[moved to piefed] movies

David Lynch, the filmmaker celebrated for his uniquely dark vision in such movies as “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and the TV series “Twin Peaks,” has died just days before his 79th birthday.

His family announced the death in a Facebook post on Thursday. The cause of death and location was not immediately available, but Lynch had been public about his emphysema.

Director M Night Shyamalan went on trial on Tuesday (14 January) over allegations that he plagiarised from an independent film for his Apple TV + series Servant.

The $81m (£66m) lawsuit brought by Italian director Francesca Gregorini accuses Shyamalan of taking key elements from her 2013 film The Truth about Emanuel.

His psychological horror series, Servant, follows the story of a couple who hire an eighteen-year-old girl to help them look after a child. It transpires that the child is dead, and has been replaced by a reborn doll, which the traumatised mother still believes is alive.

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Gregorini alleges that the film shares substantial similarities to hers. She originally sued in January 2000, shortly after the series was released. The case was thrown out by a federal judge in the first instance, but was revived in 2022 by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals who found a genuine dispute over whether the works were in fact “substantially similar”.

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The jury in the case will be required to watch both The Truth about Emanuel and the first three episodes of Servant, back-to-back before the attorneys of both respective parties make their case.

The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep’s new trailer drops Geralt into a war between humans and merpeople.

Speaking with Empire, Álvarez confirmed that he and Sayagues are working on the script for the Alien: Romulus sequel. He said, “We’re excited about where it can go. We’ve almost checked all of the boxes of things that I want to see [in Romulus], and brought back a lot of the things I hadn’t seen in a while. Wherever we go now, we can go into uncharted waters. I think it’ll be so exciting to go with characters you know from this movie, to a place in the Alien franchise that we’ve never been before, and to discover things that you’ve never seen before.”

So he's got the Easter Egg references out of his system then hopefully? Come on, a decent Alien film please! 🙂

An animator has sued Disney for allegedly copying the idea for hit franchise Moana from his decades-old screenplay without his consent.

Buck Woodall filed a suit in a California federal court on Friday claiming that Disney lifted many elements of a screenplay he had written for an animated film titled Bucky.

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Woodall initially sued Disney last year but a California court ruled in November that his filing had come too late and dismissed it. The release of Moana 2 allowed the animator to sue the production giant anew, on the same basis.

The suit alleges a “fraudulent enterprise that encompassed the theft, misappropriation and extensive exploitation of Woodall’s copyrighted materials” on part of former Mandeville Films development director Jenny Marchick, now head of development at DreamWorks Animation.

The suit states that Woodall gave Marchick a screenplay and trailer for Bucky in 2003 and was then asked for more materials over the next few years, including character designs, production plans, budgets, and storyboards. Woodall claims he delivered “extremely large quantities of intellectual property and trade secrets” for projects titled Bucky and Bucky the Wave Warrior and was told by Marchick she would get the film greenlit.

“Disney’s Moana was produced in the wake of Woodall’s delivery to the defendants of virtually all constituent parts necessary for its development and production after more than 17 years of inspiration and work on his animated film project,” the suit states.

It also points out alleged overlaps between Bucky and Moana 2.

Both are set in an ancient Polynesian village and follow teenagers who set out on a dangerous voyage to save their land, and meet ancient spirits who manifest as animals on their journey.

The suit specifically points out details like the rooster and pig companions, a meeting with the Kakamora warrior tribe, a whirlpool that leads to a portal as all being lifted from the screenplay of Bucky.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24199617

Wes Anderson finds making animated films 'slightly overwhelming,' but is not done making them.

Just saw the docu movie and tried to find a reasonable review, but couldn't really find one. Most critics are quite negative and they make some valid points, concerning the script of the movie part, and also about the selection of clips used in the docu part. It's a dystopian horror/drama which does hit home; to me it had impact. It envisions and describes the biggest fears probably many are feeling now. The sci-fi part feels like a very bad nightmare. Also, parts of the docu are actually already reality.

I'm wondering how others received the movie?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24150581

Ridley Scott explained how studios didn't realize 'The Martian' was a comedy.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24098545

After one week, "Wicked" has racked up $70 million in digital rentals.