movies
Hayden Panettiere Costar Says She Was “Struggling” During Final Movie
Hayden Panettiere appeared to be struggling in her personal life while filming her final movie, according to co-star Justin Chatwin.
Chatwin opened up about his experience making the thriller Sleepwalker, which was shot in 2025 and released in January.
The actor told People that Panettiere — who died at the age of 36 on Sunday — seemed to be “struggling” at the time.
The two first met when the actress was starring in her breakout NBC series, Heroes, then they reconnected on Sleepwalker, where Panettiere played a woman who loses her daughter in a car crash.
“Hayden seemed different when I met her this time than when I met her in the early years,” Chatwin said. “I’ve been sober for 15 years, so I know this world of addiction, and Hollywood — it takes, and it takes from youth. I could tell she was struggling, and I was like, ‘I don’t think it’s this movie.’ There’s a handful of women that I’ve worked with that I really liked, and I really loved working with her, but I also know that she was really lonely. … We hit it off great and it was an awesome shoot, but it was about domestic abuse, and it was subject matter that may have hit close to home, because she did mention it.”
While making Sleepwalker, Panettiere told Chatwin about the “struggles she’s had with trauma.” The actress and mother had been open about her issues with addiction and postpartum depression, and wrote about both in her candid memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, published in May.
“I’m sure that everyone else is going to say ‘Oh, she’s amazing, she’s such a sweet person on set,’” he added. “Because she was. But we’re trained to be actors, so we’re acting on set, you know? And she is sweet. She had a beautiful heart. But we’re trained to be on, and I really liked spending time with her because she took that off, and she was authentic with me about her life and she opened up about her struggles with addiction.”
In addition, the Nashville star’s former fiancé, Wladimir Klitschko, has spoken out. “Our family is going through a time of profound shock and grief,” the former boxing world champion posted on Instagram early Tuesday.
Klitschko added the news of Hayden’s death “saddens me deeply. She left this world far too soon. Hayden was, although no longer my partner, an important part of my life and the mother of our daughter, Kaya.”
The circumstances of Panettiere’s death are under investigation. The Greenville County Coroner’s Office said she was found unresponsive and that her cause and manner of death remain pending further investigation.
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movies
Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick’s ‘Family Movie’ Gets Spring Release
EXCLUSIVE: The Bacon family’s slasher movie, Family Movie, will be hitting theaters in North America on April 23, 2027 via Variance.
Directed, produced by and starring Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, Family Movie also headlines the duo’s children, Travis and Sosie Bacon, who also produced. The pic, which world premiered at SXSW to 93% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, follows a filmmaking family, the Smiths, and their low-budget horror movie which turns into a real-life slasher when a dead body shows up on set. Chaos ensues as the Smiths fight to keep the production on track.
Pic also stars Liza Koshy, John Carroll Lynch, Jackie Earle Haley, Andrea Savage, Austin Amelio, and Scoot McNairy. Producers are Vince Jolivette, Casey Durant, Greg Lauritano, and Russell Wayne Groves, from a script by Dan Beers.
The feature is receiving a full theatrical window.
Said Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, “The entire process of making Family Movie has been a true labor of love and after seeing the audience reactions at multiple film festivals around the world, we knew this movie had to be experienced in the theater. While we considered traditional distribution options, we decided to put our faith in our film, the audience, and the evolving landscape of independent film and go straight to the theaters with this fun crowd pleaser.”
The deal was brokered with Jessica Lacy of Gersh and Dylan Marchetti of Variance Films. Gersh, Range Select and CAA continue to represent downstream rights for Family Movie‘s future windows.
Neon International is repping foreign sales rights.
Watch Deadline’s video interview with the Bacons out of SXSW below:
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movies
‘Soul Surfer’s Sean McNamara To Direct Faith-Based Film ‘Blank Canvas’
EXCLUSIVE: Reagan and Soul Surfer filmmaker Sean McNamara is aboard to write and direct faith-based drama Blank Canvas.
The film is based on the 2022 memoir of the same name by author, speaker, and artist Marcy Gregg. The project is currently in development under Brookwell McNamara Entertainment.
The synopsis reads: “At the age of 30, Marcy Gregg experienced a serious medical complication during childbirth that resulted in the loss of 13 years of her memory. Faced with the challenge of rebuilding her identity, relationships, and faith, Gregg embarked on a deeply personal journey of healing and transformation that would ultimately shape her life’s work and the message she shares with audiences today.”
The film will be produced by David Brookwell and Sean McNamara, the longtime producing team behind Brookwell McNamara Entertainment, with Will Crenshaw of Beaumont, Texas, serving as executive producer.
Prolific filmmaker McNamara most recently directed biopics Soul On Fire, Reagan and Bau: Artist at War. His 2011 film Soul Surfer about Bethany Hamilton made close to $50M.
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movies
Jennifer DeLia & Mark Webber Launch Beyond Culture Banner (EXCLUSIVE)
EXCLUSIVE: Mark Webber and Jennifer DeLia have partnered to launch Beyond Culture, an artist-led production banner, unveiling their initial slate.
Beyond Culture is billed as a company integrating film, art, music, technology and experience, which will champion uncompromising voices and stories that expand consciousness, provoke convention and transcend mediums. Built around a model that prioritizes creative ownership and greater financial control for artists, the company takes inspiration from the original United Artists, founded by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith in 1919 to give artists greater autonomy over their work.
The founding partners will celebrate the launch with a panel, live performance and reception taking place as part of the Speakers’ Summit Series at the 2026 Toronto Film Festival.
Beyond Culture launches with a slate that includes Webber’s Figments of Freedom, executive produced by global recording artist Sia; DeLia’s Mary Pickford: Love Wild, produced by DeLia, Jack Cook, Julie Pacino and Nitsa Benchetrit; documentary series Painting in the Dark; and the company’s namesake series, Beyond Culture.
In Figments of Freedom, written, directed by and starring Webber, a Marine goes AWOL, burns his life to ash, and vanishes into America’s fractured heart. Haunted by war and chasing ghosts of himself, he drifts through a divided nation that might be the only mirror left to find himself. Currently in post, the film also stars Afia Fields, Eugenia Yuan and Winona LaDuke.
Mary Pickford: Love Wild is DeLia’s surrealist exploration of the life of pioneering actress, producer and United Artists co-founder Pickford. Sophie Kennedy Clark plays the title role, starring alongside Cary Elwes, Scott Haze, Balthazar Getty, Summer Phoenix, Fran Kranz, Mike Sirow, Adam Fergus, Luke Arnold, Allie McDonald, Jeroen van Koningsbrugge, Brionne Davis, Jane Stiles, Josephine de La Baume, Heath Freeman, and singer Angela McCluskey as Mary’s mother, Charlotte Pickford.
The Pickford project was shot by DP Dan Kneece, whose career included collaborations with David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino. Kneece passed away unexpectedly just five weeks after completing additional photography on the film; Freeman and McCluskey also passed away before its completion. Following a creative pause, the film has now entered its final stage of post-production.
Docuseries Painting in the Dark follows muralist Joel Bergner, aka Joel Artista, CEO and co-founder of Artolution, whose large-scale collaborative works span more than 30 countries across five continents. From refugee camps to prisons and underserved communities around the world, Artista uses collaborative art-making as a force for connection, expression and social transformation.
Beyond Culture is also currently developing a namesake series — a reality-documentary hybrid that takes artists and cultural figures beyond persona and into radical self-exploration. The inaugural journey, produced by Brody Baker and shot by Cameron Dunbar, follows Orange Is the New Black actor Taryn Manning alongside hosts DeLia and Taylor Olandt through a spiritual marathon of healing practices. Through tantra, breath, mantra and sweat, layers of identity are stripped away, revealing the human being beneath the public perception.
DeLia and Webber bring decades of combined experience across film, art and culture to their new company.
A director, producer and actor, DeLia’s credits include the films Billy Bates, Abracadabra and Aligned, as well as the Off-Broadway production Phoenix, starring Julia Stiles and James Wirt. She has also directed music videos for artists including Dr. John, Bobby Rush and Amadou & Mariam, created live experiences at Cannes, Berlin, TIFF, Sundance and New York Fashion Week, and founded Sovereignty Fest.
DeLia observed, “Artists are often asked to surrender some part of their vision in order to participate in the machinery around it. Beyond Culture is about imagining a different relationship between art and commerce, one where creators can remain sovereign, take meaningful risks and create work that has cultural and commercial power without losing the thing that made it alive in the first place.”
Webber, whose acting credits span more than 40 films, has worked with filmmakers including Jim Jarmusch, Todd Solondz, Lynn Shelton, Thomas Vinterberg, Lars von Trier, Edgar Wright and Gus Van Sant. As a writer-director, his films have screened at SXSW, Sundance and Tribeca.
“For me, the most meaningful work has always come from protecting the human impulse behind it,” Webber said. “Beyond Culture creates a space where artists can experiment, collaborate and create from a place of truth, rather than reverse-engineering their creativity around what a system thinks it knows how to sell.”
DeLia and Webber first collaborated on Webber’s feature directorial debut, Explicit Ills, with DeLia helping secure the film’s financing. The film went on to win the Audience Award for Narrative Feature and Best Cinematography at SXSW in 2008.
Beyond Culture’s launch event at TIFF will feature artists and collaborators from across its slate, including Senegalese-American singer Marieme, who will also perform. Additional participants include Eugenia Kuzmina (Noon), voice actor Karen Strassman, For Love filmmaker Matt Smiley, Narcos: Mexico actor Brionne Davis, Bergner, Olandt, Webber and DeLia.
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