Jennifer Lawrence will star in the Adam McKay comedy "Don't Look Up" for Netflix.
The streaming giant on Wednesday announced that it acquired the the project. McKay, who wrote the script, will direct the film about two low-level astronomers who go on a media tour to warn of an approaching asteroid heading for Earth.
Lawrence has been little seen on the big screen lately, most recently co-starring in last year's "X-Men: Dark Phoenix." The 29-year-old actress took a roughly two-year hiatus from acting but has recently returned to work. She recently wrapped production on an untitled film for A24 directed by Lila Neugebauer.
"I'm so thrilled to make this movie with Jen Lawrence," McKay said in a statement. "She's what folks in the 17th century used to call 'a dynamite act.' And the fact that Netflix sees this movie as a worldwide comedy sets the bar high for me and my team in an exciting and motivating way."
McKay's most recently movie was 2018's Oscar-nominated "Vice," starring Christian Bale as Dick Cheney.
"Adam has always had great timing when it comes to making smart, relevant and irreverent films that depict our culture," said Scott Stuber, head of film at Netfix. "Even if he somehow ends up predicting planet Earth's imminent demise, we're excited to add this to our slate before it all comes to an end."
Shooting on "Don't Look Up" is set to begin in April.
A new initiative will allow UK deaf audiences to see captioned films before general release
For once, deaf audiences are being prioritized at U.K. cinemas.
Paramount Pictures UK will be showing their movies with captions the day before general release, meaning deaf and hard of hearing cinemagoers across the country will be able to watch them first.
The distributor is starting with the robot animation "Transformers One" on Oct. 10. Subtitled screenings of Paramount's upcoming films, "Gladiator II," "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" and "The Smurfs Movie," will follow over the next few months.
Rebecca Mansell, chief executive of the British Deaf Association, called the initiative ground-breaking. Deaf, deafened and hard of hearing audiences have been struggling to attend the few available subtitled film showings because they are often scheduled at inconvenient times, she said.
"It fits in with the cinema's needs, but not necessarily when the Deaf community want to go," she said. "The deaf community always feel that they are the last ones to know, the last ones to watch something, the last ones for everything. And now we're going to be the first. It's definitely a really exciting moment."
Around 18 million people in the U.K. are registered as deaf, deafened or hard of hearing, according to the association.
Paramount has also been running deaf awareness training with cinema managers and staff in U.K. cities so that they can better communicate with customers.
Yvonne Cobb, a TV presenter and celebrity ambassador for the British Deaf Association, was running the training at a large cinema in central London's Leicester Square Wednesday.
She said the three-hour training session wasn't enough for staff to become fluent in British Sign Language, but workers were able to learn basic signs, how to interact with deaf... Read More