Latest in Red Rocket

After a journeyman career that included stints as an MTV VJ, a rapper named Dirt Nasty, a model and the goofball star of three Scary Movie installments, Simon Rex is having a moment. He stars alongside Channing Tatum in the Zoe Kravitz-directed drama Blink Twice, and opposite Lily James and Joseph…

Sean Baker's previous film, 2022’s Red Rocket (2022), began with *NSYNC's Spotify-topping "Bye Bye Bye," but Anora starts with the slightly lesser-known "Greatest Days" by British boy band Take That. Musically, it's a bold choice, at odds with the frenetic spirit of what for over half its running time is…

Brenda Deiss, the former secretary who was cast by Red Rocket writer-director Sean Baker to play the mother-in-law of Simon Rex's lead character Mikey Saber, died Monday at Clear Lake Hospital in Clear Lake, Texas, of complications from in a stroke last month. She was 60. A spokesperson for the film confirmed her…

Critically acclaimed specialty holdovers continued to plant their flags in theaters as awards season advances and Oscar nominations loom — and on a weekend with few new releases, most not reporting grosses today. Among the bigger indies, United Artists Releasing's Licorice Pizza by Paul Thomas Anderson grossed an…

Sean Baker used to be the indie world's best-kept secret, until The Florida Project opened in the Directors Fortnight strand of the Cannes film festival in 2017. Critics were immediately impressed by Baker's mix of scripted drama and intimate cinema verité-style cinematography, which were made to look even more…

This past year couldn't be expiring soon enough as far as most of the world is concerned, and we can only hope that the next one will at least provide small measures of relief in one regard or another. May this be true for the planet first and foremost, but also for the world of films. I've experienced 2021 as the…

Editors note: Deadline's Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year's movie awards race. Filmmaker Sean Baker (The Florida Project) had an unexpected inspiration for his latest film Red Rocket, which centers on fast-talking, washed-up porn star Mikey Saber…

Holdovers Drive My Car, Red Rocket and The Scary Of Sixty First looked good in limited runs on a weekend with few new specialty releases and even fewer numbers. Streamers – which presented The Lost Daughter (Netflix), Swan Song (Apple) and The Tender Bar (Amazon), don't reveal them and smaller distributors often…

Sean Baker's Red Rocket, the highest-profile specialty opening to report numbers this weekend (i.e. not distributed by a streamer) posted a solid $96,953 for a per screen average of $16,158 in six theaters in New York/Los Angeles. Critics are calling the film about a washed up porn star returning to his hostile Texas…

A24 presents Red Rocket in six theaters this weekend ahead of a limited expansion in New York and LA, adding Chicago, Austin and San Francisco next weekend with a wider rollout over the holidays to several hundred screens. The dark comedy by Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Tangerine) premiered at Cannes to a…

EXCLUSIVE: Red Rocket breakout Bree Elrod has signed with Anonymous Content for representation. In the dark comedy from acclaimed writer-director Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Tangerine), which is set for release on December 10, Elrod plays Lexi—the estranged wife of washed-up porn star Mikey Saber (Simon Rex), who…

Simon Rex arrived at the Cannes film festival this year as an outsider: it's pretty unlikely that any other actors in this year's heavyweight competition line-up could boast a recurring role in the Scary Movie franchise, a hip-hop career as Dirt Nasty, and a successful transition from adult film. But after the…