Seriously, Vin Diesel has turned Fast Forever into a joke. Well, more of a joke than it already was. Almost everything he has said about the film, the supposed finale of the Fast & Furious franchise, has turned out to be a bunch of bullshit. He said he’s read a script so good it made him cry; he’s teased the start of shooting multiple times; he’s even teased directing the movie himself. Is this movie going to happen at all?
The latest update puts a lie to pretty much everything Diesel has said. According to Jeff Sneider, Fast Forever is unlikely to meet its December start date or its March 2028 release date. Why? Because the film never had a completed script, which begs the question of what Diesel was crying about.
Not only that, but there’s a search for a new director, seemingly confirming what I think we already knew. Fast X director Louis Leterrier has been attached since the beginning, but he’s also contradicted a lot of what Diesel has been saying. He never saw a script, and spent his time directing Netflix’s The Last House, seemingly unconcerned about the progress (or lack thereof) of Fast Forever.
What the Hell is Diesel doing? And why does he keep proclaiming things that Universal obviously hasn’t approved?
Riverdale actor Charles Melton is reportedly being eyed to join the cast, as part of a youth movement of sorts. Diesel’s Dominic Toretto character is finally ready to pass the torch to a new crew of racers/spies/vigilantes/whatever. Melton has been busy the last few years with May December, Warfare, and Her Private Hell, along with the second season of Beef. He kinda looks like a Toretto family member, too. Currently, he’s shooting crime flick My Darling California alongside Chris Evans, and has a role in Daniels’ mystery sci-fi film. That said, there’s no official offer to Melton because there’s no script. So this might not happen at all.
The new plan is to shoot Fast Forever early in 2028, which means we wouldn’t see it until the following year, most likely. Is Diesel doing all of this to annoy Universal, which is demanding he cut $150M from the budget? Whatever the case, this entire production doesn’t exist and I wouldn’t be surprised if it never makes it to the finish line.
The Avengers: Doomsday ensemble is so ridiculously huge that maybe even Marvel Studios can’t keep track of who is in it? Like, maybe one of the best actresses in the world, Sandra Hüller? According to the British Stunt Register and stunt double Stevie Parker, Hüller does indeed have a role even though Marvel never announced it.
That’s crazy, right? Hüller already has four movies this year: Rose, Project Hail Mary, Fatherland, and Digger, which is in theaters now. She’s still probably best known for her performances in The Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall, which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
So who is Hüller playing? While nothing is confirmed, a Reddit rumor thread from a few months ago said that she was playing a witch. I’m assuming it’s a Latverian witch who helps Doctor Doom fine-tune his mystical powers.
There are too many in Avengers: Doomsday to list at this point. If they appeared in an MCU flick, chances are they’re in it. The film opens December 18th, and I guess that’s when we’ll know for sure what Hüller is up to.
Misty Green, Chris Rock’s first film as director since 2014’s Top Five, has a blistering, balls-to-the-wall lead performance by Rosalind Eleazar at its core. Chances are you’ve heard the buzz about it already. The talk is all true. The Slow Horses actress, a Brit although you’d never know it, is so good that she’s probably set herself up for the kind of career boost that her character once had then squandered. However, chances are you haven’t heard so much about the film that surrounds Eleazar, which shows the signs of Rock’s extended time away from filmmaking.
An Emmy winner for her role on the fictional TV series The Red Eye, Misty isn’t living the life of one. Instead, she’s waking up in a stupor at the beachside apartment of a recently deceased, and quite married, fling. The place is a mess, with liquor bottles and cocaine strewn about everywhere; just part of the reason it’s awkward when her benefactor’s widow arrives to reclaim the property. Misty is lucky she’s so beloved; the woman gives her a week to find a new place to live, which is no small feat in a place as expensive as Los Angeles. Misty is very particular about what part of town she lives in.
If Misty wasn’t already so self-destructive, things would still be tough for a woman like her, mixed race and of a certain age. She’s “too Black for Leo, not Black enough for Damson” and “not a nepo baby or a Brit.” Misty is her own worst enemy. She’s got one-sided beefs with seemingly everyone in town, and a sordid history of sleeping with directors who she would then screw over. Word gets around Hollywood quick. Being too drunk or high to attend auditions doesn’t help, either.
Misty Green follows a calamitous week in Misty’s life, where everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Anna Kendrick plays Misty’s best friend, a white chick attracted to “black dick”, but due to be married to her very-white boyfriend because he’s got money. There’s Daniel Kaluuya as Misty’s bipolar half-brother, freshly out of a mental health facility with a new girlfriend (played by Kelli Garner, always good to see her) and a disturbing bag of tricks. Adam Driver is Misty’s sketchy fuckbuddy, who scores cocaine for her and offers her a high-paying, morally dubious gig in Dubai. Most prominently, Misty reconnects with Jordan, a filmmaker friend played by Rock himself. Jordan and Misty have a rocky history, but he comes with a potentially career-changing opportunity…if she can get her shit together. A very big “if”.
Rock, who also wrote the screenplay, has clearly been brewing with stuff to say for a long time because he tries to put everything into a single movie. There’s a lot of bitterness in the screenplay, as Rock tackles the industry’s sexist treatment of Black women, racism in the justice system, and the press, as heard through reports of a white woman’s murder supposedly at the hands of a Black Man. There’s also racism in the hiring process, as Misty auditions for a role in which she plays a stereotype so offensive Robert Townsend might’ve mocked it in Hollywood Shuffle. There’s even more; such as commentary on our mental health system, and how women will literally fight to keep one another down rather than lift one another up. When Misty isn’t sabotaging herself, most of her biggest hurdles are placed by other women, including at one point beating down another young actress, played by Alexandra Shipp, to scavenge pricey trinkets from Saudi Arabian royalty.
When Rock puts on his comedian hat, he can make a lot of this stuff very funny. He has a hilarious bit about civil rights movies and how terrible they all are. More often than not, the dialogue Rocky has written for his characters is angry and unfocused, spinning Misty Green in a thousand different directions that don’t amount to much.
Fortunately, the film has Eleazar, whose Misty Green is a raging tornado of emotions. She runs hot and cold and can move between them at a moment’s notice. At some point desperate, other times insanely confident, it’s easy to see why people gravitate to her and are willing to afford her opportunities she probably doesn’t deserve. Misty is incredibly talented, even when in the midst of chaos. She can totally blow up an audition and still leave an impression. When she slows down long enough, she can even sing her heart out, a talent that might land her the lead role in Dreamgirls. At the same time, Misty doesn’t always seem to believe that she is worth the trouble. “It’s nothing to be loved by a saint”, a character Misty’s reading for says, and it hits close to home.
Misty is a fascinating creation brought to life by Eleazar; we root for her even though we shouldn’t, and despise just about every choice she makes. Rock’s vision of the world Misty exists in is ugly. Hollywood hasn’t looked this bad in a movie without gangsters and corrupt cops. But it’s an honest depiction of how things work for some who are trying to eke out a living in show business. It’s just too bad that Misty Green is too preoccupied with Rock’s other grievances to give her the spotlight she deserves. Even the finale does Misty a disservice, rounding down her hard edges into someone soft and unrecognizable. Eleazar deserves all of the notoriety she stands to gain from Misty Green. She is not to be missed.
Misty Green opens in theaters October 9th from A24.
I’m happy to offer DC area readers the chance to attend a free early screening of Whalefall, starring Resident Evil‘s Austin Abrams plus Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, and Jane Levy!
SYNOPSIS: From 20th Century Studios and Imagine Entertainment comes “Whalefall,” an epic and emotional survival thriller about one young man’s encounter with a massive sperm whale. The film, which is directed by Brian Duffield and features a screenplay by Brian Duffield & Daniel Kraus based on the book by Daniel Kraus by the same name, stars Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, John Ortiz, Jane Levy, Emily Rudd. The producers are Brian Grazer, Brian Duffield, Jeb Brody, Allan Mandelbaum, with Doug Merrifield, Richard Abate, Will Rowbotham serving as executive producers. Following the death of his father (Josh Brolin), Jay Gardiner (Austin Abrams) goes diving off the central Coast of California in search of his remains, but is swallowed by a massive sperm whale. While trapped inside its belly with only one hour of oxygen left, Jay comes to realize that the hard-earned lessons his father imparted may be the key to his escape.
The screening takes place on Tuesday, October 13th at 7:00pm at AMC Tysons Corner. 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!
It’s no coincidence that on the same day Mike Flanagan’s Carrie reboot premieres to strong reviews, we’re also getting a first look (via Esquire) at his next film, The Exorcist: Martyrs. The images feature stars Scarlett Johansson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, John Leguizamo, Noah Jupe, and Sasha Calle. Also in the cast are Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, and Carla Gugino.
The seventh movie in the Exorcist franchise centers on Johansson’s character, Judith Miller, a single mom and NYPD homicide detective who took down a satanic serial killer years prior. His execution didn’t go as planned, and now years later she’s investigating new killings connected to her past, while her 12-year-old son becomes the target of a new evil.
So, basically, what we’ve got here is The Exorcist meets Se7en, which sounds pretty damned awesome to me.
A trailer is expected to arrive tomorrow, but you can find the rest of the images below. The Exorcist: Martyrs opens March 12th 2027.
Aaron Sorkin has necessarily made a completely different kind of movie with The Social Reckoning, his follow-up to 2010’s The Social Network, which he wrote for David Fincher. Back then, Mark Zuckerberg was still such a cipher to many of us that taking a deep dive into this young, socially awkward tech genius with too much power was enlightening and fascinating, earning Jesse Eisenberg an Oscar nomination. Years later, Zuckerberg is a known commodity and so is the damage he’s done to the social fabric with Facebook, so Sorkin has pivoted to a compelling, if imperfect, investigative thriller about the dangers of social media.
Written by Sorkin and resembling an extended episode of his finger-wagging HBO series, The Newsroom (which I loved), The Social Reckoning is inspired by The Facebook Files, an investigative report by The Wall Street Journal that utilized information from whistleblower Frances Haugen. Sorkin’s interest is in the impact Facebook, eventually renamed Meta, has on the radicalization of its users. Sorkin has never been one to pull punches, and he’s definitely not going for subtlety this time around. The film begins with a prelude of a white woman on the side of the road berating the Black police officers who come to help, all so she can capture it on camera and show it to her fellow racists on the social media platform.
It turns out, this woman used to be a progressive stalwart before she was radicalized by Facebook. Haugen, played by Oscar winner Mikey Madison, was this woman’s friend, and as a data engineer at Facebook, she realizes that it’s them who changed her. The Bear star Jeremy Allen White plays Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, whose dogged ability to sniff out a story makes up for his lack of tech expertise. Sorkin’s punchy rat-a-tat-tat dialogue works like a charm as the brilliant but abrasive Haugen clashes with Horwitz, a luddite who doesn’t even have a social media account and relies on interns to do it for him.
Sorkin knows that we are already aware of the damage Facebook/Meta eventually does, so he mines suspense from revealing how complicit Zuckerberg and others in his Inner Circle were. Facebook wasn’t just a company that misunderstood its audience and made poor decisions; it created a system that intentionally rewards hate speech and drives users towards content that will fuel their rage. Zuckerberg is at the heart of every decision. At one point during a mock hearing, he shouts at former mentor Charlie, played by Bill Burr, that he’s no longer a kid fresh out of university. It’s true. Zuckerberg is cold, calculated, and focused solely on increasing engagement, thus increasing his wealth and power. He hides it by claiming to be a “free speech absolutist”, but he’s really just allowing the worst of people to fester and grow. He sits back and watches as radicalization and harassment become Facebook’s primary form of engagement, creating a culture of disinformation that would lead to real-world consequences during COVID-19 and, of course, January 6th.
There’s no doubt where Sorkin stands in all of this. Much like his series The Newsroom, Sorkin is passing judgment and makes no bones about it. The Social Reckoning is sure to be a film that pleases progressives who despise Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and other tech oligarchs who have cozied up to the Trump White House and made the world a tangibly worse place to live. Jeremy Strong’s version of Zuckerberg is even more robotic than Eisenberg’s. Zuckerberg isn’t the core of this story; he’s like an avatar for all of our worst fears of a CEO run amok, no longer caring what happens to the rest of the world as long as he’s proven right, made richer, and people do as he says. This version of Zuckerberg would be great pals with Tom Cruise’s Digger Rockwell from the recent flop, Digger.
Taking on the shape of a journalistic thriller, The Social Reckoning finds Haugen and Horwitz digging through files, rifling through papers, checking facts, making phone calls. It’s not the most interesting thing in the world to watch, and nobody would ever say Sorkin is as dynamic a filmmaker as Fincher. While the film drags in certain moments, it’s also here that Sorkin acknowledges the role that journalists have to play in staying true to the truth. Horwitz doesn’t know anything about algorithms, but he and Haugen managed to cause maximum pain to Facebook through tried-and-true journalistic techniques. Sorkin’s references to The Pentagon Papers and All the President’s Men kinda feel like he’s patting himself on the back, but they aren’t completely out of left field, either.
Madison, in her first major role since Anora, delivers another masterful performance as a morally complex character. It’s a more subdued role; Haugen is a bit shy but she can lord her intellect over those who aren’t on her level. She repeatedly says she believes in Facebook’s original mission: connecting people all around the world and allowing them to be their best selves. You can see her conviction shrinking along the way as more details about the harm Facebook is doing become indisputable.
White has the easier job. He’s basically our eyes and ears, a window into this complicated world most of us will never understand. His relationship with Haugen evolves playfully over time, until the two are trading quips like many of Sorkin’s best-written couples.
The Social Reckoning isn’t the artistic powerhouse of The Social Network, and it doesn’t feel like the gamechanger that will be discussed for years and years to come. However, it’s crucial commentary for the moment we are in right now. We should all be questioning whether our relationship with social media is healthy. We should all be pushing for journalists to hold men like Zuckerberg accountable. We should all want our elected officials to do something, anything, to rein in companies like Facebook, not get in bed with them. Sorkin has delivered a timely, relevant, and powerful call to arms. It’s on the rest of us to listen.
The Social Reckoning hits theaters on October 9th from Sony Pictures.
What’s going on with the Ghostbusters franchise right now? According to scooper Daniel Richtman, Sony Pictures is developing a new live-action film, titled Ghostbusters: Nightmare on 34th Street. I hope that’s a working title. The film would have a script by Violent Night and Sonic 3 writer, Josh Miller.
Again, what’s up with this? Jason Reitman directed 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which made $204M, and contributed to Gil Kenan’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire in 2024, making about the same amount. I enjoyed both movies, but they didn’t leave an impression and were hella expensive. There has been little buzz about a sequel.
This one sounds like a Christmas movie, which could be cool. I’d hate to see them completely leave behind the cast of Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, McKenna Grace, and the old guard of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson. The franchise is four movies deep; five if you count the 2016 all-female reboot. Audiences are still into it for the nostalgia, but how long can that last?
Netflix has a new animated series, Ghostbusters: Night Shift, which seems promising. It’s set in the 1990s, so it’s probably hoping to grab some of the Stranger Things audience.
Until there’s more concrete info on this one, keep this rumor tucked away like Slimer in a Ghost Trap for now.
No filmmaker puts their characters through the emotional wringer quite like Cristian Mungiu. His Palme d’Or winner, Fjord, is another grueling, morally complex drama exploring themes of child abuse, cultural and religious assimilation, and more. Sebastian Stan, finally able to embrace his Romanian heritage, is joined by Renate Reinsve in powerhouse performances as conservative parents who must decide what’s most important: staying true to themselves or fitting in with the society in which they have chosen to live. The consideration isn’t just for themselves, but also for their impressionable children.
Stan plays Mihai Gheorghiu, a Romanian man who moves to the birthplace of his Norwegian wife, Lisbet, played by Reinsve. Along with their children, including a newborn, they are trying to start a new life in this small, very progressive community. Mihai and Lisbet are very religious and aren’t shy about it. They pray every day, keep their kids away from television, the Internet, smartphones, anything that could influence them. They also teach them that homosexuality is against the Bible’s teachings. Mihai’s upbringing and culture make it okay for some corporal punishment in disciplining children, and so he and Lisbet admit to the occasional “slap” on the backside when needed.
However, even this amount of violence towards children is frowned upon in Norway, and it leads to the family becoming a target of Child Protective Services, which suspects the Gheorghius of child abuse. This not only leads to the two oldest kids, Elia (Vanessa Ceban) and Emmanuel (Jonathan Ciprian Breazu) being placed with a foster family, but even the newborn is briefly taken away from them, pending an investigation. With civil and criminal cases looming, the Gheorghius must navigate a system they don’t really understand, surrounded by people who have already judged them.
Mungiu has an agenda here, I think, and it’s to comment on the hypocrisy of progressives who preach tolerance and acceptance, but are quick to alienate, and even prosecute, those who fail to conform. The Gheorghius aren’t shown to be bad people. In fact, they appear to be extremely loving and nurturing of their children, even if their teachings won’t conform to the vast majority of the liberal audience. Mungiu shows how easily a well-intended system meant to protect kids can be twisted and misused by people with the best of intentions. Mihai and Lisbet have their children taken away without even a chance to make their case. They are judged more for refusing to assimilate than for any crime they may or may not have committed.
An interesting wrinkle is how Mihai and Lisbet choose to fight back, showing that the cultural divide is within the home as well. Lisbet turns to a family friend, Mia (a terrific Lisa Carlehed), who believes in them and wants to see the kids returned, even though her husband Mats (Markus Tonseth) kinda started the investigation against them. When that proves ineffective, Mihai takes a more aggressive stance, turning to the Romanian press to launch a media campaign smearing the Norwegian system for religious persecution. It’s a bullying tactic that could make sympathetic audiences look at Mihai in a more negative light, but it’s not wildly different from the way these situations are handled here in America, especially by conservatives. Further, the Gheorghius aren’t shown to be angels in all of this, either. While there is quite a lot of miscommunication at play, they are also shown to be a little bit pushy in their fundamentalist beliefs, which only adds more tension to the situation.
Mungiu’s screenplay, based loosely on true events, is keen enough to realize that this isn’t just happening to Mihai and Lisbet. Elia and Emmanuel get just as much attention as they grapple with a formative time in their life, being shuffled to foster homes and taken away from their parents, to being in a place that offers more temptation than they’ve ever experienced. A great subplot involves Noora (Henrikke Lund-Olsen), a rebellious neighbor girl who befriends Elia and Emmanuel. While she seems to be a bad influence, sneaking them out on boats at all hours of the night, Noora becomes their closest friend and much-needed lifeline. It’s the children, coming from vastly different backgrounds, who become positive influences on one another, a lesson the adults could’ve learned for themselves.
Stan, speaking three languages incuding his native Romanian, provides nuance in a role that could’ve shown Mihai to be cruel and unfeeling. He’s stern, yes, but ultimately very caring and supportive of his children, and also a loving husband to Lisbet. They didn’t have to give him that weird balding hairline to make his performance more credible, and I found it a little bit distracting. Reinsve, at this point, is just untouchable. Her Lisbet is quiet and sensitive, but arguably the most resolute at standing up for the family’s beliefs.
Gorgeously shot in Norway with the snowy mountains looming in background, with the occasional avalanche a reminder that this sleepy, peaceful little town has its share of turbulence. Fjord is very much in the mold of Mungiu’s previous films and those of the Romanian New Wave in general. As I said, Mungiu puts his characters through the emotional wringer, and the realist nature of his work means the audience will feel every bit of it, too. Fjord is one of the most challenging and thought-provoking movies of the year, but it’s also one that few will want to revisit very often.
Godzilla has been an icon of cinema for decades, with the colossal reptile earning billions in box office receipts between its rampages out of Hollywood studios and Japanese ones. In 2023, amidst the very successful, big-budget run of the MonsterVerse from Legendary Pictures, Godzilla Minus One from Toho made waves worldwide.
Its final worldwide box office may not have been as high as the Hollywood productions, but its production costs were a mere fraction of anything from the MonsterVerse. Now, Godzilla Minus Zero is on the way, promising an even bigger spectacle but on a similarly small budget.
Oscar-Winning VFX on just $10 million
At home, Godzilla Minus One secured eight awards from 12 nominations at the Japan Academy Film Prize, and at the Academy Awards, it came away with the Best Visual Effects Oscar. At the Hollywood awards show, it came up against four domestic releases that ranged in budget from $80 million to $291 million. With it’s budget of between $10 million and $15 million, it’s impressive the level of imapct it’s had.
Now, Godzilla Minus Zero promises to be an even bigger affair, with what will certainly be a more VFX-intensive spectacle. Another famous Godzilla character will be coming to play, and yet, reports around the budget for the sequel say that the production will, again, only be around $15 million.
From 3 November onwards, Godzilla Minus Zero will roll out worldwide. We can expect cinemas to be prepared for a much wider release with more screens than when Minus One released. The promise of another classic kaiju coming to the screen from the same team that did the last film will almost certainly pad the box office haul again.
Setting up a Very Successful Film Series?
Godzilla Minus One made a return of between seven and ten times the budget. The returns across the five MonsterVerse films have ranged from 2.3 to 4.2 times the production budget, which was between $135 million and $185 million. Is it time for Hollywood to look at more mid-budget films once again? No doubt executives will be watching to see if Godzilla Minus Zero proves to be as much, or an even greater, success than Minus One.
If the box office figures are anything to go by, the next addition for Toho should be King Kong. Kong: Skull Island collected the second-most of the series at $570 million, only beaten by The New Empire, also starring Kong, at $572 million. Plus, Kong’s huge beyond the big screen.
The legendary great ape has been a star of entertainment for decades and continues to go strong in film and gaming. The King Kong Cash series is a headline act of the jackpot games library. From Splash to Even Bigger Bananas, King Kong stands in the Jackpot King range alongside hits like Game of Thrones and Fishin’ Frenzy.
Assuming that Godzilla Minus Zero will exceed the mark set by Godzilla Minus One, Toho will be sitting pretty on a hefty stack of cash from two huge successes at the box office. They’ll then have a couple more years, due to the agreement with Legendary Pictures, to cook up another lower-budget hit for international audiences.
Thanks to the restrained budget and excellent work of its director, VFX team, and writer, Toho’s Godzilla doesn’t need a huge box office to be a success, but all signs point to it collecting a monstrous return on investment again.
We’ve known for a couple of years that Paramount was eager to get another live-action Transformers movie going, and that hasn’t changed under the new Skydance regime. Michael Bay, who directed five Transformers movies from 2007 to 2017 before interest started to wane, has been eyeing a return for a while, too. Now, Deadline reports that a new movie is indeed in the works, and it will reunite Bay and Steven Spielberg, who worked together on the earlier films.
The difference this time is that Spielberg is aboard as a “primary producer” and not an executive producer, meaning he will have more creative input. Bay is in early talks to direct the new Transformers movie, making it his sixth behind the camera and eighth in the franchise overall.
Spielberg was instrumental in the creative development of the first two Transformers movies in 2007 and 2009. Arguably, those are the best of the bunch, although I would say they’re all pretty bad. Still, having Spielberg around is a positive step in the right direction.
Jason Fuchs (Argylle) will write the screenplay, set in the modern day. Chances are there will be little to no connection with 2023’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which brought in a franchise-low $443M worldwide. It attempted to freshen things up by introducing Beast Wars characters into the mix, while also teasing a potential GI Joe crossover that we’re unlikely to ever see.
