Nobody has been jerked around by DC Films’ ineptitude worse than Joe Manganiello. Signed to star as awesome villain Deathstroke in Ben Affleck’s The Batman, the plan was scrapped when Matt Reeves came aboard. This despite leaked test footage that fans flipped out for. The character then appeared in the Justice League end credits, again to strong response from fans, and now who knows if that story thread will ever be followed on. We also learned he would play the character in a solo movie directed by The Raid‘s Gareth Evans, an absolute perfection match if there ever was one. And there hasn’t been any movement on that film since. In fact, in a recent Reddit Q&A Evans said he’s pretty busy until 2020, and doesn’t mention Deathstroke at all. I have a feeling that ship has sailed, but who knows?
So what gives? Another Reddit user claims to have spoken with Manganiello awhile at a Comic-Con event in Melbourne. Manganiello reportedly “confirmed” Deathstroke will be in Suicide Squad 2 and will be their primary target. If Justice League setup the formation of Lex Luthor’s Injustice League, then it might make sense to have Task Force X gunning for Deathstroke.
Still, I would take caution putting too much trust in this rumor. Gavin O’Connor is writing and directing Suicide Squad 2 which we know is undergoing rewrites with the recent addition of Gotham’s Todd Stashwick.
Bart Layton’s American Animals is in theaters now, and you know it’s one of my favorite movies of the year. The film stars Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan (who I spoke with here), Ann Dowd, and more, chronicling one of the most unusual thefts in history. So yeah, I love it, but I don’t dig the marketing campaign which has been too clever by half. Maybe it was fear, but the most intriguing aspect of the film, its documentary aspects that blend fact and fiction, have been kept hidden. The result is making the film look fairly generic when that’s absolutely not the case.
Fortunately, somebody finally figured out the mistake and have rectified that by releasing the first four minutes of American Animals. They show just a tiny bit of the moments before the actual heist, in which a group of college kids attempted to steal rare books, including John James Audobon’s Birds of America, from the local library. I also gives a look at how Layton melds the documentary elements into the narrative, which results in one of the most unique heist movie in years.
He may have started out as the Old Spice Guy from those cheesy commercials, but Isaiah Mustafa has carved out a pretty decent career for himself. He had a role in Horrible Bosses, and recently wrapped on the final season of Shadowhunters in which he was a regular star. But his biggest role has just landed, as he’ll play Mike Hanlon in sequel It: Chapter 2.
Mustafa’s casting puts the final touches on the grown-up Losers Club. Jessica Chastain was previously cast as Bev, with James McAvoy as Bill, Jay Ryan as Ben, Bill Hader as Richie, James Ransone as Eddie, and Andy Bean as Stan. Bill Skarsgard is returning as their nemesis, Pennywise the Clown, whose return three decades later calls the group back to their home in Derry.
“My idea of Mike in the second movie is quite darker from the book. I want to make his character the one pivotal character who brings them all together, but staying in Derry took a toll with him. I want him to be a junkie actually. A librarian junkie. When the second movie starts, he’s a wreck…“He’s not just the collector of knowledge of what Pennywise has been doing in Derry. He will bear the role of trying to figure out how to defeat him. The only way he can do that is to take drugs and alter his mind.”
This week belongs to the villains as Cinema Royale takes a look at two movies centerd on criminals. The first is the anticipated all-female Ocean’s 8 with Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, and a costume budget bigger than any Avengers movie! Then, Jodie Foster and Dave Bautista lead another all-star cast in Drew Pearce’s Hotel Artemis, where the bad guys come to get all patched up. Punch Drunk Critics’ own Julian Lytle joins me to dive in into the cinematic underbelly!
Plus, news on Val Kilmer’s return for Top Gun: Maverick, the Star Wars “fan” backlash to Kelly Marie Tran, the Jared Leto Joker movie, Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass and Kingsman plans, Power Rangers, and more!
1. Ocean’s 8 (review)- $41.5M
Gary Ross’s star-studded Ocean’s 8 with Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna and Awkafina opened with $41.5M. That’s a real mint for the rebooted franchise, a semi-sequel to the Steven Soderbergh movies of before. Comparisons will obviously be made to 2016’s female-led Ghostbusters, which opened a bit bigger with $46M, but the difference is that movie cost $140M+ while this one was roughly half that. If Ocean’s 8 hits the same $229M haul as that it will be a hit wile that one arguably failed. I think they were smart to market this as a continuation of the franchise rather than “Hey look, we’re making the same movie but with ladies!”, because sadly there are a lot of people who won’t show up to see anything they perceive as being gender-flipped. Instead they are pushing the stellar cast, the celebrity cameos, the glamour, all of the things that made the previous movies such a success.
2. Solo: A Star Wars Story– $15.1M/$176.1M
Well on its way to being the lowest grossing Star Wars movie ever, Solo: A Star Wars Story earned $15M and only has $176M domestic, for a total of $312M worldwide.
3. Deadpool 2– $13.6M/$278.6M
4. Hereditary (review)- $13M
Similar to The Witch‘s breakout a couple of years ago, A24’s acclaimed horror Hereditary has opened strong with $13M. That’s a record breaker for the indie distributor, who picked up the film out of Sundance just as they did The Witch. Clearly they’ve got an eye for genre that has the potential for greater appeal, and if this keeps up they’re looking at one of their biggest stateside hits alongside Moonlight and Lady Bird. Buzz has been building about Hereditary since it debuted in Park City, with a lot of that going to the performance by Toni Collette, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some more spots focusing on her as a possible awards contender.
5. Avengers: Infinity War– $6.8M/$654.7M
6. Adrift– $5M/$21.7M
7. Book Club– $4.2M/$56.8M
While that number isn’t huge, it’s worth noting this mature-skewing comedy only cost $10M. Book Club will definitely go down as a success.
8. Hotel Artemis (review)- $3.1M
The most disapppointing news of the weekend is the $3.1M debut of Drew Pearce’s fun, clever movie about criminals, Hotel Artemis. The star-studded cast is led by Jodie Foster, along with Dave Bautista, Jeff Goldlub, Sofia Boutella, Charlie Day, and Sterling K. Brown, who play patients in a hospital for villains. I think this one was hurt by a few things. One, it didn’t have a strong marketing presence, and I think Global Road dropped the ball in that regard. They may have been spooked by Ocean’s 8, a rival movie also about criminals but is clearly designed to look like more of an entertaining romp. Audiences clearly chose the movie that looked like a diversion while Hotel Artemis seemed heavier than it is. While the reviews have been positive I think the numerous assertions that it’s basically a ripoff of John Wick‘s The Continental have hurt perceptions of it. Hopefully people will give this a chance to see that it stands on its own quite well. I’ll be sorely disappointed if we don’t get to hang out in this world Drew Pearce has created a little while longer.
9. Upgrade– $2.2M/$9.2M
10. Life of the Party– $2.1M/$50.2M
Shane Black has had an interesting path to directing The Predator. He famously talked his way into the cast of the original 1987 movie and expanded on that with some uncredited script work. That helped launch a career that has made him a fan favorite filmmaker for a lot of years, and now three decades later he’s put his official stamp on the franchise in a movie that looks pretty great in my opinion.
What we know of the story finds the alien badasses back on Earth and spoiling for a fight, only now they’ve genetically enhanced their DNA to become more lethal. We get a look at that in what appears to be a souped-up mega-Predator facing off with another one.. The cast includes Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, Keegan-Michael Key, Trevonte Rhodes, Alfie Allen, Thomas Jane, Yvonne Strahovski, and Jacob Tremblay, who is the one responsible for the predators’ arrival.
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.
With First Man, Damien Chazelle finds himself in a new place in his career. While his first two features, Whiplash and La La Land, were Best Picture nominees there was a certain “prove it” attitude that surrounded them. No Chazelle has done that, and this film has been seen as a likely awards contender since the day it was announced. Now the goal is living up to the expectations, and we’re getting the first trailer on the way to seeing if Chazelle can do it.
Reuniting with Ryan Gosling, Chazelle sets out to direct the story of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. Josh Singer (Spotlight) wrote the script, making this the first time Chazelle isn’t directing his own screenplay. Others in the cast include Claire Foy, Corey Stoll, Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke, Shea Whigham, Patrick Fugit, and Jon Bernthal. Here’s the synopsis:
On the heels of their six-time Academy Award-winning smash, La La Land, Oscar-winning director Damien Chazelle and star Ryan Gosling reteam for Universal Pictures’ First Man, the riveting story of NASA’s mission to land a man on the moon, focusing on Neil Armstrong and the years 1961-1969. A visceral, first-person account, based on the book by James R. Hansen, the movie will explore the sacrifices and the cost—on Armstrong and on the nation—of one of the most dangerous missions in history.
A few months ago I had the pleasure of attending the world premiere of Bart Layton’s American Animals while at Sundance. Going in there wasn’t a lot that I could remember about what it was supposed to be, other than it was a heist movie led by Evan Peters, best known for playing Quicksilver in the X-Men movies, and Barry Keoghan who had been great in both Dunkirk and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Little did I know that this was not going to be the typical heist movie, but something altogether different.
Based on one of the most outlandish robberies in history, the story follows four Kentucky college students of different backgrounds as they attempt to steal priceless books from the school library. One of these books would be John James Audobon’s Birds of America, which is valued in the millions. The crime was sloppy but brazen, just like the culprits pulling it off. While it would have been an entertaining story on its own, Layton flipped things by combining familiar heist movie elements with his documentary background, making for one of the most unique films of the year.
And the centerpiece of the whole thing was Keoghan, as the group’s level-headed (relatively) ringleader. He’s an actor I’ve been impressed by for a couple of years, and was thrilled to spend a few minutes talking with him about American Animals, playing an actual person and if it affected his performance, and his thoughts on the career he’s had so far.
You can check out the interview below, and my review of American Animals here.
When it was first announced that Marvel was going to bring one of their lesser-known properties Cloak and Dagger to the small screen, I had a little hesitance. As stated, they aren’t popular like the X-Men, The Avengers, or Spider-man, so would they be able to gain a strong audience? However, this is the same company that made Guardians of the Galaxy and Iron Man household names, so it’s possible for them to be a hit. Also, instead of having the show on Netflix of ABC, the show would premiere on Freeform (formerly known as ABC Family), so thoughts of a show being Disney-fied for a family-friendly audience also raised concerns.
Then there’s the actual characters of Cloak and Dagger. Tyrone (Cloak), is a street-wise young black man, whose first encounter with Tandy (Dagger) is when he tried to rob her, a rich white teen in the comics, doesn’t bode well for our current political and racial climate. Cloak and Dagger also gain their powers via taking experimental drugs, which as a side effect, gave them superpowers. As the two super-powered teens fall in love, they run away together (we already have Marvel’s Runaways on Hulu), and end up spending most of their time on the street. Their main enemy was not super-villains (although that changed over the years), but instead drugs themselves. The comic book was created during the 1980s at the height of the “War on Drugs” and the “Just Say No Campaign,” so once again, this was going to be a tough adaptation.
However, they nailed it!
The first episode begins with introducing you to our titular characters when they are young. Young Tandy is taking ballet lessons while Tyrone while looking up to his big brother, steals a car radio for him after he hears his brother talking with friends and getting skittish about breaking the law. This already shows you that these two have led very different lives. One, a young white girl of privilege, the other, a young black kid who has to be street smart to survive. However, one night, the two will become connected forever.
Tandy’s father picks her up from ballet practice late as he’s a workaholic for the Roxxon Energy Corporation (great Marvel Easter Egg that that been in the MCU before on the large and small screen), so while he is driving her, he is also trying to put out a corporate fire concerning a rig that might explode. Tyrone gives his brother the stereo, who then wants to return it ASAP, only the two then are approached by a police officer, and they flee on foot. Tyrone and his brother make it to the dock near the rig while Tandy and her father drive near the same dock. Tyron’s brother is shot by the police in an all too real moment type of scenario we see on the news nowadays and falls into the water with Tyrone jumping it to try and save his brother while Tandy’s father’s frantic driving has caused their car to crash into the river as well. With their family members dead, the two are now in the water about to drown when there is a large burst of energy from the rig that envelops the two of them. Tandy sees immense darkness and Tyrone sees an immense brightness. Tyrone reaches out for her and pulls her out of the car. The two wake up on the beach where Tandy takes Tyrone’s hoodie and he takes her ballet slipper.
Years later, they are now in their late teens. However, their lives have gone in a different direction. Tyrone is a student at a Catholic school who seems to be doing well grade-wise and is the start of the basketball team. Tandy however, is seemingly a dropout, who uses her feminine wiles to hustle rich kids out of their money. While things might be better on the outside for Tyrone, he still has a lot of pent-up anger to deal with, as he gets into a fight at his basketball game. The deaths of the family members have affected them in different ways. While Tyrone’s family has found a way to pull themselves together (thanks to his mom), Tandy is estranged from her mother and spends nights in an abandoned church and doing drugs. Their roles are reversed from the comics. Instead of Tandy being the rich teen of privilege, it’s Tyrone who has his head on straight, while Tandy is the “hoodlum.”
Side note: Freeform apparently isn’t a family-friendly network as I probably thought. In the first two episodes alone, we have: doing drugs, car sex, stabbing, shooting, and people getting jumped. This, like Runaways, shows that teen angst can be just as serious and gripping as any TV-MA adult drama you could see on the premium channels.
While Tandy and her boyfriend thought they could get a good score by hustling a rich kid at the club, they didn’t score much and Tandy needs to do some more hustling. She hears about a party in the woods. Tyrone also gets invited to the party by one of his classmates (who absolutely likes him). He arrives at the party and runs into Tandy where she “accidentally” spills her drink on him. While she and he engage in brief flirting, it was all a con as Tandy has jacked him for his wallet. Tyrone then gives chase through a graveyard and just as he’s about to grab her, both of their powers (her powers of light and his powers of dark) activate throwing each of them in opposite directions. She realizes that he is the same guy who rescued her out of the water when they were kids. Scared, she quickly runs off.
Later, Tyrone goes home to bed and wraps a blanket around himself. However when he wakes up, he’s not in his bed, but on the roof of the Roxxon Energy Corporation, so he has the ability to teleport. As Tyrone is walking home wearing nothing but his boxers and a blanket, he has the chance to reflect on when his brother was shot. A flashback shows that the police covered the whole thing but and blamed his brother’s death on him supposedly doing drugs. They denied that there was a cop with a scar on his face (as Tyrone reported). They even say that no cop shot their gun at all. Right on cue, Tyrone runs into the cop with the scar on his face all these years later. When he gets home, his mother already knows that he wasn’t at school, leading them to have a heart to heart. He tells his mother that she needs to lighten up as she thinks she’s going to lose him if he slips up a little. She then says what almost all black moms fear, even if he does everything the right way, she could still lose him. Tyron teleports while sleeping again, this time he wakes up in the trunk of the corrupt cop who killed his brother’s car. This makes it the perfect chance for him to enact some revenge.
Even though Tandy robbed the rich guy out of ballet tickets and her boyfriend told her not to use them as they were now hot, she goes to the ballet anyway. The Rich guy counted on that and had a group of his friends gang up on her where the rich guy then tries to sexually assault her. That’s when one of her powers activates, and she stabs him with a “dagger” of some sort of light energy. Tandy runs to her boyfriend afterward as now she could be a possible murderer. They go to a local dry cleaner, which is a front for fake IDs in the hopes that she will get out of town so that that rich guy doesn’t identify her. However, it’s going to cost her money that she doesn’t have. She’ll need to hustle some more, and hustle quickly!
Tandy and her boyfriend borrow a dress and a tuxedo from the dry cleaners and end up crashing a wedding. As expected, a lot of money exchanges hands as gifts during a wedding, and if you are able to obtain the gifts, you can really make off with a bunch of money. Tandy is slow dancing with her boyfriend and when she touches him, she sees a flash showing what he and her boyfriend could look like in a hopeful future. In addition to making daggers, she can see the brightness, the hopes of people. This actually scares her as a result. She’s too used to disappointment in her life since her father died. While they manage to con the wedding party, even after Tandy befriends the bride. They even escape with the “Just Married” car. However, Tandy decides that she and her boyfriend should go their own way, due to her fear of that happiness, and she leaves him.
Tyrone ends up missing his team’s practice, which causes his team to be punished by the coach for his tardiness. This doesn’t bode well for Tyrone because later on, his team decides to give him a beating. This happens after he has to avoid gunfire after confronting the cop who killed his brother. He even tried to use his teleporting ability during the beat down, which doesn’t work and he takes a lumping. Locked in a cage in the locker room, Tyrone is angry and after breaking out of the cage, he wants to take his anger out on the cop. He calms down a bit and comes home where he asks his mother how she keeps things together in her own anger. She tells him about how she needed to focus her energy after his brother’s death. Tyrone hugs his mom, and another one of his powers gets activated. Unlike Tandy, who sees hope, Tyrone sees dread. In this case, he sees his mother’s dread, her fear of losing her sons as she already lost one.
Tyrone then busts into the cops house and points a gun at him. Just as he’s about to pull the trigger, he teleports away in his rage. Meanwhile, a detective has been following Tandy and her boyfriend’s capers and manages to arrest her boyfriend. He leaves a voicemail pleading for her help, which she ignores. However, Tyrone then teleports onto the highway (thinking he’s at the cops house) and pulls the trigger, shooting at her car, forcing her to crash.
Next week, Tyrone and Tandy explore their new powers (and new connection). This being New Orleans, they are gonna dabble in some voodoo.
The Debt Collector
follows French (Scott Adkins), a Martial Arts expert who is in a financial
bind. French owns a gym in Los Angeles, but is having trouble making ends meet,
so he decides to take on some extra work to boost his income. French convinces
his friend Alex (Michael Paré) to put him in touch with a local mobster Tommy
(Vladimir Kulich). Tommy agrees to add French to his payroll as one of his debt
collectors. Tommy has a lot of people all over town who owe him money, and what
better way to get them to pay than have a trained martial artist stopping by
and sending a message from Tommy. Tommy pairs French up with Sue (Louis
Mandylor) a debt collector who has been on the job for quite some time. Sue has
seen it all and has a very negative view of the world to go along with a
healthy drinking habit, things he claims will both be in French’s immediate
future.
The Debt Collector
is essentially a mix between a buddy cop (or robber) comedy and Training Day. Sue shows French the
ropes, teaching him little rules that can help him survive in the cruel and
seedy world of the mob. French struggles with the fact that he is inherently a
good person, no matter how much negativity Sue tries to project on him. The Debt Collector is full of action as
French and Sue go from stop to stop collecting Tommy’s money. Every person they
visit seems to have a large bodyguard or two itching to get into a brawl. Luckily
Sue is a retired boxer and French is a former soldier who is now a martial arts
expert, making them a formidable team.
The film is a hard R with cursing, nudity, blood, and
violence throughout. The highlights of the movie, other than the fighting
scenes, come from the interactions between Sue and French. Adkins and Mandylor
have solid chemistry and writer/director Jesse V. Johnson has created great
dialogue between the two characters. The
Debt Collector does not have a lot of substance and there is virtually no
character development – we are just thrown into action from the jump – but the
film is full of mindless action. If you are looking for a movie you can sit
back, turn your brain off, and just enjoy the ride, then The Debt Collector is for you.
