Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles kicks off Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. PT spotlighting 28 movies, with panel discussions featuring cast and creatives from this awards season’s most talked-about films, including actors scheduled to return to post-strike duty from Margot Robbie, Bradley Cooper, Cillian Murphy, Jeffrey Wright, Colman Domingo, Lily Gladstone, Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson and Annette Bening to Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, Carey Mulligan, Anna Kendrick, Eve Hewson and America Ferrara.
During the summer of 2023, with both the writers’ and actors’ strikes in full swing, the future of Contenders was by no means a sure thing. Indeed, SAG-AFTRA’s call to arms immediately preceded the extraordinary double whammy of Barbie and Oppenheimer, right at the moment when it seemed mainstream audiences were ready to go back to the cinema.
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After Contenders Film: London in October proved that the films themselves are the real stars, and producers, directors, cinematographers, casting directors, sound designers, costume designers, editors and animators all stepped forward to take the spotlight, telling candid stories of the incredible craft that goes on behind the scenes.
We were in the course of bringing that lesson with us to Contenders Film: Los Angeles when the actors’ strike ended — with the result that our panels were still adding talent as we went to print, so keep an eye out for some surprises not noted in this program.
This has all led to our most wide-ranging lineup yet, filling in the fascinating backstories behind so many of the films that have reignited the box office this year, from the action-packed John Wick: Chapter 4, to the franchise-reviving Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, right up to Martin Scorsese’s critically acclaimed period thriller Killers of the Flower Moon, his first to put Leonardo DiCaprio in the frame with Robert De Niro and an attempt to right the wrongs of a historic crime that shocked America.
For sure, there will some big names from the directing world, like Michael Mann, who will be Zooming in to present his Italy-set motor racing saga Ferrari, starring Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz. Alexander Payne will be joining us to discuss his New England Christmas fable The Holdovers. Todd Haynes will be taking the stage for the first time since Cannes with the cast of his provocative drama May December. And, circumstances permitting, there may even be a surprise or two from the team behind Maestro, Cooper’s biopic of mercurial composer Leonard Bernstein, in which he stars with Mulligan as Bernstein’s long-suffering wife Felicia.
But Contenders is a broad church, and the panels will reflect that. While offering sneak previews of such films as The Color Purple, a musical reimagining of Alice Walker’s classic story by Blitz Bazawule, and The Boys in the Boat, a timely World War II period piece from director George Clooney, there will also be a chance to catch up with lighter but no less topical films. Like Flora and Son, about a struggling Irish single mom who gets the music bug, or Dumb Money, in which the wolves of Wall Street get a taste of their own medicine, or Cassandro, the outrageous story of a gay Mexican luchador.
Barbie and Oppenheimer, the unlikely kissing cousins that dominated the summer multiplex, will, of course, be handsomely represented. But it’s fitting that we’ll also be hearing from the makers of Creed III, the ninth installment of the Rocky franchise and a film that’s just as fresh to today’s audiences as the first was back in 1976. As boxer Adonis Creed knows, sometimes you just have to roll with the punches.
Check out below for today’s lineup rolling out live from the DGA Theater in Los Angeles, and follow along all day for panel coverage on Deadline and on our social channels via the hashtag #DeadlineContenders.
Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles
Panel schedule
8:30 a.m. PT – Livestream begins
UNIVERSAL
Oppenheimer
Cillian Murphy (Actor)
Emma Thomas (Producer)
Ellen Mirojnick (Costume Designer)
Jamie Leigh McIntosh (Hair Department)
Andrew Jackson (Visual Effects Supervisor)
WARNER BROS
The Color Purple
Blitz Bazawule (Director)
Taraji P. Henson (Actor)
Danielle Brooks (Actor)
Fantasia Barrino (Actor)
FOCUS FEATURES
The Holdovers
Alexander Payne (Director)
Dave Hemingson (Writer/Producer)
Kevin Tent (Editor)
COLUMBIA PICTURES
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Phil Lord (Writer/Producer)
Christopher Miller (Writer/Producer)
Kemp Powers (Director)
Amy Pascal (Producer)
COLUMBIA PICTURES/STAGE 6 FILMS/BLACK BEAR PICTURES
Dumb Money
Lauren Schuker Blum (Writer/Executive Producer)
Rebecca Angelo (Writer/Executive Producer)
Aaron Ryder (Producer)
DREAMWORKS ANIMATION
Trolls Band Together
Walt Dohrn (Director)
Gina Shay (Producer)
Anna Kendrick (Voice Actor)
SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
Freud’s Last Session
Matthew Brown (Writer/Director)
The Peasants
Hugh Welchman (Writer/Director/Producer)
AMAZON MGM STUDIOS
American Fiction
Cord Jefferson (Writer/Director/Producer)
Laura Karpman (Composer)
Hilda Rasula (Editor)
Cristina Dunlap (Cinematographer)
Jeffrey Wright (Actor)
Creed III
Irwin Winkler (Producer)
Elizabeth Raposo (Producer)
Keenan Coogler (Writer)
Zach Baylin (Writer)
The Boys in the Boat
Grant Heslov (Producer)
Tanya Swerling (Editor)
ORION STUDIOS/AMAZON MGM STUDIOS
Bottoms
Emma Seligman (Writer/Director)
Alison Small (Producer)
Rachel Sennott (Actor)
NETFLIX
Maestro
Bradley Cooper (Writer/Director/Producer/Actor)
Carey Mulligan (Actor)
Matt Bomer (Actor)
Nyad
Chai Vasarhelyi (Director)
Annette Bening (Actor)
LUNCH
NETFLIX
Fair Play
Chloe Domont (Director/Writer)
Alden Ehrenreich (Actor)
Rustin
Colman Domingo (Actor)
Branford Marsalis (Composer)
May December
Todd Haynes (Director)
Julianne Moore (Actor)
Natalie Portman (Actor)
Charles Melton (Actor)
Samy Burch (Writer)
WARNER BROS
Barbie
Greta Gerwig (Co-Writer/Director)
Margot Robbie (Actor/Producer)
America Ferrera (Actor)
AMAZON MGM STUDIOS
Air
Alex Convery (Writer)
William Goldenberg (Editor)
Cassandro
Roger Ross Williams (Director/Writer)
María Estela Fernández (Costume Designer)
Marcelo Zarvos (Composer)
The Burial
Maggie Betts (Writer/Director)
APPLE ORIGINAL FILMS
Killers of the Flower Moon
Lily Gladstone (Actor)
Jacqueline West (Costume Designer)
Julia O’Keefe (Osage Clothing Consultant)
Flora and Son
Eve Hewson (Actor)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Actor)
Gary Clark (Songwriter/Composer)
LIONSGATE
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Kelly Fremon Craig (Writer/Director/Producer)
James L. Brooks (Producer)
Julie Ansell (Producer)
Abby Ryder Fortson (Actor)
John Wick: Chapter 4
Chad Stahelski (Director-Producer)
Erica Lee (Producer)
PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON FILMS
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Jeff Rowe (Writer/Director)
Evan Goldberg (Writer/Producer)
Seth Rogen (Writer/Producer/Actor)
NEON
Ferrari
Michael Mann (Director/Producer)
Adam Driver (Actor/Executive Producer)
Penélope Cruz (Actor)
Shailene Woodley (Actor)
ILLUMINATION
Migration
Benjamin Renner (Writer/Director)
John Powell (Composer)
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