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      The Director of ‘Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning’ Unpacks Key Franchise Moments

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      Christopher McQuarrie was a 27-year-old former movie-theater security guard when he won the Oscar for best screenplay in 1996 for “The Usual Suspects.” Things went a little pear-shaped from that early peak, as they tend to do in Hollywood, and the Princeton, N.J., native was looking to leave the industry altogether when he piqued Tom Cruise’s interest for another script that became the 2008 Hitler-assassination drama “Valkyrie.”It was the start of a professional relationship that has culminated in McQuarrie, now 56, directing and co-producing the past four films of the “Mission Impossible” franchise, including “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” in which Cruise famously stars as the unsinkable (and seemingly unkillable) special agent Ethan Hunt.Recently, McQuarrie spoke with The Times in New York and later via video call from the back of an SUV in Mexico City about the choice to make A.I. the villain, the question of whether the franchise is coming to an end, and a “gnarly” secret Tom Cruise movie in the works. Here are edited excerpts from those conversations.When did the decision come that “Dead Reckoning” and “Final Reckoning” would be the final two films in the franchise?Over the course of “Rogue Nation” [2015], “Fallout” [2018] and then “Dead Reckoning” [2023], we were delving deeper and deeper into the emotions of the characters and their arcs. I said, “Look, we know that it’s going to be a long movie, let’s just cut it in half.”I understand the irony of me saying we were going to make two two-hour movies and we ended up making these two much, much bigger ones. But we didn’t really think of it as being the conclusion of anything until we were about halfway through “Dead Reckoning.” Over time, we started to feel that this is a movie about the franchise more than just about the mission.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Stacy Spikes, Co-Founder of MoviePass, Spends His Day at the Theater

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      Stacy Spikes grew up at the movies. When he was a child in Houston, his mother would give him and his brother $5 each, drop them off at the theater — the manager knew them by name — and come back hours later. “She’d probably be arrested today,” he said. “It was a different time.”But that time at the movies was formative for Mr. Spikes, 56, who in 1997 founded Urbanworld Film Festival, a five-day festival in New York that showcases Black and multicultural films. In 2011, he co-founded MoviePass, a subscription-based ticketing service, which he later sold and then bought back in 2021.“Seeing Disney films and being dropped off at the theater, that was a form of escape for us, but it was like our babysitter,” Mr. Spikes said. “I saw ‘Blade Runner’ when I was 13 years old and I knew I was going to work in this area.”The movie industry has evolved in recent years, but Mr. Spikes remains a film buff. Recently, he saw “Sinners” three times in three different types of theaters.“I knew it had great music so I saw it the first time in Dolby Atmos, which focuses on the sound,” he said. “The second screening, I saw it in IMAX, and now you’re really focused on the picture and that part of the experience.”Mr. Spikes stretching before his daily run. He said he hasn’t missed a run in 11 years.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      AMC Says It Will Show More Ads Before Movies

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      The theater chain’s decision brings it in line with what its biggest competitors, Regal and Cinemark, have been doing since 2019, but it risks irking loyal customers.It’s a perennial frustration for moviegoers: The lights go out, the theater falls silent and the anticipation of the movie builds.But wait! Here are a few more ads for you to sit through.Most cinema enthusiasts know that going to the movies comes with a healthy dose of promotion, from the ads onscreen to the ones plastered on drink cups and bags of popcorn. But starting in July, AMC will join its major competitors in running even more commercials before movie screenings begin, in an effort to increase revenue without hiking ticket prices as the industry struggles.The movie theater chain has struck a deal with the cinema advertising company National CineMedia to play commercials in what is known as the “platinum spot” — right before the start of a movie. It is a departure from 2019, when AMC issued a strongly worded statement rejecting the company’s proposal to place ads in that spot. (National CineMedia signed agreements with two of AMC’s rivals, Regal and Cinemark, that year.)In a statement on Wednesday, AMC suggested it was prepared to receive some backlash. But at a time when movie theaters are struggling to get Americans to start going to the movies again, AMC noted that the decision would not make it any more expensive for customers.“For the past five years, AMC has sought out crucial revenue that is not reliant on the increase of base ticket prices,” the company said in the statement. Of the new advertisements, it added that “while AMC was initially reluctant to bring this to our theaters, our competitors have fully participated for more than five years without any direct impact to their attendance.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Watch Ana de Armas Fight Using Kitchen Utensils in ‘Ballerina’

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      The director Len Wiseman narrates an action sequence from “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina.”In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.In one scene in “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina,” there may be too many assassins in the kitchen.The film’s title character, the trained killer Eve (Ana de Armas), has made her way to an alpine village in Austria as part of a mission to root out a cult. But violent townspeople keep getting in her way. In a restaurant, Eve encounters a cook who aims to do more with her knife than julienne.What follows is a brisk action scene in which kitchen utensils are wielded violently and plates are smashed frantically.Narrating the scene, the director Len Wiseman said that during rehearsal, the goal was to “explore and use everything in a diner that could be used as a possible weapon.”That included pans, a meat tenderizer and a pile of plates that became the centerpiece of the sequence, as the two performers are seen in an overhead shot smashing dishes over each other’s heads.“This was one of the hardest things to do,” Wiseman said during an interview in New York, “because the plates are breakaway plates. They have one job. They break.” This meant that the actors had to be really careful picking up the plates, but also had to make the action look forceful.In the end, Wiseman and his team just wanted to have a little fun with this sequence. “What I was going for,” he said, “is let’s have this one be violent, but also make people laugh.”Read the “Ballerina” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      In ‘The Phoenician Scheme,’ Real Masterpieces Get a Starring Role

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      Paintings by Magritte and others were borrowed for “The Phoenician Scheme.” Safeguarding them amid the hot lights and chaos of a film set was challenging.At the end of Wes Anderson’s new caper, “The Phoenician Scheme,” there are some unusual credits. In addition to the cast and crew, the artworks featured in the film are listed, complete with ownership details. That’s because the pieces onscreen are not reproductions. They are in fact the actual masterpieces from Pierre-Auguste Renoir, René Magritte and other well-known artists.In the past, Anderson has faked a Kandinsky and a Klimt. Here he went for the real thing.“We have a character who’s a collector, who’s a possessor; he wants to own things, and we thought because it’s sort of art and commerce mixed together this time we should try to have the real thing,” Anderson said via a voice note.What he ended up with was impressive. The fictional collection of the businessman Zsa-zsa Korda, played by Benicio Del Toro, includes Renoir’s “Enfant Assis en Robe Bleue,” which was once owned by Greta Garbo, and Magritte’s “The Equator.” There is also a selection of works from the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Germany that includes pieces from the 17th century.“The Equator” by René Magritte sits on the mantle behind the film’s cast and director, Wes Anderson, third from right.TPS Productions/Focus FeaturesGetting a collector or an art institution to hand over a painting worth millions of dollars to a film production isn’t an easy task, and the negotiations fell mostly to Jasper Sharp, a curator who had worked with Anderson and his wife, Juman Malouf, on their 2018 exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where Sharp is based.“A film set has vast amounts of light, heat, no climate control, very lax security, people running everywhere with booms and lights and props,” Sharp said in a video interview. “The walls that it will be hung on are made of plywood sometimes. There are less desirable places to hang art, but this was certainly a challenging environment in terms of me trying to persuade someone that they maybe want to lend an object.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Tyler Perry’s Straw’ Review: The Accidental Bank Robber

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      A single mom in Atlanta (Taraji P. Henson) is having a very, very, very bad day.In “Tyler Perry’s Straw,” Janiyah (Taraji P. Henson), a single mom in Atlanta, is having a very, very, very bad day. Her morning was already ragged when the writer-director piles onto her woes a demeaning landlord, a bullying boss, a distant school administrator, a line of disgruntled grocery customers and a road-raging, off-duty police officer. Did we mention that Janiyah winds up in the wrong office at the wrong time in the wrong state of mind?As detectives arrive to a bloody crime scene at the grocery store where she clerks, Janiyah is across the parking lot at her bank, trying to cash her paycheck. Only she doesn’t have identification, and the teller is being a stickler. Soon, Janiyah is waving a gun, something is flashing red in her daughter’s see-through backpack and she has made hostages of the bank employees and a handful of aging customers. Sherri Shepherd portrays Nicole, the branch manager who tries to diffuse the situation, having amped it by telling the police that Janiyah has a bomb.Teyana Taylor (“A Thousand and One”) brings fierce focus to a deteriorating situation as Detective Kay Raymond. The security footage at the grocery store didn’t lie, but Detective Raymond intuits something more has sent Janiyah to the desperate standoff. She steps in as a negotiator.Perry, an unapologetic purveyor of melodrama, mercilessly teases the tension. Will Janiyah hurt the hostages? Will the authorities make a sad situation worse? The ending is perhaps too twisting for its own good. But Henson — so deeply committed to her character’s emotional cratering — still makes us care.StrawNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Philippe Labro Dies at 88; Restless Chronicler of the French Condition

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      As an author (often blurring the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction), a film director, a lyricist and a host of TV and radio shows, he sought to capture his epoch.Philippe Labro, a prolific journalist, author, movie director and songwriter whose lyrical prose, boundless curiosity and oft-repeated determination to “forage in deep waters” offered France a sweeping image of itself over several decades, died on Monday in Paris. He was 88.His death, in the Pitié Salpêtrière hospital, was caused by lymphoma of the brain, which was diagnosed in April, said Anne Boy, his longtime assistant. Mr. Labro lived in Paris.A restless spirit, notebook always at his side, convinced that journalism was an exercise in unrelenting observation, Mr. Labro pursued a lifelong quest to capture his epoch by any means. “He wrote our popular, French, and universal history,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a tribute on X, “from Algeria to America” and from Herman Melville to Johnny Hallyday, the French rock ’n’ roll superstar.In 24 books, including novels and essays; seven movies; lyrics to popular songs; and several television and radio shows, Mr. Labro probed the enigma of existence. No one medium sufficed. Truth, he believed, lurked between fact and fiction, and so he refused to be confined by one or the other. Quoting Einstein, he called life a “dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.” That piper was his muse.Mr. Labro arrived as a guest for an official state dinner with President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the first lady, Jill Biden, at the Élysée Palace in Paris in June 2024.Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Labro also liked Victor Hugo’s observation that “nothing is more imminent than the impossible.” He had good reason. It was in the United States, on Nov. 22, 1963, that Mr. Labro, then 27, achieved fame as the first French newspaper correspondent on the scene in the immediate aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More