“Promising Young Woman” Writer/Director Emerald Fennell Will Pen “Zatanna” For DC Films
Emerald Fennell is having a very good start to her week and a very good year, period. The talented actress, writer, and director just nabbed the WGA Award for original screenplay this past Sunday night for her feature Promising Young Woman, which also garnered five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. Then came Monday, March 22, when Deadline revealed that Fennell will be penning the DC movie Zatanna for Warner Bros...
“The Mitchells vs. The Machines” Brings Tech-Anarchy to Netflix This April
The Mitchells vs. The. Machines has the kind of A-list cast and top-flight pedigree you like to see in your animated comedies. Hailing from the folks who brought you a little film called Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the new feature focuses on the titular Mitchell family, trying to connect to each other in a world that wants them to connect to everything but each other. Sound familiar? Only the Mitchell’s battle against omnipresent technology is even more dire than our own—in their world,...
Oscar-Nominated Makeup Department Head Gigi Williams on “Mank”
David Fincher‘s Mank is the most Oscar-nominated film of the year, amassing ten, thanks to the beauty and brilliance of its black-and-white execution. One of those nominations belongs to makeup department head Gigi Williams, a veteran who picks her work based on her belief in the director. In Fincher, she was collaborating with one of the most precise filmmakers in the business, and in Mank, working off a script from his father Jack Fincher,...
A New “Making The Snyder Cut” Video Reveals How This Epic Came to Be
By now you’ve seen Zack Snyder’s Justice League—if not, you’re going to want to step away from this Mother Box (JL joke!). If you did take in the Snyder Cut, you’re probably still parsing all the implications the film raised for the DCEU, and all the new stuff Snyder included in the film. The Anti-Life equation! The Martian Manhunter! Steppenwolf’s fealty, and fear, of Darkseid! And of course, that Joker cameo...
Early Reactions to “Godzilla vs. Kong” Revel in the Monster Melee
If you’re going to make a movie called Godzilla vs. Kong, you know the most important thing to do is get the title fight right. It sounds as if director Adam Wingard succeeded in that first and most crucial respect. It almost goes without saying that in almost all of these mega-monster movies, the human characters are often filler (and also very often a snack for the titans). It’s hard to share the screen with someone forty, or four-hundred,...
“In The Heights” Coming to Theaters & HBO Max One Week Early
Good news on a Friday is extra sweet. Director John M. Chu’s In the Heights will be arriving a full week early. Chu’s film, adapted from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s and Quiara Alegría Hudes’s musical was slated for a June 18 release, but you can now expect it in theaters and on HBO Max on June 11. The change comes a few days after the release of two new trailers, which jacked up the already considerable excitement for the film...
New “Godzilla vs. Kong” Photos Reveal Fight of the Century
Warner Bros. has released a Godzilla-sized cache of new photos for their upcoming battle of the titans, Godzilla vs. Kong. We’ve seen enough footage now to know that director Adam Wingard’s film is at least setting us up to root for Kong here. That was made evident in the first trailer, where we learned that Kong seemed to be the protector of an orphaned girl named Jia (Kaylee Hottle). As we wrote at the time,...
An Update on How “Black Widow” Will Be Released
So the good news is, we are going to see director Cate Shortland’s Black Widow, almost certainly in theaters, this year. Let’s just take a moment to appreciate this fact. As with all the major, would-be 2020 releases, Black Widow underwent several delays due to Covid-19 and was eventually moved entirely to 2021. As of today, it’s slated for a May 7 release.
The question has been exactly how Disney will release Black Widow...
“Justice League” Premiere Day: Ryan Reynolds, Jared Leto’s Ad-Lib & More
Don’t worry, we haven’t just spoiled Ryan Reynolds making a cameo in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, but it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility. Now that we’ve made it to premiere day, a final flurry of Justice League reveals feels like a fitting capstone to our countdown. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Snyder reveals, among other things, that yes, he had envisioned Reynolds appearing in Justice League,...
How “Justice League” Producer Deborah Snyder Re-Assembled Superheroes
You may have heard we’re one day away from the premiere of a little film called Zack Snyder’s Justice League on HBO Max. It’s been a long, winding road from the theatrical release of Justice League back in 2017 to March 18, 2021, and there would be no new-and-improved superhero epic without producer Deborah Snyder. Snyder worked alongside her husband Zack to not only convince WarnerMedia that a Snyder Cut was worth it but to make it possible to pull it off in the midst of a global pandemic...
Oscar Nominees Mia Neal & Sergio Lopez-Rivera on the Hair & Makeup of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”
I got a chance to speak to hair department head Mia Neal and makeup artist Sergio Lopez-Rivera about their work in George C. Wolfe’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom before the Oscar nominations were announced. Tasked with, among other challenges, turning Oscar-nominee Viola Davis into the real-life Ma was no easy feat, least of all because there wasn’t a ton of photographic evidence to work with. Add to that scorching temperatures during much of the shoot (they filmed in Pittsburgh in the summer of 2019) and the heavy makeup,...
New “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” Images Reveal Super-Sized Epic
We’ve shared the early reactions, the final trailer, and now, a huge cache of new photos—all there’s left to do is watch the darn thing. At long last, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is upon us, premiering on HBO Max on March 18. With a runtime of four hours, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is easily the longest superhero film ever released—longer than both Avengers: Infinity and Avengers: Endgame. Yet thanks to these strange times we live in,...
“The Mauritanian” Director Kevin Macdonald on Telling Mohamedou Slahi’s Story
The Mauritanian director Kevin Macdonald has plumbed the depths of state-sanctioned terror before, notably in his riveting 2006 film The Last King of Scotland, featuring a ferocious performance by Forest Whitaker playing Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. His work in The Mauritanian might seem, on first blush, to be another trip to the dark side. Yet Macdonald’s film, led by stellar performances from Jodie Foster, Benedict Cumberbatch, and, most crucially, Tahar Rahim,...
Your 2021 Oscar Nominations are Here
The 93rd Academy Awards will air live, on ABC, this April 25, and your nominees are officially in. This year marked the first time the Academy waived the requirement that a film had to have a limited theatrical release in order to qualify, a nod to our shared reality in which the pandemic laid waste to the film release schedule, thousands of theaters were closed, and many big titles were delayed.
Without further ado, let’s get to the nominees...
The First Reactions to “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” Are Here
Earlier we shared what’s likely the final trailer for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and now we can provide the early reactions to the film from critics and journalists. With only a few days remaining until Snyder’s second crack at Justice League bows on HBO Max, there are people out there who can actually tell us whether all this hype and hoopla has paid off. We know Snyder’s film is a four-hour extravaganza (luckily,...
“The Batman” Wraps Filming as Director Matt Reeves Shares Image From Set
And that’s a wrap, folks. Writer/director Matt Reeves The Batman has finally wrapped, which means that its March 4, 2022 release date feels entirely realistic now.
The last Batman-related news we got was in early January when it was revealed that Robert Pattinson, Ben Affleck, and Michael Keaton would all be playing the Caped Crusader in 2022. DC Films president Walter Hamada confirmed that the three actors will portray Gotham’s greatest in films set in parallel worlds...
New Trailer for “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” Reveals Darkseid’s Evil Plan
We are a mere three days away from the long-awaited release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. To that end, HBO Max has released the second trailer, with Snyder’s return to his epic superhero ensemble premiering this Thursday, March 18, on HBO Max.
The new trailer brings Darkseid (Ray Porter) into the center of the action, with his mission to maul a divided planet finally revealed. The basic gist of Darkseid’s plan seems very solid,...
Ryan Coogler Shares Heartbreak of Writing “Black Panther 2” Without Chadwick Boseman
Writer/director Ryan Coogler spoke to Jemele Hill on a recent episode of her podcast Jemele Hill is Unbothered and shared the heartbreak, and the difficulty, of writing the script for Black Panther 2 without Chadwick Boseman. Boseman’s passing on August 28, 2020, at 43 years old, shocked his millions of fans worldwide, as it did the filmmaking community where he so respected and adored. Boseman had been quietly undergoing treatment for colon cancer while maintaining his busy work schedule,...
Future Critics: Elisa Monagas on the “Frozen” Franchise, Hermione Granger & More
In our first installment of our Future Critics series, sixth-grader and East Coaster Benji Cherukuri schooled us on the work of composers Nicholas Britell and Hans Zimmer. In our newest installment, eighth-grader and West Coaster Elisa Monagas gives us the goods on two epic film series, Frozen and Harry Potter, as well as sharing what she plans on being when she grows up (reader, we were both surprised and delighted)...
“Cherry” Composer Henry Jackman Lets Loose on the Russo Brother’s New Film
Composer Henry Jackman began composing his first symphony at the age of six. He has since risen to become one of film’s top composers, by leveraging both his classical training and his experience as a record industry producer. His diverse credits include working with Hans Zimmer on The Dark Knight, as well as many scores of his own, including Wreck-It Ralph, Kong: Skull Island, and Captain Phillips. He has been a longtime collaborator with producer/directors Joe and Anthony Russo,...
