“We’re going to introduce more DC characters than any film has ever done,” writer/director James Gunn says at the top of this new The Suicide Squad featurette. By now you’re likely well aware that Gunn is about to deliver The Suicide Squad to theaters and HBO Max very soon (August 6 to be exact). And while he has resurrected a few characters from David Ayer’s 2016 Suicide Squad—Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Viola Davis’s Amanda Waller, Jai Courtney’s Captain Boomerang, and Joel Kinnaman’s Rick Flag—the connection to Ayer’s film stops there. Gunn’s vision for the film, which he’s described having the spirit of a 1970s war epic, has been hailed as appropriately bonkers (and surprisingly tender). In the new featurette, you’ll get brand new glimpses at his ensemble, which includes the aforementioned unprecedented number of wacky DC characters.
Those 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. The featurette introduces these characters in the most comprehensive way we’ve seen yet, including Gunn’s promise that we’ll see Robbie’s Harley Quinn in some really epic action set pieces. Yet the most poignant part of this featurette is that it hammers home the film’s sweet side. “What I didn’t see coming was the emotional depth,” Joe Kinnaman says. “The most brazen thing about the film is the special moments between characters,” Gunn adds.
Check out the new featurette below, which will whet your appetite for The Suicide Squad if you weren’t already eager to see it. Again, The Suicide Squad hits theaters and HBO Max on August 6.
Some excellent news for us Grease fans out there—Paramount+ has officially ordered the Grease prequel series Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, for a 10-episode series. This comes after the series, originally titled Grease: Rydell High, moved from HBO Max to Paramount+. (One would be remiss for not mentioning that Rydell High, featured in the original 1978 film, was inspired by my high school, Radnor High, in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia.)
The Hollywood Reporterdelivered the scoop that Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies found its new home and takes place four years before the events in the original film. THR provides the show’s logline: “Before rock ‘n’ roll ruled, before the T-Birds were the coolest in the school, four fed-up, outcast girls dare to have fun on their own terms, sparking a moral panic that will change Rydell High forever.”
The original Pink Ladies were played by Stockard Channing, Dinah Manoff, Didi Conn, and Jamie Donnelly. The series’ showrunner is writer Annabel Oakes (Atypical, Awkward) who will also executive produce alongside Marty Bowen and Erik Feig.
Frankie Avalon and Stockard Channing serenade Didi Conn in a scene from the film ‘Grease’, 1978. (Photo by Paramount/Getty Images)
For more films coming out from Paramount, check out these stories:
Featured image: Olivia Newton-John, Didi Conn and the rest of the girls sing in a scene from the film ‘Grease’, 1978. (Photo by Paramount/Getty Images)
Charismatic author, chef, and world traveler Anthony Bourdain went from relative obscurity working in a New York restaurant to international success at the age of 43 when his memoir Kitchen Confidential was released. It started a meteoric rise to fame and led to Anthony Bourdain becoming a household name. When he killed himself at 61, his suicide shocked fans all over the world. Now Oscar-winning documentarian Morgan Neville has created a fascinating, poignant portrait of the complicated man in Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain. Using a wealth of unreleased footage and voiceovers of Bourdain from his shows, interviews with some of his closest friends and family, and home movies from his personal life, Neville reveals the story of what happened after Bourdain’s rise. He also shines a light on the personal struggles of a man with a curiosity and drive that became increasingly antithetical to finding satisfaction or happiness. The Credits spoke to Neville about the new revelatory biographical documentary. Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain is in theaters now.
What do you think makes Anthony Bourdain so compelling to such a wide variety of people?
He wasn’t famous in a normal way. He was famous because he played himself. So it’s not like a movie star where people know they’re famous, and they like their movies. When people saw Tony in real life on the street, they felt like he was a friend of theirs they’re running into. They wanted to go buy him a beer or sit down with him and talk. He also had that ability to connect with people very different than himself. I’m constantly shocked by the variety of people who were into his books and shows.
Anthony Bourdain stars in Morgan Neville’s documentary, ROADRUNNER, a Focus Features release. Courtesy of Focus Features, in association with Zero Point Zero
One of his best qualities was that he had a strong, opinionated personality.
Part of what I think people connected with is he wasn’t wishy-washy. He was very funny and sharp and he’d have opinions, but at the same time, he was constantly learning. He says in the documentary, ‘I love nothing more than to go someplace and be completely surprised by it’. I think people trusted him because he was kind of a no-nonsense guy. When he went someplace, he would own it if he felt like his preconceptions were wrong, or that he was bringing that ‘White Male American’ perspective on things. He owned his flaws in a way that made people trust him.
More than 30 interviews were conducted for the film. What was the research that led to what we see from the subjects onscreen?
The research was everything from putting together an 18-hour playlist of every song he ever mentioned, to watching all the movies he made lists of that he loved, to re-reading the books that influenced him, from Graham Greene, George Orwell to Joseph Conrad and Hunter Thompson. That was part of it. And then reading his books, watching the shows, and talking to people.
How did you put together the questions for the subjects?
With my interviews, I end up, when I’m making a film, with just a list of words, not questions. And so I had a list of words that I would take with me into interviews, and each of those just represented an idea I wanted to explore. That’s kind of how I do interviews. It’s a little different.
Do you remember some of the words you used to get the conversations started?
They were words like curiosity, travel, addiction, childhood…words like that.
Anthony Bourdain stars in Morgan Neville’s documentary, ROADRUNNER, a Focus Features release. Courtesy of CNN / Focus Features
How do you find the balance of subjectivity and objectivity in the documentary, given the interviews are so personal?
I mean, what is objectivity? All I can say is I went into this with zero agenda. I just went in to listen to people, and try and understand this guy as best as I possibly could. And I feel really good about that job. I worked hard at trying to understand who he was, and then I just tried to put that back into the film. In a way, I feel like my storytelling is about reflection. It’s about reflecting what I hear, what I see, and even the tone of a person. My style of filmmaking tends to change based on the subject because I want the actual storytelling to be reflective of their sensibility, too. It is, for me, a big exercise of a kind of channeling. Is that subjective? Yeah, probably, you know, but it’s in the efforts of trying to reflect a subjective person.
You edited Roadrunner sequentially from the beginning, which led to the arc of Bourdain’s story. It feels like we live in his excitement, and then sort of plummet with him in the end. What was the process like with editors Aaron Wickenden and Eileen Meyer?
Aaron and Eileen are two amazing editors. They had cut the documentary Best of Enemies with me about Gore Vidal and Will Buckley. And Aaron has also been an editor on my Mr. Rogers and my Orson Welles documentaries. I had a shorthand with them, and we all talked about it. The process, in the beginning, was me saying, ‘we are not going to think or talk about his death for a long, long time. Let’s just totally put it out of our minds. Let’s just go on the ride with him as we’re telling this story.’ We tend to read history backward, but you live history forwards. And so I didn’t want it to feel like the whole film had the weight of portentousness constantly through the entire film. It could actually be exciting and full of hope and promise, and I think we got there.
This was very different than the way you normally edit, right?
It’s not the way I normally cut a film, but it was an unusual film. So much of the film is about trying to deal with tone, and understand how you alter the tone of a film as the story changes in a way that feels organic. I feel like so much of Tony’s story is about connecting the good exciting things with the dark things, because so much of Tony’s personality is about the interconnectedness of those things. I’ve said it before, but I think a lot of his flaws are also his superpowers, and for him, it was hard to kind of parse those out. And so it’s a matter of kind of trying to just understand all the pieces of the same puzzle.
Roadrunner is about Anthony Bourdain, but it’s also about mental illness and what suicide does to those you leave behind, which is one of the most powerful aspects of the film. That’s such an important issue to show, because it removes all the supposed dark romanticism around suicide, and really shows the chaos and damage it creates.
Tony did have that kind of ‘Live Fast, Die Young’ kind of attitude, and you know what? That attitude is just bullshit. I’ve seen it. I’ve talked to people dealing with the grief left behind. I just feel like if I could do nothing else, I’d certainly want to de-romanticize the idea of killing yourself.
For more on Universal Pictures and Focus Features projects, check out these stories:
The universe of Game of Thrones continues to expand on HBO. In early May we got our first glimpse at the live-action series House of the Dragon, which will focus on House Targaryen in events that take place some 300 years before Game of Thrones and is set for a 2022 release. Now The Hollywood Reporterscoops that two additional Game of Thrones spinoffs are in the works, both animated.
Previously, HBO was said to be working on a single animated show, but now THR has learned that two more potential series are in the offing. The only project they have any details about would be centered on a brand new part of the Game of Thrones map—the Golden Empire of Yi Ti—which is located on the continent of Essos on the southeastern edge of the GoT world. “The society is considered one of the oldest and most advanced societies in creator George R.R. Martin’s sprawling fantasy realm and is inspired by Imperial China (much the same way Westeros, which was the primary setting for GoT, was inspired by Medieval Europe),” THR‘s James Hibberd writes.
HBO Max is expanding their animated content, and there’s no doubt that George R.R. Martin’s vast, richly detailed universe of Game of Thrones offers an incredibly rich world to draw from (pun intended). The streaming service has already greenlit a Batman animated series from The Batmanwriter/director Matt Reeves and producer J.J. Abrams. As for the two new animated GoT projects, HBO Max has thus far offered no further comment.
For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and HBO Max, check out these stories:
In Space Jam’s contemporary follow-up, Space Jam: A New Legacy, from director Malcolm D. Lee, the movie’s apex basketball game comes about thanks to star LeBron James’s youngest son, Dom (Cedric Joe), who doesn’t want to play the sport at all. Dom would rather design and program his own video games, an interest which inadvertently leads him and his father into the bowels of the Warner 3000 ServerVerse, run by a maniacal algorithm, Al G. Rhythm (Don Cheadle). Trapped, Dom ends up Al’s unwitting protégé, while LeBron, having crash-landed in Looney Tunes land, enlists the help of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Tweety Bird, and the rest of the gang to form a basketball team who will help him get his son back. In exchange, the Looney Tunes, dealing with their own ongoing plight at the hands of Al, will gain their freedom from the algorithm.
Zendaya was enlisted to voice the historically more seldom seen Lola Bunny, but for three of Looney Tunes’ legacy characters — Bugs, Sylvester, and Yosemite Sam, as well as appearances by Yogi Bear and Fred Flintstone — Lee brought on veteran voice actor Jeff Bergman. The first person to take over Bugs Bunny after the character’s original voice, Mel Blanc, passed away in 1989, Bergman has gone on to voice a number of Looney Tunes characters for decades (here’s an example of him in action as Bugs). He also lends his craft to characters in Tiny Toons and the world of Hanna-Barbera, among many others.
For Bergman, Space Jam: A New Legacy’s premiere was his first time back in the theater in over a year. Shot during the pandemic, we had the chance to sit and down and speak with the voice actor about filming the movie from home, meeting star LeBron James for the first time at the premiere, and the chance meeting with Mel Blanc four decades ago that set Bergman’s career trajectory in motion. Space Jam: A New Legacy is in theaters and on HBO Max now.
Did you grow up a Looney Tunes fan?
Yes, I did, but not any more than anyone else. It was part of Saturday morning. I grew up in the late 60s, early 70s. Televisions were in people’s homes for maybe 15 years, so everything that was on TV was exciting. It was all so new, in its infancy. So early Saturday morning cartoons you could watch, but that was kind of it. There was a designated day and time for that, whether it was Spiderman, Batman, Superman, and certainly Looney Tunes. And as I got older, I think I understood them more. I got the inside jokes as I got a little bit more sophisticated.
You once met Mel Blanc while you were in college, right?
Yes, 40 years ago I was in my junior year at the University of Pittsburgh and I happened to be walking around the campus and noticed the sign, Mel Blanc Appearing at Pitt, Voice of Bugs Bunny, and I thought whoa, how cool is that? Just by chance, I saw that sign, showed up, and saw his performance and lecture. He was great. Then I found out where he was staying on the campus and knocked on his door at ten o’clock at night and we spent about an hour together. That was a watershed moment, that changed everything for me.
Caption: BUGS BUNNY in Warner Bros. Pictures’ animated/live-action adventure “SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Did that lead directly to your career?
Well, you know, I was a 20-year-old kid and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I certainly think I wanted to be a performer, but if you don’t meet anybody who does what you do…it was the first time I met somebody where it was like hey, they kind of get me and I get them. He was very encouraging. I didn’t want to stay in school, necessarily. I wasn’t an academic. And he said, try to stay in school and get your degree, and if you ever get out to Los Angeles, come and look me up. Eight years later he passed away and it was on my birthday. Three weeks after that, they were casting for Steven Spielberg’s Tiny Toon Adventures. So I started auditioning for the voice of Bugs Bunny, just a few weeks after Mel Blanc had passed away. It was all happening quickly, even though there was an eight-year span, but I never did get to meet him again.
Is it a challenge to keep the characters’ voices consistent over so many years?
I always feel my job is to impart what it is you remember about the Looney Tunes as a child. That means I have to do a lot of research. I have to watch everything I can get ahold of. That means every cartoon, every commercial, any material because there’s a gem in everything. And so somewhere along the way, I’m going to do something that might trigger your memory and capture that essence of what you remember. And that’s not an easy job to do, because everybody has a different reference point.
Out of the characters you voice, is one harder than the other? Or maybe a little trickier to summon and land exactly right?
[Bugs Bunny voice:] Well, I’ll tell you something, Doc. I’d have to say that they all present their own complexities. [As Bergman again:] Especially Bugs, because Bugs has been around for more than 80 years, so everybody knows that voice. People just know that character right away. I’d say those three [Bugs, Fred Flinstone, and Yogi Bear] are particularly complex because there’s so much I’m trying to recreate when I do it. And you’re only doing it in a very small space—five seconds you’ve got to recreate that memory for somebody.
You’re also working in a literal small space, a recording booth, where you can’t use your physicality to convey the character.
When you think about it, here’s the mic, and right away I have to find that sweet spot. I don’t have much movement to do. Even when film actors get in there, they’re all over the place because they’re not used to that. It’s a lot of internal stuff, and that hopefully is going to come through in the reading. You can use your hands, which are very helpful because that sort of motion funnels through that, but you have to be careful not to move too much.
Did you get any unusual direction, or direction that felt new and very specific to this Space Jam film, from director Malcolm D. Lee?
Malcolm was especially helpful in this project, more than anything I’ve ever done, because we filmed this during the pandemic. So we were remote, all in our homes. Typically we do work with an ensemble cast, so with a few of the actors you’re in scenes with, you get to play off each other, but we didn’t have that. These were big Zoom calls where you have Malcolm Lee, Spike Brandt, the animation director, script supervisor, the producer, etc. If there’s a scene between LeBron and me and there’s no recording of LeBron, I have to get as much context as I can from the director. Malcolm was just so wonderful. He was working with LeBron, so he had a real sense of either how LeBron was going to deliver the line, or they knew it as he’d done it, so they would sometimes read his lines for me and I’d jump in with Bugs Bunny. So I had a pretty nice contextual background and then, of course, you do so many different takes for just one line. When we shot the end of the film, we must have done it 20 different ways.
Caption: (L-r) DAFFY DUCK, BUGS BUNNY, YOSEMITE SAM, FOGHORN LEGHORN, PORKY PIG, LOLA BUNNY and WILE E. COYOTE in Warner Bros. Pictures’ animated/live-action adventure “SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Did you get to interact or work directly with LeBron James at all?
In fact, last night was the first time I met LeBron and it was at the screening. We had all seen the film and I saw him from a distance. There was a sea of people trying to get to him, and he’s so imposing, and even taller because he was on the stairs and I was even lower. I knew it was my voice that would carry, so I yelled out “LeBron, we really are family” [as Bugs] and he saw me and had the biggest grin on his face. We met face to face for the first time, congratulated each other, and he’s holding his daughter the whole time. That was just a cool moment. I was awestruck to meet him.
Caption: LEBRON JAMES in Warner Bros. Pictures’ animated/live-action adventure “SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Featured image: Caption: (L-R) LEBRON JAMES and BUGS BUNNY in Warner Bros. Pictures’ animated/live-action adventure “SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust might be switching sides—again. A new set photo from Mission: Impossible 7, courtesy writer/director Christopher McQuarrie, shows the former MI6 agent looking quite mysterious. Ferguson’s double agent has been one of the best additions to the last few films, giving Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) a colleague who’s on his level in a way he hasn’t really seen before. Faust is tough, fearless, brilliant, and just as clever at playing every side to get the job done. Luckily, for Ethan and his trusty crew of Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), Ilsa’s been on their side—but will that continue?
The photo is deliberately cryptic. Ferguson’s got an eyepatch pushed up on her forehead, and the background is just a blur of black and white. The eyepatch makes one wonder if this is Ilsa undercover, and whether or not she’ll continue to find her interests in line with Ethan’s. We know that McQuarrie has recruited Esai Morales to play the film’s villain (at least one of them, that is), and that Ilsa Faust has reliably kept us guessing since Ferguson joined the franchise in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation in 2015.
Joining Ferguson, Cruise, Rhames and Pegg are Vanessa Kirby as the White Widow, with Hayley Atwell and Indira Varma playing new characters. Mission: Impossible 7 was originally set to premiere in theaters on July 23, 2021, but you know what happened. Now you’ll see the latest installment on May 27, 2022, with a streaming release on Paramount+ sometime in July 2022.
James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad hits theaters and HBO Max on August 6, which means that critics have already gotten to screen the film and offer their initial reactions. We won’t get full reviews for a bit—those are usually embargoed until right before the premiere—but these spoiler-free first takes give us a good idea of how they view the film. Spoiler alert: it sounds like Gunn’s hit a homerun here.
Before we get to those initial reactions, let’s briefly go over the film’s synopsis. Gunn wrote and directed this reboot, of sorts, which resurrects some characters from David Ayer’s 2016 Suicide Squad but that’s about it, the rest is brand new. Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is one returnee from the previous film, and she’s back to once again recruit a band of lunatics, misfits, and a talking shark for a mission to the island of Corto Maltese, where a certain “Project Starfish” is underway. The squad will need to fight like hell, as a team, if they’re going to save humanity.
Joining Davis are fellow returning champs Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, and Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag. Newcomers 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.
Onto those early reactions!
Got to see @JamesGunn#TheSuicideSquad tonight! A hilariously violent and heartfelt story that’s surprising in all the right ways. Enjoyable for everyone — hardcore DC comics fans and newbies alike. Go see this movie.
The Suicide Squad is as funny, irreverent and violent as promised.
What I liked best, though, was its heart. Gunn really balances the silly and the serious in a way that the two compliment each other really well. I dug it. Also? King Shark RULES. pic.twitter.com/QgzSqwxY8C
I had the BEST time watching #TheSuicideSquad — it is a swing-for-the-fences kind of comic book movie & I love that. It’s big, bold & visually stunning. You will see James Gunn’s horror roots splattered all over this thing. It’s violent, but hilarious. Angry, but also VERY sweet. pic.twitter.com/qUbXQ75abt
Yeah, I loved #TheSuicideSquad. Just delightfully, gleefully goes all out with mayhem, gore, profanity and naughtiness but then has some really heartfelt moments that you can invest in. And I loved the whole cast a whole lot.
So this skeptic loved #TheSuicideSquad. It is balls to the wall *bonkers* in very entertaining ways. i.e. If you’re wondering whether James Gunn and that super rad @SuicideSquadWB cast would truly go there w/ the material & the R-rating, indeed they DO. pic.twitter.com/hQoGljScTx
#TheSuicideSquad is complete mayhem. Similar themes and heart to Guardians, but tonally much more similar to Gunn’s pre-Marvel work (it’s real bloody). Hilarious, but be warned: the emotional stakes are real. It’s not the care-free romp the trailers promise.
When we spoke to WandaVision director Matt Shakman way back in late May, Shakman explained how the Disney+ show was essentially his dream job. Now, a mere day after his efforts earned him an Emmy for Best Directing for a Limited Series—with WandaVision itself nabbing 23—Deadlinebreaks the story that Shakman will be directing the next Star Trek film. One has to wonder if this his second dream job in a row.
After a long gestation period for the Star Trek franchise, Deadline reports that Paramount and JJ Abrams’s Bad Robot have gotten their man with the talented Shakman and that things will begin moving quickly. The script comes from Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (CaptainMarvel), marking the first time in franchise history that two women have penned a Star Trek script.
Shakman is a longtime theater director (he is the artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles), as well as a now-lauded career director of TV. Along with helming every episode of Emmy darling WandaVision, he’s directed episodes of Game of Thrones, Succession, Fargo, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Billions, and more. Shakman’s work on WandaVision made it clear he’s capable of handling it all—comedy, drama, action—and Deadline reports he had a lot of options for his next gig and chose Star Trek.
There had been many potential Star Trek pairings before Shakman grabbed the job. There was a project with none other than Quentin Tarantino, based on a script from The Revenant scribe Mark L. Smith, as well as a version coming from Fargo creator Noah Hawley. In the end, it’s Shakman jumping aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, with Beer and Robertson-Dworet’s script, and for Star Trek fans, this is about as thrilling a new direction for this venerable film franchise as you could hope.
For more films coming out from Paramount, check out these stories:
Featured image: ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 23: (L-R) Director Matt Shakman and Head writer Jac Schaeffer of ‘WandaVision’ took part today in the Disney+ Showcase at Disney’s D23 EXPO 2019 in Anaheim, Calif. ‘WandaVision’ will stream exclusively on Disney+, which launches November 12. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
The Emmy nominations came in yesterday and it was a proper showdown between Netflix and HBO/HBO Max for who could snag the most nominations overall. The winner, by a single nomination, was HBO/HBO Max, which garnered 130 Emmy noms in total, just edging out Netflix’s 129.
The two most lauded shows, however, were Netflix’s The Crown and Disney+’s The Mandalorian, which tied with 24 apiece. For HBO, it was their recently canceled series Lovecraft Country, which grabbed 18.
Nearly tying the top contenders was Disney+’s WandaVision, which earned 23 nominations. Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale and NBC’s Saturday Night Live grabbed 21, each, while Apple TV’s beloved Ted Lasso scored 20 nominations.
Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit checkmated 18 nominations, while HBO’s brilliant murder mystery series Mare of Easttown tracked down 16. Right behind Mare was HBO Max’s Hacks, which boasted one of Mare’s most beloved performers, Jean Smart, and notched 15.
Disney+’s total haul this year was a massive leap in just their second year of eligibility, nabbing 71 nominations. NBC had the most Emmys for a broadcast network, with 46. CBS grabbed 26 nominations, Hulu 25, and ABC 23. Amazon Prime Video’s 18 nominations included 7 for The Underground Railroad, and a first-ever Best Drama Series nomination for The Boys.
Well, Deadpool’s back, and he’s brought a friend in a 4-minute plus reaction video to the Free Guytrailer. Watching Reynolds parody the trailer reaction videos in which someone watches a trailer or a music video and emotes, grandly, for the enjoyment of their viewers is funny enough. Only here, Reynolds is doing that for a movie he’s in, via his most famous character from another movie, and he’s upped the ante by bringing along a friend–Thor: Ragnarok‘s lovable rock monster, Korg (voiced by Taika Waititi). Now, Waititi co-stars in Free Guy (you following this?), and is also of course the director of Thor: Ragnarok and the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder. Korg is the perfect, pleasant accompaniment to Deadpool’s perpetual snark. For every lacerating Deadpool barb, Korg has something cheerful to say. Get these two their own Disney+ series!
The fun here is Deadpool’s best-of-class quips, but as ever, he desperately wants into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and asks for Korg’s advice on how to make that happen. Korg’s here to help (he advises Deadpool to check his email), and you can probably imagine how well the Merc with the Mouth responded to this.
If you were looking to start your Wednesday off with something absurd and funny, here you go. As for Free Guy, director Shawn Levy’s film is about a man named Guy (Reynolds) who finds out he’s an NPC (nonplayer character) in an open-world video game and is finally going to become the main player in his own life. The film premieres in theaters on August 13. To watch the trailer—via Deadpool and Korg’s reactions—check out the video below.
For more on all things Marvel Studios, check out these stories:
“The way this movie is shot is the way I’ve wanted to shoot every movie in my brain.” This is how director James Gunn begins a new The Suicide Squad video, a featurette courtesy of the team at RED camera. Gunn, cinematographer Henry Braham, executive producer Nikolas Korda, and the crew discuss how RED’s latest camera innovations helped Gunn get those images to go from his brain to the big screen. While sure, this video works double-time as a great promo for RED camera, it also features footage we’ve never seen before and offers fresh details on how Gunn, Braham, and the crew captured the chaos on screen.
One of the ways they achieved their goals was by using “customized gyrostabilized mounts” that Braham and his team created to allow for a fluid hand-held movement. The new tech the filmmakers deployed on The Suicide Squad included RED’s Komodo, which was still a prototype camera at the time, and which was small enough (but capable of shooting high-res imagery) for the crew to be able to get great shots while on the move.
“From the beginning, one of the main goals was to keep it alive, keep it visceral, keep it real; one of the pathways to do that is the way to use the camera,” Gunn says. “Nearly every shot in this movie is moving…and not only is it moving, but we want to get in really close, and between people, and you just can’t do that with a bulky camera.”
You can get a peek at what the RED cameras enabled Gunn and his team to do below. The Suicide Squad hits theaters and HBO Max on August 6.
Here’s the official synopsis for The Suicide Squad:
Welcome to hell—a.k.a. Belle Reve, the prison with the highest mortality rate in the US of A. Where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out—even join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X. Today’s do-or-die assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2, Savant, King Shark, Blackguard, Javelin and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn. Then arm them heavily and drop them (literally) on the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Trekking through a jungle teeming with militant adversaries and guerrilla forces at every turn, the Squad is on a search-and-destroy mission with only Colonel Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave…and Amanda Waller’s government techies in their ears, tracking their every movement. And as always, one wrong move and they’re dead (whether at the hands of their opponents, a teammate, or Waller herself). If anyone’s laying down bets, the smart money is against them—all of them.
For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and HBO Max, check out these stories:
In a month, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad will burst into theaters, introducing us to Gunn’s vision of that motley crew of lunatics, antiheroes, and a talking shark taking on a mission that many won’t survive. One of the members of Gunn’s upcoming squad (he’d fall into the lunatic category) is John Cena’s Peacemaker, but we’ll be seeing a lot of him in the future. Gunn’s spinoff series Peacemakerhas just wrapped filming, the director informs us via Tweet, after 131 days of production.
What’s more, we learn in Gunn’s tweet that he pitched the idea for the series less than a year ago. Also, it was a “vague pitch.” Yet, here we are, a month before we see Gunn’s first film for Warner Bros./DC Comics, and Peacemaker has already moved into post-production.
And that’s a wrap on Day 131 & Season One of #Peacemaker. Less than a year ago I pitched a vague pitch to @HBOMax – here we are 11 months later with 8 astounding episodes in the can. Cast & crew: I love you all. Thank you for putting your hearts & souls into this project.
Cena’s titular character’s deal is he will stop at nothing—literally nothing—at achieving peace. This means he’ll hurt whoever he must, in whatever fashion he deems fit, to achieve his dreams of a peaceful world. He’s one of the oddball DC comics characters who Gunn assembled for his feature film, which he’s compared to a boffo 1970s war flick, albeit with a talking shark, a woman who communicates with rats, and Polka-Dot Man. DC’s bench of bizarre characters is deep, and Gunn has made the most of it.
Joining Cena in Peacemaker are Steve Agee as John Economos (better known as King Shark), Jennifer Holland as NSA agent Emilia Harcourt, Chris Conrad as The Vigilante, and Chukwudi Iwuji as Clemson Murn.
The Suicide Squad hits theaters and HBO Max on August 6. Peacemaker is due on HBO Max sometime in 2022.
For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and HBO Max, check out these stories:
Our first look at Bao director Domee Shi’s Pixar feature debut is here, and all the talent that Shi displayed in her 2018 Oscar-winning short is on display here. Charm, humor, heart, and an almost impossibly cute central character. The film is centered on Mei Lee (voiced by Rosalie Chiang), a regular 13-year-old…until the moment she gets excited, at which point she turns into a huge red panda in an explosion of pink smoke. Look, we’re not the first to make this connection, but, excitement turning a mild-mannered character into a beast begs a comparison to the Incredible Hulk, only in this case, the beast is insanely adorable and not liable to smash any supervillains to pieces.
One sure way to get Mei over-excited? Introduce her overprotective mother, Ming (voiced by Sandra Oh) into the situation. In the trailer, we see Ming show up at Mei’s school, demanding to see her child and badgering a security guard. This embarrassment titillates Mei enough to turn her into the giant red panda, to the shock of her classmates and teacher.
Domee Shi’s Boa was such a perfect short film, and now that she’s got a larger palette to work with, Turning Red has to be one of the most intriguing upcoming Pixar projects. Before Bao, Shi was a storyboard artist for Pixar, so she knows her way around the Pixar creative process.
Check out the teaser trailer below. Turning Red is set to hit theaters on March 11, 2022.
For more stories on Walt Disney Studios, Pixar, and Disney+, check these out:
The latest from the Cannes Film Festival feels like a dispatch from the pre-pandemic era. This dispatch comes courtesy of Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, his long-awaited, long-delayed new film that, as is always the case in an Anderson film, boasts an ensemble of top-notch performers. The number of stars on hand for the premiere of Anderson’s film harkened back to the Cannes Film Festival before the pandemic upended the world. The streets near the Palais were shut down as crowds clamored for a glance of one of the film’s stars, Timothee Chalamet, who signed autographs and took selfies with the fans.
A few hours later it was time for the film itself, which delighted the festival crowd. A nine-minute standing ovation followed, the audience feting Anderson and his cast in attendance, including Tilda Swinton, Benicio Del Toro, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Stephen Park, and of course Chalamet. (In a reminder that things aren’t truly normal yet, Lea Seydoux, who stars in The French Dispatch as well as three other films playing at the festival, was quarantining in Paris due to a positive Covid-19 test.)
CANNES, FRANCE – JULY 13: (L-R) Mathieu Amalric, Adrien Brody, Lyna Khoudri, Wes Anderson, Tilda Swinton, Benicio Del Toro and Alexandre Desplat attend the “The French Dispatch” photocall during the 74th annual Cannes Film Festival on July 13, 2021 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images)
The French Dispatchis set in the fictional French town of Ennui-sur-Blasé, and follows multiple stories being published by the titular magazine, of a New Yorker-like French arm of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun. Bill Murray plays the magazine’s editor, Arthur Howitzer Jr., who shepherds his ex-pat writers their disparate contributions for the magazine’s final issue. The structure allows Anderson to pursue multiple plot threads, and the location, plus the design-centric world of creating a magazine, let him flaunt his prodigious eye for the smallest, most compelling detail. The film is essentially a love letter to journalism, with the end credits dedicated to a list of legendary editors and writers, including The New Yorker editor William Shawn and writers Lillian Ross and James Baldwin.
The French Dispatch is due in theaters on October 22. Check out the latest teaser below.
If you’re a fan of Netflix’s The Witcher, the last few days have been filled with some exciting news. First, there was the scoop that the prequel series The Witcher: Blood Origin had cast the great Michelle Yeoh. Then there was the nearly three-hour WitcherCon event celebrating the show, with cast members dishing on their characters and more. Finally, on Friday, the flagship series dropped a teaser trailer for season two. In case you missed the latter, we’ve got you covered.
The teaser reveals not only our first good glimpse of the upcoming season but also the release date. While one of the best parts about season one was Anya Chalotra’s Yennefer, the teaser is focused on the quest that Henry Cavill’s Geralt of Rivera and Freya Allan’s Ciri are embarking upon. In season one, Geralt and Ciri were on a collision course towards one another, their destinies intertwined. Now that they’re finally together, season two will see the two of them taking on monsters (and men) side-by-side.
Meanwhile, the increasingly powerful Yennefer ended season one by sacrificing everything to help win the battle of Sodden. Her journey in season two will be interesting, and will likely be as arduous as her arc was in attaining all that power in the first place.
Here’s the official synopsis from Netflix:
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.
Check out the teaser below. The Witcher season two bows on Netflix on December 17.
Director Shawn Levy knows his way around comedy and action. On the action side of the equation, Levy’s helmed episodes of Stranger Things, the Duffer Brothers Spielbergian Netflix series about a group of kids discovering a parallel world and the monsters that live within it in their small Indiana town. For more broad, feel-good family films, Levy’s helmed Night at the Museum and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. For more adult comedy, there was Date Night and This is Where I Leave You. Now with Free Guy, his upcoming feature, he seems to be calling upon all of the skills he’s acquired over his career. The film stars Ryan Reynolds as Guy, a bank teller whose life has never felt completely in his control. When Guy finds out he’s actually an NPC (nonplayer character) in a massive open-world video game, he decides he’s done being a mere background character for somebody else’s adventures. Guy’s determined to be the one to save the day, and the day will need saving. A new teaser from Century Studios gives us a taste of what Levy, Reynolds, and a talented supporting cast have cooked up.
The film comes from a script from Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn, and the supporting cast includes Killing Eve‘s Jodie Comer, Lil Rey Howery (who steals just about every scene in every movie he’s in), and Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi.
Speaking with Collider, Reynolds assures would-be viewers that you don’t have to be a video game expert to enjoy the film: “I always look at it like, sports movies are good metaphors. The greatest sports movies ever made are not actually about sports. Field of Dreams, I wouldn’t characterize that as a baseball story. They used baseball as a vehicle to tell a really beautiful story about a son and a father trying to connect. I think that we’re doing the same thing. We’re using the video game world, the Free City world, and video game culture as a sort of vehicle to tell this really beautiful and powerful human story.”
Check out the teaser below. Free Guy hits theaters on August 13:
Featured image: Ryan Reynolds is Guy in “Free Guy.” Courtesy Century Studios.
It turns out, people really are eager to get back into the theater. Director Cate Shortland’s Black Widow had a pandemic-era best $80 million opening weekend at the domestic box office, netting the biggest premiere since the pre-pandemic release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker way back in December of 2019. If there were any lingering questions about whether people yearned to see big movies on the big screen again, or, if there were thoughts about the appetite for a female-led superhero film, those, too, seem to have been answered.
It’s not all that surprising given the amount of interest in Black Widow, the great reviews, and the industry standard-bearer for ginning up and retaining fan interest that is Marvel Studios. It’s been two years since the last time Marvel had a film on the big screen, with 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, and there was particular interest in seeing Johansson’s beloved Natasha Romanoff get her own film, at long last, especially after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Still, it’s heartening to see Black Widow do so well. The numbers are robust not just at the domestic box office, but overseas, where the film pulled in $78.8 million from 46 territories, for a worldwide haul of $158.8 million. And in a first, Disney revealed the streaming numbers—Black Widow made another $60 million from Disney+ Premier Access—marking the first time a studio has shared streaming viewership or premium VOD numbers for a movie’s opening weekend. In total, Black Widow earned $218.8 million.
Alan Bergman, Chairman of Disney Studios Content, had this to say in a statement: “It’s incredible to see audiences enjoying Black Widow after two years without a new Marvel Studios film, and this spectacular opening weekend shows just how eager fans have been to see this beloved Avenger in her own story. There’s no question it’s been worth the wait – Cate Shortland, Scarlett Johansson, and the Marvel Studios team have delivered an exceptional film that continues a legacy of creative excellence as the Marvel Cinematic Universe expands and enters a new era.”
Black Widow‘s success nods, one hopes, at a return to something resembling normalcy for filmgoers and the industry itself. Director John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place PartII‘s showing also offers more reasons for hope, as it just crossed the $150 million domestic box office threshold, the first film to do so during the pandemic era. Meanwhile, director Justin Lin’s F9 raced to a $70 million opening and is approaching $150 million domestically.
The recovery is far from complete, with the Delta variant raging and COVID-19 closures still affecting markets worldwide. But as vaccinations increase (both domestically and globally) and studios sharpen their release strategies, these types of healthy openings will hopefully increase.
In her swan song as Russian assassin-turned-Avenger Natasha Romanoff, Scarlett Johansson fights her way through Black Widow (opening Friday) on a mission to destroy evil mastermind Dreykov (Ray Winstone) and his network of brainwashed female killers. But first, Natasha has to confront her equally ferocious kid sister Yelena, portrayed by Florence Pugh. (Some light spoilers ahead). Abandoned as children by their spy parents (David Harbour and Rachel Weisz), the now-grown Natasha endures merciless teasing from Yelena, who mocks her sibling’s signature landing pose for being melodramatically cheesy. “You’re a poser!” Yelena half-jokes.
It’s a rare case of superhero stunt choreography calling attention to itself, but once Natasha and Yelena set aside their differences, the sisters power through a globe-hopping succession of action sequences encompassing prison breaks, car chases, a relentless killing machine named Taskmaster, shower curtains re-purposed as garrote wire and an everything-but-the-kitchen sink aerial spectacle featuring dozens of characters falling through the sky.
Making the action pop alongside director Cate Shortland is Black Widow stunt coordinator Rob Inch, who previously worked on Wonder Woman 1984, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and Captain America: The First Avenger. Speaking from England, where he’s prepping a new Marvel movie, Inch deconstructs Black Widow‘s most thrilling set-pieces.
It’s shocking to see Florence Pugh as Yelena slugging it out with Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha when they first meet in a Budapest apartment after being separated for 20 years. What was the concept behind the sisters’ knock-down, drag-out fight?
You hit the nail on the head when you say “shocking” because that was the brief: “Shock us.” We already know how badass Scarlett’s Natasha is through her movies, but this fight is our first introduction to Yelena. There was a lot of chewing and chawing between myself and Cate and second-unit director Darrin Prescott until it became about keeping things grounded so we have someplace to go [in the rest of the film] because we have so many more fights, and we wanted each one to have a different flavor.
It’s domestic violence with a little bit of an edge, isn’t it, with them slamming each other into the wall, getting dragged into the sink, being hit over the head by a kettle, and chucked into the door with breakaway glass. When the door accidentally went through the frame and through the glass, we were like, “Aw that looks so bad we’ve got to use it.”
And then Natasha uses a shower curtain to choke her sister into submission.
We wanted the sisters to end up on the floor together like we’re taking you back to their childhood. We figure out a small little bit of aerial stuff, which is a standard thing for Black Widow, but then we made it a little bit more organic using the curtain. That fight was the first thing we shot with Scarlett and Florence together. I would say it’s my favorite fight in the movie.
You go straight from this confined, intimate fight to a wild motorcycle and car chase on the streets of Budapest. How did you design that sequence?
Same thing, really, as the sisters’ fight: it needs to have levels. We start on the rooftop with a foot chase. Cut to downstairs getting on a motorbike and doing some really cool moves by this amazing street freestyle rider I got called Sarah Lezito. What this girl can do with a motorbike! And she’s doing it with a passenger on the back, which was pretty damn impressive with the bike drifting in and out of traffic. In the car, they get stuck in a traffic jam so the only way out is ramming their way out that, and makes it a little more organic. Pretty much all that stuff was all done practically. And then Taskmaster shows up in this bad-ass tank vehicle, which adds another layer. The girls are sort of sweetly driving in their car and suddenly there’s this brute thing pushing his way through, like a guy doing punk rock dancing in a ballet.
Natasha and Yelena end up at a train station where they slide down the escalator banister just like kids might do.
We talked through many different ideas but then we’d research them and see “We’ve done that before.” So this wound up being about actually getting the real girls, Scarlett and Florence, to jump on the escalator and slide down. They were so up for it, those two.
Scarlett Johansson has made nine Marvel films but Florence Pugh is new to action movies. How did you prepare her for all the fighting?
We had Florence for ten weeks out [before filming began].She would drill and drill and drill and drill, and then do fitness training. Here’s the thing with any actor training for an action movie: They’re only going to be as good as the amount of time they commit to it. Both those girls are so good because they put in the time. And also, Florence had the confidence to lean on her stunt double. If there are moments in the fight choreography that are too difficult, we’re going do a wide shot where we can use your double and then we’re going to come back in and lean on these things that you’re good at. Having actors or extras who aren’t too precious [about doing their own stunts] shows a great commitment to the film.
Black Widow‘s massive third act climax shows people free-falling through the sky as the villain’s airborne Red Room headquarters disintegrates miles above earth. It looks very complicated.
We spent six weeks on what we call “The descent sequence” and it was heavily pre-vis. There was live sky diving, there was wind tunnel work, traditional wirework, Robomoco as we call it, and visual effects as well. We morphed all those elements together.
What’s Robomoco?
Basically, Robomocois a programmable robotic arm that picks up an actor by her hips and flies them through the air on a route that you’ve plotted. Then you digitally remove the arm. It’s a pretty cool piece of kit.
Did you bring back Scarlett’s frequent stunt double Heidi Moneymaker for Black Widow?
Heidi did a little bit of the re-shoot stuff in America, but our main stunt doubles for Scarlett were C.C. Ice and Mickey Facchinello. We had an amazing stunt team, all the doubles were great.
Up in the Red Room, Ray Winstone’s Dreykov character punches Natasha in the face, once, twice, three times. As a stunt that’s probably pretty simple to stage, but dramatically it’s very effective. What was your trick for making that fight work so well in the story?
It’s just down to making sure Dreykov felt credible. I’ve worked with Ray Winston before. He knows how to throw a punch. You definitely believe he’s credible. But it’s a funny thing. If you took away the sound from these shots, nobody would believe them, but when you add sound, you buy it straight away. Also, we’re working with two really talented actors. When you say “Imagine you’ve been punched in the face,” I don’t have to teach Scarlett Johansson how to act.
You started out as a stunt performer back in 1997 working on Titanic and before that, you jousted in a King Arthur’s theme park. Have you ever broken any bones on the job?
The ones who say they don’t have any broken bones have never really done any stunts. I had a nasty accident years ago doing a stunt on a horse. I fell onto my back and ruptured my pelvis in eight places. I was in the hospital for four months. So now I’m able to tell my stunt team, “I used to do stunts so I understand the pain you’re going through.”
Black Widow director Cate Shortland has never made a movie on this scale before. What was she like to work with?
Cate was very open to ideas. She brought these characters to life and then enabled others who were maybe more capable in other fields to get on and do their jobs. I’d call her a really good director.
Featured image: Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) in Marvel Studios’ BLACK WIDOW. Courtesy Marvel Studios.
The 74th Annual Cannes Film Festival kicked off on July 6 after a two-year hiatus. Spike Lee became the first Black Cannes’ jury president, leading a nine-person jury that includes five women—French actress Melanie Laurent, American actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, film directors Jessica Hausner and Mati Diop, and singer Mylene Farmer.
The opening ceremony saw the return of the most recent Palme d’Or winner, Bong Joon Ho (for Parasite) and Cannes veteran Jodie Foster, whose first appearance at the festival was when she was 13-years-old and was at the fest with Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Foster received an honorary Palme.
The festival was officially opened by Lee, Bong, Foster, and director Pedro Almodovar in English, Korean, Spanish, and French, signaling what is hoped to be a return to some semblance of normalcy for both global cinema.
The festival opened with the premiere of Leos Carax’s Annette, starring Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver in a musical scored and inspired by the Sparks. Once the end credits began to roll, the crowd stood and cheered for a full five minutes, Varietywrites. While standing ovations are nothing new at Cannes (neither are boos), the adulation felt like both a celebration of Carax’s film and of the festival itself, after Cannes took 2020 off due to COVID-19. The festival has added extra precautions due to the Delta variant, with attendees from outside the Europen Union required to submit a saliva COVID test every 48 hours to be allowed into non-theater indoor venues.
Lee is a central presence at this year’s festival in more ways than one. His face—as Mars Blackmon—adorns the festival’s poster, a callback to his 1986 film She’s Gotta Have It which premiered at Cannes. In response to a question from Chaz Ebert, Roger Ebert’s widow, Lee spoke about the state of the world since his 1989 masterpiece Do The Right Thing debuted at Cannes:
“When you see brother Eric Garner, when you see king George Floyd murdered, lynched, I think of Ray (Radio) Raheem,” Lee said (via the AP‘s Jake Coyle), referencing the Do The Right Thing character. “After 30-plus years, you’d think and hope that Black people would have stopped being hunted down like animals.”
With racial and social justice, the pandemic, and a lean (if not outright embrace) of strongman tactics by global leaders across the world, the feel of this year’s Cannes is understandably less glitzy. The need for greater representation both in the jury and in the festival’s competition is also front and center. Cannes 2021 includes four female filmmakers vying for the Palme, the most in its history. Yet, they are competing against 20 men, so there’s work still to be done.
“I think when women are listening to themselves and really expressing themselves, even inside, about a very, very male culture, we make movies differently. We tell stories differently,” said Maggie Gyllenhaal (via the AP‘s Jake Coyle).
Cannes also presents a fresh opportunity to discuss the rise of streaming—the festival has yet to allow a film without French theatrical distribution into its competition lineup. The festival director, Thierry Fremaux, said that Cannes has a record of discovering filmmakers, but the same cannot be said of streaming platforms. Yet for Lee, whose Da 5 Bloods streamed on Netflix last year, there’s no reason theaters and streaming platforms should be at odds.
“At one time, there was a thinking that TV was going to kill cinema. So, this stuff is not new,” Lee said.
And streaming platforms are of course at Cannes—Netflix bought director Cédric Jimenez’s French action thriller The Stronghold.
This year’s festival lineup includes Wes Anderson’s long-awaited The French Dispatch, Julia Ducournau’s Titane, and Justin Kurzel‘s Nitram. Cannes regular Jacques Audiard is also back with Les Olympiades.
And finally, if you’re wondering who else besides Spike Lee is going to be a focus of this year’s festival, one good candidate would be French actress Léa Seydoux—she has four films in the festival, including The French Dispatch and Arnaud Desplechin’s Deception. Once the festival wraps, you’ll be able to see Seydoux as Dr. Madeleine Swann (the ultimate French character name, by the way) in the upcoming James Bond film No Time To Die.
Featured image: CANNES, FRANCE – JULY 06: Jury members Melanie Laurent, Mati Diop, jury president Spike Lee, Jessica Hausner and Mylène Farmer attend the “Annette” screening and opening ceremony during the 74th annual Cannes Film Festival on July 06, 2021 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Kate Green/Getty Images)
With Black Widow opening in theaters and on Disney+ Premiere Access on July 9, we’re reposting our review roundup of the film. The short and sweet take: director Cate Shortland’s film is not only a shot of adrenalin but an emotional final chapter for Scarlett Johansson’s titular Avenger. It also offers a fresh perspective on things that have happened, as well as a glimpse at the future of the MCU. For a broader glimpse at what critics are saying, see below.
The early reactions to director Cate Shortland’s Black Widow were very positive, so it’s not surprising that with the review embargo lifted we’d get more of the same. Still, it’s heartening to know that after a very, very long wait to see Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff get her own Marvel movie, the result is a satisfying, emotional thrill ride. Many critics also hail the fact that Black Widow feels more grounded than recent MCU films, with a grittier visual style from Shortland and fight sequences that rival Captain America: The Winter Soldier in their intensity.
You likely know Black Widow‘s basics by now—the film is set between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. It finds Natasha trying to contend with “the darker parts of her ledger,” that is, her pre-Avenger life, by heading east and meeting up with old friends and foes. This puts her into contact with allies like Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), and Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour). It also means facing enemies like Taskmaster, the leader of a group of super assassins—better known as Black Widows—the very program from which Natasha herself emerged.
With that bit of our own ledger taken care of, let’s move onto a spoiler-free glimpse at the reviews. You can click on the links to read them in full. Black Widow hits theaters and Disney+ Premiere Access on July 9:
“Black Widow meets the immense challenge of enhancing the past and future of the character, while also functioning as a full experience in and of itself.” – Perri Nemiroff, YouTube.
“Maybe it’s no surprise that the film is entertaining and full of action. It is unexpected, though, that Black Widow may be the least Avenger-like movie in the series so far.” – Caryn James, BBC.com.
“Johansson once again embodies a character driven by her pain; now we know where it comes from. Pugh is outstanding, tapping into some of that same pain but making it her own.” – Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic.
“Shortland works in unvarnished closeup and establishes a mood of lurching, desultory anxiety that’s closer to Russian neorealism than the Russo brothers.” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety.
“For fans of Black Widow and everyone else, this episode is great fun and Harbour could well ascend to spinoff greatness of his own.” – Peter Bradshaw, Guardian.
“This standalone proves a stellar vehicle for Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff, given first-rate support by Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz and David Harbour.” – David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter.
“Divorced of its duties to superhero lore, Black Widow would still be a sufficiently deft spy caper, confidently crafted and worthy on its own terms.” – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair.
For more stories on what’s streaming or coming to Disney+, check these out:
