Mama said knock you out! Well, LL Cool J did at least. Look, we all know egos and testosterone can be a dangerous combination in the locker room, but when you put that locker room on the set of a major motion picture, things can really blow up. And that’s just what happened during the making of Any Given Sunday, when Jamie Foxx – then trying to make a name as a dramatic actor – and LL Cool J – the hero of Deep Blue Sea – got into it, with the rapper trying to get ahead of an entirely different kind of shark.

In the Any Given Sunday scene in question, Foxx’s Willie Beaman and LL Cool J’s Julian Washington were to get into it over mishandling the ball. With tensions building apparently just from being on the same field as one other, LL Cool J reached over star Al Pacino and gave Foxx a message-sending smack on the face, to which Foxx responded, “If you want to do this, we can do this.”

LL Cool J tried to defend it as an attempt at improv,only to do it again in another take. According to cinematographer Sal Totino, Beaman was now steamin’, saying, “What does Jamie do? F*cking hits him back. Al Pacino is in the middle of the scene acting, doesn’t know that a real fight’s going over his head,” since the scene called for Pacino’s coach Tony D’Amato to break up the spar between the characters. As Pacino later recalled after splitting up Foxx and LL Cool J, “I had some sense.”

But that was hardly the last time Foxx and LL Cool J got into it on the set of Any Given Sunday. At another point, LL Cool J instigated a moment that found Foxx’s head being smashed into a camera crane. Totino remembered, “I thought he snapped his neck. Jamie pops up, full-blown fight going on. Punches are flying everywhere.” After yet another breakup — Pacino sat out playing referee this time around — Oliver Stone was miffed to find out that the crew put the stars’ ticket-selling faces ahead of actually filming the shot. Now that is a dude you don’t want to piss off on a movie set.

Any Given Sunday has a pretty interesting backstory to it, but these brawls on the set show just what can happen when one person thinks they’re better than the other, neglecting to remember that there’s a $55 million movie at stake. While Foxx doesn’t appear to have any plans to reunite with LL Cool J on the big screen, he will get “back in action” with Cameron Diaz (Miami Sharks owner Christina Pagniacci) for one of his return movies after suffering a “medical complication” last year.

No cameras, no gridiron, who do ya got in a fight between Jamie Foxx and LL Cool J? Name your winner below!

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When early Marvel Studios movies planted their seeds that implied a possible crossover of their films, they came off as fun little easter eggs for the hardcore fans at first. Then, when The Avengers came out in 2012 with its game-changing crossover, the film world saw what they were capable of and studios rushed behind them in line to try to get some of that shared universe glory. A producer on the successful Sonic the Hedgehog movies thinks the video game-inspired franchise has the characters and the lore to build what he hopes will be “Avengers-level” event films.

According to IGN, franchise and series executive producer Toby Ascher recently gave an interview with Paste Magazine where he spoke about Paramount’s plan to build upon the Sonic the Hedgehog movies into a mega event. The studio already has the Knuckles spin-off coming out as a way to look at “supporting characters in depth and really build them out in cool ways.” The sequel feature films are aiming to feature a wide array of characters and sport an epic story of sorts. Ascher states, “We got really excited about the idea of expanding our characters in our world into television, specifically, because it gives us a platform to really do character studies. We knew that, with Shadow coming into Sonic 3 and some of the bigger things that we want to do, the Sonic franchise on the movie side is going to be these Avengers-level events. They’re going to be these big, exciting stories that have a lot of different characters.”

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 inevitably featured Sonic’s partner, Tails, in a major role and also introduced Knuckles. With the third movie, another big character from the Sega games is making his way onto the big screen — Shadow the Hedgehog. According to IGN, “One character fans have begged for since the live-action movies began is Metal Sonic, and with dozens of other games, shows, and even comics to pull from, there’s no telling how Paramount will proceed.” However, the real litmus test before Sonic 3 will be how the Knuckles spin-off captures audiences. When the character entered the film world, Ascher says, “We thought we could translate that into a full series. I think it’s by far the funniest version we’ve had in any of the Sonic movies so far. It leans into weird comedy partially because of Adam Pally and because of what Idris brings in a really great way.”

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PLOT: Nicolas Cage stars as a father desperately trying to take care of his two sons in equally heartfelt and innovatively terrifying post-apocalyptic vision from director and lauded visual effects artist Ben Brewer.

REVIEW: It’s hard not to perk up when seeing Nicolas Cage‘s name attached to a project these days. Not only is it guaranteed to have a great performance, but he tends to take on very interesting work. Hell, I can’t remember the last generic movie the man was in. And no matter his role, he always elevates the material. So slap Mr Cage in the middle of a post-apocalyptic world and I feel right at home. But where Arcadian stumbles is its lack of true identity.

Arcadian follows Paul (Cage) as he’s trying to take care of his sons in a terrifying post-apocalyptic world. Most of society has been wiped out and there are mysterious creatures that attack at night. So each evening, the family barricades themselves in their house and prepares for the worst. And despite his prominent placement, Cage gets fairly limited screen time. He’s mostly there to spring the narrative forward for his two sons. They’re the main focus. Which is too bad as I thought the story of a father raising his two sons under these conditions was much more rewarding.

I can’t say I was the biggest fan of the oldest brother, Thomas (Maxwell Jenkins) as he was a little too “head in the clouds” for my liking. Thomas’ motivation seems to be entirely motivated by what’s between his legs. It makes sense for a teenager but, given the harsh world that they’re in, it’s hard not to see the boy as stupidly ignorant. I get it, they needed an excuse for some conflict but it results in the character looking rather simple-minded. I did enjoy his haircut, which is clearly done with scissors and therefore uneven. It’s the little details that add up in a film so reliant on world-building.

Meanwhile, Jaeden Martell‘s Joseph is much more logically motivated and approaches the world in a clinical manner. Martell continues to be an impressive standout, providing a vulnerability that just lends even further to those moments of inner strength. And Cage is great as always. He doesn’t have a ton to say but he was clearly invested in the role and took care to pay off the small moments. I could have done for more of him but it made sense to force the brothers to evolve.

The narrative can be a little bit frustrating as, despite the post-world society, the consequences of nighttime don’t really land. While it’s obvious that bad things can happen at night, there’s a flippancy to the dusk that can be annoying. And the creature designs are going to be very divisive. I’d argue it’s all worth it for a couple of scenes of tension that it produces. I found myself nearly pacing in anticipation of a certain moment, and it’s pulled off wonderfully. Genuinely worth a bump in score, it’s so good. But once the creatures are shown in full light, they lose a bit of their luster. Especially with their sometimes subpar CGI.

One of the film’s coolest scenes, the “oner” at the beginning involving Cage, doesn’t really fit the rest of the world we’re seeing. If anything, I’d have been even more intrigued by that world versus the one we got. Beautiful shots like that are aplenty, with the story taking place in the hilly countryside. There are elements that feel a bit like A Quiet Place. But unlike that film, the rules behind the creatures aren’t well established. There’s no “be quiet or get killed” it’s mostly just avoiding nighttime because that’s when they hunt.

In many ways, Arcadian follows a similar formula we’ve seen before in these post-apocalyptic films. And despite my criticisms, I still enjoyed the movie. I just wish it hadn’t wasted its time on stuff like teen romance rather than focusing on the dystopic world they’re inhabiting. There’s a much more interesting story when it focuses solely on the family and their dynamic. And the film really excels when those moments are front and center. I enjoyed my time with Arcadian and think the director has a lot of potential. Here’s hoping he gets to keep Cage longer next time.

ARCADIAN IS PLAYING AT THE OVERLOOK FILM FESTIVAL AND WILL BE IN THEATERS ON APRIL 12TH, 2024.

Arcadian

GOOD

7

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We all know that Danny Trejo has spent time in prison, with a criminal record going back to his youth and extending into the ‘60s, long before he got his acting going. And it was during one of his latter stints that Trejo came across a fella who had yet to get his music career off the ground: none other than Charles Manson, who himself was a career criminal when the two encountered each other. Fortunately, Trejo took a considerably different path than being responsible for maybe the most notorious murders of the century…but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have a unique experience with the cult leader.

Danny Trejo recalled meeting Charles Manson in the early ‘60s and even offering him protection. In turn, Manson introduced Trejo to the ways of hypnosis. “There were three people in my cell, and when we found out Charlie could hypnotize us, we said, ‘Well, get us loaded on weed.’ And he did. We were loaded on marijuana. And then after we woke up, I said, ‘Charlie, get us loaded on heroin.’ And he said, ‘Alright.’ So two of us got loaded. Then the other guy, the one that didn’t get loaded, Charlie asked him, ‘Have you ever been loaded on heroin?’ And he goes, ‘No.’ So Charlie said, ‘Your mind doesn’t know how to react.’” Once Manson was found to be tied to the Tate-LaBianca murders, Trejo recalled seeing him on TV. Yeah, small world we have here… 

Charles Manson has quite a list of celebrities he has been linked to, although Danny Trejo is unique in that their encounters came pre-fame and not during, say, From Dusk Till Dawn. Of course there’s The Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson, who Manson tried to latch onto, but also Cass Elliott of the Mamas and the Papas and even Angela Lansbury, whose daughter was getting close enough to the Manson Family that she relocated her own clan to Ireland.

Danny Trejo recalled even having run-ins with females from Charles Manson’s cult, although they too were far from on the up-and-up. “Instead of all living on the street, they lived out here on Spahn Ranch. I knew a couple of girls that stayed at that ranch, and they said the big thing they would do was pick crabs off themselves. They were all just little freaks.”

Odd celebrity stories such as the Trejo / Manson link are always fun encounters to hear happening, allowing yourself to concoct your own alternate histories with them. Could Trejo have rescued Manson from his future, introducing him to Robert Rodriguez and landing him the Cheech Marin role in Spy Kids? Well, no, but if Quentin Tarantino can change the timeline, what’s the harm in playing our own make believe?

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Christopher Nolan has one of the best superhero trilogies under his belt with Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises, but he once considered calling it quits after the first movie.

Jonathan Nolan recently sat down with Dax Shepard on the Armchair Expert podcast and explained that he had to push for his brother to return for The Dark Knight. “Chris was on the fence about making another one,” Jonathan said. “He didn’t want to become a superhero movie director.” While Jonathan said Chris was “very proud” of Batman Begins, he was also ready to move on to another project and needed some convincing to come back for more.

“We spent an hour telling the origin story, and that’s great, but it’s like, ‘what [more] can we do with this?’” Jonathan recalled telling Chris. “Can we take the same characters and shift ever so slightly into a different genre? Can we go from an adventure film to a crime film, to a mob movie, and bring that feeling into it?“

Jonathan continued: “So I was literally sitting with [producer] Charles Roven and Chris and being like, ‘Dude, don’t be a chicken shit. Let’s do this!’ And I knew with the script — and he developed the story with David Goyer with a little bit of input from me — it was like first act detailed, second act somewhat detailed, third act … uh, he rides away at the end — once we had the script done, I was like, ‘This is going to be great. This is exciting. We gotta make this movie.’ And eventually, he came around. He did manage to avoid being pigeonholed.“

It’s hard to imagine Christopher Nolan not being the one to direct The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, but it sounds like it could have been a very real possibility. In a separate interview with Josh Horowtiz, Jonathan Nolan also confirmed rumours that they had discussed using the Riddler as the villain for the final movie but ultimately decided the character might have been too close to the Joker. “It did feel like it was close enough to the space of what we’d done with Heath [Ledger] that you really needed to… shift there,” Nolan explained. Back in the day, the studio was pushing for Leonardo DiCaprio to play the Riddler.

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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga director George Miller is currently in Las Vegas attending CinemaCon where he has received an award for International Career Achievement in Filmmaking. During the Q&A, George Miller touched upon his influences and explained why Pinocchio is his favourite movie.

“It’s because it was one of the first stories I saw that ticked every box,” Miller explained. “When we watch a film, we watch it as a full human being. We watch it viscerally, emotionally, intellectually, mythologically, in every way. And the stories that seem to endure are those that basically have that richness right through all the storytelling.“

Miller continued, saying Pinocchio has “got surface charm, the journey of the character going from a wooden boy to a real boy, going through terrible temptations, getting very brutal, exciting, his father in the whale, and so on. It’s just about as epic a story as you can get.”

The story of Pinocchio is a favourite of many directors, including Guillermo del Toro, who directed his own take on the tale for Netflix with stop-motion animation. In addition to Pinocchio, some of George Miller’s other favourite movies include The Godfather Part II, M*A*S*H, The Battle of Algiers, Boyhood, and Groundhog Day.

With Warner Bros. scheduled to give a presentation at CinemaCon tomorrow, we should learn a little more about Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Miller mentioned that they finished the dub and mix on the movie two days ago. Our own Chris Bumbray is in attendance, so be sure to check back here for all the CinemaCon goodies throughout the week.

The official synopsis for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga: “As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland they come across the Citadel presided over by the Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.“

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga will hit theaters on May 24th.

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Over 60 hours into Rise of the Ronin and I still haven’t discovered everything that Team Ninja’s latest open-world samurai adventure game has to offer. And now, outside of all the cats to collect and fugitives to kill, there’s another secret connected to Nioh that I only just came across. That’s right: William Adams,…

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Over 60 hours into Rise of the Ronin and I still haven’t discovered everything that Team Ninja’s latest open-world samurai adventure game has to offer. And now, outside of all the cats to collect and fugitives to kill, there’s another secret connected to Nioh that I only just came across. That’s right: William Adams,…

Read more…

Carrie-Anne Moss will make the leap from The Matrix to Star Wars with The Acolyte, the upcoming live-action series set to be released on Disney+ this summer. The actress plays Jedi Master Indara, and as we’ve seen in the trailer, she’s adept at wielding a lightsaber as well as using “Force-fu,” which naturally makes one think of Trinity.

According to The Acolyte creator Leslye Headland, that connection with Trinity is very much intentional as she told Empire that Master Indara was “very much inspired” by Carrie-Anne Moss’ iconic Matrix character. “I personally wanted to see someone who had the highest status you could imagine in a Force-fu fight – somebody that would come in and you immediately would be like, ‘Oh, that’s the most powerful Jedi in the room.’ And that’s Trinity,” Headland explained.

Moss added that she was immediately down for an action-fueled appearance in Star Wars after talking with Headland. “I felt that a few times in my career with some of the big things I’ve done – Memento, The Matrix – where you’re talking to the filmmaker and you just go, ‘Oh, they totally get it,’” Moss said. “Within my soul and my spirit, to get to play this Jedi Master and train for the fight was [an] amazing experience. A part of me forgot how much I love action. I love it. It’s hard. But I was just really thrilled that I could do it, and I wanted to do it well. ‘Gimme another take! Gimme another take!’“

Set hundreds of years before the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, The Acolyte stars Amandla Stenberg (Bodies Bodies Bodies), Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game), Manny Jacinto (The Good Place), Dafne Keen (Logan), Charlie Barnett (You), Jodie Turner-Smith (Anne Boleyn), Rebecca Henderson (Russian Doll), Dean-Charles Chapman (Game of Thrones), Joonas Suotamon (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker), and Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix Resurrections).

The Acolyte logline reads: “An investigation into a shocking crime spree pits a respected Jedi Master (Lee) against a dangerous warrior from his past (Stenberg). As more clues emerge, they travel down a dark path where sinister forces reveal all is not what it seems.” The series will premiere on Disney+ on June 4th

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First there’s a solar eclipse, and now there’s an Avatar: The Last Airbender crossover event in Fortnite. Somewhere out there, a grown man is plotting an attack on the Fire Nation while he and his kids get a victory royale and I think that’s beautiful.

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