If you ask me, there were a lot of highlights from Birds of Prey, and not just Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn. You could easily spinoff the other characters surrounding her into their own films, or develop a sequel focusing on them minus Harley. In particular, Jurnee Smollett’s Dinah Lance aka Black Canary was a real treat and a new spin on the character, and according to a rumor (via CBM) says she’s going to get her own movie.
Now, take this with all the skepticism it deserves. I certainly am. There aren’t any details or anything like that, so it’s hard to have much faith. But we do know Warner Bros. is lining up more mid-sized content that can be exclusive to HBO Max, and I would argue Black Canary is perfect for that sort of thing.
I mean, they’ve already got Leslie Grace set to play Barbara Gordon/Batgirl within the DCEU. She and Canary are running buddies in the Birds of Prey together in the comics. Why not put them in one another’s orbit on screen, too? Fingers crossed this happens, not the least because Smollett is really gung-ho for it. She said so to Variety just last summer…
“It’s a dream, character and was a dream to play her. If [the] dynamics fell in the right way, I would absolutely do it in a heartbeat.”
There was an uproar recently when Disney CEO Bob Chapek suggested the release strategy for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Ringswould be an “interesting experiment.” It was misconstrued to mean the film itself, which features a largely Asian cast, was the experiment. What he meant was that it would be opening exclusively in theaters, the first Marvel movie to do so since 2019. How it does could have huge ramifications on future Marvel projects, especially Eternals which opens just a couple of months later.
To put a finer point on it, Variety caught up with Kevin Feige and asked him about release plans for Eternals, and the Marvel chief wouldn’t commit to a definite strategy. Will it open as a theatrical exclusive like Shang-Chi? Or as a dual release alongside Disney+ as Black Widow did to modest effect?
Will fans be watching #Eternals at home or at the theaters? "I think a theater would be my preference and Chloe [Zhao]'s preference. We will see where we go with it," says Kevin Feige. https://t.co/Tgq3Td0b9lpic.twitter.com/GyCIz04kjs
For a long time it seemed like Kevin Smith would never get around to making Clerks III a reality, but now we have definitive proof that a sequel to his defining comedy classic is on the way. Lionsgate has debuted the first image (via Vanity Fair) from the film which is shooting right now. And for fans of either Clerks or 2006’s Clerks II, it should spark quite a bit of nostalgia.
The image features stars Brian O’Halloran (Dante), Jeff Anderson (Randall), Rosario Dawson (Becky) and Trevor Fehrman (Elias), and looks almost exactly as the first promo shot for Clerks II. The difference? In that one they were standing at the Mooby’s they all worked at, but now they’re in from of the iconic Quick Stop they now own.
I’ll be honest, Clerks III is going to be an emotional roller coaster for me. I adore Clerks, just as I do all of Kevin Smith’s movies from that early period in his career. These are characters that I met nearly three decades ago (!!!) and have aged right alongside them. Shit, they’re all practically my age, and the concerns they face have matured just as mine have.
Clerks III doesn’t have a release date but we’ll let you know when it does.
Randall Park is one of the funniest actors around, having recently returned to the MCU to play agent Jimmy Woo on WandaVision. Sterling K. Brown is himself a Marvel vet, appearing in Black Panther as Killmonger’s father. THR reports the two will team up on something totally non-superhero related for Amazon Studios, and is already drawing comparisons to 48 Hrs.
Woo and Brown are set to star in an untitled action-comedy for Amazon. The duo will play estranged childhood friends on opposite sides of the law, forced to work together to take on an international crime syndicate and clear their names.
While there’s no director named yet, the film will have a script by Alex Tse, who previously co-wrote Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, 2018 remake Superfly, and the biopic series Wu-Tang: An American Saga.
Comparisons to 48 Hrs. are easy and don’t mean much, but it’s hard to deny the potential in the casting of these two. Let’s see where his goes.
Ghost stories, more specifically haunted house stories, are a dime a dozen, but David Bruckner’s The Night House is a rare breed. Led by a captivating performance by Rebecca Hall, it’s a film that keeps its feet firmly planted on emotional ground while still proving to be a chilling, atmospheric thriller with plenty of scares and demons, both literal and otherwise.
Like so many indie horrors of late, The Night Housedeals with grief and the process of getting beyond it. While that might make this sound overly familiar, it’s the central character Beth, and Hall’s portrayal of her, that separate it from the norm. Beth is coping from the sudden suicide of her husband of 14 years, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), which has taken her completely by surprise. But getting past it proves difficult for many reasons, not the least of which is that she continues to live in the lakeside home that he built with his own hands. It’s the type of place that horror movies have made famous: quiet, isolated, overly large, shadowy, creeks at just the right places, the wind chimes jingle at the worst time. It’s a home practically designed for a lonely, grieving wife to have nightmarish visions in, and Beth definitely does. As she rummages through the remnants of her life with Owen, unearthing secrets that perhaps should have left buried, Beth begins to suspect that an unnatural force has taken up residence in the home. Could it be Owen? Or something worse?
Beth is such a fascinating character to follow through her grieving process, and reminded me favorably to the lead character in The Babadook. While many women in these films are passive observers or victims, Beth is rough around the edges and doesn’t have time for people’s bullshit. There’s a great scene early on when Beth, who is a high school teacher, encounters one of those privileged parents who wants to complain about their kid’s grade. But coming off her much more serious tragedy than some student’s “C” in class, Beth drops a massive, much-deserved guilt bomb on the woman to hilarious effect. Later, at a Happy Hour with some colleagues Beth plays along with their insensitive requests for information on her husband’s death, and gives them a lot more than they bargained for. She is nobody’s shrinking violet, but has moments of openness with her best friend Claire (a terrific Sarah Goldberg) and neighbor Mel (Vondie Curtis-Hall) who look out for her best interests but are obviously skeptical. The supporting cast around Hall is small, but really strong.
In private, Beth is always on the edge of either a breakdown or an explosion. Each new revelation about Owen and a secret life she knew nothing about sends her careening, to the point where we begin to wonder if the things she’s experiencing are real or figments of her broken mental state. Bruckner, along with screenwriters Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, give Beth plenty to occupy her mind with. There’s Owen’s mysteriously vague suicide note, and photos of other women that suggest something about her marriage that she doesn’t want to think about. Should she continue to explore it, and change her perception of the man she loved for so long? Or let it go and hold on to that idea of him? This being a horror movie you probably know what her choice is, but watching Beth grapple with it is heavy stuff. She must also contend with her own beliefs, forged by an earlier brush with death. Beth and Owen often argued about the afterlife, but now everything she’s denied is staring her right in the face. She’s just such a wonderfully complex character and Hall, whose face can often be an inscrutable mask, is perfect for the part.
While this is definitely meant to play on the psyche, The Night House isn’t without its share of jump-out-of-your-seat frights. And these aren’t cheap scares, either, where your terror (and Beth’s) prove to be completely unfounded. They’re substantial, often emanating from the darkest recesses of the house itself. DP Elisha Christian finds something ominous in every nook, cranny, and shadow. It’s a perfect contrast to the structural beauty she found in the delicious architecture of Columbus, and basically I want her to shoot every movie primarily set in and around this motif.
At nearly two hours, The Night House can’t fully escape the feeling it could’ve been edited down. The final act steers into convention the way so many of these films do, because the explanation is never as exciting as the mystery and at some point a decision must be made how far to go with it. Bruckner wisely leaves some room for ambiguity while focusing on the human connections that keep us moored in this life.
If you’re going to dare take on the challenge of redoing an Ingmar Bergman classic, might as well go really big. And that’s what HBO is doing with Scenes from a Marriage, starring Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain in a remake of Bergman’s 1973 miniseries about the complete breakdown of a marriage. Based on this trailer, the emotions are going to run incredibly high, maybe even challenging Marriage Story as a volatile exploration of this subject matter.
The series is written and directed by Hagai Levi, known for HBO’s In Treatment and The Affair. Isaac and Chastain, who previously starred together in A Most Violent Year, have big shoes to fill as Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson were incredible in Bergman’s Swedish version.
SYNOPSIS: SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE re-examines the original’s iconic depiction of love, hatred, desire, monogamy, marriage, and divorce through the lens of a contemporary American couple, played by Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain.
HBO will debut Scenes from a Marriage on September 12th. The first two episodes will premiere at the Venice Film Festival a week earlier.
Denis Villeneuve and Warner Bros. had big franchise plans to coincide with Blade Runner 2049‘s release, but when the film only did okay at the box office they fell through. There are similar aspirations for the director’s two-part adaptation of Dune, but I would argue similar concerns as it again targets a very specific sci-fi audience.
While Dune doesn’t arrive until October 22nd in theaters and HBO Max, development is underway on Dune: Part Two with a script co-written by Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts (Prometheus). But he says to Total Film if the sequel is going to happen it will depend on how the first movie performs…
“So the first thing was to prove that there was a beautiful, popular movie that can exist, and I think that I proved that – everybody at Warner Bros and Legendary, they are 100 percent behind the project. They feel that it would need a really bad outcome at the box office to not have a Dune: Part Two because they love the movie. They are proud of the movie, so they want the movie to move forward. And they still did half of it. So, you know, I’m very optimistic.”
“I’m writing [Part Two] now, and I feel like I’m eight years old again. That’s very uncommon for me. It’s the first time I’ve experienced it where I’m watching one of my movies, and I have a moment of deep gratitude, of deep joy, and I say, ‘Thank you, life, for having allowed me to bring that to the screen.’ [laughs] I don’t know how other people will feel about it. But me? Denis Villeneuve when he was 14 years old? Thank you.”
While the upcoming movie is definitely focused on Timothee Chalamet’s Paul Atreides, Villeneuve told an Italian outlet recently the next one would have Zendaya’s Chani take over as the lead character…
“I can’t wait to shoot the second part of Dune to get [Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya] back together. Knowing that in the next chapter, Zendaya will be the protagonist of the story.”
Makes sense as the attention later in the story shifts to the Fremen and their fight alongside Paul against House Harkonnen. We’ll get to see Paul’s messianic rise from Chani’s perspective, which could be interesting.
Seen Field of Dreams trending on social media a lot lately? The reason is Major League Baseball’s recent Field of Dreams game played between the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees. The game was a celebration of two of the sport’s most prestigious franchise, and obviously an homage to the 1989 classic movie starring Kevin Coster. Well, all of that spotlight has paid off because Peacock is ready to bring the story back, albeit in series form.
Peacock has announced a series order for a new Field of Dreams streaming series, one that promises to bring back the ghosts of baseball greats to an Iowa cornfield just like in the original movie.
Here’s the synopsis: Based on Universal Pictures’ Academy Award®-nominated film “Field of Dreams,” the series will reimagine the mixture of family, baseball, Iowa, and magic that makes the movie so enduring and beloved.
What promises to bring this a ton of added attention is that it will be exec-produced and written by Michael Schur, best known as the creator of The Good Place, The Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Parks & Rec, and Rutherford Falls which is doing well on the network right now.
It’s too early to know when this Field of Dreams will run the basepath but you can bet Peacock will be aiming for a date that’s central to the baseball season.
We’re big fans of Danielle Macdonald over here, ever since her breakout performance rappin’ her heart out in Patti Cake$. In subsequent performances in Dumplin‘, Bird Box, and French Exit, she’s proven how multi-talented she truly is, but lead roles truly belonging to her have been few and far between. That changes with the feel-good romantic comedy Falling for Figaro, in which she plays a woman pursuing her operatic dreams.
Macdonald stars alongside Joanna Lumley, Fleabag‘s Hugh Skinner, Gary Lewis, Shazad Latif, and Rebecca Benson in the comedy about a hedge fund manager with aspirations of becoming a renowned opera singer. So she quits her job and devotes a year to making it happen, venturing to the Scottish Highlands to convince a legendary diva for help. What she finds there is more than just a shot at achieving her dream, but a chance at true love with her rival, Max.
The film is written and directed by Ben Lewin, perhaps best known for 2012’s The Sessions. He also directed recently The Catcher was a Spy and Please Stand By.
Falling for Figaro opens on October 1st in theaters and VOD.
Millie (Macdonald) is a brilliant young fund manager, who leaves her unfulfilling job and long-term boyfriend to chase her lifelong dream of becoming an opera singer…in the Scottish Highlands! She begins intense vocal training lessons with renowned but fearsome singing teacher and former opera diva Meghan Geoffrey-Bishop (Lumley). It is there she meets Max, another of Meghan’s students who is also training for the upcoming “Singer of Renown” contest. What begins as a brutal competition between Millie and Max slowly turns into something more…
If you’re like me and grew up watching Bob Ross, he of the soothing voice and white man’s afro, paint happy little trees and clouds, then the title of the Netflix doc Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed must make your stomach queasy. I don’t blame you. But fear not, because this isn’t a film that suddenly reveals something unforgivable about the man who taught so many the relaxing joy of painting.
This teaser is something else, because it invites you to get interested in what it is about to reveal about Bob Ross, but then says it can’t actually tell you a damn thing. I mean, that’s what a teaser is, I suppose, but rarely has the tease been so blunt. That said, the title should clue you in that it’s dealing more with issues of Ross’ estate and the extreme merchandising of his name that has taken place after his death in 1995.
Truth be told, I didn’t even know Ross had died back when I was watching him in the ’90s. His public access program was everywhere; it played on TV every weekend and you could eventually find it online. Now his show is even a popular Twitch channel. While his gentle demeanor and seemingly amateurish art style made him the butt of jokes, I don’t know anybody who doesn’t become instantly chill when watching Ross do his thing.
Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed hits Netflix on August 25th and is directed by Joshua Rofé with Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone as producers.
Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed brings us the shockingly untold story of the prolific landscape artist and host of The Joy of Painting. With a keen appreciation for nature and a kind and gentle demeanor, Bob Ross encouraged everyone he met to embrace their creativity and believe in themselves, becoming a cultural phenomenon along the way. The man who famously said that there were no mistakes – just happy accidents – has brought sheer delight to the world for decades. Beyond the iconic hair, soothing voice, and nostalgic paintings lies a mystery that many have yet to discover.
