I thought we were getting to the point where every movie that came out didn’t have to have a cinematic universe. We’ve been through the high-water mark for this phenomenon which has been spurred by Marvel’s successes, with DC, Universal Monsters, and countless others trying to start a ‘Universe’ of their own. Apparently there are a few more shots at this setup still to come, one being for Valiant comics, the label under which Bloodshot, the title character of Diesel’s upcoming comic book movie of the same name comes from. You gotta love Diesel’s gusto, he has a never-ending supply of optimism for his projects even though most of them end up more like The Last Witch Hunter than The Fast and The Furious. Bloodshot opens this Friday and has Diesel’s starring name and a pretty badass trailer going for it. Going against it is the one-two punch of a relative unknown subject and the mounting public fear of COVID-19. Still, when asked about spin-off’s Diesel had this to say to Superhero Fanatic’s:
“I think you’re going to see all of them. I think if you’re a fan of Valiant Comics, then you are going to be delighted to hear—and I think they’re going to wait until the movie comes out—but they’re going to start putting out into the press all of the Valiant comic books that are going into the cinematic universe.
I can’t help but to root for the guy, not just because he’s got the hope of a devout dork like most of us but because the guys obviously a real fan trying to bring characters outside of the A-list to the spotlight. We’re behind you Vin, make this happen!
One thing that can’t be overlooked with Marvel’s New Mutants film is the close bond those characters share. It’s greater than what we see from the X-Men, X-Force, or other mutant teams. These are teenagers, highly emotional and super-powered ones at that, and those emotions always run high. For his upcoming film, Josh Boone says two of the New Mutants members will share an especially tight relationship, and give us the first gay superhero love story we’ve seen in a major movie.
Speaking with EW, Boone revealed that Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams) and Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt) will share a “beautiful love story”, making this the rare example of a superhero film with an LGBTQ narrative at the forefront.
Williams said, “We just wanted to extend that in the film and put that within reality. If they really could understand each other on that level, then you’d probably end up falling in love with that person.”
She added, “It’s not really a story about these two characters understanding their sexuality,. It’s not centered around that and they don’t really necessarily label it. No one else does either and no one really questions it.”
This is interesting because we’ve spent so much time focusing on the negative behind-the-scenes aspects of The New Mutants that we know very little about the actual story. This is one of those details that could entice a greater audience to give the movie a chance, and it’s unfortunate it has been buried for so long. Hopefully, this helps turn things around because the early estimates aren’t great.
The coming weeks are looking more and more bleak in your local cinema with COVID-19 wreaking havoc on release dates (among other more important worldly things) and studio confidence. The latest victim is everyone’s favorite fluffy yet mischievous bunny with Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway getting a five month delay from it’s original March 27th date of release to August 7th. Peter joins Daniel Craig’s James Bond in getting the push, No Time To Die was pushed back until November sparking all manner of concern and outrage, and in some cases applause to the studio for it’s reaction. I think it’s safe to say that we can expect more films to get a release delay as this virus spreads, especially if the weekends continue to be unusually soft in terms of box office. Stick with us here at the PDC, we’ll be bringing you all of the news on this as soon as it’s available.
We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to attend a free early screening of Amazon Studios’ small-town crime drama, Blow the Man Down. The film stars Morgan Saylor, Sophie Lowe with June Squibb and Margo Martindale.
SYNOPSIS: Welcome to Easter Cove, a salty fishing village on the far reaches of Maine’s rocky coast. Grieving the loss of their mother and facing an uncertain future, Mary Beth & Priscilla Connolly cover up a gruesome run-in with a dangerous man. To conceal their crime, the sisters must go deeper into Easter Cove’s underbelly and uncover the town matriarchs’ darkest secrets.
The screening takes place on Wednesday, March 18th at 7:00pm. There will be a special treat for early arrivals, as free Slurpees will be provided to the first 50 guests in line. There will also be free movie snacks, trivia, and gift cards for prizes. If you’d like to attend, go to the Amazon Studios site here. Please remember all screenings are first come first served and you will need to arrive early to ensure seating. Enjoy the show!
Blow the Man Down debuts March 20th on Amazon Prime.
Hard to believe a full decade has passed since Disney’s Tron: Legacy, an attempted relaunch of the sci-fi/video game franchise from the 1980s. The film did okay, hauling in $400M, but not quite good enough to warrant an outright sequel, despite various rumors suggesting such. Well, it seems the world of Tron was closer to returning than we thought, it’s just that we aren’t going to see it happen.
According to THR, an unannounced Tron live-action Disney+ series was in the works from 12 Years a Slave writer John Ridley. Unfortunately, the whole thing was killed by Disney for unspecified reasons, so it’ll never see the light of day. This seems to be a recurring thing for Ridley and Disney. He had a mystery Marvel TV project that got canceled a couple of years ago, too.
So the thing with Tron is that it has never had a huge base of support. Sure, the 1982 movie was popular at the moment, that being the height of the video game craze, and is something of a cult favorite. But there was never a huge demand for it to come back. A 2012 animated series, Tron: Uprising, never caught on and only lasted one season. I think unless somebody comes with a fresh concept it’s game over for Tron.
Dave Bautista is a pretty tough guy to miss, but you can be forgiven for missing all of the moves STXfilms have made with his light-hearted comedy, My Spy. Just days before it was due to open on March 13th, STXfilms have bumped the film to April 17th.
Does this have anything with the Coronavirus outbreak, which has been the cause of at least one huge film, No Time to Die, moving its release date? There’s no official word from STXfilms, but that’s a definite possibility. Or perhaps they were looking for a more charitable weekend? April 17th will see My Spy go up against the Del Toro-produced horror Antlers, and the excellent revenge thriller Promising Young Woman with Carey Mulligan.
STXfilms has really struggled to find a home for My Spy, which stars Bautista as a top-level secret agent who meets his match in the 9-year-old girl (played by Big Little Lies‘ Chloe Coleman) he’s been sent to surveil. It was originally set to open last August, but would have been very close to Bautista’s other action-comedy, Stuber, so was moved to March 13th 2020. At least this bump is only a month, but if it moves again something is definitely wrong.
Chances are if you’re not already a fan of the deliberately-paced dramas of Kelly Reichardt, First Cow isn’t on your radar. But it should be, as Reichardt brings her favorite cinematic themes to bear in another striking portrait of the Pacific Northwest, set in the wild untamed frontiers of the early 19th-century, where “history hasn’t gotten here yet” as one person so profoundly states early on. It’s an America bursting at the seams with opportunity, and where friendships can still be tested by greed, racism, class, and desperation for an American Dream barely in its infancy.
And yes, there is a cow.
“The bird, a nest; the spider, a web; man, friendship,” William Blake’s quote opens First Cow, heralding a tale of man’s natural need for companionship and comfort. But that comfort, while fulfilling, is also a tenuous thing. The film opens, ominously, in the present as a young woman (Alia Shawkat, in a small cameo) and her dog (No, it’s not a Wendy and Lucy spinoff) discover a pair of skeletons buried in the dirt. It’s an opening that harkens back to John Sayles’ Lone Star, and like that film is not the start of an epic mystery, but as a doorway into history.
It’s never a question who the bones belong to, but the answer as to how they got there is ripe with twists, turns, and Reichardt’s ongoing commentary about man’s treatment of one another and to nature. The excellent John Magaro plays Cookie, who has the unenviable task of being cook to a traveling band of fur traders. In this wide-open expanse, finding vittles can be a tough job and only a few are good at it. For all his struggles, Cookie is one of those few. His soft-spoken, kind-hearted demeanor is not only at odds with them, but with the harshness of the frontier. He quickly befriends Chinese ex-pat King Lu (terrific newcomer Orion Lee), on the run from Russians for a crime we suspect has more to do with his ethnicity than any true offense.
Cookie helps King Lu out of a jam, and sometime later are reunited in very different situations. The bond they formed does remain, almost like no time has passed at all. While Cookie seems somewhat aimless, King Lu has greater ambitions. Together, they conspire to steal precious milk from the only cow in the entire area, belonging to a wealthy landowner (played with gusto by Toby Jones), and bake delicious oily cakes for the weary locals. Delicacies are hard to come by, and the cakes are a huge hit, but at what price comes success?
It’s impossible to shake the similarities to Reichardt’s early film, Old Joy, and its exploration of male friendship and masculinity in a pair of reconnected friends. While First Cow travels the path of a new friendship, it touches on a similar theme. Both films parallel in the way each man connects with nature. Some of the best moments in First Cow are simply of Cookie foraging in the lush, overrun forests, or of both men simply exploring the world around them. As if echoing the call-to-emergency of her eco-terrorism thriller Night Moves, Reichardt drives home that man’s excesses will destroy its bond with the environment. The fur trappers Cookie works for are prevalent, wreaking havoc on the ecosystem they all need to survive.
This is also a parable about the dangers of capitalism. If built on empathy and simple need, all can see benefit, but it can easily slip into selfishness and greed. For some, achieving the American Dream is impossible without breaking the rules, and in such a lawless place that can prove deadly. Cookie is content to have a skill that he can use to make something people want, but King Lu sees greater potential. There can never be enough, and no matter how much they sell, no matter how much money they make, there can always be more. It’s clear from the start Cookie and King Lu are not meant for this place. Cookie would be right at home in Boston, where he learned his trade, while King Lu often talks about moving their business to San Francisco where his kind are better treated. That dream is always close at hand, and yet also just out-of-reach.
Reichardt’s deliberate (read: slow) pacing remains, and First Cow does move at the speed of its bovine co-star. This is also one of the richest, most engrossing films she has made so far. Maybe it’s me, but I find Reichardt best when there’s a thrust of action, especially criminal action, for her to contemplate, as in with Night Moves. Although the movie’s conclusion is never in question, First Cow remains tense and thrilling throughout Cookie and King Lu’s illicit schemes. It’s because we know, whatever hardships befall them, they’ll see one another through all the way to the grave.
Disney hurls Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt down the mighty Amazon River in Jungle Cruise, their latest attempt to launch a film franchise out of an amusement park ride. If this one has even half the staying power of Pirates of the Caribbean, and definitely more than 2015’s The Haunted Mansion, Disney shouldn’t find themselves upstream without a paddle.
Directed by Johnson’s future Black Adam helmer Jaume Collet-Serra, Jungle Cruise looks like a big, old school comedy-adventure. I’m getting echoes of Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile from this, and if you know me you’ll understand that’s a pretty big compliment.
Johnson and Blunt are joined by Edgar Ramirez, Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons, and Paul Giamatti.
SYNOPSIS: Set during the early 20th century, a riverboat captain named Frank takes a scientist and her brother on a mission into a jungle to find the Tree of Life which is believed to possess healing powers. All the while, the trio must fight against dangerous wild animals and a competing German expedition.
While attending tonight’s WWE Raw show I was a little surprised to see Bobby Lashley without his kayfabe wife, the “Russian” beauty Lana. And now I have a good idea why she was absent. Lana, real name CJ Perry, has joined Bruce Willis in the upcoming sci-fi film Cosmic Sin.
It’s possible I missed this Cosmic Sin thing, as Willis makes a buttload of really dubious flicks nowadays. The story follows a race of human warriors and scientists who must save their race from hostile aliens with the power to infect and takeover their hosts. Perry takes over the role of Sol, originally written for a male, and is described as the “the best sniper in the galaxy and lead assassin fighting for the human race against an alien invasion.”
Willis reunites with his Breach writers/directors Corey Large and Edward Drake.
Perry can be seen regularly on E! series Total Divas, and had a blink-and-miss-it appearance in Pitch Perfect . She has also appeared in WWE films Countdown, Scooby-Doo and WWE: Curse of the Speed Demon, and Interrogation. It’s only on WWE TV where she sports the terrible Russian accent, and I think even now she’s given that up in favor of hysterical soap opera theatrics and husband-swapping.
It’s sorta ironic that every update on an Edge of Tomorrow sequel is the same story told over and over again. New writer comes aboard, the story has been figured out, Doug Liman is ready to go, it’s all about timing, etc. etc. etc. And now you can add Emily Blunt’s two-cents on the matter, and once again it doesn’t really move the needle much.
Speaking with Indiewire while promoting A Quiet Place 2, Blunt says she hopes to return as badass Sgt. Rita Vrataski in Edge of Tomorrow 2, but doesn’t sound convinced it will happen…
“I think there’s an idea, that he says is great. And he says this guy came in and cracked the case. How the stars will all align for us to be able to do it. I don’t know. I hope they do.”
We’ll see about that. The last writer to join, and presumably the one who “cracked” the story, was Matthew Robinson and that was followed by Liman’s confirmation of its completion. The problem is still timing, however, and with Tom Cruise buy on back-to-back Mission: Impossible sequels it could be a while before Edge of Tomorrow 2 sees the light of day. By then, who knows how busy Blunt could be? She might be working on A Quiet Place 3. Something tells me the time has passed and it might be a good idea to let this one go.
