Anna Steiger, an acclaimed mezzo-soprano opera singer based in London and Paris, first surmised she’d been deceived after having a look last fall at Sir Laurence Olivier’s prosthetic nose from Richard III. It was on sale at the Hollywood auction house Julien’s. A friend thought it’d be of interest since her mother, British actress Claire Bloom, had co-starred in the 1955 film.
“Just by sheer chance, I thought, ‘I wonder if there’s anything of my father’s there, too,’ ” Steiger recalls. Her father being Rod Steiger, the Method acting icon best known for his role as police chief Bill Gillespie opposite Sidney Poitier in the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night. “And sure enough, a number of his things — which should’ve been my things,” she contends — “were being sold.” This included his Berlin Bear statuette for 1964’s The Pawnbroker, in which he played the title character, and his David Di Donatello award from the Academy of Italian Cinema for his starring turn in the controversial 1968 gay military drama The Sergeant.
The Academy Award for best actor that Steiger won for In the Heat of the Night wasn’t up for sale — Oscar rules forbid that. But Anna, 65, believes the other awards are rightfully her inheritances and were peddled by her stepsister to Julien’s following the death of Rod’s fifth and final wife, actress Joan Benedict, best known for playing Edith Fairchild on General Hospital.
Since then, Anna has embarked on a quixotic mission to pursue the objects. “It reminds me of Gianni Schicchi,” she says, referring to the Puccini comic opera inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is about an inheritance battle. “Except so far, there’s no finality.”
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Anna Steiger in 1984.
Chris Ridley/Radio Times/Getty Images
Steiger, an actors studio alum who grew up with an alcoholic mother and absent father, died in 2002. While he had his starring roles, his career was defined by playing imperious or impetuous tough guys: the mobster brother opposite Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, the politician in David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago, the judge in the Denzel Washington-fronted The Hurricane.
He was married to Bloom, his second wife, for a decade beginning in 1959. The couple met when both were working on a Broadway adaptation of Rashomon. Anna recalls spending time with them in Malibu as a child pre- and post-divorce. (They separated when she was 9.) “He had this place in the Colony before the area was built up,” she says. “It was just tumbleweeds flying about. It was all still very bohemian out there.”
Steiger’s Oscar triumph with In the Heat of the Night, the social realist drama about racism in the American South, came in a stacked category of nominees that year: Warren Beatty for Bonnie and Clyde, Dustin Hoffman for The Graduate, Paul Newman for Cool Hand Luke and the late Spencer Tracy for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. The 40th Academy Awards telecast, held April 10, 1968, had been postponed by two days because of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. “Most importantly, I’d like to thank Mr. Poitier for the pleasure of his friendship, which gave me the knowledge and understanding of prejudice in order to enhance my performance,” Steiger told the audience at the end of his acceptance speech. “Thank you, and we shall overcome.”
He also played Marlon Brando’s mobster brother in 1954’s On the Waterfront.
Courtesy Everett Collection
Bloom, now 94, who accompanied him to the Oscars that evening, tells The Hollywood Reporter that her then-husband was not like Brando, scorning industry accolades. The Academy Award “meant everything to him — he wanted it desperately, perhaps more than others, because he’d come from nothing and worked himself up,” she says. “It’d been such a great struggle.”
Steiger displayed his statuettes on his mantel for all to see. “He wasn’t the type to put them in the bathroom,” Anna explains. “He was very proud of them — as you should be. They represent quite an achievement.”
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Some of Steiger’s other awards at her Malibu home in 2013.
Roxanne McCann/Getty Images
In 2000, Steiger wed Benedict, herself a seasoned working actress whom he’d met and briefly dated decades earlier. They lived in Malibu and traveled the world together before he died two years later. “Joan was a sweet woman,” Anna says. “I liked her. There was no problem between us.”
Yet there was some wrangling after Steiger’s death over his estate. Attorneys hammered out a legal agreement in 2003 stipulating trust terms, financial distributions and other property issues. Anna shared the documentation with THR. Among its provisions was that Benedict would retain possession of Steiger’s awards until her own death but agreed not to sell or otherwise dispose of them. It also specified that when Benedict died, the items would go to Anna, who in turn was also forbidden from selling them — and agreed to leave them to the Motion Picture Academy or a similar organization upon her death.
Soon after Benedict died in June 2024 of complications from a stroke, Anna wrote Benedict’s sole child, Claudia Myhers, offering condolences and inquiring about the awards she was to inherit. Myhers — who was raised by and took the name of Benedict’s second husband, actor John Myhers, best known as Bert Bratt in the 1967 film How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying — responded by candidly sharing how she felt about caretaking her mother.
“She was quite a handful for the last 6 years suffering from advanced dementia,” Myhers wrote in correspondence, which was shown to THR. “She threw anything and everything away daily.” Myhers noted that Benedict left her “in a huge financial mess taking care of her cremation etc.”
Myhers, a onetime TV movie producer, added, “As far as the awards I have only one possibility that I remember she had some storage unit in her old Malibu condo, there was a space she used. I hadn’t given it a thought in years until this.” She continued, wondering why Anna didn’t ensure that she received her father’s awards earlier: “I’m so sorry this was not meant to be this way for you. You deserve some treasures of his great talent.”
Anna says she followed up with a woman who once worked for her father’s business manager to assess if there was a storage unit. “She said, ‘No, there isn’t,’ and she also said, ‘This [situation] doesn’t feel right. Look into it.’ Of course, she was right.”
Joan Benedict Steiger with her late husband’s Oscar statuette.
Roxanne McCann/Getty Images
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Months later, after learning of the Julien’s auctions, Anna contacted the firm to contest the sales of the trophies but never heard back. Frustrated, she tried again, posing as an interested buyer with the pseudonym “Lily Pons,” after the French American singer who made 1930s musicals at RKO Pictures: “My tiny, pathetic bit of sleuthing, I suppose. But they did answer my question about the seller — ‘a family member.’ I knew who that was.”
Desperate, Anna seriously considered purchasing the Berlin Bear and David Di Donatello statuette (“My favorite one to look at”) from Julien’s herself. “I was going a bit mad,” she says. “I thought, ‘It’s cheaper than going to court, even though this is disgustingly unfair.’ Then I realized it was just ridiculous.” (The Berlin Bear sold for $9,100, and the David Di Donatello went for $3,900.)
Julien’s declined to address whether it undertook chain-of-title research before selling the Steiger items. In a statement to THR, the auction house explained, “Julien’s reviews documentation related to provenance whenever provided to authenticate consigned property. In this instance, we received emails from Anna Steiger claiming she had a right to the property, but never correspondence from legal counsel with any agreement substantiating her claims.”
Anna finds this irresponsible. “You’d think they’d respond and ask for what they need,” she says, adding, “It’s very shabby if you ask me.”
Fed up, Anna hired a private investigator suggested by a friend of a friend who’s an entertainment mogul. It didn’t take long for her to receive a dossier from the operative. The file, reviewed by THR and based on interviews with half a dozen named individuals in regular contact with Benedict at her Beverly Hills apartment before her death, echoed Anna’s suspicions. It contended that while Benedict suffered from memory loss, she remained sharp about the cultural importance of her late husband and cherished his possessions. The dossier also included a text message, sent after Benedict’s death, in which Myhers told an associate, “Tomorrow I meet the lady for posters and awards.”
The P.I. visited Myhers at home, inquiring about the awards. She denied possessing them and claimed her mother had lost them or thrown them away.
THR made several attempts to reach Myhers, who declined to answer questions. She rushed off the phone when informed of this coverage during a recent call: “I’m sorry, I’m going into a surgery right now.” Later, by email, she claimed never to have spoken with THR.
Public records suggest that the past year has been a challenging one for Myhers. Soon after her mother’s death, her ex-husband went to court, requesting leave from continuing to pay spousal support after 17 years.
Her boyfriend, a TV director, died in February. A month earlier, the Palisades Fire swept through Myhers’ neighborhood, permanently displacing thousands of residents. The condo she rented was spared, but nearby blocks were scorched. The homes left standing in the immediate area are unlivable, requiring costly and time-consuming repairs.
Steiger as police chief Bill Gillespie, opposite Sidney Poitier, in 1967’s In the Heat of the Night.
Courtesy Everett Collection
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Anna flew from London to L.A. in April on a fact-finding mission that included a visit to the Academy, hoping to attain a replica of her father’s Oscar (“It turns out that it’s only possible if you’re the recipient, not the child of the recipient”) and meet with its legal department, which assured her that it would intervene with a cease-and-desist notice if Steiger’s statuette went up for sale.
She thought about confronting Myhers in person, hoping “the shock of seeing me” after more than a decade would trigger a breakthrough — then thought better of it: “I kept thinking about what happened with O.J. Simpson in Las Vegas,” she explained, referring to the incident when he ended up in prison over a 2007 dispute involving his memorabilia. “I was thinking, ‘I’m not going to be pushing my way in.’ I had no intention of creating a scene.” Besides, she reasoned, after all that had transpired, her stepsister simply wasn’t going to hand over the Oscar: “There’s no way she’s going to say, ‘Oops, I just found [it] in the closet.’ It would just make it worse.”
Anna, who’s decided against a lawsuit (“I spoke with a lawyer who said the chances are you’ll end up with nothing and go mad”), is indifferent to the notion of any mitigating circumstances or misunderstandings that might have led Myhers to sell the awards. “I don’t have any sympathy,” Anna says. “The bit that upsets me the most is that I think there’s a great level of cruelty here. I know that I would feel dreadful if I held back something personal from someone’s child.”
Bloom sees her daughter’s quest as honorable. “It’s to do with her great love for her father,” she says. “She felt it was her duty to her father to do what she could to take care of his legacy.”
This story appeared in the July 23 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Lionsgate, which is releasing the adaptation of Stephen King novel The Long Walk this fall, is staying in business with the best-selling super-author.
The company has optioned the rights to King’s 1999 novel The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, setting JT Mollner, the filmmaker behind the well-regarded thriller Strange Darling, to write and direct the adaptation.
The project marks a return to King country for Mollner, who wrote the script for Long Walk, which was directed by Francis Lawrence and opens Sept. 12.
Roy Lee, the producer of Long Walk and Strange Darling, will reteam with Mollner for Tom Gordon. Also producing will be Christine Romero, Ryan Silbert and Andrew Childs. Nathan Kahane, who is transitioning from his post as Lionsgate Motion Picture Group president to independent producer, will also join the project in a producorial capacity.
King’s psychological horror novel centers on the harrowing survival story of a nine-year-old girl named Trisha as she struggles to stay alive after getting lost in the woods alone. With only her Walkman radio playing baseball games to keep her company, the girl’s love of pitcher Tom Gordon begins to manifest in hallucinations that may save her life.
“JT is a filmmaker we believe has a bright future,” said Lionsgate Motion Picture Group president Erin Westerman. “Throughout his work, he creates characters, and especially young characters, that are so compelling, heartbreaking, and emotional that they pop off the screen. And of course, that’s what Stephen King does on the page as well. The story of survival and perseverance in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is timeless. We’ve loved this tale for a long time, and JT is the perfect choice to adapt and direct this King fan favorite.”
Meredith Wieck will oversee the project for Lionsgate alongside Pavan Kalidindi. Phil Strina negotiated the deal on behalf of the studio.
Lee has, over the years, amassed an enviable body of work adapting King’s work, including It and It: Chapter Two, as well as Doctor Sleep, and Salem’s Lot. Long Walk, which will have a panel in Hall H Friday at San Diego Comic-Con, adapts King’s 1979 horror novel and stars a list of next generation Hollywood talent.
Mollner previously wrote and directed the indie psychological thriller Strange Darling, which was released in 2024 and scored a critically acclaimed 96 ercent on Rotten Tomatoes. The film received the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films’ best thriller award in 2025, as well as the STIGES Film Festival Grand People’s Choice Award. In addition, Mollner was honored with the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival best director award for the movie.
Mollner is repped by UTA, World Builder Entertainment, and Jackoway Austen.
On the same day that James Gunn’s Superman opened in U.S. theaters, President Donald Trump posted a meme of himself dressed as the Man of Steel. If there was a collective groan on the Warner Bros. lot, home of DC Studios, it’s no surprise. For years, the studio’s marketing mavens have worked to downplay the very pro-American aspect of the comic book hero when peddling the movie franchise internationally.
Superman opened to a promising $125 million domestically in a major win for Gunn and the Warner Bros.-owned DC Studios, which Gunn also happens to run alongside Peter Safran. Overseas was a different story, where the July summer tentpole debuted to $95 million, behind a projected launch of $100 million to $125 million.
The phrase “truth, justice and the American way” became forever aligned with the iconic character in the 1940s, thanks to the radio show Adventures of Superman. Fast-forward to 2006, when Warner Bros. and director Bryan Singer ditched the “American Way” slogan when marketing Superman Returns to a global audience. By that time — unlike the era when the Superman movies starring Christopher Reeves were released — the foreign box office had become integral to the success of a Hollywood tentpole.
In a major step forward for DC’s film division, Singer’s Superman Returns topped out at $391.1 million globally, with foreign ticket sales making up nearly 49 percent of the total gross. And when Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (notice that Superman wasn’t even mentioned in the title) flew into theaters in 2013, it grossed $670.1 million worldwide, with foreign ticket sales making up nearly 57 percent of the total, not adjusted for inflation. The international haul was $379.1 million, versus a domestic tally of $291 million.
Several years later in 2016, Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice fared even better overseas, grossing $544 million — or more than 62 percent of its total cume of $874.4 million (it earned more than $63 million in China alone). Domestically, the sequel grossed $330.4 million, a 38 percent share.
Prior to the pandemic, it wasn’t unheard of for a Hollywood tentpole to see 60 percent to 70 percent of its gross come from overseas. The landscape has changed dramatically since then. Hollywood films can no longer count on China, where the government is making it difficult, if not impossible, for Western films to book screens so as to make room for local nationalist titles. This trend has only gotten worse as the Chinese government retaliates against Trump’s policies. Not to mention that Trump and his administration are a divisive topic across the globe, and not just in China.
Gunn went out of his way to change “the American way” to “the human way” in the film but, so far, Superman is struggling at the international box office. Over opening weekend, only 42 percent of the film’s gross came from overseas. That’s not to say Superman is flailing overall; to the contrary, it crossed the $400 million mark globally in less than two weeks thanks to strong legsddd, including $236.2 million domestically and $173 million overseas through Sunday, July 20. It’s doing strong midweek business; through July 22, the domestic tally stood at $253.2 million.
Gunn is well aware of the difficult predicament overseas and — without referring to Trump directly — said in a recent interview “it also affects things that we have a certain amount of anti-American sentiment around the world right now. It isn’t really helping us. So I think it’s just a matter of letting something grow. But again, for us, everything’s been a total win. Having the movie come out and be something that has been embraced by people everywhere — this is just the seed of the tree that Peter and I have been watering for the past three years. So to be able to have it start off so positively has been incredibly overwhelming.acknowledges that current political times.”
In addition to real-life world affairs and the Trump regime, Superman is facing fierce competition from Universal and Amblin’s Jurassic World Rebirth, which opened less than two weeks before over the long Fourth of July holiday. Case in point: Rebirth‘s worldwide total through July 20 stood at a dino-mite $648 million, including $468.8 million overseas. And it’s defied all odds in earning $72 million in China, while Superman barely cracked $7 million in its opening despite an on-the-ground visit from Gunn and Safran.
To date, Superman is faring best in the U.K., where it has earned $22.3 million through June 20 — its second weekend — followed by Mexico ($16.6 million), Australia ($11 million), France ($8.2 million) and China ($8.5 million). DC insiders believe the film has plenty of time to improve its fortunes, even overseas, thanks to strong word of mouth and even with the entry this weekend of Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Studios don’t envy the position DC and Superman are in when it comes to the overseas box office results so far. “The movie is doing well enough overseas, but they’ve got to be disappointed,” notes one rival studio executive.
July 24, 9:15 a.m.: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the movie’s foreign cume through July 20. THR regrets the error.
This story appeared in the July 23 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
Producer and showrunner Bryan Fuller, known for creating Hannibal and American Gods, is bringing his directorial debut, Dust Bunny, to the Toronto Film Festival for a world premiere as part of the Midnight Madness section.
The horror thriller stars Mads Mikkelsen and Sigourney Weaver, and portrays a young girl asking her neighbor for help killing the monster under her bed that she thinks ate her family. Fuller is headed to Toronto amid the backdrop a 2023 lawsuit brought by fellow Queer for Fear producer Sam Wineman that alleged a hostile workplace environment on set. The next arbitration hearing in the case is scheduled for Feb. 2026.
The 2025 edition of the nocturnal Midnight Madness sidebar, with seven world premieres, will open with Matt Johnson’s Toronto-set Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, which bowed at SXSW, and will close with Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover, a horror comedy about a lonely gravedigger who reanimates her filth-positive beau with his detached finger that had a world premiere in Sundance and has toured widely on the film festival circuit.
‘Dead Lover’
Courtesy of SXSW
There’s also a world premiere for Ben Wheatley’s Normal, a crime thriller where Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk is an unlikely action hero in the role of Ulysses, a substitute sheriff in a small, forgotten town who responds to a bank robbery, only to unknowingly uncover something far more explosive. The pic was penned by Odenkirk and Derek Kolstad, who also wrote the scripts for the John Wick franchise.
The Midnight Madness section also has a first look forKenji Tanigaki’s martial arts action thriller The Furious, where a simple tradesman, played by Chinese star Xie Miao, battles a web of criminals and evil agents to rescue his kidnapped daughter.
Other Midnight Madness titles include Obsession, the latest movie from Curry Barker, who is best known for his viral found footage horror movie Milk & Serial; Aleksandar Radivojević’s profane thriller Karmadonna; Takahide Hori’s stop-motion fantasia Junk World; and two comedies, Nick Corirossi and Armen Weitzman’s The Napa Boys and Todd Rohal’s Fuck My Son!
The Toronto Film Festival is set to run from Sept. 4 to 14. Additional lineup announcements will be made in the coming weeks.
Guillermo del Toro built a monster in Toronto, so four soundstages on the city’s waterfront have been renamed for the horror meister ahead of his latest movie, Frankenstein, lurching onto Netflix in November.
Cinespace Studios at its Marine Terminal Campus designated the four production spaces as “The Guillermo del Toro Stages.” And on Thursday, del Toro was handed the ceremonial keys to city of Toronto after the Oscar-winning director shot a host of movies at the Marine Terminal, including Nightmare Alley and Cabinet of Curiosities.
“The renaming of these stages is a testament to Guillermo’s impact and deep ties to the Toronto film industry and his commitment to storytelling,” Eoin Egan, co-CEO of Cinespace Studios, said in a statement.
For Frankenstein, the Marine Terminal, which has served as a production hub for Netflix, had a full-scale ship floating in the waters off Lake Ontario for the maestro of monsters’ movie shoot. Besides Marine Terminal, del Toro also did on-location shooting in gothic Scotland and England for his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic novel.
The new take on Frankenstein, which will screen in September at the Toronto Film Festival, stars Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as Frankenstein’s monster. The feature also stars Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen, David Bradley, Christian Convery, Charles Dance and Christoph Waltz.
del Toro has been shooting his movies in Toronto since Mimic in 1997, and he shot Pacific Rim, Crimson Peak and The Shape of Water, which recreated Baltimore in 1962, in the Canadian city that has also offered a home to his young family.
“Toronto has been a second home to me and my creative endeavors. To have my name associated with these glorious stages where my beloved crew and colleagues share both work and memories is an immense honor. I am deeply grateful to Cinespace Studios for this recognition, and to the Toronto film community for its unwavering support throughout decades of my career,“ del Toro said in a statement.
The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has unveiled the projects that will receive this year’s grants from its Hubert Bals Fund (HBF), which supports films from less-developed regions. The fund picked 15 feature projects from more than 900 submissions, selecting work from filmmakers from across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas.
This year’s selection includes the first HBF-backed project from Tanzania, the satire Last Cow from director Amil Shivij, whose feature debut Tug of War screened in Toronto in 2021 and was Tanzania’s official Oscar submission. It was picked for this year’s Locarno film festival and will screen in the Open Doors sidebar.
Other African projects this year include Mwadia, a magic-realist drama on Mozambique’s colonial past and present trauma; the feature debut of documentary filmmaker Inadelso Cossa (The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder); Tears, the debut feature from Rwandan director Moise Ganza; and Coumba, the new film from Senegalese director Mamadou Dia, whose HBF-backed debut, Nafi’s Father, won the Golden Leopard at the 2019 Locarno film festival and was Senegal’s official entry for the Oscars.
IFFR alumni talent can be found throughout this year’s selection, with new features from Syrian director Farida Baqi (The Rapture), Indonesia’s Timoteus Anggawan Kusno (Orphaned Atlas), Kazakhstan filmmaker Renata Dzhalo (Nobody to See Us), Malaysian director Amanda Nell Eu (Lotus Feet) and Brazil’s Stephanie Ricci (Boca da noite) among the 2025 HBF recipients.
The selected directors will receive a €10,000 ($11,760) grant each to help develop their projects into finished features.
In addition to its regular fund, the HBF launched two new development schemes this year. Together with two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, the HBF in January announced the Displacement Film Fund, offering grants of €100,000 ($104,000) each to five filmmakers, displaced by war or conflict, to make original shorts.
A jury, made up of Blanchett, Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, documentarians Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Flee) and Waad Al-Kateab (For Sama), director Agnieszka Holland (Green Border), Rotterdam festival director Vanja Kaludjercic, activist and refugee Aisha Khurram and Amin Nawabi [alias], the LGBTQ+ asylum seeker who was Rasmussen’s inspiration for his Oscar-nominated documentary Flee, announced the first fund grantees in Cannes this year.
Also in Cannes, the HBF announced a cooperation with the three leading Brazilian film promotion bodies — Spcine, RioFilme, Projeto Paradiso — launching HBF+Brazil: Co-development Support, a three-year initiative to provide early development funding for up to nine fiction films, with €10,000 ($11,760) grants each. The submission deadline for HBF+Brazil projects, on IFFR.com, is Sept. 15.
Full list of 2025 Herbert Bals Fund development support projects
Amateur, Carlos Díaz Lechuga, Cuba, Spain The Appalling Human Voice of the Animals, Neritan Zinxhiria, Greece, Albania Boca da noite, Stephanie Ricci, Brazil Coumba, Mamadou Dia, Senegal Girl With a Camera, Xiaoxuan Jiang, Hong Kong, China The Immigrants, Suman Mukhopadhyay, India Last Cow, Amil Shivji, Tanzania, Canada Lotus Feet, Amanda Nell Eu, Malaysia Moto, Chris Chong Chan Fui, Malaysia Mwadia, Inadelso Cossa, Mozambique Nobody to See Us, Renata Dzhalo, Kazakhstan, France, Moldova Orphaned Atlas, Timoteus Anggawan Kusno, Indonesia The Rapture, Farida Baqi, Syria, Lebanon, Germany, Netherlands Tears, Moise Ganza, Rwanda Where Shadows Wait, Arya Rothe, India, Italy
