New survival sensation Palworld, which earned the nickname “Pokémon with guns,” has taken the darn internet by storm. Though its popularity is complicated by clear similarities to that other monster-catching game, many are finding absolute joy in its gameplay. That gameplay is due for some evolution itself in the near…
Grab your hard hat and a can-do attitude because an animated Bob the Builder film is under construction! Hammering away at the silver-screen adaptation are Mattel Films, ShadowMachine (Little Demon, Tuca & Bertie, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio), Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions, and Anthony Ramos. The team plans to reimagine Bob the Builder for international appeal with a story that resonates with multicultural audiences.
Anthony Ramos will star in Bob the Builder in addition to his producer status. Alex Bulkley and Corey Campodonico of ShadowMachine join Ramos for the high-profile animated project, with Jennifer Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, and Benny Medina for Nuyorican Productions co-producing. The movie boasts a script written by Felipe Vargas (Afterimages, Distant, Vessel), with Kevin McKeon, Ivan Sanchez, and Arturo Thur De Koós of Mattel Films and Natalie Haack Flores of Nuyorican overseeing production.
The story follows Roberto, aka Bob, who picks up his toolbox and ventures to Puerto Rico for a substantial construction gig. While hammering away on his latest project, Bob encounters challenges around the island and gains a new appreciation for the art of fashioning new constructs. Aspects of Bob’s story include highlighting the Caribbean Latin nations, including the people and their inspiring heritage.
Bob the Builder began as an animated 12-season series from 1997 to 2011. The animated show focuses on Bob, a building contractor, and his enthusiasm for creating exciting new places to explore and live. Bob’s machine team joins him on his mission to build impressive constructs. They demonstrate the power of positive thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork. The show also breaks the fourth wall by inviting the audience to become “little builders” alongside Bob and his team. The show features colorful characters, gorgeous and fluid animation, and creativity that nurtures young viewer’s imaginations.
Did you or your kids watch Bob the Builder when it was on the air? What do you think about Ramos and Lopez bringing Roberto to the silver screen for a larger-than-life adventure set on the sunny and festive island of Puerto Rico? One assumes this could be a franchise starter if audiences fall in love with Bob again. “Can we fix it? Yes, we can!”
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A year and a half ago, it was announced that Sydney Sweeney – whose credits include Euphoria, the recent romantic comedy release Anyone but You, and the upcoming Sony Marvel movie Madame Web – was going to re-team with Michael Mohan, who directed her in the erotic thriller The Voyeurs, for the psychological horror film Immaculate. Last month, NEON acquired the U.S. distribution rights to the film and let it be known they’re planning to give it a theatrical release. Yesterday, a poster was unveiled (you can see it at the bottom of this article), and with it came the promise that a trailer for Immaculate would be arriving online today. Sure enough, the trailer is now available, and you can check it out in the embed above to help you figure out whether or not this is a movie you’ll want to see on the big screen when it reaches theatres on March 22nd.
Scripted by Andrew Lobel, Immaculate sees Sweeney taking on the role of Cecilia, a woman of devout faith who is offered a fulfilling new role at an illustrious Italian convent. Her warm welcome to the picture-perfect Italian countryside is soon interrupted as it becomes clearer to Cecilia that her new home harbors some dark and horrifying secrets.
Simona Tabasco (The White Lotus), Alvaro Morte (Money Heist), Benedetta Porcaroli (Baby), and Dora Romano (The Hand of God) are also in the cast.
Sweeney produced the film through her company Fifty-Fifty Films, alongside Jonathan Davino. Also producing are Teddy Schwarzman and Michael Heimler of Black Bear and Middle Child Pictures’ David Bernad, who developed the project with Sweeney after they worked together on the Emmy-winning series The White Lotus. Will Greenfield and Black Bear’s John Friedberg and Christopher Casanova serve as executive producers. Black Bear provided the financing.
What did you think of the Immaculate trailer? Are you a fan of Sydney Sweeney’s work, and are you glad she’s working with the director of The Voyeurs again? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Religious horror ranks down there as one of my least favorite sub-genres, but I’m willing to give Immaculate a chance.
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PLOT: A man, Fallon (Alex Pettyfer) roams the land as a creature of the night as he comes to terms with tragic loss of his family at the hands of a brutal demagogue, Reynolds (Guy Pearce).
REVIEW: “The Sun Never Sets On Evil” may just be the most generic tagline for a vampire film possible. So I understand if you, like myself, are trepidatious when it comes to Sunrise. The basic vampire formula has been used time and time again but I always appreciate it when someone has an interesting new vision. On the surface, this is a simple story of a vampire helping a family get justice. But it’s so much more than that. I’ve always believed that it doesn’t matter how generic the story is, so long as it executes those ideas. And Sunrise provides a beautiful tragedy with some wonderful performances.
While I know he’s got a bit of a reputation for his behavior, I quite enjoyed Alex Pettyfer as the vampire, Fallon. He has a good presence to him and is quite stoic. It works extremely well. There were elements of his character that I wasn’t expecting. Ultimately, he managed to take a fairly bland role and give it a little intrigue. I also enjoyed Crystal Yu as Yan, the matriarch of the Loi family. Their acceptance of Fallon’s help is believable and how she plays those moments of stillness is really impressive.
Guy Pearce is one of the most underrated actors working today and he’s a standout in Sunrise. Reynolds is a slimy and despicable man, and Pearce seems to revel in it. There’s a reserved wickedness to him that makes him intimidating. It’s clear that he’s known to do some bad stuff with how the townsfolk act around him. They aren’t entirely able to keep the momentum going with his aura and go in an odd direction with his character. I liked where he ended up, but the journey to get there had some strange twists and turns. He’s an obvious highlight.
It’d be hard to talk about Sunrise without mentioning the racial element. Reynolds is a white supremacist and is very comfortable making it known to others. His conflict with the family is entirely based on race, with him not wanting Asian farmers to “pollute the lands.” It adds another layer of evil to Reynolds while commenting on a very real issue. It can be a little on the nose, but I don’t think it ever entered the territory of unbelievability. And I’m not going to delve too deeply into the plot, because I think the mystery is what makes the film work.
I’m not familiar with director Andrew Baird’s prior work, but I was extremely impressed with his command of Sunrise. It’s a beautifully shot film that manages to be grounded while dealing with some fantastical elements. I loved all the little details, like the coat that Fallon wears being absolutely frayed from usage. There was clearly plenty of love and care put into this one, with some truly stunning shots.
It’s not all sunshine, though, there are some subplots that don’t entirely land. I won’t provide context out of fear of spoilers, but it made for a frustrating second half. I get what they were trying to accomplish with the son, but everything involving him slides into convoluted territory. Reynolds’s daughter is introduced, and her entire arc is handled in a very confusing way. I understand trying to raise the stakes, but I wish the film had continued its less-is-more approach. Another draft would have done wonders for this script.
There’s a little bit of sloppiness in the third act that takes away a bit of the shine. I’m not sure why they felt the need to ramp up the story to such a degree, as the more subtle approach was working well in the first half. There are several events that could have been handled better but thankfully, they don’t ruin the overall narrative. Several shots are burned firmly into my mind as the visual language really appeals to me. I quite enjoyed my time with Sunrise and could see this showing up on lists for Underrated Vampire flicks for years to come.
SUNRISE IS OUT IN THEATERS AND ON DEMAND/DIGITAL ON JANUARY 19TH, 2024.
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Danielle Harris is an absolute legend in the horror space, having been a part of the genre for nearly 40 years. She always stuck out as a child actor in films such as Halloween 4 and The Last Boy Scout. But she continued that success into her adulthood with films like Hatchet and the Rob Zombie Halloween films. I was lucky enough to talk with Danielle about her latest horror film, Project Dorothy. She plays a rogue AI, so she’s just a voice here, but that’s also something she has plenty of experience with (she was Debbie on The Wild Thornberrys). While she’s a small part of the film, I was also able to talk with her about her podcast with Scout Taylor Compton and their planned trilogy of films. This was a great conversation; she gave some nice insight into the difficulties of acting in something you’re also directing. It’s an honesty I don’t think happens a ton in this kind of setting, so I really appreciated it.
Project Dorothy plot synopsis:
James and Blake, small-time criminals, flee the police and take refuge in an abandoned scientific facility. Their attempt to restore power activates an AI, DOROTHY (voiced by Harris), responsible for the former occupants’ demise. They realize their predicament is worse than evading the law; they must use their streetwise instincts to thwart DOROTHY’s escape into the world.
PROJECT DOROTHY DEBUTS ON CABLE AND DIGITAL VOD ON JANUARY 16TH, 2024.
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Back in 2013, Naughty Dog released a documentary about the making of The Last of Us called Grounded: Making The Last of Us. It was originally included as part of the game’s season pass, then later released online. It’s a great documentary. Sure, it’s a bit of a puff piece, but it’s still one of my favorite gaming…
Back in 2013, Naughty Dog released a documentary about the making of The Last of Us called Grounded: Making The Last of Us. It was originally included as part of the game’s season pass, then later released online. It’s a great documentary. Sure, it’s a bit of a puff piece, but it’s still one of my favorite gaming…
Every New Year brings headlines of all the new movies hitting theaters that year that excite people. Most of those titles come from the summer and winter months, with a few mentions for spring release movies. Do you know what month has almost no mention in those articles? January! There are several reasons for that. First, January generally sees strong holdover numbers from the big Holiday blockbusters that many studios tend to steer clear of. However, the holidays of 2023 didn’t produce an Avatar: The Way of Water-sized hit the way 2022 did. To be fair, it did produce Wonka, which may not be a near $700 million domestic grosser, but it has still shown some solid numbers over the past few weeks. Second, NFL playoffs. There is simply no other event that commands Americans’ attention more than the run-up to the Super Bowl, a television event that nearly every year is ranked as the highest-rated program on TV, with last year’s big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles pulling in a massive 115.1 million viewers, making it the most watched television program in the history of TV!
So yeah, studios know that releasing a big movie on a weekend when most people are on their couch watching the best teams in the NFL duke it out would be an idiotic move. How else can you explain that this weekend sees zero new releases? In a world where studios stake out their opening weekends sometimes a decade in advance, this weekend, January 26-28, 2024, was deemed a weekend not worth putting anything new out into the world. I’m sure they knew that the San Francisco 49ers would be playing this weekend and figured everyone would be cheering them on. It’s the only logical conclusion I could draw!
So, with that said, you can expect this weekend to look a lot like last weekend, which looked a lot like the weekend before, with Mean Girls more than likely set to take first place for a third weekend in a row with around $7 million in receipts. However, there is one movie that is hot on its tail, and that is the Jason Statham/ David Ayer collaboration The Beekeeper, which has seen solid numbers since its debut and, during the week, actually landed in first place at the box office. Since that film is more adult-oriented, I don’t think it will be the weekend champion, as adults are more likely to hit a weekday screening than head to theaters on the weekend when the teenage crowd is in the theater doing their Tik Tok’s and snap chats in the middle of the movie (yes, I’m old!) That is why I think Beekeeper will stay in second, but only by a slim margin, with around $6.5 million in receipts. You can check out Tyler Nichols’s 7/10 review of Mean Girls here and his 7/10 review of Beekeeper here.
Third place will go to the aforementioned Wonka as families continue to embrace this Paul King-directed musical prequel to the tune of $5.5 million. While this won’t be the weekend, it does it. You can expect Wonka to join the $200 million (domestic) club soon, which is quite the feat for a film that opened at $39 million. Don’t let it be said that word of mouth isn’t what makes any movie sink or swim.
Speaking of word of mouth, one of the best word-of-mouth hits in recent memory should keep its magic going this weekend as the R-rated romantic comedy Anyone But You will see a weekend in the $4.5 million range, which would represent a sub 20% drop. This really has been the story of the past few months, as these types of films tend to open modestly and then fade away. Audiences simply tell others that this Sydney Sweeney/ Glen Powell rom-com is worth your time and money. As I have said over the past few weeks, this isn’t a movie that reinvents the wheel. It simply knows exactly what it is and provides audiences with a feel-good, if predictable, tale of two people falling in love. When I watched it, it felt like a spiritual successor to Wedding Crashers, a great company to be in as many people find it to be one of the funniest films ever made.
Suppose there is a movie that could give Anyone But You a run for its number 4 spot. In that case, it is those damn birds from Migration, as this is another film that opened to less than stellar numbers ($12.4 million) but has seen great word of mouth (and a real lack of competition) propel it to strong domestic numbers as this weekend it looks to cross that magical $100 million mark finally. I do think Migration may have the edge on Anyone But You for similar reasons I mentioned above: families tend to hit theaters on the weekend, giving Migration the edge with around $4.6 million.
Outside of the top five, you will start to see some of the Oscar Nominated films see their anticipated bumps, with the biggest benefactors being American Fiction (which I found to be a hilarious and heart-felt story with genuinely earned nominations for Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown as well as Cord Jefferson’s adapted screenplay) and Poor Things which will hopefully see Emma Stone pick up her second trophy as I found her performance truly transformative and not over-praised the way some other nominated performances seem to be.
Some theaters are taking the opportunity to re-release Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer on IMAX screens to give audiences one last chance to see the film in the biggest and best way possible (I took that opportunity earlier this week, even though I own the film on 4K disc, I couldn’t pass up seeing this genuine masterpiece in theaters for my fourth time!) Or perhaps a different kind of Oscar Nominee is what you are looking for, and in that case, you can check out Godzilla Minus One Minus Color as the recently minted Oscar Nominee (for Best Visual Effects, the first ever nomination for the 70-year-old franchise) sees a one week only re-release to theaters with a new black and white version of the film.
Will you be making it to theaters this weekend? If so, let us know what you plan on seeing in the comments, and don’t forget to check back on Saturday when we have a brief update on where this weekend’s box office numbers are heading.
TOP FIVE PREDICTIONS
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Director Guillermo del Toro is moving ahead with one of his dream projects, an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic tale Frankenstein that is set up at the Netflix streaming service. We’ve heard that Frankenstein is expected to start filming (possibly under the working title Prodigal Father) on February 12th. The production will last nearly five months, wrapping up on July 5th. Filming will take place in Ontario, Canada, and possibly in London, England as well. It looks like Canada will be the first filming location, as del Toro recently took cast members Oscar Isaac (Moon Knight), Mia Goth (Pearl), Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds), and Charles Dance (Game of Thrones) to eat at a Toronto restaurant, where they posed for a picture with the staff. You can take a look at the picture at the bottom of this article.
Del Toro’s Frankenstein might have the following logline: Set in Eastern Europe in the 19th Century, the story of Dr. Pretorius, who needs to track down Frankenstein’s monster- who is believed to have died in a fire forty years before–in order to continue the experiments of Dr. Frankenstein.
Whats on Netflix previously reported that Isaac would play the Monster and Goth will be the Bride, with Andrew Garfield (who has since had to drop out of the cast) as Dr. Frankenstein. Their intel seems to have been slightly off, though, because when Garfield left and was replaced by Jacob Elordi (Saltburn), it was said that the role Garfield had passed over to Elordi was the Monster.
Del Toro has been talking about making a new version of Frankenstein for more than a decade. At one point, he did have the project set up at Universal, with Doug Jones (The Shape of Water) on board to play Frankenstein’s Monster. The movie got far enough into pre-production that Jones even saw a bust of the Monster that was inspired by Bernie Wrightson’s artwork in an illustrated adaptation of Shelley’s novel that Wrightson spent seven years working on. But then the project fell apart. Now it’s finally happening at the Netflix streaming service, which previously teamed with del Toro on Pinocchio and the anthology series Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
Are you looking forward to Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein? What do you think of the cast del Toro has assembled? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Here’s the picture:
The post Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein cast gathers together for a picture before filming begins appeared first on JoBlo.
The Last Of Us season two begins filming in just a few days, meaning the cast are now joining the crew, arriving in Canada for what you have to assume will be a pretty grueling few weeks. To celebrate the moment, a photo was taken of some of the cast and crew, including Bella Ramsey, Isabela Merced and Young Mazino.…