BOX OFFICE SET FOR REBOUND: The global box office is projected to hit $20.2 billion this year, up 68% over 2020, according to analysts at Gower Street. It’s still 52% under 2019. As of September 11, 2021, just under 88% of global cinemas are operating. Warner Bros/Legendary‘s Dune; the latest James Bond, No Time To Die; Sony‘s Venom: Let There Be Carnage; Disney/Marvel‘s EternalsSony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home; and Warner Bros‘ The Matrix Resurrections are set for release later this year.
PARTNER TRACK GETS NETFLIX SERIES ORDER: Georgia Lee and Sarah Goldfinger are set to co-showrun a series based on Helen Wan‘s novel Partner Track. Arden Cho will star as Ingrid Yun, “an idealistic young lawyer, who struggles with her moral compass and her passions as she fights to climb the partner track at an elite New York City law firm. Ingrid is idealistic, whip-smart, fierce, kind and eager to be the first Asian American junior partner at Parsons Valentine, an elite white-shoe law firm in Manhattan. As Ingrid bargains and fights her way through these male power structures, she wrestles with what it means to be true to herself.”
NAOMI WATTS TALKS LAKEWOOD: Naomi Watts spends much of Lakewood running through a forest while trying to find her teenage son’s school, which is under lockdown with a shooter. “It scared the shit out of me, and that’s always an interesting thing,” Watts tells Variety the morning after Lakewood premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. “I feed off other actors. You rely on your cast. As an actor, you don’t want to be out there on your own. You want to be interacting and reacting. Even if you have a well-planned out idea, you need someone to jolt you into another rhythm or another place.”
SAHRAA KARIMI TO HEAD STOCKHOLM FILM FESTIVAL JURY: Sahraa Karimi, the Afghan film director and head of the Afghan Film Organization, has been named as head of the jury at the next edition of the Stockholm International Film Festival. The festival’s 32nd edition will run Nov. 10-21, 2021 in the Swedish capital.
