Before Guy Ritchie made the move to blockbusters such as Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur, and Aladdin (I still can’t believe he’s doing that), he was the guy for British gangster films. Ritchie made his bones with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, RocknRolla, and more, and now he’s returning to the genre with an all-star cast led by Matthew McConaughey.
Ritchie will direct McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale, and Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding in Toff Guys, crime film he co-wrote with Marn Davies and Ivan Atkinson. According to Deadline the film will “explore the collision between old-money European wealth and the modern marijuana industrial complex with new gang entrants swarming.”
So it’s a movie about pot dealers. Got it.
Production should kick off in May following a sizable $30M investment by Miramax to acquire the worldwide rights. While I don’t think Ritchie’s name is much of a draw anymore, the cast he assembled definitely is.
In last year’s sci-fi romance The Space Between Us Asa Butterfield played the first human born in outer space, who escaped to Earth to be with the woman he loved. Fast forward and now Butterfield is starring in Time Freak, in which he literally invents time travel to be with Game of Thrones and Dark Phoenix star, Sophie Turner. I don’t want to say Butterfield is being typecast or anything, but if lovestruck science nerd has a face it’s his.
Time Freak marks the feature directorial debut by Andrew Bowler, and is based on his Oscar nominated short film. Butterfield play Stillman, a broken-hearted physics genius who builds a time machine so he can go back and fix all of the mistakes he made with his ex, Debbie (Turner). Joined by his buddy Evan (Skyler Gisondo), he sets out to rewind the past but things don’t go as planned. Do they ever?
Sony finally gets a win with their Venom movie and suddenly every other story is about their Spider-Man spinoffs. While we had an update on Kraven the Hunter just a little while ago, it looks as if the next movie to roll out of this franchise will be Morbius, which has Jared Leto set to star as the vampiric hero. Producers Avi Arad and Matt Talmach sat down with Collider and confirmed a start date around February 2019 for the film.
“This is the great thing for us now,” Arad says, “that an actor like [Jared Leto], and an actor like Tom [Hardy] wanted to have their own character. But the character they love. Both of them, very hard to get them to do a movie. You actually cannot get them. We went in, we sat with them, and everybody told us, ‘Oh, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.’ Nothing. That’s what he wanted to do.”
If Arad sounds super confident, he’s got good reason. He was the guy who founded Marvel Studios and was in charge of their entire output until Disney came in and bought Marvel. With his past experience working in the toy business, Arad’s specialty has always been branding, and that’s what he’s trying to do with Sony’s superheroes now. What they need is a brand that can be seen as different from what Marvel is doing with the MCU. Venom was the start, and moving to another “dark” character like Morbius is the next step.
As for how dark the movie will be…well, that’s still up in the air. The question of an R-rating came up, and that really does seem to be a touchy subject for the folks at Sony. They took some heat from fans who expected Venom to be R-rated, and now the producers are playing coy when it comes to Morbius…
Tolmach says, “I don’t think there’s a rule written somewhere in stone that all of them have to be one thing, alright? I think we’ve all talked about, ‘Well, if one of these presents itself in a way…’ Look, we have all seen, as you’ve said, the R-rated versions of these movies now working. So, that’s out there. You can succeed to a staggering degree.”
Arad adds, “If the success of the story depends on being R-rated. Then, of course, we can do it. But at least for me, I have grandkids, kids, whatever, all these things, and some of these movies, they’re dying to see. You know? As I took my grandson, seven, to the recording session of ‘Venom.’ And he had the time of his life.”
It’s worth noting that Venom not only features cuss words, multiple scenes of people having their heads eaten, and at least one use of the word “pussy”, so I bet his grandkid did have the time of his life. I was about seven years old the first time I saw Revenge of the Nerds and it was amazing.
Daniel Espinosa (Safe House) will direct Morbius, which doesn’t have a release date but 2020 seems like a good bet.
If you’ve been paying attention it’s been really hard to miss Hamilton actor Anthony Ramos over the last few weeks. He’d had a couple of really solid roles in big movies, the biggest being A Star is Born as Lady Gaga’s best friend. He also starred in the race drama Monsters and Men, which you should definitely be seeking out. Now he’s just landed another gig and, considering it hails from Lin-Manuel Miranda the casting makes perfect sense.
Ramos will star in the screen adaptation of Miranda’s pre-Hamilton musical, In the Heights. He’ll take on the role of Usnavi de la Vega, the owner of a small bodega in Washington Heights and has dreams of moving away to the Dominican Republic. It’s a role originated by Miranda, but Ramos played it on stage as well so he’ll be quite familiar. It’s unclear if Miranda will look to cast Vanessa Hudgens in the film version since she played Usnavi’s love interest Vanessa in the Kennedy Center production.
In the Heights will be directed by Crazy Rich Asians’ Jon M. Chu, and opens on June 26th 2020. [Variety]
So how are you planning to spend New Year’s Day? If you’re the Mouse House, 2019 will be marked by the popping of champagne and the acquisition of billions of dollars worth of 21st Century Fox properties. Variety reports the deal between Disney and Fox will be signed, sealed, delivered, and in effect by January 1st. That’s months faster than most had predicted, and definitely will cause the speeding up of some timelines.
The news comes from Fox president and Disney TV exec Peter Rice who relayed the information to his staff. Since most of Hollywood expects the merger to cause hundreds if not thousands of layoffs, it’s safe to assume the meeting wasn’t to discuss the future of Deadpool.
Of course, that’s all us fanboys are really concerned about, right? When will the X-Men be integrated into the MCU? What happens to the Fantastic Four? Who will replace Hugh Jackman as Wolverine? Will the Predator and Alien franchises be rebooted? Those questions and plenty more are likely to be answered throughout 2019 and well beyond that. Anybody who tells you they know what’s going to happen is lying, because this really is an unprecedented set of circumstances. Should make for some exciting times in the months to follow.
Loving Pablo tells
the story of Pablo Escobar’s (Javier Bardem) rise to power and the collapse of
his empire in the 1980s and 90s. The film also centers around Pablo’s
relationship with Virginia Vallejo (Penélope Cruz) – a popular journalist.
Virginia and Pablo met in 1981 when she visited Pablo and his men for an
exclusive interview. At the time Pablo was working on building his network and
amassing his wealth. At one point, Pablo went from owning a few properties to
being worth over 2 billion dollars in less than 2 years. Pablo was an integral
member of the community and was a man of the people.
The work he was doing for the community provided him leniency and a veil for all
the drug activity that was occurring behind the scenes. At their first
encounter, Pablo takes Virginia to visit an area of the county where he is
funding the building of homes for homeless children and families. This charitable
work is the centerpiece for the story that Virginia reports on Pablo, casting
him in a glowing light. The community is so thankful for his deeds that
children all over are being named Pablo in his honor. Unfortunately for Pablo
Escobar – this crystal clean image he was trying to portray would be short
lived.
Pablo and Virginia fall hard for each other almost
immediately with Pablo being infatuated by her looks and wit and Virginia
immediately deciding that she didn’t care how Pablo made his money, just how he
decided to use it. This relationship is occurring while Pablo is married with
children, and his wife is aware of it – although she doesn’t approve. Pablo
showers Virginia with gifts, trips, and a look at a whole new life. However,
when the empire starts to crumble, so does their relationship and both of their
lives. Pablo turns into a madman, setting off bombs and taking the lives of
anyone that crossed him as he loses the power and control he so desperately needs.
His actions begin to tear Columbia apart, but he would be happy to see the
country burn if he can’t control it.
Loving Pablo
gives the audience an interesting look into keys years of the life of Pablo
Escobar. There were multiple times throughout the film where I simply could not
believe how Pablo lived and the power he had. Even in jail he was able to have
guards do whatever he wanted including opening his cell and letting him walk
free while he was living in leisure. Pablo had a large zoo that housed
elephants and other exotic pets for him to admire, was meeting with the heads
of countries and putting together business deals as the head of the cartel on a
regular basis, and was teaching his children about drugs at a very young age.
The movie even goes as far to show how the cartel would close off parts of US
highways to land planes carrying drugs on them undetected. By the time police
and government officials realized what was happening, the drugs would already be
long gone. Loving Pablo is written and directed by Fernando León de Aranoa
and is based off Virginia Vallejo’s book describing her time with Pablo. Aranoa
realizes that the strength of the film is the talents of his main two stars and
tries to highlight them as much as possible. Bardem and Cruz both give strong
performances throughout and complement each other well. Much of the content of
the film has been explored before, but Bardem and Cruz manage to give it a new
twist to keep the audience entertained. Loving
Pablo isn’t anything revolutionary, but it is a decent biopic that is worth
a rainy-day matinee.
Pumpkin spice latte’s and brown leaves…it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas season! I mean technically it’s Halloween season but everyone seems to jump from that boat for Christmas as early as possible, and Thanksgiving? Don’t get me started on the holiday that time forgot which should really be changed in name to “Big Overnight Sale and Battle Royale before Christmas”…Day. Any who, in addition to the 48 movies being produced and released by Lifetime this year Netflix is jumping into the Holiday movie fray with, what looks like, a pretty standard Santa Claus type movie starring Kurt Russel. It’s that last part that really made me perk up, Santa movies are a dime a dozen but if you get the right guy in that red suit the result can be magical. Kurt Russel has been a Hollywood mainstay since he was a kid and is a icon in the industry, something he seems dead set on reminding everyone with the quasi-renaissance he’s had in the last 10 years or so. He’s got these accolades for a reason, Russell is and always has been magnetic, he has a earnest charm that’s perfect for the role as Santa and damn can the man rock a beard.
The trailer doesn’t give us too much about the actual story behind the film, other then to present a fairly standard “Santa teams up with a child” type situation. That being said what they do show seems like a lot of fun and definitely brings those warm and fuzzy yuletide feelings to your tummy. I mean, if Tim Allen could make a lovable Santa then Kurt Russell is going to blow us away. IMDb has a bit more to say regarding the plot:
“The story of sister and brother, Kate and Teddy Pierce, whose Christmas Eve plan to catch Santa Claus on camera turns into an unexpected journey that most kids could only dream about.”
Check out the trailer below and look for The Christmas Chronicles to start streaming on Netflix November 22, 2018
Long before Venom‘s record-breaking debut weekend, Sony had already begun plans to expand their universe of Spider-Man spinoffs. Most of these plans sound like rehashed ideas from the Andrew Garfield era, including a film centered on Sinister Six member, Kraven the Hunter. Unlike Venom who has been fine operating independently from Spider-Man, that really can’t be said about Kraven, which makes this quite the unusual project. So how does writer Richard Wenk plan to get around not having the wallcrawler to use in his movie? Simple, he doesn’t.
Wenk, who is probably best known for writing The Equalizer movies for Denzel Washington, tells Discussing Film that he plans for Kraven to encounter Spider-Man. Uhhh…how’s he going to pull that off with Tom Holland killin’ it over in the MCU?
“It is in the Spider-Man Universe. It’s going to adhere very closely to the lore of Kraven the Hunter. And he is going to come face-to-face with Spider-Man. I’m just beginning it, just beginning the process. And because it’s a big IP in the Marvel world, there’s a lot of hurdles to overcome before you can start writing. To crack the right story. To get the right tone.”
Uh, maybe he didn’t get the memo? No crossing over with Spider-Man…for now? If it wasn’t going to happen in Venom it certainly won’t with Kraven, so maybe Wenk is just screwing with fans and the journos who he knows will post stories just like the one I’m posting now? I suppose it’s possible Sony could cast an all-new, all-different version of Spider-Man that isn’t Peter Parker? Maybe Ben Reilly? Miles Morales? I don’t know, but Wenk sounds pretty confident.
He goes on to say that potential storylines include a take on Kraven’s Last Stand, the iconic Marvel tale which finds the big game hunter actually defeating and killing Spider-Man. Temporarily, of course.
“I think what we’re all circling is the infamous ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’ and whether this is the precursor to that movie or whether it will include it. We’re talking about those things. Or maybe the idea that ‘Kraven’ could be like ‘Kill Bill’ where we’re basically writing two movies. It’s all in the mix.”
Clearly the Kraven movie is in the earliest stages, but it sounds a lot more interesting now than it did before. Mission accomplished, Mr. Wenk.
So Gareth Evans may not be giving us The Raid 3 anymore, but thank God there’s still a Timo Tjahjanto out there. He’s the director of fellow Indonesian action flicks Killers and Headshot, both of which are very much in the Evans mold and feature many of the same actors. Now Tjahjanto is back with The Night Comes For Us, and he’s bringing The Raid stars Joe Taslim and Iko Uwais along with him.
Taslim and Uwais find themselves on opposing sides this time, as they battle over the life of a young girl. It’s Taslim on the heroic side as Ito, a former Triad enforcer who leaves his old life behind after rescuing the girl. That puts him at odds with his old gang and its leader, Arian (Uwais), but not before fighting through waves and waves of enemies.
The buzz after its Fantastic Fest premiere is some of the best I’ve heard since The Raid years ago, so you better believe I’m looking forward to this one. The Night Comes For Us hits Netflix on October 19th.
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