#Sunnymarch

[msclaritea]

Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman to Lead 'War of the Roses' Remake

"The Roses’ is a wildly funny, bigger than life, and yet deeply human story,” said Searchlight president Matthew Greenfield announcing the project. “With Jay at the helm, and Benedict and Olivia and Tony, we have a dream team bringing it to life.”

So Matthew Greenfield at Searchlight is dirty...BEYOND dirty. No comment on Olivia Colman as of yet, but we all know now that actors and actresses usually have NO SAY I'm the projects they're currently put in. This film should not be made. It's another horrible, cruel joke to play on the fans of Benedict Cumberbatch and the people pushing it are on the same level as that jackal Jay Z and the NFL This is pure, sick, Freemason, ancient bullshit. Also, how is it this project is STILL in development, when it's BEEN in development since 2017?

And Benedict, if you go along with this project, it will be revealed to the public that you are going along with your own public humiliation, in order to enrich human traffickers.

Was Clarence really not enough for you?

Or Eric?

How about pissing on yourself in Louis Wain?

AND HEY, DISNEY...BIG FUCKING MISTAKE!

[legionnaireslover]

GREAT NEWS FOR TEWSF!

It's the NUMBER #1 movie showing on Netflix UK!

My hubby and I just watched it on Google TV and... it was fantastic!

[katy-griffin-saye]

🎬 REVIEW FOR "We Live In Time" : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

⚠️: Very Mild Spoiler

This movie is a very moving one, involving a great cast of people like Florence Pugh & Andrew Garfield with their great acting. It had its funny moments & serious tones of the couples seperate issues. Of course, the movie ending was rather sad, especially when we are left with just Tobias & Ella going home, making the 🥚 recipe taught by Almut (who became a 👩‍🍳 after being a ⛸️), declaring that she had lost her battle with cancer & 💀. In addition, those ♀️♂️ scenes were taken more appropriately & beautifully unlike A24s "👶👧". You know, I would want to try out how Almut made her 🥚 recipes some day.

[camille09hart]

"Benedict Cumberbatch (also a producer on the film) proves to be the right man at the right time, providing a lifeline and fleeting support just when it’s needed most. When things feel at their very bleakest, his character provides proof that kindness can be found at even the darkest of moments – all while battling devastating losses of his own. "

A little bit about Benedict's character on The End We Start From.

[prettywitchiusaka]

I know this goes without saying but Hollywood's business conduct needs an overhaul, like yesterday!

Not saying that Hollywood studios are committing blatant financial fraud or anything, but the writer of the original Men in Black being told that after 3 sequels, a hit song, a WB cartoon series and a comic book being told “this franchise has never made money” is rather shady.

Didn’t Mark Hamill say they once sent him a letter every year claiming Star Wars never made any money?

[elennemigo]

Benedict Cumberbatch | We Live in Time premiere | London Film Festival | October 17, 2024.

He is executive producer for his London-based company SunnyMarch.

[thelostsmiles]

Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman to Star in "‘The Roses", directed by Jay Roach 

Life seems easy for picture-perfect couple Theo (Cumberbatch) and Ivy (Colman): successful careers, great kids, an enviable sex life. But underneath the façade of the perfect family is a tinderbox of competition and resentments that’s ignited when Theo’s professional dreams come crashing down.

“The Roses is a wildly funny, bigger than life, and yet deeply human story,” said Searchlight President Matthew Greenfield. “With Jay at the helm, and Benedict and Olivia and Tony, we have a dream team bringing it to life.”

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

“We are thrilled to be working on this very special film with such an incredible team,” stated SunnyMarch’s Ackland. “We have been long admirers of Jay’s work and his vision and passion to tell this story is incredibly inspiring.”

Shared South of the River’s Colman and Sinclair, “We have been cooking this up with our friends at SunnyMarch for some time, and it has been an absolute thrill to see it spring into life under Jay’s passionate and thoughtful guidance. He and Tony are a match made in cinematic comedy heaven.”

Cumberbatch is producing under his SunnyMarch banner with the company’s Leah Clarke and Adam Ackland. Colman will produce under Her South of the River banner with partners Ed Sinclair and Tom Carver.

read more x x

[thesaltofcarthage]

Benedict Cumberbatch Tells All on Doctor Strange’s Future, His New Sundance Film and Not Being Your Typical Movie Star: ‘I’m Not Brad, I’m Not Leo’

By Brent Lang Photographs by Zoe McConnell

Benedict Cumberbatch doesn’t like to overshare, but sometimes he just can’t help himself.

Take the two hours we spend on a recent London afternoon discussing his new film, “The Thing With Feathers,” a dark drama about a father struggling to hold his family together after his wife dies suddenly. While the film paints an unvarnished portrait of a man in crisis, Cumberbatch feels awkward talking about how he channeled that kind of soul-eviscerating grief on-screen. “The Brit in me is a bit embarrassed about diving too deeply into what I do,” he admits. 

There’s a polite reserve to Cumberbatch, as well as a discomfort with the trappings of stardom. Still, there are moments when his guard drops and suddenly he’s telling all. Cumberbatch is best known for playing Doctor Strange, the brilliant but arrogant Sorcerer Supreme in six Marvel movies. It’s the role that gave the 48-year-old actor box office cred and made him globally popular, his likeness adorning T-shirts and toys. And it’s a part he will continue to play as the Avengers keep battling existential threats. But Cumberbatch has just let something slip, and he seems momentarily horrified by his candor. 

You see, he’s just told me that Doctor Strange is taking a hiatus in the next Marvel sequel, 2026’s “Avengers: Doomsday.” ��Is that a spoiler?” he asks. “Fuck it!” 

Undeterred, he shares that things changed when Jonathan Majors — whose character, Kang, was intended to serve as the main antagonist of the next phase of the comic book film franchise — was fired in 2024 after being convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend. 

Cumberbatch’s absence from “Doomsday” has to do with “the character not aligning with this part of the story.” And though he probably shouldn’t be saying this, he also reveals that Doctor Strange is “in a lot” of “Avengers: Secret Wars,” which will hit theaters in 2027.  

“He’s quite central to where things might go,” Cumberbatch teases. And he hints that the character, last seen casting spells in 2022’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” will appear in a third stand-alone film, but is hesitant to say too much beyond praising Marvel for being collaborative.  

“They are very open to discussing where we go next,” he says. “Who do you want to write and direct the next one? What part of the comic lore do you want to explore so that Strange can keep evolving? He’s a very rich character to play. He’s a complex, contradictory, troubled human who’s got these extraordinary abilities, so there’s potent stuff to mess about with.”  

Avengers movies consume much of Cumberbatch’s time, but when he’s not busy being a superhero, he’s leveraging his stardom to finance smaller, riskier projects that allow him to keep growing as an actor. They include “Eric,” a Netflix miniseries where he played an alcoholic puppeteer whose son disappears; “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain,” a biopic about an eccentric painter obsessed with drawing cats; and the upcoming “Roses,” a reimagining of “The War of the Roses” with Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman clashing as a couple whose marriage is fraying. Most of them, like “Roses” and “The Thing With Feathers,” were developed and made through SunnyMarch, the production company Cumberbatch launched in 2013 with the goal of nurturing the kind of bespoke, offbeat fare that Hollywood doesn’t support.  

“These are urgent stories that we feel a need to tell,” Cumberbatch says. “I tend to appear in many of them so we can finance something that’s either about a difficult subject or is really a niche piece of art-house cinema that deserves to be seen.”  

When the actor meets with me in the stylishly dilapidated sitting room of a 300-year-old London home where he’s just completed a photo shoot, it’s two weeks before “The Thing With Feathers” will debut at Sundance. Cumberbatch’s performance, one of his rawest and most emotional, is sure to break hearts and should help the film land a distribution deal. It required him to play a man who is collapsing under the weight of despair and becoming increasingly untethered. There are points when his character, who has begun to imagine that he and his children are being terrorized by a monstrous crow, looks so frightened and unhinged that he seems to have stepped out of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”   

Cumberbatch says there aren’t any shortcuts to accessing the intense emotions he channels in “The Thing With Feathers.” There are techniques you can use, but no formula that’s guaranteed to work every time. In 2023, Tom Holland, who has appeared opposite Cumberbatch as Spider-Man to his Doctor Strange in assorted Marvel movies, publicly credited his co-star with teaching him how to cry on command. Holland said Cumberbatch told him that if he needed to tear up, he should breathe through his diaphragm while manipulating the muscles he uses to laugh.  

“There is that method,” Cumberbatch says. “But it’s a mistake to think you can force it. That’s a dead end. You have to really put your mind somewhere so you can respond to the moment. And that can mean drawing from your own life story or just your imagination.” He adds, “It’s harder when you’re very young. I’m 48, so I’ve lived a bit of life. I’ve experienced loss, I’ve experienced pain, I’ve experienced some of the very worst, as well as the best.” 

On set, it was difficult not to get swept up in what Cumberbatch was doing. “There’s a scene where Benedict finally folds and puts away his wife’s clothes, and at the end of the take, two of the crew members were crying,” Dylan Southern, the film’s writer and director, says. “We had to stop for a moment and make sure everyone was all right. It’s really loaded, powerful stuff because so many people have lost someone.” 

  Cumberbatch’s great gift as an actor is his willingness to go there — to push himself to the outer reaches of his emotional life. Getting to that place requires preparation and, in some cases, punishment. He lost 21 pounds to play an imprisoned spy in “The Courier,” wore dental prosthetics to mimic the speech patterns of mathematician Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game” (which gave him his first Oscar nomination) and stopped bathing and learned how to castrate a bull to portray a rancher in “The Power of the Dog” (his second Oscar nomination).   

“Everything he does is wholehearted,” says Jane Campion, director of “The Power of the Dog.” “He can be so vulnerable. He just opens himself up to you.”   

Campion thinks genetics are at play, noting that Cumberbatch’s parents, Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton, both had long careers on stage and screen. “He’s the next evolution in performing,” she says. “He’s kind of a ‘super actor.’”   

Cumberbatch’s close friend Tom Cruise calls him “fearless in his choice of films.” He adds that Cumberbatch “is extremely talented and fun to watch — and fun to hang out with.”

J.J. Abrams, who directed Cumberbatch in “Star Trek Into Darkness,” praises him as “annoyingly limitless.” But he also stresses that “for such an intense thespian, he’s self-effacing and very funny.”  

And in person, Cumberbatch is indeed witty, even slightly silly, mixing self-deprecating anecdotes with spot-on impersonations of Michael Keaton as Batman and colleagues like James McAvoy and Benicio Del Toro. “He’s a scarily good mimic,” says Adam Ackland, his best friend and producing partner. “He can capture anyone.”

There’s a self-protectiveness to Cumberbatch too. He may allude to politics or to his home life with his wife, Sophie Hunter, and their three young sons, but he quickly steers the conversation to less complicated or personal subjects. “I long ago stopped treating interviews as therapy sessions,” he says.   

He knows how his comments can be taken out of context, then picked apart on social media (which he avoids, lacking any kind of presence on X and Instagram). He’s grown more resigned to it all. “The older I get, the less of a shit I give,” he says. “There’s this whole other audience that have these expectations of you, feelings about you, judgments of you. That’s theirs, and you can’t change that or shape it. I’m still discovering who I am. So how the fuck are they supposed to know me?”  

Incandescent stardom, which for Cumberbatch arrived in 2010 with the premiere of “Sherlock,” the BBC series in which he reinterpreted the legendary detective as a strutting, slightly sociopathic brainiac, was hard to accept. Particularly when the classically trained performer became an unlikely sex symbol, billed by the British tabloids as “the thinking woman’s crumpet.” Looking back, Cumberbatch struggles to explain it.   

“I’m not Brad, I’m not Leonardo, I’m not a typical movie star,” he says. “People were scrambling for ‘Why is he at all attractive to us?’ But for me to guess and try to understand that is so fucking weirdly navel-gazing. I’m not sitting around thinking, ‘Why am I sexy?’ I worry about myself in the mirror as I age, like every other fucker does.”  

And don’t get him started on the term “celebrity.” “It’s so derogatory, and just lumps anyone famous together,” he says. “Am I a ‘celebrated’ person? Well, for what? For selling cheese? For being on a reality show? For doing something outrageous? For being an actor?”  

But Cumberbatch gets it. He knows that his fame, despite the headaches, is the reason that “The Thing With Feathers” got made at all. Southern had labored for years to bring his adaptation of Max Porter’s 2015 novella “Grief Is the Thing With Feathers” to the screen before he connected with Cumberbatch. It was, Southern admits, “an unfilmable book,” one that spilled out in a jumble of poetry, drawings and dialogue. It’s also surreal — often terrifyingly so. As the crow enters the lives of the father and the boys, the story moves from a domestic drama to horror. Despite the fantastical elements, Cumberbatch believes the film tells a vital, deeply human story.   

“It shines a light on male grief,” Cumberbatch says. “I haven’t seen many things that do that. You have a man facing up to his limitations as he deals with the pressure of work, life, raising kids, all while his sense of self is just brutalized by grief. There were a great many challenges there. And I love a challenge.”  

Cumberbatch leans back in a leather chair, delivering that last line with the kind of dramatic zest that makes him such a magnetic performer. Every consonant is crisp; every vowel is perfectly rounded. And then there’s his supple baritone, once likened to a “jaguar hiding in a cello,” which makes even casual asides seem Shakespearean. When we meet, Cumberbatch is wearing a long blue coat, his wool scarf hanging loosely around his neck. It’s a brutally cold afternoon, and the insulation in the rambling house doesn’t appear to have been updated since the 18th century.     

Cumberbatch is proud of what “The Thing With Feathers” signals about his ambitions for SunnyMarch. Over the past decade and change, the company has backed and developed an impressive range of projects, from the Showtime series “Patrick Melrose” to “We Live in Time,” a romantic drama that became a box office hit last fall for A24. Its upcoming slate includes “How to Stop Time,” an adaptation of Matt Haig’s novel about a man with a rare condition that allows him to live for centuries. Ackland, who launched the company with Cumberbatch, says the actor was partly motivated to move into producing to demonstrate there was a better way of working after some bad experiences on film sets.   

“We want to make great TV and films but with a kindness that’s often missing,” Ackland says. “We want to make sure you look after actors and crews and have a workplace where there’s not so much unpleasantness. In the past, the business tolerated a lot of brashness and shouting and throwing things. It didn’t need to be like that.”  

Cumberbatch’s model for SunnyMarch is Plan B, the Oscar-winning production company that Brad Pitt runs with Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, which has become synonymous with thoughtful, auteur-driven work. Like Plan B, SunnyMarch isn’t in the volume business and is selective about the projects it brings to screens. “We want to do more with less,” Cumberbatch says.   

Producing has also made Cumberbatch more aware of the business part of the entertainment industry. In the case of “The Thing With Feathers,” the film’s investors decided to abbreviate the title of the book to make the movie sound less grim. Cumberbatch disagreed with the change.   

“I wanted the name to stay the same,” he says. “It’s a marketing thing. You put ‘grief’ in a film’s title, and it’s off-putting for people. It’s frustrating. I’m sure it was one of those titles where it was tested and people went, ‘You can’t call a film something like that!’” 

Made for roughly $8 million, “The Thing With Feathers” marked a change of pace from the blockbusters that have dominated much of Cumberbatch’s time since he joined the MCU with 2016’s “Doctor Strange.”   

“‘Feathers’ offered a close-quarter, nuanced and nimble work that really appeals,” he says. “I’ve been in some very brilliant but monolithic kind of tentpole films. They’re great fun, but it can get stodgy. It can feel like you’re waiting a lot of the time to get called to the set.” 

It was initially difficult, Cumberbatch says, to figure out how to stay relaxed while working inside the Marvel machine, with its green screens and set-pieces and rewrites and reshoots. He confesses that his turn as Doctor Strange in that first film was “a bit stiff.”  Observing Robert Downey Jr. and Holland banter in “Spider-Man: Homecoming” made Cumberbatch realize he should take a looser approach to being a superhero. “I learned a lot by seeing how at ease and improvisatory they are,” he says. “It’s hard because you have this huge apparatus around you, but it’s so important.”   

That’s partly why he’s excited that Downey, who appeared to have closed the comic book chapter of his career after Iron Man died at the end of “Avengers: Endgame,” will rejoin the Marvel franchise. This time he’s playing Doctor Doom. It was a secret so tightly guarded that Cumberbatch only found out about it while watching the live coverage of Marvel’s 2024 Comic-Con presentation, where Downey’s return was the fan event’s final reveal. Cumberbatch immediately grabbed his phone and messaged Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige. “I texted, ‘What the fuck?’ and then quickly added, ‘Good what-the-fuck. I mean, good what-the-fuck.’”  

Cumberbatch says making these movies, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, comes with pressure, but Downey helped keep things light on set. He would rib Cumberbatch by referring to him as “Mr. Shakespeare,” and allude to their shared history portraying Sherlock Holmes. 

“We had a gas about being the two Sherlocks on set,” Cumberbatch says. “But there was some line of dialogue where someone turns to us and says, ‘No shit, Sherlock.’ Well, we took out all that meta stuff. We just said, ‘No, no, no. Better to leave that for the fan fiction.’”  

Cumberbatch, who has performed in “Hedda Gabler” and “Hamlet” onstage, doesn’t feel like he’s slumming by being a member of Earth’s mightiest heroes. He has a real passion for epic adventures that “transport” audiences to different worlds. And he’s in awe of what Marvel has built over the course of 34 films.  

“It’s the modern myths of our times,” Cumberbatch says. “Yes, it’s huge and unwieldy, but Marvel is so committed to getting it right. Even when we make one of these Avengers films and it gets exponentially huger, we’re still just kids playing in the sand pit. We’re still just making shit up and having fun with it.”  

Cumberbatch clearly isn’t ready to hang up Doctor Strange’s cloak of levitation, but he seems less inclined to revisit “Sherlock.” The detective series’ last episodes aired in 2017, and most fans have given up hope for a return to Baker Street. So what would it take for Cumberbatch to reprise his role as Holmes?  “A lot of money,” he says, joking, before adding, “It would take it to be better than it ever was. You leave them or yourselves wanting more. There’s always that itch to scratch, but I think it would have to be the superlative version of what we’ve already achieved.”  

Back when “Sherlock” took off, Cumberbatch attended a fan event in, he thinks it was Australia, though he can’t recall precisely, and issued a road map for where he hoped to take his career. “I went, ‘Guys, I know you really like “Sherlock,” but if you’re with me, I’m not going to always do the same thing,’” he remembers saying. “‘I’m not going to always be the Benedict that you expect. You might not like some of the stuff I do. I may be cute and cuddly to you at times, or ugly and untouchable. But I want to stretch myself and surprise myself and surprise you.’”  

The film business, however, likes to put performers in a box, and right now Cumberbatch feels like he’s not always being considered for a certain type of art-house fare because he’s spent so much time saving the world as Doctor Strange.   

“It’s a hard ask for directors and casting directors to go, ‘Oh yeah, the Marvel guy. He could be in this small film about, you know, French Foreign Legion service members returning to Paris or something,’” he says.   

He’s been trying to change that perception. “The flavor of work that I want to lean towards is a slightly European sort of world cinema, which I hadn’t really been considered for before,” he says.   

“The Thing With Feathers” is part of that shift, as is his budding partnership with Wes Anderson. The two first worked together on the Oscar-winning 2023 short film “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” with Cumberbatch staying at Anderson’s house throughout the shoot as a pandemic protocol.   

“We needed to be in a COVID bubble, and I had a choice between being in a hotel or staying with him,” Cumberbatch says. “Being in someone else’s home could be awkward, but he immediately made it relaxed, and there was amazing food, and it was like being at fucking film school.”  

After working all day, they’d have movie nights, with Anderson turning Cumberbatch on to “Lawrence of Arabia” and screening Truffaut films that had been left out of the actor’s cinematic education.  “For me, it felt more like we were doing our fifth movie together rather than our first,” Anderson says of the experience. “[There was] the excitement of a new collaboration, but the fun and comfort of working with old friends.”  

The two will reteam on the director’s next project, “The Phoenician Scheme,” and it sounds as though Anderson’s stock company — which includes frequent collaborators Bill Murray and Owen Wilson — has a new member.  

“I feel like, ‘Why hasn’t this been happening for years and years?’” Cumberbatch says. “I just wish I could build a time machine and go back and work on all those other films with him.” 

The sky outside is fading to black as day shifts to night. “It’s getting dark in here,” Cumberbatch observes, tilting his head to the two naked light fixtures along one wall that are casting a soft glow across the room. Cumberbatch was in the middle of telling me that although he’s never written a fan letter to a director he’d like to work with, he’s thinking of breaking with tradition.  

“It’s all right to knock on some doors,” he rationalizes. “There’s nothing wrong with saying, ‘I really want to try to craft something together.’ It’s all about perception. It’s about becoming comfortable saying, ‘I’m an artist rather than, you know, a bit of meat for hire.’ After all, time is running out.”   

Time. It’s a word that Cumberbatch keeps repeating, and a concept he returns to as we talk. It’s how he thinks about the projects he decides to do — is it something so irresistible he can justify spending months away from home? — as well as how he weighs the opportunities he may still explore artistically. Directing, for instance, appeals to him, though he’s not sure he can do something so all-consuming. It would take him away from producing and acting, and there’s so much he wants to accomplish there. Becoming a father has only accelerated this intense desire to get it all in before the clock stops ticking.  

“The minute you have kids this sense of time sinks in far more profoundly,” Cumberbatch says. “My youngest is turning 6 tomorrow, and I’m like, ‘I will be in my 60s when he’s 21,’ you know? It’s crazy. It’s gone so fast. So there’s a huge shift in priorities, and it makes you value what you do with your life in a very different way.”  

He pauses, then starts up again. “It does weigh on me,” he says. “When you become a parent, your thoughts turn more towards mortality.”  

Even before he got married and started a family, there were moments when the fragile nature of life came suddenly, violently into focus for Cumberbatch. In 2004, he was in his late 20s and shooting the BBC miniseries “To the Ends of the Earth” in South Africa when he went on a diving excursion with some friends. Driving home, their tire blew out. When they pulled over to the side of the road, they were robbed and  abducted by six men. Cumberbatch and the others were forced into the car and driven around for hours. Eventually, the thieves let them out, tied them up and made them sit execution-style. Then the men fled. The experience changed Cumberbatch in fundamental ways. 

“It gave me a sense of time, but not necessarily a good one,” he says, shifting in his seat. “It made me impatient to live a life less ordinary, and I’m still dealing with that impatience.”  

It also transformed him into an adrenaline junkie — someone who once went skydiving and engaged in extreme sports as a way to unwind. 

“The near-death stuff turbo-fueled all that,” Cumberbatch says. “It made me go, ‘Oh, right, yeah, I could die at any moment.’ I was throwing myself out of planes, taking all sorts of risks. But apart from my parents, I didn’t have any real dependents at that point. Now that’s changed, and that sobers you. I’ve looked over the edge; it’s made me comfortable with what lies beneath it. And I’ve accepted that that’s the end of all our stories.” 

Styling: Catherine Hayward; Grooming: Wakana Yoshihara/United Talent Agency; Production: Joel Gilgallon/Joon; Full looks: Prada

[simplyclary]

The Trailblazers of Representation in Hollywood

(Photo edit by me)

In the always evolving land of Hollywood, the demand for representation and diversity has never been more needed. The film industry, which was historically dominated by a narrow demographic, is gradually awakening to the importance of showcasing a broader range of voices and stories. This change is driven by passionate individuals who recognize and see the power of representation and are committed to making it real. 

Among these trailblazers are two of my favorite actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Taylor Zakhar Perez, both of whom have taken significant steps in order to address and tackle the lack of diversity in Hollywood through launching their own production companies (Benedict already has one, and Taylor has plans to launch one in the future). 

Let’s talk about them, shall we? 

Benedict Cumberbatch, known for his versatile acting in roles ranging from Sherlock Holmes to Alan Turing to Phil Burbank to Doctor Strange, is a vocal advocate for gender diversity in filmmaking. Upon recognizing the male-dominated nature of the industry, Benedict has consistently championed the need for more opportunities for women both in front of and behind the camera. His production company, SunnyMarch, was established with a mission to create a platform that promotes gender parity and gives women the space to thrive in both the filmmaking and production aspects. 

Benedict’s commitment to diversity is evident and obvious in his choice of projects and the talents that he collaborates with. He understands and knows that true representation goes beyond casting– it involves creating an environment where diverse and different voices are heard and valued in all aspects of production. Through his production company Sunnymarch, Benedict aims to dismantle the barriers that have traditionally excluded and hindered women from key roles in the industry, thereby fostering a vision for a more inclusive and equitable Hollywood. 

Taylor Zakhar Perez, known for his breakout star roles in “The Kissing Booth” film trilogy as well as Amazon Prime hit movie “Red, White and Royal Blue”, shares a similar vision with Benedict but with a focus on cultural representation. As a Latino actor, Taylor has experienced firsthand the lack of Latin stories and characters in mainstream media. If there ever was one, they would be casted among the category of the “cartel guys” and the “drug dealers”. In short, they are often depicted as negative and bad characters, which in reality, the positive outshines the negative. Taylor’s personal insight then fuels his dedication to amplifying Latin voices and narratives when he eventually starts up his own production company, which aims to highlight the richness and diversity of Latin culture. 

Taylor’s motivation also stems from a deeply personal place. Despite him being in the industry for a decade, he often gets told that he is not “Latino enough” for certain roles, and that is one reason why he only recently rose to stardom. This is also a sentiment that many people from mixed or diverse backgrounds can relate to. This experience then inspired Taylor to bring Latin voices to the forefront, with the goal of ensuring that future generations do not feel the exclusion and inadequacy that he once did. By producing and creating content that portrays the multi-faceted experiences of Latin culture as vividly and accurately as possible, Taylor is not only increasing visibility to the underrepresented yet diverse Latin culture but he also challenges Hollywood’s narrow definitions of cultural identity. 

While Benedict and Taylor focus on different aspects of diversity, their passion and drive for change are remarkably similar. Both of them recognize the transformative power of representation and are using their respective platforms to create tangible change in the industry. The production company that Benedict already has and the one that Taylor aims to build are not just simple business ventures but are deeply personal missions to address and face the systemic issues that have long plagued the great industry of Hollywood. 

Both Benedict and Taylor deeply understand that representation truly matters. When people see themselves reflected in the characters and stories they watch on the big or silver screen, it gives them a sense of validation for their experiences and affirms their place in the world. The sense of being seen and heard is crucial and much needed in the process of fostering self-esteem and breaking down the societal barriers and stereotypes. By championing and bringing diverse voices to the forefront, Benedict and Taylor are helping to build a more inclusive industry where everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity, race and sexuality, can find their place. 

But their contributions to the film industry is not the only thing that makes Benedict and Taylor trailblazers for change, they are both advocates for certain causes too. 

Both Benedict and Taylor are also advocates for fashion sustainability. They are both conscious of the environmental impact of their wardrobe choices and they actively partner with sustainable fashion brands like Prada. Their advocacy extends to the causes that they support, which demonstrates their commitment to making the world a better place in various ways for the betterment of the future generations. 

Benedict and Taylor are not only focused on the film industry, they are also dedicated philanthropists. They use their respective platforms to support a range of causes, from environmental sustainability to social justice. Their genuine care for the world around them is reflected in their efforts, making them not just actors but influential activists who aim and strive to make a difference. 

The impact of Benedict and Taylor’s efforts extends beyond the projects they produce and take part in. They are setting an example for other industry professionals to follow, demonstrating that commitment to diversity and representation is not just a moral imperative but also a creative and commercial advantage. Their work is paving the way for a new generation of filmmakers and actors who prioritize inclusivity and representation and those who aim to tell stories that resonate with a wider audience. 

Benedict’s production company SunnyMarch is a channel for aspiring female filmmakers, offering opportunities and mentorship that might otherwise be inaccessible in a male-dominated field. Similarly, Taylor’s idea for his production company is to focus on Latin stories and to inspire young Latin creatives to pursue their dreams, knowing that there is a place for their voices in the vast sphere of Hollywood.

The importance of representation and diversity in film cannot be overstated. Actors like Benedict Cumberbatch and Taylor Zakhar Perez are leading the charge, using their influence to address the lack of diversity in the Hollywood sphere. Through the production company that Benedict has and the one Taylor aims to build, they are not only creating opportunities for underrepresented groups but also enriching the industry with a broader and wider range of stories and perspectives. 

Their efforts serve as a reminder that true representation goes beyond the concept of tokenism (the idea of casting someone just for show); it involves a crucial shift in how stories are told and who gets to be the narrator. By advocating and pushing for gender diversity and cultural representation, Benedict and Taylor are helping to shape a more inclusive future for Hollywood, a space where everyone can see themselves reflected in the stories that are shown on screen. Their passion and dedication serve as a powerful reminder that change is possible when driven by a genuine commitment to equity, equality and inclusion. 

Additionally, their advocacy for fashion sustainability and their philanthropic endeavors further highlight their dedication to making a world a better space. Benedict and Taylor are not just using their talents to entertain but also to inspire and spark meaningful change in society. Their combined efforts in film, fashion and philanthropy make them remarkable figures in the ongoing quest for a more inclusive and sustainable society. 

[msclaritea]

The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel all alone.

—Robin Williams

You... spineless, feces smelling, subhuman pieces of shit. Now, I get why Robin Williams was suddenly trending during the same time that the Team Z/Harvey Weinstein Network was spamming all of those threats against Benedict, and it had happened before. It wasn't to rub it in, about Williams' depression, or SUPPOSED depression. It was because Robin was murdered.

This man was a TREASURE to millions, including myself; demons be damned. He was beautiful, inside AND out. He sold your fucking Muppets, your loveable space aliens, that pedo, Walt Whitman. He even had one of the earliest films to feature a Trans Identified Male.

Still not good enough, eh? I'm livid enough, right now, to want to do all of you some serious fucking damage.

[legionnaireslover]

Eagerly anticipated world premiere...

It's sooooo great to see BC and Sophie's names on the same publicity poster for a film!

I hope to see more collaborations between these two in the future. ❤️❤️

[aeltri]

Notice a common theme 🤨? What concerns me are the effects that those subliminal messages have on MKUltra victims like Ben:

Remember that bizarre 6 day Icelandic winter festival that Ben, Cunter and Adam attended in late 2017? Check this out: “Norður Og Niður” means “go north and go down”, but translates more accurately as “everything’s going to hell”. That certainly explains the 666 which has nothing to do with Asatru but is thoroughly Satanic.

Instead of holiday celebrations they partake in an orgiastic Sabbat Feast Day followed by "demon revels" but that's not all! If you've studied occultism you know that 11 and 33 are master numbers that are ritually very significant. The series title refers to the rotation speed of a vinyl LP, 33+1⁄3 RPM. Remember how Ben made a point to take a photo with one while there? He's also a 33rd degree Freemason...

Why am I not surprised 🤦‍♀️...

[richaldis]

OK, I can't let this one go by.

Endorsements by UK actors are very rare as they are seen as crass or desperate. Voice overs (and BC has done plenty of these) are normal but shilling a product, gets you laughed at - see Carol Vordaman, Chris Hemsworth etc. The only exceptions are if it's either your passion or your own product. Even then it's pretty shady. Celeb endorsements are also pretty strictly regulated in the UK.

Only the haters think they are shady. Yes, sure every charity makes mistakes but none of the charities BC is involved with are seen by the Charities Commission as problematic.

You don't show up at Cannes, you get invited and go because you have a project or need to network to get one. Again you see very few working Brit actors there unless they have a project to promote.

Like the endorsement stuff, you only do fashion if you are interested in it. it's boring, the shows are tedious and again done by UK celebs not established actors for the most part.

I'm absolutely sure he'd like to do more theatre work. There were at least two rumoured projects this year - one an Ibsen with Roger Allam which didn't come off due to timing and another, a two hander by a new playwright which might happen next year. Otherwise his filming schedule and the other things he does e.g. SunnyMarch, RADA, charity work, personal life with three small children, has kept him tied up .

proof? What projects? His only long term ties are to Disney. Otherwise he's working on HIS passion project, SunnyMarch and making a damn sight better job of it than most actors who start production companies. As if The Power of The Dog wasn't a big film. Interestingly, Martin Freeman, who was a far bigger star when Sherlock started, has gone back to long term serial tv. Most Brit actors aren't leading men in big Hollywood films - unless they are Disney or action movies.

Which projects do they think he's missed out on being in? Go on, haters, name something that isn't an action/superhero film that he had the time and the profile to work on.

[doctortwhohiddles]

The haters are now saying it's not Benedict on those set pics from The Roses. He looks too healthy and his hair is too long according to them. I just can't with these people.

And to think they were so excited about the movie until they found out it was co produced by SunnyMarch.

It's him in the pictures. Who the fuck else could it be?

[sincericida]

I’m simply loving how some specialized sites in my country (BR) are approaching the plot of "We Live In Time":

"Andrew Garfield is involved in another tragic romance: It starts with a hit-and-run and maybe ends in death.

| Florence Pugh is the co-star."

"Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield are a couple in the new romantic drama of A24 that will probably make us shed many tears.. Directed by John Crowley and written by Nick Payne, 'We Live In Time' follows the surprise encounter of Almut, a spirited and indomitable chef, with Tobias, a newly divorced man who tries to put his life in order.

The two soon prove that completely opposite people can find in their differences a love capable of changing their lives forever. However, what seemed like a perfect date, which turned into a home and then into a family, is shaken by a hidden truth for years, putting at risk the love and all the achievements of the couple.

As the plot unfolds, Almut and Tobias face emotional challenges and must decide if their bond is strong enough to overcome adversity. In addition to Garfield and Pugh, names such as Adam James, Aoife Hinds and Marama Corlett are in the cast.

On Wednesday (10), A24 released the trailer for the film, which shows the development of the relationship between Almut and Tobias over 10 years.

With executive production by Benedict Cumberbatch, through his company SunnyMarch, "We Live In Time" will have a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and will reach Brazilian theaters on October 31."

[aeltri]

Sunny March has paid back the Comerica loan in full back in 2021. It's all there for people to see on Company House. Good thing Benedict doesn't listen to you in his nightmares. I don't think he dreams about you. No one does.

SunnyMarch reported a residual debt of roughly 2.1 million pounds. This was prior to TEWSF which will result in a net loss. Anton wants ROI, ask yourself whose assets double as collateral? Certainly not Adam's who also showed an inordinate interest in Ben's Marvel Money. Small production companies that fail to inspire investor confidence won't survive in a rapidly changing marketplace. What's coming is the stuff of nightmares...