Month: February 2024

21 Feb

Marvel is undergoing a creative retooling after a rough 2023

By . FilmTV No Comments

Just five years ago, Marvel Studios appeared to be unstoppable. As The Hollywood Reporter puts it in a new write-up, they “had steadily been generating box office gold” with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the studio’s “Infinity Saga” culminating, after eleven years of build-up, with the release of Avengers: Endgame – a film that became the highest-grossing movie of all time (for a while). But then Disney asked Marvel to “scale up in an unprecedented way”, expanding into TV series and animation, “with the goal of the MCU becoming a place with a seemingly endless procession of year-round releases.” Now Disney and Marvel have had to admit that the task was too unwieldy to sustain. Not only have fans complained about a decline in quality in the last couple years, but Marvel projects have also started underperforming. Things got rough in 2023, with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania turning out to be a box office disappointment and failing to break even during its theatrical run; the Disney+ series Secret Invasion‘s viewership numbers ranking it in the bottom third of Marvel’s shows; and The Marvels becoming the lowest-grossing film in the MCU’s 33-film run, reaching only $206 million at the global box office. They did have a hit with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 along the way, but it has become clear that repairs have to be made before the ship sinks, and The Hollywood Reporter has heard that Marvel is indeed undergoing a creative retooling, with studio president Kevin Feige reportedly “recalibrating the creative direction behind the scenes”.

One thing we’ve heard before is that we’re going to see the Marvel output slow down for a while. The only Marvel Studios film to reach theatres in 2024 will be Deadpool & Wolverine (its release date is July 26) – a project that appears to be off to a great start, considering that the first trailer, unveiled during the Super Bowl, became the most-watched trailer of all time. On the streaming side of things, we’ll only see two MCU shows this year: Echo, which was already released, and Agatha: Darkhold Diaries, which just completed a single day of reshoots earlier this month. According to THR, Marvel is feeling very positive about the Agatha show, which they plan to release through Disney+ sometime this fall. This gap between releases is meant to “give creatives some breathing room and give audiences the chance to miss the MCU, just a little bit.”

As of right now, Disney has four Marvel titles scheduled to reach theatres in 2025: Captain America: Brave New World (a film that is undergoing some major reshoots) on February 14, Fantastic Four (which just announced its cast and will be filming this summer) on May 2, Thunderbolts (which is gearing up to go into production next month) on July 25, and Blade on November 7. There is some speculation that Blade could be moved into 2026 so Disney can try to avoid Marvel overload by releasing four movies in the same year.

Although the extensive reshoots have some worried about how Captain America: Brave New World is going to turn out, earlier this month Disney CEO Bob Iger named that film as one of the 2025 releases he is most excited about during an earnings call. During that same call, Iger said, “Some of our studios lost a little focus. So the first step that we’ve taken is that we’ve reduced volume. We’ve reduced output, particularly at Marvel, (to ensure) the films you’re making can be even better.“

The Hollywood Reporter was also able to learn that Thor: Ragnarok and Black Widow screenwriter Eric Pearson is currently performing a polish on the Fantastic Four script, as he “has a reputation for taking projects over the finish line.” Marvel is hanging a lot of hopes on that project, as they’re still looking for characters and actors who can carry the MCU forward now that it has lost the likes of Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Chris Evans’ Captain America. Can the Fantastic Four‘s cast and characters take their place?

Meanwhile, Joanna Calo, showrunner of the FX series The Bear, has been brought in to work on the script for Thunderbolts.

Another issue Marvel ran into in 2023 was the fact that Jonathan Majors, who played Kang – who was supposed to be the central villain of this new saga of Marvel films – was convicted of reckless assault in the third degree and harassment after a domestic incident. Marvel publicly dropped Majors just hours after his conviction, but we’ve been left wondering how they were going to handle the Kang character… especially since one of the films on the 2026 release schedule is titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. That film is currently undergoing rewrites that will “minimize the character or excise him entirely”, so don’t expect it to end up being called Avengers: The Kang Dynasty when it’s released. Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that Marvel was already moving toward minimizing the character before Majors was convicted, after Quantumania (where Kang was the lead villain) underperformed. Thankfully, the events of Loki season 2 – which also featured a Kang variant – could provide the answers for how Marvel can get away from Kang.

Marvel has hit a rough patch recently, but they’re working on a course correction. As a source told The Hollywood Reporter, “They’re not going to give up. They want to make something great.“

Do you feel the Marvel Cinematic Universe can be saved with some creative retooling, or is superhero fatigue too strong at this point? Share your thoughts on the state of Marvel by leaving a comment below.

Thunderbolts

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21 Feb

Late Phases (2014) Revisited – Horror Movie Review

By . FilmTV No Comments

Zombie movies? Can’t shake a stick without knocking a minimum of 20 quality ones out of a tree. You want vampires? Tell me the decade and the type and I’ll give you recommendations to keep you going for weeks. Werewolves? Well, for some reason, the werewolf falls in with his other Universal monster counterparts The Mummy, Frankenstein, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon as creatures that should have a lot more entries come to mind. I’m not saying that there aren’t any, quite the contrary. I can tell you quite a few must-see werewolf movies that you all probably know but the list is not nearly as deep as the other monsters mentioned above. Late Phases (watch it HERE), also known under the stupidly generic title of Night of the Wolf, does a lot of interesting things while being a thoroughly enjoyable and almost arthouse movie which more than qualifies as a Best Horror Movie You Never Saw.

This entry started when my oldest son, the 13-year-old, asked the question that needed asking. What are some of the best werewolf movies and can I see them? The second part of that question is irrelevant to our discussion today, but the other one is damn important. I thought of all of the usual suspects and then when I looked up a few options I came across Late Phases, something I remember watching and enjoying, but that had also fallen through the cracks to the point that I swore it came out in 2017 not 2014. I took a chance and rewatched it and remembered exactly why I liked it and why I want to recommend it to watchers of this particular show. I can’t find its budget or box office numbers but it’s not an overly expensive movie and it appears the only theatrical action it saw was at the South by Southwest film festival. It came out the following year on digital and disc formats, but I don’t have sales numbers there either. Absolutely screams “best movie you never saw” because there just is not a lot of records of people actually seeing it.

Late Phases Best Horror Movie You Never Saw

Director Adrian Garcia Bogliano enjoyed the script he read from Eric Stolze and had built up a reputation with his segment of The ABCs of Death as well as Here Comes the Devil from 2012. While he has slowed down a bit since this movie’s release, he continues to work in film and TV today. Eric Stolze has far less to his name but also most recently wrote surprise 2020 hit The Stylist. The talent assembled in front of the camera is far more recognizable, well except one who is a name you will know but I literally didn’t recognize him until looking it up. The lead is blind veteran Ambrose Mckinley played to salty perfection by Nick Damici. Damici was first known to me when he showed up in that early 2000s sleazy Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo movie In the Cut but has a trilogy of good and underseen horror movies with today’s flick, the American remake of We Are What We Are, and Stake Land. He also wrote Stake Land, We Are What We Are, and several episodes of underrated TV show Hap and Leonard.

We will get into more of the cast later, but the movie opens up Ambrose looking to pick out his headstone as he is moving to a senior living space. The salesperson is played by Larry Fessenden who shows up in nearly every independent horror movie now but that’s also because he helps produce so many of them, including this one. Ambrose’s son Will, played by Ethan Embry, drops him off at his new living arrangement and even though Ambrose is curmudgeonly to put it lightly, he makes friends with his very sweet neighbor. He’s not as kind to the welcoming party but to be fair, he’s not wrong. These characters would bug the heck out of me too. This is Damici’s movie in every sense. His line delivery, the added age makeup as even though he was in his early 50s, the character was a decent amount older, and his mannerisms while playing blind are all incredible.

He finds a claw in his new wall, and we learn what it belongs to much quicker than anticipated. A Howling size bipedal werewolf kills both his new neighbor friend and his guide dog. Kudos to the movie for getting right into it with the monster of the movie and having the guts to kill that sweet dog. Ambrose is unable to get his gun in time to save the dog or kill the monster, but he is motivated. Of course, the community and police don’t believe him. Crescent Bay apparently has attacks like this once a month where people and animals are attacked and killed. Ambrose knows its more than this and I can tell what some of you are thinking…haven’t I seen this in Bubba Ho-Tep but with a Mummy? While the retirement community is a familiar place, this doesn’t have the over-the-top premise or silliness. The movie has a lot of witty lines but is a mostly serious and straightforward story.

For being a grounded veteran, Ambrose is ready to jump to the werewolf conclusion pretty quickly and I think it helps the movie. What also helps the movie is he never really outright tells anyone what he thinks is happening. His next course of action is to find out who in the community is the creature. He goes to where his favorite women are and its probably the right time to mention that one of them is Ginger from Gilligan’s Island, one of them is a horror mainstay from Amityville II, The Dark Half, and The Stuff, and the last one was in He Knows You’re Alone and Wolfen. Intentional or not, its fun to have these names show up in mostly thankless roles. Ambrose doesn’t think its one of the older ladies in the community so he heads to the church services after the recommendation from the local police.

On the bus we get an awesome red herring when Tom Noonan shows up as the father of the church. I say red herring because it almost seems like a rule that when Tom Noonan shows up, he’s the bad guy. The movie lets you feel that way for a while but eventually dispels it and it’s a fun diversion. The other guy who shows up on the bus is who I mentioned earlier. There is no way I would have ever recognized him but it’s Lance Guest from Halloween II, Jaws: The Revenge, and The Last Starfighter. The cast here is such a fun and enjoyable collection of actors that put their all into the characters, even if they are mostly one dimensional. Ambrose goes to a guy for ammo and while he has eliminated the father, he asks if anyone else has asked for silver bullets. It’s a great way to find out who may have been the wolf without telling the ammo maker that he is hunting werewolves. There’s even a cool exchange where he asks the guy what silver bullets make him think of…. and he says The Lone Ranger.

Late Phases Best Horror Movie You Never Saw

We cut to who asked for silver bullets and its Lance Guest’s character of the driver and helper at the church. He knows that Ambrose is on to him and that Ambrose may be hard to deal with one on one. After a really nice emotional exchange between Ambrose and his son, something that will pay off a little down the line, Griffin decides to make a mini army of wolves to help him. The really messed up part and a cool addition to the movie is that he bites these victims in his human form. It’s really disturbing. He does it knowing the full moon is coming soon and he will have them ready to go. He even does it during the day, which is always fun for a horror movie to showcase that sort of thing in the light of the sun.

Ambrose knows that the final fight is about to go down and we find out that Father Smith did know in a way what James was up to. In a classically tragic werewolf trope, James hunted and killed the beast when he first came out here over 20 years ago, but it also got to him. In maybe the best line of the movie he tells Father Smith that he’s going to fully kill him out of love because he doesn’t wish this fate on anyone. The transformation scene is one of the better you will see and showcases why we still need to use practical effects. The final form of the wolves may be cheesy if not unique, but I dare you to find something bad to say about James’s transformation.

Ambrose is ambushed in his neighbor’s house and is clawed deeply in the side but makes it home and goes full Rolling Thunder by putting on his military uniform to take on the threat. He leaves a final message to his son that we hear in full at the end of the movie and it ties up the emotional story of the movie nicely. Ambrose may not be able to see but he uses his other senses and training to get the jump on his attackers. He takes almost as much as he gives but is able to brutally dispatch the entire team of lycanthropes in convincing fashion. Knowing he isn’t going to make it; he lays down in his rocker and peacefully goes out before his son finds him.

The music is most noticeable in the final act and over the credits but it’s one final piece of the puzzle that puts together a really fun movie. Late Phases fights the glut of straight to video movies that are bad imitations of Hollywood showcases. It’s a tight tale with nearly everything going for it, well, except for that dumb alternate title and awful alternate poster. Both the name Late Phases and the brilliant orange and black poster show exactly what you will get out of this movie. I don’t blame anyone who sees the bad alternate poster with title and decides to pass. For those willing to give it a try, you will not only find one of the centuries best werewolf tales but also, without a doubt, one of the best horror movies you never saw.

A couple previous episodes of the Best Horror Movie You Never Saw series can be seen below. To see more, and to check out some of our other shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!

The post Late Phases (2014) Revisited – Horror Movie Review appeared first on JoBlo.

21 Feb

Barbara Crampton is being added to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game!

By . FilmTV No Comments

The new Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game from Gun Interactive and Sumo Nottingham was just released for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One back on August 18th, and the game’s developers are working to make sure the game stays alive by dropping in frequent updates. Tomorrow, an update will bring a new execution pack and weapon skins into the game, as well as new looks for a couple of the characters. A while back, it was announced that a new killer character, a new victim character, and a new map called The Mill… and now genre icon Barbara Crampton has revealed that she’s playing one of the new characters! Our friends at Bloody Disgusting have learned that Crampton’s character is named Virginia, but it’s not clear if she’s a killer or a victim.

Crampton made the announcement herself, in a social media video where she also said that director Tobe Hooper’s 1974 classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (watch it HERE) is her favorite horror movie.

Judging by the image that comes up at the end of the video, it looks like Crampton’s video game character is going to look just like she did in the horror classic Re-Animator.

Matches of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game pit 4 victim characters against 3 killer characters. The story of the game has the following set-up: When Maria Flores went missing, and local law enforcement seemed to stall out in their search, her younger sister Ana teamed up with some of Maria’s friends from college to pick up the trail. The game takes place before the events of the original film.

Kane Hodder (who also worked on Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III) did the motion-capture performance for Leatherface in the game, as well as the Grandpa character. Other motion-capture performers include Sean Whalen (The People Under the Stairs) as The Hitch-hiker; Troy Burgess (Swedish Dicks) as The Cook; Kristina Klebe (Don’t Kill It) as new killer character Sissy; and Dove Meir (Dig) as new killer character Johnny. Scout Taylor-Compton (Rob Zombie’s Halloween) did the mo-cap for all of the female victim characters while Hunter C. Smith (Lucky) did the mo-cap for all of the male victim characters. Although Whalen did the mo-cap for the Hitch-hiker, Edwin Neal, who played the character in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, provided his voice for the game. Damian Maffei (The Strangers: Prey at Night) provided the voice of Johnny, and Michael Johnston of Teen Wolf did the same for Danny. BAFTA winner Cissy Jones did the mo-cap and vocal performance for Nancy. You can find out more about the killer characters at THIS LINK and the victim characters HERE. To learn more about the voice cast, head over HERE.

Have you been playing the Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game, and are you glad to hear that Barbara Crampton is being added to it? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

We recently heard there’s a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, called Texas Chainsaw Legacy, in the works. I suggest the filmmakers should take note that Crampton is a Chainsaw fan and get her into that movie as well.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game Barbara Crampton

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21 Feb

Challengers: It’s Love-Love for Zendaya on the tennis courts in the new trailer

By . FilmTV No Comments

As Zendaya walks the red carpet at Dune Part 2 with an outfit that resembles the Metropolis robot as a dominatrix, you can catch her in the trailer for the newest drama from Amazon MGM Studios, Challengers. The trailer reels you in with the dynamic of Zendaya’s tennis pro taking on two male protégés as they, too, embark on their professional tennis careers. Things get hot and heavy (then complicated) when Zendaya’s character entangles herself with both men. MGM has released the new trailer with a few new images that, interestingly, all involve a side two-shot of characters in conversation.

The official synopsis from MGM reads,
“From visionary filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy turned coach and a force of nature who makes no apologies for her game on and off the court. Married to a champion on a losing streak (Mike Faist – West Side Story), Tashi’s strategy for her husband’s redemption takes a surprising turn when he must face off against the washed-up Patrick (Josh O’Connor – The Crown) – his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend. As their pasts and presents collide, and tensions run high, Tashi must ask herself, what will it cost to win.”

Call Me By Your Name‘s Luca Guadagnino directs a script from writer Justin Kuritzkes. Executive producers on the film include Bernard Bellew, Lorenzo Mieli and Kevin Ulrich. In addition to starring in the film, Zendaya is also on board as a producer, and she’s joined by Amy Pascal, the film’s director Luca Guadagnino and Rachel O’Connor. The theatrically released film has been rated R for “language throughout, some sexual content and graphic nudity.”

Guadagnino says Zendaya trained with tennis coach and former player Brad Gilbert for three months. During that time, Zendaya sharpened her skills on the court, learning to use momentum to her advantage, track a tennis ball with pinpoint accuracy, and smash any challenge with determination. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross composed the film’s score, adding tension and drama to the backdrop of this steamy love story.

Challengers is set to serve into theaters on April 26.

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