“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
It might seem as if Everything Everywhere All at Once came out of nowhere to dominate this year’s Oscar voting with 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and two Best Supporting Actress nods for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis respectively. But in fact, producer Jonathan Wang has been working with writer-directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert since 2011. The trio started off making music videos and broke into features with their 2016 black comedy Swiss Army Man.
Then came Everything. Since making its debut at SXSW last March, the sci-fi action dramedy has grossed $104 million at the global box office en route to its Academy Awards triumph. By tracking the multiverse adventures of Yeoh’s downtrodden Chinese-American laundromat owner Evelyn Wang as she ricochets between alternate versions of reality, EverythingEverywhere All at Once became 2022’s most spectacular indie film success story.
Wang, who splits his time between Los Angeles and New York, talks about the importance of good vibes, details the filmmakers’ takeover of an abandoned bank, and recalls how the Daniels maverick choices helped catapult a former child actor into the Academy Awards race.
L-r: Directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert on the set of “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” Courtesy A24
You’ve obviously forged a fruitful relationship with Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. What makes your collaboration work?
I’m in a cultural meld with the Daniels. Whether it’s global warming or the attention economy, I read the same books and we speak the same language. When it’s time to make a movie like Everything, we’re in lockstep on how to make it, and we do it with kindness and love. Daniel Scheinert likes to joke that we’re summer camp counselors and I’m the vibes police, so it’s my job to make the set feel very free, playful, kind, and open.
How does that translate to practical situations?
I do whatever it takes to help them. On Everything, I’d pick up a second camera to set up a shot and rehearse it with the actors, then one of the Daniels would come over and shoot it. I’m like a third leg. I know how to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Daniels don’t need to see everything 360 if we’re going to shoot one set at a specific angle. We can put up some other set directly behind us, turn around and shoot that set two minutes later. This is how we pulled off the movie.
The pandemic affected virtually every movie that came out last year. How did Covid impact Everything Everywhere All at Once?
The biggest bummer is that we still haven’t had a wrap party! We had two more shoot days to go on Friday before the pandemic shut down the world. The beauty of it is that we had more time to edit the movie. [Studio] A24 kept the coffers open, and we edited for essentially a year until the movie finally sang at a fever pitch.
Everything has earned Oscar nominations for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan,Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis. How did The Daniels go about assembling this phenomenal cast?
We always wanted Michelle in the movie as Evelyn, but originally she was going to play the [supportive spouse] role that Ke played. Then they got gender-swapped and Michelle became the lead. The whole movie blossomed because Michelle’s character is loosely based on Dan Kwan’s mom, who’s very similar to Evelyn. Dan was able to write from a much deeper place of truth and unlock the mother-daughter relationship.
Michelle Yeoh is Evelyn Wang in “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” Courtesy A24.
The other person in that mother-daughter relationship, Joy, is portrayed in such a dynamic way by Stephanie Hsu. Where did you find her?
Originally Awkwafina was supposed to play the daughter. We met Stephanie on an episode of Awkwafina IsNora From Queens that the Daniels were directing. Stephanie had a supporting part, and they fell in love with her. When Awkwafina fell out due to scheduling conflicts, Sarah Finn, our casting director, called Stephanie. She understood the movie we wanted to make, and Stephanie knew how to bring this chaotic, terrifying energy to the role. Daniel said it was like watching Jim Carrey in “The Mask.”
Stephanie Hsu is Joy Wang/Jobu Tupaki in “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”
You guys went off the beaten path to cast former child star Ke Huy QuanasEvelyn’s seemingly mild-mannered husband Waymond. How did that happen?
Ke was the most inspired bit of casting. I remember walking into Dan Kwan’s apartment. He had a photo on his screen of an adult Ke and asked me, “Do you know who this is?” Then he pulled up a photo of Data from Goonies and said that’s who this is. Then he pulled up a third video of Ke as a teenager when he couldn’t find work in the U.S. and went to Hong Kong. It shows him doing incredible martial arts, kicking, and throwing sand in the other guy’s face, and I went, “Whoa.” Because this whole time, we’d been looking for somebody who could do martial arts but wasn’t an alpha male with big muscles. We wanted someone who could be tender, a beta male. And I said, “Before we get too excited, I’m not sure if Ke’s still acting — let’s see if he has an agent.” I came to find out that only a week earlier, Ke had gotten his agent back. Had I reached out a week or two sooner, we probably would have had to look in a different direction.
Ke Huy Quan is Waymond Wang. Courtesy A24.
Jamie Lee Curtis kills it as the initially hard-nosed IRS agent Deirdre.
Jamie works off intuition and gut feelings. She makes snap decisions with such confidence. Jamie read the script, saw Michelle was attached, and just jumped in the deep end. At SXSW, with tears streaming down her face, Jamie walked up to us and said, “Now I get it.'”
Jamie Lee Curtis is Deirdre Beaubeidre. Courtesy A24.
The chemistry between actors translates really well on screen.
Whatever we had going with Michelle, Stephanie, Ke, and Jamie, that kindness and love were felt by the audience because it was so real on set.
Everything presents a lot of multiverse environments. Where did you film the movie?
In Simi Valley [outside of Los Angeles], we found Founders Bank, which collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis. It became a call center. Now it’s an Amazon fulfillment center. During this window of time when it was available, we turned it into our mini-studio lot. So it was five weeks in Simi Valley and one week bouncing around different locations. We did the movie star universe at the Los Angeles Theatre. We went to a hibachi restaurant to do the raccoon universe. We shot Evelyn’s coin laundry in a San Fernando mall. And then, during the peak of the pandemic, we went out to Borrego Springs and filmed the rock universe in 115-degree weather. We were a $14 million indie movie, so we had to stretch the dollar so we could get the ambition of the movie out there.
Michelle Yeoh is Evelyn Wang in “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” Courtesy A24.
On the business end of things, can you talk a bit more about making this budget work in terms of agents and studio execs?
When you talk to an agent about fees on a movie of this size where nobody’s going to get rich, it’s about explaining the vision and how important it will be for their actors to be a part of this. And with the studio, it’s about working together to solve a problem. It’s like I have a big shield on my back that encapsulates the set, and then all the agency and studio relationships hit me, but I don’t view them as being adversarial.
Everything Everywhere All at Once struck a chord within the culture. When did you first have a feeling that this movie might be something special?
I was in Romania making a film with William Dafoe when the trailer came out. I started reading the responses, and they were all positive. There was kindness on YouTube for the first time in the history of YouTube! I was like, wow, I think this is going to hit.
Why do you think Everything landed in such a big way with audiences?
If you think about the premise of the multiverse, you can use it as a foil for action and fun and absurdity, as we do, but if you also think about it as psychology, it’s almost like cognitive behavioral therapy: the structure of the movie allows people to ask themselves “What if I had a healthy relationship with my mom? What if I had a healthy relationship with my husband?” People have come up to us and said, “I’m a gay boy who wanted to come out to father. I brought my parents to this film.” People use this movie to find healing with their parents or loved ones.
Everything Everywhere All At Once is available for streaming on Hulu and elsewhere.
Featured image: Michelle Yeoh is Evelyn Wang in “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” Courtesy A24.
Marvel Studiosjust added an ace actor to their ever-expanding universe. Ayo Edebiri, who broke out with her fantastic performance in Hulu’s critically acclaimed The Bear, is now entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe in one of the biggest and most mysterious of their upcoming films.
The Hollywood Reporterconfirmed that Edebiri will join Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, and more in Thunderbolts, which is centered on a team of antiheroes and otherwise less-than-noble Marvel characters as they’re tasked with facing down a grave threat. The cast includes Pugh as Yelena Belova, Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, David Harbour as the Red Guardian, Wyatt Russell as the disgraced former Captain America, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Old Kurylenko as Task Master, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. The film will be directed by Jake Schreier from a script by Black Widow and Thor: Ragnarok screenwriter Eric Pearson.
Thunderbolts could be considered a Marvel version of The Suicide Squad. In the latter, some of the most offbeat and bizarre DC antiheroes teamed up at the behest of the United States government to save the world. In Marvel’s version, as Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige joked at D23 in 2022 when the film was introduced, the team must be pretty rough around the edges when “beloved Winter Soldier is the most stable among them.” Why they’re teaming up and what they’re up against is still a state secret. Thunderbolts will be the final film in Phase 5 and is due in theaters on July 26, 2024.
Edebiri is a great addition to any cast. She was phenomenal as Sydney Adamu in The Bear, working in a surprisingly chaotic and hard-charging Chicago sandwich shop. It’s not known what role she’ll play in Thunderbolts, but we’ll let you know when we do.
For more stories on all things Marvel, check these out:
Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 13: Ayo Edebiri attends the AFI Awards Luncheon at Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills on January 13, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Oh, the Roy family. You have to wonder what they’d do if they all got everything they wanted. Then again, there is no conceivable outcome in which every member of the Roy family is satisfied; their very natures preclude them from contentment, a statement you could probably make about most people, but in their case, seems like a genuinely pathological affliction. The first teaser for Succession season four finds the Roy kids ready and willing to go to war with their father, which, well, is not a new stance, but now it seems they’re finally united against them. Can they take down the old man at last?
Logan (Brian Cox) is once again a man on an island, only in this case, he owns the island and has a huge staff and a legion of lawyers and fixers and, hilariously, Tom (Matthew Macfayden), who turned on his own wife Shiv (Sarah Snook) at the end of season three to sidle up to the man he believes can’t lose.
Season three found Logan’s company, Waystay Royco, inching ever close to a sale to Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) and his tech company GoJo. Logan had outmaneuvered the children and their attempted coup at the end of season three. Now, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv, and Roman (Kieran Culkin) are a united front as they try to stop the sale to GoJo. They’re going to need to figure out a way to get one step ahead of Logan, a challenge they’ve not yet successfully met.
Also, in the teaser, we learn that Connor (Alan Ruck) finally ties the knot with Willa (Justine Lupe). Good for them!
Caught up in all of this are old friends like Gerri (J. Smith Cameron ), Greg (Nicholas Braun), Stewy (Arian Moayed), Lady Caroline Collingwood (Harriet Walter ), Ewan Roy (James Cromwell), Rava Roy (Natalie Gold) and more.
Season four will welcome new cast members, including Eili Harboe, Annabeth Gish, Adam Godley, and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson.
The teaser also revealed that Succession returns on March 26.
Check out the first look at Succession season 4 below.
The second trailer for Shazam! Fury of the Gods is steeped in Greek mythology and the potency of some seriously charismatic new foes. Within the first few seconds, we’re introduced to Lucy Lui’s Kalypso and Helen Mirren’s Hespera, two heavyweight goddesses from the Greek pantheon who have arrived to hunt down Billy Batson (Asher Angel) and his superhero alter ego Shazam (Zachary Levi) and their super-powered friends.
“Children stole the power of the gods,” Hespera seethes, as she and Kalypso aim to retrieve those powers from Billy and his gang at all costs. The trailer has a slew of Greek mythology Easter Eggs. It opens with a shot of what appears to be a very dark version of Mount Olympus, and includes Kalypso plunging a Golden Apple into a baseball field. In case you’ve forgotten your Greek Myth 101, there are several Golden Apples seeded throughout various myths, including one that helped start the Trojan War. This Golden Apple, we’re guessing, is connected to a myth having to do with Hesperides (another name for Helen Mirren’s Hespera), who guarded a golden apple tree, with help from the dragon Ladon, that was a wedding gift for the goddess Hera. One of Hercules’ twelve labors was to steal an apple from that very tree.
Granted, Shazam! Fury of the Gods won’t be taking us back to our mythology classes, but, the presence of Hespera and Kalypso and the horrors they can conjure definitely ratchet up the mayhem from the original Shazam! The second trailer is more somber in tone than previous peeks at Shazam! Fury of the Gods or the previous film, with Shazam offering to give up his powers at one point to save the world.
Yet what made David F. Sandberg’s original film so buoyant, and what will no doubt be lost here, is the sense of fun, even goofiness, that Zachary Levi brings to the title role. Shazam! Fury of the Gods will be bigger and meaner than the original, but it’s still a story about a teenage foster kid and his friends who were granted superpowers and find themselves suddenly tasked with saving the world. Teens are gonna teen, even in such a dire situation.
Check out the new trailer below. Shazam! Fury of the Gods hits theaters on March 17.
Here’s the official synopsis for Shazam! Fury of the Gods:
“Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” which continues the story of teenage Billy Batson who, upon reciting the magic word “SHAZAM!,” is transformed into his adult Super Hero alter ego, Shazam.
Bestowed with the powers of the gods, Billy Batson and his fellow foster kids are still learning how to juggle teenage life with having adult Super Hero alter-egos. But when the Daughters of Atlas, a vengeful trio of ancient gods, arrive on Earth in search of the magic stolen from them long ago, Billy—aka Shazam—and his family are thrust into a battle for their superpowers, their lives, and the fate of their world.
“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” stars returning cast members Zachary Levi (“Thor: Ragnarok”) as Shazam; Asher Angel (“Andi Mack”) as Billy Batson; Jack Dylan Grazer (“It Chapter Two”) as Freddy Freeman; Adam Brody (“Promising Young Woman”) as Super Hero Freddy; Ross Butler (“Raya and the Last Dragon”) as Super Hero Eugene; Meagan Good (“Day Shift”) as Super Hero Darla; D.J. Cotrona (“G.I. Joe: Retaliation”) as Super Hero Pedro; Grace Caroline Currey (“Annabelle: Creation”) as Mary Bromfield / Super Hero Mary; Faithe Herman (“This Is Us”) as Darla Dudley; Ian Chen (“A Dog’s Journey”) as Eugene Choi; Jovan Armand (“Second Chances”) as Pedro Pena; Marta Milans (“White Lines”) as Rosa Vasquez; Cooper Andrews (“The Walking Dead”) as Victor Vasquez; with Djimon Hounsou (“A Quiet Place Part II”) as Wizard.
Joining the cast are Rachel Zegler (“West Side Story”), with Lucy Liu (“Kung Fu Panda” franchise) and Helen Mirren (“F9: The Fast Saga”).
For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and HBO Max, check out these stories:
Featured image: Caption: LUCY LIU as Kalypso in New Line Cinema’s action adventure “SHAZAM! FURY OF THE GODS,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Alice, Darling, Mary Nighy’s feature film directorial debut explores an insidious form of emotional and psychological abuse: coercive control. In its stirring portrait of Alice, a young woman in denial about her partner’s manipulative and oppressive behavior — played with dazzling depth by Anna Kendrick — the film takes an honest look at the unsettling impact of such abuse. When Alice spends a few days away with her two best friends, she is forced to face her reality and make a life-altering choice.
Nighy, who has directed British television shows including Traces and Industry Season 1, shot the film in just three weeks during the pandemic, primarily at a lakeside cabin in Canada. In addition to Kendrick, her cast includes Charlie Carrick, Wunmi Mosaku, and Kaniehtiio Horn. Alice, Darling premiered at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and is a Lionsgate release.
The Credits spoke with Nighy about tackling a subject not often dramatized, getting Kendrick on board, and keeping the focus on Alice’s experience rather than her tormentor. Thefollowing interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did this project come to you? Had you been considering directing a feature for a while, and if so, why was this the one?
When I made the film, I’d already been directing TV shows in the U.K., and I was looking for a feature project. I met producer Christina Piovesan in Canada through another project that I was developing, and she said, I really think you should meet Katie Bird Nolan and Lindsay Tapscott, who are young producers in Toronto who have a production company. We looked for a long time for the right project to work on together. They produced [screenwriter] Alanna Francis’s first feature with another director, and that did well, so they then came to me with Alanna’s second feature, Alice, Darling. When I read it, I felt immediately that this was a story that I could really do something with, and above all, what really spoke to me was how internal the world of Alice is and how difficult that is to dramatize and how that would really be an exciting challenge.
Anna Kendrick in “Alice, Darling.” Courtesy Lionsgate
Was there an inspiration for Alanna to write this story?
Yes, she had been thinking a lot about the subject and had become very interested in coercive control. Before I spoke to her, I spent a long time just talking to the producers and reading the script, and I did my own research on coercive control. It actually became a crime in the U.K. fairly recently after some very high-profile cases of women, who’d been married for many years killing their husbands, and it emerged in the course of their court cases that they had been completely controlled for the whole of their marriages, and sometimes even their adult children were not aware of how bad it had been for them.
You don’t really meet Alice’s boyfriend, Simon, until well into the film, nor do you really see the abuse outright. The nuances in her behavior throughout the story are a very interesting way to depict this type of abuse.
I’m glad you found that. Yes, we definitely wanted to talk about a kind of abuse that, as you say, isn’t very often dramatized and to try to do it in a way that really focused on Alice. Because I think sometimes the difficulty with filming something, whether that’s something that’s controversial or difficult, like abuse or rape or even at the more titillating end of the spectrum, filming drug use, strip shows, anything you’re trying to shine a light on and in some ways critique, I think sometimes you enter territory where you can end up glamorizing or perpetuating the subject matter that you’re trying to critique. And so one way that we tried to handle that with Alice, Darling is to really focus on the experience of it for the person who is being controlled and being manipulated rather than focusing on how it’s done, to try to show the feeling of it.
L-r: Mary Nighy, Wunmi Mosaku, Kaniehtiio Horn, and Anna Kendrick. Courtesy Lionsgate.
What’s also interesting is the film’s other theme: female friendship and how important it is for women going through this ordeal.
I think that’s right. All of the people involved in making the film had strong friendships, and a lot of the people making the film were women, and we all felt that sometimes when you see female friendship portrayed, whether in film or TV, it can be quite a reductive picture, where the women are always giggling or, I don’t know, shopping or getting drunk or talking about boys. Some female friendship is actually dealing with the confrontation or the jealousy and the passion that can exist within it. It’s not a completely rosy picture, and it’s not completely a rivalrous picture, either. It’s complex, and I think Alice finds in the end that she’s reminded of who she is by those friendships, which pre-exist her relationship with Simon. So they also, in some ways, allow her to retrieve her identity.
How did Anna Kendrick come to be cast?
Anna Kendrick was somebody that I’ve always admired. I loved her work across the board really, but I was always really struck by Up in the Air and A Simple Favor as well. I brought on a casting director who I think is hugely talented named Alice Searby, and we both spoke about Anna Kendrick as an extremely clever actress. And so we felt very excited about her doing it. I sent her a letter, and we sent her the script and the imagery and how we wanted to shoot it. And then, once her agents received the script, they very quickly said we’d love to send this to Anna, and she very quickly responded and got on a Zoom with me. We spoke for two hours, and it became very clear that this was subject matter that had a very special connection for her, which we didn’t know when we approached her. She wanted to be very sure that we were going to handle the material with delicacy and the idea of Simon more as an absence than a presence. I think that reassured Anna that we shared a vision for the film, and so she came aboard and I was blown away on set by the subtlety and the nuance of what she did. It was also really exciting to see the chemistry with Wunmi Mosaku and Kaniehtiio Horn and to see it with Charlie as well and how much how they trusted each other.
Featured image: Anna Kendrick in “Alice, Darling.” Courtesy Lionsgate
Who better to revive the mystery-of-the-week concept than Mr. Knives Out himself, Rian Johnson, and Ms. Russian Doll herself, Natasha Lyonne? The pairing is too perfect, and the conceit of their new mystery series is too delicious, so you’d be forgiven for assuming that Poker Face (Peacock) would merely deliver a pleasing new diversion, a pair of Jacks if you will. Instead, critics are calling Poker Face a royal flush.
Here’s the conceit; Lyonne plays Charlie Cale, a woman with the incredible ability to determine whether someone is lying. Right there, imagining a performer with Lyonne’s truly singular gifts playing a human lie detector test is comedic gold, yet Johnson puts her on the road in her Plymouth Barracuda and sends her on a series of mysteries, plunging her into new scenes with new characters committing fresh crimes. Due to her incredible ability, Charlie can’t help but solve the crimes as she merrily rolls along.
Lyonne’s charisma is enough to carry any series, but like her own series, Russian Doll, Poker Face surrounds her with great actors working with richly conceived material. Here, Lyonne becomes a modern-day Columbo, an ace sleuth carrying the burden of living in a world of lies and deceit she can see from a mile away. Yet her Charlie isn’t some hard-charging wannabe detective; she’s a self-described “dumbass” (as she calls herself in the first episode), and it’s only because she has no other choice that Charlie hits the road and starts solving crimes.
Lyonne is joined by a starry cast including Adrien Brody, Benjamin Bratt, Judith Light, Hong Chau, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chloë Sevigny, Ron Perlman, Ellen Barkin, Nick Nolte, Lil Rey Howery, Tim Blake Nelson, and more.
So now that you’ve gotten this barebones sketch of what Johnson and Lyonne are up to, let’s take a quick stroll through some of what the critics are saying. Poker Face is now streaming on Peacock (four episodes worth!), with new episodes appearing on Thursdays.
My #PokerFace feelings are embargoed no more! In case you hadn’t figured it out by now, I love Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne’s modern spin on the classic Mystery of the Week series. My full review: https://t.co/tY9qucVJZ6pic.twitter.com/z5R1zkOaV0
There’s scarcely a person on this Earth as charismatic as Natasha Lyonne—as rumpled and chaotic and fun to watch, writes @sophieGG, after watching the actor’s new show, “Poker Face”: https://t.co/952ZCBiYV6
Inhaled the first six episodes of #PokerFace, and came here to say that Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne are doing it BIG for the Columbo heads. “Good” doesn’t even begin to describe the show, but I tried to get into what I loved about it in my review: https://t.co/dCRvRLp2zh
The new series ‘Poker Face’ is a throwback to ‘Columbo,’ and while it might not be instantly obvious, Natasha Lyonne is the Peter Falk of her generation, our critic writes. https://t.co/HSM3eM0Udy
it’s not just that Poker Face is episodic: it’s that it’s radically uninterested in the simple and sloppy cliffhanger surprise tension of typical streaming mysteries. it is the very rare kind of mystery that cares more about middles than ends.https://t.co/jGK8ltD6TP
We’re now just a few weeks away from the official start of Marvel Studio’s Phase 5 with the premiere of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamnia. To that end, Marvel has released this behind-the-scenes look at director Peyton Reed’s upcoming film, which finds Scott Land (Paul Rudd), his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) venturing into the Quantum Realm. It’s there they’ll find an Avengers-level threat in Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), the MCU’s newest supervillain.
The new video clues us into how Marvel approached Quantumania and this larger-than-usual challenge Ant-Man and his friends will be facing. It’s not as if Scott hasn’t faced great odds before; it’s just that the stand-alone Ant-Man films have usually been less “the world will end if we don’t defeat this person” and more geared towards more scaled-down fights with villains who are certainly dangerous but rarely an Avengers-level threat. Until now.
“We always love doing the unexpected with Scott Lang,” says Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige in the video. “Ant-Man is arguably the character that is the most underestimated.” Yet as Feige points out, Ant-Man was the key to saving the universe in Avengers: Endgame. “So carrying that tradition, we thought, let’s use this film to kick off Phase 5.”
Paul Rudd discusses how he’s now been playing Scott Land for almost a decade and how even after all this time, he’s still not used to working with legends like Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas. The video pinpoints the moment the troubles begin for Scott and his family when Janet Van Dyne realizes they’ve been sending a signal down to the Quantum Realm. Janet, more so than any other character, knows the dangers that lurk there.
“Janet has been very quiet about her time in the Quantum Realm,” Michelle Pfeiffer explains. And one of the scariest things down there is Kang the Conqueror.
“Kang the Conqueror is terrifying,” Evangeline Lilly says. “And if there ever was a maniac loose in the Quantum Realm, it’s him.”
“Playing Kang the Conqueror is such a gift,” Majors says. “This is the beginning. And he cannot be contained.”
Majors tells no lies about just how uncontainable Kang is. After Ant-Man, the Wasp, and their friends fight him in Quantumania, a rematch has already been scheduled. The fourth Avengers film? Yeah, it’s titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.
Check out the new behind-the-scenes video below. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantuamnia hits theaters on February 17.
For more on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania, check out these stories:
Netflix has revealed the first trailer for Bill Russell: Legend, filmmaker Sam Pollard‘s doc about the life and legacy of the most dominant NBA player of all time, and, a major force for good off the court. Pollard is the perfect person to lead this effort (past films include Black Art: In the Absence of Light, MLK/FBI, Atlanta Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children), turning his keen eye on Russell’s life, with access to Russell’s archives, the last interview the icon ever granted, and covers not only his unprecedented career — back-to-back NCAA titles, a gold medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, and an astonishing 11 championship titles in his thirteen-year career as a Boston Celtic, the last two of which as the first Black head coach in NBA history — but also his work on behalf of the Civil Rights movement.
“Unapologetically himself.” “A stand-up man.” “The smartest player that ever played the game.” “The Big Bang,” “We’re never going to see a winner like that again.” These are some of the thoughts of legends like Chris Paul, Larry Bird, and Isaiah Thomas as the trailer begins, and the big names just keep piling up from there. Steph Curry, Julius Irving, and current Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum are all on hand to talk about a man they admired in full, a brilliant athlete and passionate defender of human rights. Russell was also a mentor to younger players coming up in the league, a role he seemed to relish. Then there was that laugh, infectious and open, coming from someone who loved life as much as he defended it.
“More than any other athlete of his era, Bill Russell came to define the word ‘winner,'” President Barack Obama said when bestowing the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Russell in 2011. “Bill Russell the man is someone who stood up for the rights and dignity of all men.”
Bill Russell: Legend will offer fans of Russell and the NBA a chance to find out how the most effective, most successful NBA player ever honed his game. For documentary fans, and those interested in how Russell fought for human rights and fought against the NBA itself over racist policies, you couldn’t have a better guide than director Sam Pollard.
Check out the trailer below. Bill Russell: Legend arrives on Netflix on February 8.
Here’s the official synopsis for Bill Russell: Legend:
The remarkable life and legacy of an NBA superstar and civil rights icon is captured in the documentary Bill Russell: Legend. This two-part film from award-winning director Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI, Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power) features the last interview with Bill prior to his passing in 2022, as well as access to his sprawling personal archives. On the court, Russell went on to lead each and every one of his basketball teams to championships — two back-to-back NCAA titles, a gold medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, and 11 championship titles in his thirteen-year career as a Boston Celtic (his last two as the first Black head coach in NBA history). Off the court Russell was a force in the fight for human rights — marching with Martin Luther King Jr., leading boycotts in the NBA over racist practices and speaking out against segregation — efforts which earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Narrated by actors Jeffrey Wright and Corey Stoll and featuring exclusive interviews with the icon’s family and friends as well as Steph Curry, Chris Paul, “Magic” Johnson, Larry Bird, Jim Brown and more, Bill Russell: Legend illuminates the ways in which Russell stood tall in every sense of the word.
For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:
The streamer has bought one of the buzziest films at this year’s Sundance, writer/director Chloe Domont’s psychological thriller Fair Play, for $20 million, Deadline reports. The film is already getting great reviews after its Sundance premiere, with Dumont’s debut film depicting the brutally cutthroat world of a New York investment firm. Netflix ultimately won the film’s rights after a bidding war with a few other competitors.
The film stars Bridgerton breakout star Phoebe Dynevor as Emily and Solo star Alden Ehrenreich as Luke, a newly engaged couple who have to keep their relationship a secret from their employer, the hedge fund Crest Capital, where they are both in entry-level positions. Things begin to go pear-shaped when Emily gets promoted over Luke, and the power dynamic between them is irrevocably altered.
“I thought [finance] was a great backdrop because the high stakes are ripe for drama,” Domont told Variety after Fair Play‘s Sundance premiere. “It feeds into the toxicity of the relationship, and vice-versa.”
It’s an auspicious feature debut for Domont, who has directed television episodes of Ballers, Suits, and Billions. Fair Play had some big named executive producers, including Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman.
Here’s the official synopsis for Fair Play:
Hot off the heels of their new engagement, thriving New York couple Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) can’t get enough of each other. When a coveted promotion at a cutthroat financial firm arises, supportive exchanges between the lovers begin to sour into something more sinister. As the power dynamics irrevocably shift in their relationship, Luke and Emily must face the true price of success and the unnerving limits of ambition.
Featured image: Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich appear in Fair Play by Chloe Domont, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute
A24 has nabbed the buzzy Australian horror film Talk to Me after the film’s debut at the Sundance Film Festival. Varietyhad the scoop and The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that the studio, always so deft at delivering chilling, interesting horror films, bought the film after its screening in the Midnight Selections lineup in a deal reported to be in the high seven figures.
Talk to Me stars Sophia Wilde as a grieving teenager named Mia, who gathers her friends for a seance on the eve of her mother’s death. You can imagine how well things go from there. The seance ends up opening up the portals between worlds, and Mia finds herself subject to supernatural visions. Joining Wilde in the cast are Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Miranda Otto, Otis Dhanji, and Zoe Terakes.
The film comes from twin brothers Michael and Danny Philippou, with a script from Danny and Bill Hinzman. Talk to Me falls in the same horror category as films like Paranormal Activity, Saw, and Insidious.
A24 has made itself a top-tier studio, and its commitment to compelling horror has been a major reason why. Some of the horror films A24 has released have become modern classics, including Hereditary, The Witch, Under the Skin (also a sci-fi film), The Lighthouse, Midsommar, and last year’s X and Pearl, which A24 released last year and which both starred Mia Goth.
A24 isn’t only a horror studio, of course—the studio garnered 18 Oscar nominations this year, with Everything Everywhere All at Once scooping up 11 of them.
Here’s the official synopsis for Talk to Me:
Conjuring spirits has become the latest local party craze, and looking for a distraction on the anniversary of her mother’s death, teenage Mia (Sophie Wilde) is determined to get a piece of the otherworldly action. When her group of friends gathers for another unruly séance with the mysterious embalmed hand that promises a direct line to the spirits, they’re unprepared for the consequences of bending the rules through prolonged contact. As the boundary between worlds collapses and disturbing supernatural visions increasingly haunt Mia, she rushes to undo the horrific damage before it’s irreversible.
For more from Sundance 2023, check out these stories:
Featured image: A still from Talk to Me by Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou, an official selection of the Midnight section at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Angela Bassett has made history as the first actor to nab an Oscar nomination for their performance in a Marvel film. Bassett is nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her moving work as Queen Ramonda in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
This is Bassett’s second Oscar nomination, which makes her only the fourth Black Woman in history to earn multiple Oscar nominations (her first nomination, for Best Actress in a Leading Role, came in 1993 for her sensational performance in What’s Love Got To Do With It.) Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter this morning, Bassett said she wasn’t thinking about making Marvel history heading into filming the emotional Black Panther sequel, which required all involved to channel their grief over the passing of Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman into their work.
“I certainly didn’t think about that going into the first day of filming — I began to hear about that a couple of weeks ago,” says Bassett told THR about breaking new territory for Marvel performers. “Others have pondered that reality, but it certainly wasn’t me. I’m grateful for the role and the opportunity to work with the incredible artists, the amazing crew and artisans behind the scenes.”
Bassett told THR that everyone on the Wakanda Forever team went through an emotional journey coming together in the wake of the tragic loss of Boseman.
“We’ve been through so much — as much as you can go through in life together, with the passing of our king. That really served to bring us together all the more.”
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever nabbed five Oscar nominations in total, including costume design, visual effects, best song, and makeup and hairstyling. The film managed the seemingly impossible feat of being both a proper comic book movie with all the thrills and colossal action set pieces you’d expect, as well as a moving, at times heartbreaking meditation on grief and loss. While the film’s focus was centered most closely on Letitia Wright’s Shuri (who was excellent, too), Bassett’s performance was the film’s beating heart. Making Marvel history seems fitting for a performer of her ability.
For more on all things Marvel Studios, check out these stories:
The Best Picture category includes war epics historical (All Quiet on the Western Front), imagined (Top Gun: Maverick), alien (Avatar: The Way of Water), and one between friends (The Banshees ofInisherin). The category also includes one Spielberg (The Fablemans), a couple of directing Daniels (Everything Everywhere All At Once), two incredible female-focused films (Tár and Women Talking), a fantastic satire (Triangle of Sadness), and a bio-pic that’ll make you shake your hips (Elvis).
For Best Actress in a Leading Role, you have some repeat customers like Cate Blanchett (for Tár) and Michelle Williams (TheFablemans), newcomers like Ana de Armas (Blonde) and Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie), and long-deserving legends like Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once). The Best Actor category includes Brendan Fraser (The Whale), Paul Mescal (Aftersun), Bill Nighy (Living), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin), and Austin Butler (Elvis).
Everything Everywhere All At Once ultimately leads the pack with 11 total nominations, while All Quiet on the Western Front and The Banshees of Inisherin are close behind with 9 nominations each.
But let’s get to the list, shall well? Below you’ll find the nominees in 13 of the 24 categories, with the full list available here.
Best Picture
All Quiet on the Western Front (Netflix)
Avatar: The Way of Water (Walt Disney)
The Banshees of Inisherin (Searchlight)
Elvis (Warner Bros.)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24)
The Fabelmans (Universal/Amblin Partners)
Tár (Focus Features)
Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount)
Triangle of Sadness (Neon)
Women Talking (Orion Pictures/United Artists Releasing)
Directing
Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Steven Spielberg, The Fablemans
Todd Field, Tár
Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness
Actress in a Leading Role
Cate Blanchett, Tár
Ana de Armas, Blonde
Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie
Michelle Williams, The Fablemans
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Actor in a Leading Role
Austin Butler, Elvis
Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser, The Whale
Paul Mescal, Aftersun
Bill Nighy, Living
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Hong Chau, The Whale
Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin
Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Triangle of Sadness (Neon) “An Irish Goodbye” (Floodlight Pictures)
Best Animated Feature Film
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Netflix)
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (A24)
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (DreamWorks Animation)
The Sea Beast (Netflix)
Turning Red (Pixar)
Best Animated Short Film
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse (Apple TV+)
The Flying Sailor
Ice Merchants
My Year of Dicks
An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It
Documentary Feature Film
All That Breathes
All The Beauty and the Bloodshed
Fire of Love
A House Made of Splinters
Navalny
International Feature Film
All Quiet on the Western Front
Argentina, 1985
Close
EO
The Quiet Girl
For the full list, check out the official Academy Awards sites here.
Featured image: HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 09: In this handout photo provided by A.M.P.A.S. Oscars statuettes are on display backstage during the 92nd Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on February 09, 2020 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Matt Petit – Handout/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images)
The Sundance staff and execs have always believed it essential to honor Indigenous people as part of their film festival and institute, as exampled by their Native Lab and Indigenous Program. This year, there is an even greater focus on Native cultures, both inside and outside the cinemas, with 11 Indigenous films as part of the program. 2023 also marked the inaugural year for The Indigenous House, which provided a gathering space for community members and allies, and featured events and conversations with Native creatives and leaders.
One of the panels, Storytelling Beyond the News, included Oglala Lakota/Diné filmmaker Razelle Benally, co-director and producer of Showtime’s upcoming 3-part documentary series, Murder in Big Horn. The show premiered at Sundance and streams on Showtime starting February 3rd. Benally, who partnered on the project with Showtime directing alum Matthew Galkin, was a Sundance Native Lab Fellow and recently wrote for the Navajo tribal police drama series Dark Winds.
Murder in Big Horn considers the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) through specific cases in and around Big Horn County, Montana. Within the past decade, dozens of women and girls have disappeared or have been murdered in the area. The docuseries focuses on three such cases, 14-year-old Henny Scott, 18-year-old Kaysera Stops Pretty Places, and 16-year-old Selena Not Afraid. Their stories galvanized the media and public attention for the first time about an issue that has been prevalent since colonization and has been plaguing Native communities around the country for decades.
The Credits spoke to Murder in Big Horn’s Benally about the MMIW epidemic. She shares how the portrait she and Galkin crafted about three lost girls represents a microcosm of a larger issue that requires far more attention and major changes in policies that have been putting Indigenous women and girls at risk for centuries.
How did you get involved with this project?
Showtime brought the project to Matthew Galkin, my directing partner and executive producer of the series. He had a good prior relationship with Showtime, having worked with them before. Showtime didn’t know much about the MMIW epidemic that was happening, though they had learned about it through their own news sources. They brought the idea of a docuseriestoMatthew, and Matthew, as a heteronormative cis white male, very quickly learned that he might not be the best person to do this all himself, but he did see the story and wanted to get behind helping create awareness for this issue. So he brought me on, and as an Oglala Lakota/Diné woman, unfortunately, I grew up through my own lived experience as a Native woman very much knowing and learning and understanding what the MMIW issue is ever since I could remember, so we were able to collaborate. I believe we provide a broader perspective by having somebody who doesn’t know much about the issue and somebody who grew up and lived with this issue.
Razelle Benally and Matthew Galkin. Courtesy Showtime.
What kinds of discussions were there around the investigative true-crime aspect of the story and the issue itself?
We knew we needed to make sure that the human story was there and that the stories were coming from the community members and the surviving relatives of the victims. We wanted to give them a platform to voice their truth, and we wanted to ensure that they were going to be heard. Even though Murder in Big Horn does encompass many things, including a true crime element, we’re able to sort of bait and switch the viewer and talk about this issue. The mystery that would make it a true crime, where you unravel the cases, you’re given clues, and you’re finding answers, doesn’t exist in this story. The bait and switch is that if you, as a viewer, think you’re going to watch that, unfortunately, there are no answers because the answers lie in history. Violence against Native women exists today because it started with colonization. You cannot talk about MMIW without talking about the history of Native peoples.
Finding a way to tell that story, that history, requires so much nuance and balance.
We had to ensure that those different perceptions of European settlers versus our traditional Indigenous men were juxtaposed in the series because even though there may have been violence in our tribes, in our communities pre-contact, we did have systems of addressing violence, and what would be deemed as crimes, and they rarely occurred. When settlers started moving west, that’s when we started truly seeing, in my particular tribes, this onslaught of violence, not only against all of our people but particularly targeting our women as well.
Still frame from MURDER IN BIG HORN. Photo credit: Jeff Hutchens/Courtesy of SHOWTIME.
Can you speak to why you chose the specific women that were highlighted in this series?
Within the community of Big Horn in Montana and just throughout the Midwest, because my homelands are in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, as well as Arizona, within that area, these cases were actually well-known. The reason why is that there was something about the combination of Henny, Kaysera, and Selena, unfortunately with what happened with their disappearances and their turning up as deceased, there was a groundswell of movement within the communities that occurred and a buildup of media coverage. Also, unfortunately, in Big Horn County, the concentration of cases is so high we found that area to be a microcosm of what’s happening not only there but in a lot of different Indigenous communities. Their families were super helpful and vocal about their loved ones, so we also took that into consideration. But there are so many other cases everywhere that we couldn’t cover each one. Just because we focus on these cases doesn’t mean that all the other cases aren’t equally as important, because they are.
You have an Indigenous female artist as the composer for the show’s score. What was your partnership like with Laura Ortman?
I’m really grateful to call Laura a friend of mine. She’s an amazing violinist, an amazing composer, and a great artist in general. When the conversation came up regarding music and the score, I immediately thought of Laura because I know how sensitive of a human being she is, and she has done work with films before. I’m very familiar with her music, and when Matthew heard her for the first time, it was a no-brainer for both of us. In terms of working together, it was very much a back-and-forth but a great collaboration. It was important for us to give her a lot of room for creative experimentation and a lot of space to use her own voice as an artist.
At the end of the series, there is a list included of over 70 names of other missing or murdered Indigenous girls and womenin the greater Big Horn community. Can you talk about that?
The list of names we include is based on documented and reported cases. There are so many more cases that haven’t been documented or, by legal standards, don’t have what it takes to be a missing persons case, so it was really important for us, and for the production and the series, that people can understand how vast and wide this issue is, not only in Big Horn County but everywhere. Our series isn’t meant to represent all communities. The series serves as a microcosm for a widespread issue. It’s just a sad and heartbreaking reality. I hope that by the end, part of what the audience takes away is that this is a national issue for Indigenous communities in the United States. It’s also an issue in Canada, Mexico, and all Indigenous communities across the world.
Murder in Big Horn streams on Showtime starting on February 3rd.
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