Tag: The Tomorrow War

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‘Renfield’: Nicholas Hoult To Lead Universal Monster Horror-Comedy From ‘Tomorrow War’ Director Chris McKay

Universal Pictures is trying to develop a bunch of various films within the Universal Monsters branding and an upcoming project is one focused on Dracula’s familiar Renfield. The project was developed from a story idea by Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead, Invincible) and has a script from Rick & Morty writer Ryan Ridley.

It was originally going to be directed by Dexter Fletcher (Eddie The Eagle, Rocketman) but has since been replaced with Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie, The Tomorrow War).

McKay compared the film to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2 when speaking with The Hollywood Reporter giving us an idea of what to expect from the horror pic’s tone.

“Renfield is a story about Dracula’s assistant set in modern times, and it’s kind of a codependency success story. And it’s a comedy. It’s a horror movie. It’s an action movie. It’s about bad bosses. It’s written by Ryan Ridley, who worked on Rick and Morty, and it’s a really funny and emotional. It’s gonna be like a hard-R action movie, crazy-violent in an Evil Dead 2 kind of way. That’s gonna be fun,” the filmmaker revealed about his upcoming Renfield project at Universal Pictures. 

Deadline has now revealed that British actor Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: First Class, Mad Max: Fury Road, Those Who Wish Me Dead) has been tapped to star just a week after landing the Searchlight thriller The Menu co-starring with Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes.

The film is said to be set during present day.

Universal is also developing a new Wolf Man film starring Ryan Gosling and a Dracula hybrid genre film from Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao (Nomadland, Eternals), the latter might already have quietly started shooting.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Chris McKay Compares His Horror-Comedy ‘Renfield’ Movie To ‘Evil Dead 2’; ‘Rick & Morty’s Ryan Ridley Wrote The Hard-R Universal Monsters Pic

The Tomorrow War director Chris McKay was announced as replacing Dexter Fletcher (Rocketman, The Saint) on Universal’s Renfield movie, based on the Dracula assistant, and part of their Universal Monsters umbrella. The kicker is that the horror film will be a comedy written by Rick & Morty’s Ryan Ridley and McKay is teasing that it’s violence will be taking cues from Sam Raimi’s beloved Evil Dead 2.

“Renfield is a story about Dracula’s assistant set in modern times, and it’s kind of a codependency success story. And it’s a comedy. It’s a horror movie. It’s an action movie. It’s about bad bosses. It’s written by Ryan Ridley, who worked on Rick and Morty, and it’s a really funny and emotional. It’s gonna be like a hard-R action movie, crazy-violent in an Evil Dead 2 kind of way. That’s gonna be fun,” the filmmaker revealed about his upcoming Renfield project at Universal Pictures. 

If you’re unfamiliar with the 1987 film directed by Sam Raimi, it was pretty much a remake of the previous Evil Dead film, however, taking a slapstick angle as the original was a slightly more straightforward horror movie without as many comedic elements. 

Ryan Ridley is part a group of Rick & Morty writers moving into the realm of live-action projects as Michael Waldron is behind the Loki series, worked with Sam Raimi on Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, and is attached for untitled Star Wars movie that will be produced by Kevin Feige. Jessica Gao is the head writing on Marvel’s She-Hulk series and Jeff Loveness is behind the script for Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania.

EVIL DEAD 2 – The second of three films in the Evil Dead series is part horror, part comedy, with Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) once again battling horrifying demons at a secluded cabin in the woods. After discovering an audiotape left by a college professor that contains voices reading from the Book of the Dead, Ash’s girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) becomes possessed by evil spirits that are awakened by the voices on the tape. Ash soon discovers there is no escaping the woods.

SOURCE: VARIETY

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Director Chris McKay Teases ‘The Tomorrow War’ Sequels

Last week saw the debut of Chris McKay’s sci-fi action film The Tomorrow War, while there have been mixed reviews, as a streaming film all Amazon is going to care about is how many people watched it and for how long. The filmmaker spoke with Variety over the weekend and teased potential ideas for future installments if the studio/streamer want to pursue them.

“We had such a fun design process. We talked about the world of these creatures, where they came from, how they were created or raised, and how they were maybe being used. I like world-building experiments, especially when you have the potential of some kind of time travel. I think that a sequel could go in a lot of fun areas and the ethnographic study of the whitespikes in their world and where they came from, and what their purpose was, and all of that kind of thing. So yeah, I think that could be a lot of fun. And with this cast, too, we’re just getting started,” Chris McKay told Variety on the potential of follow-up films.

While Chris McKay is keen for multiple films, neither Skydance/Paramount Pictures or Amazon have announced official plans for more films.

I watched it myself and while there were some interesting elements like their jump to the future and enlisting regular people, I almost fell asleep a couple of times while watching it and there were some questionable character/story choices and some odd things technical-level.

However, I’m sure there will be plenty of people willing to watch sequels.

THE TOMORROW WAR – The world is stunned when a group of time travelers arrive from the year 2051 to deliver an urgent message: Thirty years in the future mankind is losing a global war against a deadly alien species. The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians from the present to be transported to the future and join the fight. Among those recruited is high school teacher and family man Dan Forester (Chris Pratt). Determined to save the world for his young daughter, Dan teams up with a brilliant scientist (Yvonne Strahovski) and his estranged father (J.K. Simmons) in a desperate quest to rewrite the fate of the planet.

SOURCE: VARIETY

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‘The Tomorrow War’ Teaser Trailer: Chris Pratt Fights Aliens In Time-Traveling Action Flick Releasing This July On Amazon Prime Video

In The Tomorrow War, the world is stunned when a group of time travelers arrive from the year 2051 to deliver an urgent message: Thirty years in the future mankind is losing a global war against a deadly alien species. The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians from the present to be transported to the future and join the fight. Among those recruited is high school teacher and family man Dan Forester (Chris Pratt). Determined to save the world for his young daughter, Dan teams up with a brilliant scientist (Yvonne Strahovski) and his estranged father (J.K. Simmons) in a desperate quest to rewrite the fate of the planet.

It stars Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, J.K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Edwin Hodge, Jasmine Mathews, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, and Keith Powers.

The sci-fi film directed by Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie) was originally going to be released theatrically by Paramount Pictures only for the film to be sold-off to Amazon Prime Video for the hefty price of $200 million and will be streaming starting July 2, 2021.

Tomorrow War isn’t the only Paramount Pictures action movie picked-up by Prime Video as the Michael B. Jordan franchise starter Without Remorse will hit Amazon this Friday. Without Remorse focuses on John Kelly/Clark, a CIA operator that lives in the world of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan franchise. You might be aware of Amazon’s popular Jack Ryan series led by John Krasinski, which likely made the film very attractive to the streaming giant.

It remains to be seen if either The Tomorrow War or Without Remorse will lead to sequels, despite originally signing-on to reprise John in a Rainbow Six movie too.

Posted on in Film News

‘Tomorrow War’ Director Chris McKay Tapped For Universal Monster Flick ‘Renfield’

A while back it was announced that Rocketman and Eddie The Eagle director Dexter Fletcher was circling a new Universal Monsters project focused on Count Dracula’s brainwashed lackey, Renfield. The script is penned by Rick & Morty’s Ryan Ridley based on an original outline from Robert Kirkman (Walking Dead, Invincible), Ridley’s involvement suggesting a comedic-bend to the horror movie.

Fletcher has exited the project to focus on Paramount’s The Saint reboot starring Chris Pine and Universal has hired Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie, The Tomorrow War) to replace him as director, according to Deadline.

Renfield believed if he was loyal enough, his master Dracula would give him immortality and is institutionalized. The incarnation of Renfield that standouts personally for me is Tom Waits’ take in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula from 1992 that starred Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, and Keanu Reeves.

The studio attempted to re-brand the Universal Monsters by launching their own modern cinematic universe, Dark Universe, starring with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy only for the film to flop. Leading the studio to kill the Dark Universe and retool their plans by getting Leigh Whannell to direct a new take on The Invisible Man with the help of Jason Blum’s Blumhouse. Renfield is part of a wave of new Universal Monsters projects, the next one is expected to be a Wolfman remake from Whannell and starring Ryan Gosling. Some of the other movies include a genre-hybrid Dracula remake from Chloe Zhao (Eternals, Nomadland), Van Helsing from director Julius Avery (Overlord), talk of the studio still trying to get a director attached for a Bridge of Frankenstein remake and other various films in development.

McKay’s sci-fi action flick The Tomorrow War starring Chris Pratt was recently sold by Paramount to Amazon for a hefty $200+ million and will be released on July 2, 2021.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

‘The Tomorrow War’: Amazon Reportedly Offering $200M To Buy Chris Pratt Sci-Fi Movie From Paramount

A report from Deadline is claiming that Amazon has now offered Skydance/Paramount a hefty $200 million to secure the rights to their upcoming sci-fi action film The Tomorrow War, which stars Guardians of The Galaxy and Jurassic World actor Chris Pratt.

Tonight, Amazon has aggressively offered $200M. The deal is still not done. Amazon recently bought Paramount’s Coming 2 America for $125M, which was set to debut during the year-end holiday corridor, and Skydance’s Without Remorse which was also set to get a theatrical release via Paramount this past autumn.

It was directed by The Lego Batman Movie‘s Chris McKay and we’re still waiting on more significant promotion materials from the film including a first-look trailer.

The film follows a man (played by Chris Pratt) who is drafted to fight a future war in which the fate of humanity relies on his ability to confront his past. 

As pointed out by Deadline, this wouldn’t be the first film that Amazon has picked up from either studio which should give them an edge on other suitors at major streaming services alongside the hefty offer. They’re quick to point that this has yet to be accepted or finalized.

In all likelihood they’re moving quickly on securing a deal quickly, so that Amazon can piece together promo materials for the upcoming Super Bowl, normally a place where studios spend a lot of money to promote upcoming films. However, given the uncertainty of release dates we might end up seeing more spending from the streaming side this year.

Pratt recently completed work on Jurassic World: Dominion for Universal Pictures, has seemingly started or about to begin work in Sydney on Marvel’s Thor: Love & Thunder directed by Taika Waititi, and is set to return again as Star-Lord for James Gunn‘s Guardians of The Galaxy 3.

SOURCE: DEADLINE