If you were up into the wee hours of the morning like I was then you were undoubtedly glued to the spectacle of seeing two fat, narcissistic dictators have the handshake heard round the world. Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s meeting was definitely historic, no matter how you feel about either guy, and true to our current White House occupant’s history in showbiz he turned the event into a spectacle. We just didn’t know how far it went.
Trump, who has turned the Presidency into a daily episode of daytime TV, created a blockbuster movie trailer hyping up the meeting. Yeah, that’s right, it’s a real thing and made to look like it’ll be hitting theaters near you soon. How does it play? Exactly how you think, like the trailer for a Roland Emmerich disaster movie or a sequel to Michael Bay’s Armageddon. All it needs is a meteor strike to bring the whole thing together. Then again, some would say (Fuck it, I would say it) a summit between these two tyrants is enough of a planetary disaster.
So check it out, and remember this isn’t some gag from Stephen Colbert or anything. It’s where your tax dollars are going.
HBO may be wrapping up Game of Thrones next year, but they aren’t letting the world of Westeros just vanish. Too much money in it to let that happen. Last week they greenlit the first of multiple planned prequel shows, this one from author George RR Martin and Kick-Ass screenwriter Jane Goldman. As you might expect with projects of this size there have been a ton of rumors about what to expect, so Martin took to his blog to help clear the air…
“Yes, this is a prequel, not a sequel. None of the characters or actors from GAME OF THRONES will appear in the new show. All of the successor shows we’ve been developing have been prequels, as I have mentioned before. This one really puts the PRE in prequel, since it is set not ninety years before GAME OF THRONES (like Dunk & Egg), or a few hundred years, but rather ten thousand years (well, assuming the oral histories of the First Men are accurate, but there are maesters at the Citadel who insist it has only been half that long). We’re very early in the process, of course, with the pilot order just in, so we don’t have a director yet, or a cast, or a location, or even a title. (My vote would be THE LONG NIGHT, which says it all, but I’d be surprised if that’s where we end up. More likely HBO will want to work the phrase “game of thrones” in there somewhere. We’ll know sooner or later).”
Yes, I do think HBO will want Game of Thrones in the title, George. They’re already conceding a lot by excluding the familiar characters audiences love.
As for the other prequels, they were being developed by Max Borenstein, Brian Helgeland, Cary Wray, and Bryan Cogman. But Martin says one of those is now on the shelf…
“As for the other successor shows…if you have been following along, you know that we started with four, and eventually went to five. One of those has been shelved, I am given to understand, and of course Jane’s pilot is now moving to film. But that does not mean the others are dead. Three more GAME OF THRONES prequels, set in different periods and featuring different characters and storylines, remain in active development. Everything I am told indicates that we could film at least one more pilot, and maybe more than one, in the years to come. We do have an entire world and tens of thousands of years of history to play with, after all. But this is television, so nothing is certain.”
It’s unclear which series was dropped, and with so many in development I wouldn’t be surprised if others failed to make the cut and were replaced by different ones. It’s not as if HBO has any need to hurry on these, and they will probably hold off on any firm announcements until Game of Thrones is drawing to a close.
“Black women have always had superpowers, turning pain into progress”, says Harlem crime boss Mariah (Alfre Woodard) in the new trailer for Netflix’s second season of Luke Cage. Of course, she’s a villain so it becomes all about her, finishing with “Harlem doesn’t need a hero. It needs a queen.” She says, with the crown on Biggie Smalls’s head positioned atop hers just like we saw on Cottonmouth in the previous season. Can’t be a coincidence.
That said, Mariah actually does need some superhero help from Luke Cage (Mike Colter) when Bushmaster (Mustafa Shakir) starts taking over her territory and a gang war breaks out. However she might be asking too much since Bushmaster is just as strong and just as indestructible as Cage has proven to be. It’s a smokin’ hot two minutes of footage, set to the scorching sounds of The Fugees’ “Ready or Not”, that may be the most impressive look at the new season yet.
Also, check out a new featurette on Misty Knight (Simon Missick) that doubles as a news story on her new bionic arm, provided by those fine folks at the Rand Corporation.
One Last Thing follows the story of a lonely dentist named Dylan Derringer, played by Wendell Pierce, as he embarks on a journey to reconnect with his long-lost daughter, Lucy, played by Jurnee Smollett-Bell.
This is a rather small and quiet film. There weren’t any huge blow ups, fantastical elements, or unnecessary sub-plots to detract from the main story; this was a very simple, grounded, and straightforward film and that was definitely refreshing, to say the least.
I think that too many times filmmakers/writers feel the need to do too much when it comes to their stories, it’s almost like they don’t believe in their main story enough, so they decide to add in all of these unnecessary elements thinking that it will save their film when all it does is just bring it down. I appreciate the fact that this film feels comfortable enough within itself to the point where there isn’t that need to do more than what’s necessary.
That being said, I do wish that there was a bit more to this film. Not more in terms of drama or excitement or anything like that, but the movie does come off a bit repetitive after a while. I understand that Dylan is lonely and that before embarking on this journey there wasn’t much to his life outside of dentistry and golf, but I do think that had we seen more examples of just how lonely he was, we would be able to sympathize with him even more.
While I understand that they’re taking the time to learn more about each other, the movie creates this pattern of being at the office, playing golf, and then going out on these Father-Daughter dates, When he finally does meet Lucy it does leave you wanting a bit more. I think that at the very least had we gotten a bit more introspection from both characters that it would’ve helped immensely with that small problem.
Overall, this was a pretty good film with a good story and good acting. Besides the gripes that I mentioned, I really couldn’t ask for too much more in a film.
I struggled with whether or not to even post this story but a conversation with a pal convinced me to go ahead and do it, so here goes. Buried in Deadline‘s story about Geoff Johns’ exit from DC Entertainment was the claim, almost as an aside, that Matt Reeves’ The Batman is being rebooted and will star anybody other than Ben Affleck as the Caped Crusader.
So how is this any different from what we’ve been hearing for months?
Far too many sites ran with the story and have posted headlines to it as fact, apparently without ever reading the source report. Because if they did they would see how Deadline is basically reciting the same rumors that have been circulating long before now. Granted, there has been some will he/won’t he drama surrounding Affleck but the prevailing idea is that he’s out. Nothing has changed that.
Plus, if Deadline really had a story of that magnitude don’t you think it would warrant its own separate report, rather than crammed into a much larger piece? Come on. Trust me, when Warner Bros. makes a decision on Affleck’s Batman future it will be unmistakable. They won’t be able to stop themselves from making a show of it, so expect to learn something concrete maybe at Comic-Con. It definitely won’t be an afterthought.
As someone with an irrational fear of bugs, Arachnophobia is a film I’ve struggled to watch all the way through since it opened in 1990. The Frank Marshall-directed bug comedy starred Jeff Daniels and John Goodman as two of the people affected when a rare species of South American killer spider crosses into the U.S. and breeds.
Deadline reports that a remake is in the works, and it will be produced by Amblin and horror maestro James Wan through his Atomic Monster banner. Wan won’t be directing, no matter how perfect he might be for the material. Instead others will be found to act as writer and director. Nothing on whether Wan will reach out to some of the original cast to make cameos. Goodman’s exterminator suit was pretty hot at the time and I remember a lot of people dressing up like him for Halloween.
Wan has recently put the finishing touches on his Aquaman movie, and will produce The Conjuring spinoff The Nun, just one of many franchise spinoffs he’s behind.
If there’s anything that has defined Lenny Abrahamson’s career up to this point, it’s his versatility and unpredictability. The Oscar-nominated Room director preceded that film with the offbeat musical comedy, Frank, and the two couldn’t be more different. Now he’s taking another sharp left turn with The Little Stranger, a gothic horror led by Frank star Domhnall Gleeson.
Penned by Lucinda Coxon (The Danish Girl) and based on Sarah Waters’ novel, the film is set in 1948 when a country doctor treats a patient at the home where his housemaid mother used to work. There he encounters the strange family living there now, and ominous things start to occur. It looks to be a creepy little ghost story of a psychological nature, and the cast surrounding Gleeson is really strong. Will Poulter, Charlotte Rampling, and Ruth Wilson are just another reason to be intrigued by what Abrahamson has in store.
Here’s the synopsis: Dr. Faraday, the son of a housemaid, has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. During the long hot summer of 1947, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall, where his mother once worked. The Hall has been home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries and is now in decline. But Mrs. Ayres, and her two grown children, Caroline and Roddy are haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life. When he takes on his new patient, Faraday has no idea how closely, and how terrifyingly, the family’s story is about to become entwined with his own.
Amazon Studios is in a mad dash to keep up with Netflix, and to do it they are embarking on their biggest project yet, a series based on JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. With a cost of roughly $1B, of course Amazon chief Jennifer Salke is looking for the best way to maximize on the investment. Rumors over the last few weeks have Peter Jackson either involved, not involved, possibly involved…whatever. Salke, in an interview with Deadline, attempts to clarify where things stand with Jackson right now, but things still seem pretty murky…
“The Peter Jackson conversations, right now we’re right in the middle of them. It’s like, how much do you want to be involved, how little? I know there’s been some discussion, and he’s even said some things, but as far as I’m aware, the latest is that we’re just in a conversation with him about how much or how little he would be involved.”
What is clear is that Jackson won’t have direct creative involvement, so don’t look for him as a director, producer, or writer on the series. Some of the New Zealand locations Jackson used during the six Tolkien movies he directed will be used for Amazon’s production, though. Maybe that’s where his involvement will be.
While nothing has been set in stone, rumors suggested the series would follow a young Aragorn, but according to Salke that may not be true. She insists to Variety it won’t be a remake of the stories we’ve already seen, but it also won’t be completely new because familiar characters will be included…
“It’s not a remaking of the movies, and it’s not a whole new thing,” Salke said. “It’s something in between. It’s not, ‘Oh, it’s “Lord of the Rings” but you don’t recognize anything in it,’ but it’s not totally familiar to you either. So it’s original.”
Lord of the Rings won’t be seen until 2019 at the earliest and honestly, the way it sounds right now I wouldn’t be surprised if it were 2020. Nobody seems to have any idea what is happening or who is going to be part of putting this massive project together.
Hollywood has fallen back in love with movies about journalism, and of the biggest stories to affect the business was Hulk Hogan’s case against Gawker that left the Internet news site bankrupt. Already there’s been an acclaimed documentary on the subject, and now there are two rival features racing to see which one will open first. The latest we now know will be directed by Red Sparrow‘s Francis Lawrence.
THR reports Lawrence will direct a film based on the Hogan-Gawker case, adapted from Ryan Holiday’s book Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue. The Big Short writer Charles Randolph will write the script. If you don’t know the details, it goes like this: Paypal founder Peter Thiel was outed as a gay man by one of Gawker’s sites. He spent years looking for a way to exact revenge, and he found it when a sex tape of WWE legend Hulk Hogan was released by Gawker. Thiel quietly backed Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker seeking millions of dollars in damages. Gawker was hit with a $140M judgment that wiped them out and left their CEO Nick Denton unemployed.
Last year saw the release of documentary Nobody Speak: Hulk Hogan, Gawker and Trials of a Free Press, which you can now find on Netflix. It’s worth watching if you haven’t already. Last March we learned Modern Family‘s Jason Winer was looking to direct a courtroom drama based on the trial, and now it has some competition. I doubt both will see the light of day, or at the very least one will have a significant advantage over the other, which might be better off as a TV series at that point.
If Ben Affleck and director Gavin O’Connor are becoming a package deal then that’s good for everybody. The duo scored an unexpected hit with The Accountant, and now they’re looking to team together again for The Has-Been. The film has a script by Brad Inglesby, best known for writing the disappointing Out of the Furnace.
To be honest, The Has-Been sounds pretty cheesy. It follows a former basketball star whose addiction costs him everything, including his family. He attempts to start over by agreeing to coach an ethnically-mixed basketball team at his high school alma mater. It’s like Dangerous Minds meets Hardball or something. Affleck would star in the film and produce, with O’Connor behind the camera.
We’ll see where this goes, but in general I like the combination of Affleck and O’Connor. I’m still holding out hope Affleck suits up as Batman for O’Connor’s Suicide Squad2, but that’s looking less likely by the day. They also have a sequel to The Accountant down the line, while Affleck has JC Chandor’s Triple Frontier coming up. [Deadline]
