We are a mere two days away from the premiere of director Cate Shortland’s Black Widow, the long-awaited standalone film for Scarlett Johansson’s titular Avenger. If you’re reading this, you likely know the basics about Black Widow—the film tracks Natasha Romanoff (Johansson) during events between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. Natasha heads east to contend with the darker parts of her ledger, that is, her life when she was one of the Black Widow assassins for the KGB. In heading home, Natasha also comes into contact with familiar faces—Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, Rachel Weisz’s Melina Vostokoff, and David Harbour’s Alexei Shostakov. In a new featurette, we get to learn a bit more about the evolution of the film, why, at long last, Natasha finally got her own stand-alone story, and why that story was the right one to kick off Marvel’s Phase 4.
“We’ve been waiting to tell the story of Natasha Romanoff for years,” says Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige at the top of the new video. “It was one of the great post-Infinity saga opportunities. How to evolve into Phase 4.”
It was a unique choice to kick off Phase 4 by looking back, but this being an MCU film, Black Widow also sows the seeds for new characters who will play a part in the future of the MCU. Black Widow will also allow MCU fans a fresh perspective on what’s come before, including Natasha’s heroic decision and ultimate sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame.
The featurette also hints at another staple of the MCU—allowing you to come into a film with preconceived notions of a character you think you know and subverting them. What do you think you know about Natasha and her past? Who do you assume the film’s villain, Taskmaster, will turn out to be? And how might the newcomers like Florence Pugh’s Yelena factor in the MCU’s future? These questions and more are why seeing Black Widow—and seeing it on the biggest screen possible—is a must for Marvel fans.
Check out the featurette below. Black Widow hits theaters and Disney+ Premiere Access on July 9.
That demented family of New York billionaires is back. We’re talking about the Roy Family from HBO’s beloved Succession, which dropped the long-awaited season three teaser yesterday. The first glimpse of the new season is heavy on quips and fairly scant on plot. Yet there’s much we already do know, like the stakes (the family business, a few potential very long prison sentences) and the players. We also know that season three will pit the family patriarch against the firstborn son in a Biblical battle for control of their beloved, reviled mega-company.
When we last left the Roys at the end of season two, firstborn Kendall (Jeremy Strong) had finally turned on his old man, Logan (Brian Cox) by holding a press conference where he made his intentions perfectly clear—Kendall plans to take over the family company, the massive Waystar RoyCo, by ripping it from his father’s control. This was quite the shock to Logan, who believed Kendall was in fact holding the press conference to take the fall for the company’s serial crimes. A series of disastrous congressional hearings in season two revealed to the world what we viewers already knew—Waystar RoyCo is a cesspool of vipers, and the company’s profitable cruise operation had covered up rapes and death. Kendall was supposed to take the fall for all of this, but instead of becoming the “blood sacrifice” Logan demanded, he decided to make his father one. “This is the day his reign ends,” Kendall said in front of the cameras. Back on his yacht, Logan watched this all unfold, the hint of a smile at the edge of his lips—his son had finally become a man.
But now Logan will have to destroy him. And that, we can surmise, is what season three is all about. Another struggle over the family business, only now instead of this being known to only the top executives and the family itself, the entire country will be watching.
Joining Strong and Logan are Hiam Abbass, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, Alan Ruck, Nicholas Braun, Matthew Macfadyen, Peter Friedman, Rob Yang, J. Smith Cameron, Dagmara Dominczyk, and Arian Moayed.
Check out the teaser for season three below. Succession returns to HBO on August 11.
For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and HBO Max, check out these stories:
Zack Snyder will move from a zombie scourge in Las Vegas to a sci-fi epic in deep space. The Hollywood Reporterhas the scoop that Snyder’s Rebel Moon, inspired by both the Star Wars franchise and the films of Japanese filmmaking legend Akira Kurosawa, is headed to Netflix.
Rebel Moon will center on a peaceful colony situated on the edge of the galaxy that finds itself threatened by the armies of a despot named Balisarius. In an attempt to defend the colony, a young woman with a mysterious past is sent to find warriors from neighboring planets to help the colony make a stand against Balisarius’s armies.
“This is me growing up as an Akira Kurosawa fan, a Star Wars fan,” Snyder said to The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s my love of sci-fi and a giant adventure. My hope is that this also becomes a massive IP and a universe that can be built out.”
THR reports that this idea was hatched from a Star Wars pitch Snyder had developed a decade ago. Then the Walt Disney Company bought Lucasfilm in 2012, which halted Snyder’s original pitch, which was “a more mature take on the universe created by George Lucas,” THR reports.
Snyder will co-write, direct, and produce the film for Netflix, where he just released his aforementioned zombie film Army of the Dead. Snyder is keeping Rebel Moon in the family, so to speak, co-writing the script with Shay Hatten, who co-wrote Army of the Dead, and Kurt Johnstad, who co-wrote Snyder’s ancient Greek epic 300, which was adapted from a Frank Miller comic. He’ll produce alongside his wife and producing partner Deborah Snyder, through their production company Stone Quarry.
Rebel Moon will be shepherded on the Netflix side by another longtime Snyder collaborator, Scott Stuber. Stuber helped get Snyder’s breakout hit Dawn of the Dead made back when he worked at Universal and helped steer Army of the Dead at Netflix.
Rebel Moon is slated to begin production in early 2022.
For more on Snyder’s last film, “Army of the Dead,” check out these stories:
The Witcher: Blood Origin just got a sensational new cast member. Michelle Yeoh will join Laurence O’Fuarain in the upcoming prequel series for Netflix, which will not only utilize Yeoh’s acting ability but also her felicity with a sword. The talented actress will play Scían, the last member of a tribe of nomadic sword-elves. As she did so memorably in Ang Lee’s masterpiece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Yeoh will once again be a sword-wielding force to be reckoned with. Here’s how Variety describes her character: “No one can come close to her artistry with the blade, and no one carries as much loss within their heart. When a chance presents itself to retrieve a stolen sacred sword, taken from her fallen tribe by nefarious means, she launches herself into a deadly quest that will change the outcome of the Continent.”
The Witcheritself was a big hit for Netflix. Starring Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia and two potent female leads in Freya Allan’s Ciri and Anya Chalotra’s Yennefer, the series has provided two lushly made seasons of monster-slaying goodness. The Witcher: Blood Origin will center on events that happen way before Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer’s adventures—some 1200 years before. It’ll show the first prototype Witcher, which is a monster hunter for the uninitiated, and reveal the moment that the worlds of men, monsters, and elves merged. The series has been given a 6-episode order. The showrunner for Blood Origin is Declan de Barra, who will also executive producer alongside The Witcher showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich.
Yeoh’s always a busy actress, with a major role in one of the year’s most hotly anticipated films still pending—Marvel’s Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings. She’s also starring in James Cameron’s Avatar sequels, which means this talented performer will be mixing it up in the MCU, on distant plants, and in a misty, magical past.
Featured image: LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 10: Michelle Yeoh attends the EE British Academy Film Awards at Royal Albert Hall on February 10, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
When you think of Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), one of the first things that come to mind is how gloriously grounded and beautifully performed her fight sequences are. Natasha/Black has mastered several martial arts (aikido, judo, karate, etc.), she’s a highly skilled gymnast, and she marries to her technical precision a level of confidence and fearlessness that make even the toughest bad guys flinch. In real life, one woman makes many of the moves we see Black Widow pull off on screen possible, and her name is Heidi Moneymaker. In a new video, go behind-the-scenes on the set of Black Widow and see just how crucial Moneymaker is to the success of any given action scene involving Johansson. Considering Johansson is the star of the film, Moneymaker’s just about everywhere.
Moneymaker has been Johansson’s stunt double since the very beginning (that’s Iron Man 2 in MCU terms) and is a big reason why Natasha Romanoff’s fight sequences are some of the most athletic and acrobatic of any Avenger. While fellow Avengers like Iron Man or the Falcon often dispatch bad guys with major firepower while flying overhead, and Hulk, well, smashes stuff and bad guys alike, when Natasha fights it’s often as balletic as it is brutal. You can thank Moneymaker’s many years as a national champion gymnast. (Her sister Renae is also a highly sought-after stunt double and has worked with Brie Larson and Evangeline Lilly on Captain Marvel and Ant-Man and the Wasp respectively). When you watch Natasha take on Taskmaster in Black Widow, you’ll often be seeing Moneymaker at work, the precision of her stunt choreography a perfect match for the highly trained Black Widow, one embodied with such soul for a decade by Johansson.
Check out the video below. Black Widow hits theaters and Disney+ Premiere Access on July 9.
You can’t blame them for trying. Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) attempt to spring Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) from prison in a brand new Black Widow clip. This minute’s worth of an attempted prison break showcases director Cate Shortland’s more grounded approach to action, which feels like it owes at least a little more debt to actual physics than most Marvel movies pay. (There is a long-standing joke within the MCU that Captain America’s shield is offender number one when it comes to bending or flat out breaking the laws of motion).
The clip also sheds a little light on the dynamic between Natasha’s very particular “family.” Yelena is like her plucky young sister, and Alexei is, of course, dad, one who has packed on a few pounds since she last saw him. This might explain why he struggles so much with the escape attempt.
Black Widow is set between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, and sees Natasha returning east to where her story began when she was a Black Widow for the KGB. She’ll be reunited with not only Yelena and Alexei, but also Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), and have to contend with Taskmaster, the masked villain who controls the Black Widows and is committed to bringing Natasha down.
Check out the new clip here. Black Widow hits theaters and Disney+ Premiere Access on July 9.
For nearly half a century, videotapes documenting the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival gathered dust in the basement of a Bronxville home. Filmed by Hal Tuchin and his four-person camera crew, the trove included goosebump-inducing performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, Mavis Staples, B.B. King, the 5th Dimension, jazz drummer Max Roach and other masters of American music. Tuchin tried to package his work as “The Black Woodstock” but every TV network and film studio turned him down. Shortly before his death in 2017, Tuchin signed over his material to producers Robert Fyvolent and company. Fifty-two years after the fact, freshly restored festival highlights finally see the light of day in the documentary Summer of Soul(…Or: When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised).
Directed by drummer/producer/author Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, leader of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon house band, Summer of Soul (opening July 2) condenses some 40 hours of footage, augmented with new interviews. into a 157-minute feature thanks to a substantial assist from Emmy-nominated editor Joshua L. Pearson. “We’ve seen so much Black pain in the news every day,” Pearson says. “Ahmir really wanted this film to be about Black joy. Of course, we had to include some Black pain, which makes the Black joy really sing.”
Speaking from his home in upstate New York, Pearson, who previously cut documentaries about Nina Simone and Keith Richards, talks about working with Questlove to tell the story of a pivotal year in Black culture.
Summer of Soul shows this closet piled high with reels of old videotape. How did you whittle down all that material?
The producer Joseph Patel and Questlove watched all the footage before I started on the job so they already had a road map of the songs they wanted to include. Ahmir was obsessed with the footage, playing it on loop on his computer all day long. He became so intimate with all the songs, everything was ingested and laid out for me, alphabetically by artist and chronologically in terms of how each weekend actually played out.
In addition to these astonishing performances, the film also includes new interviews with people like Chris Rock, Al Sharpton, and Lin-Manuel Miranda who help put this festival in historical context. How did you weave all these elements together?
The tricky thing is that we didn’t just want back-to-back music so we included the socio-political background for our between-song stuff. It’s a delicate balance. How long can you go between songs before you want to get back to the music? How much can you have dialogue step on a song? A few songs played all the way through but for many of the others, I had to find places to cut ’em down while still creating the illusion that you’re getting the full song.
How did you structure the sequence of performances?
We were trying to show that 1969 was a very pivotal year for both Black music and also Black culture. Questlove interviews the journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault about how she got the New York Times to use the word Black for the first time instead of Negro. Musically, it’s such a transitional time, which made the Gladys Knight and the Pips performance interesting. They were still doing their Motown thing trying to be clean and polite and dressed perfectly but then they give the Black Power salute as they walk off stage. From there you go to Sly Stone. That guy who was in the audience back in 1969, Darryl Lewis, said it very well, “We were suit and tie guys, but then we saw Sly Stone and we weren’t suit and tie guys anymore.” In 1969 you had these incredibly varied types of Black music together in one festival.
That variety sustains excitement because it’s not just the same genre over and over.
We start with a mélange of styles, the Fifth Dimension and gospel with the Edward Hawkins singers. Then we go to Motown which comes out of gospel, and the sort of future funk of Sly Stone. After that, all hell breaks loose with this insane music from Avant-garde guitar player Sonny Sharrock making this incredible skronk noise and Max Roach doing free jazz drum solos and [singer] Abbey Lincoln. The film has an arc showing a progression from the traditional to the Avant-garde.
he 5th Dimension performing at the Harlem Cultural Festival in 1969, featured in the documentary SUMMER OF SOUL. Photo courtesy Searchlight Pictures.
The emcee/promoter Tony Lawrence played a critical role in making the festival happen and he’s every bit as colorful as the musicians on stage. Had you ever heard of him before this film?
No, and in fact, he’s a bit of a mystery because, after the concerts, no one ever heard of him again. The producers tried to find information about Tony but or family members related to him. Unfortunately he kind of drops off the face of the map.
How did you go about organizing the material?
Questlove would come by early to meet because he had to go shoot the Jimmy Fallon show every day. We’d put cards up on the wall, maybe change the order of things, but Ahmir was very insistent about certain performances. Being a drummer himself, he knew he wanted to start the movie with this amazing Steve Wonder drum solo, which is something not many people have seen.And we had to use Sly Stone’s Sing a Simple Song. because there’s that incredible drum breakdown in the middle. The producer told me that section is what made Ahmir want to be a drummer, so he was sentimentally attached to Sing a Simple Song.
Questlove and Josh Pearson at work on “Summer of Soul.” Courtesy Searchlight Films.
The Woodstock festival took place 100 miles north of Harlem the same summer and garnered massive attention while this equally wondrous showcase attracted hardly any media coverage. From a filmmaking standpoint, how does your project differ from the Woodstock documentary?
The Woodstock film is very immersive because they had 15 famous cameramen wandering around with sixteen-millimeter cameras getting all this great footage making you feel like you were right there in the crowd.
By necessity, your edit took a different approach?
They didn’t have money for film stock and only had four cameras on stage, with just one of them pointing out at the audience. Since we couldn’t do the immersive thing, Summer of Soul is more about the audience having the privilege of looking at this incredible artifact. The musicians’ sets were really well shot so you experience the excitement of their performances but at the same, it’s like you’re in a museum looking at a beautiful painting or piece of bronze jewelry from [ancient] Greece. And part of that feeling comes from the way we frame the movie, starting off with tape hiss as Ahmir asks someone who was there: “What do you remember about this concert?” We’re setting it up to feel like “Oh my god I’m watching something precious that hasn’t been seen in 50 years.”
Now that these performances from 1969 are finally seeing the light of day, how do you see Summer of Soul landing with audiences in the summer of 2021
Of course it’s a shame that this footage sat in a box in a basement for 50 years, but after percolating all this time, it’s like finding treasure now. Last summer was so horrendous, with George Floyd and the pandemic, somewhat parallel to 1968, which was an especially hard year for Black people with the killing of Martin Luther King. So 1969 was a summer of venting and release and I think this summer is going to be like that too. You feel good after you watch our movie.
Have you seen Summer of Soul with an audience?
I watched a live screening last week at Mount Morris Park in Harlem where the original festival took place. It was kind of mind-blowing. Everyone clapped and cheered after every song. During the gospel section, people around me were testifying, holding their hands up in the air. And it was weird because they’d built this backdrop for the stage behind the screen that was just like the original backdrop made of multicolored blocks that you see in the film. I felt like I’d fallen into some kind of wormhole, with the live event from 1969 being transmitted through time in the same spot. Trippy is the only word I can think of to describe it.
Werewolves Within invites you to the cozy town of Beverfield, Vermont, where things that go bump in the night are manifold. They might be a creature out to get you, or, they might be your neighbor, out to bother the crap out of you. Director Josh Ruben has crafted a deliciously nimble murder mystery/monster story/comedy in the comfy (if cold and often creepy) confines of this wooded would-be paradise. Based on Mishna Wolff’s script, Werewolves Within offers the joys of a whodunit, the jump scares of a creature feature, and the laughs of an episode of peak Veep.
Speaking of Veep, your hero here is Sam Richardson, the lovable Richard Splett from HBO’s 7-season comedy masterpiece. Richardson plays Finn Wheeler, Beaverfield’s brand new forest ranger, a man whose timing is such that he shows up on the scene right after a grisly, unsolved murder has spooked the town. When not reeling from a bloody felony, Beaverfield is hardly the picture of peace—despite being a tiny place, the town’s residents cover the spectrum of politics, from the arch-conservatives Trish and Pete Anderston (Michaela Watkins and Michael Chernus, respectively) to rich, yoga studio-owning power couple Devon and Joachim Wolfson (Cheyenne Jackson and Harvey Guillén). The town’s got another crisis, too—a slick oilman named Sam Parker (Wayne Duvall) wants to get a pipeline built in Beverfield, another wedge issue—along with the murder—further driving the town insane.
The jokes come fast, the visual gags are deftly constructed, and the actors are having a ball. I spoke to Ruben via zoom (naturally) about how he pulled this off, from nabbing that cast to successfully finishing principal photography a few days before the world shut down. Werewolves Within is in select theaters and on-demand now.
Josh Ruben, director of ‘WEREWOLVES WITHIN.’ Courtesy of Sabrina Lantos. WEREWOLVES WITHIN is an IFC Films Release.
You look almost as if you’re still on location for the film.
I’m in the Hudson Valley where I shot the film.My folks live in Woodstock, we shot Werewolves in Kingston, Phoenicia, and Fleischmanns, New York, in a location called Spillian, an awesome event space and B&B.
The degree of difficulty seemed fairly significant here considering the size of the cast, the action, the melding of genres…
It was a lot. It’s the biggest gig I’ve helmed to date. If I hadn’t directed a ton of stuff in my time at College Humor, thousands of videos, and DiGiorno commercials, I wouldn’t have had the technical skills to do what we did. Also, when you cast a group of dream human beings, when you enlist someone like Gayle Keller, your casting director, who enforced the no a**holes policy even before I did, that really helps, too. When you get someone like Sam Richardson, Milana Vanytrub, and George Basil just as a base for the cast, you end up building something really beautiful. It ended up being this wonderfully buoyant cast despite all of the other limitations.
Sam Richardson and Milana Vayntrub in WEREWOLVES WITHIN. Courtesy IFC Films.
Let’s talk about your cast—how did you assemble this eclectic, utterly game group of performers?
One of my first casting choices was George Basil, who plays Marcus. George and I go way back, he’s the most disarming, charming, hysterical human being. He’s got a big heart and everybody loves him, and I thought, ‘He’s going to be my secret weapon. He’s going to disarm anybody who might be a problem, and he’s going to make me feel better at the end of the day if I’m having a horrible time. I could be like, ‘George, do you want to go get a margarita?’ And also casting the likes of Rebecca Henderson, who’s an absolute technical genius. Michael Chernus, who I’ve always been a big fan of and had conversations with and we totally see eye to eye. And then there’s my friend I’ve known absolutely forever, Milana Vayntrub. I know how she works, I know what her comedic sensibility is, and I was excited to give her the opportunity of playing something with this kind of texture.
(Clockwise from lower right) Sam Richardson, Milana Vayntrub, Catherine Curtin, Harvey Guillen, Cheyenne Jackson, George Basil and Sarah Burns in WEREWOLVES WITHIN. Courtesy IFC Films.
How about for the folks you didn’t know or haven’t worked with?
Gayle cast Harvey Guillén, who I barely knew. This is towards the end of season two of What We Do In The Shadows. One of the notable things that I did in lockstep with Gayle was to say to Harvey, ‘Who do you want to play your husband? Bring a buddy out here, someone you admire, into the middle of Fleischmann’s in the winter so you have someone the way I have a George or a Milana.’ So Harvey suggested Cheyenne Jackson, which I thought was the most inspired decision ever. You see him pop up in sh*t like Watchmen. And these guys are excited to work together.
Cheyenne Jackson and Harvey Guillen in WEREWOLVES WITHIN. Courtesy IFC Films
And with Sam Richardson?
Same thing. Once Sam was on board, it wrapped everything up. ‘Sam’s playing the hero? F**k yeah, I’m coming to Fleischmann’s. Let’s do this.’ At least if we’re going to do Werewolves Within, whatever this is going to be, I’m going to have a buddy. I think that’s pretty killer and I wouldn’t do it any other way.
Sam Richardson in WEREWOLVES WITHIN. Courtesy IFC Films.
How do you modify your approach with each actor when you’re dealing with an ensemble cast?
I’m saying, ‘Tell me how you want to work. Tell me how you like to be directed.’ It’s that Ron Howard thing, how he talks about getting into the psychology of actors so you know you’re not going to make them feel insecure. I’ve already had these conversations with the actors before they’ve gotten on set. By the time we get to the big rehearsal scenes, I give them a lot of freedom within the confines of the space they need to be in, and also in pushing the Agatha Christie eyebrow-raising moments a bit further. So lets them think it’s you, Cheyenne [Jackson] this time, or Wayne, we’re actually going to not have you in the background so we implicate you. Within the confines of those boundaries, I let these TV and film superheroes do their thing. They all know how to find the camera, they all know how to ask questions, and if they have a communicative director who they end up trusting, despite the fact that you’re doing a movie in Fleischmann’s called Werewolves Within, then they’re down for whatever, and we got to that place pretty immediately. So much of my job, balancing horror and comedy, is communication. I’m an actor, too, and I want to treat my actors the way I’d want to be directed.
Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of filming in the Hudson Valley in New York…
For a place like the Beaverfield Inn, my fiancé actually recommended Spillian. She said she spent two years at this interesting place in Fleischmann’s where Jim Jarmusch shot The Dead Don’t Die. You drive through it and you’re like, holy crap, I could see myself dying here—in the best way. The location has to be a character, and as soon as we walked in it did feel very Clue-esque. Not only was it conducive to the actual shooting, but it also had character.
How much did you have to dress Spillian to make it fit the script?
My production designer Bret Tanzer and [set decorator] Lauren Crawford and [art director] Matt Hyland were able to come in and enhance the place. They were able to level it up with Easter Eggs from the game, whether it’s the ledger on Jeanine (Catherine Curtin)’s front desk, or interesting, copyright-free creepy art. Then working on overheads with my cinematographer Matt Wise, going through page by page and making sure that, if we only have 23 days and a lot of the cast and crew are staying in Kingston, that’s a 50-minute commute all the way out here to Fleischmann’s, so we’re losing two hours a day over the commute, you better shoot economically. Luckily, every corner you turn in Spillian all looks beautiful on camera.
How much of what we see was created practically versus what was added by visual effects?
I’d say 75 percent practically and 25 percent digital. Maybe even 80/20. Once there is a creature involved, so much of it has to be practical because I wouldn’t have it any other way. Especially because of my love of Bad Moon and Underworld, I’d rather see my actor emote under prosthetics. So let’s enhance that with eyes, or legs, or small anatomical nuances and the like.
So the timing of this shoot was that you filmed in the winter of 2020?
Yeah man, we started shooting the first or second week of February and we wrapped on March 9th. I went back to LA, I was so excited to see my fiance, we went to see Invisible Manat Alamo Drafthouse, got a massage, and the woman pumped five gallons of Purell into her hands and I thought, ‘Is it me?’ Then Friday the 13th we were in lockdown.
Any reference points from other films?
When you Mishna’s script, it feels like Fargo and Hot Fuzz. The one that leapt off the page and I think helped me secure the deal was Arachnophobia. That Frank Marshall movie is actually one of the prime examples of a horror/comedy. You have Jeff Daniels, who’s a real actor, arguing about which Bordeaux to throw at a giant spider. That’s the most relatable human thing. You have colorful characters that are cartoonish but still grounded in a way, like John Goodman, and it felt like a proper comparison.
Featured image: Sam Richardson in WEREWOLVES WITHIN. Courtesy IFC Films.
We are just a week and change away from seeing Scarlett Johansson’s (likely) final turn as Natasha Romanoff. Director Cate Shortland’s Black Widow is repelling into theaters and onto Disney+ Premiere Access on July 9, and to celebrate Johansson’s run as the incredibly capable former KGB assassin-turned-Avenger, Marvel Entertainment has released a brief video tracking Natasha’s journey in the MCU.
The first time we meet Natasha is in Iron Man 2 when she helps Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) take down Ivan Wanko (Mickey Rourke). The next time we see her is in the first Avengers film, where she has a much meatier role and where her relationship with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) begins to flourish—albeit with some major complications (he’s got anger issues, in case you haven’t heard.) Natasha’s introduction in the film also sets the stage for why she’s so compelling. Without a single superpower (but many, many skills), she’s able to defeat a room full of bad guys, all while strapped to a chair. Later in the film, we get a glimpse of the grief she’s carrying from her former life, when Loki (Tom Hiddleston) mocks her for having blood on her ledger.
Natasha next pops up in the Russo Brothers’ Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the film that Black Widow is drawing comparisons to for its grittier vibe and more grounded action. In The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers doesn’t trust Natasha at first, a dynamic that will flip completely when she becomes his most trustworthy companion next to Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie). Natasha next appears in Avengers: Age of Ultron, where her relationship with Banner has progressed to the point where they have a phrase, “The sun’s getting real low,” that she uses to calm the Hulk down. By now, she’s become one of the most capable Avengers.
Next up for Natasha was Captain America: Civil War, where she surprisingly chooses Team Iron Man over Team Captain America, agreeing with Tony Stark that the Avengers need to be reigned in. It’s all hands on deck for her next outing, however, when Natasha and every other Avenger not named Hawkeye battles Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. And then, Natasha becomes one of two Avengers—along with Tony Stark—to make the ultimate sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame. Luckily for us, we get one more dance with this incredible character in just a few days.
Black Widow is a prequel, of course. 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,” the very ledger Loki had referred to, which is her pre-Avenger life. Natasha heads east and meets up with old friends and foes. Those “friends” include Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), and Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour). The foes include enemies like Taskmaster, the leader of a group of super assassins—better known as Black Widows—the very program from which Natasha herself emerged.
Check out the video below. Again, Black Widow hits theaters and Disney+ Premiere Access on July 9:
One of the best movies of 2020 is getting a sequel. Charlize Theron has told Varietythat the script for The Old Guard 2 is finished, and she’ll be returning as Andy, one of the immortal covert operatives who have been running dangerous missions for centuries. The original film was a thrilling action-adventure epic, deftly directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, and featuring a stellar cast. Joining Theron were rising star KiKi Layne, playing a highly trained Marine who comes into contact with Andy and finds out that she, too, has incredible healing abilities, and Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli, who played Joe and Nicky respectfully, a loving couple who just happen to be able to take a bullet to the gut and keep fighting.
Variety reports that The Old Guard 2 is expected to start filming in the first quarter of 2022.
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Now, this is a very different kind of shock therapy. Meet Lindy (Kate Beckinsale), a woman with some serious anger management issues. Lindy’s condition makes her a problematic person to, say, sit next to on a subway and eat with your mouth open. In the first trailer for Jolt, we see Beckinsale’s Lindy snap in all sorts of situations, including on a poor sap sitting next to her on that aforementioned subway. This first glimpse of the film recalls Charlize Theron meting out brutal justice in Atomic Blonde and Jason Statham’s epic fight sequences in Crank. Beckinsale, a veteran of the Underworld franchise, knows her way around an action sequence, which makes Jolt a potential mid-summer kick.
The neurological condition Lindy suffers from is at least put to good use—she tends to snap on people who are being “cruel, deceitful, or abusive” as the production notes state. In an effort to curb this brutal behavior, Lindy turns to Dr. Munchin (Stanely Tucci), who has come up with a novel approach—an experimental vest that will send potent electrical shockwaves to her brain anytime she presses a button. This jolt, the theory goes, will help her eschew her tendency to body slam misbehaving people. We’re guessing it doesn’t work exactly as intended.
Jolt comes from director Tanya Wexler, from a script by Scott Wascha. Joining Beckinsale and Tucci is a stellar supporting cast that includes Bobby Cannavale (Ant-Man and the Wasp), Jai Courtney (The Suicide Squad), Laverne Cox (Orange Is the New Black), David Bradley (Doctor Who), Ori Pfeffer (Hackshaw Ridge), and Susan Sarandon (Thelma and Louise).
Check out the trailer below. Jolt hits Amazon Prime on July 23.
Here’s the synopsis for Jolt:
Lindy is a beautiful, sardonically-funny woman with a painful secret: Due to a lifelong, rare neurological disorder, she experiences sporadic rage-filled, murderous impulses that can only be stopped when she shocks herself with a special electrode device. Unable to find love and connection in a world that fears her bizarre condition, she finally trusts a man long enough to fall in love, only to find him murdered the next day. Heartbroken and enraged, she embarks on a revenge-filled mission to find his killer, while also being pursued by the police as the crime’s prime suspect.
Featured image: Kate Beckinsale in “Jolt.” Photo by Simon Varsano/Amazon Studios.
At long last, Black Panther: Wakanda Foreverhas started filming. The sequel to director Ryan Coogler’s world-conquering 2018 original started production on Tuesday at Pinewood Studios in Atlanta. Varietyhas the scoop from Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige himself. Coogler returns to direct, based on his original screenplay, and has just about all his stars returning, save, of course, the late Chadwick Boseman, who died in August of 2020 from colon cancer.
“It’s clearly very emotional without Chad,” Variety reports Feige saying before the Black Widow Global Fan Event in Los Angeles on Tuesday night. “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.”
Obviously, the particulars of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever are a Marvel state secret, so we won’t know much about plot points or who the villain will be for a while. Yet it seems a safe bet a lot of the folks who were stupendous in the original will return, including Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Daniel Kaluuya, Winston Duke, Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett, and Florence Kasumba. How Coogler handles the passing of Boseman within the world of Wakanda will be one of the film’s saddest, yet most crucial elements.
As for now, we await more news from the set of the film everyone’s been waiting for since Black Panther became a global sensation in 2018, which feels like a lifetime ago.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is slated to open on July 8, 2022.
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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.
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What does a family do when their new dog becomes monstrously big? If you’re Emily Elizabeth and her uncle Casey, you adapt—or try to—to your new circumstances. This is the premise of director Walt Becker’s Clifford the Big Red Dog, based on the beloved Scholastic cartoon character. If you live in New York City, there’s the added pleasure of imagining trying to share your limited space (unless you’re rich) with a Great Dane, let alone a dog the size of a bus.
The new trailer shows just some of the trials and tribulations that every dog owner goes through—puppy exuberance, the destruction of private and public property, slobber—only times whatever the precise size Clifford is. At one point, the happy (and very red) giant puppy swallows another dog, whole. Don’t worry, he spits that pup out without a scratch on him, but that still had to be traumatic. (Michael Packard, the lobster diver who was very nearly swallowed by a humpback whale recently, could probably relate.) At another point, some folks trying to have a good time rolling around inside inflatable balls in Central Park are treated to the horrifying spectacle of being chased around by Clifford, who believes he’s playing fetch.
The cast includes Darby Camp as Emily, the young lady who takes on Clifford, and Jack Whitehall as her uncle Casey. John Cleese plays Mr. Bridwell, the magical animal rescuer who sets the entire plot into motion. You’ll also see comedy stars like Kenan Thompson, playing a veterinarian, and Tony Hale.
Check out the trailer for Clifford the Big Red Dog below. This family-friendly film opens in theaters on September 17. (In some feel-good news, Paramount announced for every share #CliffordMovie trailer gets, they’ll donate $1 to Best Friends Animal Society, up to $20,000.)
Here’s the official synopsis for Clifford The Big Red Dog:
When middle-schooler Emily Elizabeth (Darby Camp) meets a magical animal rescuer (John Cleese) who gifts her a little, red puppy, she never anticipated waking up to find a giant ten-foot hound in her small New York City apartment. While her single mom (Sienna Guillory) is away for business, Emily and her fun but impulsive uncle Casey (Jack Whitehall) set out on an adventure that will keep you on the edge-of-your-seat as our heroes take a bite out of the Big Apple. Based on the beloved Scholastic book character, Clifford will teach the world how to love big!
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If you’re going to reveal that you’ve started shooting Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, what better way to do it than by sharing a cryptic photo that leaves fans speculating? That’s what director James Wan has done via his Instagram account, sharing a photo of a frozen landscape and a movie slate with the title “Necrus” on it. But what does “Necrus” mean?
For those not fully versed in DC Comics, the simple answer is that Necrus is another domed underwater city, much like Atlantis. Yet unlike Atlantis, which was a proper kingdom for a long time, Necrus has an “unstable status in the ocean,” meaning that it doesn’t have a set position but rather appears here or there depending upon the movements of an alien satellite. So yeah, Necrus is weird—even weirder than Atlantis—and weird is something James Wan is great at deploying to his film’s benefit.
Or, another way of looking at Necrus is that it functioned as a kind of anti-Atlantis, one ruled by a madman (more on him later) and that has no intention of living peacefully with their surface-dwelling Earthling neighbors. In the first Aquaman, we saw Atlantis, led by King Orm (Patrick Wilson), taking on an aggressive stance against the folks living on dry land (you and me), and it took the chutzpah of Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) and his allies Mera (Amber Heard) and Vulko (Willem Dafoe) to defeat Orm and put Atlantis back on a peaceful footing.
If you believe that Wan is using “Necrus” as the production title for a reason, then it seems reasonable to imagine it will appear in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. If it does appear, then might its tyrannical leader, Mongo, pose an even greater threat to the fragile peace forged at the end of Aquaman? Wouldn’t Game of Thrones alum and new Aquaman cast member Pilou Asbæk make a great Mongo? Might Necrus factor into Orm’s plans (his life spared by Arthur and he was imprisoned at the end of the first film) and help him stage a vicious comeback? Or, is Wan having some fun with us, and presenting an Easter Egg that leads us on a hunt that goes into the icy abyss and really means nothing?
Time will tell—and quite a bit of time—Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom isn’t due in theaters until December 16, 2022. Check out Wan’s post below:
They met in an improv group while students at Brown University, and joined forces as screenwriters after graduating. Some three decades later, Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi have racked up a noteworthy roster of film credits that include Destroyer, The Invitation, Ride Along and Ride Along 2, and Clash of the Titans. Their finely-tuned creative process moves from talking deeply through plot points to outlining extensively to splitting up scenes to write individually before reconvening to edit and polish — almost always while sitting in the same room, says Hay.
Staying accountable to one another is also key to getting the job done and proved especially valuable in another, somewhat larger writers’ room they recently were a part of, for The Mysterious Benedict Society, which premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and began streaming on Disney+ on June 25. The eight-episode series, created by the versatile duo, marks their foray into television and had them penning dialogue and directions with showrunners Todd Slavkin and Darren Swimmer and other writers.
Based on Trenton Lee Stewart’s best-selling novel of the same name, and wrapping this past February after a five-month shoot in Vancouver, The Mysterious Benedict Society is a quirky, fun, and timely romp that follows four gifted orphaned children as they save the world from a debilitating state of anxiety brought on by a barrage of bad news. Emmy winner Tony Hale — as both Mr. Benedict, who recruits the tween team, and Mr. Curtain, who is behind the crisis — stars alongside Kristen Schaal and a talented ensemble cast.
The Credits chatted with Hay and Manfredi about adapting the beloved book, landing Hale for the lead(s), and working on the shoot from afar. This interview has been condensed for length and clarity.
Your body of work is quite eclectic. What about this story, ostensibly for kids and families, made you want to become involved and adapt it?
Phil: At least for me, what really drew me to this was the sense of sophistication in the book and the sense of the wit and playfulness, and honestly the sense of addressing some really big things. We’re trying to tell a story about an age where there’s a plague of anxiety on the world that we’re depicting, similar to the world that we live in. This was a welcome chance to work on something that was coming from a different life force, you know, a very positive, very empathetic life force.
Matt: Yeah, the books are so full of joy and they’re never ‘kiddie.’ It treats kids with a level of respect and sophistication. And also, the kids are orphans or they’ve been abandoned, so there are a lot of very deep themes going on. There’s an undercurrent of stuff going through this lighthearted adventure. And we also like the opportunity to just be really weird [laughs]. It’s a very strange and weird and offbeat show.
Tony Hale. Courtesy Disney/Diyah Pera.
What are the challenges of creating content that entertains both children and adults?
Phil: We just inherently had a take on this material. We never ever looked at it as a ‘kids show.’ One of the biggest changes we made from the book was to create a very large parallel storyline for the adult characters, but again, the kids in the show feel very real and very clear-eyed. Some of the most sympathetic moments that these kids have is their ability to look at a world that is very stressful with a sort of emotional honesty and vulnerability.
Matt: When we sold the show, it was originally going to be on Hulu, and when we were moved to Disney+, which we were really excited about — we were already a few episodes in — there was never any pressure to change it to fit ‘the Disney model.’ I think that their vision for the show was definitely aligned with ours, so we felt creatively supported and it was just a complete positive in terms of landing at that home.
Switching networks mid-stream must have been scary.
Phil: It can often be very difficult to switch networks or switch studios along the way. The thing that was great about this experience with Disney is they just immediately put all their muscle behind what we were trying to do and accepting that it was — and loving it, it seems — that it was strange and offbeat, something that had just an individual character.
Were you regularly on the set?
Matt: We were not. We were watching from monitors in our respective homes because we were starting right in the middle of the pandemic and they were very limited in terms of who could be on set. As much as we wanted to be there, we had a fantastic, creative team with incredible communication, so we watched from monitors at home every take of every show and we would text up notes to the director’s assistant and to the script supervisor and we would be able to communicate that way.
Phil: It was a very unique experience to produce something this way. Normally, we would have been there. In many ways, it was strange being remote, but in another way, we could be there all the time. And interestingly, between setups, we could be in a production meeting for the next episode or looking at costumes for three episodes down the line. We did a lot of Zoom cocktails with Tony Hale that were wonderful.
Kristen Schaal. Courtesy Disney/Diyah Pera.
Let’s talk about Tony Hale. Why was he the one to play not one role, but two, as Mr. Benedict and Mr. Curtain?
Matt: He was the one. He came up incredibly early in the casting process and once his name came up, we couldn’t see anybody else. In the book, Benedict is a little older and we wanted a little bit more of a paternal as opposed to a grandfatherly vibe between him and the kids. We’re such big fans of Tony. He’s so, so funny. But what we love about him is he’s got a real soulfulness. He kind of exudes kindness and heart.
Phil: It’s very rare when you have that feeling, ‘oh, this is the person,’ and then of course what are the chances that we’ll actually be able to get him? We clicked with him right away. We were so grateful because it really is impossible for us to imagine anybody else in this part because he carries the values of the show.
Tony Hale. Courtesy Disney/Diyah Pera.
How did he go beyond your words on the page?
Phil: He really bought into the voice that we were bringing to the characters and to the show and very deeply connected with it, so we were on the same page from the beginning. But we had this ritual where the week before shooting any given episode, we would just walk through the entire thing with Tony on Zoom. It’s really fun when you get to this level with an actor, where it’s really microscopic, targeted, interesting things about a word choice, where to place a pause — it’s really precise. And sometimes those sessions were him asking us for more background on why things were happening, and so it was a very fertile time.
Matt: I probably would have said the exact same answer as Phil. But this cast that we had, it was such a pleasure to work with them, because their questions were thoughtful and precise. The amount of time they spent thinking about their characters and the questions they came up with were so much fun to discuss and go through.
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Easttown is filled with secrets and lies as thick as the townsfolk’s accents. These deceptions cloud the journey to uncover the truth about a tragic and twisted mystery. It soon becomes clear that only detective Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) has the connections and clever intuition to catch a killer. Thankfully we didn’t need our own detective notebook to track down the suspect. Mare of Easttowneditor Amy Duddleston worked diligently to be sure viewers didn’t lose track of a single clue while layering the suspense.
Mare balances personal relationships and a string of hardships while serving the town she’s so devoted to. Shocking suspicions and revelations unfold throughout the series, but Duddleston is continuously leading the audience back to Mare’s investigation. “It’s always tricky because what the audience knows and what Mare knows, it’s always a tricky balance,” Duddleston said. “We’re always asking that question.”
Kate Winslet. Photograph by Michele K. Short/HBO
Early in our introduction to Mare, we discover her admirable control and compassion in managing difficult situations. She has a personal tie to nearly everyone in Easttown. While the investigation into the murder of local student Erin McMenamin (Cailee Spaeny) spreads to reach nearly all the characters in some way, Duddleston keeps her focus. “It’s really just drawing the lines from the characters back to [Mare],” she explained. “The show is sort of from Mare’s point of view, but it isn’t. I always kind of keep that in my head. Who is this person to the central character? That really helps me keep it in focus.”
Mare of Easttown is very deliberate with its secrets. Duddleston took great care to keep viewers guessing. “You’re always thinking about how much you’re giving away or how much you’re protecting the rest of the story so that people don’t figure it out,” she said.
Mare is forced to confront worrisome suspicions when she finds the people who are closest to her are hiding their own ties to the victim. Some of the biggest moments in the series are revealed to the audience before Mare discovers them for herself. “Some of it is when you’re revealing somebody’s secrets and you have to remember, okay, Mare doesn’t know this yet, but when is she gonna figure that out? It is a little bit of a balance in storytelling that you always have to keep in mind.”
Sosie Bacon, Kate Winslet. Photograph by Michele K. Short/HBO
Critical to the story is the increasingly strenuous tension Mare balances between her career and the personal toll each case takes on her life. Duddleston helps viewers follow both threads. “Being able to track of everything, it’s a huge concern especially in a show like this,” she explained. “It’s an emotional drama, but it’s also a murder mystery. You’re trying to keep everything together.”
When COVID rocked the production schedule, Duddleston was put in charge of all seven hour-long episodes – a monumental undertaking. Filming was shut down for six months, during which Duddleston recut the entire show. The early episodes proved to be the biggest challenge. “It’s the hardest part of the show to edit just in terms of just laying the story out and making sure that everyone can follow all the moving parts because there are a lot of characters.”
Julianne Nicholson, Kate Winslet. Photograph by Sarah Shatz/HBO
A lot of establishing information and critical action takes place in the first three episodes. The editing process was focused on helping guide the audience through the details that prove most important. That includes recognizing the show’s large web of characters. “You have to remember that you saw them,” Duddleston noted. “Repeating people’s names. Just making sure that you clock their appearance and their face. It’s really important. I actually had to point out to the show runner, we have to just say this person’s name again, or you’re not gonna know who the hell it is.”
One unmistakable face is that of Academy Award and Emmy winner Kate Winslet. Her dignified and resilient portrayal of detective Mare Sheehan under fire is captivating. Duddleston helped to craft the character by determining the best performances to tell the story. “Kate Winslet really kind of lead the way in terms of making it really easy to choose,” she praised. “She gives you choices, but in this embarrassment of riches sort of way.”
Kate Winslet. Photograph by Michele K. Short/HBO
The series is fast-paced, portraying a hectic investigation and explosive twists and turns, but there are scenes that deliver immense emotional depth. In one scene, Mare visits a pediatrician for a painful conversation. Guided by director Craig Zobel, Duddleston embraced Winslet’s raw and emotional performance. “I love doing things like that,” she shared. “I’m never afraid to back off or to stay on it. I don’t back off from things like that. I was very happy to play that out. She brought it. That’s the thing, I didn’t have to cut away. I really didn’t. Sometimes when you cut, you have to. That was one scene where we just did not have to.”
One of the most talked-about scenes took place not at the scene of the crime, but in a crowded bar. Detective Colin Zabel (Evan Peters) arrives in town with a reputation that outweighs his actual skill level. In his first vulnerable moment, Zabel let down his guard after a few drinks. “That scene was huge and drunk acting is not easy,” Duddleston said. “[Peters] was so great and he gave so many different choices. He had a toned down version. He had a way over the top version. And then he had a version that we ultimately decided on, which was a little bit of each.”
Luckily for viewers, most of the action ultimately made it to the screen. And while it may have felt like you needed to tape all the clues to a wall to unravel the mystery, Duddleston debunked that image. “The scripts were well written. There wasn’t a lot of fat that was left out,” she explained. “There weren’t giant scenes that were like, ‘Does this scene do anything for us? No. We can take that out.’ That kind of thing. We didn’t have a big murder board.”
Kate Winslet, John Douglas Thompson, Joe Tippett. Photo by Sarah Shatz/HBO
While the identity of a killer looms ominously over the series, the show works so brilliantly because of the relationships among the characters. Through only seven episodes, Duddleston was able to weave together heartbreak and humor to draw us into Mare’s life. “There’s emotional drama and the crime drama and the humor, too,” she noted. “There’s a lot of humor in the show. Bringing that out, I’m really proud of that. Just being able to make it funny in moments because life isn’t always super depressing and sad. You have to laugh once in a while.”
Mare of Easttown is now streaming on HBOMax.
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We’re a little less than two weeks away from the long-awaited premiere of director Cate Shortland’s Black Widow, the first MCU film since 2019, the first film in Marvel’s Phase 4, and likely the last film we’ll see Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow in. With all that in mind, Marvel and Disney+ have made a huge trove of new photos available, and we’ve embedded them for your viewing pleasure. The new photos give us fresh looks at the film’s villain, Taskmaster, Natasha herself, and the three newcomers to the MCU—Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, Rachel Weisz’s Melina Vostokoff, and David Harbour’s Alexei Shostakov.
Black Widow is set between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. The film “confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises.” That conspiracy seems to include not only the Taskmaster but the Black Widow program itself. In the trailers and teasers we’ve seen, Natasha and Yelena have had to battle a whole bunch of Black Widows with the masked Taskmaster always right around the corner.
Check out the new images below. Black Widow hits theaters and Disney+ Premiere Access on July 9.
Featured image: Taskmaster in Marvel Studios’ “Black Widow,” in theaters and on Disney+ with Premiere Access. Photo by Adrienn Szabo. Courtesy Marvel Studios.
Three new Black Widow videos dropped during the weekend, teasing the first Marvel Studios film to hit theaters since 2019. Director Cate Shortland’s action-adventure epic is also the first film in Marvel’s Phase 4 and will round out the story of Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), the (spoiler alert!) former Avenger who sacrificed everything to save her friends—and a few billion strangers—in Avengers: Endgame.
The new looks include a bit more background on the film’s villain, Taskmaster. The events in Black Widow take place between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, and find Natasha on a trip east, trying to mend old relationships and set things straight. This puts her on a collision course with Taskmaster, a villain who can mimic and match the fighting style of any adversary, and the Black Widow program from which Natasha emerged.
Joining Johansson are three newcomers to the MCU—Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, Rachel Weisz’s Melina Vostokoff, and David Harbour’s Alexei Shostakov. If the trailers and teasers are to be believed, these three will try and help Natasha take down the Taskmaster.
Check out the new videos below. The first is a minute-long teaser that highlight’s the film’s action set-pieces and Natasha’s new (really, old) alliances.
In this video, Rachel Weisz dishes about herself and her co-stars, including who was the most likely to crack up during a scene.
And finally, we get a little more information on Taskmaster, including the fact he controls an army of Black Widows.
Black Widow hits theaters and Disney+ Premiere Access on July 9.
Costume designer Jennifer Bryan can pivot from glamour to gaudy, from an icon to a con artist, without missing a beat—or a thread. Bryan’s work can currently be seen on National Geographic’s third season of Genius, which focused on the monumental career and legacy of Aretha Franklin (Cynthia Erivo).
Bryan’s now hard at work on a very different kind of show, trading in Aretha Franklin’s shimmering dresses (and profound decency) for the gaudy, garish world of Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), the morally flexible lawyer who centers Better Call Saul.
We spoke to Bryan while she was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, working on Saul‘s final season. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You’ve got a ton of photographic research available to you with Genius: Aretha considering Aretha Franklin’s one of the most iconic musicians of all time—what do you do when you have that much material to work with?
The first thing I had to do is to start off with the script. There are so many images of Aretha, especially because she had such an exceptionally long career. Even though there are thousands of photos, and I amassed a stockpile of them, there were times when that wasn’t enough. Especially in the earlier part of her career, when you had to rely on newspaper clippings. You don’t have video, you don’t have concert footage, that came later on. I was limited to a lot of photos that were black and white, which is a challenge for a costume designer [laughs].
A sketch of Aretha’s look. courtesy Jennifer Bryan.Cynthia Erivo is Aretha Franklin in “Genius: Aretha.” Courtesy National Geographic
What did you discuss with showrunner Suzan Lori Parks when you came on board?
Part of my mandate was to replicate some of these iconic events, like when she did her fundraising concerts for Martin Luther King or her first European concert, I had to copy those dresses. Then, after that, it’s basically my designs and my inspiration and my guidance from the director Anthony Hemmingway and Suzan. It’s very unique to do a project where you have an iconic person. It’s very interesting because you have to be able to create a freshness to the visual storytelling, and you also have events that have been recorded that you have to be in step with. You can’t have someone look at your work and say, ‘That’s not what happened, I was at that concert!’ It’s a very unique show from a costume design perspective.
Cynthia Erivo is Aretha Franklin in “Genius: Aretha.” Courtesy National Geographic
She was also a very private person—did that shape how you designed for her in any way?
She was very private, and that’s something Suzan Lori Parks explored in the show. There’s an episode where she gets an opportunity to be interviewed by a Time Magazine reporter. As you can imagine, back in those days for an African American celebrity or personality, to get reportage in a major mainstream publication was quite unusual and quite exceptional. So she welcomes the interview, and then the interviewer really casts a really negative light in the article. I think she was stung by that and kind of withdrew. It was a curveball. You can spin a story any which way with a certain set of facts and paint it in a certain light.
Cynthia Erivo is Aretha Franklin in “Genius: Aretha.” Courtesy National Geographic
Can you also talk about her background and how that informed your choices?
She grew up in the church, her father was a very well-known Civil Rights leader. He was a mentor to Martin Luther King, and if you listen to Reverand Franklin’s oratory, he’d cut these LPs of his sermons and people would buy them. Talk about ahead of the curve! We’re talking about prehistoric podcasts [laughs]! If you listen to his oratory style, you can see where Martin Luther King got his style. So she came from a family where your public persona has to be spotless. You’re the reverend’s daughter. It was all instilled in her, this sense of propriety, at a young age. Yet on the other end of it, is the flamboyance of her fashion and her style, which is where I come in. To showcase that.
Cynthia Erivo is Aretha Franklin in “Genius: Aretha.” Courtesy National Geographic
Let’s talk about some of those amazing costumes and what your back-and-forth was like with Cynthia…
Having a performer like Cynthia Erivo fill these shoes of Aretha Franklin was so unique and special and different. What’s great about Cynthia as a person is she’s very adventurous and brave and forward-thinking when it comes to clothes. That was a boon for me. Cynthia had also done her homework, not only for the voice, which she does amazingly well but Aretha’s look. I walked Cynthia through the first batch of things I’d collected and some of my sketches and I got a lot of great feedback.
Aretha was also so much more than just an iconic musician, how did you approach the other facets of her life?
After learning so much about Aretha, I can see through her professional trajectory how she carried her commitments to things on her sleeve. In the late 60s and early 70s you were dealing with Civil Rights protests, almost like it was last summer, I see parallels there, and she stepped out and she spoke about the issues. A lot of Black performers back then really didn’t do that because they wanted to keep their recording contracts. So there’s a certain braveness, she came into her own, she started to feel very aware of what was going on around her. Her lyrics changed, her venue changed, and her style changed.
A sketch of Aretha’s look. courtesy Jennifer Bryan.
It brings to mind Regina King’s One Night in Miami, which is primarily centered on Malcolm X trying to get Sam Cooke to speak out.
Sam Cooke was a huge star and had done that crossover thing. Aretha had also done that, but she was a risk-taker, and when you compare her to Sam Cooke and some of the other groups, they were like, ‘I’m just going to keep singing that R&B and doing the pop songs and keep my politics separate from my career.’ Back then it would have put them in jeopardy.
It’s hard to imagine many other performers being able to handle this role as well as Cynthia does.
She took what I was doing with the style as seriously as she did Aretha’s voice and genius. She didn’t minimize the look compared to the vocal power that she has.
You’re designing for someone who’s a performer and who’s very active, so not only do the clothes need to look great, but I imagine they’ve got to be functional?
Very. I was able to discover and find and hunt and pick out a lot pieces that were vintage, but they had to be able to stand up to the rigors of performing. When Cynthia got on stage and doing those concerts, I’d just look at her in awe, she didn’t spare a movement, she was flat-out giving you everything. So knowing that Cynthia is physical, there were times I found dresses that I wanted to use but they couldn’t stop up to the rigors of shooting, so I’d have to recreate them. That was fun, I could put my own spin on it.
Do you have a favorite piece from the show?
One sketch I did is a navy, silk velvet dress for when she’s at the Regal Theater with her two sisters as backup, one of her earlier concerts. I sketched it right after I had my first interview with Suzan Lori Parks. I didn’t know if I was hired or not, so I went to my drawing table and picked up my iPad, and sketched this navy blue dress. As I was doing it, I said, ‘If I get this show, I’m going to find a place to put this dress.’ Well, I did.
Cynthia Erivo is Aretha Franklin in “Genius: Aretha.” Courtesy National Geographic
Let’s turn to Better Call Saul, which really couldn’t be more different. You’ve been in this weird world in Albuquerque for a long time.
I’ve been steeped in this world since the last season of Breaking Bad.
That season broke me.
The shootout in the penultimate episode! I’m there with you. So what happened when we finished the final season of Breaking Bad, there was talk amongst the crew about there’s gotta be a spinoff. We didn’t know who or what or where. So several months later, to my surprise and delight, Vince [Gillgian] calls me and he goes, ‘We’re doing a spinoff And it’s going to be about Saul, our lawyer.’ That was a surprise. I think a lot of us thought it was going to be Jessie, which is what happened with El Camino. Now we had to rewind and recreate Saul to see how he got to Breaking Bad and ended up being this razor-sharp lawyer who has a lot of moral conflicts.
So how did the fact we were going back in time to a pre-Breaking Bad Saul Goodman inform your choices?
We know he’s going to end up being a bit of a peacock with the suits and the ties, but he doesn’t start off with any money, so for the first season I suggested that he basically buys a cheap brown suit. Brown is such a weak color. No other lawyer or background person could have a brown suit, and certainly not double-breasted. I isolated that style for him. So if you go back to season one that’s what you’re going to see, so that gave me a ground floor to start to build on the crazy suits and the loud colors. And you know, a lot of lawyers actually copy that look? That was great for me, and it still is, and we’re in our final season so we’re tying up storylines, or the hanging chads as I call them.
Bob Odenkirk in “Better Call Saul.” Courtesy AMC.Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill, Giancarlo Esposito as Gustavo “Gus” Fring, Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut – Better Call Saul _ Season 3, Gallery – Photo Credit: Robert Trachtenberg/AMC/Sony Pictures Television
It must be fun to go from the glamour and an iconic human being who’s larger than life to this sun-baked lowlife world of Better Call Saul.
It’s pretty fun. What it does is also as a creative person you have to really expand your visual toolbox. You gotta have a lot of tools. The tools I need for Better Call Saul for that kind of contemporary show are different than Genius: Aretha. They’re both very lush shows but in a different sense. They need to be as equally as strong, and I love it.
Featured image: L-r: Cynthia Erivo is Aretha Franklin in “Genius: Aretha” and Bob Odenkirk is Saul Goodman in “Better Call Saul.” Courtesy of National Geographic & AMC.
