Hey, if there can be a movie about Donald Trump in 2024, it stands to reason there be a movie about the guy who holds his leash, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Deadline confirms the news that Jude Law will play Putin in Olivier Assayas’ upcoming film, The Wizard of the Kremlin.
The film was first announced last year with Assayas directing a cast led by Law, Paul Dano, and Alicia Vikander. Details remain a bit thin, but we do know it’ll follow Russia in the 1990s after the fall of the USSR, when a young producer finds himself as the new spinmeister for a rising star politician, Vladimir Putin.
Law doesn’t say much, but he has begun doing some research into playing the infamous Russian leader…
“I say that hesitatingly because I haven’t really started work on it yet,” said Law. “I mean, I have, but at the moment it looks like an Everest to climb, so I’m in the foothills looking up thinking, ’Oh Christ, what have I said?’ That’s often how I feel whilst I say yes. I was going, ’Oh God, how am I going to do this?’ But anyway, that’s for me to sort out.”
Assayas is the director known for Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper, and Wasp Network.
It’s been a busy few months for Law who can be seen right now in Disney’s Star Wars: Skelton Crew series, and also in Justin Kurzel’s crime film The Order.
Remember the build-up to The Flash in 2023? You had Ezra Miller out there acting like a weirdo; you had Warner Bros. shutting down the DCEU so that every movie coming out that year was pointless. You also had James Gunn proclaiming it one of the best superhero movies he had ever seen. Fun times. Of course, when the film came out audiences felt differently and it was one of the year’s biggest flops. But director Andy Muschietti feels like talking about it some more, anyway, and he thinks he’s figured out why the movie failed.
According to Muschietti on Radio TU, a bunch of factors figured into The Flash‘s demise, including Miller’s actions. Well, on that he’s right.
“It’s the result of a mental health situation, you know,” said Muschietti. “It turned out the way it turned out, let’s say. I mean, he was dealing with a mental health situation, and well, when you make a movie, there are things you just can’t control. One of them is when actors have a public relations crisis. You know, he got into trouble, was arrested in Hawaii, etc…”
“I had, in general, a very good experience with him. He’s a great actor, a great comedian. I was very surprised by him. But then, towards the end, I came across all of this. I’d say this happened months before the release, just before the premiere, and well, it was a setback.”
Muschietti continued by blaming superhero fatigue, which I think is debatable, and that The Flash doesn’t appeal to everybody under the sun…
“Later, other factors piled up, like, you know, the fatigue with the superhero genre. Years later, I started learning about other things, like how when a movie like this is made, there’s an expectation to appeal to all four quadrants of the audience. And this is a movie that, apart from everything else I mentioned, I think failed in the sense that it didn’t appeal to all four quadrants of the audience.”
He continued, “When a $200 million movie is made, the studio expects to bring everyone, even your grandmother, to the theater. And in private conversations later on, I learned things like how a lot of people weren’t interested in Flash as a character. Half of those four quadrants — the two female quadrants — many women didn’t care about Flash as a character.”
So I’m not a believer in the “superhero fatigue” theory. Yes, DC and Marvel experienced as severe drop in interest at the same time, but I would say the quality and importance of those movies was also in doubt.
Muschietti’s claim that women weren’t interested in the Flash as a character is debatable. For one thing, it’s his responsibility to make him interesting. Two, how does he explain the success of The Flash TV series for so long, and the fact that fans wanted Grant Gustin in the movie? They clearly care about the character, just not the movie
Of course, he leaves out the key reason The Flash failed and it’s that it just wasn’t very good. That, combined with the DCEU coming to an end, was its downfall and nothing was going to change that. Let’s hope Gunn comes up with a cool way to reintroduce Flash into the DCU soon.
Lionsgate must be breathing a sigh of relief. After a disastrous 2024, they can at least say 2025 started off with a win. Den of Thieves 2: Pantera stole away the top spot from Mufasa with $15.5M, Lionsgate’s first #1 opening since The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in November 2023. The Gerard Butler/Oshea Jackson Jr. heist flick’s numbers are virtually parallel to its 2018 predecessor, and along with an improved critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, the franchise is showing its durability.
2. Mufasa: The Lion King– $13.2M/$188.7M
After four weeks, Disney prequel Mufasa: The Lion King has $539M worldwide.
Buzz for Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis is driving business for Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl. The indie drama that has some placing both women in Oscars contention expanded to wider release and earned $1.4M at 870 locations.
I hated Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s insufferable character Pansy in the first five minutes of Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths. That’s okay. He wants us to hate her. But he also wants us to wonder about her and what it is that drives her to be so miserable, a plague on anything good and decent, the human embodiment of doom scrolling. Leigh’s films often focus on singularly annoying figures who practically exist in a world outside of our own. Think Sally Hawkins’ eternally cheerful Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky. Pansy would be her archnemesis if this were a comic book universe. Pansy is so miserable, so caustic, a vacuum sucking the joy out of everything, that our natural instinct is to turn the movie off and not spend any more time with this person.
That would be a mistake. Hard Truths is brilliant, another insightful character piece from Leigh who somehow makes us feel something other than resentment towards Pansy. The first time we hear the London housewife go on a ripper of a rant, she’s on everything from people who are too happy, to babies with too many pockets in their clothes, to dogs wearing sweaters. Her husband Curtley (David Webber) and 22-year-old son Moses (Tuwaine Bennett) have had any shred of happiness razed by Pansy’s constant barrage of complaints, insults, and humiliation. The dinner table might as well be a morgue. Nobody is spared of her vitriol. A salesperson at a furniture takes the full brunt of her assault; a lady in the supermarket checkout line; her dentist; and her doctor who she insultingly calls a “mouse with glasses” for having the temerity to try and help diagnose Pansy’s constant pain. She calls Curtley’s jovial co-worker Virgil a mute, implying he’s some kind of weirdo. But Virgil is actually a motormouth who has cottoned to the fact it’s not wise to say much when Pansy’s around. Why make yourself a target of her assault?
And that’s the thing about Pansy; we know she’s in pain. She won’t let anyone hear the end of it. She’s also deeply afraid…of everything. She fears bugs, birds, her own backyard, but most of all she fears confrontation because it forces her to look inward. When the furniture salesperson goes to get her manager, Pansy scurries out of the store like a scalded dog. Leigh, always so good at gauging how much information to dish out and when, tells us little bits of Pansy’s backstory. It’s just enough to make her feel like a real person, but not enough to ask us to feel sorry for her. That’s one thing Leigh has never done in any of his films about, well, let’s just call them “difficult” people. Emotional manipulation isn’t in his playbook.
Hard Truths is full of people who complain. That’s not the issue. Complaining itself isn’t the problem. Life throws a lot of tough shit at everyone, it’s how you let it affect you and the way you treat others that proves what kind of person you are. Proving that point is Pansy’s younger sister, Chantelle (Michele Austin), a hairdresser who is the ray of sunshine to Pansy’s raincloud. Chantelle listens to her customers laugh and gossip through their hardships every day. They take it all in stride and so does Chantelle, who has her share of problems, too. She wishes her sister could do the same thing. When Chantelle basically strongarms Pansy into going to visit their mother’s grave, Pansy can’t even be civil then. We learn that Pansy basically had to raise Chantelle due to their mother’s irresponsibility, which suggests that a bit of envy is at the heart of her pain. The worst part about it is that Pansy knows how miserable she makes others feel, and she just doesn’t know how to stop it. Nor does she know how to let others help her. It’s like she’s trapped in a prison of her own mind with no way out.
“I’m so tired”, Pansy frequently says, and we get it. She seems so done with everything; done with feeling terrible, done with being angry, done with hating herself, done with Curtley who expects to be waited on hand and foot. Chantelle has two daughters of her own, both as spirited as she is. When Pansy and Chantelle’s families gather for a get-together, we see just how different both sides are. We also see just how lonely Pansy is, even among a group of people who love her.
Jean-Baptiste has been an incredible actress for so long that I think we have taken her for granted. We’re so accustomed to seeing her in supporting roles, or on television, that we forget what a powerful lead actress she can be. This is the best part she’s had since her Best Supporting Actress nomination for Leigh’s Secrets & Lies in 1996, and it’s likely to get her another Oscar nom in the Best Actress category this time. Leigh and Jean-Baptiste are able to do something pretty extraordinary with Hard Truths and it’s to make us defy our natural instinct to run away from this movie and Pansy, and by the end of it we just want to give her a big hug and tell her everything will be okay.
Hard Truths is open in theaters now courtesy of Bleecker Street.
Disfluency. It’s not a word you hear in everyday conversation. It’s the interruption, the disruption in the flow of a person’s speech. Anna Baumgarten couldn’t have chosen a better title for her confident coming-of-age drama, a powerful film about trauma and how it disrupts the flow of everyday life, and makes it hard to communicate our true feelings to the people we love.
Libe Barer gives a powerful lead performance as Jane, a smart girl who has nonetheless flunked out of her final semester at college. Our confusion matches those of the people around her. We see hints of what may have driven her off-course. Disorientingly, we see Jane surrounded by Christmas lights as she makes her way through a hallway, ultimately ending up in a lecture hall being led by a professor (Molly Hagan) speaking on the subject of disfluency. Jane wakes up, rattled, in the back of her parents’ car on the way home from school. Her mother is obviously angry over what’s happened, stressing that Jane needs to take more responsibility, but her father is more understanding and recognizes that his daughter is going through something.
While a return home guarantees Jane a lot of awkward conversations, it also means time spent with her older sister, Lacey. The two are like peas in a pod, and there’s a reason the link between them feels so natural. Lacey is played by Libe’s real-life sister, Ariela, best known for her roles in Runaways and How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Interestingly, the dynamic between them is flipped as Ariela is actually the younger sister, and I think you can spot just a little bit of glee at playing the elder.
Baumgarten deals with a lot of heavy subject matter, based on her personal experiences that she first expressed in a 2018 short film. Nonetheless, Disfluency isn’t as somber as one might think. It’s actually quite hopeful and light, with Jane taking active steps to move beyond the past. She reconnects with an old crush who is eager to grow their relationship and befriends a girl who has become a small-town celeb due to her social media following. Jane also puts her education to good use by helping out her friend Amber (Chelsea Alden), a single mother with a deaf child, learn how to use sign language. She also begins recording the conversations with her friends as part of a plan to get the credit needed to graduate.
The thing about all of Jane’s plans, including her plans to build on personal relationships, is that they require all of her headspace and that’s something she simply can’t provide. Jane is in a fog as she tries to overcome a traumatic event from school. Clever editing and cinematography put us in her shoes and give the film a hazy atmosphere as if walking through a dream. Baumgarten does a great job of capturing how seemingly random things can spark unwanted memories at surprising moments. Her characters feel alive and authentic, with most of them resembling people you might know in your own life.
Disfluency is going to connect with a lot of people who have their own past experiences with trauma. What emerges most strongly is that Baumgarten is telling a story that only she can tell in the way she’s telling it. While the broad strokes are familiar, it’s in the smaller details where Disfluency feels so grounded, genuine, and intimate. It’s a strong feature debut for Baumgarten with memorable performances by Libe and Ariela Barer that remind us that smaller movies like this shouldn’t be overlooked.
Disfluency is open in select theaters now, expanding on January 17th before a digital release on January 24th.
The Hulk has been appearing in MCU movies for a long time but hasn’t actually had one to himself since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. Rumors have been persistent that Marvel wants to do a World War Hulk or Planet Hulk movie, but it’s never come close to happening. However, if a new report is accurate, not only is that about to change but a major filmmaker could be lining up to direct it.
Following a Production Weekly listing that said World War Hulk would begin shooting in 2025, World of Reel reached out to its sources and said Marvel’s goal is to begin shoot this year, although nothing is official just yet.
Furthermore, the report says the ball will get rolling with Captain America: Brave New World, which we know will introduce the Red Hulk, while Thunderbolts* will be the film connecting it to Hulk’s solo effort. Mark Ruffalo will return as Bruce Banner, naturally.
Finally, Kevin Feige has reportedly already begun reaching out to directors and one of them is Mad Max: Fury Road and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga director George Miller. Miller has apparently been interested in directing Thor 5 after working with Chris Hemsworth, and it was Hemsworth who set up a meeting for him with Marvel.
Miller has long been interested in superhero films. Remember, he was attached to direct the failed Justice League: Mortal before it got canceled.
In Marvel Comics, World War Hulk takes place after the events of Planet Hulk, which were very loosely adapted in Thor: Ragnarok. Hulk was sent by various heroes into outer space, where he landed on a gladiator world, became its champion, and started a family. When his wife is killed, Hulk returns to Earth with a serious chip on his shoulder, and he takes out all of his rage on the heroes who exiled him in the first place.
I would take all of this with a grain of salt because these rumors come around often. The Hulk has been caught up in rights issues for years, which is why Marvel hasn’t been able to make a movie with him. But these days nothing can stand in the way of Disney if they want to make something happen.
When is it ok to ignore a plea for help? That’s the question at the heart of The Damned the new horror film from Thor Palsson, starring Odessa Young and Joe Cole. Morality has always been a core talking point for not just film, but story telling in general going back to its earliest forms. Palsson’s film sees a Eva, a young widow (Odessa Young) in 19th century Iceland faced with a choice that will force her to confront her own morality and empathy when a ship full of foreign sailors sinks off the coast of her village. The age old question of whether we have an obligation to help our fellow man or close ranks and protect the “tribe” becomes all too real leading to deadly consequences for all involved.
Eva, who took over the fishing village leadership after the death of her husband, is struggling through a harsh winter with limited supplies to keep her, and her people, safe and alive until better days come. The situation is made worse when she and the others spot a sinking vessel off the coast, which (understandably) they see as not just people in need, but more mouths to feed and bodies to protect if they are saved. A decision is made not to save the crew. At first the town pays for their choice simply through penetrating guilt and remorse but it’s not long until things take a turn for the fatal, with possibly supernatural origins. Eva believes their failure to help a stranger in need has called a “Draugr“, a evil supernatural entity from Norse mythology, down to enact revenge.
With a film like The Damned, it is absolutely critical that the audience be able to place themselves in the (frosty) shoes of those they’re watching on screen. If you can’t absorb all of the circumstances surrounding the situation you’re watching unfold there’s no way you can become immersed in the situation. Thor Palsson, in his directorial debut, demonstrates an uncanny ability to establish what these people are dealing with. As you can imagine, Iceland in the winter, and in the 19th century, is about as inhospitable place as you can find yourself. Palsson establishes the environment and builds the story firmly within. As the story progresses and at the point where you’d think the weather would be the last of their worries Mother Nature is still there, ever present and unflinchly brutal. The key touches that hammer this home are found outside of the standard snow covered plains, no it’s that everything in the elements is noticeably wind battered, it’s the choice to show that the dead are left in their coffins in full view as the cold has turned the soil to concrete making digging graves a pipe dream. The attention paid to creating this atmosphere results in a tension that never fully relents.
While the setting provides a good piece of why The Damned works so well, it’s all for naught if your characters are flat and their performances uninspired. Thankfully the cast came to play just as hard as Palsson did. Odessa Young, who I’m still surprised hasn’t blown up yet, commands a sadness and uncertainty that feels incredibly real. More importantly her performance allows you to FEEL the weight of these choices coupled with her responsibility to those who depend on her and her dedication to making sure that responsibility is fulfilled. Each member of the cast, in one form or another, represents the types of thought processes you’d expect in a situation like this. Daniel (Joe Cole) being the epitome of remorse and guilt while Ragnar (Game of Thrones alum, Rory McCann) shines as the grizzled elder who knows there is no other way. Of course, I can’t move on without mentioning Siobhan Finneran (Downton Abbey and Happy Valley) as the motherly camp cook who serves as our introduction and guide to the Draugr.
There isn’t much I can say to detract from The Damned, while it isn’t destined to sit in the Horror Hall of Fame it sits as an example of a film where all valves are running in perfect concert. This isn’t one for those currently in a delicate mental state, films like this are hard to leave without feeling just a bit depressed. Thankfully Palsson layers in just enough scares to keep your adrenaline up and keep you out of your therapists office the next day. This would be a perfect film to watch with the lights off and a nice warm fire burning in the fireplace.
Star Wars fans no longer have to wonder if we’ve seen the last of Baylan Skoll in the Disney+ series, Ahsoka. Following the tragic passing of actor Ray Stevenson, it was possible the character would be written out for season two. But Jeff Sneider first reported, and it’s since been confirmed by THR, that Game of Thrones actor Rory McCann will take over the role that Stevenson played so well in season one.
The Scottish Rory McCann will play Baylan Skoll when Ahsoka returns for season two. McCann is best known for his role as The Hound in HBO’s Game of Thrones. He’s also appeared in the films Clash of the Titans, Hot Fuzz, Jumanji: The Next Level, Slow West, and can be seen right now in Gladiator II and the horror film The Damned.
There’s still a lot that we don’t know about Baylan Skoll. The fallen Jedi was a prominent figure in season one, working as a mercenary and helping to locate the missing Grand Admiral Thrawn. He would later set out on his own path, and was last seen atop the ruins of a monument to the Mortis gods.
Ahsoka season two should get rolling later this year.
Den of Thieves, Christian Gudegast’s 2018 heist thriller was something of an over-deliverly given its modest trappings. An enjoyable “cool” film that played like a poor man’s version of Heat, I think it was clear that Gudegast always had hopes of Fast & the Furious-level franchise expansion. Those goals begin to be met with Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, which plays more like a buddy crime comedy in some respects, with more exotic locales and a greater focus on the biggest stars, returning leads Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. A key problem from the first move remains firmly intact, however, and it stops this sequel, and this burgeoning franchise, from being as good as it could be.
When last we saw Butler’s morally dubious LA cop “Big” Nick O’Brien, he’s been schooled by Jackson’s street-smart criminal Donnie Wilson, who managed to pull off the heist of a lifetime, robbing the Federal Reserve so cleverly they literally don’t know that it happened. Picking up immediately after those events, we see Nick scrambling to reorient himself. He’s lost his family, seems to be nursing a forever hangover, and now he’s not even the best at what he does which is catching crooks like Donnie.
Gudegast goes big with his sequel, which leaves Los Angeles behind for a global tale of cops and robbers. After the theft of a massive pink diamond from the Antwerp airport, Nick sees Donnie’s fingerprints all over it. With nothing to lose, he flies off to Europe to track him down, finding that Donnie has hit the big time. Sporting a believable French accent and considerable debonair, he’s become part of an elite gang of jewel thieves, the Panthers, led by the beautiful Jovanna (Evin Ahmad), who has planned an even bigger heist of the impenetrable World Diamond Center. With no money and nothing else going for him, Nick muscles his way into the operation with Donnie’s help. “And the cop goes gangster”, Donnie says.
Den of Thieves didn’t have great reviews when it was released six years ago. What it had was a cast of Butler, Jackson, 50 Cent, Pablo Schreiber, all actors that casual moviegoers recognize and showed up for. It also had Gudegast, who elevated the material beyond the glut of straight-to-VOD dreck that, let’s be honest, a lot of these actors had been peddling for years. His direction isn’t flashy, but it’s muscular in that Antoine Fuqua sort of way, slick when it needs to be, and most importantly, knows how to put the actors in the best possible light. That skill is more crucial in Pantera, which is very much a Butler/Jackson showcase. The role of Big Nick is so perfectly suited for Butler that it’s amazing he hasn’t had more like it already. Butler’s oversized personality has rarely been put to such good use as the swaggering, charming crooked cop. And Jackson, who doesn’t have the boiling anger of his father Ice Cube, is as smooth as butter as Donnie, a thoughtful, refined thief who pulled himself up from the ‘hood and into high society with his criminal genius.
The plot is a familiar one, following the typical beats of the genre. That’s not a knock against the film because that familiarity is what’s so attractive in the first place. We love this genre for a reason, and Gudegast gives fans of it what they came for: hot women, hot cars, daring robberies, slick gadgets, glitzy parties, and detailed attention to an impossible crime. What Pantera also offers that is more unexpected is the bromance between Nick and Donnie, which finds them getting drunk together, partying, and finding commonality in the troubled path to their chosen professions. In a way, they are like soldiers who may have fought in different wars but understand the battlefield. And yet, there’s also this push and pull between the two men, a constant testing of boundaries, and the lingering question: What happens to them once the crime is pulled off?
Gudegast dials down the action for a much slower, more deliberate effort, and that would be fine if the movie was a lot shorter. At an inexcusable 144-minutes, Pantera is too long and too often a slog of dull exposition that requires you to be fully invested in every aspect to get through it. That said, when the bullets start flying, the tires start screeching, and allegiances are tested, Pantera reawakens fully energized. With Fast & the Furious nearing its final run, Den of Thieves might steal the crown as the top heist movie franchise around.
Lionsgate has opened Den of Thieves 2: Pantera in theaters now.
It’s taken more than two decades for Danny Boyle to return to his 28 Days Later franchise, and he’s made sure it won’t be short visit. While we knew he’d direct the first film, 28 Years Later, as part of a trilogy shared with Candyman director Nia DaCosta, it wasn’t clear that Boyle would return for the third movie. Well, now we know that he will.
Empire confirmed through Boyle himself that he’ll direct the third movie, which follows 28 Years Later and the DaCosta-directed sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple which opens on January 16th 2026. The first two movies have already been shot back-to-back, while the final one goes into production only if audiences respond well.
Here are some details Empire revealed about the first movie:
Here, Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Jamie, Jodie Comer’s Isla, and their 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams) are part of a community on Holy Island, aka Lindisfarne, connected to the UK mainland by a causeway only briefly accessible when the tide recedes each day. “It’s a closed and necessarily very tight community,” says Boyle. “There are very strict defence laws, obviously, to survive that long in what is effectively an ongoing hostile environment. They’ve created a successful community, as they see it.” It soon comes time for young Spike to take a rite-of-passage trip beyond the safety of Lindisfarne, to open his eyes to the true state of the nation. Needless to say, things don’t go to plan.
Speaking of plans, Cillian Murphy, who starred in the original 2002 film, won’t be reprising that role despite early reports to the contrary. Producer Andrew Macdonald said…
“[On] this, we wanted him to be involved and he wanted to be involved. He is not in the first film, but I’m hoping there will be some Jim somewhere along the line.”
That leaves the door open to seeing him in the third movie. But for now we’ll have to settle for Murphy as an exec-producer.
