When we think of Zach Braff as an actor-turned-filmmaker, our thoughts likely turn to his 2004 debut, Garden State, a film that really captured the heart of the indie audience for its style and music. I would say that move influenced the indie art scene for years, and still does today. However, Braff hasn’t done much to follow up that success. Wish I Was Here was seen as a poor facsimile, while 2017’s remake Going in Style a forgettable, if financially successful, attempt at mainstream crossover. Now Braff is back and has lined up two huge stars for his next directorial effort, A Good Person.
Deadline reports Braff will write and direct A Good Person, which will star Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman. Freeman worked with Braff on Going in Style, and he remains one of the most beloved actors around, so nabbing him and the red-hot Pugh is quite a coup. The story follows a woman struggling to bounce back from the trauma of a fatal accident, only to forge an unlikely relationship with her would-be father-in-law who helps her find renewed purpose in life.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images
It’s early in the development of A Good Person, as it’ll be put up for market while in Berlin. But with Braff, Freeman, and Pugh on board finding backers should be a breeze.
On this week’s Cinema Royale, we put together our pitch for an epic Black Cloud Atlas movie that will never happen. Probably. Plus reviews ofThe United States vs. Billie Holiday starring Golden Globe winner Andra Day, the Russo Brothers’ drug epic Cherry with Tom Holland, and the new Tom & Jerry movie.
Plus we’ve got all the news on Spider-Man 3‘s official title, the latest episode of WandaVision, and the next Superman movie!
All this and more! You can subscribe to Cinema Royale wherever you get your podcasts! Follow the Punch Drunk Critics and Cinema Royale!
There’s a surge of interest in J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and the hardline racist tactics used to disrupt and destroy those involved in political activism. From Seberg to Judas and the Black Messiah to The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Hollywood has found a wealth of films tackling this ugly part of our history that informs so much of the distrust Black people have in government today. And now there’s another film on the subject, as Winston Duke will play political activist and Black nationalist Marcus Garvey in Amazon’s Marked Man.
Deadline reports Amazon Studios has set Black Panther and Us star Winston Duke to play Marcus Garvey in Marked Man, a film by Nigerian director Andrew Dosunmu. Also in talks to join Duke are Jesse Williams (Little Fires Everywhere) and DeWanda Wise (She’s Gotta Have It).
The film is based on Colin Grant’s biography Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey, adapted by playwright t Kwame Kwei-Armah.
This won’t be a typical biopic on Garvey, either. Set in the 1920s, it will follow a black man who is recruited by Hoover’s FBI to infiltrate Garvey’s UNIA, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League, testing his loyalty to race and country while growing weary of both men.
Garvey was more than just a political activist. He was an entrepreneur with businesses all across America, which helped fuel his belief that Black people needed to be prosperous separate from white business. But he was also a firm belief in racial separation, a view he held so radically he was even willing to associate with the Ku Klux Klan because their views on this were so similar. His ideology, known as Garveyism, remains a controversial one.
Duke is coming off of his role as Hawk in Spenser Confidential. Dosunmu earned acclaim for his 2013 film Mother of George (also a breakout for Danai Gurira), and most-recently helmed the 2017 drama Where is Kyra?
It was an unusual Golden Globes this year for the most obvious of reasons. Hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, leading the event for the fourth time, but on different sides of the country, joined with some winners in attacking the HFPA’s lack of diversity, with reports the group doesn’t have a single Black voting member. So this was at least an interesting show to watch those putting on the event attacked by those they were either paying to host or awarding honors to. As for the results, there were definitely some surprises.
The biggest for me are Rosamund Pike winning Best Actress in a Comedy for I Care A Lot, a film that has definitely hit with the people who saw it. Also, Daniel Kaluuya taking Best Supporting Actor for his charismatic performance in Judas and the Black Messiah, was the kind of welcome shock the Globes often tries too hard to deliver. Jodie Foster won Best Supporting Actress for The Mauritanian, another surprise given the level of competition in that category and the general lack of buzz for that film.
Andra Day taking Best Actress Drama for her breakthrough role in The United States vs. Billie Holiday was unexpected, with most having Frances McDormand locked in for Nomadland, a film that still came away with two wins including Best Motion Picture Drama.
Other winners included Chadwick Boseman for Best Actor Drama for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and Sacha Baron Cohen who won twice for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.
Day and Boseman taking top honors in the acting drama categories is the first time those awards both went to a Black man and woman.
Leading the way for streamers was, of course, Netflix which came away with 10 Golden Globe wins, with The Queen’s Gambit and The Crown winning Best Limited Series and Best Drama Series, respectively.
Full list of winners is below!
Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture
Sacha Baron Cohen – “The Trial of the Chicago 7”
Daniel Kaluuya – “Judas and the Black Messiah” – WINNER
Jared Leto – “The Little Things”
Bill Murray – “On the Rocks”
Leslie Odom, Jr. – “One Night in Miami”
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
John Boyega – “Small Axe” – WINNER
Brendan Gleeson – “The Comey Rule”
Daniel Levy – “Schitt’s Creek”
Jim Parsons – “Hollywood”
Donald Sutherland – “The Undoing”
Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy
Lily Collins – “Emily in Paris”
Kaley Cuoco – “The Flight Attendant”
Elle Fanning – “The Great”
Jane Levy – “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist”
Catherine O’Hara – “Schitt’s Creek” – WINNER
Best Motion Picture — Animated
“The Croods: A New Age”
“Onward”
“Over the Moon”
“Soul” – WINNER
“Wolfwalkers”
Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Bryan Cranston – “Your Honor”
Jeff Daniels – “The Comey Rule”
Hugh Grant – “The Undoing”
Mark Ruffalo – “I Know This Much is True” – WINNER
Ethan Hawke – “The Good Lord Bird”
Best Screenplay — Motion Picture
Emerald Fennell – “Promising Young Woman”
Jack Fincher – “Mank”
Aaron Sorkin – “The Trial of the Chicago 7” – WINNER
Florian Zeller, Christopher Hampton – “The Father”
Chloe Zhao – “Nomadland”
Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series — Drama
Olivia Colman – “The Crown”
Jodie Comer – “Killing Eve”
Emma Corrin – “The Crown” – WINNER
Laura Linney – “Ozark”
Sarah Paulson – “Ratched”
Best Original Song — Motion Picture
“Fight for You” – “Judas and the Black Messiah”
“Hear My Voice” – “The Trial of the Chicago 7”
“IO SI (Seen)” – “The Life Ahead” – WINNER
“Speak Now” – “One Night in Miami”
“Tigers & Tweed” – “The United States vs. Billie Holiday”
Best Original Score
“The Midnight Sky”
“Tenet”
“News of the World”
“Mank”
“Soul” – WINNER
Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy
Don Cheadle – “Black Monday”
Nicholas Hoult – “The Great”
Eugene Levy – “Schitt’s Creek”
Jason Sudekis – “Ted Lasso” – WINNER
Ramy Youssef – “Ramy”
Best Television Series — Musical or Comedy
“Emily in Paris”
“The Flight Attendant”
“Schitt’s Creek” – WINNER
“The Great”
“Ted Lasso”
Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy
Maria Bakalova – “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”
Kate Hudson – “Music”
Michelle Pfeiffer – “French Exit”
Rosamund Pike – “I Care A Lot” – WINNER
Anya Taylor-Joy – “Emma”
Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series — Drama
Jason Bateman – “Ozark”
Josh O’Connor – “The Crown” – WINNER
Bob Odenkirk – “Better Call Saul”
Al Pacino – “Hunters”
Matthew Rhys – “Perry Mason”
Best Motion Picture — Foreign Language
“Another Round,” Denmark
“La Llorona,” Guatamala/France
“The Life Ahead,” Italy
“Minari,” USA – WINNER
“Two of Us,” France/USA
Best Television Series Drama
“The Crown” – WINNER
“Lovecraft Country”
“The Mandalorian”
“Ozark”
“Ratched”
Best Actress in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture
Glenn Close – “Hillbilly Elegy”
Olivia Colman – “The Father”
Jodie Foster – “The Mauritanian” – WINNER
Amanda Seyfried – “Mank”
Helena Zengel – “News of the World”
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Helena Bonham Carter – “The Crown”
Julia Garner – “Ozark”
Annie Murphy – “Schitt’s Creek”
Cynthia Nixon – “Ratched”
Gillian Anderson – “The Crown” – WINNER
Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Cate Blanchett – “Mrs. America”
Daisy Edgar-Jones – “Normal People”
Shira Haas – “Unorthodox”
Nicole Kidman – “The Undoing”
Anya Taylor-Joy – “The Queen’s Gambit” – WINNER
Best Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
“Normal People”
“The Queen’s Gambit” – WINNER
“Small Axe”
“The Undoing”
“Unorthodox”
Best Actor in a Motion Picture — Drama
Chadwick Boseman, – “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” – WINNER
Riz Ahmed – “The Sound of Metal”
Anthony Hopkins – “The Father”
Gary Oldman – “Mank”
Tahar Rahim – “The Mauritanian”
Best Director — Motion Picture
David Fincher – “Mank”
Regina King – “One Night in Miami”
Aaron Sorkin – “The Trial of the Chicago 7”
Chloe Zhao – “Nomadland” – WINNER
Emerald Fennell – “Promising Young Woman”
Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy
“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” – WINNER
“Hamilton”
“Music”
“Palm Springs”
“The Prom”
Best Actor in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy
Sacha Baron Cohen – “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” – WINNER
James Corden – “The Prom”
Lin-Manuel Miranda – “Hamilton”
Dev Patel – “The Personal History of David Copperfield”
Andy Samberg – “Palm Springs”
Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama
Viola Davis – “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”
Andra Day – “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” – WINNER
Vanessa Kirby – “Pieces of a Woman”
Frances McDormand – “Nomadland”
Carey Mulligan – “Promising Young Woman
Best Motion Picture — Drama
“The Father”
“Mank”
“Nomadland” – WINNER
“Promising Young Woman”
“The Trial of the Chicago 7”
In news that can probably be seen as a mixed bag, Warner Bros. Tom & Jerry opened with $13.7M at the box office. That makes it the second-biggest debut during the pandemic, behind only Wonder Woman 1984‘s 16.7M. Nothing else really comes close, as Tenetscored $9.35M and The Croods: A New Age had $9.7M.
Tom & Jerry, which was directed by Tim Story and starred Chloe Grace Moretz, Michael Pena, and more, opened in 2475 theaters. Roughly 42% of theaters are reopened across the country.
What makes this a semi-big deal is that the film was also available for free on HBO Max. It’s clear that families saw it as an opportunity to go out and see a movie in theaters like they used to, rather than stay at home as they had been. So interest in theatrical is up, and that could increase as vaccinations continue to rise.
The fly in the ointment is that box office numbers are still a far cry from where they were pre-pandemic and even when things return to normal they might not ever be the same. These numbers also give Warner Bros. little reason to change their day-and-date structure that sees movies opening theaters and HBO Max simultaneously.
Yesterday, Fisher launched another attack against Hamada via Twitter, claiming the exec attempted to deligitimize the investigation into misconduct by Justice League director Joss Whedon, only to then try and cover it all up by giving fans a Black Superman.
Do ya’ll remember that time Walter Hamada and @wbpictures tried to destroy a Black man’s credibility, and publicly delegitimize a very serious investigation, with lies in the press?
WarnerMedia didn’t let Fisher’s comments sit out there for long. They issued their own statement disputing his accusations…
“Once again there are false statements being made about our executives and our company surrounding the recent Justice League investigation. As we have stated before, an extensive and thorough third-party investigation was conducted. Our executives, including Walter Hamada, fully cooperated, no evidence was found of any interference whatsoever, and Warner Bros. did not lie in the press. It’s time to stop saying otherwise and move forward productively. “
Furthermore, the statement by WarnerMedia was backed by the Katherine B. Forrest, who led the investigation into Fisher’s allegations against Whedon…
“I am disappointed by continued public statements made suggesting that Walter Hamada in any way interfered with the Justice League investigation. He did not. I interviewed him extensively on more than one occasion and specifically interviewed him concerning his very limited interaction with Mr. Fisher. I found Mr. Hamada credible and forthcoming. I concluded that he did nothing that impeded or interfered with the investigation. To the contrary, the information that he provided was useful and advanced the investigation.”
The back-and-forth continued as Fisher took one last shot…
As I’ve said from the start:
Walter Hamada ATTEMPTED to interfere with the JL investigation.
He was unsuccessful in doing so because I did not allow him to.
Having the investigator make a statement claiming there was no interference is purposely misleading and desperate.
And so on and so on. At this point, I don’t think this ends until WarnerMedia and Warner Bros. stop responding to Fisher. It’s clear at this point, based on troubling accounts by Charisma Carpenter and others who back up her claims of mistreatment by Whedon, that his career is toast for the most part. It’s my opinion that Fisher isn’t helping matters by trashing good things that WarnerMedia does, and I would including the hiring of Coates in that. What does it serve?
Fisher will be seen next, and likely for the final time, as Cyborg in Zack Snyder’s Justice League on March 18th. He had been set to reprise the role in The Flash, but as consequence of his repeated attacks against the studio, he was cut from the film.
Here comes Zack Snyder’s Justice League! The film has been a Holy Grail of sorts for Snyder and his army of fans, after years of promises about what might have been if he held on to the control he had at the DCEU’s birth. Even now, with a new clip from the film debuting at IGN Fan Fest, Snyder is still teasing storylines that are part of a larger whole that we’ll never get to see.
The clip is actually the opening credit sequence from the film, rather than a traditional scene. Titled “The Mother Box Origins” and set, not to “Hallelujah” as we’ve been accustomed, but to Tom Waits song “Time”, it features the Justice League heroes in marbled scenes on a Mother Box, done in the style of classic Greek and Roman sculptures.
“I doodled all those. There’s a million Easter eggs in it, and if you go look there’s storylines that I had been working on that if the film had been continued or if you look at the past histories, there’s a bunch of little details in there for everybody,” he teased. “It’s really worth taking a long slow look at because it’s really fun, and I think for fans it’s really a treat.”
Eagle-eyed fans are undoubtedly pouring through every bit of it. Mostly what I could pick out are nods to the characters’ super-powered origins and legacies, which are so important to the fabric of the DC Universe.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League hits HBO Max on March 18th, and according to Snyder [via Batman News] the black & white version will be coming later this year, too, possibly with a full IMAX release with an intermission scored by Junkie XL. I’m guessing all of that depends on the audience reaction.
It seems Christian Bale and director Scott Cooper have decided their careers will stay intertwined. In 2013 they first collaborated on Out of the Furnace, followed four years later by Hostiles. And now, with the same amount of time in-between, they’re together again for a film titled The Pale Blue Eye.
Deadline reports Bale will star in an adaptation of Louis Bayer’s historical mystery novel, The Pale Blue Eye, which Cooper will write and direct. The story follows the murder of a West Point academy cadet in 1830, and a retired detective brought in to solve the case, drawing the attention of young recruit Edgar Allan Poe.
“Even though Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston and died, delirious, in Baltimore, the majority of his life was spent in Virginia, my home state,” Cooper said. “So I grew up with his presence. He bequeathed us the detective genre, and he’s still such a presence in our culture, with every horror, mystery, and science fiction writer indebted to Poe.”
“This is my attempt at a large canvas whodunit, with a serial killer at its center. I want to make films that push me into a different, maybe uncomfortable space, but I am glad to have Christian go there with me. I’ve wanted to make this for over a decade and fortunately for me, Christian has perfectly aged into the lead character. He was far too young when I first thought of making this. Films are meant to happen at the right time. Christian is always in high demand, but to be able to make this with him will be such a joy for me.”
Next up for Cooper is the oft-delayed horror Antlers, while Bale plays villain Gorr the God Butcher in Marvel’s Thor: Love & Thunder.
It doesn’t matter how many times the Terminator franchise gets melted down a vat of lava, it will always be back. Even after the latest failed swing at reviving it, Terminator: Dark Fate, rights-holders Skydance Media are ready to give it another go…except this time they’ve found a way to do it without having to pay Arnold Schwarzenegger a bunch of money. Terminator is becoming the latest brand to be turned into a Netflix anime series, because that seems to be one of their things now, too.
Deadline reports Skydance Media and Netflix are teaming up for an anime series set in the Terminator universe. The intriguing part is that it will have The Batman writer Mattson Tomlin as exec-producer and showrunner. Tomlin is also the guy who wrote Project Power, and the excellent drama Little Fish. The guy has skills.
The series will be developed with Japanese animators Production I.G., the folks behind Ghost in the Shell, among many other things.
“Anyone who knows my writing knows I believe in taking big swings and going for the heart,” Tomlin said in a statement. “I’m honored that Netflix and Skydance have given me the opportunity to approach Terminator in a way that breaks conventions, subverts expectations, and has real guts.”
To be fair, everybody comes in expecting to do really groundbreaking shit with the Terminator franchise, and it almost never works. At this point, with two great movies and a bunch of decent-to-terrible ones, not to mention a bad live-action TV series, nothing about Terminator makes a lot of sense and even its fans have mostly written it off. Perhaps going the animated route is a way to freshen it up for a new audience who don’t know or care that much about all of the contradictions and just want to see humans fighting cool-looking robots.
What do you get when a world-wide bestselling novel is adapted by the guy that wrote the brain-bending Arrival? You get Netflix’s latest episodic fantasy series Shadow andBone. Fans of the genre need only watch the trailer to be on board for adding this one to the queue, but if you’re on the fence the series is coming with a host of pedigrees. First the novel was a world-wide bestseller whose author, Leigh Bardugo is no stranger to the New York Times lists. Fine, plenty of great books have been made into mediocre films or series. So let’s add in Eric Heisserer, otherwise known as the writer of 2016’s ground-breaking and wholly original alien invasion (or is that visitation) flick Arrival. What I’m getting at is that this series is more likely then not going to be amazing. To solidify all of that I challenge you to watch the trailer below and not be at least a little excited to see where this story goes. THIS is how you do a trailer folks, we’re left with plenty of questions but a solid feel for the shows theme.
Check out the trailer below and look for Shadow and Bone to hit Netflix on April 23rd, 2021
