The Russo Brothers may be done with Marvel (for now), but they haven’t let go of those close superhero ties just yet. They previously worked with Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman on 21 Bridges, and next up they’ll reteam with Avengers: Endgame‘s Chris Hemsworth for a Netflix action flick, Extraction, and USA Today has the debut images.
Extraction (formerly titled Dhaka) is produced by the Russo Brothers from a script by Joe Russo, and stars Hemsworth as a mercenary hired to rescue a Bangladeshi crime lord’s kidnapped son. Behind the camera is Russo confidante Sam Hargrave in his directorial debut. Hargreaves started out as a stunt coordinator in Captain America: Civil War, before working with the Russos as second-unit director on Infinity War and Endgame.
It’s unclear if Extraction will also get a theatrical run, or if Netflix is the only place to check it out on April 24th. The cast includes two other Marvel alums, David Harbour (Black Widow) and Derek Luke (Captain America: The First Avenger).
It wasn’t long ago that Harrison Ford starred in his first animated voice role, that of a protective dog in The Secret Life of Pets 2. Ford isn’t the guy we typically associate with family-friendly movies like that, and yet Disney’s The Call of the Wild finds him paired up with a CGI canine who is undoubtedly the star of the show. To Ford’s credit, he gives the chief human role all that he can considering that he’s playing second-fiddle to an animated pet. But for a movie that’s all about learning to embrace one’s natural instincts, the decision to rely so much on computer technology was a misstep.
The Call of the Wild is based on the classic Jack London novel from the early 20th-century, which has been adapted multiple times. For very good reason, it’s a classic tale of survival told through the eyes of Buck, a domesticated, very spoiled St. Bernard who is dognapped from his comfortable existence and shipped out to the Yukon during the Gold Rush. There, he experiences the wilds of nature, faces dangers he’s never seen, and encounters the good and bad side of men, eventually learning to embrace the wild animal within. It’s a dark story, which made the decision by Disney to bring it over from 20th Century Fox somewhat unusual.
The answer? Exaggerate Buck and all of the animals in such a way that they might as well be cartoons. Essentially a comedy for 80% of the time, The Call of the Wild finds Buck crashing his way through his home like a bull in a china shop, upsetting the locals and his family. It’s this drawing of attention to himself that gets Buck stolen away to begin with, packed in a crate and shipped off to Alaska where powerful dogs are at a premium. It’s there that Buck literally bumps into John Thornton (Ford), a lonely man looking to escape from a troubled past. They instantly form a connection, but Buck’s journey is one full of hardship, mostly at the hands of evil men.
Buck’s initial trip is met with violence, as his handlers beat and threaten him into submission. It’s there that Buck learns to be wary of people, something he never had to deal with in his comfortable early life. He’s eventually sold into an Alaskan sled team run by the kind-hearted postman Perrault (a welcome Omar Sy) and the wary Francois (Cara Gee). They teach Buck to be part of a team, to be one with a pack, although it’s also here that he learns to be fearful of his own kind, as well. Ultimately, Buck ends up in John’s possession, who comes to his rescue from the greedy, malicious fop Hal (Dan Stevens). He believes John is hiding the location of a secret goldmine, and will stop at nothing to find it.
While I understand using real animals and locations makes for a more difficult, more expensive shoot, the entire thing being done in CGI is a serious problem. It’s hard to take anything seriously with Buck’s overemphasized facial expressions and mannerisms, while the wilderness, this uninhibited place where Buck is meant to lose himself to the “call of the wild”, is too glossy and way too tame. Chris Sanders is a filmmaker best known for his animated work on How to Train Your Dragon and The Croods, but his expertise doesn’t fit with this savage tale of survival and evolution, which has its edgiest aspects sanded down.
On the other hand, Ford is really doing some unexpectedly strong work here when he easily could’ve phoned it in. He imbues John Thornton with an emotional heaviness that you can tell he’s been carrying for far too long. Through connecting with Buck, we see him drop some of the armor and learn to open up again. I would almost say the relationship is similar to Han Solo and Chewbacca, but it isn’t quite on that level! Ford and motion-capture legend Terry Notary work side-by-side here and they have us believing in John and Buck’s heartwarming friendship. At least The Call of the Wild makes that part of the story feel natural. It’s just too bad so much else doesn’t.
A remake of John Carpenter’s classic Escape from New York has been in the works for years, and has always stalled out for one reason or another. A big stumbling block? Finding someone to fill the shoes of Kurt Russell, who made the character Snake Plissken his own. With The Invisible Man‘s Leigh Whannell currently attached to write and possibly direct the film right now, Joblo asked him who he thought would be the right choice to play Plissken. His answer is so simple, so obvious, it probably has zero chance of happening.
“[Casting Wyatt Russell] seems like the obvious thing to win the fans over,” Whannell said.
Well, duh. If you wanted someone who looks exactly like Kurt Russell, you couldn’t do better than Wyatt, a spitting image of his father. Wyatt was pretty great in Overlord, an over-the-top movie that felt very Carpenter-esque.
Whannell also talked about the pressure that comes with taking on a character like Snake Plissken and a beloved franchise…
“That is an iconic character and I think that Snake Plissken is a part of people’s childhood and their adolescence,” Whannell said. “It’s near and dear to them. So I would tread very carefully with that…“I feel like a property like that doesn’t have the same freedom as maybe something like The Invisible Man does. He has more elasticity as a character because so many people have had their fingerprints on that. There’s been TV shows and comic books, whereas with Escape from New York, we’re talking about one definitive movie here and you don’t want to mess with it. We’ll see what happens.”
Whannell’s “We’ll see what happens” doesn’t instill me with a ton of confidence this movie is a sure thing just yet. Having seen what he can do with the wildly entertaining Upgrade, I have no doubt Whannell could do justice to Carpenter and fans of Escape from New York and its sequel, Escape from LA.
I am not okay with this. A phrase, I, like many, use often when faced with a predicament that makes me uncomfortable. I don’t, however use it under the context of super powers. In the new trailer for Netflix’s original series, aptly titled I Am Not Okay With This, a teenage girl played by Sophia Lillis (It franchise, Sharp Objects) must juggle high school life after losing her dad and gaining superpowers.
The trailer opens with the voice-over of a bloodied Sydney, a self-described “boring, 17 year old, white girl,” running from the cops. The trailer then takes us back into a montage of Sydney’s life; high school, teenage rage, writing in a journal, hanging with her best friend and douchey boyfriend, and meeting quirky classmate Stanley Barber (Wyatt Oleff, also of the It franchise). As her powers escalate, from telepathically throwing street signs to convenient store stock, Sydney must balance her friendships, anger, and powers while figuring out it’s okay to be weird.
If this sounds similar to Stranger Things and End of the F***cking World, you’d be correct in thinking so. The tone and atheistic of the show is very similar to End of the F***cking World, as they both share director Jonathan Entwistle and are produced by the producers of Stranger Things.
The show is due out on Netflix February 26th.
The 80’s weren’t just the golden age of big hair and neon, they were also the best time possible for anthology fans. While most trended toward horror and dark sci-fi Amazing Stories had more of an Amblin feel too it, which should have been obvious since Steven Spielberg was behind the whole thing. Nowadays the short lived, but groundbreaking series has all but escaped the public zeitgeist and certainly isn’t what comes to mind when you talk about anthology series (most people go right to Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, or Tales from the Crypt). Thank God someone remembered and thought to bring the show back, if for no other reason then out of respect for the fact that the original series has the distinction of featuring the very first all CGI character, years before Jurassic Park, Toy Story, or Star Wars.
This new series trailer seems a little odd to me in presentation, instead of separate stories it almost feels like one big story with separate threads, though that may just be in the editing. While not exactly star-studded the show has plenty of recognizable names and most importantly Spielberg himself is involved. After Apple TV+’s first run of shows, which were all good but failed to make a lasting impression I’m really hoping this one gains some traction. Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think in the comments!
Samuel L. Jackson has played his share of hitmen, including very recently in The Hitman’s Bodyguard. His most famous role is probably still that of hitman Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction. But Jackson’s getting older, and so his next time in that sort of role will come with a twist. I guess?
Deadline reports Jackson will play a hitman in an untitled movie from Whiskey Tango Foxtrot directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra. What makes this character so different? This time, Jackson’s hitman character is RETIRED! Oooooooh. The script is by Matthew Stone, who worked with Jackson previously on Soul Men.
Here’s a description of the plot: Jackson will star as Morris Stokes, who is not your typical retiree. Once the trusted hitman for mob boss “Easy-A,” he’s got more kills under his belt than he can count and has earned his time out of the game. When his nephew, Leslie, makes a stupid mistake, Morris gets a call from his old boss and must negotiate one last job: either help the kid recover the lost money, or put a bullet in him. Morris drags Leslie around town, making him clean up his mess while pontificating on some of life’s lessons along the way.
This sounds pretty terrible, and I don’t even want to think who they’ll cast as the nephew. I’m getting bad Shaft flashbacks with Jackson and Jessier Usher. That said, Jackson is working with some reliable filmmakers in Ficarra and Requa. They’re the duo who also gave us Crazy Stupid Love, Focus, and I Love You, Phillip Morris.
If you’ve been reading the site for a while you know how much I hate interviewers who ask questions about a different movie than the one they’re meant to. However, I’m okay with it as long as they do it to Harrison Ford. Why? Because he’s inevitably going to get asked about Star Wars no matter what he’s doing, and he’s always got a smartass comeback. Indy simply does not give a shit about your fandom.
Case in point, USA Today interviewed Ford about Disney’s The Call of the Wild, and the idiot interviewer decided now was a good time to ask him about his return in The Rise of Skywalker, and whether Han Solo was just a memory or a Force Ghost. Aren’t we done talking about that disappointing movie yet? And why bring it up now? Ugh. Anyway, Ford gives exactly the response we expect from an old curmudgeon like him…
“A Force ghost? I don’t know what a Force ghost is,” Ford said. “Don’t tell anyone. I’m not talking loud enough for your recorder. I have no (expletive) idea what a Force ghost is. And I don’t care!”
Don’t we know after all of these years that Ford does not give two shits about the geeky little details Star Wars fans obsess over? What’s more, he doesn’t care that you know he doesn’t care. It’s beautiful.
The art of the post-credits scene is something Marvel has perfected over the last decade. Everybody knows not to pick their butt off the seat until they’ve sat all the way through until the lights come up, and usually the wait is worth it in getting you pumped for the next film. Sony’s still working on that. Venom, while an $800M+ hit, didn’t have the best tease in the world with Woody Harrelson’s mop-haired debut as Cletus Kassady aka Carnage.
To be fair, it was just Harrelson with a really terrible hairdo; hard to get hyped over that. Surely, our first legit look at the villainous symbiote in Venom 2 would be much better? Right? Well…no. Hardy dropped the debut image on his Instagram, and Harrelson pretty much looks the same. The exception is that he’s no longer sporting a prison jumpsuit, but a bright red and yellow shirt that I’m guessing/hoping is comprised of the alien itself.
A post shared by Tom Hardy (@tomhardy) on Feb 17, 2020 at 12:51am PST
It’s way too early to judge how the character is handled based on this image. Don’t forget Andy Serkis is directing and should help to seriously amp up the visuals, which were a little mess in the first movie.
Scott Cooper has never ventured into horror territory before, but the anticipation for his film Antlers is through the roof. If you’ve seen the creepy-as-Hell trailers for it, you’ll understand why. And now we have another reason to be excited, because Cooper has already lined up another horror to follow it, an adaptation of Paul Tremblay’s award-winner A Head Full of Ghosts, starring Once Upon a Time in Hollywood‘s Margaret Qualley.
Deadline reports Cooper will direct Qualley in A Head Full of Ghosts, but he’s not the first director to take on this challenge. A couple of years ago it was Gretel & Hansel director Oz Perkins attached to the film, but he’s out and Cooper has stepped in. The script was originally penned by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowsky (Sundance hit The Night House) with Cooper doing a rewrite. Robert Downey Jr. is among the film’s exec-producers.
A Head Full of Ghosts centers on Merry Barrett as she recounts to a journalist the story of her traumatic childhood that includes her older sister’s battles with schizophrenia, which begin to resemble full-blown demonic possession.
Cooper’s resume is a mixed bag, but he’s always managed to get fantastic lead performances. His previous films include Out of the Furnace, Crazy Heart, Hostiles, and Black Mass. Qualley had a busy 2019 that included her role as one of Charles Manson’s girls in Quentin Tarantino’s latest. She also starred in the sci-fi film Io, the HBO drama Native Son, the Hollywood biopic Seberg, and voiced a main character in Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding video game.
WWE superstar Sasha Banks has been off TV for weeks nursing an apparent ankle injury, but if Pro Wrestling Sheet is correct, and we should take it with a grain of salt, The Boss aka Mercedes Justine Kaestner-Varnado has landed a role in The Mandalorian season 2. This rumor has been circulating for a while, but the wrestling news site thinks they have it confirmed.
Banks, who happens to be the cousin of Snoop Dogg, has reportedly already shot scenes for the Disney+ series, although her role remains under wraps. Other than WWE programming we’ve never seen Banks venture out in TV or film, so this is a big and somewhat surprising step, if true. I wouldn’t expect her first role to be in a Star Wars series with as many eyes on it as The Mandalorian. Maybe she’ll be under a mask, or voicing a character? Who knows?
I mean, there’s no chance she’s playing someone like Star Wars Rebels’ resident Mandalorian, and former wielder of the Dark Saber, Sabine Wren? All resemblances to the contrary? She’d have the attitude and the hair down, I’ll give her that.
