Back in July, it was revealed that Justin Simien (“Haunted Mansion,” “Dear White People”) would no longer be developing the Lando Calrissian spinoff series, “Lando,” for Lucasfilm. Instead, the creative reins of the project would shift over to star Donald Glover (“Solo: A Star Wars Story) and his brother/writing partner Stephen Glover (“Atlanta”). It was sort of a shock that the studio was still pursuing the “Star Wars” project and potentially a welcome shift in development, as the Glovers are on quite a creative roll with their acclaimed FX series “Atlanta” getting a lot of attention.
Now, Stephen is suggesting during a podcast appearance on Pablo Torre Finds Out (See video below) that the project is no longer even a series but is pivoting towards becoming a feature film instead.
“It’s not even a show…I’m sure the nerds will figure it out anyway. They’ll read my lips or something…No, the idea right now is to do a movie. Right now because of the strike it’s kind of like ‘telephone,’ all the information coming out,” Glover said.
Could this be a way to attract “Solo” co-stars like Alden Ehrenreich and Emilia Clarke to reprise their roles after a shaky box office reception? I guess we’ll have to wait and see who exactly ends up appearing in this new movie incarnation.
Previously, both “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and “The Book of Boba Fett” started out as movies in development only to be snuffed out and resurrected as Disney+ original limited streaming series. However, given Lucasfilm’s current track record with slow crawl development on their recently announced feature films, we might not be getting “Lando” until 2030 or beyond (kidding, of course).
Lucasfilm’s growing number of films in development consists of one from Taika Waititi (“Thor: Ragnarok”), a force/Jedi origin film from James Mangold (“Logan”), Shawn Levy (“Deadpool 3”) is attached for another, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (“Ms. Marvel”) is tackling a film set 15 years after the events of “The Rise of Skywalker” with Daisy Ridley attached to reprise her role of Rey Skywalker, and Dave Filoni (“Ahsoka”) is going to be making his big jump from TV to the big screen with another mysterious film set during the timeline of the streaming shows which is years after “Return of The Jedi.” It’s really hard to too excited knowing that a lot of these movies could have a similar fate to “Star Wars: Rogue Squadron” where there is a moment of excitement from it’s announcement to a thud when it just gets tossed into limbo.
We should all be cautiously optimistic for the moment until cameras actually roll on it because there seem to be a lot of “Star Wars” films announced to be in “development” but not many are actually getting made. With the WGA strike way past the 100-day mark, it would suggest that not a whole lot of writing has been happening with many of these projects in recent months.
PTFO SOURCES: The new Star Wars show about Lando Calrissian — made by Donald Glover and @Steve_G_Lover — is not supposed to be a show.
Sometimes in the world of superhero films, there are a lot of “what-if” casting situations where actors might have auditioned or had been offered a role but that simply doesn’t come together. We’ve seen this with how Hugh Jackman was a replacement for Dougray Scott as Wolverine in the original “X-Men” film. Other examples include Tom Cruise nearly playing Iron Man and Leonardo DiCaprio playing Spider-Man for James Cameron. It looks like actress Aubrey Plaza had once almost scored a second Marvel Comics project on her belt with a part in “Deadpool 2.” Long before joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In a year-old interview with Cosmopolitan (spotted by Aubrey Plaza Updates), the comedic actress reveals that while she was still shooting the FX/Marvel series “Legion” (an “X-Men” adjacent project) she had auditioned for a role in “Deadpool 2” and all signs point towards the role of Domino, given that was the big female part that was being filled for the sequel.
“There are a lot of roles that I really wanted that I didn’t get, but everything happens for a reason. I don’t know, the one that sticks out to me for some reason I think it was ‘Deadpool 2’ I had just come off a plane and I think I was shooting ‘Legion’ at the time. And I really wasn’t in a good zone cause auditioning. You have to be in an auditioning zone and I was in a ‘work zone,’ that one hurt. Me and Ryan Reynolds, what could go wrong? We Would be great together,” Plaza said of nearly nabbing a part alongside Ryan Reynolds in “Deadpool 2.”
That part would eventually go to Zazie Beetz and oddly enough is one of the few previous actors not confirmed for a return in “Deadpool 3” (Then again, Josh Brolin’s Cable not returning is a little puzzling for us as well). There were others vying for that part as Mackenzie Davis was once in the mix. The exit of director Tim Miller seemed to stem from creative/casting frustrations and eventually saw Davis take a leading role in Miller’s “Terminator: Dark Fate” which had James Cameron’s involvement.
This isn’t an uncommon thing as “Eternals” actor Kumail Nanjiani almost played the Dopinder role in the first installment and that part would end up going to Karan Soni (returns for “Deadpool 3”), so, sometimes it does work out for the better. Perhaps, we’ll see Plaza and Reynolds tangle with each other in the MCU down the line since she’s part of the cast of the upcoming Disney+ series “Agatha.”
You can watch that full interview with Plaza below.
Aubrey Plaza says she auditioned for ‘DEADPOOL 2’ around the time she was shooting Marvel's ‘Legion’:
“I mean me and Ryan Reynolds, what could go wrong? We would be great together.” pic.twitter.com/nLSiIYoG0G
While producer/director Shawn Levy (“The Adam Project,” “Stranger Things”) is attending the Toronto International Film Festival to promote the Netflix series “All The Light We Cannot See,” he’s been talking up other projects in the works such as his big “X-Men” film under Marvel Studios, “Deadpool 3.” He confirmed that filming was only at the midway point before there was stoppage but that’s not the only massive project he’s cooking up at Disney that has been placed on pause.
Speaking with Collider, Levy gave some minor updates on the status of both his Disney+ series sequel to the Hugh Jackman-led sci-fi sports film “Real Steel” that was announced early last year and his mysterious “Star Wars” movie for Lucasfilm. Levy assures fans of the film that the sequel show is very much “alive” but just like with the film development halted when the WGA strike kicked in (AMPTP refuses to make a good-faith counteroffer to the unions and get everyone back to work by making a fair deal) and the “Star Wars” film is also in a similar situation. It’s still happening, but on hold until the strikes are resolved.
“We were just starting the process of developing my movie, and the writer strike happened. So we are in that holding pattern that so much of our industry is in,” Levy told Collider of the status of his new “Star Wars” movie. And on the ‘Real Steel’ series he said, “Same, I could literally say, ‘See above.’ Same. Still, as I told you, I want it as badly as the lovers of ‘Real Steel’ want it, so alive, but paused.”
Back in 2022, the director was quick to suggest to Collider how protective he is of the property and if they weren’t to get a good idea going, Levy would rather just not make the show.
“But I will say that we heard a lot of pitches. And I realized, over the course of those pitches, that I am fiercely protective of ‘Real Steel.’ I’d rather make no show than the wrong show. And I finally heard a take that takes the lore of the movie and does some really exciting things with it. I’m finally getting really excited about where we’re headed.”
The Amblin project focused on fighting robots didn’t exactly become a huge earner at the box office, $300 million on a production budget of $110 million. However, a series revival might be a bit more attractive given that Jackman’s co-stars would eventually get their own Marvel Comics roles with Evangeline Lilly playing an incarnation of The Wasp and Anthony Mackie (doing a lot of TV lately) originally taking the role of The Falcon only to eventually take the Captain American mantle from Chris Evans.
I think the biggest question going on here is, does Hugh Jackman want to make a limited series? Answering that might be slightly easier with Levy and Jackman reuniting for “Deadpool 3” where the director could eventually convince the Aussie actor to do it. Pending on a really good reason to make a follow-up.
When it comes to “Star Wars” it feels like Lucasfilm/Disney is more interested in making announcements about future films than actually completing them. Some of those growing feature films consist of one from Taika Waititi (“Thor: Ragnarok”), a force/Jedi origin film from James Mangold (“Logan”), Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (“Ms. Marvel”) is tackling a film set 15 years after the events of “The Rise of Skywalker” with Daisy Ridley attached to reprise her role of Rey Skywalker, and Dave Filoni (“Ahsoka”) is going to be making his big jump from TV to the big-screen with another mysterious film set during the timeline of the streaming shows which is years after “Return of The Jedi” (Expected to potentially see the return of Luke, Leia, and Han in some sort of form). It will be surprising if any of these movies crossed the finish line given how many have been scrapped or retooled into Disney+ shows like “Kenboi” and “The Book of Boba Fett.”
“Ahsoka” is currently airing on Disney+ with other live-action shows such as “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew” and The High Republic-era series “The Acolyte” (will be littered with Jedi characters) on the horizon.
Lucasfilm is starting to get just as well-known for not making “Star Wars” live-action projects as much as completing them. One of the more interesting projects that got snuffed out early on was a film that screenwriter/producer Simon Kinberg (“Dark Phoenix”) and director Josh Trank (“Chronicle”) were said to be developing before Trank’s working relationship with Kinberg dissolved on their remake of “The Fantastic Four.” The fallout from those events seemed to have led Lucasfilm to pass on the film opting to instead move forward with things like “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” itwas always said their film was the original film incarnation of a solo “Boba Fett” film.
During a recent interview with Polygon to promote the Apple TV+ series “Invasion,” Kinberg revealed that the project he had been writing for Lucasfilm was indeed a feature film focused on Boba Fett, a longtime rumor that seemingly has now been confirmed by the man himself. Also, detailing how exactly he got involved with the film side of things as he would eventually co-create “Star Wars: Rebels.”
“Very early on, like, at the inception of Kathy Kennedy coming aboard to join George Lucas in what would be the new Lucasfilm and the new Star Wars movies, they hired me, Lawrence Kasdan [screenwriter of Empire Strikes Back], and Michael Arndt [Toy Story 3, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire] as kind of mini writers room. We went up to Skywalker Ranch and spent a couple of weeks up there talking about what the potential new movies could be. And so initially, I think the ask was: Just come up and break ideas and stories and brainstorm with two other people. Then Michael, Larry, and I each talked about writing a different Star Wars movie. Michael wrote J.J.’s first Star Wars movie, then Larry Kasdan rewrote it. Larry wrote the Han Solo movie, and I was gonna write a different one,” Kinberg told Polygon of how he got involved with the franchise and confirmed that “Boba Fett” was that “different one.”
Kinberg also mentioned briefly that he was hoping to get a tone similar to the Wolverine solo pic, “Logan,” which he produced during his time as a major steward of the “X-Men” franchise.”
I mean, it’s all pretty sci-fi, but I think “hard” is the right word. Tonally like ‘Logan.’ On the edge of R-rated, though I don’t think you’d have a ‘Star Wars’ movie that could be R-rated.”
“But at any rate, I think over time, my role morphed as a friend of the court. And so it ranged from being a consultant on the movies, give thoughts, notes, sometimes actual pages for scripts, and obviously co-creating ‘Star Wars: Rebels’ and really staying with that show that I loved. Part of what was so exciting about Rebels was that we were getting to do something that those movies I just mentioned didn’t entirely do, which is create a brand-new set of characters.”
Of course, Boba Fett wouldn’t get his solo film but instead, we started out with a cameo from actor Temuera Morrison stepping into the armor for the second season of “The Mandalorian” only for the character to land his own solo series on Disney+ called “The Book of Boba Fett” that saw the bounty hunter return to Tattooine to became a criminal syndicate leader.
Lastly, Kinberg was asked to give an update on his “Logan’s Run” remake and if that is still hoping to get made, a project that has been in development for ages now at Warner Bros. since his attachment back in 2018. There were a good amount of directors previously involved such as Bryan Singer, Nicholas Winding Refn (“Drive”), and Joseph Kosinski (“Top Gun: Maverick) to name a few. Some heavyweight screenwriters such as Alex Garland and Christopher McQuarrie were once tapped to give the script a once over as well.
“I hope so! I think there’s enough specificity to ‘Logan’s Run’ concept in terms of the age clock that makes it pretty different,” Kinberg said.
Based on the 1967 novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson the 1976 film starred British actors Michael York and Jenny Agutter as young members of a dystopian future in 2274 that looks to cull anyone from the population that turns 30 via a ritual event referred to as “Carrousel,” where members of the population who have turned 30 essentially kill themselves for the enjoyment of the others. The people assigned to capture/kill anyone who runs from this gruesome fate are called The Sandmen. When one of the Sandmen becomes a runner himself alongside Jessica 6 (Agutter) they both discover throughout a dangerous adventure the true nature of their society and that, in fact, people can become old.
While a bulk of the Hollywood film and television productions have been placed on hiatus during the writers/actors strikes, a handful of projects are getting some interim agreements with SAG-AFTRA allowing for them to move forward into filming. One of the those upcoming projects is a new sci-fi thriller, “The Astronaut,” hailing from writer/director Jess Varley and will begin shooting next month in Ireland.
Deadline is now reporting that Kate Mara (“The Martian”) is set to play the titular astronaut in the film, Sam Walker. She will appear in the project alongside fellow cast members Laurence Fishburne (“John Wick 4”) and Gabriel Luna (“The Last of Us”).
The outlet also provided a logline for the sci-fi film:
In the pic, astronaut Sam Walker (Mara) returns from her first space mission. She’s found miraculously alive in a punctured capsule floating deep off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Expecting to be reunited with her husband (Luna), she finds herself placed under intense NASA surveillance in a high security house for rehabilitation and medical testing under the control of General William Harris (Fishburne). However, when disturbing occurrences begin happening around the property, she fears that something extraterrestrial has followed her back to Earth.
The producing team assembled for “The Astronaut” consists of Fuller Media’s Brad Fuller (Paramount’s “A Quiet Place” and “A Quiet Place Part II,” Universal’s “The Purge” films) and Cameron Fuller, alongside Wonder Company’s Eric B. Fleischman (J.D. Dillard’s “Sleight”) and Chris Abernathy (“Barbarian”). Highland Film Group is handling the foreign rights to the movie at TIFF while CAA Media Finance and the UTA Independent Film Group are co-repping domestic rights.
Just yesterday, it was revealed that “Deadpool 3” was only halfway into production when filming was paused in the United Kingdom. Not only that, but the film’s director Shawn Levy (“Stranger Things,” “The Adam Project”) revealed that the first “X-Men” film under Marvel Studios would be a “descendant” of classic hybrid comedies like “Midnight Run,” “48 Hours,” and “Planes, Trains, & Automobiles.” A clear confirmation that Ryan Reynolds got his “road trip movie” with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, which was his original idea from the jump for the third installment.
But that isn’t the only thing the Canadian director is dishing about the sequel.
Levy is doing press rounds at the Toronto International Film Festival for the upcoming Netflix series “All The Light We Cannot See” and was asked to comment about his reaction to all the rumors surrounding “Deadpool 3.” Signaling that not everything rumored on the internet about the film is actually accurate, what a shocker.
“I’d rather not weigh in on that, but I’ll say this,” Levy teases when asked to comment on the endless string of casting/character rumors. “The rumors of actors, singers, sports stars who are all apparently in ‘Deadpool 3’ are fabulous. If all I read was the internet, I would have the greatest cast ever assembled in the history of cinema, so I’ll simply say that some of those rumors are true, and some of them aren’t.”
The laundry list of who has been rumored for the film is a mile-long from Channing Tatum getting to play his version of Gambit (after the solo film was snuffed out) to the entire cast of all Fox-era Marvel films showing up. The latter just sounds like a miserable waste of a film’s runtime to be nothing but a cameo factory for characters that won’t be carrying over to the mainline MCU. However, Levy does seemingly refer to the Taylor Swift as Dazzler rumbling specifically (something that already seemed fishy since she is famously on a massive tour and way too busy). We should point out that the report of Jennifer Garner reprising the Elektra role was widely circulated by trade outlets and likely means that one is the real deal. Other rumors without much backing from trades or any might be less real.
On the topic of putting Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in a version of the comic book costume, the director wasn’t hiding his personal excitement.
“Like the rest of the world, I’ve waited two decades to see Wolverine in a whole movie with Deadpool, and I don’t know if this is our last shot at Wolverine on screen, so I was going to make goddamned sure we get the old yellow and blue just once, and that we get it right,” Levy told EW. “It also helps that I’m making this movie within the MCU, so I have access to an army of the nerdiest nerds available to a Marvel project,” he continued when talking about the multiple iterations the Wolverine suit underwent.
Others officially returning to the franchise alongside Reynolds include Morena Baccarin, Brianna Hildebrand, Shioli Kutsuna, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, Stefan Kapicic, and Rob Delaney. Some of those new casting additions on “Deadpool 3” are Emma Corrin (“The Crown”) and Matthew Macfadyen (“Succession”), who are expected to be playing villains. We’ll likely have to wait on Marvel to confirm/debunk other cast members that have been rumored for the last couple of months/years along with the rumored plot elements including the TVA and the Multiverse (Set photos seemingly have confirmed the potential destruction of the Foxverse).
One of the many films that were in the middle of filming before the Hollywood strikes impacted productions and placed them on hiatus was “Deadpool 3.” It will be the first big “X-Men” movie made by Marvel Studios after acquiring the franchise during the events of Disney’s merger with 21st Century and there were some high expectations when it landed a Marvel-level budget. When it was revealed that Hugh Jackman would be reprising the Wolverine role after giving a perfect send-off to the character in “Logan” there were some skeptical fans worried. Jackman has since tried to ease the nerves of die-hards by saying the film takes place before those events.
Director Shawn Levy (“Stranger Things”), who has recently worked with Ryan Reynolds on “The Adam Project” and “Free Guy,” was tapped to helm the film that had been shooting in the United Kingdom. He’s now talking about the film with Deadline and says the sequel is “very much an R-rated film,” reiterating every single other person from Disney or Marvel when speaking publicly about “Deadpool 3.”
“I’ll say this while making [‘Deadpool 3’], I only know how to make something that I love. Long before I loved Ryan Reynolds, I loved ‘Deadpool.’ ‘Deadpool 1’ is, to me, a perfect movie and so I wasn’t going to mess with the DNA of that franchise. Our movie is raw, its audacious, very much R-rated. We went to great lengths not to shoot it on soundstages with digital environments,” Levy said of the new sequel.
The filmmaker also suggested what films he’d compare “Deadpool 3″ to, I would say it’s more a descendant of ‘Mightnight Run,” and “48 Hours,” and “Planes, Trains & Automobiles.” I guess this means that Reynolds finally got his road trip Deadpool movie with Wolverine, which was said to be the original concept of his idea back when Fox was developing the film.
Filming isn’t expected to resume until the strikes have been resolved and with no end in sight, that likely means that fans should be preparing themselves for a release delay on a bunch of upcoming films, including “Deadpool 3” and other Marvel projects.
Earlier this year, with “Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3” we saw what could potentially be the final Marvel Studios film from writer/director James Gunn as the filmmaker is going off to shoot “Superman: Legacy” next year alongside running DC Studios and developing more DCU projects that he’ll end up making himself like “Creature Commandos.” Marvel is still looking to mine the cosmic side of the MCU with the Skrulls revealed to be on Earth in “Secret Invasion,” “The Marvels” releasing in November as we’ll see the return of the Kree Empire as villains, and an upcoming “Nova” project also in the works focusing on the space hero after the destruction of the Nova Corps. at the hands of Thanos.
The Disney+ original “I Am Groot” has returned with a second season focusing on the little rascal in quirky/inventive shorts, and seems like director Kirsten Lepore (“Adventure Time”) after tackling two seasons of the animated shorts would be willing to fill Gunn’s seat as director on the next “Guardians of The Galaxy.” While speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, it was brought up about the potential of Lepore continuing the franchise by helming the next “Guardians” installment.
“Yeah, I’m open to it, for sure. Years ago, I was like, ‘I definitely want to do live-action!’ I was trying to move into live-action, and now, I think I’m more at peace. I don’t even want to say ‘at peace’ because I’m not settling. I love animation so much. I think I better understand what I bring to animation because it does take a really specific type of person to direct it. I’ve been doing it for so long and I feel very comfortable in that space, and I feel good at it. So I really enjoy working in animation — and I would be totally happy to work in animation for the rest of my life — but I would also be very curious to experiment with live-action,” Lepore responded when asked about directing the next “Guardians of The Galaxy” feature film.
It’s not like “Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3” didn’t leave room for more installments it ends with Peter Quill on Earth trying to reconnect with his grandfather and homeworld. Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) is now the team’s leader with Groot (Vin Diesel), Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), Cosmo (Maria Bakalova), Kraglin (Sean Gunn), Phyla (Kai Zen), and Blurp on the new roster going on missions.
Lepore isn’t exactly unfamiliar with feature films after having been the animation director on the Oscar-nominated animated film “Marcel The Shell With ShoesOn,” and worked as a VFX artist on recent Best Picture winner “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” Having someone with an effects background might be sort of an asset if more than half the members of the new Guardians lineup are going to be digital characters. Marvel has hired directors from within the studio that have previously worked on MCU projects. Seeing Lepore recruited for a hypothetical “Guardians of The Galaxy 4” after already working closely with the studio on “I Am Groot” (already working with Diesel and Cooper) wouldn’t be all that shocking.
“I Am Groot” is currently streaming on Disney+ and you can watch the series trailer below.
Amblin Entertainment, DreamWorks, and Universal Pictures partnered to bring one of the longest-gestating horror projects in Hollywood of recent memory to the big screen. “The Last Voyage of The Demeter” was first announced as a being in development all the way back in 2003. A new take on a somewhat familiar Dracula tale as it would place the iconic vampire on the high seas, something that had been hinted towards in things like Francis Ford Coppola’s definitive modern take “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” back in 1992. The events of the film fill the month-long gap in the original “Dracula” novel as the Captain’s Log chapter teased a brutal journey from Romania to the coast of Whitby, England as crew members keep getting picked off one by one at night by the roaming vampire.
“Last Voyage of The Demeter” starts out well enough with a caravan of weary villagers delivering mysterious crates of dirt bound for the shores of England. But we’re all too aware of the looming threat and this makes it really hard to get too scared or surprised about what is about to happen since we have a really good idea of how things will end since most Dracula films include the wreckage of The Demeter along with the angle that nobody has survived. The film does a mostly good job of trying to introduce us to The Demeter’s Captain (played by “Game of Thrones” actor Liam Cunningham) and a surly veteran crew made up of mostly drunkard deckhands with a lone religious zealot acting as the ship’s cook.
Hard to not notice that David Fincher already got there first with his “Love Death + Robots” episode “Bad Travelling” tackling a similar ravenous creature threat on a boat in the animation medium. However, the live-action film has some extremely violent and inventive kills mixing both the gore of a vampire killing their victim and some extra lore that wasn’t expected. Speaking of the violence, there are some specifically gruesome scenes that make me question if kids under 13 could handle the violence, I wouldn’t recommend young kids that might be trying to venture into the horror genre picking this movie as their first go at an R-rated vampire movie. That said, fans of slashers and gory vampire movies will likely enjoy how far Norwegian director André Øvredal goes with the kills.
Corey Hawkins, of course, is our lead and isn’t a stranger to genre projects having previously worked on “The Walking Dead” and “Kong: Skull Island” but the character choice of a British accent can be distracting at times, even though, his character is said to be educated as a doctor at Cambridge University, and helps establish him as “a man of science” but still able to believe something supernatural is going on. At certain times, it feels like a miscalculation on Amblin’s part not to have cast someone like Daniel Kaluuya (“Nope”) or Damson Idris (“Snowfall”) for the part of Clemens, an actor actually from England with a natural accent. While Hawkins did a fine job acting scared and over his head, that certainly was an issue I kept replaying through the film when the accent didn’t work or he slightly struggled to keep it throughout his massive amount of dialogue. Then again, it wasn’t as bad as some other American actors that I won’t be naming and he does a solid job as the lead.
Helping Hawkins out in supporting roles are Aisling Franciosi and David Dastmalchian playing Anna and Wojchek respectively. Anna adds much-needed exposition for the crew giving them some idea of what they’re up against. Dastmalchian’s Wojchek plays the skeptical first mate that seems to fit the best in the film and the actor certainly is aware of what he needs to do in that role. Cunningham as Captain Eliot adds some gravitas when needed in the first act but the veteran seadog takes the backseat to the younger cast members.
Some of the film’s other highlights include the production design of the ship, some of the compartments feel way too big at times like the cargo hold, certainly feels like a ship from the era but it would have been nice to lean more into a claustrophibic angle of being on a ship. Still, the ship feels like an eerie character of its own and that’s super important given this is really our main set for the bulk of the story.
Here come my biggest gripes with the horror film. The other crew members sort of blend together and you sort of forget certain ones are still alive when they show up in scenes. While their deaths are fun to watch for the pure gory madness, there isn’t much in the way of connection to them as people when they do die because they haven’t had much time to present themselves as fully formed characters. Maybe that was done by design? The most impactful death scenes were the characters we got to know better.
Another minor but important issue I had, I’m not terribly convinced that CGI vampires work for me. I know that actor Javier Botet was playing Count Dracula in some well-framed practical shots, but the use of digital effects in parts made the scariness levels drop dramatically for me. There are spots when it’s hard to differentiate what is practical and what is enhanced with digital VFX. The underwhelming design of Dracula also is a glaring problem even when he’s in England and I wished he at least had a less Count Orlok vibe to him since Robert Eggers’ remake of “Nosferatu” isn’t far from release. We’ve also seen this design resurrected multiple times for the two incarnations of “What We Do In The Shadows” and felt like something we’d see in the “Underworld” films. Not terribly original, in my opinion. When you make a creature-driven horror film it lives or dies on the scariness of your creature’s design, I’m sure others will disagree but I didn’t find the design all great.
I think the actors and director manage well with what feels like a mundane script. Some of the scenes with crew members between the kills and leading up to them feel like they could have been polished a bit more and as previously pointed out a little more character depth for the supporting crew would have been nice.
I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if director André Øvredal ends up being recruited for the next installment of “Friday The 13th” as he has the chops for the slasher genre and could add something to one of the more high-profile franchises. Most of the direction works, but, there are times when I sort of wanted less lingering shots of Dracula (I’m sure meant to highlight the painstaking makeup) or close-ups. But in the end, it’s very much a competent and ambitious horror film that stretches a $45 million budget into something that certainly feels much bigger than that. Øvredal will keep getting steady work given the quality he was able to do here with a project that had been lingering in development limbo for two decades.
There have been previous comparisons to Ridley Scott’s “Alien” and they are apt, but hearing that beforehand sort of inserted the idea this could have worked better as an original sci-fi horror film given the plot beats are still different enough from previous “Alien” films it might have been able to exchange Dracula for an alien beast. Oh well, I’m sure someone will get that bright idea and make a sci-fi version in the future.
Without spoiling anything, they do sort of end the film with the hint that there could be a sequel set during Dracula’s well-explored reign of terror in Victorian-era London. I’m reminded of both Tom Cruise’s “The Mummy” and “Dracula: Untold” getting sequel-bait endings leading to nothing. I wished the film had done better at the box office but I can understand how a period horror film might have been a harder sell during a busy summer season of ups and downs. Even more so after Universal had already released an underwhelming Dracula earlier in the year with “Reinfeld.” Curious to think how “Last Voyage of The Demeter” would have done with audiences 10-15 years ago.
If you’re a big horror fan I think you’ll enjoy it as much as I did, but for older folks looking for something more thought-provoking and mature like horror pics such as “The Witch” or “Midsommar” you’re not going to get that here.
Legendary is making sure that their Monsterverse franchise keeps expanding and a new spinoff series is expected to help with exactly that. Originally titled “Godzilla & The Titans,” the upcoming Apple TV+ series retitled “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” is set to debut mid-November and aims to explore the origins of the secretive global organization Monarch. The group has been tasked for decades to not only keep the existence of Titans a secret but also have spent that same time researching them. It’s unknown if any of the new characters will make the ultimate jump to the feature films, but it wouldn’t be that shocking if the streaming series does end up planting seeds for the next solo “Godzilla” installment after “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is released next year.
The series has multiple directors handling episodes but the one that stands out is Matt Shakman, who previously worked on Marvel’s “WandaVision” and is still attached to helm their high-profile reboot of “The Fantastic Four.” It also sees both Kurt Russell and son Wyatt Russell (“The Falcon & The Winter Soldier,” “Overlord”) working together on the same project, as they play the same character on the show, Army Officer Lee Shaw. But in different periods of the character’s life as part of Monarch.
Apple has released a first-look teaser trailer, which you can view below. The 10-episode run will debut in November with the first two episodes, followed by one episode every Friday through January 12.
Here is the show’s official logline via Apple:
Following the thunderous battle between Godzilla and the Titans that leveled San Francisco, and the shocking revelation that monsters are real, “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” tracks two siblings following in their father’s footsteps to uncover their family’s connection to the secretive organization known as Monarch. Clues lead them into the world of monsters and ultimately down the rabbit hole to Army Officer Lee Shaw (played by Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell), taking place in the 1950s and half a century later when Monarch is threatened by what Shaw knows. Based on the Monsterverse from Legendary, and starring Kurt Russell, Wyatt Russell, Anna Sawai, Kiersey Clemons, Ren Watabe, Mari Yamamoto, Anders Holm, Joe Tippett, and Elisa Lasowski, this dramatic saga — spanning three generations — reveals buried secrets and the ways that epic, earth-shattering events can reverberate through our lives.
As mentioned, “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” will debut this November 17 on Apple TV+ and next year will see Adam Wingard’s “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” hit the big screen on April 12. Although given multiple release dates being shuffled around, it’s possible that the latter date could shift in the coming months.
THE RONIN 