News of the Week: Beyoncé's Renaissance Concert Movie Gets An Official Release Date

We’re in the first week of October, and as the leaves start to change and the jack-o-lanterns come out, so does the movie news. This week finds Beyoncé following in Taylor Swift’s footsteps with her own concert movie, Saw X scaring the crap out of the editing bay neighbors, Marvel Studios on the hunt for an X-Men writer, and more.

As always, Atom Insider brings you a few hand-picked stories we think you’ll like. Ready? Let’s dive in.

Beyoncé’s Renaissance Concert Tour Movie Gets Release Date

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert movie is charging toward the box office, and, as many predicted, it looks to have started a new trend in how musicans and entertainers bring their tours to their fans. Now, just as Swifties were overjoyed to hear of Swift’s tour getting the movie treatement, the Beyhive can rejoice: Beyoncé is doing the same and bringing her Renaissance World Tour to the theater. It’s officially been confirmed that the release date for the Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé movie will be December 1. The queen B herself released a trailer, as well:

The Barney Live-Action Movie Gets A Worrying Update

When Barney–yes, the big purple dinosaur–was announced as getting a live-action movie starring Daniel Kaluuya, it was…a headscratcher, to say the least. However, it made a lot more sense when it was reported that the movie would be dark and very weird, transforming the children’s figure into something for adults. Now, however, the project has gotten a puzzling update from Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz: the movie won’t actually be weird. But…maybe it will?

“It’s too early to be specific, but I can tell you we are taking a fresh approach that will be fun, entertaining and culturally oriented. It will not be an odd movie,” Kreiz told Semafor. That seems to be at odds with what Mattel Films executive Kevin McKeon teased earlier this year when he said the film would be “surrealistic.”

“We’re leaning into the millennial angst of the property rather than fine-tuning this for kids,” McKeon told The New Yorker. “It’s really a play for adults. Not that it’s R-rated, but it’ll focus on some of the trials and tribulations of being thirtysomething, growing up with Barney—just the level of disenchantment within the generation.”

Let’s hope that the movie is more like how McKeon describes and less like Kreiz, because the movie being weird and odd was the one that that had people intrigued.

There Were So Many Screams In Saw X That Neighbors Called The Cops On The Editors

Saw X has been getting great reviews and is considered a return to form for the Saw movies, with Tobin Bell’s John Kramer, a.k.a. Jigsaw, returning to the franchise. As always with the Saw movies, it’s getting praise for its gnarly and gruesome kills–kills that, as it turns out, might have been a little too realistic. In an interview with NME, director Kevin Greutert related an amusing story from when the movie was in post production. As he told the outlet, Steve Forn, the first assistant editor, was in the editing bay and at the time was working on the vacuum trap scene. There was a knock on the door, and Forn answered it to find the police standing there.

“There was a knock at the door,” Greutert recalled. “We have the doorbell [camera] video of the police walking up, [Forn answering the door] and the police saying, ‘The neighbors [have been] calling and saying someone’s being tortured to death in here. And he [Forn] was like, ‘Actually, I’m just working on a movie… You can come in and see it if you want?’ The cops started laughing! They said, ‘We want to but, you know, you’re all right.’ It must have been a pretty realistic performance! It’s a pretty funny story… Plus Steve is such a mild-mannered guy. I can only imagine the look on his face when he realized what was happening!” laughed Greutert.

Talk about great sound design.

Marvel Is On The Hunt For A Writer To Pen The X-Men Movie

Ever since Disney acquired 20th Century Fox’s entertainment divisions, one thing has been on Marvel fans’ minds and that’s when and how the X-Men would be introduced into the MCU. While the mutants have slowly been getting integrated into the MCU one at a time, such as Patrick Stewart’s Professor X appearing in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine set to appear in the upcoming Deadpool 3, the team has yet to get their own movie. With the pandemic, and also with the past few X-Men movies under Fox getting mixed reception, Marvel has been taking its time with developing the standalone X-Men movie.

Now, it appears that the project is finally in motion. With the writers’ strike over, it appears Marvel is eager to get the ball rolling, with Deadline reporting that Marvel execs are eyeballing later this fall to start taking pitches from writers for the upcoming X-Men movie. As has been the case with this project, however, Marvel is in no rush to choose a writer soon and will take its time over a few months, with the expectation that the winner of the coveted gig won’t be announced until early next year. While fans are no doubt eager to see the project moving forward, this is a smart decision on Marvel’s part not to be too hasty. The X-Men franchise is in dire need of a brand reboot after the past few flops. Rest assured that the studio will take its time to ensure that franchise overhaul is done right.

Legendary Pictures Is Set To Adapt Paolo Coelho’s Beloved Bestseller The Alchemist

Considering how quickly snaps up the rights to novels, sometimes even before they’re published, it’s almost shocking that an adaptation hasn’t yet been made of Paolo Coelho’s global bestseller The Alchemist. That’s soon to change, however, as Legendary Pictures has acquired the rights to the book for movie, TV, and ancillary properties. Legendary will be developing the movie with Sony’s TriStar Pictures and Palmstar, and they’re apparently ready to get the project started as soon as possible. The project has already tapped a writer for the Alchemist adaptation in Jack Thorne, who adapted the book Wonder, and penned Netflix’s Enola Holmes.

The Alchemist tells the touching story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy, who dreams of leaving his simple life and traveling the world to find a priceless treasure. Along the way, he finds different treasures that hold messages for those who find them, encourging them to follow their dreams. Coelho’s book was originally written in his native Portuguese, and has since been translated into multiple languages on its way to becoming a bestseller around the globe. It’s won a number of prestigious literary awards, and it holds the current record for the most translations of a single work by a living author.