“Dream Horse” is among the first films to receive a theatrical release as cinemas around the world are opening again. Accompanying its theatrical run in, “Dream Horse” will premiere on Amazon Prime the United Kingdom from September 17. A bunch of reviews and news coverage have been added to the photo gallery, including a nice cover story from the Austrlian Telegraph’s Stellar Magazine. Enjoy the new additions.

According to Variety, Parker Posey will star alongside Colin Firth, Toni Collette, Juliette Binoche and Rosemarie DeWitt in the HBO Max limited series “The Staircase.” The eight-parter is based on the docuseries of the same name and various books and reports on the Michael Peterson (Firth) case. Peterson was accused of murdering his wife, Kathleen (Collette), in 2001. He claimed she died after falling down the stairs at their home after consuming alcohol and Valium, but police suspected he bludgeoned her to death and staged the scene to look like an accident. An autopsy revealed that Kathleen died from blows to the back of her head with a blunt object and other injuries. The docuseries was originally released in 2004, with creator Jean-Xavier de Lestrade updating with new information years later. Netflix released it as a 13-episode series in 2018. Posey will play Freda Black, an assistant district attorney and prosecutor – which might be one of the juciest part of the series, in case you have seen the documentary. DeWitt will play Peterson’s sister, Candace Zamperini. Details about Binoche’s character have yet to be revealed.

It feels *almost* normal to cover a new film release and collect all the available press junket videos – how great to have some film coverage back. Last week, Toni Collette sat down for a virtual press junket for the theatrical releases of “Dream Horse” in the United States and the United Kingdom. Clips from lots of news outlets and the British daytime talkshow Lorraine have been added to the video archive, alongside a couple of new clips from the film. A complete list of all added videos can be found below. Screencaptures from all appearances have been added to the photo gallery as well.

BBC has spoken to the real-life people behind the magical story of “Dream Horse” ahead of the film’s UK release. Despite everything that has happened to Jan Vokes since she came up with the idea of raising a race horse on her allotment near Blackwood 20-years-ago, the surprises keep coming. “My father was a coal miner, and I was born and bred in a little village just up the road so to imagine that my life was going to be played out by a Hollywood A-listed actor, it’s just unbelievable,” she said. That actor is Toni Collette and the film is called Dream Horse. It tells the story of Dream Alliance – raised on an allotment and owned by a syndicate of friends paying £10 a week – he went on to win the Welsh Grand National in 2009. The film has been in the planning for about five years with its release delayed because of the pandemic but it was a story perfect for Hollywood. “In the beginning I couldn’t really see a story there but when you sit down and you think about it, it really is a sort of fairytale,” said Jan. “Dream Alliance was working class like us, he came from nowhere.” The complete article can be read over at the BBC News website.

Jan said she was “taken aback” when she first heard Australian actress Toni Collette would be playing her, thinking producers would have chosen a Welsh actress. “I don’t think she got the Welsh accent quite right but she got away with it,” said Jan, who still works seven days a week, including at the local supermarket as depicted in the film. Collette has admitted she found the Welsh accent a “hard nut to crack”, but told ITV’s Lorraine she enjoyed her time filming in Wales. “I just think the Welsh culture is so rich. They sing at the drop of a hat,” she said. “They are so open and inclusive and even though I felt a little intimidated and nervous, I didn’t want to let the country down, I felt very supported. I will go back again and again, it is such a special place.”

Here comes a nice interview with Rotten Tomatoes ahead of the US release of “Dream Horse”. For a certain kind of movie lover – read: this writer – nothing could be a more enticing lure back to theaters than the promise of Toni Collette tearing into a meaty underdog role on the biggest screen possible. This week, that certain kind of moviegoer is in for a treat. In Dream Horse, the feel-good Welsh film that critics say has arrived in theaters – after delays due to COVID-19 – at just the right time for a country in need of some serious uplift, Collette plays real-life small-town hero Jan Vokes, a working-class woman who wakes up one day with a singular ambition: to breed a champion race horse. The film, whose story was told in the 2015 Certified Fresh documentary Dark Horse, follows Vokes as she rallies a disparate group of locals – among them Damian Lewis’s initially skeptical local accountant, Howard Davies – to put some money together and make that dream come true. For Collette, who recently wrapped on Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming Nightmare Alley and is currently shooting Netflix drama Pieces of Her in Sydney, Australia, it’s another critically acclaimed performance as a woman whose circumstances are humble but who should not be underestimated, a trait she says she’s been attracted to from the time of her breakout film role as Mariel/Muriel Heslop in Australian comedy classic, Muriel’s Wedding. In Vokes, Collette says she found someone to whom she could relate: “I am a sucker for an underdog story,” Collette says. “Feeling out of place, but having a certain amount of faith in oneself, just having this gut feeling of, ‘I have to pursue this. There’s no real clear reason why, except that I’m backing myself here and I feel it and I have to do it.’” Ahead of the movie’s release, Collette spoke with Rotten Tomatoes about the pressure to get one of Wales’ most beloved (true) fairy tales just right, forming a tight bond with her cast and a horse named Bo, and why she can’t wait to see what the “singular” Del Toro has done with the highly anticipated Nightmare Alley. The complete interview can be read over at Rotten Tomatoes.

According to Deadline, Juliette Binoche is set to star alongside Toni Collette, Colin Firth and Rosemarie DeWitt in The Staircase, HBO Max’s drama limited series adaptation based on the true-crime docuseries. The eight-episode series from Antonio Campos — who directed the Rebecca Hall-fronted feature Christine — and American Crime Story writer Maggie Cohn, explores the life of Michael Peterson (Firth), his sprawling North Carolina family and the suspicious death of his wife, Kathleen (Collette). Binoche’s character is being kept under wraps. The series is based on the docuseries and various books and reports on the case of Michael Peterson, who was convicted in 2003 of murdering Kathleen two years earlier. The charge was reduced to manslaughter in 2017, and Peterson subsequently was released from prison. He had claimed his wife died after falling down the stairs at their home after consuming alcohol and Valium, but an autopsy concluded she died from multiple injuries, including blows to the back of her head with a blunt object. Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s docuseries premiered in 2004 and was released on Netflix as a 13-episode series in 2018. The Staircase is written and executive produced by Campos and Cohn, who also serve as showrunners. The series is a co-production between HBO Max and Annapurna TV. The role marks Binoche’s first major foray into American television. Known for her Oscar-winning role in The English Patient, she next will be seen starring alongside Vincent Lindon in Claire Denis’ Fire.