Ted Lasso? Gigantic hit for Apple TV+ and probably among the main reasons anybody is a subscriber. So that Apple is jumping at the chance to work with creator Bill Lawrence and writer/star Brett Goldstein again on a new series is no shock. That it will be developed by and feature Jason Segel, well, that kinda comes out of nowhere…in a good way.
Segel will reportedly write, produce, and star in Shrinking, a 10-episode series that Lawrence and Goldstein will also be part of as writers and producers. The show stars Segel as a grieving therapist who makes the unethical decision to just tell his patients what he really thinks, causing dramatic changes in their lives and his own.
While Segel’s movie career has taken a back seat of late, with his most recent film Our Friend which premiered in 2019 and was released in 2021, he’s doing more on the small screen. He recently created and starred in the AMC series Dispatches from Everywhere, and has a role as Paul Westhead in Adam McKay’s upcoming Los Angeles Lakers series on HBO.
This is turning out to be quite the Jeremy Renner day. With Hawkeye on the way for Disney+ (and a new trailer to boot), it’s easy to forget that he actually has another anticipated series for a streaming platform. Mayor of Kingstown has Renner teaming with Taylor Sheridan, creator of the hugely successful Yellowstone franchise for Paramount+, for what looks like it could offer more action than Marvel’s favorite archer can notch a bow at!
Renner stars with Kyle Chandler as the McClusky brothers, who secretly run a criminal empire in Kingstown, Michigan, where the chief industry is incarceration. So this won’t be just another of Sheridan’s shows about power, corruption, and masculinity, although those things will clearly be here. It’s also about racism and injustice within the justice system.
And based on this footage, expect a lot of fighting, screaming, shooting, car chases…it’s a scene, man! The series also features Oscar winner Dianne Wiest, Aidan Gillen, Emma Laird, Taylor Handley, Hugh Dillon, Derek Webster, and Pha’rez Lass.
Sheridan co-created the 10-episode series with Hugh Dillon, with both serving as exec-producers alongside Antoine Fuqua. Mayor of Kingstown premieres on Paramount+ on November 14th.
Spider-Man: No Way Home promises to be one of the most important movies coming up in the MCU, especially as the Multiverse becomes more of a factor. Presumably, that would open up the door for Tom Holland to play an even larger role going forward, however, his future after this film is a mystery. According to Holland, the film could be seen as the end of the web for his take on Peter Parker.
“We were all treating [‘No Way Home’] as the end of a franchise, let’s say,” Holland explained to EW. “I think if we were lucky enough to dive into these characters again, you’d be seeing a very different version. It would no longer be the ‘Homecoming’ trilogy. We would give it some time and try to build something different and tonally change the films. Whether that happens or not, I don’t know. But we were definitely treating [‘No Way Home’] like it was coming to an end, and it felt like it.”
If Holland is right, what does that mean? With the Multiverse now a factor, it’s possible someone new could jump in and don the Spidey suit. Maybe this is the moment when Miles Morales comes into play? Sony and Marvel both would obviously like Holland to stick around, perhaps crossover with Venom, Morbius, and the rest of Sony’s Spider-verse of characters. But does it necessarily have to be Holland for that to happen? I don’t think so.
He’s right, though. Spider-Man needs a break after this, and No Way Home‘s story, which involves a murder rap, alternate universes, and more, might be the best place to give it to him.
Trick arrows, Santa Claus, and a Captain America Broadway musical…maybe one of those things seems like it should be in the upcoming Hawkeye series on Disney+. Promised to be “the six-part holiday event you can’t miss”, the show returns Jeremy Renner as the Avengers’ resident archer, joined by Hailee Steinfeld as his protegee, Kate Bishop, destined to become the new Hawkeye.
And this new trailer looks like a ton of fun, as it should be. With a clear Die Hard influence, the series has plenty of action but also a great deal of comedy, most of it coming from the banter between Clint and Kate as they try to survive enemies who are clearly not in the Christmas spirit.
Also in the cast are Vera Farmiga, Fra Fee, Tony Dalton, Zahn McClarnon, Brian d’Arcy James, and Alaqua Cox as Echo. Florence Pugh will also reprise her role as Yelena Belova, picking up on that post-credits scene from Black Widow. She’s going to have Hawkeye in her sights and frankly, I don’t think he’ll survive it.
Hawkeye, with episodes directed by Rhys Thomas (Staten Island Summer) and the duo of Bert & Bertie (Troop Zero), hits Disney+ on November 24th.
With so much clamor around James Bond and wanting for a woman to perhaps take the role, there’s been more buzz about Halle Berry revisiting her Jinx character from Die Another Day. That’s probably not going to happen, and she might be busy in the latest phase of her career as a filmmaker. Berry’s directorial debut, the MMA drama Bruised, hits Netflix next month and now there’s a new trailer.
Berry, looking like a woman who has taken her share of life’s punches, plays a disgraced MMA fighter who returns to the octagon at the same time she’s dealing with the return of her estranged son. It’s a story of redemption and defeating personal demons, and Berry looks like she is going to be great in this.
The cast includes Shamier Anderson, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Adam Canto, Sheila Atim, Danny Boyd Jr., and current UFC flyweight champion Valentina Anatolievna Shevchenko.
Jackie Justice (Halle Berry) is a mixed martial arts fighter who leaves the sport in disgrace. Down on her luck and simmering with rage and regret years after the fight, she’s coaxed into a brutal underground fight by her manager and boyfriend Desi (Adan Canto) and grabs the attention of a fight league promoter (Shamier Anderson) who promises Jackie a life back in the octagon. But the road to redemption becomes unexpectedly personal when Manny (Danny Boyd, Jr.) — the son she gave up as an infant — shows up at her doorstep. BRUISED marks the directorial debut of Academy Award winner Halle Berry and also stars Adriane Lenox, Sheila Atim, Valentina Schevchenko, and Stephen McKinley Henderson in a triumphant story of a fighter who reclaims her power, in and out of the ring, when everyone has counted her out.
M. Night Shyamalan continue to be on a roll. His latest film, Old, opened in the middle of the pandemic and earned $90M without much cost to Universal, which will continue to be his home studio. And now we know that his next film for them, which had previously been set for February 17th 2023, has a title and a slightly different release date.
Titled Knock at the Cabin, Shyamalan’s next film will instead open on February 3rd 2023. So not much of a change, but one that suggests things are moving right along. Of course, since Shyamalan likes to keep everything secret we don’t really know what’s up and it will probably be that way for a while.
Then again, the date change could be to get away from Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania which opens on the 17th. That’s probably what’s really up.
Based on the title, Shyamalan might be going for a straight-forward horror flick for once. We’ll just have to wait and see.
In Amazon Studios’ The Tender Bar, you’ve got the combined A-list might of director George Clooney and star Ben Affleck, and surprisingly it’s not some swaggeringly cool film ala Ocean’s Eleven. Instead, you’ve got a coming-of-age story about a fatherless boy who looks up to his bartender uncle Charlie, played by Affleck…
“In life, you gotta have ‘it.’ If you don’t have ‘it,’ you’ll never get it. And I say you got it”, Charlie tells the kid, J.R., played first by Daniel Ranieri and then later as a teen by Tye Sheridan.
The film is an adaptation of J.R. Moehringer’s 2005 memoir about growing up in Long Island, cared for by a single mother played by Lily Rabe. Also in the cast are Christopher Lloyd, Sondra James, Briana Middleton, Max Casella, Rhenzy Feliz, and Max Martini. The Departed writer William Monahan adapted Moehringer’s book.
This is part of Clooney’s continued turn towards streaming, after directing last year’s quickly-forgotten The Midnight Sky for Netflix. It’s his eighth film behind the camera, overall. Affleck is coming off rave reviews for his performance in The Way Back, and can be seen this week in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel.
The Tender Bar opens in NY and LA on December 17th, followed by a national rollout on December 22nd and finally Amazon Prime Video beginning January 7th.
David Fincher has a new project at Netflix. Wishing it were season three of Mindhunter? Yeah, you’re probably not alone in that. However, what you’re going to get is Voir. What’s that? Um, we really don’t quite know yet but it’ll be showing up at AFI FIlm Fest.
Voir is a docuseries exec-produced by Fincher, we know that much, and here’s how Netflix described it in a tweet…
From executive producer David Fincher…
VOIR, a new documentary series of visual essays celebrating cinema, from the mind of one of film’s modern masters.
VOIR A special screening of Executive Producer David Fincher’s latest Netflix series: A collection of visual essays…for the love of cinema. DIR David Prior, Taylor Ramos, Tony Zhou. World Premiere.
Fincher showing some love to the magic of cinema? Yes, please. This is familiar ground for him, an area he’s been treading a lot lately as with his recent film Mank. Working with Netflix as part of his exclusive deal with Netflix has made projects like this easier, and that’s a good thing if you ask me.
Next up for Fincher is The Killer which we know will star Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton.
Fever Dream is a hallucinogenic thriller about a young woman who is dying and is trying to remember what happened to her. The film takes The Lovely Bones approach as a 12 year old boy sits beside her and asks questions to help dig into her memories. She is not his mother. He is not her child but together, they tell a haunting story of broken souls, an invisible threat, and the power and desperation of family. Based on the internationally critically acclaimed novel by Samanta Schweblin. Peruvian director Claudia Llosa (The Milk of Sorrow) brings the internationally critically acclaimed 2014 novel, Distancia de Rescate by Argentine writer Samanta Schweblin to screen in a mysterious tale of motherhood and existential crisis. The film is told from a dominantly female perspective as this hazy tale explores the interconnected nature of love and fears of death.
Amanda (María Valverde) vacations in a gorgeous Argentine farming village with her five-year-old daughter Nina (Guillermina Sorribes Liotta). They have traveled ahead from Spain and await the arrival of husband and father, Marco (Guillermo Pfening). During their wait Amanda and Nina meet locals Carola (Dolores Fonzi) and her odd son, David (Emilio Vodanovich). Sparks fly between Carola and Amanda with an instant and weirdly seductive connection that also lingers throughout the film. Carola is slightly older, a local girl, and a natural beauty who looks for a reason to be glamorous in this small country town. Despite their immediate bond, Amanda is constantly concerned about Nina’s welfare by keeping a “rescue distance” to protect her. This head trip of a thriller goes into full effect when the voice of David keeps talking into Amanda’s ear to stay focused on what she needs to discover as the truth of he and Corola’s background come to light.
During their budding friendship, Carola confides to Amanda that ever since her young son David (Marcelo Michinaux) became deathly ill, she took drastic measures to do whatever she could to save the life of her child. In the years since, she and her husband Omar (Germán Palacios) lost their horse farm and any emotional connection she has for her son, David. Amanda feels bad for the 12 year old boy and tries to make some kind of connection to him. However, her thoughtfulness grows into fear as supernatural events take over and she no longer feels she can trust anyone. Amanda struggles to make sense of her surroundings but David continues to interrogate her. She quickly discovers that things are not what they seem.
Fever Dream is a story within a story that includes lucid visualizations that interweaves real-life catastrophe with the supernatural. There’s a beautiful blend of heavenly golden hues of the South American summer countryside to an eerie darkness of mystical forces, powerful emotions, and pervasive dangers. The film indulges in a hallucinogenic and feverish haze as it delivers enigmatic surprises that reverberate the sense of deep dread and foreboding death. It can be confusing and hard to follow as the story tends to jump around and often, all over the place as David guides Amanda along. Amanda and Carola shared a fantastic on screen chemistry however, the seductive tone between the two of them was excessive and out of place. Theirs is an odd relationship that never really adds up nor the supernatural intentions as to the purpose of what’s really going down. There’s a scene involving horses that was totally unnecessary to show. We know it’s a horse farm and some dirty deeds come along with it but it’s definitely uncomfortable to watch no matter how natural the process is. Overall, Fever Dream has a feverishly unique approach to supernatural circumstances resulting from catastrophic events within this farming community. It may not have a jolting thrill effect but is for sure, worth a watch. Check it out on www.netflix.com/FeverDream .
Fever Dream was in Select Theaters October 6 and is available now on Netflix.
We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to attend a free advance screening of Denis Villeneuve’s epic Dune, starring Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista, Josh Brolin, and Stellan Skarsgard!
SYNOPSIS: Oscar nominee Denis Villeneuve (“Arrival,” “Blade Runner 2049”) directs Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ “Dune,” the big-screen adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal bestseller of the same name. A mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, “Dune” tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence—a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential—only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
The screening takes place on Tuesday, October 19th at 7:00pm at Regal Majestic in Silver Spring. If you’d like to attend, simply go to the Warner Bros. 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!
Dune opens in theaters and HBO Max on October 22nd.
