Gerard Butler as 'Big Nick' O'Brien in DEN OF THIEVES 2: PANTERA. Photo Credit: Rico Torres for Lionsgate
Does Den of Thieves 2: Pantera REALLY need another trailer barely a month since the last one? Probably not. I feel like you already know if Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. pulling heists in a Fast & Furious-lite kinda way is your jam. Well, if it is then enjoy this new look provided by Lionsgate, who must feel they have a new hit franchise on their hands.
To be fair, the first film was a modest success. Speaking anecdotally, my friends all loved Den of Thieves and are hyped for this one, too. Writer/director Christian Gudegast is back, and this time he’s shaken things up by having Butler’s cop character “Big Nick” O’Brien break bad and join Jackson’s Donnie Wilson as he plots a new heist in Europe.
Jordan Bridges, Swen Temmel, and Evin Ahmad co-star.
Synopsis: Gerard Butler (Plane, Has Fallen series) and O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Out of Compton, Godzilla: King of the Monsters) return in the sequel to 2018’s action-heist hit Den of Thieves. In DEN OF THIEVES: PANTERA, Big Nick (Butler) is back on the hunt in Europe and closing in on Donnie (Jackson), who is embroiled in the treacherous and unpredictable world of diamond thieves and the infamous Panther mafia, as they plot a massive heist of the world’s largest diamond exchange.
Den of Thieves 2: Pantera hits theaters on January 10th 2025.
We’re all pretty much Julia Stiles superfans here at PDC (well, I know I am), and so we’re excited that her directorial debut Wish You Were Here is right around the corner. Lionsgate has debuted the first trailer for the film she also co-wrote with Renée Carlino, based on the latter’s bestselling novel.
Wish You Were Here sounds like a film that Stiles herself would’ve starred in some years ago. Instead, she’s cast Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan) and Mena Massoud (Aladdin) to lead her romantic dramedy about perfect strangers, a perfect night, and the life-threatening illness that threatens to tear it all apart.
Also in the cast are Jimmie Fails, Gabby Kono-Abdy, Jennifer Grey, and Kelsey Grammer. Grammer and Stiles previously starred together in 2021’s The God Committee. Stiles is also reuniting with Fuhrman who she worked with on Orphan: First Kill.
Stiles is no stranger to romantic films , and as starred in more than her share of them including Save the Last Dance, Down to You, and 10 Things I Hate About You.
Wish You Were Here opens in theaters on January 17th.
SYNOPSIS: Julia Stiles makes her directorial debut in a brilliantly warm and romantic film based on the bestselling novel, Wish You Were Here. Isabelle Fuhrman, Mena Massoud, Jennifer Grey and Kelsey Grammer star in a fascinating movie about leaving the everyday world behind to take a chance on true romance. When the perfect night with a perfect stranger ends suddenly the next morning, Charlotte searches for answers and meaning in her disappointing life until she uncovers a secret that changes everything.
The fate of the DCU rests in the hands of James Gunn. The long-awaited trailer for his Superman movie starring David Corenswet as the Man of Steel has finally arrived. This comes two years after Gunn was named new co-chief of DC Studios, launching a new cinematic universe to replace Zack Snyder’s failed DCEU. Officially, it’s already begun with Gunn’s Creature Commandos series on Max, but the real kickoff begins next summer with this anticipated live-action venture.
And the new trailer is decidedly full of hope, but also leaves a lot of questions. The footage is centered around a beaten and bloodied Superman buried in the snow. We see flashes of other moments, some good, some awful. We see Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult as a gun-wielding Lex Luthor, and also glimpses of Superman’s life growing up as Clark Kent in Smallville, Kansas. We also see the world turned against Superman, with one man hitting him in the back of the head with a thrown object. But we also see the world calling out for Superman’s help in times of need.
As rumored, Krypto the Superdog plays a big role and arrives to Superman’s aide when called upon. Man’s best friend to the rescue. We also see Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho, and so much more. It’s a lot packed into a little over 2-minutes.
The film also stars Wendell Pierce, Frank Grillo, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Skyler Gisondo, María Gabriela de Faría, Sara Sampaio, Terence Rosemore, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Neva Howell, Beck Bennett, Mikaela Hoover, Christopher McDonald, and Alan Tudyk.
Superman hits theaters on July 11th 2025. I’m optimistic, but cautiously so. We’ve grown accustomed to trusting Gunn’s instincts, and he’s rarely steered us wrong. Fingers crossed that he can get the DC Universe right where so many others have failed.
SYNOPSIS: “Superman,” DC Studios’ first feature film to hit the big screen, is set to soar into theaters worldwide this summer from Warner Bros. Pictures. In his signature style, James Gunn takes on the original superhero in the newly imagined DC universe with a singular blend of epic action, humor and heart, delivering a Superman who’s driven by compassion and an inherent belief in the goodness of humankind.
I really feel like I should be downing this teaser for, well, a number of reasons. First, it’s a trailer for a trailer which is a thing I want to call dumb but in reality I’m always jumping online to view. Second, as a person that thinks Henry Cavill‘s Supes was the pinnacle, I’m still a little salty for how that whole thing ended. I SHOULD be downing this…but I just can’t, I mean, it’s Superman! The OG comic-book movie hero and the bar by which all other hero’s are measured. Once you add in the fact that James Gunn is piloting the ship I can’t help but to have full faith that this movie will amaze. Once Gunn hit a home run with the Guardians of the freakin’ Galaxy I stopped believing there was anything that man couldn’t do.
While this is a teaser in the truest sense it’s enough to satiate you until tomorrow when the full trailer debuts online. It’s all pretty standard stuff for a Supermanmovie. Shots of the Daily Planet, a man clad in red, blue, and yellow soaring amongst the clouds, and a bunch of people starring skyward in amazement. The cherry on top, the choral rendition of John William’s score which gives you just enough to recognize it while becoming something new and ethereal.
My fingers and toes are crossed that Gunn continues his perfect batting average, DC has been in the B-league’s cinematically for too long. There are SO many amazing characters to dive into and, as Gunn himself said, the development of those films all hinge on the success of this one. Fitting for Superman, don’t you think?
While we have to wait to truly decide until July 25th, 2025, when the film is released, we should be able to get a decent feeling for how amazing this will be tomorrow, so check back here for the full trailer!
Guy Ritchie is known for his comedic gangster movies and action films, but of late he’s been branching out. Last year he released The Covenant, a harrowing military thriller based on an incredible true story. And while he’s stayed busy with multiple projects simmering, he’s also found time to embark on an Indiana Jones-style swashbuckling adventure, Fountain of Youth. EW has dropped the first images from the film featuring stars Natalie Portman, John Krasinski, Domhnall Glesson, Carmen Ejogo, Eiza González, Stanley Tucci, Arian Moayed, and Laz Alonso.
Releasing in 2025 on Apple TV+, Fountain of Youth stars Krasinski and Portman as estranged siblings on a global heist to find the legendary Fountain of Youth, using their knowledge of history to decipher the clues and possibly lead them to immortality.
The film has a script by James Vanderbilt, whose diverse screenwriting career includes the recent Scream films, The Amazing Spider-Man, Truth, and David Fincher’s Zodiac.
“I found myself feeling like if I wasn’t too careful, I was ending up in a comedy-action-gangster genre, of which, of course, I’m comfortable and enjoy, but at some point, I thought, you have to spread your wings as a writer-director,” Ritchie told the outlet.
“They both come from a background of archeological endeavors in terms of finding archeological artifacts, so there’s a history there,” Ritchie adds about Portman and Krasinski’s characters. “They are estranged, but they find an alibi as to why they need to unify to find this particular treasure.”
Okay, SEGA. You can be honest with us. You’re not making Sonic the Hedgehog movies, are you? These are undercover Dragonball Z movies that you’re peddling as the video game mascot, am I right? Other than a zippy blue blur, a few Chaos rings, and of course, the presence of said mascots and a particular egg-shaped villain, these movies have almost nothing to do with the platform games. Instead, we get universe-destroying powers wielded by spiky-haired creatures who turn gold when they power up. They punch their way through entire worlds, and carry loads of existential fury, but everybody is cool once the dust settles. I just keep waiting for a giant dragon to show up to grant everyone’s wishes.
This isn’t much of a complaint, mind you. The first two Sonic movies are incredibly charming and if you’re a fan of the character stretching back to the Sega Genesis days, also quite nostalgic. They benefit from being the best of a subgenre that has a terrible track record, sure, but the films are quite enjoyable in the way you might enjoy sitting down for Saturday morning cartoons. And they have built quite a franchise for Paramount Pictures, including a Knuckles spinoff that bridged right into Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which stubbornly sticks to the well-established formula.
In other words, the newly-established Team Sonic, led by the titular blue hedgehog (Ben Schwartz), Tails, (Colleen O’Shaughnessey), and the bruiser echidna Knuckles (Idris Elba) have a new foe to battle. Keanu Reeves voices Shadow, basically a dark twist on Sonic. Somehow the black-skinned hedgehog, who has been in suspended animation for fifty years by a shady government program, manages to be kinda cute and cuddly, too? That’s the magic of Keanu, I tell you. Shadow breaks free and he wants revenge on everyone for what he’s lost. Oh, and did I mention he’s like a million times stronger than Knuckles and faster than Sonic? This dark hedgehog kicks ass.
Bizarrely, the Sonic movies are the only thing that gets Jim Carrey out of bed anymore and he’s goddamn brilliant in them. He returns as the zany, presumed dead Dr. Robotnik, only now there’s also his long-lost grandfather Gerald, also played by Carrey. So we’re getting double the Carrey crazy for the price of one and it goes to some seriously weird telenovela dance break territory. Carrey is basically off on his own doing his own thing for much of the movie and I have to wonder if part of the agreement is that he doesn’t have to interact with any actual human beings. Some will say that Carrey is too talented to be doing stuff like this but I disagree. If these movies give him the freedom to cut loose comedically and have a good time, then they can have three Robotniks next time for all I care.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 takes a page from its namesake and blasts through its plot at record speed. Like a triple-shot of caffeine, it roars past any semblance of emotional stakes. James Marsden and Tika Sumpter return as Sonic’s adoptive parents Tom and Maddie, for what amount to extended cameos as the screen gets increasingly flooded with CGI anthropomorphic creatures. Krysten Ritter has a cup of coffee as a government agent and G.U.N. officer always one step behind. Of the human characters, it’s Lee Madjoub as Robotnik’s beleaguered assistant who has the best recurring storyarc. Gerald’s arrival only makes life more miserable for the loyal stooge who just wants Robotnik to be his friend. Awwww shucks.
When Sonic and Shadow battle, the entire planet is threatened with oblivion. They fly literally through space slugging it out, hurling around energy like Nerf footballs. It’s a ridiculous spectacle and looks nothing like Sonic the Hedgehog, but it’s also ridiculously cool to watch. True to form, this movie ends the way they all do with audiences teased by another popular character to get excited about in the sequel. Why fix what isn’t broken? Eventually these will run out of gas but Sonic the Hedgehog 3 still has a lot of pep in its step with no finish line in sight.
Since his breakthrough film Like Crazy in 2011, Drake Doremus has found it easy to gather great actors. It has never translated to big box office (Like Crazy‘s $3.7M is the peak), but actors just enjoy working with him. It’s been four years since Doremus’ last film, and now he’s with another terrific cast for Next Life.
Edgar Ramirez, Emilia Clarke, and Jack Farthing are aboard to star in Next Life, which Doremus will write, direct, and produce. The film “tells the love story of Ivy (Emilia Clarke), who finds herself confronted with parallel universes in which her life unspools in very different ways set against the modern London jazz scene.”
Doremus tells stories of love met by unconventional circumstances, whether it’s a long-distance relationship, a love triangle, finding love in the dating app scene, or love in an emotionless society. He last directed Endings, Beginnings in 2020.
Clarke was last seen in the indie sci-fi comedy The Pod Generation. Ramirez is earning high marks for his role in the critically acclaimed Emilia Perez. Farthing is known for his roles in the BBC series Poldark, and in the films Spencer and The Lost Daughter.
Filming is underway on Next Life so expect to see it in 2025.
Before the Russo Brothers return to Marvel Studios for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, we’ll get their long-awaited sci-fi film The Electric State. It feels like we’ve been waiting for this one forever, Netflix has dropped a new trailer for the dystopian sci-fi road trip film starring Stranger Things‘ Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt.
The Electric State follows the aftermath of a failed robot rebellion. It used to be that humans and robots, which resemble cartoon characters and mascots, lived together in harmony. But now the sentient androids live in exile.
Brown plays Michelle, a young woman who teams with her toy robot on a mission to find her missing brother. Pratt plays Keats, a veteran of the human-robot conflict.
Also in the cast are Ke Huy Quan, Stanley Tucci, Woody Norman, and Giancarlo Esposito. The robots are voiced by Jenny Slate, Brian Cox, Anthony Mackie, Billy Bob Thornton, Alan Tudyk, Jason Alexander, and Woody Harrelson as Mr. Peanut.
The film was adapted by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, writers of the Russos’ previous hit Avengers films. These guys are used to producing blockbuster hits together, and they hope to do it again now for Netflix.
Netflix will release The Electric State on March 14th 2025.
SYNOPSIS:
“The Electric State is a spectacular adventure from the directors of Avengers: Endgame set in an alternate, retro-futuristic version of the 1990s. Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things, Enola Holmes, Damsel) stars as Michelle, an orphaned teenager navigating life in a society where sentient robots resembling cartoons and mascots, who once served peacefully among humans, now live in exile following a failed uprising. Everything Michelle thinks she knows about the world is upended one night when she’s visited by Cosmo, a sweet, mysterious robot who appears to be controlled by Christopher — Michelle’s genius younger brother whom she thought was dead.
Determined to find the beloved sibling she thought she had lost, Michelle sets out across the American southwest with Cosmo and soon finds herself reluctantly joining forces with Keats (Chris Pratt, Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World), a low-rent smuggler, and his wisecracking robot sidekick, Herman (voiced by Anthony Mackie). As they venture into the Exclusion Zone, a walled-off corner in the desert where robots now exist on their own, Keats and Michelle find a strange, colorful group of new animatronic allies — and begin to learn that the forces behind Christopher’s disappearance are more sinister than they ever expected.”
A24 pride itself on offbeat films that catch the mood of the moment. They are cultural tastemakers, and while they don’t always get it right, more often than not they’re spot on. It doesn’t take a genius to see why they were interested in the weird dark comedy-horror Death of a Unicorn. First of all, the film stars the immensely popular duo of Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega. Second, it’s produced by Ari Aster whose fans are likely to trust anything he’s willing to put his name on.
Death of a Unicorn stars Rudd and Ortega as a father and daughter who accidentally hit and kill one of the titular mythical beasts on their way to a weekend retreat, where his billionaire boss decides he wants to exploit the dead creature’s magical curative properties. However, the unicorn has family, and they want revenge against these unscrupulous fat cats.
The film marks the debut from writer/director Alex Scharfman, a well-known Hollywood producer. Also in the cast are Richard E. Grant, Téa Leoni, Will Poulter, Anthony Carrigan, Sunita Mani, Jessica Hynes, and Steve Park.
A24 will release Death of a Unicorn in spring 2025. Don’t be surprised if it plays a festival or two before then. I’m surprised it’s not at Sundance.
SYNOPSIS: A father (Paul Rudd) and daughter (Jenna Ortega) accidentally hit and kill a unicorn while en route to a weekend retreat, where his billionaire boss (Richard E. Grant) seeks to exploit the creature’s miraculous curative properties.
Scrap is an oddly perfect film for this time of year. No, its not a Christmas movie, but it deals with rough family dynamics, secrets, and a reality that feels all too common this particular Christmas — layoffs and homelessness. Written, directed, and starring Vivian Kerr, based on her short film of the same name, the film is a compelling take on modern family economics.
Beth (Kerr) is a single mom living out of her car after a layoff financially devastates her. She is able to shield her daughter from her current living situation by dropping her off at her brother’s house. Though Ben (Anthony Rapp) and his wife Stacy (Lana Parrilla) enjoy having their niece in their home, Beth’s lack of communication and flakey behaviour irritates them as they struggle to conceive their own child. When another job interview falls through and with her daughter’s tuition payment being due, Beth moves back into her brother’s house – all the while trying to keep this news from him.
Kerr’s involvement in this project comes to her detriment. While it’s beautifully shot, some of the dialogue and her performance come off as cliché. Beth can be an aggravating character at times and when the dialogue is too on the nose, it can make the role all the more frustrating to watch. We spend a lot of time with Beth — and that seems to be where the pacing lags, making a 90-minute runtime feel longer.
It’s really nice to see Khleo Thomas on the silver screen again. You may recognize him as “Zero” from Holes or his social media presence. He gives a calm, natural performance as Marcus, Beth’s love interest. His delivery is never wooden and makes you wonder why we haven’t seen more of him.
But the two standouts of Scrap are Anthony Rapp and Lana Parrilla. Their chemistry and believability as a married couple are what grounds this film, even more than Beth’s relationship with her brother. Parrilla, who is known for playing strong-willed female characters with a diva side, is a bit softer here, navigating the frustrating communication between her husband and his sister with infertility. She’s more vulnerable than we’ve ever seen her onscreen before. Rapp is just as good, portraying an unfulfilled author with snarky bewilderment. While Kerr’s own performance and dialogue lack polish, she rightly chooses the right people to surround herself with, making the film better than it would be otherwise.
