movies
‘Love Story’ Stars Video Interview On Iconic Romance, Playing Famous Folks, More
Paul Anthony Kelly knew when he took on the role of such an icon as the beloved John F. Kennedy Jr, a person America and the world has known since he was just a little boy learning to walk, that it would be no easy task. ”It’s very challenging playing a historical individual, certainly one who’s so well known and well regarded,” he said. “I think the biggest challenge was just for myself to find the humanity in it and keep it real and honest, while also navigating how people perceive him and and hold him in their hearts.”
Considering the level of success the FX limited series from Ryan Murphy under his “Love Story” umbrella has had in terms of critical acclaim, viewership and now seven Emmy nominations, he and his co-stars succeeded beyond all expectations. Kelly joined Deadline’s Contenders Television: The Nominees Studio along with co-stars Sarah Pidgeon, who plays Carolyn Bessette, and Constance Zimmer, who plays her mother Ann Marie Freeman, to talk about the series and why it has resonated.
RELATED: Contenders Television: The Nominees Studio – Deadline’s Complete Coverage
Watch the conversation here and scroll down for more photos from the event.
For Pidgeon — who is Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series, Anthology or Television Movie — Bessette was a person who had to navigate a sudden explosion of fame and curiosity while staying true to herself, and it wasn’t always easy. Pidgeon could relate to that just shooting this show.
“Well, we’re making a television show, but I think that started to sort of wake up my nervous system. You know, the awareness that someone is watching you or filming you, capturing you beyond the film camera that’s in your face for the television show,” she said. “In some ways, I think because my nervous system reacted in my head, I thought, ‘Well, this is akin to what she might have been experiencing.’ And I think that was something that I found really exciting and an important part of her story to share, because I think especially, you know, 30 years on, we can reflect on that, the advent of paparazzi culture in a very different way. But Carolyn never spoke on the record. So in a way, I was able to showcase what that experience might have been for her through me in this iteration of Carolyn, sort of setting the record straight.”
Playing her mother — someone well out of the limelight of the Kennedys and a woman who would lose not only one daughter but two in the tragic 1999 crash that took their lives in a plane piloted by JFK Jr — was quite extraordinary and sensitive for Zimmer to play, especially since Ann is no longer alive. She has been nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Supporting Role for a Limited Series, Anthology or Television Movie.
“I think for me, because there wasn’t as much known about her as there was about the majority of the other people in the show, it gave me a freedom to all I had to do was look like the photo and then everything else. I could basically give her the power, give her a voice, give a voice to the voiceless,” Zimmer said. “Which is also a little bit of what happened with Carolyn, as we didn’t get to know her that way. And so I think this being based on the book and, and this being very much a little bit more of Carolyn’s point of view is the side of the story we never knew. And so I felt incredibly honored, and a lot of pressure, to make sure that whatever I did was just to make her somebody that nobody would forget.”
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movies
‘Ghost Rider’ Sets July 2028 Release; Other Disney 2028 Pic Dates From D23
Disney sent out a list of 2028 theatrical release dates and then some, most of which we told you about both separately on D23’s big Friday night and in our outlook from the studio’s big film lineup.
Prominently, while we knew Ghost Rider was opening in 2028, Disney has officially made it known that the Ryan Gosling starring, Shawn Levy directed motorcycle riding anti-hero movie is hitting theaters on July 28, 2028, weekend the studio already had on hold for an untitled Marvel Studios movie. Again, the end of the July is the new hot launchpad post Covid for Marvel pics like Deadpool & Wolverine and Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Shifting earlier in 2027 is the Starlight Pictures suspense horror, Monitor, going from April 30 net year to April 16. Blurb for pic from Matt Black and Ryan Polly: After a disturbing video surfaces online, something begins to spread – moving from screen to screen and targeting anyone who watches. No escape. No warning. Once you’ve seen it – it’s already too late.
Disney is still calling dibs on an untitled movie, switching it from Feb. 18, 2028 to Feb. 11, 2028.
As previously announced, these mega pic dates are as follows:
Pixar’s Ghost Market on March 10, 2028
Disney live-action Tangled on March 31, 2028
Marvel Studio’s untitled X-Men on May 5, 2028.
New Disney Animation movie Clay on Nov. 22, 2028.
Black Panther 3 on Dec. 15, 2028.
Coco 2 on Nov. 21, 2029.
In 2029, there’s also an untitled Marvel movie which has been updated to being an untitled Disney movie, schedule for Nov. 9 that year.
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movies
‘Rick And Morty’: Dan Harmon Talks The Show’s Behind-The-Scenes Reboot
There was “a great deal of turbulence,” Dan Harmon acknowledged, following co-creator and star Justin Roiland’s 2023 ouster from Adult Swim‘s Rick and Morty ahead of Season 7, amid domestic violence charges (which were ultimately dropped) and other allegations of misconduct. But it feels now, that the ship has been righted and the page has been turned.
“This was a show that was grandfathered in from an era of less accountability, less awareness, less complication, and just creating a workplace where everybody felt human and grown up, that was enough to take several years,” said Rick and Morty co-creator, writer and executive producer Harmon at Deadline’s Contenders Television: The Nominees Studio, appearing alongside showrunner/EP Scott Marder.
Watch the conversation below and scroll down for photos from the event.
One of the biggest behind-the-scenes shifts, Harmon said, has been fostering a workplace “where collaboration replaced the auteur model — where even an egomaniac like me could admit and benefit from the fact that people that went to art school actually know better than me how to tell a story.”
Credited by Harmon as instrumental to the changes he described, Marder told us another facet of Rick and Morty’s evolution has been creating a work environment that’s a bit less brutal — where systems were put in place to ensure the show wouldn’t “kill any one particular person” with work demands.
“It’s a really tough show. We rewrite constantly, all that sort of stuff,” Marder noted. “By the time [Season] 9 was in place, all these systems were working and gelling, and morale was high.”
Gratifying, for Marder, is the quality of work that has resulted from Rick and Morty’s behind-the-scenes reboot. This year, Rick and Morty — a comedy chronicling the dimension-hopping misadventures of a cynical genius scientist and his anxious teenage grandson — scored its fifth Emmy nomination for Outstanding Animated Program. The show’s first nom since 2023 affords it a chance to win the category for a third time.
“What’s cool about Season 9 is it’s the first one that I’ve heard people even put up there with the first two, which really feels rewarding,” said Marder. “I feel like Season 9 is the most in-sync flow we’ve had with the directors and art teams…which is why…people love the writing, but they also feel like the art has picked up, as well.”
During their chat with Deadline, the Rick and Morty duo confirmed that Season 10 is on track to premiere next summer. Joking that “it’s being generated by Palantir as we speak,” Harmon also spoke to his “cynical fear” for the future of adult animation — the question being, “how possible is this tomorrow?”
Harmon argued that the Covid pandemic created “an illusion of huge demand” for this kind of content, but notes that animation has always been “a high-risk, high-yield thing.”
“It’s not slop; it’s not driven by an algorithm,” Harmon said. “It takes longer to make your pilot than the average executive’s job is going to be secure. I don’t mean that to be crass because I could say the same thing about actors, writers, everybody. I mean, Venice is sinking.”
The counterargument to Harmon’s cynicism is a show like Adult Swim’s Common Side Effects, which he described as being imbued with “a sort of unprecedented humanity.”
“Fingers crossed, adult animation continues to be a thing. Because I believe that what Mike White does with White Lotus can be done even more effectively with animation,” Harmon said. “It’s a medium that that has a huge use for redeeming humanity.”
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movies
Connie Britton Pays Tribute To ‘Nashville’ Co-Star Hayden Panettiere
Following her breakout role as cheerleader Claire Bennett on NBC’s Heroes, Hayden Panettiere in 2012 was cast as the co-lead opposite Connie Britton in the ABC country music drama Nashville.
Following Panettiere’s passing at the age of 36, Britton posted a heartfelt tribute on Instagram.
“This was Hayden. Bursting with brilliance, shining so bright,” Britton wrote next to carousel of photos from Nashville. “I have no words for this sad song. Just heartbreak. I love you girl. Sleep easy now. 💔”
Panettiere was actually the first of the two leads to be cast in the show, joined later by the Friday Night Lights star.
The series centered on 40-year-old Nashville superstar Rayna James (Britton) who is stunned to find that her star is fading and her label requires her to team up with teen sensation Juliette Barnes (Panettiere) on tour–or else face the loss of her own tour and the label’s promotion of her latest record, whose sales have been underwhelming.
It was the dynamic between Rayna and Juliette and the chemistry Britton and Panettiere that made Nashville a hit.
In later seasons, the show, which moved from ABC to CMT after four years, chronicled Juliette’s struggles with alcoholism, substance abuse and postpartum depression, all issues Panettiere had been dealing with in real life. She admitted in interviews that doing the storyline that mirrored her experiences was traumatizing.
Panettiere had a rocky tenure on Nashville. Her addiction problems would spiral, impacting production. Meanwhile, she felt that the show did not have her back.
“It’s just shocking to me how little empathy people had,” she said of Nashville a couple of months ago while promoting her memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning, published this past May. “There were plenty of people who made the choice to not protect me.”
When it came to Britton, Panettiere always had nice things to say, calling her “amazing,” “so supportive” and “just a class act.”
“Just being able to be on screen with her, I was honored,” Panettiere told EW last year.
Nashville came from Lionsgate, which co-produced the series with ABC Studios.
“Lionsgate and the entire Nashville family mourn the tragic passing of Hayden Panettiere, a singular talent who brought so much life, radiance and conviction to the role of Juliette Barnes,” the indie studio, said in a statement. “Her unflinching and nuanced portrayal of a rising star ingenue captivated millions of fans around the world for six wonderful seasons. She has left us far too young, but we are richer for the gifts she shared with us in the many film and television roles she inhabited with so much grace and vitality. Our heartfelt condolences go out to her family and friends.”
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