Peter Pan adaptations come and go…I mean, they can’t all be as great as Joe Wright’s Pan, am I right? Anyway, we pretty much have a good idea what to expect from them, but that’s something which definitely can’t be said about the upcoming film, Wendy. Why? Because it hails from Beasts of the Southern Wild director Benh Zeitlin.
In his first movie since his Oscar-nominated breakthrough in 2012, Zeitlin reimagines the Peter Pan story with his own unique visual style that blends reality with the fantastical. The footage presented here is absolutely stunning, echoing not only Beasts of the Southern Wild but Where the Wild Things Are, as Wendy and the Lost Boys live a carefree existence on Neverland.
Wendy hits theaters on February 28th 2020, and I’m going to continue holding out hope of a Sundance premiere.
It’s way too early to know if Apple TV+ can be the next Netflix, but some of the choices they’ve made suggest the competition could be fierce. One of those decisions is the acquisition of breakout Sundance drama, Hala, which could help position the subscription service as a new home for prestige dramas you can’t get anywhere else.
Hala is a coming-of-age story led by Blockers star Geraldine Viswanathan, who plays a Muslim teen who must cope with the cultural, religious, and familial demands heaped upon her, and still find a way to be herself. At the same time, she’s harboring a secret that threatens to destroy her family.
Marking her sophomore effort as a director is Minhal Baig, a writer on Bojack Horseman and the Hulu series Ramy. She made her directorial debut with the 2016 film 1 Night. Jada Pinkett Smith acts as an exec-producer.
Also starring Jack Kilmer, Gabriel Luna, Anna Chlumsky, Purbi Joshi, and Azad Khan, Hala hits theaters on November 22nd before going to Apple TV+ on December 6th.
For those of us who are…let’s just call it “child averse”, the idea of parenting is inherently scary. Movies don’t make it look any better, with more than a handful of films involving creepy kids who either turn out to be serial killers or spawns of Satan. M. Night Shyamalan’s new Apple TV+ series Servant plays on these fears of parenthood and looks absolutely terrifying in this brand new trailer.
Lauren Ambrose and Toby Kebbell play a Philadelphia couple who hire a young nanny (Nell Tiger Free) to watch over their son. Sounds innocent enough, except their child is…well, not like other kids. I’ll say this, at least he’s not a demon spawn or a serial killer. Or at least he isn’t in this trailer, but who knows what’ll happen by the end of the show’s 10-episode run. I don’t put anything past Shyamalan or the series’ writer and creator Tony Basgallop.
It’s also cool to see Rupert Grint in this. He’s spent the last couple of years busy on the Snatch series adaptation and seems to have found his niche in the realm of TV. I have a feeling his character will probably die (even in this trailer he looks expendable), but it looks like a fun role nonetheless.
James Bond is finally entering the #MeToo and Time’s Up era with No Time to Die. Unlike the vast majority of women in the franchise, the ladies of this film will be more than just sex objects, and at least some of that has to do with Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge who was brought on to work on the script. THR caught up with Lashana Lynch and Ana de Armas to talk with them about the modernization of James Bond, and what it meant to have Waller-Bridge writing their characters…
“I very literally squealed when I first heard her name,” says Lynch, who recently played Maria Rambeau in Captain Marvel. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, British girl just like me. She’s going to know how to actually take care of women onscreen.’ “
Lynch finds herself in a potentially history-making position. Her character, Nomi, is said to have claimed the title of 007 after Bond’s retirement to Jamaica. Just how long she’ll have that title is unclear, but Daniel Craig is back and it’s likely he’ll reclaim it at some point.
“Everyone was really responsive to having her be what I wanted,” says Lynch. “You’re given a fresh perspective on a brand-new black woman in the Bond world.”
“I want her to have things that she’s dealing with before she enters a scene,” says Lynch of her Bond character. “I think I had enough space to explore her humanity as much as I could.”
Armas is riding a hot streak right now, and will be even hotter by the time No Time to Die actually arrives. The Knives Out actress plays Paloma, whose relationship to Bond is being kept a mystery, like so much else about the film…
“It’s pretty obvious that there is an evolution in the fact that Lashana is one of the main characters in the film and wears the pants — literally. I wear the gown. She wears the pants,” says de Armas.
“[Paloma] is a character that is very irresponsible,” says de Armas. “She’s got this bubbliness of someone who is excited to be on a mission, but she plays with this ambiguity — you don’t really know if she’s like a really trained, prepared partner for Bond.” Sure, de Armas is running around in a gorgeous gown with sky-high heels (“No one can train you or prepare you for that,” she says), but she adds that “brains and looks are equal this time. She’s very smart. She helps Bond navigate through certain things that he wouldn’t be able to do alone.”
It’s a really great interview with some stunning photos and you should go and check it out. No Time to Die opens April 8th 2020.
Christmas movies don’t just come and go, they tend to last forever, played in homes like clockwork each year while decorating the tree or opening presents. But unless your name is Frank Capra, few directors are ever thought of for the Christmas movies they’ve made. The same will probably go for Paul Feig, whose sweeter-than-a-sugar-cookie romance Last Christmas doesn’t rank among his best, but has the ingredients to be a holiday favorite to be watched over a mug of egg nog.
Set to the soulful sounds of the late great George Michael, Last Christmas not only checks off the boxes of other easy-to-watch holiday films, but also what Feig’s fans have come to expect from one of his comedies. In her most enjoyable non-Game of Thrones role yet, Emilia Clarke plays Kate, a London trainwreck who lives out of her suitcase because she can’t stand being around her overbearing mom (Emma Thompson, also co-writer). Kate’s self-destructive nature has ruined its share of friendships and thrown her job at an all-year Christmas shop in jeopardy more times than she can count. After recovering from a serious medical condition, Kate has basically thrown all caution to the wind.
In true holiday fashion, Kate’s life begins to turn around when she meets that special someone who forces her to look on the bright side of things. Tom (A Simple Favor actor Henry Golding, reuniting with Feig) is unlike anyone Kate has ever met before, encouraging her to “look up” and see a part of London she’s always been too self-involved to notice. He always pops up whenever she needs him most, offering advice that steers Kate in a better direction, one that involves looking towards the needs of others and not just herself. He’s like her own personal Jiminy Cricket, only hot. But as Kate and Tom grow closer, she gets more invested in their relationship while he stays mysteriously at a distance.
Trailers weren’t completely successful at keeping certain plot swerves a total secret. But even knowing what’s up, Last Christmas can still warm the heart and give you a stocking full of hearty laughs. Thompson’s screenplay is full of the kind of clichés that have made Love Actually such an adored (or despised, okay it’s damn divisive) favorite. Kate’s a lovable, well-meaning klutz while Tom is a perfect dreamboat just quirky enough to not be dull. There are meet-cutes everywhere, family squabbles, a chance at redemption, and an illuminated rendition of “Last Christmas” for the supporting characters to shine in.
Clarke is a true delight, and I hope this pulls her into doing more comedies than grim dramas and blockbuster franchises. She’s surrounded by a supporting cast led by Golding, who for all of his appeal as a sex symbol, is better at playing aloof than anything else. I guess the mysterious quality is a big part of that appeal. Michelle Yeoh is a terrific scene-stealer as Kate’s stern-but-kind boss, and while I grimaced at Thompson’s Slavic accent and busted teeth, she has some of the movie’s best one-liners. Of course, Thompson wrote them for herself.
There’s too much that Thompson and co-writer Bryony Kimmings’ screenplay wants to accomplish, including a commentary on the anti-immigrant sentiment fueled by Brexit, and perhaps a little too much time on Kate’s dalliances with random men. It keeps the film from skating by as smoothly as it should across its 103-minute runtime. Feig and cinematographer John Schwartzman make up for it in a sheer overload of Christmas ornamentation. There’s enough tinsel, LED lighting, weird Christmas stocking stuffers and elf costumes to fill a dozen of Santa’s workshops. Last Christmas won’t let you escape the holiday spirit. While the path it takes to your heart is a familiar one, a little bit of happiness is enough of a gift this time of year.
There are many different versions of Spider-Man out there, many of them very weird. But the strangest of all to me that isn’t named Peter Porker is the Japanese Spider-Man of the 1978 live-action series, and he’s apparently coming to the Into the Spider-Verse sequel.
Producer Phil Lord responded to a fan’s tweet asking if the Japanese Spider-Man would be in the sequel, and if he could design the costume by simply saying “He’s designed!”
Now that you’ve announced Spidey 2, IF, through some miracle of miracles, Japanese Spider-Man is written into the film, I will happily design him for you.
As you might expect, the Japanese Spider-Man is vastly different from the version we know and love. The series was developed by Toei (the Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon folks) and reflected the Japanese culture. Instead of student photographer Peter Parker, it featured motorcycle racer Takuya Yamashiro who got his spider powers from an alien, the last living warrior from the Planet Spider. Really. Similar to many of the popular tokusatsu shows, Spider-Man would battle large groups of enemies only to summon his giant robot Leopardon to finish them off.
Donnie Yen is an international superstar, but most American audiences know him from Hollywood films such as XXX: Return of Xander Cage, Rogue One, and Shanghai Knights. For more than a decade he’s had the global blockbuster Ip Man franchise all to himself, and now he’s set to bring it to a close with a fourth film that’s guaranteed to be a martial arts extravaganza.
Yen is back as the Wing Chun grandmaster in Ip Man 4, a film that will expand on his relationship with student Bruce Lee. Set in the 1960s, the story finds Ip Man coming to the United States to reunite with Lee (played once again by Danny Chan) who has decided to open his own Wing Chun school in Seattle.
The footage is brief, but shows Yen’s speed and precision attacking a training dummy, followed by glimpses of what appear to be future battles. The two prior films have included Mike Tyson and Dave Bautista, the latter part of the Ip Man Legacy spinoff, but you’ll find no big American stars attached to this latest film. It really belongs to Yen, and that should be more than enough.
SYNOPSIS: Ip Man’s life remains unchanged after his wife’s death, but he and his son are slowly drifting apart. To seek a better future for his son, Ip Man decides to travel to the U.S. only to find the stable, peaceful life abroad is only skin deep. Underneath lies a deep rooted racial discrimination that is far worse than he has expected. Ip Man re-examines his position and ponders on the reason he took up martial arts in the beginning.
Once again directed by Wilson Yip, Ip Man 4 opens Christmas Day.
The Batman is starting to round into shape, and director Matt Reeves is turning to an actor he’s very familiar with to fill a crucial role, and another he’s never worked with to play a key villain. Let’s start on the heel side, as Deadline reports Colin Farrell is in talks to take over the Penguin role. Meanwhile, Variety adds that Andy Serkis, who worked with Reeves on two acclaimed Planet of the Apes films, is in line to play Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler, Alfred Pennyworth.
I feel like the Serkis thing is the least surprising of all. His performances as Caesar in three Planet of the Apes films, the last two directed by Reeves, really established Serkis as one of our finest actors. Those movies put Reeves on the map in a way he had never been before, as well.
Farrell is an unlikely choice to play the Penguin, especially when you consider Jonah Hill had previously been up for it. They’re just fundamentally very different actors and bring different things to the table, but I’m curious to see what Farrell does as the iconic Bat-villain.
This isn’t the first comic book go ’round for either actor. Serkis played the villain Ulysses Klaue in Black Panther and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Farrell also played a bad guy, the crackshot Bullseye, in the maligned Daredevil movie with Ben Affleck.
They join Paul Dano as the Riddler, Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, Jeffrey Wright as Commissioner Gordon, and oh yeah, Robert Pattinson as Batman. The Batman opens on June 25th 2021.
If you’ve been following all of the very-public drama between Jeremy Renner and his ex, you know the Avengers star doesn’t come across looking too great. It’s understandably thrown his future in the upcoming Hawkeye series for Disney+ in doubt, and now his assumed co-star Hailee Steinfeld’s involvement is in question.
Speaking with Radio Times to promote her new Apple TV+ series Dickinson, Steinfeld didn’t sound too sure she’d be joining Renner in Hawkeye. Earlier this year she was being eyed for the role of Kate Bishop, the Young Avenger who becomes a hero under Clint Barton’s tutelage.
“That’s not something that’s necessarily happening,” Steinfeld said. “We’re going to wait and find out, I guess.”
We know Marvel is infamous for holding their actors to secrecy, but I think Steinfeld is serious here. The entire series may be up in the air at this point, so who knows what direction things can go. As it stands right now, Hawkeye has Jonathan Igla as its writer and exec-producer, and Renner is still due to star when the series launches in fall 2021.
We haven’t seen Channing Tatum on the big screen since 2017’s Kingsman: The Golden Circle, but he’s ready to come back and try something new. Deadline reports Tatum will make his directorial debut with Dog, a road trip comedy he’ll also be starring in.
Tatum will play Army Ranger Briggs who hits the road with his canine companion, a Belgian Malinois named Lulu, to attend their friend and handler’s funeral. “One of them has a week to live, the other lives like every day is his last. Together, they’ll drive each other insane, break a small handful of laws, narrowly evade death at the hands of some overly aggressive pot farmers, confront the possibility that pet psychics are real, teach each other how to love again, and give each other a chance for new life.”
Sounds kinda nuts, and I’m curious to see what Tatum does with it.
Tatum will co-direct alongside his frequent collaborator Reid Carolin, who he’s worked with on everything from 10 Years to both Magic Mike movies, Logan Lucky, and the occasional documentary. Brett Rodriguez joins them in co-writing the script, as well.
We’ve seen Tatum dabble with directing before this, once with Magic Mike and then on an adaptation of Matthew Quick’s novel Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock. Maybe he’ll still get around to that last one, but I doubt it.
Next up for Tatum is the X-Men spinoff, Gambit. Just kidding, that shit ain’t ever happening. He doesn’t have anything coming up, so his attention should be focused on Dog which begins production in 2020.
