Netflix revealed a brief but beguiling new teaser for Squid Game and a letter from creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, who teases some season two character reveals. These are the kind of actual details we’ve been waiting for.
You’re well aware by now that Squid Game‘s first season was an international sensation, so there’s been a lot of interest, and speculation, about what Hwang Dong-hyuk would do for season two. Hwang has been hard at work writing the follow-up, and it must have been a whirlwind experience coming on the heels of a first season that took him 12-years to get made. Once Netflix made season two official, we’ve been waiting with bated breath to find out something, anything, about where season two would take us. Now we’ve got some details, and some are better than none.
First, Netflix revealed this animated teaser, which is a close-up of the exceedingly unsettling giant doll that featured so lethally in one of Squid Game‘s twisted takes on a children’s game. In the episode that features this now-iconic giant doll, who is an animatronic version of Young-hee, a popular character in Korean kid’s textbooks, it’s during a game of “Red Light, Green Light.” The rules are simple, when the game leader calls out “green light,” everyone can dash towards the finish line. When the leader calls out “red light,” everyone must freeze. If you’re caught moving, you’re out. In Squid Game, if you were caught moving, you were more than out, as you’re well aware by now.
Then Netflix revealed the letter that Hwang Dong-hyuk wrote for fans. We’ve known that Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) would be returning considering he was the sole survivor of the first games. We also were pretty sure that Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), the operator of the game, would be back. Now we know that there’s a third possible returnee, the slapping man (a fan favorite even though he had a small role), played by Korean star Gong Yoo. He was the recruiter who convinced Gi-hun to participate in the games in the first place over the card-flipping game of ddakji.
Hwang also teased a new threat—Young-hee’s boyfriend, Cheol-su.
Deadlinehas a big scoop from the Marvel Cinematic Universe—Marvel Studios’ top-secret Thunderbolts movie now has a director. Jake Schreier, helmer of the 2013 Sundance hit Robot & Frank and 2015’s Paper Towns has been chosen to lead what could be a massive team-up movie, think Avengers only the central characters are villains (or at least antiheroes). Schreier is also a prolific music video director for stars like Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar, and recently helmed a new Netflix series called Beef, starring Steven Yeun and Ali Wong. If the film makes it into production, Schreier will lead the potential mega-movie from a script by Black Widow screenwriter Eric Pearson. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige will produce.
So who are the Thunderbolts? They’re a group of villains who are tasked by the government to go on a secret mission. Yes, it sounds a little Suicide Squad-y, but Thunderbolts will likely deploy some MCU fan favorites, as the villainous supergroup in the comics often included some very big Marvel characters.
These include two characters from Black Widow—Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and Olga Kurylenko’s villain Taskmaster, who we learned in the film was less a villain than a victim, but with some decidedly deadly skills. The list of potential Thunderbolt additions seems likely to include Daniel Brühl’s Baron Zemo, fresh from his adventures in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In the comics, Zemo is the founding member of the team, which, by the way, has been led at one point by Hawkeye. Might Jeremy Renner’s archer figure in the movie? It’s possible!
There’s also a possibility that Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Allegra de Fontaine, the shadowy HYDRA agent who popped up in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier could be included. Perhaps she’s the one pulling the strings.
There’s no word on casting, or the script, or much of anything else, but the fact that a director has been tapped means that Thunderbolts is gaining momentum.
For more on all things Marvel Studios, check out these stories:
Featured image: Yelena (Florence Pugh) in Marvel Studio’s “Black Widow,” in theaters and on Disney+ with Premiere Access. Photo by Kevin Baker. Courtesy Marvel Studios.
We’ve got our first image from HBO’s hotly-anticipated upcoming series The Last Of Us, with the show’s two leads, Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) as Joel and Bella Ramsey (Game of Thrones) as Ellie, looking haunted but resilient as they try to get to safety. The image was revealed during Thursday’s Summer Game Fest (the series is based on Naughty Dog’s PlayStation game of the name), when Neil Druckmann, the co-president of Naughty Dog and the co-creator, executive producer, writer, and director of the series, gave us our first peek at the show.
Along with the image, it was revealed that Ashley Johnson and Troy Baker, the two actors who voice Ellie and Joel in the mega-popular video games “The Last of Us” and “The Last of Us Part II,” will appear in the HBO series playing different characters. They’ll be joining Pascal, Rasmey, Gabriel Luna, Merle Dandridge, Nico Parker, Murray Bartlett, Nick Offerman, Jeffrey Pierce, and Anna Torv.
SANTA MONICA, CA – JULY 28: Actor Troy Baker (L) and actress Ashley Johnson perform a surprise alternative ending to The Last of US at The Broad Stage on July 28, 2014 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images for Sony Computer Entertainment America)
The Last Of Us is set 20-years after civilization has been obliterated, with Joel hired to smuggle Ellie out of the dangerous quarantine zone. This one job becomes a fraught, existential journey across a ruined United States with Ellie and Joel learning to rely on each other, realizing that they cannot make it alone.
Druckmann is working with Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin, who serves as co-creator, executive producer, writer, and director.
For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and HBO Max, check out these stories:
Five billion dollars into the dinosaur cinematic universe launched 19 years ago by Steven Spielberg, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum, the Jurassic franchise comes to an end — at least for now — with the Friday [June 10] release of Jurassic World: Dominion. Sixth in the series of popcorn spectacles famed for VFX recreations of prehistoric “apex predators,” Dominion sees legacy characters from the original trilogy joining forces with Jurassic World stars Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt on a quest to save the world from ecological catastrophe.
Co-authoring Jurassic World: Dominion with writer-director Colin Trevorrow is Emily Carmichael. A Harvard and NYU film school graduate, Carmichael caught Trevorrow’s attention in 2016 with her Sundance short film Hunter andSwann Discuss TheirMeeting. She then impressed Jurassic godfather Spielberg with her sci-fi spec script Eon and in 2018, co-wrote her first produced feature Pacific Rim: Uprising. Along the way, the industrious writer-director created seven more short films, two unproduced studio features, and a retro video game-inspired animation series The Adventures of Ledo and Ix. “The idea that you will make your first short film and it will be brilliant and you can make a feature off of that is super unrealistic,” Carmichael says. “You’re going to have to take a lot of swings.”
Emily Carmichael.
Carmichael checked in from Los Angeles to praise Malta, defend the virtues of exposition and explain why she didn’t get nervous pitching her vision Jurassic World: Dominion toSteven Spielberg
Congratulations on wrangling several dozen dinosaurs plus a giant cast of human actors into a single feature-length summer movie. Traditionally, a big Hollywood movie would probably just have one hero.
Yep.
By my count, Jurassic World Dominion has seven!
And that was a big challenge. We knew the legacy cast wanted to shine and we wanted our new characters to stand on their own in roles that could be unforgettable career turns for those actors. They’re all getting to do cool sh*t, so if the only criticism of the movie is “Too many heroes,” I’ll take it. The fact that we have this extremely dominant story form where it’s like, “White man saves the world and then kisses a skinny white lady – this is how real change in history happens.” That’s not how anything happens! It’s utterly false to the true nature of our species which is that we exist on the planet because we cooperate, and when we don’t cooperate, we die.
(from left) Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon) and Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise) in Jurassic World Dominion, co-written and directed by Colin Trevorrow. Courtesy Universal Pictures.
Given the size of the cast, how did you and Colin design the architecture of the story when it came to deciding how much weight to give each character or storyline? It must have been a huge balancing act.
A huge balancing act is right. One of the rules Colin and I always talked about is that we don’t want the audience to feel like they’re being ripped away from something they want to see more of or forced to watch something they want to see less. We want to be flowing with the audience and moving the audience’s attention where we want it to go. Watching the movie now, it’s easy to forget how many times it was like, “Oh man, now we’re cutting back to Laura [Dern] and Jeff [Goldblum] and they’re still just talking in this room, and they need to say this stuff so what are we going to do? Can we explode the room? Can we put some dinosaurs in there? [laughing].
(from left) Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise), Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and a Giganotosaurus in Jurassic World Dominion. Courtesy Universal Pictures.
[SPOILER ALERT] You certainly put plenty of dinosaurs on the island of Malta, where Bryce Dallas Howard’s character Claire leaps from building to building and Chris Pratt’s Owen roars down narrow streets on his motorcycle after getting entangled in this wild black market for endangered species.
[Gasping] Malta! I love that. It’s my favorite sequence of the movie. If I’m like 80 and my boyfriend’s grandkids are watching Jurassic World Dominion on TV and I shuffle into the doorway, if it’s the Malta sequence I’d stay and watch just because it’s so cool. Obviously, we’re ripping a page from the [Jason] Bourne playbook and the Bond playbook but we love the characters so much as they are hauling ass through this old European city that’s overrun by dinosaurs. The action’s just so fun.
(from left) An Allosaurus, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and a Carnotaurus in Jurassic World Dominion. Courtesy Universal Pictures.
Colin Trevorrow knows the Jurassic World universe inside and out, having launched the trilogy in 2015. What did he want you to bring to the table?
He brought me to the table to write the movie with him, no reason more and no reason less. If you hear somebody say that I was here to write the female characters, they are lying. If you hear somebody say I was here to do the relationships or dialogue pass, they are wrong.
A Dreadnoughtus in Jurassic World Dominion. Courtesy Universal Pictures.
So, writing the movie with Colin – – what did that entail?
Over a period of months, we had meetings in Santa Monica and in France. The early story conferences were stuff like [excited voice] “What if they bungee jump out of a plane while raptors are chasing them!” The later story conferences are like [calm voice] “Okay, we have bungee cords coming in at the bottom of act two and they seem to be gone by the time of act three so can we discuss how we’re going to manage that?” It goes from pie-in-the-sky fun and excitement to dealing with technical nuts and bolts.
From those story sessions those meetings you guys produced an outline, and then what?
I wrote the first pass of the script, except for one action sequence that Colin wanted to write. He was usually in England, I was here. I’d send my pass to him on DropBox, he’d send his version back to me. I’m realizing only now that I could have just said at some point: “Oh your revisions are great” but every time Colin sent the pages back to me I felt like, “I have to contribute more!” So I’d give my take on his take on my take on his take many times ad infinitum.
[SPOILER ALERT] Certain story elements were already in place when you started, right?
From Colin’s work with [Jurassic World co-writer] Derek [Connolly], I knew that two adventures collide. I knew that Ellie would be set into action by an ecological mystery and that Claire and Owen were going to be set into action by the kidnapping of their daughter. We knew those storylines would dip and crash with a lot of great action set pieces around the world before bringing everybody to BioSyn for act three when the characters have to escape this deadly dinosaur facility. The question was, do they need to be unified by more than that? And the answer really came from Steven. He was like, the two storylines – – the locusts, and [teenager] Maisie [Isabella Sermon] and [baby dinosaur] Beta — have to be connected. I lost a lot of sleep coming up with a scientific reason to unite all these characters. In my personal opinion, it could have been that both groups happened to be in the wrong dinosaur place at the wrong time, but a lot of other people went the other way and Spielberg was one of those people: “No. It can’t just be a random unlucky Thursday for both sets of characters. They have to be there for the same reason.”
A Mosasaurus in Jurassic World Dominion. Courtesy Universal Pictures.
Sequels often generate talk about “fan service” but “actor service” must be just important because you need to write roles that are interesting enough to attract the stars you have in mind?
When have a cast of revered actors, you’ve got to create drama and tension without anybody slipping on a banana peel. How can every character be awesome in a way that suits them without throwing anybody else under the bus? That was delicate and it took a lot of work. Getting the actors to say yes — I still remember Colin texting me, “They’re all in.”
(from left) A baby Nasutoceratops, Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) in Jurassic World Dominion. Courtesy Universal Pictures.
You didn’t shy away from “exposition” when it’s essential to understanding what’s going on in the story.
Dude, I’m so happy to hear you say that because that is exactly my whole thing as a screenwriter: just the fact that a character says information is not inherently bad. Some people get too precious about it. But ideally, a good exposition scene is emotional, like when Maisie is getting information from Dr. Wu [BD Wolng] about her mom. It’s not just information, it’s incredibly emotional information that changes the way she thinks about everything. And the other good exposition is when it makes you say “Oh sh*t.” Like, “There’s dinosaurs hiding over there.” “Oh sh*t.”
Being on a first-name basis with Steven Spielberg, who of course directed Jurassic Park in 1993, must be exciting. How did you meet?
The first time, I went up to him at a screening of Lincoln in New York, and I was like “Mr. Spielberg I’m a writer-director.” He said, “Oh how nice, now we’re going in to see Lincoln.” But the Jurassic interaction was this epic meeting at a stage when our outline was pretty exact. We’d practiced it. We’d pitched [Universal Pictures chairman] Donna [Langley] and [producer] Pat [Crowley]. They were like “We love it!” We color-coded our outline red and blue for the parts I would say and the parts Colin would say.
Were you nervous?
Honestly, I was less nervous than I would be in other circumstances because we have the job, and we’re already writing the movie. If Steven hated it and raised a bunch of objections, we would have dealt with it.
As it turned out, Spielberg liked your pitch?
I think he told us there needed to be more security guards in one of the action pieces. And then he showed us footage of West Side Story, and then we recorded video on a 3-D camera that he sent to [Lucasfilm President] Kathleen Kennedy. It was crazy, just hanging out.
In terms of tone, Jurassic World: Dominion has moments of humor here and there but for the most part, it feels pretty serious compared to earlier installments.
I had funny ideas about things that could happen but they’re not in the movie because Colin’s like, “No, this is a serious scene.” Whereas I’m not that kind of person. For me, there’s literally no upper limit on how many jokes you can have.
from left) Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise), Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and a Giganotosaurus in Jurassic World Dominion. Courtesy Universal Pictures.
Jurassic World: Dominion brings a kind of closure to a franchise that means a lot to moviegoers. What takeaway were you going for at the end?
Colin felt very strongly that he wanted the audience to feel safe and fulfilled. He wanted to give hugs to the world in its time of need. We started writing this movie in a situation of an impending ecological crisis which was then elevated by a pandemic. So our intention with this movie is to challenge audiences to step up and join the fight. It’s an optimistic message: If we take action, we will all be okay.
For more on Jurassic World: Dominion check out these stories:
Featured image: (from left) A Pyroraptor, Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise) and Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) in Jurassic World Dominion, co-written and directed by Colin Trevorrow.
Yesterday, Warner Bros. revealed the first trailer for Black Adam, giving us the first extensive look at Dwayne Johnson’s epic entrance into the DCEU. The studio also revealed a slew of images from the film, revealing not only Johnson’s titular antihero, but the Justice Society of America, or JSA for short. The question the trailer and the images asks is, can Black Adam and the JSA get along?
Black Adam will offer the first time any of these characters have appeared on screen, marking a major infusion of superhero chutzpah into the DCEU, which already includes the likes of Superman, Aquaman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Shazam. The JSA is comprised of Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Dr. Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), and Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo).
Of course, Black Adam will be centered on the man himself, with the trailer revealing that his origin story is a tragic one—when he was a mortal, he was a slave who was summarily executed. It was his son who manage to resurrect him, by sacrificing himself, a move that imbued Black Adam with the powers of the Egyptian gods. Yet it would take another 5,000 years before he was freed from his tomb, which is when Black Adam will largely be set, showing how this immensely powerful, ancient superhero deals with a modern world, and with the JSA themselves. Unlike them, Black Adam doesn’t play by any set of superhero rules or standards. His brand of justice is severe and final.
Director Jaume-Collet Serra has promised that Black Adam will be like the “Dirty Harry of superheroes,” as he told Variety, a pretty intriguing comparison. Black Adam’s willingness to operate in that grey area between good and evil will certainly separate him from the likes of Shazam, a goofy, lovable superhero who is decidedly the opposite of Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry.
In the images below, you’ll see some great shots of Johnson as Black Adam, Hodge as Hawkman, and Brosnan as Dr. Fate. With Black Adam due in theaters on July 29, you can be sure we’ll get another trailer (or two) soon, and a better look at all these new characters.
Check out the images below:
Caption: (L-r) SARAH SHAHI as Adrianna and MOHAMMED AMER as Karim in New Line Cinema’s action adventure “BLACK ADAM,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. PicturesCaption: (L-r) DWAYNE JOHNSON as Black Adam and ALDIS HODGE as Hawkman in New Line Cinema’s action adventure “BLACK ADAM,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Caption: (L-r) JALON CHRISTIAN as Hurut and DWAYNE JOHNSON as Black Adam in New Line Cinema’s action adventure “BLACK ADAM,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. PicturesCaption: PIERCE BROSNAN as Dr. Fate in New Line Cinema’s action adventure “BLACK ADAM,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. PicturesCaption: ALDIS HODGE as Hawkman in New Line Cinema’s action adventure “BLACK ADAM,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. PicturesCaption: DWAYNE JOHNSON as Black Adam in New Line Cinema’s action adventure “BLACK ADAM,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. PicturesCaption: DWAYNE JOHNSON as Black Adam in New Line Cinema’s action adventure “BLACK ADAM,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Here’s the brief synopsis for Black Adam:
Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the Egyptian gods—and imprisoned just as quickly—Black Adam (Johnson) is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.
Featured image: Caption: (L-r) DWAYNE JOHNSON as Black Adam and ALDIS HODGE as Hawkman in New Line Cinema’s action adventure “BLACK ADAM,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
When Ozark came to its bloody, sin-soaked end this year, you might have found yourself, Marty Byrd (Jason Bateman) style, sitting there quietly for a moment to do some accounting. The Byrd family had, against all odds, survived the chaos they’d been plunged into four seasons back when Marty’s business partner in Chicago made the mistake of cheating the wrong client. That put Marty in a life-or-death situation that would carry on for over a year—make matters right by laundering money for a powerful Mexican cartel, or he and his whole family would be killed. This made a move to the Ozarks necessary and set off month after month of mayhem and murder, in which nearly everyone the Byrds came into contact with suffered, including Wendy Byrd (Laura Linney)’s beloved if troubled brother, Ben, who was killed on account of the Byrd’s dealings. In the final accounting, you could reasonably ask yourself if all the trouble the Byrds went through was worth all the death it caused. But, again Marty-style, you could reason that if it wasn’t the Byrds laundering Cartel money and poisoning nearly everyone around them, it would have been somebody else. Right?
When it came to the collateral damage caused by contact with the Byrds, perhaps none felt as personal to the viewer as the fate of Ruth Langmore (Julia Garner). Ruth was one of the first people the Byrds met in the Ozarks, and she was practically the living embodiment of the area’s haunted, resilient population, by turns rageful, rueful, clever, caring, impetuous, and fiercely loyal. She was a fan favorite, with Garner rightfully becoming a star thanks to her ferocious, wounded take on the doomed Ruth. And yes, Ruth was doomed, even if we rooted for her to make it, against those pesky odds, to break the Langmore curse, to get out from under the Byrd’s baleful shadow, and get free.
Key to handling the final season’s emotional tumult was director Amanda Marsalis, who helmed four of the final seven episodes. We spoke to Marsalis about what it felt like to direct episodes like “The Cousin of Death” (episode 8 of season 4) where, at long last, Ruth gets her revenge, working with mega-talents like Garner, and Laura Linney, and why she loved being a part of the Ozark family.
You directed episode 8, “The Cousin of Death,” which started the second half of the final season with such a bang. Can you talk about what it was like taking on Ruth’s revenge for Wyatt’s murder?
I feel like episode eight is the yin to the finale’s yang, right? Ruth gets her revenge, and the episode is almost entirely about her, and it’s so emotional. You’re in her head. You’re in her space. Honestly, when I got the script, I got really nervous. That’s the one that I put all the pressure on myself for. I was just like, ‘Can I deliver? Am I worthy of this script?’ I felt very protective of it and honored. I read the script very early. So I knew for a very long time what was going to happen to Ruth before the final season started filming. So you’re just walking around the world being like, ‘You guys have no idea what’s coming. And I have to keep my mouth shut!’
What were you the most nervous about directing this episode?
The script had such a vision. Nas’s “Illmatic” [his iconic album from 1994, Ruth is listening to it when she bumps into another iconic rapper, Killer Mike, at a diner in Chicago] is there, on paper, throughout the script. It’s not something that was thought of later. So reading the script just felt so special. It was one of the more emotional episodes of Ozark. It’s not the most emotional of shows, even though lots of people have feelings and a lot of sh*t happens. I wanted to honor that, and I had to make sure Ruth had her, well, day in the sun sounds wrong, but she was given this thing she needed. And Julia’s an extraordinary actress. You kind of just let her go.
The way you filmed Ruth’s revenge was so matter-of-fact and so impactful. We’re in a high rise in Chicago, it’s night, she lures Javi (Alfonso Herrera) into her trap, and then it’s over in a matter of seconds. Tell me about constructing that scene.
As a director, when I see a space, I can tell the story in this space. I was a photographer before I was a director, so I’m more visual in my storytelling, as opposed to some directors who are more writer-directors. When we were talking about the space and how to work it, something about it made me just know it was going to play here and be perfect. Technically, Alfonso Herrera, the actor who plays Javi, is very good at looking like he’s being shot. So I could play it in the wide shot because Alfonso’s got the skill to go down. You can watch it over and over, you believe he’s being shot. I had a vision for the shot but Alfonso was capable of doing it in that wide so I didn’t have to hide anything in a cut. So I’m very lucky.
In episode 9, “Pick a God and Pray,” we get to really see what kind of life Wendy had growing up with her father, Nathan (Richard Thomas), who is now back in her life looking for his son Ben (Tom Pelphrey). It helps paint a much more vivid picture of why Wendy is like she is. How much of Wendy’s emotion were you factoring in with your decisions in that episode?
The arc of the whole series, in the talks I’ve had with showrunner Chris [Mundy], he takes something that’s misogynistic and slowly, believably takes the story and brings all these strong women to the surface through the seasons. You see all this fierceness come into them and you believe it was always there. So all of Wendy’s backstory, all of the things she was experiencing, was always there with her character. Her stuff with her dad, her stuff with her brother, and her meltdown in front of her dad in episode 12, Laura Linney is the most generous, talented, prepared actor/human ever. Laura knows what she’s doing. What her intentions are. Always. She comes to set completely prepared, and if I didn’t know what I was doing, it would be so embarrassing. I needed to attempt to rise to Laura’s level. Then episode 12 [“Trouble in the Water”] is a very Laura-centric episode, with her meltdown, ending with her cracking her head against the window just like her brother Ben did. I felt like I was there to support Laura. Not to say that actors don’t need directors, it’s just that she’s an absolute force, and just a pleasure.
You got to direct the penultimate episode of the entire series, “Mud,” and I’ve always felt like the penultimate episode is often the most daring, or shocking, in a series. Less pressure than the finale, more room to really let it rip. Did you feel this way?
Our penultimate episode has a lot of climaxes, and then the finale wraps it all up. So you do get to party in the penultimate episode a little bit and you don’t get as much pressure. Which is really fun, because who wants that pressure? Jason Bateman can handle that pressure.
Do you have an overarching approach to how you direct?
It’s that I have to give this the respect it deserves. Like, there is no reason to get up and put on my pants and leave the house unless I’m going to give this everything. While you’re shooting, there are always a number of factors at play. It’s time, money, and performance. In Atlanta, you also have thunderstorms that disrupt you all the time, especially out on the lake where we shoot Ozark. My first episode of directing Ozark was the fourth episode of television I’d ever directed, so it was a huge break for me and kind of a miracle that it happened. It was Jason [Bateman] and Chris [Mundy] and producer Patrick Markey taking a chance on me, and then I stayed in the Ozark family, and here I am. I wouldn’t say I operate from a fear-based place, but I’m just so excited to be invited to the party that I’m not going to get myself un-invited. I’m going to do everything I can every day to say. So in those final episodes, I definitely felt the weight of the fact, ‘Oh, I’m directing over half of the ending of Ozark.’ But, I also felt, ‘Well, you better not f**k this up. Come up with some good stuff! Just get it done.’
“What if I told you that today, you’ll leave here different.”
These words, spoken by Ricky ‘Jupe’ Park (Steven Yeun) open the final trailer for Jordan Peele‘s Nope, spoken as we watch a man get on his horse and start to ride off, only to fall right back off and hit the ground. Then we move to the home of the Haywood family, where siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer) discuss what might have killed their father Otis (Keith David), who was found looking much worse for the wear—including missing an eye. “Bro, what’d you see?” Emerald asks. “Something above the clouds,” OJ replies. “It was big,” he adds. “How big?” “Big.” “You think whatever killed pops is out there?”
The answer, unspoken in the trailer, is an affirmative yes. Finally, we have a real sense of what Peele’s up to with Nope, as the trailer gives us a bit more of the plot, and it’s brilliant. Yes, this is an alien movie. We’ve known that now for a bit. But what the final trailer reveals is how Peele is going to play with the genre. See, the Haywood Family runs a horse ranch which they’ve been using to help Hollywood make any films that require a horse or a ranch setting. They know a thing or two about filming, setting a scene, and, as Emerald says at one point, getting “the money shot.” What the Haywoods realize, once they confirm their ranch is, for reasons unknown, of interest to these alien spaceships, is that if they can get said money shot, they could become rich and famous. Real, indisputable proof we’re not alone in the universe—that’s got to be worth something.
So the Haywoods do what any sensible entrepreneurs would do given the circumstances; they set up cameras on their ranch, hire a cinematographer, and prepare to capture footage that will change their lives forever. That is if they can survive the experience. From the stunning shots in this trailer and yesterday’s behind-the-scenes look, it’s clear not everyone will survive. It’s also clear that the aliens, aware the Haywoods are trying to turn the tables and watch them, will not take the reversal lightly.
It all adds up to the kind of cinematic experience we expect from Peele now. Deeply unsettling, irresistibly funny, beautifully shot, wonderfully performed, and containing depths that go beyond genre. Nope hovers into theaters on July 22. It’s a must-see.
Here’s the official synopsis for Nope:
Oscar® winner Jordan Peele disrupted and redefined modern horror with Get Out and then Us. Now, he reimagines the summer movie with a new pop nightmare: the expansive horror epic, Nope.
The film reunites Peele with Oscar® winner Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Judas and the Black Messiah), who is joined by Keke Palmer (Hustlers, Alice) and Oscar® nominee Steven Yeun (Minari, Okja) as residents in a lonely gulch of inland California who bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery.
Nope, which co-stars Michael Wincott (Hitchcock, Westworld) and Brandon Perea (The OA, American Insurrection), is written and directed by Jordan Peele and is produced by Ian Cooper (Us, Candyman) and Jordan Peele for Monkeypaw Productions. The film will be released by Universal Pictures worldwide.
Earlier this week we got our first look at the alien menace haunting Jordan Peele’s third film, Nope. Now, Universal Pictures has given us our most robust peek at Peele’s film, which serves to only heighten our deep thirst for this movie.
“As ambitious a cinematic event as I’ve planned in my career,” Peele says at the top of this new video. “I tried to write a script that I didn’t know how to pull off, then assemble a team to help me pull it off.”
The video offers a brand new behind-the-scenes look at the production, which included the use of IMAX cameras and was filmed largely on location in and around Los Angeles.
“What’s a bad miracle?” Daniel Kaluuya’s OJ Haywood asks. “They got a word for that?” That bad miracle in question is the menace in the sky that’s been terrifying the residents of a lonely inland gulch in California. Peele has already become a master of suspense with his first two directorial efforts, his Oscar-winning Get Out, and his brilliant (and Oscar-snubbed, in our opinion) Us. With Nope, he’s working on a larger scale than ever before, as you’ll see from the shots of dust storms, horseback escapes, and one stunning sequence in which a character is sucked high into the air. A sci-fi freakout film by Jordan Peele? Hard yes.
Along with Peele’s Get Out star Kaluuya, the cast includes Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea, and Keith David. If you weren’t hyped for Nope before, watch the below. Nope his theaters on July 22.
That tremor you feel is the shakeup coming to the DCEU. Warner Bros. has just dropped the first trailer for Black Adam, the long-awaited entrance of Dwayne Johnson to the DCEU as the titular antihero, and it’s going to Rock your world.
“I was a slave until I died,” Johnson’s Black Adam says at the top of the trailer. “Then, I was reborn a God.” The trailer unpacks, at least a little bit, of how Black Adam came to be such a potent force, and his origin story is one draped in sacrifice and heartbreak. After he was killed, Black Adam’s son sacrificed himself to bring his father back. This is the burden Black Adam carries, knowing that his life required his son’s death. It’s why he means it when he says, “Now, I kneel before no one.”
Black Adam comes from director Jaume Collet-Serra, a man who knows his way around an action sequence. Black Adam is no Avenger, or even Batman—he plays for keeps, which means he doesn’t fit the mold of a superhero, but rather an antihero. A previous clip showed just has nasty Black Adam can be when he feels threatened, but the trailer focuses on what makes him, or could make him, a savior. The trailer also reveals our longest look yet at the Justice Society—Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), and Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo).
“You have two choices,” Doctor Fate tells Black Adam towards the end of the trailer. “You can be the destroyer of this world, or you can be its savior.” Black Adam will tell the story of that choice, and in the process will introduce what’s likely to be a whole host of new characters, Johnson’s Black Adam most of all, who will reshape the DCEU for good.
Check out the trailer below. Black Adam arrives in theaters on October 21.
Here’s the brief synopsis for Black Adam:
Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the Egyptian gods—and imprisoned just as quickly—Black Adam (Johnson) is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.
Featured image: Caption: DWAYNE JOHNSON as Black Adam in New Line Cinema’s action adventure “BLACK ADAM,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Varietyhas a big scoop—Ozark and Inventing Anna star Julia Garner has been offered the role of Madonna in the upcoming biopic about the icon, which Madonna herself is directing. Garner was against some very stiff competition, auditioning for the role along with over a dozen other candidates. Some of the actors who were in contention for the role included Florence Pugh, Odessa Young, and Euphoria star Alexa Demie, as well as singers like Sky Ferreira and Bebe Rexha. Unsurprisingly, Variety reports that Garner’s team is expected to accept the offer.
Garner’s star has been on the rise since she burst on the scene as the seemingly indomitable Ruth Langmore on Ozark, becoming the series’ uncontested fan favorite. She then went on to lead Inventing Anna for Netflix, playing Anna Delvey, the alleged German heiress who wowed the New York socialite scene by prizing money away from gullible jet-set types, becoming a tabloid favorite.
The Madonna biopic will follow the star’s early days, when she seemed to be in the news every other day and couldn’t seem to do anything, whether it was to date or drop a new music video, without the entire world marveling at her every move. The script was eventually won in a bidding war by Universal Filmed Entertainment Group Chairman Donna Langley.
In a statement after the biopic was announced, Madonna said she hoped the film would “convey the incredible journey that life has taken me on as an artist, a musician, a dancer — a human being, trying to make her way in this world. The focus of this film will always be music. Music has kept me going and art has kept me alive. There are so many untold and inspiring stories, and who better to tell them than me. It’s essential to share the roller coaster ride of my life with my voice and vision.”
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Featured image: PARK CITY, UTAH – JANUARY 26: Julia Garner of ‘The Assistant’ attends the IMDb Studio at Acura Festival Village on location at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival – Day 3 on January 26, 2020 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images for IMDb)
Director Todd Phillips has made it official that a Joker sequel is happening. Phillips took to Instagram to reveal that a follow-up to his 2019 hit film is in the works, revealing the cover of the script that he co-wrote with original Joker collaborator Scott Silver. The working title? Joker: Folie á Deux. More on this title in a minute.
Phillips also revealed an image of the Joker himself, Joaquin Phoenix, reading the script. While Warner Bros. has yet to make an official comment, this is the clearest signal yet that the creative team behind the conversation-starting, massively successful 2019 film is coming back for more.
Joker gave us a completely stripped down origin story in which Phoenix’s Joker wasn’t a criminal mastermind, or even a charismatic psychopath praying on the people of Gotham, but rather a deeply broken part-time clown and struggling comedian named Arthur Fleck. Fleck was just another faceless, down-on-his-luck Gothamite struggling to get by when he finally snapped. Fleck commits a series of gruesome crimes, not in some grand scheme of vengeance, but in bursts of raw rage and pain, yet once they’re captured by the local news, Fleck becomes a folk hero to the downtrodden of Gotham. He literally only becomes the Joker at the very end of the film, when his very public crime ignites a massive, bloody riot on the streets of the city.
Joker also recast Batman’s origin story, creating a connection—imagined or not—between Arthur Fleck, Thomas Wayne, and a young Batman. The film was notoriously moody, eschewing nearly every traditional superhero movie beat in favor of a character study of a deeply troubled soul in a deeply troubled society, and it was a smash hit. Joker earned more than $1 billion worldwide, and garnered 12 Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Phillips and Silver. It also nabbed two Oscar wins—Best Original Score for composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, and Best Actor for Phoenix.
A lot has happened since Joker made such a splash, namely a pandemic, a shuffle at Warner Bros, and the arrival of a new version of Gotham in Matt Reeves’s critical and commercial hit The Batman, which exists in a separate universe from Joker and even included a cameo from a totally different Joker, played by Barry Keoghan. Phillips has not revealed any plot points from his sequel script, but it’s worth noting that a literal translation of the title Joker: Folie á Deux is “shared madness.” This begs the question of whether the title is simply hinting at the shared madness between Arthur Fleck and the citizens of Gotham, or if it winks at the arrival of the Joker’s only true companion, Harley Quinn. Quinn has been immortalized by Margot Robbie’s lovable version in three films now; Birds of Prey and the two Suicide Squad films. Yet considering Phillips’ version of Gotham is its own separate universe, he could cast someone totally different.
Whatever the case may be, the interest in Joker: Folie á Deux seems all but assured.
Featured image: Caption: JOAQUIN PHOENIX as Arthur Fleck in Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures and BRON Creative’s “JOKER,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Niko Tavernise
All aboard the Nippon Speedline, the titular mode of transportation that will be carrying director David Leitch’s Bullet Train on a deliriously action-packed track. A new trailer for Leitch’s A-list thriller reveals that this journey is looking very intense for a tired assassin known as Ladybug (Brad Pitt). Ladybug—a new name he’s just been given–is tired of all his bad luck. His handler (played by Sandra Bullock) has a new job for him, and she’s given him the new name as a way of promising his luck is about to change. The job takes place on a train. The issue? There are a bunch of other assassins on that train, too.
Bullet Train is going to be a non-stop thrill ride, and the reason isn’t just the sensational cast (more on them in a second), but the fact that Leitch has made a career of breathless action backed by real practical effects and touches of genuine wit. In his past films like Deadpool 2, Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw, and Atomic Blonde, Leitch mixed his martial arts and mayhem with comedy. It’s a winning formula, one that some of the biggest stars in the business are eager to take part in.
Speaking of stars, joining Pitt in the cast are Zazie Beetz, Brian Tyree Henry, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Joey King, Logan Lerman, Andrew Koji, Masi Oka, and Michael Shannon. This is a train worth boarding, folks.
Bullet Train was written by Zak Olkewicz, and is based on Kôtarô Isaka’s novel “Maria Beetle.”
Check out the trailer below. Bullet Train arrives in theaters on July 15.
Here’s the official synopsis for Bullet Train:
In Bullet Train, Brad Pitt stars as Ladybug, an unlucky assassin determined to do his job peacefully after one too many gigs gone off the rails. Fate, however, may have other plans, as Ladybug’s latest mission puts him on a collision course with lethal adversaries from around the globe – all with connected, yet conflicting, objectives – on the world’s fastest train…and he’s got to figure out how to get off. From the director of Deadpool 2, David Leitch, the end of the line is only the beginning in a wild, non-stop thrill ride through modern-day Japan.
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When Naru (Ambert Midthunder) sees something streaking across the sky, she takes it as a sign she’s ready to join the hunt. In the official trailer for Prey, we know a few things Naru doesn’t, namely that what she saw in the sky isn’t a sign, but a warning. In a terrific sequence glimpsed in this longer look at director Dan Trachtenberg’s (10 Cloverfield Lane, The Boys) Predator sequel, Naru’s this close to being killed by a grizzly bear when something else (you and I know what it is) kills the bear instead, drags it away from the cowering Naru, and lifts it clean into the air. The craziest part for Naru? Whatever’s doing this is invisible. Welcome to the new hunt, Naru.
Prey looks like a different kind of Predator movie. While the universe’s Alpha Predator has been on the hunt in a series of films, sequels, and spinoffs since the 1987 original film, Prey will take us back into a time long before mercenaries with heavy firepower were the Predator’s main targets. The movie is set in the Comanche Nation some 300 years ago, with Naru at the center. She’s a young, very skilled Comanche warrior, her knowledge bestowed by some of the Nation’s most revered hunters. Of course, Naru and her fellow Comanches will be threatened by a hunter who exceeds even their abilities. She’ll do whatever it takes to protect her people, but will it be enough?
Trachtenberg’s film comes from a script by Patrick Aison (Jack Ryan). One key to the production is that Prey‘s cast is comprised entirely of Native and First Nation talent, including Dakota Beavers, Stormee Kipp, Julian Black Antelope, and Michelle Thrush. A key to the effort of making sure Prey got the casting and the details right was producer Jhane Myers, an acclaimed filmmaker and member of the Comanche Nation. The results will speak for themselves, and from what we’ve seen thus far from Prey, it looks like the Predator prequel we’ve been waiting for.
Check out the trailer below. Prey begins its hunt on Hulu on August 5.
Here’s the official synopsis:
“Prey,” an all-new action-thriller from 20th Century Studios directed by Dan Trachtenberg (“The Boys,” “10 Cloverfield Lane”) and the newest entry in the “Predator” franchise, will stream August 5, 2022, exclusively on Hulu.
Set in the Comanche Nation 300 years ago, “Prey” is the story of a young woman, Naru, a fierce and highly skilled warrior. She has been raised in the shadow of some of the most legendary hunters who roam the Great Plains, so when danger threatens her camp, she sets out to protect her people. The prey she stalks, and ultimately confronts, turns out to be a highly evolved alien predator with a technically advanced arsenal, resulting in a vicious and terrifying showdown between the two adversaries.
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*Spoilers below for the first seven episodes of season 4!
The first seven episodes — the last two are expected in July — of Stranger Things Season 4 go big. Hopper (David Harbour) is alive but in a Soviet prison. The kids are split up, with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Will (Noah Schnapp) living the opposite of a teenage dream out in California. The rest of the gang are still in Hawkins, simultaneously trying to get through high school and the difficulty of daily life literally on top of the Upside Down. It’s a rough time for everyone, and things only get worse when new, minor teenage characters start spontaneously levitating, right before all their bones twist and break and their eyes transform into bloodied pits.
And that’s not even the worst thing. Sam (Paul Reiser) rescues El from juvenile detention (powerless, she thwacks a bully with a roller skate, and no matter your views on teenage violence, the crime does not seem wholly undeserved), but El winds up back in the nightmare facility of her early youth, trapped in her memories, with creepy Papa/Martin (Matthew Modine) running the show. It’s an all-around darker season than the three previous, but as the cast disperses to Russia, California, and Martin’s lab, with a core group in Hawkins hard at work defeating Vecna, an evil Upside Down being whose twisted motivations may reveal why he’s so hellbent on killing local teens, the show establishes distinct palettes for its various locations that make visually jumping from place to place seamless. We had the chance to speak with Caleb Heymann, the season’s cinematographer (he was also on the show’s second unit during Season 3) about using light to capture characters’ rock bottoms, working with the Duffer Brothers’ preference for capturing effects in-camera, and evoking the heightened 1980s nostalgia for which the show is so beloved.
There are so many different settings this season. In terms of lensing and lighting, did you have hard and fast rules to differentiate between them?
I think as far as our lensing goes, that’s a bit more consistency across the locations and across the seasons — the tendency toward using slightly wider focal lengths, seeing more of the space, and having a lot of big camera moves, and camera moves that hinge around space. That being said, we decided to go more handheld this season — all the stuff out at Max’s trailer was handheld inside and outside, which normally would only get used for fight sequences in seasons past. We wanted California to feel warm and sunny but still have pockets of shadows. Whereas at the other end of the spectrum, Russia was going to be very low lit and bleak, with lots of older practical fluorescent units, older tungsten, and sodium—this sort of bluish daylight like you’d get far up north. It’s almost a permanent twilight look. At the complete other end of the spectrum, the Hawkins lab is this fluorescent-lit environment and a little bit more neutral. It was the one place where we didn’t have this strong color contrast, but we knew we wanted to go a little retro and greenish with the fluorescents, then really pocket it so you still had a lot of contrast and mood.
This was all a real contrast to previous seasons, though.
So much happens in Hawkins. But by and large, the season was going to be much darker than Season 3, when it was really about vibrant colors, summertime, and neon light. This time around in Hawkins, post-mall fire and Billy’s death, we wanted to immediately start off with a more somber version that would then only get darker from there. As a cinematographer coming onto a show in the 4th season — I’d done the second unit in Season 3, but this was my first time to come on doing the main unit — it was amazing to be able to be establishing all these new looks, working on mood boards and lookbooks for all these new locations that had never been photographed before. Something we talked about early on with the Duffer Brothers was that we’d have these distinctive palettes that immediately orient you when you’re cutting between so many different storylines. But then at a certain point you also just want to go with the emotional tonality of what’s required for that scene and whatever character you’re most invested in at that point.
Where did emotional tonality lead the way?
Right in episode one, early on, we’ve gone into the pep rally, where it’s a sunnier look, and there’s still that color contrast, but then as we go into the school, it goes a little more silhouette-y. You’ve got Max in her counselor’s office, and they’re framed with a lot of negative space in the frame, in these very imbalanced compositions and really stark profiles, but tight frames that are bringing you into her psychology. Then she has the conversation with Lucas in the hallway, in a school that normally is very bright, with overhead lights all over the place, we really tried to create pockets of darkness that she could walk through. As she goes into the bathroom where it goes really green all of a sudden, that’s motivated by knowing these could be some older fluorescent lights in the bathroom that arguably haven’t been changed out in a while. I really leaned into that. When she starts hearing Chrissy in the stall hallucinating, it’s already this darker sickly greenish lighting, and then it just builds into this flicker. That was all motivated by what Max is going through that point — she’s at rock bottom, and so is Chrissy in the stall next door. It’s all about what they’re experiencing at the time and making it feel uncomfortable and claustrophobic.
How does balancing what you do with visual effects work?
One of the things I love about working on this show is that there really is a commitment to doing as much as we can in-camera, which does make it really exciting. For instance, in the Upside Down, when we’ve got a five-minute walk and talk scene happening in the woods, that’s all done in-camera, in the sense that we’re shooting in actual woods at night in Atlanta, and the miles and miles of nether, those vines that wrap around everywhere, that all physically has to get created, and then we have to go and light up several hundred yards of forest with occasional red lightning.
Then you get to the end of the scene and have a big flyaway into a far-off horizon and you see a sky, that’ll all be augmented as visual effects. Even with Vecna, there was actually an actor who went through eight hours of incredibly intricate special effects makeup to become him, which was super scary to look at but gave us something to light. He would actually get suspended there from the set. We’d have a reference for vines but then visual effects would come in and build out the vines that connect him to the post and add spores, but everything else was done in-camera. There’s always a preference for that kind of authenticity you get when the actors are able to play off a monster who’s there, instead of having to play off a tennis ball. When I shot Season 3 second unit stuff, there was obviously no version of the mind flayer. There were lighting stands with tennis balls on them, so you could kind of gauge whatever this 25-foot-high monster was going to be.
There were three versions of the Creel house that had to exist. There was the flashback version from the 1950s where it was pristine. There’s the boarded-up 1986 version the kids break into, and then there’s the Upside Down version. There was actually a house that existed a couple of hours outside of Atlanta where we could shoot on location, but then it also got built on stage so that we could be shooting versions simultaneously and do some of the crazy stuff we needed to do. The art department did an incredible job of rebuilding that house on stage.
For the 1950s version of the house, what was your approach to getting a period effect?
I don’t think we had to hit it too hard other than wanting to go a little bit more romantic with the lighting and a slightly more colorful grade that leaned into the primaries a bit more. We didn’t want to impose a really heavy treatment on the images, go black and white or anything like that. It didn’t feel necessary because you could just see the dramatic difference of the house and costumes. We had a little bit more of a romantic sense with super soft lighting, a halo effect where we’d have pretty strong backlights with diffusions so it was a little bit glowy at times. But we wanted it to be quite subtle because I think the art direction really does the heavy lifting of setting up that time period.
Do you have any preferred techniques for setting up the 1980s retro vibe the show is so beloved for?
I certainly love having the license to go pretty dramatic with night exteriors and big shafts of unmotivated light — moonlight or street lights — then really being able to go dramatic with the atmosphere, backlight, and wet downs. Often these days you don’t see that quite as much. Things tend to be a little bit more naturalistic. But that’s part of that retro style — the Duffer Brothers specifically said, let’s not be afraid this year to go very blue with the moonlight and go dramatic with it when we feel like it, basically. Then that plays into our hands when we get into the horror stuff because you want it to be a heightened reality that is also at the same time a callback to 80s horror films, but doing that with more modern technology. I love the role that light plays in the Stranger Things journey, both with all the flickering lights that connote a sense of danger or that a superpower is being used, but also going back to Season 1 and the Christmas lights, and how those became Joyce’s way to communicate with Will in the Upside Down. This season builds on that.
The countdown for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakeshas officially begun. Now that we know that West Side Story‘s breakout star Rachel Zegler will lead director Francis Lawrence’s return to the franchise, Lionsgate has done us one better and released a teaser for the film. The teaser invites us back to the games with a twisting shot of a frozen tree, then reveals that two creatures—a songbird and a snake—are slowly coming to life, destined to fight for the future of Panem. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes promises to take us back to the world that novelist Suzanne Collins conjured, this time many years before Coriolanus Snow would go on to become the despotic ruler of Panem.
In this prequel, Coriolanus Snow is only 18-years old (now played by Tom Blyth), and he represents the last hope for a family that has seen its prestige and power fade after the war. The Young Snow finds himself tasked with mentoring Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from the poor District 12 preparing to fight in the 10th annual Hunger Games. Lucy will turn out to be much more than an unlucky pawn being led to sacrifice, and her revolutionary spirit will spark Snow to become the crafty, savvy, and ultimately ruthless ruler we know from The Hunger Games.
Lawrence directs from a script by Michael Arndt and Michael Lesslie, adapted from Collins’ novel.
Check out the teaser below. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes arrives on November 17, 2023.
Here’s the official synopsis for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes:
Return to The Hunger Games, the landmark film franchise that has earned over $3 billion globally, with Lionsgate’s adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ #1 New York Times Bestseller The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) is the last hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow is alarmed when he is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), the girl tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray commands all of Panem’s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to turn the odds in their favor. Uniting their instincts for showmanship and newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy Gray’s race against time to survive will ultimately reveal who is a songbird, and who is a snake.
Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 07: Rachel Zegler attends Disney Studios’ premiere of “West Side Story” at El Capitan Theatre on December 07, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
*There are spoilers for season 4 below, so proceed with caution if you’re not caught up!
With every new season of Stranger Things comes a new crop of teens to replace those ill-fated in prior seasons to the predations of the Upside Down that lurks under Hawkins. In addition, in Season 4, the show’s beloved original members are scattered across the globe, leaving room for new cast members to take on feature roles in Hawkins’ latest rescue.
Eleven (Milly Bobby Brown), Will (Noah Schnapp), and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), along with Joyce (Winona Ryder), are having a weird time of things in California. Hopper (David Harbour) is alive, but he’s in prison in Kamchatka, Russia. Back in Hawkins, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) is still Steve’s (Joe Keery) biggest fan, but he’s got a new upperclassman pal. Eddie (Joseph Quinn), a drug dealer, Dungeons and Dragons aficionado, and soon to be fugitive. And the season shines a particular light on Max (Sadie Sink), who has yet to fully recover from the tragic events of the Starcourt Mall just a few months earlier.
The visions of a grandfather clock that haunt Chrissy (Grace Van Dien), a cheerleader and (spoiler alert) the season’s first mysterious death, come for Max, too. With Eddie accused of Chrissy’s gruesome murder and in hiding from both the police and Chrissy’s boyfriend, the violent preppy Jason (Mason Dye), and Max trying to outrun the real culprit, an adolescent-hating demon, behind her awful visions, the kids left in Hawkins once again enter the Upside Down to try to turn their town right side up. The show takes a darker overall turn this season, though moments of comic relief come from newbie Argyle (Eduardo Franco), Jonathan’s perma-baked yet wise pizza delivering friend, and Yuri (Nikola Ðuričko), a wackadoo, crooked Russian whom Joyce and Murray (Brett Gelman) wind up taking on in a rickety airplane flying from Alaska into the USSR.
It’s a big season with a significant new cast to match. We had the chance to speak with casting director Carmen Cuba, who has worked on the show since its inception. She told us about how she searches for fresh faces who can match the talent of the original actors, working closely with the Duffer Brothers to stay abreast of new talent, and which of this season’s new roles were unexpectedly speedy or tricky to fill.
The show’s original cast have become icons.Among the new cast members this season, who were the first to fall into place? And how do you ensure they mesh well with the original members?
Looking back through our records it seems that Chrissy, Eddie Munson, Dmitri, and Jason were our first roles we focused on and cast, but the others were all in process shortly thereafter. The Duffers like to see a pretty big batch before deciding, often just for fleshing out the role in their heads more too, but it really doesn’t take us that long to zero in on who the top selects are. And then from the top selects we will think about it a bit, they’ll sometimes show the rest of the team, and then a decision is made. There’s always one role that takes the most digging, and for this season it was Argyle. We started in October and didn’t get it cast until late February!
Was finding the right 001 particularly difficult? Did you start with his younger or current self?
It was made more difficult by the fact that we had to hide what the character was, but this also always makes it more fun to figure out how to approach it. We started with his current self since that was what was going to require so many different facets. But in looking at our records, we actually saw half the amount of people we saw for the Eddie and Jason roles, before landing on Jamie. He was so exciting right from his very first tape (as tends to be the case with the people we end up casting). The very helpful thing about Stranger Things is how involved the Duffers are with creating material that elicits the most range from actors, which is not as easy or as common as one would think.
Given how famous earlier cast members have become, has this made your job harder or easier this time around?
I don’t take it into consideration from the perspective of fame, but it’s always a consideration of how extremely talented the earlier cast members are, and that is a very high bar for any actor I consider. If they’re as talented as the earlier cast then that’s all that matters, because then it’s up to how it’s written and directed to handle the kind of experience the audience has with them and what that translates to.
Obviously, the younger cast members who’ve been on the show since Season 1 have grown up a lot! Have they generally grown into themselves as you would have expected? Is how you expect them to grow even something to generally consider when casting young actors?
I didn’t have any real expectations, but what I can reflect on now is that they have really stayed pretty authentic to who they were as their younger selves, which I think must be very hard to do when faced with all the circumstances the show has put them in. I also think that the show has been able to tap into the complexities of the incredible individuals they’ve become and that the audience can feel that without even knowing it. When I cast kids, I do consider how I think the experience of being on a set and playing certain roles might have on them, but we have to remember that this show was not expected to catapult anyone to what it has, so we wouldn’t have even known to consider if these kids were ready for it.
You have such an important role to play, setting kids on a path that really could change everything for them.
When casting iconic kid roles, like young Leia and young Luke in Obi-Wan Kenobi, for example, I definitely feel a sense of maternal angst about how the journey might affect the young actors and consider the support systems they have in place and how a production might also be a part of it. But ultimately you have to rely on the family structures that keep them all in a positive direction, as this is the career that the families have chosen together with their young actor. Families with professional kid actors really do sacrifice a lot to prioritize their talent and experience, and that is a very meaningful part of this journey.
When it comes to newer faces, how do you prefer to find them for a show like this? Do you have lists going all the time of potential actors?
I am constantly working on various projects which allow me to continuously be seeing new faces, but I’m also watching actors develop over the years, and I’m in very close contact with the Duffers outside of the show, so I randomly send them people who I meet without even knowing what they’re thinking yet for the next season. The Duffers get as excited as I do about actors, so even if they don’t end up on the series it definitely helps us stay in synch about the kinds of actors that we love for Stranger Things. And of course, I do old-fashioned auditioning when we finally have scripts and know the specific characters for that season. And I have a zillion lists that I go back to all the time.
When you first got the script for Season 4, what were some of your initial thoughts? Did any of the major twists take you by surprise?
Anytime I get a Stranger Things script I am excited and taken by surprise, but my initial thoughts are usually about how hard it’s going to be to find people as exciting/surprising/iconic/good as the already established ones! Next, I look for all the returning recurring guest star-type characters and start to worry about how busy they’ve all become and whether or not their schedules will be able to line up with ours, since there really are so many incredible guest stars on this series, who help give it its life, too. And then I just enjoy the story and see so many parallels to my own life as a mother and the lives of my own teenage sons, and I just love it.
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Don’t worry, Deadpool fans, screenwriters Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese promise that the third film in the franchise will be as irreverent and Deadpool-y as ever. The reason the fellas who wrote the first two films are saying this is because the Merc with the Mouth has officially joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe, thanks to Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, which was completed back in 2019. This means that Deadpool 3 will be the first film in the franchise to officially fall under the MCU/Disney banner, after the raunchy, ribald 2016 and 2018 films, which did not.
Speaking with Den of Geek, Wernick and Reese said that their script for director Shawn Levy‘s upcoming film will retain the offbeat, often NSFW vibe of the first two films. The franchise is led by Ryan Reynolds as the titular Deadpool, beloved for his moral flexibility, his self-deprecating wit, and his zesty, often foul-mouthed zingers. This has made Deadpool a very different kind of superhero franchise, and Wernick and Reese say that won’t change even with the move to Disney. In fact, they say that thanks to Deadpool’s official entrance into the MCU, they have way more material to work with.
“It’s an absolute thrill to have the band back together, to have a new backdrop in the MCU with new characters, new villains, that kind of thing,” Reese told Den of Geek. “You know, it’s never a marriage we necessarily saw coming — Fox and Disney, that was an external thing [separate] from our storytelling process. But we’re absolutely finding the serendipity and the gold in that situation, or we’re trying to.”
Wernick then added, “Deadpool is gonna be Deadpool,” assuring fans that there won’t be any muzzling of the Merc with the Mouth even though he’s got a new studio home.
“They’ve been very supportive with regard to that,” Reese added. “Now when it comes to a particular joke, if we cross a line, maybe we’ll hear at some point, ‘Maybe not that joke.’ But I think they’ve been incredibly supportive of what we’re doing because obviously, we were doing it separate from them for a long time, and I think they’ve seen the success and they’ve had their own even greater success. So hopefully it’ll be a marriage made in heaven. But we’ve definitely got their support, and that’s a great thing to feel.”
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Top Gun: Maverick has achieved Mach 10. In fact, if you’ve seen the film, you know that Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise, of course) does achieve the previously unthinkable when he hits Mach 10 in the opening sequence of the film, working as a test pilot for the Navy. The scene is thrilling and ends with Maverick, once again, getting screamed at by a Navy official (played by Jon Hamm, no less), only to be told he’s been summoned by an even higher-ranking officer, one Admiral Kazansky (you remember him from the original Top Gun as Iceman, played by Val Kilmer) to teach a bunch of Top Gun pilots how to handle a seemingly impossible mission.
In real life, the mission of the film, to delight and seduce millions of people back into the movie theater to see Cruise return to the role that made him famous way back in 1986, has been a massive success. Top Gun: Maverick has soared into the record books for the second weekend in a row.
After a historic opening over Memorial Day Weekend, Top Gun: Maverick zoomed to an astonishing $86 million haul in 4,751 theaters in North America in its second weekend. That’s a very tiny drop of 32% from its gangbusters opening, the smallest second-week drop for a movie that opened to $100 million or more. It’s proof of the film’s pull on moviegoers, who have poured into theaters to see Cruise and the cast flying in real Navy jets. Maverick‘s superb craft and emotional connection to the original have made it irresistible, highlighted by the relationship between Mav and Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of Mav’s long-dead best friend and radar intercept pilot, Goose (Anthony Edwards). Most blockbusters like Maverick see a significant drop after their opening weekend, even beloved, critically lauded, massively successful blockbusters like Spider-Man: No Way Home, which dropped 67% after its opening weekend. Yet Maverick keeps cruising.
So far, the global haul for the film is $548 million, which would be an incredible success even if you were measuring the movie by pre-pandemic standards. It’s also proof that the time everyone involved took to make sure they got Maverick right paid off. Filmgoers are responding to a film that was made with great care, and one that gives us some old-school movie magic with practical effects, big emotions, and a decent dollop of nostalgia. It’s a winning formula that, crucially, doesn’t feel formulaic.
It seems like a safe bet that Top Gun: Maverick could keep flying high into its third weekend in theaters.
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Yeah, nah. No. Hell no. How many ways can the characters in Jordan Peele’s Nope express their absolute refusal to accept the unacceptable menace hovering in the sky? In a new teaser for Peele’s latest, we finally get a glimpse at what his stellar cast is responding to, with a brief but thrilling glimpse at the alien ship menacing the good people of Nope. The craft is sleek, small-ish, and surreal. In fact, it’s a beautiful, almost classic version of an alien ship, something straight from the sci-fi classics Peele no doubt gorged on as a kid. Yet in his hands, you can be sure the aliens of Nope are going to be something new, as Peele has become one of the most reliably singular filmmaking talents of his generation.
Nope is at least partially set at the Haywood Ranch in Los Angeles, home to the only Black-owned horse trainers in Hollywood. In the cryptic but fantastic first trailer, we met the great-great, great, great-grandaughter of the first man ever caught on film, riding a horse, as she pitched the Haywood Ranch’s legacy to a room full of studio executives. Her goal, of course, is to get the executives to use the Haywood Ranch for their next film. “Ever since the moment pictures could move,” her sales pitch goes, “we’ve had skin in the game.”
This is when Peele reveals where he wants our attention to be, outside the ranch and in the sky, where a very strange cloud is hovering. Thanks to the new teaser, we how confirmation that we are, in fact, dealing with aliens. Cue a resounding nope. Nah. No way. Who wants to deal with that?
Nope reunites Peele and his Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya, who joins a stellar cast including Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Brand Perea, Barbie Ferreira, and Michael Wincott. It’s one of the most eagerly-anticipated films of the summer. When it comes to Nope, as it does with every Jordan Peele movie, it all leads to a resounding yes. We’ll be in the theater for this one when it premieres on July 22.
In one narrative thread of season two of Amazon’s gleefully unhinged superhero sendup The Boys, Homelander (Antony Starr) pursued a very messy relationship with Stormfront (Aya Cash). Their budding romance became problematic when Stormfront was revealed to be a full-blown Nazi, a public relations nightmare for the slightly more subtly sadistic Homelander, and it ended, as many relationships do in this show, in an abundance of gore.
Season three has now arrived, with Homelander out there trying to tell anyone who will listen that he’s been chastened by falling for the wrong girl and has learned invaluable lessons. This, of course, is his public face. In private, the sociopathic supe is hellbent on making his enemies pay, and everyone else bend the knee to his obvious supremacy. Yet he has other problems, namely a new-and-improved Billy Butcher (Karl Urban). Thanks to a serum delivered by Stormfront’s former number two Maeve (Dominque McElligott), Billy can now become a supe for 24 hours.
Season three will also reveal and explore the life of Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) while introducing more new supes like Blue Hawk (Nick Wechsler), and the Crimson Countess (Laurie Holden). Meanwhile, returning champions will have their own stories to tell, including Hughie (Jack Quaid), Starlight (Erin Moriarty), A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), The Deep (Chace Crawford), Frenchie (Tomer Capone), and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara).
So what are the critics saying? Largely, that The Boys season three manages to juggle the increasingly complex storylines and fan expectations with aplomb, delivering the kind of gory catharsis that the show’s become beloved for.
“Kripke successfully maintains the series’ high caliber consistency with season three. The Boys continues its streak of anarchic energy, sardonic humor, and self-indulgence made all the more entertaining by its bursts of extreme gonzo violence,” Bloody Disgusting‘s Meagan Navarro writes, calling out showrunner Eric Kripke.
The Wrap‘s Karama Horne says that “Executive producer Eric Kripke and the show’s writers find new and inventive ways to freak us out.” One of those ways is by upping the ante on just how evil Homelander can get, as he steps “fully into the role of supervillain this season, threatening a ‘scorched earth’ scenario unless everyone bends to his will.”
“Through it all, the moral murkiness and messy consequences are never less than compelling in a season that blurs the line between the good guys and the bad guys more than ever before,” says Empire Magazine‘s Amon Warmann.
YouTube‘s Perri Nemiroff writes The Boys return is “An expansive exploration of power and what it means to have it. That theme amplifies quite a few character arcs, but Annie and Kimiko’s journeys prove to be the Season 3 standout.”
You can decide for yourself—The Boys season three is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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