If The Weeknd is being retired as a moniker, it’s going out with a bang. Just days after the release of his sixth studio album Hurry Up Tomorrow, Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye has released the first images from the psychological thriller tied to it, which he co-wrote, produced, and played the lead role.
In Hurry Up Tomorrow, Tesfaye plays a version of himself, a “musician plagued by insomnia is pulled into an odyssey with a stranger who begins to unravel the very core of his existence.”
Also in the cast are Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan.
The film is directed and co-written by Trey Edward Shults, the filmmaker behind acclaimed films Krisha, It Comes at Night, and Waves. Reza Fahim, Tesfaye’s collaborator on short-lived series The Idol, was a co-writer, as well.
Lionsgate describes the film as “the culmination of The Weeknd’s trilogy of studio albums, following the blockbuster hits Dawn FM (2022) and After Hours (2020). This third album represents the creative apex of the project, serving as the final chapter crafted with existential and self-referential themes and accompanied by visionary teasers that have set fans ablaze with anticipation for this concluding installment.”
We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to attend our free early screening of Love Hurts, starring winners Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose!
SYNOPSIS: This Valentine’s Day, Oscar® winner Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once, Loki) rockets into his first major leading man role as an unlikely hero, a seemingly mild-mannered realtor with a dark secret that he is desperate to leave behind. Spoiler alert: He won’t. From 87North—producers of the groundbreaking action films Nobody, Violent Night, Bullet Train, Atomic Blonde and The Fall Guy—comes a visceral, high-octane story of wrath and revenge. Quan stars as Marvin Gable, a realtor working the Milwaukee suburbs, where ‘For Sale’ signs bloom. Gable receives a crimson envelope from Rose (Oscar® winner Ariana DeBose; West Side Story, Argylle), a former partner-in-crime that he had left for dead. She’s not happy. Now, Marvin is thrust back into a world of ruthless hitmen, filled with double-crosses and open houses turned into deadly warzones. With his brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu; Tomb Raider, Warcraft), a volatile crime lord, hunting him, Marvin must confront the choices that haunt him and the history he never truly buried.
The screening takes place Wednesday, February 5th at 7:00pm at Regal Majestic. If you’d like to attend, RSVP at the Gofobo site here. Please remember all screenings are first come first served and you’ll need to arrive early to ensure seating. Enjoy the show!
We knew the first trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps had to be closing in, and with the Super Bowl right around the corner that seemed like a good time. However, Marvel has revealed a new teaser that confirms the trailer will actually arrive tomorrow morning! That means we’ll likely see TV spots for Thunderbolts* and Captain America: Brave New World during the big game.
The new Fantastic Four teaser is pretty cool, though, and captures the retro-future feel of the film. We see a bunch of kids running through 1960s New York City before stopping to stare at the TVs in a store window. On the screens we can see Marvel’s First Family in their space suits, the rocket ship that sends them to space (and leads to them getting powers), an image of the Baxter Building where they live, and possibly even the Fantasticar.
There’s also a caption reading “Prepare 4 Launch”, setting up tomorrow’s full trailer. Much of the footage shown on the TV was part of the Marvel presentation at Comic-Con last year, but we should expect a lot more tomorrow.
Pedro Pascal stars as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, with Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing.
Ralph Ineson voices Galactus with Julia Garner set to play his herald, the Silver Surfer. Paul Walter Hauser, John Malkovich, and Natasha Lyonne have alsobeen cast.
Directed by Matt Shakman, The Fantastic Four: First Steps opens on July 25th.
The Future Foundation invites you to take your first steps into a fantastic new era.
What would an Avengers movie look like without Captain America? The thought is almost too preposterous, and fortunately, we won’t have to see it happen because Anthony Mackie isn’t going anywhere. With Mackie set to star inCaptain America: Brave New World later this month, he’s now confirming to Esquire he’ll also sling the shield in Avengers: Doomsday, Avengers: Secret Wars, and other films for a long time to come.
“I give it a solid ten years,” Mackie said. “You have the two ‘Avengers’ movies, you have hopefully another ‘Captain America,’ and then random plug-and-plays: Oh, Spider-Man! Oh, Fantastic Four! What are you doing here? But you never know. I mean, I don’t want to be a sixty-year-old Captain America.”
The only one that doesn’t sound certain is another Captain America, which would be the fifth solo movie overall. They’ve never been the biggest MCU blockbusters and a future sequel will likely depend on how Brave New World performs.
There are still a lot of mysteries surrounding the upcoming Avengers films, including Robert Downey Jr.’s return as Doctor Doom. How is that going to work? And what about Chris Evans, who recently shot down reports he’d return as a version of Steve Rogers? Benedict Cumberbatch also revealed that Doctor Strange won’t be appearing in Doomsday at all.
Mackie could be the centerpiece of the MCU for a long time to come. Captain America: Brave New World opens on February 14th.
The half-man/half-dog toppled the sexbot as Dreamworks’ animated Dog Man opened with $36M. The film is a spinoff of 2017’s Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie which had a $23M debut. It’s also the second highest-grossing January opening ever for an animated movie behind Kung Fu Panda 3 in 2016. Author Dav Pilkey is building a multimedia empire here. Captain Underpants was also turned into a Netflix series, and we could see a similar expansion with Dog Man. Could a crossover movie be far behind?
The first quarter of the year is usually prime time for horror films, but Companion is struggling right out of the gate. The Drew Hancock-directed thriller starring Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher opened with just $9.5M despite strong reviews across the board. Perhaps all of the early secrecy about the plot was a factor? Latter trailers gave away the film’s twist but perhaps it was too late and audiences stayed away. On the plus side, the $10M budget assures the film should still perform well overall.
3. Mufasa: The Lion King– $6.1M/$229.5M
4. One of Them Days– $6M/$34.4M
5. Flight Risk– $5.6M/$20.9M
Ouch. Mel Gibson’s Mark Wahlberg-starring thriller Flight Risk took a massive nosedive, dropping from the top spot all the way to #5 with $5.6M. That’s a 51% drop in its second week, possibly driven by the poor word-of-mouth. Or it could be that with Americans grieving two airplane crashes in the span of a few days, audiences did not want to watch a movie set inside of a plane, and that would be understandable.
There is something almost unassuming about Sorry, Baby on the surface. From its opening scene, where one friend visits another during a snowy New England winter, it seems like a quiet friendship-driven comedy. But as Eva Victor’s nonlinear narrative unravels, you find yourself completely devastated by the simplicity and relatability of the story and how it is told.
Written and directed by the first-time filmmaker, Victor also stars as Agnes, a young woman who lives in a small, quiet house by herself near the university where she teaches. As mentioned before, she is visited by her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie, seen most recently in Blink Twice). Though the latter is the one who is pregnant, there is concern laced in her voice as she interacts with her best friend. After an uncomfortable, comedic standoff between Lydie and pick-me Natasha (Kelly McCormack) at dinner with their former grad cohort, it becomes clear that something bad happened to Anges.
As the narrative jumps around and we see both women go through their grad program, it is revealed that some sort of assault happened to Agnes at the hands of her advisor, Decker (Louis Cancelmi), a mild-mannered divorcee with a son. Early on, it is mostly handled with humor, like when Lydie asks if Agnes is okay. “Yes, I got a cat,” she replies sardonically. But it’s when Victor indirectly deals with the incident that Sorry, Baby reaches a whole other level.
Victor never shows us what happened. Instead, we see Agnes go into Decker’s home. The camera then opens into a wide shot of the whole house and lingers there for a moment while neighbors walk by. It then cuts to the sun going down, then again when it’s dark. Agnes eventually climbs down the front steps in a rush, clearly frazzled, while Decker kind of looms behind the glass door. The whole scene feels detached but because we are already on Agnes’ wavelength, it is clear what occurred.
Victor’s portrayal of life after that moment is very similar to how life is for many victims of the same crime. It isn’t always trauma-filled and squeezed for drama. Agnes is still affected by it, but there are moments of comedy, of joy, of anxiety. Character actor John Carroll Lynch appears as a stranger trying to calm her down from a panic attack. Lucas Hedges shows up as a fuck buddy Agnes reaches out to in moments of despair. We watch Agnes try to move on and do so successfully at times, and see her reminded of it at others.
Victor ends Sorry, Baby with Agnes talking to Lydie’s new baby. “I’m sorry that bad things are gonna happen to you,” she says. “I hope they don’t. If I can ever stop something from being bad, let me know. But sometimes bad stuff just happens.” To take a concept like that and turn it into an interesting, at times poignantly funny, brilliant debut proves Victor is a cinematic powerhouse in the making.
Sorry, Baby premiered at Sundance and competed in the U.S. competition category. Eva Victor won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. While A24 picked up the film, no release date has been announced.
Did you miss her? Last night during the Grammys, Universal and Blumhouse revealed the new teaser and poster for M3GAN 2.0, a sequel to 2022’s horror hit. Backed to the sound of Chappelle Roan’s “Femininomenon”, the killer doll is seen performing her trademark dance moves before winking at the camera and asking “Miss me?”.
Once again directed by Gerard Johnstone, with James Wan and Jason Blum as producers, the film sees Allison Williams return as M3GAN creator Gemma, with Violet McGraw back as her niece Cady. Amie Donald is also back as M3GAN with Jenan Davis as her voice.
Here’s the synopsis: Two years after M3GAN, a marvel of artificial intelligence, went rogue and embarked on a murderous (and impeccably choreographed) rampage and was subsequently destroyed, M3GAN’s creator Gemma (Allison Williams) has become a high-profile author and advocate for government oversight of A.I. Meanwhile, Gemma’s niece Cady (Violet McGraw), now 14, has become a teenager, rebelling against Gemma’s overprotective rules.
Unbeknownst to them, the underlying tech for M3GAN has been stolen and misused by a powerful defense contractor to create a military-grade weapon known as Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno; Ahsoka, Pacific Rim: Uprising), the ultimate killer infiltration spy. But as Amelia’s self-awareness increases, she becomes decidedly less interested in taking orders from humans. Or in keeping them around.
With the future of human existence on the line, Gemma realizes that the only option is to resurrect M3GAN (Amie Donald, voiced by Jenna Davis) and give her a few upgrades, making her faster, stronger, and more lethal. As their paths collide, the original A.I bitch is about to meet her match.
Also in the cast are Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jen Van Epps as Gemma’s loyal tech teammates, Cole and Tess, and new characters played by Aristotle Athari (Saturday Night Live, Hacks), Timm Sharp (Apples Never Fall, Percy Jackson and the Olympians) and Grammy winner and 11-time Emmy nominee Jemaine Clement (Avatar: The Way of Water, What We Do in the Shadows).
Is a woman in a relationship crazy or do they have craziness thrust upon them? That is the crux of the question at the center of Sophie Brooks’ sophomore feature, Oh, Hi! Starring Theater Camp and The Bear’s Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman (Perks of Being a Wallflower, Percy Jackson), the film follows a relatively new couple, Iris and Isaac, as they embark on their first trip together.
They are a cute couple. They make out in the lake, disturbing a slightly creepy David Cross. They buy way too many strawberries after running into a fruit stand. They talk of making jam and he makes her scallops on the first night. All signs indicate that this couple is getting serious, including their time in the bedroom, when Isaac introduces hand and leg cuffs to their lovemaking.
It isn’t until sexy-time is over on the first night that it is revealed that Iris is the only one who sees a future between them. As Isaac makes excuses, she leaves him cuffed until the next morning, when she proposes that he stay cuffed for the next 12 hours as she attempts to change his mind.
Iris isn’t anything new for Molly Gordon. Honestly, this part is a combination of her characters from Theater Camp and The Bear. Iris is quirky, needy, and devoted to everyone around her. Gordon doesn’t bring any new dimension to the part, but to be fair to her, Sophie Brooks’ script restricts her to playing the familiar.
While Gordon has played this unhinged character before, it’s nice to see Lerman break out of his comfort zone. He plays Isaac sweet but douchy, aware that he is leading his partner on but unwilling to take responsibility for it. This turn away from earnest heroes and endearing leading men is honestly one of the more interesting parts of Oh, Hi! As Lerman harmonizes to “Islands in the Stream”, you think he is playing a sweet rom-com lead, so when the other shoe drops, you are genuinely surprised. This is genius casting, akin to Promising Young Woman. If Oh, Hi! is any indication that a darker, comedic character lurks somewhere within him.
The two comic standouts are Geraldine Viswanathan and John Reynolds. If you follow Viswanathan and Reynolds’ work in things like Miracle Workers, Blockers, and Search Party, you know both are strong comedically. While Viswanathan played the same kind of best friend role in Cat Person a few years ago, she completely switches the tropes on its head here, playing the sweet and dedicated friend who is willing to ride with her bestie on the crazy train. Reynolds is hysterical as the former’s devoted boyfriend, who is sympathetic to Isaac’s predicament but doesn’t want to leave his girlfriend high and dry with a possible felony for aiding and abetting.
Overall, the tonal turn that Oh, Hi! takes isn’t nearly as interesting as it thinks it is. While it wants to believe it is almost a comedic version of Misery, itdoesn’t have the balls to cross the lines it needs to do that. Brooks has some good ideas; she’s just chained to conventional storytelling.
As Sundance is coming to a close today, the festival’s most talked-about distributors, Neon, A24, and Netflix, continue to make news. Following Neon’s recent acquisition of Together in the $15M range, Netflix has acquired the Joel Edgerton/Felicity Jones drama Train Dreams, while A24 has picked up Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby, with more deals likely to come.
Netflix has reportedly paid in the high-teen millions for Train Dreams, which I reviewed here. The film is based on the Denis Johnson novella and stars Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainer, an ordinary man who lives a simple but profound life as a day laborer and logger in the early 20th-century American West. Joining Edgerton in the cast are Felicity Jones, William H. Macy, and Kerry Condon.
The duo of Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar teamed up on the film. Bentley directed and co-wrote the script with Kwedar. They previously worked together on two other festival favorites, Jockey in 2021, and Sing Sing in 2023.
It’s a little disappointing on my end that Train Dreams might not get a long theatrical rollout as it certainly deserves one.
Meanwhile, indie distributor A24 has acquired Sorry, Baby from writer, director, and star Eva Victor. Final numbers appear to be in the $8M range. Victor stars as Agnes, a college professor attempting to move on from a sexual assault. Also in the cast are Naomi Ackie, Lucas Hedges, Louis Cancelmi, John Carroll Lynch, and Kelly McCormack.
A24 would not have been where I thought Sorry, Baby would end up. I would’ve thought Focus Features or maybe even Bleecker Street would have been more likely. But having A24 behind it guarantees Victor’s observant drama a certain amount of attention and that’s a good thing.
It’s been a quiet year for acquisitions at Sundance so far, but I expect that to change when Kiss of the Spider Woman undoubtedly racks up a record-breaking deal.
In 1993, Ang Lee released his second film, The Wedding Banquet. It followed a bisexual Taiwanese immigrant who, while in a relationship with a white gay man, placates his parents by marrying a Chinese woman to help her get a green card. Of course, his plan of hiding his sexuality goes awry especially when a pregnancy enters the picture. Progressive for the time, the film was considered a classic by the LGBTQ community and remains one of the first mainstream films that authentically focused on race and sexuality and was nominated for major awards.
Filmmaker Andrew Ahn hopes to continue this legacy with his complete revamp of the story, co-written with the original screenwriter James Schamus. Instead of a bisexual man, he splits the role between Angela, a scientist (Kelly Marie Tran), and Chris (Bowen Yang) a birder who put grad school on hold. Angela is dating Lee (Lily Gladstone), an LGBTQ advocate and the two are living together in the latter’s childhood home and trying for a baby via IVF.
Living in their renovated shed are Chris and his partner Min (Han Gi-Chan), an artist who works with textiles and comes from a South Korean corporate empire. The two have been together for five years, and while Min wants more of a commitment, Chris is unable to give it due to his own insecurities.
When Min’s grandmother tries to pull him into the family business, he strikes up a plan to marry Angela. His own proposal to Chris failed, and this way, he could pay for Lee and Angela’s IVF, so why not enter a traditional straight marriage to solve their problems?
It’s really nice to see Lily Gladstone in something light and breezy. While her character doesn’t get much to do in the film’s second half, hopefully, this will bring more comedic work her way. Yang is hilarious but struggles in The Wedding Banquet’s more serious moments. Gi-Chan is a comedic force, bouncing around the screen like a puppy dog and nailing his delivery. Tran has a harder job with most of the emotional beats landing on her shoulders. She nails it, but out of the group she is given the most to do.
Outshining the core four are outstanding performances from Joan Chen (last year’s Dídi) and Youn Yuh-jung (Oscar-winner for Minari). Chen plays Tran’s overly supportive mother, a beacon of performative allyship, which she uses to ease her guilt about going no contact when her daughter comes out. She’s not only hilarious but inserts layers of personal satisfaction and remorse in her performance. Youn Yuh-jung is just as good. Her dry sense of humor balances out the zappy one-liners and comedic earnestness of the rest of the cast. As the matriarch of Min’s family, her demands drive the narrative but there’s a compassionate level of understanding that she infuses in later scenes that are a joy to watch.
Ahn made three features before this. The first two Spa Night and Driveways followed young Asian American boys as they came of age. Granted his first was a lot grittier than his second and neither were comedies, but when Fire Island came out in 2022 with a biting and hilarious script based on Pride and Prejudice from star Joel Kim Booster and Ahn nailed the tone, it made sense he was asked to revamp The Wedding Banquet. The dialogue is snappy and Ahn never misses a laugh. However, he is always aware of where his characters are on their journey and knows to never sacrifice that for a joke. The 2025 version of The Wedding Banquet feels like a marriage between all of Ahn’s films, at times quiet, others hilarious, but 100% aware of the message it is sending. We’ve come a long way narratively in 30-plus years. It’s so refreshing to see Chinese, Korean, and Indigenous queer people onscreen, played and written by the same demographics they are representing.
The Wedding Banquet premiered at Sundance and will be distributed by Bleecker Street. It will be released on April 18th.
