World Movie News: The Last 24 Hours
A busy Friday for UK screens; a separate stack of US-only openings; El Gouna announces its first wave for 2026; Ridley Scott lights up Leicester Square for The Dog Stars; and Paramount’s WBD deal has Hollywood on edge.
Morning all — Friday’s rolled around again, which means a fresh batch of releases either side of the Atlantic, plus one very starry red carpet in London last night. Here’s what happened in the world of movies during the last 24 hours.
A packed Friday at UK cinemas: Ten titles land in British and Irish cinemas today. Leading the pack is Insidious: Out Of The Further, the sixth entry in the long-running horror franchise, with Lin Shaye back alongside Amelia Eve’s demon-plagued young mother. Jason Statham brings his usual sore-throated intensity to Mutiny, playing a cargo-ship engineer framed for murder and out for vengeance, while Spa Weekend offers the comedy counterprogramming courtesy of Anna Faris, Isla Fisher, Leslie Mann and Michelle Buteau. Elsewhere: Mubi’s Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma brings some knowing slasher throwback energy; Icon’s & Sons and Universal’s Stop! That! Train! round out the smaller dramas; and for the nostalgic, both Trainspotting and Aardman’s Early Man get re-release outings via Park Circus. Coyote vs. ACME — the long-shelved Warner Bros. tax-write-off casualty that’s spent years fighting for a release — also finally opens today, which feels like it deserves its own small round of applause regardless of how the film itself turns out.
Meanwhile, over in the US: American screens get their own separate stack today. The Rivals of Amziah King, Andrew Patterson’s Matthew McConaughey-led backwoods crime thriller, expands to wide release this weekend after strong reviews out of SXSW, while The Wrong Girls brings its own scrappy indie-comedy energy to a rather more crowded American marketplace. Given how much overlap there usually is between the two release slates, it’s a fairly light week for genuinely US-exclusive titles.
El Gouna announces its first wave of titles: Away from the UK/US axis, Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival unveiled the first ten titles in its 2026 line-up yesterday, and it’s a genuinely international spread. Berlin Golden Bear winner Yellow Letters and Cannes co-best-director winner Fatherland both feature, alongside The Garden We Dreamed — Mexican director Joaquín del Paso’s Malaga-winning drama, representing the festival’s Latin American strand — and a new partnership with the Zurich Film Festival that’ll see the El Gouna-shot documentary Dolphins: My Close Encounters premiere in Switzerland before taking its regional bow back on the Red Sea coast. Notably, no Egyptian or wider African title has made the cut so far, though the festival says its regional sections are still to be announced. All of this is fodder for what might make up the London Film Festival line-up in six week’s time.
Ridley Scott lights up Leicester Square: Last night, London hosted the world premiere of Scott’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi film The Dog Stars, with Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley and Josh Brolin walking the red carpet at Odeon Luxe alongside the director. The film — also notably featuring a dog billed simply as Rak, who by all accounts had the crowd’s attention as much as his human co-stars — opens properly on the 28th, so expect the reviews embargo to lift sometime next week.
Paramount-WBD merger jitters continue: On the corporate side, Paramount’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery continues to unsettle the creative community, with reports of growing anxiety among filmmakers and executives about what a combined mega-studio might mean for greenlighting decisions and job security across both companies. Nothing’s been finalised, but it’s clearly the conversation dominating water-cooler chat in Hollywood right now.
That’s all for today. As I’ve been on a family holiday all of this week, and cinema free, I have a LOT to catch up on this weekend!
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