Disney is dialing up a slew of its most revered animated franchises.
Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that some of the biggest hits in Disney animation history are getting second, third, and even fifth installments. Zootopia 2, Frozen 3, and Toy Story 5 are all in the works Iger said on an investors call. “We are leaning into our unrivaled brands,” the Disney chief said.
Toy Story is perhaps the single most venerated animated franchise of the modern era, ushering in an era of increasingly sophisticated storytelling, animation technology, and voice acting to deliver hit after hit. The first film, starring Tom Hanks as the toy cowboy Woody and Tim Allen as the toy space adventurer Buzz Lightyear, bowed in 1995, stunning audiences, and each iteration has only burnished the franchise’s reputation as the cream of the animation crop. Toy Story 4, which hit theaters in 2019, was a critical and commercial smash, bringing in more than $1 billion at the box office.
After Frozen‘s gangbusters debut in 2013, Frozen II arrived in 2019, once again starring Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel,and drew huge audiences and critical acclaim, ending with $1.4 billion.
Zootopia was released to critical acclaim in 2016, earning more than $1 billion with a cast led by Jason Bateman and Gennifer Goodwin.
Disney is looking to get back to the animation franchises that audiences have loved, but there are still new titles on the horizon. Pixar’s Elemental is due in theaters on June 16, while Disney Animation’s Wish arrives on November 22.
Iger also revealed a new Avatar experience headed to Disneyland in Anaheim, California. This would be Disney’s second Avatar-related immersive world, with The World of Avatar already operating at Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
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While Owen Wilson might be playing a man named Carl Nargle in the first trailer for Paint, legions of folks of a certain age will recognize the inspiration for the character, the legendary, beloved painter Bob Ross. Ross was the lovable, be-permed host of PBS’s “The Joy of Painting” for eleven years, from 1983 to 1994, until he passed away, far too young, at 52 years old in 1995. For those of us who grew up in the 80s, Ross was a curious, impossibly likable character who made painting seem, if not easy, then at least fun and relaxing.
In Paint, Wilson’s Nargle is an equally beloved TV painter, headlining a public access show in Vermont, and the state is in his thrall and the world is his canvass. With Wilson’s offbeat charm and the guiding light that was Bob Ross’s soothing TV persona, Paint looks like a loving tribute to a man who made the world seem like a more beautiful place.
However, Paint isn’t merely an homage to a beloved icon of yesteryear. It’s a comedy, and soon enough, Nargle’s time in the spotlight is threatened when a younger artist burst onto the scene. Enter Ambrosia (Ciara Renée), a newcomer with a pleasing demeanor, painting skills, and someone who’s equally telegenic. Suddenly, Vermont is enthralled with Ambrosia’s show, and Carl’s hold on the state begins to slip.
Paint was written and directed by Brit McAdams. The cast also includes Michaela Watkins (Werewolves Within), Wendi McLendon-Covey (Bridesmaids), Lusia Strus (Search Party), Stephen Root (Barry), and newcomer Lucy Freyer.
Check out the trailer for Paint, which hits theaters on April 7.
Here’s the synopsis from IFC Films:
Owen Wilson stars as Carl Nargle, Vermont’s #1 public TV painter who is convinced he has it all: a signature perm, custom van, and fans hanging on his every stroke… until a younger, better artist steals everything (and everyone) Carl loves.
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While the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs are doing battle on the field in Glendale Arizona at the Super Bowl (go Birds), Ghostface is going to be invading New York City. Paramount Pictures has released its big Super Bowl spot for Scream VI, and it reveals a super-charged Ghostface haunting the mean streets.
The latest installment in the venerable slasher franchise comes only a year after the successful Scream (technically the fifth installment, although it didn’t include a number in the title), and that same directing team of Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin are back, bringing Ghostface to the Big Apple.
Gayle Weathers (Courtney Cox) returns, alongside sisters Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega), who moved to New York to rebuild their lives after the horrific events in the California suburbs of Woodsboro. Returning characters also include Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown), and Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding). Newcomers include Jack Champion, Henry Czerny, Liana Liberato, Dermot Mulroney, Devyn Nekoda, Tony Revolori, Josh Segarra, and Samara Weaving. They’ll all be dealing with a seemingly even more sadistic and unhinged Ghostface, who will be stalking them in the streets (and the subways) of the biggest city in the country.
Paramount released the Super Bowl spot early, which makes the case clear that this time around, all bets are off. As producer Chad Villella promised The Hollywood Reporterin the past, Scream VI will “subvert things that have been established as the new rules and play outside those parameters. Let’s break the rules now that we just re-created. And just go for it. I think you have to really go there.”
Check out the Super Bowl spot below. Scream VI arrives on March 10.
WandaVision director Matt Shakman feels like the perfect fit to breathe life back into one of the most iconic super-groupings in the Marvel canon. So, it’s exciting to hear that Shakman has confirmed with Colliderthat his Fantastic Four is on pace to start filming next year.
Shakman was talking with Collider about his upcoming series The Consultanton Prime Video. When asked about how his feature film debut for the MCU was going, Shakman said that filming for Fantastic Four will begin “early next year.” Shakman is coming off his Emmy-nominated run helming the very first Marvel Studios series on Disney+, the aforementioned WandaVision, which pulled off the seemingly impossible task of meshing a slew of beloved older sitcoms into a Marvel-ian world of Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen)’s making, as she essentially trapped a New Jersey suburb in a liminal zone between reality and fiction so she could live out a peaceful life with the love of her life, a resurrected Vision (Paul Bettany).
Pulling off WandaVision has prepared Shakman for the rigors of re-introducing the Fantastic Four into the MCU. Before that, Shakman’s not only been working on The Consultant but Apple TV’s upcoming untitled Godzilla series which follows the events of Godzilla vs. Kong. Once he’s cleared his plate of that, his attention will fully turn to Fantastic Four.
“Fantastic Four is pretty much my life until Valentine’s Day of 2025,” Shakman said to Collider about his near future and the release date for the hotly anticipated film. If you’re hoping that he dished on who, exactly, would be playing the title four characters, Shakman was staying mum. Despite John Krasinski playing Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the actor has said it wasn’t anything more than his chance to play in the Marvel sandbox for a day, and Shakman hasn’t given any casting updates. “All the casting stuff you see is just rumors,” he told Collider. “We are early in our process there. We have nothing to announce right now, and certainly, when we do we’ll let you know.”
Next out for Marvel Studios is Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantuamania, which introduces Phase 5’s Big Bad, Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conqueror. The film lands on February 17. We’ll let you know when we hear anything else on Shakman’s Fantastic Four, which should be one of Phase 6’s most crucial films.
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Becky Cline knows a thing or two about wearing multiple hats in her long, successful career at Disney. In fact, as the Director of the Walt Disney Archives, Cline is responsible for one of the most iconic hats of all time (belonging to a certain magical British nanny—more on her later), and a treasure trove of other iconic props, costumes, and more. Cline’s remit is sweeping, as she’s charged with collecting and preserving the entire breadth of Disney history and making sure this treasure trove is available to documentarians and other filmmakers, historians, writers, and fans all over the world.
Cline’s also a passionate advocate for the preservation of these priceless cultural artifacts and brings genuine joy to what she calls her dream job. We had a chance to chat with her about the tireless but never boring work of an archivist, how her job has changed alongside filmmaking technology, and the movie that ignited her enchantment with all things Disney.
Adriana Caselotti was the live-action reference model for the character of Snow White
You’ve devoted a large portion of your career to Disney, and I’d love to hear what your work means to you.
I’ve been with Disney since 1989. I started not too long after college, so I’ve been here for 33 years, and 29 of that in the Walt Disney Archives. So, it’s obviously very important to me, a very big part of my life. I’m very emotionally attached to Disney; I love the company, and I love what I do. I often get questioned by people who say, ‘Oh, you have my dream job.’ And I have to admit that, well, yes, I do. I have my dream job. It’s such an honor and a real blessing in my life to be able to work with the people that I work with. I think probably my favorite part is working with all these extremely talented people and supporting the work that they do.
Disney is one of the most recognizable companies and brands in the world, with a long, rich history. How do you help not only preserve that history but share it with the world?
A very large part of our job is the conservation and preservation of assets and making them available. But one of our directives is to help the company keep its history alive and to make sure it’s accurate. We rely on our history so much—when you think about a film like Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, that came out in 1937. That’s a very old film, but because it’s animation and because it’s still so relevant to children today, whether it’s theme park attractions or streaming on Disney+, it’s really important that the history of that film is still available to our filmmakers, to our marketing and press and publicity and publishing people, to the people who make toys, and those who do attractions at the park. A well-indexed collection of our history is really important to Disney, probably more so than anywhere else I can think of.
Color still depicting a press release for Walt Disney’s animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Courtesy Disney; Walter Elias, Lillian Bounds
Let’s talk about the nitty-gritty of the work you do, especially considering what a deep archive Disney has. What’s an average day like for you?
I’ll go back a few years before Covid because running an archive remotely was a challenge, but we managed. On a normal day, I never really know what’s going to happen when I walk in the door. We oversee everything worldwide for the company from a historical standpoint. So, it’s not just the Disney brand; it’s also the Archivesfor ABC, Fox, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Walt Disney Imagineering, National Geographic, and all of these big, big groups that fall under the Walt Disney Company umbrella. We get calls from all over the world, and, we also end up being a clearing house for information and get a lot of calls from within the company. Where can I get this photo? What book should I look in to find this?’ And then I have meetings where I touch base with researchers and filmmakers, documentarians, people who come in to look at some of the merchandise assets that we have to support an effort with our consumer products area, or we’ll talk to Disney publishing, as we do a lot of proofreading and fact-checking for publications and magazines. We also work very closely with D23, which is the official Disney fan club.
And you still haven’t gotten to the work you do with the actual assets you take care of from film and TV productions.
Yes, our regular work is bringing in all the sample materials and assets from our film productions, television sets, and theme parks. Whenever a park attraction is reimagined, you know, often the iconic pieces from those attractions that aren’t going to be reused, so they come back to the Archivesfor preservation. When a film wraps or when a television season ends, we go in and make our selections of what assets we’d like to keep to share the history of that film or series down the road in exhibitions or in books. We have a collections team; we have an exhibitions team, and we also have our research team, and a digitization lab. We have a huge photo library that now has about 25 million images that we oversee. So, there’s a lot going on at any given time.
Walt Disney holding cels from Walt Disney’s animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Courtesy Walt Disney Studios
When a film or television series wraps, tell me about the asset collection process. How are those decisions made on what gets preserved from, say, a Disney+ series like Moon Knight or a film like Jungle Cruise?
One of the obvious things that we do is make sure that we watch everything. Fortunately, we have a fairly large staff now, so one person doesn’t have to watch every single thing, but we do have a manager of acquisitions, and we make wish lists. I’ll sit down and watch a film and say, ‘Okay, these are the things that are important to the plot or the story.’ We’ll also look at who are the people that are in the film, especially in cameo roles. Mary Poppins Returns is a great example. You know, there are cameo roles sprinkled throughout the film. Of course, we want the costumes of the major stars, but if somebody like Angela Lansbury is making a cameo appearance, we want to get Angela’s costume because she’s a big Disney star. Even if it’s a tiny little role, who wore it is important.
Angela Lansbury in “Mary Poppins Returns.” Courtesy Walt Disney Studios
Mary Poppins Returns is an interesting case in that your archives were actually used in the film?
Yes. Sometimes, old costumes and props will show up in new films. If you look at the opening credits for Mary Poppins Returns, some of the artwork that you see came from the original 1964 film. Or when you watch a film like Saving Mr. Banks, the filmmakers came to the archives to research the period and to research the people, because they had to recreate Pamela Travers [the author of the “Mary Poppins” books] and Walt Disney himself.
Concept art for Walt Disney’s live-action/animated feature Mary Poppins. Courtesy Walt Disney Archives.
And what about props?
Props are a little different. If a film is named after a prop, like if you’re watching Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, we better have the Dead Man’s Chest. Or The Curse of the Black Pearl, we have the Black Pearl. If it’s important to the plot of the story, then we make sure to ask for it. It’s a very carefully curated wish list based on a number of criteria.
Mackenzie Crook, Lee Arenberg holding the Dead Man’s Chest in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.
Can you give me an example of the criteria?
The main thing I look at is, down the road, if I was going to do an exhibit about this film 10 years from now, what would I expect to see in that exhibit? And then that kind of informs the things that we ask for. We also ask if we need supporting materials, or maybe there’s a sequence where somebody is performing, and there are background dancers. Well, should we get some of the background dancers so that we can make a vignette in an exhibit?
You’ve worked at the Disney archives since the pre-digital age, how has your job changed as filmmaking and computer technology have changed so dramatically?
When I started at the archives, if somebody needed to know how many cherries were on Mary Poppins’ hat, they would call us because there was nowhere else to find that out. Now, one of our focuses is digitizing the material that we have, which is millions of pieces and getting all of that into a format where it can be shared internationally, directly into people’s homes, it’s a worthy goal, but it’s going to take some time.
Mary Poppins Hat. This is one of the hats worn by Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins (1964). Walt Disney Archives staff members found the piece in the Disney Studio’s Wardrobe Department just a few short years ago. It is a black straw hat with faux cherries and flower blossoms, and was featured in the film as part of Mary’s instantly recognizable “traveling costume.” Courtesy Walt Disney Archives.
Do you have any favorite props or costumes?
Just from a geek standpoint, the original storybook that opens Sleeping Beauty, which was also one of my favorite films as a child. It’s a gorgeous piece of artwork, with Eyvind Earle’s beautiful original art inside. There’s a live-action shot at the beginning of the film, and it’s this book, and it opens up to show this original art, and then you go into the art and the rest of the film is animated. And then, obviously, I’m a fan of Mary Poppins. It was the very first film I saw as a child, and I was absolutely enchanted and fell in love with it. So, the materials that are in the collection from Mary Poppins are very dear to me. And my favorite prop from Mary Poppins is probably the snow globe, which almost got thrown away, but was saved at the last second by a janitor who found it in a trash can back in the early 70s. He didn’t know what it was, but he thought it was cute, so he put it up on the shelf. Then when the Archives was founded in 1970, Dave Smith, who was our original founder, saw it, knew what it was, and said, ‘I need to keep this for the Archives.’ So that’s a piece that is very, very dear to me. Mary Poppins is one of our crown jewels and encapsulated in that little snow globe is the entire theme of the film, which is that it doesn’t take much to show your love. It’s such a simple thought, but it’s all in that little piece, and the fact that one little object from a film could mean so much to a film that is so important to our history.
The original snow globe in “Mary Poppins.” Courtesy Walt Disney Archives.
Featured image: A black and white still depicting an Ink & Paint artist holding a painting of the Seven Dwarfs for Walt Disney’s animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Courtesy Walt Disney Archives, Photo Library.
Dichen Lachman was perfectly cast in Severance as Ms. Casey, a fully severed (in the series’ parlance) employee of Lumon Industries who ran the nefarious company’s Wellness Sessions. Imposingly calm and deeply connected to Lumon’s chilling strategy for creating the most efficient and pliable workforce, to be brought to Ms. Casey’s office for a Wellness Session was one of the series’ most unsettling events. It would turn out, by the end of the excellent first season, that Lachman’s role in Severance was key to the entire season’s mystery.
Now, The Hollywood Reporter has the scoop that Lachman is trading in her corporate attire and impenetrable demeanor for director Wes Ball’s upcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which posits a world where humans are not only not in control, but they’ve been overtaken by numerous societies of apes.
The latest Apes film follows the events in the third and final film in the rebooted trilogy, War for the Planet of the Apes, in which The Batman director Matt Reeves delivered the stunning conclusion to the story of Caesar (Andy Serkis), the chimpanzee who led his fellow apes into a hard-won independence from human beings. In Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the story will pick up many years after Caesar’s final battle with the human world, with various ape societies using (or contorting) Caesar’s beliefs and efforts to build a just ape society into flourishing empires. Humanity, meanwhile, has been reduced to an even more brutal existence, outmaneuvered, outsmarted, and defeated by the apes.
The apes are hardly a perfect society in this new film, however, as THR reveals the film will focus on one brutal ape leader who enslaves his fellow apes, and a young human woman caught in another ape’s journey to find freedom. The script comes from Josh Friedman, Amanda Silver, Rick Jaffa, and Patrick Aison.
Lachman joins cast members Freya Allen, William H. Macy, Kevin Durand, and Owen Teague. There’s no word yet on who Dichen is playing, but we know she’ll bring the goods. As we mentioned, her role in Severance turned out to be one of the keys to the entire saga, with her connection to Adam Scott’s Mark revealing one of season one’s most crucial mysteries. She’s a star worth watching.
Talk about a major swap of star power in TV’s top-rated drama.
Deadline reports that Yellowstoneco-creator and showrunner Taylor Sheridan is looking to make a major change in the hugely popular western, ending the current series with its current crop of stars, including lead Kevin Costner, and moving next season—its’ sixth—with Matthew McConaughey in talks to star. It’s not yet clear how many current cast members from the series would continue on in the one led by McConaughey.
So far, this is technically speculation and word-of-mouth, as a Paramount Network spokesperson told Deadline the following: “We have no news to report. Kevin Costner is a big part of Yellowstone and we hope that’s the case for a long time to come. Thanks to the brilliant mind of Taylor Sheridan, we are always working on franchise expansions of this incredible world he has built. Matthew McConaughey is a phenomenal talent with whom we’d love to partner.”
Costner stars as John Dutton in the series, alongside Luke Grimes, Kelly Reilly, Wes Bentley, Cole Hauser, Kelsey Asbille, and Gil Birmingham. He is currently directing and starring in a multi-part Western called Horizon for Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line. According to Deadline, scheduling issues have led to the decision to move on to the new version of Yellowstone with McConaughey starring. He’d be stepping into Sheridan’s sprawling Western universe that also includes the two prequel series, 1883 and 1923.
Costner’s turn as the weathered hitman John Dutton has been the fulcrum around which the drama has swirled in the series, bringing the Dutton Family no small amount of danger. Their Montana ranch has been attacked, both violently and through shady political and legal schemes, with various factions trying to rip the ranch away. Deadline isn’t sure whether the McConaughey-led franchise extension would be set on the Dutton ranch in Montana or somewhere else.
Sheridan’s one of the busiest people in the business, having already created 1883 within the Yellowstone universe, which was a limited series that bowed in December 2021 and starred Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, and Sam Elliott and revealed how the Duttons came to own the land upon which the Yellowstone ranch was built. Then with 1923, which bowed in December of 2022, Harrison Ford and Hellen Mirren starred as the generation of Duttons that survived prohibition, the Great Depression, and all the trauma and turmoil of that era. There are two more potential series, set in the 1940s and 1960s, being worked out.
There’s yet more in Sheridan’s universe, including Bass Reeves, starring David Oyelowo as the titular Black deputy U.S. Marshall, a contemporary western titled 6666 set on the Four Sixes Ranch in Texas, and freestanding contemporary series Tulsa King, starring Sylvester Stallone, Mayor of Kingstown, starring Jeremy Renner, and Lioness, an espionage series starring Nicole Kidman, Zoe Saldana, and Morgan Freeman.
And now it sounds as if Matthew McConaughey is going to join the Sheridan Universe. Who could blame him?
Featured image: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – NOVEMBER 20: Matthew McConoughey launched an off-grid cabin he co-designed with Wild Turkey’s charity initiative, With Thanks, at The Royal Botanic Gardens November 19, 2019 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images for Wild Turkey)
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.
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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.
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