It was another week in painful internet discourse, from TCM czar Ben Mankiewicz as the supposed horseman of the AI apocalypse amid backing “The Wizard of Oz” at Vegas’ the Sphere to Sydney Sweeney as the supposed poster girl of eugenics, courtesy of a controversial American Eagle ad.
But there was much to celebrate on the film side, including the release of Akiva Schaffer’s spoof comedy “The Naked Gun,” which revives the Leslie Nielsen-started film series with Liam Neeson as the pratfalling police detective with digestion issues. On this week’s IndieWire “Screen Talk” podcast, co-host Anne Thompson shares her thoughts on the laugh-a-minute new movie, co-starring Pamela Anderson as a scat-singing femme fatale.
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Many generations are familiar with the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker comedies from the ’80s, including “Airplane” and “Top Secret” and the original “Naked Gun” movies, but this new film from “SNL” writer Akiva Schaffer might still play to an older crowd only.
Meanwhile, Ryan digs into Michael Shanks’ Neon horror outing “Together,” starring actual couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco, and the wild marketing stops Neon has pulled out for the film about a fraying couple who become literally hermetically sealed to each other in body-horror fashion.
Speaking of horror movies, Anne and Ryan acknowledge the challenges in media access to genre movies like Zach Cregger’s much-anticipated Warner Bros.’ release “Weapons,” out August 8. Influencers and TikTokers got an early look at the apparently “Magnolia”-inspired horror movie, but again, we are up against a situation where journalists are being deprioritized in favor of social media users for opinions and pull quotes. Critics, after all, could potentially ding the strong internet word-of-mouth.
Anne also catches us up to speed on developments in the $8 billion Ellison family acquisition of Paramount Global, which is expected to close shortly amid the necessary approvals from the FCC. That’s Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison and his son David, who has been financing and producing movies for some time through Skydance. They’re conservatives to the core — David promises “unbiased” storytelling in CBS News — and many wonder how they will operate, and how much Hollywood will cooperate with them in the wake of outgoing Paramount overlord Shari Redstone’s $16 million bribe to Trump, as well as Colbert’s untimely firing.
Plus, rising distributor and streamer Mubi is in trouble after a list of filmmakers signed a letter condemning its relationship to Sequoia. The $100-million investor has ties to the Israeli defense industry, and many filmmakers are calling on Mubi to renounce that relationship. How does the distributor move forward in an already struggling period for indie film companies?
Listen to the podcast in the episode below.
