via Geeks WorldWide
People will credit Wonder Woman for showing that the DCEU could succeed theatrically, but in my opinion it was Shazam! that showed there was a future with the comic book giant. Wonder Woman is a gimme, one that could be screwed up, don’t get me wrong Patty Jenkins did amazing work, but it wasn’t a true challenge. Now, an orphan who says a magic word and turns into a superhero? That takes a little more legwork to get audiences to buy a ticket for the fun train. (Fun train? Screw…I’m sticking with it, fun train). The film, which cast the perennially under-rated superstar in waiting Zachery Levi as the title character, hit every note it needed to and ended up grossing about 3 times it’s budget. The release date had been bounded about as end of 2021, and we finally have some confirmation that filming, under David Sandberg, is set to start this summer, July 2020…and that’s where it gets interesting.
You see, Black Adam, the super-hero/anti-hero that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been slated to play for years now has a movie that also begins filming in July. Black Adam just happens to be the arch-nemesis of, you guessed it, Billy Batson aka Shazam. It’s probably nothing but how cool would it be to have a film based crossover where Shazam! introduces Black Adam and the next week Black Adam is released finishing the story. Now that’s all speculation, it’s not even confirmed that Adam will appear in the sequel, but a geek can hope, can’t he?
Ok, so Return of the King may be a bit dramatic, but when it comes to Hollywood good guys you’d be hard pressed to find someone that sticks out the way Moranis does. It’s pretty much common knowledge now that Moranis stepped away from Hollywood to raise his children after the death of his wife. Funny how something as simple as devoting yourself to your children is seen as such a noble act but let’s be honest…would all of you let go of the dream you achieved or would you just hire a team of nannies and hope for the best? I can’t say I wouldn’t go for the latter even if it was with the best of intentions.
There have been rumblings of Moranis returning to the screen for years now, which have been spiking as of late with Ghostbusters making another go of it and more recently with a film spinning off from one of the actors most well-known roles Wayne Szalinski from Honey, I Shrunk The Kids. Almost surprisingly, thanks to Deadline we finally got confirmation that Moranis has officially signed to be a part of the upcoming film officially titled Shrunk. . The script(s) must be on-point as well because they are laying out an all-star group further cementing the legitimacy of working with everyone’s favorite mouse, regardless of the age of the property. Josh Gad, for starters, will be starring as Nick Szalinski, Wayne’s son from the original film. Original director Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, Captain America: The First Avenger) will be back behind the lens with Todd Rosenberg penning the screenplay.
We’ll keep you in the loop as more info comes available but for now let’s all just be happy to have everyone’s favorite underdog back on the big screen!
The opening weekend box office for Birds of Prey wasn’t great, but it was hardly disastrous. However, it became clear that Warner Bros. had begun to question their marketing strategy, leading to them making the quick decision to change the title to Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey, putting an emphasis on the movie’s popular breakout character. But there are even deeper reasons for the switch, and they are, to be perfectly honest, kinda dull.
The Verge talked to a WB rep who told them the title change was made to increase the movie’s SEO, in order to ease “search expansion for ticket sites.” Basically, they want to make it easier for people to find the movie when attempting to make online ticket purchases.
Told you it was pretty dull.
Still, it’s just another sign that WB royally screwed up just about everything from a marketing angle. The focus should have been 100% on Margot Robbie, who is not only one of the biggest stars in the world but has completely thrown herself into this character. It wouldn’t be happening at all if not for her.
Well, I guess David O. Russell is officially casting up his new film in earnest. It was only a couple of hours ago that we posted about Margot Robbie’s signing on to join Christian Bale in the untitled movie. Now the starry cast Russell is putting together just got even better with the addition of Michael B. Jordan.
According to THR, Jordan is the latest to join whatever this movie Russell is putting together turns out to be. Once again there are no details on it whatsoever, but do we really need any if it’s good enough to attract Jordan, Bale, and Robbie? Considering the large ensembles Russell tends to put together, don’t be shocked if another huge announcement is made soon, possibly today.
Jordan is coming off another strong performance in the legal drama Just Mercy. He’ll be seen again later this year in the Tom Clancy adaptation, Without Remorse.
It seems like no matter how far away we get from Universal’s failed Dark Universe, it just won’t stay dead. The attempt to launch a cinematic universe around classic movie monsters collapsed with the 1-2 punch of Dracula Untold (eventually retconned as a standalone) and Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, but the films that were meant to follow have lived on in different forms. One is Blumhouse’s upcoming take on The Invisible Man, which looks pretty great. Another is The Bride of Frankenstein, which Variety says Universal has been quietly pursuing through some top-notch filmmakers.
Reportedly, Universal reached out to A Quiet Place‘s John Krasinski for his ideas on rebooting The Bride of Frankenstein. He hasn’t been able to crack an idea, so they turned to Spider-Man producer Amy Pascal, who in turn reached out to Sam Raimi who she worked with previously. It’s unlikely Raimi will get involved in any serious way given that he’s about to direct a Doctor Strange sequel for Marvel. So now Pascal has turned to screenwriter David Koepp, who has been involved with the project since it was to star Angelina Jolie and have Bill Condon as director.
As for whether Jolie is still involved, that’s in doubt, too. Her working relationship with Pascal hasn’t been great since the Sony email hack from a few years ago (Pascal is now with Universal) and that big-budget Cleopatra movie that went belly up.
So we’ll see if anybody is willing to put a ring on the Bride of Frankenstein‘s finger. It may depend on the success of The Invisible Man, which opens on February 28th.
Although I would be totally down for it, Military Wives is not a big screen spinoff of Army Wives, the long-running drama series that starred JAG‘s Catherine Bell. Their aims remain the same, however, to show the struggle faced by the spouses of those who take the battlefield, often in far away, war-torn countries with very little means of communication. The loneliness can be overwhelming, and in those times it’s good to find others who know what you’re going through.
Military Wives stars the great Kristin Scott Thomas, joined by Sharon Horgan, Jason Flyming, Greg Wise, and Emma Lowndes. Interestingly, behind the camera is Peter Cattaneo, who hasn’t done a ton since his acclaimed film The Full Monty. His last movie was 2008’s comedy The Rocker. Music remains a core theme in many of his movies, as this story finds the wives of British military officers uniting to form a choir.
SYNOPSIS: MILITARY WIVES centers on a group of women in England whose partners are away serving in Afghanistan. Faced with the men’s absences, they form a choir and quickly find themselves at the center of a media sensation and global movement.
Reviews were strong after its world premiere at TIFF, which bodes well for its release on March 27th. Military Wives might be worth putting on your radar.
No matter how you look at it, 2020 has launched with a bang for Margot Robbie. She landed the second Oscar nomination of her young career for Bombshell, which is also where Once Upon a Time in Hollywood won two awards, and she returned as Harley Quinn in last weekend’s Birds of Prey. While all of those may not have ended as she would’ve liked, her position as a Hollywood power player is assured. And now it continues with a role in the latest movie from David O. Russell, who is assembling a cast of A-listers to rival American Hustle.
Others who have been sought for roles include Jamie Foxx, Angeline Jolie, and Jennifer Lawrence, but it’s unclear if any of them will be involved. Unfortunately, there aren’t any story details other than Russell came up with the original idea himself.
Next up for Robbie is the flexing of her muscle as a producer with Promising Young Woman, opening in April. [Deadline]
A longtime and very public fan of New Yorker magazine, Wes Anderson has clearly used it as stylistic model for his latest movie, The French Dispatch. Referred to as a “love letter” to journalism and journalists, we’ve known it would take something of an anthology, omnibus approach to its storytelling, with multiple vignettes pulled from a fictional American magazine based out of Paris. There’s always been a storybook quality to the movies Anderson makes, whether they be animated (such as 2018’s Isle of Dogs) or live-action, and that is more true than ever now.
Judging by the new trailer, or even yesterday’s poster, you’re either going to love what Anderson is doing or not. The framing appears to be very similar to what he did with 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, a film that led him to a whopping nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. He’s assembled a cast that includes Timothee Chalamet, Elisabeth Moss, Benicio Del Toro, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Bill Murray, Lea Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Owen Wilson, Jeffrey Wright, Kate Winslet, Mathieu Amalric, Lyna Khoudri, Stephen Park, Saoirse Ronan, Christoph Waltz, Jason Schwartzman, Henry Winkler, and many more.
SYNOPSIS: The French Dispatch is the European edition of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun – a factual, weekly report on the subjects of world politics, the arts (high and low), fashion, fancy cuisine/fine drink, and diverse stories of human-interest set in faraway quartiers.
The soapy romantic entanglements for young Lara Jean Covey became a national phenomenon with 2018’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, a film that helped Netflix build an entire brand around YA rom-coms and the swoon-worthy Noah Centineo. You literally couldn’t login without seeing his goofy face on some new movie, but he was just a small part of why that movie connected with so many. Every now and then you just need a film that is unabashedly happy, dopey, and romantic, in which you know everything is just going to work out nicely for everybody. For those who need to feel that way again, Netflix has you covered with To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You, and you won’t be disappointed.
The absolutely radiant Lara Condor returns as the romantically-inexperienced Lara Jean, whose infamous love letters are still coming back to bite her in the butt. The sequel starts off a little odd for those who saw the prior movie, which ended with one of Lara Jean’s many crushes, John Ambrose McClaren, showing up at her door with letter in hand. It was a heck of a cliffhanger given that she and high school heartthrob Peter Kavinsky (Centineo) had just become official, but that’s not where the sequel picks up. Instead, a bit of retconning, and a total recasting of the John Ambrose role, finds Lara Jean receiving the letter from him the old fashioned way. It has the expected result: it blows poor Lara Jean’s mind that John Ambrose would respond and…oh my gosh…does he like her back? Even after so many years apart?
In reality, love is as much about timing as anything else, and it’s a lesson that Lara Jean has been getting smacked upside the head with repeatedly. Another thing she needs to learn? The reality rarely lives up to the fantasy. In the first movie, she was free to pretend to be Peter’s girlfriend, and dream about what it would really be like. Boyfriend Peter? He doesn’t always say the right thing, he’s late to their dates, and he’s popular in a way Lara Jean will always be a little jealous of. But the biggest problem with Peter? He’s still very close to his ex, Gen (Emilija Baranac), and Lara Jean doesn’t know how to handle that. As before, she remains stuck in the past unable to move forward.
Taking over the role of John Ambrose is Jordan Fisher, who fits with the geeky/hunky vibe these movies like for their men to radiate. A bit of contrivance finds Lara Jean and John Ambrose volunteering together at the same retirement home, where their furtive glances and jokey jabs at one another are so charming they might have you abandoning Team Peter. Fisher is a new face for me (I know he’s been around, but I’m old), and he brings a different kind of energy than Centineo, that makes us believe Lara Jean could fall for John Ambrose for totally separate reasons. Their awkwardness is mutual and natural, like old friends who know how to finish one another’s sentences.
You aren’t going to find even a hint of edginess to this movie, though. That’s both a benefit and the occasional annoyance. Lara Jean’s innocence and naivete is just plain too ridiculous to believe sometimes. It was cute with the first movie, but now as her relationship with Peter has grown more complex, a bit of nuance in the adaptation of Jenny Han’s novel would’ve helped. In particular, a brief conversation about sex, and whether Peter wants to do it, makes no sense whatsoever. Here’s a tip: yes, he wants to have sex. He’s a dude. Some of the choices Lara Jean makes to keep her flirtations with John Ambrose a secret are straight out of a bad sitcom handbook, and inevitably lead to a lot of embarrassing moments and broken hearts. But this is To All the Boys, and nothing stays broken for too long.
The jewel at the heart of these movies remains Lara Condor, who is as sweet and funny as ever. She dazzles in every scene and manages to find chemistry with both Centineo and Fisher. An added bonus are the wonderfully earnest family moments she shares with John Corbett as her father, who is taking those early first steps into the dating scene; Anna Cathcart as Lara Jean’s matchmaking little sis, Kitty.
The trailblazing success of Crazy Rich Asians helped bring To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before into the spotlight, and that cultural diversity remains a strength that sets these movies apart from typical high school romantic comedies. P.S. I Still Love You is generally more of the sugary sweetness we had before, but that’s okay when what we’re getting is so good! Even better, we won’t have to wait too long to see how Lara Jean messes things up next, because sequel Always and Forever, Lara Jean is already wrapped!
If you thought Marvel would slack on the star power for their Disney+ shows, think again. The cast of Loki already boasts Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson and Sophia Di Martino, and now you can add The Morning Show and Beyond the Lights star Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
Variety has the news, but of course there are no details on Mbatha-Raw’s role. She could be pretty much anybody, especially since the crux of the series has an unreformed Loki traveling throughout the Multiverse using the Tesseract acquired in Avengers: Endgame.
This won’t be Mbatha-Raw’s first crack at the superhero game. She starred in the acclaimed 2019 indie Fast Color, as part of a family of female heroes. Last month at Sundance she was seen in the world premiere of Peter Pan/Alice in Wonderland drama Come Away.
Loki, which is expected to tie-in closely with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, will debut in 2021.
