When Ryan Coogler was shopping the script for his fifth film around Hollywood, the excitement and competition for the rights to work with the filmmaker were equally high. The major studios and streamers were vying to be able to produce and distribute Coogler’s original story, which, we’d eventually learn, was Sinners, his upcoming supernatural period piece. The reasons for the excitement and competition were obvious—Coogler hasn’t missed yet, all four of his previous films, which he wrote and directed, were critically acclaimed, and, when it came to his two Black Panther films, massive international blockbusters. Fruitvale Station, Creed, Black Panther, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever have cemented Coogler’s status as one of the best filmmakers of his generation. The fact that his spec script was being met with open arms and checkbooks made complete sense.
Eventually, Warner Bros. made the deal that Coogler was looking for, which included copyright reversion down the line, similar to the one Quentin Tarantino struck. Sinners features Michael B. Jordan in the dual roles of Smoke and Stack, twin brothers who return from World War I to open a blues club in 1930s Mississippi and end up coming face-to-fang with supernatural predators in a bloody battle for their souls.
While there’s been a lot of heavy breathing over the future of the theatrical experience, with countless articles tracking the year-over-year performances of movie theaters, Warner Bros. is betting big on Coogler that he, like Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve, Greta Gerwig, and others, are the kinds of artists who need the absolute biggest canvas to draw audiences by the millions into the multiplex. And Coogler is not afraid to take a big swing, as he’s done again and again in his career and is doing here, with his genre-fluid period thriller.
Speaking with Deadline, Coogler opened up about why he’s so excited to share Sinners with the world and why Warner Bros. has given him the tools and IMAX theater space necessary to draw audiences into the theater.
“Warner was incredibly supportive of us with this film. I’m so happy we did it there,” Coogler told Deadline. “Part of the deal we had, I don’t want to speak on the specifics, but it was a deal that happened in a competitive marketplace. And while it is obviously rare, I’m not the only person to ever get a deal like this. I think that the support that they showed the film was great, in terms of us shooting on celluloid…Pam and Mike, advocating for the artistic vision of it, and believing it can be an event; Jeff Goldstein securing an ability for us to have IMAX screens and availability for it to be projected on film prints.”
Caption: (L to r) DELROY LINDO, MICHAEL B. JORDAN and director RYAN COOGLER in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SINNERS a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Coogler went on to say that his deal with Warner Bros. allows him to deliver an experience that cannot be duplicated at home, no matter how big your screen is.
“That is a major, major thing that I think matters in how this thing will be seen and received by the public,” Coogler said. “The formats that we shot on Ultra Panavision 70, 276 aspect ratio…these formats were invented, along with Vistavision and Cinemascope, at a time when the film industry was competing with television. They had to have a reason to get people in the audience. We’re going to give you more images, let’s get it bigger. Let’s give them images that look different from the box that they are now watching at home. It is more ironic that we are the first film to be shown in that format, in addition to the IMAX 15 format that was popularized, let’s face it, by Chris [Nolan] at a time in 2008 when motion pictures were competing with peak TV. Before the streaming era, when TV got really fu*king good. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and 2008 were the turning point, right? That was the time when Chris made The Dark Knight and [Jon] Favreau made Iron Man. When it was, how are we going to get people out of the house when they got all this interesting shit to watch at home?”
Michael B. Jordan and Robert Perry Bierman in “Sinners.” Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.
Coogler’s passion for the cinematic experience is baked right into his latest film, which draws inspiration from stories he learned from his grandmother. “The experience of going to the movies, it’s everything to me,” Coogler told Deadline. “I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t do that. My grandmother’s first date with my grandfather, who I never met, who was from Mississippi, that first date was at the movies. I found out when I interviewed her for this movie. My first date with my wife, who is my business partner now, mother of my children, producer of this movie, who means so much to me. Our first date was at the movies. That feeling of going into a dark room, seeing something for the first time, surrounded by strangers. I believe in that. I want to put something bold out there, because I believe in that. I’m glad Warner Brothers was supportive of that vision, and I’m glad that they saw the value in me as a filmmaker and in this story, that they made a deal that was very competitive. So that’s what I got. You feel me?”
We feel him, and audiences will, too, when Sinners hits the big screen, including the biggest IMAX screens there are, on April 18.
Read the full interview with Ryan Coogler on Deadline.
Austin Butler was a worthy villain and challenger to Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides in Dune: Part Two, the second installment in a planned trilogy from director Denis Villeneuve. Butler played Feyd-Rautha, the swashbuckling, sociopathic goth princeling who took on Atreides at the end of Part Two, fighting as Emperor Shadam IV (Christopher Walken)’s champion and only barely losing. Now, reports are coming in that Robert Pattinson may be next in line to give Atreides a tough time in the third and final film, Dune: Messiah, possibly playing the villain Scytale from Frank Herbert’s 1969 novel “Messiah.”
Pattinson is currently filming Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, and so far, no direct offer has been made. Attracting a star as big as Pattinson would be par for the course for Villeneuve, who has brought on not only Chalamet, Butler, and Walken for his Dune films but also Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Josh Brolin, and Jason Momoa, to name a few. Dune arrived in 2021, scooping up Oscars and a very commendable box office considering it was released mid-pandemic, and Dune: Part Two did even better in 2024, once again becoming a critical and commercial smash.
Herbert’s book “Messiah” is set 12 years after the events depicted in “Dune,” and finds Paul Atreides now ruling as Emperor and married to Princess Irulan (played by Florence Pugh in Dune: Part Two), while still maintaining a relationship with Chani (played by Zendaya in the first two films). Scytale is a “Face Dancer” from the planet Tleilax, which means he can physically change his appearance to mimic other people. He’s heavily implicated in a plot against Emperor Atreides and becomes a major co-conspirator and challenger to Paul’s rule, aligning with the Bene Gesserit, among others.
Villeneuve is putting the finishing touches on the script, and it’s expected to film this summer to meet a December 18, 2026, release date.
Featured image: LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 13: Robert Pattinson attends the “Mickey 17” World Premiere at Cineworld Leicester Square on February 13, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Lia Toby/Getty Images)
Over his career, actor Jesse Garcia has rubbed elbows with superheroes in The Avengers, battled vampires in From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series, and sold fake IDs to Sarah and John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. He portrayed an activist high school student in Walkout, a gay Mexican-American coming to terms with his sexuality in Quinceañera, and a janitor who invents Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in Flamin’ Hot. And now, Garcia has added a new character to his repertoire — Disney dad.
“I’ve been wanting to do a family film forever. I’m finally at the age where I can play the dad,” Garcia said in a recent Zoom conversation about his new Disney+ feature Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip. “I grew up watching Disney and comedies that reach such a wide audience. It was quite an honor to play the dad in a family film by Disney.”
Garcia plays Frank Garcia, the patriarch of a Mexican-American family whose hectic lifestyle is causing them to drift apart. An aspiring chef, Frank has recently learned his new restaurant is closing. Wife Val (Eva Longoria) is a travel writer whose job takes her away from home far too often. Teenage daughter Mia (Paulina Chávez) is focused on getting a promposal. Her accident-prone younger brother, Alexander (Thom Nemer), obsesses that he is bringing the family bad luck. Frank’s mother Lidia (Rose Portillo) complains the family is too Americanized and has lost touch with its Mexican roots.
So when Val receives an assignment to test out a state-of-the-art RV, she sees it as an opportunity to bring the family closer together with a road trip to rediscover their Mexican heritage. The plot thickens when Alexander retrieves the suitcases from the attic and discovers an ancient statue. According to Val’s dad, Gil (Cheech Marin), the idol was stolen by his father from their Mexican hometown. The theft puts a curse on whoever possesses it. Much to Alexander’s dismay, havoc soon ensues. A soda spill causes the RV’s computer to go haywire, resulting in Val crashing the vehicle into a giant alien statue at a tourist stop. A less-than-stellar replacement RV comes with a live-in skunk that sprays the entire family. After getting lost, the family tries to cross a river and sinks the RV. Alexander learns the only way to end the curse is to return the statue to its rightful owner. Their quest to do so, much to everyone’s surprise, brings them closer together.
Garcia says he had a ball filming Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip. As importantly, he related to its theme about connecting to one’s roots. Garcia’s father was born in Mexico and immigrated to Wyoming where he met Garcia’s mother. Mexican culture was not a big part of Garcia’s childhood. It wasn’t until he moved to Los Angeles in 2003 that he took an interest in his heritage, sparked by his role in Walkout, directed by Edward James Olmos and based on a true story about the 1968 East Los Angeles high school protests.
“It was like a crash course in learning that side of my Mexican-American culture. Then little by little…I traveled to Mexico for jobs, met different people, read books, and explored the Internet,” Garcia explains. “I was a lot like Frank. He is in touch, but not super in touch. And then he goes to Mexico and discovers all that’s inherently there. All he had to do was be surrounded by it to really see it.
An added bonus for Garcia was having Longoria play his wife. Acquaintances for years, the two bonded when she directed him in Flamin’ Hot. “We are cosmic soulmates,” says Garcia. “We got to know each other during Flamin’ Hot and discovered we share the same sense of humor and have so much in common.”
Garcia felt there was extra pressure on Longoria for Flamin’ Hot because it was her directorial debut. This time around, Marvin Lemus (Gentefied) handled directing duties. The two friends could let their silliness run wild.
“Marvin would say individually we were great, but when the two of us were together, we were trouble,” jokes Garcia. “We’re like children. We’re always goofing. When Eva and I did the chemistry read for Marvin, we hadn’t seen each other in a few months. We were hugging, goofing with each other, and laughing. I told Marvin that if he decides to go with me, the ADs are gonna be asking where Jesse and Eva are because we’ll be out looking for rocks.”
And that’s exactly what happened. To prove his point, Garcia holds up a smooth, jet black rock he found while he and Longoria were scouring the desert.
Garcia believes their camaraderie was contagious and helped build a family vibe, especially with the two actors playing their children. “She’s a star,” he says when asked about Chávez. “Eva and I kind of adopted her right away. We started bringing her to the gym for our four and five a.m. workouts. Thom (Nemer) was so enthused to be on set and learn new things. His energy was infectious.”
Having started out in improv, Garcia loves physical comedy. Alexander provided plenty of opportunity for that. “The skunk bit was super fun,” he adds. “It’s Eva and I improvising a bunch of different stuff to see what would work. I told her to sing to the skunk, and she started singing Como la Flor. I didn’t know she was going to do that. You’ll see by the bloopers at the end, I couldn’t hold it together.”
Lured by attractive tax credit incentives, Alexander was filmed in New Mexico. Its sweeping desert landscapes proved to be the perfect backdrop for a road trip. “I shoot there a lot,” adds Garcia. “We shot Flamin’ Hot there…The Avengers years ago. Albuquerque is a great city. Everyone’s super nice. Everyone loves working on film.”
Other locations were considered, but what may have sealed the deal was the sequence where Frank drives the RV into the river. “You can’t float an RV down the river in Atlanta,” explains Garcia. “It was a man-made river right behind the studio. They did this whole underwater rig. It pushed the RV downstream and sank it. That was all done with practical effects. It was really cool to see how they made that happen.”
Equally cool was the reaction Alexander received during the LA premiere at The El Capitan Theatre in March. Generally, Garcia doesn’t watch his movies, but he really got a kick out of seeing this one.
“There were a ton of kids. It was so much fun to listen to them laugh and repeat the lines they thought were funny. Like, we’re in the middle of a crisis, and Alex is saying he wants to go to the bathroom, and Frank tells him to pinch it. People really loved that. When we’re at the gas station, Val is running in for snacks, and Frank tells her to grab some Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. That got a great laugh.”
Garcia is hoping there’ll be more Alexander entries. As much as he likes action and drama, there’s just something about doing comedy. “There’s no agenda. It’s just a feel-good movie with lots of laughs, which is what we need right now,” he says. “I have ideas to keep the franchise going. I wanna direct one.”
But first, there’s another role to finish. And again, it’s unlike any Garcia has done before. The actor is in the middle of shootingThe Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s ambitious take on the epic poem by Homer. Keeping with Nolan’s modus operandi, details are tight-lipped. “I wish I could give you something,” Garcia says. “There are leaks out there. You might be able to find me if you know where to look. I’ve done period stuff, but nothing like this. Greek mythology…it’s a whole new experience for me. It’s a bear of a movie. People are going to see things that have never been on camera before.”
DC Studio chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran, along with the stars of Gunn’s upcoming Superman, David Corenswet (Clark Kent/Superman), Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane), and Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luthor), delivered the goods last week at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. Part of their Superman presentation included a brand new, nearly 5-minute-long sneak peek at the film, and now, with the film soaring towards theaters for its July 11 release date, the cast can open up—a little bit, at least—now that Gunn revealed a bit more about the film.
Or, as it Brosnahan put it to Collider: “Well, now I feel I can say a little bit more because James really busted it wide open in CinemaCon. David and I have been trying not to say so many things for weeks leading up, and James just laid it all out.”
This means that Brosnahan was allowed to tell the folks at Collider about Gunn’s unique approach to reintroducing audiences to Superman, via a brand new performer in Corenswet (taking over, of course, for Henry Cavill, who played the Man of Steel under past leadership at DC), and a brand new story. One thing Brosnahan made clear is that this is not an origin story, which is an interesting way to approach this vital first film for Gunn and Safran’s new-look DC Studios.
“I also love that this is not an origin story.We’ve seen the origin story done so well a number of different times, but we come into a world that already exists — Lois and Clark are working at the Daily Planet, monsters exist in Metropolis, Lex Luthor has LuthorCorp. We drop in at this point in their relationship that I’ve never seen before,” Brosnahan told Collider.
We know that in this Superman, the Man of Steel isn’t the only person on the planet with superpowers. The cast includes other folks playing metahumans, including Edi Gathegi (Mister Terrific), Anthony Carrigan (Metamorpho), Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl), Nathan Fillion (Guy Gardner), and María Gabriela de Faría (The Engineer). Not to mention the monsters Brosnahan identified.
Then there’s the romance between Clark Kent and Lois Lane. This, too, has already begun by the time Superman kicks off.
“They’ve been together for about three months.And they’re asking some questions about the future of their relationship,” Brosnahan says. “They’re not sure if this is something that was just a really great fling or something that could be forever, and they have really opposite worldviews, and they bump up against each other that way. So, it was a really fun way into a familiar story.”
For more on all things Superman, check out these stories:
Featured image: Theatrical poster for “Superman.” Courtesy Warner Bros. US actress Rachel Brosnahan arrives for Warner Bros Pictures photo call during CinemaCon 2025 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada on April 1, 2025. (Photo by Michael Tran / AFP)
The official trailer for Tom Cruise’s potential last mission as IMF Agent Ethan Hunt has arrived, giving us a fresh look at the lengths Cruise has been willing to go to keep this action franchise at the extreme edge of what’s possible to do on camera. The new look at Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning takes us on a brief trip down memory lane, to Cruise’s very first mission as Ethan Hunt, when he pulled off the incredible break-in at the CIA’s Black Vault, as well as looks at Hunt’s involvement in a series of high-profile, top-secret missions, from Moscow (during a bombing at the Kremlin intended to kill him) to the time he gassed a security briefing. All of this is being explained to Nick Offerman’s military man, with Hunt now in custody, and in cuffs.
“If we want to bring the world back from the brink, we have to deal with him,” it’s reasoned. So, Ethan will have one more mission that, should he chose to accept it, could be his last and most dangerous.
Cruise is now 62 years old (not that he looks it), and this will be his eighth mission. The trailer includes a glimpse of him hanging off a plane, upside down, and, at one point,one-handedd. Cruise’s first assignment as Ethan Hunt was way back in 1996’s Mission: Impossible (where he pulled off that break-in at the CIA black site), and has since become arguably the greatest showcase for practical stunts in the history of cinema. Cruise and Co. have been teasing each installment’s defining stunt for nearly a decade at this point, from Cruise hanging off the side of an Airbus A400m in Rogue Nation to his record-breaking HALO skydive and his mastery of helicopter piloting in Fallout.
Cruise, director Christopher McQuarrie, and longtime stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood have cooked up another menu of maniac stunts for The Final Reckoning, which they retooled after the last installment, Dead Reckoning, wasn’t quite the box office blockbuster they expected (it lost out on Imax theater space to Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer).
Cruise is joined by longtime IMF partners Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell and Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, his two closest compatriots. The cast also includes Hayley Atwell as Grace, Esai Morales as the bad guy Gabriel, Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge, Pom Klementieff as Paris, Vanessa Kirby as the White Widow, and Hannah Waddingham, Katy O’Brian, and Tramell Tillman.
Dead Reckoning left us with a very dramatic cliffhanger, with Ethan and his team doing battle against The Entity, a rogue AI that is threatening global security. The key to the AI was a literal key, one that could control or destroy the Entity, which Ethan and his team finally secured by the end of the film. Yet, Dead Reckoning ended with a reveal of a sunken submarine loaded with secrets, the AI’s original resting place, teasing audiences that Ethan’s fight to control the Entity and secure the planet was only just the beginning.
Check out the trailer below. Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning will premiere on May 23, 2025.
Featured image: Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.
The first trailer for Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme wastes no time letting you know just how many stars have signed up for Anderson’s latest caper. Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed, Mathieu Amalric, Jeffrey Wright, Richard Ayoade, Scarlett Johansson, and Benedict Cumberbatch—many of them returning players in Anderson’s meticulously detailed oeuvre.
The trailer opens with a plane crash, with Del Toro’s business titan in the fields of armaments and aviation, Zsa-zsa Korda, going down with the plane. Korda is no stranger to plane crashes; however, this latest tumble from the sky is his sixth, and he survives the crash again. He has ten children, nine boys and “one nun,” Sister Liesel (Threapleton). Liesel is the one whom Zsa-zsa has appointed sole heir to his estate, and he involves her in his biggest project yet, one that is the locus of considerable interest from competing parties. A dangerous game is afoot, and it’s a game that look and feel only like a Wes Anderson movie could, with perfectly framed shots, immaculately constructed sets and costumes and props, and Anderson’s bespoke absurdist style that doesn’t completely hide the real feeling embedded at the core of even his most surreal stories.
The Phoenician Scheme comes from a story Anderson wrote with Roman Coppola, a longtime collaborator. As are composer Alexandre Desplat, editor Barney Pilling, and production designer Adam Stockhausen.
Check out the trailer below. The Phoenician Scheme arrives in theaters on May 30.
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In the first trailer for Tron: Ares, Disney’s sequel to the 2010 film Tron: Legacy, Jared Leto has officially gone off-grid. Leto’s Ares, a sophisticated computer program, has penetrated the real world and is about to introduce humanity to an artificial intelligence the world is not prepared for.
Leto’s Ares is embarking on a dangerous mission, one that Jeff Bridges, who starred in the original 1982 Tron as Kevin Flynn, tells him there’s “no going back.”
The trailer provides a deadly laser show, with Ares’ super futuristic motorcycle emitting a police car-slicing laser behind it. Leto and Bridges were in Las Vegas last week to reveal the teaser at ComicCon.
“Well, first off, as a kid, I was obsessed with Tron,” Leto said. “It was the ‘80s, and the future felt like it was just around the corner. Tron had action, adventure, spandex — lots of spandex.”
The new film, directed by Joachim Rønning, stars Greta Lee, Hasan Minhaj, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Cameron Monaghan, Gillian Anderson, and Arturo Castro.
The original film was centered on Bridges’ video game designer Kevin Flynn, who managed to step inside his own game, while Legacy followed his son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund), who followed in his old man’s footsteps. Ares will flip the script and show us the wild transition of a digital being entering the real world.
“I’m excited to be part of the Tron franchise and bring this new film to fans around the world. Tron: Ares builds upon the legacy of cutting-edge design, technology and storytelling. Now more than ever, it feels like the right time to return to the Grid,” director Rønning said in a statement.
Check out the trailer below. Tron: Ares races into theaters on October 10.
For more stories on 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Marvel Studios and what’s streaming or coming to
The deaths (plural) that were meted out during the season 3 finale of The White Lotus delivered yet another bitter final meal for some of our guests in Mike White’s zeitgeist-dominating series. After an eight-day stay in the Thailand-set resort, White’s anthology series drew to a bloody close, taking two of the season’s most beloved characters, Walton Goggins’ searching, soulful, sad Rick, and his delightful, daffy, even more soulful girlfriend, Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood). The worst part? The man Rick killed before getting himself and Chelsea gunned down (by Gaitok, no less!) wasn’t his father’s killer but his actual father. Rick’s family tree has now been entirely burned down, and poor Chelsea, who deserved so much better, went down with it.
It was a decidedly grim fate for two characters who seemed to have finally found the peace they (or at least, Chelsea) had arrived in Thailand hoping to find. Rick and his buddy Frank (Sam Rockwell) had gone to Bangkok on their ruse so Rick could face Jim Hollinger (Scott Glenn), the man whom he blamed, per his mother’s deathbed confession, of killing his father. But once Rick got the old man alone, he didn’t find himself face-to-face with the dastardly ruiner of all things holy and beautiful, but rather, with an aged, weakened would-be king living out his final days in his Thailand idyll. Rick toppled the old guy off his chair and felt, at long last, at peace with it all. After a debauched night with Frank, Rick returned to the White Lotus, found Chelsea, and lifted her into an embrace. It was the most emotional and loving we’d seen Rick toward her all season. Chelsea had told Saxon that she and Rick had a ying and yang battle going, between Rick’s grim outlook and her relentless optimism. It seemed as if Chelsea and her brightness and warmth might have actually won the day.
Considering the fates of the victims of the first two seasons—the absurd death of White Lotus employee Armond (Murray Bartlett) in season one, and the even more absurd demise of Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) after her victorious shootout onboard a yacht in season two, only to fall to her death due to poorly chosen pair of heels, the question of who would die this season at least came with what seemed like the how, thanks to the gunshots we heard in the opening seconds of the first episode. Guns factored majorly into season 3, not just with those opening shots, but with the guns used in the robbery (clearly Valentin’s Russian friends), and the gun Gaitok (Tayme Thapthimthong) has, loses to Tim Ratliff (Jason Isaacs), and regains again. White maintained loyalty to Chekov’s gun rule and had Gaitok use his gun to terrible effect, when he shoots Rick (who was carrying an already shot Chelsea) in the back, spilling them both into the water, killing them both.
While Jim Hollinger turning out to be Rick’s dad wasn’t that big a shock, it was surprising that it was Rick and Chelsea who both bit the bullet, and the entire Ratliff family escaped unharmed—but not for a lack of Tim’s dark imagination on how to end it. Tim had made the gruesome choice that the only member of his clan who might be okay once they’re poor—for they will be poor once they return home, and Tim’s embezzlement is made clear, was his youngest, Lochlan (Sam Nivola). So Tim whips up a batch of killer pina coladas with some of the poisonous Chekov’s fruit so plentiful on the premises, and pours them out for himself, his wife Victoria (Parker Posey), his eldest son Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger), and his daughter Piper (Sarah Catherine Hook). Only Lochlan is refused one, given a Coke instead, with Tim apparently deciding that good old Lochy would find his way as a poor orphan. But, before the family can really have at their drinks, Tim changes his mind and snatches them away. Unfortunately, he doesn’t wash out the original poisoned blender, and Lochlan finds it in the morning and helps himself. It seems for a bit like it’s going to be Lochlan who dies, but he doesn’t drink quite enough to do him in. A little puke session and he’s okay.
Sam Nivola, Jason Isaacs. Photograph by Fabio Lovino/HBO
And while it seemed possible that a showdown between Belinda (Natasha Rothwell) and Greg/Gary (Jon Gries) could have resulted in death, instead, thanks to Zion (Nicholas Duvernay)’s insistence, Belinda makes Greg/Gary a counteroffer and winds up not with $100,000 to her name but $5 million. It’s the type of life-changing payday Belinda has dreamed of. And what does Belinda do with her newfound money? Does she start her own spa with Pornchai (Dom Hetrakul) as they’d discussed? She does not, returning the favor once bestowed upon her by Tanya when Tanya dangled a potential joint business venture together, only to rescind the offer. When Zion asks her if she intends to open her new spa with Pornchai, she asks if she might just enjoy being rich for a minute. Her son doesn’t disagree.
Natasha Rothwell, Nicholas Duvernay, Jon Gries. Photograph by Fabio Lovino/HBO
That left our three gal pals, the “blonde blob” as White had envisioned them when writing them, Laurie (Carrie Coon), Kate (Leslie Bibb), and Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), all of whom were moving from gossip to outright hostility by the tri[s end. It was conceivable that something dark and dreadful could befall one or all of them in the finale, especially given the outright venom Laurie unleashed on them all last episode, but instead, Laurie delivered what has to be the sweetest moment in any season of The White Lotus, showering love on her friends, telling them how grateful she was to even be seated at a table with them. It breaks whatever dark, rivalrouss spell had befallen them and brings them all closer. “I’m glad you have a beautiful face,” Laurie says through tears to Jaclyn. “And I’m glad you have a beautiful life,” she says to Kate. “And I’m just happy to be at the table.”
Leslie Bibb, Arnas Fedaravičius, Michelle Monaghan, Carrie Coon. Photograph by Courtesy of HBO
“The ladies’ petty and large differences have come to the surface,” White said in a podcast after the finale aired. “It creates pain for them. So much of the later years of your life are spent defending the decisions you made or trying to justify your life to yourself. For Laurie, what is her takeaway? How is she going to take this into some kind of lesson to help her in this next stage of her life?… You realize that the show’s pleasures come a little bit from these relatable or identifiable types of people who go on vacation. A family that goes on a vacation, or a honeymoon, or three friends. I was trying to think, what is a new version that isn’t the same – like a slightly different family. But part of me also feels like (and it’s the reason why the first episode is called ‘Same Spirits, New Forms’) there’s an attempt, whether I’m successful or not, to deepen what’s come before, or continue to use certain tropes where the show feels like it’s a conversation with itself in some way.”
So why Rick and Chelsea, then, after finding their peace? Because Jim Hollinger returned to the White Lotus and took the opportunity to both flaunt his weapon at Rick and disparage Rick’s mother, never once telling him, Oh, by the way, I’m your father. He does tell Rick that his father wasn’t worth much, anyway, disparaging himself without letting Rick in on the secret. Rick, now desperate for some counsel, tries to find Amrita (Shalini Peiris), the White Lotus spiritual guide and meditation expert, but she’s got a client—Zion—as we’ve now come full circle to the first episode, where Zion is sitting with Amrita before the gunshots ring.
Scott Glenn, Michelle Monaghan, Lek Patravadi, Christian Friedel. Photograph by Fabio Lovino/HBO
This is all it takes to sap Rick’s hard-earned peace and unleash the vengeance he’d been stoking for years. Watching Jim and his wife Sritaa (Lek Patravadi) pose for a photo with Jacklyn, Laurie, and Kate, Rick snaps, rushes the man and rips his gun from his coat, and says “f**k you.” He shoots Jim dead where he stands.
Walton Goggins. Photograph by Fabio Lovino/HBO
It’s then that Sritala tells Rick that Jim was Rick’s father. New shots are fired, now from Sritala’s otherwise useless bodyguards. Rick returns fire, taking out some of the guards, but Chelsea’s been hit. All season long, Chelsea had been warning Rick that bad things happen in threes. She’d already been nearly injured in that robbery, and then was bitten by a snake (that Rick released). She was just missing that third bad thing—it found her.
Rick scoops Chelsea up and walks her off to get help, promising her that they’ll be together forever. But Gaitok does as he’s been goaded all season long to do: He allows the natural violence flowing through life to flow through himself and shoots Rick. Rick and Chelsea fall into the pond, finding their peace at last.
In an after-episode and on the show’s podcast, White explained why it had to be them. “It’s a classic theme of Greek tragedy: someone killing the thing they love while trying to get some revenge.”
“Chelsea has this kind of romantic fatalism about their relationship, and you want to buy into it,” says White. “She says to him, ‘Stop fixating on the love you didn’t get. Think about the love you have! I’m right here!’ It feels like a nice return to the beginning, where we find Amrita (Shalini Peiris) in this therapy session with Zion. And now we see it in a completely different context. If Amrita had sat with Rick, maybe none of this would have happened.”
What Rick needed, he had all along, White explained. Chelsea. “He has this person who really loves him, and he just can’t experience the love in the present because he is just so fixated on the lack in himself and the lack of love he had in his past.”
So what’s in store for The White Lotus now? We might be moving into a mountain resort, or some place without all the loving/creepy shots of waves, White reveals.
“For the fourth season, I want to get away from the crashing waves against rocks vernacular. But there’s always room for more murders at the White Lotus hotels!”
“This season, at least from how I was composing it, is using Buddhist ideas as the organizing principle, trying to think about identity as a cause of suffering,” he says. “I think of identity as this way of thinking about yourself in these concrete, literal terms that then end up becoming a source of pain for you. It can be a source of pride, but it also becomes a source of pain. Basically, the whole thing is really a kind of dramatic investigation. And that is why the writing is a little different than the other ones. Obviously, there are satirical elements, but there is a kind of Buddhist parable. Like the Rick (Goggins) story. It’s a little more hard-boiled than something that I usually write.”
Featured image: Aime Lou Wood, Walton Goggins. Photograph by Fabio Lovino/HBO
James Cameron’s more or less right on time with his third Avatar installment. The ever-ambitious filmmaker was able to reveal footage from Avatar: Fire and Water at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, wowing movie theater owners and industry insiders.
Fire andWater‘s spot-on timing benefited greatly from the fact that Cameron shot the second and third films in the franchise, The Way of Water and Fire and Water, back-to-back. Franchise star Zoe Saldaña took to the stage in Las Vegas to reveal the footage, and CinemaCon attendees got to sit back, settle into their seats, and put on their 3D glasses to watch the trailer. The footage opens on Pandora and introduces two new Na’vi clans—the Wind Traders, masters of the sky who utilize bespoke hot air balloons, and their enemies, the Fire People, who soar into the trailer riding Ikrans, sometimes called banshees, the massive pterodactyl-like creatures that Cameron first introduced in 2009’s Avatar.
When these two clans meet, a battle begins, and the bodies start to drop.
Once again, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Saldaña) are in the middle of the action, which picks up after the events of The Way of Water, which was centered on the conflict between their blue-skinned Na’vi and the rapacious, cruel members of the Resources Development Administration. The RDA is responsible for the death of Jake and Neytiri’s son, Neteyam, and Jake, Neytiri, and the rest of their family had to seek refuge with the water-dwelling Metkayina clan. With the Metkayina, they fight against the RDA across the seas and in the trees. The battle is hardly over when The Way of Water is over.
Ash and Fire depicts the war between the peaceful Wind Traders and the ferocious Ash People, former Na’vi who have forsaken Eywa, a Pandoran deity. Cameron appeared in a pre-recorded video to tell the CinemaCon crowd about the third film: “The Sully family are really put through the wringer on this one as they face not only the human invaders, but new adversaries, the Ash People.”
Cameron had a good excuse for not being in Vegas—he’s in New Zealand, putting the finishing touches on the third film. Time is of the essence as Avatar: Fire and Ash is due in theaters on December 19.
Cameron’s Avatar films have been massive box office successes, and if Fire and Ash does as well as the first two films did, Cameron’s Avatar franchise will become the first in history where three installments grossed more than $2 billion each.
Avatar: Fire and Ash isn’t the only massive movie Disney has slated for this year—their CinemaCon presentation also included looks at Marvel’s Thunderbolts, due in theaters on May 2, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which hits theaters on June 25. The studio also has Zootopia 2, Freakier Friday, Tron: Ares, and the live-action adaptation of Lilo & Stitch, which are all ready to go for this year.
“Disney films are exclusively in theaters for longer than any of our competitors,” said Andrew Cripps, Disney’s global distribution chief. “Trust me, that is not by accident. We believe in the theatrical experience.”
The Avatar franchise has been a massive part of the theatrical experience for more than a decade now, and we’re not even halfway through Cameron’s vision. Avatar 4 is due in theaters on December 21, 2029, and Avatar 5 is slated for a December 19, 2031 release.
For more on the big films announced and revealed at CinemaCon, check out these stories:
We’ve learned in a few glimpses at James Gunn’s Superman, and through Gunn’s own telling of how he finally cracked telling the story of the Man of Steel, that a major draw for him was depicting the relationship between Superman and his super dog, Krypto. Now, true to his word—and the influences of his real-life rescue dog, a very bad boy named Ozu—DC Studios has released this brand new, nearly five-minute-long sneak peek at the film, which shows what it’s like to have a dog like Krypto. This was footage revealed at Warner Bros.’ presentation at CineamCon in Las Vegas, and we can see why it delighted the crowd.
We open on a pretty beaten-up Superman, lying in the snow and ice near his Fortress of Solitude, bleeding and wheezing. We’ve seen this portion of the footage before, and it’s still intriguing—how did the Man of Steel get so beaten down? Who did it? But those are questions for another time; for now, we have Krypto to deal with. After Superman whistles for Krypto’s help, the alien dog rushes through the snow to Superman in a playful mood. But for a dog with Krypto’s strength, you have to be at full strength yourself to survive his playfulness. After beating up (inadvertently, we should add) Superman, Krypto finally gets the message. He takes Superman’s red cape in his mouth and drags him to the Fortress of Solitude, which bursts up out of the tundra in all its spiky, crystalline majesty. Krypto barks, Superman’s logo glows on the massive door, and they’re permitted entrance.
Inside the Fortress, Superman’s cape-wearing robot helpers, two on each side, are there to run triage on the broken Kryptonian. There’s a monastery-like quietness inside the Fortress, and Superman’s robot helpers have a monk-like quality, too. Although perhaps they’re a little chattier. When Superman goes to thank them, robot number 4 tells him it’s not necessary, “No need to thank us, sir, as we will not appreciate it. We have no consciousness whatsoever, merely automatons here to serve.”
Superman’s in seriously bad shape. Fourteen fractured bones, damage to his bladder, kidney, large intestine, and lungs. The cure? A healthy dose of the yellow sun, which is harnessed through a piece of bespoke technology that seems to cause Superman a great deal of pain. But, our guess is, like robot number 4 promised, he’ll be “up and Adam” in no time.
It’s an intriguing glimpse of what Gunn’s cooked up for the first, and inarguably most important, film to fly out of DC Studios to launch their new, unified world of films, TV series, and more.
The cast also includes Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane), Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luthor), Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen), Sara Sampaio (Eve Teschmacher), Edi Gathegi (Mister Terrific), Terence Rosemore (Otis), Anthony Carrigan (Metamorpho), Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl), Nathan Fillion (Guy Gardner) and María Gabriela de Faría (The Engineer).
Check out the sneak peek below. Superman soars into theaters on July 11, 2025.
For more on all things Superman, check out these stories:
The murderous robotic doll from hell is back in M3GAN 2.0, two years after she burst onto the scene in director Gerard Johnstone’s M3GAN and took her assignment to protect and love Cady (Violet McGraw) to its fatal extreme. After going absolutely berserk, the artificially intelligent, terrifyingly flexible (morally and otherwise) robot was destroyed by her creator, Gemma (Allison Williams), Cady’s aunt and caretaker, after creating the robot and asking it to look after Cady after her parents died in a tragic accident. Now, Cady’s 14 and a proper teenager, and she’s agitating against Gemma’s overprotective rules as most teenagers eventually do.
But Cady and Gemma are about to have problems more severe than familial strife—a defense contractor has stolen the underlying technology that gave life to the killer robot to create the perfect weapon—Amelia (Ivanna Sahkno from Ahsoka)—a robot spy. But what the defense contractor is about to learn, as Gemma and Cady learned the hard way themselves, is that the more capable and sentient a robot becomes, the less interested it is in taking orders from a measly old human being. Now, Amelia is out to kill everyone involved in her creation, including Gemma and Cady.
So, how do you stop an artificially intelligent killer robot? By resurrecting another artificially intelligent killer robot, yup, M3GAN, to fight it. All M3GAN asks for is a few upgrades—greater strength, greater quickness, oh, and to make her taller—and she’ll take Amelia down. But is she trustworthy? The quips and the barbs she slings in the trailer leave that up in the air. She certainly hasn’t lost any of her wit, even when she’s initially relegated to a cute, harmless form of rounded plastic.
M3GAN alums Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jen Van Epps, who play Cole and Tess, respectively, join Williams and McGraw in the cast. Aristotle Athari, Timm Sharp, and Jermaine Clement are new to the cast.
Johnstone returns to direct from a script by Akela Cooper, with James Wan, Jason Blum, and Allison Williams producing.
Check out the trailer below. M3GAN 2.0 hits theaters on June 27, 2025.
The future of James Bond has been shaken and it’s been stirred, and now, we’re just waiting for it to be poured into theaters under its new leadership at Amazon MGM. At this year’s CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Amazon MGM’s executives, Courtenay Valenti and Sue Kroll, took the stage to discuss the new direction the franchise is headed in, as the British spy has found his new home at the studio.
“We are committed to honoring the legacy of this iconic character while bringing a fresh, exotic new chapter to audiences around the world alongside Amy [Pascal] and David [Heyman],” said Valenti and Kroll on Wednesday night from the Colosseum stage at Caesars Palace. “They’re both in London getting started and couldn’t be here tonight, but we wanted to thank them for what we know will make an incredible partnership.”
Long-time Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson took a step back from the franchise earlier this year, handing creative control over to Amazon MGM, while all three remain co-owners of the property. Veteran producers Pascal and Heyman were brought on board to shepherd Bond’s next mission, which will require casting a brand new 007 now that Daniel Craig’s time as the legendary MI6 spy is over. Craig’s final film, No Time to Die, came out in 2021, and the studio and viewers are eager to get the next mission underway. With Pascal and Heyman now at work, you can expect things to start moving.
“James Bond is one of the most iconic characters in the history of cinema,” Pascal and Heyman said in a joint statement after they were tapped. “We are humbled to follow in the footsteps of Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, who made so many extraordinary films, and honored and excited to keep the spirit of Bond very much alive as he embarks on his next adventure.”
Featured image: Daniel Craig and crew on the set of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/Columbia Pictures/EON Productions’ action adventure SKYFALL. Photo by Francois Duhamel.
Director Jon M. Chu took to the stage in Las Vegas to cast a spell over theater owners at this year’s CinemaCon by sharing footage from Universal’s hotly-anticipated sequel Wicked: For Good, the second part of Chu’s two-part adaptation of the Broadway musical, which itself was based on Gregory Maguire’s best-selling novel.
But Chu wasn’t the only one casting a spell—his stars, Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba, and Ariana Grande, who plays Glinda, also took to the stage at the Colosseum Theater at Caesars Palace to unveil the footage. They were joined by producer Marc Platt, who told the crowd that they “took a shot” when they divided Wicked into two parts. “Now we have the privilege of doing it all again with Wicked: For Good in November.” Platt also added a note about what audiences can expect in the sequel. “The second film asks of them to go deeper to find more depth and more complexity and more profundity in those characters. What’s in store is going to astonish people.”
Erivo joked that she may have “snuck into a sing-along or two” during last year’s film, and that she was excited to get back on the road again for the sequel. “You cried—don’t lie,” she joked with the audience.
Wicked: For Good will also include Dorothy’s arrival, or, as Chu described the situation, “the girl from Kansas drops in.” The footage the Wicked: For Good team did indeed include the first glimpse at Dorothy, but, crucially, did not show her face. It also revealed golden bricks, flying monkeys, and a wedding.
“This is between the Wizard and I,” Erivo’s Elphaba tells Glinda in one scene in the footage. At another point, Glinda warns her friend, “Elphaba, they’re coming for you.”
Wicked: For Good will cast its spell in theaters on November 21, 2025, almost exactly a year after the first film landed in cinemas around the world and went on to become the highest-grossing Broadway adaptation ever.
For more from this year’s CinemaCon, check out these stories:
“We know this film will be a once-in-a-generation cinematic masterpiece that Homer himself would be very proud of,” Jim Orr, Universal Pictures’ president of domestic theatrical distribution, said from the stage of the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on Wednesday at this year’s CinemaCon.
Orr was talking about Christopher Nolan’s upcoming adaptation of The Odyssey, which is currently filming in southern Europe, including on goat island. Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s epic is the writer/director’s star-studded follow-up to his Oscar-winning biopic Oppenheimer, which managed to turn the life of Robert J. Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, into a riveting, three-hour storytelling masterclass. Taking on Homer’s epic might at first blush feel like the more straightforward cinematic adaptation, but it’s a tale with many inherent challenges, including a motley crew of gods, goddesses, kings, peasants, debaucherous suitors, far-flung locations, and ancient rivalries, none of which Nolan will approach with anything less than his usual meticulous, singular approach.
Orr described Nolan’s film as a “mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX film technology. The film brings Homer’s foundational saga to IMAX film screens for the first time and opens in theaters everywhere on July 17, 2026.”
Matt Damon stars as the ingenious Odysseus, the mastermind of the victorious Trojan War for the Achaeans against the city of Troy. Yet his trip home to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus on the Greek island of Ithaca is waylaid by vengeful gods and goddesses and becomes a decade-long test of will, endurance, intelligence, and strength. Damon is joined by Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, Lupita Nyong’o, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, Mia Goth, Elliot Page, Samantha Morton, and others.
Part of the fun has been trying to determine, outside of Damon’s central hero, who’s playing who. It seems like it might make a lot of sense for someone like Theron to play Circe, the goddess who keeps Odysseus on her island of Aeaea for an entire year after turning his men into pigs, but she could just as easily be playing Penelope, and perhaps Hathaway or Goth or Nyong’o is playing the goddess. Jon Bernthal could make sense as Polyphemus, the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon who eats some of Odysseus’s men, but so, too, could you imagine Safdie or even Pattinson being turned into the Cyclops. You could spend the better portion of your morning moving the cast around into the various roles on offer.
Regardless, any Nolan film is an event film, and taking on one of the most iconic stories ever told makes his The Odyssey one of 2026’s most exciting films.
For more on the action at CinemaCon, check out these stories:
There has long been talk of Quentin Tarantino doing something additional with his amazing cast from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, whether it was a proper sequel, a spinoff movie focusing on Brad Pitt’s stuntman character Cliff Booth, or another movie entirely that featured Pitt’s Booth. Now, it turns out, a sequel (of sorts) is, in fact, in the works, based on a script Tarantino wrote, but the man himself isn’t directing it. In fact, another ace helmer, David Fincher, will direct the film, with Pitt circling the film and even, potentially, Leonardo DiCaprio reprising his role as actor Rick Dalton.
The Playlist scoops that Tarantino wrote the script. The film is set at Netflix and has a potential summer shooting date in the offing. The Playlist writes that the film isn’t technically a sequel, actually, but a “derivative” inspired by Tarantino’s original film. This film is also not the other movie Tarantino was working on that was said to include Pitt’s Cliff Both, The Movie Critic, which was also set in the 1970s and was said to focus on a movie reviewer for a porn magazine. That, for a while, was supposed to be Tarantino’s 10th and final film.
So how did Fincher become involved? According to one of The Hollywood Reporter‘s sources, Pitt really liked some parts of Tarantino’s script and asked him whether he’d let someone else direct it. Tarantino said it depended upon who that director was, and when Pitt returned with Fincher, someone he’d worked with on Se7en, Fight Club, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Tarantino said yes. Fincher has an exclusive deal with Netflix, so the film moved there.
It gets more interesting. Because of Tarantino’s unique deal and position within Hollywood, he has an ownership stake in Once Upon a Time, which Sony financed and released in 2019. That stake increases every year for 20 years, at which point the movie reverts to him. Part of that deal is that Tarantino owns the characters in the movie while Sony retains the movie itself. This is possibly why Fincher’s film isn’t a sequel or prequel, but it can use Pitt’s Booth, and, potentially, other characters from Once Upon a Time.
We’ll share more when we know more, including whether Leonardo DiCaprio or Margot Robbie find their way to the new film.
Featured image: Brad Pitt star in Columbia Pictures “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Warner Bros.’s presentation at CinemaCon on Tuesday featured the most iconic superhero not named Batman. James Gunn’s upcoming Superman was the main attraction, with Gunn and the cast unveiling a new extended look at the film. The film will be the first to fly out of Gunn and Peter Safran’s new-look DC Studios. Superman is a fitting film to launch their brand new slate, which promises a bold, unified world of superheroes, villains, metahumans, and more across theatrical, TV, and games.
Gunn appeared in Las Vegas with Safran and the Superman cast—David Corenswet, who plays Clark Kent/Superman, Rachel Brosnahan, the new Lois Lane, and Nicholas Hoult, the new Lex Luthor. The new footage featured everyone’s favorite super dog, Krypto, who was seen once again helping an injured Superman back into his Fortress of Solitude.
“I cannot wait to share the film with all you guys and the rest of the world,” Gunn said from the stage. “We’re still in the throes of post-production.” When recalling what led him to the Man of Steel, Gunn said he’d originally been offered to direct a Superman film back in 2018, but he’d instead chosen The Suicide Squad, feeling more comfortable with that band of misfits then trying to take on a wholesome figure “perceived as old-fashioned by many.” But Gunn eventually found a way into the material, thanks to the relationships Superman has and some of the stranger parts of the Superman mythos, including his beloved dog, Krypto.
As for Corenswet, a relatively little-known performer who won the role (after beating out Hoult), he joked about a specific scene with Brosnahan that took two days to film and required him to inhale pancake after pancake. “So glad that was the most memorable part for you,” Brosnahan joked.
Hoult had originally tried out for the role of Superman (and Batman, he reminded those in the audience, which went to Robert Pattinson), but but he ended up getting the role of his arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor. Hoult recalled being stunned to watch Corenswet turn into the Man of Steel in person: “I felt like I was witnessing the magic of cinema in first-person in real-time.”
Corenswet, Brosnahan, and Hoult are all playing iconic roles that have been inhabited before by legendary performers, including Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, and Gene Hackman in Richard Donner’s original. Brosnahan said it was because these roles were so deeply baked into the collective consciousness that she found the challenge so rewarding: “I feel like these stories endure because there’s something in it for everyone. We get to stand on the shoulders of giants … and then find our ways into their heads.”
The Superman cast also includes Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen), Sara Sampaio (Eve Teschmacher), Edi Gathegi (Mister Terrific), Terence Rosemore (Otis), Anthony Carrigan (Metamorpho), Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl), Nathan Fillion (Guy Gardner) and María Gabriela de Faría (The Engineer).
Superman soars into theaters on July 11.
For more on all things Superman, check out these stories:
Featured image: LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – APRIL 01: (L-R) James Gunn, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult and David Corenswet attend the Warner Bros. Pictures “The Big Picture” Presentation at 2025 CinemaCon at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on April 01, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Stewart Cook/Warner Bros. via Getty Images)
In 1993, director George Cosmatos’ Tombstone came out, starring Kurt Russell as the legendary lawman Wyatt Earp and Val Kilmer as his drunken, decidedly decent and invaluable partner Doc Holliday. By then, Kilmer was already a legend, having played Ice Man, the ying to Maverick (Tom Cruise, of course)’s yang in Tony Scott’s 1986 film Top Gun, and Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s 1991 film The Doors, one of those roles where it was truly impossible to imagine another actor on the planet being more perfectly positioned to inhabit a character, in this case the real life Lizard King himself, then Kilmer was. He’d even starred in a fantasy epic before his unforgettable turn as the gunslinger in Tombstone, playing Madmartigan in Ron Howard’s Willow. But it was as Doc Hollidaythat Kilmer’s offbeat charm and abundant charisma seemed perfectly channeled. While Russell’s Wyatt Earp might be the nominal hero, Kilmer’s witty, wheezing Doc steals the movie, and for folks of a certain generation, reciting Doc’s lines, even if you lived nowhere near a region where saying something like “I’m your huckleberry” made sense in any context, was a favorite pasttime. We all wanted to be Doc, failing liver and all.
By the time Kilmer revisited the role of Ice Man in Joseph Kosinski’s world-beating 2022 sequel Top Gun: Maverick, his health was already deteriorating enough that it was a plot point in the film. Ice Man was now an Admiral, and Cruise’s Pete Mitchell pays a visit to him, not long before his passing, to get some advice. It was one of the film’s most emotional, riveting scenes, and seeing the proud, still handsome Kilmer get to portray the character that made him a global superstar one more time was the film’s most undeniably emotional moment.
Kilmer has passed away at the age of 65 from throat cancer he’d been dealing with for years. He leaves behind a long, legendary career, which included playing Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever and co-starring in one of the greatest heist movies of all time, Michael Mann’s 1995 tour de force, Heat, as Chris Shiherlis, one of the expert criminals on Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro)’s team. [Mann revisited the scene’s flawless bank heist scene in Ava DuVernay’s One Perfect Shot, arguably one of the most riveting scenes in cinematic history.]
“While working with Val on Heat, I always marveled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character,” Michael Mann said in a statement. “After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.”
In 2021, the documentary Val utilized hundreds of hours of video that Kilmer had recorded over his life, including behind-the-scenes moments from sets and revealing the artist and soulful figure that Kilmer was. His son provided his voice.
“The result is undoubtedly a canny mediation on the vagaries of fame, but it feels more intimate and essential than that: a lifetime of searching and self-regard distilled, somehow, into a state of grace,” Leah Greenblatt wrote for Entertainment Weekly.
Mann wasn’t alone in sharing tributes to the singular star; Francis Ford Coppola, Josh Brolin, the official Top Gun Twitter page, and others also did so.
The titan visual effects studio Industrial Light & Magic wrote a tribute to Kilmer on its official Instagram Threads account: “We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our friend and colleague, Val Kilmer. From his memorable roles as Madmartigan, Iceman, Doc Holliday, and Jim Morrison, Val cemented himself as one of the greats. He will be deeply missed, and our thoughts are with his family at this time.”
Kilmer was a one-of-a-kind talent, and he will be missed.
Featured image: HOLLYWOOD, CA – FEBRUARY 29: Actor Val Kilmer attends the 2004 Vanity Fair Oscar Party at Mortons Restaurant, February 29, 2004 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images)
Sony had a lot to reveal yesterday in Las Vegas at the annual CinemaCon gathering—the cast and release date for Sam Mendes’ four-part Beatles biopic, the release date for the trilogy-capping third film in the Spider-Versefranchise, and the new title for Tom Holland’s fourth spin as Spider-Man.
Peter Parker’s next live-action outing, to be directed by Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton, is now officially titled Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is fitting considering the conclusion of Spider-Man: No Way Home saw Parker and his fellow Parker-pals (played, once again, by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield) restoring order to the multiverse but also re-setting the memories of people in Parker’s world, so that nobody remembered he was Spider-Man, or, even, that they love him. It was a bittersweet coda for Holland’s Parker, considering it meant losing, at least for now, the love of his life, Zendaya’s MJ.
Holland couldn’t be in Vegas for the presentation, but he sent a video to tease his fourth turn as Peter Parker.
“I am so sorry I can’t be with you. I am halfway around the world shooting a movie,” said Holland, who’s currently filming with his longtime co-star Zendaya, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, and more for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. “I know we left you with a massive cliff hanger at the end of No Way Home, so Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a fresh start. It is exactly that. That’s all I can say.”
There are no plot details at present for Brand New Day, but we do know it’ll hit theaters on July 31, 2026, and that the filmmaking team is working hard to ensure that the story lives up to the killer trilogy capper that came before it.
“I’m spending my time exploring the next stage of this amazing character with a team of the most incredible artists in the world,” Cretton said at CinemaCon. “We’re all just daily nerding out over the suit, how to swing, how to create an event, an emotional story, and a ride that we haven’t really seen before.”
Cretton revealed that production begins this summer.
One major piece of speculation is that new cast member Sadie Sink will play the iconic X-Men character Jean Grey, previously played by Sophie Turner and Famke Janssen. What’s intriguing is a slew of previous X-Men performers from Janssen’s era are joining the MCU for Avengers: Doomsday—Patrick Stewart, James Marsden, Alan Cumming, Kelsey Grammer, and Ian McKellen. Doomsday arrives in theaters before Spider-Man: Brand New Dayon May 1, 2026, and will have direct implications over what Cretton and his team have cooked up for Spidey, whoever Sink is playing (we’re guessing it’s Jean Grey), and more.
For more on all things Spider-Man, check out these stories:
Sony’s presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas had it all—the Fab Fourand Spider-Man. While Sony ended their presentation by bringing out director Sam Mendes and his cast for his upcoming four-part Beatles biopic, the earlier part of their presentation was centered upon one of the studio’s most beloved current franchises. Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the third installment of their animated trilogy featuring Brooklyn’s very own Spider-Man, was revealed to be swinging into theaters on June 4, 2027.
“We know how important this franchise is to so many people around us. We just could not run it back,” said the Spider-Verse team of producer Phil Lord and co-directors Bob Persichetti and Justin K. Thompson from the stage at CinemaCon. “So, we decided we needed to take the time to make sure we got it just right.”
The team then revealed the first glimpse at Beyond the Spider-Verse, the conclusion to the critically acclaimed series that began with 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse and continued with 2023’s Across the Spider-Verse. The series has successfully played with the idea of a multiverse, with Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) becoming the borough’s very own Spider-Man, and then teaming up with Spider-People from across the multiverse, including Gwen Stacy/Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Noir (Nicolas Cage), Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman (Issa Rae), Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man India (Karan Soni), Hobie Brown/Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya), and more to do battle with villains like The Spot (Jason Schwartzman).
The Beyond the Spider-Verse team didn’t reveal any plot details for the trilogy-capping film, but it’s sure to be Miles’ most extreme challenge yet. Lord did hint that Miles will start the third film in the franchise as a fugitive on the run from every other Spider-Person in the multiverse, and that even his closest allies, like Gwen Stacy, might not be enough to save him and his family this time around.
Miles (Shameik Moore) and Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) in “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.” Courtesy Sony Pictures.
The footage showcased the franchise’s glorious, bold animation style and showed Miles declaring that this time around, he was going to do things his way.
At CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Monday, Mendes and his cast took to the stage to unveil not only who his John, Paul, Ringo, and George were, but also that all four films will have a theatrical release in April 2028.
Your Fab Four are Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison. Each movie centers on one of the band members.
“We’re not just making one film about the Beatles — we’re making four,” Mendes said at CinemaCon. “Perhaps this is a chance to understand them a little more deeply.”
Mendes told the audience that Sony film chief Tom Rothman said the projects would be “the first binge-able theatrical experience.” The cast then recited lyrics from the Beatles’ iconic “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” then bowed in unison. It was a truly epic way for Sony to close out its presentation.
Taking an Oscar-winning director in Mendes and giving him four rising stars to deliver a one-of-a-kind theatrical experience to depict all four members of the Beatles in four separate movies, releasing in the same month? It’s perhaps precisely the kind of big swing for the theater experience that audiences need right now to remind them that there is no better way to watch a movie.
Mendes also has the support of the Beatles, marking the first time they’ve backed a scripted film based on their lives. Recently, Peter Jackson’s epic The Beatles: Get Back detailed the lead-up to their iconic live performance atop their Seville Row studio.
“We intend this to be a uniquely thrilling, and epic cinematic experience: four films, told from four different perspectives which tell a single story about the most celebrated band of all time,” said one of the film’s producers, Pippa Harris, in a statement at the time of the initial announcement. “To have The Beatles’ and Apple Corps’ blessing to do this is an immense privilege.”
Featured image: LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – MARCH 31: (L-R) Paul Mescal, Joseph Quinn, Barry Keoghan and Harris Dickinson are introduced onstage to promote four upcoming biopics about The Beatles at the Sony Pictures Entertainment presentation during CinemaCon, the official convention of Cinema United, at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on March 31, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
