It’s been a while since I’ve done a casting post about more than one project. The reason is that these films, one set to star Miles Teller, and the other by Jason Momoa, are linked by director John Swab, who is moving forward on two thrillers that are set to be the biggest of his career.
First up, Deadline reports Teller will star in Copperhead, a film that returns Swab to the drug scene following his films Body Brokers and King Ivory. Penned by Chad Feehan and J. Todd Scott, the story “is thrust in motion when an undercover drug deal explodes into violence in West Texas. A veteran detective is then forced to team with a young federal agent to unravel the conspiracy within their elite task force.”
Interestingly, Copperhead is financed and produced by Black Label, which is also behind the upcoming Sicario 3, also about the drug war.
Meanwhile, buried in the same report, it’s revealed that Momoa will play outlaw biker gang leader Sonny Barger in Hell’s Angels, which Swab will direct from his own screenplay. Momoa will star and produce the film based on Barger’s popular autobiography, about his time as a founding member of the infamous Hell’s Angels motorcycle club that became counterculture icons throughout the 1960s. Known for their violence and criminal activities, the Hell’s Angels were negatively portrayed by writer Hunter S. Thompson in his 1967 book, Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs.
Swab has quietly built quite a resume of cop and drug world thrillers, most of them featuring the likes of Frank Grillo and Melissa Leo. Here’s hoping he manages to get both of them for these two films as well. I was highly impressed by King Ivory, and spoke to the cast about working with Swab on it. You can check out that interview below.
By far, the most critically acclaimed work of director David Ayer’s career was following Fury, the 2014 tank thriller led by a game Brad Pitt, who also received praise for his performance as a battlefield leader. After far too long, in my opinion, the duo are reunited for Heart of the Beast, which is a very different kind of movie centered on surviving seemingly insurmountable odds.
In Heart of the Beast, Pitt stars as an ex-Navy SEAL who, along with his retired combat dog, attempts a return to civilization after a catastrophic plane crash in the dangerous Alaskan wilderness.
The script is by Cameron Alexander, and was on the Black List of best unproduced screenplays.
Joining Pitt in the cast are JK Simmons and Canadian Inuk actress Anna Lambe who will have a role in Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning.
“He’s a beast,” Ayer describes Pitt. “He was vulnerable and exposed himself in a way that I haven’t seen before. A constant theme from people who have seen the film is just how raw, believable, and profound his performance is.”
Here’s the official synopsis: After a harrowing plane crash, Special Forces officer James Belmont (Brad Pitt) and his combat dog, Odin, find themselves stranded deep in the Alaskan wilderness. Together, they are forced into a brutal fight for survival against the elements. From acclaimed filmmaker David Ayer, Heart of the Beast is an intense adventure thriller that explores the unbreakable bond between a man and his best friend as they face their greatest battle yet.
Paramount Pictures will release Heart of the Beast in theaters on September 25th.
Bridgerton actress Simone Ashley has recently seen her profile raised signifcantly due to her performance in The Devil Wears Prada 2, but she gets the spotlight mostly to herself in director/co-writer Jennifer E. Montgomery’s stylish psychological thriller, This Tempting Madness. It’s a film that will look very familiar to those who have undoubtedly seen dozens of them dealing with amnesia, fractured psyches, identity, and violence. Twists and turns keep you on your toes for a while, but ultimately, the film fails to go far enough to make an impression.
Ashley proves deft and adaptable as Mia, who we are introduced to as she’s seen plummeting from a balcony, hitting every floor on the way down, only to be saved from sure death by a safety net. Mia wakes up from a coma, her body broken and her memories in tatters. She has no recollection of what happened. All she knows is that her husband, Jake (Austin Stowell) is in prison for her attempted murder. But is that even true? Mia’s brother, Ajay (Life of Pi‘s Suraj Sharma), is fiercely protective of her and is reluctant to reveal anything.
The details start to get filled in, through evocative flashes of memory that only serve to confuse Mia further. Is Jake really a monster? Is Ajay hiding something from her? Or has Mia done something horrible that she might not even realize? Montgomery and co-writer Andrew Davis go a long way in establishing the outside factors that are making Mia’s recovery more difficult. One of those is her family’s obscene wealth and privilege, which leads them to shelter her rather than truly confront the problem.
Interminably slow pacing proves to be an issue, as This Tempting Madness struggles to maintain interest between its many swerves, which themselves are pretty predictable for anyone experienced with the genre. However, there’s one moment when the film nearly goes off-the-rails in what would’ve been a welcome, deliciously weird way, but it’s like Montgomery took her foot off the pedal and retreated into a much safer direction. It’s unfortunate, because Ashley, who glides easily between vulnerability, naivete, and insanity, would’v thrived in a film that matched her unhinged energy.
This Tempting Madness opens in theaters and digital on June 12th.
Oh thank goodness. The final trailer for Disney’s live-action Moana is here, arriving as tickets for the remake have gone on sale. It feels like we’ve been watching promos for ages, but that’s only because Disney has never given Moana enough time to go away and be missed. The original was in 2016, the sequel was just two years ago, and now this hits theaters on July 10th.
Catherine Lagaʻaia takes over as the fearless wayfinder, Moana, with Dwayne Johnson reprising his role as the powerful demigod, Maui, who joins her on an epic voyage to save her village.
Also in the cast are John Tui as Chief Tui, Frankie Adams as Sina, Rena Owen as Gramma Tala, and Jemaine Clement who reprises his role as the villainous, treasure-hoarding crab Tamatoa.
The film is directed by Thomas Kail, best known for directing Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. Jared Bush (Zootopia 2) and Dana Ledoux Miller wrote the screenplay.
David Cameron Mitchell set the indie horror world on fire in 2015 with It Follows, helping to make a star out of Maika Monroe. The anticipated follow-up, titled They Follow, will bring back Monroe, but it will also star Naomi Ackie, who is joining the cast.
Deadline reports Ackie is in final talks to join Monroe in They Follow. Details on her role remain under wraps, just as we don’t know the plot of the film. The original starred Monroe as a woman who becomes infected by a sexually transmitted supernatural entity that stalks the people closest to her, and can only be passed on through sex with another.
Ackie has done so much in a short stretch of time, and she’s only getting better and busier. Her breakout role was as ex-Stormtrooper Jannah in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but rather than rolling that over into more franchise blockbusters, she’s diversified with roles in films by some of the top directors around: Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby, Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17, Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters, and Kasi Lemmons’ Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody. She’ll be seen this October in the DC Studios horror, Clayface.
In short, Ackie’s a fantastic addition to one of the most anticipated horror sequels on the horizon.
Goddamn! I didn’t realize how badly I needed an action flick the caliber of The Furious in my life. It’s been way too long since I sat at a film festival and took in something with this much ferocity, energy, and unchecked rage. The Raid 2, maybe? That director Kenji Tanigaki fills his cast with familiar martial artists from that film and its equally classic predecessor is alright with me, and that it follows similar story beats is just fine, too. You won’t give a damn when you’re watching a five-man-rumble to end all rumbles in the movie’s absolutely incredible final sequence. For fans of Hong Kong action flicks, a new champion has entered the ring.
The plot is simple, and the title is apt. Xie Miao, who played Jet Li’s young son in The New Legend of Shaolin and My Father Is a Hero, plays mute tradesman Wang Wei. Wang Wei’s beloved daughter Rainy (Yang Enyu) wants him to leave to live with her in China, where she can look after him (he suffered a deadly head injury some time ago) as much as he can look after her. When Rainy’s kindness gets her kidnapped by human traffickers, there’s nothing in the world that’s going to stop Wang Wei from finding her. The police, naturally, prove less than helpful.
The Raid‘s Joe Taslim enters the picture as Navin, who has been hot on the traffickers’ trail since his wife Matia (Jeeja Yanin) went missing during her investigation. A hot opening brawl between Matia and the trafficker goons not only kicks things off, it also establishes a very high ceiling for the rest of the film to match. And boy, does it ever. The Furious doesn’t blow its wad early. Each fight sets a new high mark to be surpassed, increasing in violence, size, and novelty. We get a taste of Wang Wei’s skills as she literally chases down the speeding truck carrying his daughter, proceeding to fight like a newly uncaged animal to get her back. He fights like a demon possessed to get back the one person he cares about in the world, and that rage is always something we can feel.
That the villains are human traffickers of defenseless children only makes us want to see them brutalized even more. Of course, Wang Wei and Navin eventually cross paths and team up to face a common foe. Both men are on the hunt to rescue the people they love, but they are not the same. Wang Wei is an enigma with a mysterious past. The speed, power, and precision of his technique suggest he’s had extensive, lethal training. And with his daughter’s life on the line, he puts every bit of it to destructive use. You don’t ever want to meet a guy with his particular set of skills.
Meanwhile, Taslim’s Navin fights differently. This isn’t his natural element and you can see it. He can fight his ass off, too, but his style is more natural, less focused, like a brawler who learned his craft on the streets. The mixing of styles works beautifully and makes for some incredible battles to the death. One involving a massive sledgehammer and a freezer full of ice blocks will blow your mind with the shocking athleticism of hulking behemoth Brian Le as Ho, the dim-witted muscle for his crime kingpin father. Le, easily the largest man in the cast, moves around with the agility of a cat, and the powerful grapples of a professional wrestler. He’s simply incredible. In a cast that is stacked with awesome fighters from top to bottom, Le is a standout.
When Yayan Ruhian is in the cast, you already know he’s going to be the baddest wildman in the room. As Tak, an arrow-wielding assassin who shows no mercy to adults and kids alike, Ruhian is an absolute force to be reckoned with. We’ve seen him and Taslim throw down before, and this is another one for the ages. It begins with four men engaging in crazy one-on-one duels until an unexpected fifth element comes barrelling in and EVERYTHING changes. You have no idea the kind of shit that’s about to go down and nothing I can say will prepare you for it.
While the English dubbing has some translation issues that lead to corny dialogue in key moments, you won’t give a shit for long. There’s always another jaw-dropping slugfest right around the corner, and through the relationship between Wang Wei and Rainy, who team up for some father/daughter ass-kicking too, The Furious delivers the best straight-up martial arts flick in years. If you’re a fan of the genre, this one can’t be missed. You’ll be furious with yourself if you do.
The Furious hits theaters on June 12th.
*NOTE: This review was originally part of my TIFF50 coverage*
For an industry built on attention, film, TV, and media don’t always treat attention with the same precision.
That sounds harsher than it is, but it becomes obvious once you start paying attention to how the best website designs work. They’re sharp, clear about what they show you, what they don’t, and where they want you to go next. Nothing feels accidental.
That’s where the importance of strong design really shows up—not as something visual, but as something directional. A way of shaping behavior.
And when you put that next to how parts of the media industry handle promotion, platforms, or even entire rollouts, the contrast is… stark.
Websites Earn Attention. Media Sometimes Assumes It.
The best websites behave like nobody owes them a second of time.
You land on them, and they get straight to it. One clear idea, one clear action. No warm-up period where you’re expected to “figure it out.”
Now compare that to how some major releases are marketed. Think about how long it took for the early marketing of Tenet to actually communicate what the film was. There was intrigue, sure, but also a level of distance that made it harder for audiences to latch onto anything concrete.
On the other hand, something like Barbie had the opposite approach. It knew exactly what it was selling—tone, humor, aesthetic—and delivered that instantly across every touchpoint. You didn’t need time to “get it.” You got it right away.
That’s much closer to how strong websites operate. They don’t rely on patience. They rely on clarity.
The Power of Choosing One Direction
Modern web design has become very comfortable making bold choices.
Some sites go extremely minimal—almost nothing on the page except what matters. Others go all-in visually, with movement, color, and personality. But either way, they commit.
Film and TV marketing doesn’t always do that.
I remember Justice League’s promotional tone felt like it was constantly shifting—trying to balance humor, darkness, ensemble spectacle, and course-correction all at once. The result was something that never quite landed on a clear identity.
On the other hand, The Batman made a decision and stuck to it, from its first trailer. Dark, grounded, moody. Every piece of marketing reinforced that same tone.
That’s exactly what the best websites do. They pick a direction and build everything around it. No hedging, no trying to be everything at once.
Guidance Beats Choice Overload
One of the biggest strengths of great website design is how it quietly guides you.
You don’t feel like you’re making a bunch of decisions. You just follow the flow. Click here, scroll there—it all feels natural.
Streaming platforms don’t always get this right.
Netflix is excellent at surfacing content, but it can also overwhelm. Endless rows, constant scrolling, too many options competing at once. You open it with something in mind, spend 20 minutes deciding, and ultimately go to sleep.
On the flip side, curated experiences—like the tighter presentation style you often see on Apple TV—tend to feel more intentional. Fewer choices, but clearer ones.
That’s the difference.
Websites have leaned hard into guided experiences. Media platforms sometimes still lean toward volume.
The Message Has to Land With the Audience
Website copy has changed a lot over the years.
It’s no longer just descriptive—it’s directional. It tells you what something does for you, why it matters, and why you should care, usually within a few seconds.
Media marketing doesn’t always make that leap.
Look at how something like Avatar: The Way of Water was positioned. Much of the messaging leaned on scale, technology, and spectacle—which are impressive, but not always emotionally immediate.
Now compare that to the campaign around Top Gun: Maverick. That one leaned heavily into feeling—nostalgia, adrenaline, legacy. You didn’t just know what it was, you knew what it would feel like to watch it.
That’s where modern website design is ahead. It translates features into outcomes. It speaks to the person, not just the product.
Editing Is What Makes It Work
There’s a discipline in great websites that doesn’t get talked about enough: they remove things.
They cut anything that doesn’t serve a purpose. Fewer elements, clearer structure, more breathing room.
In film, editing is everything. Outside of it, not always.
Think about the difference between a tightly paced film like Mad Max: Fury Road and something more bloated like Transformers: The Last Knight. One knows exactly what to keep and what to cut. The other throws everything at you and hopes something sticks.
That same contrast shows up in digital experiences.
The best websites feel focused because they’ve been edited. Many media rollouts feel crowded because they haven’t.
Emotion Still Drives Everything—Just Faster
At the core of all of this is something the industry already understands better than anyone: emotion.
The difference is speed.
Websites have learned to communicate tone and feeling almost instantly. Through visuals, layout, motion—you get a sense of what something is within seconds.
Media still builds emotion over time, which is part of its strength. But in the surrounding ecosystem—trailers, platforms, promotional content—that same immediacy matters more than ever.
When something clicks quickly, people lean in. When it doesn’t, they move on.
Remember that movie Phone Booth, where a young Colin Farrell spends nearly the entire movie trapped in one? The pitch for that one must’ve been pretty impressive, but it’s got nothing on Whalefall, which is about a grief-stricken guy who gets swallowed up by a sperm whale and has just one hour to escape before he runs out of air.
Sold already? Me, too.
This wild thriller comes from director/co-writer Brian Duffield, quietly one of the most impressive filmmakers around. Duffield’s two features behind the camera, Spontaneous and No One Will Save You, are unique genre flicks that should be on your list of movies to seek out. But Duffield has also done incredible work writing Love & Monsters, The Babysitter, while contributing to the success of Predator: Badlands just last year.
In short, Duffield is a filmmaker I put a lot of trust in.
Whalefall stars the red-hot Austin Abrams, fresh off Zach Cregger’s Weapons and Resident Evil. He’s joined by Josh Brolin, Elisabeth Shue, John Ortiz, Jane Levy, and Emily Rudd. Abrams plays a scuba diver scouring the ocean for his father’s remains, when the unthinkable happens.
It’s been an interesting, circuitous road for Gregg Araki’s sex comedy, I Want Your Sex, which premiered earlier this year at Sundance. Olivia Wilde stars as a provocative artist and sexual powerhouse, with Cooper Hoffman as her assistant, who becomes her willing sex slave. But the gender roles were initially swapped, until Araki saw the #MeToo movement as a chance to flip the script. Not only that, but the film became more of an exploration of an entire generation of young men just aren’t having sex. As I said in my review…
“Also, Araki ponders why so many Gen Z guys seem to be so afraid of sex. For that matter, Hollywood movies, at least those that aren’t distinctly LGBTQ, seem to be afraid of sex altogether. How many blockbuster movies from major studios have you seen lately that place it front and center? It’s one reason why Araki is such a vital voice, perhaps more now than ever, because he can attract such A-list talent to a film like I Want Your Sex.”
Don’t get it twisted; I Want Your Sex is also hella funny, with one of Wilde’s strongest performances as artist Erika Tracy, who uses her sexuality and dominating personality to get anything, and anyone, that she wants. Hoffman is perfect as Elliot, capturing the sexual naivete of far too many Gen Z guys out there.
Also in the cast are Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Daveed Diggs, Charli XCX, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, and Roxane Mesquida.
Araki directs from a script he co-wrote with sex columnist Karley Sciortino. Fans of Araki will know him as a maestro of queer cinema, seen in such films as Nowhere (a personal favorite), Mysterious Skin, The Doom Generation, and Splendor.
SYNOPSIS: The erotic thriller and comedy I Want Your Sex follows naive twentysomething Elliot (Cooper Hoffman), who lands a job assisting renowned artist and provocateur Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde). His fantasies turn surreal when Erika taps him to become her sexual muse, pulling him into a dark, boundary-pushing journey of obsession and murder.
Magnolia Pictures will release I Want Your Sex in theaters on July 31st.
Although he’ll be seen this week chasing down aliens in Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, Colman Domingo has more on the way this year. He also stars in Chapter 51, a Hollywood crime thriller from renowned photographer/filmmaker Tyler Shields that boasts some ambitious technical prowess.
Shields, who broke out with 2015’s impressive horror Final Girl, used all major motion picture film formats to shoot Chapter 51. Insane, right? We’re talking 8mm, 16mm, IMAX, Ultra Panavision, VistaVision, and a new IMAX lens created specifically for this project. It makes a lot of sense, as Chapter 51 is a film that is heavily steeped in Hollywood lore and myth, so Shields is honoring movie history in the way he chose to shoot it. Pretty cool.
The story revolves around the murders of three actresses on the set of a $500M production, by a mysterious figure known as the Hollywood Killer. But the show must go on, and a new director weaves the killings into the fabric of the filmmaking process. Years later, a former FBI agent played by Domingo reopens the case, exposing the dark cost to keeping the cameras rolling.
Also in the cast are Emily Alyn Lind, Connor Paolo, Charlotte Lawrence, and Abigail Breslin who reunites with Shields after Final Girl.
Cineverse will release Chapter 51 in select theaters and digitally on June 23rd.
