1. Coco– $18.3M/$135.5M
The couple of weeks before a superhuman movie like Star Wars: The Last Jedi are a good time for holdovers, and so Pixar’s rather terrific Coco has held #1 for three straight weeks. Kinda crazy to think that it wasn’t Justice League in command all of those weeks, but that’s a subject for further down. The Mexican-themed film now has $135M here but an impressive $389M worldwide.
2. Justice League– $9.5M/$212M
The good news, Justice League has surpassed the $600M mark. Yay! The bad news, it took four weeks to get there. That said, the film is actually coasting along pretty well, which is exactly why Warner Bros. slotted it where they did. They just thought it would do better domestically, and instead it’s overperforming everywhere else. I’d bet that if it didn’t cost so damn much because of the reshoots we’d be calling this quite a bit more of a success rather than a disappointment. Also on the bright side is news that changes are finally being made at the top of DC Films, and I think when films like Aquaman and Wonder Woman 2 hit we’re going to see things really take off. Fingers crossed, anyway.
3. Wonder– $8.4M/$100.3M
4. The Disaster Artist (review)- $6.4M/$8M
The big winner of the week and not a disaster at all was James Franco’s The Disaster Artist, his surprisingly great tribute to atrocious cult classic, The Room. With no major new releases this was the pinpoint time to expand by 821 theaters, giving Franco’s film a lot of extra elbow room in multiplexes. I literally just left a mainstream theater near me and it was playing there, and seemed to be doing pretty well. I think it’s only bound to get better, too, with legit Oscar buzz surrounding Franco’s performance as Tommy Wiseau, if only because the Academy HAS to want the oddball Wiseau to be in the house that night. Think of that image. I feel safe in asserting that Franco’s sudden credibility as a filmmaker also comes with his highest-grossing directorial effort. For the most part he’s been tackling literary adaptations or super-niche genre efforts, opening in so few venues they don’t rate at the box office at all. Did anybody (other than me and a few critics) even see The Institute or In Dubious Battle, the latter having earned a pitiful $119K?
5. Thor: Ragnarok– $6.2M/$301.1M
6. Daddy’s Home 2– $6M/$91.1M
7. Murder On the Orient Express– $5.1M/$92.7M
8. The Star– $3.6M/$32.2M
9. Lady Bird– $3.5M/$22.3M
10. Just Getting Started– $3.1M
If this were…let’s say, 1990, then a Ron Shelton-directed movie with Morgan Freeman, Tommy Lee Jones, and Rene Russo might’ve killed it at the box office. But in 2017 it makes only $3.1M, isn’t screened for critics, and was basically thrown out there with little to no marketing. Just Getting Started features Freeman and Jones causing a ruckus at an assisted living facility, and from what I hear it’s God awful. But I will never know for sure, and apparently the same goes for most folks who didn’t bother with this one. This is probably the final theatrical film we’ll be seeing from Broad Green Pictures, which went defunct last summer after a series of expensive flops.
Doing big things in small release is the excellent I, Tonya (review), which stars Margot Robbie as controversial Olympic figure skater, Tonya Harding. Expect a much wider rollout soon because Robbie and co-star Allison Janney are shoe-ins for Oscar nominations. Plus it’s a legitmately great film that works as a crowd-pleaser and story of redemption. As a longtime Harding fan and apologist it certainly won me over, but I think it’ll do the same for those who are more skeptical.
Jessica Jones is coming back for a second season, and she’s pissed. Of course, she’s always pissed about something, and after that lousy season of The Defenders who can hardly blame her? So it’s good to have her back on her own, coping with her demons in typically self-destructive fashion.
Jessica Jones season 2 will arrive on March 8th 2018, which is not far away at all. A new teaser has arrived to herald the announcement, and it looks like Jessica’s past is still haunting her. She’s back working as a private investigator, digging into the secrets of others as a way of ignoring her own. And since we know David Tennant’s Killgrave is due to return, we can assume the emotional pain he caused has left behind some deep scars. Star Krysten Ritter tells EW…
“Jessica is in a pretty dark headspace when we meet her at the top of season 2. What we’ve done again is kept the story very personal. If season 1 was in her head and in her mind, then this season will be more in her heart. It’s still a psychological thriller, but it’s more of an emotional thriller this time.”
As if this footage isn’t enough to get us excited, every episode of the next season will be directed by a woman. Pretty sweet. Here’s the synopsis:
New York City private investigator Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) is beginning to put her life back together after murdering her tormenter, Kilgrave. Now known throughout the city as a super-powered killer, a new case makes her reluctantly confront who she really is while digging deeper into her past to explore the reasons why. Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones) is joined by an incredible returning cast that includes Rachael Taylor (Trish Walker), Carrie-Anne Moss (Jeri Hogarth), Eka Darville (Malcolm Ducasse) and new cast members Janet McTeer and J.R. Ramirez, among others. Marvel’s Jessica Jones on Netflix is Executive Produced by series Showrunner Melissa Rosenberg (“Twilight”, “Dexter”), Raelle Tucker (“True Blood”), Jim Chory (“Marvel’s Daredevil”, “Marvel’s Luke Cage”, “Marvel’s Iron Fist”) and Jeph Loeb (“Marvel’s Daredevil”, “Marvel’s Luke Cage”, “Marvel’s Iron Fist”) who also serves as Marvel’s Head of Television.
Remember when Marvel and Sony first struck their deal to bring Spider-Man into the MCU there was a push to have it not be boring ol’ Peter Parker under the mask. Fans wanted some diversity, in particular they wanted to see Miles Morales, the black/Hispanic character made popular in the Ultimates line of Marvel Comics. Well, they didn’t get their wish, but they got a different one; an animated movie from Phil Lord and Chris Miller. And today we’ve got the first teaser for the newly-titled Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Morales swings into action in this brief teaser, revealed at Brazil Comic-Con. It’s an incredible piece of footage, featuring a masked figure in a very different Spider suit, soaring through the air in gravity defying leaps. From there he’s on the ground racing after an escaping villain, finally landing on a rooftop, taking off the mask and revealing that it’s Miles Morales. “More than one wears the mask” is a pretty cool tagline, too.
Shameik Moore voices Morales, with Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, and Liev Schreiber also part of the cast. This will be a standalone film and not part of the MCU, but the title clearly suggests a larger world will be right around it.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse opens December 14th 2018.
Last week in the Arrowverse was the mega-crossover the “Crisis On Earth-X,” where the heroes from Supergirl, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow faced off against their Nazi doppelgangers from an unknown Earth within the multiverse. The 2-night event was substantially better than the “Invasion” crossover from the previous year, meaning that next year’s crossover (you know they are going to do another) will have to be even bigger and better than this year’s one.
While the heroes were able to defeat their evil Aryan counterparts, it did come at a cost. Martin Stein of the Legends, who was trying to find a way off the team (as actor Victor Garber was trying to find a way off the show to concentrate on stage acting) and separate from Jax and cease to be Firestorm, met his maker as he was shot by some of X-Oliver’s “stormtroopers” while trying t save his fellow heroes. This, of course, will have ramifications felt throughout the Arrowverse.
This week in the Arrowverse, everyone was in the Holiday spirit, but there was some sorrow filled cliffhangers as well. So how did the Arrowverse go this week?
Supergirl: “Reign”
Because of last week’s crossover, we have to pick up on all the events going on in National City from two weeks ago. Mon-El returned, and he now has a wife. After explaining that he went into the future (31st century) after leaving Earth, and then thousands of years into the past, plenty of time between he and Kara has passed, so he had to move on and found a new wife. This, of course, did not sit well with Kara, who spent most of this season heartbroken for him having to leave Earth.
Most importantly, Samantha, the CEO of Lana Luthor’s L-Corp just discovered that she’s a Kryptonian as well. On she’s not the “truth, justice, and the American way” type. She’s really “Reign,” the “world killer.” Although she is horrified at the notion, it’s in her DNA and the computer program at her own “fortress of sanditude” told her that she would soon cease to be her nice usual self and become a darker version of Supergirl. This week, we get to see Reign in action, and it looks like Kara will have her work cut out for her for the rest of the season.
The episode begins with a holiday party, complete with drinks, movie trivia, and the usual festive cheer. One thing of note is that James and Lana seem to be catching eyes towards each other. Now as soon as she took over CatCo and James and she had a very standoffish and adversarial relationship, you could see that they would eventually get involved somehow. As Kara and Samantha were pushing her to get with him, she was hesitant. By the end of the episode though, she and James were an item. The party didn’t last long as the DEO people there were called into action as a stranger Kryptonian signal was burned into a field owned by L-Corp, prompting them to investigate.
Lana thinks it’s her competitor Morgan Edge, who already tried to sabotage her career and reputation. He has just the right amount of resources to make it happen. He already poisoned children, what’s a little fire in a field? However, it wasn’t him, it was Samantha. Kara does her own research thanks to her “mom” and learns about an ancient Kryptonian religion from which Reign comes from.
Meanwhile, Kara is trying her best to “be cool” about Mon-El and his new wife, Imra. It’s hard to be cool when the love of your life has become married, and is forced to flaunt off his new wife in front of you. She does tell Mon-El her feelings as she’s trying to work through them for which he apologizes. Imra later speaks with Kara and tells her she knows that the situation is awkward. She tells Kara that Mon-El continued to talk about her in the highest regards, to the point that their group tried to live up to her example. He eventually had to let her go after a number of years stuck in the future, then the two of them got married.
Meanwhile, Reign is still doing her dirty work across the city. After killing a member of a gang during a drug deal, she goes after Morgan Edge. Kara goes to stop her and the two have a city-wide slug fest. It was very reminiscent of Man of Steel, except for the endless destruction and deaths. While Kara is doing her best in the fight, Reign is superior and is single-handedly demolishing her throughout the fight. In fact, she makes Kara bleed, not a small feat to make a Kryptonian do. The fight ends with Reign throwing a beaten Kara off of a building to her death.
The Flash: “Don’t Run”
This season of The Flash has done a bang-up job with their new villain The Thinker. Sure, we have the “metahuman of the week,” but they have all been as a result of DeVoe’s planning, and now he’s finally getting taking the fight to Barry, and he’s winning.
The episode begins with Team Flash celebrating Christmas at STAR Labs. The gang’s all there and having a good time. However, the festive event gets ruined for Caitlin as everyone talks about how cool Killer Frost (her metahuman alter ego) is in comparison. They don’t do it on purpose, but now that she’s not a murderous ice queen, she’s a different version of Caitlin, one that everyone seems to be enjoying, especially Ralph who can’t keep his mouth shut about Killer Frost. As she leaves STAR Labs, she gets kidnapped by Amunet Black (Katee Sackhoff with her scene-chewing fake British accent returns), who needs her help.
Barry is having his own problems as well. Fresh off his marriage to Iris, he gets kidnapped by The Thinker, who imprisons him deep in his lair. Imprisoned in a force field he cannot escape, there’s little Barry can do. Even his Speed Force lightning cannot penetrate it. The Thinker is 10 steps ahead of Barry. Joe and Harry come to DeVoe’s house looking for Barry and come up with nothing.
The reason that Amunet Black kidnapped Caitlin wasn’t that she wanted her former henchwoman Killer Frost back, she actually needs Caitlin, the scientist/doctor to help her with a situation. Turns out Amunet Black has a hostage that’s in need of medical attention. This week’s bus metahuman is Dominic (Kendrick Sampson) a metahuman with the powers of telepathy. However, he pissed off Amunet Black and she shoved a piece of her telekinetic metal glove into his neck. Now she’s a trafficker of metahumans, and a telepathic person is a good one to have around, so she needs him alive. So, she nneedsCaitlin’s medical expertise to save him, or she’ll kill Caitlin too. Once Caitlin learns of his powers, she and Dominic plan an escape.
Iris is hit with a dilemma. With two members of Team Flash kidnapped, she has to make the tough call as to who they need to pull their resources for to save. They can’t do both, she has to choose one. How can she not choose her new husband? How can she not choose her friend Caitlin? Ultimately she knows that Barry can take care of himself and deploys all resources to save Caitlin. Cisco finds a way to track Caitlin and he and Ralph end up rescuing her and Dominic just as Amunet Black is about to deliver a killing blow after finding the two of them.
Barry is still DeVoe’s prisoner. Barry tries to outsmart him by vibrating so fast that he appears invisible. DeVoe lower’s the force field and then Barry attacks him. Although DeVoe’s powers are supreme intelligence, he does have that kickass Professor X hover chair. He uses the “Doctor Octopus” arms to grab Barry and teleport them in the middle of Central City. As they are fighting, Barry manages to disable the chair and DeVoe come crashing to the ground to presumably die.
All the members of Team Flash head to Joe to celebrate Christmas after a long day. Dominic comes by to thank Caitlin for saving his life. Just then, the alarm goes off at Barry and Iris apartment and he goes to check it out. Just then he receives a call from Dominic of all people. Turns out, this was all a part of DeVoe’s plan. Amunet was working for DeVoe to traffic Dominic to the Thinker, who ended up not only surviving, but then used his chair to transport his essence into Dominic’s body. With a telepathic brain, DeVoe now has the perfect body to continue his plans, and his wife has a handsome upgrade for a husband. At Barry’s apartment is Devoe’s old body with fresh stab wounds in it. Before Barry can even yell at Dominic/DeVoe, the police come crashing through. Because Barry’s been “stalking” DeVoe, and his dead body is in Barry’s apartment, DeVoe successfully framed him for murder. Barry has the option to run, but he deiced to be taken into custody.
Legends of Tomorrow: “Beebo the God of War”
Legends of Tomorrow continues to toe the line between ridiculous and awesome week after week. This time, the Legends have to prevent a Viking takeover of North America, who happen to be worshipping a time-displaced stuffed animal.
Although Martin Stein dies last week in the “Crisis On Earth-X” crossover, that doesn’t mean that we can’t see a past version of him. Keeping in tune with this week’s Christmas episodes, the episode focuses on holiday shopping. Do you guys remember Furby? Do you remember how every collectively lost their sh*t over that stuffed electronics toy back in the late 90s? Well, I guess that tells my age, but trust me, that was one of those holiday toys that may you question our collective sanity. The original is still selling on eBay for $750 right now. People were fighting each other to get that toy back then. OK, enough reflecting on Furby. This week focuses on a Furby-like toy called “Beebo.” A young Stein is at the mall (remember those?) trying to get the toy for his young daughter when a “toy riot” breaks out over the last toy which he has. Just as he’s trying to escape from the onslaught of angry parents, he gets caught in a time aberration and sent to 1000 AD.
As a result, the Legends, fresh off of regular-time Stein’s death have to get back into the fold and investigate what’s going on in 1000 AD. Agent Sharpe of the Time Bureau calls to offer her condolences to the Legends as well as tell them about the aberration. To show how bad the aberration is, she’s greeting them in Viking terms for the Christmas holiday, meaning that Vikings now control North America in current times.
Joining the Legends from Earth-X is their version of Leonard Snart, who unlike Earth-1’s version, he’s a lot more clean cut. He tries to get Mick to quit drinking as he sees him having a drinking problem. The running joke throughout this episode is that he’s going to get Mick to quit drinking. He makes the Wave Rider a “dry ship” which vexes Mick. When they travel to 1000 AD, he watches Mick to make sure he goes 48 hours without a drink. He does this to bond with the Earth-X version of Mick who was his best friend.
The Legends head to 1000 AD where they run into young Stein of all people. Thinking he’s the time aberration, they think that their mission is over. Knowing about time travel nature of the legends, he notices his older counterpart is missing. The Legends do their best to lie to him so that they don’t tell him his future. Jax, who is having the most trouble with Stein’s death sees this as a second chance to save him. Sarah warns him against telling Stein about his future, but he is resistant. Stein doesn’t want to leave as he has to get his daughter her Beebo toy. The only problem, the current Vikings there have the toy and are worshiping it as a deity. They are also interpreting the innocent responses as a call to conquer all of North America. It’s up to the Legends to go undercover as other Vikings at a festival and steal the doll.
Of course, Mick gets caught when trying to steal it and almost gets caught. The Legends end up rescuing him on the sly (thanks to Captain Cold) as he’s about to be burnt alive. The other Legends try to steal the toy but get caught. Mick ends up using his heatwave gun on the toy ending the Viking’s worship of the toy. Just as that happens, in comes Damien Darhk. Dressing as Odin, he demands they worship. The Legends are ill-equipped to deal with him, and even the Time Bureau cannot help them as they are in shambles in Rip’s absence.
Sarah, fed up with the guy who killed her sister, opts to try and face him herself. They even have a planning montage showing what she will do and then what the team will do. As they face off against Darhk, they manage to injure his daughter. This causes Damien and his daughter to teleport out of there. Sarah gets caught in the wave and is transported somewhere else. She later describes it to the team as cold and dark. She also hears the voice of Mallus, the person that Rip Hunter was obsessed with destroying.
Jax tries to take young Stein back to 1992. However, he gives him a letter telling him not to open it until 2017. Stein knows what it will reveal, that he’s going to die and tells Jax that he will not open it. He knows that it would disrupt the timeline and even change things for Jax, so he will not change the timeline. This causes Jax to rethink his place on the Legends. He tells Sara that his time with the Legends is done. Sarah doesn’t want him to leave but she understands. Jax wants to leave quietly and have Sarah not tell the rest of the team. We all know that’s not gonna happen. She throws him a surprise goodbye/Christmas party.
Sara walks Jax off the Wave Rider in present-day Central City and when she gets back on the ship, there’s a new passenger: John Constantine!
Arrow: “Irreconcilable Differences”
Over the last few seasons, Team Arrow has grown from just Oliver trying to “save the city” to a cohesive unit of more than 5 vigilantes keeping Star City safe. Sure, they have hit a few bumps here and there, but after this week, things will never be the same. It’s all about trust and how quickly it can be eroded and never put back together again.
The episode opens with Oliver and Felicity officially celebrating their marriage as a couple in front of the whole world. After all, they did a quick shotgun wedding last week at the end of the “Crisis On Earth X” crossover, and they had to share the altar with Barry and Iris (since they joined their makeshift ceremony). This week, the newly married couple celebrated in style. At the reception, Felicity’s parents were there, people from all over the city, and especially Team Arrow were there to celebrate. Curtis got highly drunk as he was remembering his own marriage failures. Rene managed to give a pretty good Best Man speech (even though Diggle should have in his place). Quentin operated as Oliver’s surrogate father to bless the union. He also had to share some bad news. He learned that the prosecution case against him has a witness on Team Arrow that is going to name him as the Green Arrow.
This causes Oliver to hunker down and start to be mistrustful of his teammates. Against Diggle’s wishes, Oliver and Felicity start to spy on Curtis, Rene, and Dinah. Thanks to Felicity spying on the rest of the team, they learn that Dinah has been talking with Vigilante. This leads Oliver to believe that she is the snitch as she’s been lying to the team about meeting with her former lover.
To make matters worse, Cayden James has Black Siren kidnap Quentin and ransom him for an important piece of equipment needed for his continued quest to destroy the city and ruin Oliver. With no other option, Oliver gets the team together (without Dinah) to go and steal the document from an ARGUS facility. The team does their best rendition of Mission Impossible (complete with Oliver flying down into a secure room on a wire) to steal the item. When they return back to the Arrow Cave, Dinah is there to confront Oliver. There Oliver reveals that he not only spied on her but the whole team. As accusations are thrown back and forth, Rene reveals that he is the one who actually is the prosecution’s witness. He tells Oliver that FBI agent Watson had evidence that he was Wild Dog and he had to testify or he would never see his daughter again. Dinah quits and Oliver kicks Rene off the team.
To make matters worse, Cayden James needs that device. Oliver has Curtis sabotage the device and prepares to deliver it to him when he realizes that he needs Team Arrow. After a heart to heart with his sister Thea, he comes to the understanding that Rene had no choice and he understands his plight. Oliver gets the team back together to rescue Quinten. Oliver doesn’t completely trust them, so he orders them to wait back while he does all the grunt work. Rene and Curtis would rather look for Quinten, so they abandon their post while Oliver and Dinah deal with Cayden’s men. Turns out, Rene was right and he and Curtis almost save Quinten. Quinten turns out was saved by none other than Black Siren, who has a sweet spot for her Earth-1 father.
Even though Quinten is safe from harm, Oliver is angry that Rene wasn’t there for him. Rene points out that he was right to do so, but that falls on deaf ears. Oliver kicks him off the team once again. Dinah and Curtis also quit the team as Oliver didn’t trust them 100% either. Dinah seeks out Vigilante, the only person she can talk to, even though she told him earlier that she would stop him.
It turns out that this was orchestrated by Cayden James all along. He has his own version of “Team Arrow” that wants to take down Oliver and his team. Anatoly, Dragon, Black Siren, and even Vigilante join him relishing in the fact that Team Arrow has disbanded as they look on a spycam Black Siren placed in the Arrow Cave during her last visit. With Team Arrow disbanded, they are free to carry out whatever they want.
Director Scooter Corkle’s debut feature Hollow in the Land is a dirt-covered thriller about the crime and prejudice burned deeply into the fabric of a snow-covered small mountain town that’s seen better days. A detective story of sorts, it stars Glee‘s Dianna Agron as Alison, a hardworking young woman trying to do everything she can to repair the reputation of her infamous family after her brother disappears from a murder scene, leaving him a top suspect. The film has an almost neo-noir feeling to it, as we watch Alison follow leads from one person to another, using the tight-knit community to her advantage as she pieces together what really happened. The “hard-boiled detective” similarities stop there though, as if Corkle was more interested in using the story conventions of a noir than he was in exploring the style and tone associated with the genre. It’s less like the Joseph Gordon-Levitt film Brick and more like Winter’s Bone (and that’s not where the resemblance stops.)
Although it was nominated for several Oscars and propelled Jennifer Lawrence to stardom, I found 2010’s Winter’s Bone to be far too melodramatic for its own good. That film also follows a young woman trying to clear her family’s name against the backdrop of a crime-ridden American small town. The key difference to me is the manner in which the two films handle their depiction of the troubled lives at the center of the stories. Bone filled the life of Lawrence’s character with so many intense, heavy issues that it was almost laughable how unrealistically hellish her circumstances were. Hollow in the Land, on the other hand, found a way to explore the problems facing it’s protagonist without being exploitative, or letting them define her. Alison is her own person, fighting her way through a world that doesn’t want her or her family to be a part of it. Still reminiscent of Winter’s Bone, but, to me, far more compelling.
I actually found myself quite wrapped up in the story as the mystery unfolded. Which characters were telling the truth? Who was lying? Who knows who and why? The small-town thriller vibe really got under my skin for the majority of the run time.
Unfortunately, the ultimate resolution we’re given for events surrounding the murder fell kind of flat, and therefore weakened the potential impact of the ending. The third act of the film throws several twists and complications at us that I didn’t really feel a need for. Part of what made a majority of the movie so intense was the simplicity of its mystery. It was bare bones and harsh, just as cold as the environment it was set in. You were allowed to see the world through Alison’s perspective so easily because of how straightforward the narrative was, and for me, the complicated ending let out a lot of that steam.
The film is ultimately worthwhile. Although somewhat sporadically thrilling, Hollow in the Land is just about as icy and rough as a no-frills noir story should be. If you’re in the mood for some brutal small town hostility, this film is worth a watch.
I don’t know if HBO’s Big Little Lies needs a second season, probably not. It’d be great if it stayed one perfect miniseries full of incredible performances, thrills, shocks, and one beautifully open-ended finale. But if HBO is committed with moving forward, the surest way to get someone like me to watch is hiring Andrea Arnold to direct the whole thing.
Arnold, the supremely talented director behind Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights, and American Honey, will direct the 7-episode second season. This is huge even if most people don’t know who the heck Arnold is, because it hopefully means she’ll be getting more high-profile gigs. She’ll have a great returning cast to work with as Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Alexander Skarsgard (in flashback, I hope??) and Laura Dern are all coming back, and she’ll have support from original series director Jean-Marc Vallee as a producer, and David E. Kelley is writing the scripts again.
Is it too much to hope Arnold lures some of her previous leading ladies, maybe Kaya Scodelario and Sasha Lane, for roles? No way she could drag Katie Jarvis out of retirement, is there?
The prior season ended with the cops keeping an eye on the women of Monterey, who have conspired to hide a crime. Here’s hoping this doesn’t turn too much into a crime procedural. That’s what I tune into True Detective for. [Deadline]
Remember when you couldn’t go a day without there being some new YA franchise being launched? Twilight started it, The Hunger Games pretty much ended it, and others that have tried to start since, like Divergent, Beautiful Creatures, The Host, and others, have pretty much died on the vine. All except for The Maze Runner, which featured something those movies didn’t have; a mostly-male cast, and a mystery unlike any other. Now after a delay so star Dylan O’Brien could recover from an injury, the trilogy wraps up with Maze Runner: The Death Cure, and a new trailer has arrived.
O’Brien is joined by Rosa Salazar (Also in the new Alita: Battle Angel trailer), Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Ki Hong Lee, Patricia Clarkson, Aidan Gillen, Giancarlo Esposito, Barry Pepper, Walton Goggins, and more. Frankly, the synopsis can do a better job of explaining this thing than I ever could, but it’s really not about mazes anymore, is it?
In the epic finale to the Maze Runner saga, Thomas leads his group of escaped Gladers on their final and most dangerous mission yet. To save their friends, they must break into the legendary Last City, a WCKD-controlled labyrinth that may turn out to be the deadliest maze of all. Anyone who makes it out alive will get answers to the questions the Gladers have been asking since they first arrived in the maze.
Directed by Wes Ball, Maze Runner: The Death Cure opens February 9th 2018.
I find it difficult to believe, even now as the first trailer has arrived, that Alita: Battle Angel is actually happening. In the works for years and initially one of the projects James Cameron was going to do before deciding his future was all about Avatar, it now finds him in a producer/co-writer capacity and Robert Rodriguez of all people in the director’s chair. It’s the biggest project of Rodriguez’s career, even bigger than his Sin City movies, and it doesn’t look like anything he’s done previously.
Based on the cherished manga by Yukito Kishiro, the story centers on a broken down cyborg named Alita (played by Rosa Salazar, who is suddenly everywhere) who is discovered by and taken in by scientist Ido (Christoph Waltz) and raised as his daughter. The whole thing takes place in a dystopian future where Alita’s incredible fighting abilities prove useful.
The trailer looks great, although Alita’s giant manga eyes are super creepy, like one of those paintings from Waltz’s Big Eyes movie. I’m not sure how it’ll play with audiences who may feel burned by American adaptations of Japanese manga after the disappointing Ghost in the Shell.
Also starring Mahershala Ali, Keean Johnson, Eiza Gonzalez, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Skrein, Michelle Rodriguez, Lana Condor, and Jackie Earle Haley, Alita: Battle Angel opens July 20th 2018.
Sad news, Guillermo Del Toro, whose The Shape of Water is in theaters now and you should see it, has dropped out of his planned adaptation of Alvin Schwartz’s teen horror novels, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. The good news is that his replacement is pretty great.
Deadline reports Del Toro has been replaced on the CBS Films project by Trollhunter and The Autopsy of Jane Doe director, Andre Ovredal. The Norwegian filmmaker has knocked it out of the park with both of his movies, and knows how to make scary things…well, scary, but also fun. This could be great.
Del Toro has a problem in that he tends to attach himself to so many projects he can’t possibly do them all. He and Ridley Scott are the same in that way. But if it opens up a chance for Ovredal to get a major studio project to work with, that’s cool. He’ll be working from a script by John August (Big Fish) that “follows a group of young teens who must solve the mystery surrounding sudden and macabre deaths in their small town.” Not sure how that squares with the short story aspect of Schwarz’s novels, but I’m sure it’ll work out.
Merry Christmas! And just in time for the holidays, Disney is releasing the first look at next year’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, and it kinda looks like Cinderella meets Mirror Mirror. I guess that’s what they’re going for.
You may recall The Nutcracker played a part in Disney’s animated classic Fantasia, so this counts as yet another of their live-action remakes and will probably gross $1B. But at least it means you won’t have to sit through another performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet, either in person or on TV. The images reveal star Mackenzie Foy as Clara, who is whisked away to a magical new world where she encounters, among others, Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy. Clara must retrieve a magical key that unlocks a special gift from her godfather Drossmeyer, played by Morgan Freeman. She must venture into Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers, Land of Sweets and the dangerous Fourth Realm ruled by Mother Ginger, played by Helen Mirren. World class dancer Misty Copeland is lead ballerina for all of the dance sequences.
Directed by Lasse Hallstrom, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms opens November 2nd 2018. [EW]
