Watch out, colonizer! Black Panther breakout Letitia Wright has landed her next major role, and while it doesn’t feature any superheroes dressed as felines, it does have at least one Legend involved.
Wright will star in John Legend’s remake of 2017 French comedy Le Brio. Legend will produce the film which currently doesn’t have a writer or director attached. But what it has is Wright, who became the darling of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for her portrayal of Shuri in Black Panther.
The original Le Brio centered on a young French-Arab woman who enrolls in a Paris university in hopes of becoming a lawyer only to face racially-tinged criticism from her controversial professor. When the school President catches wind of the incident, he tasks the professor with becoming her mentor for an upcoming speech contest.
Next up for Wright is a return as Shuri in Avengers 4. [THR]
When The Hitman’s Bodyguard became one of last year’s summer hits, few saw it coming. That’s probably because it was an anomaly; an original star-driven film in a sea of reboots, sequels, and superhero movies. When the vulgar R-rated action-comedy scored $175M worldwide on a $30M budget, a sequel was inevitable, but it all would’ve been moot if Ryan Reynolds or Samuel L. Jackson refused to return.
Fortunately, that’s not happening. Reynolds, Jackson, and Salma Hayek are all coming back for The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, which will once again be directed by Patrick Hughes. With official confirmation of their return a plot synopsis for the sequel has already been released to go with it:
Patrick Hughes will take on directing duties again from a script by Tom O’Connor. The sequel follows bodyguard Michael Bryce (Reynolds) enlisted by Jackson and Hayek’s characters to join them on a mission along the Amalfi Coast. Production is expected to start in March.
Okay, I expect that plot will be fleshed out over the coming months. Honestly, they don’t need to change much. As long as long Reynolds and Jackson get to drop a ton of F-bombs everything should be good to go. [Variety]
Perhaps it’s time for Allison Janney to have her own Liam Neeson-style renaissance? She’s set to star in Lou, a film which could go one of two ways. Either it’s a Taken riff or it’s Bad Robot hiding another Cloverfield movie from us.
That’s right, Lou is produced by JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot, so anything is possible. Anna Foerster (Underworld: Blood Wars) will direct the thriller about a young woman and her landlord Lou (Janney) who “team up to track down the former’s child after the girl is kidnapped by the woman’s estranged husband.” Lou is described as “a hard-shelled and rule-breaking woman that has unexpectedly impressive tracking abilities, among other skill sets.” A particular set of skills and everything!
The script comes from Maggie Cohn (American Crime Story) and Jack Stanley (the unproduced Chronicle sequel), who are nondescript enough to be trying to sneak a Cloverfield movie in under the radar. Perhaps not. I don’t know, and even if this is just a chance for Janney to show a different side, one that’s more Neeson-esque, then I’m all for it. She’s coming off her Best Supporting Actress Oscar win for I, Tonya, and will star in the upcoming films Bad Education and Jay Roach’s Fair and Balanced.
If you predicted this news then I’d like to request your help in picking my PowerBall numbers for the week. David Lowery, the director behind The Old Man and the Gun, A Ghost Story, and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, is teaming up with True Detective and Beast of No Nation director Cary Fukunaga for a TV series based on Joe Dante’s 1985 film Explorers. What the Hell!?
Deadline reports this strange but exciting duo will pair up on an Explorers TV pilot, which they will write together for one of them to direct. The original film was directed by Gremlins helmer Joe Dante, and was very much in the same vein. It starred a young Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix as sci-fi obsessed kids who build their own working spaceship and go off on wild adventures in outer space.
The new series will take the same basic plot and give it a modern spin. Hopefully it does better than Dante’s film, which was a critical and box office flop, no thanks to Paramount who seemed to not really care that much about it. The movie was rushed, and Dante always hated the cut released into theaters. Paramount TV is involved this time and we’ll see if their attitude has changed regarding the property. If it goes beyond the pilot stage we’ll have our answer.
One of the things I’ve been most adamant about after Sony’s $500M+ success with Venom is that they look like idiots for loaning Spider-Man to Marvel Studios. Even more, they look stupid for ditching Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man franchise after just one disappointing yet still hugely successful sequel. If they had left the cinematic universe they were building in place and released a hit film like Venom into the middle of that, they’d be soaring right now. And with all of the spinoffs in the works, such as Morbius and Kraven the Hunter, having Spider-Man could only help to give those films a boost.
Others apparently agree. Analysts are now saying that Venom has done so well that Sony is unlikely to let Spider-Man stay over at Marvel permanently. Ever since Tom Holland was cast in the role he has been a fixture of the MCU and is considered a centerpiece of the post-Avengers 4 future. As such, Marvel needs Sony more than Sony needs Marvel. The situations were reversed a few years ago when the deal between both parties was struck.
Analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations says, “If it had failed, there is a chance Sony would have definitely returned to the bargaining table with Disney. Now, that’s up in the air. [Sony] took a calculated risk with ‘Venom,’ and it’s now going to be a series. It seems Disney needs Sony’s ‘Spider-Man’ more than Sony needs Disney … If they consistently make films audiences want to see, Disney will have to buy Sony to get ‘Spider-Man’ back. This is just the beginning of Sony’s reemergence as a studio of box-office distinction. They’re not giving it up without a fight.”
At this point, Marvel still has use of the character through Avengers 4, next year’s Spider-Man: Far from Home, and at least one more solo Spidey film. After that it’s unclear if the character simply reverts back to Sony or if there’s more to the deal. No matter what, Sony finds itself in the power position and they may eventually choose to bring Spider-Man back under their control for good. [BusinessInsider]
One of the films I heard the most buzz about at Middleburg this year was Capernaum, which earned director Nadine Labaki the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. So I had to check it out for myself after some encouragement from a trusted friend, and it’s easy to see why the Beirut-set drama about a spunky Lebanese boy surviving only on his wits was quickly picked up by Sony Pictures Classics for release during the awards season.
Capernaum centers on Zain (the incredible Zain Al Rafeea), a young Lebanese boy who we’re introduced to as he’s suing his parents for the crime of giving him life. The story then takes us through his hard luck story, as he flees his negligent parents and connects with an Ethiopian refugee, eventually helping her care for her young son until she is jailed and Zain must watch the child himself.
What stands out about Labaki’s film is the stunning authenticity of it, relying on first-time actors to add that realism to an already difficult story. It’s a tough movie to watch, and I wasn’t totally in the right frame of mind for it, hence no review from Middleburg, but as the film is hitting theaters on December 14th expect that to change.
Dreamworks’ Shrek franchise, which includes four main films and that Puss in Boots spinoff from seven years ago, has earned more than $3.5B worldwide. That it’s taken this long to get started on a new film is surprising, and so is the guy tapped with spearheading this latest venture.
Variety reports that Illumination mastermind Chris Meledandri, the guy behind the Despicable Me franchise, has been hired to re-introduce Shrek and Puss in Boots to a new audience. So what does that mean? Reboot? Remake? It’s kinda hard to say because Meledandri doesn’t seem interested in changing the voice cast of Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, and Eddie Murphy.
Meledandri says, “When you look back on those vocal performances they’re awesome, and while you certainly could make a case for a complete reinvention, I find myself responding to my own nostalgic feelings of wanting to go back to those characterizations. The challenge for us has been to find something that really does feel like it’s not simply yet another film in a series of sequels…“There’s a tremendous amount of fun to be had in that world, but it’s a high bar to find a story that’s truly of the world. You want to find something in the narrative that really feels like a departure.”
So this could be one of those sidequels that skips ahead in time so it feels new but is really just a continuation with familiar characters?
Shrek seems so dated to me now, and it had run out of ideas long before coming to an end. Perhaps adopting an animation style closer to the Illumination standard will be a way to freshen things up?
The next film for Meledandri and Illumination is this weekend’s The Grinch, featuring the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch.
If you’re going into The Girl in the Spider’s Web expecting anything similar to David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, be prepared. Not to be disappointed, just for a very different experience. While the icy atmosphere and blood-curdling violence remain, there’s a forward momentum and turn towards Bond-esque action that director Fede Alvarez has brought to what looks to be a revitalized franchise. It’s a move that works in delivering a more exciting Dragon Tattoo movie, albeit one that loses something from an artistic point of view.
Your enjoyment of The Girl in the Spider’s Web will largely depend on your view of Claire Foy as vigilante computer hacktivist Lisbeth Salander. While she lacks Noomi Rapace’s physicality and pitilessness, Foy is certainly more comfortable in the role than Rooney Mara, who always seemed to be putting on a show for Fincher since he vouched for her over studio objections. Foy’s take on the character has power, with anger bubbling beneath the surface, but she’s asked to show a more vulnerable side to Lisbeth than we’re accustomed to seeing. She can still kick butt, and her hacking ability, along with a near-supernatural foresight, make her virtually unstoppable.
There isn’t a lot of meat on the bones of this story, counting on our fascination with Lisbeth to carry us through. Skipping over the last two books in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, the film is based on the fourth book penned after the author’s death. So it makes sense that it should feel a little bit different, and after a very theatrical opening credits sequence it becomes clear that James Bond is indeed the model they’re going for. This particular Dragon Tattoo story finds Lisbeth hired by fired computer genius Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant) to steal back a dangerous program, one with nuclear capability, from the American government. Stealing it is the easy part, although it puts her at odds with NSA agent Edwin Neeham (Lakeith Stanfield) who is in a desperate search to get it back. Lisbeth suddenly becomes the target of thugs who want the program for their mysterious leader (Blade Runner 2049‘s Sylvia Hoeks), a woman from Lisbeth’s tortured past.
Gone is the psycho-sexual tension between Lisbeth and Millennium journalist Mikael Blomkvist, played in this film by Borg/McEnroe‘s Sverrir Gudnason. He’s basically reduced to a supporting role here, and not much above tagging along while Lisbeth does most of the dirty work. So the film is instantly less sexy as a result, and in its place is a greater emphasis on stylish action sequences. Other than an opening scene (one teased mightily in the trailers) we don’t see much of Lisbeth as the girl “who hurts men who hurt women”. Her character has been thinned out, so to speak, just as this film is designed to be a lean, easily accessible chapter. If you hadn’t seen The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo you’d be perfectly fine not knowing anything that happened previously, and if you did see it none of that stuff really matters. What echoes through both films is the legacy of violence committed by men against women; we see past trauma’s reflected in Lisbeth’s eyes, and her enemy is riddled with similar wounds. Those aspects could use deeper exploration if only to give the disappointing final showdown greater emotional impact.
Alvarez made his bones with the ambitious Evil Dead remake and his tense thriller Don’t Breathe. This is his biggest film by far and he puts an undeniable stamp on this series and the Lisbeth Salander character. The Girl in the Spider’s Web may look, even feel like a James Bond movie, but it’s a welcome turn for an enduring and unique heroine of the page and screen.
Whether you were a beloved fan of Paddington when you went in or not, chances are you adored the marmalade-eating bear after taking the last two live-action films. Both were absolutely brilliant, charming and fun in equal measure, with a combined box office over $480M. And as such it’s not surprising to learn that a third movie is in the works, but the sad news is that a key component of their success won’t be coming back.
Speaking with Empire, producer David Heyman says director Paul King, who was at the helm of both prior movies, won’t be around to direct Paddington 3.
“I don’t think Paul King will direct the third. He did the first two – he and I are working on another project together. He’s very special, Paul. We’re developing a third ‘Paddington.’ We haven’t got a script yet, we’ve got a treatment which we’re still working on.”
“Paul is involved in it, I wanted him to be involved in it because I think he’s such a significant voice, but I don’t think he’ll direct it. He worked on the idea. He comes up with the idea with Simon Farnaby and Mark Burton and then they develop it and come back for more, back and forth, and then it’ll get written and Paul will come in and stir it up a little bit. But he’s an incredible collaborator, Paul.”
No word on who exactly will take over directing Paddington 3 but he’s got some big shoes to fill.
We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to attend a free early screening of Widows. Directed by Steve McQueen (12 Years A Slave), the heist thriller stars Viola Davis, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, Elizabeth Debicki, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Jackie Weaver, Robert Duvall, and Carrie Coon.
SYNOPSIS: From Academy Award®-winning director Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”) and co-writer and bestselling author Gillian Flynn (“Gone Girl”) comes a blistering, modern-day thriller set against the backdrop of crime, passion and corruption. “Widows” is the story of four women with nothing in common except a debt left behind by their dead husbands’ criminal activities. Set in contemporary Chicago, amid a time of turmoil, tensions build when Veronica (Oscar® winner Viola Davis), Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) and Belle (Cynthia Erivo) take their fate into their own hands and conspire to forge a future on their own terms. The screening takes place on Wednesday, November 7th at 7:00pm at AMC Mazza Gallerie. If you’d like to attend, register at the Gofobo ticketing site here and download one Admit-Two pass. Please remember all screenings are first come first served and having passes does not guarantee entry. You will want to arrive early to ensure receiving a seat. Enjoy the show!
