No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. Last week saw Netflix drop the trailer for Fear Street Part 1: 1994, only to have the adaptation of R.L. Stine’s horror novels release a few days later. And now we’re getting the trailer for Part 2: 1978, with the second chapter debuting later this week. It’s all part of three straight weeks comprising the Fear Street trilogy, a major summer event for horror fans.
All three films were directed by Leigh Janiak (Honeymoon) and feature a cast that includes Sadie Sink, Emily Rudd, Ryan Simpkins, Cabe Slye, Gillian Jacobs, Chiara Aurelia, Ben Flores Jr., Kiara Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, and Ted Sutherland. Marco Beltrami had the task of composing a score meant to send chills down your spine.
SYNOPSIS: Shadyside, 1978. School’s out for summer, and the activities at Camp Nightwing are about to begin. But when another Shadysider is possessed with the urge to kill, the fun in the sun becomes a gruesome fight for survival.
Fear Street Part 2: 1978 hits Netflix on July 9th. It will be followed by Part 3: 1666 on July 16th.
She’s savage classy, bougie, ratchet, sassy, moody, and nasty, but is Megan thee Stallion also Marvel bound? In one of the most unusual rumors (via CBR) to hit in a while, the braggadocious rapper is said to make an appearance, and possibly have a recurring role as herself on the She-Hulk series.
There aren’t any details further than that, but it’s well known that Megan thee Stallion is a big comic book fan, Marvel in particular. The curious thing is why she’d be in the show, and I think that might lend itself to the idea She-Hulk will be similar to an Ally McBeal-esque legal comedy. That means plenty of room for celebrities showing up who need some superheroic legal defense from Jen Walters.
Megan thee Stallion previously provided a song on the Birds of Prey soundtrack, but this would be her first major acting role, assuming it’s true.
She-Hulk arrives in 2022 and will star Tatiana Maslany as Jen Walters/She-Hulk, with Mark Ruffalo as her cousin Bruce Banner/The Hulk, Tim Roth as the Abomination, Jameela Jamil as Titania, plus roles for Ginger Gonzaga and Renée Elise Goldsberry.
It didn’t take long for F9 to race past the $500M mark worldwide, but that’s what it has done with the help of a $24M domestic second weekend. That’s a hefty 65% drop from last week, but that’s pretty standard for the franchise at this point.
2. The Boss Baby: Family Business– $17.3M
How much of The Boss Baby‘s $528M (!!!) success had to do with Alec Baldwin voicing the titular toddler? He was so hot at the time for making fun of Donald Trump, and I think people wanted to hear him carry that over to animation. It doesn’t look like the sequel, The Boss Baby: Family Business will come anywhere close to those heights. The Universal and Dreamworks film opened with $17M, which isn’t bad for post-COVID times. It’s also possible its earnings were affected by Peacock subscribers who got to watch it for free on streaming.
What better way to celebrate the 4th than with The Forever Purge, Blumhouse’s surprisingly awesome political horrors that explore toxic patriotism? The apparent final film in the franchise opened with $12.75M, which is below 2018’s prequel The First Purge, but still pretty good for a $25M budget. Some of this is attributable to the pandemic, of course, however these films really exploded as a reflection of Trump era rage and I wonder if there’s been some hangover now that Biden is in office?
4. A Quiet Place Part II– $4.2M/$144.4M
5. The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard– $3M/$31.3M
6. Cruella– $2.5M/$76.5M
7. Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway– $2.2M/$34.4M
8. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It– $1.29M/$62.2M
One of the buzziest indie films of the year, A24’s Zola opened in 1400 theaters for a 5-day total of $2M. Directed by Janicza Bravo and starring Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, and Colman Domingo, it’s based on the viral Twitter thread about an insane Florida road trip taken by two women who barely know one another, an idiot boyfriend, and a violent pimp. In different times I would’ve expected Zola to recoup its $5M budget easily, but it may take a few weeks before really smashing it in PVOD.
Star Wars isn’t the first thing that jumps to mind when one thinks of anime, but that’s about to change. At Anime Expo Lite, Lucasfilm revealed the first trailer for Star Wars: Visions, an anthology series of anime short films, nine total episodes from seven different studios.
A look at the teaser shows many different animation styles, encompassing a number of unusual stories set within the Star Wars universe. Check it out below:
Here’s a complete list of episodes:
Kamikaze Douga – The Duel
Geno Studio (Twin Engine) – Lop and Ochō
Studio Colorido (Twin Engine) – Tatooine Rhapsody
Trigger – The Twins
Trigger – The Elder
Kinema Citrus – The Village Bride
Science Saru – Akakiri
Science Saru – T0-B1
Production IG – The Ninth Jedi
So if you ever wanted to see a Star Wars rock opera, this is the joint for you.
“We really wanted to give these creators a wide creative birth to explore the Star Wars galaxy,” LucasFilm executive producer James Waugh said. “We wanted this to be as authentic as possible to the studios and the creators. The idea was, this is their vision, riffing off all of the elements of the Star Wars galaxy that inspired them.”
Star Wars: Visions will hit Disney+ on September 22nd.
“Who the hell is that guy?” Natasha Romanoff asks in the new Black Widow featurette. The guy she is referring to is not “big guy” Bruce Banner, but Taskmaster, the main antagonist for the upcoming film. This formidable opponent has the ability to mimic any fighting style, a skill that completely stumps the Russian-American assassin we’ve come to love.
The teaser features interviews with director Cate Shortland, Scarlett Johansson, David Harbour, and Rachel Weisz who all reiterate what a wild card this villain is. Harbour even compares Taskmaster’s fight choreography to Captain America, Hawkeye, and Black Panther.
At this point we don’t know who is playing Taskmaster as is true identity has been kept secret. Some speculated that Handmaid’s Tale actor O–T Fagbenle will this mysterious bad guy, but that hasn’t been confirmed. Fagbenle’s character does play Rick Mason, a S.H.I.E.L.D ally. In the comics, Taskmaster’s powers come at the cost of his memory so maybe the villain doesn’t even know its them. Also, remember that Julia Louis Dreyfus’s Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, who first popped up in the MCU in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, is supposed to show up in Black Widow could somehow be connected to Taskmaster.
With all this in mind, watch the trailer below. Black Widow hits theaters July 9th.
Masters of the Universe is back – or at least it soon will be. Netflix is bringing back He-Man, Grayskull, Skeletor and the rest of Eternia’s finest warriors and putting them in an all new show, Masters of the Universe: Revelation.
Playing some your favorite faces from the 80s cartoon are Mark Hamill as Skeletor, Sarah Michelle Gellar as Teela, Lena Headley as Evil-Lyn, Liam Cunningham as Man-at-Arms, Diedrich Bader as Trap Jaw, and Dennis Haysbert as King Grayskull. Kevin Smith is directing the series, his foray into animation.
The official synopsis is as follows.
The war for Eternia culminates in “Masters of the Universe: Revelation,” an innovative and action-packed animated series that picks up where the iconic characters left off decades ago. After a cataclysmic battle between He-Man and Skeletor, Eternia is fractured and the Guardians of Grayskull are scattered. And after decades of secrets tore them apart, it’s up to Teela to reunite the broken band of heroes, and solve the mystery of the missing Sword of Power in a race against time to restore Eternia and prevent the end of the universe.
The Guardians of Grayskull return in Masters of the Universe: Revelation Part 1 on July 23rd.
The first wave of Funkos for James Gunn’s The Suicide Squadare here, and already it’s more than we got for the 2016 movie. Eight figures are available for preorder now, including multiple versions of the team’s most popular supervillain, Harley Quinn, and one of its team leader, Rick Flag. Others including Ratcatcher II with her little rat Sebastian, Polka-Dot Man, King Shark, Peacemaker, and two versions of Bloodsport.
Harley Quinn comes in two different types, one in a battle suit and another in a damaged dress. The Amazon exclusive has the clown queen of crime in an undamaged dress.
The basic version of Bloodsport comes with a helmet, clenched fists, and a monstrous face that looks nothing like star Idris Elba. If you want to see him without the helmet, that figure is a Funko Shop exclusive.
I hate this, because I want them all but especially that Peacemaker! It’ll look cool against the WWE ones I have of him, too.
All of these are available for pre-order now. We highly recommend our friends at Entertainment Earth and Amazon for your Funko Pop! buying needs! Any commission that we earn from purchases through our affiliate links goes back into the site. We are a small group and every little bit helps. Thank you so much for all of your support!
HBO has decided not to take up residence in Lovecraft Country for another season. Deadline confirms Misha Green’s series adaptation of Matt Ruff’s novel will not be returning. The show starred Jonathan Majors, Jurnee Smollett, Courtney B. Vance, Aunjanue Ellis, Michael K. Williams, Jamie Chung, Wunmi Mosaku, and Michael K. Williams. Set in the Jim Crow south of the 1950s, Lovecraft Country dealt heavily in magic, myth, and monsters, with racism as terrifying as any of them.
This is somewhat of a surprise, since Green had previously expressed optimism about plans for season two.
“I envision a second season that carries on the spirit of Matt Ruff’s novel by continuing to reclaim the genre storytelling space that people of color have typically been left out of,” Green told Deadline.
Ratings for Lovecraft Country were good, and the show received more than its share of accolades and critical acclaim.
Much like what happened to the Game of Thrones creators, Green had surpassed events of Ruff’s book and would need to launch into new stories. Ruff hasn’t written further material to draw from, either, and it seems coming up with ideas for more episodes could have been the sticking point.
On the other hand, the cast has pretty much already moved on to bigger things. Majors has become a huge star on the back of Lovecraft Country, starring in Da 5 Bloods and grabbing a role in Ant-Man 3. Smollett starred in Birds of Prey and will star with Chris Hemsworth in Joseph Kosinski’s Escape from Spiderhead. And Mosaku is currently killing it as Hunter B-15 in Marvel’s Loki series.
Birds of Prey might not have been the gigantic hit Warner Bros. hoped for, but it certainly didn’t diminish the popularity of Harley Quinn. The character has her own mature animated series, and Margot Robbie is set to reprise the role in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. But what happens to her on the big screen after that remains a real question.
Speaking with Total Film, Robbie, who was a producer on Birds of Prey and has helped develop the character’s DCEU presence, talked about Harley Quinn being better in team scenarios rather than solo…
“Something I noticed about Harley from the start is she’s always going to have more fun when she’s in a group dynamic,” Robbie said. “I’ve always said putting Harley on her own would be like putting a kid on a playground on their own. It’s never going to be as fun as when it’s populated with other kids to play with. [When she’s] in a group, you’re always going to see the most come out of her personality because she’s got people to play with and pick apart or fall in love with or backstab or whatever. She’s always decided how she feels about the people around her and then acts accordingly, which is always unpredictable.”
I think Robbie’s right about that, because the fun thing about Harley is watching other characters react to the nutty shit she does. Does that mean we’ll see her in The Suicide Squad 3, assuming one were to happen? I think any plans for a Harley Quinn/Joker movie are long since dead. The same goes for the Gotham City Sirens project that David Ayer was attached to.
The Suicide Squad opens in theaters and HBO Max on August 6th.
We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to attend a free advance screening of Black Widow, Marvel Studios’ first theatrical release since 2019! The film is directed by Cate Shortland, with Scarlett Johansson joined by Florence Pugh, David Harbour, and Rachel Weisz.
SYNOPSIS: In Marvel Studios’ action-packed spy thriller “Black Widow,” Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger. Scarlett Johansson reprises her role as Natasha/Black Widow, Florence Pugh stars as Yelena, David Harbour portrays Alexei/The Red Guardian, and Rachel Weisz is Melina. Directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige, “Black Widow”—the first film in Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe— will launch simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access in most Disney+ markets on July 9, 2021.
The screening takes place on Wednesday, July 7th at 7:00pm at AMC Tysons Corner. If you’d like to attend, simply complete the Rafflepress contest form below. Winners will be selected on Sunday, July 4th and notified by email. Be aware: Disney requires masks worn throughout the entirety of the movie at their screenings!
