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Vertical has acquired North American rights to Brian Kirk’s action thriller The Dead of Winter, starring and executive produced by Emma Thompson. The film will be released in theaters in the fourth quarter of 2025.

The film also stars Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Laurel Marsden (Ms. Marvel), Gaia Wise (The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim), Lloyd Hutchinson (Mickey 17), and Brían F. O’Byrne.

With the screenplay by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb, The Dead of Winter follows a widowed fisherwoman (Thompson) trapped in a Minnesotan blizzard who interrupts the kidnapping of a teenager (Marsden), only to realize that she is the young victim’s only hope. The film is Kirk’s follow-up to the 2019 movie 21 Bridges.

“The Dead of Winter is a merciless thriller, set in an epic wilderness with a beautiful love story at its heart. Emma Thompson gives a stunning performance unlike anything she has ever done before,...

Vertical has acquired North American rights to Brian Kirk’s action thriller “The Dead of Winter,” the company announced on Friday.

Starring and executive produced by Emma Thompson and also starring Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Laurel Marsden (“Ms. Marvel”), Gaia Wise (“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim”), Lloyd Hutchinson (“Mickey 17”) and Brían F. O’Byrne, the film is set for theatrical release in Q4 of this year.

From a screenplay by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb, “The Dead of Winter” follows a widowed fisherwoman (Thompson) trapped in a Minnesotan blizzard who interrupts the kidnapping of a teenager (Marsden), only to realize that she is the young victim’s only hope. The film is Kirk’s follow-up to 2019’s “21 Bridges.”

“’The Dead of Winter’ is a merciless thriller, set in an epic wilderness with a beautiful love story at its heart. Emma Thompson gives a stunning...

Roald Dahl’s 1988 children’s novel “Matilda” is a beloved, acclaimed book — consistently named one of the best children’s books of all time — for good reason. Dahl was the kind of writer who expressed universal truths about the harshness of childhood and the darker aspects of life as a kid by mining his own childhood experiences and woes, affording his underdog protagonists the kind of wildly imaginative adventures and fantastical comeuppance of which a kid could only dream.

In “Matilda,” as in Stephen King’s “Carrie,” a bookish, abused, and neglected girl asserts her own empowerment against the brawny bullies of the world using her brains; it’s a redemptive and hopeful fable for the scrawny bookworms of the world. That unlikely hero’s story, written with an emotional depth not often afforded to children’s literature, is what makes “Matilda” such a resonant classic, a story to be returned to again and again.

There are stories so good they can withstand any amount of retelling. Matilda began life as Roald Dahl’s rollicking tale of an outrageously spirited, clever little girl who defeats the bullying headmistress whose vocation is to make children miserable. The Royal Shakespeare Company turned it into a Christmas musical that burst the banks of the festive season, running for years and winning seven Olivier Awards in 2012 in London, then five Tonys the following year in New York. Now, director Matthew Warchus, along with writer Dennis Kelly and songwriter Tim Minchin, has directed the London Film Festival opener Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical for the screen. And once again, it is an absolute blast.

From the moment it begins, with a series of glowingly lit babies in cribs “singing” about how their besotted parents think they’re all geniuses, it is clear that Warchus and the team have not...

For cinematographer George Steel, the key to “The Aeronauts,” director Tom Hooper’s $80 million film starring Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne as balloonist-scientists who soar to 35,000 feet to break records in 1862, was to take the viewer along for the ride.

When Variety visited the cast and crew on set in London, Steel was crouched into the corner of the 8-by-8 balloon basket. “Tom was adamant that it should feel like the camera was in the basket with them,” says Steel. “[Most] of the shots didn’t deviate from that. There are a few shots on a crane from outside the basket, and then we used a helicopter. If you couldn’t do it for real, Tom wasn’t interested.”

Some of the first shots were of Redmayne and Jones at 2,000 feet above the English countryside, where Steel directed helicopters and drones to capture aerial shots without VFX. Jones’ stunt double, Helen Steinway Bailey,...

What do you say about a 19th-century ballooning movie that looks great in the air but doesn’t stick the emotional landing? That’s the problem with The Aeronauts, one of those “based on a true story” undertakings that are only partly true. The film reunites Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, who previously costarred as Stephen Hawking and his wife Jane in The Theory of Everything (both were nominated for an Oscar; only he won the trophy). Redmayne plays real-life British meteorologist James Glaisher, who thinks he can defy the...

There is something disarming about the joint presence of the ever-bashful Eddie Redmayne and the fiercely charismatic Felicity Jones that instantly feels wholesome. So when the duo embarks on a hot air balloon adventure in “Wild Rose” director Tom Harper’s “The Aeronauts,” you can’t help but tag along and root for “The Theory of Everything” co-stars. Playing a pair of complementary trailblazers that start off on the wrong foot, , even if it operates on a handful of clichés with little character-based substance to speak of.

Which is why Amazon Studios’ two-week-only exclusive theatrical window slated for December is a curious release strategy for a film whose greatest selling point is the reasonable amount of greenscreen visual wonder it delivers through a pair of enchanting leads. With his signature on-screen amiability (even when his character is being difficult or grumpy), Redmayne plays real-life scientist James Glaisher, who dreams of...

Credit: Amazon Studios

Amazon Studios announce that principal photography has begun across the UK and in London for the feature film The Aeronauts.

The film reunites Felicity Jones (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) and Eddie Redmayne following their successful collaboration on The Theory of Everything, where Jones received an Oscar nomination and Redmayne went onto win the Oscar for his performance of Stephen Hawking.

The Aeronauts is directed by BAFTA nominee Tom Harper and is written by BAFTA winner Jack Thorne.

Set in 1862, The Aeronauts follow wealthy young widow Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones) and ambitious scientist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) as they mount a balloon expedition to fly higher than anyone in history. This is a journey to the very edge of existence, where the air is thin and the chances of survival are slim. As their perilous ascent reveals their true selves, this unlikely pair discover things about...

Amazon Studios is under way in the UK on ballooning survival pic The Aeronauts, starring Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne.

The online giant has released a striking first look of the two actors (who starred opposite each other in The Theory Of Everything) 2,000 feet in the air.

Tom Courtenay (45 Years), Anne Reid (The Last Tango In Halifax), Rebecca Front (The Thick of It), Vincent Perez (Riviera), Tim McInnery (Game of Thrones), Phoebe Fox (The Hollow Crown) and Himesh Patel have joined the cast.

Pic is directed by BAFTA nominee Tom Harper (War & Peace) and is written by Jack Thorne (Harry Potter And The Cursed Child).

Set in 1862, the film follow wealthy young widow Amelia Wren (Jones) and ambitious scientist James Glaisher (Redmayne) as they mount a balloon expedition to fly higher than anyone in history. The chances of survival are slim.

The film is produced by Harper,...

Although he’s best known for his acting career, Stanley Tucci also gets behind the camera every so often and he’s now done so for the first time in a decade with Final Portrait. The film follows American writer James Lord (Armie Hammer) as he sits for the final portrait by artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush). Following a premiere at this year’s Berlinale and ahead of a U.K. release this summer, the first trailer has now arrived.

“Enough footage of Alberto Giacometti exists to suggest that Geoffrey Rush is quite uncanny as the renowned surrealist sculptor in Final Portrait, a depiction of the seventeen days it took him to paint his last portrait, that of the American writer James Lord (played here by Armie Hammer),” we said in our review. “Based on Lord’s resulting 1965 book A Giacometti Portrait, it’s an elegant if somewhat unambitious piece...

Enough footage of Alberto Giacometti exists to suggest that Geoffrey Rush is quite uncanny as the renowned surrealist sculptor in Final Portrait, a depiction of the seventeen days it took him to paint his last portrait, that of the American writer James Lord (played here by Armie Hammer). Based on Lord’s resulting 1965 book A Giacometti Portrait, it’s an elegant if somewhat unambitious piece of biographical work from writer-director Stanley Tucci, who has created — along with cinematographer Danny Cohen and art designer David Hindle (who worked with Rush before on Tom Hooper’s The Kings Speech) — a chicly grim vision of some of the shadier corners of the 1960s Parisian art scene.

It must be said that Hammer looks right at home smoking a cigarette in a beige trench and black-tie suit (had he been born ten years earlier he might have given Jon Hamm a run for his...