While it was always expected, Universal confirmed today the first trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass, a sequel to both Unbreakable and Split, will arrive this Friday. And to get you ready for one of the most anticipated movies of next year, a new teaser has been released featuring James McAvoy as The Beast.
The teaser doesn’t actually offer new footage, it’s just to whet your appetite to see how Kevin Wendell Crumb aka the psychotic super-powered villain known as The Beast, connects to the heroic David Dunn (Bruce Willis) and criminal mastremind Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson).
I expect we’ll get one of these teasers each day until the full trailer drops. Also starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Sarah Paulson, and Spencer Treat Clark, Glass opens January 18th 2019.
With iconic tracks like “We Will Rock You” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”, it’s no wonder fans have been eager for what should be a rip-roaring Queen biopic. Bohemian Rhapsody has been in the works for a long time and has undergone its share of problems, but every trailer suggests the wait will more than worth it.
Rami Malek takes the stage as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, in a role that many hope will thrust the Mr. Robot star into the awards conversation. So much attention has been focused on Malek, and Bryan Singer’s eventual replacement by director Dexter Flecher (Singer still receives credit), that the supporting cast has been largely ignored. Lucy Boynton plays Mercury’s longtime friend Mary Austin, Gwilym Lee is Queen guitarist Brian May, Ben Hardy is drummer Roger Taylor, Joseph Mazzello is bass guitarist John Deacon. Aiden Gillen, Mike Myers, and Tom Hollander co-star, as well.
Here’s the synopsis: Bohemian Rhapsody is a foot-stomping celebration of Queen, their music and their extraordinary lead singer Freddie Mercury. Freddie defied stereotypes and shattered convention to become one of the most beloved entertainers on the planet. The film traces the meteoric rise of the band through their iconic songs and revolutionary sound. They reach unparalleled success, but in an unexpected turn Freddie, surrounded by darker influences, shuns Queen in pursuit of his solo career. Having suffered greatly without the collaboration of Queen, Freddie manages to reunite with his bandmates just in time for Live Aid. While bravely facing a recent AIDS diagnosis, Freddie leads the band in one of the greatest performances in the history of rock music. Queen cements a legacy that continues to inspire outsiders, dreamers and music lovers to this day.
The hot-button issue of gay conversion therapy will be addressed in two of this year’s most discussed dramas. We recently received the debut trailer for The Miseducation of Cameron Post starring Chloe Grace Moretz. And arriving during the awards season is Joel Edgerton’s Boy Erased, which features Oscar nominee Lucas Hedges and has dropped a new trailer of its own.
Edgerton’s followup to thriller The Gift is based on the memoir by Garrard Conley, who grew up in a fundamentalist Arkansas home with his Baptist parents. They would send him to a California-based conversion program after he was outed as homosexual while away at college. Hedges takes on the lead role, renamed Jared Eamons, while Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe play his parents. Edgerton steps in front of the camera as the head of the conversion therapy program; Cherry Jones, Xavier Dolan, Flea, and Joe Alwyn co-star.
Comic-Con is only days away, and it’s become expected that CW’s Arrowverse grows this time every year. We’ve already known Batwoman would be joining Arrow, Supergirl, The Flash, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow in the annual crossover event this December, but now it looks like she’ll be sticking around for a while.
Deadline reports a Batwoman series is in development, from Arrowverse architect Greg Berlanti and The Vampire Diaries exec-producer Caroline Dries. The series will center on Kate Kane, first introduced in 2006 as DC Comics’ first openly lesbian lead character. If the show takes off and goes into production next year, Batwoman will be the first LGBTQ superhero to have their own series.
Here’s the description: “In Batwoman, written by Dries based on the DC characters, armed with a passion for social justice and a flair for speaking her mind, Kate Kane soars onto the streets of Gotham as Batwoman, an out lesbian and highly trained street fighter primed to snuff out the failing city’s criminal resurgence. But don’t call her a hero yet. In a city desperate for a savior, Kate must overcome her own demons before embracing the call to be Gotham’s symbol of hope.”
Casting is underway for Batwoman’s debut in the annual crossover, and the same actress is likely to maintain the role going forward.
My love for Sam Levinson’s edgy, violent, and topical Assassination Nation knows no bounds; I’ve been a huge supporter since seeing it at Sundance early this year. That said, I understand if others who haven’t experienced it are a little confused. The teaser was just a bunch of buzzwords and trigger warnings, but what is the movie actually about? To be fair, the latest trailer, a full-on red band spectacle, doesn’t help matters much.
I’m afraid a shock & awe campaign is being wadged and I’m not sure it’s the smartest way to hype the film when the story and cast are compelling enough. Suki Waterhouse, Odessa Young, Abra, and trans actress Hari Nef play a fearsome foursome of high schoolers who must fight for survival when a hacker shares the entire town of Salem’s most personal secrets, causing it to explode into chaos. The rest of the cast includes Anika Noni Rose, Colman Domingo, Maude Apatow, with Bill Skarsgård, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Joel McHale, and Bella Thorne. Oh yeah, it’s also produced by Joe and Anthony Russo, those guys in charge of that whole Avengers: Infinity War thing.
Here’s hoping further trailers lean more on the plot rather than shock tactics. Assassination Nation opens September 21st.
There aren’t a lot of stars big enough they can get a movie off the ground just by name value, but Scarlett Johansson is definitely one of them. With this latest controversy surrounding her casting as a transgender man in the biopic Rub & Tug, my stated concern all along was that the film was only happening because of her involvement. And sadly now that she’s dropped out my concerns have proven warranted.
According to The Wrap‘s sources, “it doesn’t look good” for the film, which centers on Dante “Tex” Gill, head of a criminal steroid ring that used massage parlors as a front. Gill was often misidentified as a cross-dressing woman but it was soon clarified by a family member that he definitely identified as a man. Johansson faced a backlash from LGBTQ actors against the idea of a cisgender actress playing trans. She initially faced the criticism head-on, referencing the many award-winning performances by cis actors in trans role, but that only made things worse. A statement was made by her days later announcing her departure from the project.
Still on board is director Rupert Sanders, but Johansson was what got the film moving in the first place. Her production company was a major component, as well, and it’s unclear if she will remain involved in any capacity.
Harrison Ford slow down? Not a chance. He’s been revisiting some of his most iconic roles, whether it be in Blade Runner 2049 or Star Wars: The Force Awakens, leading some to think he was doing it as a graceful way to call it a career. But with a hole in his schedule opened up with the delay of Indiana Jones 5, Ford hasn’t stopped to take a break. He’s instead rejoining his Blade Runner 2049 screenwriter for an adaptation of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild.
Variety reports Ford will star in Call of the Wild, with a script by the ubiquitous Michael Green, writer of Blade Runner 2049, Logan, and more. He’s everywhere, it seems. London’s novel takes place in 1890 at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush, and centers on a dog named Buck who is stolen away from his California home and forced to become a sled dog in the harsh Yukon. Fortunately, Ford won’t be voicing any animals, he’ll be playing “John Thornton, a prospector braving the Yukon on the hunt for gold.” In the novel, Thornton forges a bond with the St. Bernard-Scotch Shepard, and the two look out for one another in the dangerous terrain.
Chris Sanders (The Croods) will direct, making this just the latest adaptation of London’s book. Previous versions were released in 1935 starring Clark Gable, and another in 1972 with Charlton Heston. Pretty good company for Ford to fit in with. Production on the film begins in September.
Lesson learned, I should trust my own instincts. Back in May there was tremendous excitement when Bill and Ted Face the Music was officially confirmed by MGM. Fans had been waiting decades for Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter to rock on for a third film, despite all sides wanting to return and a story long having been in place. And now comes word from Keanu himself the sequel may have already been unplugged.
Speaking with Yahoo, Reeves cautioned the film may not happen at all. The reason he gives have nothing to do with the story, but the stuff that actually kills projects all the time: boring legal and rights issues.
“I don’t know if [Bill & Ted 3] is a reality. We’ve been trying for a long time to get that film made, and it still has its challenges. I really love the characters, and I think we have a good story to tell. Part of it is business stuff—financing, rights, deals. Nothing creatively.”
Ehhhh, that’s not good. Bill & Ted 3 has faced a long hard road, and it sounds like the same issues that have always plagued it are still there. Don’t hold your breath on this one.
If it happens, Bill and Ted Face the Music will be directed by Dean Parisot with a script by franchise creators Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson.
A film that I fully expect to be a sleeper hit later this summer is The Darkest Minds, which has clearly been inspired by Marvel’s X-Men. Starring Amandla Stenberg and Harris Dickinson, with Jennifer Yuh Nelson (Kung Fu Panda) making her live-action directing debut, the adaptation of Alexandra Bracken’s book series follows a group of teens with dangerous superpowers fighting against an oppressive government.
The plot could easily have been ripped from Marvel’s merry mutants, and that could be one of the film’s biggest draws. There’s all of the teenage angst you’d come to expect, with mutant…er, superpowers as a metaphor for puberty and the raging whirl of emotions that come with it. In the latest trailer we see romance blossom between Stenberg and Dickinson’s characters as they race to find a safe haven for others just like them.
While the story does resemble your classic YA franchise in a lot of ways, it’s impossible to ignore similarities to current immigration policies. Scenes of kids rounded up in prisons, held in cages and presumably separated from their families hit hard…perhaps too hard. I’m curious to see if Fox downplays those images in the future because nobody wants to see a movie to be reminded of the terrible things happening in reality.
Joining Stenberg and Dickinson in the cast are Skylan Brooks, Miya Cech, Golden Brooks, Bradley Whitford, Gwendoline Christine, and Mandy Moore.
Here’s the synopsis:
When teens mysteriously develop powerful new abilities, they are declared a threat by the government and detained. Sixteen-year-old Ruby, one of the most powerful young people anyone has encountered, escapes her camp and joins a group of runaway teens seeking safe haven. Soon this newfound family realizes that, in a world in which the adults in power have betrayed them, running is not enough and they must wage a resistance, using their collective power to take back control of their future.
How’s this for a sweet package deal? Oscar-nominated Call Me By Your Name actor Timothee Chalamet, Arrival director Denis Villeneuve, and the sci-fi classic Dune. It could be a reality very soon.
Deadline reports Chalamet is in final talks to join Villeneuve’s Dune remake, taking on the lead role of Paul Atreides, played by Kyle MachLachlan in David Lynch’s infamous 1984 adaptation. The Frank Herbert novel weaves politics and sci-fi in an epic story about those warring for control over the universe’s most precious commodity, a spice called Melange. The novels have been popular for decades, but Lynch’s film is pretty divisive. Some have elevated it to cult classic status while others are eagerly hoping Villeneuve can wash it from history.
Frankly, I’m not a fan of Dune even though I get the many Star Wars comparisons. Villeneuve has said he plans to do two movies and make these films decidedly for adults, which sounds like a good way to have another dud like his Blade Runner 2049 was. Keep in mind how much I love that movie, but can acknowledge it was too much of a niche property to be successful financially. Dune will likely be the same whether it’s Chalamet starring in it or not.
