Peele will produce and co-write Candyman along with Win Rosenfeld. The movie is actually untitled at this point and is being described as a “spiritual successor”, so who knows how similar it will be to the original which centered on the titular urban legend, the brutally-murdered son of a slave who can be summoned by saying his name five times. On board to direct is Nia DaCosta, a rising star who made a splash at Tribeca earlier this year with Little Woods, a crime thriller starring Tessa Thompson and Lily James.
Candyman is set to open on June 12th 2020. Here’s Peele’s statement about the news:
“The original was a landmark film for black representation in the horror genre. Alongside ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ ‘Candyman’ was a major inspiration for me as filmmaker — and to have a bold new talent like Nia at the helm of this project is truly exciting. We are honored to bring the next chapter in the ‘Candyman’ canon to life and eager to provide new audiences with an entry point to Clive Barker’s legend.”
When we think of boxing movies, Hell, sports movies in general, it’s Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky that immediately springs to mind. The underdog fighter is more than just some character in a movie, he’s become an icon that has transcended film. That statue of Rocky Balboa standing in Philly is there for a reason, folks. Perhaps more than any other character, Rocky has defined Stallone’s career and helped keep it alive all of these years. And now with the release of Creed II, Stallone has decided it’s time to hang up the gloves for good.
In a recent Instagram post, Stallone talks about the many folks he worked with on Creed II, and says that it’s time for Rocky Balboa’s story to finally come to a close…
“Well, this is probably my last rodeo because what I thought happened, and has happened, I never expected. I thought ‘Rocky’ was over in 2006 [‘Rocky Balboa’]. And I was very happy with that. Then all of a sudden, this young man presented himself and the whole story changed. It went on to a new generation. New problems. New adventures. And I couldn’t be happier as I step back because my story has been told, there’s a whole new world that’s going to be opening up with the audience, with this generation…Now you, [Michael B. Jordan], have to carry the mantle.”
The post’s caption continues Stallone’s heartbreaking goodbye…
“It’s been my Ultimate privilege to have been able to create and play this meaningful character. Though it breaks my heart, Sadly all things must pass… and end. I love you Kind and generous people, and The most wonderful thing of all, is that ROCKY will never die because he lives on in you ….” I’m not going to go into the details of Creed II‘s plot that help inform this announcement by Stallone, but suffice it to say that Adonis Creed and Rocky Balboa get the chance to heal old wounds and cement their legacies. It’s a well-earned farewell for Rocky and the start of a new chapter for the Creed franchise.
Natalie Portman. Awards season. Time to start paying attention. Portman makes her bid for Oscar gold in Brady Corbet’s Vox Lux, and although she’s had many transformative roles in her career, she’s never played anybody quite like the spoiled pop princess she does in this film.
A final trailer for Vox Lux has been released and it finally gives viewers a look at the plot and a chance to hear one of the songs provided by Sia. Portman plays a superstar singer whose rise to stardom was fueled by a tragic event. Raffey Cassidy from Tomorrowland and The Killing of a Sacred Deer plays a younger version of Portman’s character, with Stacy Martin as her sister and Jude Law as her manager. And like Bradley Cooper in A Star is Born and Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody, Portman gets a chance to show what she can do on the concert stage.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe may have a Spider-Man hanging out with the Avengers, but Sony currently has the BEST Spider-Man. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse finally gives us the big screen debut of Miles Morales, the incredibly popular black/Latino Spidey who has been burning up the comics pages for years. Not only is it sweet as Hell to finally get some diversity under the mask, but Miles gets to debut in the best Spider-Man movie yet. Call it Amazing, Spectacular, Superior…all of the Spidey adjectives apply and still aren’t enough.
There hasn’t been a Spidey movie this fun, this wildly creative, and demanding of repeat viewings. This is a beautiful, breath-taking ride from start to finish, and it captures so much of what has made Spider-Man such an enduring character for more than fifty years. There’s so much in it that catches you by surprise that to spoil anything should be a crime, but the plot dreamed up by Phil Lord and co-written with Rodney Rothman is both a love letter to Spider-Man’s legacy and a promise of future greatness.
So much is happening, there’s so much to take in that Into the Spider-Verse can be overwhelming. But it’s also such an incredible thrill, like you’re actually taking a journey into the splash pages themselves. The story moves quick, the action never stops, even as we’re being introduced to Miles (voiced by Shameik Moore), a Brooklyn kid caught between the worlds of his mixed-race upbringing and the private school he commutes to every morning. With two hard-working parents, a dad (Brian Tyree Henry) who is a cop, and a mom (Lauren Velez) as a nurse, it just feels so radically different to have a Spider-Man with this kind of in-house support system. And that fundamentally changes the stories that can be told, as Miles must also deal with the pressure of being a good son, not just a superhero.
Of course, there is a radioactive spider involved, a high-tech version that bites Miles while he’s tagging walls with his beloved uncle Aaron (Oscar winner Mahershala Ali). It grants him all sorts of nutty arachnid abilities, some familiar, and some not so much. However, this ain’t Highlander. There doesn’t have to be only one Spider-Man in Miles’ world, and after a fateful encounter with the O.G. himself, Peter Parker (voiced by Jake Johnson), Miles takes up the mantle, so to speak. It also puts him in the crosshairs of Kingpin (Liev Schreiber), who hatches a desperate plan that somehow brings the arrival of multiple Spider-People into Miles’ world. There’s the effortlessly-cool Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld); the grim, Bogart-esque Spider-Man Noir (voiced with peak Bogart by Nicolas Cage); Peter Porker aka Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), a cartoonish piglet with spider powers, Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), an anime-inspired Japanese girl from the future with her android sidekick, SP//dr. And most importantly, an older, less-motivated Peter Parker arrives, one who has been worn down by the toll being Spider-Man has had on his life. Together they must foil Kingpin’s plan and find a way to get back home, a task that proves difficult because Miles is such a noob.
Like Spider-Man: Homecoming, there’s an emphasis on teaching this new Spider-Man the ropes…or the webs, in this case. Parker becomes his slovenly Obi-Wan and their interactions are like a running commentary on the various ways Marvel has depicted Spider-Man over the years. The Miles Morales character was created basically to get back to Spider-Man’s young, free-swinging roots, at a time when the Peter Parker version had been around for decades, grown up, been married, and was going through all sorts of adult things that aren’t fun to read about in comics. Miles was a fresh start, and you get that feeling with Into the Spider-Verse, as well, But the story doesn’t brush Peter aside; on the contrary it celebrates all that he’s been through and the experiences that turned him into a hero capable of inspiring someone like Miles. It’s a theme often repeated that anybody can be Spider-Man, that anybody can be a hero, and I dare you not to shed a tear when the late great Stan Lee shows up and expresses those sentiments himself.
Visually, Into the Spider-Verse looks like no other animated film you’ll see this year, possibly ever. The colors aren’t just vibrant they practically leap off the screen, like CGI mixed with an ace inker’s line work. It gives off a rotoscoping effect that is stunning and allows for the trio of directors to push the limits of what can be accomplished through animation. The faster the pace, the better it looks, like during a city-wide chase with Miles dragging along an unconscious Peter by the webs. There are Easter Eggs galore for longtime Spidey fans and some for newcomers, while the character designs are mostly faithful to the comics. There’s a pretty cool nod to Sam Raimi’s flicks, too. Each version of Spidey has some trait that Miles can learn something from, with each getting their moment to shine. But of them all the real standout is Spider-Gwen, which may be why Sony is already prepping a spinoff for the punk rockin’ hero. I would like to also personally request more Spider-Man Noir and Spider-Ham, please. Perhaps a teamup? And also more of Lily Tomlin’s badass version of Aunt May.
Sony has something special on their hands with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a film with so much heart, action, and personality it would have made Stan Lee proud. Excelsior, indeed.
I don’t know that anybody could’ve predicted that Venom would be such a massive hit for Sony, with over $800M earned at this point. But you know what was predictable? Perverted fan-fiction in which Tom Hardy and his alien symbiote pal are lovers. Yeah, that shit’s everywhere. The Internet is shipping Eddie Brock and Venom pretty hard, but at least Sony is wise enough to have fun with this silly phenomenon.
The new trailer for Venom’s upcoming Bluray release really plays up the…uh, “romantic” angle between Brock and Venom. Hey, if you’re going to do it up as a love story then fully run with it, and they are clearly having some fun turning the gory superhero flick into a holiday rom-com. One of the reasons Venom connected with audiences is that it’s just so totally bizarre, but everybody seems to be having a good time pushing things over the edge. This plays into that beautifully.
Venom will hit Bluray soon on December 18th, digital on December 11th.
Surprise! Donald Glover has gone and shot an entire movie in secret. And it has Rihanna, Black Panther‘s Letitia Wright, and Game of Thrones‘ Nonso Anozie. Damn.
What do we know about it? Not much other than the title, Guava Island, which Glover revealed upon debuting the trailer to surprised fans at his Pharos festival. There’s no official plot or anything, but base on the below footage recorded by a fan in attendance, it appears to star Glover, going under his Childish Gambino moniker, as a musician in the Caribbean who hopes to pull off a get-rich quick scheme only to have it go sideways.
The film will be directed by Atlanta‘s Hiro Murai, and with this cast we could be in for a treat. But seriously, at this point would anything Glover does shock you? [GQ]
It was a summer of love over at Netflix earlier this year, as the streaming giant tapped into something special with a series of teen rom-coms. The highlight of these was Susan Johnson’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (my review), which starred X-Men‘s Lana Condor as an Asian-American girl experiencing the joys and pains of young love. It became one of Netflix’s most successful films ever, at least according to them, and now it’s become obvious that a sequel is in the works.
Netflix recently scored a huge production deal with Paramount in which the latter will provide them with loads of original content for a cut of revenue. This is a big deal and a major shift in the Hollywood paradigm potentially. Paramount used to be a heavy-hitter too big for a secondary deal like this, but we see how far Netflix has come that they are now the beast needing to be fed. This could be a sign of things to come for any studio that isn’t Disney or Warner Bros. For Paramount, it’s unclear whether this works out for them or not. Previously they had been content to unload risky projects, like Annihilation and The Cloverfield Paradox, onto Netflix who were more than happy to pick up their scraps. My, how the tables have turned.
Anyway, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before was not a Paramount film, it was developed by Awesomeness which was just acquired by Paramount’s parent company, Viacom, making this whole thing very doable. In a quickly deleted post, Johnson exclaimed “Well, the cat’s out of the bag! Thanks for the support, everyone!!! It’s all you!” Netflix has clarified that a firm deal has yet to be struck, but come on, this is obviously happening.
So it’s likely the next film would be an adaptation of Jenny Han’s sequel novel, P.S. I Still Love You, which was published in 2015 and picks up where the first movie leaves off. There’s a third book that we can probably assume will be adapted, as well, assuming the Netflix/Paramount partnership works out favorably for both sides. [THR]
Kristen Stewart continues to straddle the line between big-budget studio projects, like her upcoming Charlie’s Angels reboot, and the smaller dramas she seems most comfortable with. Her latest definitely falls in the latter category, as she’ll star in the sophomore effort by actress-turned-director Clea Duvall.
Stewart will star in Happiest Season, which will be Duvall’s followup to the hilarious ensemble comedy, The Intervention. If you haven’t seen that (and Melanie Lynskey’s brilliant performance) then you need to rectify that. Anyway, Happiest Season will center on a lesbian woman who plans to propose to her partner while at a family holiday party, only to learn that she hasn’t come out to her conservative parents.
Duvall will direct and co-write the script with Mary Holland, but it doesn’t look as if she’ll step in front of the camera this time. This will be the biggest directorial effort of her career by far.
Stewart is currently filming on Charlie’s Angels and has a very busy 2019 ahead with Against All Enemies, Underwater, and the still-unreleased Jeremiah Terminator Leroy. [Variety]
Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse hasn’t even opened yet and already they are moving forward on not just one sequel, but a spinoff, as well. And again, these sound like plans they had to expand their Amazing Spider-Man franchise back in the Andrew Garfield days.
THR reports that Joaquim Dos Santos, best known for his work on Netflix’s Voltron and Avatar: The Last Airbender, has been hired to direct a sequel to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The original film opens next month and already has a ton of early buzz (I’ve seen it and can’t wait to share my thoughts), which may explain why Sony is so keen to capitalize. Presumably, this means a story continuation for the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man and the cast of alternate dimension Spideys he teams up with.
The other and more surprising part of the story is an animated spinoff featuring multiple female Spidey characters. Bek Smith (Zoo) will write the script, and while it’s not made clear it will probably center on the Spider-Gwen character voiced by Hailee Steinfeld.
You may recall back before Sony struck the deal with Marvel they had begun developing an all-female Spidey film. That was revived somewhat with the recent Silver Sable/Black Cat project which is in limbo right now.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were the brains behind Into the Spider-Verse, are expected to return in a creative capacity, but nothing official has been set. If the film turns out to be a hit the way I predict it will, Sony will have set themselves up for a long and lucrative run of Spider-Man spinoffs.
Romances set during WWII are plentiful, to say the least, but the cast of James Kent’s The Aftermath could help set his film apart. Starring Keira Knightley, Alexander Skarsgard, and Jason Clarke, they are part of a love triangle in which the wife of a British colonel falls in love with a mysterious German widower.
Here’s the synopsis: THE AFTERMATH is set in post-war Germany in 1946. Rachael Morgan (Keira Knightley) arrives in the ruins of Hamburg in the bitter winter, to be reunited with her husband Lewis (Jason Clarke), a British colonel charged with rebuilding the shattered city. But as they set off for their new home, Rachael is stunned to discover that Lewis has made an unexpected decision. They will be sharing the grand house with its previous owners, a German widower (Alexander Skarsgård) and his troubled daughter. In this charged atmosphere, enmity and grief give way to passion and betrayal. Kent most recently directed the excellent adaptation Testament of Youth, and this looks just as handsomely-shot as that was. Whether he gets the same level of performance from Knightley as he did from Alicia Vikander is up in the air. She’s had a mixed bag of a year, with some seeing her performance in Colette as a potential awards contender, while Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms was an obvious failure. I have high hopes for this one, which also includes Ridley Scott as an exec-producer.
