By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
TORONTO (AP) --The Jackie Kennedy biopic "Jackie," starring Natalie Portman, has been acquired by Fox Searchlight, which plans to push the film directly into the Oscar season.
Searchlight announced the acquisition early Tuesday shortly after the Pablo Larrain-directed film played at the Toronto International Film Festival. Though the market has been quiet in Toronto, "Jackie" has been the most hotly pursued film since its Venice Film Festival debut last week. The film cuts between the events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy and other moments in the first lady's life.
Fox Searchlight will release the movie Dec. 9, and it's widely expected to catapult Portman into the best-actress Oscar race. Fox's specialty division is an awards season regular that has ushered many films into the Academy Awards, including best-picture winners "12 Years a Slave" and "Birdman," as well as Portman's own "Black Swan," which won her best actress.
Searchlight's other fall release, Nate Parker's Nat Turner slave revolt drama "The Birth of a Nation," had been seen as the studio's horse in this year's Oscar race. But that film's awards hopes have been badly damaged by a rape accusation from Parker's past. In Toronto, Parker deflected questions about the case in a press conference.
"Pablo Larrain's 'Jackie' is a daring, one-of-a-kind cinematic portrayal of a beloved icon," said Fox Searchlight Pictures Presidents Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula.
Movies aren't often acquired in Toronto and so quickly put into theaters. Usually they open sometime the following year. But Fox Searchlight has managed it before; in 2008, it picked up Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler," and led it to Oscar nods for both Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei.
Sean “Diddy” Combs seeks bail, citing changed circumstances and new evidence
Sean "Diddy" Combs filed a new request for bail on Friday, saying changed circumstances, along with new evidence, mean the hip-hop mogul should be allowed to prepare for a May trial from outside jail.
Lawyers for Combs filed the request in Manhattan federal court, where his previous requests for bail have been rejected by two judges since his September arrest on racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees, while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
He has been awaiting a May 5 trial at a federal detention facility in Brooklyn.
In their new court filing, lawyers for Combs say they are proposing a "far more robust" bail package that would subject the entertainer to strict around-the-clock security monitoring and near-total restrictions on his ability to contact anyone but his lawyers. But the amount of money they attach to the package remains $50 million, as they proposed before.
They also cite new evidence that they say "makes clear that the government's case is thin." That evidence, the lawyers said, refutes the government's claim that a March 2016 video showing Combs physically assaulting his then-girlfriend occurred during a coerced "freak off," a sexually driven event described in the indictment against Combs.
They wrote that the encounter was instead "a minutes-long glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship" between Combs and his then-girlfriend.
The lawyers argued that the jail conditions Combs is experiencing at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn violate his constitutional... Read More