Sony Pictures’ Venom: Let There Be Carnage took a massive bite out of the box office this weekend. The second installment in Sony’s Venom-verse, if you will, feasted on a pandemic-era record $90.1 million debut. This is good news for theater owners and a potential sign that things are, at long last, beginning to turn around. Overseas, No Time To Die has had a very impressive opening, too, racing to $119 million in its foreign market debut.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage hails from talented actor/director Andy Serkis, who leaned into the film’s inherent lunacy (Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock is essentially in a romantic relationship with the alien symbiote who shares his body), and turned the dial up to 11. This hearty opening proves there are plenty of people who love the zany, darker world of Venom, which unleashed a big, bad new villain in Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Casady, who hosts his own alien symbiote, the titular Carnage, as well as Naomie Harris’s Shriek, Cletus Casaday’s lethal leading lady.
“We are also pleased that patience and theatrical exclusivity have been rewarded with record results,” Sony’s chairman Tom Rothman said in a press statement. “With apologies to Mr. Twain: The death of movies has been greatly exaggerated.”
“It reaffirms the importance of the theatrical window,” Sony’s president of domestic distribution Adrian Smith said in a statement. “We knew we had a really big movie and an excited fanbase. The marketplace comes out for the right movie,” said Sanford Panitch, president of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage bested two of Marvel’s big recent releases, Black Widow, which had a robust $80 million opening in theaters, and Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings ($75 million), as well as Universal’s F9 ($70 million). Interestingly, Let There Be Carnage also bested the original Venom ($80 million), which opened in a pre-pandemic world of 2018.
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It might only be half a minute long, but this new look at Chloé Zhao’s Eternals packs a punch. Marvel Studios revealed this fresh footage on Sunday, giving us a glimpse of Zhao’s millennia-spanning epic. We get to see some of the abilities of the titular Eternals, the extremely powerful ancient beings who have been quietly embedded with us mere mortals on Earth, here to protect us should the malevolent creatures known as the Deviants show up. Guess what, folks? The Deviants show up, and the new spot shows us the powers of Eternals like Ikaris (Richard Madden), who has laser vision and quips that he doesn’t wear a cape (throwing some shade at the Avengers), Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), and Thena (Angelina Jolie) and her golden sword. The Eternals will need to muster all the potency they’ve got to stave off the Deviants.
We open on Sersi (Gemma Chan), explaining the Eternals mission on Earth. We know that the main action of Eternals takes place after the events of Endgame and that our heroes will in fact need to save humanity from those aforementioned Deviants. The new spot gives us our first look at Gilgamesh (Don Lee), who lands a massive punch against one of the Deviants. We also get a glance at the MCU’s first openly gay couple, when Ikrais meets Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) and his husband (played by Haaz Sleiman). They have a son who is very enthused to meet Ikaris.
Zhao directs from her own script, which she co-wrote with Ryan and Kaz Firpo, and Patrick Burleigh. The film will take us all the way back to before even Thanos was born, and will broaden the ever-expanding MCU to cosmic proportions.
Take a look at the new footage below. Eternals hits theaters on November 5.
It’s not an understatement to say The Batman will be one of 2022’s most eagerly anticipated films, and that nabbing a role in writer/director Matt Reeves’ upcoming franchise reboot was a very big deal. While the early headlines were understandably centered on Robert Pattinson’s casting as Bruce Wayne, which was an exciting choice and met with enthusiasm by most Batman fans, there was a palpable thrill when the news broke that Zoë Kravitz would be playing Catwoman. Kravitz exudes genuine cool, for starters, but more importantly, she’s a nimble, intriguing performer who, for example, so effortlessly carried Hulu’s excellent High Fidelity it made you wonder why she hasn’t led her own series for years.
To land the role of Catwoman, Kravitz faced stiff competition. Great performers and rising stars like Zazie Beetz and Eiza Gonzalez were vying for the role, as Reeves’ script was a hot commodity. Speaking with AnotherMag, Kravitz explained how she managed to get a role that’s been inhabited by Anne Hathaway, Halle Berry, Michelle Pfeiffer, Julie Newman, and, back in the late 1960s, an iconic turn by Earth Kitt.
Kravitz tells AnotherMag that her agent called her about the role and told her she’s on the list of actors they were looking at. Kravitz flew to Los Angeles to meet with Reeves.
“I read the script. Then he talked with me again to hear my thoughts, to see if we were on the same page. I didn’t know him well and it was a bit of a process. When these big opportunities come up, these big roles, and you really want them, it’s heartbreaking when you don’t get them. You put a lot of energy into it,” Kravitz tells AnotherMag. “The thing that I tried to keep in check throughout, though, was just wanting to be agreeable and likable to get the role. To read the script and say, ‘I love it. I love everything about it.’ Then I go to the audition and I have this puppy dog energy.”
So what did Kravitz do? She was honest with him.
“It was important to give him an idea of what it’s really like to work with me. To say what I really think and, if we’re on set together, to ask the questions I want to ask. I tried to come at it from the angle where I am showing him what I see and feel about this character. I believe that’s why it happened and I got the role. Matt’s a fantastic director, and he’s really into talking about the character. We had some really good conversations. I had some thoughts about the character once I’d read the script too and they were welcomed.”
She also talked about how she tried to think of the role not as Catwoman, but as an actual person.
“I’ve read some of the comics now, but I wasn’t a comic head or anything. I also tried to think about it not as Catwoman, but as a woman, how does this make me feel? How are we approaching this and how are we making sure we’re not fetishizing or creating a stereotype? I knew it needed to be a real person.”
As for dealing with the massive amount of hype, pressure, and fan expectation, Kravitz had this to say:
“If I’m thinking about wanting everyone to like it and wanting all the fans to like it, I’m not going to actually bring a real person to life. Matt wrote a really interesting story with a complex character, and the relationships are really interesting. All I wanted to do was honor that story. Sometimes with really big movies, it can feel like you’re just a puppet and part of this big machine. This felt like an independent movie in the way that there was real heart and soul and thought being put into the process and into every scene. It was incredibly collaborative. Matt’s very specific. It took him a year to make this because of Covid. We were in this bubble, really in this world, and it was an incredible experience. To spend a year of your life, and it’s very physically demanding … I had to be in very specific shape, and there’s a pandemic going on. I’m being zipped into a catsuit every day at 7 am, working 12-hour days, and then coming home and working out. It was intense.”
The Batman hits theaters on March 4, 2022.
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Featured image: Zoë Kravitz attends the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 24, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California.
Daniel Craig is getting a proper sendoff in his final mission as James Bond. No Time To Die is getting the widest theatrical release in history in the U.K., with the MGM/Universal release playing in 772 cinemas, besting the previous record-holder, 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, by 25 screens. This also marks Universal’s widest release ever in the U.K. The film officially opened on September 30 and pulling in $6.8 million, 13% more than the previous Bond film, 2015’s Spectre.
And why wouldn’t this be not only Bond’s biggest opening but the biggest ever in Britain? No Time To Die is a major film, long-delayed due to the pandemic, with the hopes of theater owners and industry professionals riding on it to draw in big crowds and get people excited about returning to the theater. So far, things are looking pretty good. Varietyreports that more than 30,000 people attended midnight screenings on Wednesday night. The film has sold a whopping 1.62 million advance tickets across its opening four days, which is the highest advance sales of all time for cinema chains Everyman, Curzon, and Picturehouse. This is better than Spectre by 12%, and it’s just in line with Skyfall‘s numbers from 2012.
No Time To Die had its star-studded world premiere on September 28 at London’s Royal Albert Hall, and critics are praising it as a thrilling, emotional sendoff for Craig. The film is the 25th installment in the deathless franchise, and it’s currently playing in several international markets before bowing in the U.S. on October 8.
For more on No Time To Die, check out these stories:
How do you dramatize poverty, abuse, systemic misogyny in a TV show without creating a series of lectures, or a documentary? This was one of the challenges facing Maid showrunner Molly Smith Metzler when she set out to adapt author Stephanie Land’s best-selling memoir “Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive.” Through ten episodes, Metzler’s show, starring a phenomenal Margaret Qualley as Alex, manages to deliver a riveting portrait of a young mother fleeing an abusive relationship with her young daughter and trying to make ends meet in Washington as a maid. Although she lives in a state home to one of the most liberal cities in the country, Washington also happens to have some insanely draconian laws pertaining to women still on the books. It’s one of the many things we learn watching Maid, but we keep watching mainly because we care about Alex and want to see what happens next.
Maid captures Alex’s struggle to figure out a way to not only survive, but to give her daughter a chance to have a normal childhood, one free from an emotionally abusive father and where simple things like school, shelter, and food are a given, not the elusive components of a dream life. And while Alex isn’t alone in the world—she has friends, and a wildly unreliable mother, Paula (played Andie MacDowell, Qualley’s real-life mother)—Maid reveals just how many Americans rely on social services when their razor-thin purchase on the basic necessities in life is thrown into chaos.
In Maid, that chaos is mainly created by Sean (Nick Robinson), whose torment of Alex doesn’t meet Washington’s standards of domestic abuse because he leaves no bruises or visible scars as evidence. Yet what he does do is emotionally torture her, creating a highly unstable, dangerous environment for Alex and her daughter Maddy (Rylea Nevaeh Whittet). In an early scene in the pilot, Alex learns that even though she’s been emotionally terrorized and is now homeless, the only way she can qualify for subsidized housing or childcare is by providing a paystub from a job. “I need a job to prove that I need daycare in order to get a job?” Alex asks the social worker. “What kind of f-ckery is that?” What kind indeed.
We spoke to Metzler about how she turned Land’s riveting, wrenching memoir into a compelling, deeply compassionate series, and how she found a way to lay bare the agonizing choices so many Americans are forced to make by a system that often fails them.
How did you begin your adaptation process from Stephanie Land’s book? What are your initial steps like?
The first thing you do is decide you’re the writer in this world that has to write it. You read the book, and then you read it again and again and see if you can’t sleep after, and if kind of ruins your life because it’s changed your perspective about the world. If those things are all true, then you’re the right writer to do it. Then it’s about opening it up wide and finding the emotional truth of the memoir and really committing to telling that truth. Then I do a ton of research, and then I put it all aside and remember I don’t work for the book, I work for the audience. They’re supposed to be different. This gives me a sense of freedom. My job is to make this entertaining for ten hours so that my cousin in Ohio might want to watch.
How do you intuit where to veer off from the specifics of the book?
I’m a playwright, so I come from the theater world where we spend two years writing a play. It’s a very instinctual kind of writing in the theater. TV works so much quicker, of course, but I do think it’s the same in a fundamental way. You feel it or you don’t. Writing Maid was also a very instinctual show, our writer’s room had a lot of playwrights. We set some very specific rules about Alex’s point of view and when we would pop out, and our rule was we’d never pop out unless it was to move the emotional story forward. We never did it just for fun or no reason, and we followed that instinct to the end.
The show deals with so many inequities in American life, especially for poor women, yet it’s riveting without it becoming oppressively dark. How’d you manage that?
Well, thank you for saying that. I’m a comedy writer, I’ve written for Shameless and Casual and Orange Is the New Black, and I live in that in-between world between drama and comedy. The place where they dance together is my jam. So I agree with you, the version of Maid that was just a slog, that was just bad thing after bad thing, that’s not a show I want to watch, and I highly doubt it’s a show anyone else wants to watch, either. The key for me and the writers was we felt that she has to be funny. She has to be a true 25-year old who can’t afford to get a burger with her friends, who is horny sometimes.A bunch of legal jargon in a courtroom is going to sound like legal jargon. It was doing the character work, really committing to the question, ‘Is this how Alex would be experiencing this in the moment?’ It all comes from her, it’s like she wrote the show.
The series reveals a lot of paradoxes that exist at the heart of the social services and the law that Alex and many of the women she meets rely on. How much of that came from the book versus your own research?
We did a ton of research about some of the systems and programs and benefits Stephanie brings up in the book, so we wanted to make sure we were accurate to today. I was shocked because I had no idea about some of the domestic violence laws in the country. The show was going to be set in Washington state, so we worked with a consultant and a family lawyer and I came to understand that in the state of Washington, emotional abuse is not considered domestic violence. It always boils down to his word against hers. They want evidence, they want bruises, they want witnesses. This incredibly violent form of abuse is not recognized in lots of courts of law as domestic violence. This blew my mind, and I became very angry, but also very interested in how can I talk about that in a dramatic way. My idea was to put it on screen. I dare you to watch Maid and tell me that’s not abuse. It is hideous abuse. The backbone of my job was that none of it matters if people don’t watch it. None of this wonderful information and these really important civic lessons matter if people turn the show off. So it was a motivating way to dramatize something is to create a character that you have to see what happens to them, and then sneakily, you have to see to what happens in terms of socioeconomics as well.
I was hoping you could walk me through the casting process.
When we sold the show and I started writing the pilot, I knew well in advance that we were going to spend the entire ten episodes from the point of view of Alex. She’s in every single frame. When we got into it, it’s hard to describe what you’re looking for. When we met Margaret, she had her laptop propped up on a lamp, it was Zoom, it was the pandemic, she was just funny and wacky and genuine and open. Then when we did the material with her there was just such an unaffected quality to her work, she’s so raw and there’s such a lack of vanity, too. Once we met her we knew she was our Alex, so then the question was who was going to play Paula. We were all like, ‘Should we bring up Andie?’ I don’t know if my daughter would want to spend nine months on a rainy island in Canada with me, so we yielded on that idea. Then the idea came from Margaret, which was a beautiful relief. She said, “I want my mom here, I want to share this with my mom.” It came from this place of real generosity from the two of them, and it informed not just the writing but the entire production. We were telling this story about motherhood with a real mother and daughter at the center of it. They hugged between takes, they made soup together on the weekends, they shared this experience.
How did it feel when you finally saw the series in its entirety?
I felt really proud. I know that’s a weird thing to say. I’m very critical of my own work. I just really care about this story, and when I saw it, I felt like everyone’s love and commitment to the story was so apparent on the screen. So I felt uncharacteristically proud, and I’m really excited for everyone to see it.
Finally, the degree of difficulty you faced here seemed slightly raised. Adapting a best-selling memoir in the middle of a global pandemic for your first showrunning job? Sheesh.
My husband is also a writer and producer for the show, so my family was with me in Canada, which was wonderful, but there were a lot of mornings where we were like, you know, this is not easy. We could have written a sitcom.
Apple has won a bidding war for one of the hottest projects out there—Spider-Man writer/director Jon Watts’ thriller starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney as two lone wolf fixers who get assigned to the same job. Pitt and Clooney are also on board as producers through their respective labels, Plan B Entertainment and Smokehouse Pictures, respectively.
Watts, who has helmed the new Tom Holland-led Spider-Man trilogy for Sony, and has Spider-Man: No Way Home due in theaters on December 17, will writer, direct, and produce the thriller alongside Pitt and Clooney. This is the first time the pair has acted together since the Coen Brother’s Burn After Reading in 2008. They were of course the two main attractions to Steven Soderberg’s three Ocean’s movies, with Ocean’s 13 Thirteen capping the trilogy in 2007.
A week ago, The Hollywood Reporterrevealed the extent of the buzz around the project, with Apple, Sony, Netflix, and Lionsgate all vying for rights to the film package. Apple Original Films now has a few huge projects underway, including Martin Scorsese’s epic Killers of the Flower Moon starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro. Adding Watts’ thriller and getting Pitt and Clooney back on screen together counts as a major coup for the young production studio with very deep pockets.
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Featured image: L-r: HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 09: Brad Pitt attends the 92nd Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood and Highland on February 09, 2020 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images). HOLLYWOOD, CA – JUNE 07: Honoree George Clooney attends the American Film Institute’s 46th Life Achievement Award Gala Tribute to George Clooney at Dolby Theatre on June 7, 2018 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images).
The Book of Boba Fett will arrive via jet pack right before the end of the year. Disney+ has confirmed that The Mandalorian spinoff will premiere on December 29. The series features Temuera Morrison reprising his role as the titular bounty hunter, returning to Tatooine to take over the territory once ruled by the late, lecherous Jabba the Hutt and his crime syndicate. Disney+ also shared the admittedly excellent poster for the upcoming series, which features our be-helmeted hero sitting on Jabba’s throne.
Boba Fett was, of course, an iconic character from the original Star Wars trilogy. He had a fairly small role, but it was an important one (at one point he took possession of Han Solo’s frozen-in-carbonite body) and his presumed death, tossed into the Sarlacc pit by Luke Skywalker, felt to many fans a lame sendoff for such a cool character. Well, we’ve known for a while now Boba didn’t die (somehow). The Book of Boba Fett will show us how that was possible, and what the bounty hunter has been up to since the events in the original trilogy.
Here’s what director Robert Rodriguez had to say to Colliderabout the series: “Can’t say anything about it at all right now, but it’s coming out in December. Wait until you see what’s coming. It’s going to blow your mind. That’s all I can say. That’s all I can say. I can talk it up all I want because I know it over-delivers. It way over-delivers. So you’re going to be, people are going to be so pumped up when they see it.”
Here’s the official release from Disney+:
“The Book of Boba Fett,” a thrilling Star Wars adventure, finds legendary bounty hunter Boba Fett and mercenary Fennec Shand navigating the Galaxy’s underworld when they return to the sands of Tatooine to stake their claim on the territory once ruled by Jabba the Hutt and his crime syndicate.
“The Book of Boba Fett” stars Temuera Morrison and Ming-Na Wen. Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, Robert Rodriguez, Kathleen Kennedy, and Colin Wilson are the executive producers. Karen Gilchrist and Carrie Beck serve as co-executive producers, with John Bartnicki producing and John Hampian as co-producer.
“The Book of Boba Fett” key art. Courtesy Disney+.
For more stories on Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Marvel Studios, and what’s streaming or coming to Disney+, check these out:
The reviews are in for No Time To Die, the long-awaited 25th Bond film that also doubles as Daniel Craig’s final turn as 007. No Time To Die has been delayed repeatedly during the pandemic, and while that was frustrating for fans and the cast and crew alike, it was both necessary and wise. And now, with the film making its start-studded world premiere at last night’s Royal Albert Hall in London and the reviews pouring in, it feels like the right time for Bond. So, what are the critics saying?
“Daniel Craig’s best incarnation of an iconic role, an iteration that sees Bond travel to emotional spaces the character has never been to before, at least not since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service or in certain passages of Ian Fleming’s books,” writes The Wrap‘s Jason Solomons. “No Time to Die is a terrific movie: an up-to-the-minute, down-to-the-wire James Bond thriller with a satisfying neo-classical edge,” Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman writes. Meanwhile, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardians says “No Time To Die is startling, exotically self-aware, funny and confident, and perhaps most of all it is big: big action, big laughs, big stunts.”
You get a sense from a lot of the reviewers that, once again, Daniel Craig has given every ounce of himself to the role, that Ana de Armas is a fantastic new addition, and that the longest Bond film ever is absolutely packed with sensational set pieces, thrilling action, and emotion.
No Time To Die is centered on Bond being lured back into action (he was attempting retirement) to face a threat even greater than Christoph Waltz’s Blofeld (Blofeld is back in No Time To Die) in Safin (Rami Malek), a villain who co-writer/director Fukunaga promised would be the incarnation of everything Bond has been fighting against. To take on Safin, Bond reunites with his old comrades, plus former paramour Madeline Swan (Léa Seydoux), who factors into the plot in a major way. Newcomers include Paloma (Ana de Armas) and Nomi (Lashana Lynch), a new double-o agent on the scene.
So onto some of the early reactions and reviews! We’ve kept these spoiler-free, of course.
NO TIME TO DIE ends this era of James Bond with a grand & spectacular finale. Wraps up the plots from previous films while pushing the boundaries of what the character can deliver. Rami Malek is one creepy Bond villain. Exciting, well-crafted & emotional. A toast to Daniel Craig! pic.twitter.com/80hLbNaGPQ
NO TIME TO DIE: Need more time to process, but I really liked it a lot — def better than Quantum & Spectre. It’s #DanielCraig’s most grounded and — dare I say it? — most intimate take on #JamesBond with a powerful, unexpected & very emotional payoff. Def worth the wait! pic.twitter.com/q5ladwndg0
The wait was worth it. Way to finish Daniel Craig’s #JamesBond run. It’s got a few interesting twists I can’t say I was expecting,but hey,after so many decades, gotta have some surprises left. Really enjoyed all the action and callbacks Cary Joji Fukunaga fit in. A fitting finale
Quite satisfied with No Time To Die – a heavy “end of an era” movie in many ways. Finally a compelling, complex Bond movie again that plays with intriguing ideas. But still a classic Bond – big sets, big stakes, big action, Russians, scientists, cars galore, beautiful locations.
It’s not always the smoothest ride to get there, but a tremendously moving final act makes NO TIME TO DIE a worthy valedictory salute to Daniel Craig in his fifth and final stint as 007. My @THR review:https://t.co/b60iP1YCA7
https://t.co/KKfmzn7vRa I saw Bond last night. And it was immense. And I say this as someone who was bored stupid during Spectre, Skyfall and Quantum of Nonsense. It really as a gorgeous swan song for Craig.
The early reactions to No Time To Die are in, and it sounds like Daniel Craig’s final turn as James Bond is as thrillingly satisfying as we could have hoped. Before we get to those, though, we wanted to share some of the images from the world premiere last night, at the Royal Albert Hall in London. All the film’s stars were there, as were many of the filmmakers responsible for making the movie happen, including director Cary Joji Fukunaga, co-writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, theme song creator (and pop superstar) Billie Eilish, and legendary composer Hans Zimmer.
This is the 25th installment in the Bond franchise, and you could make the case that never has a new Bond film felt this timely or important. No Time To Die was delayed repeatedly because of the pandemic, and as it returned to Royal Albert Hall last night, it wasn’t only a bittersweet sendoff for Daniel Craig, it also represents what so many people are hoping marks the return to some sense of normalcy, drawing audiences (safely) back into the theater. The movie world needs Bond, James Bond, now more than ever.
So here’s a selection of photos from the red carpet last night, showing everyone from the alumni like Craig, Naomie Harris, Léa Seydoux, and Ben Whishaw to the newcomers Lashana Lynch and Ana de Armas. At long last, Bond is back.
Featured image: LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 28: (L-R) Lashana Lynch, Daniel Craig and Léa Seydoux attend the World Premiere of “NO TIME TO DIE” at the Royal Albert Hall on September 28, 2021 in London, England. (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for EON Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and Universal Pictures)
The first reactions from critics who have seen Venom: Let There Be Carnage are spreading like an alien symbiote across the internet. The good news for fans of the 2018 original? Let There Be Carnage is even more bonkers. Director Andy Serkis has picked up where the original left off and leaned into the lunacy, and the early takes are that the film, and Tom Hardy especially, are reveling in the madness. As fair warning, however, know that if you go snooping on Twitter too deeply, there are some people spilling plot points, so be careful. We’ve included just a few reactions below to give you a taste of what to expect without divulging any of the film’s twists.
Hardy plays Eddie Brock, of course, the reporter turned human host for Venom, an alien symbiote who has a penchant for eating his enemies (and others, frankly). In Let There Be Carnage, Eddie and Venom are more or less a romantic item (Andy Serkis has called their relationship the film’s central romance), and while you chew on that tasty morsel, remember that Let There Be Carnage features another alien symbiote, the titular Carnage, riding shotgun in the human body of killer Cleatus Kasady (Woody Harrelson). Kasady has a main squeeze, Frances Barrion (Naomie Harris) who also has the ability to kill people with a scream, hence her other name, Shriek.
So there’s plenty of madness to go around, with a great cast (including Michelle Williams, returning as Anne Weying) and a talented director. If you liked Venom, sounds like you’re going to love Let There Be Carnage.
Now let’s get to those early reactions, which are all spoiler-free. Venom: Let There Be Carnage hits theaters on October 1.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a wild-ass movie of the highest order. Ultraviolent rom com that is delightfully self aware and weird. Tom Hardy gives 200%. Whatever you do, don’t miss the post-credits. #VenomLetThereBeCarnagepic.twitter.com/yoSBH67wMs
The #Venom franchise has a special place in my heart. Let There Be #Carnage was such blast. It’s silly. It’s fun. And if you loved Eddie and Venom before, it’s just more to love. Kid-Me wouldn’t believe the nerdy glory we’re getting these days.
Tom Hardy is fantastic in #Venom2 – a film that gladly & madly leans into its darkly hilarious tone & then some. Definite NATURAL BORN KILLERS vibes from our villains, but it’s ultimately Hardy who steals every scene w/ a one-of-a-kind performance that’s SO much fun to watch pic.twitter.com/97vO6rHing
VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE embraces the absurd buddy romance from the first film even more. Andy Serkis keeps the action & humor moving quickly even if it doesn’t always land. Tom Hardy’s gonzo performance is still a highlight while Woody Harrelson relishes every sadistic moment pic.twitter.com/lQN9W3vaBx
Carnage looks better than I could have dreamed as a kid growing up reading those comics
Tom Hardy is having the time of his life and Andy Serkis flexes those MoCap & CGI muscles to give us truly intense & visceral Symbiote battles! pic.twitter.com/Zfxu8ApiTZ
And finally, if you want to get roasted by Venom on Twitter, well, you can:
Eddie says no eating people today but roasting is allowed. If you can handle a bite from me, comment “#Venom Roast Me” below. #Venom Day pic.twitter.com/QJrJZclKFm
The first trailer for writer/director Jeymes Samuel’s The Harder They Fall has arrived, revealing a star-studded Western that pits two rival crews facing off in an epic High Noon-level showdown. The action in The Harder They Fall is set into motion when Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) is sprung from prison. This doesn’t sit well with Nat Love (Jonathan Majors), who has a long-standing grudge against Rufus that he wears on his face every day in the form of a cross dug into his forehead with a knife. So, Nat assembles his gang to track down the recently released Rufus and get his revenge. But Rufus isn’t the type of guy to sit around and wait to accept his just punishment. He’s got his own crew, and thus, their collision course is set.
This premise is pure Western—two men with a bad history assembling their trusted crew and settling their score the frontier way, with revolvers and pistols and perhaps a stick of dynamite here and there. Jeymes Samuel’s film, which he co-wrote with Boaz Yakin, surrounds Elba and Majors with some serious talent. On Nat Love’s side, there’s his former love Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), the “hot-tempered” Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi), and the quickdraw Jim Beckwourth (R.J. Cyler.) For Rufus Buck, he’s got “Treacherous” Trudy Smith (Regina King) and Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield). This is an explosive cast, pun intended.
The Harder They Fall was produced by, among others, Shawn Carter. We’ve been waiting for this movie for well over a year now, so it’s exciting to see this ripping first trailer.
Check out the trailer below. The Harder They Fall hits select theaters in October and Netflix on November 3.
Here’s the official synopsis:
When outlaw Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) discovers that his enemy Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) is being released from prison he rounds up his gang to track Rufus down and seek revenge. Those riding with him in this assured, righteously new school Western include his former love Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), his right and left hand men — hot-tempered Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi) and fast drawing Jim Beckwourth (R.J. Cyler)—and a surprising adversary-turned-ally. Rufus Buck has his own fearsome crew, including “Treacherous” Trudy Smith (Regina King) and Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield), and they are not a group that knows how to lose. Directed by Jeymes Samuel, written by Samuel and Boaz Yakin, produced by Shawn Carter, James Lassiter, Lawrence Bender and Jeymes Samuel, and featuring a red hot soundtrack and a stunning all-star cast, including Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz, Delroy Lindo, LaKeith Stanfield, Danielle Deadwyler, Edi Gathegi, R.J. Cyler, Damon Wayans Jr., Deon Cole with Regina King and Idris Elba revenge has never been served colder.
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If the end of the world is nigh, there are few better filmmakers to spend your final hours with than writer/director Adam McKay. The man whose The Big Short unpuzzled the puzzling, devastating schemes that led to the 2008 financial crisis and whose Veep gave us a front-row seat to the rise-and-retire-in-wealth-despite-starting-an-unjust-war career of Dick Cheney has now set his sights on the cosmos. Don’t Look Up takes aim at our unwillingness, as a society, to look at hard problems in the face. The cast he’s assembled tell this story of willful ignorance is astonishing. Now we’ve got a slew of new photos to share that reveal his A-list ensemble.
The premise for Don’t Look Up is fairly straightforward. Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) is an astronomy grad student who, along with her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) has made an awful discovery—a Mount Everest-sized comet orbiting within the solar system is on a collision course with Earth. When they take their findings to the President of the United States Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep), they find she’s indifferent to the crisis. You’ll note in one of the photos below she’s wearing a “Don’t Look Up” hat, goading her voters into ignoring the crisis completely. Thus begins a media tour, with Kate and Randall trying to get the world to take this seriously, but that’s easier said than done in a culture that would much rather look down, into their phones, at their Twitter feeds, and scroll their Instagram accounts. With the planet literally hanging in the balance, Don’t Look Up asks if we have what it takes to do something about it.
With a sprawling cast and a big idea at its core, McKay is taking direct aim, once again, at where our world is headed. Whether it was unscrupulous lenders, bankers, traders, and more leading us to financial doom in The Big Short or one brutally ambitious, morally bankrupt Vice President lying us into war, McKay’s films don’t just point fingers, they ask us to look in the mirror. Or, in the case of Don’t Look Up, to look out of our windows and ask ourselves if we’re doing everything we can to avoid certain global catastrophe.
Don’t Look Up hits select theaters on December 10, and Netflix on December 24. Check out the images below.
Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), an astronomy grad student, and her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) make an astounding discovery of a comet orbiting within the solar system. The problem — it’s on a direct collision course with Earth. The other problem? No one really seems to care. Turns out warning mankind about a planet-killer the size of Mount Everest is an inconvenient fact to navigate. With the help of Dr. Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), Kate and Randall embark on a media tour that takes them from the office of an indifferent President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her sycophantic son and Chief of Staff, Jason (Jonah Hill), to the airwaves of The Daily Rip, an upbeat morning show hosted by Brie (Cate Blanchett) and Jack (Tyler Perry). With only six months until the comet makes impact, managing the 24-hour news cycle and gaining the attention of the social media obsessed public before it’s too late proves shockingly comical — what will it take to get the world to just look up?!
While the human host/alien symbiote combatants of Eddie Brock/Venom (Tom Hardy) and Cletus Kasady/Carnage (Woody Harrelson) are the main event in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, they’re not the only heavies in town. A new clip from director Andy Serkis’s upcoming sequel reveals Naomie Harris’s Frances Barrison, who also goes by Shriek. True to her name, Shriek’s weapon is sound. She’s able to suck all the sound out of a given space and weaponize it. Be afraid.
Shriek represents a major problem for Eddie Brock. It would be hard enough for him and his “roommate” Venom to take on Cletus Kasady/Carnage alone, but Shriek and Kasady are an item. Think Harley Quinn and the Joker, only somehow even crazier. Once the two are reunited, Eddie and Venom will be in dire straits.
Let There Be Carnage picks up where Ruben Fleischer’s 2018 original left off. Eddie and Venom are trying to learn to live together but still must rise to the occasion to fight Kasady and his bigger, badder alien symbiote Carnage. With Shriek taking up with Carnage, that means Venom will likely need a little help from Michelle Williams’ Anne Weying, who has been known to get her monster on, too (as She-Venom, of course). Here’s hoping the four of them go out on the worst double date in history.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage screams into theaters on October 1. Check out the new clip below.
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A new Venom: Let There Be Carnage clip reveals the moment Woody Harrelson’s deranged Cletus Kasady becomes Carnage. It’s a nifty, nasty little scene, revealing that Kasady was moments from being put to death in prison via lethal injection when, instead, he was given a new lease on life. Granted, he’s sharing that new lease on life an alien symbiote Carnage and, well, all hell breaks loose the moment he transforms.
We’re now but a few days away from Venom: Let There Be Carnage‘s premiere date, and the hype is real for director Andy Serkis’s film. Let There Be Carnage picks up where Ruben Fleischer’s 2018 original left off. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is trying to live with his alien symbiote, Venom, in a more sustainable way (good luck with that). Yet we know Eddie will need to let Venom be Venom if they’re going to have any chance against Kasady and his bigger, badder alien symbiote Carnage. Venom and Carnage won’t be the only beasts on display here, however. Michelle Williams is back as Anne Weying, who has been known to host an alien symbiote herself (She-Venom, of course), and newcomer Naomie Harris is on board as Frances Barrison, also known as Shriek.
One of these days, Venom will have to share the screen with Spider-Man. That seems all the more likely now that Sony has officially rebranded from Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters to Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. Yet before Venom and Spidey can duke it out (or team up!), we’ve got a few films to go. First up is Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which hits theaters on October 1.
Check out the new clip below.
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The trailer for The Witcher season 2 is here, and it’s absolutely bursting with monsters. Granted, a lot of the monsters are men, but still—Geralt (Henry Cavill) will have his work cut out for him this season and then some if he’s going to fulfill his destiny. Season one explored the brutal journies of three characters, Geralt, Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), and Princess Cirilla (Freya Allan). These three were on a collision course towards each other, and by the end of season one, Geralt and Cirilla were together, but Yennefer was in a bad way. Season two finds Geralt and Cirilla (known as Ciri) together at last, with the former now committed to protecting the latter. The trailer reveals, among other intrigues, that Geralt will take Ciri to see Vesemir (Kim Bodnia), his mentor.
Meanwhile, after nearly sacrificing her life to save her fellow sorcerers, Yennefer seems to be in dire straits. We find her imprisoned, and wonder how long until she recovers her strength and her powers. Meanwhile, a slew of new characters will be on the scene, including Kristofer Hivju as Nivellen, Graham McTavish as Dijkstra, Cassie Clare as Philippa, Simon Callow and Liz Carr as detective agents Codringher and Fenn, Chris Fulton as Rience, and Adjoa Andoh as Nenneke.
Lauren Schmidt Hissrich returns as showrunner for the second season. The Witcher returns to Netflix on December 17, 2021.
Check out the trailer below:
Here’s the official synopsis:
Convinced Yennefer’s life was lost at the Battle of Sodden, Geralt of Rivia brings Princess Cirilla to the safest place he knows, his childhood home of Kaer Morhen. While the Continent’s kings, elves, humans and demons strive for supremacy outside its walls, he must protect the girl from something far more dangerous: the mysterious power she possesses inside.
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The talk about HBO’s upcoming series The Last Of Us, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as two survivors of a plague, is that the premium cable network has poured immense resources into the series. The show, based on a popular PlayStation game of the same name, is said to be the most expensive, expansive, sprawling thing that network has attempted since it was herding dragons in Westeros in Game of Thrones. Now, we’ve got our first little peek at it, a shot of Pascal and Ramsey (both Game of Thrones alums, it should be noted) looking out over a grassy hill where a plane has crashed some time ago.
The story centers on Joel (Pascal), a hardy, hardened survivor hired to smuggle Ellie (Ramsey) out of a quarantine zone. While it sounds like a straightforward job, it ends up becoming an epic, dangerous journey across a destroyed United States. For fans of the video game, the image that Naughty Dog shared (they’re the video game developer and the series producer) is stunning in how closely it matches Joel and Ellie from the game, down to the dusty, beat-up backpacks.
Joining Pascal and Ramsey are Gabriel Luna as Joe’s brother Tommy, Merle Dandridge reprises her video game role of Marlene, the leader of a resistance group, and Nico Parker as Joel’s daughter Sarah. The Last Of Us comes from Chernobylcreator Craig Mazin, who co-wrote the series with Neil Druckmann, a writer and creative director from the video game. The series is currently in production. We’re hoping for teaser or trailer soon.
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It’s not like the Duffer Brothers’ Stranger Things hasn’t been one of television’s most meticulously created series over the last few years, but executive producer and director Shawn Levy told Collidertheir efforts on season 4 were “by far the most ambitious of the seasons.” That’s exciting. Now we’ve got our first good glimpse at season 4 courtesy of a new trailer, introducing us to the Creel House. The Creels, it turns out, are a nice family of four who arrive at their new digs—a grand old house—sometime in the 1950s, we’re guessing. The house they’ve moved into, well, let’s just say they should have had a paranormal inspector take a peek at the property before they signed the lease. Some terrible things seem to have happened, and continue to happen, in this house. Next thing we know, the Creels are gone, and who comes snooping around the deserted old place but our heroes. This juju in this house is so clearly malevolent, you’d think our Stranger Things friends would leave the place alone. Wait, no, of course they’d do the opposite of that. These kids love a paranormal adventure.
Part of what makes season four so ambitious is the fact that it’s set over multiple timelines and in multiple locations. We already know that David Harbour’s Jim Hopper is alive (but not so well) in a Russian prison. We know that the action will take place in Russia, in Hawkins, and elsewhere. And we know, as a general rule about television and film series, the action has to get bigger and bolder which each fresh season and installment.
Check out the teaser below. Stranger Things season 4 hits Netflix sometime in 2022.
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Featured image: Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Sadie Sink, Charlie Heaton, Natalia Dyer in Stranger Things. Courtesy: Netflix
It’s official—Chris Pratt will be voicing Mario in Nintendo’s upcoming Super Mario Bros. animated feature Mario. The announcement was made during yesterday’s Nintendo Direct, with Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto giving an update on the long-gestating film. Mario will be created by animation studio Illumination, the same folks who brought you Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets, and Sing.
There’s a whole slew of talented performers joining Pratt in the voice cast—Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek, Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, and Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike. Also, the man who voiced Mario in the video game, Charles Martinet, will appear throughout the film.
The film was first announced back in 2018. This is not the first time Nintendo’s most iconic character and his pals have been adapted for the big screen—way back in 1993, directors Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton delivered a live-action version starring Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi. It did not win over audiences or critics. There’s a lot more hope for an animated version, which clearly is a better fit for the source material, and the gangbusters cast certainly helps.
Mario will leap into theaters on December 21, 2022. Here’s the official tweet from Nintendo:
The Super Mario Bros. Animated Film movie is heading to theaters in North America on 12/21/22!
It should come as no surprise that the love for James Bond in the U.K. is deep. Yet after a year and a half of the pandemic, it’s a happy jolt to hear that the pre-ticket sales for the 25th installment in the Bond franchise, No Time To Die, appear to be massive. Advance tickets for Daniel Craig’s final mission as James Bond went on sale in the U.K. on September 13, and The Hollywood Reporternotes that cinema owners have reported “a nearly unprecedented level of demand.” It is, they say, by far and away, the most intense interest in a film since before the pandemic.
One executive told THR that the “nearest equivalent” to this level of interest was the Russo Brothers’ Avengers: Endgame. “Endgame was the last one that probably had the same palpable sense of ‘this absolutely cannot be missed and there was a sense of urgency about seeing it as soon as possible.”
Avengers: Endgame beat the opening box office record in the U.K. set by another Bond film, Spectre (2015), and ended up amassing $115 million there. While it’s unlikely No Time To Die can match those numbers in our current pandemic-stricken climate, there is a coordinated effort to give writer/director Cary Joji Fukunaga’s long-awaited film the best possible chance. Universal will likely open No Time To Die in more than 700 theaters across the U.K., with “many major multiplexes showing the film on every screen available, sometimes starting screenings every 15 minutes,” THR reports.
The cinemas in the U.K. are throwing in some inspired extras to draw audiences. One, apparently, is offering a martini and popcorn with your ticket. Some are said to be parking Aston Martins in front of the cinemas for photo opportunities. In London, the historic Burlington Arcade gave itself a makeover with a James Bond-inspired installation.
The world premiere of No Time To Die will be held at London’s Royal Albert Hall on September 28, with Craig and many of the major players in attendance. It’s precisely where the last Bond film, Spectre, premiered in 2015. This premiere feels entirely different, however, with so much riding on the outcome of how the film fares. Who better to draw people back to the cinemas, many of whom haven’t set foot inside a movie theater in 18 months, than James Bond?
“We’re really hoping that this unlocks everything else and is very much the spark that makes everybody feel safe to return to cinemas,” one inside told THR, adding that cinema operators are going to make sure their theaters look as good as humanly possible. “The experience that people have when they come and see this film is going to dictate not just their experience on the day, but the next six weeks, six months. It’s going to be what they tell their friends, what they tell their family, whether they come back again.”
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Netflix has made it official—Tiger King 2 is happening—with the promise of “more madness and mayhem.” The breakout documentary from 2020 is not only getting a sequel, but that sequel is coming this year.
The news was broke via a teaser announcing Netflix’s upcoming slate of true crime content. There have been whispers about the sequel for a while now, and last month Tiger King 2 was listed on Netflix’s site, but that was quickly taken down. Now, Netflix has made it official that they’re taking us back to the sordid, tiger-loving (and abusing) world of Joe Exotic, the convicted felon and onetime zookeeper who captured the world’s attention with a shamelessness that felt greasily appropriate for the awful year of 2020. In fact, Exotic felt a kinship with then-President Trump, and was so convinced the former President was going to pardon him, his lawyer had a limo waiting outside the prison on Trump’s final night in office. The pardon never came. (The cultural reach of Joe Exotic and his bizarre, blatantly unlawful is such that there’s a miniseries in the work over at Peacock, starring none other than Saturday Night Live‘s Kate McKinnon.)
Tiger King 2 comes from the directors of the first season, Rebecca Chaiklin and Eric Goode.
Here’s the teaser that made the sequel official:
Tiger King 2 is definitely the biggest announcement tucked into this trailer, but Netflix has a bunch of intriguing True Crime projects coming out. They include a three-part series about “one of the world’s most audacious conmen” titled The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman (January 2022) and The Tinder Swindler (February 2022) about a man who posed as a billionaire on Tinder and the group of women who “set out to bring him down.”
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