Revel in 80 Seconds Worth of “Black Is King”
If you haven’t yet watched Beyoncé’s Black Is King on Disney+, this new teaser is designed to seep, image after beautiful image, into your frontal lobe until you decide to watch it. It’s a gorgeous sprint through some of Black Is King‘s most arresting images. Like a perfectly crafted remix, the teaser samples from the work of Beyoncé and her vast, prodigiously talented creative team and hooks you in. In short, it’s irrefutably beautiful...
Hilary Swank Heads for Mars in New Trailer for “Away”
The pull of the Red Planet is such that it could qualify as its own Martian genre, which itself would encompass everything from horror to heartfelt, reality-based to rococo. From Ridley Scott’s The Martian to Andrew Stanton’s John Carter to Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! to Simon Wells Disney animated Mars Needs Moms, we keep going back to our nearest planetary neighbor, with a staggeringly diverse set of results. Even in movies about other planets,...
DC’s FanDome Event is Bringing Together a Truly Epic Roster
With this year’s Comic-Con reduced to an online event that, try as it might, could never satiate the appetite millions of fans have for Hollywood’s superhero industrial complex, DC’s FanDome Event promises to do its level best to make up for it. The lineup for FanDome—heading your way, for free, on August 22—is truly massive. So who will be there (virtually), you wonder? Check out the full lineup in this mesmerizing tweet from DC Comics. Just don’t blink...
Zack Snyder Reveals His New Version of Steppenwolf for “Justice League”
As we approach Warner Bros. and DC’s epic virtual FanDome event on August 22, we’re starting to get some juicy details on upcoming films. One of those films is Zack Snyder ‘s Justice League, arguably HBO Max’s most hotly-anticipated title.
The tentatively titled Zack Snyder’s Justice League will feature a brand version of the villain Steppenwolf (played by Ciarán Hinds), who was the big bad in the original,...
The Intriguing Possibilities For “Captain Marvel 2” With Nia DaCosta Directing
The news that Little Woods and Candyman writer/director Nia DaCosta will be helming Captain Marvel 2 was that rare occurrence of receiving a piece of purely joyous information. For admirers of DaCosta—that list is long and growing—her nabbing the job means that the sky (and cosmos) is the limit for where Marvel’s most potent superhero might go next. Yet savvy fans of the Captain Marvel franchise, both within the MCU and especially those familiar with writer Kelly Sue DeConnick’s beloved run in the comics,...
Asia Pacific Screen Academy Filmmakers Deliver Diverse Storytelling
Over the last decade, some of the Academy members of the Asia Pacific Screen Academy have benefited from receiving grants from the MPA APSA Academy Film Fund. We asked the Chair of the Fund, Andrew Pike, to provide us with a status update on some of the recent projects and the legacy that the Fund is helping to create in the Asia Pacific region.
For 10 years now, the MPA APSA Academy Film Fund,...
Charlie Kaufman’s New Netflix Film & Ridley Scott’s New HBO Max Series Drop Trailers
Hot trailers alert! The trailer for I’m Thinking of Ending Things, the long-awaited next film from writer/director Charlie Kaufman is here (it’s the first live-action film he’s directed in a decade). So, too, is the official trailer for Raised By Wolves, Ridley Scott’s new HBO Max sci-fi series. Lots to be excited about here folks.
Let’s begin with Scott’s series. We all know that Scott made his name with sci-fi,...
“Candyman” Director Nia DaCosta Will Helm “Captain Marvel 2”
Director Nia DaCosta is going from Chicago’s Cabrini Green to the cosmos. Deadline broke the story and Variety has confirmed that DaCosta, the director behind the hotly anticipated reimagining of Candyman, will helm Captain Marvel 2 for Marvel, replacing Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. DaCosta will be directing off a script from WandaVision story editor Megan McDonnell.
DaCosta becomes the first Black woman to direct a film for Marvel,...
James Gunn Reveals “The Suicide Squad” Logo Ahead of FanDome Event
Warner Bros and DC are going to unleash more movie news in a single day at their upcoming FanDome event on August 22 than we’ve had in a long, long while. Getting in on that action a little earlier, writer/director James Gunn and the cast of his upcoming reboot/reimagining/semi-sequel The Suicide Squad took to Twitter to share some good vibes and great graphic design work.
First, Gunn revealed the film’s official logo...
New “Avatar 2” Images Tease Submersible Called The Crabsuit
James Cameron’s Avatar 2 resumed filming in New Zealand in late May. Since then, producer Jon Landau has been a one-man Avatar update machine, revealing photos from set that have kept us apprised of what’s happening with Cameron’s long-gestating follow-up. The latest is a look at the brand new submersible the “Crabsuit.”
It’s well known that Cameron is a real-life ocean adventurer, having piloted a minisubmarine of his own design to the bottom of the planet’s deepest recess some seven miles beneath the western Pacific Ocean in 2012...
“Mulan” Heading to Disney+ This September
We were really, really excited for director Niki Caro’s upcoming live-action remake of Mulan to hit theaters. This was, of course, before COVID-19 raged across the planet. Due to the pandemic, Caro’s epic, originally scheduled for a March 27 release, now becomes the first big-budget potential blockbuster to forgo a major theatrical run. Instead, Mulan will head to Disney+ and select theaters simultaneously on September 4.
This warrior’s tale told with the kind of sweeping,...
Emmy-Nominated Production Designer Ruth Ammon on “The Alienist”
For Emmy-nominated production designer Ruth Ammon, life as a production designer started when she was waiting tables at the Jersey Shore—and a small, independent film blew into town.
“I’d studied art and art history and I was a painter, and then this little after school special, Mystery at Fire Island, came to the island and I got on the crew, in the art department,” Ammon says. “I knew instantly that’s what I wanted to do...
Sam Neill Reveals Set Photo From “Jurassic World: Dominion”
We were living in a completely different world when it was revealed that Jurassic Park‘s original trio was returning for Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic Park: Dominion. Not only did we learn that Laura Dern’s Dr. Ellie Sattler, Sam Neill’s Dr. Alan Grant, and Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm were all set to return, but that their roles would be sizable. This marked the first time the trio has been together since they starred in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 original Jurassic Park...
See President Obama Through a Brilliant Lens in “The Way I See It”
Director Dawn Porter seems to be on a personal mission to capture American giants. The director/producer’s last film was the heartbreakingly timely, must-watch documentary John Lewis: Good Trouble, about the late, great Georgia congressman, Civil Rights activist, and American legend. Her upcoming film is based on the work of renowned photographer Pete Souza, chronicling his time in the White House working for Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.”
“I know what happens in the Oval Office,”...
“An American Pickle” Director Brandon Trost Tackles Two Seth Rogens
In many ways, An American Pickle is unlike any comedy Seth Rogen has done before. And that’s one reason Brandon Trost, a cinematographer who has worked extensively with Rogen, including on such films as This is the End, Neighbors, The Interview and The Disaster Artist, chose it for his directorial debut.
For starters, the HBO Max original (premiering on August 6) offers one of the year’s more unusual plotlines...
Every Piece of Armor Thor Has Worn in the MCU
It’s Monday morning. It’s Monday morning in a pandemic, no less. This means you need something to get your mind off the pending week and so, so much more. To that end, how about a video showing every piece of armor Thor (Chris Hemsworth, obviously) has worn throughout his long career in the MCU? Very well then!
This new video revealed by Marvel Entertainment takes us all the way back to director Kenneth Branagh’s 2011 Thor,...
How Justin Simien Schools Viewers in “Dear White People”
On one hand, Dear White People creator Justin Simien was thrilled to see a 600 percent increase in viewership for his Netflix series in the wake of George Floyd’s death. On the other hand, he says, “It’s also a little bit annoying because like, ‘Where were y’all when we started this conversation with this franchise six years ago when this [racism] was just as relevant then as it is now?'”
In tracking the trials and tribulations of wise-cracking Black students at an Ivy League-level fictional school called Winchester University,...
Beyoncé’s “Black is King” Has Arrived
On Sunday, June 28th, the BET Awards celebrated its 20th anniversary and 40th network anniversary. Shortly after the show wrapped, I skimmed Twitter for some reviews. That’s when my phone began to ping. And ping. And ping. It was a little after 1 a.m. My phone never goes off past 11 PM— my family and friends know I’m in bed by then. I got a little worried, wondering what was going on.
But then I saw it—Beyoncé...
Join Our Latest Virtual Film School Friday Chat on The Future of Awards
This year’s awards season will be unlike any other. This is hardly surprising considering 2020 is a year unlike any other, and the entertainment industry has had to reshuffle, rethink, and restructure itself on the fly like so many other sectors of our society. Just recently, the Emmy’s announced they’d be producing the show remotely due to COVID-19, with host Jimmy Kimmel and all of the nominees coming together virtually to deliver the show.
With this (and a whole lot more,...
Showtime Reveals “The Comey Rule” Trailer
And there you have it, our first look at Brendan Gleeson channeling Donald Trump in Showtime‘s The Comey Rule. The miniseries is based on former FBI Director James Comey‘s best-selling book “A Higher Loyalty,” adapted and directed by Billy Ray. The new trailer not only reveals our first good look at Ray’s new series but also that, per his request, it will be premiering before election day, over two days on September 27 and 28...
