It hasn’t been a banner year for Marvel Studios. Check that, it hasn’t been a banner few years for Marvel Studios. But Phase 5 is over, and there’s hope that Phase 6 will turn things around with The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which hits theaters in just a couple of weeks. And my guess is that Kevin Feige will be watching the box office of Superman very closely, to gauge how audiences are reacting to signature comic book heroes right now.
Interestingly, the latest trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps (so much for last month’s being the “final” one) feels like a direct response to Superman, echoing many of the same themes and light sci-fi tone. Designed like a retro television special with a cordial narrator and everything, the footage goes a long way to introduce Marvel’s First Family and highlight their individual powers.
SYNOPSIS: Opening in theaters July 25, Marvel Studios’ “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” introduces Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/Human Torch Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as they face their most daunting challenge yet. Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). And if Galactus’ plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren’t bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal.
How is all of this going to look with a baby Richards in tow? Perhaps the baby will become the next herald of Galactus? That’d be cool.
Directed by Matt Shakman, The Fantastic Four: First Steps opens on July 25th.
We’re happy to offer our DC readers the chance to attend a free early screening of I Know What You Did Last Summer! The sequel to the horror franchise that launched in 1997 stars Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Billy Campbell, Gabbriette Bechtel, Austin Nichols, with Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt!
SYNOPSIS: When five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, they cover up their involvement and make a pact to keep it a secret rather than face the consequences. A year later, their past comes back to haunt them and they’re forced to confront a horrifying truth: someone knows what they did last summer…and is hell-bent on revenge. As one by one the friends are stalked by a killer, they discover this has happened before, and they turn to two survivors of the legendary Southport Massacre of 1997 for help.
The screening takes place on Wednesday, July 16th at 7:00pm at Regal Majestic. If you’d like to attend, RSVP at the Sony Pictures site here. Please remember, all screenings are first come first served, and you’ll need to arrive early to ensure seating. Otherwise you’ll get the hook! Get it?
I Know What You Did Last Summer opens July 18th from Sony Pictures.
Remember a few years ago when acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates was developing a Black Superman movie for Warner Bros.? Ever wonder what happened to that since James Gunn and Peter Safran launched DC Studios? Well, wonder no more. As most, including yours truly, suspected, the film was quietly canned by Warner Bros. Discover CEO David Laslav. Why? Because it was “too woke.”
The report comes from the Wall Street Journal in a piece about the high stakes surrounding James Gunn’s Superman, which is in theaters now. Buried in the story is a bit about Zaslav, who became CEO of WBD in April 2022, taking one look at the script and dismissing it as “too woke”, killing the project right then and there.
Coates’ film would’ve followed an African-American Superman during the civil rights era. The project got a lot of attention at the time, and the hunt was on for a Black filmmaker to direct it. Ryan Coogler was connected to it, and so was Barry Jenkins. Michael B. Jordan was developing a parallel project in a similar vein.
This is unsurprising if you’ve followed Zaslav at all. He has openly courted right wing extremists, to the severe detriment of CNN which has tanked in the ratings. Of course, he would think a Black Superman movie would be “woke”, the buzzword favored by bigots who disapprove of anything that encourages diversity.
The irony of all of this is that those same people are complaining about Gunn’s Superman, led by white actor David Corenswet, for also being “too woke” because it dares to be political. Just goes to show that you can’t make some folks happy unless you represent all of their values and only their values.
As recently as January 2024, Gunn was saying that Coates’ Superman project was still on. The script is still owned by WB, probably crammed in the back of a desk somewhere or lining someone’s birdcage, so technically it could happen. I think it would be a gigantic smash hit if it did, especially if Coogler were the director. But until Zaslav is gone, don’t hold your breath.
Amazon MGM’s Road House sequel is in need of a new director. Multiple sources tell Deadline that Guy Ritchie has dropped out of directing Jake Gyllenhaal in the film, which was to begin production in just eight weeks. They are now scrambling to find a replacement. Perhaps they should give Doug Liman a call?
No reason was given for Ritchie’s exit. It’s not as if he’s hurting for things to do. Ritchie has two movies already wrapped, In the Grey and Wife & Dog. He recently released the Apple Originals adventure Fountain of Youth. In the world of streaming television he also has the Paramount+ series MobLand, and the upcoming Young Sherlock series on Prime Video.
Ritchie had taken over Road House 2 from Liman, who was publicly angry that Amazon MGM refused to give the film a theatrical release. It became a streaming hit with a whopping 50 million views in its opening frame, hitting more than 80 million in the following weeks.
Gyllenhaal is confirmed to return as Dalton, the ex-UFC brawler who becomes a bouncer for a rowdy Florida bar. Will Beal was hired to write the screenplay. Dave Bautista is rumored to be joining the cast, but nothing is locked in.
This never seemed like the right fit for Ritchie, anyway. At the end of 2025 he will have released nine movies in six years, plus three TV shows. He has plenty to do with original work that jumping in to direct a streaming sequel never made any sense.
If there’s something you can always say about Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo’s films, it’s that they never follow a traditional path. Often, his work explores heady themes such as love, grief, and trauma, but always by taking us into some trippy headspace, whether it be timeloops, kaiju manifestations, or high-tech surveillance. In Daniela Forever, Vigalondo explores memory, imagination, and sadness through dream therapy, or in this case, the fascinating practice of lucid dreaming.
Daniela Forever stars Henry Golding as Nick, A British DJ in Madrid who is grieving the loss of his girlfriend, Daniela, played by White Lotus star Beatrice Grannò. At a friend’s urging, Nick decides to take part in a clinical study of an experimental drug that causes lucid dreams. But this study must be done in a very specific way, with strict rules to follow. Nick, however, flaunts those rules and instead uses the drug to transport himself into his dreamscape where he can bring Daniela back and be with her.
For those unaware, lucid dreaming involves being aware that you are indeed inside of a dream, allowing you a certain amount of control over it. It seems like something out of science-fiction, but in reality there are people practiced enough that they can experience lucid dreaming whenever they want to. Pretty cool, and Vigalondo is clearly fascinated with the subject. Nick is, in some ways, like a stand-in for Vigalondo who is attempting to understand, to deconstruct, the logic of lucid dreaming. Utilizing different aspect ratios to clearly delineate between reality and the dream world, Vigalondo seems much more at home inside of Nick’s head than outside of it.
Most of the film involves Nick constructing his dreams to resemble his reality. But the world he creates is built on fundamental memories. If he’s seen it or experienced it, he can build it. However, things he hasn’t seen leave only an empty void, so streets he’s never walked or items in a store that he’s never seen, are only gray blank spaces waiting to be filled. The irony is that Nick, in his attempt to escape the pain of real life, needs to soak in as much of it as possible to enhance the fantasy of his dreams. He is, in essence, living for something completely artificial.
Nick is an interesting, wildly imperfect guy, though. A bit selfish, conceited, and controlling, he doesn’t like it when the people of his dreams, including Daniela, begin to develop attributes he didn’t instill in them. For instance, Daniela is an artist, but when she begins to create art that he’s never seen before, he doesn’t like it. He also dismisses her when she starts questioning him and his opinions. Daniela Forever resembles in some ways the 2012 comedy Ruby Sparks, in which a fictional dreamgirl comes to life and her creator can’t deal with her growing independence. When Daniela starts connecting with one of her past lovers, it becomes too much for Nick to handle.
In the same way that Vigalondo’s brilliant 2015 film Colossal explored trauma and abuse through Anne Hathaway’s shared consciousness with a Japanese kaiju, Daniela Forever looks at toxic masculinity and control through lucid dreaming. Nick controls every version of Daniela that we experience, so our interpretation of her is totally through his eyes. We never seen who she actually was, and by the way he treats her in the dream world, it’s clear that he’s not all that interested in who she was as a person. Which makes us wonder why he’s so fixated on her now, controlling her even beyond the grave. What does he actually like about her? It’s not her creativity, or spark of personality. For example, when they have a threesome with another woman, and Daniela requests to have another male next time, Nick grants her wish by constructing a double of himself. Granted, coital bliss with a pair of Henry Goldings would be the wish of a lot of women (and men), but Nick is just being a dickhead who doesn’t care what Daniela wants, only his own desires.
Ultimately, Vigalondo eases back on the throttle and Daniela Forever becomes too message heavy and sweet, with Nick’s appreciation for life and the people in it happening too quickly. Golding is a good actor but he’s too understated and reserved for the role of Nick, making us wonder why someone like Daniela would fall for him. Grannò’s soulful, passionate performance keeps things lively, and so does Vigalondo’s playful humor and his sheer excitement over lucid dreaming. Daniela Forever doesn’t quite measure up to Vigalondo’s craziest, most inventive efforts, but he is such a unique creative voice that you will never feel wronged for sticking with him.
At this point, Sinners is a frontrunner for movie of the year. The vampire flick came out of nowhere to be a box office smash and a critical darling. Now, one of its stars, Hailee Steinfeld, is trading in vampires for Olympic sports in the upcoming rom-com, Winter Games.
Deadline reports Steinfeld will join Miles Teller in Winter Games, a sports rom-com from co-writer/director Paul Downs Colaizzo that we learned about in April. Patt Cunnane co-wrote the screenplay. The story “revolves around the high-stakes arena of the Winter Olympic Games, a perpetually overlooked skier and a self-sabotaging hockey legend who collide at their breaking points. Their unexpected connection threatens her chance for a medal and his shot at a comeback as they navigate romance and redemption in the Olympic Village.”
So it’s meet-cutes, slaloms, and hockey fights for Steinfeld and Teller. Coming up for her is returning to voice Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. She will also return to voice Kate Bishop/Hawkeye in the Marvel Zombies animated series on Disney+ this October.
A24 is taking a big swing by adapting the hit action-RPG video game Elden Ring, in what is likely to be its most expensive movie by a considerable margin. They’ve turned to Alex Garland, who has already directed Civil War, Ex Machina, and Warfare for the studio, making him a trusted hand for a project of this scope. And now we’re learning that Ben Whishaw, no stranger to massive franchises, is circling a role.
The report comes from The InSneider, who says Whishaw could join the recently-cast Kit Connor in Elden Ring. Garland will write and direct the George R.R. Martin-influenced film, set in the Lands Between, a mystical realm controlled by the Outer Gods, one of which created the powerful Elden Ring, later shattered by its vessel, Marika. An exiled group known as the Tarnished is gifted power from a mysterious source, and tasked with repairing the Elden Ring, defeating hordes of enemies, to become the Elder Lord.
Whishaw is probably best known for playing Q in the Daniel Craig James Bond movies. He also voiced Paddington bear in all three movies including this year’s Paddington in Peru. Coming up for Whishaw is a reunion with Passages director Ira Sachs in Peter Hujar’s Day, which opens in November.
Jon Watts failed to continue the success of his Spider-Man trilogy with the star-studded film Wolfs, so perhaps a change in tone is in order? According to scooper Daniel Richtman, Watts is in talks to direct Muppet Man, a biopic of Muppets creator Jim Henson.
Penned by Oscar-nominated writer Chris Weitz (About a Boy), Muppet Man would center on the life of Jim Henson and his journey to prove to broadcasters that The Muppets were viable on television. Hopefully it also digs into his early career with experimental puppetry that led to the creation of The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and Sesame Street. He was also featured in the first season of Saturday Night Live.
This is a project that has been in the works for a few years from Disney and The Jim Henson Company. Back in 2021, Michael Mitnick (The Current War) was hired to write the screenplay, based on an earlier draft by Adrift screenwriters Aaron and Jordan Kandell.
Watts recently inked a first-look deal with Disney, so Muppet Man could be part of that arrangement. He’s looking to bounce back from the disappointing returns on Wolfs, his crime comedy starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Watts was also the co-creator and showrunner of the recently Disney+ series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew.
This would be quite the tonal shift for Watts, doing something a bit more down-to-earth and human. Following his breakout Sundance debut, Cop Car, Watts was engulfed by Marvel Studios, directing the first three Tom Holland Spider-Man movies before moving on.
I’m sorry, Red Sonja fans. You’ve been waiting literally decades for the crimson-haired warrior to return to the big screen. Following the 1985 film starring Brigitte Nielsen, there have been multiple plagued attempts, with Robert Rodriguez’s version with Rose McGowan the most high-profile effort, followed by others led by Simon West, Bryan Singer, and Joey Soloway. Ultimately, it was MJ Bassett who got it done, with Rings actress Matilda Lutz taking up the sword.
Red Sonja is based on the sword ‘n sorcery comic character created by Conan writer Robert E. Howard, although you won’t find the famous barbarian in this movie. Lutz stars as Red Sonja, a huntress who engages in a bloody war against an evil tyrant bent on destroying her people.
Bassett is best known for directing Silent Hill: Revelations, Solomon Kane, and Endangered Species, for which we interviewed her. The script is by Tasha Huo. Also in the cast are Batwoman actress Wallis Day, Robert Sheehan, Martyn Ford, Michael Bisping, Philip Winchester, Trevor Eve, Luca Pasqualino, and Rhona Mitra.
I love that this looks like a movie right out of the ’80s, and like it could sit on a video store shelf alongside Conan the Barbarian and the original Red Sonja.
Red Sonja hits theaters on August 14th, followed by digital on August 29th from Samuel Goldwyn Films.
Comedy movies for adults have become a rare item lately. Smart, actually funny comedies are even more precious. That’s what makes Deena Kashper’s apocalyptic comedy Nuked such a gem. What starts out looking familiarly raunchy mature humor, reveals itself to be quite a lot more than that. If you’re interested in a film that’s got sex, relationship drama, stoner hijinks, friendship, betrayal, and possible nuclear annihilation, Nuked is what you’re looking for.
The best thing about Nuked being so many things all at once? It’s got exactly the right cast of hilarious actors who are nimble at navigating the shifting tones. Right at the top, you’ve got the always-great Anna Camp as Gill, with Justin Bartha as her husband, Jack. They’ve been together for twenty years, literally half of their lives. When we meet them, they’re aggressively trying to get pregnant and start a family, and trying new things (Gill’s dirty talk, I hope, was ad-libbed!) to keep the sex fresh. After so long, they’ve fallen into a groove. Jack’s getting a bit bored, but Gill is too busy with her newfound podcasting success to notice.
Seems like another comfortable, quirky comedy about adulting, right? Well, no. Out of nowhere, Nuked becomes something else entirely. It’s Jack and Gill’s 40th birthday, and they’ve invited all of their closest college friends together for a weekend bash full of dancing, drinking, and a cannabis-fueled dining experience. Everyone’s phones are collected for a fully unplugged event. Of course, with so many people together who have known one another for so long, personalities start to clash, insecurities bubble to the surface, and other old feelings stir. Then they all find out that a nuclear missile is headed straight for them in Los Angeles, and it’s one Hell of an awkward time to be high.
Nuked begins to resemble something closer to The Big Chill, but I actually liken it to two other, similarly-framed movies: 2001’s The Anniversary Party (Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming do drugs!) and 2011’s A Good Old Fashioned Orgy. All three films feature deft comedic ensembles, vibing around taboo subject matter. In this case, it’s a nuclear holocaust that has brought these old friends to an existential crisis. Playing the old buddies are George Young as Sam, husband to Lucy Punch’s Penelope, a new mother who is seemingly disinterested in sex, much to his disappontment. There’s Maulik Pancholy and Stephen Guarino as Ishaan and Damian, a gay couple whose bond has remained strong after one’s recovery from cancer. Then there’s Ignacio Serricchio as Logan, a nostalgic former rockstar, and Tawny Newsome as Mo, the political consultant who shares a complicated past with him.
Each pairing has its own little story to tell, which helps Nuked to feel like multiple movies in one. Kashper weaves all of these friends in and out of one another’s stories, so that marital discord, secret loves, past hook-ups, and betrayal envelop the entire group. With the threat of imminent death hanging over them, there comes a reflection on their lives and lingering regrets that feels especially honest in today’s chaotic world. Even some of the sillier revelations, such as Ishaan and Damian’s open relationship, or Gill’s smartphone dependency, are played with sincerity and pay off emotionally.
There’s a lot that Nuked has to juggle in its brisk 86-minute runtime, and some developments are given less depth than others. While there are plenty of laughs, Kashper keeps the jokes at a lower key to increase the personal stakes for each character, but sometimes you just want the film to go nuts and be as absurd as possible, rather than playing it a bit safe. Fans of comedian Natasha Leggero, who plays the chef serving the edible delights, will wish she had a bit more to do, but she’s gone for long stretches of the film and isn’t a major part of the plot.
Camp has always had a manic energy behind her performances, and it’s good to see her bringing that to a lead role where a bit more heft is needed. Bartha, always such an underrated actor, works best in these ensemble scenarios (think The Hangover) because he’s so good at reacting to what others give him. He and Camp have such fun chemistry, it’s amazing this is their first movie together. Hopefully, Nuked is only the first of many times, and we see them reunited with the entire cast again soon.
