Tag Archives: Hollywood Reporter

Punk Goes Down Under in Comedy Head South

Punk Goes Down Under in Comedy Head South

Punk arrives in New Zealand, a little bit late, in Head South, the new dramedy from New Zealand director Jonathan Ogilvie (Lone Wolf, The Tender Hook) which opened this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam…

Taika Waititi on the Cover of Hollywood Reporter

Taika Waititi on the Cover of Hollywood Reporter

With sly and subversive humour, multihyphenate powerhouse Taika Waititi is redefining representation – “Comedy is a great way of pulling people in and going, ‘Hey, we’re all friends. Get comfortable. You’re racist’” – while…

THR Puts Two Campion Films on Best of Century List

THR Puts Two Campion Films on Best of Century List

“Over the course of a few months, several Zoom meetings, and countless emails, six Hollywood Reporter (THR) film critics came together to hash out, and rank, what they consider the 50 greatest films since…

Thomasin McKenzie Burns Up the Screen in Eileen

Thomasin McKenzie Burns Up the Screen in Eileen

“What a strange and spellbinding psychological thriller has woven out of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel, Eileen,” Hollywood Reporter reviewer David Rooney writes. “Rippling with sly humour and a bold command of the tropes…

Lindsay Lohan in Allbirds Running Shoe Campaign

Lindsay Lohan in Allbirds Running Shoe Campaign

American actress and entrepreneur Lindsay Lohan is fronting Allbirds new running shoe campaign celebrating the New Zealand-American sustainable brand’s eco-friendly bright pink sneakers. Lohan stars in the company’s new campaign promoting its new eco-conscious Tree…

Ghosts Rose McIver Stands Out in Ensemble Comedy

Ghosts Rose McIver Stands Out in Ensemble Comedy

Rose McIver, the 33-year-old New Zealand native who began acting as a child, recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about her interest in finding the emotional relatability in flamboyant characters and situations and the…

New Doco Explores Jane Campion’s Filmography

New Doco Explores Jane Campion’s Filmography

Drawing upon interviews from throughout the New Zealander’s career, Julie Bertuccelli’s documentary Jane Campion: The Cinema Woman, which premiered at Cannes, explores the process and philosophy of the Power of the Dog helmer. Sheri…

Peter Jackson to Receive Visual Effects Accolade

Peter Jackson to Receive Visual Effects Accolade

New Zealand film director Sir Peter Jackson will receive the Visual Effects Society Lifetime Achievement Award at the 19th annual VES Awards, which will be presented during a virtual ceremony on 6 April. “Sir Peter…

Whina an Exacting Assignment for Rena Owen

Whina an Exacting Assignment for Rena Owen

None of veteran New Zealand actor Rena Owen’s tough previous roles prepared her for the demands – both physical and emotional – of playing Māori matriarch and political activist Whina Cooper, in the new…

There’s Extreme Tension Coming Home in the Dark

There’s Extreme Tension Coming Home in the Dark

“The enormity of nature hits you like a freight train in the early scenes of James Ashcroft’s taut and sinewy first feature, Coming Home in the Dark,” David Rooney writes in a…

US TV Host Stephen Colbert Revisits 2019 NZ Trip

US TV Host Stephen Colbert Revisits 2019 NZ Trip

Stephen Colbert, host of US television’s The Late Show, has shared footage from his 2019 travels to New Zealand on a recent episode, including a Lord of the Rings-themed adventure and bungee jumping off a…

Bill Gosden Lived and Breathed Film

Bill Gosden Lived and Breathed Film

Bill Gosden, who served as director of the New Zealand International Film Festival for nearly 40 years, has died in Wellington. He was 66. Mike Barnes looks back on Gosden’s illustrious career for The Hollywood…

Screenwriter Anthony McCarten Talks Two Popes

Screenwriter Anthony McCarten Talks Two Popes

For the Oscar-nominated film The Two Popes, New Zealand-born screenwriter Anthony McCarten had to imagine what took place between Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Jorge Bergolio in the weeks before the latter became Pope…

New Zealand Filmmakers Showcase Local Perspectives

New Zealand Filmmakers Showcase Local Perspectives

Years of big-budget location shoots have given rise to a thriving New Zealand film and television sector. Hollywood Reporter correspondent Patrick Brzeski examines how a “happy confluence of preparation and opportunity is giving New…

Taika Waititi Takes on a Decidedly Risky Role

Taika Waititi Takes on a Decidedly Risky Role

After years of trying to get the film off the ground, New Zealander Taika Waititi, director of Thor: Ragnarok, finally convinced Fox Searchlight to roll the dice on a comedy set in Nazi Germany…

Power Inclusion Summit Attracts More Big Film Names

Power Inclusion Summit Attracts More Big Film Names

Award-winning writer-director Jackie van Beek joins fellow New Zealanders Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Mulan director Niki Caro at the two-day Power of Inclusion Summit in Auckland on 3-4 October. According to The Hollywood…

Taika Waititi Gives Vampire Film New Life

Taika Waititi Gives Vampire Film New Life

In-demand director Taika Waititi reveals to The Hollywood Reporter what it took for him and fellow New Zealander, Jemaine Clement to develop a TV show based on their 2014 film, What We Do in…

Big Names to Speak at Film Summit in Auckland

Big Names to Speak at Film Summit in Auckland

New Zealand filmmakers Niki Caro, Philippa Boyens, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and US film producer Charles King will headline global screen inclusion summit, Power of Inclusion, which will take place 3-4 October in Auckland. Mulan…

What We Do in the Shadows on TV and Note-Perfect

What We Do in the Shadows on TV and Note-Perfect

Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s TV reboot of their vampiric comedy, What We Do in the Shadows is “wonderfully, absurdly over-the-top and hilarious”, according to Hollywood Reporter reviewer Tim Goodman. “There is a point early…

Merata Mita Doco Reviewed by The Hollywood Reporter

Merata Mita Doco Reviewed by The Hollywood Reporter

The legacy and personal life of the late New Zealand filmmaker Merata Mita are brought to life in the documentary Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen. The film, which had its international premiere at…

Thomasin McKenzie Reflects on Breakout Year

Thomasin McKenzie Reflects on Breakout Year

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, 18-year-old Wellingtonian Thomasin McKenzie reflects on her breakout year (after Debra Granik’s latest film Leave No Trace premiered at Sundance, she shot four other films), frequent comparisons…

Hollywood Movies Are Keeping NZ Busier Than Ever

Hollywood Movies Are Keeping NZ Busier Than Ever

“Hollywood films have shot intermittently in New Zealand for decades, taking advantage of the country’s seasoned film workers, world-famous landscapes and opposite seasons. But Kiwi production veterans say they’ve never seen their crews and…

Thomasin McKenzie One of Hollywood’s Rising Young Stars

Thomasin McKenzie One of Hollywood’s Rising Young Stars

New Zealand actress Thomasin McKenzie, 18, has been featured on The Hollywood Reporter’s list of “Hollywood’s Rising Young Stars”. Bryn Elise Sandberg reports. “McKenzie’s grandmother, parents and siblings are all actors,…

Production Wraps on Sam Kelly’s Savage

Production Wraps on Sam Kelly’s Savage

Wellingtonian Sam Kelly’s directorial debut Savage has now wrapped up production. The drama is inspired by the true stories of New Zealand’s street gangs and their founding members. Savage stars Australian actor Jake Ryan (The Great…

Meet the Feebles Inspires Happytime Murders Writer

Meet the Feebles Inspires Happytime Murders Writer

Danny Mulheron, Meet the Feebles writer, and American scriptwriter Todd Berger – for the R-rated puppet comedy, The Happytime Murders – recount almost 30 years of bad taste for an article in The Hollywood…

Who is Dark Tourist Host David Farrier?

Who is Dark Tourist Host David Farrier?

If you can’t get enough of quirky documentaries on Netflix then you might want to check out Dark Tourist, hosted by New Zealander David Farrier, suggests Caroline Westbrook writing for the UK’s Metro newspaper. This…

London’s Calling in First Trailer for Peter Jackson’s Mortal Engines

London’s Calling in First Trailer for Peter Jackson’s Mortal Engines

The first full trailer for Peter Jackson-produced Mortal Engines has been released, reports Abid Rahman for The Hollywood Reporter. In the trailer the city of London…

Andrew Niccol’s Latest Film Smart and Stylish

Andrew Niccol’s Latest Film Smart and Stylish

Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried star in Anon, a “timely Netflix-bound cyberthriller from The Truman Show and In Time creator New Zealander Andrew Niccol”. Stephen Dalton reviews the film for The Hollywood Reporter. “Owen looks…

Mitchell McClenaghan to Star in Netflix Series

Mitchell McClenaghan to Star in Netflix Series

Former Black Cap Hastings-born Mitchell McClenaghan, 31, will be among the players featured in a new Netflix reality series on the most successful team in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the Mumbai Indians. The streaming…

True Blood Lead Anna Paquin Stars as PR Maven

True Blood Lead Anna Paquin Stars as PR Maven

New Zealand-raised Anna Paquin is returning to television. The True Blood and Alias Grace star is set to appear in the upcoming dramedy Flack. The limited series, which is co-produced by Paquin and her…

Vampires Get Their Teeth into Some Small Screen

Vampires Get Their Teeth into Some Small Screen

A television reboot based on Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s 2014 smash hit mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows has landed a pilot-production order at American channel FX. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the…

Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie’s New Role Enigmatic

Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie’s New Role Enigmatic

Among the most anticipated films of this year’s Sundance Film Festival has been Winter’s Bone director Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace, starring 17-year-old New Zealander Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie. Leave No Trace had its world premiere…

Hollywood Directors Like Niki Caro a Force

Hollywood Directors Like Niki Caro a Force

Never in the history of Hollywood has more than one female filmmaker been at the helm of a feature with a budget of USD$100 million or more – until now. On the heels of…

NZ’s Film Industry Worth a Billion to Economy

NZ’s Film Industry Worth a Billion to Economy

The International New Zealand Screen Production Grant (NZSPG) is a key contributor to the nation’s economy according to a new economic study released by the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC). The New Zealand screen industry…

Grey’s Anatomy Star Martin Henderson Exits Series

Grey’s Anatomy Star Martin Henderson Exits Series

Another doctor has left the building on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. New Zealander Martin Henderson was written out of the drama, following a two-season-plus run as a series regular. Auckland-born Henderson, 43, joined Grey’s as a…

Thor: Ragnarok Marvel’s Best Film to Date

Thor: Ragnarok Marvel’s Best Film to Date

Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok has an “oddly beautiful scuffed-plastic aesthetic”; it’s “funny, charming, dazzling, gorgeously designed, and full of actors you already like,” with Waititi managing “to finally imbue Marvel’s dullest Avenger with a…

Taika Waititi Best Dressed Director in Hollywood

Taika Waititi Best Dressed Director in Hollywood

Taika Waititi is a fashion superhero, according to Degen Pener writing for The Hollywood Reporter. The proof: When the New Zealand native and director of November’s Thor: Ragnarok showed up at Comic-Con in July,…

Top of the Lake Season Two More Accessible

Top of the Lake Season Two More Accessible

Critics loved Top of the Lake, New Zealander Jane Campion’s dark crime drama, starring Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss as Robin Griffin, the police detective tasked with finding out why a…

It’s Time to Rethink Peter Jackson’s King Kong

It’s Time to Rethink Peter Jackson’s King Kong

“History has been too unkind to which should be remembered not as lumbering and mindless, but as majestic and mesmerising,” according to critic Chris Hartwell writing for…

The Inland Road Makes for a Satisfying Debut

The Inland Road Makes for a Satisfying Debut

“In the stunned aftermath of a fatal road accident, a directionless 16-year-old half-Maori runaway drifts with unpredictable consequences into the lives of strangers in New Zealander Jackie van Beek’s assured first feature, The Inland…

Disney Coup for Director Niki Caro

Disney Coup for Director Niki Caro

The new live-action Mulan remake has secured Whale Rider director Niki Caro to helm. According to online women’s magazine, Bustle, “The Hollywood Reporter issued the reminder that Caro will be only Disney’s…

One Thousand Ropes Premieres in Berlin

One Thousand Ropes Premieres in Berlin

“Childbirth becomes a powerful vessel for renewal in this deeply felt drama about a Samoan former fighter atoning for the violence that divided his family and exiled him to solitude,” the Hollywood Reporter’s David…

Hollywood’s Auckland

Hollywood’s Auckland

Auckland has been featured in The Hollywood Reporter’s Hollywood destinations travel guide. In the article, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Rhys Darby, Karen Walker, Oprah, Lorde and Matt Lambert share their Auckland hotspots. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley recommends…

NZ Selects ‘A Flickering Truth’ for Foreign-Language Category

NZ Selects ‘A Flickering Truth’ for Foreign-Language Category

New Zealand has selected Afghanistan-set documentary A Flickering Truth, which was produced and directed by Pietra Bretkelly, for the best foreign-language film category for the 2017 Academy Awards, as reported in The…

Anna Paquin to Star in Margaret Atwood Adaptation

Anna Paquin to Star in Margaret Atwood Adaptation

True Blood and Roots star New Zealander Anna Paquin has been tapped to topline an adaptation of Canadian author Margaret Atwood’s novel Alias Grace, the Hollywood Reporter reports. Published in 1996, Alias Grace follows Grace…

Anna Paquin Returns to the South in Roots

Anna Paquin Returns to the South in Roots

Forty years after the original Roots gripped half the United States, a more violent and more accurate remake is here, the Hollywood Reporter’s Marissa Guthrie writes, gambling on big stars including New Zealander Anna…

Taika Waititi Proves to Be Box-Office Gold in NZ

Taika Waititi Proves to Be Box-Office Gold in NZ

“Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi rules the box office in his homeland of New Zealand,” writes Pip Bulbeck for The Hollywood Reporter. Two of his films are now the top New Zealand films at…

KJ Apa Lands Archie Andrews Role in US

KJ Apa Lands Archie Andrews Role in US

Eighteen-year-old New Zealand-born KJ Apa, best known for his Shortland Street role as Kane Jenkins, has been cast as Archie Andrews in US television network series Riverdale. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Riverdale had difficulty…

Tammy Davis’ Hit a Berlinale Favourite

Tammy Davis’ Hit a Berlinale Favourite

Tammy Davis’ hip-hop drama Born to Dance, a “hidden gem” at this year’s Berlinale, has become the most unlikely of box-office hits Down Under. Born to Dance brought in more than $1 million in theatres…

David Farrier’s Doco Tickled a Hit with Critics

David Farrier’s Doco Tickled a Hit with Critics

New investigative documentary, the “engrossing” Tickled, co-directed by New Zealanders David Farrier and Dylan Reeve, has received rave reviews from critics and punters after its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s…

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is Perfectly Balanced

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is Perfectly Balanced

Taika Waititi’s film adaptation of Barry Crump’s Wild Pork and Watercress, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which made its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, is a “deliciously good time at the movies,” according to…

Obviously Deathgasm Is a Family Film

Obviously Deathgasm Is a Family Film

“Making his feature directing debut after several years on the FX teams of such films as The Avengers and The Hobbit, New Zealander Jason Lei Howden delivers a pic that will play very well…

New Line Cinema to Remake New Zealand Horror-Comedy ‘Housebound’

New Line Cinema to Remake New Zealand Horror-Comedy ‘Housebound’

New Line Cinema has picked up the remake rights of New Zealand horror-comedy Housebound, which earned praise from Lord of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson. Gerard Johnstone, who wrote and directed the movie, will produce the remake but…

Sundance Comedy Immeasurably Funnier with Jemaine Clement

Sundance Comedy Immeasurably Funnier with Jemaine Clement

Jemaine Clement plays the lead role in indie romantic comedy People, Places, Things as penny-pinched New York graphic novelist Will Henry who is struggling upstream with life and the numerous females in his orbit,…

Esteemed Middle-earth Location Scout Dave Comer

Esteemed Middle-earth Location Scout Dave Comer

Dave Comer, who selected many of the spectacular New Zealand locations for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies for director Peter Jackson, has died aged 58. Comer started out as a still…

Lucy Lawless Plays Evil Queen in Californian Pantomime

Lucy Lawless Plays Evil Queen in Californian Pantomime

Actress Lucy Lawless is currently portraying the evil queen Carabosse in a California-based production of Sleeping Beauty and Her Winter Knight. Through 4 January, at the Pasadena Playhouse, Lawless plays alongside Ben Giroux (Hart of…