‘Maserati: The Brothers’ Trailer: Al Pacino, Jessica Alba, Anthony Hopkins Lead $100M Self-Distributed Car Drama

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September 7, 2026

There’s a $100M movie opening this October, Maserati: The Brothers, that boasts Al Pacino, Jessica Alba, Andy Garcia, Anthony Hopkins, and The Housemaid actor Michele Morrone. Where’d this movie come from? You got me, but it’s directed by Bobby Moresco, who co-wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for Crash alongside Paul Haggis.

Unfortunately, Moresco also directed 2022’s awful Lamborghini: The Legend, starring Frank Grillo. I love Grillo, and enjoyed talking with him about the movie, but it’s terrible and has a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes for a reason.

So this Maserati movie has 36 producers on it, which is quite a lot. It’s one of those random international movies that pops up out of nowhere, has tons of star power but hardly any distribution, and looks like a prime candidate for money laundering or something. Pacino can often be found lurking in these areas.

To be fair to lead producer Andrea Iervolino, he didn’t just produce Lamborghini, he also backed Michael Mann’s Ferrari which wasn’t any good, either. At least we know what his interests are.

Obviously, the film will center on the Maserati brothers and what they did to launch the luxury automobile brand. It might turn out to be good…if anybody actually gets to see it. Movies like this, I just sort of wait for the lawsuits to get filed.

Maserati: The Brothers will open on October 15th.

‘You Can See Everything’ Teaser: Nathan Fielder And Lance Oppenheim’s Secret Elizabeth Holmes Doc Opens In October

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Travis Hopson

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September 7, 2026

Last night at Telluride, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s secret documentary on Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes made its world premiere. Today, A24 has dropped a first-look teaser for the unusual film, titled You Can See Everything, which will hit theaters in October.

So what makes You Can See Everything so strange? Well, we learned over a year ago that Fielder was visiting the infamous Holmes in federal prison. Those visits are just a small piece of the story. Holmes apparently invited a film crew to document her life just 34 days before she was due to report to prison, and what unfolded was much crazier than the filmmakers expected.

SYNOPSIS: Thirty-four days before she’s sent to prison, notorious Silicon Valley founder Elizabeth Holmes invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait of an enigmatic felon becomes a mind-bending three-year journey into the abyss. From boundary-pushing directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim comes You Can See Everything.

Fielder is best known for HBO’s surreal docu-comedy The Rehearsal, which suggests this won’t be a typical documentary. Teaming up with Oppenheim, whose controversial Chris Hanson drama Primetime also hit Telluride, only makes this project more interesting.

Box Office: ‘Spider-Man 4’ Holds Strong For 6th Straight Week As New Releases Stumble

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Travis Hopson

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September 6, 2026

Spider-Man: Brand New Day– $18M/$917.7M

Peter Parker can’t be stopped! Marvel/Sony’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day held the top spot for a sixth straight week, pulling in $18M over the weekend and an estimated $23M over the four-day holiday. If it does hit that number, $923M will put it within striking distance of 2015’s The Force Awakens for the highest-grossing film domestically ever. Meanwhile, the $2.4B it has earned globally has it at #3 all-time, behind Avatar ($2.9B) and Avengers: Endgame ($2.7B), within striking distance of both.

2. The Odyssey– $13M/$584.7M

3. Coyote vs. Acme– $11.3M/$33.8M

Barely moving an inch from last week, underdog success story Coyote vs. Acme fell just 29% and added another $11M for $33M domestically overall, with another $4M expected through the holiday.

4. By Any Means (review)- $7.4M

Paramount Pictures dumped cold into theaters the period crime thriller By Any Means, starring Mark Wahlberg as notorious mafia hitman Greg Scarpa and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as the fictional FBI agent teamed with him to solve the murders of civil rights activists in the 1960s South. I’ve said it before, but audiences know when a studio has no faith in a movie, and they won’t show up for it. The shame is that it’s actually pretty good, which is why audiences have it at 87% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics at just 55%.

5. Insidious: Out of the Further– $6.5M/$54.1M

6. Cars– $6.1M

Pixar re-released one of its biggest hits, Cars, into theaters in celebration of the 20th anniversary (!!!) and brought in $6.1M.

7. Buddy– $5.7M/$14.2M

Riding a wave of strong reviews from the genre crowd, horror-comedy Buddy, about a Barney-esque television show host who goes on a killing spree, added another $5.7M and improved from last week’s solid debut.

8. PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie– $3.3M/$48.4M

9. The End of Oak Street– $2.9M/$50.6M

10. The Dog Stars– $2.7M/$13M

Also…A rough week for new releases continued with Fall 2: Deadpoint, which opened to just $2.3M and is projected to reach $2.8M over the holiday. This isn’t far from what its predecessor, Fall, earned in 2022, on its way to $18M overall based on strong word of mouth.

Finally, Adam Wingard’s return to gritty action flicks was a massive fail. A24 released Onslaught (review) into 1,918 theaters and earned just $1.8M. Ouch. The film, led by Adria Arjona, Dan Stevens, and Rebecca Hall, follows an ex-military sniper and single mom as she defends her neighborhood against three rampaging super-soldiers. Reviews were weak across the board with critics taking it to just 55% and audiences at 62%. [BoxOfficeMojo]

Review: ‘The Runner’
Gal Gadot Races Through London But This Embarrassingly Stupid Thriller Goes Nowhere

By
Travis Hopson
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Well, nobody can blame Prime Video’s The Runner for lying to its audience. Directed, somehow, by the usually reliable Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, State of Play), The Runner is literally 90-minutes of Gal Gadot running through Scotland. If it were designed to be a travelogue of the city, that would be one thing, and preferable to the embarrassingly stupid thriller that we got instead. There are films that have used the real-time conceit effectively, but when done poorly, the countdown clock serves as an excruciating reminder that this 90-minute movie feels like 3 hours.

You’d think that the leggy Gadot racing through busy London streets would be exciting, or if nothing else, kinetic. It’s insane how much of a drag it actually is, though, with the city serving as little more than a series of manufactured obstacles for her character, Maia, a powerhouse attorney with an important trial set to take place later that day. Her key witness is tucked away safely so that nothing happens to him. However, during her morning run, Maia gets a phone call from a mysterious stranger who says he’s kidnapped her diabetic son. He’s hacked into her phone and has access to everything; he can see Maia wherever she goes and whoever she speaks to. As long as she keeps running through the city, things will be okay. It becomes clear that the caller needs Maia to murder the witness if she wants her son back alive.

What’s the point of making Maia run through the city to achieve this goal? You got me; other than that, there would be no movie called The Runner if she didn’t. Mark Gibson’s screenplay comes up with all sorts of minor roadblocks: traffic, crowded streets, pickpockets snatching Maia’s phone briefly, etc. She overcomes these pretty easily; in one case, taking advantage of London racism to get a Black pursuer off her back. There’s a tease of something violent in Maia’s past that makes her ideal to the caller’s murderous demand, but the reveal is the kind of cheap swerve designed to rescue a lame movie from itself. No dice here.

I’m a fan of Gadot, and feel she’s been unfairly written off for her politics, but also because she’s no longer Wonder Woman, as if that was her decision. People forget she is the main reason those movies succeeded. The problem is that her choices since then have been crap, with Heart of Stone, Red Notice, and Snow White all humiliating flops that did her no favors. The Runner isn’t going to change anyone’s negative perception of Gadot. The screenplay paints Maia as brilliant, resourceful, and ready for anything. It goes to absurd lengths to prove it in the final act because we only see panic and desperation for the rest of the movie.

While watching The Runner, I was reminded of a much better movie that it shares a lot in common with, Run Lola Run, in which Franka Potente has 20 minutes to find enough money to save her boyfriend. The propulsive camerawork had a purpose, carrying the story forward by leaps and bounds and capturing the unpredictability of the moment. The Runner‘s cinematography by Danny Boyle confidante Anthony Dod Mantle accomplishes the opposite. All of the whipping and panning and frenzied shots of Maia screaming don’t ramp up the tension, they just leave you bored.

Gadot deserves better material than this, but hey, she chose to do it. If there’s one good thing to come out of The Runner, it’s that everyone involved with it must’ve gotten a good workout.

A ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ Sequel Could Happen At Another Studio

By

Travis Hopson

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September 4, 2026

Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley have been on the trail promoting this week’s Apple spy comedy, Mayday (which is a lot of fun), and they’ve had a lot to say. Not just their upcoming reboot of the Star Trek franchise for Paramount, but also about their popular Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which the studio opened in 2023 to a disappointing box office.

Just last month, the duo said they had completed the script for a sequel, but Paramount was uninterested after the first film only made $205M on a $150M budget. Now, while appearing on The Discourse Podcast, they confirm Dungeons & Dragons 2 is being shopped around to other studios…

“Yeah, absolutely,” Goldstein said when asked about finding another financial backer. “I think Hasbro is a big believer in it, and if they can figure out a studio partner to make it work, they’ll want to proceed. As are our producers.”

Daley chimed in, “I mean, look, it’s something that is near and dear to our hearts in that we loved making the first one. We fell in love with the characters, and there’s so much potential in a sequel because the first act isn’t filled with exposition or introduction to this family that we’ve already become accustomed to. So you can kind of launch right into the story, which is really nice.”

At the same time, Daley admitted the financial realities might prevent the sequel from ever happening, “Yes, there are practical realities with the finance contingent, and who knows if it ever gets made, but we were proud of the sequel script and hope that at some point it does find a path.”

Daley also talked about the poor timing of the movie’s release, which was just days ahead of the record-breaking Super Mario Bros. Movie. There were other D&D licensing issues that caused some trouble behind-the-scenes. Frankly, I don’t think that stuff matters more than the fact that D&D has a loyal base of fans who aren’t necessarily moviegoers.

‘The Waffle House Index’: Inde Navarrette Lands Next Big Role In Sci-Fi Film From ‘The Incomer’ Director

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Travis Hopson

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September 4, 2026

Nobody is hotter and more in-demand right now than Obsession breakout Inde Navarrette, and following her landing the role of Rogue in Marvel’s X-Men reboot, she’s just booked another major film. Deadline reports Navarrette will star in Apple’s The Waffle House Index, which sounds delicious but is about a lot more than waffles.

The film is based on a Black List script by Andrew Nunnelly, and refers to the “Waffle House Index”, an informal metric that FEMA and those in the South use to measure the severity of a storm and the need for disaster relief. How’s that? Well, Waffle Houses are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, so if one of them is closed, you know the storm is going to be bad. Navarrette would presumably play Jane, who works the graveyard shift at her local Waffle House.

Navarrette will also serve as an exec-producer on the film, along with Apple Studios and Brad Pitt’s Plan B.

There’s supposedly a lot more going on than storms, such as killer crocs, aliens, gunmen, and secret magical bunkers.

Behind the camera will be Louis Paxton, whose quirky comedy The Incomer found a lot of fans at Sundance earlier this year. You can count me as one of them.

Why Is Vin Diesel Teasing That He’ll Direct ‘Fast Forever’?

By

Travis Hopson

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September 4, 2026

If you’ve been following the saga of Fast Forever, the supposed final movie in the Fast & Furious saga, it’s been kinda ridiculous. Fast X opened in 2023, ending on a huge cliffhanger, and ever since it’s been one delay after another, a complete lack of a script, budget woes that led to $50M being slashed, and a lot of Vin Diesel teasing things that simply weren’t happening. And now, Diesel is back and stirring shit up again.

So, the presumed director of Fast Forever is Louis Leterrier, returning to finish what he started with the last movie. However, whenever he talks about the film, he seems completely out of the loop. Perhaps we have a reason why now, because Diesel took to his Instagram (where else?) and posted a black-and-white photo of Dominic Toretto’s powerful Dodge Charger, with the words “Director…Hmmm…”

Um, is Vin Diesel directing Fast Forever now? You can’t take ANYTHING Diesel says at face value. He recently said that filming would begin in December, but there’s absolutely no reason to believe that’s true.

It could be that Diesel is just trolling Leterrier, but what purpose would that serve? Believe it or not, this wouldn’t be Diesel’s first time behind the camera. He directed the 1997 crime film, Strays, as well as the Fast & Furious short film, Los Bandoleros.

Despite his relative inexperience behind the camera, nobody knows these movies better than Diesel. In a way it makes sense that he’d finally direct one, the final one, since he has been the driving force (no pun intended) almost since the beginning. For now, Fast Forever is expected to open on March 17th 2028.

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DC Readers: Attend A Free Screening Of ‘The Uprising’ Starring Andrew Garfield

By

Travis Hopson

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September 4, 2026

I’m happy to offer DC area readers the chance to attend a free early screening of The Uprising, Paul Greengrass’s historical epic starring Andrew Garfield as leader of a rebellion against King Richard III.

SYNOPSIS: Andrew Garfield stars as the legendary leader of a ferocious rebellion against the tyranny of King Richard II. As war burns across England, he forms an army of the people to face the King’s might in a fight for justice and survival.

The screening takes place on Wednesday, September 9th at 7:00pm at Regal Majestic. If you’d like to attend, RSVP at the Focus Features site here! Please remember, all screenings are first come first served and you’ll need to arrive early to ensure seating. Enjoy the show!

The Uprising opens in theaters on September 10th.

Review: ‘By Any Means’
Mark Wahlberg And Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Take On The KKK In An Entertaining Revenge Fantasy

By
Travis Hopson
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The less you know about the real-life story behind By Any Means, a sweaty, southern crime flick from The Inspection director Elegance Bratton, the more you’ll appreciate it as a kind of classic Hollywood revenge tale. Mark Wahlberg plays notorious mafia hitman Gregory Scarpa, who, in 1966, helped the FBI find the bodies of slain civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner. That case is pretty well-known, even if the FBI doesn’t want to admit anything. It says even less about the case involving Scarpa two years later: the murder of prominent voting rights activist Vernon Dahmer, played by Giancarlo Esposito. That’s what By Any Means is all about…sorta.

Sorta, because By Any Means seems to have more interest in creating a revenge fantasy, the stuff of many a blaxploitation film, than sticking to reality. That’s fine; those kinds of movies are far too rare these days. Pair up a couple of tough guys, give them a bunch of racists to beat up, and have a ball! Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays Special Agent Wayne Strider, a fictional creation because there’s no evidence Scarpa ever teamed up with anybody. Striker makes the perfect kind of conflicted protagonist for this kind of story, anyway. He believes in law, order, and justice, but all it’s gotten him is being stuck behind a desk at the Mississippi field office, rather than taking part in actual cases as he did in Chicago.

That changes for Strider when he’s tasked with being Scarpa’s handler as he investigates the Dahmer killing. The two are oil and water, with Scarpa preferring to beat perps over the head with a bat than using any actual investigative techniques. This ideological divide between the partners is entertained for a little while in some fun but not particularly deep exchanges. Scarpa can respect the “by any means necessary” approach by Malcolm X, but Strider prefers Martin Luther King, Jr.

It doesn’t take long for Sascha Penn’s screenplay to dispense with the pretense and just get right down to the vengeful wish fulfillment. While Scarpa did engage in torture, pistol whippings, and other forms of violent intimidation, it’s unlikely he went on the killing spree that he and Strider engage in. They don’t just kill KKK members, but the corrupt local police aren’t spared, either. The body count is surprisingly high, not quite on a Quentin Tarantino Django Unchained level, but more than you’d expect from a movie based on real events. To be fair, By Any Means is a better movie for exaggerating things as much as it does, because who doesn’t want to watch Nazi scumbags get what they got comin’?

And who better to dish out punishment with a smile and big ol’ fake nose than Mark Wahlberg? His overacting is through the roof here, swaggering around and talking like someone auditioning to be an extra in A Bronx Tale. Wahlberg is clearly loving every second of this, and he’s by far the most enjoyable part of this movie because it doesn’t try to soften up Scarpa. He’s a bad guy doing bad shit for a good cause that he doesn’t even really believe in.

Abdul-Matteen II’s do-gooder FBI agent is kind of dull; even when he eventually goes rogue, he’s totally in Wahlberg’s shadow. Strider might be doing everything the right way, but Scarpa’s methods are getting things done a lot faster than following the rules. It’s a dilemma that is considered for a moment before Strider goes full-on Charles Bronson. By Any Means reveals some details of the real story during the credits, and they are a lot more boring than the sensational extremes the movie gave us. I’d much rather see a movie like this that dares to be provocative if it means being more entertaining than one that gives us the straight scoop.

By Any Means is in theaters now.

Podcast: Talkin’ Adam Wingard’s Gritty Action Thriller, ONSLAUGHT!

By

Travis Hopson

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September 3, 2026

On this episode of Cinema Royale, Justin Esquivel of Epic Film Guys joins me to talk about Adam Wingard’s return to gritty action flicks with ONSLAUGHT, starring Adria Arjona, Dan Stevens, and Rebecca Hall! How does it measure up to THE GUEST or YOU’RE NEXT?

Also, beware of spoilers this episode! We get into everything!

When a rogue squad of genetically engineered super soldiers break loose in the desert, a badass Army sniper must unleash hell to protect her young daughter.

You can find Cinema Royale anywhere you get your podcasts, plus on YouTube in video form. Please subscribe to all the feeds if you can.