*NOTE* Sorry for the technical difficulties that cut out Travis’ audio for a while. We’re endeavoring to fix all of those issues for the future!
“I’m Batman”. No, Michael Keaton is Batman, and he’s coming back as part of the DCEU in Ezra Miller’s THE FLASH. On this week’s Cinema Royale we can barely keep ourselves from talking about it, but it has to wait for reviews of Jon Stewart’s sophomore film, IRRESISTIBLE; Dave Bautista’s kid-friendly action film MY SPY; and the Will Ferrell/Rachel McAdams comedy EUROVISION! Plus, we’ll talk about the silly game of cat & mouse going on between TENET and MULAN over which will open first.
Who had Ray Fisher vs. Joss Whedon having beef in 2020? On Monday, Fisher fired a shot across Whedon’s bow by “forcefully retracting” any support he once had for Whedon’s cut of Justice League. And at the time it just seemed like he was really pumped for the Snyder Cut, which promises to give his Cyborg a more sizeable role. But it’s quite clear now that Fisher’s dislike of Whedon runs pretty deep.
In a tweet, Fisher revealed that his problems with Whedon extend to his treatment of others while on set doing reshoots of Justice League, emboldened by producers Geoff Johns and Jon Berg. You’ll recall that Johns and Berg were like the main dudes to spearhead the DCEU for a while, but they sucked and that shit came to an end shortly after the movie bombed.
Joss Wheadon’s on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable.
He was enabled, in many ways, by Geoff Johns and Jon Berg.
Fisher’s tweet was followed by a response from Reel Anarchy’s John Aaron Garza, who pointed out that Johns used to make fun of Snyder’s cut of Justice League publicly, which is pretty unbecoming of a producer/writer at a major studio.
Since this is out there…GJ also made fun of the Snyder Cut. Out loud. In front of People…y’all about digging your own fucking grave. ✌? https://t.co/fiFGloHCup
— John Aaron Garza ⚪️ Nkl-n-D1med (@Ser_Jon_Arryn) July 1, 2020
Going by the way this stuff normally shakes out, we’re only in the beginning stages of what will be months of back-and-forth, spilling tea all over the place about a movie that stunk up the joint. And if you think the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League next year will end it? Ehhhhhhh, probably. If it’s a success, there will be gloating. And if it fails…well, there will be more gloating.
Beavis and Buttihead are back. The idiotic yet strangely insightful duo from 1990s MTV are making the move to Comedy Central, and series creator Mike Judge is joining them.
THR reports Judge has inked a deal with Comedy Central for two new seasons of Beavis and Butt-head. Not only that, but there’s the possibility of spinoffs, too. Perhaps another feature film like 1996′ Beavis and Butt-head Do America? Judge will write, produce, and voice the two lead delinquents, who became cultural phenomenons in the ’90s for their scathing commentary on pretty much everything.
“It seemed like the time was right to get stupid again,” Judge said.
Really, y’think? The world is even dumber now than it was back then. The stupidest man in the world is in the White House. How can Beavis and Butt-head hope to compete?
This won’t be the first-time Judge has brought Beavis and Butt-head back. He tried in 2011 but it only lasted a single season, although ratings were initially very good. It’ll be interesting to see how adapts a very ’90s show for a completely new audience who may be unfamiliar with the original series.
Hollywood pays attention, and one thing that hasn’t gone unnoticed is the success of erotic thrillers that cater to the black audience. But the success of films such as Obsessed, The Perfect Guy, Acrimony, No Good Deed, and others has created its own little sub-genre, and Netflix is getting in on it with Fatal Affair.
The title pretty much says it all, right? What it doesn’t tell you is that it stars Nia Long, Omar Epps, and Stephen Bishop. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that my friends and family will pay to see Nia Long or Omar Epps in just about anything, but especially a movie like this. Fatal Affair stars Long as an unfulfilled wife who reconnects with an old friend, and nearly crosses the line into adultery. But having stopped just short, the man she once called a friend has become obsessed with her.
Behind the camera is Peter Sullivan, no stranger to Netflix thrillers after 2017’s Secret Obsession.
Fatal Affair hits Netflix on July 16th.
SYNOPSIS: Ellie (Nia Long) tries to mend her marriage with her husband Marcus (Stephen Bishop) after a brief encounter with an old friend, David (Omar Epps), only to find that David is more dangerous and unstable than she’d realized.
First we had The Accountant, and now we have The Tax Collector. And despite their titles, neither is a dull movie about a guy working in an office cubicle. The Tax Collector is the latest crime thriller from Suicide Squad director David Ayer, and it puts Shia LaBeouf in the role of a tatted up dude that you definitely don’t want to owe money to.
LaBeouf looks gritty and gnarly as Hell as the appropriately-named Creeper, a tax collector for a powerful Los Angeles crime lord. Bobby Soto plays his partner, David, and together they hit up the local gangs for the money they owe, then take their share of the cut.
Also in the cast are George Lopez and Cinthya Carmona. Ayer not only directs but wrote the script, as he tends to do, especially on these street-level movies dealing with gang warfare.
SYNOPSIS: David (Bobby Soto) and Creeper (Shia LaBeouf), are “tax collectors” for the crime lord Wizard, collecting his cut from the profits of local gangs’ illicit dealings. But when Wizard’s old rival returns to Los Angeles from Mexico, the business is upended, and David finds himself desperate to protect what matters more to him than anything else: his family.
The Tax Collector hits theaters and VOD on August 7th.
We’re happy to offer three of our readers the chance to win Universal’s hit animated sequel Trolls World Tour on Blu-ray and DVD! The film returns Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake as the pop music-loving trolls Queen Poppy and Branch! They’re joined by Rachel Bloom, Ozzy Osbourne, James Corden, Mary J. Blige, Kelly Clarkson, and more.
SYNOPSIS: Queen Poppy (Anna Kendrick), Branch (Justin Timberlake), and the rest of your favorite Trolls are back for another musical adventure that’s bigger—and louder—than ever before! In TROLLS WORLD TOUR , Poppy and Branch discover that their kingdom is only one of six musical realms—Funk, Country, Techno, Classical, Pop, and Rock—that were once united in perfect harmony. When the power-hungry ruler of the Rocker Trolls threatens to silence all other music so her tribe can reign supreme, Poppy and Branch must embark on an epic quest to unite the realms of Trollskind, before the songs in their hearts are lost forever!
To enter, simply complete the Rafflecopter contest form below. Winners will be notified by email on Monday, July 6th. Good luck!
Trolls World Tour is available now on digital platforms, and Blu-ray/DVD on July 7th. #TrollsWorldTour
The bidding war for Emancipation, a team-up of Will Smith with director Antoine Fuqua, was expected to be extremely high, and it was. When the dust settled, Apple decided the duo’s slavery-era action flick was too good to pass up, and broke the bank in order to get it.
Deadline reports Apple has shelled out $120M to acquire worldwide rights to Emancipation, an action movie based on the true story of “Whipped Peter”, whose scarred back was captured in an iconic photograph that stirred up pro-Union forces during the Civil War. The film will chronicle Peter’s 1863 escape from a Louisiana plantation to a Union camp in Baton Rouge.
Apple was competing with Warner Bros. when the bidding war drew to a close, but they have a greater need for content to boost Apple TV+. Emancipation will hit theaters first before making an exclusive home on the streaming service. Add this to the list of high-profile and very expensive projects Apple has acquired recently, including Tom Hank’s Greyound and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
One of the cool things about HBO’s anthology series Room 104 is that it doesn’t stick to just one genre form. Creators Mark and Jay Duplass have expanded beyond twisted tales of horror or sci-fi in such a way that they can basically do whatever they want, and that’s a large part of the reason they’ve attracted some great guest stars over the last three seasons. But now the doors are closing with a fourth and final season, and a new trailer is here before there are no more vacancies at the hotel.
The highlight guest of this final season will be Dave Bautista, playing an ex-pro wrestler named Raw Dog who is dealing with a traumatic past. So big Dave isn’t stretching too far out of his comfort zone here, as he is in current Amazon comedy My Spy. Other guest stars include Jillian Bell, Susan Park, Gary Cole, and Kevin Nealon. Mark Duplass will also take the camera to direct an episode, while also co-starring in one.
Room 104 hits HBO and HBO Max for the final season on July 24th.
While Niki Caro’s live-action Mulan keeps getting pushed around the schedule by Disney, the director has decided on what she’ll do next. Variety reports Caro will team up with Amblin on an adaptation of Jess Walter’s bestselling book, Beautiful Ruins.
Beautiful Ruins will find Caro heading from ancient China to 1960s Italy for a story that spans decades to contemporary Hollywood. The film will be written by Mark Hammer and Chiara Atik, although an earlier draft was written by A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood duo Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster.
Here is the book synopsis: The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio’s back lot—searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.
What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion—along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow.
A satire is a bit different from what we’ve seen from Caro in the past. She’s a supremely talented filmmaker, though, having won me over early with Whale Rider, and there’s every reason to think she can knock this out of the park. Obviously, Amblin Partners agree, and will look to this as a possible awards contender.
Mahershala Ali Laces Up His Boots As Boxing Legend Jack Johnson for HBO. If you’re going to create a show about a legend, why not get a future legend to star. Some stars you can tell are hot for the moment, some you can tell are here for the long run. Mahershala Ali absolutely feels like the latter, something about the guy just screams “Future Icon”. HBO, like a number of other studios, seems to think this as well as they have cast Mahershala Ali as iconic heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight champion, who won the title right in the middle of the Jim Crow era. HBO is currently getting ready for Unruly which is set as a six-part mini-series about Johnson based on Ken Burns’ Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, a documentary from PBS. Starting the pedigree for the future of this series is Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman whose Playtone label is automatically identifiable as a source for the highest quality historical series. Dominique Morrisseau will be penning the script while Ali holds the starring role.
Ali is no stranger to the legendary pugilist, as Deadline points out Ali played the role in a stage production early in his career and has been quoted saying that portraying Johnson would be a dream role for him. In my opinion this all but guarantees a moving performance. If you put Ali in a role he’s this passionate about, and the subject has this level of gravity, you’re not going to get anything less then stellar. When you add to that the current climate and awareness to the plight of African-Americans in modern society coupled with the confrontation of the fact that this has been going on for so long and what some have had to contend with, while still coming out on top…it’s hard to see this as anything but Emmy-winning.
Follow our coverage on this series as it develops here
