Author: Christopher Marc

Posted on in Film News, Trailers

TRAILER: James Wan’s Visually Stunning Horror Flick ‘Malignant’ Releases In Theaters & HBO Max On September 10

Director James Wan is currently shooting his Aquaman sequel, Aquaman & The Lost Kingdom, in Watford, England and we finally have a brand new trailer for his upcoming horror film Malignant at New Line Cinema. The film is an original concept and is said to homage the Italian horror sub-genre Giallo, most nobly created by Italian filmmakers Mario Brava and Dario Agento.

Madison is paralyzed by shocking visions of grisly murders, and her torment worsens as she discovers that these waking dreams are in fact terrifying realities.

The horror film’s cast consists of Jacqueline McKenzie, Maddie Hasson, Jake Abel, Michole Briana White, Annabelle Wallis, Ingrid Bisu, and Mckenna Grace.

Malignant will hit theaters and HBO Max on September 10.

“Malignant” is the latest creation from “Conjuring” universe architect James Wan (“Aquaman,” “Furious 7”). The film marks director Wan’s return to his roots with this new original horror thriller. In the film, Madison is paralyzed by shocking visions of grisly murders, and her torment worsens as she discovers that these waking dreams are in fact terrifying realities. “Malignant” stars Annabelle Wallis (“Annabelle,” “The Mummy”), Maddie Hasson (YouTube’s “Impulse,” TV’s “Mr. Mercedes”), George Young (TV’s “Containment”), Michole Briana White (TV’s “Black Mafia Family,” “Dead to Me”), Jacqueline McKenzie (“Palm Beach,” TV’s “Reckoning”), Jake Abel (TV’s “Supernatural,” the “Percy Jackson” films) and Ingrid Bisu (“The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” “The Nun”). Wan (“Aquaman,” “Furious 7”) directed from a screenplay by Akela Cooper (“M3GAN,” upcoming “The Nun 2”), story by Wan & Ingrid Bisu and Cooper. The film was produced by Wan and Michael Clear, with Eric McLeod, Judson Scott, Bisu, Peter Luo, Cheng Yang, Mandy Yu and Lei Han serving as executive producers. Behind the scenes, Wan was joined by his frequent collaborators, director of photography Don Burgess and editor Kirk Morri (“Aquaman,” “The Conjuring 2”), production designer Desma Murphy (art director, “Aquaman,” “Furious 7”), as well as costume designer Lisa Norcia (“Insidious: The Last Key”). The music is by Joseph Bishara, who has composed the score for all seven films in “The Conjuring” Universe, among many others. New Line Cinema Presents, In Association With Starlight Media Inc. and My Entertainment Inc., An Atomic Monster Production, a James Wan Film, “Malignant,” will be released by Warner Bros. Pictures on September 10, 2021 in theaters nationwide and on HBO Max via their Ad-Free plan in 4K UHD, HDR10, and Dolby Vision on supported devices; it will be available on HBO Max for 31 days from theatrical release.

SOURCE: WARNERMEDIA

Posted on in Film News, Trailers

TRAILER: Adam Driver & Matt Damon Are Knights Fighting To The Death In ‘The Last Duel’

Director Ridley Scott is back with another period action drama after previously releasing Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Exodus: Gods & Kings, and Robin Hood. 20th Century Studios has dropped the first trailer for The Last Duel, which is based on a historical event.

The cast consists of Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer, Harriet Walter, Marton Csokas, Ben Affleck, Nathaniel Parker, Sam Hazeldine, and Michael McElhatton.

THE LAST DUEL – In 14th century France, Norman knight Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) accuses squire Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) of raping his wife Marguerite (Jodie Comer). He takes the claim to King Charles VI, who declares that the two men must duel to the death. Based on the book The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France by Eric Jager with a script written by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Nicole Holofcener.

The Last Duel hits theaters exclusively on October 15.

SOURCE: 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS

Posted on in Film News

‘Batgirl’: Isabella Merced, Zoey Deutch, Leslie Grace & Haley Lu Richardson In The Mix To Play Barbara Gordon

A Batgirl movie has been in development for years now and Warner Bros. dodged a bullet when Joss Whedon exited as his toxic behavior on the set of Justice League reshoots among other sets over the years. Instead, the project has moved from Warner Bros. to HBO Max with Bad Boys For Life and Ms. Marvel directing duo of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are helming the DC Comics from a script penned by Christina Hodson (The Flash, Birds of Prey).

Deadline is now reporting that Warner Bros. is in the thick of casting an actress to play Batgirl.

Although test deals still are being locked up and some already have passed, the talent expected to test for the role includes Isabella Merced, Zoey Deutch and Leslie Grace. We also have heard Haley Lu Richardson’s name, but she might have bowed out before the test process.

The list of candidates would suggest that Batgirl isn’t directly connected to Matt Reeves’ The Batman trilogy and likely will have a stronger connection to projects like The Flash and other recent DCEU projects. Folks have assumed that Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne could end up being a mentor to this incarnation of Barb and seeing the project becoming a female version of Batman Beyond.

Given that Batgirl is expected to be set in Gotham City it’ll be interesting to see what villains she’ll end up tackling. If I was Warner Bros./HBO Max, I would plant seeds for Gotham City Sirens by adding Poison Ivy and other potential characters.

Other DC Comics movies in the works include Wonder Woman 3, Zatanna, Blue Beetle, Static Shock, Supergirl, a black Superman movie produced by J.J. Abrams, Hourman, a female version of Plastic Man, and director Chris McKay is still hopeful about making Nightwing.

Batgirl has yet to be given a release date at HBO Max.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Kevin Feige Says Marvel Studios Team Recently Met To Establish Rules For The Multiverse

Last week, the Season 1 finale of Loki introduced audiences to Jonathan Majors’ He Who Remains and confirming our support of rumors that Majors would appear in the show. His variant, Kang The Conqueror, will be seen next in Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, fully establishing that the Nexus Event is here and that the Multiverse is truly underway. We’ll see this explored in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, as the title would suggest, but the studio will have to make sure they’re not overusing it or being too loose with it too often making up things as they go along.

It sounds like Marvel Studios is going to be making sure to set rules for The Multiverse as stated by Kevin Feige to the D23 Inside Disney Podcast (via The Direct). Revealing he had just met with the Marvel team about exactly that.

“As you indicated before we started recording, the multiverse is coming up in a big way. There’s interconnectivity there that people have already started to see and suss out and I had a meeting this morning with the whole broad Marvel Studios team going through the multiverse and the rules of the multiverse and exactly how to really deliver on the excitement surrounding the multiverse,” studio head Kevin Feige told D23 Inside Disney.

It’ll be fun to see multiple versions of Kang and the other variants to become the main antagonists of many Phase 4 movies only to be defeated and return in the next project, over and over. Wouldn’t it be nutty if Kang suddenly showed up in Spider-Man: No Way Home?

Hopefully, the Multiverse comes to a conclusion like with the Infinity Saga and that could with something as epic as Secret Wars, The Russo Brothers have been teasing their interest in the massive crossover event film as a follow-up to Avengers: Endgame it would also allow them to play with X-Men and Fantastic Four characters among others.

I’d personally like to see Kang assemble his own team from various points of the Multiverse putting together a version of Squadron Supreme to combat the heroes/villains of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The characters are cheeky knock-offs of the Justice League and placing them against MCU teams could end up a version of Marvel vs. DC without the headache of trying to get two studios to agree upon all the details.

SOURCE: D23 INSIDE DISNEY PODCAST

Posted on in Film News

Kevin Smith Was Refused Access To Werewolf By Night On ‘Howard The Duck’ Because Marvel Studios Had Movie Plans For Him

Once upon a time, Marvel Television was being overseen by Jeph Loeb and director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back) was hired to make a mature cartoon series focused on Howard The Duck. However, the project was ultimately trashed leading to Smith to focus on his Netflix cartoon series Masters of The Universe: Revelation.

Marvel Television was re-branded as Marvel TV Studios with Loeb exiting the company because Kevin Feige became Marvel’s chief creative officer giving him complete control over all divisions, including television and animation. The M.O.D.O.K. animated show using stop-motion was the only thing that really survived the mass cancellations of the Marvel television shows to make way for hard-canon stuff heading to Disney+ starting with WandaVision.

Smith revealed on his podcast Fatman Beyond that he asked to use Werewolf By Night (Marvel’s big werewolf character), but his request was denied by Jeph Loeb because Marvel Studios (the film division) had plans for the character. Back then, Marvel Television had to get approval to use certain characters that the film division was going to use.

“In my head, as I started building my season, I was like, ‘Alright, Episode 5, Werewolf By Night.’ The idea of our story was that Howard was trapped here and he was trying to get pages of the Darkhold, which would allow him to go back. There’s Howard as I’m laying it out and then I go into Jeph and told him what I wanted to do, and that’s when they said ‘You can’t use Werewolf By Night,’ and I asked why? They said the movie division was using him.”

Jack Russell aka Werewolf By Night has been seen in animation but there was once a live-action version that many people might not be aware of. He appeared in a deleted scene from Blade Trinity, however, as you can see below the scene was so bad (like the rest of the movie) it was abandoned. It invokes memories of the deleted scene from the original Blade, where director Stephen Norrington played Morbius The Living Vampire as a way to set him up as the villain of the sequel only for that scene to be cut (Sony Pictures owned the rights) and Guillermo del Toro going in another direction with Blade II.

It’ll be interesting to see what project Russell could end up showing up in as things like the Moon Knight series and Blade reboot are helping to introduce the horror corner of Marvel Comics to the Marvel Cinematic universe.

SOURCE: FATMAN BEYOND

Posted on in Film News

‘Blade’: Marvel Reportedly Eyeing ‘Mogul Mowgli’ Director Bassam Tariq For Reboot

Marvel Studios has been developing a Blade project going back to 2013, when it was reported that they were developing in-house script for both Blade and Ms. Marvel (later turned into Captain Marvel). However, when Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali (Alita: Battle Angel, Moonlight, Luke Cage) approached Marvel about playing Eric Brooks, they weren’t exactly planning on moving forward with a film at that time until Ali’s enthusiasm got them to rethink that. The studio announced the casting and the project moving forward at the end of San Diego Comic-Con 2019.

The Blade reboot might have a director announcement coming very soon.

Deadline reports that indie director Bassam Tariq, worked with Riz Ahamed (Venom, Rogue One, Sound of Metal) on the British rap movie Mogul Mowgli, is the studio’s top choice to helm the action horror reboot.

A script is being worked on by writer Stacy Osei-Kuffour, who wrote on HBO’s Watchmen series and the Jordan Peele-produced Hunters.

Eric Brooks aka Blade is a vampire hunter, that happens to be half-vampire himself and allows him to be immune sunlight/silver making him stronger than a majority of adversaries. The main antagonists for Blade are The Vampire Nation, the secretive group of shadowy figures that have a stranglehold on positions of power in human society and have sects all over the world. This makes the new incarnation of Blade a global franchise and we could see vampires in various countries, we’ve seen Asian vampires teased in the original and it would be neat to see Blade in Japan or Hong Kong.

I was massively let down with Marvel’s Black Widow movie after producers and Scarlett Johansson talked-up the action being the best in the MCU, only for them to give us generic fight sequences and an overuse of cartoony CGI (Blade’s worst element is the poorly aged CGI) that quickly dissolved the grittier tone they had been aiming for. I’m hoping that Marvel takes Blade’s action scenes a little more seriously by hiring 87Eleven Action Design (John Wick 1-4, Atomic Blonde) or bring back Liang Yang (Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness) to handle the fight choreography.

End of the day, the Blade is an action franchise with horror elements. The original three movies (third produced by Kevin Feige) led by Wesley Snipes were R-rated projects and Marvel Studios/Disney kept saying over multiple years that Deadpool 3 would be keeping it’s R-rating. There is a good chance since most kids have no idea who Blade is that the vampire hunter might keep his original rating. Also, I’m not sure how interesting PG-13 vampire movie is going to be without blood or invented deaths for vampires at the hands of Blade.

There had been chatter about the studio potentially shooting Blade next year, but Marvel Studios hasn’t given the project a release date and this directorial candidate hasn’t signed a deal. I guess we’ll have to wait a little longer for some official announcements from Kevin Feige/Marvel.

BLADE – A half-mortal, half-immortal is out to avenge his mother’s death and rid the world of vampires. The modern-day technologically advanced vampires he is going after are in search of his special blood type needed to summon an evil god who plays a key role in their plan to execute the human race.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in News

Multiple Marvel Studios LLCs Confirmed For Unannounced Projects Likely To Be Revealed Soon

It looks like Marvel Studios is about to make another big announcement about new film and television projects in the very near future.

The Ronin can now confirm the following LLCs are specifically for Marvel Studios projects, some of these were previously mentioned by us, but we can now confirm they are indeed for Marvel.

  • BATTLE ANYONE PRODUCTIONS
  • ACID POP PRODUCTIONS 
  • NATURAL HISTORY PRODUCTIONS
  • SPEYSIDE PRODUCTIONS 

The identity of the projects is unknown, but you’d have to imagine that things like Captain American 4, X-Men, Blade, Jon Watt’s Fantastic Four reboot, and Deadpool 3 could be candidates. However, at least some of these could be for Disney+ shows.

UPDATE: We have some follow-up information from a source that Natural History Productions is a Disney+ project that is aiming to begin shooting in February 2022 at Trilith Studios in Atlanta, Georgia.

It’s unclear what it could be but given it’s a television series we could speculate it might be something like a Ka-Zar or Savage Land (connected to the X-Men franchise) project makes sense given the obscurity of the characters (Disney+ shows seem to be introducing lesser known characters) and the cosmic genetic tinkering going on similar to things like Eternals, X-Men, and Inhumans. At one point, Marvel Studios was developing a feature film based on Ka-Zar but pumped the breaks for various reasons.

Eternals shot a scene at Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which is worth mentioning too.

Battle Anyone certainly gives us Secret Wars vibes given that Battleworld is a thing in the comics. Also, Kang The Conqueror and the Multiverse being established for Phase 4 it’s possible that The Russo Brothers will have a reason to come back and make Secret Wars sooner rather than later. Season 1 of Loki also mentioned a Multiverse War, and could be pushed forward with something like Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, and Season 2 of Loki.

We previously revealed that Ryan Coogler’s untitled Wakanda series was moving forward because Marvel had created an official LLC for the project with Maglev Train Productions.

There is also a new LLC called Ionic Productions, but we can’t confirm if this is Marvel-related. Stay tuned for updates! Other stuff that needs further confirmation include On Your Mark Productions and Bad Egg Productions.

Posted on in Television News

‘House Of The Dragon’ Pauses Production Due To COVID

WarnerMedia is going all-in on Game of Thrones as they’re developing multiple spinoff shows with House of The Dragon currently shooting in Watford, England. The project is based on George R.R. Martin’s novel Fire & Blood and focuses on various members of the powerful Targaryen family 300 years before the events of the original series.

Filming had begun in April, but Deadline has learned that production has paused for two days after a crew member has tested positive for COVID-19.

Deadline understands that a production member tested positive and in compliance with industry guidelines, will isolate and close contacts are required to quarantine. Production will resume on Wednesday.

The cast consists of Paddy Considine as King Viserys Targaryen, Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower, Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen, Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon (The Sea Snake), Eve Best as Princess Rhaenys Velaryon, Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower (The Hand of the King), Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria, Milly Alcock as Young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, and Emily Carey as Young Alicent Hightower.

Martin recently signed a five-year deal with HBO and could see even more Game of Thrones projects being developed. There have been previous reports that George R.R. Martin’s Knight of The Seven Kingdoms will be turned a series, titled Tales of Dunk & Egg, along with other projects in development such as Sea Snake aka The 9 Voyages, 10,000 Ships, and three animated projects as one will focus on The Grand Empire of Yi Ti (a fantasy version of Imperial China).

A Flea Bottom show has been killed by HBO, we’ll likely see more projects not make the finish line. The Long Night/Bloodmoon was a prequel series about the origin of The White Walkers that only shot a pilot and didn’t get a series pick-up.

House of The Dragon will begin airing sometime in 2022.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

‘Black Widow’ Drops 67% In Second Weekend & Theater Owners Blame Hybrid Release For Underperformance

Last week, Marvel Studios and Disney had a lot to celebrate as they ended up with a solid domestic weekend opening of $80.3 million after delayed Black Widow over a year due tot he pandemic making it’s unfathomable to release a massive Marvel last year.

Well, in it’s second weekend there is less to be happy about after Space Jame: A New Legacy toppled the MCU film from the top spot earning a decent, but not great, $32 million. Black Widow on the other hand is estimated to have earned $26.3 million, a steep 67% drop from opening weekend and with more new releases coming in July-August it would suggest that that number will only continue to dwindle.

This makes it the biggest second weekend drop in modern MCU history.

While the pandemic is still very much a thing going on in the United States, you really wouldn’t know it looking at the last couple of weekends at the box office as people are still risking their lives and others by watching these movies in person as variant cases grow and vaccination rates have stalled.

There are a lot of factors here such as mostly front-loaded opening weekend numbers have become the norm during the pandemic and added competition could mean people are less likely to give repeat in-theater business. Another big issue is releasing the film on Disney+ via Premier Access at the same time as theaters, this means people can watch endlessly at home after paying their purchase fee and because it hit a streaming service HD/HDR versions of the film have hit torrenting sites, meaning there is now an option for people to simply download a perfect without paying (morally wrong but also socially acceptable among younger demographics).

Disney was finally eager to reveal their Premier Access numbers last weekend at $60 million, hoping that would lessen the sting that it “looked like” film underperformed compared to their other recent solo films such as Black Panther and Captain Marvel, both eventually earning a billion-plus at the global box office (Black Widow isn’t likely going to make anything close to that). It even made less opening weekend than Doctor Strange’s $85 million from 2016. Sadly, those Premier Access earnings can’t be applied to real box office totals and were really only window dressing. Studios take final box office totals real seriously and it looks like their hybrid release could end deflating the film’s global cume by at least $100 million, if not more.

This doesn’t mean Black Widow is going to be a flop, by any means, but it’s not great and the studio is likely looking towards the overseas market to help push the film into the profit zone with a release in China on the horizon.

Theatrical windows have always been buffers to online piracy and might be why Disney stated they will returning to a 45-day window for Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings. I don’t think Disney is ready to go all-in on a hybrid model of Black Widow’s second weekend numbers are any indication.

The importance of a theatrical widow is something that the National Association of Theater Owners just echoed in a press release hammering Disney’s hybrid release model. Suggesting that the company attempted to maximize profits (Disney doesn’t have to share Disney+ earnings with theaters) by damaging the theatrical earning potential and referred to this weekend’s box office drop as “a stunning second weekend collapse in theatrical revenues.”

“Black Widow should have opened to anywhere from $92-$100 million. Based on preview
revenue, compared to the same titles, Black Widow could have opened to
anywhere from $97 to $130 million,” NATO added in their press release.

They also mention out that films such as F9: The Fast Saga and A Quiet Place Part II seemed to have healthy subsequent weekend earnings because they weren’t easily pirated like the HBO Max releases and now Black Widow. The long-established buffer for piracy simply vanished.

Posted on in Television News

Season 3 Of ‘The Mandalorian’ Might Be Currently In Production & Won’t Air Until 2022

It looks like The Mandalorian will be ready to air on Disney+ sometime in 2022.

American Cinematographer has seemingly revealed that Season 3 of The Mandalorian has begun filming after doing a rundown of various productions using new advanced filming techniques, including ILM’s StageCraft. Below is an excerpt from their lengthy article where they mention the new season has started shooting.

Shows that planned to leverage in-camera VFX from the start include two that will be shot using StageCraft, Industrial Light & Magic’s real-time animation pipeline for LED volumes: The Book of Boba Fett, which will be released later this year, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, set for release in 2022. Both series will use the same volume initially built for The Mandalorian in Manhattan Beach, Calif. More Star Wars shows, including Andor, are in production at Pinewood Studios in England, where ILM has built another large StageCraft volume. Season 3 of The Mandalorian is now in production.

While they have zero reasons to make up news like this, normally, it helps to have either a trade or Lucasfilm/Disney to back this up. However, they’ve been sort of cagey with production details lately and we had to learn about Obi-Wan Kenobi’s shoot directly from Ewan McGregor as other folks weren’t talking to the press about it.

Season 2 ended with Grogu leaving with Luke Skywalker to be trained as a Jedi and Mando has acquired the Darksaber, making him the ruler of Mandalore and will likely lead to Bo-Katan challenging him at some point. It feels like a bigger Imperial threat has yet to be uncovered.

The Ronin can confirm that production designer Andrew Jones is back after working on Seasons 1-2 and The Book of Boba Fett.

Interestingly enough, Pedro Pascal’s The Last of Us series for HBO begins shooting this month in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and will likely pause shooting to allow him to film his scenes for Season 3 of The Mandalorian.

Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are coming off shooting The Book of Boba Fett with Robert Rodriguez along with both Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi still in production. It seems like Lucasfilm is burning the candles on both ends to double-up on their Star Wars content for Disney+ in the next year or so. However, it’s unclear when stuff like Ahsoka, Lando, The Acolyte, and Rangers of The New Republic will begin their shoots.

SOURCE: AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER