Category: Film News

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‘The Last Voyage Of The Demeter’ Begins Shooting In Germany; Amblin’s Dracula Movie Adds Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian, Aisling Franciosi & More

Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners have started filming their long-gestating horror film The Last Voyage of The Demeter, the project has been in the works for twenty years and is based on the brief excerpt from Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel covering the iconic vampire’s bloody journey to London.

Zak Olkewicz (Bullet Train, Fear Street) has written the script, which is based on a single chapter, “The Captain’s Log,” from Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel Dracula, which tells the story of the Russian schooner, Demeter, which was charted to carry private cargo (twenty four unmarked wooden creates) from Carpathia to London. The film will detail the strange events that befell the doomed crew as they attempt to survive the ocean voyage, stalked each night by a terrifying presence onboard the ship. When it finally arrived near Whitby Harbour, it was a derelict. There was no trace of the crew.

Director Andre Ovredal (Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark) announced on Twitter that filming on the horror flick began shooting on June 26 at Babelsberg Studio just outside of Berlin, Germany. The studio is currently being used for John Wick: Chapter 4 alongside recently high-profile studio projects such as The Matrix 4 and Tom Holland’s Uncharted film.

The post also confirms our report that Ovredal would be reuniting with cinematographer Roman Osin (Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark).

https://twitter.com/Filmtroll/status/1408803186484428800

The film’s cast has grown with a wave of new additions mentioned by The Hollywood Reporter yesterday. Those new names joining Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton, Kong: Skull Island, The Walking Dead) include Game of Thrones alums Liam Cunningham (Clash of The Titans, The Guard) as the Demeter’s captain and Aisling Franciosi (The Nightingale, Black Narcissus), David Dastmalchian (Ant-Man, The Suicide Squad, Blade Runner 2049), longtime creature actor Javier Botet (It, Game of Thrones, Slender Man, Alien: Covenant, Crimson Peak, The Conjuring 2) is set to play Dracula, Jon Jon Briones (Ratched), Stefan Kapicic (Deadpool, Deadpool 2), Nikolai Nikolaeff, Woody Norman, Martin Furulund and Chris Walley.

The Last Voyage of The Demeter has been around for ages with previous directors such as David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night, Hannibal, American Gods, Black Mirror) and Neil Marshall (Game of Thrones, Westworld, Hellboy, Lost In Space) attaching themselves to only exit. Viggo Mortensen, Noomi Rapace, Jude Law, and Ben Kingsley were reportedly once involved at various stages.

It’s unknown when the film will debut as Amblin recently made a deal with Netflix to fund and distribute original films. There is a good shot that Demeter ends up landing at Netflix.

SOURCE: ANDRE OVREDAL & THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

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‘Loki’ Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw Reveals She Is Working On ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’

It looks like with production underway in Atlanta this week on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever that the sequel is going ahead as planned.

Interestingly enough, Loki cinematographer Autumn Durlad Arkapaw has posted a video on Instagram of director Ryan Coogler playing basketball on a court. This seemingly confirms she’s working on the film as Black Panther’s cinematographer Rachel Morrison is busy on her own project.

Morrison adding fuel herself by sending her love with a reply on the post from June 18 and further confirming that Autumn is working on the Black Panther sequel. Auntumn Durald Arkapaw was recently in Atlanta working on their DIsney+ series Loki and has a fantastic eye as the show is one of the best looking projects to date.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is set to be released on July 8, 2022.

SOURCE: AUTUMN DURALD ARAKAPAW

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Edgar Wright’s ‘Last Night In Soho’ Bumped To Late October Because Of ‘Dune’

Director Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim, Baby Driver) has made a career making comedic projects from his British series Spaced to the Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun of The Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End), but he’ll be attempting something much serious with his psychological thriller Last Night In Soho.

However, we’ll going to have to wait a little longer than expected to see it.

There seems to have been another release date change after multiple switch-ups, as the Focus Features website has listed the film’s new release date for October 29 instead of October 22, as the previous date could have put it in direct competition with Denis Villeneuve’s big-budget remake of the sci-fi epic Dune and hurt the film’s box office potential.

Having the film open during the weekend of Halloween isn’t the worst idea given the creepy elements.

Wright’s cast for Last Night In Soho consists of Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, The Queen’s Gambit, The Northman), Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit), Matt Smith (Doctor Who), Terence Stamp (Superman II), Diana Rigg, Rita Tushingham, Michael Ajao, and Synnøve Karlsen.

Last Night In Soho’s lead Anya Taylor-Joy is a busy lady, as she is set to begin shooting George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road prequel Furiosa at Fox Studios Australia in August and will be seen in Robert Eggers’ Viking epic that will hit theaters on April 8, 2022.

Edgar Wright is working on a bunch of projects including a remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger dystopian sci-fi flick The Running Man, the new version at Paramount Pictures is expected to be more faithful to original source material and will be adapted from the Stephen King novel written under his pen name Richard Bachman. Before The Running Man, the filmmaker was developing a sci-fi about robots in 2054 with the Simon Stephenson adaption Set My Heart To Five at Working Title Films.

LAST NIGHT IN SOHO – A young woman, passionate in fashion design, is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s, where she encounters her idol, a dazzling wannabe singer. However, 1960s London is not what it appears, and time seems to fall apart with shady consequences.

SOURCE: UNIVERSAL/FOCUS FEATURES

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Tilda Swinton Confirms She’ll Reunite With Wes Anderson For His Next Film; Begins Filming This September In Spain

While we’re still in the dark about Wes Anderson’s next feature film project, we finally know when it’ll begin shooting and that it will have actress Tilda Swinton among the cast.

Tilda Swinton spoke with Variety for an interview and confirmed her involvement.

Tilda Swinton revealed that she will star in the project, specific details of which are being kept closely under wraps. Though the film is shooting in Spain, “it’s not about Spain,” Swinton hinted. Meanwhile, speaking to Variety from England, Anderson said he’s “not ready to share any details” about the new film.

Filming on the untitled movie will begin this September in Chinchón, Spain.

There most recent collaboration was on Anderson’s The French Dispatch.

THE FRENCH DISPATCH – A love letter to journalists set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional twentieth century French city that brings to life a collection of stories published in “The French Dispatch Magazine.”It stars Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Lyna Khoudri, Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric, Stephen Park, Bill Murray and Owen Wilson.

SOURCE: VARIETY

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‘Black Widow’ Director Cate Shortland Game To Return For A Sequel & Teases Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova Taking Over Franchise

Black Widow will see the end of Scarlett Johansson’s run as Natasha Romanoff after debuting as the character in Iron Man 2 back in 2010. There is already speculation that Yelena Belova (played by Florence Pugh) is going to take up the mantle in the MCU and this was bolstered when Pugh joined the cast of the Hawkeye series, there are also hints that Marvel Studios is slowly assembling a version of The Thunderbolts too.

Well, if it was up to Cate Shortland a sequel would be in the cards.

While speaking with the Radio Times, the Black Widow director Cate Shortland has revealed that she could see a sequel could happen with another character and that she’s already game to return to make it, if Marvel decided to do that.

“I think following a different character, yes. I think Scarlett is really happy that she’s leaving the party, you know, and she’s not the last to leave. She decided she wanted to go. And I don’t think she would want to come back at the moment,” the filmmaker told the Radio Times when asked about the possibility of a sequel and alluding to Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova taking over the mantle.

Cate Shortland also sounds interested in returning for this hypothetical sequel, “I mean, all the beautiful fights and the spectacle, and I think just creating something really fun and joyous is pretty addictive. So yeah, I would do it again. Yes.”

Black Widow will hit theaters and Premier Access on July 9.

BLACK WIDOW – In Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger. Directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige, the movie stars Scarlett Johansson reprising her role as Natasha Romanoff. Florence Pugh stars as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian, and Rachel Weisz as Melina Vostokoff.

SOURCE: RADIO TIMES

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‘Kill Bill 3’: Quentin Tarantino Would Cast Uma Thurman’s Daughter Maya Hawke As The Adult Version Of B.B.

There are heap of projects that Quentin Tarantino talks-up during interviews that will likely never see the light of day, one good example is his Vega Brothers film that was his white whale project that he would talk about that ultimately couldn’t be made because Michael Madsen and John Travolta aged-out of those roles decades ago.

Another one he consistently talks about is the fabled Kill Bill 3, set 20 years after the events of Kill Bill Vol.1 and Kill Bill Vol.2 that sees Beatrix Kiddo aka The Bride and her daughter B.B. getting their own dose of revenge twisted upon them.

Quentin Tarantino has brought up Kill Bill 3 again while speaking with Joe Rogan to promote his new novelization of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (via The Playlist), mentioning that he would hire Uma Thurman’s real daughter to play the grown-up version of B.B. in the third movie. Actress Maya Hawke (Fear Street, Little Women, Once Upon At Time In Hollywood) having recently worked with Tarantino isn’t hard to imagine that would have been a good fit.

“I think it’s just revisiting the characters twenty years later and just imagining the Bride and her daughter, Bebe, having 20 years of peace, and then that peace is shattered,” he explained. “And not the Bride and Bebe are on the run and just the idea of being able to cast Uma [Thurman] and cast her daughter Maya [Hawke] in the thing would be fucking exciting,” Tarantino said.

Interestingly enough, the original B.B. actress from Kill Bill Vol. 2 does appear briefly in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, as Perla Haney-Jardine plays the girl that sells Cliff Booth the acid soaked joint.

Tarantino also mused about other potential characters that could appear, “Elle Driver is still out there, Sophie Fatale got her arm cut off, but she’s still out there. They all got Bill’s money. Actually, Gogo had a twin sister Shiaki and so her twin sister could show up.”

As far was we know, neither Kill Bill 3 or his hypothetical remake of Reservoir Dogs will actually be his tenth and final film. However, I wouldn’t be shocked if Tarantino decided to give these ideas a mini-series treatment similar to what he plans to do with his six-part Bounty Law series.

SOURCE: JRE

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Quentin Tarantino Explains That Cliff Booth & Bruce Lee Match Was Inspired By Lee’s Documented Tension On ‘The Green Hornet’ Set With American Stuntmen

Quentin Tarantino is making the press rounds to promote his novelization of his Oscar-winning film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and the topic of the controversial scene with Bruce Lee was brought-up while speaking on the Joe Rogan podcast (via THR). Many people including Lee’s own daughter Shannon Lee took the fictional scene as disrespectful to the late actor, as it pretty much only showed him as being a boastful loud-mouth.

“I can understand his daughter having a problem with it, it’s her fucking father, I get that. But anybody else [can] go suck a dick. If you look at it, it’s obvious Cliff tricked him, that’s how he was able to [beat him,] it’s explained a bit more in the book,” Tarantino said of backlash towards the sequence.

Tarantino then cited Matthew Polly’s book Bruce Lee: A Life as one of the reasons for fictionalized match on the set of Green Hornet, “The stuntmen hated Bruce on The Green Hornet, it’s in Matthew Polly’s book. Bruce had nothing but disrespect for American stuntmen and was always hitting them. He was always tagging them with his feet and his fists and it got to the point where they refused to work with them.”

This isn’t a new revelation, as the filmmaker previously said that folks like Cliff Booth saw actors like Bruce Lee, who do their own stunts, as a threat to their business. A sort of changing of the guard and shift in the industry. It’s possible that Quentin Tarantino could have spent a little more time explaining that background perspective, tension with the stunt team, and potentially could have gave the characterization of Bruce Lee more scenes to establish that his time working on Green Hornet wasn’t actually pleasant for him.

His horrible experience working in Hollywood isn’t news to people that have followed the career of Bruce Lee. The legendary actor/martial artist (born in San Francisco) ultimately left Hollywood to pursue a second film career in Hong Kong as his options in America were limited being a man with Asian/Eurasian background. Bruce had been a child actor in Hong Kong before leaving for the United States. His first breakout role was in the 1950 film The Kid that he starred alongside his father, Lee Hoi-Chuen, a comic book film of all things.

One of the last straws was his horrible experience working in the television industry and after being mistreated on The Green Hornet, he attempted to land his own series with Kung Fu and the role of Kwai Chang Caine was ultimately gifted to a young David Carradine (Kill Bill) because of his famous father, John Carradine. Despite Carradine having zero experience with martial arts when he was hired, an obvious slight to Lee to hire a white actor to play an Asian character and felt he could have more success overseas.

Bruce Lee was indeed a headstrong personality as he famously ignored Chinese traditions by teaching westerners martial arts and writing books about the subject in English. This was seen as an act of hostility towards the martial arts community and caused lots of tension as he starred in Hong Kong films that essentially launched the Kung Fu film genre’s popularity in the United States. However, by most accounts Bruce was an intelligent, inclusive, and loving human being.

It’s also worth noting that Jackie Chan, who worked as a stunt man for Bruce Lee had nothing but kinds words about his experiences. And even recalls Bruce’s reaction when he accidentally struck him during their scenes together on Enter The Dragon.

Tarantino could have been a lot more tactful with his portrayal, for sure.

SOURCE: JRE

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Steve Buscemi Theorizes Mr. Pink From ‘Reservoir Dogs’ Got Away & Became The Buddy Holly Waiter In ‘Pulp Fiction’

Quentin Tarantino recently mused about remaking his first big directorial effort Reservoir Dogs as his final feature film, but also dismissed the idea in the same breath.

Cast member Steve Buscemi appeared on The Late Late Show With James Corden and revealed his own theory about the fate of his character Mr. Pink, the one character that seemingly got away from both the shootout and cops. What happened to Mr. Pink has long been a creative exercise but Buscemi is echoing a theory that sees him having a direct connection to Tarantino’s follow-up Pulp Fiction.

“I don’t know if anyone else thinks about this, but because my character of Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs was such a cheapskate, and he didn’t like to tip, I thought it was poetic justice that my next film with Quentin, I play a waiter. I even like to think that maybe Mr. Pink got away somehow in Reservoir Dogs and he’s hiding out as the Buddy Holly waiter. And he probably gets tipped terribly. That’s his fate,” Steve Buscemi told the late night host.

It’s certainly poetic justice, however, Mr. Pink would have had the diamonds from the heist, so there would have to be some extra explanation about what happened to the stolen goods that led him to become a waiter. Maybe, he’s a huge gambler and blew all the money making horrible bets or a rough weekend in Las Vegas. Then again, if he’s a cheapskate he could have a mental thing about spending that money.

RESERVOIR DOGS – Six criminals with pseudonyms, and each strangers to one another, are hired to carry out a robbery. The heist is ambushed by police and the gang are forced to shoot their way out. At their warehouse rendezvous, the survivors, realizing that they were set up, try to find the traitor in their midst.

SOURCE: THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH JAMES CORDEN

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‘Knives Out 2’: Ethan Hawke Spotted On Set In Greece Confirming He Has Joined The Sequel’s Cast

This week saw the start of production on John Wick: Chapter 4, Aquaman & The Lost Kingdom, Black Panther: Wakanda, and Rian Johnson’s sequel to Knives Out. The latter has seen a bunch of set photos trickle-out over the last couple of days and they’ve revealed a brand new casting addition.

Daily Mail has posted a heap of set photos from Greece that confirms that Ethan Hawke has joined the massive cast. His participation in Knives Out 2 is a little odd since he was supposed to have a major role in Marvel’s Moon Knight series, shooting in another country would give the impression that his reported villain role was smaller than we have originally imagined.

The impressive cast of Knives Out 2 already consists of Daniel Craig (No Time To Die), Dave Bautista (Blade Runner 2049, Spectre, Guardians of The Galaxy, Army of The Dead), Edward Norton (Fight Club, The Incredible Hulk, Rounders, Moonrise Kingdom), Janelle Monae (Moonlight, Hidden Figures), Kathryn Hahn (WandaVision), Jessica Henwick (The Matrix 4, Game of Thrones), Kate Hudson (Almost Famous), Madelyn Cline, and Leslie Odom Jr. (Murder On The Orient Express, One Night In Miami).

Craig returns as the comedic Southern detective Benoit Blanc as it seems like a group of Americans are the target of a new murder mystery in Greece, I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if it involves another bunch of rich/entitled characters if the set photos are anything to go by.

When the Knives Out sequels were first announced they made headlines because when Netflix closed a massive deal with Johnson and Craig worth a massive $400 million to secure the next two installments.

KNIVES OUT – The circumstances surrounding the death of crime novelist Harlan Thrombey are mysterious, but there’s one thing that renowned Detective Benoit Blanc knows for sure — everyone in the wildly dysfunctional Thrombey family is a suspect. Now, Blanc must sift through a web of lies and red herrings to uncover the truth.

SOURCE: THE DAILY MAIL

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Cameras Have Officially Started Rolling On ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ In Atlanta According To Kevin Feige

Well, it looks like director Ryan Coogler and Marvel Studios have started production slightly earlier than expected on their Black Panther sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Variety seems to have got word directly from Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige that filming has officially stared on the stages in Atlanta, Georgia on Tuesday. Adding that Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Daniel Kaluuya, Winston Duke, Lupita Nyong’o, Florence Kasumba, and Angela Bassett are expected to reprise their roles from the original.

While there have been many fan-fueled online rumors of how they’re going to be moving forward with the second film, Marvel brass has confirmed they will neither recast T’Challa nor use a digital version of the late Chadwick Boseman. This sort of leaves fans questioning what they ultimate plan to do here.

It’s not the only Marvel project shooting in Atlanta at the moment as Tatiana Maslany’s She-Hulk series is deep into production as we speak that will see the return of Mark Ruffalo’s Professor Hulk and Tim Roth’s Abomination, we recently got a sneak peek at the Hulk villain’s updated design in the latest trailer for Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings.

Disney has given Black Panther: Wakanda Forever a prime summer release date of July 8, 2022 and Ryan Coogler is developing a Wakanda series for Disney+ as well.

BLACK PANTHER – After the death of his father, T’Challa returns home to the African nation of Wakanda to take his rightful place as king. When a powerful enemy suddenly reappears, T’Challa’s mettle as king — and as Black Panther — gets tested when he’s drawn into a conflict that puts the fate of Wakanda and the entire world at risk. Faced with treachery and danger, the young king must rally his allies and release the full power of Black Panther to defeat his foes and secure the safety of his people.

SOURCE: VARIETY