Netflix’s Love Death + Robots has sneakily become one of the most transgressive, devilishly daring shows on TV. The animated anthology series from Tim Miller (Deadpool) and David Fincher (MINDHUNTER, Mank) is back with volume 3, and the first official trailer delivers the thrills, chills, and sci-fi skills we’ve come to expect from the show.
Love Death + Robots has won 11 Emmys for its daring approach to anthology animation, creating a truly singular viewing experience that can leap from seriously scary to funny to surreal in a single episode. The 9 new episodes in Volume 3 will explore danger on the high seas in Bad Traveling and out in the cosmos in The Very Pulse of the Machine, where astronauts will move through “strange eons of thought” on a distant planet and face mind-melting scenarios. In Vaulted Halls Entombed, soldiers will find the dark side of archeology. Jibaro takes us to a lush, lunatic world where a battle with swords and horses turns insane. Swarm imagines a perfect organic system that promises to bring order to the chaos of human expansion—we’re guessing it won’t go quite the way they’re planning. In Mason’s Rat, the animal kingdom has wised up and declared war on humanity. Then, in Three Robots: Exit Strategies, a trio of bots look to escape, one wisecrack at a time. And finally, in Kill Team Kill and Night of the Mini Dead we get two wars—against monsters and against miniature monsters—all with that uncanny Love Death + Robots panache.
There is no other show quite like it, which is why Love Death + Robots is always on our must-watch list.
Check out the trailer below. Love Death + Robots returns to Netflix on May 20.
Here’s the official synopsis from Netflix:
Emmy-winning animated anthology Love, Death + Robots returns with a third-volume executive produced by Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate) and David Fincher (MINDHUNTER, Mank). Terror, imagination, and beauty combine in new episodes which stretch from uncovering an ancient evil to a comedic apocalypse, telling startling short stories of fantasy, horror, and science-fiction with trademark wit and visual invention.
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We open on the lush planet of Pandora, with members of the Na’vi tribe running across a moss-covered tree. Then we see Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and Jake (Sam Worthington), who have started a family. We are plunged into the hyper-realistic alien planet of James Cameron’s world, a place we haven’t been for 13-years, since Avatar (2009) bowed and ushered in a new era of filmmaking.
The new trailer is short on dialogue and plot specifics but big on beauty. And it hints at the troubles to come, as Jake promises Neytiri that wherever they go, they go as a family, which will serve as their fortress. We see glimpses of the trouble brewing, with war appearing imminent and the splendor of Pandora once again being threatened.
Joining Worthington and Saldana in the cast are Giovanni Ribisi, Sigourney Weaver, CCH Pounder, and the original film’s villain, Stephen Lang. Newcomers include Kate Winslet, Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Edie Falco, Cliff Curtis, and Jemaine Clement. Disney plans to re-release Cameron’s original Avatar in theaters on September 23. During its original run in theaters back in 2009, Avatar played on the big screen for an astonishing 10 months.
Avatar: The Way of Water will, like the original Avatar, feature brand new technology that Cameron and his team deployed to capture the many underwater scenes. This means that theaters showing the film will likely require equipment upgrades, but it will be a small price to pay for being to show this movie in all its glory.
Avatar: The Way of Water swims into theaters on December 16. Its sequels are due on December 20, 2024, December 18, 2026, and December 22, 2028.
Check out the trailer below:
Here’s the official synopsis for Avatar: The Way of Water:
Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, “Avatar: The Way of Water” begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure. Directed by James Cameron and produced by Cameron and Jon Landau, the film stars Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement and Kate Winslet.
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Before Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty showrunner Max Borenstein sat down to write the show’s pilot episode, executive producer Adam McKay gave him one simple note: “Have fun with it.” Crammed with boisterous performances, Winning Time (its season finale aired this past Sunday, May 8, and is now renewed by HBO for a second season) does offer fun to spare but the series also brims with drama as it chronicles the betrayals, rivalries, romances, traumatic childhoods, family infighting, and near-death traffic accidents leading to the Los Angeles Lakers’ 1980 world championship.
Borenstein previously wrote four Godzilla movies and Worth, about the real-life lawyer who ran the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. He’d also worked on a couple of projects for HBO that never saw the light of day. When McKay and producing partner Kevin Messick approached the network with their idea to adapt Jeff Pearlman’s book “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s,” HBO executives introduced the Oscar-nominated director (Don’t Look Up, The Big Short) to Borenstein and they clicked.
Borenstein and his writers’ room crafted an intricately detailed narrative that attracted Oscar winners Adrian Brody and Sally Fields along with Pulitzer Prize-winning actor Tracy Letts, Jason Clarke as hot-tempered coach Jerry West and John C. Reilly in the lead role of team owner Jerry Buss. The show also showcases uncannily effective star turns from newcomers Solomon Hughes as somber Kareem Abdul Jabar and Quincy Isaiah as the joyous Magic Johnson.
Backed by a couple of basketballs perched on the bookshelf of his Los Angeles office, Borenstein spoke to The Credits about combovers, skyhooks, obsolete cameras, former Jerry West’s criticism of the show, athletes as artists, and basketball as a vehicle for addressing race relations, capitalism and gender roles.
What drew you to this story?
I grew up in L.A. and the Lakers are the first team I knew as a child, but I wouldn’t have wanted to make a show that was just for basketball fans. What really attracted me about the Lakers’ story is that we could dive deep into the specificity of this world of basketball and use that as a prism to reflect central themes of what America was becoming in this seventies-to-eighties moment that created the “Me Generation,” which I think is now, for better the worse, the foundational core of where we are today.
The show personifies all these big themes through an array of wildly ambitious characters who carry around some bittersweet backstories.
The moment I stopped looking at the characters as athletes and started to see them as artists, that’s when I started to connect. There’s something driving these people to fill some kind of hole that might never get filled. That’s where the fire, the drive comes from. There’s some kind of wound, and I feel like there’s a beautiful pathos in that.
Quincy Isaiah is Magic Johnson in “Winning Time.” Photograph by Warrick Page/HBO
Winning Time seems like a beast of a show to put together: ten episodes, period piece, huge cast, fact-based. HBO greenlit the series in April 2019. Where did you go from there?
We were about to shoot the series when the Pandemic hit so my collaborators and I just kept re-working the scripts for a year [during lockdown]. This pause allowed us to find aspects of the story where normally we would have had the big train [of production] on our asses. Now we had a year to do more research and find and identify the different ways they coach and their personalities.
Speaking of coaches, Winning Time prompted intense criticism from Jerry West and Kareem Abdul Jabar over the way Coach West was portrayed. Were you surprised by their reactions?
I can’t imagine how strange it would be to have my own life adapted and dramatized as a television series so I would never judge anyone’s reaction. What I can say is that the show was made with a great deal of affection and appreciation and respect for all of these people. It’s also been made with a great deal of research. We read every book we could get our hands on. We watched every interview, and read every article from every daily newspaper using the Lexus Nexus [database]. And also, one great benefit of telling a story about people who live their lives in the public eye is that they themselves have told their own stories in their own words, which is what Jerry West did in his wonderful book “West by West: My Charmed and Tormented Life.”
L-r: John C. Reilly, Quincy Isaiah, Jason Clarke. Photograph by Warrick Page/HBO
Wait a minute, Jerry West’s memoir has “Tormented” right there in the title?
Yeah. It’s a magnificent book and a big source for us, as were many other books.
I haven’t read the book, but it’s startling to see Jerry West breaking a golf club over his knee in the first episode, throwing his MVP trophy through the glass window of his office, and later, curled up in his underwear on the floor of his home.
Our guiding star throughout the process was making sure that our characterizations and the big facts were true to form. That said, of course, it’s a dramatization. We’re getting into closed rooms and behind doors that we have no access to. We can only do our best to piece together and dramatize what may have been said, what plausibly could have been said, based on our understanding [of the facts]. That’s part of the art of it, the challenge and the joy of doing a dramatization. It’s all about making choices.
Stephen Adly Guirgis, John C. Reilly, Brett Cullen, Jason Clarke. Photograph by Warrick Page/HBO
Casting Winning Time must have been a gargantuan task. First of all, it’s a huge ensemble. Second, many of your cast members not only have to act; they also have to be really tall. Quincy Isaiah does a remarkable job in channeling the Magic Johnson mystique. How did you find him?
Quincy had just arrived in L.A. He’d been a center for his football team in Kalamazoo but wanted to be an actor. He sent a tape to our genius casting director Francine Maisler just as McKay and I were starting to get nervous. We’d looked at dozens of people, but no one brought the kind of charisma we needed. Then Francine said, “Look at this tape. We watched it in McKay’s office. There was something about Isaiah’s smile, his charm. We brought Isaiah in, gave him a couple of scenes to read and he blew us away. Then we asked, can you play basketball? Of course, he said yes – – he’s an actor! And Quincy actually could play, a little. So we had our friend Rick Fox put Quincy through the wringer. Rick came into the gym determined to make Quincy puke, and Quincy was determined not to give in. He just gutted it out. Every time he did a scene with one of the greats, whether it be Jason Clarke or John C. Reilly or whomever, Quincy took it as a challenge to bring it. He’s been a joy to watch.
Quincy Isaiah, Solomon Hughes. Photograph by Warrick Page/HBO
Winning Time breaks the fourth wall in ways made famous by Adam McKay in The Big Short. You’ve got direct address bits where John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss speaks straight into the camera, and you’ve got giant on-screen text describing a freeze-frame of Jason Clarke’s Jerry West, for example, as “NEVER BEEN HAPPY.” Did you take naturally to this irreverent style?
I wrote the pilot knowing Adam’s style, which I think of as less a style as it is a freedom. When he directed the pilot, it kind of unshackled everyone to explore and experiment and take risks. There’s a flexibility to pull out whatever tool you feel will help tell the story best. Hank Corwin, who edited the pilot, has an incredibly free-wheeling style, intercutting different footage that aesthetically short circuits the wall you put up when you’re watching something you know is fictionalized.
The grainy video look goes a long way toward evoking this early eighties era. How did you create that vintage effect?
That came from our boy wonder genius director of photography Todd Banhazl. He found this defunct format Ikegami camera that hadn’t been used in forty years when it was replaced by Beta[max]. So he dug up these old Ikegami cameras, refurbished them, and initially used them to replicate game footage or news footage. But it quickly became clear to us that whenever we saw a scene shot by the Ikegami on the monitor, it felt like a time machine. What I continued to find throughout the season is that the Ikegami [footage] feels like someone’s taking a home movie of the scene. Rather than putting you at a distance, it pulls you into the emotion in a kind of shocking way.
Also kind of shocking is John C. Reilly’s portrayal of Jerry Buss, the brash real estate hedonist whose vision of basketball as entertainment helped revitalize the NBA. Watching Reilly as Buss in his combover, shirt unbuttoned to his waist, the aviator glasses, the mustache, the drinking, the cocaine, the smoking, the Playboy Club: He’s a real piece of work.
That scene where we see Jerry doing the combover is the perfect metaphor for this Gatsby-like American character that John embodies so well. He’s irrepressible. You can’t keep him down. If you say, “Well you’re bald,” Jerry says, “No I can overcome that too!”
Shaylaren Hilton, John C. Reilly, Stephen Adly Guirgis. Photograph by Warrick Page/HBO
Casting John C. Reilly in this juicy role produced its fair share of controversy, fair to say?
Everyone knows the ins and outs that have been reported [about Adam McKay alienating his one-time best friend Will Ferrell by not picking him to portray Jerry Buss]. A week or so before production, John’s name came up and it was obvious that he would be genius in the role. We went over to his house and saw him with the combover and the mustache. John had already started to vibe that character in ways that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The moment you see him as Jerry Buss, you say “How could it have been anybody but John C. Reilly?”
There’s so much drama happening off the court in Winning Time but it’s the basketball games that provide the throughline for this story about the Laker’s 1980 championship season. How did you go about re-creating these games?
Getting the basketball right was a huge challenge. People can watch real games on YouTube, so our goal was to get inside the emotional world of the men playing the game. To do this, we studied game footage, not always with an eye to a perfect reproduction of exact moments, but with the intent of capturing the style of these particular players. Magic had to have his dribbles and passes right. Wilkes had to shoot like Wilkes. Kareem had to have his skyhook down pat. Our basketball coordinator Idan Ravin, who works as a shooting coach with a number of high-level pros, was instrumental in training the actors and bringing this vintage style of the game to life.
Solomon Hughes. Photograph by Warrick Page/HBO
Did you have access to the actual arenas from this era?
Because of Covid, we couldn’t shoot in real arenas so we built our own professional basketball court and stands on a sound stage. Combined with incredible VFX work, it created the illusion of all these bygone arenas.
Anything else you’d like to add about the making of Winning Time?
We think of it as an American epic that presents this cross-section of Americans, wealthy, poor, Black, white. We’re dealing with capitalism, racism, race relations, and gender roles while still maintaining a certain lightness of touch. It’s fun and there’s a weight to it.
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Director Sam Raimi has helped deliver Marvel a fantastic start to their 2022 box office and their vaunted Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 4. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the second film for Benedict Cumberbatch’s Stephen Strange, conjured a stellar $185 million in its opening weekend, one of the largest domestic openings ever. It’s also the second-best opening in the pandemic era and totaled $450 million globally.
This is exactly the kind of epic opening weekend that Marvel, Walt Disney Studios, theater owners, and Hollywood writ large wanted to see. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness follows Warner Bros. The Batman has yet another blockbuster bringing in almost pre-pandemic numbers and hopefully augers a continued hot streak as a slew of tentpole movies are set for release. The Batman is currently the highest-grossing domestic release of 2022, with $369.1 million as of now.
With Raimi back in the fold (he directed the original Spider-Man trilogy back in the early aughts, changing the superhero game forever), he helped deliver a dizzy, deliriously rich film that now stands as the 11th biggest domestic launch in history, and the seventh-largest opening for a Marvel film. In The Multiverse of Madness only trails the four Avenger films, Black Panther, and Spider-Man: No Way Home. That’s great company.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opened as the top film in all major markets overseas, including a big $30 million in South Korea. The domestic haul included $36 million in Thursday previews and $90 million on Friday alone, the 7th biggest opening day of all time. The film is currently playing in 4,545 theaters, which is the widest location count of the pandemic era and the fifth-biggest of all time. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness pulled in 59 percent of male viewers, with 74 percent of them under the age of 34. The film also did bonkers business on Imax and other premium large-format screens. The Imax numbers were $33 million, a record in May.
After Doctor Strange made such a fateful appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home and unleashed the multiverse in an attempt to help his friend Peter Parker, all bets were off. In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Doctor Strange is now trying to help a young girl named America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) whose skills include being able to hop across universes. When a demonic force is trying to steal her powers, the good Doctor has to step in. Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and even Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams) return.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is, of course, in theaters now.
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The limited series The Offer, now streaming on Paramount+, tells the deliciously dramatic story of how one of the greatest films ever made, The Godfather, almost never came to the screen. It is based on the memories of the film’s Oscar-winning producer Al Ruddy, here played by Miles Teller, and spans from the release of Mario Puzo’s bestseller in 1969, through the film’s production to its release in 1972. What makes the show so compelling is the spot-on portrayal of real-life figures important to the creation of Francis Ford Coppola’s deathless film to life. Matthew Goode plays Paramount Studios executive Robert Evans, Dan Fogler brings auteur Francis Ford Coppola to life, and Patrick Gallo is remarkable as Mario Puzo. Actors Juno Temple and Nora Arnezeder embody two powerful women that had a significant impact on the story, with Temple playing secretary-turned-agent Bettye McCart, and Arnezeder as Ruddy’s partner Françoise Glazer, who owned Chateau Marmont. Giovanni Ribisi is larger than life and more than a little terrifying as mob boss Joe Columbo, who made a concerted effort to stop the film from being made. For fans of The Godfather, The Offer will be impossible to refuse.
Having formerly worked on blockbuster franchises Harry Potter and The Hobbit, Makeup Department Head Katy Fray came to The Offer with lots of experience with prosthetics, which she’d need to deploy in her work here. The Credits spoke to Fray about the inspiration she got from makeup genius Dick Smith, how she recreated the styles of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and how she captured the iconic looks of the famous and infamous of the time, from icons like Robert Redford, Ali McGraw, and, of course, Marlon Brando.
Can you talk about some of the signature elements of the real people that you incorporated into the makeup of the actors portraying them?
Well, for Al Ruddy, Miles Teller was amazing in collaborating for his look, and Al Ruddy himself was involved in the movie as well and he was really excited about Miles playing the character, so we took the essence of these extra sideburns and extra hair, but he was always clean cut on his face, perfectly shaven every day, like he shows up for work every day looking smart, but he’s also very much a man-about-town. He had to have that charisma. We kept his makeup very clean every day.
Miles Teller as Albert S. Ruddy. Photo courtesy Paramount+
How about Bettye McCart?
Juno Temple was amazing as Bettye McCart. We kept her very fresh-looking. As a character, she was always presentable, but she was constantly running around doing stuff, so she isn’t meant to look perfect. She’s trying to do a job. We started there, but we also used a lot of references from Look and Playboy and every other popular magazine of the 70s to hone in on how to create her character, and a lot of others as well.
Nora Arnezeder as Françoise Glazer obviously had to have a look with a lot more French influence. She stood out from the rest of the women in the series, which was a choice we made in collaboration with the costume department. We all worked together with Nora, and I think we sold her as being different because the French and the European influence was huge, as we saw from French fashion magazines of that era. We also used a lot of reference photos of Françoise, a lot of gorgeous pictures of her from that time, and her look changed later, so we were lucky to have those images.
Giovanni Ribisi looks very different as mob boss Joe Columbo—how did you transform him so thoroughly?
Giovanni was just a delight. Every day he came in so committed, like ‘I want to look like this man. I want to be this man. If you need to cut my hair or whatever you need, whatever you want, just do it.’ He is so method, and he just knew the character so well and had done an enormous amount of research himself. We shaved the top of his head and kept a little tiny piece in the front, and he was happy to walk around like that for 6 months. We added a little hairpiece on top, applying it every day. There was very minimal makeup, just a little bit of eyebrow, but the hair was the main thing, to give him that receding hairline. We buffed his nails every day to make sure he looked like he was manicured.
Dan Fogler already looks a bit like Francis Ford Coppola. What was the secret to pushing his look?
The key was his beard. It’s hard when actors are doing interviews and such, but I told him, ‘no trimming!’ We filled in his beard to start with until it grew through. Dan already had a strong likeness, so we just had to lean into it. The nice thing was that he and Patrick Gallo, who played Mario Puzo, lived together for a month in the beginning, so they got close, and we were able to fine-tune them into these iconic people so many know. With Patrick, we covered up his tattoos every day, sometimes at the last minute if there was a costume change. Patrick was lucky because he could grow his hair fast. He started growing his sideburns at the beginning and they just got bushier and bushier.
Patrick Gallo as Mario Puzo and Dan Fogler as Francis Ford Coppola. Photo credit: Nicole Wilder/Paramount+
You had to recreate the iconic looks of famous actors like Robert Redford, Elizabeth Taylor, Al Pacino, Ali McGraw, and Ann Margret. How did you approach that?
Everything happened really quickly, which was good because we didn’t have time to overanalyze things. It was a dream to be able to try to recreate those people. We’d just line up a ton of photos and try our best to capture their essence, getting the facial hair and skin tone and finding and using the exact colors. We had a great stock of hair and so we could add it wherever we needed it, which is great because the 70s is so all about hair. It was getting these fine details to make these actors look as close as we could to those they were portraying.
The cast of “The Offer.” Photo credit: Nicole Wilder/Paramount+
No doubt Dick Smith, who did makeup on the original Godfather, was an inspiration for your work on The Offer. What kind of research did you do on his work with Marlon Brando, and what did you take from it that helped with the designs for Justin Chambers?
That was probably the scariest moment of my career because I’ve researched and studied Dick Smith’s work from the very beginning of my career. I had references of every photo we could find of what Dick did in the movie. I had a picture of him doing makeup on Marlon Brando that I looked at every day and it was a great inspiration. We looked at a lot of his techniques, and luckily Dick was very open about his experience and what he did. He was always very kind in trying to teach younger people, so we learned a lot about his techniques. We then got Justin’s mouth impressions done, and we were able to replicate the dental plumpers that Dick used to make Marlon’s jaw look like it was hanging down lower. We sculpted and structured the mouth to look more like The Don, and Justin was so happy to have that because it added an extra layer to the character. We used Dick Smith’s techniques, but I used more modern appliances and pieces because technology has advanced a lot since then. We made some silicone transfers to go on his face to turn Justin into Marlon Brando but also into The Don, with The Godfather makeup. The whole thing was scary and fun at the same time.
“Men would sooner put the realm to the torch than see a woman ascend the Iron Throne.” This piece of brutal real talk is delivered to Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock as a child, Emma Darcy as an adult) in the official teaser trailer for House of the Dragon, the first Game of Thrones prequel to make it through the development gauntlet and appear on HBO. For Game of Thrones fans, we know that, eventually, a woman will ascend to the Iron Throne, but the price she’ll pay, as well as that of the entire realm, will be brutal.
Based on George R. R. Martin’s “Fire & Blood” series, House of the Dragon is set 200 years before the likes of Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow, Cersei Lannister, and the rest fought and died over the Throne in Game of Thrones. The series will explore the rise of Daenerys’ ancestors in the House Targaryen and will track how these volatile, often vicious dragonlords came to rule over Westeros, and the civil war that followed known as the ‘Dance of Dragons.’ The series comes from co-creators Ryan J. Condal and George R. R. Martin. Condal serves as co-showrunner along with Game of Thrones alum Miguel Sapochnik, who is also the director of the pilot and other episodes.
The teaser offers fresh glimpses at the palace intrigue, and one excellent final shot of Prince Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) confronting one of his family’s dragons. Although House Targaryen is known for being able to harness and ride those majestic beasts, dragons are never fully tamed. Neither are the rest of the Houses in Westeros, which is why one of the most dangerous things a House can do is claim to rule them from the Iron Throne.
Check out the official trailer below. House of the Dragon premieres on HBO and HBO Max on August 21.
Here’s the official featured cast list from HBO:
Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen: The king’s first-born child, she is of pure Valyrian blood, and she is a dragonrider. Many would say that Rhaenyra was born with everything… but she was not born a man.
Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen: The younger brother to King Viserys and heir to the throne. A peerless warrior and a dragonrider, Daemon possesses the true blood of the dragon. But it is said that whenever a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin in the air…
Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon, “The Sea Snake”: Lord of House Velaryon, a Valyrian bloodline as old as House Targaryen. As “The Sea Snake,” the most famed nautical adventurer in the history of Westeros, Lord Corlys built his house into a powerful seat that is even richer than the Lannisters and that claims the largest navy in the world.
Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower: The daughter of Otto Hightower, the Hand of the King, and the most comely woman in the Seven Kingdoms. She was raised in the Red Keep, close to the king and his innermost circle; she possesses both a courtly grace and a keen political acumen.
Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower: The Hand of the King, Ser Otto loyally and faithfully serves both his king and his realm. As the Hand sees it, the greatest threat to the realm is the king’s brother, Daemon, and his position as heir to the throne.
Wil Johnson as Ser Vaemond Velaryon: Younger brother to Coryls Velaryon and commander in the Velaryon navy
John Macmillan as Ser Laenor Velaryon: Son of Corlys Velaryon and Rhaenys Targaryen
Savannah Steyn as Lady Laena Velayron: Daughter of Corlys Velaryon and Rhaenys Targaryen.
Theo Nate as Ser Laenor Velaryon: Son of Corlys Velaryon and Rhaenys Targaryen
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A new special look inside Pixar’s Lightyear is here, starring Chris Evans as Buzz Lightyear—yes, that Buzz Lightyear—one of the original superstars of Pixar’s Toy Story franchise, which began with the game-changing 1995 original. That Buzz was voiced by Tim Allen, of course, who starred alongside Tom Hanks’ cowboy Woody and a roomful of talking toys that changed animated films forever. Now, 27-years later, Buzz Lightyear is getting his own origin story with Chris Evans voicing the younger, pre-Toy Story Buzz. Lightyear comes from director Angus MacLane and presents the real story of the real man who inspired the Buzz Lightyear toy that was introduced in the first Toy Story.
The new special look gives us a bit more insight into the cast of characters surrounding Buzz and who will be crucial in his mission. The cast includes commander Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba), and Sox (Peter Sohn), his beloved robot cat. There’s more talent—a lot more—including Keke Palmer as Izzy Hawthorne, Taika Waititi as Mo Morrison, and Dale Soules as Darby Steel. They are all members of the Junior Zap Patrol. Marcy McDonald-Lewis voices Buzz’s onboard computer, I.V.A.N., while Isiah Whitlock Jr. voices Commander Burnside.
Director Angus MacLane comes to Lightyear with a tremendous amount of passion. He’s said in the past that what drew him to this project was wondering, for years, what adventures the real Buzz got into as a Space Ranger that made Andy in Toy Story want the Buzz toy so badly. MacLane has now turned that question into a feature film, and he’s got Chris Evans leading an insanely talented voice cast, and Pixar’s deep stable of animation talent, to deliver another cutting-edge, emotionally resonant animated feature.
Check out the special look below. Lightyear lands in theaters on June 17, 2022.
Here’s the official synopsis from Pixar:
Lightyear is the definitive origin story of Buzz Lightyear—the hero who inspired the toy—follows the legendary Space Ranger on an intergalactic adventure. “Buzz’s world was always something I was excited about,” said director Angus MacLane. “In ‘Toy Story,’ there seemed to be this incredible backstory to him being a Space Ranger that’s only touched upon, and I always wanted to explore that world further. So my ‘Lighytear’ pitch was, ‘What was the movie that Andy saw that made him want a Buzz Lightyear toy?’ I wanted to see that movie. And now I’m lucky enough to get to make it.”
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Director Sam Raimi knows a thing or three about creating riveting superhero spectacles. The director of the original Spider-Man trilogy that raised the bar for all subsequent superhero films returns to the fold and makes his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It’s a fitting vessel for Raimi’s special blend of filmmaking skills, allowing him to take Marvel into realms of madness, horror, and more. In the final trailer, those realms include one in which Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is still alive (look for him at the 13-second mark). In another sequence, Captain America (Chris Evans) is still young and in fighting shape. Both of these would be impossibilities if Doctor Strange were operating in the universe in which the events of Avengers: Endgame took place. But he’s not, at least, not only. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will find Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) contending with not just his own reality, but realities in which a living Iron Man and a young Captain America will be the least surprising thing.
The reason Strange is tasked with corraling the multiverse is that he’s the one who unleashed it during the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Strange’s allies include trusted friend Wong (Benedict Wong), the incredibly powerful Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), and newcomer America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), better known as Young Avenger Miss America. He’ll need all the help he can get considering one of the bad guys he’ll be facing off against is himself.
The final trailer leans into not just the mind-melting, reality-shattering drama awaiting viewers, but the emotional stakes involved in messing around with the multiverse. Wanda’s heartbreaking journey seems like an especially crucial component of the film, and she, too, will come face to face with a malevolent version of herself. “You break the rules and become a hero,” she says to Strange. “I do it and I become the enemy. That doesn’t seem fair.”
Fact check—it’s not.
Check out the final trailer below. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hits theaters on May 6.
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Ground control to Major Tom, that’s one heckuva entrance.
Tom Cruise made a very Tom Cruise entrance to kick off the world premiere of Top Gun: Maverick, landing a helicopter on the aircraft carrier USS. Midway. Cruise, who learned how to fly choppers for the climactic final action sequence in Mission: Impossible – Fallout, landed the helicopter on Midway and strolled to the red carpet with all the confidence of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. It was a fitting way to celebrate the return of his iconic character, and Cruise made the most of it, joking that the movie required more than just arriving in an Uber.
The Top Gun: Maverick premiere included even more spectacle—there were jet flyovers, uniformed servicemen, and of course, Cruise’s fellow cast members, who arrived in more pedestrian fashion but were definitely feeling the excitement. The last time Cruise played Maverick was 35 years ago, and the sequel has been in the works for at least a decade. The Hollywood Reporterreveals that Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski pitched Cruise and the Top Gun creative team (including producer Jerry Bruckheimer) his vision for the sequel, which included his idea for a poster and a full lookbook. “After he finished pitching it, Tom pulled out his phone and called Paramount and said, ‘I’m making another Top Gun movie,’” Bruckheimer told The Hollywood Reporter.
Considering Cruise’s commitment to doing as many of his own stunts as possible, it’s not surprising to learn that he really did fly jets for Top Gun: Maverick. The film finds Maverick returning to the Navy fold after being summoned by one Admiral Kazansky—better known as Iceman (Val Kilmer). He’s been brought back to teach a bunch of new Top Guns some tricks of the trade before they take on a highly dangerous mission. Those young Top Guns include Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Tiller), callsign Rooster—the son of Goose (Anthony Edwards), Maverick’s best friend and radar intercept officer who died during one of Maverick’s training flights in the original Top Gun.
The cast also includes Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez, Monica Barbaro, and Greg Tarzan Davis, all playing pilots. Yet it was Kilmer’s return that was most crucial for Cruise.
“Tom said, ‘I’m not making the movie without Val,’ and of course, we had to talk to Val; he was up to it, he helped create the scene with us,” Bruckheimer told The Hollywood Reporter. Kilmer lost his speaking voice after a battle with throat cancer. “It was a very emotional day — you saw Maverick and Iceman back on screen again after 36 years.”
Cruise helped the young cast get trained up so that they looked the part, including two hours of swimming and two hours of flying. Glen Powell got his pilot’s license and told THR that “Tom does not half-ass anything, as well know,” and that Cruise’s enthusiasm rubbed off on the cast.
If you’re wondering whether Top Gun: Maverick has a beach volleyball scene like the original Top Gun did, let’s just leave you with this clue, from cast member Jay Ellis. “We probably all had four or five layers of different types of oils on us to really make sure the muscles popped,” Ellis told THR. “Nobody could stand next to a flame or it might get dangerous, but we had a great time.”
Top Gun: Maverick zooms into theaters on May 27.
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Featured image: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – MAY 04: Tom Cruise attends the Global Premiere of “Top Gun: Maverick” on May 04, 2022 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)
There are some seriously sinister forces aligned against Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) in the official trailer for Obi-Wan Kenobi. From the opening seconds, we see the Inquisitor Fifth Brother (Sung Kang) appear on the scene as Obi-Wan implores the other, scattered Jedi to “stay hidden…or will we not survive.” Fifth Brother is but one of the people hunting Obi-Wan.
Yet Obi-Wan is not only a nearly peerless Jedi Master on the lam, but he’s also a born teacher. This is what leads him to a young Luke Skywalker (Grant Feely), the son of his former Padawan student Anakin Skywalker. Luke’s being looked over by Uncle Owen (Joel Edgerton), who wants Obi-Wan as far away from Luke as possible. The reason, of course, is how Obi-Wan’s mentorship of Luke’s father Anakin turned out. Here’s a refresher—in George Lucas’s final film in his prequel trilogy, 2005’s Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan Kenobi lost Anakin (Hayden Christensen) to the Dark Side and was forced to nearly fatally maim him in a lightsaber duel in the climactic final battle. That film ended with Anakin getting fitted for his new helmet as he became the Sith Lord Darth Vader.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is set 10 years after the events of Revenge of the Sith, with Obi-Wan Kenobi being hunted by Fifth Brother, another Inquistor named Reva (rising star Moses Ingram), and, of course, by Darth Vader himself, with Hayden Christensen reprising his role.
A slew of other great performers are on hand, including Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Simone Kessell, and Benny Safdie. The series is directed by Deborah Chow and arrives on Disney+ on May 27.
Check out the official trailer here:
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In James Gunn’s Peacemaker, the beefy titular superhero (John Cena) was unaware that (spoiler alert) one of his colleagues and new almost-best friends Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) was actually the daughter of the ruthless Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). Amanda Waller was the one who tapped Peacemaker to take part in an insanely dangerous mission in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad that saw Peacemaker get shot, have a building fall on top of him, and, land him in jail. Waller had a small but crucial role to play in Peacemaker, a slightly bigger part in Gunn’s The Suicide Squad (and in David Ayer’s original Suicide Squad), but she’s never been front-and-center in these DC projects. Now, Varietyhas learned that Davis is in talks to return as Waller in very her own spinoff series on HBO Max, meaning her whatever-it-takes brand of brutal efficiency will finally be front and center.
Peacemaker ended with a very (again, spoiler alert) public embarrassment for Waller—her daughter outed her work with Task Force X (known as the Suicide Squad to you and me) to the press. While we have no clue precisely what this new series would cover, it seems assured that it will deal with the fallout from this very public outing, and how Waller handles being outed as the ruthless leader of a squad of trained killers.
Variety reports that Davis would star in and executive produce the series, with Christal Henry writing and executive producing. Henry is no stranger to writing ripping dramas based on comic book characters for HBO—she was a writer on the excellent Watchmen. James Gunn would executive produce as well, along with Peter Safran.
Davis lights up whatever screen she’s on, big or small. She’s a multiple Emmy-nominee, and Emmy Award-winner, for her role in How To Get Away With Murder and her guest appearance in Scandal, a four-time Oscar-nominee and an Oscar-winner for her work in Fences, and is currently starring as Michelle Obama in The First Lady. Getting to watch her play the relentless, unbreakable Amanda Waller has been a treat—to see her play Waller when her back is, excuse us, against the wall, well, who wouldn’t want to watch that?
For more on Peacemaker and what’s on or coming to HBO Max, check out these stories:
Daniel Radcliffe has had quite the post Harry Potter career. Hardly playing it safe, Radcliffe has bared body and soul on stage, credibly played a farting corpse in the surprisingly touching Swiss Army Man, played a brash villain in the action-comedy The Lost City, and basically followed his muse in whichever direction it led him. Now, in what feels like a very fitting new role, Radcliffe inhabits Weird Al Yankovic in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story for Roku. The first trailer reveals Radcliffe as the curly-haired musical prankster and it’s just as fun as you’d imagine.
Produced by Funny Or Die and Tango, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story is co-written by the real Yankovic himself, along with director Eric Appel. The film is being billed as the “untold true story” of Weird Al’s rise to stardom when he spoofed some of the biggest songs in history with tracks like “I Love Rocky Road,” “Like a Surgeon,” and “Eat It.” If you’re guessing that this “untold true story” will itself be a spoof, gently poking fun at the self-serious biopics of real musical legends, you’re likely on the right track. Not that Weird Al hasn’t enjoyed a tremendous amount of success, mind you. The man is the best-selling comedy recording artist of all time and a five-time Grammy winner.
Radcliffe is joined by a stellar cast that includes Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna; Julianne Nicholson and Toby Huss as Yankovic’s parents; and Rainn Wilson as radio DJ Dr. Demento.
Radcliffe is one of the most game actors of his generation, challenging himself to take on roles that run the gamut from intense, realistic portrayals to, again, a farting corpse. In each performance, what’s clear is Radcliffe seems to be having the time of his life. Embodying someone as unabashedly silly—and wildly successful—as Weird Al seems like a logical next step.
“When my last movie, UHF, came out in 1989, I made a solemn vow to my fans that I would release a major motion picture every 33 years, like clockwork,” Yankovic said in a statement when Weird: The Al Yankovic Story was first announced. He’s a man of his word.
“I think somebody who cares about somebody can be forgiven for doing something that has consequences.” This, you might have guessed, is how Benedict Cumberbatch feels about Doctor Strange’s decision to try and help Peter Parker cast a particular spell in Spider-Man: No Way Home. If you’re an MCU fan, you know how that spell went—it unleashed the multiverse, and with it a slew of villains from Spider-Man franchises past and two other Spider-Men, too. The reason Cumberbatch is finally defending his character’s choice is that, of course, he stars in Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the second stand-alone film for Stephen Strange and one that deals with the direct aftermath of that fateful decision in No Way Home.
Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Cumberbatch asserts that the usually prickly Doctor Strange was thinking with his heart more than his head when he cast a spell, per Peter’s request, to wipe the memory of everyone who knew that Peter Parker was Spider-Man. Parker had just lost his mentor, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) during the climactic final battle in Avengers: Endgame, and then was publicly outed by Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Spider-Man: Far From Home. Strange was trying to help the youngster out after a few rough few years.
“What kind of superhero would he be if he didn’t want to help another superhero?” Cumberbatch tells THR.
It’s poetic justice that Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange will now contend with the full power (and horror) of the multiverse in a Sam Raimi film, considering three Raimi characters appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home after Strange’s spell was botched. The original Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), and Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) all sprung from Raimi’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. Cumberbatch told THR that Raimi was an amazing collaborator.
“What I did learn on set was how humble and human and funny he is, and how great a first audience he is,” Cumberbatch told THR. “All of those qualities make a great director. He wears that iconic status very, very lightly, and he doesn’t let it get in the way of a good day’s work. It commands respect, of course, but he never wants anyone to stand on ceremony. He just wants you to commit and do your best. He’s always incredibly supportive and has an acute eye for detail. So all of those things make you understand why he’s great, but it’s the opposite of the grandeur of his position in the pantheon of filmmakers in this modern era that really sings out as his winning quality. There’s no ego to the guy at all.”
We know that Doctor Strange has a lot of ego, but the man who plays him just wants people to give the character a bit of a break when it comes to that whiffed spell during Spider-Man: No Way Home. I mean, the spell was going swimmingly until Peter Parker messed it up, if we’re being totally honest.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hits theaters on May 6.
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It was only last week when we were enthusing over Lady Gaga being tapped to write the main theme song for Top Gun: Maverick. Now, Lady Gaga herself has made it official—her song, “Hold My Hand,” is out now. She co-wrote it with BloodPop, who was also her co-producer, along with Benjamin Rice. Gaga’s song will feature prominently in the film, which finds Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) returning to the Navy to help teach a fresh Top Gun glass a few extra things before they take on a dangerous mission. Gaga’s song is appropriately soaring, with guitar licks, violins, and a vibe that recalls the power ballads of the 1980s which were topping the charts when the original Top Gun landed in theaters in 1986. There’s already buzz that “Hold My Hand” will be an Oscar contender as best original song.
On Instagram, Gaga wrote this about the song: “I didn’t even realize the multiple layers it spanned across the film’s heart, my own psyche, and the nature of the world we’ve been living in. I’ve been working on it for years, perfecting it, trying to make it ours. I wanted to make music into a song where we share our deep need to both be understood and try to understand each other—a longing to be close when we feel so far away and an ability to celebrate life’s heroes.”
Gaga went on to thank Tom Cruise, the film’s director Joseph Kosinski, and the film’s composer, Hans Zimmer, along with Harold Faltermeyer and Lorne Balfe. “I’m so grateful to Tom and Hans and Joe for this opportunity—and it’s been a beautiful experience working with them. Me, BloodPop, Ben Rice and everyone else who worked on it with us are so excited to share it with you.”
Top Gun: Maverick will bring Maverick face-to-face with his former best friend Goose’s son, played here by Miles Teller. In the original Top Gun, Maverick lost Goose in an accident during a training session and never forgave himself. With Goose’s son, now going by the call Rooster, in the Top Gun glass, Maverick will be face-to-face with his past, and a hot shot pilot who might not want to take orders from a man who was with his dad when he died.
Top Gun: Maverick is making its world premiere in Cannes, and then hits theaters on May 27.
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The first reactions to director Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness are pouring in, and we’ve got the multidimensional lowdown for you here. Raimi, of course, helped kickstart the entirely new approach to capturing superheroes on the big screen with his phenomenal Spider-Man trilogy at the turn of the century. Those films lead the way for Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, which further cemented the deeper, darker, more serious approach. Now Raimi’s back and he took the reigns on Marvel’s oddest, most mystical character, and critics are saying he was the right man for the job. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is being called deeply strange, a straight-up horror film at times, and 100% Raimi. That’s a great thing.
In the Multiverse of Madness finds Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) tasked with corraling the very multiverse he helped unleashed during the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Strange will need allies, like Wong (Benedict Wong), Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), and newcomer America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), better known as Young Avenger Miss America. He’ll need all the help he can get considering one of the bad guys he’ll be facing off against is himself.
Coming in for specific praise are Raimi, for making In the Multiverse of Madness a true Raimi film, while still handling all the MCU connective tissue to the larger universe. Elizabeth Olsen’s performance as a bristling Wanda, still smarting from the events in WandaVision, is getting raves as well. And then a lot of the refrains are just rejoicing at seeing Sam Raimi get to be Sam Raimi in a big-time Marvel film. What’s not to get excited for here?
So let’s go to the critics and take a magical mystery tour around Twitter.
#DoctorStrange: MARVEL MADE A HORROR MOVIE! It’s weird, scary and earns the title “Multiverse of Madness.” If you were at all concerned this movie wouldn’t feel Sam Raimi enough, fear not! I can’t imagine a more Sam Raimi MCU film. My genre loving heart is bursting right now. pic.twitter.com/9we5vMpXhy
Welp! Marvel fans finally got their horror movie. #DoctorStrangeInTheMultiverseOfMadness is a dark & wildly imaginative creation from the twisted and brilliant mind of Sam Raimi. Dug the hell out of it. Study up on your comic book knowledge…Superhero fans will lose their faces! pic.twitter.com/TkwwInCz4W
— Clayton Davis – Stand with 🇺🇦 (@ByClaytonDavis) May 3, 2022
Don’t worry, Sam Raimi fans. DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS fully goes horror—jump scares, body horror, and a smattering of diabolical kills. It fits in the MCU but has Raimi’s deranged creepy campy groovy DNA all over it. Start the Elizabeth Olsen Oscar campaign. pic.twitter.com/jIVheGQfoY
— Karl Delossantos 🔜 Cannes (@karl_delo) May 3, 2022
#DoctorStrange is filled with hugely entertaining sequences, character-driven heft & kaleidoscopic, trippy visuals. Xochitl Gomez is a scene stealer. Elizabeth Olsen owns. Benedict Cumberbatch, superb. Doubles as a good entry point for Beginners Horror. Has Raimi signature. pic.twitter.com/0S6tF9dP9h
#DoctorStrange is totally madcap and insane. It’s 100% a Sam Raimi movie (which is very much appreciated), easily the scariest MCU entry thus far. Go in knowing as little as possible. Your journey to the multiverse will be much more enjoyable. 🌀 pic.twitter.com/YgbMhi1k3e
#DoctorStrange is the most weird, grimy, horrific fun I’ve had at a Marvel movie in ages. Sam Raimi gets to flex his horror muscles, and Elizabeth Olsen is a Medean masterclass on feminine trauma and what we’re willing to do to cope with our own losses. Hell 👏🏻 yes 👏🏻 pic.twitter.com/Hic3MNgDDp
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is the weirdest, grossest Marvel movie yet. It’s wildly disjointed, partially on purpose, so it doesn’t always work but the horror, and especially Wanda, work incredibly well. Plus wow. What huge surprises. pic.twitter.com/HwZUZ4Nygw
Well, #DoctorStrange is MASSIVE Marvel storytelling. Huge swings with enormous stakes. Raimi brings horror to the MCU, with dark twists and morbid turns. It’s full spectacle, and fully in line with the oddity of the STRANGE comics. Ambitious and breathtaking.
All I can/will say is that #DoctorStrange in the #MultiverseOfMadness is the most
SAM RAIMI Sam Raimi movie I’ve seen in years. And I mean that in the best way.
Laughs, heart, shock, scares, grossness, and a hefty dose of WEIRD.
Autumn Bailey-Ford has been an independent film and TV producer working out of Georgia for the past 13 years. Originally from York, Pennsylvania, Bailey-Ford has worked her way up from production assistant—that invaluable, multifaceted job that has been the starting point to many successful film careers—to running her own studio…and co-running a second.
“I love film and TV,” Bailey-Ford says, reflecting on a career that began with her daydreaming as a little girl watching Bob Hope and Bing Cosby movies on Turner Movie Classics. “I thought, I want to do that. But I knew I wanted to be behind the scenes and part of the crew.”
The path Bailey-Ford has carved out in Georgia has coincided with the Peach State’s growth into a hotbed of film and TV production. Since 2016, Georgia has become the number one state in the country for feature film production. In Atlanta alone, you have Turner, EUE/Screen Gems, and Tyler Perry Studios headquartered there. Outside of Atlanta, there’s even more action, led by Trilith Studios, where Marvel produces its Disney+ series and feature films for its’ juggernaut Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Bailey-Ford has thrived in Georgia’s burgeoning production world. She counts among her mentors DeVon Franklin, a film and TV producer and well-respected preacher who has utilized his platform as an inspirational tool.
“DeVon Franklin’s just somebody I admire, and I love how he can take faith and navigate the industry while being a Christian, and how he translates that into his projects,” Bailey-Ford says. “I always try to do one or two faith movies a year, and overall, I just love doing good projects.”
Courtesy Autumn Bailey-Ford.
Her latest project, On A Wing and a Prayer, happens to be her first studio movie. Working with MGM, Bailey-Ford helped shepherd the project, which is based on a true story about a pilot who dies unexpectedly while flying a plane and the passenger who steps in to land the plane safely.
“We wrapped this past October 2021, and we’re set to come out in theaters this August 31st,” Bailey-Ford says. “The film stars Dennis Quaid, Heather Graham, and Jesse Metcalfe. Once or twice a year, I post on social media asking for any scripts I might connect with. This local guy in Atlanta shared the script for On a Wing and a Prayer, and I was like, oh my god, this story is amazing!”
Bailey-Ford’s process for deciding how to approach a project is based entirely on her connection to the script. She’ll do a deep-dive read and then, if she connects to it deeply, she’ll either option it or do a shopping agreement. “An option agreement means I might work on it for three or four years,” she says, “whereas, with a shopping agreement, I might do it for two or three months. My process when choosing to option or shop usually comes down to the thought, ‘Yes, I like this project, but does it have any legs? Let me send it out and see if I get any bites.’ I want the writer to have the opportunity to send it off if I can’t do anything with it. I don’t want to hold somebody’s project hostage.”
Courtesy Autumn Bailey-Ford.
Bailey-Ford co-owns Prominent Productions with reality TV impresario Mark Burnett’s son, Cameron Burnett, that’s based in LA and Atlanta. “We do more scripted stuff, so we’re slowly moving into the TV space; we’ve optioned some books and we got some new TV projects that we’ll announce soon, along with a full slate of movies,” she says.
Along with working on scripts, Bailey-Ford keeps herself plugged into the publishing world, and usually devours between 10 and 15 books a month. When she connects with a book she likes, she’s as committed to making something happen as she is with a great script. This happened recently with the book “I’m Not Dying With You Tonight,” by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal. The book, which was an NAACP Image Award Nominee, follows one Black and one white teenage girl who are forced to rely on each other over the course of a single night as a violent race riot envelops their city.
“I love this book,” Bailey-Ford says. “I told Cameron we should do this, and he thought it was brilliant. So I sent him the link of Kimberly Jones, who went viral talking about George Floyd. I got in touch with Kimberly, and it turned out we know each other, and she said she trusted me. I still had to meet her people, including her agent in L.A. Her agent thought about it, talked to Kim, and they gave me a non-exclusive, so I had 30 to 60 days to match any offer someone else might make.”
Here’s where Bailey-Ford’s years of networking and hard work paid off. In that window of time she had the non-exclusive deal, someone she knew on LinkedIn (she uses the site widely and well) reached out to her about the book. So, their companies partnered up, and they reached out to writers and studios. One of Bailey-Ford’s many friends, this one at a studio no less, was interested in the project. The studio picked it up.
Such happy outcomes are the product of a lot of groundwork, hustle, and determination. Yet it’s also part of the larger picture of the kind of network Bailey-Ford has fostered in the Atlanta area in particular, and Georgia generally.
“For me, I think it’s a positive experience filming here, and there are so many productions going on,” she says of working in Georgia. “People trust me, and they know they’re going to have a great experience. I’ve done movies all over the world, and the travel is great, but nothing is as good as being able to go home be in my own bed. That’s the thing about filming in Georgia—it’s home, and we’re a family.”
How do you know people are fired up for Taika Waititi’s upcoming Thor sequel Thor: Love and Thunder? The teaser for Love and Thunder racked up more than 209 million views in the first 24-hours. That’s a lot of eyeballs checking out Thor (Chris Hemsworth) as he tries to forge an entirely new path. What does this new Thor want? Peace. Love. Harmony. Now, a new image provided by Marvel shows us just how seriously Thor is taking his vision quest towards enlightenment. Just look at the blissed-out expression, that comfortable, humble robe—he’s the picture of a man whose present. Here’s the problem for Thor—there are other people who won’t let him have his peace, and they are legion, and they’re lunatics. “These hands were once used for battle,” Thor said in comic overstatement in the teaser, “now they’re but humble tools for peace.” Yeah, let’s see how this works out for our favorite God of Thunder.
As you likely know by now, Thor’s peaceful intentions are scrambled by a psychopath called Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale) who has designs on taking down all the gods, everywhere. Doesn’t sound like something Thor can sit out. Then there’s also the massive reveal of Thor’s old flame, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) now wielding Mjolnir and calling herself the Mighty Thor. Talk about a shock to Thor’s system, but the big guy will need to get over it, get over himself, and join Jane to try to take down the God Butcher before it’s too late.
For now, however, it’s nice to imagine a mellow Thor raising crops, practicing meditation, and just being. It won’t last, but you can’t blame the guy for trying. It’s been a stressful few millennia for the God of Thunder.
Thor: Love and Thunder booms into theaters on July 8. Returning champions also include Tessa Thompson as King Valkryie, Waititi himself playing Korg, and Russell Crowe playing Zeus.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Marvel Studios’ “Thor: Love and Thunder” finds the God of Thunder (Chris Hemsworth) on a journey unlike anything he’s ever faced – a quest for inner peace. But Thor’s retirement is interrupted by a galactic killer known as Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who seeks the extinction of the gods. To combat the threat, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi) and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who – to Thor’s surprise – inexplicably wields his magical hammer, Mjolnir, as the Mighty Thor. Together, they embark upon a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher’s vengeance and stop him before it’s too late. Directed by Taika Waititi (“Thor: Ragnarok,” “Jojo Rabbit”) and produced by Kevin Feige and Brad Winderbaum, “Thor: Love and Thunder” opens in U.S. theaters July 8, 2022.
For more on Thor: Love and Thunder, check out these stories:
Director Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness promises to bring the crazy. We’ve already seen trailers and teasers that point to just how messy, and mystical, things are going to get for the good Doctor (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his friends. In the new film, one of his most crucial allies will be Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), one of the most powerful Avengers of them all and one who got in a good deal of trouble herself for messing about in the mystical realms. (See her shenanigans involving the Hex in WandaVision) In a new teaser, we see just how unruly things get when none other than Professor X (Patrick Stewart) arrives to find out “Will we see what kind of Doctor Strange you are.” You know things are bad if Charles Xavier, the man who tried tamping down Wolverine’s worst instincts, has to use his mind tricks on you.
The reason Professor X has to try to get to the bottom of what kind of Doctor Strange he is happens to do with the fact that when the multiverse is unleashed, a very bad version of Doctor Strange is untethered from his realm and into ours. So, too, does it look like an Evil Wanda will start to make life miserable for her kinder counterpart. The new film will fully unleash Marvel’s Phase 4, setting up new stakes, new characters, and a new direction for the vaunted mega-movie franchise house. Heck, before Professor X rolls up, Doctor Strange is treated to a near-miss of Captain America’s shield, which is launched from somewhere else (another realm, we supposed) and comes crashing into Strange’s reality.
In describing to /film how he went about designing the world of the film, Raimi says he took inspiration from the original “Doctor Who” artist Steve Ditko, who illustrated the Stan Lee comics that brought Doctor Strange and his wild world into the comics canon.
“Sometimes you’d open up a two-page Ditko landscape piece and it was incredible,” Raimi says to /Film. “In fact, if you saw the first 20 minutes of our movie, that universe where the movie starts is really based on what we call the Ditko-verse.
“It’s pretty unfathomably exciting where we’re going in this film,” Cumberbatch said in a recent featurette. “It’s the most fantastic new phase of Marvel.”
“In this story, we are leaping into different universes, but unlocking the multiverse creates a big Pandora’s box,” Olsen said in the same featurette. Wanda and Strange will try to contend with the unleashed contents of that Pandora’s box, which include monsters, villains, and an evil version of Strange himself.
“We’re in unknown territory. I think audiences are going to be startled,” said Benedict Wong, who returns as Strange’s right-hand man, Wong. “These other realities invite a plethora of all these new characters.”
Joining Strange, Stewart, Wanda, and Wong are Xochitl Gomez as superhero America Chavez, Rachel McAdams as Dr. Christine Palmer, and Chiwetel Ejiofor returning as Mordo.
Check out the epic new teaser below. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hits theaters on May 6.
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John Krasinski’s brilliant A Quiet Place franchise, which has featured two thrilling, chilling films, was already getting a spinoff, and now we know its title and a bit about its plot. Paramount revealed the title for the film at CinemaCon—A Quiet Place: Day One—as well as teasing what this prequel story will focus on. You can probably guess from the title; we’ll finally get a full picture of the day the aliens arrived and began hunting humans by sound.
As all you Quiet Place-heads know, the first two films made incredible work of the fact that the aliens were essentially blind. The way they hunted was their incredible hearing prowess, which allowed them to track even the slightest sound from seemingly miles away. Krasinski and his deft team turned this conceit into a brilliant tension-building strategy, with both A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place 2 utilizing silence, and the attempt of the desperate Abbott family (led by Emily Blunt’s Evelyn Abbott) to say quiet, to wring out an incredible amount of drama. You cared about the Abbott family, you were terrified of the blind, sound-hunting monsters, and you always wondered where they came from, and what their initial arrival was like.
Needless to say, Paramount is going to provide us with that answer, as A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II (held back for a long time due to the pandemic) were critical and commercial hits. Krasinski will be directing the third chapter of the storyline he began with A Quiet Place, while A Quiet Place: Day One will be directed by Michael Sarnoski (Pig).
Krasinski gave us a hint of what day one was like in A Quiet Place Part II when he revealed a riveting sequence in which a meteor fell to Earth and with it, those lunatic aliens. We saw how the Abbott family just narrowly escaped being killed on day one, yet it was just the one sequence, and soon we were back to the present day, with Evelyn Abbott trying to keep her three kids safe. A Quiet Place: Day One will give us the full picture of that day, and introduce us to new characters and new locations.
A Quiet Place: Day One is scheduled for arrival in theaters on September 22, 2023.
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Director Francis Lawrence is returning to the massively popular franchise to direct the next chapter, after having helmed Catching Fire, Mockingjay Part One, and Mockingjay Part Two. And thanks to the Lionsgate presentation at CinemaCon, we now know when the new film will arrive.
During Lionsgate’s presentation, they offered those in attendance a cryptic invitation. “You’re invited to return to the Games” was displayed on the screen, with ice thawing in the background of a wintry scene. Then on the screen, they appeared—a bird and a snake. “In 2023, the world will discover who is a songbird and who is a snake.”
Here’s how the Lionsgate synopsis reads for Hunger Games Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes:
“In this return to The Hunger Games, years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow sees a chance for a change in fortunes when he is chosen to be a mentor to Lucy Gray Baird, the girl tribute from impoverished District 12.”
A Coriolanus Snow origin story! Intriguing.
Hunger Games Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will be produced by Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, and director Lawrence. The film is based on the book of the same title, which was released in 2020. The film’s screenwriters will be creator Suzanne Collins, Michael Arndt, and Michael Lesslie.
We’ll fill you in with more details when we get them.
Featured image: Cressida (Natalie Dormer, left) and Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, right) in THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 2. Photo Credit: Murray Close
