“We know this film will be a once-in-a-generation cinematic masterpiece that Homer himself would be very proud of,” Jim Orr, Universal Pictures’ president of domestic theatrical distribution, said from the stage of the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on Wednesday at this year’s CinemaCon.
Orr was talking about Christopher Nolan’s upcoming adaptation of The Odyssey, which is currently filming in southern Europe, including on goat island. Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s epic is the writer/director’s star-studded follow-up to his Oscar-winning biopic Oppenheimer, which managed to turn the life of Robert J. Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, into a riveting, three-hour storytelling masterclass. Taking on Homer’s epic might at first blush feel like the more straightforward cinematic adaptation, but it’s a tale with many inherent challenges, including a motley crew of gods, goddesses, kings, peasants, debaucherous suitors, far-flung locations, and ancient rivalries, none of which Nolan will approach with anything less than his usual meticulous, singular approach.
Orr described Nolan’s film as a “mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX film technology. The film brings Homer’s foundational saga to IMAX film screens for the first time and opens in theaters everywhere on July 17, 2026.”
Matt Damon stars as the ingenious Odysseus, the mastermind of the victorious Trojan War for the Achaeans against the city of Troy. Yet his trip home to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus on the Greek island of Ithaca is waylaid by vengeful gods and goddesses and becomes a decade-long test of will, endurance, intelligence, and strength. Damon is joined by Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, Lupita Nyong’o, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, Mia Goth, Elliot Page, Samantha Morton, and others.
Part of the fun has been trying to determine, outside of Damon’s central hero, who’s playing who. It seems like it might make a lot of sense for someone like Theron to play Circe, the goddess who keeps Odysseus on her island of Aeaea for an entire year after turning his men into pigs, but she could just as easily be playing Penelope, and perhaps Hathaway or Goth or Nyong’o is playing the goddess. Jon Bernthal could make sense as Polyphemus, the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon who eats some of Odysseus’s men, but so, too, could you imagine Safdie or even Pattinson being turned into the Cyclops. You could spend the better portion of your morning moving the cast around into the various roles on offer.
Regardless, any Nolan film is an event film, and taking on one of the most iconic stories ever told makes his The Odyssey one of 2026’s most exciting films.
For more on the action at CinemaCon, check out these stories:
There has long been talk of Quentin Tarantino doing something additional with his amazing cast from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, whether it was a proper sequel, a spinoff movie focusing on Brad Pitt’s stuntman character Cliff Booth, or another movie entirely that featured Pitt’s Booth. Now, it turns out, a sequel (of sorts) is, in fact, in the works, based on a script Tarantino wrote, but the man himself isn’t directing it. In fact, another ace helmer, David Fincher, will direct the film, with Pitt circling the film and even, potentially, Leonardo DiCaprio reprising his role as actor Rick Dalton.
The Playlist scoops that Tarantino wrote the script. The film is set at Netflix and has a potential summer shooting date in the offing. The Playlist writes that the film isn’t technically a sequel, actually, but a “derivative” inspired by Tarantino’s original film. This film is also not the other movie Tarantino was working on that was said to include Pitt’s Cliff Both, The Movie Critic, which was also set in the 1970s and was said to focus on a movie reviewer for a porn magazine. That, for a while, was supposed to be Tarantino’s 10th and final film.
So how did Fincher become involved? According to one of The Hollywood Reporter‘s sources, Pitt really liked some parts of Tarantino’s script and asked him whether he’d let someone else direct it. Tarantino said it depended upon who that director was, and when Pitt returned with Fincher, someone he’d worked with on Se7en, Fight Club, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Tarantino said yes. Fincher has an exclusive deal with Netflix, so the film moved there.
It gets more interesting. Because of Tarantino’s unique deal and position within Hollywood, he has an ownership stake in Once Upon a Time, which Sony financed and released in 2019. That stake increases every year for 20 years, at which point the movie reverts to him. Part of that deal is that Tarantino owns the characters in the movie while Sony retains the movie itself. This is possibly why Fincher’s film isn’t a sequel or prequel, but it can use Pitt’s Booth, and, potentially, other characters from Once Upon a Time.
We’ll share more when we know more, including whether Leonardo DiCaprio or Margot Robbie find their way to the new film.
Featured image: Brad Pitt star in Columbia Pictures “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Warner Bros.’s presentation at CinemaCon on Tuesday featured the most iconic superhero not named Batman. James Gunn’s upcoming Superman was the main attraction, with Gunn and the cast unveiling a new extended look at the film. The film will be the first to fly out of Gunn and Peter Safran’s new-look DC Studios. Superman is a fitting film to launch their brand new slate, which promises a bold, unified world of superheroes, villains, metahumans, and more across theatrical, TV, and games.
Gunn appeared in Las Vegas with Safran and the Superman cast—David Corenswet, who plays Clark Kent/Superman, Rachel Brosnahan, the new Lois Lane, and Nicholas Hoult, the new Lex Luthor. The new footage featured everyone’s favorite super dog, Krypto, who was seen once again helping an injured Superman back into his Fortress of Solitude.
“I cannot wait to share the film with all you guys and the rest of the world,” Gunn said from the stage. “We’re still in the throes of post-production.” When recalling what led him to the Man of Steel, Gunn said he’d originally been offered to direct a Superman film back in 2018, but he’d instead chosen The Suicide Squad, feeling more comfortable with that band of misfits then trying to take on a wholesome figure “perceived as old-fashioned by many.” But Gunn eventually found a way into the material, thanks to the relationships Superman has and some of the stranger parts of the Superman mythos, including his beloved dog, Krypto.
As for Corenswet, a relatively little-known performer who won the role (after beating out Hoult), he joked about a specific scene with Brosnahan that took two days to film and required him to inhale pancake after pancake. “So glad that was the most memorable part for you,” Brosnahan joked.
Hoult had originally tried out for the role of Superman (and Batman, he reminded those in the audience, which went to Robert Pattinson), but but he ended up getting the role of his arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor. Hoult recalled being stunned to watch Corenswet turn into the Man of Steel in person: “I felt like I was witnessing the magic of cinema in first-person in real-time.”
Corenswet, Brosnahan, and Hoult are all playing iconic roles that have been inhabited before by legendary performers, including Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, and Gene Hackman in Richard Donner’s original. Brosnahan said it was because these roles were so deeply baked into the collective consciousness that she found the challenge so rewarding: “I feel like these stories endure because there’s something in it for everyone. We get to stand on the shoulders of giants … and then find our ways into their heads.”
The Superman cast also includes Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen), Sara Sampaio (Eve Teschmacher), Edi Gathegi (Mister Terrific), Terence Rosemore (Otis), Anthony Carrigan (Metamorpho), Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl), Nathan Fillion (Guy Gardner) and María Gabriela de Faría (The Engineer).
Superman soars into theaters on July 11.
For more on all things Superman, check out these stories:
Featured image: LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – APRIL 01: (L-R) James Gunn, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult and David Corenswet attend the Warner Bros. Pictures “The Big Picture” Presentation at 2025 CinemaCon at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on April 01, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Stewart Cook/Warner Bros. via Getty Images)
In 1993, director George Cosmatos’ Tombstone came out, starring Kurt Russell as the legendary lawman Wyatt Earp and Val Kilmer as his drunken, decidedly decent and invaluable partner Doc Holliday. By then, Kilmer was already a legend, having played Ice Man, the ying to Maverick (Tom Cruise, of course)’s yang in Tony Scott’s 1986 film Top Gun, and Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s 1991 film The Doors, one of those roles where it was truly impossible to imagine another actor on the planet being more perfectly positioned to inhabit a character, in this case the real life Lizard King himself, then Kilmer was. He’d even starred in a fantasy epic before his unforgettable turn as the gunslinger in Tombstone, playing Madmartigan in Ron Howard’s Willow. But it was as Doc Hollidaythat Kilmer’s offbeat charm and abundant charisma seemed perfectly channeled. While Russell’s Wyatt Earp might be the nominal hero, Kilmer’s witty, wheezing Doc steals the movie, and for folks of a certain generation, reciting Doc’s lines, even if you lived nowhere near a region where saying something like “I’m your huckleberry” made sense in any context, was a favorite pasttime. We all wanted to be Doc, failing liver and all.
By the time Kilmer revisited the role of Ice Man in Joseph Kosinski’s world-beating 2022 sequel Top Gun: Maverick, his health was already deteriorating enough that it was a plot point in the film. Ice Man was now an Admiral, and Cruise’s Pete Mitchell pays a visit to him, not long before his passing, to get some advice. It was one of the film’s most emotional, riveting scenes, and seeing the proud, still handsome Kilmer get to portray the character that made him a global superstar one more time was the film’s most undeniably emotional moment.
Kilmer has passed away at the age of 65 from throat cancer he’d been dealing with for years. He leaves behind a long, legendary career, which included playing Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever and co-starring in one of the greatest heist movies of all time, Michael Mann’s 1995 tour de force, Heat, as Chris Shiherlis, one of the expert criminals on Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro)’s team. [Mann revisited the scene’s flawless bank heist scene in Ava DuVernay’s One Perfect Shot, arguably one of the most riveting scenes in cinematic history.]
“While working with Val on Heat, I always marveled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character,” Michael Mann said in a statement. “After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.”
In 2021, the documentary Val utilized hundreds of hours of video that Kilmer had recorded over his life, including behind-the-scenes moments from sets and revealing the artist and soulful figure that Kilmer was. His son provided his voice.
“The result is undoubtedly a canny mediation on the vagaries of fame, but it feels more intimate and essential than that: a lifetime of searching and self-regard distilled, somehow, into a state of grace,” Leah Greenblatt wrote for Entertainment Weekly.
Mann wasn’t alone in sharing tributes to the singular star; Francis Ford Coppola, Josh Brolin, the official Top Gun Twitter page, and others also did so.
The titan visual effects studio Industrial Light & Magic wrote a tribute to Kilmer on its official Instagram Threads account: “We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our friend and colleague, Val Kilmer. From his memorable roles as Madmartigan, Iceman, Doc Holliday, and Jim Morrison, Val cemented himself as one of the greats. He will be deeply missed, and our thoughts are with his family at this time.”
Kilmer was a one-of-a-kind talent, and he will be missed.
Featured image: HOLLYWOOD, CA – FEBRUARY 29: Actor Val Kilmer attends the 2004 Vanity Fair Oscar Party at Mortons Restaurant, February 29, 2004 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images)
Sony had a lot to reveal yesterday in Las Vegas at the annual CinemaCon gathering—the cast and release date for Sam Mendes’ four-part Beatles biopic, the release date for the trilogy-capping third film in the Spider-Versefranchise, and the new title for Tom Holland’s fourth spin as Spider-Man.
Peter Parker’s next live-action outing, to be directed by Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton, is now officially titled Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is fitting considering the conclusion of Spider-Man: No Way Home saw Parker and his fellow Parker-pals (played, once again, by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield) restoring order to the multiverse but also re-setting the memories of people in Parker’s world, so that nobody remembered he was Spider-Man, or, even, that they love him. It was a bittersweet coda for Holland’s Parker, considering it meant losing, at least for now, the love of his life, Zendaya’s MJ.
Holland couldn’t be in Vegas for the presentation, but he sent a video to tease his fourth turn as Peter Parker.
“I am so sorry I can’t be with you. I am halfway around the world shooting a movie,” said Holland, who’s currently filming with his longtime co-star Zendaya, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, and more for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. “I know we left you with a massive cliff hanger at the end of No Way Home, so Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a fresh start. It is exactly that. That’s all I can say.”
There are no plot details at present for Brand New Day, but we do know it’ll hit theaters on July 31, 2026, and that the filmmaking team is working hard to ensure that the story lives up to the killer trilogy capper that came before it.
“I’m spending my time exploring the next stage of this amazing character with a team of the most incredible artists in the world,” Cretton said at CinemaCon. “We’re all just daily nerding out over the suit, how to swing, how to create an event, an emotional story, and a ride that we haven’t really seen before.”
Cretton revealed that production begins this summer.
One major piece of speculation is that new cast member Sadie Sink will play the iconic X-Men character Jean Grey, previously played by Sophie Turner and Famke Janssen. What’s intriguing is a slew of previous X-Men performers from Janssen’s era are joining the MCU for Avengers: Doomsday—Patrick Stewart, James Marsden, Alan Cumming, Kelsey Grammer, and Ian McKellen. Doomsday arrives in theaters before Spider-Man: Brand New Dayon May 1, 2026, and will have direct implications over what Cretton and his team have cooked up for Spidey, whoever Sink is playing (we’re guessing it’s Jean Grey), and more.
For more on all things Spider-Man, check out these stories:
Sony’s presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas had it all—the Fab Fourand Spider-Man. While Sony ended their presentation by bringing out director Sam Mendes and his cast for his upcoming four-part Beatles biopic, the earlier part of their presentation was centered upon one of the studio’s most beloved current franchises. Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the third installment of their animated trilogy featuring Brooklyn’s very own Spider-Man, was revealed to be swinging into theaters on June 4, 2027.
“We know how important this franchise is to so many people around us. We just could not run it back,” said the Spider-Verse team of producer Phil Lord and co-directors Bob Persichetti and Justin K. Thompson from the stage at CinemaCon. “So, we decided we needed to take the time to make sure we got it just right.”
The team then revealed the first glimpse at Beyond the Spider-Verse, the conclusion to the critically acclaimed series that began with 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse and continued with 2023’s Across the Spider-Verse. The series has successfully played with the idea of a multiverse, with Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) becoming the borough’s very own Spider-Man, and then teaming up with Spider-People from across the multiverse, including Gwen Stacy/Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Noir (Nicolas Cage), Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman (Issa Rae), Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man India (Karan Soni), Hobie Brown/Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya), and more to do battle with villains like The Spot (Jason Schwartzman).
The Beyond the Spider-Verse team didn’t reveal any plot details for the trilogy-capping film, but it’s sure to be Miles’ most extreme challenge yet. Lord did hint that Miles will start the third film in the franchise as a fugitive on the run from every other Spider-Person in the multiverse, and that even his closest allies, like Gwen Stacy, might not be enough to save him and his family this time around.
Miles (Shameik Moore) and Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) in “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.” Courtesy Sony Pictures.
The footage showcased the franchise’s glorious, bold animation style and showed Miles declaring that this time around, he was going to do things his way.
At CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Monday, Mendes and his cast took to the stage to unveil not only who his John, Paul, Ringo, and George were, but also that all four films will have a theatrical release in April 2028.
Your Fab Four are Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison. Each movie centers on one of the band members.
“We’re not just making one film about the Beatles — we’re making four,” Mendes said at CinemaCon. “Perhaps this is a chance to understand them a little more deeply.”
Mendes told the audience that Sony film chief Tom Rothman said the projects would be “the first binge-able theatrical experience.” The cast then recited lyrics from the Beatles’ iconic “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” then bowed in unison. It was a truly epic way for Sony to close out its presentation.
Taking an Oscar-winning director in Mendes and giving him four rising stars to deliver a one-of-a-kind theatrical experience to depict all four members of the Beatles in four separate movies, releasing in the same month? It’s perhaps precisely the kind of big swing for the theater experience that audiences need right now to remind them that there is no better way to watch a movie.
Mendes also has the support of the Beatles, marking the first time they’ve backed a scripted film based on their lives. Recently, Peter Jackson’s epic The Beatles: Get Back detailed the lead-up to their iconic live performance atop their Seville Row studio.
“We intend this to be a uniquely thrilling, and epic cinematic experience: four films, told from four different perspectives which tell a single story about the most celebrated band of all time,” said one of the film’s producers, Pippa Harris, in a statement at the time of the initial announcement. “To have The Beatles’ and Apple Corps’ blessing to do this is an immense privilege.”
Featured image: LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – MARCH 31: (L-R) Paul Mescal, Joseph Quinn, Barry Keoghan and Harris Dickinson are introduced onstage to promote four upcoming biopics about The Beatles at the Sony Pictures Entertainment presentation during CinemaCon, the official convention of Cinema United, at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on March 31, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
We know about as much information on Black Mirror season 7 as we’ll get before one of the great sci-fi series of all time returns to Netflix on April 10.
A new trailer includes more details about Charlie Brooker‘s unnervingly prescient anthology series’ return, including the titles of all six episodes, the synopsis, cast, run time, and credits for each episode. Season 7 also boasts, for the first time in the series’ history, a sequel episode—the season four premiere episode USS Callister, the Star Trek parody beloved by Black Mirror fans.
The season 7 cast for Netflix’s sensational, eerily predictive Black Mirror has been revealed, and it’s a stellar group. It also includes, new for the series, some returning stars for a sequel to a beloved episode. The USS Callister crew won’t be returning full force, of course. “Robert Daly is dead, but for the crew of the USS Callister, their problems are just beginning,” a teaser revealed this past March. Robert Daly was played by Jesse Plemons in the original episode, who used the DNA of his colleagues to create the multiplayer online game set on the titular spaceship.
USS Callister was written by Brooker and William Bridges and directed by Toby Haynes. The returnees are Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson, Milanka Brooks, Osy Ikhile, and Billy Magnussen.
As Brooker told The Hollywood Reporter, the decision to return to the USS Callister was a long time coming: “The first one ends like you could just carry that story on and follow where they go now. … There were various iterations it went through, various versions we wanted to do and were discussing on and off for several years. But there are a lot of schedules to sort out, and then the pandemic got in the way. It was something that looked like it wasn’t going to happen, and so I was delighted when it did.”
Season 7 also includes ties to Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, the first-ever interactive feature produced by Netflix.
The full cast is comprised of Issa Rae (Barbie, Insecure), Emma Corrin (Deadpool & Wolverine), Cristin Milioti (The Penguin), Awkwafina (Jackpot), Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers), Tracee Ellis Ross (Black-ish), Rashida Jones (Sunny), Milanka Brooks (Mum and I Don’t Talk Anymore), Peter Capaldi (Criminal Record), Patsy Ferran (Firebrand), Lewis Gribben (Blade Runner 2099), Osy Ikhile (Citadel), Siena Kelly (Domino Day), Billy Magnussen (Road House), Rosy McEwen (Blue Jean), Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids), Issa Rae (Barbie, Awkward), Paul G. Raymond (Horrible Histories), Jimmi Simpson (Westworld) and Harriet Walter (Succession).
Black Mirror season 7 returns to Netflix on April 10. Check out the trailer here.
Featured image: Billy Magnussen, Osy Ikhile, Cristin Milioti, Milanka Brooks, Paul G. Ryamond. Courtesy Netflix.
Nestled between a dental office and a local tavern in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Atwater Village is Tam O’Shanter, a Scottish restaurant inside a storybook style Tudor cottage, its interior a blend of rustic elegance and historical charm, a vestige of “Old Hollywood.” In the corner of the dimly lit room is Table 31, a regular spot of Walt Disney when the studio was located on Hyperion Avenue in the 1920s. It’s rumored the restaurant partially inspired Disney’s first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Nearly 90 years later, the iconic animated classic has been remade into Snow White, a live-action musical starring Rachel Zegler as the fairytale princess and Gal Gadot as the evil stepmother.
Principal photography took place over five months at London’s Pinewood Studios, where massive sets were built, among them, depicting the castle and village, the dwarf’s cottage, the scary forest, and the Evil Queen’s chambers where she asks the Magic Mirror, “Who’s the fairest one of them all?” Framing the story alongside director Marc Webb was cinematographer Mandy Walker (Elvis), the Academy Award-nominee, drawing inspiration from the original movie. “The film was a great challenge for me that I really enjoyed, actually,” she tells The Credits during a video call.
Walker shot nearly the entire movie on Panavision Primo anamorphic lenses (one scene was captured with Sphero spherical lenses) with the large-format ARRI Alexa LF to capture the scope of the enchanting musical – a palette of lush colors was brushed on a canvas of fluid camera movements, adding to the wonderment and spectacle. The live-action remake is a blend of whimsical sets, CGI, and practical effects that continues what Walt Disney, first and foremost, had in mind: storytelling.
What inspiration did you reference from the animated original when creating the visual style?
The animated film was a huge reference for us and the main reference, especially in terms of color palette. When you watch the original, even though it’s almost nearly 100 years old, it really holds up in terms of its artistry. The background painting is so beautiful and really well done. The color palette was a huge reference for me, production design, costumes, makeup, and VFX. So we did a lot of testing of colors between the background and the lighting and the costumes and the makeup all together because it is very colorful.
Did you do anything unique to the lenses to push the surrealism of the visual story?
We did. Panavision’s Dan Saski is a genius. I got him to work on the anamorphic lenses, so there was a little drop-off on the edges and a little vignette because that gives a storybook feel, like reading a book. Then for the cottage, I wanted it to glow, so I said to him I wanted the highlights to glow, but I didn’t want it to look out of focus. I don’t know exactly what he did, but he put that into the lenses, and the highlights did bloom and glow.
How did you approach the visual arc of the Evil Queen as she slips into her menacing personality?
When we shot the Evil Queen, it was meant to be dramatic and stoic, and she was very controlled, but I didn’t want to make her too scary. I was really conscious that it shouldn’t be a horror movie, but very colorful instead. I had that in the back of my mind all the time. It’s a kid’s film, so I wanted it to be beautiful and rich and colorful and not like a monotone horror movie in those sequences.
We tried to do everything as practically as possible. We had three different mirrors. One was a real mirror with a real reflection that the actors could use. There was a clean one we could shoot through back into the room, and then we had a blue screen version. The blue screen version had clear plexi in front of it, and that was the one that Gal could hit, so she could really hit the physical front of the mirror.
How did you control the lighting for the Magic Mirror?
The physical mirror we used was quite big, I think the top of it was sitting up about nine or ten feet. The phantom was going to be created by visual effects, and so was any fire, but I had to reproduce the lighting for that and the transition of lighting. We had to get the cues right so that we knew exactly when the fire would go and the phantom would come in, and because the colors went from orange to green, I ended up speaking to Max Wood the VFX supervisor and explained if the light has to look like it’s coming from the mirror the fixtures would be in shot and asked him if we could go ahead and they would have to be painted out.
So we made this small setup of light panels that had diffusion and magnets on them so they could be moved around. I had to put the lights in the shot right in front of Gal’s face, otherwise I’m never getting the reflection in her eyes. We also had the light down at her eye level so it would look like it was coming from inside the mirror and not from up above the mirror. I don’t like having lights in the shot, but was grateful Max agreed that it was something visual effects could paint out.
How did the team capture the dwarves and animals of the enchanted forest?
That was the first time I worked with CG characters mixed with live action, so my work with Max began very early on. We had puppeteers with puppets for the characters and the animals. They were completely made-up with costumes, skin tone, and hair, and we created the lighting reference for them in every sequence. We had little squirrels and other animals that would pop into the shot to look at the lighting on them. We also had stand-ins for which we did lighting for all of them. So that was great for Max and me.
Was motion capture part of the shooting process for the dwarves?
We went into mocap with actors doing the performances. And then virtual camera, which is what they did on Lion King, where you have a camera that really is three antennas, and you’re working in Unreal Engine in a 3D environment. So, then Marc Webb and I could do the shots on a white stage where we used a real dolly, a real steadicam, and a real handheld, so that the movement felt organic and it felt like the rest of the movie. So I was very involved in the lighting of all the characters and the animals, and it was a great experience. In terms of how I work with the effects, that’s changed so much over the years, and it’s an integral part of my job. The more that I am involved, the more the visual language is consistent.
What was the camera language for the musical numbers?
We did a lot of work on those, and we had a fantastic choreographer, Mandy Moore. We visited her for the choreography rehearsals weeks before, especially the big numbers. There are 150 people in some of those sequences. We would watch for the intention and feeling of the dancing. In the big spectacle sequences we wanted the camera to move in and around them and sort of dance with them. Same with Snow White dancing in the cottage for Whistle While You Work, we wanted the camera to be dancing with her and to be very fluid. Then, for songs like Waiting On a Wish, which is kind of like Snow White’s emotional cry out, it was all about her and not about the environment. So the crane would move in more slowly.
Several shots are recreations from the original animated film, one of which shows the Evil Queen walking down the circular staircase into the dungeon. What went into making that shot?
We replicated that in terms of the set build and everything, including her shadow on the wall, as she changes into the Old Hag. Those shots were about paying homage to certain iconic moments in the original movie, but also bringing the live action and its modernity to an audience. I had to be very cognizant of my lighting all the time because we wanted the beauty of that storybook telling.
You read about actors who can be timid playing beloved characters in remakes, but do you get the same feeling as a cinematographer when recreating iconic shots?
No, I think it’s kind of a privilege. Everybody’s seen the original animated movie, and it’s a film that people still watch so many years later, so it was a joyful experience to be able to do it on this film.
The title says it all: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip is a PG comedy that follows a rambunctious family on an RV trek through New Mexico. Their destination? A very old village in Mexico, home to an ancient stone idol. By returning the haunted talisman to its ancestral home, 11-year-old Alexander (newcomer Thom Nemer) thinks he can lift the curse bringing bad luck to his mother, father, sister, and grandparents (Eva Longoria, Jesse Garcia, Paulina Chávez, Rose Portillo, and Cheech Marin).
Based on the book by Judith Viorst, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (now streaming on Disney+) was filmed entirely in the state of New Mexico by director Marvin Lemus. A Bakersfield native, Lemus honed his craft at the Upright Citizens Brigade improv troupe, which Amy Poehler co-founded. He then co-created the Netflix comedy Gentefied, which earned a Peabody Award nomination for its witty portrayal of a Mexican American family.
Lemus, speaking from Los Angeles, explains the allure of New Mexico as a shooting location, details the influence of Breaking Bad on his action aesthetic, and enumerates the joys of putting Eva Longoria and her castmates through the physical comedy ringer.
Congratulations on having directed the movie with, no doubt, the longest title of the year!
[Laughing]. It must be right? I can’t think of anything else this long.
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip does an effective job of getting across the fun vibe of the movie. Just like with every road trip movie, the landscape plays a crucial role. How did you decide to film entirely in New Mexico?
Well, the book was actually about a family in L.A. driving down to Mexico, but it became clear to us early on: “Yo, I think we’ll have to shoot this in New Mexico because of the tax incentive.” My intention originally was, “Okay, we’re going to film it in New Mexico and fake it for California.” But as soon as I got there, I was like, “New Mexico looks nothing like California, and in order to make it not look like California, I’d have to avoid shooting all these beautiful landscapes and mountains. So I said, “Let’s just make it take place in New Mexico!
“Wow, the sky really looks like this!” Dude, I’m a huge fan of Breaking Bad, which was filmed in New Mexico. I always thought they must have been doing something with filters or in post, but no. It is gorgeous.
You didn’t have to add a lot of visual effects?
Coming from an indie background, I wanted to avoid the green screen and shoot as much in-camera as possible. New Mexico gave us the opportunity to do that. Also, by shooting there, one of the complaints we used to hear often was, “Why are all the Latino stories set in L.A. or New York?” It’s a valid criticism because, yeah, Latinos are everywhere.
What was it like working with an Albuquerque-based crew?
They left such a lasting impression! The crews there are used to brutal conditions in the spring, when they have hurricane-level winds, so everybody would come to the location ready with their goggles. Any time we had to move a light, the grips came in with sledgehammers, and they’d stake it down. I’m like, “This is not how we do it in L.A.!” They’re very hardcore.
The family shenanigans take place against some very striking vistas. How did you go about scouting locations?
We drove all over New Mexico with our location manager to figure out how to capture this story, finding the river, for example, and all that was really exciting. And it’s funny because, growing up in Bakersfield, I hated it as a kid: “There’s nothing here, dirt’s everywhere, I’ve got to get out of here!” But now, as an adult and being Mexican American in America, I’ve grown to love the desert. That was an important element for me because, especially in comedies, deserts can be kind of flat and boring, whereas for my community, there’s so much beauty! Yes, it’s a harsh terrain, but my people learned to adapt and live with these rough conditions. For me, it was important to capture the beauty of this desert as part of this story about a family that’s reconnecting with their roots.
Even though it often looks like you’re in the middle of nowhere, are most of the locations within an hour or two’s drive from your home base in Albuquerque?
We tried to do as much as possible within the Albuquerque vicinity. The one time we left the Albuquerque area was when we faked Mexico. I really wanted to go to Soledad [in Mexico], but that wasn’t feasible, so we found a place in New Mexico called Socorro. It had this amazing old hotel, which was apparently haunted. I never went in there! [laughing]. But our wonderful production designer, Andres Cubillan, from Gentefied, came through and captured the magic.
Alexander’s family begins their journey in this humongous green RV, which makes a heck of an entrance when it pulls up to the house. Where did you find that vehicle?
That’s just a passenger bus, like a Greyhound, but the inside was completely designed by me and Andres. It was like a high-tech adventure because we used Oculus headsets to walk through this [virtual reality] space. When the interior was finalized, it was so futuristic that it looked like we were on the set of Star Trek!
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 26: (L-R) Paulina Chávez and Thom Nemer attend the LA premiere of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip on March 26, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
All the characters in Alexander’s family are vivid, but Eva Longoria really stands out as the mom.
Eva’s hysterical. She’s the first one we cast. Matt Lopez did a great job on the screenplay, but once Eva came on board, I wanted to make sure she had a lot of silly stuff to say, and so I did a pass. I also made sure Eva had a lot of fun action to play with. The script initially had dad driving the bus, but I decided it would be fun to see Eva driving this big-ass rig. I grew up with a single mother, and when we moved across state lines, I’d watch her drive the U-Haul. For me, it was just about “How many things can I have Eva do that I haven’t seen her do before?”
SPOILER ALERT
Safe to say people have never seen a skunk sit down in Eva’s lap while the family’s racing down the freeway. Was she game for all this broad physical comedy?
Anything I came up with, Eva said, “I’m down.” She’s very fit, so she, Jess, and Paulina were at the gym every day. They didn’t realize they were signing up for an action movie, but a key lesson I learned from Breaking Bad is: let the actors be physical. I want to watch them do stuff. I come from UCB comedy camp, so I love physical comedy. I wanted to see these actors jumping, sticking their heads out the window. I decided, I’m going to let these actors go nuts!
As you were directing all these boisterous family antics, who did you have in mind as being the audience for Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip?
This movie is for everybody. It’s a fun time for the kids, the parents, for your tio, for your abuelo. I want everyone in your family togather together and watch. There’s a lot of comedy, a lot of action and explosions, a killer soundtrack, and a score by the amazing Camilo Lara. And also, it has a lot of heart, so hopefully you get a little choked up at the end. We just wanted to make a fun roller coaster of emotions, and I really hope people enjoy the ride.
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You’d be hard pressed to find a more exciting film project than Martin Scorsese‘s Hawaii-set crime caper with this cast—DiCaprio, Johnson, and Blunt—so why wouldn’t Disney come scoop it up?
Deadlinereports that the studio is nearing a deal for the project, which is being described as a kind of Goodfellas on the Hawaiian islands, with Robert De Niro’s Jimmy the Gent character instead a Hawaiian crime boss, based on a real person (as was De Niro’s character), who went head-to-head against other rivals to control the organized crime business on the islands.
Scorsese’s film, penned by Nick Bilton, is centered on Wilford “Nappy” Pulawa, who, in the 1970s, led the largest organized crime syndicate on the Hawaiian Islands, The Company. Nappy’s Company battled other crime syndicates, like the Triads, as well as the U.S. Military, for control of the islands. He was a feared crime boss, known for his brutality and his willingness to kill to keep control. The Company was involved in human trafficking, marijuana trafficking, gambling, and labor corruption, and ultimately, Nappy was charged with two murders and ended up in prison for 15 years for tax evasion. The film will be produced by Scorsese, DiCaprio, Johnson, Blunt, Bilton, Dany Garcia, Lisa Frechette, and LBI Entertainment’s Chris Donnelly and Rick Yorn.
With a package this exciting, it also makes sense that there were other bidders trying to land Scorsese’s star-studded film. Imagining the legendary director setting his sights on the Hawaiian Islands and showing us a side of paradise rarely seen in cinema is terribly exciting, especially with that cast and that source material. Considering the content of the film, Deadline writes that it would fit perfectly under Disney’s 20th Century banner, which is a good home for adult films and has one of the year’s most eagerly-anticipated titles, the upcoming Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere, starring Jeremy Allen White as the boss and directed by Scott Cooper. That film isn’t a cradle-to-the-grave biopic, but rather about the crisis that led Springsteen to sequestering himself in a room to write his incredible album “Nebraska.”
DiCaprio will next be seen in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which bows on September 26. Both Johnson and Blunt’s next project is Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, which will debut later this year.
Featured image: L-r: BERLIN, GERMANY – FEBRUARY 20: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been converted to black and white. Color version is available.) Martin Scorsese accepts the Honorary Golden Bear on stage at the Honorary Golden Bear Award Ceremony for Martin Scorsese during the 74th Berlinale International Film Festival Berlin at Berlinale Palast on February 20, 2024 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images); LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 30: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been converted to black and white) Leonardo DiCaprio attends the “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” UK Premiere at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on July 30, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images); Dwayne Johnson attends The World Premiere of Disneys “MOANA” at the El Capitan Theatre on Monday, November 14, 2016 in Hollywood, CA.; LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 13: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been converted to black and white) Emily Blunt attends the “Oppenheimer” UK Premiere at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on July 13, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images).
A week after Warner Bros. released the first teaser for Paul Thomas Anderson’s mysterious new movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another, we now have the full and fully unhinged trailer. Leave it to Anderson to follow Licorice Pizza, his lovely look back at the San Fernando Valley of the 1970s, where he grew up, with a tonal and subject curveball like this one. Anderson does not repeat himself, and One Battle After Another once again looks like new ground for the man who brought us such wildly different masterpieces as There Will Be Blood, The Master, and Boogie Nights.
One Battle After Another cast is, par the course for PTA, stocked with talent. The film is centered on Leonardo DiCaprio’s revolutionary Bob Ferguson, and while the plot remains vague even after the full trailer, reports are that Anderson was at least partially inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland.” This wouldn’t be Anderson’s first crack at Pynchon’s work; his adaptation of Inherent Vice came out in 2014. DiCaprio’s loose-cannon revolutionary is romantically involved with Teyana Taylor’s character (they have a daughter together), and that daughter has gone missing. Benicio Del Toro plays DiCaprio’s revolutionary sensei, whose advice on overcoming his fear includes pushing him out of a moving car.
Although we don’t get a glimpse at Sean Penn, as we did in the teaser, we do hear his character saying, “Not one thing, it’s another. I find that to be true.”
The cast also includes Chase Infiniti, Regina Hall, Benicio Del Toro, Wood Harris, Alana Haim (one of the stars of Licorice Pizza), and D.W. Moffett. Anderson directs from an original script he wrote and is working once again with his favorite composer, Jonny Greenwood.
The film was shot on location in California, with additional on-location filming in El Paso, Texas. Anderson
Check out the trailer below. One Battle After Another arrives on September 26.
Featured image:Leonardo DiCaprio in “One Battle After Another.” Courtesy Warner Bros.
While there have been countless stories on how audiences are suffering from a moderate to severe case of superhero fatigue, on Wednesday, March 26th, 2025, many, many, many people kept a tab open on their screens for five and a half hours to watch a live stream of chairs. This was how Marvel rolled out (eeked out, really) the cast reveal for the Russo Brothers’ upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, the directors’ return to the MCU six years after their Avengers: Endgame became one of the biggest box office draws in film history. Say what you want about how much we all crave films that don’t require massive budgets and don’t involve superheroes, meta-humans, and more—and we do—but there is still plenty of life in the superhero genre, plenty of interest when done right (last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine was a massive hit, this summer’s Superman feels fated to fly high, and the excitement for The Fantastic Four is real), and those hours spent eagerly awaiting the next chair reveal, and the buzz and memes it generated, probably prove it.
— out of context the white lotus (@oocwhitelotus) March 26, 2025
It began at 10 a.m. CST when Marvel tweeted “ANNOUNCEMENT” with a live stream that showed a chair with Chris Hemsworth’s name on it. Hemsworth is one of the titans of the MCU, so it made sense to draw viewers in with the promise that Thor was back. His name was followed minutes later by a chair with Vanessa Kirby’s name on it, making it clear that what we had here was a slow pan over a cast reveal courtesy of chairs with their names on it. Okay. Vanessa Kirby is about to make her MCU debut as Sue Storm/the Invisible Woman in director Matt Shakman’s highly anticipated Fantastic Four, finally bringing Marvel’s First Family into the MCU six years after Disney’s acquisition of Fox made that possible. Next up was Anthony Mackie’s chair—the new Captain America, fresh off his tangle with the Red Hulk in Captain America: Brave New World, was another MCU alum and longtime Avenger. Getting to Mackie’s name took 15 minutes, which meant that, depending on the cast size, this could take a while.
Again, it took five and a half hours, and millions of people stayed tuned and kept churning out those memes.
Elizabeth Olsen in in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Courtesy Marvel Studios.
By the end of the longest cast reveal in cinematic history, we could stand back and try to make sense of it all. Many (but crucially, not all) of Marvel’s Old Guard were accounted for, from Hemsworth and Mackie to Letitia Wright’s Shuri, the new Black Panther, and Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man. Also part of the Doomsday action are fan favorites like Winston Duke’s Mbaku from Black Panther and Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, who may or may not be on the Avengers’ side yet again. Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi and Joaquin Torres’ new Falcon will also both be ready to roll in Doomsday.
Some familiar faces not returning are Benedict Cumberbatch’s Dr. Strange, Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel, and Chris Pratt’s Star-lord. Also missing are the dearly departed Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow and, of course, Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, as both sacrificed themselves for the greater good in Endgame, and now Downey Jr. is back as Dr. Doom.
The Retro X-Men are Back
Charles (Patrick Stewart) and Logan (Hugh Jackman) in LOGAN. Photo Credit: James Mangold.
Part of the big haul of Marvel characters that Disney got the rights to in their Fox deal were the X-Men, and as we saw with Deadpool & Wolverine, there’s a lot of interest in seeing the mutants in the MCU. Two of the biggest names revealed yesterday were Patrick Stewart, returning as Professor X, and Ian McKellen, returning as Magneto. They’re joined by Kelsey Grammer’s Beast, James Marsden’s Cyclops, Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler, Channing Tatum’s Gambit, and Rebecca Romijn’s Mystique. One member of the X-Men not named was Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, a surprise considering how many people rushed to the theaters to see him and Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool. (Also, Reynolds’ Deadpool is not part of the Doomsday cast, either.)
We got a brief cameo from Stewart’s Charles Xavier in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Tatum’s turn as Gambit was one of Deadpool & Wolverine‘s many wise casting choices. Grammer appeared in a post-credits scene as Beast in The Marvels, but the rest of the X-Men named in the reveal haven’t played their parts in years. Yet, while these former X-Men are about to suit back up for Doomsday, a new crop of mutants is likely going to come forward for Marvel’s future. The casting news of Sadie Sink in Spider-Man 4 has many folks speculating she’ll be the new Jean Grey.
The next MCU movie to bow is director Jake Schreier’s Thunderbolts, on May 2, and many of the antiheroes who make up the group will be returning to face Dr. Doom. Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier, David Harbour’s Red Guardian, Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost, Wyat Russell’s John Walker, and Lewis Pullman’s “Bob” have all been tapped. What can Bob do? Who is Bob? What is Bob? One of the big mysteries Marvel has yet to reveal!
Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are not only set to star in the long-awaited MCU reboot of The Fantastic Four, but they’ll then be returning to tangle with Doom. With The Fantastic Four: First Steps arriving this July 25, Marvel seems very confident that the new Mr. Fantastic, Sue Storm, Human Torch, and Thing will be the new bright lights in the MCU. Doomsday provides the kind of MCU super-team that Endgame did when the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy teamed up to take out Thanos. All four of the new Four are beloved actors in their own rights, and there’s plenty of reason to hope that they can be for the MCU going forward what Downey Jr. the Chris’s Evans and Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, and Mark Ruffalo were previously.
A Meaty Movie
How Doomsday will account for all of these superheroes and Downey Jr.’s Dr. Doom is, of course, a problem the Russo Brothers and screenwriter Stephen McFeely have faced, and solved, before. Filming begins next month in London, and then, a little over a year from now, we’ll see how it all plays out when Avengers: Doomsday arrives on May 1, 2026. Between then and now, however, we’ve got Thunderbolts and The Fantastic Four: First Steps coming in May and July of this year, respectively. We’ll know a bit more about Doomsday when we see how these two films play out.
Featured image: Avengers: Doomsday title. Courtesy Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Studios
Who’s going to battle Robert Downey Jr.’s Dr. Doom in Avengers: Doomsday? We now have the names of the heroes, antiheroes, and, well, Bob, who will be taking on the iconic villain.
Marvel has announced that returning Avengers include Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Anthony Mackie’s Captain America, Letitia Wright’s Black Panther, Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man, and Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier. The Russo Brothers are returning to the Marvel fold to helm both Doomsday and the follow-up, Avengers: Secret Wars.
How many Avengers does it take to fight Dr. Doom? Well, considering how many it took to finally end the grim rule of Thanos (Josh Brolin) in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, you can appreciate how this large assembly makes sense. Joining the above are the new Fantastic Four—Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn as the Human Torch, Ebon Moss-Bacharach as the Thing, and (we’re still waiting on word, but come on) Pedro Pascal‘s Mr. Fantastic. Joaquin Torres, as the new Falcon, is also flying in to face the mighty Doom.
Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier isn’t the only member of the upcoming Thunderboltsantihero team to get the call—Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, Wyatt Russell’s John Walker, David Harbour’s Red Guardian, Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost, and Lewis Pullman’s “Bob” are also on call.
Also joining the team fighting Downey Jr.’s brilliant but demented Dr. Doom are Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi, Winston Duke’s Mbaku, and Kelsey Grammer, returning in his X-Men role as Beast, and Patrick Stewart, reprising his X-Men role as Professor X. There’s also Tenoch Huerta Mejía’s Namor, the villain in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, who will be in Doomsday, but in what capacity we’re not yet sure. Ditto Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, who has broken bad in several MCU films but fairly good in Disney+’s Loki—he’s another wildcard who will be put into play in the upcoming film.
(Massive update: Ian McKellen was just announced, returning as Magneto from his X-Men days. Wow. As well as Alan Cumming, another member of the original X-Men franchise, returning as Nightcrawler.)
The last time the Avengers assembled was in 2019’s Endgame, which was also the last MCU film the Russo Brothers directed. That was the end of an era for several major characters— Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, both of whom sacrificed themselves to take out Thanos, and Chris Evans’ Captain America, who passed on the shield to Mackie’s Sam Wilson.
Avengers: Doomsday is set to start filming in London next month, and has a release date of May 1, 2026, with Avengers: Secret Wars following a year later on May 7, 2027.
We’ll update this story as we learn more.
Featured image: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – JULY 27: Robert Downey Jr. speaks onstage during the Marvel Studios Panel in Hall H at SDCC in San Diego, California on July 27, 2024. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney)
There are dream pairings and dream pairings, and this case more than deserves the italicized emphasis.
Auteur Barry Jenkins will direct Zendaya in a film for A24 about the life of the legendary singer Ronnie Spector. Jenkins and Zendaya’s film, Be My Baby, will be based on an original script by Dave Kajganic, Deadline reports.
Zendaya is, of course, playing Spector, a co-founder of the group the Ronettes, along with her older sister Estelle Bennett and their cousin, Nedra Talley. Spector was the frontwoman and is often considered the original bad girl of rock and roll. Spector and the Ronettes eventually signed to Phil Spector’s label Phillies in 1963, with Phil Spector producing most of their work, including their hits like the titular “Be My Baby,” “Baby, I Love You,” “(The Best Part of) Breakin’ Up,” and “Walking in the Rain,” which were all released between 1963 and 64. Ronnie and Phil Spector married in 1968 and were divorced in 1974, at which point she re-formed the Ronettes.
The focus of Jenkins and Zendaya’s film will primarily focus on the singer’s volatile partnership with Phil Spector rather than covering the singer’s entire life. A24 landed the spec script in 2022. Spector wrote a memoir, “Be My Baby,” with Vince Waldron. Before she passed, Spector was an executive producer on the film and personally selected Zendaya to play her.
Jenkins has a rich history with A24, with his Best Picture winning Moonlight and the upcoming Sorry, Baby, which he produced, from writer/director Eva Victor. Zendaya has also fruitfully collaborated with A24 in the past, with the Emmy-winning drama Euphoria and the upcoming film The Drama, from writer/director Kristoffer Borgli, which stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson.
Featured image: LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 11: (EDITORS NOTE: This image has been converted to black and white.) Zendaya attends the “Challengers” Photocall at Claridges Hotel on April 11, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
Amazon MGM has tapped two veteran producers—Amy Pascal and David Heyman — to steer the next Bond film. The Pascal and Heyman announcement follows Amazon MGM’s industry-shaking move when the studio closed its own deal with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to take over the franchise. Broccoli and Wilson’s family has been shepherding the super spy on the big screen since the 1960s.
The dynamic producing duo will use their namesake companies, Pascal Pictures and Heyday Films, to produce 007’s latest adventure. It’s unclear at this time if this means they’ll be producing more than just the next film.
“We are approaching every creative decision with James Bond, which Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have so masterfully steered, with the greatest sense of responsibility,” said Amazon MGM Studios’ head of film, Courtenay Valenti, in a statement. “Part of an elite group of producers who have developed and managed massive film franchises to box office success and critical acclaim, Amy Pascal and David Heyman are two of the most accomplished, experienced, and respected film producers in our industry.”
Pascal has helped guide the Tom Holland-led Spider-Mantrilogy to box office gold, with the last three films grossing more than $3 billion worldwide. Heyman helped lead the boy wizard Harry Potter’s rise to big-screen success and the Fantastic Beasts spinoff series.
“James Bond is one of the most iconic characters in the history of cinema,” said Pascal and Heyman in a joint statement. “We are humbled to follow in the footsteps of Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, who made so many extraordinary films, and honored and excited to keep the spirit of Bond very much alive as he embarks on his next adventure.”
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A new trailer for director Christopher Landon’s Drop has, well, dropped, revealing a new look at Meghann Fahy as Violet, a widowed mother who ventures out on her first date in years and finds herself in the middle of a lunatic scenario that would make a lifelong single person out of anyone.
Landon’s film had its world premiere at SXSW this month, delivering plenty of thrills to a packed house in what Variety‘s Siddhant Adlakha calls a “pulpy mystery entirely sure of its own conceit” that “combines tech paranoia and the looming specter of abuse to create something surprisingly taut and entertaining.” That conceit is unveiled in the new trailer—Fahy’s Violet arrives on her date at Palate, a fancy restaurant to meet Henry (Brandon Sklenar), a handsome photographer she’s been getting to know online. Her 5-year-old son Toby (Jacob Robinson) is in the care of her sister Jen (Violett), so all Violet has to do is try to have a good time.
When Violet arrives, a good time seems entirely possible. Palate is an amber-lit, spacious place with gorgeous views of the city, an attentive if grating server, some odd patrons at the bar, and then the handsome Henry, who seems both attentive and kind. The set-up, with a stunning location and a large ensemble of slightly off-kilter patrons is perfect for the deadly games to come.
Those games begin with the titular drops that Violet receives on her phone, at first just weird but increasingly sadistic and then terrifying. Henry confirms that in order to receive a drop on your phone, the person needs to be within 50 feet, meaning her tormentor, or one of her tormentors, is at the restaurant. When a new drop shows a masked gunman at her home, where her son and sister are, the stakes are now unbearably life-or-death.
Violet is given a set of instructions that she must follow her son and sister will die, and those include killing her date, Henry. Sure, it’s a wild set-up for a thriller, but Landon’s assured direction and Fahy’s stellar performance won over critics at SXSW. As Alison Willmore at Vulturewrites, “The core of Fahy’s agonizingly distracted performance is something real and recognizable.”
Drop arrives in theaters on April 11. Check out the trailer below.
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Universal revealed the first look at Matt Damon playing the long-suffering hero Odysseus in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming adaptation of Homer’s epic back in mid-February. The Twitter post showed Damon in a side-angle shot as the Ithacan hero wearing the helmet and military armor of the warrior he was when he plotted and fought victoriously in the Trojan War, before his decade-long, much waylaid journey back home to his wife Penelope and son Telemachus on the Greek island of Ithaca.
Damon is no stranger to Nolan films, having had a meaty role in Nolan‘s Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, playing Leslie Groves, the United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who directed the Manhattan Project, which included cherry-picking Robert J. Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), despite the government’s concerns about his loyalties, to run the program.
Damon is joined by Tom Holland, Mia Goth, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Benny Safdie, Jon Bernthal, and John Leguizamo, all in undisclosed roles. Now that we know Damon’s Odysseus, we can still speculate on who the rest of the cast is playing—Charlize Theron as Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, who ingeniously keeps her suitors at bay for ten years while she waits for her husband’s return? Robert Pattinson as Eurymachus, one of the vile suitors? Benny Safdie as Polyphemus, the one-eyed cannibal giant who traps Odysseus and his scouting party in his cave? Zendaya as Circe, the beautiful goddess who holds him captive for seven years? Tom Holland as Telemachus, Odysseus’s son?
And who might John Leguizamo be playing? One thing we can tell you about Johnny Legs is that he’s given us our first taste of what the production has been like for those on set. In a recent interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Leguizamo said that despite Nolan’s prestige in the industry and the healthy budget he’s working with, filming The Odyssey still feels like being on the set of a totally different kind of film.
“It’s not small, but he runs [it] like an indie film because he’s not doing it by committee, he’s not doing it by what the studio [says]. He’s like an indie filmmaker but with crazy money.”
While Nolan certainly has earned the clout to direct his adaptation of one of the most deathless tales ever told in any way he chooses, he’s still making the most of the budget he has by deploying new IMAX film technology to unleash an adaptation of Homer’s classic unlike any we’ve seen before.
Nolan and his longtime collaborator, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, are using new IMAX film cameras for the shoot that are 30% quieter and lighter due to their carbon fiber construction. These lighter cameras mean that Hoytema and Nolan can capture more shots than the heavier, older models would have allowed. They’re also taking advantage of how much quieter the new cameras are. The older models made much more of a racket, which in turn made certain scenes more difficult to hear, an issue for Nolan as he’s a director who really doesn’t like using automatic dialogue replacement (ADR), a traditional technique for filling in dialogue later for a scene that’s a little too loud or sonically chaotic on set.
Nolan’s also filming on location in several stunning spots. The film is partly being shot on the Sicilian island of Favignana. Also known as “goat island,” Favignana is where scholars believe that Homer’s hero Odysseus came ashore with his doomed crew to feast on barbecued goats and sure up their provisions for the voyage home. Favignana is part of the Aegadian Islands, situated roughly 11 miles west of the Sicilian coast.
For those of you not yet versed in Homer’s “The Odyssey,” the story tracks Odysseus’s torturous journey home to his wife Penelope and son Telemachus after the Trojan War. Despite his valor and his cunning, he’s made a few enemies along the way—including some very vengeful Gods—who throw all manner of horrors at him and his men. Eventually, he’s the lone survivor out of every member of his crew, after he must face down formidable adversaries, including the aforementioned Circe and the one-eyed giant, Polyphemus. The best modern translation of the book we know is Emily Wilson’s “The Odyssey,” a crystalline and vibrant version written in iambic pentameter verse that retains the subtle weirdness of Homer’s tale.
Nolan’s The Odyssey arrives on these shores on July 17, 2026.
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“I came with you to a be a part of something,” Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) says at the top of the official trailer for Andor season 2. In season 1, our titular hero started out wanting to be anything but, yet he was swept up in events far larger than them himself, and are leading him on his fateful path to eventually being a part of the team that steals the Death Star plans—a team that paid the ultimate price in their successful mission that was the heart of the 2016 film Rogue One.
The trailer for season 2 reintroduces us to our rag-tag group of rebels, including Forest Whitaker’s Saw Gerrera, a grizzled, longtime warrior who factors in huge to events both in Andor and plays a big part in the heist at the heart of Rogue One. Here, too, is Genevieve O’Reilly’s Mon Mothma, a member of the Galactic Senate and a secret Rebel Alliance operative, serving as the civilian leader in the long struggle against the Empire. We also get a moment or two with Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen Rael, an antiques dealer by day, a skilled rebel spy at night. Perhaps Cassian’s closest ally, and the person for whom he would likely give up everything for, is Adria Arjona’s Bix Caleen, a mechanic whose loyalty and fearlessness proved crucial to both Cassian and the rebel cause.
The forces allayed against the rebels are massive and malicious—another returning face from Rogue One is Ben Mendelsohn’s Orson Krennic, a major part of the Death Star project as the Imperial Director of Advanced Weapons Research and one of many who want to see the rebellion strangled before it can be fully born.
Check out the official trailer for season 2 below. Andor returns to Disney+ on April 22.
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Moving halfway around the world to live and work in a different culture and language presents inevitable challenges, but there is also a wealth of opportunities available to those who leave the familiar behind and immerse themselves abroad. This was the case for Taiwan-born and raised producer Hsinyi Liu, who learned the joys available to those willing to make the leap when she relocated to London more than two decades ago.
In an attempt at a compromise between her family’s expectations of a financially stable career and her own creative impulses, she earned a BA in advertising and dutifully entered the industry, but frustration soon crept in. “I realized I didn’t want to spend my whole life watching soy sauce commercials,” quips Liu.
Choosing the UK over the US partly because of the lighter financial burden of being able to complete a post-grad course in one year, as well as thinking London was “really cool,” Liu took an MA in Film Studies at Queen Mary, University of London. Being alone in a new country was daunting, but it also gave her the freedom to define herself. “It was liberating because I realized I could be anyone I wanted to be.”
But there was an unexpected linguistic hurdle. Liu had grown up studying American English, but she struggled to understand the locals in London, which made her wonder, “Did I learn this language?” Even after a couple of years, she wasn’t completely tuned in to the various British accents and colorful, expansive slang. Drop a New Yorker into South London, and she, too, might need a minute or two to parse exactly what is being said by the folks beside her at the pub. Early jobs as a second or third assistant director involved the additional difficulty of requests coming in over a crackly radio, sometimes leaving Liu nonplussed and relying on other crew members to translate.
However, language was instrumental to one of Liu’s first big breaks. Mandarin fluency helped land her work on Nick Broomfield’s 2006 film Ghosts (Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and Sundance nominee), based on the story of 23 illegal Chinese immigrants who died picking shellfish on the English coast. “I had to pretend to be an illegal immigrant and go into massage parlors, nightclubs, gangster hangouts, Chinese churches, everywhere, to cast real people for the film,” Liu explains. That was followed by giving instructions and translating on set, as well as working on the editing and publicity. “It gave me a full view of the filmmaking process.”
With no industry connections, Liu adopted the approach of trying her hand at nearly everything that she could. Bilingualism was again a boon for her work on Asif Kapadia’s Far North (2007), a thriller starring Michelle Yeoh and Sean Bean set in the Arctic Circle. Despite the pleasure of working closely with Yeoh, it was a fairly tough shoot. “We lived on a ship for two months in Svalbard, north of Norway. I’ve never been that cold in my life. We were seeing the Northern Lights every night, and by the end of it, I got tired of it,” she recalls with a laugh.
Casting duties on post-apocalyptic horror 28 Weeks Later (2007) were followed by AD work on She, A Chinese, filmed in London, and City of War, the Story of John Rabe, shot in China and Europe. Both released in 2009, Liu got acting credits for both films, being asked to appear by the respective directors after working on rehearsals, and got to appear opposite Steve Buscemi in the latter. Another memorable project with a distinctly British flavor was The Inbetweeners (2011), a hit spinoff from a successful TV comedy that set a UK comedy opening weekend box office record. Based on four teenagers’ Mediterranean holiday, Liu found herself casting hundreds of Essex partygoers, even spray-tanning the extras after they’d been flown out for the shoot. “I’m this Taiwanese woman walking into Essex nightclubs [Essex is to London as New Jersey is to New York], and people were just like, ‘What are you doing here?’”
Asked to stay on as a production coordinator after her casting duties, the film proved a career turning point. Liu wondered if she had spread herself too thinly by taking on so many different jobs but believes it ultimately worked to her advantage. “At the time, I worried that I hadn’t worked my way up in a single discipline, but now I see that understanding how people are thinking in every department has made me a better production manager.”
She began working as a freelance line producer in 2012, with her career shifting towards television, much of it for the BBC and Channel 4. It was in 2016 that what Liu says is “probably my favorite script of all time” landed on her desk in the form of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag. It also punctuated her life outside work, with the series arriving around the same time as her daughter and season 2 coming shortly after maternity leave. Another high-profile project she worked on during that period was Stephen Frears’ Amazon/BBC series A Very English Scandal, starring Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw.
Juggling motherhood and freelance producing had Liu longing for a little more stability. When that arrived in the form of an offer to join leading UK independent production company Sister as a production executive in 2019, she jumped at the chance. There, she was responsible for projects including acclaimed true crime black comedy Landscapers for HBO/Sky and BAFTA-winning hospital drama This Is Going to Hurt starring Ben Whishaw for BBC/AMC. That was followed by her appointment as head of production at Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow Productions, where she worked on the hit comedy Changing Ends and the upcoming feature The Ballad of Wallis Island starring Carey Mulligan. In 2023, Liu took on the same role at Me & You Productions, where she now manages multiple high-end TV dramas, including I Am Ruth, the BAFTA-winning drama starring Kate Winslet, and its upcoming sequel.
Returning to the country of her birth, Liu joined the pitching conference at the Taiwan Creative Content Festival in November as a panelist and mentor. Having grown up on the cinema of Wong Kar Wai and Ang Lee, she enjoyed reconnecting with Asian filmmaking sensibilities. “What I love about Asian storytelling is that it allows for more breathing space. It’s not always about moving the story forward with every scene. The industry there also feels more genre-fluid, mixing family drama with sci-fi, comedy, and mystery in ways you don’t often see in the West. There’s a freshness to it.”
Being back in Taiwan also reminded Liu of its potential as a shooting location and for bringing Chinese-language stories to a wider audience, unencumbered by the creative constraints that can hit productions on the mainland.
Other formative influences during her younger years in Taiwan were Japanese manga and anime, particularly Studio Ghibli. Animation is one of the few things Liu hasn’t tackled, and along with “a VFX-heavy production,” it remains on her bucket list.
Television production in the UK is currently experiencing a slowdown, redolent of the pandemic, which brought mental health issues among industry folk to the fore, notes Liu. Having made her own way in London, far from her family and with little guidance available, she understands how challenging life in the business can be. “I’m glad to see the change in the industry in terms of the emphasis on diversity and inclusion, which didn’t exist when I started. I’m getting to a point where I could probably help people. If I can, I’d be very happy to give back.”
Featured image: L-r: Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag, courtesy Amazon Studios; Hsyinyi Liu; Carey Mulligan in The Ballad of Wallis Island, courtesy Focus Features.
