Ezra Miller has talked of a possible return to Hollywood after facing controversial allegations in 2022.
They told the Italian outlet Lo Speciale Giornale, while attending this year’s Filming Italy Sardegna Festival 2025, that a “tentative” return to the film industry was possible. Miller added they were working with director Lynne Ramsay after attending the Cannes Film Festival in May to support the premiere of her film Die My Love.
“I came to Cannes to support one of my closest friends in the world, who’s Lynne Ramsay, who I think is one of the greatest living filmmakers. I’m working with her, again, that will likely be the first thing I do, a film that her and I are writing together,” Miller revealed in the video interview that was posted to Lo Speciale Giornale‘s YouTube account.
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They worked with Ramsay on her 2011 film We Need to Talk About Kevin. Miller added that attending Cannes was a tough ask but followed an invitation from Ramsay.
“I didn’t necessarily want to go to Cannes. That’s a tough re-entry point. If you’ve been in the woods for three years, I do not recommend going straight to Cannes, where every photographer and every weirdo, every rich, genocidal freak, is there. It’s not an easy re-entry,” they said.
But Miller added they respected Ramsay enough to trust her with their return to Hollywood. “I believe in her more than the rest of it. When we got through those crucibles, if we can survive — which was up in the air for me, if I’m being real — we then have that capacity to see other people in their crucibles and just to reach towards them,” they insisted.
A possible return for Miller to filmmaking follows a string of controversial incidents from 2020-2022, which included a number of arrests and culminated in Miller issuing a statement apologizing for their behavior, citing “complex mental health issues” and noting they were seeking treatment.
Miller said a possible return to Hollywood came after they found out during personal challenges whose support they had.
“When you work in this industry, you will find yourself in deep, deep relation with a lot of people who do not give a single fuck about you or your well-being at all. Not that I don’t hold a lot of remorse and lamentation for a lot of things that I did, and for a lot of things that happened in that time, but I’m really, really grateful for the lessons that came with that abyss,” Miller told the Italian outlet.
At the same time, Miller said they had no artistic regrets.
“I don’t. I’ll be honest, probably the reason why I don’t is I don’t really think about it. The process for me is where the magic is. The work is for other people’s judgment. For me, it’s not my job. It’s not my job to figure out whether an expression I was involved in is good or bad, or how it compares to other expressions,” they said.
Monster Summer will soon be available for streaming during an appropriate season.
Director David Henrie‘s coming-of-age adventure film is set to make its streaming debut via Paramount+ With Showtime on July 1, The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively learned. Mason Thames, Mel Gibson, Kevin James, Lorraine Bracco and Patrick Renna star in the movie that Pastime Pictures released theatrically last October, just in time for Halloween.
Monster Summer centers on a group of friends teaming with a retired police detective to save their island from a mysterious presence.
Henrie helmed the film from a script by Cornelius Ulian and Bryan Schulz. Producers include Mark Fasano, James Henrie, John Blanford and Dan McDonough.
Thames can currently be seen in theaters as the star of director Dean DeBlois’ Universal live-action film remake How to Train Your Dragon, alongside Nico Parker and Gerard Butler. Thames is also known for the 2022 release Black Phone and stars later this year in the features Black Phone 2 and Regretting You.
Gibson recently directed Lionsgate’s Mark Wahlberg-led thriller Flight Risk and is preparing to shoot the sequel to The Passion of the Christ.
In an interview with THRthat published earlier this month, Thames shared insight into the types of projects he would hope to land in the future.
“I would love to do another superhero film — a DC film or a Marvel film,” the 17-year-old actor said at the time. “I used to go to the theater with my dad as a kid to watch all the Marvel movies, and that kind of feeling is pretty cool. So maybe I’ll get to do one of those one day.”
The Alliance of Women Directors has announced its second class of Mentor Latina Directors fellows Friday.
Mentor Latina Directors, a minimum one-year minimum, is offered to emerging and mid-career filmmakers across various narrative, documentary and unscripted mediums in television and film. The fellowship includes a slew of programming including one-on-one mentorship from industry professionals, monthly panels on craft and career sustainability, workshops catered to the cohort and a mid-year retreat.
“This program is designed to do more than develop careers; it’s a robust and vibrant place where artists can explore, risk and rise,” AWD board member and fellowship creator and chair Donna Bonilla Wheeler said in a release. “Fellows are empowered to push boundaries and swing for the fences, with craft, with voice and with courage.”
The 2025 cohort includes Iris Almaraz, Elaine Del Valle, Karla Espino, Danielle Gibson, Alejandra López, Lorena Lourenço, Itziar Martinez, Sylvia Ray, Sienna Serrano, Jessica Silvetti, Margaux Susi and Cynthia Garcia Williams.
“Like our first year cohort, [the 2025 class are] a crucial part of ensuring that breakthrough storytelling and new voices get out there,” AWD founder and chairwoman Jennifer Warren said in a release. “The striking range of their work builds anticipation for some fantastic cinematic experiences to come for global audiences.”
AWD was established in 1997 by graduates of the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women, hoping to create community for members to exchange information and support their career advancement in entertainment.
“We’re proud to showcase this fellowship as one of the only directing-focused fellowship programs of its kind, created specifically to uplift Latina and Indigenous voices in film and television,” AWD interim executive director Kylie Eaton said in a statement. “In an industry where Latina and Indigenous directors are still underrepresented, this fellowship offers not just mentorship, but a powerful community and career support structure built by and for these Latina creatives.”
Saudi Arabian director Haifaa al-Mansour, indie producer Effie T. Brown and Universal Pictures VP creative technologies and Academy Science & Technology Council Chair Annie Chang will be joining the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 55-seat board of governors as governors-at-large next month, the Academy announced on Monday.
The trio were appointed by outgoing president Janet Yang — who is herself, along with Devon Franklin and Rodrigo García, one of the three current governors-at-large who are about to finish their second consecutive three-year term, and therefore are mandated by Academy rules to step away from the board for at least two years — and were then confirmed by the full board to three-year terms.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Haifaa, Effie and Annie to the Academy’s board of governors,” Yang said in a statement. “Their wealth of experiences, perspectives and dedication will be vital to our ongoing global and industry outreach efforts. I also thank my fellow at-large governors Devon Franklina dn Rodrigo García for their incredible leadership over the past six years.”
The three governors-at-large seats were added to the board in Jan. 2016, in the immediate aftermath of a second consecutive year of Oscar nominations without a nonwhite acting nominee — a situation quickly labeled #OscarsSoWhite — to make sure that the board would always include at least three not-white-males tasked with looking out for the cause of inclusion in all actions undertaken by the board.
The original three governors-at-large, who were appointed by then-president Cheryl Boone Isaacs and confirmed by the board in March 2016, were Reginald Hudlin (directors branch), Gregory Nava (writers branch) and Jennifer Yuh Nelson (short films and feature animation branch).
As a result of the appointments of al-Mansour, Brown and Chang, on top of the general election results that were shared last week, the board, during the 2025-2026 term, will be 55 percent female and 31 percent members of underrepresented communities.
Marriages crumble, crash and intertwine in the official trailer for Splitsville.
Following a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival last month, Neon and Topic Studios released the trailer for director Michael Angelo Covino’s and co-writer Kyle Marvin’s second feature Monday. The open-marriage comedy stars Dakota Johnson, Adria Arjona, Corvino and Marvin, with Nicholas Braun, David Castañeda, O-T Fagbenle and Charlie Gillespie rounding out the cast.
The trailer unveils a series of nail-biting, raunchy and hilarious moments. The film’s synopsis is as follows: “After Ashley (Arjona) asks for a divorce, good-natured Carey (Marvin) runs to his friends, Julie (Johnson) and Paul (Covino), for support. He’s shocked to discover that the secret to their happiness is an open marriage, that is until Carey crosses the line and throws all of their relationships into chaos.”
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Splitsville serves as a reunion for Corvino and Marvin, whose first feature, The Climb, premiered at Cannes in 2019. While both films highlight the aftermath of getting involved with the other’s significant other, Splitsville shows the writing duo expanding into broader material.
“After we made The Climb, Kyle and I started working on a couple of different stories and scripts that were a bit bigger — different themes, different kinds of worlds,” Covino told THR ahead of the film’s Cannes premiere. “This project really came out of a desire to get back to something we could make in a more contained way. Something we didn’t have to ask for a ton of permission to do.”
For decades, there has been no better way for Hollywood marketers to drum up interest in their films than to play trailers for thousands of fans settled in their seats at cinemas across the country waiting for the main attraction to begin. But this age-old tradition is being disrupted by an aggressive push to sprinkle in a sampling of commercials between trailers and the regular parade of supplemental spots promoting concessions and rules of the road (as in, no texting!).
Consumers — thanks to reserved seating — are realizing there’s no need to show up at the stated showtime if the actual movie may not begin until 20 minutes to 30 minutes later.
The erosion has been years in the making. In September of 2019, not long before COVID-19 struck, Cinemark Theatres and Regal Cinemas — the country’s two largest chains behind AMC Theatres — signed a landmark deal with ad company National CineMedia to show as much as five minutes of commercials after a movie’s official start time, and then air a 30-second to 60-second “Platinum Spot” before the one or last two trailers. Retail partners have included the likes of Jeep, E.L.F. Cosmetics, Google and Cook, among a number of other top brands.
At the time, NCM CEO Tom Lesinski said it was “the most significant strategic announcement since the company was founded in 2003.” Prior to that, NCM was relegated to playing commercials before the official showtime. He also suggested said market leader AMC active talks to join the initiative.
It fast turned into a boxing match. AMC issued a terse denial hours later, saying it flatly rejected the idea because of concerns that U.S. moviegoers would “react quite negatively to the concept.” Continuing, AMC, the country’s largest chain, said it had “no plan to introduce commercial advertising close to the start of a movie’s commencement at its theatres in the United States, nor does AMC envision entering into such an arrangement with NCM anytime in the foreseeable future.”
But times change and AMC, facing financial pressure, is reversing course. “Our competitors have fully participated for more than five years without any direct impact to their attendance,” AMC said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month. The chain added, “The new deal between AMC and NCM allows both companies to drive new revenues to offset the impact of being hit by the shutdown of cinemas due to the COVID pandemic, followed by an at times faltering Hollywood industry recovery since the reopening of theaters and advertising being affected by macro-economic headwinds.”
The deal takes effect July 1, just in time for Universal’s Jurassic World Rebirth and DC Studios/Warner Bros.’ Superman. AMC is already known for its lengthy preshow time, which runs 25 to 30 minutes, so it will have to reconfigure its lineup — which includes the famous Nicole Kidman spot promoting the “magic” of moviegoing — to allow for the new ads without going over the half-hour mark. AMC declined to comment, but other sources say it will begin addressing the preshow on its ticketing platforms the week of June 23 and, fingers crossed, hope its audiences won’t mind the change too much.
According to EntTelligence, the firm founded by Steve Buck, only 60 percent of moviegoers this year were in their seats when trailers started playing. “Moviegoing behavior is shifting and continued experimentation with how to engage audiences is necessary,” he says.
The decline in attendance at the start of trailer play in New York and Los Angeles — the country’s two largest moviegoing markets — is particularly noticeable. And in recent screenings that have been observed by THR, attendees arrived after the stated showtime and as trailers were playing, a sign that consumers are recognizing what chains are doing. So far this year, only 42 percent of L.A. moviegoers were in their seats in time to see every trailer, compared to 55 percent last year. The New York stat is likewise 42 percent this year, compared to 47 percent last year.
Or, as one ticket buyer noted over the June 20-22 weekend when 28 Years Later started playing at a prominent L.A. theater after a lengthy preshow, “finally.”
A version of this story appeared in the June 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
