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Future Frames, a program for up-and-coming European filmmakers, is celebrating its 10th anniversary at Karlovy Vary Film Festival next week. So far, 104 filmmakers from 29 European countries have taken part. Its alumni have gone on to direct features that have appeared at major festivals worldwide.

The initiative, which is organized by European Film Promotion and Karlovy Vary, gives filmmakers the opportunity to present their short films at this prestigious A-list festival, and helps them build an international network.

Four years after his participation in the Future Frames program, Adam Martinec from the Czech Republic returns to Karlovy Vary with his first full-length film “Our Lovely Pig Slaughter,” which is screening in the Crystal Globe competition.

Other directors have been successful too with their first or second feature-length films, such as Halfdan Olav Ullman Tøndel from the first Future Frames group, whose debut film “Armand” was presented with the Camera d’Or at this year’s Cannes.

Picture Tree International (Pti) has boarded Vena, the debut feature of German writer-director Chiara Fleischhacker.

The gritty social drama is in the late stages of post-production, and Pti will launch a first trailer at the Cannes Film Market.

Weltkino is to distribute the film in Germany, and has set a tentative release date for late autumn 2024.

The film stars Emma Nova, whose credits include The Tobacconist and Manta Manta Legacy; 7500’s Paul Wollin; and The Reader and Hannah Arendt’s Friederike Becht.

Nova plays a woman grappling with an unexpected pregnancy alongside her boyfriend (Wollin). Both seek solace in...

Exclusive: German production and sales company Augenschein, whose credits include Joseph Gordon-Levitt thriller 7500 (pictured) and Anna Kendrick sci-fi Stowaway, has sold a minority stake to Erfttal Film, the longtime shareholder in All Quiet On The Western Front producer Amusement Park.

Jonas Katzenstein and Maximilian Leo, who run Cologne-based Augenschein, closed the deal with Erfttal’s Klaus Dohle. The value of the investment was not disclosed but it is understood to be a multi-million dollar investment for a stake in the 20-30% range.

Dohle is a producer and businessman with a long-standing family history in real estate, manufacturing, agriculture and equity investments in Germany and abroad. His associate producer credits include Land of Mine, The Aftermath and A Most Wanted Man.

Under the pact, Augenschein will continue to operate independently but the investment gives the company greater ability to develop, package and produce movies with stronger commercial potential for the global market,...

Exclusive: German production and sales outfit Augenschein, best known so far for thrillers Stowaway and 7500, is at the Cannes Market talking to buyers about new thriller Islands (working title), which is due to star Control and Maleficent actor Sam Riley.

Cologne-based Augenschein is making the movie in co-production with German studio Leonine, which has also taken German distribution rights. Funding comes from Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw, the Ffa, the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the Dfff.

Islands tells the story of Tom, a one-time tennis pro who, years ago, washed up on a holiday island. Now he’s the coach at a hotel resort, hitting countless balls over the net to tourists who come to escape their everyday lives. Living an endless summer, Tom fills the emptiness inside with booze and brief affairs. He’s still kidding himself that he’s in paradise, but it is beginning to dawn on him...

Netflix and Disney+ have ads, but Amazon has another idea.

Amazon Studios will soon license its original shows and movies to third-party platforms. The newly formed Amazon MGM Studios Distribution, announced on Monday, will license out Amazon originals (and continue to license MGM content) worldwide, making Amazon Prime Video the first major streamer to enter syndication in such a big way. Will Netflix be second? After all, no one covets revenue more.

As the once-bulletproof streaming industry collectively searches for new revenue streams, Netflix has arguably been the most vocal about the importance of the top-line accounting number. The king of the streamers, once faithfully married to one lone revenue stream, previously touted subscribers as its primary metric of success. Nowadays there is ad revenue from the “Basic with Ads” tier and unearthed subscriber revenue from paid sharing, and Netflix shareholder letters no longer offer subscriber forecasts.

They do, on occasion,...

James Bond franchise, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, among offerings.

Amazon Studios is launching Amazon MGM Studios Distribution to syndicate Amazon Originals and MGM new releases and library titles comprising more than 4,000 films and 17,000 TV episodes.

Chris Ottinger who has led the distribution team at MGM for more than a decade, will head the new division and reports to Brad Beale, VP worldwide licensing & distribution, Amazon and MGM Studios, who in return reports to Jen Salke, head of Amazon and MGM Studios.

At launch during LA Screenings later this month the division will offer a selection of Amazon...

Amazon Studios is launching the Amazon MGM Studios Distribution division, which will oversee licensing of Amazon Original titles and MGM new release and library movies and series such as film franchises “James Bond,” “Rocky “and “Creed,” and series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Vikings,” “Fargo” and the upcoming “Hotel Cocaine” from MGM+.

Titles at launch will include television series like “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Goliath” and “Hunters” and films like “Coming 2 America, “”Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” “7500,” “All the Old Knives,” “Bliss,” “I Want You Back,” “The Tender Bar,” “The Tomorrow War,” “The Voyeurs,” and “Without Remorse.”

MGM’s storied library houses more than 4,000 film titles, 17,000 TV episodes, including 180 Academy Awards winners and 100 Emmy Awards winners.

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The division will be helmed by Chris Ottinger, who has led the distribution team at MGM for more than a decade.

“Pioneering the distribution of Amazon Originals...

File this one under “everything old is new again”: Amazon Studios is launching a syndication business for its original series and films.

The new business, Amazon MGM Studios Distribution, will look to sell streaming originals ranging from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel to The Tomorrow War to other outlets. Chris Ottinger, who has led MGM’s distribution team for more than a decade, will lead the unit, which will also continue to sell MGM library titles including the James Bond and Rocky/Creed franchises.

“The launch of Amazon MGM Studios Distribution reinforces our commitment to bringing the very best content to audiences everywhere worldwide,” Amazon Studios head Jen Salke said in a statement. “With the integration of MGM, we wanted to take advantage of the existing team to expand our business in ways that will greatly benefit our customers around the world.”

Said Ottinger, “Pioneering the distribution of Amazon Originals...

Amazon Studios is launching Amazon MGM Studios Distribution.

The worldwide distribution division will see Amazon originals and MGM library titles, which number 4,000 film titles and 17,000 TV episodes.

At launch the division will offer Amazon Originals including 7500, All the Old Knives, Bliss, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Coming 2 America, I Want You Back, The Tender Bar, The Tomorrow War, The Voyeurs, and Without Remorse. Television titles include Goliath, Hunters and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel — notably this is the first time the latter could be syndicated domestically or shopped internationally.

It will also handle sales of the James Bond, Rocky and Creed franchises and series The Handmaid’s Tale, Vikings, Fargo and the upcoming Hotel Cocaine from MGM+.

Chris Ottinger, who’s led the distribution team at MGM for several years, will lead the unit, reporting to Brad Beale, VP Worldwide Licensing & Distribution, Amazon and MGM Studios, who in turn reports to Jen Salke,...

Original Amazon series like “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” will be sold off-platform to third parties for the first time, the company announced Monday as it launched the new Amazon MGM Studios Distribution. A revamp of MGM’s pre-existing distribution team, the division will now handle Amazon Studios/Prime Video originals in addition to current and library titles. Chris Ottinger, who led the MGM distribution team for more than a decade, will oversee the new division.

Ottinger will report to Brad Beale, the VP of worldwide licensing and distribution at Amazon and MGM Studios; Beale, in turn, reports to Amazon/MGM Studios head Jennifer Salke.

“What did Amazon buy when they bought MGM? Well, they definitely got a big remakes and sequels catalog of rights,” Ottinger said. “They bought a finished product catalog, but they also got a big distribution business. In addition to my group, we have a domestic theatrical...

Munich-based sales agency Global Screen has acquired romantic drama “Falling Into Place” for worldwide theatrical distribution. The English-language film is written and directed by Aylin Tezel, one of Germany’s leading young actors, and stars Tezel (“7500”) and Chris Fulton (“Bridgerton”).

The directorial debut is set in Scotland on the Isle of Skye and in London. It is an honest and poetic portrait of today’s 30-somethings caught between the fear of commitment and the desire for self-improvement. Like all great love stories, it is not just about the love between two individuals, but also about the dreams and anxieties of a whole generation.

Kira and Ian, two 30-somethings, meet all too briefly over a winter weekend on the Isle of Skye and form a sudden, deep, and surprising bond. Back in London, they try to move on with their separate lives – but both have to stop running from themselves...

The company made its name with Nora Fingscheidt’s ‘System Crasher’ in 2019.

Falling Into Place, the directorial debut of German actress Aylin Tezel, Damian John Harper’s Fresh, with Dark star Louis Hoffman and Sophia Bosch’s mother-daughter drama Milk Teeth are all on the anticipated new production slate of Weydemann Bros, the German production outfit behind 2019 local box office hit System Crasher.

Tezel is known for her recent performances in Almanya: Welcome To Germany and 7500. Falling Into Place is a love story that she has also written and will star when it shoots in 2022.

Berlin-based distributor Port Au Prince which released System Crasher,...

Stars: Magui Bravi, Luz Champané, Amparo Espinola, Clara Kovacic, Agustin Olcese, Amy Smart, James Wright | Written by Mauro Croche, Guillermo Lockhart | Directed by Victor Catala, Brian Deane, Oliver Lee Garland, Guillermo Lockhart, Tony Morales, Nicolás Onetti, Nicholas Peterson, Daniel Rübesam, Christopher West

[Note: With the film out next week in the UK, here’s a reposting of our review of The 100 Candles Game (aka 100 Candles) from its US release earlier this year]

Where to start with The 100 Candles Game? How about the fact this is actually yet another one of those direct to DVD anthologies made up of numerous unconnected shorts which are contained within a wraparound story filmed specifically for this release – think Zombieworld, Galaxy of Horrors, Battle in Space or A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio. And its the latter anthology that is most connected to 100 Candles, as both films come from producer Nicolás Onetti; with A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio‘s writer Guillermo Lockhart also directing here – namely the wraparound segment of the film.

The pandemic year may have been made for limited series. While continuing drama and comedy series fought to get back into production, many 0f them missing this year’s eligibility period, limited series brought the star power and provided the virtual water cooler moments.

Emmy-contending shows in this field include one of the biggest TV sensations of the past year, Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit”; one of the most impactful shows of 2021, Amazon Prime’s “The Underground Railroad”; a rare example of true appointment television, HBO’s “Mare of Easttown”; Marvel’s celebrated takeover of TV, “Wandavision”; and critical darlings like HBO’s “I May Destroy You” and Amazon’s “Small Axe,” the latter of which was somewhat inexplicably deemed the year’s best film by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

These are the categories where film directors like Barry Jenkins and Steve McQueen go to stretch out, and where actors like Kate Winslet,...

Former Telepool Gmbh exec Jonathan Saubach to lead new division.

Cologne-based independent film production company augenschein Filmproduktion has launched augenschein Sales, an in-house worldwide sales and financing arm headed by Jonathan Saubach.

Saubach is leading on the financing, packaging and worldwide sales of augenschein’s film titles and will also serve as an executive producer on augenschein’s upcoming productions.

Saubach has spent 10 years in sales, acquisitions and content executive roles at Telepool. He will report to augenschein founders Maximilian Leo and Jonas Katzenstein.

Founded in 2008, augenschein has produced more than 25 features, from arthouse titles including Berlin Silver Bear winner Ana,...

German indie Augenschein, whose credits include Netflix sci-fi Stowaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt thriller 7500, is launching Augenschein Sales, an in-house worldwide sales and financing arm.

The new operation will be headed by Jonathan Saubach as Head Of Sales. The acquisitions exec joins from Will Smith-owned Telepool.

The new division will focus on combining the financing for the company’s production slate through access to equity, market pre-sales and film funds. Saubach will be in charge of financing, packaging and worldwide sales of the company’s film titles and will also serve as an executive producer on upcoming productions. He will report to Augenschein founders Maximilian Leo and Jonas Katzenstein.

During his ten-year tenure at Telepool the company acquired Ryan Gosling starrer Drive, The Imitation Game with Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, The Hitman’s Bodyguard starring Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson and Gary Oldman, the Has Fallen franchise starring Gerard Butler,...

The story of ride-sharing company Uber, which revolutionized ground transportation, is coming to television.

Showtime has given a series order to Super Pumped, an anthology from Billions co-creators Brian Koppelman and David Levien. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Trial of the Chicago 7) is set to star in the first installment, which is based on Mike Isaac’s bestselling book Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber.

It tells the story of Uber, one of Silicon Valley’s most successful and most destructive unicorns. Pivoting on Travis Kalanick (Gordon-Levitt), Uber’s hard-charging CEO who ultimately was ousted in a boardroom coup, the series will depict the roller-coaster ride of the upstart transportation company, embodying the highs and lows of Silicon Valley. Even amid the radical upheaval generated within the global tech capital, Uber stands out as both a marvel and a cautionary tale, featuring internal and external battles that ripple with unpredictable consequences.

Exclusive: German producer Augenschein, whose Joseph Gordon-Levitt thriller 7500 sold last year to Amazon, is lining up English-language survival movie The Dive.

The thriller is being pitched in the vein of 127 Hours, and charts the story of two sisters with a close but complex bond who go diving at a beautiful, remote location. During their dive, one of the sisters is struck by a rock from a landslide above the water, leaving her trapped on the seabed 28 meters below. With dangerously low levels of oxygen and cold temperatures, it is up to her sister to fight for her life, which in turn puts her own life in jeopardy.

Directing will be German filmmaker Maximilian Erlenwein, known for 2014 crime-thriller Stereo, which played at the Berlinale and was picked up by Netflix, and for 2019 Netflix Germany crime-drama series Skylines. Erlenwein is himself an experienced diver.

Shoot is slated for late Q1/early Q2, 2021, in Sardinia and Germany.

Exclusive: Rising German production company Augenschein is underway in Germany and Israel on Euro drama All Russians Love Birch Trees, starring Aylin Tezel (7500).

Pola Beck is directing the feature, which is based on the novel from Olga Grjasnowa and adapted by Burkhardt Wunderlich and Beck. The project re-unites a handful of the creatives behind Beck’s 2012 drama Breaking Horizons.

The German, English and Hebrew-language film charts a young woman’s quest for independence and herself. After her boyfriend becomes critically ill, Mascha re-evaluates her path and decides to leave her previous life behind. But it’s only by returning home that she can find peace.

Distributing in Germany will be Port Au Prince, whose recent releases include Berlin Film Festival 2019 hit System Crasher and Abel Ferrara’s Siberia.

Augenschein’s Maximilian Leo and Jonas Katzenstein are producers. Finance comes from Film und Medienstiftung Nrw, Medienboard and Zdf Das Kleine Fernsehspiel.

Screenwriter ​Mattson Tomlin’s latest movie, Project Power, is about a new street drug called Power that can make those who swallow it a superhero — at a price. The movie stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jamie Foxx, and Dominique Fishback (Darlene on HBO’s The Deuce) and is now streaming on Netflix.

In our latest edition of “The Breakdown” series, Gordon-Levitt (who also stars in the recently released movie 7500) explains why, after taking time off from acting for a while, he decided to work with directing duo Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman on this high-budget sci-fi film.

Amazon easily topped second-quarter earnings and revenue forecasts after the market close Thursday, with CEO Jeff Bezos calling it “another highly unusual quarter” amid the current coronavirus pandemic.

“As expected, we spent over $4 billion on incremental Covid-19-related costs in the quarter to help keep employees safe and deliver products to customers in this time of high demand—purchasing personal protective equipment, increasing cleaning of our facilities, following new safety process paths, adding new backup family care benefits, and paying a special thank you bonus of over $500 million to front-line employees and delivery partners,” said Bezos in a statement.

The e-commerce and web services titan has created over 175,000 new jobs since March, he added, and is in the process of making 125,000 of those employees full-time positions. Bezos also said that the company “injected significant money into the economy” in Q2, investing more than $9 billion into capital projects that include fulfillment,...

Netflix’s “Project Power” has been in the works years, but the wait for the action movie’s release is almost over. The streaming service is releasing the movie on its platform August 14 and has unveiled the trailer for the sci-fi action thriller. “Project Power” takes place in a world where a special drug empowers humans with random superhuman abilities for five minutes. A father (Jamie Foxx) must rescue his daughter (Dominique Fishback) from the drug’s villainous manufacturers while working alongside unexpected allies. The film also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays a police detective who gets involved in Foxx’s character’s quest, Machine Gun Kelly, Rodrigo Santoro, Amy Landecker, and Allen Maldonado.

While “Project Power” features a drug that grants humans superpowers, the wild first trailer below suggests the film isn’t shaping up to be your everyday summer superhero flick. “Project Power” marks a major step forward...

Tim McGraw has announced plans for his new album Here on Earth, his first solo release in nearly five years. The project, which reunites him with previous label home Big Machine, is due out August 21st and includes the soaring title track, released on Friday.

“Here on Earth,” penned by Jessie Joe Dillon, Chase McGill, Jon Nite, is a big anthem about finding a purpose on earth and running with it. “It’s like we’ve opened our eyes/For the very first time/When we find out why/We’re here on earth,...

After hitting the pause button for the longest period of time in his 33-year career, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is back and ready for his second act. He may have taken two years off to focus on fatherhood, but Gordon-Levitt still has quite a busy slate this year including Amazon Prime Video’s cockpit thriller, 7500, Netflix’s sci-fi thriller Project Power and Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7. Plus, his collaborative platform, HitRecord, just released Create Together, a six-episode YouTube series that connects creatives from around the world in an effort to collaborate together during quarantine.

Returning to the screen in ...

After hitting the pause button for the longest period of time in his 33-year career, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is back and ready for his second act. He may have taken two years off to focus on fatherhood, but Gordon-Levitt still has quite a busy slate this year including Amazon Prime Video’s cockpit thriller, 7500, Netflix’s sci-fi thriller Project Power and Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7. Plus, his collaborative platform, HitRecord, just released Create Together, a six-episode YouTube series that connects creatives from around the world in an effort to collaborate together during quarantine.

Returning to the screen in ...

What score do you give a movie that offers empty engagement? How do you rate a film that entertains but says nothing? These questions are far from rhetorical — I’d genuinely like an answer. Knowing how to do so would significantly assist me in my review of 7500, an international co-production which features Joseph Gordon-Levitt in […]

The post ‘7500’ Movie Review: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Can’t Lift Measly Thriller appeared first on uInterview.

In aviation parlance, 7500 is the squawk code for an airplane’s transponder when a pilot wants air traffic control to know the plane’s been hijacked. And that’s the premise behind the new Joseph Gordon-Levitt film that recently premiered on Amazon. The entire film takes place in Gordon-Levitt’s cockpit, which gives the movie a tense, claustrophobic [...]

The post Stuck In A Cockpit, Joseph Gordon-Levitt Thinks ‘7500’ Mirrors Our Lockdown Time appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on Wbgr-fm on June 11th, 2020, discussing new VOD releases “The King of Staten Island” and “Working Man.”

Rating: 3.5/5.0

7500 An unusual co-production from three countries … USA, Austria and Germany … explores the ongoing terrorism threat on international airlines. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the main character, a co-pilot of an airline in which the captain has been killed and hijackers are trying to infiltrate the cockpit. Available on Amazon Prime. 3.5/5 stars.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Da 5 Bloods Spike Lee takes on the Vietnam War, through four black veterans of that conflict returning to Saigon to try and find the body of their dead comrade (portrayed in flashback by Chadwick Boseman), and a cache of lost gold. Also featuring Delroy Lindo in a searing performance, as well as Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis and Isiah Whitlock, Jr. Available on Netflix. 4/5 stars.

“7500” features Joseph Gordon-Levitt,...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as co-pilot Tobias Ellis in the drama/thriller 7500.

Courtesy of Amazon Studios

7500 is the code that airlines use for a hijacking, and hijacking is the subject of Amazon’s drama/thriller 7500. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tobias Ellis, a young American co-pilot working for a German airline, who on a Berlin to Paris flight is confronted with tough choices when hijackers storm the cockpit, and stab the more experienced German pilot. 7500 is streaming on Amazon Prime, starting June 18, 2020.

With the German pilot Michael (Carlo Kitzlinger) disabled, the inexperienced Tobias must take charge of the situation. To make matters more tense, Tobias’ German-Turkish fiancee Gokce (German actress Aylin Tezel) is a flight attendant on the plane. The one advantage Tobias has is that the four hijackers have no guns and are armed only with improvised knives made from broken glass.

The whole film takes place in the...

In 7500, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tobias Ellis, an American pilot whose flight from Berlin to Paris is hijacked by terrorists. His girlfriend Gökce (Aylin Terzel) is also on the flight as a flight attendant, and they share a two-year-old son, and the film also centers what extremes Tobias will go through to save the lives [...]

The post CinemAddicts Podcast Spotlights Joseph Gordon-Levitt Thriller ‘7500’ appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

In his first feature film appearance in four years, Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars in Amazon’s 7500, a taut thriller from first-time German director Patrick Vollrath. Gordon-Levitt, who last appeared in 2016’s Snowden, stars as Tobias Ellis, a soft-spoken American co-pilot who works for a European airline alongside his flight attendant girlfriend and the mother of his child, Gökce (Aylin Tezel).

After Tobias and his captain, Michael (Carlo Kitzlinger), perform a routine takeoff and their flight leaves Berlin for Paris, a group of terrorists armed with knives storm the cockpit, managing to seriously injure Michael and stab Tobias in the arm. The latter is still able to seal the cockpit and contact ground control to make an emergency landing, but the terrorists outside the door threaten to kill the rest of the passengers and crew–including Gökce–if Tobias doesn’t let them back in.

Vollrath, whose 2015 short film “Everything Will Be...

When German filmmaker Patrick Vollrath told Dp Sebastian Thaler that he planned to do a film shot in one room, Thaler was curious. What he didn’t know was that Vollrath meant a cockpit.

Vollrath’s feature debut, “7500,” which bows in the U.S. on Amazon Prime Video on June 19, stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tobias, a young American co-pilot operating an evening Berlin-to-Paris flight. Shortly after takeoff, terrorists storm the cockpit and try to hijack the flight, and Tobias is put to the test to save his passengers.

It’s a story that’s been developed many times, from “Executive Decision” to “Air Force One” to “Con Air,” using thrilling action cuts between the tension in the cockpit and the anxiety of the passengers. Vollrath wanted to tackle his hijack story differently.

“He wanted to do this fly-on-the-wall, documentary style with long takes,” Thaler explains. “And he wanted to shoot in a real cockpit.

On June 19, 1865, slavery was abolished in Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. It is a benchmark in Black history and is more timely now than ever as it is a day to celebrate and champion Black voices. That said, it is a good day for the debut of Channing Godfrey Peoples’ Miss Juneteenth, a film that spotlights the staple pageant associated with the day.

Directed and written by Texas native Peoples, Miss Juneteenth made its world premiere at Sundance earlier this year. The film stars Nicole Beharie, Alexis Chikaeze and Kendrick Sampson and follows Turquoise Jones (Beharie), a former beauty queen turned hard-working single mom that is preparing her rebellious teenage daughter Kai (Chikaeze) for the annual Miss Juneteenth pageant, hoping to keep her from repeating the same mistakes in life that she made.

“I grew up with Juneteenth so it was just second nature to me,” said Peoples told Deadline at Sundance.

At a time when many of us are still trapped at home and riveted by stressful news, the claustrophobic intensity of Amazon Prime Video’s “7500” serves as the best kind of thriller release valve. We’re confined to the cockpit of an airplane with co-pilot Joseph Gordon-Levitt for 92 minutes as he combats Muslim terrorist hijackers on a flight from Germany to Paris. And German director Patrick Vollrath boldly shot his feature debut as a series of 15-minute, 360-degree takes, encouraging an improvisational spirit among his actors and cinematographer Sebastian Thaler.

Good thing that Vollrath and Thaler were already somewhat prepared after trying a smaller-scale, claustrophobic experiment together on their Oscar-nominated, live-action short, “Everything Will Be Okay” (2015), in which a father kidnaps his daughter in a hotel room. For the more ambitious demands of “7500,” however, Thaler began his meticulous prep by filming in the cockpit of an actual commercial airline flight,...

At a time when many of us are still trapped at home and riveted by stressful news, the claustrophobic intensity of Amazon Prime Video’s “7500” serves as the best kind of thriller release valve. We’re confined to the cockpit of an airplane with co-pilot Joseph Gordon-Levitt for 92 minutes as he combats Muslim terrorist hijackers on a flight from Germany to Paris. And German director Patrick Vollrath boldly shot his feature debut as a series of 15-minute, 360-degree takes, encouraging an improvisational spirit among his actors and cinematographer Sebastian Thaler.

Good thing that Vollrath and Thaler were already somewhat prepared after trying a smaller-scale, claustrophobic experiment together on their Oscar-nominated, live-action short, “Everything Will Be Okay” (2015), in which a father kidnaps his daughter in a hotel room. For the more ambitious demands of “7500,” however, Thaler began his meticulous prep by filming in the cockpit of an actual commercial airline flight,...

Even though theaters have been shut down for months, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t incredible new films being released. It’s just that instead of dragging the family to the big screen, spending loads of money on concessions, and dealing with the people on their cellphones, you can enjoy great cinema, such as “7500,” in the comfort of your home.

And in honor of “7500” arriving on Amazon Prime Video today, we’re thrilled to offer our readers an exclusive look at a clip from the film.

Continue reading ‘7500’ Exclusive Clip: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Takes Control Against Hijackers In Amazon’s New Thriller at The Playlist.

The day begins like any other. Veteran pilot Tobias Ellis (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) sits down in the cockpit of a plane flying out of Berlin without a care in the world. He runs through the flight checklist, makes cute conversation with his girlfriend Gökce (Aylin Tezel) —a flight attendant on the plane—and before long, he is off in the air. That is, until an unexpected hijacking turns his routine into a nightmare.

Continue reading ‘7500’: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Shines In A Tense, Claustrophobic Thriller That Proves Less Is More [Review] at The Playlist.

The first words we hear Kevin Bacon say in “You Should Have Left” are “goddamn nightmares,” a phrase his character spits out after waking from some feverish visions that include long dark hallways, spooky music and a sinister, bedraggled guy threatening a little girl.

There are lots more of those nightmares to come over the next 90 minutes in this psychological thriller – oh, let’s scratch that and call it a horror movie – from writer-director David Koepp, best known as the screenwriter of “Jurassic Park,” “Mission: Impossible,” “War of the Worlds” and “Spider-Man.” Working from a novella by German writer Daniel Kehlmann, Koepp has joined forces with Blumhouse Productions to make a film that’s much closer in scale to his previous directing jobs like “Stir of Echoes” and “The Trigger Effect” than to his blockbuster screenplays, and not nearly as gripping as Blumhouse’s last spin on horror, “The Invisible Man.

German director Patrick Vollrath became known in 2015 for his Oscar-nominated short “Everything Will Be Okay,” and that title phrase is used again a few times in “7500,” his feature film debut. But make no mistake, everything is not Ok in Vollrath’s films – not in the short film, in which a divorced father tries to leave the country with his young daughter, and not in the feature, a hijacking thriller that takes place over 92 nerve-wracking minutes.

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a tour de force performance that finds the actor exploring various shades of desperation for pretty much the entire movie, “7500” is brutally simple and brutally efficient. It stays in a single claustrophobic location and takes place in long, uninterrupted takes – and once the tension begins about 10 minutes in, it never lets up.

You wouldn’t exactly call it fun or enjoyable, but it’s a thriller that does what it sets out to do,...

After several years of high-profile roles in movies like “500 Days of Summer,” “Inception,” “Looper” and “Snowden,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt stepped back from the spotlight for three years to spend time with his wife and young children. After his self-imposed hiatus, he returns this week with “7500,” a taut thriller that is set almost entirely in the cockpit of an airplane that’s being hijacked by terrorists. The movie will debut on June 18 on Amazon Prime.

Gordon-Levitt says the low-budget film was emotionally taxing, requiring him to go to dark places as he portrayed a pilot struggling to maintain his calm during a terrifying situation. It was, he argues, the most difficult role of his career. On the eve of the film’s premiere, Gordon-Levitt spoke with Variety about what attracted him to the project, keeping busy during the coronavirus lockdown, and the Fraggle Rock movie that wasn’t.

You are...

If you're in the market for a fast-moving thriller, you need to make time for Amazon Prime's 7500 this weekend.

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an airline pilot with his finger on the button of a life or death situation, the 90-odd minutes of running time flies.

7500 is simple and succinct and possibly one of the best "bottle" films you'll see this year.

Gordon-Levitt plays Tobias Ellis, an American living and working in Germany. He's preparing for his flight alongside his girlfriend and mother of his child, Gökce (Aylin Tezel), a relationship they keep on the down-low to maintain professionalism.

They're discussing their impending purchase of a new house and how exciting it will be for their son to have room to grow and play.

Tobias and his captain, Michael (Carlo Kitzlinger), wait for late passengers, passing the time by prepping the flight deck and joking about teaching the late-comers a lesson.

“7500” takes a familiar scenario and doubles down on its claustrophobic potential to make it fresh. Pitched somewhere between “Air Force One” and “United 93,” director Patrick Vollrath’s feature debut transforms the hijacked plane scenario into an unnerving real-time thriller set exclusively within the confines of the cockpit. The result overcomes the reductive premise and archetypal characters through its adrenaline-pumping pace, dexterous camerawork, and a frantic performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt that ranks as one of his subtlest turns.

No matter its narrative shortcomings, , a Hitchcockian gamble so committed to maintaining suspense at every turn that each scene teeters on the edge of an anxiety attack. While that might not sound like the most inviting experience, “7500” takes a gradual approach that acclimates viewers to its setting before jolting them into the center of a conflict that doesn’t relent until the closing moments. By then, it’s too absorbing to look away.

“7500” takes a familiar scenario and doubles down on its claustrophobic potential to make it fresh. Pitched somewhere between “Air Force One” and “United 93,” director Patrick Vollrath’s feature debut transforms the hijacked plane scenario into an unnerving real-time thriller set exclusively within the confines of the cockpit. The result overcomes the reductive premise and archetypal characters through its adrenaline-pumping pace, dexterous camerawork, and a frantic performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt that ranks as one of his subtlest turns.

No matter its narrative shortcomings, , a Hitchcockian gamble so committed to maintaining suspense at every turn that each scene teeters on the edge of an anxiety attack. While that might not sound like the most inviting experience, “7500” takes a gradual approach that acclimates viewers to its setting before jolting them into the center of a conflict that doesn’t relent until the closing moments. By then, it’s too absorbing to look away.

It has been 2020 for a hundred years and we’re still only in mid-June. The world outside is ugly and scary and there’s a killer bug trying to wipe us out. Despite the risk, good people have taken to the streets to stop bad things from happening and thanks to protest hijackers that’s all become pretty ugly too.

7500 is the story of a good man trying to stop bad things from happening. It plays out in real-time, is unsettlingly realistic, visceral and bleak with a pair of impressive central performances and horribly plausible stakes. And, frankly, it all feels like a bit too much right now.

In the opening moments of 7500, the emotionless eyes of a series of security cameras watch nervy young Vedat (Omid Memar) as he progresses through an airport; drawing in closer to scrutinise his actions and tingle our thriller-primed Spidey senses.

By contrast,...

A pilot must defend the cockpit when terrorists attack during a flight from Berlin to Paris in 7500, the feature debut from German director Patrick Vollrath, which arrives on Amazon Prime this week. It’s a German, Austrian, and American co-production starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, with parts in English and others in Arabic, Turkish, and German. That makes this a bit of a strange beast to begin with but add in that it’s told in real time, mostly shot on handheld and almost entirely in one location with no score and you’ve got a film that at its best is a tense experimental thriller and at worst a cliched disaster movie. One does not cancel out the other but it’s very much worth a watch.

Tobias Ellis (Gordon-Levitt) is a Us pilot living in Germany with his Turkish girlfriend, who works as a stewardess. They are both flying a...

The Amazon Original action thriller "7500", written and directed by Patrick Vollrath, stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as 'Tobias Ellis', Aylin Tezel as 'Gökce', Aurélie Thépaut as 'Nathalie, Carlo Kitzlinger as 'Michael' and Paul Wollin as Daniel, streaming June 19, 2020 on Amazon Prime:

"...it looks like a routine day at work for 'Tobias', a soft-spoken young American co-pilot on a flight from Berlin to Paris as he runs through the preflight checklist with 'Michael', the pilot, and chats with 'Gökce', his flight-attendant girlfriend. 

"But shortly after takeoff, terrorists armed with makeshift knives suddenly storm the cockpit, seriously wounding Michael and slashing Tobias' arm. Temporarily managing to fend off the attackers, a terrified Tobias contacts ground control to plan an emergency landing. 

"But when the hijackers kill a passenger and threaten to murder more innocent people if he doesn't let them back into the cockpit, this ordinary man faces an excruciating test..."

Click the...

Amazon Prime has launched a new trailer for the thriller ‘7500’ starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a pilot trying to keep hijackers from entering the cockpit of his plane.

It looks like a routine day at work for Tobias (Gordon-Levitt), a soft-spoken young American co-pilot on a flight from Berlin to Paris as he runs through the preflight checklist with Michael, the pilot, and chats with Gökce, his flight-attendant girlfriend. But shortly after takeoff, terrorists armed with makeshift knives suddenly storm the cockpit, seriously, Michael and slashing Tobias’ arm. Temporarily managing to fend off the attackers, a terrified Tobias contacts ground control to plan an emergency landing. But when the hijackers kill a passenger and threaten to murder more innocent people if he doesn’t let them back into the cockpit, this ordinary man faces an excruciating test.

Also in trailers – ‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’ trailer is finally here...

It’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt versus airline hijackers in “7500,” a grueling thriller that will land on Amazon Prime Video June 19. The streaming service has released the trailer for the upcoming film, which takes place in the claustrophobic confines of a small budget aircraft.

There has been no shortage of films about airplane hijackings over the years, from the acclaimed 9/11-based “United 93” to a B-movie about snakes that were on Samuel L. Jackson’s plane, but “7500” aims to offer something different by positioning Hollywood star Gordon-Levitt as an everyman who must find a way for him and his passengers to escape their extraordinary situation. As the trailer helpfully explains, 7500 is the emergency code for an airplane hijacking, but there’s no code for what comes next as Gordon-Levitt grapples with his horrifying predicament.

Per Amazon, here’s the film’s synopsis:

It looks like a routine day at work for Tobias,...

Airline pilots have a code to report hijackings, but there is no codified response to what might happen on board. The first 7500 trailer shows terrorists can be unpredictable and deadly, regardless of their weapons. Written and directed by Patrick Vollrath, the film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a co-pilot who has to take the wheel after an unexpected burst of turbulence strikes the cabin.

“It looks like a routine day at work for Tobias, a soft-spoken young American co-pilot on a flight from Berlin to Paris as he runs through the preflight checklist with Michael, the pilot, and chats with Gökce, his flight-attendant girlfriend,” reads the official synopsis. “But shortly after takeoff, terrorists armed with makeshift knives suddenly storm the cockpit, seriously wounding Michael and slashing Tobias’ arm. Temporarily managing to fend off the attackers, a terrified Tobias contacts ground control to plan an emergency landing. But when the hijackers kill...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays an airline pilot forced to fend off hijackers at the cockpit door in the new trailer for Amazon Prime Video’s 7500. The film will arrive on the streaming service June 19th.

The suspenseful preview lays out the film’s premise: After terrorists fail to storm the plane’s cockpit, Gordon-Levitt’s Tobias, a co-pilot on the airplane, must weigh following orders to keep the door closed with the terrorists’ threats to kill hostages with makeshift knives if he doesn’t obey. “7500” is airplane emergency code for an attempted hijacking.