Jordan Firstman, the influencer and comedian who made a splash at Sundance with his lead actor debut in Sebastian Silva’s Rotting in the Sun, made a similar impact at Cannes earlier this year. It was there that Firstman premiered his directorial debut, Club Kid, to rave reviews and a Palme d’Or nomination. A24 won the rights in a fierce bidding war, and today have dropped the first trailer ahead of its release in November.
Club Kid stars Firstman as Peter, a washed-up New York party promoter whose hard-partying lifestyle gets disrupted when he meets the 10-year-old son he never knew about.
Joining Firstman in the cast are Reggie Absolom, Diego Calva, Cara Delevingne, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Colleen Camp, and Eldar Isgandarov.
We’ve seen this type of story many times before, but Firstman has his own spin on it, highlighting Peter’s queer community and the way it can help him and his son learn how to be a family.
Club Kid hits theaters in limited release on November 6th and will also play at TIFF next month.
It’s safe to say that Sebastian Stan, following critically acclaimed performances in The Apprentice, A Different Man, and Palme d’Or winner Fjord, has taken a liking to roles that transform him physically. He’ll have another one coming up in Matt Reeves’ The Batman: Part II, a role that has been the worst-kept secret in Hollywood. Stan finally confirmed (via Le Journal du Dimanche) what we already knew about it
“I’m excited, I’m nervous and trying to keep surprising myself,” he says of taking on Two-Face. He’s working with the hair and makeup teams, who have “devised how his disfigurement will look.
So it’s official: Stan is playing Gotham D.A. Harvey Dent, who eventually becomes the villain Two-Face. Stan has previously described it as “many roles”, which likely alludes to Dent’s Dissociative identity disorder, causing him to have multiple personalities.
Stan sure does love his trouble political figures, including Bucky who was a Congressman last we saw of him. Speaking of which…
The Batman: Part II opens February 18th 2028, but before that, Stan will return as Bucky “The Winter Soldier” Barnes in Avengers: Doomsday. You might remember that the film didn’t have a completed script when shooting began. Eventually, Spider-Man: Brand New Day writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers were brought in. But for a while, things were just sort of proceeding on the fly…
Stan said, “We didn’t have a script. We were just shooting scattered scenes. It’s a different way of working, continuous, constantly evolving.”
I don’t know how a film of this scope can possibly work like that. If this movie ends up being a sloppy mess, we’ll know why. It’ll still make a billion dollars, anyway.
Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters on December 18th.
It’s tough to believe anything Vin Diesel says about Fast Forever, the 11th, and supposedly final, movie in the long-running franchise. He’s been saying for years that it’s about to begin shooting, but inevitably, nothing gets out of the starting gate. Perhaps that’s about to change, but we only have Diesel’s word to go by. Last night, on the red carpet celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Fast & the Furious (!!!), Diesel said that filming will finally begin in December.
Hmph, we’ll see about that.
Diesel made the claim to Variety, while also acknowledging the problems they’ve had getting the script together. Y’know, that script that made him cry it was so good?
“We start shooting in December, if I can make good on the request from the studio. I’m in a good place, though. I had to go through four sets of writers, four years of development, to get to something that I felt would be worthy of a finale. And when I read the script a couple of weeks ago, [I cried].”
By “make good”, Diesel means Universal wanting him to trim the budget by $140M. It’s a problem co-star Alan Ritchson, who is returning for Fast Forever, recently said was a pretty big hurdle.
Diesel elaborated on the lengthy development struggle, but says it was all worth it because of Michael Leslie’s emotional screenplay…
“I’m going to tell you something personal,” he said. “It was after four different writers, four years of development, and after I read the script, halfway through, one tear. By the end of the script that we crafted and worked so hard to make right for you after four years, I was crying. I couldn’t hold it back, and I had to tell everyone. And my sister said, ‘No more crying, bro.’ So I just want to say that sometimes, even the toughest guys in the world need to cry.”
Louis Leterrier, who took over for franchise director Justin Lin on Fast X, is expected to return. However, he recently admitted that he didn’t know much about it and hadn’t even read the script. He was busy completing work on his Netflix film, The Last House, which opened a couple of weeks ago.
Fast X ended on, what else, an explosive cliffhanger with Dominic Toretto and his young son. So they kind of have to do another one just to wrap up the story and send everyone on their merry way. For now, Fast Forever is expected to open on March 17th 2028. We’ll see if it can hit that target.
Netflix keeps upping the ante with each Extraction flick. The first one, released in 2020, was a solid military actioner led by Chris Hemsworth and director Sam Hargrave in his directorial debut. The 2023 sequel, on the other hand, kicked so much ass, and added Idris Elba to the cast to make it even cooler. Both films have done incredibly well for the streamer, and it wasn’t long before another sequel was announced. Now we’re learning that Hemsworth and Elba will be surrounded by a killer ensemble, including a former James Bond, another MCU alum, and star of The Raid and The Furious, two of the best action movies in recent memory.
According to Deadline, Pierce Brosnan, Don Lee, and Joe Taslim have joined the Extraction 3 cast alongside Hemsworth, Elba, and Golshifteh Farahani.
Brosnan should need no introduction. The former 007 starred in Goldeneye, The World is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day, The Thomas Crown Affair, and recently, Black Bag.
Lee is another Marvel veteran, just like Hemsworth and Elba, for his role as Gilgamesh in Eternals. Interestingly, Lee is already part of the Extraction franchise. He stars in the South Korean spinoff, Tygo, directed by Lee Sang-yong, centering on a former child soldier who becomes a mercenary and seeks revenge in Korea’s criminal underworld.
Finally, Taslim is one of the best screen martial artists in the world, known for his role in The Raid, Fast & Furious 6, Mortal Kombat, and the recent smash, The Furious. You can check out my interview with him below.
Also in the cast are Chi Lewis-Parry, who played the massive Samson in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, and Carrie actress Siena Agudong.
Netflix is trying to turn Extraction into its own John Wick-level action franchise, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.
2028 is shaping up to be huge for Marvel Studios, as three major films are set to arrive post-Avengers: Secret Wars. There’s Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther 3 on December 15th 2028, Jake Schreier’s X-Men on May 5th, and now it’s been confirmed that Ryan Gosling and Shawn Levy’s Ghost Rider will burn rubber into theaters on July 28th.
Marvel has largely dialed back the throttle on releasing more than two movies per year. They did it last year with Thunderbolts, Captain America: Brave New World, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, with mixed results.
Ghost Rider will reunite Gosling, Levy, and screenwriter Jonathan Tropper, who worked together on another Disney property, Star Wars:Starfighter.
Presumably, Gosling will be playing the Johnny Blaze version of Ghost Rider, since he’s the one most people are familiar with, especially since Nicolas Cage played him in two movies. That said, there’s also Blaze’s younger brother, Danny Ketch; the original Western version of Ghost Rider, Carter Slade; and the Robbie Reyes version, who most remember from the Agents of SHIELD TV series.
One thing that still needs to be done is casting the Ghost Rider villain. Sacha Baron Cohen recently played Mephisto in Ironheart, and he could be asked back. Otherwise, one has to assume an actor will be cast as Dormammu at some point.
The cast of Joseph Kosinski’s Miami Vice ’85 is shaping up quite nicely, and not just because of stars Michael B. Jordan and Austin Butler. With Alden Ehrenreich recently have joined the cast, Deadline now reports that Gossip Girl alum Whitney Peak is playing the female lead.
Miami Vice ’85 draws inspiration from the pilot episode of the classic cop series starring Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas, capturing “the glamour and corruption of mid-’80s Miami.” In other words, expect lots of cocaine, flashy suits, skinny bikinis, and speedboats. Peak is expected to play Jordan’s love interest.
This continues a solid streak for Peak, who recently starred in the Netflix shark thriller, Thrash. You can check out my interview with her for that below. Coming up later this year is a huge franchise role in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. Next year she’ll star in Frankie Shaw’s dark comedy 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank alongside Liam Neeson.
Miami Vice ’85 will hit theaters on May 19th 2028 from a script by Dan Gilroy and Eric Warren Singer.
Johnny Depp is set to set sail with Disney again in Pirates of the Caribbean 6. The last update we had was back in February when 1917 writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns came on board for the reboot. At the time, a decision was still being worked out on Depp’s return, something producer Jerry Bruckheimer has been pushing for.
According to a report from Deadline at D23, Bruckheimer confirmed Depp is now in talks to return as Jack Sparrow, starring alongside Margot Robbie. The story is said to center on Sparrow’s son and a new character played by Robbie. There shall be swashbuckling.
There have been five Pirates of the Caribbean movies, all of them led by Depp. They’ve made over $4.5B, but there hasn’t been one since 2017’s Dead Men Tell No Tales, which “underperformed.”
In 2022, Disney publicly distanced itself from Depp following abuse allegations by Amber Heard. Since then, Depp has been persona non grata in Hollywood, largely relegated to small movies and international features.
Depp is definitely in full comeback mode, though, so a return to Pirates of the Caribbean makes sense. Coming up he has Ti West’s dark Christmas fantasy, Ebenezer, which everyone was buzzing about at Comic-Con. He also has Marc Webb’s upcoming thriller, Day Drinker, which opens in March.
It’s been a long time for Zack Snyder and his indie drama, The Last Photograph. He’s been trying to make this movie since 2011, way back during the earliest version of this site. Sheesh. The film still doesn’t have distribution, so Snyder is giving it a big sales push today with the release of the first teaser trailer.
Directed by Snyder and penned by 300 writer Kurt Johnstad, The Last Photograph stars Rebel Moon actors Stuart Martin and Fra Fee. The story centers on an ex-DEA agent who searches the South American mountains for his missing niece and nephew after their parents are murdered. With the help of a war photographer who witnessed the killers, he confronts his past as their journey blurs the line between reality and the surreal.
The original plan was for Christian Bale and Sean Penn to lead the cast. Obviously, that fell through.
Snyder is doing the cinematography himself, as he did with back-to-back Rebel Moon movies and Army of the Dead. The great Hans Zimmer contributed to the score.
This doesn’t look like anything Snyder has done before, taking a minimalist approach as opposed to the extreme spectacles we’re accustomed to seeing.
You’re not hearing a lot of buzz around this one, not even from the Snyder fanatics. Maybe this teaser will change that. Let’s see if the film can find a home, maybe at Warner Bros. now that he’s back in the studio’s good graces.
Andrew Patterson’s The Rivals of Amziah King is unlike any other movie you’ll see this year. Starring Matthew McConaughey as a rural Oklahoma beekeeper and honey maker, the film is all at once a bluegrass musical, a heist movie, a murder mystery, and a father/daughter drama, but mainly it’s a movie about community. McConaughey’s Amziah King is at the center of a colorful group of locals leaning on one another to make it another day, living joyfully as much as they possibly can.
Tony Revolori plays one of those colorful locals, Komar, who has the wildest introduction of them all. It involves a dangerous piece of chopping machinery, a baseball cap, a ponytail, an empty teddy bear bottle of honey, and an emergency room visit. Komar, a self-professed world-class banjo player, enters into Amziah’s world with a chip on his shoulder, but soon finds that he’s found a home within this beekeeper’s close-knit society.
I had the chance to speak with Tony Revolori about The Rivals of Amziah King, the insane intro for Kolmar, and the training he underwent to learn the banjo and be part of the film’s talented musical ensemble.
It was a great time that I had talking with Revolori, who I’ve been a fan of since The Grand Budapest Hotel and Dope. Check out the interview below, and my review of The Rivals of Amziah Kinghere!
I’m happy to offer DC area readers the chance to attend tomorrow’s free screening of Mutiny, starring Jason Statham!
SYNOPSIS: In MUTINY, after witnessing his billionaire boss’s murder and being framed for the crime, Cole Reed (Jason Statham) boards a cargo ship on a one-man crusade to avenge his boss’ death only to discover an international conspiracy.
The screening takes place tomorrow, August 18th, at 7:00pm at Regal Majestic in Silver Spring. If you’d like to attend, RSVP at the Lionsgate site here. Please remember, all screenings are first come first served and you’ll need to arrive early to ensure seating. Enjoy the show!
