EXCLUSIVE: Vincent Young has wrapped on the Los Angeles shoot for his directorial debut, Small Talk, a period music drama starring Keegan Allen (Pretty Little Liars), Conor Husting (The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia), Rio Mangini (Wolf Pack), Sophia Del Rio (72 Hours) and Austin North (Outer Banks).

Set against the late ’70s Los Angeles rock scene, Small Talk follows a young band on the edge of success as ambition, romance, and addiction threaten to destroy the music that brought them together. The film traces the relationships surrounding the band as their sudden rise begins testing the friendships and loyalties that helped create it.

Young directed from a script written with RJ Zabasky, based on a story he conceived with Douglas Young, also producing alongside Kristifor Cvijetic and Zabasky. Douglas Young exec produced, with Brian Yuran, Evan Sorlien and Chris Kim serving as co-producers.

The supporting cast includes Sophie Swiszcz, Shaun Holmes, Ruben Vernier, Doug Locke, Jamison Jones, Ross Gallo, Kavan Reece, Maury Morgan, Liam Martinez and Michael Paré. Dean Fronk and Donald Pemrick handled casting.

Young told Deadline, “At its core, Small Talk is really about what we leave behind in other people. The title came from this idea that so much of life can become noise, such as the things we say, the things we chase, and the way we present ourselves. However, none of that carries the same weight as what we actually do for someone we love. I was drawn to exploring characters who are still figuring that out, and I wanted to tell that story inside a world that felt completely alive and specific, as though we had stepped into Los Angeles in the late ’70s rather than recreated it from a distance.”

Allen is repped by IAG, Creative Talent Group, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman; Husting by Brave Artists Management and CESD; Mangini by LBI and Pallas Management Group; Del Rio by Luber Roklin Entertainment; and North by Buchwald, Luber Roklin and Myman Greenspan.

Aaron Sorkin says Facebook has gotten “way out of hand” and evolved into a social media monster that doesn’t reflect what co-founder Mark Zuckerberg originally intended.

The writer and director of the upcoming film The Social Reckoning — the sequel to the 2010 hit The Social Network — tells Esquire in a new interview that the social media platform has become dangerous given how many of its billions of global users get their news from the platform.

“I don’t want to get the stat wrong, but it’s about a third of American adults get their news from Facebook,” Sorkin said (Pew’s latest research puts the number even higher, at 38 percent). “That is very dangerous. We’re no longer agreeing that the sky is blue and two plus two equals four.”

Continued Sorkin: “And by the way, let me be clear: I don’t think Mark Zuckerberg ever intended for it to have a corrosive effect. I think his intentions were good. He was somebody who, like a lot of people, had difficulty fitting into the social structure of college life and probably high school. He invented his own social structure, and he got to be the mayor of it and couldn’t be excluded from it. His brilliance is undeniable, and that was a cool thing and it got way out of hand. It’s gone completely out of control.”

Sorkin has previously declared “I blame Facebook for January 6,” and was asked about that connection in the new interview and whether it’s part of the film.

“What definitely is part of the movie is what Facebook did in 2018. They were in trouble. Engagement was going down, there was competition from TikTok, and they had to do something. So they retuned the algorithm … they knew that the things that get reshared the most are rage bait. So they began pumping into the air supply all this stuff intended to make you mad. Certainly, you can draw a line from that to January 6.”

Based on true events, the new film centers on a young Facebook engineer named Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) who teams up with Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) on a risky mission to bring attention to the social network’s biggest secrets. Jeremy Strong takes over the role of Zuckerberg from Jesse Eisenberg, who played the role in the first film.

The 65-year-old screenwriter was also asked about his stroke, from which he thankfully says he’s managed “to recover 100 percent.”

“I had been not living a very healthy life,” he said. “I wasn’t exercising enough. I was still eating the way I ate in college. I was smoking a lot. So I decided not to do that anymore. And it wasn’t even because I felt bad. It was because I saw the look in my daughter’s face. I scared the hell out of her, and I didn’t want to do that anymore.”

Sony Pictures is set to release The Social Reckoning in theaters Oct. 9.

After showing genuine talent opposite her father Adam Sandler in 2023’s Netflix comedy, You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah, Sunny Sandler 100% confirms that talent runs in the family with another Netflix film produced by Happy Madison (her father’s production company) and right in line with the heartfelt coming of age films the Sandler dynasty is turning out along with the expected more raucous comedies.

Don’t Say Good Luck is based on a true story that actually happened to screenwriter Laura Hankin, who wrote the first draft and collaborated on the script with Jordan Horowitz and the film’s director Julia Hart. Sandler plays high school drama student Sophie who is angling for a part in her school’s production of the Broadway hit Waitress and gets more than she dreamed when she lands the lead role. But unfortunately life gets in the way of this triumphant moment in a young person’s life when her mother Elizabeth’s (Melanie Lynskey) cancer returns.

Hart’s sensitive direction deftly balances the trials of a mom facing the end of her life much too soon with a major moment in the life of a teenage daughter just hitting her stride at the same moment in a family turned upside down. Shifting from the dynamics of the making of a high school musical, the budding attraction to her leading man, and the anguish of her mom’s worsening condition just as it collides with what should be a joyous time is at the crux of this surprisingly mature and engaging film that ultimately shows the healing power of art against the raw reality of the curves life can throw at you. In lesser hands this all could have been a minor YA story of the sort we have seen played out so many times before, but in it is a much deeper and emotional dive thanks to the two lead performances of Sandler, and the incomparable Lynskey whose caring mom is determined to keep her terminal diagnosis a secret from her daughter as perhaps a final gift just when Sophie needs it most. Of course eventually this decision causes conflict when things get really rough for Elizabeth, her determination finally getting the best of her.

Structurally the film goes back and forth between the devastating family drama, and the rehearsals of Waitress (and by the way if only I got to do sophisticated musicals like this one in my high school shows) where Sophie is playing a character who is pregnant. That plot development alone smartly allows for an intimate discussion between Sophie and her mother that won’t leave a dry eye in the house when the school’s drama teacher (Stephanie Beatriz) unknowingly suggests that to find deeper meaning in the role she ask her mother what she felt when she was expecting Sophie.It is just one of several scenes that make this movie rise above the pack of typical teen coming of age movies.

Hart, who seems to specialize in movies about young people including finding a little known Timothee Chalamet to play a student in an earlier film about a high school drama class called Miss Stevens, knows how to break hearts without cloying sentiment. In the hands of Sandler (who also displays an impressive but naturally believable singing voice in performing several songs from Waitress in varying points in the rehearsal process leading all the way to a poignant final and very personal performance), we see that Sophie is a good person devastated because her mom can’t even be there for this hallmark in her life, but growing up in the process and learning it doesn’t always go the way we planned. Lynskey, an actress who can do no wrong, is exquisite playing a loving parent caught up in her own crisis but doing everything she can to help her daughter against all odds.

The film belongs to both of them, but there is fine support from Max Greenfield as her father, Jack Champion as the handsome love interest in the play who uses the kissing scenes as an entree for something a bit more, and the lively Elyse Bell as the effervescent drama student who vied with Sophie for the lead but has her back all the way. Veterans Bebe Neuwirth and Steve Buscemi also get some key moments they deliver memorably. This is a movie that also just may want to make you see Waitress again, or for the first time. The Sara Bareilles songs soar.

Producers are Adam Sandler, Jackie Sandler, Horowitz, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, and Fred Berger

Title: Don’t Say Good Luck

Distributor: Netflix

Release Date: August 14, 2026 – Streaming

Director: Julia Hart

Screenplay: Laura Hankin and Jordan Horowitz & Julia Hart

Cast: Sunny Sandler, Melanie Lynskey, Max Greenfield, Jack Champion, Stephanie Beatriz, Elyse Bell, Scarlett Estevez, Emma McNulty, Bebe Neuwirth, Steve Buscemi, Jon Lovitz.

Rating: PG13

Running Time: 1 hour and 50 minutes