The dove market just went through the roof because John Woo has a new action flick in the works! The legendary Hong Kong filmmaker is set to direct his first English-language movie since 2003’s forgettable Paycheck with Ben Affleck. And this time, if he’s going to make a Hollywood movie, Woo doesn’t want his star to say any damn thing.
Deadline reports Woo will direct Silent Night, a revenge flick with zero dialogue that will star The Suicide Squad‘s Joel Kinnaman. The actor will play “normal father who heads into the underworld to avenge his young son’s death.” Yes, please. Simple and to the point, just how I like my vengeance thrillers.
As I said before, Woo is a legend of Hong Kong cinema with memorable films such as The Killer, Hard Boiled, and A Better Tomorrow. He journeyed to Hollywood in the ’90s and made his mark with Face/Off, Hard Target, and Mission: Impossible II. He also directed tremendous historical epics including Red Cliff, and 2014’s The Crossing.
I’m a fan of Kinnaman, especially as an action hero. He was great as Rick Flag in both Suicide Squad films, and I even dug his Robocop. Having the chance to work with someone like Woo, who will put him in all sorts of crazy slo-mo stuff with doves flying around between hails of gunfire, should be a perfect fit.
It’s time for Iko Uwais to blow up in Hollywood. I’m serious. There is no better screen fighter than Uwais, who broke out with a number of Indonesian action flicks including The Raid, The Raid 2, and Headshot, before jumping into big studio films such as Mile 22, Stuber, and most recently Snake Eyes. But he’s yet to have that role that separates him from the pack. Perhaps kicking Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham’s asses in The Expendables 4 will do it?
Continuing to prove The Expendables 4 is being made just for me, Iko Uwais has joined the cast and he’s playing the villain. Hell. Yes. While details on the “plot” (do these movies have plots?) are being kept under wraps, Deadline says Uwais will play a “former military officer turned arms dealer with his own private army.”
We do know this film will be focused on Statham’s Lee Christmas character, while Stallone’s team leader Barney Ross will say farewell to the franchise. Perhaps…Uwais’ character kills him off? Others in the cast include Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, 50 Cent, Megan Fox, Andy Garcia, and another awesome martial artist, Tony Jaa. Jaa and Uwais previously worked together on 2019’s disappointing Triple Threat, a movie that had no business being as lame as it was.
Directed by Scott Waugh, The Expendables 4 opens in 2022.
Martin McDonagh may not have the deepest filmography out there, but take a look at the three features he’s done: In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. So with the number of accolades showered on those three films, he doesn’t need to do a lot. He also doesn’t have a tough time putting together a high-powered cast, as he’s beginning to do for his next project.
McDonagh, who is currently in production on The Banshees of Inisherin, a reunion with In Bruges duo Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, has begun to cast up his next untitled film. Deadline reports Oscar Isaac, Christopher Walken, and Sam Rockwell are on board, with McDonagh writing and directing, as always.
Whatever this new film turns out to be, it’ll reunite McDonagh with Rockwell, who won an Oscar for Three Billboards. He also starred in Seven Psychopaths alongside Walken. Isaac and McDonagh have never worked together, but the potential for awesomeness should be obvious.
Stay tuned for more on this one as it’s going to be one of the hottest projects going around Hollywood, you can bet on that.
Kit Harington plays one of my favorite Marvel characters, Dane Whitman aka Black Knight, in Chloe Zhao’s Eternals. From what Harington has said himself, we won’t actually see him take up the cursed Ebony Blade in this film as the role is pretty small, but what about in the future? What does Harington know about his future in the MCU?
Based on an interview Harington had with Variety, he doesn’t know much about plans for Whitman beyond Eternals.
“God knows where it’s gonna go. So I don’t know, I can’t predict whether, where, if anywhere, they’ll take the character,” said Harington. “But the basics of him having something that seems to be cursed, I thought, had a lot of meat to get into.”
He continued, “Nothing is certain. That’s the first thing you learn in this industry. There is no certainty. To go in with any kind of feeling that something’s certain is setting yourself up for failure. I genuinely do go by the rule that this is the project, this is what I’m doing. I take it with the information that there’s a path and a future that could happen. But I don’t assume that that future is going to happen, because I think that’s foolish.”
Let’s be real; Harington will be back as Dane Whitman. Doesn’t mean it’ll happen in an Eternals sequel, but the character will absolutely return because Marvel wouldn’t cast him for a one-shot role. Not only that, they aren’t prone to introducing a popular character like Whitman, whose costumed persona is one with generations of history attached to it, and then do nothing with him.
Perhaps we’ll learn more about the future of Black Knight when Eternals opens on November 5th.
Apple TV+ doesn’t have the deep bench of hit original programming that other streamers do, but they’re making the most from what they’ve got. The second season of M. Night Shyamalan’s creepy series Servant ended earlier this year, and already a teaser for season three is here, offering more domestic weirdness and at least one new face.
Servant follows a Philadelphia couple, played by Toby Kebbell and Lauren Ambrose, who deal with all sorts of strange, supernatural happenings that began when they let a mysterious nanny, played by Nell Tiger Free, into their home. Rupert Grint is also part of the core foursome, and this season brings GLOW and Save Yourselves! star Sunita Mani into the fold.
I haven’t watched Servant since season one so I have no clue what’s going on, but this teaser makes me want to jump back in. The show has been praised to the moon by Stephen King, Guillermo Del Toro, and others, giving it horror cred that can’t really be denied, can it?
Apple TV+ will premiere Servant season 3 on January 21st 2022.
From M. Night Shyamalan, Servant follows a Philadelphia couple in mourning after an unspeakable tragedy creates a rift in their marriage and opens the door for a mysterious force to enter their home.
Netflix probably doesn’t need to go so hard pushing The Witcher‘s second season, but they’re doing it anyway! Considering the Henry Cavill-led show is already a gigantic hit on the level of Stranger Things, and, I guess, Squid Game, the promos have been coming at us fast and furious for months. But it’s only today that we’re getting the first actual full-length trailer.
So what do you get? Cavill’s Geralt of Rivera slaying giant monsters, for one thing. A destiny fulfilled as Geralt and Princess Ciri (Freya Allen) take a dangerous trek to his childhood home of Kaer Morhen as war with the Nilfgaardian Empire threatens to erupt. Plus, there’s more in store for Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra), and the return of fan-favorite bard Jaskier (Joey Batey).
Here’s the season synopsis: Convinced Yennefer’s life was lost at the Battle of Sodden, Geralt of Rivia brings Princess Cirilla to the safest place he knows, his childhood home of Kaer Morhen. While the Continent’s kings, elves, humans and demons strive for supremacy outside its walls, he must protect the girl from something far more dangerous: the mysterious power she possesses inside.
Add this to the growing Witcher-verse that includes the recent anime prequel Nightmare of the Wolf, which will be followed by another anime film, a familly-friendly show, and a third season of the core series.
The Witcher season 2 hits Netflix on December 17th.
Ana de Armas impressed a lot of people as the naive, ass-kicking Paloma in No Time to Die, stealing a few moments away from star Daniel Craig. Unfortunately, with the Bond franchise unlikely to feature characters like hers in the future, de Armas has found another franchise that might be even better. Deadline reports de Armas will lead the long-developing John Wick spinoff, Ballerina.
It’s been a couple of years sinceBallerina was first announced, and was shortly confirmed to be directed by Underworld and Total Recall director, Len Wiseman. The film is a female-led John Wick spinoff about a young assassin who seeks revenge on those who murdered her family.
I look back at what Wiseman was able to do turning Kate Beckinsale into one of the best action stars around, and think about what he can do for de Armas who is such a popular actor right now.
Shay Hatten, who wrote John Wick 3 and the two upcoming sequels, along with Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead and Army of Thieves, is writing the Ballerina script.
Next up for de Armas is playing Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik’s long-awaited Blonde. She will also star in the Russo Bros.’ The Gray Man with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans.
With The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and The Power of the Dog which may earn him a Best Actor nomination, Benedict Cumberbatch is everywhere right now. But that isn’t stopping him from indulging in some prestige TV, especially since it involves what I think is his most frequent genre, the political thriller.
Cumberbatch will star as assassinated former FSB and KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, one of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, in HBO limited series Londongrad. After speaking out against the corruption he saw within Putin’s government, Litvinenko fled to the UK to avoid retribution. In 2006, he suddenly fell deathly ill, and just weeks later died from a lethal dose of polonium-210, which Litvinenko and many others believe was ordered by Putin. Litvinenko continued to speak out, giving many interviews with the media from his deathbed.
The series is based on the book The Terminal Spy by Alan Cowell, and will be adapted by The Man in the High Castle showrunner David Scarpa. Bryan Fogel, of the acclaimed doping documentary Icarus, will direct and exec-produce along with Cumberbatch and Scarpa. [Variety]
While we here in the States tend to think of illegal immigration specific to those coming from our Southern border (especially over the Trump years), there’s a vast underground industry that is dedicated to bringing people searching for a better life into America that expands beyond just those that Fox News tries to scare us nightly with. Known as “snakehead smugglers,” various underground gangs engage in smuggling people into the United States (and other Western countries) from many Asian countries. Using various illegal tools, these smugglers bring people across the border and then have them work to pay off their debts (often through sexual slavery or other criminal activities). Documentary filmmaker Evan Jackson Leong (BLT Genesis, Linsanity, Manivore) feature debut Snakehead tackles the subject in an impressive debut crime drama.
Sister Tse (Shuya Chang) lost her daughter who has since then come to America. Desperate, she works with a smuggling gang to bring her over to America in the hopes that she will be reunited with her child. Unfortunately, she’s $50,000 in debt to gang matriarch Dai Mah (Jade Wu) and will have to work off her debt before she can be free. Initially, Snakehead seems to be about Sister Tse as she will have to endure a life of prostitution as she is forced to work in the world’s oldest profession. If you were afraid that Snakehead was going to be a film about the underbelly of prostitution, rest assured, the film expands into a larger territory about the world of smuggling instead. Sister Tse’s too street smart to endure a life of victimization and exploitation. Literally on day one, she decides that no John will manhandle her in any way. Even after suffering repeated beatings, she stands strong and even tries to fight back against those holding her in captivity. This captures the attention of Dai Mah who decides that perhaps there are other ways that Tse can work off her debt and still be useful.
Dai Mah opts to instead bring Sister Tse into the fold of her criminal organization. Dai Mah only has sons, so the idea of having a pseudo-daughter to train and groom in the family business intrigues her. This doesn’t sit that well with her hot-headed and ironically named son Rambo (Sung Kang of The Fast and Furious franchise fame), isn’t too happy that his mother has brought an outsider into the fold, much less someone that some time ago was on the receiving end of their business. Tse slowly climbs up the ladder as a debt collector, a drug smuggler, and soon enough, she’s one of the main smugglers. Shuya Chang is impressive as she is both cold and full of compassion towards those who were not too long ago in the same place she was, but she needs to pay off her debt. But soon enough, she realizes she’s good at this. Is she still carrying on in these illegal activities to pay off the debt and be with her daughter Rosie (Catherine Jiang)? Or does she really enjoy her newfound role and power?
Snakehead is somewhat formulaic in regards to many crime-drama troupes. It has a strong Goodfellas type of vibe (complete with voiceovers describing various expositional plot points) as it showcases a newbie brought into “the family” who then becomes a formidable player, and causes some discontent and betrayal among the ranks. Surprisingly, the weak link of the film is the character Rambo, who isn’t as well-written as his female counterparts. He just comes across as someone who hates Tse because his mother likes her.
What makes Snakehead stand out though is the performances. Both Shuya Chang and Jade Wu deliver captivating performances as the two leads of the film. It’s also interesting that Snakehead showcases a world where women are in charge of many violent and despicable acts often associated with men, and they carry on expertly in their roles. Chang’s Sister Tse is actually based on real-life snakehead smuggler “Sister Ping,” who ran a large human smuggling operation between Hong Kong and New York City from 1984 until 2000. The real-life Sister Ping’s story did not end as well for her as is does for Tse in Snakehead, but overall, the film has enough intriguing twists and turns plot-wise to keep the viewer engaged throughout the film. This has been a passion project for director Evan Jackson Leong for quite some time, and it shows in his output very well, especially by cinematographer Ray Huang. The film showcases the dark side of immigration without being preachy and even helps humanize those caught in the dark circle very effectively.
Snakehead premieres in select theaters and on VOD Friday, October 29th
We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to attend a free early screening of Marvel Studios’ latest, Eternals, directed by Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao! The film stars Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Gemma Chan, Kit Harington, Brian Tyree Henry, Lia McHugh, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, and Don Lee.
SYNOPSIS: Marvel Studios’ “The Eternals” features an exciting new team of Super Heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ancient aliens who have been living on Earth in secret for thousands of years. Following the events of “Avengers: Endgame”, an unexpected tragedy forces them out of the shadows to reunite against mankind’s most ancient enemy, The Deviants.
The screening takes place on Wednesday, November 3rd at 7:30pm at AMC Tysons Corner. If you’d like to attend, simply go to the Gofobo ticketing site here. Please remember all screenings are first come first served and you will need to arrive early to ensure seating. Enjoy the show!
