It was reported earlier that Steven Yeun was set to make his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the Thunderbolts film. Unfortunately, scheduling issues that cropped up due to last year’s dual strikes in Hollywood would now prevent Yeun from participating in filming. The actor felt remorse for the dilemma and wanted to make it clear that he hopes to join the MCU in the future, “I wanna do a Marvel movie. I have some ideas.” Yeun would also apologize to the fans for holding up the production, “It took a lot of drafts on email to make sure that I conveyed the sincerity of how sorry I was to have to back out.” Deadline is now reporting that Top Gun: Maverick‘s Lewis Pullman is now in talks with Marvel Studios to be Yeun’s replacement. Pullman, the son of Independence Day star Bill Pullman, can currently be seen with Brie Larson in Apple’s Lessons in Chemistry. His past credits would also include Bad Times at the El Royale and the TV series Outer Range. Pullman is reportedly the top choice for Yeun’s now-unoccupied role, which has yet to be announced. However, it was reportedly a significant part of the film.
Pullman would be joining another star child with Wyatt Russell, son of Kurt, who will be reprising his role, John Walker, from the MCU Disney+ series Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Russell had recently updated fans that the movie is set to start production in the spring and would convey his excitement for the project in the face of the recent output of projects from the brand, “I have confidence it’s gonna be good. I know everybody is sort of on this Marvel train right now of things not going so well…It’s not a straightforward Marvel movie as you’ve seen in the past.”
Thunderbolts has still compiled an impressive cast as sort of an anti-Avengers team-up film, with Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), David Harbour (Red Guardian), and Olga Kurylenko (Taskmaster) reprising their roles from past MCU entries.
Directed by Jake Schreier and written by Eric Pearson and Lee Sung Jin, Thunderbolts is part of Phase Six of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – although it had intended to be part of the in-progress Phase Five but missed that due to the aforementioned strikes. It has a current release date of July 25th, 2025, two months after The Fantastic Four hits theaters.
PLOT: Four interconnected tales follow a teenager in love (Jack Champion), two female rappers trying to make it (Normani and Dominique Thorne), a world-weary debt mob enforcer (Pedro Pascal ) and a basketball legend (Jay Ellis) looking for vengeance in 1987 Oakland.
REVIEW: Directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson) make a triumphant return to Sundance with one of the festival’s most energetic offerings in years. Mixing a Tarantino-style crime tale with high-octane action, Boden and Fleck use the bag of tricks they earned working for the MCU (Captain Marvel) to deliver an unexpected smash. Freaky Tales is the kind of movie Sundance would have shown in its nineties heyday, with it likely the only film playing this year that ends in a kung-fu-heavy bloodbath. I loved every second of it.
Freaky Tales mostly takes place over a single night in Oakland; it uses a few things that were happening in the area back then, such as the Golden State Warriors facing off with the Lakers and the rise of rapper Too Short as a jumping-off point. Yet, the film goes way, way other there pretty quickly, with the stylized chapters escalating in style until an ending that plays like Kill Bill mixed with Scanners.
The film mainly revolves around each of the leads having violent encounters with Oakland Skinheads. Each chapter seems influenced by a different classic from the era the movie is set in. The first chapter plays like a mix of The Karate Kid and The Warriors. In it, a good-natured teen (Jack Champion) with a monster crush on a girl (Ji-Young Yoo) into the punk scene becomes a hero as he joins them in an ultra-violent brawl with Neo-Nazis. These skinheads are working for a more dangerous crew headed by a crooked cop (Ben Mendelsohn) who also has the lead of our third story, Pedro Pascal’s Clint, under his thumb. Before getting to the more violent second half of the film, Freaky Tales detours into Krush Groove territory, following two female battle rappers as they try to make it in the club scene. It’s a good-natured little aside before the movie dives right into a violent, carnage-filled second half, with Pascal’s storyline similar to James Caan’s in Thief, while the finale has heavy shades of The Last Dragon thrown in.
While the nature of the film makes it inevitably uneven, for the most part, Fleck and Boden keep the pace propulsive. Even the slower second story about battle rap is entertaining, with singer Normani and Ironheart’s Riri WIlliams herself, Dominique Thorne, delivering winning performances.
However, the first, third and fourth stories are the ones that get your adrenaline pumping, with the first story shot in a way that makes it feel like you’re watching a VHS copy of a coming-of-age 80s classic. Jack Champion, who broke out in Avatar: The Way of Water, is a thoroughly likeable lead, with his chemistry with the pretty Ji-Young Yoo on point, as the two debate the ending of The Lost Boys and “Blue Velvet” people before their climactic brawl.
One of the movie’s most significant selling points will undoubtedly be Pedro Pascal, cast perfectly as the world-weary enforcer, eager to leave the business behind to raise a family. Boasting an extended cameo by an A-lister whose Oakland roots are heavily referenced in the film, this segment plays like a classic crime tale, with it and the fourth story really two halves of a longer whole. Of everyone, Pascal has the most significant role as a tragedy sends him into a suicidal confrontation with Mendelsohn’s ultra-evil Nazi mastermind, only for the film to take a wild turn in the last segment. In it, Jay Ellis from Top Gun: Maverick emerges as a full-blown action star, playing a real-life basketball player named Sleepy Floyd who, in this film’s demented take on reality, also runs a quasi-cult where he teaches teens to harness their psychic power to fight evil. Does it sound a little random? It is, but Boden and Fleck do such a good job elevating the violence and frenetic pace that it really works when Freaky Tales takes a detour into full-blown kung-fu-tinged Scanners territory.
Indeed, Freaky Tales works very well as a genre movie and could be a hit for whatever distributor picks it up. Pascal’s rising fame and the fact that it boasts a ton of well-designed action (and a terrific soundtrack that includes everything from Metallica to Public Image Limited) makes it seem natural for the big screen. I loved every second of it.
As Lando Calrissian told his old buddy Han Solo, he had no choice but to betray him. And now Billy Dee Williams – who first played Lando in The Empire Strikes Back – is doubling down. But he may have no choice himself, as he says he would constantly get harassed by Star Wars fans over the double-cross.
In a new interview with the Dagobah Dispatch podcast, Billy Dee Williams said, “I got [“You betrayed Han Solo!”] for a lotta years, so finally I said, ‘Look, think about the whole situation. You’re up against a pretty formidable character, Darth Vader, and then there’s Boba Fett, and these people were invading my space, and I had to bargain with them. To bargain to prevent at least the complete demise of Han Solo and his friends. But I had to hold on to my whole situation.’” Williams added that Lando’s tactic didn’t result in any deaths and so, “I think that was a clear implication that I was trying to figure something out, or Lando was trying to figure something out…primarily to hold on to his own situation, without the complete demise of his friends.” So please, leave Billy Dee Williams alone…or at least buy him a Colt 45!
Lando Calrissian – and thus, Billy Dee Williams – made the Star Wars sh*t list with that move, but the character’s arc, against-the-wall situation, and surprising depth (for a supporting character, at least) has redeemed both Lando and his portrayer in most fans’ eyes. He was also a welcome addition to The Rise of Skywalker, assisting Rey and company in their fight in his first time stepping into the role (physically; he voiced Lando numerous times) since 1983’s Return of the Jedi.
Star Wars has gone all-in on Lando Calrissian, even outside of Billy Dee Williams, with the character being taken over by Donald Glover for Solo, in which we see him lose his beloved Millennium Falcon to Han. Glover will again play Lando for a feature film, originally planned to be a series.
What do you think of Billy Dee Williams’ take on Lando Calrissian’s betrayal? Do you want more Lando on the screen? Give us your thoughts below!
Robert Downey Jr. is fresh off an Academy Award nomination for his exemplary work on Oppenheimer, but the actor received his first Oscar nomination over thirty years ago for Chaplin. He wound up losing to Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman, and while the loss may have stung at the time, Downey Jr. is now grateful he didn’t win.
During an interview with the hosts of The View, Robert Downey Jr. explained why he’s glad he didn’t win the Best Actor Oscar for Chaplin. “I was young and crazy,” Downey Jr. said, adding that winning at 28 years old “would have put me under the impression I was on the right track.” The actor famously spent many years getting in trouble with the law, with multiple arrests for drug charges. Following parole violations after being arrested in 1996 for the possession of heroin and cocaine, as well as firing a handgun while speeding down Sunset Boulevard, Downey Jr. was sentenced to three years in prison. He would serve 15 months but was arrested yet again for drug possession just four months later.
After several more years of substance abuse, arrests, rehab, and relapse, Downey Jr. started to get his career back on track with starring roles in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Zodiac, but he hit blockbuster status after being cast as Tony Stark/Iron Man. It’s easy to forget that many executives resisted casting Downey Jr. in the role due to his history, but former Marvel Studios president David Maisel went to bat for him. “My board thought I was crazy to put the future of the company in the hands of an addict,” Maisel told Variety last year. “I helped them understand how great he was for the role. We all had confidence that he was clean and would stay clean.“
Robert Downey Jr. received another Oscar nomination for Tropic Thunder in 2008 but lost to Health Ledger for The Dark Knight. This could be his year, but he faces some stiff competition with Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction), Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon), Ryan Gosling (Barbie), and Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things) also up for the award.
Recently, I wrote an article about how Ron Howard’s Cocoonwas hard to find in any format. It came out on DVD many years ago but went out of print and has never been issued on Blu-ray. You also can’t find it digitally on any platform. This is a perfect example of why you should always hang on to your physical media, as I’m lucky enough to own the now out-of-print DVD of that movie, and while it’s far from an ideal copy, it’s something.
But that got me thinking. What other movies are hard to find? I opened up the forum on Twitter, and I was shocked by how many prominent films aren’t available digitally and have gone out of print on disc, making them all the more precious for collectors. At the same time, there are some happy endings, such as Martin Campbell’s No Escape, which got a beautiful Blu-ray recently; too many of these films are caught up in legal limbo (or studio antipathy).
Here are 10:
Cocoon:
The one that started it all. How does a movie that won Don Ameche an Oscar and revitalized the careers of Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, and the great Wilford Brimley go out of print? This is the movie that made Ron Howard an A-list director, and it was enough of a smash hit that it spawned a (pretty crappy) sequel, which, ironically, is very easy to find. What’s going on here? Disney may be working on a significant restoration, but it’s been gone for a long time.
Strange Days:
Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days was a major flop when it came out in 1995 but has since been reevaluated as a classic. As it stars Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Lewis and Angela Bassett and is widely considered one of the greatest films of the nineties, some significant release – possibly through a company like Criterion would seem like a no-brainer. However, Disney has been sitting on this one for a while now, with the likely culprit being that James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment owns the movie. Presumably, any redux has to be cleared by him. With The Abyss, TrueLies and Aliens all getting 4K re-releases, Strange Days may be coming. This one is streaming on Max but in the wrong aspect ratio. The existing DVD is non-anamorphic, meaning it gets window-boxed on your TV unless you stretch it out.
Showtime:
This minor Eddie Murphy/ Robert De Niro comedy made a decent amount of coin when it came out, but it wasn’t a blockbuster. Yet, it’s a decent little action comedy, with a funny performance by William Shatner as himself. While it came out on DVD in an excellent anamorphic transfer, and you can buy it digitally in HD, it’s never been issued on Blu-ray.
Crossroads:
This Brittany Spears cult classic would have gotten a Blu-ray re-release with all sorts of bells and whistles. Yet, outside of its original DVD run, it’s never been issued on Blu-ray and can’t be bought digitally. However, it was recently released to theatres in a special limited run to celebrate Spears’ new autobiography so the movie may be coming relatively soon.
UPDATE: Netflix has acquired streaming rights for Crossroads, and it will be available globally on February 15th.
Dawn of the Dead:
This one comes with a caveat. George A. Romero’s zombie classic has been released on a beautiful 4K disc internationally and is region-free. Yet, it still needs to get a North American release on 4K and isn’t available digitally, which is a shame. Younger horror fans watch most of their stuff this way, and one hates to think they could be missing out on one of the genre’s best movies.
Looking for Mr. Goodbar:
This 1977 film helped establish Diane Keaton as a star and was a significant hit. It’s based on the true story of a teacher who was played the bar scene in the early seventies and was eventually murdered by a man she had a one-night stand with. It’s a haunting film with a disturbing ending, but very hard to find. It’s only ever been released on VHS and Laserdisc, with rights issues surrounding the film’s music, which is what’s kept this in limbo. It doesn’t help that Paramount Pictures is famously slow regarding releasing library titles. Again, this would be a great one for the Criterion Collection.
UPDATE: This is apparently streaming on Paramount Plus in Europe, but NOT North America.
Something Wicked This Way Comes:
We recently covered this movie in our series Fantasizing About Fantasy Films, which was available on DVD/ Blu-ray for a while. Yet, Disney has vaulted this Ray Bradbury adaptation, and you can’t stream it or buy it digitally, either.
The Blood of Heroes (aka Salute of the Jugger):
This post-apocalyptic action movie comes from David Webb Peoples, the writer of Blade Runner, Unforgiven and Soldier. It was a rare directorial effort that reteamed him with Rutger Hauer, who stars opposite a young Joan Chen and Vincent D’Onofrio. Legal rights limbo has kept this one obscure in North America, with various cuts circulating in bad transfers. Hopefully, it gets some kind of restoration, and it’s a neat little sci-fi movie.
John Woo’s Hong Kong Films:
Recently, John Woo mentioned that he would love to restore his Hong Kong classics with a company like Criterion, but that the rights to most of the movies are caught up in legal limbo. The Killer and Hard Boiled are streaming and on Blu-ray (albeit in interlaced transfers), but A Better Tomorrow 1 & 2 and Bullet in the Head are MIA.
The Heartbreak Kid:
Elaine May is a revered figure on film Twitter, but her biggest hit, The Heartbreak Kid, which got remade by the Farrelly Bros, is impossible to find. This is a shame as it’s one of star Charles Gordon’s best movies and features two Oscar-nominated performances by Jeannie Berlin (also May’s daughter) and Eddie Albert.
What titles have we missed? Let us know in the comments!
Bad Boys apparently really are for life as it seems that this action-packed franchise isn’t ending anytime soon with SonyPictures’ Bad Boys 4 already in production. The series centered around detectives Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett of the Miami PD has already produced three blockbuster films that have grossed over $840 million as well as a spinoff television show, L.A.’s Finest, making it one of the most successful buddy-cop action-comedy series in history. The most recent film, Bad Boys for Life, was one of the last movies to hit theaters before the pandemic shut them all down and was able to be a critical and monetary success – so why would the franchise stop now?
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence (Lowery and Burnett) recently announced that a fourth film will be coming to theaters and that they’ll both be returning to the buddy-cop franchise. This is music to the ears of fans of the series since Bad Boys for Life left several loose ends and potential plot-lines for the detectives to follow and adding another movie to the franchise is the perfect way to address them. So, all of that said, let’s take a further look into everything we know about Bad Boys 4.
Plot
So far, nobody besides the people working on the movie know the plot. That said, based off of the information and loose ends that occurred at the end of Bad Boys for Life we can make a couple of educated guesses.
The plot that makes the most sense for a sequel would most likely see Mike and Marcus working on a new case with AMMO with a side-plot of Mike mending/working on his relationship with his son. Fans will remember that the last movie ended with Mike and Marcus being put in charge of AMMO with Mike visiting his son, Armando, in prison and offering him a chance at redemption, so this plot would follow up on those loose ends. Again, this is all speculation, but it would be odd for the previous movie to give such heavy leads and them completely dismiss them.
Cast
Again, the fourth film was only recently announced so there aren’t a surplus of details yet. Stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence will assuredly return as detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, with Eric Dane (known for Euphoria and Grey’s Anatomy) playing the movie’s villain. Actor Ioan Gruffudd (known for Fantastic 4) has also been cast in an undisclosed role and Tasha Smith has been cast to replace Theresa Randle as Marcus Burnett’s wife. Better Call Saul star Rhea Seehorn also signed on for an undisclosed role.
Despite the cast not having a long confirmed list, just like with the plot, we can speculate about who may or may not appear in the film. Since Mike and Marcus were put in charge of AMMO it was assumed that the other members of the group would return as well, meaning that Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, and Jacob Scipio could all easily show up. Indeed, Hudgens and Ludwig are back, but Charles Melton, who just broke out (and may be Oscar-nominated) for May December, doesn’t seem to be in the cast. Scipio also seems to be sitting the movie out, despite the fact that his character, who is revealed to be the son of Will Smith’s Mike Lowery, was teed up to be a major part of the sequel in the post-credits scene following Bad Boys for Life. However, Paola Núñez is returning as the newly promoted Captain Rita Secada. .
Everything Else
Fans assuredly will want to know when they can expect to see Miami’s finest detectives back on the big-screen, but unfortunately Bad Boys 4 doesn’t have an official release date yet. Not to mention, Bad Boys 4 is not the official title since the film has not revealed what it is yet, which should be revealed on the trailer finally drops (likely during the Super Bowl). This is Smith’s first theatrically released film since the infamous Oscar slap derailed his career. Whether this is a hit or not will tell us whether his career can bounce back.
The movie will be directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (they took over for OG director Michael Bay after the first two films – although he had a cameo in the third film) and will be written by Chris Bremner, the same man who penned Bad Boys for Life. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced all the other movies is back too. It will be El Arbi and Fallah’s first film since Batgirl was scrapped by WB.
Deadline reports that Chris Pratt is set to star in Mercy, a sci-fi movie package acquired by Amazon MGM Studios which will be directed by Timur Bekmambetov.
Pratt has worked with Amazon on several projects, including The Tomorrow War and The Terminal List, but Mercy will actually serve as a reunion between himself and Bekmambetov. You may have forgotten, as I did, that Pratt made an appearance in Wanted all the way back in 2008 where he found himself getting smashed in the face with a keyboard wielded by James McAvoy.
So, what’s Mercy all about? The movie is “set in the near future when capital crime has increased” and follows “a detective (Pratt] who is accused of a violent crime and forced to prove his innocence.” The script has been penned by Marco Van Belle (Arthur & Merlin) and produced by Charles Roven (Oppenheimer), with production expected to kick off this spring.
“Amazon is the ideal partner for telling this crucial story about the future challenged by artificial intelligence and for engaging in this conversation with a wide audience,” said Timur Bekmambetov in a statement. “I’m happy to reunite with Chris Pratt on this project, who, since the release of ‘Wanted,’ has become one of the highest-grossing actors of our time. Collaborating with Chuck Roven will help us create an epic cinematic experience.“
Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon MGM Studios, added, “From the moment Chuck Roven brought us Mercy and we read Marco van Belle’s script, we knew the film was meant for the big screen. As our relationship with The Terminal List and The Tomorrow War’s Chris Pratt continues to extend across film, we can’t wait to watch him bring this action-packed story to life, guided by Chuck and the vision of director Timur Bekmambetov. We could not imagine a better star and filmmaking team to execute on and deliver what is sure to be a gripping thrill ride and look forward to audiences being able to experience it in theaters.“
Not to be left out, Charles Roven said, “I could not be more thrilled to partner with Amazon MGM Studios on the release of Mercy. I have a longstanding working relationship with both motion picture and marketing chiefs Courtenay Valenti and Sue Kroll— whom have institutional knowledge of theatrical and proven track records of success at the box office. I am looking forward to reuniting with them in this new capacity, along with Jen Salke and the rest of the terrific team at Amazon MGM.“
Following new European Union rules, Epic announced that it is launching the Epic Games Store on iPhone later this year and will also be bringing Fortnite back to iOS, too.
Following new European Union rules, Epic announced that it is launching the Epic Games Store on iPhone later this year and will also be bringing Fortnite back to iOS, too.
Wolf Pack fans will be howling tonight as it’s been announced that Paramount+ has officially canceled the series after just one season.
Based on the book series by Edo Van Belkom, Wolf Pack revolves around “a teenage boy, Everett, and girl, Blake, whose lives are forever changed when a California wildfire awakens a terrifying supernatural creature. Wounded in the chaos of its attack, the teens are inexplicably drawn to each other and to two others, fraternal twins Harlan and Luna, who were adopted sixteen years earlier by a park ranger after another mysterious wildfire. As the full moon rises, all four teens come together to unravel the secret that connects them – the bite and blood of a werewolf.” The series was developed by Jeff Davis, best known for creating MTV’s Teen Wolf series.
The first season of Wolf Pack wrapped up nearly a year ago and a second season was looking likely, but sources say that the delays caused by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes meant that another season wouldn’t have been ready until 2025. Paramount wasn’t willing to have the series off the air for that long, especially as it would have meant an increased marketing budget to remind people about the show.
Author Edo Van Belkom took to X to comment on the cancelation. “Disappointing, of course, especially since all signs pointed to there being a season two,” he wrote. “But, while the show was a success, the WGA strike, followed by the SAG strike did the series no favors. I’m sad myself, season two was going to see me have a cameo and another set visit, but I was just having fun and playing in Hollywood for a bit. I feel more for the young actors and others who felt this was going to be their big break.“
Sarah Michelle Gellar, who starred in and executive-produced the series, was hopeful for a second season just prior to the Hollywood strikes. “We plan to do [season two],” Gellar told THR last year. “We haven’t gotten the official word. I think it’s a tough time right now with the strike coming up. It’s hard, but our numbers have been great and people are really finding the show and getting excited about it, so I’m hopeful for a season two.” You can check out a review of the series from our own Alex Maidy right here.
