With the pandemic having shut down theaters for the majority of 2020 and part of 2021, many studios took to unloading their biggest projects onto streaming services. Pretty much everybody got into it…but not Sony. They held firm, moving their entire blockbuster slate and now they’ve got quite the lineup on the way, including three Marvel films in Venom 2, Morbius, and even Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2. And when those movies are done in theaters, Netflix will be the only place you can stream them.
Netflix has struck a multi-year deal to be the exclusive streaming home to Sony’s upcoming theatrical releases, including the aforementioned superhero films plus Uncharted, which will be the first starting in 2022, along with Bullet Train, Where the Crawdads Sing, and future Bad Boys and Jumanji sequels.
The deal spans five years and is described by THR as “record-setting” and worth roughly $1B to Sony. The studio has notably not launched a streaming service of their own, leaves them the flexibility to make this sort of agreement. This also does away with the previous pay-TV deal Sony had with Starz since 2006.
Pretty big stuff here, and it’s interesting that we’ll be seeing these specific Marvel movies only on Netflix. I wonder if Sony reached out to Disney at all?
Not that Steven Spielberg has ever had trouble with lining up top stars, but he’s definitely going all-out for the film inspired by his own childhood. With Michelle Williams set to play his mother, and Seth Rogen as his uncle, Spielberg has now cast Paul Dano who will play the director’s father.
Variety reports Dano will play the man inspired by Spielberg’s real-life father, Arnold. Others in the cast are expected to be younger, unknown actors, so we could see some new stars built off of this movie.
Not that Dano needs any help. He’s come a long way from his early years in films such as The Girl Next Door and Taking Lives. Dano recently made his directorial debut with Wildlife, and will soon appear as Riddler in The Batman.
Shooting on Spielberg’s film is expected to begin this summer for release next year.
When Ben Affleck joined the DC Films universe as Batman, he didn’t come alone. He brought along with him Argo screenwriter Chris Terrio, who took a pen to both Batman v Superman and Justice League. You can argue that he must’ve done a crappy job on both since they did terribly at the box office, but that’s not entirely his fault. That’s especially true when it comes to Justice League, which we know underwent massive structural changes upon Zack Snyder’s departure, and Terrio is finally speaking out about all of the things he hated about Joss Whedon’s cut of the movie.
Speaking with Vanity Fair, Terrio started off by talking about his time on Batman v Superman, a title that he didn’t like from the start and thinks contributed to the negative feelings about it…
“I heard [the title] and I thought, It just sounds self-important and clueless in a way. Tone-deaf. The intention of the film was to do something interesting and dark and complex, not quite as Las Vegas, bust ’em up, WWE match as ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.’”
In what would become a recurring theme for Terrio, he says the finished Batman v Superman was missing large portions of his script that included sorely-needed characterization…
“I was proud of the script when I completed it, but it turns out that when you remove the 30 minutes that give the characters motivation for the climax, the film just doesn’t work.”
“So this house of cards that had been built in order to motivate this clash between America’s two favorite heroes made no sense at all. That was what happened with ‘Batman/Superman.’ The movie was always was going to be dark. There were always going to be people who just didn’t want to see that version of a comic book world, and I get that. But what hurt was the criticism that the script was not coherent, because when I turned in the script to the studio—which they, by all accounts, were happy with—it made sense.”
Terrio says the reaction and performance of Batman v Superman drove Warner Bros. execs to take a more active creative role in Justice League. Whedon was hired to punch up the script and make it a brighter, more Marvel-esque film. When Snyder’s family suffered a tragedy and he dropped out, Whedon took over and made the film his own. So much so that Terrio got angry enough to demand his name be removed from it…
“I went into such depression when the film was taken away and rewritten,” Terrio said. “But I didn’t even feel entitled to be depressed, because Zack and Debbie [Snyder] were dealing with their family tragedy. Measured against that, losing the film that you wrote seems like nothing at all. But it did hurt. It hurts to think that I cared so much about these characters and worked on nothing else for a very long time.”
“I didn’t realize how much of the film was going to be changed—or vandalized, in my opinion. It became clear as I spoke to various actors that it was a wholesale dismantling of what had been there before. I did not hear from anyone who said it was a pleasant experience.”
After finally viewing Whedon’s cut of the film for himself, Terrio said, “I immediately called my lawyer and said, ‘I want to take my name off the film.’ [The lawyer] then called Warner Bros. and told them that I wanted to do that.”
Terrio never did take his name off, wanting to avoid further scandal and harm to the actors and craftspeople who worked hard on Justice League.
Turning to things that are more positive, Terrio says he’s “awfully happy” that Zack Snyder’s Justice League was released. Like many, he points to the Cyborg storyline as a highlight and the heart of the movie, whereas Whedon removed it entirely…
“It was always the heart of the film to me, and just meant so much to me personally, because so much of my heart and life were put into that story. That is the thing about this version of ‘Justice League,’ that none of it was done cynically or as a money grab, or an attempt to sell Happy Meal toys. It really was personal for me and for Zack and for many of the actors.”
As we know, Zack Snyder’s Justice League hit HBO Max last month and has been receive positively by fans and most critics. That said, Terrio’s time with the DCEU was obviously rough and who knows if he’ll want to go back to it ever again.
Of all the movie monsters that are out there, the Djinn (or evil genie) may be the most terrifying. Why? Well, he’s the one most likely to convince us to fall victim to his traps. It’s easy to avoid the creepy campsite, or not read from that evil looking book. What’s not easy is saying no to someone offering to fulfill your greatest desire. Sure, we’d know that there was a risk, but don’t you think you’d at least consider tempting fate?
That’s the premise of IFC Midnight‘s upcoming horror film The Djinn. This is a type of monster that, honestly, has been done dirty through the years. The most recognizable instance is the Djinn that appeared in the laughable (but still fun) Wishmaster series. There was a particularly good episode of Supernatural that nailed the character but it’s been mostly overlooked. It seems they are going to do right by the archetypal baddie, and to add tension to the situation it’s a young mute boy at the mercy of the creature. There’s not a ton of exposition in this trailer but what we do see establishes a creepy tone and disturbing story. IFC Midnight has been batting above .500 for some time now so they get the benefit of the doubt from me.
The Djinn is Opening in theaters and VOD May 14th, 2021
Directors: David Charbonier, Justin Powell
Starring: Ezra Dewey, Rob Brownstein, Tevy Poe
We’ve known for well over a year there were troubles with Joe Wright’s The Woman in the Window. A poorly-received trailer in 2019, bad test screenings, delays caused by Fox 2000’s acquisition (then subsequent shuttering) by Disney, and as we learned just days ago, Tony Gilroy being brought in to help out with reshoots. And yet despite all of that, the film remains ridiculously stacked in terms of star power, and Netflix clearly has hopes of a Gone Girl level hit.
We’ll see about that, but with the film set for release next month, a new trailer has dropped. Amy Adams leads the way as an agoraphobic woman whose life gets a lot more exciting when a neighbor friend suddenly goes missing, and she suspects there was foul play.
Joining Adams in the cast are Gary Oldman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brian Tyree Henry, Fred Hechinger, Julianne Moore, and Falcon and the Winter Soldier duo Anthony Mackie and Wyatt Russell.
The Woman in the Window hits Netflix on May 14th, and we’ll see if Gilroy managed to help save this one as he’s done on other projects in the past.
Anna Fox (Amy Adams) feels safest when she’s watching the world from behind her window. Until the Russell family moves in across the street, and she witnesses something unimaginable. The question is…what really happened?
Tom Holland is a busy guy, and that doesn’t even include what he’s doing for Marvel. In recent months we’ve seen him in films such as Cherry, The Devil All the Time, and Chaos Walking, with an Uncharted project on the way. And now he’s making the move to TV with the Apple series, The Crowded Room.
Variety reports Holland will star in the 10-episode first season of Apple TV+ anthology series The Crowded Room. Produced by Akiva Goldsman, the series is inspired by the biography The Minds of Billy Milligan, and has Holland in the title role, the first person ever acquitted due to Dissociative Identity Disorder, more commonly known as having multiple personalities.
How future seasons will play out is unclear, but based on the title and the premise of the first season, it sounds like a series that will follow other real-life stories of people with uncommon psychological issues.
The Crowded Room marks a return to Apple for Holland, who starred in Cherry for the streamer earlier this year.
The cast of Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam movie has added a Tony Award nominee to its ranks. Deadline reports James Cusati-Moyer, known for his awards-contending performance in Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play, has joined the cast of the DCEU superhero film.
Details on Cusati-Moyer’s role are being kept under wraps, which is interesting because we know so much about the others. Dwayne Johnson stars a the titular Teth-Adam, traditionally an antihero and frequent rival of Shazam, making this a sortof spinoff to that DC Comics film. Others in the cast include Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher, Aldis Hodge as Hawkman, Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fate, Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone, plus Sarah Shahi as a university professor and Marwan Kenzari as an unnamed villain.
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, Black Adam arrives on July 29th 2022.
What’s the criteria for landing a starring role in the upcoming House Party remake? I’m guessing the ability to pull a mean kick-step? If that’s the case, it appears that rising stars Jorge Lendeborg Jr. and Tosin Cole have pulled off the dance move in style.
Deadline reports Lendeborg and Cole are close to nailing down the starring roles in a new House Party, a remake of the classic 1990 jam that starred rap duo Kid ‘N Play as best buds at a wild house party where everything, and anything can happen. This updated take has LeBron James and Reginald Hudlin as producers, with music video director Calmatic making his feature debut. Atlanta writers Stephen Glover and Jamal Olori wrote the script.
Lendeborg first caught my attention in the underrated Cleveland drama The Land from Creed II director Steven Caple. He’s since gone on to much bigger things, landing roles in Bumblebee, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far from Home, and Eddie Huang’s debut film Boogie. Cole is new to me, but had a small role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the black college drama Burning Sands, and was a regular on Doctor Who.
All of this is great, but the only thing that matters is if Lendeborg and Cole can win a dance-off together.
Debuting at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018, Searching quickly became the crown jewel of “Screenlife” thrillers. John Cho was basically the only big name attached and he gave a performance that many deemed one of the best of the year, undoubtedly challenging considering it was all in front of computer screens. Cho isn’t coming back for the upcoming sequel, but we do know the cast will be bigger and more diverse.
Deadline reports Searching 2 will be led by Storm Reid, best known for films such as A Wrinkle in Time, The Invisible Man, and The Suicide Squad. She’ll be joined by the alway-classy Nia Long of Friday and Boyz n the Hood fame, as well as Joaquim de Almeida (Our Brand is Crisis), Ken Leung (Lost), Amy Landecker (Transparent), Daniel Henney (Criminal Minds), Megan Suri (The MisEducation of Bindu), and Tim Griffin (Wayward Pines).
Earlier this year we learned that original Searching director Aneesh Chaganty would only be returning as a producer, with the directing reins passed to editors Will Merrick and Nick Johnson in their feature debut. The story, which Merrick and Johnson wrote from a Chaganty idea, will feature entirely new characters and will have no connection to the prior film, other than it will play out across screens of various devices.
While it sucks that Ava DuVernay’s New Gods film isn’t happening, the good news is she’s far from done with the DC Universe. DuVernay is also developing Naomi, a CW series based on the popular, and fairly recent, comic series by Brian Michael Bendis. With production now underway, DuVernay has dropped the first image of star Kaci Walfall as young superhero Naomi McDuffie, racing through the halls of her school on a skateboard.
Naomi centers on a teen girl with energy powers who discovers a multiverse of superheroes after a cataclysmic event shakes her town. Setting out to uncover the truth, Naomi learns something that changes everything she thought she knew about the world’s heroes.
The series is written and exec-produced by DuVernay alongside Arrow writer/EP Jill Blankenship. It’s still unclear if Naomi will be part of Greg Berlanti’s vaunted Arrowverse, or if it’ll be separate similar to Black Lightning.
