It’s official: the beasts are coming out to play for Transformers 7.
Paramount, along with director Steven Caple Jr. and stars Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback confirmed today the next film will be titled Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. At a virtual panel event, they made true the rumors that it’ll be a Beast Wars movie.
Damn.
So get ready for Optimus Primal, Maximals, Predacons, Terrorcons, and more. Arcee will join the Autobots squad, transforming into a Ducati. Another female Autobot, Nightbird, is on the team as a Nissan GTR. Another personal favorite, Mirage, finally hits the big screen as a Porsche 911. Meanwhile, Optims Prime will sport a new look that combines his classic G1 with the Bay version.
Rise of the Beasts is set in 1994, which sets it between Bumblebee and the Michael Bay films. Nothing is being excluded here; everything that has come before on the big screen counts. Ramos plays Noah, who is former military and a father-figure to his little brother, who is a whiz with electronics. Fishback is Elena, a researcher studying artifacts in a museum.
The primary locations are in Brooklyn, New York, and Peru.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts opens June 24th, 2022
We say this all the time when an actor snags a bunch of high-profile projects in rapid fire succession, but in the case of Rachel Zegler it’s true: she’s having a moment. Not only will she star in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, but a key role in Shazam: Fury of the Gods is coming, as well. And now Zegler has caught the eye of Disney, who has cast her in their live-action Snow White film.
Deadline has the news of Zegler’s casting in Snow White, just the latest live-action retelling by Disney. That said, Snow White is special in the same way that Cinderella is special to the Mouse House. The 1938 movie is a true classic and Disney’s first animated feature, so yeah, they’re not going to fuck around with this one.
Behind the camera is Marc Webb, best known for a pair of Amazing Spider-Man movies and (500) Days of Summer. This marks his first project since 2017’s The Only Living Boy in New York.
Filming begins early next year, and by then maybe one of Zegler’s movies will have actually been released.
There was never any question whether James Gunn was up to the task of revitalizing the missed opportunity that was 2016’sSuicide Squad. If Guardians of the Galaxy proved anything it was that Gunn is the guy you want behind a film about a group of misfits banding together to save the day. The first trailer for Gunn’s The Suicide Squad hit and blew up the internet, from the giant Starfish to King Shark, there was something for everyone to gush about. Now we have the second trailer and PLENTY more to add to our list of reasons to get in line for a ticket. The trailer opens with a very clear depiction of why Amanda Waller is the lady you want in charge when something just has to get done. We also get some confirmation that Idris Elba’s Bloodsport will be the primary, or at least emotional, focus of the team when Waller convinces him to join by threatening his daughter.
That’s all well and good, but the real meat of the trailer is the expanded look at the rest of the team. Whether it’s a perfect little scene where the team tries to figure out exactly what Weasel is, or another cut from their briefing room where John Cena’s Peacemaker tries to figure out if the evil Project Starfish has anything to do with buttholes. The end result is clear, this is going to be a really fun, action-packed film like nothing we’ve seen before. I’m already calling that the stand-out is going to be Cena, who’s slowly proved that there’s no one better at playing the meathead role to comedic effect.
Check out the trailer below and follow us here for all the latest on The Suicide Squad
The Suicide Squad hits theaters and HBOMax on August 6th, 2021
Can The Green Knight get here already, please? Good Lord, the wait for David Lowery’s Arthurian epic has been excruciating, with the overlong wait caused by, what else, the pandemic. A24 has definitely been keeping the film and its star Dev Patel front of mind, and that continues with this oral history narrated by co-star Ralph Ineson.
So why the need for something like this, anyway? Legends Never Die: An Oral History of ‘Sir Gawain and The Green Knight’ is described as “a crash course on the 14th century epic poem that inspired David Lowery’s upcoming film.” The stories and characters that make up King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table can be complex and confusing, and this is a way to make Gawain’s story clear before the movie arrives.
The cast includes Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sarita Choudhury, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Barry Keoghan, and Erin Kellyman.
A24 will finally release The Green Knight into theaters on July 30th.
Amazon is investing a lot into Leos Carax’s star-studded musical Annette. Led by Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, the film is set to make a big splash at Cannes as the opener. Along with that cast, the music is by Sparks duo Ron and Russell Mael who are suddenly everywhere as the subject of Edgar Wright’s acclaimed documentary The Sparks Brothers.
With all of that in mind, Amazon has now dropped another trailer for Annette, showing off Driver and Cotillard’s musical talents. The story of a stand-up comedian and renowned opera singer whose lives are changed by their daughter’s birth is based on an original idea by Sparks.
SYNOPSIS: Los Angeles, today. Henry (Adam Driver) is a stand-up comedian with a fierce sense of humor who falls in love with Ann (Marion Cotillard), a world-renowned opera singer. Under the spotlight, they form a passionate and glamorous couple. With the birth of their first child, Annette, a mysterious little girl with an exceptional destiny, their lives are turned upside down. A film by visionary director Leos Carax (Holy Motors), with a story & music by Ron & Russell Mael of Sparks, this original musical is a journey of love, passion & fame.
Annette will debut in theaters on August 6th, followed by Amazon Prime on August 20th.
Um, have you seen “Karen” trending on Twitter today? It’s not because another entitled white woman has made her presence felt to embarrassing effect. No, it’s due to the upcoming movie Karen, a thriller in which Taryn Manning plays a racist white woman who terrorizes a Black couple.
The film is directed by Coke Daniels, of the mockumentary Gangsta Rap: The Glockumentary, and is looks like a poor attempt to match the racially-charged energy and commentary of Get Out. But with considerably less effect. It sorta looks like a bad SNL sketch, actually.
On the other hand, I like Taryn Manning and she at least…well, sorta looks committed to the role? You could easily spark a bunch of Karen sequels, too, like in the same way The Conjuring made Annabelle movies. Just stick Karen in a glass case and threaten Black people with her the next time they’re having a cookout or walking their dog in a public park.
Also in the cast are Cory Hardrict (Battle: Los Angeles) and Jasmine Burke( Saints & Sinners)
Karen has yet to get a release date but I hope it has one soon!
Daring to change anything about Star Wars is a risky gamble. Just ask Rian Johnson, who broke free from the formula for The Last Jedi and delivered one of the most divisive films in the franchise. That makes the upcoming series The Acolyte so intriguing, because the one running the show, Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland, isn’t the type to stick to formula, either.
Speaking with AV Club, Headland talked about The Acolyte and how she’s bringing in writers who aren’t steeped in Star Wars lore.
“Mostly what I looked for were people that I felt could execute a great script, number one,” Headland explained. “And then in the job interview, just really talking to people who had different life experiences than I did, and had different connections to ‘Star Wars’ than I did.”
“There were people like myself that were like later-in-life [Dave] Filoni acolytes,” she continued. “I literally had one writer that was like, ‘I have never seen any of them. I’ve never seen any “Star Wars” media. And she’s texting me before we started the room, she’s like, ‘Luke and Leia are brother and sister, what the…?’ [Laughs.]”
So yeah, this is going to be controversial to some die-hard fans right off the bat, especially those who pray at the altar of Dave Filoni, Jon Favreau, and George Lucas. Some of them have reached out to Headland already on social media, and she says one of their chief arguments is they don’t want her series to be political. That’s not something Headland is going to listen to…
“I mean, it’s funny, because a lot of the feedback that I’ll get—and I use the term feedback very lightly—but when I do go on social media, the feedback is “Don’t make Star Wars political.” I’m like, “George Lucas made it political. Those are political films.” War is, by nature, political. That’s just what’s up. It’s truly what he was interested in talking about and looking at and digging into.”
“So it’s kind of impossible to tell a story within his universe that doesn’t have to do with something that has to be that the characters see externally reflected in whatever’s happening in the galaxy at that particular time period of when it takes place. You know? That’s another thing that we all kind of inherited from him as well, and hope to kind of keep reflecting in the work, hopefully.”
We still don’t know a lot about The Acolyte except that it will take place in the closing days of the High Republic. Hopefully, there will be more news, and some casting, to learn about soon.
Don’t be shocked when “UbiSoft” is credited in the opening to Josh Ruben’s horror-comedy Werewolves Within. Yes, the film is based on a popular VR game but you don’t need to have played it to understand a thing. In fact, the premise is cozily familiar to any genre fan: a small town, a newcomer, weird citizens, and a slew of murders in which everybody is a suspect. But Ruben, who previously wrote and directed the novel, if somewhat underwhelming Scare Me, brings the funny in a whodunnit that has more in common with Knives Out than The Wolfman.
It’s hard to imagine a more affable, lovable duo than Sam Richardson (Veep, The Tomorrow War) and Milana Vayntrub (those AT&T commercials you inexplicably like), and fortunately we get plenty of them both. Richardson plays naive forest ranger Finn, who arrives into the snow-covered town of Beaverfield 29.5 days after a mysterious murder committed with animalistic fury. What he finds are a bunch of Fargo-esque locals with more quirks than sense. Vayntrub is the chatty, acerbic but also welcoming mail carrier Cecily, who immediately takes a shine to the newcomer. Not so much the rest of the locals, with distrust of outsiders permeating in this batch of misfits.
Not that the clueless Finn recognizes any of this. He doesn’t know about the murder or the potential oil pipeline that has divided the townsfolk into warring factions. Some want it for the money it can bring them, and on the other are those who either don’t give a crap or want to protect the forest environment. There’s the beleaguered innkeeper (Catherine Curtin) who has been a wreck since her husband left; the cordial pair of right-wingers (Michaela Watkins and Michael Chernus) who look for any reason to blame ANTIFA; the wealthy gay couple (Cheyenne Jackson and Harvey Guillén) recently-arrived in town; a crusading environmentalist (Rebecca Henderson); the shady oil exec trying to bully his way into property rights (Wayne Duvall), and a pair of weirdo rednecks (George Basil and Sarah Burns) as stupid as they are violent. On the outskirts is a heavily-armed survivalist (Glenn Fleschler) who everyone fears, and for good reason since he has no qualms about threatening to shoot them all.
While Ruben sticks to directing this time, he’s joined by humorist Mishna Wolff on the screenplay and it shows. Wolff’s lean script (in contrast to Ruben’s unwieldy, overlong Scare Me) dabbles in social commentary and picks apart the notions of small-town charm. She’s particularly adept with the female characters, notably Vintraub’s Cecily, who always has a snarky remark to battle back against the toxic males she’s surrounded by. When a snowstorm traps the group inside the inn, tensions boil, and the body count starts to rise with everyone playing the red herring at one point or another. The question isn’t so much who is the killer, but whether it’s actually a lycanthrope (that word becomes a fun ongoing gag) terrorizing them.
Richardson’s “aw shucks, Heaven to Betsy” do-gooder act gels seamlessly with Vayntrub, who has a brief dance scene that might be the most charming thing I’ve seen all year. With so many terrific comedic actors in one place, Werewolves Within can’t help but be funny, feeling at times like they’re free to go off-the-cuff than from a structured script. That sense of freedom helps because these performers are well aware of the kind of film they’re in, and take pleasure in exaggerating the genre’s tropes. Not every gag works, and sometimes the whole werewolf aspect sinks too far into the background with so many characters vying for attention. While it lacks the gore and gruesomeness the title suggests, Werewolves Within‘s humor has the teeth to make up for it.
Werewolves Within opens in select theaters on June 25th, then expands to VOD on July 2nd.
I’ve complained enough about trailers showing too much of the films they are advertising, so I suppose it would make me a hypocrite to say that I also don’t understand the whole “teaser of a trailer” thing that’s been going on in recent years. That being said, the desire for any bit of footage from our most anticipated movies is undeniable, so I can’t really fault anyone. Jurassic World: Dominion, the third film in the Chris Pratt led Jurassic World trilogy, has kept it’s true plot so under wraps that we will literally take anything at this point. Rumors have swirled that the plot moves into a place where the dino’s aren’t kept to a theme park island. Whether they’ve taken over their own tropical paradise or are about to embark on a Planet of the Apes style take-over is unknown. We DO know that this will be a Jurassic All-Stars type event, bringing the stars of the new trilogy face to face with the stars of the OG series. Of course I mean, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum. Hopefully it’s more then a 2 minute cameo this time around.
There isn’t much we can gleam from the clip below, other then that it lends credence to the whole “Dinosaurs living on their own” storyline. A few quick shots of the giant animals living peacefully leading up to the start of a fight between two Alpha predators is all we get. If you want to see more, you’ll have to get your tickets to seeF9 in IMax as that’s where the special extended preview will be playing. Check out the video below and stay tuned here for more details!
When the trailer for assassin thriller The Protégé dropped a few weeks ago, I made it clear right away this is my most anticipated movie of summer. It hits me right in the sweet spot, and with stars Maggie Q, Samuel L. Jackson, and Michael Keaton, there’s every reason to expect this to be among the genre’s best in years.
Lionsgate is keeping the film in the spotlight with a new motion picture with Maggie Q’s contract killer front and center. She’s flanked by images of Jackson and Keaton’s characters, along with brief looks at some of the fast-paced action. I can’t wait.
The film is directed by James Bond veteran Martin Campbell (Goldeneye, Casino Royale), from a script by The Equalizer‘s Richard Wenk.
The Protégé opens in theaters on July 23rd!
She’ll let nothing stand in her way. Michael Keaton, Maggie Q and Samuel L. Jackson star in #TheProtege – only in theaters August 20, 2021. pic.twitter.com/3n0SbDLGbz
Rescued as a child by the legendary assassin Moody (Samuel L. Jackson) and trained in the family business, Anna (Maggie Q) is the world’s most skilled contract killer. But when Moody – the man who was like a father to her and taught her everything she needs to know about trust and survival – is brutally killed, Anna vows revenge. As she becomes entangled with an enigmatic killer (Michael Keaton) whose attraction to her goes way beyond cat and mouse, their confrontation turns deadly and the loose ends of a life spent killing will weave themselves even tighter.
