Robbert Blokland

Ons boek Live to Tell ligt in de winkels! We hebben er anderhalf jaar keihard aan gewerkt, de reacties zijn ontroerend en hartverwarmend. Het verhaal van hiv en aids in Nederland mag niet worden vergeten. (Ook een fijn cadeau voor Sint of Kerst trouwens!) ❤️🙏

Cannes boss Thierry Frémaux says Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Digger” with Tom Cruise and Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” are simply “not ready” for the 2026 festival. Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day” will depend on “many strategic factors” such as timing. variety.com/2026/film/glob…

Hard to believe this isn't a Monty Python sketch

George Lucas traded $350,000 in directing salary for something Fox executives thought was worthless: the right to sell Star Wars toys. It was 1976. Over 40 studios had already passed on his script, including Disney. Fox only greenlit the project because they wanted Lucas for other films. Nobody at the studio expected to make money on a space opera with no stars, so when Lucas offered to cut his directing fee from $500,000 to $150,000 in exchange for merchandising and sequel rights, Fox said yes on the spot. Movie merchandise was a dead business. Fox had lost money on Doctor Dolittle lunchboxes a decade earlier. They thought they were getting the better deal. Lucas couldn’t even find a toy company that wanted in. Kenner, a division of cereal company General Foods, finally bought the licensing for a flat $100,000. Then Star Wars opened. Between 1977 and 1978, Kenner sold $100 million worth of toys off that $100,000 investment. They couldn’t make enough for Christmas ’77, so they sold empty boxes with IOUs inside, promising to mail the action figures later. Parents paid real money for cardboard and a promise. Nobody around the production saw any of this coming. Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan, privately called the script “fairy-tale rubbish.” But he was shrewd enough to negotiate 2.25% of royalties instead of a flat fee. About 20 minutes of total screen time earned his estate somewhere between $50 million and $100 million. Lucas himself was so convinced the film would flop that he offered Spielberg a bet while visiting the Close Encounters set: swap 2.5% of each other’s profits. Spielberg took it. That handshake has paid him around $40 million. And then the money started compounding. Lucas poured his Star Wars profits into ILM, the effects house he’d built for the film. When its computer graphics division got too expensive to maintain, he sold it to Steve Jobs in 1986 for $10 million. Jobs renamed it Pixar. Disney bought Pixar twenty years later for $7.4 billion. Then in 2012, Disney came back for the rest, buying Lucasfilm itself for $4.05 billion. Total franchise revenue today sits around $46.7 billion, over $20 billion from merchandise alone. The filmmaker 40 studios passed on is now worth $5.3 billion according to Forbes. Fifty years ago today, cameras rolled on a desert in Tunisia. The $350,000 pay cut that made it all possible might be the best trade in business history.

#ProjectHailMary is targeting a launch of $63 million to $65 million, which would mark Amazon MGM’s biggest opening ever. • The film is arriving at a pivotal time for Amazon MGM, which is unveiling its first full theatrical slate (13 films) this year. • Since theater owners keep half of revenue, a $200 million tentpole in the vein of “Project Hail Mary” needs to earn at least $500 million to break even. • Amazon has struggled in theaters lately, with misfires including “After the Hunt” ($9 million on an $80 million budget), “Melania” ($16 million on a $40 million budget) and “Crime 101″ ($65 million on a $90 million budget)  • Amazon says it uses a different metric for success — earning back marketing and distribution costs — to justify its theatrical endeavors. In theory, the big screen provides a halo effect that boosts subscriptions and viewership on Prime Video. variety.com/2026/film/box-…

'Dune 3' and 'Avengers: Doomsday' in Stand-Off Over Same Release Date: "Somebody’s Gotta Move"  hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-n…

EXCLUSIVE: Plot details from the axed “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” reboot reveal that Sarah Michelle Gellar only appeared at the very end of the pilot episode and had just one line: The action moves to a “beautiful autumn day” in New York City, when a “woman in a pantsuit” walks into the office building for a multinational insurance company. “She looks smart, professional, happy to be one of the many in a field of cubicles,” read the stage directions, and her nameplate says “Anne Summers.” When one of her colleagues chides her, saying she wouldn’t want to be late to the morning meeting, Buffy says, “Nope… wouldn’t want that.” Buffy, happily, is an anonymous drone in a cubicle, just living a normal person’s life. But her peace wouldn’t have lasted for long, because on her work computer as she’s in her morning meeting, her email inbox starts being flooded with insurance claims from Sunnydale, California. variety.com/2026/tv/news/b…

Sarah Michelle Gellar hopes the axed #BuffyTheVampireSlayer reboot pilot does not leak and urges fans not to read the script. “I actually hope it doesn’t [leak]. Because then everyone’s going to have an opinion on this and that, and pilots are not finished. It wasn’t done, right? It’s not like we did a season and finished it and then they shelved it. It’s not like when they made ‘Batgirl’ the movie, right, and then didn’t show it... Usually, a pilot doesn’t air in its entirety ever. It’s a learning tool. I mean, the original ‘Buffy’ pilot was nothing to do with the show. It was a different Willow, I mean it’s a very different show. But those are learning tools and that’s what a pilot is... That stuff is really unfortunate and I ask fans, if you see scripts, if you see it leaked — don’t watch it. Because you’re not getting our vision and all of that." (via P6 Radio) variety.com/2026/tv/news/s…

EXCLUSIVE: The shooting draft for the scrapped “Buffy” reboot at Hulu reveals the plot: Over the course of the script, Nova (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), described as a “brainy introvert,” discovers that she’s the Slayer — and people in Sunnydale do know the mythology of what Slayers are because of what happened to the town back in Buffy’s day. Set during a “Vampire Weekend,” a Renaissance Faire-like celebration of the town’s dubious history, Nova takes down two actual vampires after coming into her powers. By the episode’s end, the formerly friendless Nova has a new Scooby Gang flanking her. The action then cuts to New York City for a brief scene with Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy, who is working in a corporate office building under the name "Anne." The script drops hints about what’s to come: Her dad, a photojournalist, is overly protective, and has moved them around a lot after Nova was kidnapped as a young child. And all the vampires that Buffy buried in the show’s 2003 series finale, when the Hellmouth collapsed in on itself, taking Sunnydale down with it, have been awakened. Nova would have her work cut out for her. variety.com/2026/tv/news/b…

FIRST LOOK: Val Kilmer has been resurrected via AI to star in the new movie "As Deep as the Grave." Kilmer was cast in the movie in 2020, five years before his death. But he was too sick amid his throat cancer battle to ever make it to set. Now an AI version of the actor is appearing in the film, with the full blessing of his daughter, Mercedes: "He always looked at emerging technologies with optimism as a tool to expand the possibilities of storytelling. This spirit is something that we are all honoring within this specific film, of which he was an integral part.” “He was the actor I wanted to play this role,” says writer-director Coerte Voorhees. “It was very much designed around him. It drew on his Native American heritage and his ties to and love of the Southwest... His family kept saying how important they thought the movie was and that Val really wanted to be a part of this. He really thought it was important story that he wanted his name on. It was that support that gave me the confidence to say, okay let’s do this. Despite the fact some people might call it controversial, this is what Val wanted.” wp.me/pc8uak-1lH1PI

Now that Amy Madigan has an Oscar for Weapons, I’m dreaming big. How about putting Ralph Fiennes in the awards conversation for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple? I wrote about it (and more) for Vulture. vulture.com/article/amy-ma…

‘sinners’ cast posing with their oscar’s after their wins

The animated Best Picture intros at the 2015 Oscars are still one of the greatest presentations in Oscars history.

It took 70 years of Academy Awards for four individuals to win three or more acting Oscars: Hepburn, Brennan, Nicholson, Bergman. But in the last 14 years, that list has doubled: Streep, Day-Lewis, McDormand, Penn.

Jessie Buckley closed the 2025 awards season with 42 awards for Best Actress for her performance in “Hamnet”.

The St. Patrick’s Day parade scene in The Fugitive wasn’t scripted. Director Andrew Davis obtained the mayor's permission and, without rehearsal, dropped Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones into the real parade crowd. Ford said he lasted a few minutes before getting recognised.

Michael B. Jordan admiring a photo of Sidney Poitier, the first Black man to win an Oscar for Actor in a Leading Role, in 1964. Jordan is the sixth.

Congratulations to our friend @michaelb4jordan for winning Best Actor at the 2026 Oscars! 🌟 All of us on Sesame Street are so proud of you! 🏆💛💚

Best Picture collection update ✅

‘I am Stephen Fry and I am a Jew’.