Mimi Cave made a splash in 2022 by directing the cannibal thriller Fresh, but her follow-up, Holland, wasn’t so hot when it opened last year. Still, she’s a talented filmmaker who makes bold choices, and her next film, titled Pumping Black, has attracted two top-tier stars.
Variety reports that Oscar winner Natalie Portman and Jonathan Bailey will star in Pumping Black, a psychological thriller directed by Cave from a script by Haley Hope Bartels. The story “follows cyclist Taylor Mace, who at 35-years-old is finding himself aging out of the sport. He is taken under the wing of Andrea Lathe, a doctor driven by her own thirst for victory and power. As the race to the Tour de France progresses, Taylor must take increasingly dark measures to protect his secret.”
Sounds like some Lance Armstrong performance-enhancing drug stuff.
Bailey is coming off a blockbuster 2025 that saw him crowned box office champion after the successes of Jurassic World Rebirth and Wicked: For Good.
Portman recently attended Sundance for the world premiere of Cathy Yan’s The Gallerist, in which she stars alongside Jenna Ortega. I remember the reviews not being too great, and it still doesn’t have major distribution or a release date. Portman also has Lena Dunham’s Netflix comedy Good Sex opening later this year.
It’s winter time in Gotham City. At least, there’s snow everywhere in new teasers for The Batman: Part II, released by director Matt Reeves to signal a ramping up of production on the anticipated sequel. The images, revealed on social media, show the Batmobile racing through a blizzard through the Gotham City streets. Reeves captioned the images “#SnowTires”.
Filming was delayed multiple times as Reeves and co-writer Mattson Tomlin worked to perfect the script, which was completed last summer. Robert Pattinson will return as Bruce Wayne/Batman, with an emphasis on Wayne investigating further corruption within the Gotham City power structure. Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, and Andy Serkis will reprise their roles, with Sebastian Stan expected to play Harvey Dent, and Scarlett Johansson as his wife, Gilda Dent. Barry Keoghan returning as this version of the Joker is likely, too.
A movie about talking sheep that investigate the murder of their beloved shepherd? Sounds like the kind of silly, cutesy family fare that I usually avoid like the plague. To my surprise, The Sheep Detectives is substantially more than that. In fact, I would go so far to say that it’s mature enough to keep adults invested, but also teaches a major life lesson about grief in a way that kids might understand. In short, don’t let the trailers pull the wool over your eyes, there’s a lot more to this movie than meets the eye.
Hugh Jackman stars as George Hardy, a shepherd beloved by his flock of sheep, but considered an angry curmudgeon by the residents of fictional Denbrook. Every night, George reads from his favorite mystery novels to the animals under his charge, treating them as if they were his own children. When George is suddenly found dead one morning, the sheep, who have been fed a nightly diet of murder mysteries, recognize that he has been killed and it’s up to them to solve the case. Can’t trust those pesky humans because they’re either guilty or incompetent like the town sheriff, played by Nicholas Braun. George had a surprisngly large group of enemies, and the arrival of his estranged daughter Rebecca (Molly Gordon) and an intrepid reporter (Nicholas Galitzine) only add to the list of suspects.
Sounds pretty harmless, right? Like the kind of thing a parent might put on to keep the kiddos distracted for a while? Well, not so fast. The Sheep Detectives is surprisingly pointed on the subject of death, and how the loss of a loved one can disorient a person’s entire world. The sheep, in particular Lily (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who is the smartest of them all, have never known anything but George and the patch of grass where they live. Losing George sends them all adrift, with no comprehension of what is going on. In fact, the sheep have a defense mechanism when anything is too traumatic. They simply choose to forget the painful event, and *poof*, it’s gone. Think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and wanting to erase the memory of someone who broke your heart, and the consequences of such an action. Yes, this movie is operating on that level…only with a lot more hoof.
The script by The Last of Us co-creator Craig Mazin doesn’t stop there, though. The investigation into George’s death is for Lily and her crew a means of distracting themselves from the harsh reality. As long as they are acting as if they are in the pages of a whodunnit, George is still with them. I think we’ve all felt this way at one point or another in our lives, refusing to face a harsh truth by engaging in something else, anything else.
So while The Sheep Detectives is more substantial than it appears in one respect, it’s seriously lacking in another. The actual mystery is pretty thin, with multiple red herrings introduced but not playing much of a role in the story. Because the sheep still need to rely on the shockingly unsuspecting humans to do most of the work, they sometimes feel like passengers in their own story. While I can appreciate that the film is more than just a goofy comedy, it also could’ve been a lot funnier. The sheep’s misunderstandings of the human world (their fraught attempts to cross the street, for instance) are worth a few laughs, at least.
To be honest, those human characters are pretty lame and pale by comparison to the colorful sheep protagonists. It’s not for a lack of star power in those roles, and they all are clearly having a good time, especially Braun who is eternally stuck playing the kind-hearted simpleton. But it’s Louis-Dreyfus who shines as the voice of Lily, the movie’s emotional heart. Bryan Cranston brings an authoritative, critical edge to the role of Sebastian, an Icelandic Leadersheep who has seen the dark side of humanity, offering a more cynical perspective than the others. Also, I really loved Chris O’Dowd as Mopple, the one sheep who refuses to forget the bad times, shouldering the burden of those sad memories for the rest of them.
Surprisingly thoughtful and charming, The Sheep Detectives is shear entertainment when so much all-ages content is forgettable. Since the best detectives never have just one mystery to solve, don’t be surprised if this unexpected winner becomes a franchise.
Remember Benh Zeitlin? He was an instant superstar with Beasts of the Southern Wild fourteen years ago (!!!), earning a Best Picture Oscar nomination. It seemed to be the star of a career on a Terrence Malick-esque trajectory, but it took six years for his follow-up, Wendy, a loose take on Peter Pan, and critics killed it. I enjoyed it, though. Anyway, Zeitlin is back with a new movie, Hold On To Your Angels, that will reunite Hamnet duo Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal.
That’s one helluva way to make a comeback.
According to Deadline, Zeitlin will write and direct Hold On To Your Angels, a film that set on the edge of Louisiana that “follows a hell-bound outlaw (Mescal) and a ferocious shepherd of lost souls (Buckley) who fall in catastrophic love as their crumbling bayou paradise drags them under.”
Zeitlin said about the film, “Hold on to Your Angels is the most impossible love story I’ve ever witnessed — an outlaw romance for the end of America, set on the crumbling edge of South Louisiana. I’ve been dreaming of telling it since its hero, Pam Harper, walked into an audition for Beasts of the Southern Wild 17 years ago. It’s a love letter to an endangered way of life — and a rallying cry for empathy across a fractured planet.”
Harper played Bathtub resident Little Jo in Zeitlin’s acclaimed debut.
The film is being produced through Brad Pitt’s Plan B label, and will be presented to buyers at Cannes this month.
As a fan of Zeitlin’s blend of magical realism and naturalistic filmmaking style, I’m pumped to see him return, especially with a powerhouse duo like Buckley and Mescal. This has awards season written all over it.
Adrien Brody has finally found his first lead role following the Best Actor Oscar win for The Brutalist. Brody will star with Rachel Zegler and Ben Platt in father/daughter drama Last Dance from Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz.
Written by Emily Ziff Griffin and based on her New Yorker article, Last Dance is set in 1991 and follows a Broadway composer played by Brody, who takes his daughter on a gay Caribbean cruise while he secretly grapples with AIDS.
Platt will also provide original music for the film, with Zegler performing the new songs. We know how talented both of them are musically from their many works on stage and screen. Zegler earned a Golden Globe Best Actress win for her performance in West Side Story. Platt has won two Tony Awards.
There has been a lot of attention on what Brody would do next following The Brutalist. Notably, he made a bunch of sketchy choices following his Best Actor win for The Pianist in 2001. He was much pickier this time around, even going so far as to back out of S. Craig Zahler’s The Bookie and the Bruiser. Joining with an acclaimed filmmaker such as Aïnouz, who won Un Certain Regard in 2019 for The Invisible Life, seems like a good idea on paper. That said, Aïnouz’s last three films, Firebrand, Motel Destino, and this year’s Rosebush Pruning, haven’t been as well-received. I enjoyed Firebrand, though, and interviewed Aïnouz about it.
Is there anyone out there who doesn’t love Girl Scout Cookies? Seriously, the addictively sweet treats are an annual threat to our weight loss agenda. And the Girl Scouts selling them? They’re pretty fearless salespeople, as well. The whole Girl Scout Cookie practice gets put under the microscope in Cookie Queens, a buzzy documentary that premiered earlier this year at Sundance.
Notably, Cookie Queens lists Meghan Markle and Prince Harry among its exec-producers, which has put an added spotlight on the film. Behind the camera is Alysa Nahmias, a producer and director of multiple acclaimed documentaries.
The film centers on four Girl Scouts and the unique challenges they face while trying to sell the most boxes of Girl Scout Cookies. I mean, how hard can that be? Just tell us it’s cookie season and take our money, that’s how it usually works. My hope is that if they screen it for us, each seat will have a box of Samoas beneath it.
SYNOPSIS: A celebration of girlhood and the complexities that come with it, Cookie Queens is a coming-of-age story about the joys, pressures, and tensions woven into one of America’s most cherished rituals: Girl Scout Cookie season.
Doug Liman, the director behind Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Bourne Identity, and Fair Game, knows a thing or two about spy games. He returns to the world of espionage with Star One, which Variety says will star Miles Teller and Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne.
Directed by Liman from a script by David Coggeshall, Star One centers on two wildly mismatched CIA agents, one dashing and charismatic, the other straight-laced, forced to work together on a top secret mission to deliver arms covertly thousands of miles across enemy territory.
The film is supposedly based on real events, according to the synopsis: “This is the untold true story of the first intelligence star ever awarded for one of the most important yet least known missions in modern history.”
Teller can be seen right now in the Michael Jackson biopic, Michael, and recently in Eternity and The Gorge. Next up for him is a role in James Gray’s Paper Tiger. Redmayne is currently shooting season two of Peacock’s The Day of the Jackal, and will star with Julia Roberts in Panic Carefully.
Liman directed two movies in 2024, Road House and The Instigators. Next for him is the biopic Bitcoin starring Casey Affleck and Pete Davidson.
When all else fails, you can count on the Minions. Since the little yellow mischief-makers debuted with 2010’s Despicable Me, they have been like printing money for Illumination Entertainment and Universal Studios. And now they’re back again with the third movie in their spinoff franchise, Minions & Monsters, which hits theaters on July 1st.
Minions & Monsters is set years prior to 2015’s Minions and 2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru, and follows their attempts to make a monster movie in 1920s Hollywood.
The film is directed by Pierre Coffin, also the voice of the Minions, from a script by Coffin and Brian Lynch.
Also in the voice cast are Trey Parker, Jesse Eisenberg, Zoey Deutch, Allison Janney, Bobby Moynihan, Phil LaMarr, Christoph Waltz, and Jeff Bridges.
SYNOPSIS: Minions & Monsters, the third prequel in the Despicable Me franchise, is described as the “rambunctious, ridiculous, and totally true story of how the Minions conquered 1920s Hollywood, became movie stars, lost everything, unleashed monsters onto the world, and then banded together to try and save the planet from the mayhem they had just created.”
Despicable Me has earned a massive $5.4B across six movies, giving Universal all the reason in the world to keep them coming for as long as audiences want them. They aren’t showing any signs of slowing down, either.
Twenty-five years after Legally Blonde showed that pretty in pink could also mean pretty damn brilliant, Elle Woods is back in a new Prime Video series. Elle is a prequel set during the iconic character’s high school years, as she is molded and shaped into the fierce, poised attorney the world came to know and love in two movies starring Reese Witherspoon.
Lexi Minetree stars as Elle Woods in the series, which has already been given a second season order before the show’s Prime Video debut on July 1st.
Elle remains Witherspoon’s most enduring role, with fans still clamoring for a third movie. She is aboard Elle as a producer through her Hello Sunshine label, alongside Amazon MGM Studios.
Witherspoon said in a statement, “Twenty-five years after the world met Elle Woods for the first time, it’s a dream come true to share the story of how she became the unstoppable force we all fell in love with. Discovering Lexi Minetree and watching her step into Elle’s fabulous shoes has been one of the most gratifying experiences of my career. I think our series’ themes of kindness, authenticity, and self-belief will resonate deeply with fans of the original films and new audiences alike. Working with our incredible Hello Sunshine team, Amazon, and our visionary writers and directors to bring Elle’s high school journey to life has been a tremendous joy. I can’t wait to share Season One with the world and start rolling cameras on Season Two!”
Joining Minetree in the cast are June Diane Raphael as Elle’s mother Eva, Tom Everett Scott as her father Wyatt, along with Gabrielle Policano, Jacob Moskovitz, Chandler Kinney, and Zac Looker, Jessica Belkin, Logan Shroyer, Amy Pietz, Matt Ober, Chloe Wepper, David Burtka, Brad Harder, Kayla Maisonet, Lisa Yamada, and the late James Van Der Beek.
The series was created by Laura Kittrell, and co-showrun by Kittrell alongside Caroline Dries. Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) directs the first two episodes.
The Planet of the Apes franchise has been quiet since 2024’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, but now we know it’s alive and well. However, it might be going in a different direction than expected. Deadline reports that a new Planet of the Apes movie is in the works at 20th Century Studios, with The Fantastic Four: First Steps director Matt Shakman at the helm.
According to the report, this will be a new standalone chapter and not a direct sequel to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, odd since that film’s writer Josh Friedman is returning. The original tale is being cooked up by Friedman and Shakman.
So what does this mean about the future of the ‘Apes’ movies under director Wes Ball? Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes set itself apart from the successful trilogy of blockbusters that preceded it, and was meant to be the launch of a new trilogy. Is that over? It certainly looks like it.
To be fair, ‘Kingdom’ earned just $397M, the lowest since the failed reboot attempt in 2001 with Mark Wahlberg. Perhaps that was reason enough for 20th Century Studios to try something else. Whatever the reason, Shakman has a diverse portfolio, with Fantastic Four, WandaVision, and Game of Thrones under his belt, that makes him an intriguing option.
