Maybe we should stop worrying about X-Men: Dark Phoenix? Because star Jessica Chastain has quickly set up a reunion with her direction, Simon Kinberg, on an espionage thriller with a cast of talented ladies that might give Ocean’s 8 a run for its money.
Chastain has announced she will star in 355, a Bourne-style spy flick that will co-star Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Lupita Nyong’o, and Fan Bingbing. Daaaamn!!! Kinberg will direct from a script by Theresa Rebeck, and it sounds like Chastain has been dreaming this one up for a while. She tells Deadline…
“I had so much fun working on ‘The Help’ that I always wanted to do another female ensemble film. I love the ‘Bourne’ movies, the ‘Mission: Impossible’ films and wondered why, except for ‘Charlie’s Angels,’ there hadn’t been a true female ensemble action thriller spy film. That got my wheels going, along with the idea of casting actresses from all over the world to truly make it an international project. I realized the incredible creative freedom we would have with that. I brought the idea to Simon, told him about the actresses I was thinking of, and he was so sweet. He said, ‘I want to do it with you.’”
The Y: the Last Man fan in me quickly thought of that comic’s lead character, Agent 355, and quietly hoped this was some kind of movie spinoff. Unfortunately, ‘355’ is pretty much universal slang for a female spy, and originated with a female spy during the American Revolution. This is all stuff Chastain learned while on the set of Zero Dark Thirty, sparking her to the idea of making a movie like this.
Kinberg adds, “We are hoping to create a franchise with this, and the first film will be the agents coming together.”
Well I don’t know about you but I’ve found my all-female Avengers movie right here.
This year’s Sundance Film Festival got off to a bang with a pair of movies centered around police violence. The one with the most buzz is Blindspotting starring Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs. The other, and just as good, was Monsters and Men, a drama that takes a tryptech-style approach to showing the impact one death of an unarmed black man has on three characters.
Writer and director Reinaldo Marcus Green assembled a talented cast that includes John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman), Kelvin Harrison Jr., Rob Morgan, Nicole Beharie, and two more Hamilton stars in Anthony Ramos and Jasmine Cephas Jones (she’s also key in Blindspotting). The trio of connected stories follow a struggling young father who videotaped the killing of an unarmed black man by police. The second follows a black cop dealing with his identity as a result of the death. And the third centers on a high school athlete inspired to become an activist.
It’s a powerful film that won over audiences and yours truly (my review) at the festival, and I suspect it’s going to create quite a stir upon release. Monsters and Men opens this fall.
The classic story of Peter Rabbit finally makes its way to
the big screen in this larger than life family adventure. The film follows
Peter (James Cordon) and his three sisters, Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-Tail (Daisy
Ridley, Elizabeth Debicki, and Margot Robbie), who want nothing more than to
relax and enjoy the vegetables of Mr. McGragor’s garden. Unfortunately for
them, the McGregors, particularly their adult son Joe (Domhnall Gleeson), are
fed up with the rabbits antics, and will stop at nothing to get them off their
land. An all out battle soon breaks out, as Peter tries time and time again to
outsmart the McGregors.
We Said: “I can honestly say
I’m looking forward to July when this movie inevitably hits Netflix and I have
to watch it 357 times over a span of three weekends thanks to my kids, or at
least I’m looking forward to the first day before it wears out it’s welcome on
me.” Rating: 4.25 out of 5
Set in the early days of the war in Afghanistan, 12
Strong follows Capt. Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth )and hisSpecial Forces team as they develop an uneasy
partnership with the Northern Alliance to take down the Taliban and its
al-Qaida allies.
We Said: “The [film’s]
only mission is to show the war in Afghanistan the way we imagine it to be,
just good guys killing bad guys, like it used to be in war movies all the time
before we started asking questions.” Rating:
3 out of 5
Helen Mirren stars in this haunted house thriller as the
heiress to the Winchester fortune, a mysterious woman who has used her money to
build a structure that’s not only a castle, but a prison for hundreds of
vengeful ghosts and spirits, one of whom has a deadly score to settle with the
Winchester family.
Hey uh, somebody was conspicuously absent during that whole Infinity War affair. Nah, not Hawkeye, nobody’s thinking about that guy. Oh yeah. Ant-Man. Why wasn’t he out there fighting Thanos and trying to save the universe from ultimate destruction? The answer to that question will (presumably) come in this summer’s sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, but you can start to get some clues in the newly released trailer.
Paul Rudd is back in the Ant-Man suit, joined by Evangeline Lilly as his partner the Wasp. The story picks up immediately after the events of Captain America: Civil War but appear to be pre-Infinity War, for obvious reasons to those who have seen it. Or maybe it’s not? When does this movie actually take place?? That’s one giant whopper of a question that’s left hanging out there. Michael Douglas returns as Hank Pym with Laurence Fishburne joining the cast as Bill “Black Goliath” Foster and Michelle Pfeiffer as ex-Wasp Janet van Dyne.
A trip to the Quantum Zone looks to be in order as the duo tries to find the missing Janet, while a new villain known as the Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) may have stolen some important Pym tech with plans of destroying the world. Here’s the synopsis:
From the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes a new chapter featuring heroes with the astonishing ability to shrink: “Ant-Man and The Wasp.” In the aftermath of “Captain America: Civil War,” Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) grapples with the consequences of his choices as both a Super Hero and a father. As he struggles to rebalance his home life with his responsibilities as Ant-Man, he’s confronted by Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) with an urgent new mission. Scott must once again put on the suit and learn to fight alongside The Wasp as the team works together to uncover secrets from their past.
I love the exchange between Rudd and Fishburne, it’s not only funny and sophomoric (size jokes!!!) but it gives me hope Foster will be sticking around the MCU for a while. And of course it’s good to see Michael Pena back as motor-mouthed Luis.
Once again directed by Peyton Reed, Ant-Man and the Wasp opens July 6th.
Netflix, you had me at Gillian Jacobs and Vanessa Bayer. Ever since the comedy Ibiza was announced last year it has been the movie most at the front of my mind because of its hilarious leading ladies. I’ll watch both of them in anything, I don’t care what it is. And now today the first trailer has arrived and excuse me while I put it in a loop.
Jacobs, Bayer, and Phoebe Robinson (I Love Dick) star as three friends who fly off to Barcelona for a work trip, only for one Jacobs’ character to fall in love with a hot DJ played by Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden. On a whim she ditches work and follows him to Ibiza, where shit goes cray cray. The reasoning for the rash decision is sound, too…
“Some people land on the moon. Others cure diseases. You smash this DJ.”
Yeah, try and debate THAT!
Okay it looks like Rough Night and Sleepover had a Netflix comedy baby but so what? There can never be enough of Bayer acting like the resident goofball and I’ve missed her since she left SNL.
Directed by Alex Richanbach from a screenplay by Lauryn Kahn, Ibiza hits Netflix on May 25th.
Hey, two John Woo stories in the span of 24 hours means this has been a damn good start to the week. After yesterday’s news the Hong Kong filmmaker is remaking The Killer with Lupita Nyong’o in the lead role, now we have a new trailer for his latest film, Manhunt. The Netflix-bound action flick looks like classic Woo with lots of over-the-top action of the shoot ’em up variety.
This trailer is less than a minute long but I already spotted flying doves, slow-motion leaps onto moving vehicles, and lots of bullets. And also plenty of proclamations of a “Return of the Maestro”, which is setting a very high bar. The reviews out of TIFF didn’t say anything about this being up there with Woo’s best work, but it still looks hella fun. Here’s what amounts to a synopsis:
Accused of heinous crimes he didn’t commit, a prosecutor sets out on a mission to clear his name.
Starring Masaharu Fukuyama (Like Father, Like Son), Zhang Hanyu (The Great Wall), Ha Ji-won, and Angeles Woo, Manhunt hits Netflix on May 4th.
If you think Mel Gibson still has some atoning to do for the epic racist rant that nearly ended his career over a decade ago, well that’s too bad. The comeback has been complete for a long time now, beginning with his last directorial effort Hacksaw Ridge earning a Best Picture and Best Director nomination. Now Gibson has decided on his next turn behind the camera, and now, it’s not a sequel to The Passion of the Christ.
Gibson will direct WWII thriller Destroyer, based on John Wukovits’s book Hell from the Heavens: The Epic Story of the USS Laffey and World War II’s Greatest Kamikaze Attack. Rosalind Ross, a TV writer who also happens to be Gibson’s girlfriend (Hey, I don’t give a shit but it’s in the report by THR) has penned the screenplay. The story is based on the famous “Ship That Wouldn’t Die”, the USS Laffey which on D-Day and battle at Okinawa withstood the most aggressive kamikaze attacks in military history.
Shooting is expected to start in the fall, but it depends on if Gibson decides to rejoin Daddy’s Home 2 co-star Mark Wahlberg for The Six Billion Dollar Man. The updated take on the 1970s TV series The Six Million Dollar Man is also planned to shoot in the fall so Gibson may have to put Destroyer off a few months. Wahlberg apparently put in a good based for Gibson to Warner Bros. and that has to count for something. Doubtful Gibson passes on this.
Warner Bros. and the DCEU took another gut shot over the weekend when Avengers: Infinity War nearly topped the entire Justice League theatrical run in just one weekend. Ouch. In short, they’ve got a lot of work to do correcting the course, and presumably a big part of that would be Superman and a Man of Steel sequel.
While there doesn’t seem to be anything official going on, a lot of loose chatter is apparently happening around the Mission: Impossible-Fallout set. It’s there that Henry Cavill and Christopher McQuarrie have been talking about what a Man of Steel 2 would be like since the latter has found himself mentioned as a potential director. McQuarrie tells Comicbook.com…
“Henry Cavill knows what it would be like. We had a lot of time hanging out on set, and Henry’s a huge fan of Superman. I can’t help but talk story to people, so he told me his take on Superman and I thought it was really great, and I gave him my two cents. The tweet you’re referring to is somebody asked ‘Would you do it?’ and I said ‘Hey, they know where to find me.’ Nobody’s asked, but you know…”
Well, when you keep saying stuff like that of course people think you’re interested. CinePop continued to press the issue in a conversation with McQuarrie and this time he was more upfront about it. All it’s going to take is the right person to ask him…
“I’ve never really thought about it. I feel like if the story was right and the character was right – I love working with Henry, Henry’s great.”
He continued with, “If Henry asked me to, sure, why not?”
McQuarrie would be a huge get for Warner Bros. as they try to rebuild their struggling cinematic universe. They’d be stupid not to be blowing up his phone right now. And who knows? He may be able to lure his pal Tom Cruise in for a supporting role or something. If the DCEU is going to survive and thrive, Superman is going to be a necessary component. I don’t think Cavill is the problem. If he and McQuarrie are on the same page then maybe together they can help move this franchise in the right direction.
After the record-breaking (well, for a while) success of Black Panther it’s no shock that Michael B. Jordan and screenwriter Joe Robert Cole are turning to another comic book property for their next collaboration. Only this one is way more obscure and will undoubtedly lean hard on their connection to that Marvel film to sell it. Deadline reports Jordan and Cole will team up for Netflix’s Failsafe, based on the Vault Comics graphic novel by F.J. Desanto and Todd Farmer.
Cole is set to write the script but right now Jordan is only going to produce with the possibility of starring if he likes the screenplay and scheduling works out. The story centers on nanotech-powered supersoldier John Ravane, who thought his personal war against other enhanced soldiers was over, only to discover a decade later that sleeper agents are activating everywhere in a bid to take over the country.
Last week on Supergirl, Lena Luthor revealed that she has been examining Sam and reveals the truth to her CFO, that she was Reign the World Killer. Sam doesn’t realize it as she blacks out when she goes on her murderous sprees. Only when she shows Samantha video of her as Reign does she start to connect the dots. Even though Lena promises her that she will help Sam her overcome her evil alter ego, Lena’s got her work cut out. Mon-El tries to train Kara on using her uniform as a weapon, but thanks to M’yrnn having a psychic breakdown, the negative energy affected Kara (as well as the rest of the DEO). Mon-El did tell Kara about the Legion’s true mission, to stop one of the World Killers name Pestilence, who is responsible for the death of countless people in the future.
This week, we get to see Pestilence in action.
Last week ended with countless dead birds and served as a canary in the coal mine for this week’s episode. The Legion and the DEO realize that this third World Killer will be a big problem if her powers continue to manifest and grow. Irma wants to kill her once they discover who she is. Kara, always about “truth, justice, and the American way” doesn’t want that to happen. She feels that if they reach Pestilence’s human counterpart, they can talk her off the ledge and stop her before she starts. However, it’s already starting as countless people in National City are starting to become sick.
At a quarantine zone, the team discovers that the people who became sick got sick as the result of a scratch. However, Pestilence could be anyone. Irma wants to set up a force field and trap everyone within the quarantine zone, but this proves to cause more of a panic than the outbreak. This is the first time that she and Kara but heads in this episode. This causes a rift amongst the Legion as well. Brainiac (who is using an image inducer to look normal) theorizes that if they kill Pestilence, there’s a 98% certainty that they will avoid the plague in the future. If they don’t and just use their super DNA to make an antidote, it’s still only a 50% chance of success. To make matters worse, Winn in starting to show sickness as well, meaning that he was scratched by the mysterious culprit. After Winn gets suck, so does Alex.
Meanwhile, Lena is continuing her analysis of Samantha to learn more about Reign and how to stop her. This forces her to torture her friend, which sends her to another dimension where she actually runs into Reign. Reign tries to psychoanalyze Samantha saying that letting go is the best option as he life didn’t have much meaning anyway. Being Reign would be the best thing that she can do. This makes Samantha hesitant to continue the experiments. But at Lena’s insistence, she continues to work with her.
That’s when the Deo discovers that Pestilence is none other than the doctor who was supposedly trying to stop the outbreak. Kara tries to appeal to doctor Grace, but even her human side is on board with becoming a World Killer. While they stop her from poisoning a group of insurance executives (who Grace says deserve to get deathly sick), Kara gets scratched and starts to get sick as well. Lucky for the group, they were able to obtain some of Grace’s DNA in the scuffle, enough to make an antidote. At the last minute, Purity comes and rescues Pestilence.
Just then, the sensors go off at the DEO as they now know where the two World Killers are heading to next. Kara, Mon-El, Irma, and J’onn arrive at Lena Luthor’s lab where they discover what she’s been doing to Samantha. Just as they arrive, so do the other World Killers who then proceed to beat all of them and rescue Samantha, revealing to Kara that he good friend is in fact, her mortal enemy.
Next week, all three World Killers are together. That can’t be good!
