John Wick co-director Chad Stahelski has found his next project, and, shocker, it’s being described as a “high octane cat ‘n mouse thriller”. Between Stahelski and his former tag partner David Leitch they seem to have that market cornered.
Deadline reports Stahelski will direct Classified, an action-thriller picked up by New Line after a competitive auction with other studios. Described as “Die Hard meets Indiana Jones”, the story takes place in a top secret government bunker like the kind we saw in Raider of the Lost Ark. Does that mean Nazis faces will be getting melted? Possibly, because inside this bunker are powerful and dangerous relics recovered during WWII.
The film has a script by Andrew Deutschman and Jason Pagan, who previously wrote Project Almanac and Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension.
Stahelski has directed all three John Wick films but has yet to branch out into other solo efforts the way Leitch has. He’s been attached to a Highlander reboot for a while now, but that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere except maybe to television. Other projects coming up include comic book adaptation Analog, a high-concept car film from the A Quiet Place producers, and he’s ready the fourth John Wick film. He also did some action work on Birds of Prey, something I thought would lead to a further connection with DC Films or perhaps a move over to Marvel. So far that hasn’t happened yet, but if Classified is a hit could lead to bigger things.
When Ruby Rose retired from her role as Batwoman after only one season, reportedly due to the strain it was putting on her physically, I was a bit worried we’d seen the last of the up and coming action star. Thankfully this new trailer for Vanquish, a very Gone In 60 Seconds type film where she’s pulled back into a life of crime to save a loved one (in this case, her daughter), proves that Rose is still very much into that action life. I’m digging on this flick for a number of reasons, first is obviously that I’m very much into Ruby Rose the action star. She’s got a look that just begs to be associated with smoking guns and ass-kickery and has prove the chops to bring it to the screen. Second, Morgan Freeman as an, apparently, corrupt former commissioner. Something about Freeman when he plays dignified but decidedly evil characters just makes me long for more. Last, this seems like a very standard race against the clock action film and, when done right, there’s really nothing better in the action movie realm.
Check out the trailer below and look for Vanquish April 23rd, 2021 on digital and OnDemand!
Official Synopsis:
From the director of Double Take, Middle Men, and The Poison Rose comes this stylish, glossy action-thriller starring Morgan Freeman (Se7en) and Ruby Rose (“Orange Is the New Black”) that shows what desperation can drive a person to do. A mother, Victoria (Rose), is trying to put her dark past as a Russian drug courier behind her, but retired cop Damon (Freeman) forces Victoria to do his bidding by holding her daughter hostage. Now, Victoria must use guns, guts, and a motorcycle to take out a series of violent gangsters — or she may never see her child again.
It’s official! Michael B. Jordan will make his directorial debut on Creed III, as first rumored late last year then leaked by co-star Tessa Thompson. Not only that, but MGM has set the film for a high-profile release on November 23rd 2022. The Thanksgiving weekend is historically one of the biggest of the movie year. Who knows how it’ll be post-COVID, but either way, this is the studio showing a lot of faith in the first-time filmmaker.
The story has been developed by previous director Ryan Coogler, with a script penned by Keenan Coogler and Zach Baylin. Jordan will not only direct but reprise his role as boxer Adonis Creed, joined by Tessa Thompson and Phylicia Rashad. It’s unclear if Sylvester Stallone will return as Rocky Balboa, but he’s been sorta preparing us for his departure from the franchise…but not necessarily the character.
This is cool because Jordan is following in Stallone’s footsteps by having the lead actor take over as director of the sequels, just as Sly did with Rocky.
On the news, Jordan said (via Deadline): “Directing has always been an aspiration, but the timing had to be right. Creed III is that moment — a time in my life where I’ve grown more sure of who I am, holding agency in my own story, maturing personally, growing professionally, and learning from the Greats like Ryan Coogler, most recently Denzel Washington, and other top tier directors I respect. All of which sets the table for this moment. This franchise and in particular the themes of Creed III are deeply personal to me. I look forward to sharing the next chapter of Adonis Creed’s story with the awesome responsibility of being its director and namesake.”
Another day, another set of A-list actors making the move to streaming television. This time it’s Oscar winners Natalie Portman and Lupita Nyong’o, who are headed to Apple TV+ for Lady in the Lake, a series from director Alma Har’el.
Deadline reports Portman and Nyong’o will star in Lady in the Lake, a limited series for Apple TV+. Behind the camera is Alma Har’el, who recently directed the Shia LaBeouf drama Honey Boy. She will also co-write the script with Dre Ryan.
Lady in the Lake is set in 1960s Baltimore and follows housewife and mother Maddie Schwartz (Portman) who reinvents herself as an investigative journalist in the wake of an unsolved murder. This puts her in the path of hard-working mother Cleo Sherwood (Nyong’o) who is instrumental in pushing forward Baltimore’s Black progressive agenda.
This marks the television series debut for both actresses. Portman is an Oscar winner for her performance in Black Swan. She most recently starred in Lucy in the Sky and will star next in Thor: Love & Thunder. Nyong’o won her Academy Award for 12 Years a Slave, and will be seen next in spy thriller The 355.
I’ll be honest, Apple TV+ has yet to really grab me, but that could change with the incredible star power they’re signing on a regular basis. This is the kind of series, clearing meant to be a prestige model, that has my attention.
Now that Zack Snyder’s Justice League is mere days away, we have to grapple a little bit with what might’ve been. The unfortunate reality is that it was Joss Whedon’s version that ended up on the screen, and that has impact on the DCEU and the films that came after it. While Snyder’s cut may have more story and different paths for the characters in it, it actually means nothing to the franchise as a whole, and that’s weird considering how pivotal the director was into building the whole thing.
Snyder recognizes how odd the situation is, as well, and in the latest DC Cinematic Cast, he reveals his thoughts on Whedon’s version of Justice League being canon while his isn’t….
“It’s interesting, sort of in the DCEU, or whatever it’s become, that that trilogy (comprised of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Justice League) sort of insulates itself in some ways [and] becomes its own thing now. I famously said, and it’s true, this isn’t controversial, my Justice League is not canon, right? Canon for Warner Bros. is the Joss Whedon version of Justice League.”
“In their mind, that’s canon. And what I’m doing is not. Everything is not,” Snyder continued. “So it’s just an interesting, that relationship. And I’m fine with it because I feel like the only way that I could have made this film with autonomy was because of that, because of me admitting and agreeing to the fact that it is not canon.”
Snyder also expressed some frustration about the situation, adding “The grander, greater concept for the DCEU is on another road. And there’s nothing I can do about that. That is just, it is what it is. It’s not my decision.”
I think if the Snyder Cut turns out to be really good (I’ve heard from a few that it is) that fans will only accept his film and basically wash Whedon’s down the memory hole. We’ll find out when it arrives on HBO Max on March 18th. For now, check out a new poster with Darkseid looking intimidating, and an updated version of his teaser video from a few days ago.
Most people don’t know this about me, but I’m a little claustrophobic. It’s nothing quite as bad as my fear of heights or of drowning, but it still sucks. So a movie like Oxygen, which is entirely about someone being trapped in a confined space, is something I’ll likely pass, even though it features the talents of Melanie Laurent and director Alexandre Aja.
The Netflix film stars Laurent as a woman who wakes up trapped in a cryogenic unit with no memory of how she got there. She must not only figure that out, but also who she is if there’s any hope of her to get out before the oxygen is gone.
Also in the cast are Mathieu Amalric and Malik Zidi, but this one is pretty much a Laurent show. She’s probably best known for her roles in Inglourious Basterds, Now You See Me, and Beginners, and 6 Undergound. Laurent also recently directed the film Galveston, and has the anticipated thriller The Nightingale coming up.
Aja is the director behind such memorable horrors as High Tension, Horns, Piranha 3D, The Hills Have Eyes, and Crawl. The guy knows how to freak people out.
Think about how different Coming 2 America would’ve been if they had done the sequel 30 years ago rather than now. The passage of time played a big role in the story we got, as Eddie Murphy’s Prince Akeem was much older, not-so-much wiser, but now in the role of king with a son he never knew about. So what’s next? A passing of the crown, so to speak? Whatever it is, Murphy says fans are going to be waiting a long time for it. Waiting 16 years, to be exact.
Appearing on Live with Kelly and Ryan, Murphy talked about plans for Coming to America 3. He says there is a storyline idea that he has, but he’ll need to be much older to pull it off…
“There’s an idea for a ‘Coming to America 3’ that I have, but it doesn’t happen for 16 years,” said Murphy. “I have to be 75 to do it, and not make me up like 75 but really be 75.”
Really? Can’t they just pile on the make-up and prosthetics the way they do for every Eddie Murphy movie? My guess is he’s being facetious here, and that what he actually means is that certain members of the cast will need to be of a certain age.
Will Akeem be the wise king in the winter of his rule, similar to the role played by James Earl Jones? Will we see Jermaine Fowler’s character take over as king of Zumunda? Or perhaps Akeem’s eldest daughter played by Kiki Layne? The question is what reason will they come up with for a return trip to Queens, NY?
Coming 2 America is available now on Amazon Prime, and don’t worry, if the money’s right Murphy will do a sequel in no time.
Movies about the making of iconic films is a thing, not only because they appeal to cinephiles but they work really well at keeping intellectual properties alive. And so with Mank out there grabbing all of the accolades, we’re sorta getting the same thing except with The Godfather, and this one boasts just as incredible of a cast.
Deadline reports that Elle Fanning has joined Barry Levinson’s Francis & the Godfather, taking on the role of actress Ali MacGraw. If you’re telling yourself “Wait, McGraw doesn’t have a part in The Godfather”, well, you’re right. However, she was married to Paramount head Robert Evans, who will be played in the film by Jake Gyllenhaal. Taking on the role of director Francis Ford Coppola is Oscar Isaac, with Elisabeth Moss as Eleanor Coppola.
Clearly, the personal relationships behind the movie are going to be a big focus. McGraw and Evans were a real Hollywood power couple. He was Paramount’s head of production while she was an international star who had earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in Love Story.
American releases of European films can be difficult. Names get changed, nuances aren’t always obvious and many things get lost in translation (even if the film is in English.) The new Czech film The Affair, from Vertical Entertainment and director Julius Ševčík, fall into similar trappings.
A few years before World War II, a newly married couple, The Landauers, team up with an architect to build a beautiful modern house overlooking the Czechoslovakian city of Brno. Despite an entire wall made of glass overlooking the city at the heart of the home, both Liesel (Hanna Alström, Kingsman franchise) and Viktor (Claes Bang, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, The Burnt Orange Heresy) are not as transparent in their marriage. Viktor’s eye keeps landing on the nanny and Liesel’s relationship with her best friend Hana (Carice van Houten, Game of Thrones) is closer than others may think. As the world enters war and secrets start coming out of the closet, the house and the glass room become a mental and physical lifeline to the past and the possible future. Based on The Glass Room by British author Simon Mawer (and reffered to by that title in foreign markets), this period piece is overdesigned with not much to say.
As leads, Hana Alström and Carice van Houten try their best to make their characters three-dimensional and layered. However, like everything in this movie, their attempt comes off muddled and confusing. Surprisingly van Houten plays a very similar character to the one she is known for. Both Hana and Game of Throne’s Melisandre are calculating, frigid, and angry. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve seen Van Houten smile onscreen. The Affair does give Van Houten the chance to show off her range if she even has one. Alström struggles to convey the complexities of her character’s inner motivation but without internal dialogue, her acting choices and her character’s development feel disjointed.
When a director decides to treat a setting like another character in a film, you’d expect that place to get some sort of character arch. Ševčík doesn’t do much to establish what makes this home so special, why this family longs to stay, why Hana uses it as a way to be closer to Liesel when they are apart. While the house deteriorates in the background, it becomes a very good representation of the film itself: cold and hollow.
Time doesn’t stop for anybody but it certainly doesn’t stop in The Affair. The plot jumps months, years, and even decades with little warning and if you are not an expert on mid-20th century European history, a lot of context is lost in the execution. Whether it’s director Julius Ševčík not giving us enough visual cues or Andrew Shaw’s script not providing enough exposition, it’s hard to know where we are historically and narratively.
Riddled with problems but beautiful to look at, The Affair feels like the film equivalent of the shrugging emoji. With such an uneven and cracked foundation by director Julius Ševčík, why should we care about these characters or this house at all?
The Affair is available now through VOD. Watch the trailer below.
Are you ready to solve puzzles every single week with everyone’s favorite fictional symbologist? Are there any real-life symbologists out there? Anyway, Dan Brown’s Langdon is getting a series order from Peacock, promising that fans of The Da Vinci Code will have all the Robert Langdon they can handle.
Dan Brown’s Langdon is coming to Peacock as a series, after a pilot was ordered for the streamer last year. The series “follows the early adventures of famed Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who must solve a series of deadly puzzles to save his kidnapped mentor and thwart a chilling global conspiracy.”
Playing the role of Langdon is Succession actor Ashley Zukerman, joined by Valorie Curry (Blair Witch), Sumalee Montano (10 Cloverfield Lane), Rick Gonzalez (Arrow), Eddie Izzard (The Cat’s Meow), and Beau Knapp (Seven Seconds). Pretty good group there.
Dan Dworkin and Jay Beattie will act as writers and exec-producers, with the latter title also going to Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and Dan Brown. What, no Tom Hanks?
Hanks is the most recognizable version of Robert Langdon, after all. He played the famed historian in a trio of blockbuster films, with the last one, Inferno, opening in 2016
The Langdon series actually began as a film adaptation of The Lost Symbol, but they could never quite get it right and skipped it in favor of Inferno. A couple of years ago those plans were reworked into a television series, and now here we are. Here’s the book synopsis for The Lost Symbol, which should give some idea where the show is going.
Famed Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon answers an unexpected summons to appear at the U.S. Capitol Building. His plans are interrupted when a disturbing object—artfully encoded with five symbols—is discovered in the building. Langdon recognizes in the find an ancient invitation into a lost world of esoteric, potentially dangerous wisdom.
When his mentor Peter Solomon—a long-standing Mason and beloved philanthropist—is kidnapped, Langdon realizes that the only way to save Solomon is to accept the mystical invitation and plunge headlong into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and one inconceivable truth . . . all under the watchful eye of Dan Brown’s most terrifying villain to date.
