This Week in Movies is a feature that highlights some of the big news stories from the world of movies that dropped over the past seven days. Below you’ll find a small handful of the week’s headlines you might have missed.

Here are some of the top stories from the week of January 25th – 31st …

• The 2025 Sundance Film Festival kicked off with a full slate of feature films and shorts from a variety people and countries. Several big titles came in with distribution already secured. Others are premiering with hopes of snagging a distribution deal. Among the most talked about movies from this year’s batch include another adaptation of “Kiss of the Spider Woman”, this one starring Jennifer Lopez, “Rabbit Trap” starring Dev Patel, a Josh O’Connor tearjerker titled “Rebuilding”, the star-studded “Train Dreams”, the gonzo cult thriller “Opus”, and Benedict Cumberbatch’s “The Thing With Feathers”.

• Filmmaking auteur and cinema enthusiast Quentin Tarantino announced his next project and it just might surprise a few people. It was originally reported that Tarantino was working on his tenth and final film which would be called “The Film Critic”. However he cancelled the project last year leaving everyone wondering what was next. Well, it appears he’s heading to the stage. During a sit-down with Elvis Mitchell in Park City, Utah, Tarantino revealed he’s currently writing a play and it’s likely going to be the next thing he does. He went on to say if it succeeds he could adapt it into what would be his final movie. We shall see.

• We found out that Denis Villeneuve is currently deep “in the writing zone” with “Dune: Messiah”, the third film in his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science-fiction classic. We also learned that filming is expected to start sooner than first expected. The movie will be set twelve years after the events of “Dune: Part Two” and will bring the Paul Atreides story arc to a conclusion. “Dune: Messiah” is currently slated to hit theaters December 16, 2026.

• In 2023 Jonathan Majors seemed to be on top on the movie world with a skyrocketing career that included big roles in the Creed franchise and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. At the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, his movie “Magazine Dreams” garnered significant praise including talk of a possible Oscar nomination. But everything derailed after his arrest and conviction for domestic assault and harassment. “Magazine Dreams” was dropped by distributor Searchlight Pictures and left without a release date. This week a new trailer was dropped along with news that the film is now set for release on March 21st via Briarcliff Entertainment.

• This past week a true screen legend celebrated a birthday. Gene Hackman turned 95 on January 30th. Hackman’s magnificent career began in 1961 and over its course he appeared in countless big screen classics including “Bonnie and Clyde”, “The French Connection”, “The Conversation”, “Superman”, “Hoosiers”, “Mississippi Burning”, “Unforgiven”, and “The Royal Tenenbaums”. In 2004 the two-time Academy Award winner announced his retirement from acting. Since then he and his wife have lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he has enjoyed cycling and architecture. Happy Birthday Mr. Hackman.