Jafar Panahi has gone on a hunger strike to protest being still held in Tehran’s Evin prison even though Iran’s supreme court has overturned the conviction that led to the dissident director’s detention.

Panani has issued a statement from prison saying that to protest against the “illegal and inhumane” treatment by the Islamic Republic’s judiciary and security forces and their “hostage-taking” he will stop eating, drinking, and taking his medications until “maybe my lifeless body would be released from this prison.”

The statement announcing Panahi’s decision to go on a hunger strike was posted by Panahi’s wife Tahereh Saeedi and son Panah Panahi on their Instagram accounts.

Panahi, 62, is known globally for prizewinning works such as “The Circle,” “Offside,” “This is Not a Film,” “Taxi,” and most recently “No Bears,” winner of last year’s Venice’s Special Jury Prize. He was arrested last July in Tehran in the wake of the country’s conservative government crackdown. Panahi had been there to visit Tehran’s prosecutor’s office to follow up on the situation of fellow dissident filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulov, who had been incarcerated a few days earlier after signing an appeal against police violence.

Since his arrest, Panahi’s lawyers in October managed to successfully overturn the six-year sentence issued against the director in 2010 for “propaganda against the system,” in Iran’s highest court according to Panahi’s lawyer, Saleh Nikhbakht. That sentence has become obsolete due to the country’s 10-year statute of limitations and Panahi’s case has been sent to an Iranian court of appeals. But the directors’ wife and laywers say that Iranian security are now forcing the judiciary to keep him behind bars.

Rasoulov and Panahi’s imprisonment took place before the wave of protests sparked in September by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while she was held in custody for allegedly wearing a loose hijab. Those protests have caused more than 500 civilians to be killed by government security forces and more than 100 members of the Iranian film industry to be arrested or banned from making movies.

On Jan. 4, Iranian authorities released Taraneh Alidoosti, the star of Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning film “The Salesman,” almost three weeks after she was jailed for criticizing a crackdown on the anti-government protests.

Jason Blum has officially confirmed that the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie has begun filming, posting a behind-the-scenes photo to Twitter.

The Five Nights at Freddy’s movie has finally begun filming after a long period in development limbo. A now-massive horror franchise, Five Nights at Freddy’s first began as a video game created by Scott Cawthon in 2014. The game was met with critical acclaim for bringing something new to the horror video game genre and would go on to spawn eight subsequent games, and dozens of spinoffs. The Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise has continued rapidly expanding since the first game’s release, and now includes several book series, comic books, board games, and merchandise. In July 2015, it was first announced that there were plans to create a Five Nights at Freddy’s film, with Blumhouse Productions announcing their involvement in 2018.

After a years-long development period, the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie has officially begun filming, with a behind-the-scenes image posted to Jason Blum‘s Twitter account. Check out the post below:

The image, which is simply captioned “Day 1 #FNAF,” shows several monitors displaying camera footage of a clapboard that reads the film’s working title, Bad Cupcake. On one of the monitors, an action figure of Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach‘s villain Vanny can be seen.

Everything We Know About the Five Nights at Freddy’s Movie

Though it’s not yet clear if the film will follow the plot of any Five Nights at Freddy’s game in particular, the movie’s script and premise has changed several times since its 2015 announcement. In January 2017, after two years of development, Cawthon stated that the production was “back at square one” after setbacks and difficulties within the film industry. After Blumhouse signed on in 2018, the film was slated for a hopeful 2020 release. Later in August 2018, however, Cawthon announced that the script had been completely scrapped. Development on Five Nights at Freddy’s was largely silent throughout the pandemic, and only in 2022 did updates begin to come more regularly.

In August 2022, Blum posted teasers from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, the company set to build the film’s animatronics. In December, it was announced that Matthew Lillard and Josh Hutcherson had been cast in unknown roles. It has been reported that Lillard will be playing William Afton, the major antagonist of the Five Nights at Freddy’s games, while Hutcherson will be playing Mike Schmidt, the overnight security guard that players take the role of in first game. However, there has been no official confirmation of these roles.

Since Blum released the first behind-the-scenes look at Five Nights at Freddy’s, it seems that the working title Bad Cupcake could be in reference to Chica’s cupcake, which appears in three of the games. The other question is if the Vanny action figure standing on top of the monitors could be a hint to Vanessa’s character appearing in the film, or if the character behind the clapboard on the monitors could be Lillard’s Afton. Though there are still plenty of questions surrounding the upcoming Five Nights at Freddy’s movie, at least there is finally forward movement on the project after spending years in development hell.

Source: Jason Blum/Twitter

Plans have begun to formulate for James Gunn and Peter Safran’s slate of DC Studios films, with filmmaker James Mangold in early talks to take on “Swamp Thing.”

Sources tell Variety that Mangold is a longtime fan of the DC Comics supernatural hero and approached Gunn and Safran with his idea for the forthcoming project.

Of course, Mangold is a comic book veteran after writing, directing and executive producing the R-rated superhero movie “Logan,” the third “Wolverine” film starring Hugh Jackman, which is regarded as the pinnacle of the “X-Men” movie franchise. However, the filmmaker has a particularly busy dance card, with “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” set to hit theaters in May and Searchlight’s Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothée Chalamet, up next.

News of Mangold’s interest in “Swamp Thing” comes just 24 hours after Gunn and Safran announced the first 10 film and TV titles within the rebooted DC Universe on Tuesday morning. The co-chiefs explained that these films make up Chapter 1 of the DCU, which they are calling “Gods and Monsters.”

During the presentation, Safran said that the film will “investigate the dark origins” of the DC Comics character through the prism of horror.

“This is a much more horrific film, but we’ll still have Swamp Thing interact with the other characters,” Gunn added, making a reference to the introduction of Rocket Raccoon to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the “Guardians of the Galaxy films. “That mashup quality,” of having that character interacting with live-action players like Thor, he explained, ended up working out beautifully.

On Tuesday evening, following the project’s official announcement, Mangold posted an image of Swamp Thing to Twitter and Gunn retweeted the post, which got comic book fans buzzing that a collaboration might be in the works.

Swamp Thing was created by writer Len Wein and horror artist Bernie Wrightson (whose artwork is featured in Mangold’s tweet) and first appeared in a standalone story in 1971’s “House of Secrets No. 92,” followed by a popular run under Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben in the 1980s. The DC Comics character first appeared on the big screen in 1982’s “Swamp Thing,” directed by horror master Wes Craven, and most recently headlined a short-lived series created by Gary Dauberman and Mark Verheiden for the DC Universe streaming service in 2019. He also appeared in Season 3 of HBO Max’s animated series “Harley Quinn,” as a vegan, health-nut voiced by Sam Richardson.

The Hollywood Reporter was first to report news of Mangold’s involvement in the project. Warner Bros. did not comment on the reports.

Mangold is repped by WME, Entertainment 360, and Sloane Offer.

Additional reporting by Adam B. Vary.