Disney has gone down this route before, making movies based on Disneyworld attractions. While the Pirates of the Caribbean films are the gold standard in terms of box office, others have not been quite as successful: Tomorrowland, The Haunted Mansion, and The Country Bears spring to mind. But with Jungle Cruise the expectation is that it will be huge, and how can it not be with Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt leading this voyage?
The new trailer for Jungle Cruise promising a fun, family-friendly adventure-comedy in the Jumanji style, which is obviously something Johnson is intimately familiar with. Trust me, Disney can only wish this film is as successful as the Jumanji franchise, or the aforementioned ‘Pirates‘.
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, the film also stars Édgar Ramírez, Jesse Plemons, Paul Giamatti, and Jack Whitehall. Here’s the synopsis:
Set during the early 20th century, a riverboat captain named Frank takes a scientist and her brother on a mission into a jungle to find the Tree of Life, which is believed to possess healing powers. All the while, the trio must fight against dangerous wild animals and a competing German expedition.
Jungle Cruise sets sail on July 30th in theaters and Disney+ Premier Access.
Get this: JJ Abrams thinks the most recent Star Wars trilogy, which he helped launch successfully with 2015’s The Force Awakens, should’ve had a long-term plan.
Gee, y’think?
Abrams was director of two of those Star Wars films, including 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, so he saw from the inside the impact of not having a strategy. The films were divisive with fans, and suffered creatively by not sharing a single narrative voice as Rian Johnson stepped in to direct The Last Jedi.
Collider spoke with Abrams and asked him about Star Wars and whether not hot having a plan from the beginning was a hurdle…
“I’ve been involved in a number of projects that have been – in most cases, series – that have ideas that begin the thing where you feel like you know where it’s gonna go, and sometimes it’s an actor who comes in, other times it’s a relationship that as-written doesn’t quite work, and things that you think are gonna just be so well-received just crash and burn and other things that you think like, ‘Oh that’s a small moment’ or ‘That’s a one-episode character’ suddenly become a hugely important part of the story. I feel like what I’ve learned as a lesson a few times now, and it’s something that especially in this pandemic year working with writers [has become clear], the lesson is that you have to plan things as best you can, and you always need to be able to respond to the unexpected. And the unexpected can come in all sorts of forms, and I do think that there’s nothing more important than knowing where you’re going.”
“There are projects that I’ve worked on where we had some ideas but we hadn’t worked through them enough, sometimes we had some ideas but then we weren’t allowed to do them the way we wanted to. I’ve had all sorts of situations where you plan things in a certain way and you suddenly find yourself doing something that’s 180 degrees different, and then sometimes it works really well and you feel like, ‘Wow that really came together,’ and other times you think, ‘Oh my God I can’t believe this is where we are,’ and sometimes when it’s not working out it’s because it’s what you planned, and other times when it’s not working out it’s because you didn’t [have a plan].”
“Having a plan – I have learned, in some cases the hard way – is the most critical thing, because otherwise you don’t know what you’re setting up. You don’t know what to emphasize. Because if you don’t know the inevitable of the story, you’re just as good as your last sequence or effect or joke or whatever, but you want to be leading to something inevitable.”
Abrams doesn’t actually mention Star Wars in his answer, and he tries to keep it general, but the interviewer asked him specifically about the trilogy. I’m not the first to say it but it’s clear having two filmmakers telling vastly different stories alienated fans and caused much of the polarized reaction. You had one set of people who liked the more traditional approach favored by Abrams, and others who appreciated Johnson taking a more adventurous route. Neither is inherently wrong, they just couldn’t gel together to make a cohesive, satisfying Star Wars story.
Following last year’s anti-poaching/runaway lion action flick Rogue, director MJ Bassett returns to (or more accurately, stays in) Africa for Endangered Species. Bassett, known for directing wild genre flicks like Solomon Kane and Silent Hill: Revelation, is also a wildlife photographer with a genuine passion for animal preservation. But she hasn’t forgotten her love of action movies, either, and combines these two things for an exciting survival tale with its heart in the right place.
A vacation-gone-wrong disaster film, Endangered Species follows one entitled family as they face dangers in the African wilds. Troubled oil exec Jack (Philip Winchester, a Bassett favorite), his diabetic wife Lauren (Rebecca Romijn), their rebellious Ivy League daughter Zoe (Isabel Bassett, MJ’s daughter and co-writer), and their gay son Noah (Michael Johnston) are in for a wake up call when they arrive in-country on a trip they can scarcely afford and don’t really want to take together. The tension is high, made worse by Zoe’s stoner/loser boyfriend (Chris Fisher) always getting in the way of rational discussion. But all of their family troubles take a back seat when they stupidly buck the rules and drive into a restricted area of a safari park and, shocker, shit goes belly-up real quick.
Part of the fun of Endangered Species is seeing how remarkably stupid the affluent can be when put into an uncontrolled scenario on foreign soil. The first mistake is getting between a baby rhino, admittedly very cute thanks to the CG effects, and her angry mama. When the mama rhino takes issue and horns their truck onto its side, the family is stuck out in the open like a lion’s lunch waiting to happen. Or in this case, a badly CGI’ed leopard and a pack of hungry hyena.
I’m mentioning the CGI because it’s undeniable that the effects aren’t very good. You can’t ignore it. Clearly running on a limited budget like many of her films, Bassett makes the most of a lousy situation. While the digital predators are shaky, Bassett indulges us with gorgeous views of the natural environment, seen from the perspective of someone who sees the beauty and danger in all of it.
The greatest danger is, of course, man himself. Romijn’s real-life husband Jerry O’Connell plays an evil poacher (is there any other kind?) who arrogantly rationalizes what he does by explaining that Jack and his oil buddies are a global threat. Bassett at least makes a passing attempt at some shades of grey here, recognizing that many of Africa’s poachers are poor people just trying to survive in the only way they know how. But subtlety isn’t this movie’s strong suit; the entitled Americans get taught harsh lessons, the bad guys get the ironic comeuppances they deserve, and so on.
While the plot unfolds pretty much as you would expect, the Bassetts’ script does a good job of making you care that the family is on the menu at an African buffet. O’Connell shows the manic energy we like to see from him, making his rhino horn collecting baddie someone we want to see humiliated. And Isabel Bassett, in her biggest acting role to date (one she didn’t necessarily want), gives Zoe a surprising amount of depth when we think she’ll be a one-note brat. Endangered Species is the second of what Bassett hopes will be a loose-knit trilogy of action films raising awareness about poaching, and she’s the rare filmmaker who can pull it off while remembering to entertain first.
Endangered Species opens in select theaters, Apple TV, and digital on May 28th.
Paramount+ may have the market cornered on Star Trek, but if the streaming service is going to compete with the big boys, it’ll need some major league blockbusters to attract subscribers. Paramount hopes they have one in Infinite, the sci-fi film from Antoine Fuqua and Mark Wahlberg which has been confirmed to be a Paramount+ exclusive beginning Thursday, June 10th.
Directed by Fuqua and based on the book The Reincarnationist Papers by D. Eric Maikranz, Infinite stars Wahlberg as part of a secret group whose members are reborn with previously-acquired skills and memories from multiple past lives. The film also stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sophie Cookson, Jason Mantzoukas, Rupert Friend, Liz Carr, with Toby Jones and Dylan O’Brien.
The film was originally set to open in theaters last September, but was delayed by COVID-19. Paramount made the decision to pull it from the schedule indefinitely before deciding to send it to Paramount+ exlclusively. This is different from what Paramount is doing with other films such as Top Gun: Maverick and A Quiet Place Part II, which will open theatrically before heading to Paramount+ just 45 days later.
SYNOPSIS: “Infinite follows Evan McCauley (Wahlberg), a guy who is haunted daily by skills he has never learned and the memories of places he’s never visited. Self-medicated and on the brink of a mental breakdown, he is rescued by a secret group whose members call themselves “Infinites.” They reveal to him that his memories are real – but they are from multiple past lives.
The Infinites bring Evan into their extraordinary world, where a gifted few are given the ability to be reborn with their memories and knowledge accumulated over centuries. With critical secrets buried in his past, Evan must work with the Infinites to unlock the answers in his memories in a race against time to save humanity from one of their own (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who seeks to destroy it.”
How does one go about finding an actor to portray himself? For Steven Spielberg, the extensive search has concluded with the casting of relative newcomer Gabriel LaBelle to play the filmmaker in a movie loosely based on his childhood.
Deadline has the news of LaBelle being cast in Spielberg’s upcoming film, about the director’s time growing up in Arizona and the people who were formative in the man he would become. Michelle Williams and Paul Dano are set to play fictional versions of Spielberg’s parents, with Seth Rogen as his favorite uncle.
The film will stretch across many years in Spielberg’s life, and will have the filmmaker actualy working on the screenplay alongside Tony Kushner. Spielberg hasn’t written a script since A.I. twenty years ago, but it makes sense that he would for this project.
LaBelle’s biggest film prior to this was a small role in The Predator. He’ll next play a young Jon Bernthal in Showtime’s upcoming series adaptation of American Gigolo.
Credit: Jonathan Prime/Focus Features
Coldest City, The
Photographer
The working relationship between Charlize Theron and Netflix has already been a successful one. Last year’s The Old Guard was one of the streamer’s most-watched summer films, and now the two sides are coming together again on a female surfing project that be directed by Mulan‘s Niki Caro.
Theron and Caro are teaming up for a film based on Daniel Duane’s New York Times article, “The Fight For Gender Equality In One of the Most Dangerous Sports on Earth.” The story, published in 2019, follows the bond of friendship that forms between surfers Bianca Valenti, Andrea Moller, Paige Alms, and Keala Kennelly as they battle gender prejudice within the competitive surfing scene.
Anyone who has seen Caro’s breathtaking imagery in 2002’s Whale Rider should be excited to see her going back to the ocean.
The script will be adapted by Becky Johnston, with Caro directing and Theron producing.It’s unclear if Theron will also take a role in this film, but don’t be surprised if she does. Add this to Theron’s growing influence as a producer, which includes an upcoming sequel to Atomic Blonde. [Deadline]
It’s been almost a year since we first brought news of the next installment in the Evil Dead franchise, then titled Evil Dead Now. Confirmation has come out today that the upcoming film, now called Evil Dead Rise, is a lot closer then we thought. It’s been reported that the film has returned to the studio that originally brought it to wide audiences, New Line Cinema…the OG small budget horror movie house. Moreover, it will debut on HBOMax, though it’s unclear if joint release is in it’s future. Lee Cronin, Sam Rami’s handpicked director to move the franchise forward, will be steering the ship into uncharted waters, moving the story into the city. Evil Dead has always been a cabin in the woods franchise, or, I guess sometimes Castle in the woods if we’re including Army of Darkness but, in an article from TheHollywoodReporter it sounds like we’re heading for much different ground:
Evil Dead Rise takes the undead action away from the cabin in the woods and into the city as two estranged sisters’ reunion is cut short when flesh-possessing demons thrust them into a battle for survival. The film is led by Alyssa Sutherland, known for Spike’s The Mist and History’s Vikings, and Lily Sullivan, whose credits include features Picnic at Hanging Rock and Jungle.
Normally this would be a huge red flag for me, but I’m comforted by the fact that both Rami and franchise star Bruce Campbell are producing and both have always been protective of the franchise. I suppose the question we have to ask is what made the series special to start? Can the deadites still draw fans without Ash, without the isolation? We won’t have to wait long to find out, the film is set to start shooting this June in New Zealand, I’d imagine we’ll get a premier date in the first quarter of 2022, if not sooner.
In a move that somewhat mirrors Evan Peters’ odd return to Marvel as part of WandaVision, the other guy who played Quicksilver, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, is also coming back to Marvel. Only this is Sony’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, and he’ll be playing Kraven the Hunter.
The Wrap confirms that Aaron Taylor-Johnson will star in Kraven the Hunter, about the iconic Spider-Man villain. JC Chandor (A Most Violent Year) is still on board to direct, with a script by Art Marcum & Matt Holloway and Richard Wenk wrote the screenplay.
Kraven, aka Sergei Kravinoff, is a big game hunter who targets Spider-Man as the ultimate prey. In the iconic “Kraven’s Last Hunt” storyline, he actually captures and seemingly kills Spider-Man, only to have the hero return. Kraven has gone on to be one of Spidey’s most enduring foes and an original member of the Sinister Six. However, he’s also been portrayed as an antihero, which is similar to what Sony have done with Venom and will do again with Morbius.
Taylor-Johnson was most recently seen in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, and will appear next in The King’s Man. He will also star alongside Brad Pitt in Bullet Train.
Amazon’s deal to acquire MGM is certainly to cause a seismic shift around Hollywood, but all moviegoers are probably concerned with is the fate of their franchises. The biggest, of course, being James Bond. With No Time to Die arriving in the very near future, can we now expect it to be streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video? Well, no, say the 007 producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
According to Variety, Wilson and Broccoli, who are the longtime creative controllers of the Bond media empire, say they are committed to keeping 007 on the big screen…
“We are committed to continuing to make James Bond films for the worldwide theatrical audience,” Broccoli and Wilson said.
While the deal won’t finalize in time to impact No Time to Die, the James Bond universe is 26 movies deep and isn’t slowing down. In a way, the timing is perfect that the Amazon era arrives just as Daniel Craig is stepping aside.
But all one has to do is look at what Warner Bros., Disney, and Paramount are doing to get an idea of the direction Amazon is likely to go. The biggest features will either be released day-and date online and theatrically, or they’ll have a very short theatrical window.
While Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch is yet to have an official release date, we do know where its world premiere will be. Turns out it’s exactly where we knew it would be all long: the Cannes Film Festival.
Variety reports The French Dispatch will be part of the Cannes lineup this year, which is pretty much what we expected when the film was first announced. I mean, it’s about the press and is set in France, taking place across many different timeframes.
The film stars Benicio del Toro, Tilda Swinton, Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss, Owen Wilson, Frances McDormand, Adrien Brody, Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Timothée Chalamet, and more.
