“Extraction 2” Trailer Finds Chris Hemsworth’s Tyler Rake Back From the Dead
There was never really a question of whether Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) was going to survive his seemingly fatal fall at the end of Extraction—the question was, and remains, what his survival would mean for his future. In the official trailer for Extraction 2, this question is posed to Rake as he reappears on the scene in a hail of gunfire, doing his level best to get a family out of the crosshairs of some seriously sinister individuals...
“Barry” Editor Ali Greer on Cutting Her Way Through a Brilliant Final Season
Ali Greer has been so focused on editing the fourth season of Barry that it didn’t truly dawn on her that the hit HBO comedy about the master assassin/would-be actor was coming to a close.
“Tomorrow will be my last day. We have our final sound mix on the series finale… tomorrow… yes,” Greer says during a recent Zoom call. “This is the first time I’ve thought about it. You’re always putting your head down and working.”
Greer,...
New “Fast X” Video Reveals Battle Royale Between Letty & Cipher
Fast X races into theaters in just a few days, and to hype the tenth installment in the venerable gearhead-turned-hyper action thriller, Universal has revealed one of the major sequences in the film—a fight between Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Cipher (Charlize Theron). Their hand-to-hand combat comes inside a medical ward in a black site prison at night. We can give you these details because the new video even offers a glimpse at the script page, which includes this bit of Michael Buffer-level fight night hype:
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How “Poker Face” Production Designer Judy Rhee Built a Winning Hand
Already renewed for a second season, the Rian Johnson-created series Poker Face garnered universally enthusiastic reviews and built a passionate following ever since its first episode dropped in late January. Johnson has said Poker Face was built in the tradition of the great crime series of the 70s and 80s, including Columbo and Quantum Leap. As such, each episode is constructed to stand as its own “How Dunnit” (a twist on the “Whodunnit”),...
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” Composer John Murphy Channels Rocket’s Emotional Journey
“It felt, to me, that this might be the most important of the Guardians for James [Gunn],” says Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 composer John Murphy after reading the script. “What struck me was how much darker the story was compared to the first two films. When I say darker, I mean emotionally within the characters. It became obvious the story descended upon Rocket [voiced by Bradley Cooper] and it was fascinating to have all this backstory revealed and to find out how Rocket came to be and what shaped the character.”
Exploring Rocket’s emotional roots became the North Star for Murphy in composing the score for Gunn’s third and reported final installment to the space saga...
Inside “Succession” Episode 8: A Grim Election Night for America Goes From Thriller to Horror
For a healthy portion of Succession’s viewing audience last night, the antepenultimate episode, “America Decides,” was not an easy watch. The episode shone a bright, pitiless light on old wounds and deep scars from the 2016 American presidential election when a seemingly improbable, far-right fantasy became an inescapable and very real living nightmare.
The episode centered on Election Night in the United States, playing out across voting districts from Milwaukee to Maricopa County in Arizona,...
James Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy” Will Begin Filming in Early 2024
James Gunn has revealed that his hotly-anticipated Superman: Legacy will begin filming in January 2024. In a conversation with Wired, Gunn answered a slew of questions about the future of DC Studios, which he co-heads along with Peter Safran, and the sweeping changes they’ve made in an effort to create a completely unified DCU. Superman: Legacy will be the first feature released from their new DC Studios, which Gunn wrote and will direct...
“Hypnotic” Composer Rebel Rodriguez on Scoring The Robert Rodriguez/Ben Affleck Head-Trip Thriller
Rebel Rodriguez knew about Hypnotic even before the screenplay was written. The composer is one of the sons of its writer-director Robert Rodriguez, the famed helmer behind countless cult classics like From Dusk Till Dawn, the neo-noir stylized Sin City, Planet Terror, and the blood thirst avenge tour Machete. “This idea has been gestating for like 20 years,” says Rebel of Hypnotic, which stars Ben Affleck as a detective attempting to piece together clues to a string of mysterious bank heists...
“It Ain’t Over” Director Sean Mullin on Capturing the Brilliance of Yogi Berra
Even though It Ain’t Over is about Yogi Berra, one of baseball’s preeminent figures during his 18 seasons as catcher with the New York Yankees and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, director Sean Mullin says the “last thing I wanted to do was make a sports movie.” Instead, Mullin took as inspiration the Oscar-winning 1955 film Marty starring Ernest Borgnine as an Italian-American butcher from the Bronx.
“It’s one of my all-time favorite films and a beautiful love story,” says Mullin...
“Poor Things” Teaser Reveals Emma Stone Risen From the Dead
Emma Stone and filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos have reunited, and the world is a better place for it. After their delicious collaboration in Lanthimos’s excellent 2018 film The Favourite, Stone and Lanthimos are back with Poor Things, which is centered on Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman given a second shot at life after she’s brought back from the dead by the brilliant Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Lanthimos has made a string of unforgettable films,...
NBCUniversal Archivist Natalie Auxier Takes Us From “Jurassic Park” to “Fast X”
Natalie Auxier, the Manager of Collection & Outreach at NBCUniversal Archives & Collections, has something of a photographic memory. Given the rigors of her job, this ability makes sense, as does her passion for the collection she oversees.
“I think all of us archivists have a passion for this field. We love knowledge, and we go into this for the information,” Auxier says. “I would say this is across the board with all archivists—we love to do a deep dive into the collection...
“Freaky Friday” Sequel With Lindsey Lohan & Jamie Lee Curtis in the Works at Disney
Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis are re-teaming for a fresh crack at the body-swap comedy genre.
Curtis and Lohan are reprising their roles from their hit 2003 body-swap comedy Freaky Friday, where they played mother and daughter Tess and Anna Coleman, who wake up one Friday morning and found out that, you guessed it, they’ve swapped bodies. Insanity and hilarity ensued. The original film, directed by Mark Waters from a script by Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon and based on a Mary Rodgers novel from 1972,...
“What’s Love Got to Do With It?” Creator Jemima Khan on Her Singular Rom-Com
For her foray into romantic comedies, writer/producer Jemima Khan looked, in part, at her own life for inspiration. While living in Pakistan with her ex-husband and his family for many years, she witnessed firsthand the process behind arranged marriage, now termed assisted marriage, and eventually returned to her native U.K. with a unique perspective on this cultural norm (her own union developed organically). Couple this insight with interviews she conducted with people either considering or already in an assisted marriage and an inside track into the dating woes of friends,...
“Awkwafina is Nora From Queens” Composer Tangelene Bolton Drops the Needle
“I’ve been playing music since I was two or three, piano specifically, and then I was really into film starting in middle school, and I thought, ooh, maybe I’ll be a director one day,” says composer Tangelene Bolton, whose work can currently be heard on season three of Awkwafina is Nora From Queens. “I started experimenting with making a bunch of short films, and I realized the music heavily influenced how I approached cutting the footage and telling the story...
Director Dawn Porter Details a Complex First Lady in “The Lady Bird Diaries”
In filmmaker Dawn Porter’s newest documentary, The Lady Bird Diaries, Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Johnson speaks for herself. Porter’s film is based on 123 hours of audio diaries that Lady Bird recorded during the presidency of her husband, Lyndon Baines Johnson. The personal, often poignant diaries reveal the First Lady’s key role as her husband’s advisor and confidante during his tumultuous presidency.
“I knew very little about Lady Bird, though I knew a lot about President Johnson,” says Porter,...
Michael Keaton’s Batman Fights General Zod in New “The Flash” Teaser
“You want to get nuts? Let’s get nuts.” This is one of the most iconic lines from Michael Keaton’s time playing Batman, which began way back when with Tim Burton’s iconic 1989 film Batman and continued in Burton’s 1992 sequel Batman Returns. Keaton was on top of the world at the time, so it was surprising when he turned in his cape and cowl and was seemingly done with the role after those two films. We know now,...
“The Little Mermaid” First Reactions: Halle Bailey IS Ariel in Entirely Enchanting Performance
The first reactions are in for director Rob Marshall’s live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, and everyone is more or less in agreement that star Halle Bailey is absolutely phenomenal as the young mermaid Ariel. While Bailey is, understandably, getting the ocean’s share of love, her supporting cast is also coming in for plaudits, including Javier Bardem as Ariel’s father, King Triton, Melissa McCarthy as the sea witch Ursula, and Daveed Diggs and Awkwafina as Ariel’s beloved friends Sebastian (a crab) and Scuttle (a seagull),...
“Meg 2: The Trench” Trailer Reveals Jason Statham Taking on a Trio of Megalodons
Jason Statham versus a prehistoric shark, round two. It’s a conceit that’s both simple and irresistible, and it’s all we really need to know about Meg 2: The Trench. However, the first official trailer, released into the wild by Warner Bros., gives us even more reason to head to theaters this August. This is the stuff of summer movie magic, when the absurdity of a given premise is only the beginning of the fun. Just as the original Meg did in 2018, ...
“Queen Charlotte” Stars Golda Rosheuvel, Corey Mylchreest, & Arsema Thomas Spill the Tea
Ever since creator Shonda Rhimes brought the Bridgerton saga, based on Julia Quinn’s novels, to the screen, it has developed a loyal following. The series has found success eschewing the homogeneous casting of most period dramas, reimagining 19th-century Britain with an aristocracy representative of all colors and sizes.
The newest show in the Bridgerton Cinematic Universe is Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. The 6-part series will not only offer the backstory for fan favorites Charlotte and Lady Agatha Danbury;...
New “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” Clip Finds Prime Meeting Primal
Primal, meet Prime. You two will probably have a lot to talk about—that is, if you don’t kill each other first.
The two valorous Optimuses (or is it Optimi?), one Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) and the other Optimus Primal (voiced by Ron Perlman), meet in a brand new clip released by Paramount. But these two colossi aren’t the only ones who get to know each other in the forest; there’s a whole host of Autobots and Maximals,...
