In case you haven’t noticed, Netflix is working hard and attracting top stars to try and build themselves an action franchise. Already they’ve found proven success with Chris Hemsworth’s Extraction, and have Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt’s next film in the fold. But if we’re just talking about action, the biggest star of the bunch may be Charlize Theron, and Netflix has her, too, with the Highlander-esque flick The Old Guard.
The first trailer for The Old Guard has arrived, and it looks like it was designed to be the first of many. Theron plays leader of a team of immortal soldiers who see their centuries-long existence threatened just as a new member of their kind is found.
Theron is surrounded by talent all over the place here, led by director Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball), and a cast that includes Kiki Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange), Marwan Kenzari (Aladdin), and Matthias Schoenaerts (Rust & Bone).
The Old Guard comes to Netflix on July 10th.
SYNOPSIS: Forever is harder than it looks. Led by a warrior named Andy (Charlize Theron), a covert group of tight-knit mercenaries with a mysterious inability to die have fought to protect the mortal world for centuries. But when the team is recruited to take on an emergency mission and their extraordinary abilities are suddenly exposed, it’s up to Andy and Nile (Kiki Layne), the newest soldier to join their ranks, to help the group eliminate the threat of those who seek to replicate and monetize their power by any means necessary. Based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Greg Rucka and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (LOVE & BASKETBALL, BEYOND THE LIGHTS), THE OLD GUARD is a gritty, grounded, action-packed story that shows living forever is harder than it looks
A new movie by Shane Carruth? Didn’t he retire? Well, sorta. The Upstream Color and Primer director is only listed as a producer on The Wanting Mare, but his surreal sensibilities are definitely being employed in the digital world created by filmmaker Nicholas Ashe Bateman.
I’m not even going to try and explain what The Wanting Mare is about. Bateman shot it, basically out of a storage unit, over the course of five years and almost entirely in digital to create the wild fantasy world seen in the newly-released trailer. But the result is something that looks completely real, and not like a digital cartoon or comic book as we’ve seen in some other films.
Here’s the synopsis: In the world of Anmaere, north of the city of Whithren, wild horses run through the moorlands and up the coast. These horses are the city’s most valuable export, and as a result are hunted, trapped, sold and shipped across the sea once a year. For those in Whithren, this trade passage creates lucrative and exciting possibilities: the chance to escape their constantly sweltering city to head to the Western continent of Levithen, or just to begin again.
Meanwhile in a small house just north of the city, a young woman dies in childbirth. Her last words are an attempt to tell her daughter of the life she’ll have and her inheritance of a recurring dream that must be kept secret; for it contains the memories of another age long before us, one where magic and myth were alive in the world.
That daughter now left behind is Moira. She grows alone in Whithren, without anyone to explain her dream, her unique difference, or her place in the world. As a result, she resolves to leave Whithren at all costs, and employs the help of Lawrence, a wounded young man engaged in the criminal enterprise of stealing tickets.
This begins a series of events that echo over the enxt thirty-five years of their life, the life of a child found screaming on the rocks, and through the alleys and coasts of Whithren; a city hidden in the fog, wanting in hear, now beginning again.
Carruth is listed as an exec-producer, with a cast that includes Jordan Monaghan, Yasmin Keshtkar, Edmond Cofie, Nicholas Ashe Bateman, Josh Clark, and Christine Kellogg-Darrin.
The Wanting Mare will make its world premiere at this weekend’s virtual Chattanooga Film Festival. I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this one.
Talk about a match made in horror heaven. Issa Lopez, director of the excellent festival darling Tigers Are Not Afraid, is teaming up with Blumhouse for a new film, which is based on the true story of societal panic spread through a Roman Catholic school for girls in Mexico City.
Lopez will write and direct Our Lady of Tears, which is based on the Epic Magazine/Vox article “The Haunting of Girlstown” by Daniel Hernandez. The story centers on “a mass hysteria epidemic with supernatural roots, that in 2007 spread through Villa de las Niñas, an all girls, Catholic boarding school in the outskirts of Mexico City. The school recruited and isolated socially neglected girls coming from families living in extreme poverty and in remote areas of Mexico.” You can check out the NYTimes’ coverage of the event at the time here.
Lopez said about the news, “The moment I read the Epic article, I knew I wanted to tell this story. I myself attended a Catholic school in Mexico City. I grew up on a steady diet of supernatural visitations and miracles, and of the real life horrors that young girls who grow up in poverty face every day in Mexico, and around the world. Having the chance to tell that story with Jason [Blum] and his team, producers of such socially incisive genre classics like Get Out, and of so many true horror gems, is a huge privilege. I couldn’t be more excited about this movie.”
Whatever Lopez does, not only am I down for it but it’s going to have a ton of attention based on what she was able to do with Tigers Are Not Afraid, which has become a Shudder champ since it was released last year. Lopez is also working on a werewolf Western with Guillermo Del Toro.
Those looking for a pick-me-up of the whimsical British variety may get some of what they’re looking for in Military Wives. The sing-a-long dramedy is based on the true story of English wives of servicemen who came together to form a choir, and even scored an unexpected hit single in the U.K. The film follows in a very long tradition of similar Brit underdog stories centered on women, my personal favorite of the bunch being Calendar Girls, and like so many of those it’s light on detail but heavy on moxie and feel-good charm from some of the best actresses our neighbors from across the pond have to offer.
Just don’t expect a complete romp out of this one. There’s a tinge of sorrow in the stories of these women, left at home on military base while their spouses battle abroad. To pass the time, they engage in group activities, led by Kate (the always-terrific Kristin Scott Thomas), the grieving wife of the ranking officer. He’s still alive but shipped off again, however they have a son who was lost in combat. In true Scott Thomas fashion, Kate is the ice queen none of the other women seem to like. She’s matched by the more outgoing Lisa (Sharon Horgan), who is put in charge of the singing group they’ve decided on a whim to start. The two couldn’t be more different and polite British bickering is about all they’re good for when in the same room. Tea will be had.
The shadow of The Full Monty looms over Military Wives, not through any fault of the actresses but due to the presence of director Pete Cattaneo. He took that unlikely comedy about a group of blue collar dudes-turned-strippers and made it a global sensation, earning Oscar nominations (and one victory) in the process. Military Wives isn’t nearly as upbeat and sharp as that. It only skims the surface of the lives of these women before diving head first into their quest to find harmony. Each of them is dealing with some personal hardship caused by the absence of their loved one, but it always feels as if we are being rushed through that to get to the next ’80s pop jam. That said, their melancholic rendition of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” does give the warm fuzzies. So too a grande finale of Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” featuring a montage of the real-life military wives choirs.
As is often the case, Scott Thomas is called upon to carry much of the dramatic weight. Once again her character is cold and borderline unlikable, until the others truly get to know her, of course. At that point, Kate opens up and let’s her hair down, so to speak, grooving to the music with the rest of them. She won’t do karaoke, though. None of that for her. Military Wives would be much less of a movie without her. As it is, there’s enough here to make it worth a watch on Hulu, where it’ll arrive this weekend alongside a digital release, but the material is too subdued to demand an encore.
The pressure rises in the new trailer for 13 Reasons Why. The fourth and final season trailer dropped earlier today, promising a whole lot of drama and suspense. With the knowledge that the psychopathic Monty didn’t actually kill rapist Bryce Walker written on the school door and now public, Clay, Justin, Jessica, and the rest of the group at Liberty High deal with the fallout.
Joining that group this season, veteran character actor Gary Sinise joins the troubled group of teens, as a counselor or therapist of some sort. “I look at you Clay and I see a kid who’s paying a very high price… and I don’t yet know what for,” he tells Dylan Minette’s character. Clearly, as the last season of the show, secrets will come to the surface with disastrous consequences.
Watch the trailer below. 13 Reasons Why: The Final Season hits Netflix on June 5th.
If you know David Robert Mitchell’s two previous films, the breakout indie horror It Follows and the divisive neo-noir Under the Silver Lake, he’s probably the last director to do a superhero movie. That is unless it’s something he came up with himself, and he can play around with the genre in ways Marvel and the other big studios never would. Thankfully, MGM is going to afford him that opportunity.
THR reports Mitchell will team up with MGM for Heroes & Villains, a film which he will write and direct. The plot is being kept under wraps but is expected to be a new take on the superhero story. Casting is expected to begin shortly.
Mitchell was seen as a rising star immediately following It Follows, one of the first wave of the new generation of small-budget horrors. He followed that up with Under the Silver Lake, which got killed after its Cannes debut in 2018, leading to a troublesome post-production that delayed its release. Eventually, the film went straight-to-VOD and was polarizing, to say the least. Some of my friends think it’s a modern-day classic. I know others who think it’s trash. I can’t say either way since I’ve never seen it.
Whatever he’s going to do with superheroes, I definitely want to see it. His use of mood and music is always top-notch and that’s something that he could definitely bring to the well-worn genre. There’s a part of me that really hopes he reconnects with Andrew Garfield, too. The ex-Spidey actor jumping back into superheroes? Yeah, I’d be down for that.
Assuming the report is accurate, it’s probably the Madame Web film that Clarkson will be directing. Morbius writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless were hired to get cracking on a script, but they are nowhere to be found in Variety’s story. It’s possible they’re starting from scratch, which would make sense if they are truly doing a Madame Web movie. The character doesn’t naturally lend herself to the big screen.
Madame Web is an elderly clairvoyant attached to a life support system that resembles a spider web. Because of her age, and lack of fighting ability, making a movie about her seems like a silly prospect. So it’s clear they’ll have to go in a different direction. Sony is supposedly eyeing Charlize Theron and Amy Adams to be on their list of possible stars, which may be an indication of where their heads are at.
Perhaps, and this is pure speculation, they will merge the Madame Web idea with a Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman project?
Clarkson has dabbled in the world of superheroes before, having directed episodes of Jessica Jones and The Defenders. She most recently directed the Game of Thrones spinoff pilot that HBO turned down.
One of the early cinematic victims of COVID-19, the Janelle Monae thriller Antebellum was originally due to hit theaters in April. Lionsgate was forced to pull the mysterious film from that date and sorta left it hanging until now, with the news it will hit theaters instead on August 21st.
Along with the release date comes a brand new trailer, which features Monae as an author who finds her is bizarrely thrust back into the antebellum south, where she must free herself from slavery and somehow make her way back into the present.
Lionsgate is leaning hard on the film’s relationship to Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us, sharing one of their producers. That’s a lot to put on the shoulders of directors Gerard Bush and Christoper Renz, who are making their feature-length debut. The cast includes Marque Richardson II, Eric Lange, Jack Huston, Kiersey Clemons, Tongayi Chirisa, Gabourey Sidibe, Rob Aramayo, Lily Cowles, and Jena Malone.
Mouth, please make room for foot. Crow. Prepare to be eaten. Yes, it’s real. Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and that’s the official title by the way, is real and it’s happening, giving credence to the guerrilla tactics of online fanboys from now til the end of time. And that’s cool, despite my insistence the film would never be released, I always wanted to see it and that will happen in 2021. But at what cost?
According to THR, Warner Bros. is plunking down an additional $20M-$30M to finish the Snyder Cut of Justice League. Furthermore, it may be divided up into six chapters comprising a 4-hour director’s cut. Oof.
So as Snyder previously has said, there’s still a lot of work to be done and VFX companies are only now being sought to complete the job. When it’s finished, Snyder says what fans will get is something completely different from the version they saw in theaters…
“It will be an entirely new thing, and, especially talking to those who have seen the released movie, a new experience apart from that movie,” Snyder said. “You probably saw one-fourth of what I did.”
“I always thought it was a thing that in 20 years, maybe somebody would do a documentary and I could lend them the footage, little snippets of a cut no one has ever seen.”
Snyder’s wife, producer Deborah Snyder, also makes a valid point in that the rise of streaming probably made this whole thing possible. There’s such a huge need for content and not all of it is suited for theaters. This would certainly qualify, considering its unfinished state.
Zack Snyder concludes by thanking Warner Bros. for returning to a project he clearly still has a lot of love for. And who knows? Perhaps there’s a window of opportunity for him to return to the DCEU, maybe with Man of Steel 2?
“This return to that pedigree and to let my singular vision of my movie be realized, in this format, in this length, is unprecedented and a brave move,” he said.
Well, holy shit. The #ReleaseTheSnyderCut crowd is never gonna shut up now. It’s actually happening. All of the petitions, all of the billboards taking up space at Comic-Con, all of the teasing by Zack Snyder…it’s paid off. The Snyder Cut of Justice League is coming to HBO Max.
“The truth is…I’m not really in control of it,” teased Snyder. “I’ve said it exists and I’ve been clear about what I did with it. It’s not really up to me. If it was up to me, I would have already left it on a thumbdrive in a bathroom somewhere.”
Of course, we knew that all along. Snyder could drop as much concept art of Green Lantern and Darkseid as he wanted, but it was always up to Warner Bros. whether his film saw the light of days. And now it will, in some fashion…
“It’ll probably be in 2021 because we have a little bit of work to do, but we’re doing it. Get ready,” he said.
Even Henry Cavill, who joined the watch party and has been sorta quiet on the whole Snyder Cut thing, chimed in with a well-timed joke…
“I would love to see a version of ‘Justice League’ without the mustache.”
So now guys like me can shut the fuck up with all of our doubt this day would ever come. Although it’s still sorta unclear how Justice League is going to be presented. Unlike the version by Joss Whedon that we saw in theaters, Snyder’s cut is largely unfinished, especially the VFX. I guess that’s what he means by “work to do”, although nobody expects WB to pile on millions of dollars to correct that.
What’s different about Snyder’s vision? It was considerably longer, for one thing, was originally designed to be a two-parter, featured the Thanos-like villain Darkseid, plus Green Lantern, and more time with Cyborg and the Flash. And that’s just a start. Just follow Snyder’s social media for more because he can’t stop posting new shit he was gonna do.
This is going to be fascinating to find out how these discussions began and what ultimately convinced WB to see this through. But for those who perhaps have some lingering doubt that Snyder is being honest, check out the full press release below:
LOS ANGELES – May 20, 2020 – After global passionate fan calls to action and the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement, HBO Max and Warner Bros. Pictures announced today that it will exclusively world premiere Zack Snyder’s director’s cut of the Warner Bros. Pictures/DC feature film Justice League in 2021. Snyder surprised fans with the news this morning during a live online commentary of his film Man of Steel with Henry Cavill.
ReleaseTheSnyderCut first became a passionate rallying social media cry among fans in 2017 and has not let up. From countless press articles and hundreds of thousands of social media mentions, it became a powerful global movement among cinephiles and comic book fans.
“I want to thank HBO Max and Warner Brothers for this brave gesture of supporting artists and allowing their true visions to be realized. Also a special thank you to all of those involved in the SnyderCut movement for making this a reality,” said Snyder.
“Since I got here 14 months ago, the chant to #ReleaseTheSnyderCut has been a daily drumbeat in our offices and inboxes. Well, the fans have asked, and we are thrilled to finally deliver. At the end of the day, it really is all about them and we are beyond excited to be able to release Zack’s ultimate vision for this film in 2021. This could never have happened if it weren’t for the hard work and combined efforts of the teams at HBO Max and Warner Bros. Pictures,” said Robert Greenblatt, Chairman, Warner Media Entertainment and Direct-To-Consumer.
“When Zack and Debbie shared the extraordinary vision of where Zack wanted to take Justice League, my team and our counterparts at Warner Bros. took it as a mission to solve the many issues that stood in the way,” said Kevin Reilly, Chief Content Officer at HBO Max, President, TNT, TBS and truTV. “Thanks to the partnership at Warner Bros. and the relentless pursuit of the entire WarnerMax team we are able to deliver this incredibly exciting moment for Zack, the fans and HBO Max.”
“Thanks to the efforts of a lot people, we’re excited to bring fans this highly anticipated version of Justice League,” said Toby Emmerich, Chairman, Warner Bros. Pictures Group. “This feels like the right time to share Zack’s story, and HBO Max is the perfect platform for it. We’re glad the creative planets aligned, allowing us to #ReleaseTheSnyderCut.”
In Justice League, fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat. But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash—it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.
The Justice League screenplay is by Chris Terrio, story by Chris Terrio & Zack Snyder, based on characters from DC, Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The film’s producers are Charles Roven, Deborah Snyder, with executive producers Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas, Jim Rowe, Ben Affleck, Wesley Coller, Curtis Kanemoto, and Chris Terrio.
