‘Support The Girls’ Trailer: Regina Hall And Haley Lu Richardson Lead The ‘Waiting’-Esque Comedy

By

-

June 26, 2018

Andrew Bujalski is back, time to sit up and take notice. For a while he was known as the guy who started the “mumblecore” movement, but lately he’s been a festival champ for quirky films Computer Chess and Results. His latest, Support the Girls, debuted at SXSW and it looks like another offbeat offering with a really fun cast.

Starring Regina Hall, Haley Lu Richardson, Brooklyn Decker, AJ Michalka, James Le Gros, Lea DeLaria, Dylan Gelula, and Jana Kramer, the film takes place at a Hooters-esque restaurant and its gorgeous wait staff. Hall plays the restaurant manager who has to deal with her young employees, corporate pressures, and rude customers.

Sounds like the female version of Waiting, and a look at the trailer suggests that, too. However, Results was a pretty broad comedy on paper, but the actual film was something quite a bit different. Expect Bujalski to have a few surprises up his sleeve.

Here’s the synopsis: Lisa Conroy is the last person you’d expect to find in a highway-side “sports bar with curves,”– but as general manager at Double Whammies, she’s come to love the place and its customers. An incurable den mother, she nurtures and protects her girls fiercely–but over the course of one trying day, her optimism is battered from every direction…Double Whammies sells a big, weird American fantasy, but what happens when reality pokes a bunch of holes in it?

Support the Girls hits theaters on August 24th and VOD on August 28th.

Mark Wahlberg And Peter Berg Are Bringing ‘Spenser: For Hire’ To Netflix

By

John Nolan

-

June 26, 2018

The duo of Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg has been clicking through three movies already: Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, and Patriots Day. It should be extended to four with next month’s Mile 22, which we just learned already has a sequel in the works. Whether they come back for that one isn’t clear yet, but it does look like the winning tag team will be together a while longer.

Berg and Wahlberg are headed to Netflix for a new crime thriller titled Wonderland. As usual it will be Berg behind the camera with Wahlberg starring. The film is based on the Spenser line of novels by author Robert B. Parker, centering on the titular Boston private detective as he’s sucked into a criminal underworld and investigates a murder conspiracy. This particualar story was published in 2013 and written by Ace Atkins.

The Spenser character was spun off into a popular TV series titled Spenser: For Hire starring Robert Urich. That was then spun off into another show, A Man Called Hawk which starred Avery Brooks when he was super intimidating. Both shows were arguably my Dad’s favorites (along with Magnum P.I.) so I watched a lot of them when I was younger.

All in all there have been over 40 Spenser novels so you know what that means! Franchise! Clearly that’s what Netflix is hoping for here as they continue to expand into blockbuster territory. It doesn’t get more “blockbuster” than Berg and Wahlberg, does it? [Variety]

Rebel Wilson To Produce And Star In Comic Adaptation ‘Crowded’

By

John Nolan

-

June 26, 2018

Rebel Wilson has already been at the center of one hit franchise with Pitch Perfect, now she may be about to launch a brand new one. Through her production banner Camp Sugar, she has acquired the film rights to the upcoming comic book, Crowded, with plans for her to star.

Due to hit stores on August 15th, the Crowded comic book series is from writer Christopher Sebela with art by Ro Stein. It takes place in a future Los Angeles where an app called Reapr allows for the crowd-sourcing of assassinations. When a woman named Charlie Ellison unexpectedly ends up with a multi-million dollar bounty on her head, she must hire protection from the Dfend app. Unfortunately Charlie is broke and can only afford Vita, the lowest-rated and cheapest protection she can afford.

Sounds like a hilarious concept, one that should play well to Wilson’s strengths. A screenwriter is being sought and presumably a director will follow. Sebela will be on hand to consult on the project, too. This will be the second film Wilson’s producing under this banner after The Hustle, a Dirty Rotten Scoundrels remake co-starring Anne Hathaway. [THR]

‘The Predator’ Red Band Trailer: The Hunt Is Truly Evolved In Shane Black’s Anticipated Sequel

By

John Nolan

-

June 26, 2018

It was only two weeks ago that 20th Century Fox dropped a trailer for Shane Black’s The Predator, and already they are back with a longer, more violent cut for the red band crowd. Perhaps the rapid fire trailers is in response to news that Fox will be bringing the film to Comic-Con where it’s sure to find a rabid audience of fans eager for the Predator’s return.

The film is a true sequel, following up on events of Predator, Predator 2 and between Predators, so the three best movies in the franchise by far. The Predators are lured back to Earth when a kid (Jacob Tremblay) makes a discovery of some alien tech. That puts them on a collision course with a team of rangers who are largely the focus of this new footage. Too bad for them these Predators are of the mega-deluxe variety. The rest of the cast includes Boyd Holbrook, Sterling K. Brown, Olivia Munn, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Alfie Allen, Thomas Jane, Yvonne Strahovski, Augusto Aguilera, and Jake Busey as the son of his father’s character in Predator 2. Continuity!

Here’s the synopsis: From the outer reaches of space to the small-town streets of suburbia, the hunt comes home in Shane Black’s explosive reinvention of the Predator series. Now, the universe’s most lethal hunters are stronger, smarter and deadlier than ever before, having genetically upgraded themselves with DNA from other species. When a young boy accidentally triggers their return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled science teacher can prevent the end of the human race.

The Predator opens September 14th.

Marvel’s Kevin Feige Sees Richard Donner’s ‘Superman’ As A Learning Tool

By

John Nolan

-

June 26, 2018

I hate the way interviewers keep asking Marvel folks how to fix the DCEU. If I were Warner Bros. I’d be super pissed, and properly motivated to kick Marvel’s ass in the future. That said, Kevin Feige is the one guy at Marvel whose response actually means anything, because he’s the one responsible for putting the MCU together and has a proper frame of reference for building a cinematic universe.

ScreenRant caught up with Feige and asked him what advice he can give Warner Bros., and his answer won’t be surprising to anyone who has followed his interviews over the years.

I always hesitate to come off as the person who is bestowing advice on people. It’s not really what I do. What I do know is, they’re great characters… They’re great characters, they’re good comics, they’ve got great history. I’m not shy about saying, Richard Donner’s Superman I still think is the paradigm by which we all still should follow. It’s all there.

Feige has always shown a great deal of respect for Richard Donner’s Superman, DC Comics, and for what Warner Bros. is trying to accomplish with the DCEU. He did the right thing by refusing to criticize, instead choosing to offer up Donner’s Superman as a guidepost for every potential franchise to follow.

There’s a part of me that wishes Feige’s contract would end so he could work for Warner Bros. for a while, just to see what happens. And I don’t rule out that happening someday but it won’t be for a long time, I’m sure. They seem to be making pretty good strides, or at least Wonder Woman was a step in the right direction. It had so much of the hopefulness that made Donner’s take on Superman great. If they can find a way to keep that going then the DCEU will be just fine and nobody will be offering them free advice on the regular.

Russell Crowe To Play Fox News CEO Roger Ailes In Showtime’s ‘The Loudest Voice In The Room’

By

John Nolan

-

June 26, 2018

Ex Fox CEO Roger Ailes has been dead for only a year and Hollywood is already feasting on his corpse. There are numerous TV shows and films in the works about his downfall, and last year we learned Blumhouse had a series in development at Showtime, and now we know it’ll be Russell Crowe playing the disgraced media head.

Crowe will star in The Loudest Voice in the Room, which is based on the book by Gabriel Sherman which chronicles the rise and fall of Ailes. A prominent Republican media consultant for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush, he would become one of the most powerful men in the world as CEO of Fox News. In 2016 his career ended in disgrace over a series of sexual misconduct allegations by Fox News employees. Spotlight director Tom McCarthy will co-write the pilot’s script with Sherman. A lot of talent behind this one.

Showtime CEO David Nevins told THR…

“In many ways, the collision between the media and politics has come to define the world we live in today. We’ve seen this phenomenon depicted on screen as far back as the story of Charles Foster Kane, and it finds contemporary embodiment in the rise and fall of Roger Ailes. With Russell Crowe in the lead role, this limited series promises to be a defining story for this era.”

Crowe adds Oscar-winning cred to the series, and looking at it on paper it’s easy to peg this as a potential Emmy candidate.

‘The Gifted’ Star Emma Dumont To Lead Comic Adaptation ‘Razor’

By

John Nolan

-

June 26, 2018

Emma Dumont is best known for playing the Lorna Dane aka Polaris in Fox’s X-Men tv series, The Gifted, but her biggest film role will be for a different comic book adaptation. Dumont will play the title character in Razor, based on the Everett Hartsoe comic and directed by Rob Cohen.

Dumont will play Nicole Mitchell, a young woman who witnessed the murder of her cop father by a gang of upwardly mobile criminals, the trauma of which sent her in a sanitarium for a decade which is where she formulates her complex plan for revenge and her superheroine persona, Razor, noted for her suit equipped with razor blades.

There’s clearly potential for a franchise here, especially with Cohen at the helm. He launched both the XXX and The Fast and the Furious franchises, while most recently directing The Hurricane Heist.

MTV Sparks Up A Sequel To Method Man And Redman’s ‘How High’

By

John Nolan

-

June 26, 2018

All props to Snoop Dogg and Cypress Hill, no rappers have done more for gettin’ high than Redman and Method Man. Probably we can say no rappers have done more WHILE gettin’ high than Redman and Method Man. In 2001 they starred in the stoner comedy How High which has (unfortunately) become a cult classic over the years, and led to the short-lived Fox sitcom Method & Red. And now after all of this time MTV wants more, so they are prepared to roll up and light up a sequel to How High.

The script will be written by Artie Johann (Big Mouth) and Shawn Ries (Family Guy), telling the story of two business savvy stoners on hazy trek through Atlanta to find their missing weed, only to uncover a vast government conspiracy along the way. Sounds like some Harold and Kumar stuff.

No word on a director or if Method and Red will make an appearance. I have my doubts about that happening although the two rappers still occasionally perform ~~get blazed~~ together. The film is being produced by Universal in one of their multiplatform branches, meaning it’s likely to be straight-to-VOD and feature lesser known actors. Pardon me but I’m going to puff puff pass on this one. Production begins later this summer. [Deadline]

Mark Wahlberg And Peter Berg’s ‘Mile 22’ Already Has A Sequel In The Works

By

John Nolan

-

June 26, 2018

There’s apparently quite a lot of confidence in Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg’s action flick Mile 22, because STXFilms is already pushing ahead on a sequel. THR reports writer Umair Aleem, who wrote the Black List script Kate, has been hired to write the followup to Mile 22. Mile 23, I guess?

Every time I see the trailer for Mile 22 I get a little bit pumped. It has little to do with Wahlberg but his supporting cast that includes The Raid‘s Iko Uwais, WWE superstar and ex-UFC champ Ronda Rousey, The Walking Dead‘s Lauren Cohan, and John Malkovich. Wahlberg leads a covert team of elite CIA operatives who must transport and protect a high-value asset as the enemy closes in.

This was always planned as a multiplatform franchise, although nothing on a big screen sequel had been nailed down before now. Next up for the title is a VR project known as The Kiev Exchange, in which Wahlberg’s team attempt to negotiatea tense hostage exchange in a public square.

Miles 22 opens August 17th, having been pushed back from its original August 3rd release date.

‘Ant-Man’ Director Peyton Reed Still Wants To Scratch That ‘Fantastic Four’ Itch

By

John Nolan

-

June 25, 2018

Peyton Reed made a splash as a director way back in 2000 with the unforgettable cheerleading comedy, Bring It On. For a long stretch after that he was sortof a journeyman filmmaker, bouncing from comedy to comedy until he was Marvel’s unexpected choice to replace Edgar Wright on Ant-Man. Yeah, remember that? Seems like a lifetime ago. He’s now become one of their best success stories, but he almost ended up on a completely different Marvel film: the Fantastic Four.

Reed was attached to a Fantastic Four movie for 20th Century Fox that never came to be. It was so far back that it was actually the Tim Story films that eventually made their way to the screen. But Reed still has that itch to scratch, bringing the characters up in a conversation with CinemaBlend…

“Well, I have been known to mention ‘Fantastic Four’ in conversations that may or may not have happened in the Marvel hallways. It’s all a giant question mark at this point because no one knows if this merger is going to happen. It was on, it was off, it was on… who knows. I guess I can dream, right? I can have the dream. We’ll see. Time will tell!”

If the Fox/Disney deal goes through then Reed would have to be in the driver’s seat to help relaunch Fantastic Four. Anything to help us forget that Josh Trank disaster from a few years ago.

Reed will hope to impress with Ant-Man and the Wasp which opens July 6th.