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In a first-look and development deal, Fremantle will become the primary home for all of Fudge Park’s upcoming scripted projects.

The news was unveiled Tuesday following the success of BBC Three’s Daddy Issues, starring Aimee Lou Wood (Sex Education) and David Morrissey (The Walking Dead, Sherwood), which debuted on BBC iPlayer in August and has already been green-lit for a second season.

The U.K. indie will work closely with Fremantle’s Global Drama and International Distribution divisions to help develop its drama and comedy slate, with an aim to break ground in new territories. The deal was brokered by Jill Kellie, vp commercial strategy, commercial & international, and Jonathan Blyth, managing director at Fudge Park.

Set in Stockport, Daddy Issues sees Gemma (Wood) discover she’s pregnant after a one-night stand. With her sister Catherine (Sharon Rooney) in prison and her mum Davina (Susan Lynch) traveling around the world,...

Fremantle, part of media giant Bertelsmann’s Rtl Group, has struck a first-look drama development deal with Roughcut Television, the production firm co-founded by CEO Ash Atalla, the producer of the original British version of The Office and The It Crowd.

The agreement follows the companies’ recent team-up on Paramount+ U.K. & Ireland psychological thriller series Little Disasters, starring Diane Kruger (Troy, Inglourious Basterds) and Jo Joyner (The Wives, For Her Sins).

Roughcut, founded by Atalla and chief operating officer Tim Sealey, is mostly known for comedy shows, such as Big Boys, Stath Lets Flats, and Cuckoo but it has also had success with recent Channel 5 drama Coma, starring Jason Watkins.

“The first-look and drama development deal will see Fremantle become the primary home for Roughcut TV’s scripted drama projects, with the producer working closely with Fremantle’s acclaimed global drama and international distribution divisions,” the companies said.

Global production powerhouse Fremantle has secured a multi-year first-look deal with Nevermind Pictures, the production company founded by Kristen Stewart, partner Dylan Meyer and producer Maggie McLean.

The deal, announced Tuesday, gives Fremantle the first opportunity at all of Nevermind’s film and television projects. Fremantle’s global drama division, under CEO Christian Vesper and COO Seb Shorr, will work closely with Nevermind, while its international distribution arm, Fmi, will handle TV titles.

Oscar-nominee Stewart was last seen in Ross Glass’ pulpy lesbian noir Love Lies Bleeding, which has done solid business for A24, grossing more than $8 million domestically; and alongside Michael Cera in the Michael Angarano-directed road comedy Sacramento, which premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Festival. Meyer, who got engaged to Stewart in 2021, is a screenwriter with a co-writing credit on the Amy Poehler-directed Netflix feature Moxie. McLean is best-known for her production work on music videos for...

Richard Davis, the prolific bassist who adorned jazz classics by Pharoah Sanders, Eric Dolphy, and Andrew Hill and laid the musical foundation for Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, has died at the age of 93.

Davis’ daughter Persia confirmed her father’s death Thursday on both a memorial page and to Madison 365; Davis taught at the University of Wisconsin for over 40 years, but spent the last two years in hospice care. “We appreciate all the love and support the community has shown him over the years,” Persia Davis added.

The Chicago-born...

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Sustainability continues to get starring roles in Hollywood, and now Hilary Duff and Brümate are taking their commitment to Mother Earth a step further with a new line of celestial-inspired reusables for every type of beverage lover.

The 35-year-old How I Met Your Father star’s Astral collection ($10-$70) includes Brümate’s triple-insulated leakproof drinkware for everything from coffee to champagne, including Hopsulator can coolers, multi-purpose Nav and Toddy mugs, smoothie-ready MultiShakers and straws, Uncork’d wine vessels and the two-in-one Togosa bottle chiller and leakproof pitcher. The range features three prints in matte finishes: the ivory Sol motif with sun designs, the Midnight Meditation black colorway with bronze stars and astrology elements and the terracotta Ethereal pattern with textured suns, moons and stars.

Related: The Best...

Indie ethos, costume drama and rich fantasy won the day at the world’s top cinematography event, EnergaCamerimage Film Festival, on Saturday, with Joshua James Richards’ naturalistic filming in Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” taking the Golden Frog plus Fipresci jury honors. The chronicle of life on the rough edges of America’s society among retirees living on the road in trailers, based on Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book “Nomadland: Surviving in the Twenty-First Century,” is considered a strong Oscars contender.

The 28th edition of Camerimage also wrapped with its award to an actor of unique visual sensitivity for Johnny Depp, whose Japan-set war correspondent story “Minamata,” filmed by Benoit Delhomme, screened at the fest. Depp said in a letter to the fest that shooting with the celebrated Dp was “a sort of dance” encouraged by director Andrew Levitas, who “encouraged us to explore.”

Fest president Marek Zydowicz described the fest...

We're not going to say these are the best horror flicks to watch, ever.

But we are gonna say there are a bunch of random streaming spooks with which to busy ourselves this pandemic-riddled All Hallow's Eve. We've checked many out for you here -- but are you like me, thinking there isn't really a such thing as a "scary" movie?

Anyhoodles, instead of sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves with nothing to do, we can sit around feeling sorry for ourselves and watch some creepy shit. Now, in no particular order:

Jessabelle (Hulu) - 2014

Just as they are about to start a new life together, Jesse (Sarah Snook) and her boyfriend get into a hardcore car accident, killing him, crippling her.

Moving in with her estranged father to recover back "home," Jesse encounters a lingering, dark spirit.

Is this entity the tormenting or the tormented? And what does it...

You want trailers? Folks, we’ve got trailers for miles. We have so many trailers that you better watch your step, because you might trip over them. It’s crazy how many trailers we have! With such an abundance of movie trailers clogging up the place, we have no choice but to take extreme measures: a trailer […]

The post Trailer Round-Up: ‘An Acceptable Loss’, ‘The Last Man’, ‘Blue My Mind’, ‘The Quake’, ‘A Madea Family Funeral’, ‘Astral’, ‘When Jeff Tried to Save the World’ appeared first on /Film.

You’ll wish you could project yourself into a different entertainment dimension while slogging through “Astral.” This almost perversely uneventful, talky attempt at horror involves college students with malevolent spirits, only the ghoulies take their bloody time to manifest, while the protagonists are even duller than usual in such enterprises. This Brit indie feature debut for director/co-scenarist Chris Mul is mostly impressive for having wrangled overseas theatrical distribution at all: It opens on 10 Stateside screens simultaneous with a digital/VOD launch.

In a prologue, a young woman is released from a psychiatric hospital, only to seemingly commit suicide while investigating poltergeist-y sounds upstairs from her sleeping husband. Fifteen years or so later, their only child Alex (Frank Dillane) is a university student intrigued by a professor’s theoretical discussion of the astral plane. He decides to personally attempt “astral projection” — having a deliberate “out-of-body experience” in which the spirit...

What if there is another dimension where the past, present, and future collide, and what if there was something watching us from that other side? The thin line between our world and a spatial dimension is explored in Astral, and with the new horror movie coming to select theaters and VOD and digital platforms beginning November 23rd from Vertical Entertainment, we caught up with co-writer/director Chris Mul in our latest Q&A to discuss shooting his film in two weeks, working with a talented cast of young stars (including Frank Dillane from Fear The Walking Dead), and his research (and unnerving real-life experiences) of astral projection and shadow people.

Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for us, and congratulations on your first feature-length film, Astral. How and when did you and Michael Mul come up with the idea for this movie?

Chris Mul: I remember Michael...

When a living person interacts with the spirit world, anything can happen. Astral, starring Frank Dillane (Fear the Walking Dead), will have a theatrical run as well as hit several digital platforms on November 23rd. Also: a look at Comet TV's full November guide, Evil Intent's Amazon release details, and info on Miskatonic Institute Horror Studies - NYC's "Ha! Aaah! The Painful Relationship Between Humor and Horror."

Astral Release Details: "Coming to terms with the explanation of his mother's untimely death, Alex turns to spiritual contact after the relationship with his father breaks down. As a student of metaphysics, Alex learns of the "scientific" premise of astral projection-the ability to project your spirit into an unseen spatial dimension. Attempting to astral project, Alex becomes plagued by shadow spirits-malevolent entities vying to enter his body to access our world. Alex soon learns that he is not the only member of his...

I’ve got a spooky trailer here for you to watch for a new horror thriller coming out called Astral. The film follows a metaphysics university student who starts to mess around with astral projection and explore the scientific possibility of traveling to another dimension through by projecting his spirit.

As you might imagine things don’t go over very well and nightmarish and horrific things start to happen. I mean, what do you expect when you start messing around with Astral Projection and Ouija Boards? You’re just asking for trouble!

Here’s the synopsis:

Coming to terms with the explanation of his mother's untimely death, Alex (Dillane) turns to spiritual contact after the relationship with his father breaks down. As a student of metaphysics, Alex learns of the "scientific" premise of astral projection—the ability to project your spirit into an unseen spatial dimension. Attempting to astral project,...

"I can't really tell you how to do it, I can only describe how I did it." Vertical Entertainment has released the first official trailer for an indie horror thriller from the UK titled Astral, the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Chris Mul. The film's story follows a metaphysics university student who discovers the practice of "astral projection" and the scientific possibility of a dimension outside our own. Coming to terms with the untimely death of his mother, Alex turns to astral projection in an attempt to reconnect with her. Of course, evil never dies. Astral stars Frank Dillane as Alex, with Vanessa Grasse, Damson Idris, Catherine Steadman, Trevor White, and Darwin Shaw. At first glance, this seems pretty much like every other demonic spirit horror film out there, I'm not really sure what makes it unique. But it's worth a look anyway. Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Chris Mul's Astral,...

We're starting to trudge into deep weeds for ideas on supernatural horror movies and next up in the mix is astral projection.

Writer, producer and director Chris Mul is making his feature debut with Astral which stars Frank Dillane of "Fear the Walking Dead" fame as Alex Harmann, a college student who becomes obsessed with the idea of using astral projection to connect with his dead mother. You can guess where things go from here: the connection opens the door for terrible spirits from the other side.

Along with Dillane, the movie also stars Vanessa Grasse (Roboshark and Leatherface.

Admittedly this looks like a lot of other horror movies about malevolent spirits but I really like Dillane who is one of the key reasons I've kept with "Fear t...

Indie company Alarm Pictures takes UK rights.

Alarm Pictures has bought UK rights to Chris Mul’s paranormal thriller Astral, starring Frank Dillane, Vanessa Grasse and Damson Idris.

It is the story of a metaphysics student who discovers the practice of astral projection and the scientific possibility of a dimension outside our own.

Christos Kardana and Chris Mul of Craven Street have produced the film. Filmseekers has rights outside the UK and Us.

The film previously landed North American distribution with Vertical Entertainment.

Creative agency Coffee & Cigarettes negotiated the deal on behalf of the filmmakers. Alarm Pictures, which specialises in edgy indie films,...

Canadian actor and online filmmaker Sonja O’Hara just signed with Wme.

O’Hara been recognized by multiple award shows for her work creating digital series. She received Best Director in 2016 at the New York Television Festival for her work on Doomsday, an Amazon Prime series about a fictional cult in upstate New York, before receiving a Streamy nomination in 2017 and becoming a 2018 Webby Awards honoree (also for Doomsday). Her feature film Ovum, released by The Orchard in 2017, won Best Picture at The Big Apple Film Festival.

Currently, O’Hara is preparing to write, direct, and act in the future digital series Astral. The project is being produced by Adaptive Studios, the company behind Netflix movie Coin Heist and HBO’s Project Greenlight. The series will follow three millennial women who attend an academy for astral projection, according to IMDb. The filmmaker/actor also spoke at the SXSW Film Festival...

The film, featuring ’Fear The Walking Dead star Frank Dillane, has been picked up for sales by Film Seekers.

Chris Mul’s UK paranormal thriller Astral has scored a deal with Vertical Entertainment for North American distribution and has also been picked up for international sales by Film Seekers.

The film stars Frank Dillane (Fear The Walking Dead), Vanessa Grasse (Leatherface) and Damson Idris (Farming) in the story of a metaphysics student who discovers the practice of astral projection and the scientific possibility of a dimension outside our own. Coming to terms with the death of his mother, Alex turns...