More actors are making the jump to filmmaking than ever before. The next to do so is The Last Airbender and Transformers: Age of Extinction actress, Nicole Peltz Beckham. And I’m sure that her hope for the gritty drama Lola is that it receives better reviews than either of the two movies I just mentioned.
Peltz does more than direct Lola; she also wrote the screenplay, produced, and starred as the titular Lola James. The story centers on the 19-year-old woman living in Midwest, who is scrounging up enough money to get her nine-year-old brother Arlo away from their abusive mother. The new trailer shows what a struggle this will be, as tragedy and an unexpected pregnancy upend her plans.
Also in the cast are Luke David Blumm, Virginia Madsen, Richie Merritt, Trevor Long, and Raven Goodwin.
This hardly looks like the kind of film one would expect from Peltz, who is married into the family of David and Victoria Beckham. But it’s also good to see her branching out into something new that could take her career even further.
Lola opens in theaters and VOD on February 9th. Here’s the synopsis followed by the trailer:
Set in 2002 Middle America, Lola revolves around nineteen-year-old Lola James (Peltz Beckham), who is desperately working to save enough money to get her little brother, Arlo (Luke David Blumm), out of their toxic home dominated by their mother, Mona (Madsen). All Lola wants is for Arlo to have a chance at the life she never had nor will. One tragic night, her whole world gets uprooted, and from that moment on, nothing will ever be the same.
For years I was super excited for them to make a Halo TV series or movie. It’s one of my favorite video game franchises ever, the Master Chief is hella cool, and the story is just made to be adapted into something bigger. Then it finally happened, on Paramount+, and two years later I still haven’t watched it. Forgot all about it. So color me shocked to be reminded of its existence by a trailer for season two, which arrives next month.
Pablo Schreiber returns as Master Chief, who is trying to convince people of the full extent of the Covenant threat to attack humanity where it least expects.
Schreiber is joined in the Halo cast by Natasha McElhone, Jen Taylor, Bokeem Woodbine, Shabana Azmi, Natasha Culzac, Olive Gray, Yerin Ha, Bentley Kalu, Kate Kennedy, Charlie Murphy, Danny Sapani, Joseph Morgan, Cristina Rodlo, and Christina Bennington, with Fiona O’Shaugnessy and Tylan Bailey as new series regulars.
Here’s the synopsis: In season two, Master Chief John-117 (Pablo Schreiber) leads his team of elite Spartans against the alien threat known as the Covenant. In the wake of a shocking event on a desolate planet, John cannot shake the feeling that his war is about to change and risks everything to prove what no one else will believe – that the Covenant is preparing to attack humanity’s greatest stronghold. With the galaxy on the brink, John embarks on a journey to find the key to humankind’s salvation, or its extinction: the Halo.
Steven Spielberg remains aboard as exec-producer, with Dave Wiener as showrunner and producer.
TheScream 7 drama is probably not over yet, but the directing team of Radio Silence, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, have at least one more chance to work with star Melissa Barrera in a horror movie. And this one might be the start of a franchise rather than another sequel. The title for their mysterious untitled horror has been revealed as Abigail, and while we knew it was inspired by a classic monster movie, we couldn’t have predicted how wild it would actually turn out to be.
As seen in the new trailer for Abigail, the film is a vampire movie about a group of criminals who discover that one of the girls they have kidnapped is far more dangerous than they ever could’ve known. Before long, it becomes clear that the kidnappers are the true captives here.
Joining Barrera in the cast are Alisha Weir, Dan Stevens, Kevin Durand, Kathryn Newton, Will Catlett, Giancarlo Esposito, and the late Euphoria actor Angus Cloud.
So that classic monster movie it was inspired by? That would be 1936 horror Dracula’s Daughter which influenced screenwriters Stephen Shields and Guy Busick.
Here’s the official synopsis: After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.
Abigail opens in theaters on April 19th, so we don’t have to wait long!
THE BEEKEEPER: I haven't forgotten you, Jason Statham! This was a January treat, a violent bit of wish fulfillment that saw Statham slaughter scammers and terrorize Josh Hutcherson with brutal efficency.
Move over, John Wick! The Beekeeper is here!
Nobody does occupational violence quite like Jason Statham. The Transporter, The Mechanic, and now The Beekeeper! This movie is goddamned insane, by far the craziest thing Statham has ever done. And I’ve seen both Crank movies where he was sticking jumper cables to his tongue. But that’s nothing compared to what he and director David Ayer, who has been at the helm of some wild shit himself (Suicide Squad, Bright), have cooked up. This is B-movie, gory wish fulfillment at its finest, and you are guaranteed to leave satisfied.
When I was trying to convince a friend of mine to go see The Beekeeper with me, she surmised the plot to be that “Statham is a guy who is a beekeeper but is really a kick-ass killer or something.” Well, she’s pretty much right on the nose. But she misses SO MANY of the details that make this movie awesome. Statham plays Adam Clay, a name that already sounds like it belongs to someone with some shit to hide, and he tends bees on isolated land owned by Eloise, played by the great Claire Huxtable…er, Phylicia Rashad. She takes care of him, and invites Clay to dinner, but y’know, he’s a man of mystery so he doesn’t say much. Have a nice laugh as we watch Statham tend to his hive of bees, canning dozens of jars of honey…for what, exactly? Does he use them to blackmail Winnie the Pooh? Whatever, before he can arrive at the dinner table, Eloise does the thing we all dread our grandparents doing. She falls for a phishing scam. With every excruciating moment that passes, we cringe as she presses the keys and answers the shady telemarketer’s questions that will doom her. All of Eloise’s accounts are drained, including a $2M charity she was overseeing. Her life’s saving and life’s work taken from her in moments, Eloise commits suicide.
Adam Clay ain’t having that shit.
When I say this movie is like “wish fulfillment”, I mean it. The only thing we hate more than phishing scams and telemarketers are white, rich, entitled pricks who cash in by taking advantage of older people. Well, they get their vicious comeuppance when Clay, who was once part of an elite black ops agency known as The Beekeepers, finds the address of the people who scammed Eloise. It seems the Beekeepers exist to protect society from corruption and to destroy those who are untouchable from our laws. In Clay’s idea of justice, he waltzes right past the security guards and into the call center, carrying two large gas cans. He then proceeds to humiliate and brutally attack the douchebag ringmaster of this operation, and burn the whole damn place down.
The Beekeeper is utterly ridiculous and excessive in just about every way, and that’s why it’s so damn good. We learn next to nothing about this secretive organization that Clay was a part of, but they are apparently so top-level that ex-CIA boss Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons, looking kinda befuddled to be there) barely knows of their existence. But he knows enough to tell his dickhead tech-billionaire employer Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), who happens to be the entitled kid of the President of the United States, that he’s as good as dead for ripping off all of those geezers and pissing off a Beekeeper. What are the Beekeepers exactly? The film suggests a long mythology where the title is passed down from agent to agent, with an almost Highlander-esque “there can be only one” code.
Later, we see Adam square off in an insane showdown with the current Beekeeper, Anisette, played by Megan Lee with crazy hair, high heels, and a pink trench. Oh, and a massive gatling gun on the back of her vehicle, which she proceeds to unload AT A GAS STATION ignoring all of the innocents and, y’know, the potential for massive explosive destruction. Are the Beekeepers so out-of-reach that they essentially undermine their own principles? These questions aren’t answered at all, and frankly, I didn’t really want them to be. Ayer and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer maximize the fun and not the details.
The Beekeeper is another movie that exists in response to John Wick. While the over-caffeinated guy sitting behind me kept shouting “He’s the next John Wick!!!”, this movie is nothing like what Keanu is doing over there. How could it be? Statham doesn’t do what Keanu does. The action isn’t slick or poetic at all, but it can be hilariously clever, like when Clay hogties a scammer to a truck then sends the vehicle hurtling into the water; the poor guy dragged behind like a parachute. Waves of goons, including Lazarus (Taylor James), an oversized South African who claims to have killed a Beekeeper (barely, hence his metal leg), show up for Clay to murderize with ease. Statham is one of those actors who, despite his gritty street-level looks and attitude, is fiercely protective of his on-screen reputation. Clay doesn’t take a lot of damage and is basically a superhero mowing down a bunch of normals. That’s fine, too, when you’re talking about a movie where the bad guys are so universally loathsome and you just want to see them get what they deserve.
Other characters orbit the Beekeeper but they don’t hold a ton of interest except for the high quality of actors playing them. Emmy Raver-Lampman plays Eloise’s daughter, an FBI agent who in any other movie would go on the bloodthirsty rampage of vengeance that Clay embarks on. Instead, she sorta waffles between wanting to see Clay dish out punishment, and to see these guys actually face justice. Instead, she becomes the typical one-step-behind cop who does nothing. Minnie Driver as the current FBI honcho talks a lot on the phone but doesn’t do a lot. She gets the menial task of ordering up more losers for Clay to beat up.
One of the best, and silliest, components of The Beekeeper is its fascination with actual bee culture. Clay sees himself as a protector of the hive, but that doesn’t apply to the Queen, who in this case would be the current President. Instead, Clay regards himself as a “queenslayer”, which is a bee that will kill the queen if she has defective offspring. Let’s see…a mother who lets her son exploit this country’s most vulnerable citizens? Of all the ways for the first female President to see her administration ruined, being the target of a beekeeper with a bug fetish couldn’t have been on anyone’s list. But that’s part of why this movie is so damned amazing. It doesn’t always make sense, but by the time you’ve watched Jason Statham kick over the hornet’s nest, you’ll leave the theater buzzing to see him do it again.
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland had a pretty good run of movies in the 2000s, beginning when the director adapted Garland’s book, The Beach, into a cult favorite Leonardo DiCaprio movie. That followed with Boyle directing Garland’s screenplays for 28 Days Later, followed by 2007’s underrated sci-fi film, Sunshine. A sequel to 28 Days Later, titled 28 Weeks Later, arrived that same year but Boyle had moved on, and the partnership never got back together. They had beef for a while but eventually made up.
There has been years of talk about a sequel to 28 Weeks Later that would reunite Boyle and Garland, and now it’s finally happening. THR reports that a new sequel, titled 28 Years Later, is being pitched as a potential trilogy to studios and streamers. Boyle will direct the first movie, with Garland aboard to write all three. Sounds like we could see Boyle move to a producer role for any follow-up films, as he did with 28 Weeks Later. The budget for each film is expected to be around $75M.
Opening in 2002, 28 Days Later was a breakout film for Cillian Murphy, but also featured Naomie Harris, and Brendan Gleeson. It’s set in London after the fallout of a viral infection, the “rage virus”, that transforms people into fast-moving predators. The film was credited with resurrecting the zombie genre, even though it isn’t technically a zombie movie.
Boyle’s most recent film was pre-pandemic, 2019’s Beatles-inspired comedy, Yesterday. Garland has branched out into his own directing career with Ex Machina, Annihilation, Men, and this year’s thriller, Civil War. He has said
Expect a major studio to scoop 28 Years Later up quickly. Fans have been clamoring to see this franchise reborn, myself included, and if they can somehow get Cillian Murphy back…
The streaming era has been very good to Star Trek. On Paramount+, the franchise has grown by leaps and bounds with multiple shows earning high marks from fans. However, there hasn’t been a big-screen movie since 2016’s Star Trek Beyond, and it performed so poorly any sequels have been in limbo ever since. Well, that’s about to change. For real, this time.
So while this isn’t the long-developing, embarrassing-at-this-point Star Trek 4, Deadline confirms that a new film expanding on the reboot universe created by JJ Abrams is in the works. The film will be a prequel origin story set decades before the 2009 Star Trek led by Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Zoe Saldana. Abrams’ Bad Robot Production will produce.
Behind the camera will be Andor director, Toby Haynes, with Seth Grahame-Smith (Dark Shadows, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) writing the screenplay.
As for that fourth movie with Pine and the crew, it’s supposedly still in the works and expected to be the final chapter. You might recall that Paramount has announced it many different times, but whether it was due to the cast not being signed, or Quentin Tarantino riding in with a movie of his own, or whatever, the project never got off the ground and everyone looked kinda silly for it.
The question is whether Trek fans, conditioned to get their fix in multiple successful streaming shows, will support a theatrical movie disconnected from them.
Sorry, Sasha Calle fans. While there was a groundswell of support for the actress to carry on as Supergirl following her impressive debut in The Flash, that doesn’t appear to be happening. James Gunn has his own plans for the DCU, and the upcoming Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow movie. And now we’re seeing some of those plans take shape as a handful of actresses vying for the role of the Kryptonian.
According to Deadline, House of the Dragon breakout Milly Alcock, CODA star Emilia Jones, and The Winchesters actress Meg Donnelly are testing to play Supergirl. It could be that Donnelly has a leg up on her competitors, as she already voices Supergirl in the animated movies Legion of Super-Heroes and Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths.
While there is a writer, Ana Nogueira, there’s no director attached to the film yet. It’s Gunn who is deeply involved in the casting right now, which suggests we could see Supergirl in his Superman: Legacy movie coming in 2025. Maybe in a post-credits tag?
There are five movies that are part of DC Studios’ opening chapter, titled “Gods and Monsters”. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is going to be a key cog, and whoever lands that role is going to be very busy for a long time.
Well, there’s good news and bad news! First, the bad. One of the most anticipated movies of the year is Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17, his follow-up to Best Picture winner, Parasite, and it’s just been pulled from its March release date by Warner Bros. While that indeed does suck, it opens up a spot for another movie that a certain group of fans is eager for: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
Talk about courting different audiences with this one. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empiremoves up two weeks and into the March 29th slot vacated by Mickey 17. This wasn’t some vindictive move by the studio, or even proof of a troubled production. According to reps, the dual strikes had an impact on things and so the film will take a bit longer to be ready. No biggie.
Mickey 17 stars Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo. Pattinson plays a “disposable” employee, who takes on dangerous jobs and is eventually replaced by newer clones. Finally, one decides he doesn’t want to be replaced.
As for the latest Monsterverse Godzilla movie, it is the sequel to 2021’sGodzilla vs. Kong, and is once again directed by Adam Wingard. The cast is led by Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, Kaylee Hottle, Alex Ferns, Rachel House, and Fala Chen. No longer clashing, Godzilla and Kong must take on a new threat to Hollow Earth and the surface world.
Just in time for the release shuffle, a new international trailer offers some never-before-seen footage. You can check it out below.
Can you tell that we’re starting to get close to the start of production on The Last of Us season two? With the Internet still buzzing over the casting of Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, Variety reports that Beef actor Young Mazino has landed another key role from the video game.
According to the report, Young Mazino will take on the role of Jesse in the second season of The Last of Us. Jesse is a key supporting character in The Last of Us Part II, playing a friend to Ellie who joins her on a quest that is best left a secret for those who don’t know the plot already. Jesse is part of a community of survivors in the post-apocalyptic landscape where a fungal virus takes over human bodies and transforms them.
Mazino is best known for his breakout role as Paul Cho in the Netflix series Beef. Coming up for him is the horror film Opus alongside Ayo Edibiri, Amber Midthunder, and John Malkovich, so Mazino’s star is definitely on the rise.
It looks as if The Last of Us season two will begin production soon, and we can probably expect to see it hit HBO in 2025.
As usual when Paul Thomas Anderson has a new film in the works, rumors run rampant about the cast he’s putting together. That’s what happens when your first few movies are as stacked as Anderson’s tend to be, and that includes his most recent, Licorice Pizza. Well, it turns out many of the rumors are true, as Deadline reports Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, and Sean Penn will lead Anderson’s untitled movie.
Details on the project are few, but the story is said to involve a young Black girl training in martial arts. DiCaprio is expected to play her mentor, which is funny in and of itself. A huge ensemble is expected for this one, probably something like Anderson’s Boogie Nights, so expect a lot of casting news to drop. It’s unclear who will play the young girl at the center of the story, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Anderson reached out to an unknown about it.
This is a long time coming, this chance for Anderson and DiCaprio to finally work together. People might remember that DiCaprio was initially up for the Dirk Diggler role in Boogie Nights that went to Mark Wahlberg. Why? Because DiCaprio decided to do some movie called…let me see here…Titanic.
