Due to COVID-19, productions have been hard to get moving. So when it comes to rounding up new projects, we’ve seen distributors acquiring long-completed films, dredging up some that have been on the shelf for a while, and now in the case of STX, acquiring one star-powered film that is in post-production. Deadline reports STX has picked up the rights to Violence of Action, which may sound generic as Hell but boasts a cast led by Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Gillian Jacobs.
Violence of Action features the Hell or High Water reunion between Pine and Foster. The film will be directed by Swedish filmmaker Tarik Saleh, who previously helmed The Nile Hilton Incident, Metropia, as well as episodes of Westworld and Ray Donovan.
The story features Pine as James Reed, an ex-Marine who joins an elite paramilitary outfit and travels to Poland to investigate a mysterious threat. While there, he’s betrayed and hunted and must survive on his own long enough to uncover the true motives of those who turned on him. The cast also includes Eddie Marsan (The World’s End), Fares Fares (Zero Dark Thirty), Nina Hoss, Amira Casar, and J.D. Pardo.
No word on a release date, but that may change soon considering the film is all but finished.
Next up for Pine is a little thing called Wonder Woman 1984. Foster was most recently seen in Galveston and Leave No Trace. Jacobs was last seen in the Netflix comedy Ibiza, and has Disney’s Magic Camp coming up.
Some may call it an “unlikely” franchise, but the two Mamma Mia! films combined for over $1 billion, making them among the most successful movie musicals ever. So the only question I have is why we haven’t heard more about a possible sequel to complete a trilogy before now?
According to an interview Daily Mail conducted with producer Judy Cramer, who backed the first two movies and the original ABBA-influenced stageplay, a third film would already be in the planning stages, except that pesky COVID-19 has fouled things up…
“I was meant to have been getting on with that, in my head, during these months. But then I got hit with COVID fog.”
She continued, “I think one day there will be another film, because there’s meant to be a trilogy, you see. I know Universal would like me to do it.”
It does seem like a trilogy was always the natural endpoint for the story being told. The most recent film, 2018’s Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, took place some years later as Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) learned of a story about her late mother Donna (Meryl Streep), played in flashback by Lily James. Perhaps a new sequel will go further into the future, with Sophie telling her own kids a story about her grandmother, Ruby, who was played by Cher in the previous two films?
Whatever the decision, expect this to happen sooner rather than later. There’s too much of a financial incentive not to, and these movies are guaranteed to be eternally popular in sing-a-long screenings and on home release.
Because somebody at Disney has a really sick sense of humor, the debut trailer for the filmed performance of Broadway sensation Hamilton (aka #Hamilfilm) has arrived at 11pm at night. Who timed this out?
Don’t get it twisted, this isn’t a narrative adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda. This is a filmed edition of the musical from Broadway’s Richard Rodgers Theatre in June 2016, shot by Tommy Kail, director of the stage production. The original cast is all in place, too, including Miranda, Daveed Diggs, Leslie Odom Jr., Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jonathan Groff, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Phillipa Soo, and Anthony Ramos, all of which have gone on to do pretty great things on the big screen.
Disney had planned for this to hit theaters in October 2021 followed by a release on Disney+, but the outbreak of COVID-19 moved everything up and changed the rollout considerably. Hamilton will now hit Disney+ on July 3rd.
In these divisive and trying times, it’s always important to remember that Kingsman’s saying “manners maketh man.” Good thing that the new trailer for Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman prequel The King’s Man was just released to remind us of those wise words and distract us for two and a half minutes.
Based on the comic book series of the same name, the first two films, Kingsman: The Secret Service and Kingsman: The Golden Circle were released in 2014 and 2017 and catapulted Taron Edgerton’s career. This new iteration will star Ralph Fiennes in the tailor/handler position and Harris Dickinson spy recruit role, but set during World War I. Together they will not only form the agency in which the series is focused on, but go head to head with some of history’s most notorious bad guys. Legendary Russian mystic Rasputin seems to give the pair a run for their money in the trailer.
Joining Finnes and Dickinson as fellow agents are Gemma Arterton and Djimon Hounsou. Rhys Ifans and Daniel Brühl are confirmed as Rasputin and Russian historical figure Felix Yusupov (go look him up for some potential spoilers). Matthew Goode, Charles Dance, Stanley Tucci, and Aaron Taylor Johnson are also set to star but are pretty much unseen in the trailer.
The film looks promising considering it was pushed back from November 2019 to February of this year to its new date of September 18th. It may be pushed back a third time, depending on how the coronavirus is affecting the country closer to its release date.
While there was skepticism why The Mandalorian needed a weekly docuseries, Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian has turned out to be a sneaky way to keep interest high in the hit Disney+ series. The eighth and final episode just aired and it included one Hell of an Easter Egg, one that has been kept secret longer than anything does anymore: Mark Hamill had a role in The Mandalorian.
The Star Wars legend has a small part in The Mandalorian‘s first season, during the fifth episode titled “The Gunslinger.” And appropriately enough, Hamill appears during a scene where Mando stops at the infamous Mos Eisley cantina. Here’s how Slashfilm puts it…
There’s been one major change in the bar since we last saw it in Star Wars: A New Hope. The cantina didn’t allow droids back then, but now it has plenty of them around, including a familiar one at the bar.
There’s a droid bartending who looks exactly like EV-9D9, the droid that was responsible for registering new droid acquisitions in Jabba the Hutt’s palace in Return of the Jedi. In fact, the bartender is EV-9D9, and he just so happens to be voiced by none other than Mark Hamill, who has made several little voice cameos throughout the new trilogy of Star Wars movies, in addition to reprising his role as Luke Skywalker.
Turns out, even though Luke Skywalker is no longer with us and Hamill is essentially finished with the franchise (often voicing his displeasure with it), he’s never more than a voice cameo away. I’m just amazed the secret lasted this long. Pretty damn cool.
Well, there you are. When one industry leader is forced by customers into making a decision, the competitors always follow suit. After AMC was shamed for their “Waaahhh we don’t wanna be political!!!” stance on requiring guests to wear protective masks, Regal Cinemas is now joining in making them mandatory.
“Our current mask policy requires both employees and guests to wear masks at all Regal theaters,” a company spokesperson told Variety. “Our ultimate goal is to create a safe environment for our guests and employees. This is a change to our previous policy on masks based on feedback received from our customers.”
Regal’s reopening date is July 10th, putting it slightly ahead of AMC. Their safety guidelines are mostly the same, with Regal stressing social distancing measures, sanitization efforts, and reduced theater capacity to help mitigate the thread of coronavirus.
Last week, I talked to you about a Disney channel star making her transition into a more serious role. This week, we are talking about a film and a performance that teeters in this weird intersection between Hallmark movie and Disney Channel original movie. Netflix’s Feel The Beat is obviously not a Disney Channel movie but is definitely adjacent to one with its lead Sofia Carson straight from one of Disney’s most popular franchises.
Carson, who is best known by kids as Evie in Disney Channel’s Descendants, plays a disgraced Broadway dancer, forced to move back home when an accident she is involved in is caught on viral video. If Carson was going for the one-note, mean, and self-possessed artist, then she absolutely nailed it. Her character April is completely hung up on what she lost. She doesn’t see the good in her home town, including the opportunity to teach at her former teacher’s dance studio. After much convincing from her dad (Enrico Colantoni) and Miss Barb (Donna Lynne Champlin), she decides to help a bunch of young dancers win a competition with the incentive that it could restart her Broadway career.
Feel The Beat is not supposed to be this groundbreaking artistic marvel. It’s a girl-focused dance movie. You know how this works. There’s the old beau who she still feels a spark with, there’s the struggling dancers with abandonment and family issues of their own. The adults around her in her Wisconsin town are slightly on the buffoonish side, which is a shame considering two of the supporting actors. Champlin, best known for her spectacular performance in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, is completely underused here and gives the film any heart it would have. Enrico Colantoni also isn’t given much to do here either. Best known as Veronica’s dad in Veronica Mars, Colantoni just seems to provide a few jokes and not much else.
The script and story are pretty a strung together list of tropes and archetypes, but that could work if the lead gave a compelling performance. Carson doesn’t give April much nuance, her change at the end seemingly sudden. If there was a little bit of charm or even humility, the viewing experience would be more bearable.
While the film doesn’t have much to offer in terms of story or originality, it succeeds in visible diversity. Though the cast is predominately white or white-passing, there is some color woven throughout. While the film definitely leans into over the top gay stereotypes with Brandon Kyle Goodman’s best friend character, other characters don’t fall into archetypal roles as easily. Multiple dancers on the team are not the thin, tall dancer type that we see in other dance centered films. There’s even a deaf dancer who communicates with the rest of the girls through sign language. Feel The Beat is targeted for a preteen female audience, probably ages 6-11. Seeing someone with the same skin color as you, with the same body type as you, with the same disability as you in a movie, is powerful. That alone brings the film some merit.
Feel The Beat is on Netflix now. Watch the trailer below.
Somebody at AMC must’ve been paying attention. After taking heat from all corners for their refusal to require the wearing of masks when theaters reopen on July 15th, AMC has now reversed course. I guess they no longer see the mask-wearing issue as “political”?
AMC will no longer permit guests to enter their 450 theaters opening on July 15th if they refuse to wear protective masks. This policy stands even in states where mask-wearing in public is not a requirement. On top of that, AMC will make masks available for purchase, at the cost of just $1.00, to guests who do not have one.
I was just thinking that AMC was on the verge of becoming the next Chi-Chi’s. Once a popular Tex-Mex joint, they had one outbreak of Hepatitis over some green onions and suddenly all of their restaurants were shut down nationwide. There are now just a handful in other parts of the world, but none in the U.S. If AMC had suffered become a coronavirus hot spot, while making masks optional, their already tenuous financial situation would have been cataclysmic. This is the right move to make at the right time.
At AMC, we have been consulting with top scientists and health experts to create a broad, sweeping, far-reaching health and safety effort to make AMC Theatres safe for our guests and associates when our theatres reopen in July. Among many elements of that comprehensive plan was a requirement for our associates all to wear masks nationwide, as well as a requirement for our guests all to wear masks in the many parts of the country that will require it. In those areas of the country where masks will not be required, we nonetheless planned to strongly encourage mask usage by guests, and fully expected that the vast majority would do so. That policy on guest mask usage, which is directly comparable with our major competitors and many other highly regarded retailers, was announced yesterday afternoon.
This announcement prompted an intense and immediate outcry from our customers, and it is clear from this response that we did not go far enough on the usage of masks. At AMC Theatres, we think it is absolutely crucial that we listen to our guests. Accordingly, and with the full support of our scientific advisors, we are reversing course and are changing our guest mask policy. As we reopen theatres, we now will require that all AMC guests nationwide wear masks as they enter and enjoy movies at our theatres. The speed with which AMC moved to revise our mask policies is a reflection of our commitment to the safety and health of our guests.
We will constantly monitor the scientific community’s latest thinking as to the efficacy of mask usage. We also will be looking at the varying health conditions in specific localities around our theatres all across the country. This will help us to determine what our mask policy will be as we go forward, as well as to make any other needed changes to this policy. Guests coming to our theatres may bring their own masks of course, but for those who do not have one, masks will be available at our theatre box offices at a nominal $1.00 price. Those who are unwilling to wear a mask will not be admitted or allowed to stay.
Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods is out on Netflix right now, and it’s justifiably earning a ton of great reviews for its timely look at race, brotherhood, and sacrifice. The cast he put together is also getting its share of praise, with Delroy Lindo earning possible awards buzz, along with Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Chadwick Boseman, and Jonathan Majors. And while nobody is going to complain about that group, Lee initially targeted a cast of A-listers that would’ve been simply amazing.
Speaking with Collider, Giancarlo Esposito, a Lee favorite since School Daze in 1988, revealed that he was nearly part of Da 5 Bloods cast. Not only that, but Lee wanted him to be joined by Samuel L. Jackson, Denzel Washington, and his son, Tenet star John David Washington…
“It was me and Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington, and Denzel’s son,” Esposito revealed.
Goddamn! Spike would’ve been putting together one Helluva reunion there. Sadly, it never came to be, and it seems the issue was about scheduling which is a damn shame…
“I just love and adore Spike Lee, and the messages that he created in his films that are so powerful and strong, and also because the cast he was talking to at that time,” said Esposito. “But it didn’t work out for any of us because the shoot got pushed, and Spike was wanting everyone to be there the whole time overseas when he shot it, and I was still shooting ‘Better Call Saul,’ and was juggling that with ‘Godfather of Harlem,’ so it didn’t work out. It was so hard for me not to be able to do that film.”
Oh, what might have been. Da 5 Bloods is still a must-see film right now on Netflix.
It’s like somebody reached into my brain and plucked out all of my various crushes and threw them into one movie. Variety reports Jon Hamm, Nicholas Hoult, Andrea Riseborough, Mackenzie Davis, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sofia Boutella, and Steven Yuen will star in sci-fi comedy Alpha Gang, and that’s all that really matters, doesn’t it?
However, there’s more. This ensemble of awesomeness comes from the David and Nathan Zellner, the duo behind two of my favorite quirky offbeat Sundance films: Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, and Damsel. They’ll teamup to direct and produce from a script solely by David…
Alpha Gang is an alien invasion movie, but one where the visitors are threatened by human emotions…
They look and sound human, but Alpha Gang are aliens, sent on a mission to conquer Earth. Armed and dangerous, they show no mercy, until they catch the most toxic, contagious human disease of all: emotion. Their plan for world domination is in danger of derailing once they start to feel joy, fear, empathy, and – worst of all – love… But hopefully they can still annihilate mankind before it’s too late.
Filming begins next year, and I’ll be watching like a hawk.
