Your return trip to Panem has officially been booked.
Lionsgate has revealed the first official trailer for The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the newest installment in the franchise, this one based on Suzanne Collins’ prequel novel. Fans of The Hunger Games will now get a chance to see how the wicked world of Panem came to be.
Director Francis Lawrence returns to the franchise with a brand new cast, beginning with the film’s leads; Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird and Tom Blyth as the young Coriolanus Snow. The film captures these young would-be lovers long before Snow grew up to become the tyrannical president of Panem in the original films (played with such nimble menace by Donald Sutherland) when he was an orphan in the Capitol and enrolled at the Academy. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set some 64 years before the events in the first Hunger Games film, with the young Snow very much in love with Zegler’s Lucy Gray Baird. This is when tragedy strikes; Lucy becomes a tribute in the 10th Annual Hunger Games, and Snow wants to save her. They’ll both have their hands full, however, with Dr. Volumnia Gaul, played by Viola Davis, a woman so easily moved.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, director Francis Lawrence said, “This is very much a story about love. It’s this kind of love story set in a different kind of a world in a different time.”
Joining Zegler, Blyth, and Davis are Peter Dinklage, playing Casca Highbottom; Josh Andrés Rivera, playing Sejanus Plinth; Hunter Schafer, playing Tigris Snow; and Jason Schwartzman, playing Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman.
Here’s the official synopsis for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes:
“Years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Blyth) is the last hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow is alarmed when he is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler), the girl tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray commands all of Panem’s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to turn the odds in their favor. Uniting their instincts for showmanship and newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy’s race against time to survive will ultimately reveal who is a songbird and a snake.”
Check out the trailer below. The Hunger Games: The Ballads of Songbirds & Snakes slithers into theaters on November 17.
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Featured image: Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Photo Credit: Murray Close
We’re a week away from the premiere of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, the third and final film in James Gunn’s trilogy. It’s a bittersweet ending for Gunn, who, as you know by now, is the new co-chief at Marvel’s rival, DC Studios. Yet his final film is a momentous one for the filmmaker and for the MCU, and now the first reactions from critics are finally here.
The film sees all the original Guardians returning for one final adventure—Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), and Mantis (Pom Klementieff). Although Peter Quill has been he the leader of the Guardians thus far, Vol. 3 is very much Rocket’s story, too, as the movie delves into his tragic backstory. The how and why of Rocket becoming Rocket involves the film’s new villain, the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), the man who led the experimentations that turned a raccoon into a walking, talking weapons expert. Another newcomer is Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), created by the Queen of the Sovereign, Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 with the express purpose of hunting down the Guardians and finishing them off.
While the Guardians as a franchise will likely continue on within the MCU, it’s the end of the road for this particular group, which gives Vol. 3 a valedictory feel. Gunn and the cast have been together for more than a decade now, and their bonds are tight. “I’ve done jobs where I’ve been so close to people, then the job ends, and I just never see them again. And that happens,” Pratt said in a cover story in The Hollywood Reporter. “I don’t think that’ll happen with us.”
So, without further ado,let’s take a spoiler-free peek at what the critics are saying:
After so much superhero movie fatigue, #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3 is a refreshing & unexpected joy to watch. It carries tons of emotional weight, laughs & action. There were a few moments that surprised me in mixed ways, but it’s a beautiful tribute to friends who are like family. pic.twitter.com/T76Z83uUZj
WE GOTTA TALK!!! #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3 delivered in more ways than one! Emotional, action packed, comedic, and a tone that delivers.
GRAB THE TISSUES cause DAMN there are some MOMENTS man!! Rocket is the MAN!! Music choices Great per usual and VFX deliver! HAD A BLAST! pic.twitter.com/Z0Y5fQbPVu
Loved #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3. @JamesGunn is leaving Marvel with an exceptional last film and it’s loaded with so many great moments it’s hard to pick my favorite scene. Saw in @IMAX and it was a fantastic presentation. Will miss these misfits a lot. pic.twitter.com/NNIYP6aNT1
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 3, James Gunn bets the house on a, surprisingly, emotional story centered on Rocket and the love and friendship between these characters. Bets and wins. It’s pretty incredible (animal lovers, there are a couple tough scenes) #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3 is full of stakes, emotion & feels like a solid ending (good thing!). The production design & set pieces are some of Marvel’s strongest. It’s long, but the theme of found family is & will always be it’s strength. I’ll miss these misfits 💙 #GotGVol3pic.twitter.com/inK2g6rfAi
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is full of heart and brought me to tears on multiple occasions. @JamesGunn making it Rocket’s story pays off big. It’s not what you’re necessarily expecting, but it really does land. A perfect ending, too. @Guardians#GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3pic.twitter.com/KdLhNUZdj6
I teared up multiple times during #GuardiansOfTheGalaxy3. It’s one of the most emotionally satisfying trilogy cappers ever made, and Rocket’s storyline is as affecting as anything the MCU has ever done. Bravo, @JamesGunn. pic.twitter.com/TYdgbkKXWe
Simply incredible. I can’t imagine #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3 being a more perfect ending to James Gunn’s trilogy. Every payoff, every emotion, every character journey. It’s about as good as Marvel movies get. Funny, poignant, exciting, I want to watch it again right now. pic.twitter.com/1d1f6ksQaM
James Gunn really made one of the best CBM trilogies ever. #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3 gives the franchise the perfect ending with an emotional story, good cgi and a TERRIFIC villain. It’s incredible how Gunn NEVER misses on humor, this movie is hilarious, good jokes at the right… pic.twitter.com/474wJlLB1C
— The Hollywood Handle (@hollywoodhandle) April 27, 2023
My reaction to #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3 : thank God that James Gunn is back in the MCU. This is easily the best Marvel movie in years and had a real, heartfelt, and surprisingly wistful heart.
Just screened #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3 and it is an emotional and action-packed rollercoaster ride. It’s easily the best MCU film since No Way Home. I highly recommend watching the movie on the most giant screen possible to be immersed in this intergalactic story.
So the best way to describe #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3 is that it’s beautiful. I felt satisfied, which lately for the MCU has been a bit of a chore. This movie reminded me why I love this so much. The story is special. Salute to Rocket Raccoon. James Gunn did it again!
#GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3 is a beautiful love letter to the universe’s best ragtag group of misfits. What I loved most about it is that it’s a story about the bonds of chosen family thru deep trauma… that just so happens to be a Marvel movie. Rocket and his arc are the MVP. pic.twitter.com/VqdKvyNqUg
#GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol3 is
not only the best of the trilogy, it’s also better than 90% of Phase 4 MCU content we’ve gotten across film and streaming
It stayed true to its emotional core with sincerity and did not use its levity to undercut it with poorly placed gags and quips pic.twitter.com/j9gHdkYTE6
The official trailer for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is here, revealing the franchise’s chest-thumping new direction as a whole new host of metallic alien colossi stomp into view. The new trailer offers a longer, more detailed look at the seventh installment of the Transformers franchise, which is set in 1994 and is inspired by the ’90s Beast Wars cartoon. As we learned when the previous trailer dropped, Rise of the Beasts will roam from the streets of Brooklyn to Machu Picchu, Peru. Starring Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback, with new transformers voiced by none other than Michelle Yeoh (!!) and Pete Davidson, Rise of the Beasts introduces the Maximals and Predacons, the titular beasts. The film will explore not only these new factions in the larger war between the Autobots and Decepticons but also the origins of the Autobots’ connection to Earth. Rise of the Beasts also includes the introduction of the Terrorcons, a sub-group of the Decepticons that transform into metallic monsters.
Director Steven Caple Jr steers the new film, and for those of you who aren’t scholars of Michael Bay’s previous Transformers story, we’ve got good news; Rise of the Beasts is set before any of them, so you don’t need to know the history of these warring metal aliens to enjoy the spectacle.
The cast also includes Peter Cullen, returning as Optimus Prime, Tobe Nwigwe, Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklage, Liza Koshy, John DiMaggio, David Sobolov, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, and Cristo Fernández.
Check out the official trailer below. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts roars into theaters on June 9, 2023.
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If there was one person above all that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny director James Mangold was hoping to impress, it was Steven Spielberg. Mangold took the Indiana Jones reigns from Spielberg, the first director ever to do so, to steer Harrison Ford on his last adventure as the swashbuckling archeology professor and adventurer. Mission accomplished, Mr. Mangold. Spielberg saw Dial of Destiny, and he loved it.
“I just had that experience two nights ago,” Spielberg said at the Time 100 Summit about what it felt like for him to watch an Indiana Jones by somebody other than him. “Bob Iger had a screening for a lot of the Disney executives, and I came to the screening along with the director James Mangold. Everybody loved the movie. It’s a really, really good Indiana Jones film. I’m really proud of what Jim has done with it. When the lights came up I just turned to the group and said, ‘Damn! I thought I was the only one who knew how to make one of these.”
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. Mangold utilized de-aging technology to film a portion of the action, revealing a previous Indy adventure that’s central to the present-day story. That set-piece involves Indy on a train where a certain Dial of Destiny was present. The action is then mostly set in the late 1960s, with Indy drawn back into action for one last time by his goddaughter (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), who aims to find that dial. It’s an object, Helena says, “that could change the course of history.” This being Indy, adventure awaits, even if he’s long past his prime.
The pursuit of the Dial of Destiny sets Mangold’s film into action. 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).
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny hits theaters on June 30.
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Theater owners have good reason for loving Christopher Nolan. The filmmaker has been one of the most outspoken champions for the glories and importance of the movie theater experience, and he’s done his level best to provide both theater owners and moviegoers with the types of movies that are tailor-made for the biggest screen possible, from his Dark Knight trilogy to Inception to Dunkirk and Tene. A Nolan movie is as good a reason as there is to head to the multiplex.
So Nolan got the warmest greeting possible at this year’s CinemaCon in Las Vegas, and he returned that warmth with explosive footage of his upcoming historical epic Oppenheimer, which stars Cillian Murphy as the titular physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who helped bring the atomic bomb into the world.
The footage Nolan previewed revealed one of the most distressing moments in Oppenheimer’s push to create the bomb; during the testing phase, Oppenheimer was not certain that the test run wouldn’t set the Earth’s atmosphere on fire, killing everyone and everything. Oppenheimer went through with the test anyway. The world survived but was changed forever.
“In learning about that story, I wanted to be there in that room with them and see what that must have been like,” Nolan said during Universal’s presentation. “I wanted to take the audience there. To do so, I’ve assembled the most incredible cast and the finest technicians.”
Nolan has made Oppenheimer’s work during the Manhattan Project into a proper thriller with that aforementioned incredible cast. The quest for America to get the bomb was fueled by reports that not only were the Russians close to their own, but far more ominously, the Nazis were in pursuit. The footage Nolan showed included a moment where Murphy’s Oppenheimer says: “I don’t know if we can be trusted with the weapon, but I know the Nazis can’t.”
“Like it not, J. Robert Oppenheimer is the most important person who ever lived,” Nolan said in Las Vegas. “He made the world we live in — for better or for worse. And his story has to be seen to be believed, and I am certainly hopeful audiences will come to your theaters to see it on the biggest screens possible.”
The cast Nolan assembled around Murphy includes Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, Alden Ehrenreich, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Gary Oldman, Josh Hartnett, and David Dastmalchian. His crew includes his longtime cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, production designer Ruth De Jong, and composer Ludwig Göransson.
Oppenheimer hits theaters far and wide on July 21.
Check out images from Oppenheimer here.
OPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher NolanOPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher NolanOPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher NolanOPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher NolanOPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher Nolan
During the Berlinale Film Festival earlier this year, the Motion Picture Association’s European team brought together a panel of industry veterans to discuss the state of diversity in filmmaking and how to ensure that efforts to foster it have real teeth. The lively, hopeful discussion was indicative of a bigger internal shift taking place across the MPA’s member studios, two of which have recently launched their own ambitious internal diversity initiatives, embarking on new approaches to find and foster talent in previously overlooked regions, inject meaningful representation into new content, and ensure supportive internal cultures.
At Paramount, the studio’s Content for Change program starts with research and data. A partnership with USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative is in the throes of examining representations of gender, race, ethnicity, LGBTQIA+, and disability across sixty-two Paramount shows, allowing the studio to take a close look at how to increase inclusive on-screen representation (even though Annenberg’s findings were already quite positive). A complementary academic partnership with Stanford University’s SPARQ is helping Paramount test new hypotheses to see how content can shift viewer perspectives. By asking questions like “How does viewing experience impact beliefs about society?” “How does viewing experience impact engagement with the character?” and “How does viewing experience impact future media consumption?,” the studio is working to get hard answers on how the state of television content, both past and present, has affected and continues to affect viewers’ social and racial attitudes.
For Disney, partnerships formed outside the industry are also a way to move the studio forward. Disney has long collaborated with the U.S. State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs to support animators in Africa, with the partnership culminating last year in a year-long masterclass series for 40 participants nominated by the continents’ U.S. embassies. This year, Disney is working with the American Film Showcase, based at USC, to bring 20 of the masterclass’s alumni to Los Angeles for five days of networking and professional development, with the goal of helping these animators learn to build sustainable careers in the animation industry. “Whether it’s working for a global media company, owning and running their own local animation studio, or specializing in one aspect of the animation pipeline, these creators should come away with an understanding of what is possible in the globally interconnected animation industry,” a Disney spokesperson says.
Back over at Paramount, the studio is also on a quest to develop new talent. The Content for Change Academy aims to remove hiring barriers and invest in future film industry denizens who come from nontraditional paths. “This includes people from community colleges and certification programs, who’ve historically been left out or struggled to enter the entertainment industry,” a studio rep says. The 2021-2022 program brought on seven trainees; this year, it was eight. Part of a complementary initiative to their internal work, Paramount also awarded $1 million in 2022 to several community-focused creative endeavors, including organizations like Fresh Films, which both trains young filmmakers across the U.S. and offers insight into how the sausage gets made via a digital content series featuring conversations between Paramount employees and aspiring filmmakers.
Similar to Paramount, Disney is fostering talent in places the film industry hasn’t previously always thought to look. The studio launched its Stories X Women program last year, working with six delegations of animated filmmakers from the Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America to get pitch-ready for the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the world’s largest animation festival. The goal was to help women storytellers develop their content, offer them access to the festival’s networking opportunities, and ultimately, move the entire industry forward in terms of creating more equal opportunities to develop and produce animated work and reap the rewards of fulfilling careers in the field.
And, of course, change always begins at home. MTVE, a Paramount property, developed a so-called Culture Orientation workshop to help employees look at representation in pop culture, get insights from the creators of the industry’s more groundbreaking content, and offer access to guides from best-in-class experts and other useful resources. Beyond that, MTVE’s ongoing Culture Orientation emphasizes respect, mutual understanding, and a corporate culture that’s able and willing to evolve. Paramount now plans to expand the program across its brands beginning this year, the first but surely not the last of the MPA’s studios to foster such a change.
It’s now a tired joke that the world has become a Black Mirror episode, which made it almost redundant for series creator Charlie Brooker and his talented team to continue cranking out seasons laced with tech-dystopian vibes and gimlet-eyed critiques of the human animal. Well, thankfully, the sixth season is not only happening; we now have our first look, revealing a peek at how the Black Mirror team has absorbed our increasingly Black Mirror-like reality.
“You’ve been wondering” text during the new teaser accurately states. “You’ve been waiting.” Yes, and yes. We have been both of these things. We get glimpses of season six’s cast, including Aaron Paul, Zazie Beetz, and more. Then the trailer gets dark—this is Black Mirror, after all—and fresh text tells us, “You’ve been warned.” Violence ensues. Madness. Glimpses of the always insanely talented Black Mirror cast, which also includes Salma Hayek (!) and Kate Mara, play over appropriately gorgeous/creepy music.
There’s a good argument to be made that Black Mirror is one of, if not the best, anthology series ever made. That the seasons are often separated by so much time might frustrate some, but it irrefutably adds even more intrigue to a show that has consistently, creepily, seemed to presage what’s coming right around the bend of our berserk reality. At long last, Black Mirror is back, but one might suggest that in reality, Black Mirror has neve left.
Joining the aforementioned stars in the cast are Anjana Vasan, Annie Murphy, Auden Thornton, Ben Barnes, Clara Rugaard, Daniel Portman, Danny Ramirez, Himesh Patel, John Hannah, Josh Hartnett, Michael Cera, Monica Dolan, Myha’la Herrold, Paapa Essiedu, Rob Delaney, Rory Culkin, and Samuel Blenkin.
Check out the teaser below. Black Mirror returns in June:
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In 1940, the U.S. still maintained an official stance of neutrality in World War II. Across the Atlantic, however, relief organizations were already on the ground, working their influence at local embassies and trying to convince the American government to grant entry visas to refugees. Netflix’s new limited series, Transatlantic, is based on the efforts and exploits of two such Americans at the helm of the Emergency Rescue Committee, journalist Varian Fry (Cory Michael Smith) and socialite Mary Jayne Gold (Gillian Jacobs).
Fry was a well-connected intellectual. Gold was a wealthy ex-Chicago émigré whose considerable family funds made the organization’s work possible. Written by Anna Winger (Unorthodox, Deutschland 83/86/89), Transatlantic gathers Surrealist movement luminaries as well intellectuals like Hannah Arendt under the Marseille sun as Fry, Gold, and their colleagues hide a who’s-who refugee list (Max Ernst, Andre Breton) in a borrowed villa. Helming costume design for the series is Justine Seymour (Unorthodox, The Mosquito Coast), whose work spans decades, artistic movements, and multiple income brackets, as the ERC fields requests from non-famous refugees, gets involved in a British POW rescue mission, and is paid a visit by Peggy Guggenheim (Jodhi May).
Seymour hand-sewed certain looks, like an Elsa Schiaparelli-inspired brassiere worn by Mary Jayne Gold, and used weekend downtime to develop the series’ “money shot,” a party at the villa hideout in which the house’s illustrious denizens take a night to let off steam. Delving into Surrealist art and inspiration, the designer plotted looks for each character, ranging from buttoned-up Fry (refused to do more than remove his jacket) to Peggy Guggenheim (required a dress hand-made entirely out of gloves and a feather corset in order to match Max Ernst’s “desire to be a loplop bird, which was one of his things.”) For Peggy, Seymour even asked showrunner Winger to shoot a scene outside the script, of a cook plucking a chicken, in order to justify the socialite art collector’s feathery look.
L-r: Alexander Fehling is Max Ernst and Jodhi May is Peggy Guggenheim in “Transatlantic.” Courtesy Anika Molnar/Netflix.
But one night of Surrealist-inflected revelry aside, most of the ERC’s work was dead serious, and for Seymour, that meant outfitting revolutionaries and refugees alongside socialites and diplomats. We spoke with the costume designer about assigning looks from different decades to the show’s characters, finding inspiration in the golden age of Hollywood, and working Surrealist references into unexpected details.
Approaching a year like 1940, do you look to the early part of that decade, or more so earlier?
Definitely earlier. I always think that people have a wardrobe, they have a closet, and that’s what I try and bring to a television show. I think, what would someone realistically have in their closet? Luckily for me, Varian Fry had written quite a detailed account of his time in Marseille, which included the contents of his suitcase which he’d brought over from New York. He was a Brooks Brothers man, so I knew that slim cut, clean lines, and not too much fuss was going to be his look. And for all the refugees, I even looked at the late 20s. They were poorer. I didn’t go for those shapes for the dresses from the late 20s, but if there was a coat that had a collar that was relevant in 1928, I would have maybe used that on an older lady. All of the costumes for the extras were done top to toe, and every single one I checked and made sure I was happy with.
And among these characters, Mary Jayne Gold really stands out.
With Mary Jayne, of course, she had her finger on the pulse and had the money to go shop in Paris, so I made her much more contemporary. While I was doing my research, I was looking for fashion designers of the time, but really where people were getting their inspiration was from the golden age of cinema in Hollywood. You know that old saying that Oscar Wilde has, which was that life reflects art much more often than art reflects life? I think at that time, that was 100% true. People were watching films and then going home and making the dresses. That led me to watch quite a few films and think about what Mary Jayne might have had at the time. Also, Gillian Jacobs had really enjoyed the work of an actress called Irene Dunn, so she was one of my inspirational people to watch and just see how she wore her clothes, then try to emulate it for Mary Jayne.
We even learn who Mary Jayne Gold is through a fashion moment when she trades dresses with Ursula, who’s desperate and mid-flight. How did you plan the design for that scene?
That’s her opening dress. I knew she was going to be walking across the piazza to get to the restaurant, and then she has quite an important conversation with Patterson. I wanted the color palette to really stick out and really bounce. And I wanted to introduce her personality as not only cheeky but happy to go to any means to get what she felt was right. She was a moral woman for the greater good, and I really wanted her to shine. And what better to shine than yellow or gold? I also played a lot with gold to have that link between her name and the palette. And then once Ursula [is in the dress], it goes on a huge journey, so we had to have five repeats for her. Of course, all of that had to be orchestrated. That was the very first dress I started creating with my tailor, and I found the fabric in Marseille, actually. On the way down from Paris, I got off the train and found this fantastic fabric shop and just bought a huge piece of lace I really liked, and I actually ended up cutting it up and creating all the detail on the dress.
From there, Mary Jayne remains the show’s fashion linchpin. Did you start with her and work outward?
I always treat creating a palette like a jigsaw. The number one actor is who I build the jigsaw around. I did a lot of research into her actual wardrobe and any pictures I could find of her. She’d come across as a very free spirit, but of course, she had loads of money, and her favorite designer was Schiaparelli. So I used Maison Schiaparelli as a base for her wardrobe, and I put lots of little clues in there that lead into the Surrealist world. Schiaparelli was collaborating with Dali at the time, and they were friends. I went to all the amazing costume houses in France, and we were pulling anything I really liked that I thought might work for the character. Then I went to all the beautiful antique markets in freezing cold December and dragged up through all those beautiful pieces some amazing treasures that were as cheap as ten euros and then became quite ridiculously expensive, which of course I didn’t buy. My favorite thing is to go to the flea markets and antique markets. They’re all quite curated. They know what the value of the piece is, but there were still some treasures I found that were cheap and cheerful.
Did any of those pieces make it into the final cut?
What happened in the 30s and as the war took over was that rather than people going and buying new clothes, they accessorized a lot more. They would use lots of brooches and just add to whatever they had. So [the finds] are littered throughout. I put them on hats. There’s a scene where Mary Jayne first meets Margaux, and she’s got this insane hat I’d made, and it’s got a beautiful yellow thing on the side — it’s actually half a belt buckle.
That scene is emblematic — these two strong women meet to discuss something of dire importance while wearing these fabulous outfits.
That was the whole idea, actually. The Margaux character was based on Josephine Baker. She was the spy in plain sight. A famous, beautiful Black lady waltzing around Europe, collecting information — who would ever have thought? I went all out to make her look like this sort of powerhouse of not only beauty and elegance but intelligence and determination. And she’s a little cut-throat, to be honest. It was all for the cause, not for the individual.
Courtesy Justine Seymour/Netflix.
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Warner Bros. has had a very eventful time in Las Vegas at CinemaCon, the annual gathering of theater owners. Their presentation included screening The Flash in its entirety (to delighted, stunned reactions), a glimpse of their upcoming film Wonka, and, the focus of this piece, the first look at Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune: Part Two.
The new trailer revealed Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides has matured into the Muad’Dib, prophet of the Fremen, the desert-dwelling people he turned to at the end of Dune after his father had been assassinated, and nearly all of House Atreides had been destroyed. Chalamet was on hand at CinemaCon to reveal the trailer, telling the audience that in the first film, “Paul Atreides is a student,” whereas, in Part Two, we see Paul become a leader.
Becoming a leader to the Fremen includes an incredible feat of courage and confidence; the trailer reveals Paul riding one of the colossal sandworms that dominate life on the planet Arrakis. When we last left Paul, he and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), had barely survived the surprise attack issued by the Emperor and carried out by House Harkonnen. Villeneuve and his writing partner,Jon Spaihts, made the masterful decision to break Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 tome into two parts, with part one ending just after Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård)’s attack on House Atreides, which sent Paul and Lady Jessica into Arrakis’s vast desert, where, thanks to help of the Fremen Chani (Zendaya), and Paul’s ability to prove his worth in hand-to-hand combat, the Fremen took them in.
The new trailer revealed changes, both emotional and physical, to Paul, whose eyes have gone icy blue, the same as the rest of the Fremen due to constant exposure to Spice, the psychoactive substance that has made Arrakis the most valuable and fought over planet in the universe. Zendaya’s Chani will have a much bigger role to play in Part Two, and she was also on hand in Las Vegas, where she said that the relationship between Chani and Paul, despite the galactic context, was still about something very fundamental: “These are still just two young people who are trying to grow up and fall in love and live.”
Returning players from the first Dune include Josh Brolin’s Gurney Halleck (an ally to Paul and Lady Jessica), Dave Bautista’s Glossu Rabban Harkonnen and Stellan Skarsgård’s Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (major villains), and Javier Bardem’s Stilgar, a leader of the Fremen.
Part Two also boasts new faces, as Villeneuve will introduce all those crucial characters that he left out of Part One, including Léa Seydoux’s Lady Margot, Florence Pugh’s Princess Irulan Corrino, Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, and Christopher Walken’s Emperor Shaddam IV.
Villeneuve shot all of Part Two using IMAX cameras, and he even said he built brand new sets to avoid any repetition from the original film. “We went to all new locations…everything in the film is new,” he added.
Dune: Part Two is set for a November 3, 2023 release.
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Featured image: Caption: TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
Yesterday at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Warner Bros. screened director Andy Muschietti’s The Flash for theater owners and assorted media, and the first reactions are overwhelmingly positive. In an echo of Paramount’s screening of Top Gun: Maverick last year, which blew the audiences away, The Flash is now speeding towards one of the best critical receptions in the history of DC Studios.
As the new trailer revealed, The Flash makes the most of Michael Keaton’s return as Batman, the first time he’s slipped on the Batsuit since 1992’s Batman Returns. The reason for Keaton’s return as Batman has to do with Barry Allen (Ezra Miller)’s desperate attempt to solve a problem Bruce Wayne never could—he wants to bring back the parents that he lost. Barry actually has a way he can make this a reality; by speeding back through time to change past events.
The Flash then explores one of the most fundamental maxims in all time-travel stories, from Back to the Future to Avengers: Endgame; you can’t change the past without altering the future. The alternate reality that Barry ends up in after meddling with time includes none other than General Zod (Michael Shannon), who is not only still alive (in this reality, Superman apparently didn’t kill him in Zack Snyder’s 2013 film Man of Steel), but he’s going plans to destroy the entire world. And unlike in other timelines in other universes where Zod would have to face the likes of a Superman or Wonder Woman, on this timeline, there are no metahumans, and this is what forces Barry to recruit Keaton’s older, very retired Batman to help him save the world. Luckily they’ll get major help from a very special someone—Sasah Calle’s Supergirl.
Joining Miller, Keaton, Shannon, and Calle are Ben Affleck (as the Batman of his universe), Ron Livingston as Barry’s father, Henry Allen, Kiersey Clemons as Iris West, and Antje Traue as Faora-Ui.
Let’s take a quick peek at those early reactions from CinemaCon. The Flash speeds into theaters on June 16:
Just out of #TheFlash at CinemaCon. Believe the hype folks – truly one of the great superhero movies. Ezra Miller (x2), Sasha Calle and MICHAEL KEATON. It’s pretty perfect and one of the best films of this type you could ever hope to see.
THE FLASH is awesome! One of the very best DC movies, a perfect blend of action, heart & humor! So many WOW & chill-inducing moments that longtime DC fans will love! EZRA MILLER is superb (twice, actually!) & MICHAEL KEATON’s still got it! #TheFLASH#BATMAN#CinemaConpic.twitter.com/mYJrz7YUZG
The Flash is hands down one of the best superhero films of all time. No joke, The Flash is the ultimate movie going experience as it has a little bit of everything! Action, emotion, heart, humor and plenty of nostalgia. Ezra Miller is phenomenal as dual Barry Allens. Michael… pic.twitter.com/F7SHA30vZM
Yup. #TheFlash is as good as rumored. It’s Back to the Future meets Spider-Man: No Way Home with all the humor & heart of the former and action and surprises of the latter. If anything, it might be a tad too ambitious but it’s also just incredibly satisfying, heartwarming & fun. pic.twitter.com/Yysb9mjiAm
Damn, #TheFlash is good! It’s super inventive both visually and in concept. The dynamic of two Barry Allen’s is crazy well done.
Emotions hit me intensely hard, solid surprises, and it got me wanting to watch again and really eager to see how they follow it. Well done. pic.twitter.com/7QqiHVNAJy
I don’t know what to say other than #TheFlash delivered more than I could have hoped. The acting is beyond great. Keaton delivers everything you want. Supergirl is my new favorite superhero? I’m genuinely shocked this movie meets and surpasses the hype. I never expected that. pic.twitter.com/PcmpJ2juZ6
Just watched #TheFlash at CinemaCon. It has some stuff in it you will not believe and it showcases much more of Barry Allen’s powers. It is indeed one of DC’s best and fits nicely as a bridge story between the old and new DCEU franchises. It’s also the funniest DC movie. pic.twitter.com/uDepMKVVG1
DC’s #TheFlash is TREMENDOUS! Forget DC, it is without a doubt among the best superhero films ever made. An all-timer. Inventive storytelling, FANTASTIC action sequences, great cast. SO MANY nerdy details. I’m in tears at the end. Everything you want from a superhero film & more pic.twitter.com/xYSn0zuXMm
THE FLASH: far more madcap than I expected. Really nailed what reading a 5-issue crossover comic book is like. Tons of Ezra Miller being zany and time paradox stuff. Nerds will lose their minds at the ending. And beginning and middle. Comics!
#TheFlash is fantastic. I know Ezra Miller has made a lot of mistakes but they are soooooo good in this movie. Loved Keaton, the action, humor and emotion. Andy Muschietti has crafted something special. Thumbs way up.
Nostalgic. HILARIOUS. With tons of heart and two outstanding performances by Ezra Miller. I honestly can’t believe #TheFlash actually exists. It’s magical. It presses every button. I’ll see it 1,000 times. pic.twitter.com/hhT6dXz6PO
Warner Bros. is set to screen director Andy Muschietti’s The Flash for theater owners at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, and now we’ve got a brand new trailer to feast on. How excited are the folks at Warner Bros. and DC Studios about this film? Put it this way—the last film to screen in its entirety at CinemaCon was Top Gun: Maverick because Paramount Pictures knew they had the goods. These are the same vibes we’re getting from The Flash, which not only Maverick star Tom Cruise loved but so, too, does DC Studios’ new co-chief, James Gunn, who called it one of the best superhero movies he’s ever seen.
The new trailer really fronts Michael Keaton’s Batman, the first time Keaton has slipped on the Batsuit since 1992’s Batman Returns. The how and why of Keaton’s return as Batman has to do with Barry Allen (Ezra Miller)’s desperate attempt to solve a problem Bruce Wayne never could—bring back his parents. Like Bruce, Barry lost his parents, but unlike Bruce, he can actually resurrect them by speeding back through time to change past events.
But as we’ve learned in every time travel film, from Back to the Future to Avengers: Endgame, you can’t change the past without altering the future. Thus, Barry gets trapped in an alternate reality where General Zod (Michael Shannon) is not only still alive (Superman killed him in Zack Snyder’s 2013 film Man of Steel—but that was in a different universe), but he’s prepared to annihilate the world. And Zod’s got a real good shot at making this happen because, in this universe, there are no metahumans (no Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, etcetera), which is what forces Barry to recruit Keaton’s older, very retired Batman to help him save the world. Batman is, of course, not a metahuman but rather a very rich, very committed, all-too-human vigilante. Luckily they’ll get major help from a very special someone—Sasah Calle’s Supergirl.
The new trailer boasts a ton of brand-new footage, and it’s very, very easy to see why everyone involved with this film, and those who are just super famous fans and were able to screen the film early, are so excited.
Joining Miller, Keaton, Shannon, and Calle are Ben Affleck (as the Batman of his universe), Ron Livingston as Barry’s father, Henry Allen, Kiersey Clemons as Iris West, and Antje Traue as Faora-Ui.
Check out the trailer below. The Flash speeds into theaters on June 16:
Harry Belafonte, an EGOT winner and civil rights trailblazer, has died at 96 at his home in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, his spokesman Ken Sunshine revealed to multiple outlets. His wife Pamela was by his side.
Belafonte, the Caribbean-American superstar whose “Day-O” gave Calypso music its first national smash hit, was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in November 2014 for his momentous impact. His music was a brilliant blend of traditional West Indian rhythms, jazz, and pop, which he explored over 30 albums, ultimately receiving a Lifetime Achievement Grammy from the Recording Academy in 2000. “Day-O” came from his 1956 album Calypso, which sat atop the Billboard pop list for 31 weeks. Calypso was the first LP to sell 1 million copies.
The legend’s skills were hardly limited to music; on the big screen, he was the rare Black matinee idol in the 1950s. He starred in 1957’s Island in the Sun, playing a politician named David Boyeur who was being pursued by a rich white woman, Mavis Norman, played by Joan Fontaine, something that had never happened in film before. Island in the Sun was controversial at the time—and it was also a big box-office success. Belafonte became the first Black actor to become a leading man and achieve major success in Hollywood. In 1959 alone, he financed and starred in two movies, Robert Wise’s Odds Against Tomorrow and director Ranald MacDougall’s The World, the Flesh, and the Devil. Eventually, his rival (and friend) Sidney Poitier would become an even bigger star.
As Belafonte’s historic success across the music and film industries grew, it was his work as an activist that drove him. He was a major force during the 1950s Civil Rights movement, becoming a lifelong friend and supporter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., providing seed money for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, becoming a major fundraiser not only for the SNCC but also Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Belafonte paid Dr. King’s bail bill, along with other Civil Rights activists, and joined Dr. King and millions of others in the March on Washington in 1963.
Belafonte was a major force for the nonprofit organization USA for Africa, which led to the mega-hit single “We Are the World,” sung by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, and more. Belafonte was the brains behind the 1986 human-chain campaign Hands Across America, which raised money for the poor in the United States. He was active in fighting to end apartheid in South Africa and helping to get Nelson Mandela released from prison. His passions and achievements go on. And on.
Needless to say, Harry Belafonte lived a singular, monumentally impactful life. During his acceptance speech for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, Belafonte summed up his efforts in his typical elegant, brilliant fashion:
“Tonight is no casual encounter for me. Along with the trophy of honor, there is another layer that gives this journey this kind of wonderful Hollywood ending. To be rewarded by my peers for my work for human rights and civil rights and for peace — well, let me put this way: It powerfully mutes the enemy’s thunder.”
Featured image: Harry Belafonte onstage during the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences’ 2014 Governors Awards at The Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center on November 8, 2014 in Hollywood, California.
That’s to be expected considering the type of life McCall (Denzel Washington) led before he retired—the man was a government assassin, after all—which is why he devoted himself to meting out justice for those who would otherwise never get it. In the first trailer for The Equalizer 3, we find McCall’s new life in Southern Italy upended by a pesky little problem—the mafia. Yet knowing McCall, the problem will likely be theirs.
Washington and director Antoine Fuqua re-team for the third time on this franchise, building upon their long, fruitful collaboration. The two have made a terrific pair since 2001’s Training Day (Denzel won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance), and with The Equalizer 3, they’ll be closing this particular chapter of their work together. The first Equalizer arrived in 2014 and has since seen both Fuqua’s 2018 sequel and a television series starring Queen Latifah, in which she plays Robin McCall.
The Equalizer 3 trailer—red band, so it’s raunchy—finds McCall believing he’s finally found a home, and some peace, in Southern Italy. But trouble has a way of finding McCall, and the man cannot but help meet it head-on. When the mafia starts messing with McCall’s new friends, he makes the fateful decision to take them on himself.
Joining Washington in the cast are Dakota Fanning, David Denman, Sonia Ammar, Eugenio Mastrandrea, Gaia Scodellaro, and Remo Girone.
Check out the trailer below. The Equalizer 3 hits theaters this fall:
For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:
Featured image: Amalfi Coast, Italy – OCTOBER 19, 2022: Columbia Pictures and Escape Artists commence filming on THE EQUALIZER 3 – the third Robert McCall action thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by Richard Wenk, based on the television series created by Michael Sloan and Richard Lindheim. PICTURED: (L to R) Director Antoine Fuqua, Denzel Washington. Photo by: Stefano Cristiiano Montesi
Things are heating up in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. At CinemaCon in Las Vegas, the annual gathering of theater owners, the studio unveiled the first look at their bloody, R-rated feature Kraven the Hunter, a new film starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the iconic Spider-Man villain. Then, they gave theater owners an even meatier look at another of their Spidey properties, the hotly anticipated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to their Oscar-winning 2018 film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
The footage totaled 14 minutes of the upcoming film (which is not yet done), revealing the ongoing adventures of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), Brooklyn’s one and only Spider-Man, as he learns about an elite crew of the best Spider-People, led by founder Miguel O’Hara (voiced by Oscar Isaac), also known as Spider-Man 2099. The problems multiply along with the Spider-People that Miles encounters, and although he’s got allies like Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) and Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), not everyone in Across the Spider-Verse will be rooting for him. Fresh faces include 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.
Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Issa Rae, and Kemp Powers, one of the film’s three directors, were on hand in Vegas to introduce the film. The footage included a look at the visit Miles gets in his bedroom by Gwen, who lures him out for a web-swinging jaunt above Brooklyn. They’re eventually stopped by Miles’ parents, and Miles has a touching heart-to-heart with his mom, Rio (voiced by Luna Lauren Velez).
Powers, who wrote Regina King’s excellent 2020 film One Night In Miami and co-directed Pixar’s Soul, said the sequel will continue Miles’ emotional journey as he matures, both as a young man and as Spider-Man. Powers directs alongside Joachim Dos Santos and Justin K. Thompson. 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. 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.
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Sony Pictures revealed the first peek at Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Kraven the Hunter at their CinemaCon presentation in Las Vegas for theater owners. Taylor-Johnson introduced the first look himself via video, including the fact that Kraven will be the first R-rated feature that Sony has produced for their Marvel properties.
The film comes from director J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year, Triple Frontier), based on a script by Matt Holloway, Art Marcum, and Richard Wenk.
The footage revealed Kraven releasing his inner beast on a caravan of poachers, even biting off a chunk of one of them. The sneak peek also unveiled another classic Spidey villain, the Rhino, to be played here by Alessandro Nivola (Paul Giamatti played the Rhino in 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2). Nivola spoke about the mystery role (until now) to The Hollywood Reporterlast year:
“I only transform, physically, in the final moments of the movie, so it’s just a classic villain role,” Nivola said. “It had a really interesting, complex psychology and personal history to draw on, and the movie has a time jump in it, so the character changes a lot from the way he is in the beginning of the film. It was as much of an acting opportunity as any other film I’ve done.”
Kraven the Hunter was created by Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko back in 1964, first appearing that year in “The Amazing Spider-Man No. 15.” Kraven is a big game hunter who famously, in an iconic storyline in 1980’s “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” buried Spider-Man alive and assumed his identity. When Sony announced that Taylor-Johnson would be playing the Spider-Man villain, they made it a point to reveal the deal was for multiple films. It won’t be the first time Taylor-Johnson has had a role in a Marvel movie—he played Quicksilver in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron—but this will be his first starring role in a Sony/Marvel film. He was dynamite acting across Brian Tyree Henry and Brad Pitt in David Leitch’s 2022 action thriller Bullet Train.
Kraven the Hunter will join Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Morbius as the fourth film featuring a Spider-Man villain in Sony’s growing Spider-Man Universe. The third Venom film and a new feature, Madame Web, are on the way as well.
Taylor-Johnson and Nivola are joined by Ariana DeBose, Russell Crowe, Christopher Abbott, and Fred Hechinger. Kraven the Hunter is set to hit theaters on October 6.
For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:
Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 01: Aaron Taylor-Johnson attends the Los Angeles premiere of Columbia Pictures’ “Bullet Train” at Regency Village Theatre on August 01, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images)
Action buffs who enjoy English history will find much to savor in The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die. The Netflix epic (now streaming) follows five seasons of The Last Kingdom to chronicle the bloody Battle of Brunanburh in 937 when native Saxons crossed swords with invading Vikings and warriors from Scotland. Both sides suffered huge losses in the brutal Game of Thrones-meets-Braveheart massacre, led by near-mythic warrior Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon). The fight sequence involved 120 stunt performers, 180 extras, dozens of horses, and many gallons of simulated gore.
The story’s tribal politics and archaically named characters like Aelfweard, Aethelstan, and Aldhelm might be hard to follow at times, but the combat choreographed by stunt coordinator/second unite director Levente Lezsák makes it spectacularly clear: Seven Kings Must Die thrives on precisely choreographed chaos. Stunt fighters in close quarters who appear to be stabbing, slashing, and beheading each other en route to Valhalla had every move orchestrated in advance by Lezsak and his team. Lezsak, who previously worked on Underworld and Witcher, spent most of the past eight years recreating ancient warfare for The Last Kingdom saga.
Speaking from his farm in Hungary, where Seven Kings Must Die was filmed, Lezsák drills into his battlefield inspirations ranging from Viking re-enactor videos to 15th-century textbooks on the science of horsemanship
Your battle sequences are so visceral; they seem reminiscent of Braveheart and Game of Thrones’ now famous“Battle of the Bastards” episode. Your fight scenes are so visceral that the viewer feels completely immersed in the action.
I try to keep away from any other shows, especially the most popular ones, because I try to find my own way of creating a battle. But obviously, there are impressions from my life. Braveheart, for example, was one of my favorites when I was a kid. The big battle was so stunning; everybody wanted to be Scottish when they came out of the theater. The thing I realized from Braveheart that I’ve carried throughout my career is that every action sequence has to serve the story. If you just do action after action it becomes boring after maybe a couple of minutes and people will lose interest. The big battles of Braveheart were great because they were character-driven, and that was the case with The Last Kingdom as well. Each battle represents some kind of turning point in this ongoing journey of Uhtred.
Martial arts play such a dominant role in contemporary fight choreography, but these battles take place in 10th-century England. How did you structure these fights so they felt authentic to the period?
Even though people usually always think about martial arts as being Chinese or Japanese, we also have a beautiful European martial arts tradition that started to flourish in the Middle Ages. I also did research on how the Vikings used their short swords and their shields. There are lots of great re-enactment people keeping the Viking tradition alive, and they use the weapons authentically, so I watched their videos.
Levente Lezsák on set of “The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die.” Courtesy Netflix.
How did you train the stunt performers in these traditions?
On my farm, I ran a boot camp for the stunt team and trained them step by step until they felt like they’d been using these weapons for ages and they were part of their bodies. You can easily see the difference between someone who’s just trying to copy a fight style as opposed to having it come from inside. That’s why I did all this research for the fight choreography, and it’s why you feel these battle sequences are accurate. I tried to be faithful to history as much as I could.
A lot of characters come and go throughout The Last Kingdom, but Alexander Dreymoncarries the story from start to finish as Uhtred of Bebbanburg — “Born a Saxon but raised a Dane,” as he says throughout the story. What was it like working with Alex on this role?
He’s a really tough guy. Alex has a great horsemanship background and also martial arts, including jiu-jitsu. Before we started season one, I had three weeks of boot camp with him and Emily Cox, who plays [Viking warrior] Brida. That gave me the time to teach him this very different fight style. The Viking short sword, his own [long] sword, the shield — all of that requires very specific skills, so Alex had to practice until he became a good warrior. And through all the seasons and this movie — eight years of our life — Alex got better and better as he gained more confidence and more technique.
In Seven Kings Must Die, how many fighters did you put on the field for that climactic battle between the Saxons and Vikings?
We had 120 stunt performers and with extras, a total of 300 for the final battle sequence.
What was your schedule for shooting the final Battle for Brunanburh?
Almost two weeks, plus a couple of Second Unit days.
Levente Lezsák on set of “The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die.” Courtesy Netflix.
How did you prepare?
We had a page-turn meeting with the director [Ed Bazalgette], the producer, the DP [Luke Bryant], and the first A.D [Zsolt Tolmár]. We shared our ideas and discussed what we wanted to do. Then the rehearsals took about three weeks for stunt riders, stunt horses, and stunt performers. We practiced formations like shield walls and other formations. Then we rehearsed with costumes. That’s how we proceeded toward the end result.
It’s impressive to watch this very disciplined Viking army operating like one giant, well-coordinated unit.
The shields were a big part of the strategy because the Vikings were the first to figure out how to raise their shields in unison and effectively form a wall. We had page-turn sessions to go through the script and then used pre-vis to plan how the should look.
Horseback warriors come to the rescue midway through the Battle of Brunanburh. How did you guide horses into these noisy crowds of stuntmen without causing the animals to panic?
Horses are fleeing animals. It’s abnormal for them to be part of a huge battle sequence. But on the other hand, you can train them for fights with “natural horsemanship.” This method shows you how to deal with body language and make deep bonds with horses. Once they admit you as a member of the herd, as an “alpha,” then you can teach horses tricks. But they have to understand you and fully trust you. I also studied lots of books from the Middle Ages because [in Europe] we have a military tradition that includes great horse masters from the 15th century who wrote about how to train horses for warfare. I’m really proud that we had no injuries or accidents with horses during the filming of this show.
Like most fight choreographers, you started your career as a stuntman yourself. Have you suffered any broken limbs?
I’ve been lucky. I had one femur broken at the beginning of my career in 1995. I did a stunt with a horse in an open theater in Austria. I was playing an Apache Indian. My leg is pretending to be stuck in a stirrup and the horse is dragging me. That was the stunt. I did many takes but one time I made a small mistake and broke my femur. I also broke my little finger once and a couple of ribs but they don’t really count. The femur was the big one.
Setting up a wire-work stunt. Courtesy Netflix.
Do you still perform stunts yourself?
Yes. I did a car turnover two months ago. Nice stunt. If you’re the guy who’s leading a team into danger, I feel like you have to take the biggest risk, so even now, if it’s a dangerous stunt where someone could die if it goes wrong, I’ll usually do it. In The Last Kingdom, when [Uhtred’s father] Ragnar comes out from the barn fully on fire and kills a couple of guys? That was me. I did the full-body burn.
Levente Lezsák on fire on the set of “The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die.” Courtesy Netflix.
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The story behind French Creole composer and virtuoso violinist Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, has been largely neglected in music history until recently. His life sounds too incredible to be true. He was born in 1745 in Guadeloupe, the son of an enslaved Senegalese woman Nanon and her captor Georges de Bologne Saint-Georges, and sent to France as a young child to be educated in the best schools. Though he struggled with the bigotry of being a man of color and was limited by racist laws that controlled his life, he rose to become the finest swordsman in France, a renowned violinist and composer, and a tutor and confident to Marie Antoinette. He also distinguished himself in the French Revolution fighting for equal rights of all French people.
Though historians have found a fair amount about him, there is little known about his personal life. Chevalier, which is directed by Stephen Williams and features Kelvin Harrison Jr in the title role, pieces together historical information and extrapolates what might have happened at several pivotal points in his life that would explain his shift from court favorite to revolutionary hero.
The Credits spoke to executive producer and screenwriter Stefani Robinson, who worked for years to make the film a reality, about the importance of this extraordinary historical figure and how the themes of identity and acceptance in Chevalier make it as relevant today as it was in the 18th century.
Given how little there is out there about Joseph Bologne’s personal life, how did you proceed in terms of shaping the narrative?
There are clues and facts available. We know where he was born, when he was born, and to whom. It’s not like this guy is a complete mystery. There’s enough information about this historical figure out there to really whet your appetite and to get to understand the shadings of who he is. But his personal life was the hardest part for me because there really isn’t a lot of detail about Joseph the person. A lot of the documentation about his life is based more on people’s reactions to him. There were letters from people who had relationships with him or saw him from afar or heard gossip or rumors about him, but there was nothing directly from him. There was no, “This is who I am, this is what I like, this is what I enjoy about my music, what frustrates me, who I’m in love with.” All of that stuff is a complete mystery. So Stephen and I just had to fill in the blanks a little bit and pay attention to the clues. Like, if this situation was true, if this romantic relationship actually happened, if it’s true what happened to his baby, how must he have felt? It was a difficult exercise, but it was an incredibly liberating exercise at the same time.
The extrapolation that his relationship with Marie Antoinette impacted his evolution towards a commitment to social change is fascinating and makes a lot of sense as you lay it out in the film.
That idea that his relationship with her was a catalyst for social change isn’t obviously explicitly what happened in his life. An important thing to note about this movie is I didn’t want it to be a Wikipedia page—his and this and this happened. I was just excited to tell a story that was operatic, an accessible, conventional story that invites the viewer in so they understand it and are introduced to this character and introduced to this time period in a way that doesn’t feel too alienating. With his relationship with Marie Antoinette, the thing that is true is, at one point, he was very close to her. They shared what seems like an overly positive relationship with one another; they shared time with one another, they share music with one another, and she supported him. Then you fast forward to the latter part of his life, and he’s taking up arms against her, so clearly something happened within a period where there was this shift, so that speaks to just needing to excavate what was spiritually true, and then render it in terms of storytelling in this more operatic or more of a dramatic way to explain the shift in his psyche.
Aspects of the film centered on not just Chevalier himself but the women surrounding him and their limited choices at the time.
The truth of the time was that they didn’t have options, Marie Josephine, obviously, but even more so in Nanon, who was property. By all accounts, when you do read about her, it shows she had a child with her master, and that child was Joseph. The subtext being she was property, and she was taken advantage of in probably one of the most horrific ways possible as a very young woman, and she didn’t have a choice, and she couldn’t emancipate herself. She was like Marie Josephine, trying to survive within the context of the life that she was living. The women in the movie are complex. Marie Josephine, in particular, has so much awareness about her limited choices, and she hates that and is grappling with it, but at the same time, there’s a sort of cowardice or fear there, too. That’s real, and she’s not a lesser woman because she’s unable to emancipate herself from it at the moment. She’s weighing her choices, but I go back to the word survival. How can she survive? How does she pick her battles? What’s beautiful is in real life, she did divorce her husband. Nanon, as well, is so strong and resolute, but she doesn’t completely connect with her son anymore. Still, she can both feel distance and love her son, even if he wants to thrive in an environment she doesn’t understand.
Both in life and in Hollywood now, especially for Black women, there’s this idea of the double-edged sword of Black excellence. That brings Chevalier into a very contemporary context around excellence and identity.
I feel like that aspect of his life was the thing that invited me in and made me want to tell the story because I understood it. He had what seemed like on the surface to be this incredible life. But I think, having the experiences that I’ve had in my life, I really felt like there was probably a different story going on there. There was a subtextual story that was scratching the surface. Black excellence used as armor. Black excellence used as a survival mechanism. It is something that I have leaned into, and so many other peers of mine have leaned into, as a way of protecting themselves from being ostracized and to make themselves feel like we do belong. We’re here, and we need to strive harder and faster and better than everyone else because we aren’t usually invited into spaces like this. I think that that idea is incredibly contemporary. I don’t think it ever went away from Joseph’s time to now. I think that was just the truth of why it felt contemporary, because it’s something that is still happening, and has happened since then and was probably happening before then, too.
Chevalier is just a small part of Joseph Bologne’s extraordinary life. What are you hoping people will take away from the experience of the film?
I just hope, first and foremost, that we’ve successfully introduced an audience to this historical figure, his music, and the legacy he left behind and that they feel inspired to do more research. I also hope the audience takes the curiosity about him and they apply it elsewhere because it doesn’t end with Joseph. He’s not a solitary figure forgotten by history. There are so many other people, women, queer people, and people of color throughout history who have been marginalized for so many reasons, for their sexuality, their race, and their relationships across all aspects of society. I hope the film inspires people to seek out the truth and the remarkable people hidden or lost in the corners of history.
Chevalier is now in theaters nationwide.
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Evil Dead Rise keeps the spirit of the franchise alive by conjuring the living dead in the most emphatically gnarly way. The fifth installment in the horror franchise is a bloodbath of riches, full of wondrous practical effects and makeup. Most of the body horror in director Lee Cronin’s film is tangible, not computer generated, the work of talented artists at the top of their gore game.
Senior makeup FX & prosthetic artist Tristan Lucas is one of the artists responsible for the horrific delights on display, including a stellar cheese grater sequence you have to see to believe. Based in Australia, Lucas dreamed of working on horror movies thanks to the likes of Sam Raimi’s original Evil Dead, so the job was a nightmare come true.
In addition to Evil Dead Rise, he’s worked on an Alien prequel and a Mad Max film. “I’ve been very lucky to do what I do,” Lucas says, “and it still doesn’t make sense to me sometimes that I get paid to make monsters and throw blood around. It’s crazy, but I wouldn’t want anything else.”
Recently, Lucas told us about splashing buckets of blood around—a whole lot more—in Evil Dead Rise.
Obviously, you’re dealing with a lot of limbs in this movie. What is the hardest part of the body to create for a horror movie?
A head, for sure. Just for likeness purposes. It has to look like that person, so we do life-casting of that person where we make a copy of their face. But there are subtle changes happening; even the weight of the material that we use for the impression pulls the face down a bit. Eyes especially make or break a fake head. An arm, a leg, anything like that, those body parts are kind of generic. With a face, it has to look exactly like that person, or it’s going to look fake.
Caption: GABRIELLE ECHOLS as Bridget in New Line Cinema’s horror film “EVIL DEAD RISE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.Caption: GABRIELLE ECHOLS as Bridget in New Line Cinema’s horror film “EVIL DEAD RISE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
How do you get the eyes right then?
Carefully (Laughs). Generally, we’ll take a very high-definition photo up close. Back in the day, they used to be hand-painted to match. These days we cheat a bit and mostly print it. We literally do a photo-quality print of the eyes. There’s something about the gloss of an eye and the depth, like the pupil, that if it is a cheap eye or it doesn’t look right, the whole head looks wrong. Whereas you could also take a head that’s not perfect, but if it’s got really good eyes that look wet and have that depth, then it kind of sells better.
Which gnarly effect was, in your mind, one of the toughest moments to sell?
I think the gnarliest moment I did was the cheese grater.
How was that pulled off?
That’s a great combination of practical and visual effects. There are not a lot of visual effects in the film to do with our makeup unless it’s gags. Basically, there was a clean shot of the leg they filmed, and then we put a prosthetic on it and had tracking markers around it, and then they had a cheese grater with the side touching the skin missing essentially, and it’s just graded down over it. Visual effects [artists] then did the blend between the two as they reveal. It was a great way for the two departments to work together when sometimes there can be a bit of animosity between them.
A cheese grater was used to a horrific purpose in “Evil Dead Rise.’ Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Oh, really? Why is that?
Yeah, although practical blood is having a bit of a resurgence lately, visual effects have been taking over in terms of blood these days. It’s very often digital blood.
It rarely looks good.
It never looks good, but it happens a lot. We’re losing some work to it, but the best way is [for us to] work together. The cheese grater is a great example of that. The only thing they did for our makeup, really, is the eyes. They decided not to do contact lenses in this film for the comfort of the actors. On this, all the eyes are digital, and all the contacts are digital, but it works really well because it gives our actors a chance not to have to worry about being in pain or being uncomfortable. It lets them do their job better. The end result is we get this fantastic look with crazy eyes.
Caption: ALYSSA SUTHERLAND as Ellie in New Line Cinema’s horror film “EVIL DEAD RISE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Circling back to blood, what are the nuances of making it sell on film or, more specifically, on an actor’s face?
There are little things, like thinking about the way gravity will affect blood flow and the volume of blood out of a specific injury. I saw something the other day, I can’t remember what it was, but someone got shot in the arm, and then there was blood coming out of their mouth (Laughs). You’re like, that wouldn’t happen unless it’s deliberately comedic or something. The volume of blood is a big one. If someone’s losing liters of blood, and then ten scenes later, they’re still alive? I don’t know about that.
So your goal is to create a realistic amount of blood flow depending on the type and placement of the wound.
With gravity, it’s making sure the blood flow matches. If someone gets hit and falls down, blood’s gonna flow the direction they’re lying, not straight down their face. The continuity of the blood is a big one. It’s about making sure it stays the same as well as you can for the whole shoot. It gets tricky on something like Evil Dead Rise, where you have people literally covered head to toe in blood. You never want someone to say, “Oh, that’s a prosthetic.” You want it almost not to be noticeable. You have a photo of the blood from yesterday, and you just have to match it. But when you have someone that has so much blood on them, all of a sudden, you’re spending 45 minutes trying to copy the drips down. It’s little things like that that aren’t difficult, but if you do them wrong, it looks bad.
Caption: ALYSSA SUTHERLAND as Ellie in New Line Cinema’s horror film “EVIL DEAD RISE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. PicturesCaption: LILY SULLIVAN as Beth in New Line Cinema’s horror film “EVIL DEAD RISE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
When you have a tight schedule, as you did on Evil Dead Rise, what changes are you able to make on the fly?
It was a crazy schedule. Long days, long weeks, and lots of working on the weekend at the workshop to get stuff done. We try to accommodate as much as we can. There’s not much we’ll say no to. Our head of department, [prosthetics designer] Luke Poltie, I’ve worked with a lot, and he’s always reinforced the idea it’s our job to get what they want on the screen. As long as we’re not killing ourselves or working for free, we should do what we can to get it done in a healthy way. There are always some crazy things where schedules change and days switch around, but luckily, these days, we come prepared with a backup of a lot of prosthetics for cuts, scrapes, and wounds. If the filmmakers are like, “You know what? I want to see this prosthetic on the person right now,” we can do it.
Caption: ALYSSA SUTHERLAND as Ellie in New Line Cinema’s horror film “EVIL DEAD RISE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
What are some recent advancements in your field that have helped speed production up, though?
I’ll say the advancement of 3D scanning and 3D printing is a huge one. Now, you can have someone in LA that needs a head scan done, and you can get it done there and emailed to you. You can print out their head and start working instead of having to get something physically shipped halfway across the world. It’s a huge benefit. Those technologies are changing so fast.
Evil Dead Rise is in theaters now.
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Featured image: Caption: ALYSSA SUTHERLAND as Ellie in New Line Cinema’s horror film “EVIL DEAD RISE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
We are a mere two weeks away from the premiere of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, the third and final film in writer/director James Gunn’s trilogy. A new teaser promises that all the feels, laughs, and love that our cosmic jokers have been providing will come together for one final, epic adventure.
Vol 3. will find our heroes all grown up. Well, not really, but they’re getting there! No, they’re not, but still, at least Groot is finally filling out after his heroic regression to babyhood to save the gang in the very first Guardians. The third film will introduce some lovable new characters, like Cosmo the dog (voiced by Maria Bakalova), and some less lovable types, especially The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), who is connected to Rocket’s heartbreaking backstory.
The feels will include finally getting some closure on the on-again/off-again romance between Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and the woman he fell in love with, Gamora (Zoe Saldana). As we know, the Gamora in Vol. 3 isn’t the same woman he met in Vol. 1—she died (thanks to that all-time sociopathic monster, Thanos), and the current Gamora is from a different timeline. This previous trailer even hinted at a budding romance between Star-Lord and Gamora’s sister, Nebula (Karen Gillan), although she shuts that down pretty quickly in this new teaser.
It’s going to be a bittersweet final adventure. The Guardians have been one of the weirdest, most consistently surprising bunch of weirdos in the MCU, but as we know you’re well aware, writer/director James Gunn has moved on to DC Studios, where he’s now the new boss, along with producer Peter Safran, of the entire DC Studios slate. Along with Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket, and Nebula, the core crew returns for Vol. 3—Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), Mantis (Pom Klementieff). Their new mission will pit them against the aforementioned High Evolutionary and Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), first teased back in Vol 2. after Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) created him to hunt down and kill the Guardians. Yeesh.
But back to the High Evolutionary, the person who’s most likely the real villain here. Vol 3. will finally reveal Rocket’s tragic backstory. It was The High Evolutionary who experimented on Rocket and turned him into a talking, weapons-loving raccoon. Their showdown will be one of Vol. 3‘s most intriguing plots.
What has made the Guardians films so enjoyable has been the sense of mischief and oddball vitality they’ve brought to the MCU. Saying goodbye is such sweet sorrow.
Check out the new teaser below. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hits theaters on May 5:
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If there’s one thing we’ve learned from Ted Lasso, it’s that both Keeley Jones and the woman who plays her, Juno Temple, can do it all. So why not mix it up with an alien symbiote and the unlucky sap who hosts him?
Temple is in talks to join Tom Hardy in Venom 3, which would mark her debut in a Marvel film after a very successful run on Apple’s darling comedy. The film will be directed by longtime Venom scribe Kelly Marcy, who is making her directorial debut and working off a script she’s writing based on a story she and Hardy crafted.
Details at this time are being guarded by Venom himself, but The Hollywood Reporter scoops that Temple might be playing an existing Marvel character. Could this mean we’ll be getting more Juno in the MCU? One can hope.
Sony is expanding their Spider-Man Universe with a host of upcoming projects, including Kraven the Hunter, Madame Web, and even a movie Donald Glover is producing and will star in about the villain the Hypno-Hustler. Venom (2018) was initially conceived as a completely stand-alone project, but its sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021), and the Jared Leto-led Morbius (2022) established, via mid-credits, a connection to the Spider-Man Universe and the MCU via the multiverse.
Temple has appeared in major comic book movies before—she had a role in Christopher Nolan’s trilogy capping The Dark Knight Rises (2012), as well as in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014).
Temple’s become a star thanks to her Emmy-nominated work as Keeley Jones on Lasso and has the fifth season of FX’s excellent anthology series Fargo coming out next.
For more on Sony’s Spider-Man universe, check out these stories:
Featured image: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA – JULY 18: Juno Temple attends a FYC special screening of Apple TV+’s “Ted Lasso” at The Maybourne Beverly Hills on July 18, 2022 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images)
