Wenlei Ma

1 week ago | thenightly.com.au | Wenlei Ma

When you read about the gargantuan budgets of studio blockbusters in the hundreds of millions of dollar range, know that the marketing campaign can cost almost as much as every cent spent on actors’ salaries, sets, costuming, catering and visual effects. It’s not unusual for a studio to drop $US150 million on promotions on top of a $US250m production bill. That viral Wicked campaign? It wasn’t cheap, costing a reported $US150m against a production invoice that was said to be the same.

1 week ago | thenightly.com.au | Wenlei Ma

Donald Trump said he will impose a 100 per cent tariff on all movies produced outside of America. The announcement was light on detail, other than that he has instructed the Department of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative to begin the process. Mr Trump claimed that the effort was necessary to restore a “dying” American movie industry that has been incentivised by foreign governments to offshore many of its productions. Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.

1 week ago | thenightly.com.au | Wenlei Ma

If you’re wondering why we didn’t get a second season of the pretty good Hawkeye streaming series, Jeremy Renner is spilling the tea. The Marvel actor said Disney lowballed him on salary, offering only half of what he was paid for the first season. He told the High Performance podcast, “They asked me to do season two and they offered me half the money.

1 week ago | thenightly.com.au | Wenlei Ma

If you don’t love Gillian Anderson, please grab your shoes and show yourself the door. She is a queen who not only played an iconic character in Dana Scully, but has carved out a brilliant career since The X-Files wrapped up in 2002. How many people can say they played Scully plus Margaret Thatcher, Stella Gibson and Eleanor Roosevelt? But we don’t know if that means we want to see Anderson don a trench coat and return to the ranks of the FBI. Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.

1 week ago | thenightly.com.au | Wenlei Ma

The two Simple Favour movies are about a vibe. Sure, it has some characters and a story, but those crucial elements are secondary to the mood. You’re not meant to think too hard about the plot of this comedic murder caper. Technically, its many ludicrous twists and turns track, but it barely bears interrogating because it’s all too unfathomable. But the outlandishness is the point. There may not be anything supernatural or sci-fi about them, but these movies live outside of our reality.