World Movie News: The Last 24 Hours
Edinburgh raises the curtain, China braces for Nolan, Bollywood’s Independence Day scrap heats up, a bittersweet Nollywood farewell and the Nordics show their hand for Haugesund.
Morning all — after two days of chefs-in-warzones and billion-rupee Bollywood milestones, today’s rather more of a “festivals and forecasts” sort of day: a Scottish island, a Chinese IMAX screen about to be swallowed whole, and a fair bit of advance-booking arm-wrestling in India. Here’s what happened in the world of movies during the last 24 hours.
Edinburgh throws open its doors: The 79th Edinburgh International Film Festival — the oldest continually running film festival in the world, no less — kicks off today and runs through to the 19th, with 39 new features across a programme that also marks Trainspotting’s 30th anniversary. Opening the whole thing is The Incomer, Edinburgh-born filmmaker Louis Paxton’s debut feature, fresh off winning the NEXT Innovator Award at Sundance; it stars Domhnall Gleeson, Gayle Rankin and Grant O’Rourke in a story about a remote Scottish island community upended by the arrival of an outsider tasked with relocating them to the mainland. Festival Director Paul Ridd called it a festival “hitting a stride” after its 2024 relaunch, and with more World Premieres than ever before on the slate, it’s worth keeping an eye on this one.
China holds its breath for Nolan: As trailed yesterday, Once Upon a Time in the Middle East has now properly landed in Chinese cinemas — but the bigger story is what’s coming tomorrow. Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey opens across the mainland on the 14th, and IMAX China is reportedly handing over the vast majority of its roughly 800-screen network to it for the whole first week, with the CEO citing a “Christopher Nolan effect” strong enough to override the usual caution around Hollywood imports. Weekend previews alone brought in $6.9 million from IMAX and CINITY screens only, and pre-sales have already pushed the film’s Chinese haul past $11 million before a single wide-release ticket’s been sold. Given Spider-Man: Brand New Day is still duking it out for supremacy there too, China’s box office chart is about to get rather crowded.
Bollywood’s Independence Day punch-up: Staying on the numbers theme, India’s Independence Day weekend is shaping into a proper scrap. Awarapan 2 — Emraan Hashmi’s long-awaited return to brooding hitman Shivam Pandit, 19 years after the original — has been posting the kind of advance-booking surge that trade watchers don’t see often, with projections now pointing towards a ₹20 crore-plus ($2m+) opening day and a shot at Hashmi’s career-best solo start. It’s up against Sunny Deol’s Batwara 1947, which is trailing in the advance stakes but leaning on word-of-mouth appeal instead. Fittingly, there’s history repeating here too: Deol’s Apne beat the original Awarapan at the box office back in 2007, so this one’s being billed as the rematch that everybody in India is watching.
A bittersweet Nollywood release: Nigerian cinemas welcome Sweet 16 tomorrow, Willis Ikedum’s comedy-drama about a privileged teenager whose extravagant birthday plans unravel into family secrets. It’s a lighter premise than it sounds on paper, though: this is the final film completed by the late actor Alex Ekubo before his passing, which will inevitably colour how Nigerian audiences receive it. A poignant one to watch out for.
And finally, the Nordics show their hand for Haugesund: Finally, over in Norway, New Nordic Films has unveiled its Works in Progress selection ahead of the Norwegian International Film Festival, running the 22nd to the 28th — fifteen features currently in post-production, offering an early peek at what’s coming down the pipe from the region. It’s a smaller, quirkier story than yesterday’s Palme d’Or afterglow, but it’s exactly the sort of industry tea-leaf-reading that tends to flag the Nordic titles worth chasing down before everyone else catches on.
That’s your lot for today. Until next time.
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