The need for freedom and escape from reality strains at the edges of director Martha Stephens’ films (Land Ho!, Passenger Pigeons, Pilgrim Song), and that continues with her latest, To the Stars. Premiering at Sundance 2019, the film stars Liana Liberato, currently earning raves for her performance in comedy Banana Split (our review of that here), and Moonrise Kingdom breakout Kara Hayward, as two girls in 1960s Oklahoma trying to make themselves heard in a place where women tend to keep silent.
I remember hearing the strong buzz for this while in Park City, but didn’t end up seeing it because of there were just so many coming-of-age films. One thing in its favor at the time was the black-and-white photography which, sadly, Stephens appears to have ditched. Curious about the reason and if there will be a chance to see it as originally intended.
To the Stars hits VOD on April 24th and co-stars Shea Whigham, Tony Hale, Malin Akerman, Madisen Beaty, Adelaide Clemens, and Jordana Spiro.
It sucks pretty hard out there right now, so let’s just enjoy this rumor and hope it’s legit. Jamie Lee Curtis may have been spotted on the set of The Mandalorian season 2, which has fueled speculation she’ll be joining the Star Wars universe.
I wouldn’t even be posting this rumor if it weren’t from Making Star Wars, which has a pretty good track record. When it comes to a galaxy far far away, they tend to know their stuff. Still, they’re quick to call this a rumor so it’s hardly stone-cold fact. Curtis was reportedly spotted “multiple” times on the Mandalorian set, but it’s possible she was in town for something else. For instance, the Avatar sequels are being filmed there, as well. Might she have a role in that? Who knows?
Not that she ever truly went away, but Curtis has been experiencing a career renaissance. Her roles in Halloween and Knives Out have made her more popular than ever. Imagine how cool it would be to see her as a rebel leader in The Mandalorian, or perhaps a badass bounty hunter?
With news at a drip right now, we may not find out anything for some time. The Mandalorian season 2 returns in October, with Rosario Dawson and Michael Biehn among the new cast members.
Disney has yet to set a new release date for Black Widow, but clearly the delay is impacting production. Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat had been set to score the superhero film, much to fans’ delight, but now he’s reportedly out and replaced by Lorne Balfe.
Film Music Reporter has the news on Balfe’s coming on to score Black Widow, but has no info on why the change from Desplat was made. Balfe has an impressive resume, as well, particularly scoring big-budget action flicks. He most recently scored Bad Boys for Life, preceded by Mission: Impossible-Fallout, Gemini Man, 13 Hours, Pacific Rim: Uprising, and more.
Balfe’s got some pretty big shoes to fill, though. Desplat has won two Academy Awards, most recently for The Shape of Water. We’ll see if other creative changes are necessary as Disney stakes out a new date to release Black Widow.
The summer blockbuster season continues to fall apart, and now it’s Sony which has wiped out its entire slate until next year. Sony has moved Morbius, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Uncharted, and Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway to 2021, deciding to simply clear the decks rather than deal with the uncertainty left by the coronavirus outbreak.
Sony has pushed backMorbius from July 30th 2020 to March 19th 2021. Morbius is the second of Sony’s relaunched Spider-Man cinematic universe, following the success of 2018’s Venom. Jared Leto stars as Michael Morbius, a scientist with rare blood disorder who discovers a cure that is worse than the disease, turning himself in an antihero with vampire-like abilities. The move is interesting because Morbius, which has teased close links to the MCU and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, was to precede October’s release of Venom 2. Unless that sequel gets moved, a distinct possibility, then that will no longer be the case. It suggests very little connection between Venom and Morbius, if the two movies can swap positions so easily.
Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife has shifted from July 10th 2020 to March 5th 2021. The newest chapter in the classic franchise stars McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, and the classic Ghostbusters themselves: Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, and more.
Oh, the sad case of Uncharted. At least this time the oft-delayed, very-troubled video game adaptation isn’t being put on the shelf because of ongoing production problems. Due to the pandemic, Sony had put its development on hold indefinitely but now have officially moved its release date from March 5th 2021 to October 8th 2021. Tom Holland stars as adventurer Nathan Drake, joined in the cast by Mark Wahlberg. If you want to know how long this thing has been in the works, Wahlberg was originally set to play Drake back when this started. Ruben Fleischer (Venom) is directing.
Peter Rabbit (James Corden) in Columbia Pictures’ PETER RABBIT™ 2: THE RUNAWY.
And Sony has decided to move Peter Rabbit 2 yet again. The sequel to the surprisingly huge box office hit was moved from its original April date to August 10th, with hopes that theaters would be reopened by then. But Sony has decided not to take any chances and have set a new date of January 15th 2021. James Corden, Domhnall Gleeson, Rose Byrne, and much of the cast return, with Will Gluck once again directing.
After spending the last few years at Paramount and Netflix, Michael Bay is going back o where it all began: Sony Pictures. Per Deadline, Bay has inked a multyear first-look deal with Sony to develop and produce film and TV projects. Basically, they’ll be the ones paying for him to blow shit up for all of us to enjoy.
Sony is the place that gave Bay his first shot as a director with 1995’s Bad Boys. His next movie for them will be the ensemble action flick, Black Five, which reunites him with Transformers writer Ehren Kruger. Details on that are still being kept under wraps, but let’s hope it’s better than Netflix’s 6 Underground, which was pretty dumb and incoherent even by Bay standards.
Bay spent quite a bit of time with Paramount as the main guy behind the long-running, billion-dollar Transformers franchise. He also directed the military flick 13 Hours with Paramount, and produced a number of hits including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, A Quiet Place, and The Purge. We can’t sleep on Bay’s value on the TV side, either, as he’s behind the Jack Ryan series on Amazon, The Last Ship, and the small-screen version of The Purge.
After a busy 2019 in which he starred in Dark Waters, The Hustle, the unfortunate Serenity, and Amazon’s Modern Love, Anne Hathaway is making sure 2020 is just as packed. THR reports Hathaway will star in StudioCanal’s adaptation of French Children Don’t Throw Food, which I desperately hope will get a title change.
The film is based on Pamela Drunkerman’s autobiography (also titled Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting) about an American journalist who moves to Paris for her husband’s job, and attempts to find the right work/life balance. In the process, she studies a French parenting culture that seems to have raising kids all figured out.
Jamie Minoprio and Jonathan Stern wrote the most recent script, but who knows if that will change once a director is found. This is pretty early on in development, however, and with few projects going anywhere right now it may be a while before we hear more.
This year Hathaway has already been seen in Dee Rees’ The Last Thing He Wanted, and has Roald Dahl adaptation The Witches coming up.
The superheroic combination of Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham didn’t quite lead to the superheroic box office for Hobbs & Shaw many expected. The $760M it did earn was more than enough to have fans of the Fast & Furious spinoff expecting a sequel, and now it appears to be officially in the works.
Dwayne Johnson revealed during an Instagram Q&A (I guess everybody is doing these now while stuck indoors?) that Hobbs & Shaw 2 is in development. He couldn’t reveal much beyond that, of course…
“We are developing now the next film, the next [‘Hobbs & Shaw’] movie, and I’m pretty excited about it. [We] just gotta figure out the creative right now, and the direction we’re going to go.”
The first movie gave us the dream match of Johnson and Statham vs. a cyborg Idris Elba, with cameos by Kevin Hart and Ryan Reynolds. Who can we expect to show up in the next one? The previous director David Leitch mentioned Keanu Reeves nearly had a role. Might he finally come through for the next one? Would any of us care what the story is if he does?
With F9 being pushed back to 2021, who knows where Hobbs & Shaw 2 will fit into the franchise? Seems like we’ve got a long wait ahead.
Chris Hemsworth doesn’t return to the MCU until Thor: Love & Thunder, but he’s far from done working with some of the friends he’s made at Marvel Studios. He’ll next star in the Netflix action flick Extraction, produced by the Russo Brothers and directed by Sam Hargrave, a second-unit director and stuntman on Avengers: Endgame.
A new poster puts Hemsworth front and center as a black market mercenary named Tyler Rake, who I assure you is not a Marvel villain in disguise, his name to the contrary. Here’s the synopsis:
Tyler Rake (Hemsworth) is a fearless black market mercenary with nothing left to lose when his skills are solicited to rescue the kidnapped son of an imprisoned international crime lord. But in the murky underworld of weapons dealers and drug traffickers, an already deadly mission approaches the impossible, forever altering the lives of Rake and the boy.
Extraction hits Netflix on April 24th and co-stars fellow Marvel actors David Harbour (Black Widow) and Derek Luke (Captain America: The First Avenger), along with newcomer Rudhraksh Jaiswal and Golshifteh Farahani (Girls of the Sun).
Another day, another Quibi series. The mobile platform has dropped the trailer for When the Streetlights Go On, and with an ominous title like that you just know there’s murder involved.
When the Streetlights Go On does indeed center on murder, that of a young girl and her teacher, in a quiet, small town. In places like this, where everybody knows one another and no secret is safe for long, it’s to maintain a sense of normalcy, much less hold on to one’s innocence.
The series stars Chosen Jacobs, who you may recognize as young Mike from the It films; plus Sophie Thatcher (The Tomorrow Man), Sam Strike (Leatherface), Odessa Young (Assassination Nation), Cory Hardrict (Battle: Los Angeles), Tony Hale (Veep), Kristine Froseth (The Assistant), and Queen Latifah.
Behind the camera is Rebecca Thomas, best known for her breakthrough indie film Electrick Children and the Facebook Watch series Limetown. She also worked on Stranger Things, which might explain the show’s tone and retro vibe. It’s set in the ’90s, after all. Screenwriters Chris Hutton and Eddie O’Keefe had the series set up at Hulu a few years ago and took it to pilot, but that’s as far as it got.
SYNOPSIS: When a beautiful young girl is killed, her sister and high school peers struggle to retain a sense of normalcy as their suburban community reels and the murder investigation proceeds.
When the Streetlights Go On will be available at Quibi’s launch on April 6th.
David Harbour wasn’t always an actor sought after for interviews, but now the Stranger Things and Hellboy star can’t keep his mouth shut. Lately, he’s talked about the latter film and blamed fans for its failure, saying they unfairly compared it to Marvel. The irony is that he’s also been chatting up his upcoming Marvel film, Black Widow, and what he wishes would happen with it now that theaters are shut down due to the coronavirus.
Answering questions during an Instgaram Q&A, Harbour gives his opinion about Black Widow and whether it should go straight-to-streaming. This, obviously, will not happen…
“My publisher also sent me an email saying ‘Black Widow’ had been postponed and I think I replied ‘shocker’. Wouldn’t it be fun if we all could just stream it? But that’s above my pay grade.”
I mean, wouldn’t it be easier? Absolutely. But Disney would be insane to pass up on the potential $1B payday Black Widow is likely to get in theaters. There aren’t enough Disney+ subscriptions out there to make up for that kind of lost money.
Harbour’s words don’t mean Disney is even considering this option, by the way. That SHOULD go without saying, but I’m sure there’s a site out there making more of this than it is, and that means a certain segment of fans will, too. Oh yeah, here’s one now. Ugh. It’s just a glimpse into Harbour’s view on the Black Widow situation. That’s all.
