Here’s a bit of good news for you hearty citizens of Wick World—Lionsgate has confirmed that John Wick: Chapter 5 is in early development, according to Total Film. And that’s only a fraction of the plans Lionsgate has for the franchise.
And honestly, who can blame Lionsgate for wanting to build out the world of John Wick, which has reliably punched above its weight from its first installment way back in 2014, delivering a singular style of gun-fu mayhem centered on one of the most beloved performers in the business, Keanu Reeves? Chapter 4 was a critical and commercial hit, the highest-grossing film in the franchise (and the longest, running at nearly three hours long of almost constant action), and while it seemed to tie a tourniquet around John Wick’s story once and for all, we now know Reeves’ soulful, semi-retired hitman will be back for more.
But there’s a lot more—not only is Lionsgate eyeing John Wick: Chapter 5, but they’re also building out the franchise into spinoffs, TV series, and video games. They’ve already got the Ana de Armas-led spinoff Ballerina, slated to pirouette into theaters on June 7, 2024. On the TV side, they’ve got The Continental, based on the chain of international hotels where members of the Wick criminal underworld can meet safely (well, most of the time), due out on Peacock later this year.
Here’s what Lionsgate motion picture group chairman Joe Drake said on a recent earnings call: “What is official is that, as you know, Ballerina is the first spinoff that comes out next year. We’re in development on three others, including [John Wick 5] and including television series… And so, we’re building out the world, and when that [fifth] movie comes, [it] will be organic — will be organically grown out of how we’re starting to tell those stories. But you can rely on a regular cadence of John Wick.”
For citizens of the Wick World, you are now officially members of the Wickverse.
For more on John Wick: Chapter 4, check out these stories:
Ethan Hunt’s about to go on his longest mission yet.
IGNreports that Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One has made its runtime official, clocking in at two hours and 36 minutes, cruising past the previous longest film in the franchise, 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which ran for two hours and 27 minutes. As the franchise has grown bolder, with more intense (and very often practical) stunts, complex plots, and far-flung locations, the run times have steadily clicked up. The 1996 original was a brisk hour and 50 minutes long.
Dead Reckoning Part One is the seventh film in the franchise and the first in the final two-part conclusion to Cruise’s career as Ethan Hunt. The film’s plot has been kept pretty tightly under wraps, but the most recent trailer hinted at a deadly weapon, possibly having to do with artificial intelligence, falling into the wrong hands in what is being promised as Hunt’s deadliest mission yet. Co-writer/director Christopher McQuarrie is back at the helm, guiding Cruise’s super spy and many of his longtime allies, including Rebecca Ferguson as Isla Faust, Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, and Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell. Vanesa Kirby also returns as the White Widow, and the cast gets a boost with newcomers Hannah Waddingham, Pom Klementieff, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham, Indira Varma, and Cary Elwes.
As always, the practical stunts in Dead Reckoning Part One will attempt to top all the insane set pieces they’ve already accomplished over the past 27 years. Many of the stunts are done by Cruise himself, who is guided by veteran stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood. Dead Reckoning Part One boasts Cruise barreling off a cliff on a motorcycle and going into a BASE jump, a stunning feat that required a year of BASE training, advanced skydive training, canopy control, and a slew of other skills.
With two hours and 36 minutes to work with, we’re guessing that’ll be but one of the many wild stunts the film offers.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is due in theaters on July 12.
For more on Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, check out these stories:
Barbie (Margot Robbie) is used to everything being perfect in Barbie Land. Perfect health, perfect weather, perfectly happy, all the perfect time. But at last, we’ve gotten a hint at what writer/director Greta Gerwig is up to with the official trailer for Barbie, in which Barbie’s forced to take a trip to a deeply imperfect place—the real world. As the logline puts it, “To live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you’re a Ken.”
Joining her on the trip to the real world is Ken (Ryan Gosling), and the trailer reveals how Gerwig plays with both Barbie’s fantasy world and the real world of fantasy-making that is Los Angeles. As onlookers gawk and gape at Barbie and Ken, one doofus makes the mistake of touching the doll-come-to-life, and for his efforts, he gets a punch to the face, and Barbie gets booked. This is how much Gerwig is playing with the idea of a real-world Barbie; from the perfection of Barbie Land to the imperfection of Los Angeles, captured in a Barbie mug shot.
The film boasts a bevy of Barbies—including Issa Rae’s President Barbie, Dua Lipa’s Mermaid Barbie, Kate McKinnon’s gymnast Barbie, Nicola Coughlan’s diplomat Barbie, Alexandra Shipp’s writer Barbie, Ritu Arya’s journalist Barbie, Emma Mackey’s physicist Barbie, Sharon Rooney’s lawyer Barbie, Hari Nef’s doctor Barbie, and Ana Cruz Kayne’s judge Barbie.
Meanwhile, Gosling’s Ken isn’t the only Ken—he’s in direct competition with Simu Liu’s Ken, and their rivalry will make up at least part of the plot. Joining the Kens and Barbies are Emerald Fennel’s Midge, Barbie’s longtime best friend, Will Ferrell, Ariana Greenblatt, America Ferrera, and Jamie Demetriou.
Gerwig said one of the things that drew her toward doing the film was terror, which she revealed on Dua Lipa’s podcast At Your Service: “It was something that was exciting because it was terrifying,” she said. “It felt like vertigo, starting to write it, like: ‘Where do you even begin, and what would be the story?’ And I think it was that feeling I had, knowing that it would be really interesting terror. Usually, that’s where the best stuff is, where you’re like, ‘I am terrified of that.’ Anything where you’re like, ‘This could be a career-ender — then you’re like, ‘I should probably do it.’”
She did it. It looks wild. Check out the official trailer below. Barbie lands in theaters on July 21.
Featured image: Caption: Caption: (L-r) RYAN GOSLING as Ken and MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
In a brand new clip from director Andy Muschietti’s The Flash, two versions of Barry Allen (both played by Ezra Miller), together thanks to the future Barry speeding back through time to save his mom and coming into contact with his past self, find themselves in the Batcave. There, Past Barry (just go with it) rips the protective cover off a car, and sure enough, it’s the Batmobile. But not just any Batmobile; it’s the version made famous in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman and 1992 Batman Returns. In the universe that Future Barry has sped back into, Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne is still Gotham’s protector.
And here is the moment Keaton’s Batman makes his entrance (while his Batwing is lowered on metal cables), saying, “I’ll help you get this Superman, then, you’re on your own.” Past Barry is so stunned to meet Batman that he faints. Future Barry smiles—finally, he’s found another superhero who can help him sort out the trouble he’s caused by meddling with the past.
Check out the clip here:
The clip comes just a day after the final trailer revealed another Batman that Barry will be relying on—the version played by Ben Affleck. When Barry meets with Affleck’s version of Bruce Wayne, he explains that he has the ability go go back in time, which means he can change the past; heck, he can even go back and not only save his own mom but Bruce’s parents, too. But Bruce Wayne is no fool; he reminds Barry of the fundamental rule of time travel; you can’t meddle with the past without changing the future.
The Flash will explore what happens when Barry does just that, heading back in time to try and save his mom and right the wrongs of the past. Barry won’t just come into contact with his past self and Keaton’s Batman, but he’ll also be forced to reckon with General Zod (Michael Shannon), killed by Superman in 2013’s Man of Steel in that universe, but alive and even more horrible in this one.
Barry’s biggest allies will be Keaton’s Batman and Sasha Calle’s Supergirl, and The Flash is easily one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year. You’ll be able to see it soon—it speeds into theaters on June 16.
When is it ok to hide the truth from your partner? That’s what writer-director Nicole Holofcener (Enough Said) examines in her latest film, You Hurt My Feelings. The Sundance premiere was scooped up by A24 and reconnects Holofcener with Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Beth, a novelist writing her latest book who overhears her husband Don (Tobias Menzies) sharing his no-so-flattering opinion about it. Now, it’s a matter of if and when Beth will confront Don (and what will become of it).
New York is the backdrop for the circling drama that entangles Beth’s sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins), and her husband, Mark (Arian Moayed). The contentious moments play out in living rooms, bedrooms, and dinner tables. Cinematographer Jeffrey Waldron (Little Fires Everywhere) was tasked with creating the intimacy of the story, and through a tapestry of texture, contrast, and composition, he deepens each scene with nuance.
Waldron sits down with The Credits to detail his collaboration with Holofcener, creating the visual language on a limited schedule, and how working with women has influenced his decisions on set.
You’ve worked with director Nicole Holofcener on the HBO series Mrs. Fletcher. How was it reconnecting with her on You Hurt My Feelings?
I actually almost didn’t get to shoot this project. I was working on the film Haunted Mansion with director Justin Simien when Nicole first called, and sadly our schedules overlapped. When I later checked in with Nicole to see how the shoot went, she told me it was pushed and asked if I might be able to do it. The timing turned out to be perfect. She admitted they had very little money and a very fast schedule, the fastest she’s ever had for a feature, but I loved the script and was excited to do this one.
(L-R) Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies Credit: Jeong Park
Since you’re shooting on a tight schedule, how thoroughly did you want to approach prep?
Nicole is a very instinctual filmmaker, so we didn’t do a lot of visual prep until we were able to visit locations with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies to work out the scenes ahead of time. Then I would find compositions based on the blocking I saw, which meant I wouldn’t have to come up with them during the scramble of the day. I’d also go to locations like Central Park and photograph areas, create compositions and then draw characters over them on my iPad to present to Nicole. Each scene had its own punctual composition, so it was about finding that for each of them.
What’s refreshing about the visual style of the film is its controlled frame. Was that the intention going into production?
Nicole has a cinematic style of her own that tends to be understated. Handheld isn’t used unless it’s very motivated. With this project, we wanted to keep this down-to-earth, indie vibe that’s almost static with very subtle moves. For certain moments there’s a very slow, almost invisible push to add weight without calling attention to itself.
(L-R) Arian Moayed, Michaela Watkins Credit: Jeong Park
That approach worked well for the story because when you do go handheld, it has a greater impact. For instance, the scene where Beth overhears Don talking about her in the store.
Exactly. That scene is the crux of the film. Beth becomes sick to her stomach and then runs out to the street. We suddenly switch to this handheld vibe to parallel the scene’s chaotic energy, and you really feel it because we’ve been so restrained.
(L-R) Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Nicole Holfcener Credit: Jeong Park
One of the larger locations is the home of Beth and Don. The lighting seemed to be motivated by the practical fixtures sprawled throughout the house. How did you work with production designer Sally Levi to create the setting?
After we were able rehearse and get a sense of the blocking, I worked with Sally to make sure there were practicals in ideal places for lighting motivation. That location was on the Upper West Side, not far from where Nicole grew up. The apartment was located on the 16th floor of the building so we couldn’t really push light through the windows, and because it was somebody’s home, we couldn’t drill or rig any lights to the ceiling. Everything was motivated by the practical lights in each scene and had to be done on the floor with the space we had. The realness and appropriateness of the location was worth all of the challenges, and by working around them, I think we created a more authentic look.
(L-R) Tobias Menzies, Julia Louis-Dreyfus Credit: Jeong Park
There is a grounding realism to the lighting but there’s still a subtle inherent style to it. Was there a balance you were towing with your lighting setups?
I set out to make a heightened natural style to complement the voice of the script, which strikes this very nuanced tone between comedy and drama with a sort of heightened realism. I think a lot of the big conversations in Beth and Don’s home lean more dramatic, so in terms of lighting, we emphasized softness but also shape and drama to give weight to the stakes for Beth and Don. Some viewers might see what they’re going through to be petty and small, but to them in this moment, it’s almost life and death. We wanted to play into what the characters were feeling during this somewhat existential incident in their marriage.
How did you approach shooting the birthday dinner where everything between Beth and Don comes out?
That was another real apartment, and the space was quite limited. That kind of scene with four people is pretty open-ended, with potentially dozens of eyelines to cover. I decided to put Julia’s character Beth on the camera side of the master, with Tobias’s character Don opposite her. This made it easy to anchor all of the eyelines to Beth and Don and naturally gave those two the tightest eyelines in the scene. The subtext is played in the looks between all of the characters and towards the fighting couple, so this worked perfectly for both the schedule and the story.
Near the end of the scene, we see Beth leave and start walking the streets of New York at dusk. How did you time out that climactic moment?
We shot the dinner table scene through a big chunk of a day. I wanted to create a consistent lighting tone that was unique to that half hour after sunset, knowing we’d shoot Don chasing Beth down the street at blue hour right before all of the street lights started to come on. We actually blue-gelled and ND’d all the windows in the apartment for that dinner scene so the high noon sun went darker and bluer and the practicals could do a bit more of the work, giving that magic hour feeling. Then during the actual 35 or so minutes after the sunset, we ran out to get the continuation of the scene.
And then you had to contend with the challenges of shooting in New York. How did production approach those hurdles?
It’s such a unique place to shoot. It’s inherently cinematic, but it doesn’t stop for you. You’re out there in a chaotic world where you don’t own the roads, there are paparazzi walking right into the set, and there’s nothing you can really do about it. We’d have these one-shot walk and talks, like with Don and Mark coming from Union Square to the Paragon store where we don’t own any of the streets and have no real control. You could have a great two-minute take, and then someone with a COVID mask walks right in, and you have to start over. A bright white van can just park right in the middle of your shot. Those things can be really tricky as you don’t have the control you might shooting in places like Atlanta or Los Angeles, but hey, you’re shooting Central Park, you’re shooting Union Square, which is amazing.
In your career, you’ve worked with women at the helm and as camera operators. How has that influenced your work?
Jennie Jeddry was our main camera operator on this film, and she offered so many great suggestions and ideas. It’s always amazing to have another set of talented eyes on everything, but she was also great at running the set with the second team and our on-set dresser while we would scramble to put together a lighting setup. I love working with female directors and female operators because there always tends to be this attention to certain details and instincts outside of my own that help broaden my approach. I also just love working with kind, giving, supportive people like Nicole and Jennie. They both bring a unique nuance and perspective to things, which in the end, made everything better.
You Hurt My Feelings hits theaters on May 26, 2023.
Featured image: (L-R) Tobias Menzies, Julia Louis-Dreyfus Credit: Jeong Park
The first reactions to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse are spinning across the internet, and they’re definitely going to catch your attention. People are, in a word, stunned. The sequel to the 2018 Oscar-winning original is being hailed as a true work of art, darker, deeper, and even better than the first. In a film that boasts some 250 Spider-People, the story is centered on the maturation of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), Brooklyn’s one and only Spider-Man, as he’s introduced to an elite group of Spider-People by Gwen Stacy (Hailee Seinfeld). This supergroup is led by Miguel O’Hara, aka Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac), and soon Miles will find himself defying the supergroup’s codes and coming into a world—or worlds—of trouble.
Joining Isaac as newcomers to the franchise are Issa Rae as Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman, Daniel Kaluuya as Hobart ‘Hobie’ Brown/Spider-Punk, Jason Schwartzman as Spot, Jorma Taccone as Adrian Toomes/The Vulture, and Karan Soni as Spider-Man India.
Across the Spider-Verse is directed by the trio of Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, and Joaquim Dos Santos. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller return as producers and as writers, co-writing alongside David Callaham.
Across the Spider-Verse is the second film in the planned trilogy, with Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse set for a March 29, 2024 release.
Without further ado, let’s get a peek at those spoiler-free first reactions:
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse raised the bar with its unique animation style & way of storytelling. Minds were blown when it was released & fans thought there was no way it could be topped. Think again. #SpiderManAcrossTheSpiderVerse raises its own bar which seemed impossible pic.twitter.com/F1Tay5Aif6
— Tessa Smith – Mama’s Geeky (@MamasGeeky) May 25, 2023
#SpiderManAcrossTheSpiderVerse is a stunning achievement. Yes, it’s visually dazzling, with expansive, expressive new realms (Gwen’s world is my favorite). But the movie’s real superpower is its emotional depth and its beautiful, melancholic tone. I love this movie so, so much 🕷️ pic.twitter.com/ofHvWCrNqy
Absolutely loved #SpiderManAcrossTheSpiderVerse. Wanted to push pause about a hundred times to study the incredible artistry on display. Cannot recommend this film enough and already looking forward to seeing it again. Next time in @IMAX! pic.twitter.com/R4dQFQwSpH
#AcrossTheSpiderVerse is yet another milestone for animation. Yes it’s gorgeous & visually mind-blowing, but this sequel surpasses the first for always putting Miles AND his family front and center.
Spider-Gwen also rightfully steps deeper into the spotlight, co-owning the film. pic.twitter.com/maYL97vAeg
OK. #SpiderManAcrossTheSpiderVerse lives one step above Masterpiece. It’s an actual work of art. Every frame deserves to be hung in a museum. The jokes and nods to Spidey lore are perfect. It’s OUTSTANDING. The best #SpiderMan movie. Might be my favorite movie ever. Cherish it. pic.twitter.com/mQxSnfKF0N
#SpiderManAcrossTheSpiderVerse is yet another resounding win for the Lord Miller-produced universe. Hailee Steinfeld really comes into her own as Gwen Stacy, and her scenes with Shea Whigham’s Captain Stacy are truly special. It’s darker and sadder than I expected, but necessary. pic.twitter.com/BekW4nVAyv
Spider-Man/Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) in Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animations’ SPIDER-MAN™: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE.Miguel O’ Hara (Oscar Isaac) clashes with Vulture (Jorma Taccone) in Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animations’ SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE.Jessica Drew (Issa Rae) and Miguel O’ Hara (Oscar Isaac) in Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animations’ SPIDER-MAN™: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE.
For more on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, check out these stories:
Featured image: Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac) and Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) in Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation’s SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE.
If there’s anyone on planet Earth you want to explain how dinosaurs protected their eggs, it’s Sir David Attenborough. In a new clip from Apple TV’s docu-series Prehistoric Planet 2, the legendary broadcaster, biologist, natural historian, and author describes the lengths the titanosaur went to protect her egg. A freshly laid titanosaur egg weighed a kilo and a half (3.3 lbs) and was two millimeters thick. The eggs were pretty tough, Attenborough explains, but they still needed to be kept safe and warm, so dinosaurs like the titanosaur developed a host of strategies, including building a nest and then sitting right on top of it.
How do we know dinosaurs did this? As Dr. Darren Naish, the series lead scientific consultant, explains, we have fossils of dinosaurs sitting on top of their nests. This provided the first evidence that some dinosaurs looked after their young. Yet one issue with incubating an egg is that, well, you’re a sitting duck (er, dinosaur). Another is it’s vastly time-consuming. A third is that dinosaurs could be, you probably recall, very massive.
Sauropods, for example, weighed far too much to sit on their eggs—they’d have been making omelets—so what they did was excavate a massive trench with their back feet and buried their eggs there. (Turtles do the same thing today). Other dinosaurs collected rotting vegetation and piled it atop their egg nests, essentially creating a compost heap. Bush turkeys in Australia do the same thing today, and as the vegetation breaks down, it produces enough heat to incubate the eggs for around seven weeks.
Yet a discovery in 2010 revealed an even s stranger method that dinosaurs deployed for protecting their eggs; they used heat from the earth itself. In one site in Argentina, fossils of sauropod eggs have been found right next to geothermal springs. Scientists believe that the sauropods might have been using volcanic activity to keep their eggs warm.
Check out the fascinating clip below. Prehistoric Planet 2 is now streaming on Apple TV:
Here’s the official synopsis for Prehistoric Planet 2:
Experience the wonders of our world like never before in this epic docuseries from Jon Favreau and the producers of Planet Earth. Prehistoric Planet combines award-winning wildlife filmmaking, the latest paleontology learnings and state-of-the-art technology to unveil the spectacular habitats and inhabitants of ancient Earth for a one-of-a-kind immersive experience. The series is produced by the world-renowned team at BBC Studios Natural History Unit with support from the photorealistic visual effects of MPC (The Lion King, The Jungle Book) applied to concept art created by Jellyfish Pictures (The Book of Boba Fett, Spirit: Untamed). Prehistoric Planet presents little-known and surprising facts of dinosaur life set against the backdrop of the environments of Cretaceous times, including coasts, deserts, freshwater, ice worlds and forests. Travel back 66 million years to when majestic dinosaurs and extraordinary creatures roamed the lands, seas and skies.
For more stories on Apple TV series and films, check these out:
The final trailer for The Flash opens not with a bang but with a comedic beat. Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) is all set to use his super speed to break the sound barrier and dash off, but first, he’s stopped by some screaming fans, and next, by Alfred Pennyworth (Jeremy Irons), who is patching a call through from Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck), who needs to see Barry immediately. This is what life is like for the youngest man in the Justice League—he’s at the beck and call of his elder superhero statesmen.
The trailer is our longest, most expansive look yet at director Andy Muscietti’s The Flash, which is speeding into theaters with a tremendous amount of positive tailwind. Tom Cruise has seen it and loved it, Stephen King has seen it and loved it, and, perhaps most crucially, newly minted DC Studios co-chief James Gunn has seen it, loved it, and called it one of the best superhero films he’s ever seen.
I got an advance screening of THE FLASH today. As a rule I don’t care a lot for superhero movies, but this one is special. It’s heartfelt, funny, and eye-popping. I loved it.
In the universe the trailer begins in, it’s Ben Affleck’s Bruce Wayne who’s the protector of Gotham, and he’s just finding out that Barry’s abilities let him travel back in time. Barry tells him this means he can fix things. Save people. And then, the real reason for his desire to speed back into history—to save his mom. Heck, he could even save Bruce’s parents. But Bruce Wayne is no fool; he’s likely seen a few time travel movies in his day, and he reminds Barry he could also destroy everything. You can’t meddle with the past without changing the future, and you have no way of knowing whether that change will be for the betterment of everybody.
The Flash will explore what happens when Barry does just that, heading back in time to try and save his mom and right the wrongs of the past. One of his first tests will wear a similar face, in fact, his face, as Barry will come into contact with himself. Another issue Barry will come into contact with goes by the name General Zod (Michael Shannon), killed by Superman in 2013’s Man of Steel in that universe, but alive and even more horrible in the one Barry has raced off into.
The trailer offers fresh footage of Sasha Calle’s Supergirl and Michael Keaton’s Batman, two allies the two Barry’s will not survive without. Set appropriately to Pink Floyd’s epic song “Time,” the final trailer for The Flash seems to dare the people who claim superhero fatigue to miss out on the fun.
Check out the final trailer below. The Flash speeds into theaters on June 16:
Cinematographer Fabian Wagner is no stranger to the realm of superheroes and super epic action. The Justice League and Game of Thrones DP has been tapped to lens Sony’s Venom 3, The Hollywood Reporterscoops. He’ll bringing a very suitable skillset that includes crafting some of the most breathless action set pieces ever scene on the small screen, to say nothing of his work helping Zack Snyder (eventually) realize his vision for his superhero team-up.
The Emmy-nominated Wagner, who lensed one of the best Game of Thrones episodes of them all, “Battle of the Bastards,” will be working with Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage scribe Kelly Marcel, who will be making her directorial debut here. Tom Hardy returns, of course, as Eddie Brock/Venom, everybody’s favorite investigative journalist/alien symbiote tag team. Marcel will direct off her own script and share story credit with Hardy.
We spoke with Wagner about his efforts on Zack Snyder’s Justice League, who brought Wagner on board in part because he loved his work in the larger-than-life Game of Thrones. Yet Wagner’s not just comfortable working on maximalist epics—he’s also lensed episodes of Netflix’s The Crown and BBC’s Sherlock. With Venom 3, he’ll likely get to flex all his cinematography muscles; Venom remains one of the most singular, oddball antiheroes in the Sony/Marvel canon, and while his appetite for destruction is outsized, so, too, is his fondness for a quip.
While gossip is the prevailing currency on Bridgerton, the emotional depth of Queen Charlotteis Her Majesty’s greatest asset. For a woman who can seem quite cold in the original series, a peek into her own lonely bedchamber is, at times, searing.
The intertwining pasts of the Queen (Golda Rosheuvel), Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), and Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) reveal the women as tender, formidable, and most passionate in their own ways. Their journeys are accompanied by a grandiose score and string versions of hit songs from both then and now stewarded by Music Supervisor Alex Patsavas.
“For Queen Charlotte, understanding the story was really going to focus on a character we already knew and loved and was going to delve into Charlotte’s backstory and so many characters’ backstories,” says Patsavas. “How could we access that DNA of Bridgerton but define it as Queen Charlotte music? Definitely dug into some of the most famous composers of the era. Mozart and Haydn, but also quite a lot of source is from the Chevalier de Saint-Georges catalog. Lastly, of course, covers of songs written, performed or made famous by women of color. It seemed like what better way to tell Queen Charlotte’s story?”
Although betrothed as strangers, Charlotte (India Amarteifio) and King George (Corey Mylchreest) instantly feel a spark and become true partners. As they break through societal barriers and make a statement at Lady Danbury’s (Arsema Thomas) ball, their intimate bond and influence as a couple grows.
Another heart-catching romance sees its first glimmer in this scene, and all that emotion calls for a major musical moment. Dancers swirl to a string version of Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You,” which also received a 20th-anniversary bonus version featuring more than 70 women musicians of color as a treat for fans. That blend of classical style with modern pop has become synonymous with the Bridgerton universe.
“First of all, [we were] so lucky to be able to have the opportunity to sync three Beyoncé songs in one show, and Alicia, and SZA, and ‘I Will Always Love You.’ Those artists made sense,” Patsavas said. “It was seamless with the storytelling.”
Of course, Queen Charlotte is inimitable, and her wedding called for custom composition. Composer Kris Bowers collaborated with songwriter Tayla Parx to craft “A Feeling I’ve Never Been.” It is a majestic and mesmerizing song that fills the stately hall and seems to bubble out of the dazzling couple themselves. “That was created specifically for that moment. I think you can feel that it was written for that precise moment as all of Kris’ score is,” Patsavas reflected.
In the afterglow of their nuptials, Beyonce’s “Halo” carries the young Charlotte to her new home. However, she is gutted to find that just as bliss was setting in, George does not intend to stay.
“Both of the tracks in the first episode were perfect for this. It’s like picking your favorite children,” Patsavas said. “It’s tough to pick. I’m pretty thrilled about how the Kris Bowers and Tayla Parx original song came together and being able to hear iterations, and early demo versions, to be able to hear that process and understand where the song is going and how it ultimately worked in the scene. Then, of course, the Caleb Chan and Brian Chan instrumental version of ‘Halo.’”
Misunderstanding and misdirection eventually put Charlotte and George’s marriage in jeopardy. The plot finally spins back to George’s perspective and begins to justify all the reprehensible acts he’s appeared to have committed set to a cover of Beyoncé’s “Déjà vu.” In the season finale, one storyline reveals that some love is only meant to last in memory, which is heartbreakingly played out to a gorgeous rendition of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” “Run the World (Girls)” by Beyoncé and “Nobody Gets Me” by SZA each drop in on some of the show’s most potent moments.
“We very much were looking for quartets, small ensembles,” Patsavas explained. “We knew there was that through line that was essential to include in Queen Charlotte, but there are multiple instrumental versions available. These were the versions that we ultimately were able to license and sync in the show that were the most emotional and the best at telling the story.”
The impact of a music supervisor can be felt throughout the entire creative process. From planning budgets to song clearance negotiations, Patsavas calls the job “nuanced.” Eventually, though, every project reaches the stage where the musical landscape begins to form.
“One of my favorite parts of the job is attending something called the spotting session,” Patsavas described. “A spotting session is all the creatives – post producer, editor, music teams, music editor, music supervisors, and of course, composer. We used to do this in person in an editing bay, and during the pandemic, we moved to a virtual spotting session. We watch the episode from beginning to end. Everybody watching it. A lot of stops and starts, and really acknowledging this is how the score should sound. These are the important moments. And not telling Kris how it should sound, but what are we emphasizing in these scenes? An hour-long show can easily be a two-hour or two-and-a-half-hour spotting session. There are conversations and stopping and starting, but it’s a pretty cool part of the process.”
Patsavas has worked on Shonda Rhimes’ biggest titles. Shondaland has always leaned into statement-making songs, even launching the careers of up-and-coming musicians.
“I’ve had the unbelievable luck to work with Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers since the Grey’s [Anatomy] pilot. So, it’s been a long, wonderful ride,” Patsavas reflected. “I’ve worked on Scandal and Private Practice. I think every project you really approach with a creative conversation, looking at outlines and early scripts, and of course, the first season of a show like Bridgerton is really a lot of experimenting and conversation. It felt like the scripts were so delicious; it was so fun. But then to see it come to life on screen with those early dailies and early cuts, understanding the way the time period was honored, but also the way that it was so Shondaland, so modern.”
Queen Charlotte takes the regal approach of invoking big-name artists and bringing back Bridgerton composer Kris Bowers for a magnificent score. The woman who changed the face of the monarchy deserves nothing less.
“It’s really about enhancing the drama rather than getting in the way of the drama,” Patsavas said. “We define this world with the composer. Obviously, Queen Charlotte was a patron of musicians and a lover of art. I think all of those cues run through the six episodes.”
Queen Charlotte is now streaming on Netflix.
For more on Queen Charlotte, check out these stories:
A bevy of Spider-People in “Across the Spider-Verse” made recreating this iconic moment from a beloved episode of a cartoon something of a cinch. It’s also a moment that was lovingly recreated in Jon Watts’ beloved live-action Spider-Man: No Way Home. You’ve seen it yourself in countless memes, two cartoon Spider-Men pointing at each other. Or, in the case of Jon Watts’ live-action film, three Spider-Men pointing at each other. In Across the Spider-Verse, you can jack that number way up.
In the clip, we’re in a world filled with Spider-People. These include a Spider-Cat, a Spider-Tyrannosaurus Rex (yes, you read that correctly), and more, all having a leisurely time at what appears to be a cafeteria created specifically for them. Then the alarm sounds and Spider-Man 2099 (voiced by Oscar Isaac) calls for everyone to be on the lookout for Spider-Man. This leads to that iconic moment pulled from the old cartoon—a slew of Spider-people all pointing at each other, like, are you the one we’re looking for? Then Spider-Man 2099 specifies they’re looking for Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), Brooklyn’s one-and-only Spider-Man and the star of this Oscar-winning franchise. They find him hiding on one of the Spider-People’s backs. Cue an epic chase scene.
The Spider-Man-pointing-at-Spider-Man moment originally hails from the very first Spider-Man cartoon, which aired on ABC for two seasons beginning in 1967. In season 1, episode 19, naturally titled “Double Identity,” Peter Parker faces off against the actor-turned-criminal Charles Cameo, who impersonates Spider-Man to steal art treasures. When he’s interrupted by the real Spider-Man, they point at each other. Decades later, a viral meme was born. Now, thanks to the trio of Spider-Men in No Way Home and the dozens, if not hundreds of Spider-People in Across the Spider-Verse, the original cartoon and following meme have helped inspire a brand new world.
Miles will be introduced to this world of Spider-People, and to an elite group that functions within it led by Spider-Man 2099, by Gwen Stacy (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld). As we learned in a previous clip, Gwen explains to Miles that this super-group of Spider-People is led by a “Ninja/Vampire Spider-Man, but a good guy.” But soon enough, Spider-Man 2099 thinks that Miles is a threat and the thrust of Across the Spider-Verse‘s action will be instigated by this belief.
Joining Isaac as newcomers to the franchise are Issa Rae as Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman, Daniel Kaluuya as Hobart ‘Hobie’ Brown/Spider-Punk, Jason Schwartzman as Spot, Jorma Taccone as Adrian Toomes/The Vulture, and Karan Soni as Spider-Man India.
Across the Spider-Verse is directed by the trio of Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, and Joaquim Dos Santos. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller return as producers and as writers, co-writing alongside David Callaham.
Across the Spider-Verse is the second film in the planned trilogy, with Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse set for a March 29, 2024 release.
Check out the clip below. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swings into theaters on June 2:
For more on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, check out these stories:
Fast X roared into theaters this past weekend and delivered another pedal-to-the-metal, physics-melting action adventure. Director Louis Leterrier steered the tenth installment, which finds Dominic Torretto (Vin Diesel) and his beloved family of gearheads facing off against a ferocious villain with a passion to burn Dom and the family to the ground. There’s a reason why Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa) is so hellbent on destroying the Family—they took down his father, the Brazilian drug kingpin Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), in Rio de Janeiro in Fast Five (2011). Dante saw the whole thing do down, and he’s been plotting his revenge ever since.
We spoke with 2nd unit stunt coordinator Andy Gill, who has been a major part of the Fast & Furious franchise since Fast Five, about how he helped create the craziest entry yet. And that’s saying something for a franchise that managed to shoot a few of its characters into space—in a car—in F9. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
You started with the franchise around Fast Five, which is a fan-favorite. Yet every film has had to up the level of mayhem from the last, so how have you helped maintain the balance between practical effects and over-the-top lunacy?
That’s always a fight. We get the scripts, andSpiro [Razatos], the second unit director and I will read it and break it down. Sometimes I’ll just tell him, “I don’t think this is a good idea. It’s superhero stuff. He can’t jump 400 feet and save the girl. It’s stupid.” So we think about it and go, “Okay, let’s give the director alternatives. What can we do physically that’s going to look good?” We’ll take those ideas to the director, pitch them, and hopefully, they’ll see it our way.
When Dom is behind the wheel, what’s the most accurate driving style for him?
Dom is aggressive. He’s not going to back down, so everything he does has a purpose. He’s calculated, and he is not afraid. He knows what he’s capable of, what his car’s capable of, so he can take it further than anybody can. In the Fast Series, he knows exactly what RPM to shift. He knows exactly when to hit the NOS. He’s in tune with his cars. Every once in a while, we do talk about him making a mistake, but it’s usually not in the movie. When you think about it, he never makes a mistake.
Vin Diesel is Dom in FAST X, directed by Louis Leterrier
Since you’re coordinating stunts for familiar characters with familiar styles, how does it feel when you get a clean slate like Jason Momoa’s villain?
I was a little bit worried because he was on a motorcycle. We all know about actors on motorcycles. It’s always hit or miss. A lot of them will say they do ride, but they rode 20 years ago on a mini bike. Jason comes in, and he says he rides motorcycles. I did some digging, and he does ride motorcycles, but I still wanted to have a day with him out at a big parking lot to see how he really rides. He did phenomenally. I think he has 102 motorcycles or something.
Jason Momoa is Dante in FAST X. Courtesy Universal Pictures.
No kidding?
So that whole [motorcycle] sequence, probably 95% of it is him on the motorcycle. He didn’t do the stairs, but everything else he did. He’s rode everything. Super easy to work with.
Make your job a lot easier.
Some actors have this entourage that comes with them, and you’re supposed to have them for an hour, and they come in 30 minutes late, and they leave 10 minutes early. He was most of the time early, did the work, and did not want to leave. He goes, “No, I want to ride some more.” I was like, “Sorry, they need you back at the first unit.”
What steps do you take when you work with an actor completely unfamiliar with a motorcycle?
I will get with the director and find out how much time they want to put in to make him look like he can really ride if he has little knowledge of motorcycles. Usually, if it’s a lead character, they’ll want to put the time and effort in if the actor’s willing. First of all, you have to find out if the actor wants to. If o, then we’ll get a mini bike and go out in some dirt and do the basics. Go through where the clutch is, the front brake, the back brake, and the gear shift lever, and have him go through the motions. They’re not moving, but then we’ll work on that for an hour and a half until they know where everything is.
Then what?
I’ll start it up with him on it, and then I’ll stand in front holding the crossbar on the handlebars. I’ll say, “Okay, put it in gear, and now let the clutch out slowly.” Then I’ll slowly walk with it backward until they’re gone. Then I’ll say, “Stop,” so I can make sure that he knows how to stop. We go through that sequence and just build up. Builds confidence for them. We’ll start riding around, but I’ll only tell him first gear. Once I feel comfortable with them doing that, then we’ll go from first to second until they’re riding. Once they ride a bit, then I’ll put them on a 125, a little four-stroke, and work our way up to the bike that they’re going to be on. Over a few days or a week, they’re comfortable.
Fast X, directed by Louis Leterrier. Courtesy Universal Pictures.
When do you become comfortable enough with actors on the bike so you can start filming?
I’ll take them through the things where I’ll be on a bike beside them, and I’ll just say, “You just ride, and when I say stop, you stop. It could be at any time.” They’ll be riding, and we’re talking. All of a sudden, I’ll just yell, “Stop.” That way, I know that they’re not thinking about where the brakes are. Once they know that, then I’m comfortable getting them on a bike. I normally have the locations find me some places that are industrial parks that are closed down. You have the roads, and you have all the stop signs and everything else, but not a lot of traffic. We’ll go out there and just play. Ride, ride, ride. And then, when I feel it’s good enough, we’ll go on a nice ride for a day. Now, he’s ready. It’s just all about the time to put into it. You just need the time.
So says Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), a.k.a War Machine (although he doesn’t become him until further along the Marvel timeline), explaining to his comrade that an invasion of Earth by shape-shifting Skrulls has officially begun. This is the premise for Marvel’s upcoming Disney+ series Secret Invasion, with Jackson leading a starry cast that includes his Captain Marvel comrade Ben Mendelsohn as the Skrull Talos, Emilia Clark as G’iah, Talos’s daughter, Olivia Colman as Special Agent Sonya Falsworth, Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Kingsley Ben-Adir as the rebel Skrull leader Gravik, Killian Scott as Fiz, and Carmen Ejogo and Christopher McDonald in unspecified roles.
In the new teaser, Olivia Colman’s Special Agent Sonya Falsworth wonders why Fury hasn’t called any of his “special friends” to help him battle the infiltrating Skrulls. “This war is one I have to fight,” Fury tells her. “Alone.”
A grizzled, solo Fury is still a very dangerous opponent, but he can’t seriously think he’s going to take down an army of Skrulls solo. Luckily for him, he still has special friends who don’t qualify as superheroes, including Mendelsohn’s Talos and Smulders’ Maria Hill. While Hill has been Fury’s longtime partner in crime (only when the crime is what’s best for humanity), Fury and Talos became unexpected allies during the events of the 1990s-set Captain Marvel. Things are even more complicated for the duo now, with the intracrine battle within the Skrull community spilling out on Earth. The Skrulls are infiltrating the highest positions of power across the globe, using their shape-shifting powers to access even the most tightly secured places on the planet. The effort is being led by Ben-Adir’s Gravik, who leads a group committed to taking control of the levers of power on Earth to use its resources for their own needs.
Secret Invasion promises to be a more human-driven series, despite the fact that it features shape-shifting aliens, than your typical Marvel show. “Even though there are aliens, and there’s going to be extraordinary fight sequences, this is about people on the ground talking to each other, and interviewing people, and really doing hands-on work to get the information needed,” Smulders told THR. The series was created by Kyle Bradstreet.
Check out the new teaser below. Secret Invasion invades Disney+ on June 21.
For more on all things Marvel Studios, check these out:
Even in death, Logan’s arrival on the scene sends the would-be kings, wannabe power players, and his own children (who fall into both camps, frankly) scrabbling to make their move. As Logan’s casket arrived at the funeral and the ritual of mourning and prayers was about to begin in earnest, it was officially Go Time for one of Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin), set to deliver the main eulogy and viewing the moment as his chance to stake his claim as his father’s rightful successor. Things didn’t go to plan.
“In episode nine, you start the episode with Kendall here and Roman here,” executive producer and director Mark Mylod explains in HBO’s latest “Inside the Episode.” He shows, by way of his hands, just how much higher Roman has risen since he helped steer ATN’s favorable coverage of the far-right presidential candidate Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk), who is now President-elect (there’s a legal challenge to this claim looming). “Then by the end of the episode, it’s see-sawed completely.”
This is because at the moment Roman was set to make his eulogy, Logan’s brother, Ewan (James Cromwell), goes up to speak before him. Ewan has long been the only member of the Roy family willing to call Logan a brute and a bully to his face. Now, with his brother only a few feet away in a box, Ewan tells a haunting tale about their childhood (it was bleak), about his brother’s guilt over their sister’s death (polio that a young Logan blamed himself for transporting back to the family home from his boarding school), and his brother’s rise into becoming a man who made other men meager and mean. It was a scene-stealing performance from Cromwell, a perfectly calibrated final dose of truth-telling that looked to hurt him as much as it did the crowd, most of whom were not there to reflect on the true measure of the man but rather see who would pick up where Logan left off.
“Roman said he pre-grieved right after the death of his father,” says creator Jesse Armstrong in the video, “and some people do feel that way, like, they feel numb, and they don’t feel the wave of grief they’re expecting.” Yet Roman’s wave of grief comes, in the twisted calculus of the Roy family, at the worst possible time—at Logan’s funeral. When it was finally Roman’s turn to prove himself the man ready to carry Logan’s legacy forward, he falls apart right there in front of everyone, unable to continue. His siblings have to comfort him as Roman gapes at the casket, the weight of Logan’s death crushing him.
Kendall (Jeremy Strong) steps in, and he ends up delivering an off-the-cuff eulogy that feints at the truth and ends up valorizing a man who, it could not be denied, had lived his life to the fullest. There follows a thunderous applause, the very thing that Roman lusted after, the approval of the kingmakers, those with the power to squash the GoJo deal, be they the President-elect or the Waystar board. Kendall was back on top. Shiv [Sarah Snook] went last, explaining how hard it was for the totality of a woman to fit in her dad’s brain. It was the second most honest assessment of Logan after Ewan, but it was too little, too late.
Due to the vast amount of dialogue and crucial beats that needed to be captured during the funeral, Mylod eschewed Succession‘s usual two-camera approach and utilized skills he’d picked early in his career. He set up a four-film camera system that cover all that ground very quickly, including one camera that could cover whoever was eulogizing, another camera could be on the siblings, and another camera could capture reactions. This was a “roll and reload” system they’d used in episode 3 when news of Logan’s death begins to spread from the plane to the Roy children, so they could effectively run a continuous take multiple times. In episode nine, they rolled and reloaded from the moment the casket is brought into the church, through the procession, and on through all the eulogies in one big chunk to give the cast as much emotional flow as possible. The gambit worked. The emotions flowed. The cast was excellent.
“With the cast, we rarely talk about a really emotional moment beforehand,” Mylod says. “It doesn’t benefit them. They have a process where it’s built up and prepped in their heads, and I don’t want to interfere with that. Once a take starts, it becomes its own animal, and you’re responding to what you’re seeing. I’m completely led by the performance; it’s raw, and our whole modus operandi is to harness that raw as much as we can.”
The episode ends with what Armstrong calls Roman’s “ecstasy of nihilism,” as he jumps a police barrier to directly confront some people protesting President-elect Mencken. Roman screams at them, mocking them, and ends up getting clocked in the face and pushed onto the ground. This is where we leave him, literally being trampled by the people he prefers to look down upon from the penthouse his daddy’s money bought him or, more recently, from the boardroom in ATN’s tower. We’d be lying if we didn’t say it was the only moment of true catharsis in the episode.
Check out the “Inside the Episode” below. Succession‘s series finale airs on Sunday, May 28:
“We love Indiana Jones because we love movies,” director James Mangold says at the top of this new featurette for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Mangold is the first man to ever helm an Indiana Jones film not named Steven Spielberg, so the stakes were high, but what helped Mangold’s cause was his genuine love of the franchise. “We love the cause and effect, the tripwire of events. All these pieces fit together to make the lightning in a bottle of an Indiana Jones film. But also, it just fits Harrison like a glove.”
Lucasfilm President and Indiana Jones producer Kathleen Kennedy says that Harrison Ford loves the character of Indiana Jones as much as the audience does, so the question, when they were set on making the fifth film in the franchise, went from what could the adventure be to what could the last adventure be. And that’s what gives Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny its charge; we’re seeing Harrison Ford in one of his most iconic roles for the last time.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny will offer viewers a final, thrilling adventure and a chance to glimpse a key moment from the past. The film finds Indy in his present day (1969) as the world has changed around him. Indy’s finally retiring as a professor, but there’s one more adventure waiting for him and it’s connected to his past. His goddaughter, Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), knows that Indy was once on a train where a very important relic, the Dial of Destiny, was being transported. Helena aims to find that Dial and her dangerous mission to locate and secure it will become Indy’s last adventure.
Ford and Waller-Bridge are joined by the great Mads Mikkelsen as the villain Jürgen Voller, Boyd Holbrook as his henchman Klaber, Antonio Banderas as Indy ally Renaldo, Thomas Kretschmann as Colonel Weber, Toby Jones as Basil (Helena’s father), and John Rhys-Davies as Sallah.
The Dial of Destiny is the fifth film in the franchise, following Spielberg’s four previous Indiana Jones films; Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989), and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).
Check out the new featurette below. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny whips into theaters on June 30:
For more on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, check out these stories:
The premise of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse continues the multidimensional mayhem established in the 2018 Oscar-winning original, introducing Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) to a slew of Spider-People from across multiple dimensions and across multiple globes. One of those Spider-People is Pavitr Prabhakar (voiced by Karan Soni), India’s one and only Spider-Man, who makes a grand entrance in this brand-new Across the Spider-Verse teaser. Pavitr’s Spider-Man is the man that the citizens of Mumbattan rely on. If you’re wondering where (and what) Mumbattan is, imagine a hybrid of Mumbai and Manhattan. Pavitr introduces the huge, traffic-clogged metropolis to Miles and Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) as he enthuses about how easy being Spider-Man is, which must come as a shock to Miles. “I fight a few bad guys, quick break for a chai with my auntie…,” and this is where Miles breaks in, enthusing about his love for chai tea. Pavitr is confused…chai means tea. “You’re saying tea tea!” he exclaims.
The teaser captures the visual splendor and warmth of the franchise, which has greatly expanded the idea of who can be Spider-Man, introducing us not only to India’s Spider-Man but Spider-People, be they boys, girls, women or men (or pigs, as Spider-Ham proved), from all over the place. In Across the Spider-Verse, Miles will come into contact with an elite group of Spider-People, founded and led by Miguel O’Hara (voiced by Oscar Isaac), also known as Spider-Man 2099. Miles’ problems multiply along with the Spider-People he meets, and while he’s got trusted allies in Gwen and Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), plenty more of these Spider-People will come to suspect that Miles can’t live up to their code.
Joining Isaac and Soni as newcomers to the franchise are Issa Rae as Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman, Daniel Kaluuya as Hobart ‘Hobie’ Brown/Spider-Punk, Jason Schwartzman as Spot, and Jorma Taccone as Adrian Toomes/The Vulture.
Across the Spider-Verse is directed by the trio of Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, and Joaquim Dos Santos, with a script by returning writer/producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and David Callaham. It’s the second film in the planned trilogy, with Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse set for a March 29, 2024 release.
Meet Pravitr in the teaser below. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swings into theaters on June 2:
For more on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, check out these stories:
Featured image: A visual development image featuring Pavitr Prabhakar, aka Spider-Man India, Gwen Stacy and Miles Morales fighting The Spot in the city of Mumbattan on Earth-50101 – a kaleidoscopic hybrid of Mumbai and Manhattan for Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animations’ SPIDER-MAN™: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE.
At long last, the first teaser trailer for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is here.
Scorsese’s film, adapted from investigative journalist David Grann’s best-selling 2017 book of the same name, is having its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, May 20, and Apple TV has now given the rest of the world this sneak peek. The story involves a series of brutal murders in Oklahoma on the Osage Nation during the turn of the 20th Century. The Osage had recently become some of the wealthiest people on the planet thanks to the discovery of oil on their land. As the teaser makes evocatively clear, their sudden wealth brought the wolves to their doorstep, as white interlopers, in various guises, descended upon Osage land to pry their newfound wealth from them in any way they could, whether it be through marriage or murder.
While Grann’s book was centered on Tom White, a former Texas Ranger who came to Oklahoma to investigate the murders (he’s played in the film by Jesse Plemmons), Scorsese and his screenwriter Eric Roth altered the focus of their story. The film is no longer centered on the law-abiding white man who comes to Osage Nation to solve the crime but instead shifts the focus to the relationship between Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro). Ernest married a member of the Osage Nation, Mollie (Lily Gladstone), who is ailing, and he stands to inherit a fortune. Both Ernest and William, despite claiming to love and respect the Osage people, might just be the wolves that DiCaprio’s Ernest is talking about in the teaser. Did he marry Mollie (they have three children together) solely for the money? Are he and William connected to the murders?
Speaking with Deadline, De Niro explained that as excellent as Grann’s book is, the movie needed to shift its focus from Tom White to the murkier motives of Ernest and William.
“It made the most sense to show what’s going on in that world, the dynamic between the nephew and the uncle,” De Niro told Deadline. “I don’t know if you would call it the banality of evil or just evil, corrupt entitlement, but we’ve seen it in other societies, including the Nazis before WWII. That is, a depressing realization of human nature that leaves people capable of doing terrible things. [Hale] believed he loved them and felt they loved him. But within that, he felt he had the right to behave the way he did.”
Killers of the Flower Moon is easily one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year and arrives in theaters in October. Check out the teaser below:
Here’s the official synopsis for Killers of the Flower Moon:
At the turn of the 20th century, oil brought a fortune to the Osage Nation, who became some of the richest people in the world overnight. The wealth of these Native Americans immediately attracted white interlopers, who manipulated, extorted, and stole as much Osage money as they could before resorting to murder. Based on a true story and told through the improbable romance of Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), “Killers of the Flower Moon” is an epic western crime saga, where real love crosses paths with unspeakable betrayal. Also starring Robert De Niro and Jesse Plemons, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is directed by Academy Award winner Martin Scorsese from a screenplay by Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese, based on David Grann’s best-selling book.
For more on Killers of the Flower Moon, check out these stories:
Production designer Beth Mickle got on the Hollywood radar for her work on Nicolas Winding Refn’s ultra-cool indie Drive and worked her way into the blockbuster realm when her first collaboration with James Gunn, The Suicide Squad, was embraced by both critics and DC fans. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is her third project with Gunn—who has now moved on to co-run DC Studios—and her second in the Guardians universe, after working on The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special in 2022.
For the final film in Gunn’s trilogy, the last that will star the original Guardians, Mickle took on Gunn’s challenge—to build practical sets for the majority of the scenes and help create a tactile world rarely built on this scale for most sci-fi epics or superhero films. With The Bowie, for example, Mickle designed and built the largest spaceship in Marvel history for the film’s heart and soul, Rocket Racoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper). She also expanded Knowhere, a spaceport on the edge of the known universe, to include 20 separate buildings and feel more like a whole city, taking up almost 40,000 square feet.
The key was to bring reality to the emotionally poignant story of Rocket’s tragic personal history, which is the heart and soul of Gunn’s bittersweet finale. The Credits got the details on Mickle meeting Gunn’s ambitious challenge, as she explains how the production design was integral to giving the film its bruised but resolutely unbroken heart.
James Gunn wanted a realistic core to his third and final Guardians film. What did that mean to you in terms of balancing the very diverse environments visually and keeping the look, as a whole, grounded?
The way we approached the design was to keep them grounded in a way so just about everything that you see and every set that we land in where we’re at eye level we built so that it actually feels tangible. These are materials that are vaguely familiar, like the Orgoscope, which is flesh and bone. It’s still an otherworldly, outlandish, and heightened realism because we’re creating a planet, but it’s made of these materials you wouldn’t normally think of in that capacity.
The sprawling spaceport Knowhere is one example of those gorgeous practical sets, and it took up almost 40,000 square feet. How did you build that world using what you guys dubbed “Space Deco”?
We filled a 40,000 square-foot stage and built up to four stories high, and then there are absolutely beautiful visual effects extensions added on. So, when you’re looking up at the sky or when you’re looking at those few cracks between buildings, the effects team did a beautiful job extending the sets. But when you’re spinning around that whole opening tracking shot with Rocket, when you’re at eye level, just about everything that you’re seeing is a real built surface. We built the Boot of Jemiah, the bar where Rocket finds Quill, and the armory, all of which were connected to that big main street that we built. We wanted the walls and spaces to be textured and layered, keeping it in the vein of the Guardians’ aesthetic. If you look at Guardians 1 and 2, there are just beautiful layers and graphic textures, all on top of one another, so how could we do that but also still not completely blow our budget?
We became really resourceful and went to hardware stores and sourced whatever we could, including from Home Depot, including air conditioning vents, big hoses, and strange geometric plating for floors and garages. We brought all of it into the art office to figure out how we could arrange things, multiply them out, and give them a good paint finish. Suddenly, it started to feel like something that could be from another world. And you’d be amazed when you pile enough of these things on top of each other and give them wild finishes, whether it’s wild colors or rust, how quickly you get to a layered surface that starts to feel like something otherworldly.
The new Guardians spaceship, The Bowie, was built with 3 floors and has the largest cockpit in MCU history. What was the inspiration for the interior, and what were some of the challenges of that build?
The interior was very much drawn from the lines of our exterior. Because Rocket built it, I wanted to reference something that felt heavy and muscular, like a power tool, so we pulled a bunch of power tool shapes. I sat with our wonderful concept artist, Fausto De Martini, and looked at which shapes could work best, and we ended up coming up with the circular saw. If you look at the body of the exterior, you can actually really see it’s a circular saw. It had this great pointed front to give it that nose where the cockpit is, and the rest was very much drawn from the circ-saw.
What about the medical bay, which is such an integral part of the story?
The med bay, where we spend most of our time with Rocket, is a big, beautiful circular space. The machinery and the medical equipment around him are all big, beautiful, concentric circular pieces. You go out into the central core where they spend a lot of time, a lot of choreography, and that’s a big circular core with spiral staircases. The hallways are all circular. That really helped to steer what the interior was going to be. The massive challenge for us was that it ended up needing to be ready on day one of the shoot, which only gave us 16 weeks to build it from start to finish—it really should have been a 22 or 24-week build. Our amazing construction crew, led by Chris Snyder and scenics by Damon Bowden, literally did 50 or 60 days straight to get it done. We were literally putting finishing graphics onto the cockpit at 6 am on the morning of day one of shooting. It was enormously challenging for that reason.
In the flashback scenes with Teefs, Lylla, Floor, and Rocket, what were some of the directives for that environment?
I don’t know how much of this is known, but James did cast actors for each of the baby animals, and we actually built a proxy cage to human scale that we had on our motion capture stage. We figured out exactly what the scale would be for humans, and it was four times the size of what we built onset for the baby animals, so we could have each of those characters in their mo-cap suits lay in the cages, in the same configuration that the animals do for all of those scenes. A lot of what drove the layout and design of that was James’s storyboards. He really saw that scene in his head many months before we shot it. It’s pretty amazing to see the visionary gifts that a director like James has. He can be so specific and say, “The lock on the door needs to be on the left side because that’s where I want Rocket to swipe the door, and I want him to open it left to right so that the door lands on the right side, so we see the High Evolutionary behind him.” It’s phenomenal the specificity of the choreography he knows in his head.
The first trailer for Gareth Edwards’ The Creator has arrived, a fresh look at a growing concern that you can read and hear about just about every day, whether it’s in major newspapers, magazines, on Reddit threads, podcasts, or in research papers. We’re talking about artificial intelligence, once the concern mainly of scientists, futurists, and Hollywood execs looking for the next Terminator, but now on everybody’s radar thanks to the advent of ChatGPT, an AI language model developed by OpenAI, which can generate human-like text and engage in conversational interactions. Heck, if we’re being honest, it could even write a piece on The Creator‘s trailer, but we’re not giving in that easily.
The Creator stars John David Washington as Joshua, an ex-special forces agent recruited to hunt down and kill the titular creator, the architect of the AI that dropped a nuke on Los Angeles and is planning on destroying humanity. The trailer reveals that once Joshua gets behind the enemy’s lines and finds the creator, the all-powerful and elusive mastermind behind the nefarious AI turns out to be a child. Well, not a human child, but an AI in the form of a human-like child that Joshua will learn is not at all what it seems.
Joining Washington are a stellar cast, including Gemma Chan (Eternals), Ken Watanabe (Inception), Allison Janey (I, Tonya), Sturgill Simpson (Dog), and newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles as the child/Creator. Edwards directs from a script he co-wrote with Chris Weitz, his collaborator from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Humanity versus an AI run amok? Yeah, this is a classic sci-fi trope, but something tells us that Edwards and his cast and crew could be onto something fresh. Besides, they’re releasing the film into a world in which AI is no longer speculative, and concerns about it possibly taking out humanity are front-page news.
Check out the trailer below. The Creator arrives in theaters on September 29.
For more stories on Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Marvel Studios, and what’s streaming or coming to Disney+, check these out:
Sony Pictures has just revealed a new clip from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse revealing Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) and Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) enjoying the bounty of their youth and superpowers. Miles is, of course, Brooklyn’s one and only Spider-Man, and Gwen Stacy is the one and only Spider-Gwen, and together they might quite the pair. The clip finds the two swinging through New York while Gwen lets Miles in on a little secret; there’s a super-group of Spider-People, led by a “Ninja/Vampire Spider-Man, but a good guy,” as Gwen explains. Miles is, of course, intrigued, and his intrigue will eventually lead him to meet this super-group. That’s when a fresh round of troubles will start for Brooklyn’s one and only Spider-Man.
Across the Spider-Verse will center on Miles meeting this elite crew of the best Spider-People, led by that Ninja/Vampire that Gwen was talking about, founder Miguel O’Hara (voiced by Oscar Isaac), also known as Spider-Man 2099. Miles’ problems multiply along with the Spider-People he meets, and although he’s got allies like Gwen and Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), not everyone he meets will be rooting for him—and that will eventually include Spider-Man 2099.
Joining Isaac as newcomers to the franchise are Issa Rae as Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman, Daniel Kaluuya as Hobart ‘Hobie’ Brown/Spider-Punk, Jason Schwartzman as Spot, Jorma Taccone as Adrian Toomes/The Vulture, and Karan Soni as Spider-Man India.
Across the Spider-Verse is directed by the trio of Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, and Joaquim Dos Santos. Powers, who wrote Regina King’s excellent 2020 film One Night In Miami and co-directed Pixar’s Soul, has said the sequel will continue Miles’ emotional journey as he matures, both as a young man and as Spider-Man. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller return as producers and as writers, co-writing alongside David Callaham.
“It’s been over a year since the events of the first movie, and he’s still trying to learn to be a superhero,” Moore said of Miles Morales when he introduced 14 minutes of the film at CinemaCon. He also offered a line that sounds ready for prime time (perhaps it’s straight from the movie); “How you wear the mask is what makes you a hero.”
Across the Spider-Verse is the second film in the planned trilogy, with Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse set for a March 29, 2024 release.
Check out the clip below. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swings into theaters on June 2:
For more on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, check out these stories:
Featured image: Spider-Man (Shameik Moore) and Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) in Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation’s SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE.
