincoln’s Rick and Danai Gurira’s Michonne — delivered 3m viewers (inclusive of replays and simulcasts) over three days for AMC. That’s the best series debut performance on the cable network in almost six years (since The Terror in March 2018, which had the then-dominant Walking Dead flagship as a lead-in). The story. 

'Oppenheimer' Dominates Craft Awards

►🏆 ASC FTW 🏆 Oppenheimer continued its dominant awards season form on Sunday night at the American Society of Cinematographers' ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards, with Hoyte van Hoytema taking the prize for theatrical feature film. The win was van Hoytema’s first ASC award, after previously being nominated for Dunkirk (2018) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2012). The winners. 

—🏆 Steady Eddie's 🏆 Universal’s Oppenheimer and Focus Features’ The Holdovers won the top theatrical prizes Sunday at the 74th Annual ACE Eddie Awards, presented by the American Cinema Editors at UCLA’s Royce Hall. ACE president Kevin Tent, who presided over the event, won best edited feature film, comedy, for The Holdovers, while the drama feature award went to Oppenheimer editor Jennifer Lame. The winners. 

—🏆 Sounds good 🏆 Oppenheimer prevailed in a pair of categories at the 71st Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards. In the feature competition, winners included Oppenheimer, for dialogue and ADR, and also for effects and foley; Maestro, for music editing; Society of the Snow, for a foreign language film; and Spider-Man: Across the Universe, for theatrical animation. The winners. 

—🏆 Sounds even better 🏆 The Cinema Audio Society Awards took place on Saturday, with the sound mixing team behind Oppenheimer taking home the award in the live-action competition. In the television categories, The Last of Us for best one-hour series and The Bear for best half-hour series were also honored. The winners. 

—🏆 Someone else gets a prize 🏆 Greta Gerwig’s Barbie won big at the 14th annual Guild of Music Supervisors Awards on Sunday, with the film taking home the awards for best music supervision for a film budgeted over $25m, and best song written and/or recorded for a film. George Drakoulias took home both of those words, the latter being awarded for “What Was I Made For?” performed by Billie Eilish and written by Eilish and Finneas O’Connell. The siblings took the stage to accept the award. The winners. 

—🏆 Something to write home about 🏆 The writers behind the feature American Fiction and the TV adaptation Slow Horses took home the top honors at the USC Scripter Awards, which honors the best adapted projects of the year. Both the original authors and the screenwriters share the award. The winners. 

—🏆 おめでとう! 🏆 Jujutsu Kaisen season two was the big winner at Crunchyroll’s Anime Awards in Tokyo over the weekend, taking the top-prize anime of the year honor and triumphing in 10 additional categories, including best director, best character design, best action and best cinematography. The best film prize went to Mokoto Shinkai’s anime blockbuster Suzume. The eclectic group of personalities who took the stage in Tokyo on Saturday included Megan Thee Stallion, Bong Joon-ho, Phil Lord and Chris Miller. The winners. 

TV Review: 'The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin' 

►"The sillier, shallower younger brother of Our Flag Means Death." THR's Angie Han reviews Apple TV+'s The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin. Brit funnyman Noel Fielding stars as an 18th century highwayman who builds a reputation for panache while trying to escape the clutches of a corrupt thief-taker, played by Hugh Bonneville. The review. 

In other news...

—TV premiere dates 2024: The complete guide

—Amazon Prime Video’s new releases coming in March 2024

—Jeff Daniels teases widening murder conspiracy in American Rust S2 trailer

—Bachelor star Joey Graziadei reveals Gilbert Syndrome diagnosis

—Paramount promotes Lee Sears to president, international markets ad sales

—David Bordwell, preeminent film scholar, dies at 76

—Jenne Casarotto, talent agent and co-founder of Casarotto Ramsay & Associates, dies at 77

—Chris Mortensen, former NFL reporter and analyst for ESPN, dies at 72

​​​What else we're reading...

—Manvir Singh reflects on Dune: Part Two erasing the traces of the Arabic language found in Frank Herbert's books and the delicate art of making fictional languages [New Yorker]

—Justin McCurry writes that FX's Shōgun is winning plaudits in Japan with its careful respect for Japanese culture and largely avoiding western orientalist fantasies [Guardian]

—Tim Lewis talks to Noomi Rapace about her new Apple TV+ show Constellation, her poor upbringing in Sweden and the time Orlando Bloom broke her nose [Guardian]

—Splash! Flash! Kaboom! Rebecca Alter reveals everything that happens at a Dune 2 4DX screening [Vulture]

—Elizabeth Paton writes that the nepo babies have taken over the runways with the likes of Scarlet Stallone, Deva Cassel, Lila Moss, Iris Law and more celebrity offspring walking most of the high fashion shows [NYT]

Today...  

...in 2011, Universal released George Nolfi's The Adjustment Bureau in theaters. The sci-fi film, loosely based on a Philip K. Dick short story, starred Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and Anthony Mackie and was a moderate box office and critical success. The original review.

Today's birthdays: Patricia Heaton (66), Sam Taylor-Johnson (57), Paul W.S. Anderson (59), Michael Goi (65), Len Wiseman (51), Garth Jennings (52), Chaz Bono (55), Adrian Lyne (83), Dominique Pinon (69), Margo Harshman (38), Catherine O'Hara (70), Christine Baumgartner (50), Patsy Kensit (56), Park Min-Young (38), Steven Weber (63), Mykelti Williamson (67), Tamzin Merchant (37), Scott Michael Foster (39), Daniel Roebuck (61), Josh Bowman (36), Andrea Bowen (34), Jenna Boyd (31), Jamie-Lee O'Donnell (37), Lilli Cooper (34), Tomiwa Edun (40), Will Hochman (32), Amanda Collin (38), Jon Xue Zhang (36), Stacy Edwards (59), Andrea Bendewald (54), Audrey Esparza (38), Daniela Amavia (58), Shavar Ross (53)