Another week, another new Elisabeth Moss project. They’re just coming non-stop at this point and although it may seem like it, I’m not complaining. Moss delivered a terrific performance in The Invisible Man earlier this year (Yeah, that was in 2020. Feels like a lifetime ago!), and now she’s reconnecting with Blumhouse for a new psychological thriller, an adaptation of Virginia Feito’s upcoming novel, Mrs. March.
Thankfully, this has nothing to do with the comedy Miss March that you forgot about from 2009.
Deadline reports will star in Mrs. March, playing “a polished Upper East Side housewife who unravels when she begins to suspect the detestable protagonist of her husband’s latest bestselling novel is based on her.”
Nobody unravels quite like Elisabeth Moss, so this casting is already perfect. Feito will pen the screenplay, adapting her own novel which hits shelves next week. Moss will produce through her Love and Squalor Pictures label, along with Jason Blum of Blumhouse.
“I read Virginia’s novel in one sitting and was so captured by it I knew I had to make it and play Mrs. March. As a character, she is fascinating, complex, and deeply human and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into her. Mrs. March is exactly the kind of engaging and challenging female-led project that Love And Squalor Pictures is built to make,” Moss said in a statement. “As a company, we are thrilled to make our debut announcement in the features space as partners with Blumhouse. Having worked with Jason on US and the company on The Invisible Man, I am constantly struck by their creativity and intelligence. Jason Blum is a powerhouse force in the world of storytelling and I am personally honored to be in the Blumhouse family.”
No word on a director, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Moss bring in one of the many talented filmmakers she’s worked with on The Handmaid’s Tale, which has a fourth season coming up soon. Next up for her is Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, followed by Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins. She also has thriller Run Rabbit Run, ax murderer miniseries Candy, neo-noir series Black Match, and Apple TV+ series The Shining Girls. Told you she was busy.
Tenet, it’s been the most talked about movie of the year, and while alot of that is the ramping anticipation, even more of it has been for date changes. People are dying to know what kind of story Christopher Nolan has cooked up for us this time, he’s not like Scorsese who always does mob films, with Nolan you have no idea what’s coming…and he likes to keep it that way. The honest truth is that until the end credits we won’t know, and with films like Inception we’ll never really know everything. That being said we can try and glean some meaning from these new posters, which are really cool if not illuminating. I tried, I’ve looked through these images over and over and the only thing that pops out is that Robert Pattinson looks especially odd in the “reflection” image. I guess all I can promise at this point is the official synopsis:
Armed with only one word – Tenet – and fighting for the survival of the entire world, the Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time. Not time travel. Inversion.
Ok, adding that into the images we get a peak, but not much more. Inversion right, a mirror image is inverted, there’s the reflection of John David Washington/Robert Pattinson…so instead of time travel is Pattinson the avatar or inverted version of Washington? Ok…I’m stretching, far. Anyway, it still doesn’t explain the super-cool breathing apparatus they all seem to wear at some point. Guess we’ll just have to wait.
Tenet hits theaters September 2nd, 2020…..for now.
The decision to release Mulan directly to Disney+ has theater owners shook, but the only thing that really matters are the subscribers and how they feel. There was some initial shock to learning the cost of the September 4th release is an additional $29.99 for those who want to see the blockbuster, but at least it was pretty straight-forward, right? Well…Disney has clarified what’s up, and there’s some interesting language that may have you rethinking whether the price is worth it.
So first off, the $29.99 cost for Mulan is to provide what Disney calls “Premier Access.” What does that mean? Here’s how Disney describes it, and be sure to read carefully:
“…starting September 4, with Premier Access, you can watch Mulan before it’s available to all Disney+ subscribers. Disney+ will offer Premier Access to Mulan for $29.99 on disneyplus.com and select platforms. Once you have Premier Access to Mulan, you can watch as many times as you want on any platform where Disney+ is available. Your access to Mulan will continue as long as you are an active Disney+ subscriber.” The film will be available in UHD, HDR, and Dolby Audio.
You see that bit there in the first line” “…you can watch Mulan BEFORE IT’S AVAILABLE TO ALL DISNEY+ SUBSCRIBERS.” It sounds like, if you wait long enough, and probably not even that long, Mulan will be available for streaming like any other Disney title.
For families with little kids at home the $30 price tag might be a solid investment. Buy it and watch it as many times as the kiddies desire. But for those who don’t have any rugrats to consider, that cost is pretty steep.
This release strategy might be the way of the future for Disney as long as COVID-19 is keeping theaters closed.
Adapting a beloved anime into a live-action anything is always perilous business. Fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender were fairly optimistic about a new Netflix series, mainly because of the involvement of creators Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who were to help run it. Well, that’s not the case anymore, and chances are this project is going to be hit with a sudden storm of shit on social media.
DiMartino hit up his website and responded to fans who have been asking for updates on the series, which has been in development for a couple of years. Turns out, he and Konietzko are no longer involved and it sounds like “creative differences” is the culprit.
“Many of you have been asking me for updates about the ‘Avatar’ live-action Netflix series. I can finally tell you that I am no longer involved with the project. In June of this year, after two years of development work, Bryan Konietzko and I made the difficult decision to leave the production.”
“In a joint announcement for the series, Netflix said that it was committed to honoring our vision for this retelling and to supporting us on creating the series. And we expressed how excited we were for the opportunity to be at the helm. Unfortunately, things did not go as we had hoped.”
“I realized I couldn’t control the creative direction of the series, but I could control how I responded. So, I chose to leave the project. It was the hardest professional decision I’ve ever had to make, and certainly not one that I took lightly, but it was necessary for my happiness and creative integrity.”
In a refreshing twist, DiMartino doesn’t even bother endorsing whatever Netflix’s series will look like without them.
“And who knows? Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Avatar has the potential to be good. It might turn out to be a show many of you end up enjoying. But what I can be certain about is that whatever version ends up on-screen, it will not be what Bryan and I had envisioned or intended to make.”
Netflix has a mess on their hands. Avatar and its spinoff The Legend of Korra are consistently some of the most-watched programs the streamer has to offer, and pissing off that base of support is a sure way to ensure this new show fails.
There’s so much content on Netflix right now that it’s easy to forget how many mini-franchises they’ve got going on. One that you probably weren’t expecting is The Babysitter, the 2017 horror-comedy from director McG that was part of an epic breakthrough year for Samara Weaving. Well, that film has somehow spawned a sequel, The Babysitter: Killer Queen, and it’s happening despite Weaving having moved on to bigger and better things.
Much of the original cast from The Babysitter returns…which is interesting because some of their characters have died. Anyway, McG is back behind the camera for a story that finds a survivor of the first movie trying to survive high school and the return of his old cultish enemies.
SYNOPSIS: Two years after defeating a satanic cult led by his babysitter Bee, Cole’s trying to forget his past and focus on surviving high school. But when old enemies unexpectedly return, Cole will once again have to outsmart the forces of evil.
With Weaving gone, the sequel’s cast includes Judah Lewis, Emily Alyn Lind, Jenna Ortega, Robbie Amell, Andrew Bachelor, Leslie Bibb, Hana Mae Lee, Bella Thorne, with Ken Marino, Chris Wylde, Carl McDowell, Juliocesar Chavez, Maximilian Acevedo, Jennifer Foster, Helen Hong. Hopefully this means more time for Thorne? More of her is always a good thing.
The Babysitter: Killer Queen hits Netflix on September 10th.
i heard you like stirring up mayhem? well, buckle up kids. The Babysitter: Killer Queen is coming to Netflix September 10! pic.twitter.com/wxtxXZN7TN
I already loved Lulu Wang’s breakout dramedy The Farewell, and would’ve made it Best Picture if I could. And now she’s doing something few filmmakers dare to do, which is attempt an Engligh-language remake of a movie by my favorite director right now, Hirokazu Koreeda. Observer reports Wang is set to direct a new version of Koreeda’s complex family drama, Like Father, Like Son.
A source close to Focus Features confirms the news of Wang’s involvement in the remake. 2013’s Like Father, Like Son is the movie I turn to most when asked why Koreeda is so beloved. The film centers on two Japanese families on opposite ends of the economic spectrum, who discover their 6-year-old sons had been switched at birth. What do they do? Should they return the boys to their rightful parents and upend the lives they’ve always known? To do so would considerably help the future prospects of one, while significantly hurting the other. And that’s without considering the impact on the adults.
The cultural influences on such a monumental family decision is something Wang should be perfect for exploring, just as she did in The Farewell. She’ll be working with playwright Sarah Ruhl, who will pen the screenplay. It’s unclear what changes will be made to the story to suit an American audience, but there’s plenty of room to play around there and mix things up.
A previous attempt to remake Like Father, Like Son from About a Boy duo Paul and Chris Weitz fell through at Dreamworks. Thank goodness for that.
Picture this: a teen girl gets pregnant in a red state where abortion laws are under attack, so she must flee to a different state in order to get the care she needs. If that sounds like a familiar tale, you’ve either been reading the newspapers from red states, or you remember the movie Never Rarely Sometimes Always. Well, it’s such a common story nowadays that another movie, Unpregnant, is doing something similar for HBO Max.
Unpregnant is an HBO Max film from Arrowverse creator and producer Greg Berlanti, and starring the always-terrific Haley Lu Richardson as a Missouri girl who gets pregnant, threatening her dreams of getting out of town to an Ivy League school. Since abortion in Missouri is basically illegal, she hits the road with her best friend, played by model and Euphoria actress Barbie Ferreira, to get an abortion in New Mexico.
The film is directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg, who is having quite the year between this and her musical remake of Valley Girl which opened just a couple of months ago to solid reviews.
SYNOPSIS: Unpregnant tells the story of seventeen-year-old Veronica (Haley Lu Richardson), who never thought she’d want to fail a test—that is, until she finds herself staring at a piece of plastic with two solid pink lines. With a promising college-bound future now disappearing before her eyes, Veronica considers a decision she never imagined she’d have to make. This tough and never-taken-lightly decision leads her on a 900+ mile road trip to New Mexico over three days with her ex-best friend Bailey (Barbie Ferreira), where they discover that one of the most important factors in your life is who your friends are.
As if this summer hasn’t been scary enough, Netflix is promising to heat things up with an entire trilogy of Fear Street movies.
Deadline reports Netflix has acquired from Disney a completed trilogy of Fear Street movies, based on the scary teen horror novels from Goosebumps author, R.L. Stine. The films have all been shot, with each directed by Leigh Janiak, best known for the indie horror Honeymoon and some episodes of Outcast.
Netflix is looking to package up these three movies as a themed event titled “The Summer of Fear”. The original plan had been for Fox to release all three movies one month at a time over the summer, but a combination of Disney’s crowded release slate and COVID-19 made it a bit tough. Good thing Netflix is around and always looking for fresh content.
Am I crazy for thinking they might also try to loop this in with a new season of Stranger Things, especially as both share a star in actress Sadie Sink? Although it’s worth noting Deadline’s report excludes her from the cast, I’m thinking it might have been an oversight.
The Fear Street novels were first published in 1989, and have sold more than 80 million copies to date. They feature characters who are slightly older than the pre-teens of Goosebumps, and thus the content is a bit scarier, as well.
Here’s how the film is described: “The Fear Street saga starts in 1994, where a group of teens find out that a terrifying series of events in their hometown of Shadyside, Ohio might be connected. Worse, the teens might be next up as targets. The films cover three different time periods, including the 1600s.”
The cast includes Kiana Madeira, Olivia Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr, Gillian Jacobs, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Ashley Zukerman, Fred Hechinger, Julia Rehwald, and Jeremy Ford.
Scared for our political future? You have every right to be as this country has never been more polarized, the ideological divide never greater, and a certifiable nut voted into the White House. But there may be glimmers of hope to come, as seen in the incredible, must-watch documentary Boys State, a Sundance award-winner about a group of Texas teens attending an annual leadership conference where they attempt to build a more perfect union. In the process, they show us everything that our politics is now, and what it can under the right guidance.
Directed by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine (The Overnighters), Boys State examines the week-long Texas event, in which 1100 boys from across the country are brought together and left to create their own representative government. The initial chaos of it, with kids scrambling around to collect signatures so they can run for various offices, with Governor right at the top, looks a little like the Democratic and Republican National Conferences. But eventually, it evens out into something more like a football game, with the attendees divided into two fictional political Parties: the Federalists and the Nationalists. Past participants have included future heavyweights Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, Samuel Alito, and Corey Booker. So there’s something to attending this thing, in at least forming the kind of working relationships that matter in politics.
Moss and McBaine collected thousands of hours of footage from the 2018 event, and crafted a handful of gripping, roller-coaster stories from all across the ideological and cultural spectrum to follow. You’d be right in thinking the conference is mostly attended by white conservative Christians, which makes the diversity of the protagonists all the more intriguing. There’s Rene Otero, an African-American liberal from Chicago with a bold, “take no shit” demeanor that helps him to easily win the Nationalist chairmanship. It comes with a price, though; racist attacks mark him for impeachment almost immediately, to which he observes “I don’t think being a fantastic politician is a compliment.”
There is no true villain in the piece, but if anybody comes close it’s his Federalist rival, Ben Feinstein. From the jump, Ben is presented as a sympathetic figure and someone we might want to root for: despite his spouting of right-wing talking points undoubtedly gained from watching too much cable TV, Ben is a double amputee who has refused to be hindered by his disability. But his life experience has also given way to a cynical “win at all cost” mentality which will be recognizable to anyone who pays attention to our current crop of elected officials.
An Obama-like hero emerges in Steven Garza, a Houston kid and the son of an undocumented worker. He immediately contrasts from his white well-to-do peers by showing up to the bus pickup all by himself; his parents too busy working to come. Steven is perhaps the most unlikely candidate running for Governor; he can barely scrounge up the necessary signatures, but a rousing speech catches on thrusts him into the limelight. Steven’s calm, everyman demeanor has him eyed as either weak or a calming influence, but it also leaves him vulnerable to xenophobic attacks from the other side. And how dare he, how dare he, be for background checks in a pro-gun state like Texas??
Arguments occasionally break out over God, guns, and abortion, with many of them reduced to standard-issue talking points and little insight. The boys all speak exactly like the talking heads we see on TV, which goes to show how our youth perceive how politics is meant to be. That was probably the most chilling aspect of Boys State for me; seeing how our poison political system has corrupted some in the next generation to believe this is the way it has always been done. A case in point is Robert Macdougall, who looks like the prototype for a can’t-lose candidate in the home of Friday Night Lights. A football standout with a handsome, All-American face, Robert is secretly less conservative than he lets on, but refuses to be honest because it’s a losing strategy. Even as he acknowledges the harm in what he’s doing, he calculates that it’s more important to win than to not.
For the most part, these are all serious kids with big hearts who actually give a damn about politics. That is inspiring in and of itself, especially when the current generation is so often accused of sitting on their butts worrying about their Twitch follows. Of course, there are some goofball exceptions. One branch of the Nationalist’s consistently votes for secession; another group initiates a vote on pineapple pizza. Boys will be boys, after all.
Boys State captures the electric rush of a fast-moving political campaign, taking us inside the system in ways most have never, and will never, get to see. The film offers an integral look at how our government really works, and the people who will either be ironing out the kinks or gumming up the works in a few years. The conclusion could be a bit of a drag that makes you feel worse about our government, but the directors are smart to inject just enough optimism in one candidate’s honest, vulnerable display of appreciation for everything he just experienced and the people he met along the way. It’s the kind of heartfelt truth we should expect from our public servants, and Boys State leaves us hopeful that we will see it again.
Boys State plays for one-night-only at select drive-ins tonight, August 12th, before streaming on Apple TV+ on August 14th.
A couple of weeks ago during The New Mutants‘ panel at Comic-Con, it was confirmed, once again, that the X-Men spinoff would indeed open in theaters on August 28th. It has seemed quite unlikely because…well, the coronavirus is still a thing and the vast majority of the country is still shutdown. But Disney wants you and all of the exhibitors to know that they aren’t moving anything, and next week tickets can officially start going on sale.
In a “lengthy email” to exhibitors, Disney confirmed that tickets to The New Mutants can start being sold on Tuesday, August 18th. An inside source speaking with Variety reiterated on top of that, “It’s for sure opening August 28th!”
Okay, sure. We believe you. Even though it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Only about 1300 theaters are open nationwide right now, so I guess the film could open and make some money. Perhaps this is Disney lying by omission? A day and date release, limited theatrically but also on digital for areas that have yet to reopen, might be the best way to go. Unfortunately, we know that can’t happen, but perhaps a very short run theatrically followed by VOD is what they’ll go with.
The New Mutants has had a rough go of it. Originally due to open in summer 2018, the film was delayed after a trailer nobody liked. Director Josh Boone planned reshoots to punch up the superhero horror, but the timing never seemed to work out. The release date has shuffled around a lot for a couple of reasons: from February 2019 to August 2019 to April 2020 and then to the date it has now. In the middle of all of this the movie went from 20th Century Fox to Disney, and also COVID-19 happened.
I will say this, the long delay may have actually helped The New Mutants. Recent trailers have received positive buzz, the Comic-Con panel and opening scene were well-received, and there’s a pretty good feeling about the film overall. Under normal circumstances it might actually do well at the box office. But in the current climate,we’ll just have to wait and see.
