Jennifer Lawrence has landed on her next major role, and it’s shaping up to be a doozy. The Oscar-winning Lawrence will star in The Flood, the upcoming sci-fi thriller from Weapons and Resident Evil director Zach Cregger that will be produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment.
Warner Bros. has already set an August 11th 2028 release date for The Flood, which Cregger will write, direct, and produce based on his own original story.
Details on Lawrence’s role are under wraps, but the story is rumored to center on a captain and her crew in deep space as they investigate a cryptic signal from a distant planet. They discover an alien artifact that can bend time, reality, and their sanity.
Cregger’s latest film, Resident Evil, is in theaters now and just passed $200M at the global box office. He is also attached to a Weapons spinoff centered on Aunt Lydia, as well as co-writing Siren Head with Whalefall director Brian Duffield.
Lawrence last starred in Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love, and is set to reprise her role as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.
Like a zombie rising from the dead, Jane Austen adaptations never go away. They just keep coming back with different people in front of and behind the camera, sometimes with a different perspective. Does the world really need another Sense and Sensibility? While I would argue we don’t need any Jane Austen adaptations ever again, fans of the author’s timeless romantic works would disagree. And with this new take starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles, perhaps they’re right.
Sense and Sensibility is directed by Georgia Oakley, who broke out with 2022’s acclaimed film, Blue Jean. Diana Reid adapted Austen’s cherished book about the many loves and heartbreaks of the Dashwood sisters.
Also in the cast are Caitríona Balfe, Frank Dillane, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, George MacKay, Stacy Martin, and Fiona Shaw.
SYNOPSIS: From Focus Features and Working Title comes an irresistible new take on Jane Austen’s iconic “Sense and Sensibility”: a charming, witty, and deeply relatable story of love and sisterhood starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles.
Focus Features will release Sense and Sensibility in theaters on October 16th.
There’s a passing of the torch happening with the Christmas comedy, The Man with the Bag. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the action hero icon who starred in Jingle All the Way thirty years ago, and Alan Ritchson, the Reacher star who is one of the biggest action stars working today. Teaming up for the first time, the budget for protein shakes must be through the roof for Prime Video’s film that turns Santa Claus into the leader of his own heist crew.
Schwarzengegger stars as Santa Claus who, after his magic bag is stolen, turns to his Naughty list to recruit the right crew to help steal it back. Ritchson plays Vance, a former thief whose particular set of skills suddenly proves pretty useful. Awkwafina stars as a rogue elf who cuffed Santa’s magic sack of toys, threatening to ruin Christmas for all of the kiddos.
The cast also includes Berkeley James, Michael Cyril Creighton, Liza Koshy, Kyle Mooney, Jane Krakowski, and Ken Jeong. Adam Shankman directs his second movie of 2026 following the RuPaul comedy, Stop! That! Train!
The Man with the Bag is Schwarzenegger’s first feature since 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate. He starred for a couple of seasons in Netflix’s FUBAR series, and his likeness was seen in animated form in Predator: Killer of Killers, teasing a possible return to that franchise.
Ritchson has had a busy 2026 as well, following Netflix’s War Machine, and the action-comedy Runner, which opened earlier this month. He and Prime Video are sticking close together for obvious reasons. Ritchson previously starred in Playdate for the streamer, and has a biopic on Navy SEAL Mike Thornton coming up for it, as well.
The Man with the Bag hits Prime Video on December 2nd.
I don’t consider myself a Colleen Hoover fan, but some author pals in my friend group definitely are. And while I somewhat enjoyed the adaptation of It Ends with Us, it was Verity, the dark and twisted thriller that put Hoover on the map, that I was told to look out for. Well, the wait for that movie is over, and it’s true what they say: Sometimes what works on the page doesn’t work on the big screen.
The thing about Verity is that I can tell there’s a transgressive DePalma-esque erotic thriller in there somewhere, but it’s written in black ink and sitting in a Barnes & Noble somewhere. It’s certainly not in the movie, directed by veteran filmmaker Michael Showalter, which lacks any spark whatsoever. Where’s the soapy, trashy melodrama? Where’s the naughtiness of last year’s diabolical The Housemaid? Where’s the devilish fun of A Simple Plan? The success of those two films shows that audiences love to watch sexy, broken people manipulate, abuse, and even kill one another. Verity teases all of that but it’s like somewhere along the way someone ripped out all of the pages and tossed them into a shredder.
This is a backward career move for Dakota Johnson, reverting to 50 Shades of Grey blandness as Lowen, a struggling author hired out of nowhere to ghostwrite a new book from bestselling author Verity Crawford, played with maximum iciness by Anne Hathaway. Verity, a Gillian Flynn-esque writer whose murder novels have sold millions, is incapacitated after an accident and can’t finish the franchise. Josh Hartnett plays Verity’s handsome husband Jeremy (the only person here with a normal name, meaning he’s the most fucked up of them all), who Lowen first met when they witnessed a bloody vehicular homicide. As far as meet-cutes go, that is definitely one you won’t see in a Nancy Meyers rom-com.
Offered a truckload of cashola, Lowen accepts and moves into the Crawfords’ posh Vermont home to start the process. However, she’s pissed to learn that Verity is paralyzed, wheelchair-bound, and can’t even speak. Even worse, Lowen discovers Verity’s secret autobiography, which reveals she is a lot more evil than anyone ever knew. Good thing that Jeremy guy is so cute and everything! Of course, an illicit affair between the two breaks out, and Lowen thinks Verity might be secretly watching them.
It all sounds ridiculous because it is, but too bad Verity doesn’t play it that way. This movie could’ve done with a lot more cheekiness, rather than the dull seriousness we’re given. For instance, Jeremy is such a stud that he has women leaving teeth marks on the headboard from biting down on it so hard during sex. If you can’t find a way to have some fun with the absurdity of that, then you’re not trying hard enough. Instead, audiences might grind their teeth for a completely different reason: to stay awake. Verity never gets out of neutral, coasting along as its cast delivers low-energy performances that would sink any film, but look particularly bad for a movie that demands a more heightened approach.
Showalter, whose background is making a comedic meal out of dramatic turmoil (The Big Sick, Spoiler Alert), apparently can’t do the same when murder is on the table. Verity bears the hallmarks of an adaptation unsure of what to keep from Hoover’s novel and what to leave out. Characters that could’ve filled in the gaps for Lowen, or perhaps just made for a more entertaining movie, were underwritten or written out completely. Such as Jeremy and Verity’s young son, Crew (yes, that is his name, played by Brady Wagner), who sees everything going on in the house. There’s also Verity’s stern nurse, played by Irina Dvorovenko, a character that you can tell has a more crucial role in the book but spends most of her time…well, leaving. She’s always going someplace else and conveniently leaving Verity behind.
After a killer opening and lousy follow-through, Verity somewhat recovers as the confrontation we’d been hoping for finally arrives. While that plays out in a satisfyingly wicked way, what follows is one final twist and an ambiguous conclusion so smug it’s a wonder we can hear any of it over the sound of Hoover slapping herself on the back.
Obsession director Curry Barker isn’t wasting time in following-up his $500M horror hit. Blumhouse Atomic Monster have announced his next film, the horror-comedy Anything But Ghosts, will hit theaters on May 7th 2027.
Barker will direct from a script co-written with his frequent collaborator, Cooper Tomlinson, with the duo also staring as con-artist ghost hunters seeking fame and fortune by swindling others with bogus paranormal tricks. The scam is effective until they run into a real supernatural force.
There’s also a connection to Obsession in that Anything But Ghosts takes place in the same universe, referencing that film’s triple murder.
Also in the cast are M3GAN star Violet McGraw, Chris Reinacher, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Aaron Paul.
Focus Features, which distributed Obsession, is on the hook for this one, too. It’s easy to see why, as Barker is one of the few rising-star filmmakers with genuine buzz and a fanbase.
Game of Thrones has experienced a resurgence of popularity thanks to HBO’s House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Now all eyes turn to the big screen, and the first feature film, Game of Thrones: Aegon’s Conquest. Warner Bros. has officially set the film to arrive on June 6th 2029, making it a huge summer event film.
We first learned about this new film, centered on the conquests of the Targaryen clan, early this year when House of Cards and Andor writer Beau Willimon was set as screenwriter. Behind the camera will be Owen Harris, already a veteran of this franchise for having helmed episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
The story will reportedly center on Aegon I Targaryen, the House of the Dragon member who conquered six of seven kingdoms and created the Iron Throne from the melted swords of his enemies.
There are loads of other Game of Thrones projects in the works, so don’t be shocked if more announcements are made before Aegon’s Conquest hits theaters. [Variety]
Perhaps more than any other actor, Tom Cruise is someone that we want to see push himself. It’s probably years of watching him play heroic figures or triumphant underdogs that has done it, but when he plays the heel, it’s always worth relishing. We still talk about his nasty turn as Frank TJ Mackey in Magnolia, for instance, and I imagine we’ll be talking for a long time about his role as Digger Rockwell in Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s ambitious, big-swing comedy Digger, which promises to be the most polarizing movie of the year.
Digger finds Iñárritu returning to meta territory similar to his 2014 Best Picture winner, Birdman, but the exact context of it I’ll leave a secret, as it’s been kept from trailers. Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, the kind of powerful oil magnate who pals around with the United States President, played by John Goodman, and has legions of loyal cronies telling him what he wants to hear at all times. It’s so bad, nobody wants to tell him that his beloved cat, a poor decrepit thing, is dying and probably should be put down. Digger lives in a home full of oddities and curiosities, almost like a rich man’s idea of what a funhouse would be.
The thing about Digger is that he’s Iñárritu and his co-writers’ commentary on the kind of evil son of a bitch that we allow to exist because he makes our lives easier. So what if he’s literally destroying the planet, and gladly so, to turn a profit? The oil he pulls out of the ground powers our homes, our cars, our smartphones, so we just let it slide. But there is always a reckoning, and when a catastrophe threatens the entire planet, Digger is put in charge of fixing the problem.
Charged with this monumental task, Digger doesn’t suddenly become our champion. Instead, he becomes even more of a defiant prick. Cruise, unrecognizable with gray hair, an old man’s withered body, and a sneer we’ve never seen before, leans into Digger’s aggressively antagonistic attitude. It’s one that he not only shares with the public and his scientists (Riz Ahmed steals the show as Digger’s timid environmental security guy), but also his family. Sandra Hüller plays Digger’s younger half-sister, who runs a company doing literally the opposite of what her brother does. Needless to say, that conflict becomes an issue during this crisis.
Digger soars then crashes down to earth based on two things: Cruise’s unforgettable performance, and a narrative choice that Iñárritu makes that sends the film into an unrecoverable freefall. If Cruise is put up for a Best Actor Oscar, a distinct possibility, the scene that will do it for him is an epic, outrageously funny extended sequence in which Digger lambasts the EU, holding court like a gladiator commanding the arena. The setup is deliberately absurd, with the standing-room-only crowd literally breaking their necks to be part of the ridiculous sideshow.
However, because of the choice Iñárritu makes, Digger completely falls apart. I think of a recent film of similar star power and prestige, Netflix’s climate change comedy Don’t Look Up, and how it was effective in conveying its message through funny characters we could relate to. Digger goes in a different direction entirely, adding a metafictional layer that keeps you at a distance from the magnate’s story and seemingly impossible ordeal, which is compelling enough on its own.
Iñárritu is swinging for the fences with Digger, and employs the right technical people to make it happen. Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography is stunning, with constantly shifting aspect ratios, while the production design shifts from apocalyptic desolation to a more playful style, befitting the film’s whimsical tone.
Your mileage will vary with Digger, depending on how much you invest in Iñárritu’s big twist. It didn’t work for me at all, and I found myself checking out more often than not in the second half of the film. That said, I can also appreciate the boldness of Digger, and wouldn’t be surprised if Iñárritu and Cruise are eventually lauded for it.
It’s not as if we haven’t had plenty of killer snake movies, Anaconda comes to mind; but we’ve never had a truly great one. It’s funny, because we’ve had great movies about loads of other deadly creatures, such as sharks, canines, and even birds. I think it’s pretty safe to say that Mike P. Nelson’s Beware Boiúna is the best killer snake movie of all, because it isn’t reliant on the snake alone to ramp up the non-stop thrills and action.
Beware Boiúna caught me by surprise because I think we’ve been trained to expect it to be like Anaconda, the cheesy 1997 original not the horrible comedy reboot from last year. The better model is something like Jaws, which is great because of the setting, the conflicts among the people, everything that orbits the shark itself. Written by Alan McElroy, Beware Boiúna takes a similarly character-driven approach. The snake is a chaotic component added to an already tense life-or-death situation.
Jessica Rothe, already a beloved scream queen from the Happy Death Day films (and the upcoming TIFF breakout, River) plays Alli, part of a humanitarian mission deep in the Amazon rainforest. The goal is to help treat the people there with medical care they can’t normally access. Rothe’s character is a bit naive going in; it’s clear she has the best of intentions but no real understanding of how cruel the world, and this area in particular, can be. Kiana Madeira is Lena, a local who moved away to the big city, and now has returned to help find her missing brother. Lena has a more realistic idea of what to expect. She knows the danger, she knows the people, and she knows the folklore that has terrified people of this region for generations.
Lena and Alli might have different views of the world, but they put all of that aside when one’s life is threatened and they are forced to act in self-defense. But this defense comes at a fatal cost, and the two women find themselves being hunted by Logan Marshall-Green’s Brennan Malloy, who is out for revenge.
I’ve always been a fan of Marshall-Green, especially for his performances in The Invitation and Upgrade, but he’s even better here as the main antagonist. When we first meet Brennan, he seems like a typial “ugly American” stereotype, invading a foreign land and robbing it of its natural resources for profit. Later, as we learn more about him, things are considerably less black and white. He has damn good reason to be angry with Alli and Lena, even if his method of payback is beyond the pale.
As for the snake, the Boiúna, it’s treated like an unstoppable force of nature and creature of legend. It’s always spoken about with a kind of reverence, like a queen (the creature is always a “her”) defending its kingdom. It’s man who are the interlopers into the snake’s territory. Visually, the special effects are a damn sight better than the recent Anaconda which probably had a bigger budget. I love how the Boiúna uses the surroundings to its benefit, often hiding in plain sight until the right time to strike.
So a killer snake attack in the middle of a revenge thriller? Yeah, it sounds crazy but it works, and the film leans into the chaos of the situation and how that chaos can breed unlikely relationships. While there aren’t a ton of kills that truly stand out, the deaths that do happen are significant and there are some real shockers here. Don’t expect all of your favorites to come out of it unscathed. Beware Boiúna is a blast that puts an awesome new movie monster on the map.
Marvel Studios and Disney made some serious cash over the weekend by re-releasing Avengers: Endgame into theaters with new footage bridging to Avengers: Doomsday. So why not try the same thing again with another film on the all-time box office list? Deadline reports that Spider-Man: Brand New Day will return to theaters courtesy of Sony Pictures, with footage that fans have never seen.
According to the report, at least some of the restored footage will include Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple aka Night Nurse from the Marvel/Netflix series of shows. Dawson has talked about the scenes she shot that got cut in the final release, so this would presumably be that. Expect Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle to be involved, as well, since he is another refugee who had made the jump to the MCU.
Temple previously appeared in the first two seasons of Daredevil, also in Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, The Defenders, and Luke Cage. She’s a rogue nurse who helps out New York’s injured vigilantes.
As for the other footage, that is still up in the air. It felt to me like there was some missing conversation between Peter Parker and MJ, so maybe that’s what we’ll get? Or perhaps more with Jean Grey?
Sony has yet to give a release date for the updated Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but with the original version sticking around in theaters until November 16th, expect it to be shortly afterward.
Here’s some VERY unexpected news. Dan Trachtenberg, the man credited with reviving the Predator franchise with Prey and Predator: Badlands, will direct a new Sleeping Beauty movie for Disney. Say wha?
Trachtenberg and Raya McClendon came up with the story, while Alex Anfanger and Dan Schimpf are writing the script. The plan is to reimagine the classic fairy tale and go in a completely new direction. There will be no connection to Disney’s successful Maleficent films starring Angelina Jolie.
The ties between Trachtenberg and Disney are tight following Prey, the animated anthology Predator: Killer of Killers, and Predator: Badlands.
Trachtenberg recently signed a three-year first-look deal with Paramount, and is currently developing a mystery project for it. He’s also directed the animated horror-comedy Freddy the 13th.
This should put the kibosh on any hope for a new Predator film any time soon. As much as critics and audiences loved Badlands, it only banked about $180M on a $101M budget, so it makes sense for Trachtenberg to move on for now. [Deadline]
