A truly satisfying superhero film needs a truly compelling villain, and in Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantamania, you have just that in Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror. With the world premiere of the film last night, early reactions are pouring in, and they are practically uniform in calling out what a complex, mighty new villain Kang is. We’ve known for a while now that Majors was going to be a major force in the MCU, with the fourth Avengers film named after his character—Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Now we’re about to see what kind of villain Kang is in Quantumania, with critics praising Majors as “endlessly compelling,” “bad a**,” “compelling, chilling, and already giving a top-notch performance,” and more.
Quantumania finds Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), Hope Van Dyne/The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) venturing into the Quantum Realm, a bizarre, buzzing miniature universe complete filled to the gills with oddities, tribes of humans and bizarre creatures, and one very dangerous, very desperate villain named Kang.
This is the first time Ant-Man and his friends have faced an Avengers-level threat on their own, and seeing as how Kang views them as his ticket out of the Quantum Realm, the stakes are bigger than in any previous Ant-Man film. And according to critics, the weird, wild world of the Quantum Realm and Kang’s dangerous desperation combine for a potent first film in Marvel’s Phase 5.
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantuamnia hits theaters on February 17. Check out some of the early reactions below:
Had an absolute blast watching #AntManAndTheWaspQuantumania. Creative, irresistibly energetic and filled with some great action sequences. Welcome Jonathan Majors -such a bad ass. The effects are superb. pic.twitter.com/KdVB7qvl2E
Jonathan Majors is a force in #AntManAndTheWaspQuantumania. He’s compelling, chilling, and already giving a top notch performance. I love the complexity he brings to Kang with literally a single look. MCU really won with this casting pic.twitter.com/4W8VCLGFBv
There comes a point where every franchise has to get weird, and the MCU has done just that with #AntManAndTheWaspQuantumania. Like all his other roles, Jonathan Majors remains endlessly compelling. 👍👍 pic.twitter.com/cxWEcoKTze
#AntManAndTheWaspQuantumania is the best of the trilogy. Higher stakes, dangers & repercussions. Its also got one the best MCU villains in #Kang. As soon as #JonathanMayors comes in, its his show. Kang is a scary lean-mean multiverse big baddie. Also, 2 cool post credits scenes. pic.twitter.com/t1V8HP2dsO
Had a blast with #AntManAndTheWaspQuantumania Paul Rudd has never been better & Jonathan Majors effortlessly conquers every second of screen-time he gets, BUT the real star of the film is Jeff Loveness’ script: a reminder of how beautifully strange & mysterious the MCU still is. pic.twitter.com/MYoL6WPlmU
Marvel’s #AntManAndTheWaspQuantumania is a strong start to Phase 5. I now understand why it’s called #Quantumania. JonathanMajors is excellent as Kang and cannot wait to see where this all goes. 2 after the credits scenes and both are very good. pic.twitter.com/62Ch3w2O5N
#AntManAndTheWaspQuantumania gives some heavy Star Wars vibes! Fantastic performance from Jonathan Majors who is incredible as the big bad villain. Make sure to stay for 2 post credit scenes!
ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA is a blast, and finally answers some of the “where is the MCU going?” questions. Takes a minute to pick up, but has some great action scenes, creative visuals and a terrific villain in Kang. A solid start to Phase 5. #AntManAndTheWaspQuantumaniapic.twitter.com/SaAwnZwOre
#Quantumania is definitely Marvel’s weirdest movie yet…but that’s a good thing! It leans hard into the sci-fi side of the MCU, taking lots of wild swings.
Not everything lands, but it’s funny, inventive, and a good time. An enjoyable, bizarro ride into the quantum realm. pic.twitter.com/OvRotfAEQR
“You come from above…like him.” These words, which come at the top of a new teaser released by Marvel Studios, are directed at Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), and their assorted family in the Quantum Realm. They’re not the welcoming words of people enthused to have visitors from above, and the “him” Ant-Man and friends are being compared to is not a beloved visitor to the miniaturized universe, but Marvel’s latest Big Bad. That would be Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), the man who will make life very difficult for Ant-Man and everyone else, an Avengers-level threat who will first be battled by the Avengers’ oft-most overlooked superhero. Not for nothing, the fourth Avengers film is titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, so you know this is just the beginning of the battle with this complex supervillain.
“Kang the Conqueror is the new iconic villain in MCU,” says Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige in the new video. “We knew we wanted to go to places that we’ve never been and pitting Ant-Man against a major villain,” adds Quantumania director Peyton Reed.
Rudd himself talks about how the fact that while audiences have seen a version of Majors’ Kang in Marvel’s Disney+ series Loki, he’s a very different iteration in Quantuamania. As Feige explains, Kang is embodied in an “infinite number of different personas.” And in order to pull off a character who is as multifaceted as that, and one who can shoulder the burden of being the face of the MCU’s new supervillain, they needed an actor with the gravitas and ability. Enter Jonathan Majors.
“I think the film is ultimately about how time plays within our relationships,” Majors says. “Love, friendship, legacy, Ant-Man versus Kang. This is it. People are gonna lose their minds.”
The new look ends with Kang battling a seemingly overmatched Ant-Man and dismissively saying, “You’re out of league, Ant-Man.” It’s a tough rebuke to the littlest Avenger from the biggest villain since Thanos. On February 17, audiences will get to see whether Kang is right.
Check out the new video here:
For more on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, check out these stories:
Last December, we finally got our first look at Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The trailer gave us even more reason to be enthused by Harrison Ford’s fifth and final adventure as Indy, in the first film in the franchise not to be directed by Stephen Spielberg. Stepping in for the legendary Spielberg is one of the best directors working today, James Mangold, and the trailer revealed that Indy’s adventuring days weren’t entirely behind him. Chatting with old pal Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) at the top of the trailer, Indy laments about how the days of magic and flirting with death were long behind him. Sallah knows better. The rest of the trailer revealed Indy’s final quest will connect to adventures past and present what should be an adrenalin-packed, cathartic swan song for one of the most iconic characters in film history. Disney has further gotten our attention with a slew of images from the film, which put the spotlight not only on Ford but the rest of the cast.
That cast includes Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Helena, Mads Mikkelsen as Voller, Antonio Banderas as Renaldo, Toby Jones as Basil, and Boyd Holbrook (so effective in Mangold’s Logan) as Klaber. The trailer revealed that Mangold and his team used de-aging technology for at least one scene, reportedly set in 1944, roughly 8 years after the events in Raiders of the Lost Ark. In a few of the images you’ll see below, Ford is very much in Raiders form. The rest of the film takes place in 1969, with Ford at his current age.
The Dial of Destiny is the fifth film in the franchise, following Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989), and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). There’s every reason to believe that Mangold will deliver something special here for Ford’s final turn as Indy. It’s easily one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year.
Check out the images below. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny whips into theaters on June 30, 2023.:
Pedro Pascal already knows what it’s like to star in the greatest video game adaptation of all time. That’s currently what he’s doing in HBO’s The Last Of Us, which is a brilliant adaptation of Naughty Dog’s hugely popular and critically acclaimed game of the same now. Luckily, the folks at Saturday Night Live saw the perfect opportunity to pitch Pascal taking on another iconic role derived from a video game. Behold him as that indefatigable Italian plumber in SNL‘s gritty take on Nintendo’s beloved Mario Kart game.
“It’s been ten years since our kingdom fell,” we learn from the opening of this hardscrabble re-imagining of Nintendo’s mega-popular go-kart racing game in which Mario, his plumber-in-crime Luigi, and a slew of other characters from the Mario Bros. universe (Peach, Daisy, Yoshi, Toad, Wario, Bowser and more) race. In SNL‘s gnarly version, the fallen Kingdom is ruled by Bowser (Kenan Thompson), and it’s up to Pascal’s Mario to shepherd Princess Peach (Chloe Fineman) to the Rainbow Road while avoiding getting killed by everything from sentient fungi known as goombas to Bowser himself. Characters from the various “Mario Kart” iterations are on hand, including Luigi (Mikey Day), Yoshi (Bowen Yang), and Toad (Marcello Hernández), the latter two proclaiming they’re bi-sexuality because to add to the complexity of their characters. It’s silly. It’s hysterical.
SNL has just about perfected these trailers, and Mario Kart now joins previous gritty adaptations of children’s games and series like the Joker-inspired trailer for Grouch, a gritty psychological drama starring David Harbour as titular garbage-can-dwelling Sesame Street character Oscar the Grouch.
Check out the trailer for gritty Mario Kart below:
For more on The Last Of Us, check out these stories:
Featured image: SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE — “Pedro Pascal, Coldplay” Episode 1838 — Pictured: (l-r) Chloe Fineman as a princess and host Pedro Pascal as Mario during the “New Video Game Series” sketch on Saturday, February 4, 2023 — (Photo by: Kyle Dubiel/NBC)
It took a decade to get there, but The Last of Us’ migration from video game to television paid off big time last month when the post-apocalyptic thriller enjoyed the largest viewership jump in HBO history. Audience numbers increased 22 percent to 5.7 million viewers for the show’s second episode in the wake of its January 15 debut. Already renewed for a second season, the series comes from Emmy-winning writer-producer Craig Mazin of Chernobyl fame in collaboration with Neil Druckmann, who served as creative director for the original 2013 Naughty Dog game.
Cinematographer Eben Bolter, a longtime fan of the game, moved with his family to Alberta, Canada for a year to be part of the Last of Us team. “There’s a lot of things The Last of Us is not,” says Bolter, whose credits include the 2017 sci-fi thriller iBoy and HBO’s recent The Girl Before miniseries. “It’s not a cliché zombie movie, it’s not Hollywood backlit where everyone’s close-up is perfect. It’s a world of organic cinematic naturalism, and that’s something I could just feel.”
Eben Bolter on the set of “The Last Of Us” on episode 4, “Long Long Time,” with Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett. Courtesy HBO.
Following Chernobyl: Abyss cinematographer Ksenia Sereda’s first two installments, Bolter shot episodes three, four, five, and six of The Last of Us, which tracks 14-year-old Ellie (Bella Ramsey, from Game of Thrones) and Joel (Pedro Pascal of The Mandalorian) as they journey through post-apocalyptic America searching for the cure to a parasitic fungal infection that has transformed most of the human population into monsters.
Speaking from his home in England, Bolter talks to The Credits about the beauty of handheld cinematography, the secret to “skip lighting” and the perfectly imperfect messiness that imbues The Last of Us aesthetic.
How did you get the gig?
I hunted this job down. I really went after it because I loved The Last of Us video game from the day it came out. I remember thinking “If this ever gets adapted, I’d be incredibly interested in shooting it.” Then I saw Craig Mazin’s Chernobyl — a masterpiece. When the two came together, the day of the announcement, I told my agent “This is my dream job,” and she pulled off the impossible.
Your first episode “Long Long Time,” which aired Sunday [Jan. 28], focuses on survivalist Bill (Nick Offerman), and Frank (Murray Bartlett), a refugee from the Infected. Their relationship unfolds in a suburban environment different from what’s come before. How did you approach the vibe for this relatively domestic situation?
It’s a love story and I can’t put enough praise on the script. It had so much detail, so much subtext. When Peter Hoar, the director came on board, we tried to deeply understand the orientation of every scene and talked about how to tell the story so it still feels like it’s in The Last of Us world. We’re covering 20 years in 45 minutes. Do we change lenses? Do we change the camera? Do we make it black and white? Do we not use any more handheld? In the end, we decided to keep things simple and grounded and real.
Eban Bolter on the set of “The Last Of Us” on episode 4, “Long Long Time,” with Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett. Courtesy HBO.
One extended sequence begins in the dining room, then moves to the living room, and culminates in this emotional moment at the piano. How did you shape the visuals for that scene?
It starts with the dinner table. The way Nick sets the plate down, the bottle, who sits where and why — we wanted to mirror all that stuff later. And I wanted the scene to have a beauty to it without feeling too lit so I used this skip lighting technique.
Nick Offerman, Murray Bartlett. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
What’s skip lighting?
That’s where the sun comes in through the window and hits the tablecloth so you’re getting this ambiance by using props and the set rather than film lights. [Road to Perdition and American Beauty DP] Conrad Hall is one of my favorite cinematographers and he did loads of lighting where it never quite hits the actor’s face directly but bounces off the environment. I call it skip lighting because it’s like skipping a stone off the water.
Nick Offerman, Murray Bartlett. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
It’s both touching and unexpected when Bill sits down at the piano and sings for Frank.
Craig [Mazin] wanted to record that as a live performance so we decided to cross-shoot, which we don’t normally do. I had one camera in the middle with the ability to rove for two-shots. Then I had one camera for Nick and another camera for Murray and they weren’t to ever lose their man. That allowed us to play through the scene as one take. It was very moving. A lot of the people in the room cried. It was quite a magical thing to shoot.
The Last of Us takes place in a post-technology America whose electric power grid has largely collapsed. How does that situation affect your approach to realistic lighting?
I love constraints. Here, you’ve got daylight, you’ve got moonlight, you’ve got fire — three natural resources — and then a finite resource with electricity in certain areas that have generators or the lights are 20 years old so they’re going to be flickering. And you’ve got torches and flashlights. I wanted to lean into these imperfections and make the light feel dirty and mixed and messy and feral.
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in episode 4 of “The Last Of Us.” Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
Episode 4 opens with Ellie checking out a handgun in a dark space illuminated by a shaft of sunlight. It looked gritty and beautiful at the same time. How did you put that visual together?
Ellie’s in the bathroom of a gas station in the middle of nowhere. We need to see Ellie so instead of a window, we decided “Let’s put a hole in the ceiling and have little bits of dust coming through and let’s get the sun in a position where it illuminates her without being too perfect.” We didn’t want it to look like Michael Bay. Nothing against Michael Bay but with The Last of Us, you always want to dirty it up.
Nature plays a powerful role in this story. For example, Episode 3 begins with Joel and Ellie in this gorgeous forest “10 miles west of Boston,” although there’s a huge mountain in the background. Where was that filmed?
We shot that in Banff near Calgary in the Rocky Mountains. We talked about that mountain — are we going to delete the mountain to make it more Massachusetts or let it slide? I guess they let it slide. This scene was actually my first day on the show. Joel’s down by this stream taking a quiet moment to say goodbye to Tess [his dead companion played by Anna Torv]. We wanted to capture that early morning feeling when the sun’s just about to come up. It’s kind of that blue hour with a little bit of purple in the air. Then Joel meets Ellie after the sun’s come up and we’re in the woods. I had some big lights set in place to where the sun should be so that if we ever got a big cloud, we could fire up one of the lights and take over from the sun. On a show like this when you’ve got 250 people in Banff trying to shoot a scene, you can’t just say “We’re going to wait three hours until the clouds move.” You build in this professional protection, but you try not to use it.
Nearly everything looks like it’s shot with handheld cameras. Why do you favor that technique for The Last of Us?
[Cinematographer] Ksenia [Sereda] set that up in Episode One, which I think was 100 percent handheld. It was a good decision because handheld gives things a documentary-style grounding. When you suddenly put a camera on a stick, it feels like a bit more artifice so we generally defaulted to handheld unless there was a good reason to do something differently. And we used this thing call a ZeeGee, which I loved. It sits on a Steadicam arm, takes away the bounce from the shoulder and allows Neil Bryant, our A cam operator, to operate without any of the weight.
What did you use for camera gear?
Ksenia shot Episode One on the Alexa mini with Cooke S 4 lenses and it’s a smart choice that I didn’t feel any need to change. It’s lightweight, small, good for handheld and, in my opinion, the Alexa has the best dynamic range to emulate a 35-mil film look. Unlike the shallow focus you get from large format or 65 mil, which is the fashion right now, the Alexa captures a large amount of detail in the background, so you’re not just getting out-of-focus blobs.
The action sequences deal with survivors fighting the Infected, which most people would call zombies. How did you deal with those battle scenes?
We weren’t allowed to say the Z word on set. It was like a banned word. They were the Infected. We weren’t a zombie show. Of course, there’s tension building and jump scares but the show’s really about our characters; The Infected are an obstacle they have to deal with. For example in Episode Three, Ellie hears an Infected trapped under some rubble. Initially, she’s scared, but then you see her grow in confidence, cutting open the Infected and looking at the fibers. Through that interest, you see what the Infected means in Ellie’s own life. She was born into this world that’s completely gone to hell because of this thing and now, maybe she has inside her a solution to this thing. We see Bella’s performance as she goes from wonder to hate and you start to think, wow what is this girl capable of? There’s darkness and anger in there. So [even in scenes featuring the Infected], it’s character first and then just tell the story.
Samuel Hoeksema in “The Last Of Us.” Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
As a guy who played The Last of Us game when it first came out, you must be gratified to see gamers and non-gamers alike responding so well to this televised adaptation.
Back in 2013, I remember telling everybody I saw “You have to try this game” but there were many people I knew who were never going to pick up a controller. It’s almost like “There’s this amazing book I read but you can’t read the language it’s written in so you’re never gonna know.” What’s been great about this series is that now, I don’t have to pitch people anymore: “Trust me, it’s not just zombies.” My parents, for example, I can just tell them: “Watch the show.” And now they see what I saw when I first played the game, which is a beautiful thing.
For more on The Last Of Us, check out these stories:
Now that we know James Cameron’s Avatar 3 will definitely be coming to theaters thanks to the astonishing success of Avatar: The Way of Water (currently the fourth-highest-grossing movie of all time and climbing), a few crucial details about the sequels are coming to light. One major reason for this is Cameron and producer Jon Landau have continued to offer clues to some of the major plot points, and there’s also the fact that Cameron shot The Way of Water and Avatar 3 concurrently, as well as parts of Avatar 4, so the details he and Landau are sharing are often not things they’re planning on doing, but things they’ve already done.
In that spirit, Landau revealed to Empirea few intriguing details about the upcoming sequels. As previously reported, he confirmed that Avatar 3 will introduce a far more hostile and violent race of Na’vi, called the Ash People, who he described as “an aggressive, volcanic race” whose leader, Varang, is played by Game of Thrones actress Oon Chaplin (she’s also the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin).
“There are good humans and there are bad humans,” Landau told Empire. “It’s the same thing on the Na’vi side. Oftentimes, people don’t see themselves as bad. What is the root cause of how they evolve into what we perceive as bad? Maybe there are other factors there that we aren’t aware of.”
Chaplin’s casting has been known for while, but this is the first time her role has been revealed.
Landua also revealed that there’s going to be a massive time jump for Avatar 4 (which Cameron has previously stated “goes nuts“), and then he confirmed with Gizmodo that Avatar 5 would be partially set on Earth. “We go to it to open people’s eyes, open Neytiri’s eyes, to what exists on Earth.”
Prepare yourselves for a pretty bleak vision of our future Earth, however. The reason humans have been despoiling Pandora for its resources for all these years is because Earth is in crisis, which is what sent the Resources Development Administration to the distant alien planet in the first place. Landau told Empire that overpopulation and depletion of natural resources have made life extremely difficult on Earth.
Yet Cameron is not one to dwell solely on doom and gloom—his Avatar films have also been as obsessively focused on the wonder of the natural world and the bounty possible when you live in harmony with it. “We don’t want to paint a bleak picture for where our world is going,” Landua said to Empire. “The films are also about the idea that we can change course.”
Avatar: The Way of Water is still playing in theaters across the country.
For more on Avatar: The Way of Water and the upcoming sequels, check out these stories:
Who among us hasn’t danced with alternate life paths in daydreams while battling a case of the doldrums? Even a universe-ending adventure seems more glamorous some days than completing one more trivial tax form. Everything Everywhere All at Onceis a superhero story for the everyman. Each variation in style represents an entirely different life the characters might have lived.
Hair department head Anissa E. Salazar and makeup department head Michelle Chung created styles that spun the characters through a dazzling display of “what ifs” and “could have beens.” Each look was a glamorous fantasy ranging from funky to surreal. Yet at the heart of the film was the relatable Wang family, trying to navigate their own reality.
(L-R) Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Michelle Yeoh, James Hong Photo credit: Allyson Riggs
“It was important to keep these characters as authentic as possible, so the audience really felt like they understood and knew the struggles of these characters,” Salazar explained.
“We’ve all seen Michelle Yeoh in so many roles where she’s beautiful and powerful, and her character, Evelyn, is supposed to be the worst version of herself, so I really wanted to make sure she looked overworked and tired and didn’t have time to take care of herself,” Chung added.
L-r: Michelle Yeoh and Hair Department Head Anissa E. Salazar. Courtesy A24.
Throughout the film’s journey, the characters grew beyond their established perceptions and learned to see each other in new and unexpected ways. One of the most heartbreaking depictions was Evelyn’s renewed attraction to her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) – if only he were a little bit different.
Ke Huy Quan is Waymond Wang. Photo Credit: Allyson Riggs
Nailing the contrast was critical for Salazar and Chung. “As far as makeup, we really wanted Waymond to be as natural and real as possible in the main universe,” Chung described. “We really just made sure he had good skin prep and almost no makeup on for the main Waymond character, especially in comparison to the movie star world, where we wanted him to look flawless and suave.”
Ke Huy Quan is Waymond Wang. Photo Credit: Allyson Riggs
“Ke is so lovely to work with,” Salazar said. “For hair, we added a few greys by hand daily to age him slightly. And for his flashbacks, he used a wig.”
Tenderness between spouses who have lost their spark is sweet, but a love between the hero and the villain is a savory shock. Far and away, the most talked about alternate universe in the film is “hot dog hands” where everyone has long, floppy sausage fingers. Yet inside the comedic capsule is a sweet sentiment – in another world, we could have been friends. Enemies in this dimension, Evelyn and the bureaucrat from hell, Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis), find that there was a potential for them to be partners in another life. One of the most inspired design decisions of the film was to repurpose Deirdre’s hacked-off hairdo into a gesture of love.
(L-R) Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Yeoh. Photo Credit: Allyson Riggs
“We thought it would be sweet if they had extreme similarities,” Salazar noted. “So naturally, the matching haircuts and style were a must!”
“The wigs were such a brilliant way to have them feel like a couple – one of those couples that are starting to look like each other,” Chung added. “Once the wigs went on, and the costumes and the set design, it all really came together as this beautiful story with hot dog hands!”
Ultimately, Evelyn cannot find peace in this journey until she comes to understand the most complex being in the universe – her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu). Joy’s alter ego, Jobu Tupaki, has the most versatile style with versions ranging from Pink Elvis to Goth Sailor Moon.
Stephanie Hsu on set. Courtesy A24.Stephanie Hsu on set. Courtesy A24.
The culmination of all her pain and pressures manifests itself in the most sophisticated look of the film. The bagel universe is the summit of Joy/Jobu’s emotional hierarchy. It’s a stable and serene plateau where the shape-shifting character finally sheds the distractions and reveals her soul. The regal braids and pearl tears open Jobu to being more than a villain.
Stephanie Hsu on set. Courtesy A24.
“It really did start for me with the costume,” Chung shared. “Shirley Kurata, the amazing costume designer, would show us looks as they developed, and she brought me some pearls one day and said she was going to put them all over the costume, so I wanted to tie in the pearls into her makeup as well. I also knew the space they were going to be in was going to be ethereal and all-white, so I really wanted her makeup to reflect that as well. This whole movie was a huge collaboration between everyone, especially with hair and costumes; we synced up quickly and just clicked. We just seemed to share ideas and always be on the same page, which was so lovely.”
That process happened on a collapsed timeline with a shooting schedule of only eight weeks. “That bagel hair was trial and error but sped up because we didn’t have much time!” Salazar revealed. “I tried playing with villainous looks, but it didn’t feel original. Finally, I landed on the hero look being complex, just how the character’s emotions are at that moment in the script.”
Filled with action and absurdity, Everything Everywhere All at Once goes to the ends of the universe – every universe – to find its way back home again. There’s an undeniable allure to the idea that our mundane lives could take a turn at any moment if we only choose to eat the chapstick.
“I think for me, at the root of this crazy adventurous multiverse rollercoaster of a movie is a simple story about a family,” Chung observed. “I really wanted to make sure that the family felt like real people that you might actually know. They had to look real, flawed and raw, like life, and then in comparison, have crazy beautiful looks in other universes.”
Michelle Yeoh is Evelyn Wang in “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” Courtesy A24.
Mission—or missions—accomplished.
For more on Everything Everywhere All At Once, check out these stories:
The first trailer for writer/director Guy Ritchie’s latest film, The Covenant, is here, and it packs a punch. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as John Kinley, a sergeant deployed on his last tour in Afghanistan. Disaster strikes and John’s facing certain death, but he’s saved by a local interpreter named Ahmed (Dal Salim), who goes above and beyond to literally drag, push, and carry John to safety. His efforts are practically superhuman, and while John can barely remember a thing that happened, he knows he owes this man his life.
And that debt will need to be paid, as The Covenant finds Ahmed and his family in danger after his heroic effort to save John. Being an interpreter for the United States Military is a phenomenally risky job for a local, and what makes matters worse is that despite risking his life to save an American soldier, the American government won’t do the same for Ahmed. So, John has no choice but to defy his own government and go on a rescue mission. Needless to say, it’s an extremely dangerous, possibly suicidal decision, but as the trailer makes clear, John feels he has no choice in the matter.
This isn’t the first time Gyllenhaal has depicted a soldier, nor one suffering from mental trauma. Director Jim Sheridan’s Brothers found Gyllenhaal in a film that looked squarely at Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, while Sam Mendes’ Jarhead depicted the Gulf War as a meandering, isolating and often dull experience. The Covenant is an entirely different kind of film, part action-epic, part meditation on the costs of war and the role Afghanis played in helping the U.S. Military and the debt owed, but rarely paid, for their efforts. It’s also unique for Ritchie, a man who has crafted some of the more kinetic, exuberant films of the last two decades, but never a film like this. Unlike his previous efforts, The Covenant isn’t taking a comic approach to violence. In fact, it looks like a sober, if action-packed, war epic.
Check out the trailer below. The Covenant hits theaters on April 21.
For more on upcoming films, check out these stories:
When the Philadelphia Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs in this year’s Super Bowl on February 12, many folks will be watching not only for the game (go Birds) but for the commercials. And some of those commercials will be, as always, trailers for upcoming films. Considering last year’s Super Bowl drew 112 million viewers, it’s quite literally the perfect opportunity for a studio to draw a ton of attention to their films. Deadlinehas the scoop on what trailers we’ll likely see right before and during this year’s big game.
Buying ad space during the Super Bowl is a serious investment (roughly $7 million for a 30-second spot), yet the number of eyeballs you get from that down payment is often worth the price for studios. Consider how well the trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnessdid after airing during last year’s Super Bowl between the L.A. Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals—in 24 hours, it had notched 93 million views. The film went on to have the largest opening at the box office.
Disney will once again have a slew of big films to promote during the game, some of them Marvel films, some of them not. On the Marvel side, look out for new glimpses of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and The Marvels. Non-MCU films that could appear during the game are The Little Mermaid and, perhaps, a look at Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
While Marvel Studios has typically released a trailer during the Super Bowl, this year Warner Bros. will be making a major splash with the first look at director Andy Muschietti’s The Flash (which new DC Studios co-chief James Gunn calls one of the best superhero movies he’s ever seen).
Paramount has a few big films they can tout—Scream VI, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. However, Deadline hears that we won’t be getting a fresh look at Tom Cruise and the gang in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
Universal will be racing into the action once again. They dropped the F9 trailer during the 2021 Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This year, they’ll likely be unveiling a new Fast X trailer during the big game. Deadline also reports that Universal will tease a 15-second pre-game spot for director Elizabeth Banks’ thriller Cocaine Bear, with the film due in theaters only two weeks later on February 24.
New looks at Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series, United Artist Releasing’s Creed III, and Lionsgate’s John Wick: Chapter 4 are all strong possibilities, too.
“Like it’s one of the best superhero movies I’ve ever seen. [Director] Andy Muschietti did an amazing job.” This is what the new DC Studios Co-Chief James Gunn says about The Flash. This is a pretty incredible compliment coming from the director of two (soon to be three) Guardians of the Galaxy films and the man who helmed The Suicide Squad for DC. Gunn made this statement (and many more besides) when he and his DC Studios Co-Chief Peter Safran presented their plan for their new Unified DC Universe to the press on Tuesday. Whether or not Ezra Miller continues in his role as Barry Allen/The Flash going forward in the new DC is still unknown (he’s currently in recovery after a spate of incidents in 2022), but Gunn is enthused about what Miller, Muschietti, and the rest of The Flash team created with their film. And we’ll finally get our first glimpse of the movie when the trailer bows during the Super Bowl on February 12.
Although Gunn and Safran’s new DC Universe is going in a completely different direction than the previous iteration of Warner Bros.’ superhero realm, jettisoning projects that hadn’t yet begun filming (like Wonder Woman 3) and saying goodbye to big stars (Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Henry Cavill as Superman), there is a slew of upcoming DC films that were already wrapped and will hit theaters. Those include not only The Flash but Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Blue Beetle, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. What’s interesting about The Flash is the film actually works within Gunn and Safran’s new vision, helping them “reset” the DC Universe because the movie is centered on Barry Allen speeding across the multiverse.
Considering director Andy Muschietti is a very talented guy (It and It: Chapter Two proved that) and that Miller, when healthy, has been wonderful as The Flash in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, and that Michael Keaton reprises his role as Batman in the film, there always seemed a good chance the film could be special. Gunn certainly thinks so.
“Can I say one more thing? The Flash is f**king amazing,” Gunn said to reporters.
And while you could argue Gunn isn’t in a position to be super objective about any of the upcoming DC films he still needs to promote, he has been very honest and transparent this entire time. His enthusiasm for The Flash stands out.
The Flash races into theaters on June 23, 2023.
For more on all things DC Studios, check out these stories:
Director James Mangold knows a thing or two about delivering deliciously hardcore superhero action. Mangold was the man who helmed what was once Hugh Jackman’s final turn as Wolverine in the excellent 2017 film Logan. You know, the one where Wolverine dies. Sure, Jackman’s Wolverine is coming back in Deadpool 3 (the film is set before the events in Logan, so it makes some sense!), but for many folks, it will be nearly impossible to top the adamantium-clawed sharpness of Logan, which gave us an ailing, failing, but still ferociously heroic superhero in his twilight. Mangold crafted a stripped-down, hardcore stunner that revealed a future world in which the surviving X-Men were scattered, and an ailing Wolverine was trying to stay alive long enough to drag an even sicker Professor X to a sailboat so they could both find safety at sea. This never happened, however, as Mangold took us through Wolverine’s thrilling, heartbreaking final days in a role he never wanted but was born to inhabit; the protector of a young mutant, Laura (Dafne Keen) very much like himself. (In fact, she was created from his DNA.)
Now, as Mangold revealed to the world yesterday, it looks as if he’s headed over to DC Studios to helm Swamp Thing, the final film in the first chapter of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s brand-new Unified DC Universe. Mangold teased the potential via Twitter on Tuesday night (the image was drawn by Swamp Thing co-creator Bernie Wrightson), and then Gunn retweeted it, which seems to indicate this deal is looking good:
Swamp Thing would tap into many of Mangold’s strengths that were evident in Logan; treating the superhero genre as something visceral, bloody, and with real stakes. Gunn and Safran have talked openly about how they want to see the DC Universe evolve going forward, with not just a unified, coherent single universe (The Batman Part II and other films and series not in the DC Universe will be tagged as “DC Elseworlds), but also to completed scripts done before any film goes into production. Story will be king in their new DC Universe. And that works great for Mangold, who is said to be a huge fan of the character, and who proved with the Logan script he co-wrote with Michael Green and Scott Frank that he believes in a superhero universe wedded to very human drama, beat by beat, act by act.
The character Swamp Thing was originally created by writer Len Wein and the aforementioned artist Wrightston, appearing in a 1971 stand-alone story “House of Secret No. 92.” His most iconic iteration was written by “Watchmen” creator Alan Moore and drawn by John Tolteben and Stephen R. Bissette. There was a film adaptation in 1982 from none other than Wes Craven, and a TV series that ran for a brief time on the DC Universe Platform, but in Mangold’s hands, and under Gunn and Safran’s plan, Swamp Thing would be the biggest, boldest adaptation yet.
At their big DC unveiling this past Tuesday, Gunn and Safran said the new film will investigate “the dark origins of Swamp Thing,” it will be a “horrific film,” but that the character will also be a big part of the DC Universe.
As for Mangold, while we wait to (hopefully) share the news he’s officially the Swamp Thing director, he already has a massively high-profile film coming out this May. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s called Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Harrison Ford’s last go-round as Indy, and the first film in the franchise not to be directed by Stephen Spielberg. The film is set to hit theaters on June 30.
For more on all things DC Studios, check out these stories:
The Big Guy is getting the biopic he richly deserves.
Sony has just released the trailer for Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World, which will focus on the legendary boxer’s career, from his impoverished childhood to Olympic Gold and onto becoming the World Heavyweight Champion. There are few sports as reliably cinematic as the Sweet Science, and as we’ve learned from Raging Bull, the Rocky franchise, and the recent Creed films, with the right talent, you can create movie magic.
Big George Foreman comes from director George Tillman Jr., a man who, as a producer, brought us the excellent Mudbound and The Hate U Give. What’s more, Tillman Jr. worked with George Foreman himself, who executive produced alongside Wendy Williams, Henry Holmes, and Peter Guber. The script comes from Tillman Jr. and co-writer Frank Baldwin.
Khris Davis (Atlanta) plays Foreman, and he’s joined by a great cast that includes Forest Whitaker, John Magaro, Sonja Sohn, Erica Tazel, Jasmine Matthews, Sam Trammell, and Lawrence Gillard Jr. The film will cover some things you already know about Foreman (his ubiquitous grill, for example) and many things you certainly don’t. It will also map Foreman’s spiritual journey after a near-death experience. And, of course, it will take us inside the ring with one of the greatest to ever put on a pair of gloves.
Check out the trailer for Big George Foreman. The film arrives on April 28.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World is based on the remarkable true story about one of the greatest comebacks of all time and the transformational power of second chances. Fueled by an impoverished childhood, Foreman — played by Khris Davis (Judas and the Black Messiah, Broadway’s “Death of a Salesman”) — channeled his anger into becoming an Olympic Gold medalist and World Heavyweight Champion, followed by a near-death experience that took him from the boxing ring to the pulpit. But when he sees his community struggling and in need of spiritual and financial guidance, Foreman returns to the ring and makes history by reclaiming the title a second time, becoming the oldest and most improbable World Heavyweight Boxing Champion in the world.
For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:
Featured image: (L to r) Forest Whitaker and Khris Davis star in BIG GEORGE FOREMAN: THE MIRACULOUS STORY OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD.
We’re guessing you caught the major news coming from DC Studios yesterday? New DC Studios chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran revealed their plan for creating a Unified DC Universe, and the details were really mind-blowing for those of us invested not only in the film and TV industries but the business of superhero storytelling.
Gunn and Safran’s plan includes a brand new Superman film titled Superman: Legacy, a new Game of Thrones-style TV series set on Wonder Woman’s home island, Themyscira, a new Green Lanterns TV series, and a new Batman film that involves Bruce Wayne learning he’s got a son with some very, very deep troubles. That’s just the tip of the new Unified DC Universe iceberg.
While the legion of fans of Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Henry Cavill’s Superman are still smarting over the fact that Gunn and Safran’s reenvisioned DC doesn’t include them, there was good news for the many fans of Matt Reeves’ The Batman, which starred Robert Pattison as the Caped Crusader. The Batman Part II is officially happening, with the film arriving on October 3, 2025. While many of the details about the specifics of the plot and more will be kept under wraps for some time, Gunn and Safran did reveal that Reeves’ corner of Gotham will remain a standalone property and fall under the “DC Elseworlds” category. The Elseworlds tag will be put on any TV series that doesn’t fall under the main DC Universe. This is how DC Comics handles its various titles, too.
Other upcoming projects that will fall under the “DC Elseworlds” banner include Joker: Folie à Deux, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga and which is set for an October 4, 2024 release. There’s also another surprise—Gunn and Safran said they’re still interested in a different Superman movie from writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and produced by J.J. Abrams, which would also get the “Elseworlds” tag.
While Reeves and Pattinson plunge the depths of their detective noir-inspired version of Gotham, Gunn and Safran’s new Batman movie, The Brave and the Bold, will fall under their DC Universe and will not only include the aforementioned revelation that Bruce Wayne has a disturbed son but the reintroduction of Robin to the DC world.
For more on all things DC Studios, check out these stories:
“It’s about that time,” Will Smith said in a video announcement yesterday as he made his way to his buddy and collaborator Martin Lawrence’s house. “Yo, I’ve got an announcement. Y’all better stop scrolling,” Smith says, playing the opening bars of Nelly, P. Diddy, and Murphy Lee’s “Shake Ya Tailfeather,” a song from the 2003 Bad Boys II soundtrack. “I wish I was you, not knowing what I’m about to show me.”
You’ve read the title of this piece so you already know what Smith was about to show the world. Fans are already affectionately calling the fourth outing from Smith and Lawrence as the Miami detectives Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett, respectively, Bad Boys 4eva. Considering the last film was called Bad Boys For Life, well, we think it works.
Bad Boys For Lifedirectors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah return for the fourth installment, and they’ll work from a script from Chris Bremmer. The plot details for Bad Boys 4 are, of course, unknown.
In Bad Boys For Life, Lawrence’s Marcus Burnett had risen to the rank of police inspector while his former partner, Smith’s Mike Lowery, was mired in a midlife crisis. They reunited to take down an Albanian mercenary whose brother they’d previously killed. The film went on to be a major hit for Sony right before the pandemic era, earning $426.5 million at the worldwide box office.
You can check out the official announcement from Smith below:
Featured image: Will Smith and Martin Lawrence star in Columbia Pictures’ BAD BOYS FOR LIFE. Photo Credit: Ben Rothstein. Kyle Kaplan. Courtesy Sony Pictures.
DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran have unveiled their ten-year plan for the connected superhero universe they’re building. Hold onto your capes, people.
First, there will be a new Batman film (without Robert Pattinson) featuring Bruce Wayne’s very dangerous son. But don’t worry, fans of The Batman—a sequel to Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson’s film is still happening. There’s going to be a new Superman film, written by Gunn, and headed to theaters on July 11, 2025. There’s going to be a new TV series set on Wonder Woman’s secretive home island Themyscira that’s being billed as a Game of Thrones-like epic. For those of you heavily invested in the Marvel and DC superhero universes, this is about as big of a news day as you could conceive.
Gunn and Safran have been plotting their unified DC universe for months now. The news that Henry Cavill would not be returning as Superman and that Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman 3 was also not a part of the plan shook up the DC world. Now, at last, we have a much clearer picture of what kind of world—connected universe, technically—that Gunn and Safran have conceived of, and it’s wild. Yes, some of the blue-chip superheroes will be here, your Batman and your Superman, but there’s also a slew of more marginal figures within the DC canon that are going to get their day in the spotlight.
The Hollywood Reporter and many other outlets report that their phased plan begins with Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters, and has been dreamed into life by a writer’s room that helped locate an overarching story to create a proper, unified DC Universe. Gunn and Safran laid out the first part of their overall vision for DC on the Warner Bros. lot:
“One of our strategies is to take our diamond characters, which is Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and we use them to prop up other characters that people don’t know,” said Gunn.
“To build those lesser-known properties into the diamond properties of tomorrow,” Safran added.
One of those lesser-known properties is Creature Commandos, which is an animated series written by Gunn that’s already in production. Gunn’s version is a modern take on a team of monsters who team up to fight Nazis. A second television project is Waller, which will be a spinoff of Gunn’s series Peacemaker and feature the return of Viola Davis as the titular Amanda Waller, the take-no-prisoners government taskforce captain who created the Suicide Squad.
Then, there are the big film reveals, like Superman: Legacy, which is also being penned by Gunn (he may also direct) and is considered the project that is officially launching the new DC Universe. Safran told the assembled reporters at the unveiling that the film is not an origin story, but rather “focuses on Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing. He is the embodiment of truth justice and the American way. He is kindness in a world that thinks that kindness as old-fashioned.” Again, the film is slated for a July 11, 2025 release date.
Then there’s Lanterns, a new TV series based on the space cop Green Lanterns that Gunn and Safran billed as a True Detective-like drama that will be based on Earth and feature Lantern heroes John Stewart and Hal Jordan.
Another film project is The Authority, focused on a team of superheroes who deploy extreme methods to protect the planet. The characters were created by the influential comic imprint Wildstorm in the late 1990s. “One of the things of the DCU is that it’s not just a story of heroes and villains,” Gunn said. “Not every film and TV show is going to be about good guy vs. bad guy, giant things from the sky comes and good guy wins. There are white hats, black hats and grey hats.”
“They are kinda like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men,” Safran said. “They know that you want them on the wall. Or at least they believe that.”
Paradise Lostwill be the TV series set on Themyscira, Wonder Woman’s birthplace, that’s being billed as a Game of Thrones-style epic.
The Brave and the Bold movie will be the introduction of a new Batman. “This is the introduction of the DCU Batman,” Gunn said. “Of Bruce Wayne and also introduces our favorite Robin, Damian Wayne, who is a little son of a b**ch.” The film is inspired by a classic run of Batman comics by Grant Morrison that revealed Bruce Wayne had a son he never knew existed; a murderous kid raised by assassins. Gunn called it a “very strange father-and-son story.”
The Batman 2is also coming our way, with Reeves and Pattison reteaming for the sequel. It’s due on October 3, 2025, and the official title is The Batman Part II.
Booster Gold will be a new HBO Max series based on a lesser-known superhero created in 1986.
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is another big swing, a film that promises to put a brand new spin on Superman’s famous cousin. “We will see the difference between Superman, who was sent to Earth and raised by loving parents from the time he was an infant, versus Supergirl, raised on a rock, a chip off of Krypton, and who watched everyone around her die and be killed in terrible ways for the first 14 years of her life and then come to Earth,” said Gunn. “She is much more hardcore and not the Supergirl we’re used to.”
And finally, Swamp Thingwill find the titular monster returning on the big screen. This is the film that will officially close out Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters.
That’s a lot! Hear the news from James Gunn himself:
Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 02: James Gunn attends the Warner Bros. premiere of “The Suicide Squad” at Regency Village Theatre on August 02, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
It’s Pedro Pascal’s world, and we’re just living in it. And you know what? We’re okay with that!
The longtime stellar performer, the guy who stole Game of Thrones season four as Oberyn Martell, the fella who was tremendous as DEA agent Javier Peña in Narcos, the gent who plays the bounty hunter Din Djarin and takes care of The Child in The Mandalorian, and finally, the man who currently stars as rugged survivor Joel in the best new series on TV, HBO’s The Last Of Us, is hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend for the first time. He’ll be joined by Cold Play, who, it turns out, is not performing on the show for the first time.
SNL revealed a promo for the upcoming episode, with Pascal following last weekend’s host Michael B. Jordan. How much fun with the SNL scribes have with the fact that he’s currently starring in two of the biggest shows on TV in the zombie drama The Last of Us and the Star Wars spinoff The Mandalorian? You have to think that former SNL cast member Kyle Mooney will return to reprise his hysterical take on Baby Yoda. And what mischief might they make with the fungi-induced plague that turns people into zombies in The Last Of Us?
We can’t way to see what SNL has cooked up for Pascal’s episode, and we’re enjoying this Pascal-centered universe we’re living in.
Check out the promo for his Saturday Night Live debut below:
For more on The Last Of Us, check out these stories:
There will be spoilers for episode three below, so avoid this story like you’d avoid Cordyceps if you haven’t watched it yet!
So, have you dried your tears after watching the third episode of The Last of Us, “Long Long Time”?
The third episode in HBO’s phenomenal new series was a heartbreaker that switched focus from the journey of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) to two other survivors, Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett).
Bill and Frank are connected, of course, to Joel and Ellie’s story, but nearly the entire runtime for “Long Long Time” was devoted to their relationship. Yet in the video game, Bill and Frank came to entirely different ends, and the decision by series co-creators Craig Mazin and Druckmann to go a very different route paid massive narrative dividends.
“Long Long Time” introduces Bill, a hardcore survivalist who has turned his mother’s home into an ingeniously guarded fortress, complete with next-level booby traps that include flamethrowers, an electrified fence, and tripwires that trigger hidden guns. Bill lives alone, healthy, well-fed, and seemingly content, but he has nothing really to live for save survival. Enter Frank, who stumbles into one of Bill’s non-lethal traps and ends up in a ditch outside the fence line. Instead of shooting him on sight, Bill points the way toward Boston and tells Frank to leave. But Frank’s starving and begs for just one meal. Bill agrees, conflicted but finding himself incapable of saying no, and serves Frank a perfectly cooked rabbit paired with a bottle of Beaujolais. This delicious lunch changes both of their lives.
After playing some Linda Ronstadt on the piano (the song, of course, is “Long Long Time”) for each other, it becomes clear to Bill (it already was to Frank) that there’s something more going on between them. Their relationship is born.
The episode spans two decades, from the moment Bill hides from the government in 2003 through the years he spends setting up his fortress to meeting and falling in love with Frank, and then, the years of their living together. We also see how Joel comes to know them—Tess (Anna Torv) had found Frank through the radio, and their first meeting is the beginning of a partnership that Frank and Tess are enthusiastic about; Bill is not, and Joel, understanding Bill’s guardedness, makes the point to him that they can help each other. This arrangement ultimately works, although that all takes place offscreen. What’s important is we see how Bill and Frank are connected to Joel and Tess (and now Ellie).
Eventually, the timeline jumps to 2023, long after Bill was shot while successfully keeping raiders from murdering him and Frank. Now, it’s Frank who’s in trouble; he’s dying of cancer. Their love story ends with Bill preparing a last meal and a glass of wine loaded with enough pills to put Frank out of his misery peacefully. The final romantic twist is that Bill, too, crushed up pills and put them into the wine bottle itself. It’s a heartbreaking gesture, one Frank says he should be furious about but he’s overwhelmed by how damn romantic it is. Frankly, so we were. Bill takes Frank to bed, and the two die peacefully there.
Nick Offerman, Murray Bartlett. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
In this zombie-ravaged, fallen world, this is as beautiful and meaningful a death as you could hope for. The episode ends with Joel and Ellie arriving at Bill’s place and finding a note left for him, offering Joel all of their supplies, Bill’s truck, and one simple command; take care of Tess. With Tess gone, Joel knows who he must now look after.
Yet this was not how Bill and Frank’s relationship was depicted in the game. Yes, Bill and Frank meet and have a relationship, but the game never shows it, and their relationship doesn’t end with glasses of laced wine and dying peacefully, side-by-side, in bed. Instead, Frank leaves Bill in anger and, even bleaker, leaves a bitter note explaining that he hates Bill. It’s this note that Joel finds—along with Frank’s body. He’s hung himself.
In the game, you only find out about Bill and Frank’s relationship through conversations between Joel and Bill. Frank had eventually grown tired of Bill’s locked-down world, so he left him and went across town. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it far before he was attacked and bitten by the infected and contracted Cordyceps. Instead of becoming a zombie himself, he takes his own life, but not before penning the aforementioned note:
“Well, Bill, I doubt you’d ever find this note cause you were too scared to ever make it to this part of town. But if for some reason you did, I want you to know I hated your guts. I grew tired of this sh***y town and your set-in-your-ways attitude. I wanted more from life than this and you could never get that. And that stupid battery you kept moaning about — I got it. But I guess you were right. Trying to leave this town will kill me. Still better than spending another day with you. Good Luck, Frank.”
Needless to say, the decision by Mazin and Druckmann to write a new ending for Bill and Frank, and to focus on the love they did get to share, the fortress they turned into a home, and how their story was itself an epic worthy of its own series. It was, in short, a decision that enriched the series, breathing life into characters and offering an opportunity for two excellent actors to shine, however briefly, in this dark but wondrous new show. And it gave Joel’s decision to take Ellie with him and to look out for her, the way both Tess demanded and Bill would have done, that much more meaning.
For more on The Last Of Us, check out these stories:
Co-writer and director Denis Villeneuve’s Dune was a triumph, yet according to one of its stars, Part Two will be even more of a cinematic event.
Dave Bautista, who plays Glossu Rabban Harkonnen, one of the most dangerous members of the supremely malevolent House Harkonnen, told Colliderthat viewers can expect an even more intense, “amped up” Part Two. And that’s saying something considering how thoroughly riveting the first film was.
When Dune premiered in October of 2021, Villeneuve unleashed a magisterial, beautifully paced epic that benefited mightily from his decision, with the help of his fellow Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jon Spaihts, to break Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 tome into two parts. Bautista’s militaristic heavy Rabban had a small but important role in part one, as the tip of the spear in Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård)’s attack on House Atreides on the mineral-rich desert planet of Arrakis. This deceit took the life of Duke Atreides (Oscar Isaac) and sent his son Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and his wife Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) on the run into Arrakis’s vast desert, where problems big (colossal sand worms) and human-sized (the Fremen) could spell doom for them. Luckily, Paul had an ally in a Fremen named Chani (Zendaya), so Dune ended with Paul and Lady Jessica alive and heading deeper into the desert with the Fremen. From there, they hope to lead a rebellion to topple House Harkonnen.
Part Two will feature some of the most iconic scenes from Herbert’s book and includes a slew of important new characters, 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. As for Bautista, his expanded role came with some insight he was willing to share with Collider about the scope and scale of the sequel.
“This is so amped up from the first film. The first film was just an introduction to what this film is. There’s just so much going on; it’s so much more cutthroat and political and intense,” he told Collider. “And there are moments of levity where [there are] some funny moments, and they’re kind of absurd humor, but there are those moments. So it’s just so much more amped up than the first film.”
Considering Part Two will complete Villeneuve’s full vision for his adaptation, it makes sense that the story will lean fully into the war between House Atreides and House Harkonnen without having to do the same amount of world-building that was necessary for the first film. We now know this world and the stakes; Part Two will be about what happens when Paul and the Fremen fight back. Bautista was especially thrilled to have a bigger role in the amped-up sequel and to get to spend more time with Villeneuve.
“You’ve heard me talk about the first film,” Bautista said to Collider. “It was that times 100 because it was Rabban amped up, and my part is much bigger on this. I got to spend much more time with Denny, which I crave because I love working with Denny. And Denny, again, just brings out the best in me, and this was such an amazing experience.”
Needless to say, Bautista sounds as fired up as the rest of us are for Dune: Part Two, which arrives in theaters on November 3, 2023.
For more on Dune: Part Two, check out these stories:
Featured image: Caption: DAVE BAUTISTA as Rabban Harkonnen 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
James Cameron is in some very impressive company. With Avatar: The Way of Water claiming the number-one spot for the seventh consecutive weekend, Cameron’s sequel officially passed Star Wars: The Force Awakens on Friday as the fourth highest-grossing film of all time. Currently, The Way of Water is sitting at $2.117 billion globally, which bests The Force Awakens’ $2.071 billion haul.
So that company Cameron keeps? It’s with himself and the Russo Brothers, with The Way of Water ranking behind only his own Titanic ($2.19 billion), the Russo Brothers’ Avengers: Endgame ($2.7 billion), and his own Avatar ($2.92 billion).
The success of The Way of Water might feel inevitable now, but in the long run-up to the sequel, which arrived 13 years after the original Avatar bowed in 2009, it felt anything but certain. There were questions swirling around the collective desire for audiences to see a sequel to a film that many media outlets claimed had left little cultural impact. Then there was the concern over the change in the movie landscape since the first film, with superheroes from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Films reigning supreme. Would people still get enthused over tall, blue-skinned aliens protecting their planet from capricious humans? Now, all those concerns have been replaced by a simple refrain; never bet against James Cameron.
It also must be noted that The Way of Water‘s success is not just James Cameron’s success, of course. Hundreds of people worked for years to make this happen, from the cast to the dedicated crew. New technologies were deployed to bring Cameron’s vision to life, while his department heads, including costume designer Deborah L. Scott and production designers Dylan Cole and Ben Procter, did stupendous work bringing this epic saga to life.
Now, we wait for Avatar 3, which no longer feels like a long shot but rather an inevitability.
For more on all things Avatar, check out these stories:
The first trailer for The Boogeyman is a heckuva way to start your week. Yet this latest adaptation of a Stephen King novel looks beautifully, creepily contained as the story settles in over a single family’s battle with a supernatural entity that preys on families and feeds off their suffering.
The Boogeyman stars Chris Messina as Will, the father of two girls, the teenage Sadie (Sophie Thatcher of Yellowjacketsfame) and Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair), who are reeling after the death of their mother. Will, a therapist, is struggling to help the girls in their grief as he’s swamped by his own. Sawyer, like most young kids, has a fear of the dark and the monsters that lurk there. In her case, however, her fears are warranted. The titular Boogeyman is on-premises, and it aims to feast on Sawyer’s fears and pain. Soon enough, th entire family will be fighting for their lives.
The trailer does good work establishing the pared-down mood of the film, which comes from director Rob Savage (Host, Dashcam) working from a script from A Quiet Place screenwriters Bryan Woods and Scott Beck. A little like A Quiet Place, The Boogeyman looks like a slow-burn horror film, one that patiently teases the monsters while establishing why we should care about the people the monster will try to hurt.
Joining the aforementioned cast of Messina, Thatcher, and Blaire are some great actors, including David Dastmalchian, Madison Hu, and Marin Ireland. The trailer dropped during the National Football Conference championship game between the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers, giving as many possible people a glimpse of this latest, and very arresting, Stephen King adaptation.
Check out the trailer below. The Boogeyman creeps in theaters on June 2, 2023.
Featured image: Vivien Lyra Blair is Sawyer in “The Boogeyman.” Courtesy 20th Century Studios/Walt Disney Studios
