Writer/director James Gunn has promised that there will be real stakes for his misfits in The Suicide Squad, and in a new featurette released by Warner Bros., this case is made plain. “Amanda Waller is willing to sacrifice all of these lives for the betterment of mankind,” Gunn says at the opening. Amanda Waller is the operative played by Viola Davis, one of the few returning characters from David Ayer’s 2016 Suicide Squad. Once again, she’s assembled a crack team of anti-heroes, lunatics, and straight-up villains to help save humanity. In this case, it’s to destroy all traces of “Project Starfish,” which has something to do with Starro the Conquerer, a massive alien starfish as big as a building.
“They did say, ‘You can kill whoever you want,'” Gunn says of Warner Bros., the studio behind the film, and Gunn has long made it clear he took them up on that offer. We won’t know who survives this suicide mission until the film comes out, but we do know the characters whose lives are at stake are a pretty awesome of oddballs.
Returning from Ayer’s film along with Davis are Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney’s Captain Boomerang, and Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag. The new characters include Idris Elba as Bloodsport, Sylvester Stallone as the voice of King Shark, John Cena as Peacemaker, Peter Capaldi as the Thinker, David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2, Michael Rooker as Savant, Alice Braga as Sol Soria, Pete Davidson as Richard “Dick” Hertz/Blackguard, Nathan Fillion as T.D.K., Sean Gunn as Weasel, Flula Borg as Javelin, and Mayling Ng as Mongal.
Check out the new featurette below. The Suicide Squad hits theaters and HBO Max on August 6.
For more on The Suicide Squad, check out these stories:
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It begins, as director Peyton Reed informs us via Twitter. He’s talking about filming for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the third installment in his Ant-Man trilogy, which officially begins production today. Reed’s film is a crucial part of Marvel Studios’ Phase 4, which was launched with director Cate Shortland’s Black Widow.
The image Reed included in his tweet is a callback to the film that started Scott Lang’s journey, 2015’s Ant-Man. It’s the stuffed animal that Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) gave to his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson) for her birthday. We next saw the bunny in 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, and by now, it looks like it’s gone through as much as the Avengers have.
Quantumania will see the major players from the franchise returning. Obviously, Rudd’s Scott Land and Evangeline Lilly’s Hope van Dyne will drive the story, with crucial characters like Michael Douglas’s Hank Pym and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Janet van Dyne returning. Kathryn Newton has replaced Emma Fuhrmann as Cassie (Fuhrmann played Cassie in Avengers: Endgame), and there’s speculation the casting of Fuhrmann might mean we’ll see Cassie become the superhero Stature.
The most exciting new face to join the Ant-Man world was revealed in another Marvel Studios project, their Disney+ series Loki. We’re talking about Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conquerer, who appeared in Loki‘s finale and will be Quantumania‘s main villain.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is due in theaters on February 17, 2023.
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The first teaser for writer/director Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers is here, which will open the Venice Film Festival on September 1 before being released into theaters this December. Almodóvar is once again working with his muse, Penélope Cruz, as well as a talented ensemble cast. Cruz plays Janis, a woman who meets Ana (Milena Smit) in the hospital as they’re both about to give birth. The wordless teaser manages to evoke the joy of bringing a baby into the world, but also the tension and turmoil of early motherhood, as well as the tender fragility of human relationships, those we’re born into as well as those we create along the way.
The tension derives in part from the similarities and the differences in the position the two women find themselves in. Both women are about to give birth, and both of them, we learn from the film’s synopsis (thanks, Sony Pictures Classics!) are single and became pregnant accidentally. But Janis, middle-aged, is thrilled. Ana, very young, is terrified. Janis will try to help Ana after they meet by chance in the hospital.
We like our Almodóvar films with this kind of mystery, and thus far, Parallel Mothers is exactly that, a mysterious new film from a restlessly inventive filmmaker.
Joining Cruz and Smit are Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Israel Elejalde, Julieta Serrano, and Rossy de Palma. Check out the teaser below. Parallel Mothers hits theaters on December 24.
Here’s the synopsis for Parallel Mothers:
Two women, Janis and Ana, coincide in a hospital room where they are going to give birth. Both are single and became pregnant by accident. Janis, middle-aged, doesn’t regret it and she is exultant. The other, Ana, an adolescent, is scared, repentant and traumatized. Janis tries to encourage her while they move like sleepwalkers along the hospital corridors. The few words they exchange in these hours will create a very close link between the two, which by chance develops and complicates, and changes their lives in a decisive way.
Featured image: Penélope Cruz and director Pedro Almodóvar on set of “Parallel Mothers.” Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics.
The 78th Venice Film Festival‘s official lineup has been announced, and it includes some of the most eagerly-anticipated blockbusters and some of the smaller but no less intriguing indies preparing for release. Venice follows Cannes, that other dazzling European film festival, and it’s nice to see that the competition between the two is back after the pandemic forced Cannes to cancel last year (Venice, meanwhile, managed to be the only top-tier festival to manage a physical event in 2020.)
Arguably the biggest film in Venice’s lineup is Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic Dune, which boasts a massively talented ensemble cast and is the kind of cinematic spectacle that draws huge crowds, both to theaters around the world and to festival screenings. A smaller, more intimate movie is opening this year’s fest, however— Pedro Almodovar’s Madres Paralelas (Parallel Mothers), which will bow on September 1.
Another major title in this year’s lineup is director Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana. The film, scripted by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, centers around the Christmas weekend that Princess Diana decided to leave Princes Charles. (We love the fact this film has a score from Jonny Greenwood, one of the muscial geniuses from Radiohead and one of the most interesting film composers working today, see There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread for proof.)
Looking for something utterly different making its world premiere in Venice? How about director Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho, a time-traveling psychological thriller starring Anya Taylor-Joy. Then there’s David Gordon Green’s sequel Halloween Kills, which stars Jamie Lee Curtis as the indomitable Laurie Strode. Or how about Ridley Scott’s period-epic The Last Duel, featuring Adam Driver, Matt Damon, Jodie Comer, and Ben Affleck. These films are all screening out of competition of the festival’s main prize, the Golden Lion.
Speaking of the Golden Lion, some of the films vying for the top prize are director Ana Lily Amirpour’s horror film Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, Jane Campion’s adaptation of Thomas Savage’s novel The Power of the Dog, and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut The Last Daughter, starring Oscar-winner Olivia Colman.
The fest kicks off on September 1 and runs to September 11.
Featured image: Caption: (L-r) TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides and REBECCA FERGUSON as Lady Jessica Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Chiabella James
In the pantheon of iconic movie lines, few have the potency of the three words that make up “Bond, James Bond.” It’s this classic introduction that animates a brand new No Time To Die teaser, the last mission for Daniel Craig as the deathless British superspy in one of the films we’ve been waiting for—and waiting for—since last year.
The teaser gives us a brief, punchy look at co-writer and director Cary Joji Fukunaga’s long-awaited film, the 25th installment in the venerable franchise. No Time To Die finds Bond attempting something he’s never done before—retirement, in this case in Jamaica. It’s been five years since the events in Spectre where Bond tangled with the mastermind Blofeld (Christoph Waltz, back again, this time from a cell), and MI6’s legendary super spy has been nursing his wounds with his preferred tonic of alcohol and stoicism. “After five years of retirement, who has he become?” Fukanaga asked in a No Time To Die teaser from last year. “He’s sort of a wounded animal struggling with his role as a double O. The world’s changed, the rules of engagement aren’t what they used to be. The rules of espionage are darker in this era of asymmetric warfare.“
We know that Bond won’t stay retired for long. He’s gently nudged back into the game by CIA agent Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright). He’ll be reacquainted with old friends like Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), old enemies like the aforementioned Blofeld (Waltz), and meet new allies like Nomi (Lashana Lynch). The main threat in No Time To Die comes from Safin (Malek), who, according to Fukanaga, will be challenging Bond in a way he’s never dealt with before, and threatening everyone and everything he holds dear.
No Time To Die is due to hit theaters this October. Fukunaga and his writing team (including Phoebe Waller-Bridge, no less) have crafted the longest Bond film of all time, at 2 hours and 43 minutes. That’ll give Daniel Craig plenty of time for a proper, well-earned goodbye.
Check out the teaser below:
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We’ve been very bullish on how excited we are for David Lowery’s The Green Knight since last year. Lowery’s immense skill has been evident in his previous films, like the haunting, quietly devasting A Ghost Story, so we were enthused when we heard he was taking on an Arthurian legend and that he cast Dev Patel as his leading man. Now, in a new clip from A24, we see Patel’s would-be knight, Gawain, and Alicia Vikander (who has two roles in the film) in a moment of tenderness before Gawain’s off to deal with more pressing matters .
Those matters are Gawain’s quest to become a knight, something expected of him considering he’s King Arthur’s nephew. His way of achieving that goal is to accept a deadly challenge from Ralph Ineson’s titular Green Knight. The challenge seems easy—the Green Knight says he will give any man the chance to strike him down with a weapon, in a single blow, but (and it’s a big but) a year later, he gets to return the favor. On its face, this challenge seems suicidal for the Green Knight—a single blow could decapitate him—but the Green Knight is no ordinary mortal. Sure enough, Sir Gawain accepts the challenge and decapitates the Green Knight—and that’s when his trouble starts. The Green Knight scoops his severed head off the floor and rides off, cackling. Yikes. But also, awesome.
Joining Patel, Vikander, and Ineson are Joel Edgerton, Sarita Choudhury, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Berry Keoghan, and Erin Kellyman. The Green Knight hits theaters on July 30. Check out the clip below:
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It shouldn’t come as that big a surprise that director Shawn Levy’s action-comedy Free Guy starring reliably hilarious leading man Ryan Reynolds is getting some very positive early reactions. Still, it’s not like the film was on most people’s radars as the potential surprise comedy hit of the summer, but that’s precisely how Levy and Reynolds’ film is being described. With a talented supporting cast and a go-for-broke style, Free Guy sounds like the kind of late summer delight we could all use. Even Deadpool himself might agree.
Free Guy stars Ryan Reynolds as Guy, a bank teller who has gone about his life utterly unaware of his actual position in his world—but that’s about to change. Guy finds out he’s actually an NPC (nonplayer character) in a massive open-world video game, somebody who’s expected, who’s designed to go through the motions while another character gets all the best lines and big adventures. Guy decides he’s done being a mere background character for somebody else’s story, and thus the mayhem of Free Guy is unleashed.
Levy directs from a script from Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn, and the supporting cast is fantastic. One of the people getting a lot of early praise is Killing Eve‘s Jodie Comer, and we already know that Lil Rey Howery steals just about every scene in every movie he’s in and will likely do so here. Stranger Things Joe Keery is also getting shout-outs. As an added bonus, Free Guy features Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi in a meaty role.
Let’s have a peek around to see what those early reactions are saying:
🕹️#FreeGuy is a joy & will be a hit. A video game movie that actually makes you feel like you’re in a VG. RR is the movie equiv of Ted Lasso (glass half full, full of fab one liners & so darn likable). Jodi Comer is a movie star (ahem Marvel). CLEVER & ORIGINAL! SURPRISES GALORE! pic.twitter.com/UIspkJjVLR
Happy to report @VancityReynolds and @ShawnLevyDirect‘s team up on #FreeGuy is awesome. It’s a fun and feel good movie that had me smiling beginning to end. Also the movie has a surprise or two that legit made my jaw drop. See it as soon as you can so you can avoid spoilers. pic.twitter.com/uCqq22ANQ9
#FreeGuy is everything I’d hoped for, and then some. @ShawnLevyDirect & @VancityReynolds have created a universe that’s bitingly satirical & heartwarmingly hilarious. I loved this movie & cannot wait to see it again, bc there are moments that will absolutely KILL w/ an audience. pic.twitter.com/jfRNYg8fvf
#FreeGuy is the most fun I’ve had watching a movie all year. Wildly entertaining & hilarious from beginning to end. It deserves to be seen on the big screen, not only for the spectacular visuals but for the plethora of surprises throughout. It’s Truman Show meets Ready Player One pic.twitter.com/X9Vec5tluj
In just two films as director, Jordan Peele’s clout is such that the simple release of his next film’s title and poster is a big deal. With that, we bring you both for his third feature, which is titled Nope, and the poster featuring an oddly shaped cloud. We’re going to go out on a limb and take a guess at what we think Peele’s film is about, although we’re guessing we’ll end up being wrong. What we can be relatively sure about is he’ll be working the horror genre he’s made his own with his first two, fantastic features, Get Out and Us.
Judging by the poster, we’re going to take a stab and say that Nope will do for aliens what Get Out did for seemingly kind but secretly psychotic murderous white people and Us did for doppelgangers. We see a bizarrely shaped cloud (you could argue, we are arguing, that it’s shaped like an alien ship) and a string of flags. The title also recalls any number of Peele’s characters witnessing something absolutely insane and saying “nope” and turning right around and exiting the scene. So, for argument’s sake, imagine a character in Nope hearing something outside, going to check, and seeing a strange ship hovering above his parked Subaru. Yeah, that’s a hard nope and a quick retreat to the house for most sane people. Peele tweeted the image with a cloud emoji, much as he tweeted the Us poster and title reveal with that film’s now-iconic prop, a pair of scissors.
Peele’s film includes Keke Palmer, Oscar-winner Daniel Kaluuya, and Oscar-nominee Steven Yeun. Do we know a single thing about the film? Of course not. Peele will keep it tightly under wraps and dole out cryptic bits of information, like any good horror maestro, in the coming months.
Nope isn’t due in theaters until July 22, 2022, so we’ve got a long way to go before we learn more. For now, we’ll enjoy this little slice of information, and knowing that we’ll be saying heck yes to Nope next year.
The poster for Jordan Peele’s next feature, “Nope.” Courtesy Universal Pictures.
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Just a terrific bit of casting news here. Varietyhas the scoop that I May Destroy You creator Michaela Coel has joined the cast of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. We of course don’t know who Coel will be playing, as the script itself is a total unknown. Variety‘s scoop says that Coel joined Coogler, cast, and crew at Atlanta’s Pinewood Studios, where production began last month.
Coel’s sensational HBO series I May Destroy You was one of last year’s most riveting series, full stop. Coel starred in the series which she also wrote, directed, and produced, garnering four Emmy nominations. She’s appeared in Charlie Booker’s top-of-class dystopian sci-fi series Black Mirror on Netflix, as well as the films Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Been So Long.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is, of course, the sequel to Coogler’s world-conquering 2018 original, and he returns to direct his original screenplay. Coel is joining just about all the stars from the first film, save, of course, the late Chadwick Boseman, who died in August of 2020 from colon cancer.
“It’s clearly very emotional without Chad,” Feige told Variety before a Black Widow Global Fan Event in Los Angeles in late June. “But everyone is also very excited to bring the world of Wakanda back to the public and back to the fans. We’re going to do it in a way that would make Chad proud.”
Interestingly enough, the original cast hasn’t been officially confirmed, but it’s widely believed Coel will be joining Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Daniel Kaluuya, Winston Duke, Lupita Nyong’o, Florence Kasumba, and Angela Bassett.
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Warner Bros. has just released the official trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, and it’s safe to say it’ll appease even hardcore fans of Frank Herbert’s original novel. A sweeping intergalactic epic in every sense of the word, Villeneuve’s vision looks ravishing in this extended look. For those of you even casually interested in what a director of his caliber might do with the dense, detailed world Herbert envisioned, this three-plus-minute trailer should be more than enough to get you into a theater this October.
The trailer reveals a ton of fresh footage, and helps spell out the stakes in a much more comprehensive way than we’ve seen thus far. We open on Arrakis, the planet where the natural resource “spice” is so abundant the locals can see it shimmering in the air above the sands. The problem is that spice is the most sought-after substance in the universe, with the ability to expand human capabilities and lifespans, making Arrakis home to invasions from hostile outsiders. This is where Paul Atreides’ (Timotheé Chalamet) comes in. Paul keeps having dreams of a young woman on Arrakis—that would be Chani (Zendaya), who is calling out for him to help save her people and her planet. With the hero’s quest now made clear, the film—originally planned on being the first part of a two-part story—will track Paul’s journey to Arrakis and his defense of Chani and her people.
Dune is a major undertaking, in terms of budget, talent, and ambition. Villeneuve’s assembled an incredible cast to surround his two young stars, including Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Jason Momoa, Dave Bautista, and Stellan Skarsgard.
This is the kind of movie that qualifies as a cinematic event—one intended to be seen in a darkened theater with a state-of-the-art sound system.
Check out the trailer below. Dune hits theaters and HBO Max on October 22.
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Featured image: Caption: (L-r) ZENDAYA as Chani and TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
Yesterday we published our interview with Loki makeup department head Douglas Noe where we learned just how the creative team pulled off Marvel Studios’ latest Disney+’s series Today, Marvel has released the first trailer for Marvel Studios’ Assembled: The Making of Loki which reveals more about the making of the series, and, some potential subplots that didn’t end up getting explored.
We know one thing Loki definitely did reveal—that its titular god of mischief (played, of course, by Tom Hiddleston) is both gender fluid and bisexual. In the trailer for the upcoming doc, however, we learn that one of the avenues the writers were exploring was one in which Loki finally gets every single thing he’s ever wanted. That includes getting hold of all the Infinity Stones and becoming King of Asgard.
This insight is brought to you by /Film, which noticed that a whiteboard featured in the trailer behind head writer Michael Waldron includes a description of a montage that includes “Collecting the Infinity Stones” and, wait for it, “Doing crazy mischief, aka sex.” Considering the final version of Loki that we all saw, what with multiple timelines, multiple Lokis (including, spoiler alert—an alligator Loki!), and the assorted shenanigans that were included, it’s actually kind of amazing that the Infinity Stone haul and the rest didn’t make it.
Check out the trailer for Marvel Studios’ Assembled: The Making of Loki below. The doc is streaming now on Disney+.
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HBO has released the first trailer for Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union, a three-part documentary from director Peter Kunhardt that takes a deep look at the journey of President Barack Obama, from his first foray into politics into his transcendent rise to the highest office in the land, a trajectory that seemed, to millions of his supporters, to auger a potential “post-racial” era in the United States. We now know, of course, this wasn’t and isn’t the case, and In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union will look at how Obama’s rise, and his 8-years as president, were marked by a recalcitrant Republican party determined to deny him even the smallest victory, a nation still deeply riven by its racist past, and fresh crises that rose up during his presidency, including the murder of Trayvon Martin.
The doc will include a wide array of intellectuals, writers, politicians, activists, and more. Those include New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb; the late Representative John Lewis; Obama’s longtime ally and political consultant David Axelrod; journalist Laura Washington; Rev. Jeremiah Wright; journalist Michele Norris; Rev. Al Sharpton; professor Cornel West; politician Jesse Jackson; author Ta-Nehisi Coates; and the NAACP’s Sherrilyn Ifill.
Check out the trailer below. Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union premieres on HBO on August 3 at 9 pm E.T.
Here’s the official synopsis from HBO:
HBO’s three-part documentary, OBAMA: IN PURSUIT OF A MORE PERFECT UNION, debuting TUESDAY, AUGUST 3 (9:00-10:40 p.m. ET/PT), with additional parts airing Wednesday and Thursday at the same time, chronicles the personal and political journey of President Barack Obama, as the country grapples with its racial history. Weaving together conversations with colleagues, friends and critics, and interspersed with his own speeches and news interviews, the series begins with Obama’s childhood and takes us through his perspective as the son of a white mother from Kansas and an African father, his spiritual formation by a generation of Black leaders, and his hopes for a more inclusive America. Through the story of one man irrevocably bound to the history of a country, OBAMA: IN PURSUIT OF A MORE PERFECT UNION reflects on the country’s past and present national identity.
The three-part documentary will debut on HBO and be available to stream on HBO Max.
OBAMA: IN PURSUIT OF A MORE PERFECT UNION is directed by Emmy® winner Peter Kunhardt (HBO’s “True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight For Equality,” “John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls”, “King in the Wilderness”).
With the clarity of hindsight and perspective of the last four years, OBAMA: IN PURSUIT OF A MORE PERFECT UNION forms a cohesive picture of America under its first Black president. Obama’s presidency was unique in America’s history, but what was a historic step forward for the country also exposed the ever-present need to address deeply entrenched challenges around race, racial justice and our history.
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After winning Best Director and Best Picture at this year’s Oscars, Chloé Zhao is returning to the festival that started her epic run through awards season. Zhao will head to the Venice Film Festival this year as a member of the fest’s main jury, after bringing her award-devouring film Nomadland to the Lido last year.
Zhao joins Parasite director Bong Joon Ho, who is leading this year’s jury. The main jury is made up of a talented, international cohort—the multitalented Cynthia Erivo from the U.K., French actor Virginie Efira, and Canadian actor and producer Sarah Gadon.
Yesterday, the fest unveiled its official poster, created by Italian illustrator and author Lorenzo Mattotti. They also announced that a film by a Venice native, Andrea Segre, exploring how they managed to create last year’s Biennale di Venezia in the midst of the pandemic, will screen in a pre-opening event.
The film is titled La Biennale di Venezia: il cinema al tempo del Covid (The Venice Biennale: Cinema in the time of Covid), and will screen on Aug. 31. The film is constructed as a video diary revealing how Venice was the only top-tier international film festival to manage its festival as a physical event last year.
The 78th Venice Film Festival kicks off on September 1, opening with Pedro Almodóvar’s new film Parallel Mothers, which stars Penelope Cruz. The film was shot during the pandemic.
Italian illustrator and author Lorenzo Mattotti is, for the fourth year in a row, the author of the image for the official poster, and for the third year in a row of the opening sequence for the Venice International Film Festival of La Biennale di Venezia. Courtesy La Biennale di Venezia.
Featured image: Chloé Zhao poses backstage with the Oscars® for Directing and Best Picture the during the live ABC Telecast of The 93rd Oscars® at Union Station in Los Angeles, CA on Sunday, April 25, 2021.
You know how when you’re on vacation (remember vacations?), your threshold for who is an acceptable friend increases tenfold? The rules on vacation are different than they are during your normal life—this is the entire premise of the ubiquitous, now tired “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” slogan—so what’s acceptable, especially in a new vacation “friend,” are behaviors that you’d run from if you met this person in your normal life.
Such is the scenario explored in Vacation Friends, a raunchy new comedy from director Clay Tarver (Joy Ride, Silicon Valley), based on a script from Tarver, Tim and Tom Mullen, Jonathan Goldstein, and John Francis Daley. Tarver has done himself the solid of casting four hilarious leads—Lil Rel Howery, John Cena, Yvonne Orji, and Meredith Hagner (she was hysterical in a small but potent role in another wedding film, Palm Springs).
The film finds Marcus (Howery) and Emily (Orji) at their very tasteful, lowkey wedding when who shows up but those aforementioned vacation friends, in this case, mega-partiers Ron (Cena) and Kyla (Hagner), “friends” they met on a trip to Mexico. While they’re usually straight-laced in their regular lives, Marcus and Emily got wild in Mexico, thanks to Ron and Kyla’s influence, and now they’ve got a situation on their hands. Ron and Kyla are ready to party, hard, at Marcus and Emily’s wedding, thus breaking the tightly controlled world the wedding couple has created where vacation life and real life are separated, and never the twain shall meet. Too late. The twain are meeting all over the place.
Check out the trailer below. Vacation Friends hits Hulu on August 27.
And if you’re the appropriate age and want to watch the raunchy red band version, here it is:
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Horror master James Wan is back in the genre he has mastered with Malignant, and the first trailer is as deeply creepy as you’d expect. The script comes from Akela Cooper (Jupiter’sLegacy), with a story from Wan himself and Ingrid Bisu (TheNun).
Malignant tracks the story of Madison (Annabelle Wallis), a woman paralyzed by “shocking visions of grisly murders, and her torment worsens as she discovers that these waking dreams are in fact terrifying realities,” as the synopsis reads. Madison’s troubles have followed her since she was a child when she used to talk to an “imaginary” friend named Gabriel. As the trailer picks up steam (fair warning, it gets progressively more intense), we see that whatever force is stalking Madison—it’s suggested it’s the Devil, no less—is capable of creating real-world horror.
Wan has assembled longtime collaborators here, including cinematographer Don Burgess and editor Kirk Morri, two Aquaman and The Conjuring 2 alums, production designer Desma Murphy (Aquaman, Furious 7), and costume designer Lisa Norcia (Insidious: The Last Key). The score comes from composer Joseph Bishara, a man who knows a thing or two about Wan’s filmmaking style and working in the horror genre—Bishara composed the score for all seven films in The Conjuring universe.
Joining Wallis are Maddie Hasson, Mckenna Grace, Jake Abel, George Young, Michole Briana White, and Jacqueline McKenzie. Check out the trailer below. Malignant hits theaters on September 10.
For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and HBO Max, check out these stories:
Featured image: Caption: ANNABELLE WALLIS as Madison in New Line Cinema, Starlight Media Inc. and My Entertainment Inc.’s original horror thriller MALIGNANT, an Atomic Monster production, a Warner Bros Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
A star-studded cast, one of our greatest living directors, and a trio of very talented screenwriters are behind The Last Duel, and now we’ve got our first peek. 20th Century Studios has released the official trailer for Ridley Scott’s latest,which focuses on a true story from 14th-century France about pride, preening men, and the woman who defied a nation. That woman is Marguerite, played by Killing Eve‘s Jodie Comer, married to Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) in a time of “codified patriarchy” as the screenwriters (more on them in a second) explain. The problems begin when Marguerite accuses her husband’s old friend, Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) of attacking her, setting into motion a series of events that will lead to the titular last duel and a potentially horrific fate for Marguerite.
The Last Duel in question is between Carrouges, who challenges Le Gris to trial by combat in order to defend his wife. “I’m risking my life for you,” Carrouges says, but he’s only half right. “You’re risking my life, “Margurite reminds him, for if he loses, she’ll be burned alive.
The talent involved here is immense. Scott is directing from a script from a great director in her own right, Nicole Holofcener, which she co-wrote with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (Affleck plays Count Pierre d’Alençon.) Here’s what the screenwriting trio had to say in a statement:
“This film is an effort to retell the story of a heroic woman from history whom most people haven’t heard of. We admired her bravery and resolute determination and felt this was both a story that needed to be told and one whose drama would captivate audiences the way it moved us as writers. As we further explored the story, we found so many aspects of the formal, codified patriarchy of 14th century Western Europe to still be present in vestigial ways (and in some cases almost unchanged) in today’s society. We chose to use the device of telling the story from several character’s perspectives in order to examine the immutable fact that although often multiple people who experience the same event come away with differing accounts, there can only be one truth.”
The Last Duel is set to hit theaters on October 15. Watch the first trailer below:
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Composer Virginia Kilbertus was not entirely prepared for her Emmy nomination for outstanding music direction and composition for a daytime program. Although she’d submitted her work on Hulu’s Endings, a sci-fi adventure set in a near-future where four foster kids discover they’re not alone after the disappearance of the last elephant on Earth, she hadn’t been tracking the nominations since. “I hadn’t been anticipating when they were announcing it,” Kilbertus said by way of phone from Toronto. “So I was just on my email one day while outside with my mom and sister, and my friend in Toronto sent me a note that said, ‘Hey, did you know you got nominated?’ Then more emails came in, and it’s just a very nice, lovely surprise.”
Kilbertus’ work on Endings is a lot more subtle and challenging than you might assume a kid’s show would demand, but then again, she gravitates towards such projects and thinks that’s what interested the Emmy voters.
“I was speaking with someone on the Alliance for Women Film Composers, when you’ve submitted to the Emmys you submit a blurb about the score, how it was done, and the inspiration, and I think that’s what stood out to people,” she says. “The Endings creator, J.J.Johnson, his first broad direction to me was that he didn’t want to easily identify the instruments for the score. Like I had a violin solo and that was nixed because it was too standard, so that created a conundrum as I had to make something that sounded very otherworldly and different, but at the same time there were these very tender, human moments, and so it needed to feel relatable and intimate at the same time.”
Virginia Kilbertus
So how did she thread the needle between otherworldly and emotionally resonant? “I built softer moments by altering sounds, recording bowing in weird places on the instrument, and altering those until I had a softer tone,” she says. “There were some raw acoustic recordings and some piano, but it had to be woven in against a texture that sounded familiar, but that also wasn’t a standard melody, but more atmospheric. I had to kind of feel it out for each episode.”
Kilbertus is not afraid to work differently, to approach each project like a unique puzzle to solve. To this end, one of her most impressive recent feats is her collaboration with composer Mark Korven Robbert Eggers’ mindblowing The Lighthousein 2019, which centered on two lighthouse keepers, played by Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, losing their minds on a desolate New England island in the 1890s. Kilbertus worked with Korven to match the film’s wild visual splendor and “Moby-Dick”-level verbosity with a score equal to the insanity.
“Essentially Mark had composed the score digitally with digital mockups, and it was my job to then sonically listen to the stereo mixes and deduce what was going on and then transcribe it for musicians,” she says. Essentially Kilbertus was acting as an interpreter of sound, making a musical roadmap for the brass orchestra they’d eventually commission to create the music. In the normal course of musical notation such as this, you usually have melodies and distinct pitches to work with. This wasn’t the case with the sounds Mark Korven handed over to Kilbertus. “A lot of it was not traditional, it was different, it was unique.”
Kilbertus has embraced the astonishing growth and reach that technology has had on her line of work, and this helped her immensely when working with Korven on The Lightouse.
“We use sample libraries, which are essentially pre-recorded live sounds of orchestras, solo instruments, ensembles, it’s a huge world unto itself,” she says. “So when a film doesn’t have a budget to record live, this is what you’re hearing. Back in the day, they didn’t sound as realistic, but now, technology has advanced so much that the average listener might not be able to tell the difference between the mock-up and the actual recording. Mark plays a gazillion instruments, a lot of them are weird. He didn’t tell me he was using this virtual instrument or that, he just sent me the files. I think he might have recorded himself playing some weird, wacky instruments, and I translated them.”
Kilbertus says that she welcomes the growing desire for nontraditional scores, but notes that there are certain projects that call for more traditional, orchestral music, and other projects, be they a children’s sci-fi series on Hulu or a film from one of our most resolutely unique directors working today, that require something totally different.
“I’m seeing more of a want for experimentation,” she says. “I think filmmakers are trying to push the boundaries and want a score that’s different than anything else that’s out there. Now with technology, you can sample any sound. You can bang a pot and make a score out of that. With minimal equipment, we can create these home sample libraries, and that provides a lot of room for play.”
We spoke a bit about the late, great composer Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score for Arrival, which managed to be otherwordly and achingly beautiful, mysterious, and yet oddly comforting. “That score for Arrival was a game-changer. It opened everyone’s eyes to this new world that you could do these crazy weird things on a big production,” Kilbertus says. “When I was applying to be a resident at the Canadian Film Center, that wasn’t too long after Arrival came out, and when I mentioned him they told me everyone was saying that. It struck a chord with everyone, it was so moving and yet so different. That was an influence.”
Kilbertus has some advice for up-and-coming composers—be brave and seek out the people you admire. “Don’t be afraid to reach out to composers and talk to them. They’ll be able to give you tips on what software they’re using,” she says. “When I was in school it was all paper and pencil, it didn’t occur to me how much work people were doing digitally. When I got to Berklee College of Music, I was like, oh, it’s like 90% tech! So don’t be afraid to ask for help, and shadow a composer.”
In ancient Norse mythology, Loki was a shape-shifting trickster inviting difficulty upon his companions as well as himself. In director Kate Herron’s new Disney+ series, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is true to his Norse roots. His journey begins with an arrest, having crossed a power-sapping organization called the Time Variance Authority. Loki is accused of being a variant, an offense that causes time-branching events that, to put it briefly, messes up the general order of things. The rigid folks who run the TVA can’t have this, so the institution intends to do away with Loki. However! There’s another Loki out there, better adept at hiding and causing worse havoc. The detained Loki gets a second shot, if only to help locate his counterpart on the loose.
At first, it seems like a pretty good gig. Loki’s primary caseworker, Mobius (Owen Wilson), is a cool dude as far as the strangely personality-less weirdos who staff the TVA, and the god soon finds himself on interesting field excursions to catch alt-Loki. When they do find her, however, Loki joins her chaotic world — Sylvie (Sophia di Martino) isn’t causing branching events for fun. She’s trying to take down the TVA.
L-r: Sophia Di Martino and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) in “Loki.” Photo courtesy Marvel Studios.
In the windowless, orange-themed TVA offices, there’s a claustrophobic sense of being in a 1970s time warp. Elsewhere can be and look like anywhere, from a post-apocalyptic hellscape to a bland, present-day big box store. The characters appear consistent wherever they are, an intentional choice by the head of the makeup department, Douglas Noe (Avengers, Captain Marvel, The Hunger Games). “Because we kept things, especially in the TVA, a bit timeless and natural, we leaned into the lighting. If it was going to change and make somebody pink, purple, or blue, we let it be what it was,” he says.
L-r: Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) in Marvel Studios’ “Loki.” Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios.
With Loki himself, Noe has a decade of experience keeping the character consistent. A move to New Mexico first brought Noe onto the Avengers set ten years ago, as a local hire brought on by Robert Downey Jr.’s makeup artist, John Blake. “I was given a choice to do Renner and Ruffalo or this new guy named Tom Hiddleston, who was in this movie Thor. I thought well, that sounds fun.” Noe has worked with Hiddleston in most of his films since, turning up Loki’s vanity in Ragnarok, dialing it down in Infinity War, and bringing the character back to his aesthetic roots for Endgame.
Noe describes the Loki set as notably collaborative and well-thought-out. “There’s a lot of getting to know you that’s not necessary because we all share an artistic, almost eccentric mindset.” The result is a group of characters who appear surprisingly real, no matter how wild their environments are. The worse things get, the more distinctly realistic the under-eye bags and forehead wrinkles become. “In one way, for everybody, it was all about keeping it natural,” the veteran makeup artist says. “I’ll take Sylvie, for example. Enhancing her natural beauty but allowing for, not the flaws or imperfections necessarily, but for the narrative of the script to show from chin to eyebrow on the face.” And for a character like Mobius, a jocular spot of comic relief who doesn’t physically fight but nevertheless transforms into one of Loki’s closest allies, “the comic books dictate a lot to us. When we start these creative discussions we start there,” says Noe. (The silver hair, however, was Wilson’s own idea.)
Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) in Marvel Studios’ “Loki.” Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios.
On the other side, the makeup department head tried to ensure a sense of what the characters were going through was present, whether or not it was visible to viewers. “When Loki gets thrown into the bookcase by Sylvie, he comes down and has a slight cut in his right temple. You’re only going to clock that from forehead to chin, but you’re definitely going to feel it everywhere else because it’s another layer of character within the makeup.” And with so many Lokis running amok that one of them takes the form of an alligator, layers of character are crucial to the character’s journey through an ultimately rebirthed multiverse.
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We’ve been eagerly tracking director David Lowery’s The Green Knight since we first heard about the film’s existence. A director of Lowery’s immense skill taking on an Arthurian legend and casting Dev Patel as a headstrong knight was more than enough to pique our interest. The film was, like so many others, delayed because of the pandemic. (And Lowery told Vanity Fair that he used the time to totally recut it.) Now, the first reactions have arrived online, and we’re here to share them with you. Coming as absolutely no surprise, Lowery’s film is apparently epic, utterly unique, and haunting.
First, let’s review what The Green Knight is all about. The film follows Dev Patel’s Sir Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew, as he accepts a deadly challenge from Ralph Ineson’s Green Knight. The challenge seems deceptively easy—the Green Knight says he will give any man the chance to strike him first, but a year later, he will return the favor. On its face, this seems suicidal—a single blow to the neck with a sword should kill him—but the Green Knight is no ordinary mortal. Sir Gawain, hungry for honor, accepts the challenge and decapitates the Green Knight—he then watches in horror as his victim picks up his head and rides off, laughing, awaiting his turn a year later.
Pretty awesome premise, right? Joining Patel and Ineson are Joel Edgerton, Alicia Vikander, Sarita Choudhury, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Berry Keoghan, and Erin Kellyman. The Green Knight hits theaters on July 30. Now let’s check out these early reactions:
I was lucky enough to see David Lowery’s hypnotic ‘The Green Knight’ on a big screen recently & am already planning a return visit when it is released this month. It’s a beautiful Arthurian head trip & frankly a treat to luxuriate in. I highly recommend you venture out to see it. pic.twitter.com/UDbrXPZdZZ
THE GREEN KNIGHT: David Lowery is starting to become of my favorite working directors with this surreal, Bergman-inspired fantasy epic. A mesmerizing, transporting, magnificently bizarre journey that is one of the rare movies to really appreciate how sexy Dev Patel is
#TheGreenKnight is nothing short of magnificent. With visuals that belong in a museum for all to admire and a career-defining performance by Dev Patel, THE GREEN KNIGHT is a slow-burn tale about mortality and the journey of finding oneself. It’s a truly stunning piece of cinema. pic.twitter.com/GJFDBsW0ol
— Shannon 🎃🍭 @ Screaming into the Void (@shannon_mcgrew) July 19, 2021
Hello I’m here to FINALLY tell you how completely obsessed I am with #TheGreenKnight I have been thinking of little else since I saw it. It’s at once a nostalgic throwback to 80s fantasy, a creepy A24 horror movie, AND a classically challenging David Lowery story. I am OBSESSED. pic.twitter.com/eZH8WzPZYu
THE GREEN KNIGHT: The 16-month wait to see David Lowery’s epic of blood, sex and magic/magik was worth it. Chaos reigns, as one furry and Lars von Trier-y character might (but regrettably does not) say. Dev Patel can cut off my head any time he likes. Opens in Cdn cinemas July 30 pic.twitter.com/AdNkaqKbdj
Friends, #TheGreenKnight is a sumptuous, haunting bit of Arthurian legend, showcasing the creepiness in a lot of those stories. Outstanding costumes, and Daniel Hart’s music is terrific. Lowery asks you to intuit a lot, both text and subtext, worth it if you open your mind. pic.twitter.com/z4O9Pkzn4k
#TheGreenKnight is everything I could have hoped for in an adaptation of Arthurian legend. It’s simultaneously dreamy and sensual, brutal and bleak. Dev Patel is more than up to carrying Gawain’s solo hero’s journey in David Lowery’s best work yet. Absolutely mesmerizing stuff.
An epic fantasy adventure based on the timeless Arthurian legend, The Green Knight tells the story of Sir Gawain (Dev Patel), King Arthur’s reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the eponymous Green Knight, a gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men. Gawain contends with ghosts, giants, thieves, and schemers in what becomes a deeper journey to define his character and prove his worth in the eyes of his family and kingdom by facing the ultimate challenger. From visionary filmmaker David Lowery comes a fresh and bold spin on a classic tale from the knights of the round table.
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And here’s the last look we’ll get of director Robert Schwentke’s Snake Eyes before the film’s premiere, and it looks pretty darn epic. The film stars Henry Golding as the titular martial arts expert and soldier who will ultimately go on to become one of the original members of the G.I. Joe military unit. If there was ever going to be another attempt at a G.I. Joe movie, then Snake Eyes was definitely the right choice as the character to focus on. He’s the most mysterious member of the G.I. Joe team (and, frankly, the coolest looking), the perpetually masked warrior whose competence in combat is only rivaled by his refusal to reveal himself. This reluctance to be revealing looks like it’ll change in Schwentke’s film, of course—you don’t cast the star of Crazy Rich Asians if you’re going to hide him in a mask the whole time. We’ll find out how this “tenacious loner” became Snake Eyes, and we’ll be treated to a lot of top-notch fight choreography.
Snake Eyes comes from a script by Evan Spilotopoulos, and also stars Andrew Koji as Storm Shadow, Úrsula Corberó as The Baroness, Samara Weaving as Scarlett, Haruka Abe as Akiko, Tahehiro Hira as Kenta, and Iko Uwais as Hard Master.
Snake Eyes is set to hit theaters on July 23. Check out the final trailer below:
Henry Golding plays Snake Eyes in Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins from Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and Skydance. Photo by Niko Tavernise. Courtesy Paramount Pictuers.
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Featured image: Henry Golding plays Snake Eyes in Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins from Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and Skydance. Photo by Niko Tavernise. Courtesy Paramount Pictuers.
