Following in the footsteps of The Office, CBS’ Ghosts takes a BBC show and gives it an American makeover. And like the Steve Carrell hit, Ghosts has managed to break out of the shadow of its UK counterpart and created a world all its own. And as a fan of the strange and unusual, I absolutely clung to it. Ghosts is quirky and much more inappropriate than you’d think for a Network comedy. It features a fantastic cast that includes Rose McIver, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and the person I was lucky enough to talk with: Asher Grodman.
If there’s one thing you’ll immediately notice about Grodman’s character of Trevor, it’s his lack of pants. As someone who can’t help but think about the logistics of filming, I was dying to ask Asher about what it’s like to be the only person without pants on every day. So we went over that (probably to Asher’s annoyance) and what people can expect from this upcoming season. While the season may be short (there was this little thing called the Actors and Writers Strikes, which threw a wrench into a traditional season) it sounds like it packs a punch. Here’s hoping no other Ghosts get sucked off.
Ghosts synopsis:
A young couple, Sam and Jay, inherit a haunted mansion and, unaware of their invisible housemates, plan to turn it into a B&B. Their lives become much more complicated after a fall causes Sam to see the ghosts. Based on the UK series.
CBS’ GHOSTS PREMIERES NEW EPISODES ON THURSDAYS 8:30 EST AND THE NEXT DAY ON PARAMOUNT PLUS.
After being convicted of assaulting and harassing his ex-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, Jonathan Majors will avoid jail time by completing a 52-week in-person batterer’s intervention program. Additionally, Majors must continue with mental health therapy. The new order comes as Majors faced a one-year jail sentence for his actions against Jabbari.
Last week, Majors’ legal team tried to have his conviction thrown out, saying there was “a reasonable view of the evidence to support that Defendant acted recklessly.” Majors’ arrest happened at the height of his career after the back-to-back releases of Creed III and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The latter positions Majors as Marvel’s next Thanos-level villain, Kang the Conqueror.
While Jonathan Majors would say he was “shocked” at the verdict, many were not, particularly the numerous women who have come forward declaring that the actor had a history of violent behavior. In a recent piece in The New York Times, the women who spoke up – some of whom chose to remain anonymous – said that Jonathan Majors would make them feel “loved” at one moment and “erased” not long after. In one instance, one of the women – former girlfriend Emma Duncan – said that Majors had “threatened to strangle and kill her” during an argument. According to statements obtained by the newspaper, Duncan approached him about his communications with another woman, resulting in Majors assaulting her and telling her, “I’m going to make sure you can’t have children.” Regarding some of his actions, Majors’ attorney said, “Looking back, he is embarrassed by some of his jealous behavior.”
But Jonathan Majors’ alleged tormenting wasn’t exclusive to hotels and taxis. Nine people have since come forward about the actor’s inappropriate and unprofessional behavior on the set of HBO’s Lovecraft Country, saying he treated women differently than men. According to accounts, he once cornered an AD to tell her she didn’t belong on the team while he made derogatory remarks about another’s looks.
What do you think about Jonathan Majors’ punishment? Do you think he’ll come back from this mess? Hollywood doesn’t exactly have a long memory. Let us know what you think in the comments below.
The Prime Video TV series adaptation of the popular Fallout video game franchise won’t begin streaming until April 12th, but season 2 of the show is already moving forward. While the first season was primarily filmed in New York (with some filming also taking place in Utah), Variety reports that the production will be moving to California for the next sequel. That’s not to take advantage of filming locations there, but rather to get a tax break. The California Film Commission just awarded $152 million in tax incentives to a dozen different TV shows, and Fallout is on the list. For filming the next season in California, the show will receive $25 million in California tax credits.
The budget for the show is quite large, as Variety notes that it has $153 million in qualified expenditures for the season.
Like the video games on which it is based, the “Fallout” series is set in a world where the future envisioned by Americans in the late 1940s explodes upon itself through a nuclear war in 2077. According to Polygon and confirmed by interviews in Vanity Fair, the TV series is telling an original story that is set in the world of the video games and will be canon to the game franchise. The story plays out in and around a fallout shelter in Los Angeles called Vault 33.
In addition to Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4, the video game series also consists of the spin-offs Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 76, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout Shelter, and Fallout Pinball. The first game takes place 219 years after nuclear war and is set in a post-apocalyptic Southern California. The protagonist, referred to as the Vault Dweller, is tasked with recovering a water chip in the Wasteland to replace the broken one in their underground shelter home, Vault 13. Afterwards, the Vault Dweller must thwart the plans of a group of mutants, led by a grotesque entity named the Master.
Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner are the showrunners on the Fallout TV series and are executive producing the series with Todd Howard of Bethesda Game Studios, James Altman of Bethesda Softworks, and Athena Wickham, Jonathan Nolan, and Lisa Joy of Kilter Films. Amazon Studios and Kilter Films are producing the series, in association with Bethesda Game Studios and Bethesda Softworks. Nolan and Joy developed the concept for TV, and Nolan directed the first three episodes.
Prime Video’s Fallout stars Ella Purnell (Yellowjackets), Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks), Walton Goggins (Justified), Xelia Mendes-Jones (Sans Comic), Aaron Moten (Father Stu), Moisés Arias (The King of Staten Island), Sarita Choudhury (Homeland), Michael Emerson (Person of Interest), Leslie Uggams (Deadpool), Frances Turner (The Boys), Dave Register (Heightened), Zach Cherry (Severance), Johnny Pemberton (Ant-Man), Rodrigo Luzzi (Dead Ringers), and Annabel O’Hagan (Law & Order: SVU).
Purnell’s character is Lucy, who has lived her entire life inside a subterranean vault, where every need and want has been satisfied while generations and generations await the day when it is safe to surface. When a crisis forces Lucy to venture above on a rescue mission, she finds that the planet above remains a hellscape crawling with giant insects, voracious mutant animal “abominations,” and a human population of sunbaked miscreants who make the manners, morals, and hygiene of the gunslinging Old West look like Downton Abbey. Moten’s character is Maximus, who grew up aboveground but, like Lucy, was also raised in a cloistered “family” of sorts—a brutal collective of warriors called the Brotherhood of Steel. The Brotherhood is made up of battalions of super-soldier knights in shining power armor, who stalk the landscape enforcing the Brotherhood’s notion of order. Maximus serves as a squire. MacLachlan plays Lucy’s father, the overseer of Vault 33, which essentially makes him the mayor of their hometown, while Choudhury is a different kind of leader in this world, willing to sacrifice anything for her band of people. Arias plays Lucy’s inquisitive brother. Emerson is an enigmatic researcher named Wilzig.
As Vanity Fair noted, “in the Fallout games, Ghouls are typically cannon fodder, mindless zombies whose bodies have been mutated by radiation.” Goggins’ character is Cooper Howard, a legendary Ghoul who still retains some of the person he used to be. He’s “a gruesomely scarred roughrider who has a code of honor, but also a ruthless streak. He’s also quite a survivor—having existed for hundreds of years. The show occasionally flashes back to the human being he once was, a father and husband named Cooper Howard, before the nuclear holocaust turned the world into a cinder and transformed him into an undead, noseless sharp-shooting fiend.“
Are you glad to hear that Fallout season 2 is already moving forward? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
With the release of the Rising Tide DLC on April 18, Final Fantasy XVI’s story will finally be over. While that doesn’t mean Square Enix is done working on the project (a PC port is still in the works), it does mean fans are curious as to what the team will do next and if we will ever see the game’s world and…
With the release of the Rising Tide DLC on April 18, Final Fantasy XVI’s story will finally be over. While that doesn’t mean Square Enix is done working on the project (a PC port is still in the works), it does mean fans are curious as to what the team will do next and if we will ever see the game’s world and…
An Apple Original Film, the comedy-drama Fly Me to the Moon is set to receive a theatrical release (in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment) on July 12th before it starts streaming on Apple TV+. With its big screen debut just three months away, a trailer for Fly Me to the Moon has made its way online, and you can check it out in the embed above.
Directed by Greg Berlanti from a screenplay by Rose Gilroy (with Bill Kirstein and Keenan Flynn receiving story credit), the film is described as sharp and stylish and is set against the high-stakes backdrop of NASA’s historic moon landing. Brought in to fix NASA’s public image, sparks fly in all directions as marketing wunderkind Kelly Jones wreaks havoc on launch director Cole Davis’s already difficult task. When the President deems the mission too important to fail, Jones is directed to stage a fake moon landing as back-up and the countdown truly begins…
Scarlett Johansson (The Avengers) takes on the role of Kelly Jones, with Channing Tatum (Magic Mike) playing Cole Davis. Also in the cast are Nick Dillenburg (Orange Is the New Black), Anna Garcia (The Pembrook Brothers), Jim Rash (Community), Noah Robbins (The Trial of the Chicago 7), Colin Woodell (The Continental), Christian Zuber (The Morning Show), Donald Elise Watkins (Free State of Jones), Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond), and Woody Harrelson (True Detective).
Speaking with People, Berlanti said, “The inspiration for this story was to craft a big, fun, smart original movie around whether or not the American government could have possibly faked the Apollo 11 moon landing, which is still the most-watched live TV event in the history of the world and has since become one of the most talked about conspiracy theories.“
Berlanti may be best known for producing TV shows like Riverdale, Superman & Lois, Gotham Knights, The Flash, Titans, You, Doom Patrol, Stargirl, Batwoman, Supergirl, Black Lightning, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow. He previously directed the films The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy, Life as We Know It, and Love, Simon.
What did you think of the Fly Me to the Moon trailer? Will you be checking this movie out when it reaches theatres in July, or will you wait to stream it on Apple TV+? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
If you somehow haven’t heard already, there’s going to be a solar eclipse today, April 8. The sun, moon, and Earth are going to be perfectly aligned for a brief window, and if you live in one of the areas where it will be visible, you’ll be able to see the phenomenon for around four-and-a-half minutes. Many people…
If you somehow haven’t heard already, there’s going to be a solar eclipse today, April 8. The sun, moon, and Earth are going to be perfectly aligned for a brief window, and if you live in one of the areas where it will be visible, you’ll be able to see the phenomenon for around four-and-a-half minutes. Many people…
There are a lot cult classics from the 1980s, but Road House stands somewhere near the top. Sure, many of its fans wouldn’t label it as such, since they lovingly, legitimately and unironically adore it. But there’s no use in arguing it belongs in one camp over another or that it is unapologetically everything it sets out to be. But it – and its cult following – couldn’t have happened without a few broken ribs, a don’t-take-no producer and some pervy late-night phone calls to a star’s spouse. Yes, it involves Bill Murray… So, pour some suds and rip some throats because we’re gonna find out: WTF Happened to this Movie?!
Road House comes from a script by David Lee Henry (a pseudonym for R. Lance Hill) and Hilary Henkin and tells of a dude with a mullet named Dalton hired to “cool” the Double Deuce bar, all while developing a romance with a doctor who has also caught the eye of a dastardly – by ‘80s movie standards, at least – businessman.
Coming to the table of superstar producer Joel Silver, Road House would be assigned to director Rowdy Herrington, who wasn’t entirely sold on the project as his follow-up to thriller Jack’s Back, but was convinced by Silver, who revealed that Patrick Swayze – a Hollywood darling after Dirty Dancing – would be starring. To also draw in any prospects, Silver summed up the movie as “boobs and bombs”, while Herrington “saw it as a cartoon…Broader than life. Brighter than life”, also noting that Silver had a penchant for making movies geared towards teenage boys.
As “peaceful warrior” James Dalton, Patrick Swayze would headline Road House, while Kelly Lynch (Cocktail, Drugstore Cowboy) would land love interest Dr. Elizabeth Clay. To prepare for her role, Lynch actually shadowed medical professionals…which we know now was completely useless since she doesn’t do any real medical work in the movie. Lynch wasn’t entirely sure if she even wanted the part, saying, “Okay, I don’t understand what this is. There’s a big-wheel truck, there’s a bad guy, there’s a doctor in a mini-dress, and there are bouncers…So many elements were thrown into this movie that it just didn’t make any sense to me.” But Silver reminded her she had a contract with United Artists and didn’t get much of a say, especially since original choice Annette Bening wouldn’t be hired due to her lack of chemistry with Swayze (she’s more of a Beatty gal).
Taking the part of Dalton’s mentor Wade Garrett would be Sam Elliott, another party who wasn’t interested at first, only being talked into it by Herrington, who told him, “If you don’t do this movie, I’m fucked.” But Silver – who Elliott called a “throwback to old Hollywood” – may have nailed it even better, telling the legend, “You’ve got a lot of baggage, and it makes you right for this part.” There, too, would be Ben Gazzara as Brad Wesley (a role first offered to James Garner, who turned it down), Kevin Tighe as Frank Tillman, and Red West as Red Webster, whose auto supply shop gets all blowed up in a stunt that cost $25,000! West actually has a pretty cool music background, as he was a close friend of Elvis and even a member of the Memphis Mafia. Also on the music front was blind guitarist Jeff Healey.
With a budget of $15 million, production on Road House commenced in April 1988, with filming taking place in California, a set standing in for the Missouri’s fake Double Deuce, although some interiors were shot inside of a now-defunct bar in CA called The Bandstand, also once called Cowboy Boogie. Other locations included Santa Clarita and Valencia.
It’s probably no surprise that much of the behind-the-scenes goodness of Road House stems from the action, so much of which seems so silly and dated 35 years after its release (even director Herrington said he wanted to pay homage to silent comedians the Keystone Kops!). What might be more of a shock is that the cast was encouraged to do their own stunts. As Elliott put it, “It was a very physical job. I mean, you hear all that bullshit about ‘It’s all stunt doubles’ and all that shit. Well, it isn’t. All the actors, as far as I know, did their own fighting. I fucking got the shit kicked out of me for the entire film.”
Still, none of it was possible without stunt coordinator Charlie Picerni, who had previously done stunts for Die Hard, Beverly Hills Cop II and more, and nine-time black belter Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, who had a leg up in recognizing that Swayze could have been a pro kickboxer after seeing him in action. There, too, would be a lot of explosives work by Al Di Sarro, who Herrington said “might’ve been in prison for pyromania if he wasn’t in the film business.” We can picture that!
By pretty much all accounts, Road House was a fun set to be on. And yes, the cast knew how ridiculous some of the one-liners were, including that one, which was originally written as “Damn, boy, I thought you were good!”, although whether it was a Marshall Teague improv or a line tossed in by Joel Silver remains debated…Which brings us to the scene we all know and love:
The scene in question, in which Dalton chases down Jimmy Reno on foot and tackles him off of a motorcycle – the one stunt Swayze wasn’t allowed to perform (yet they let him take a 20-foot plunge into a truck; go figure!) – before launching into an epic fistfight. That fight – the high point of the movie – took a full five days and more than 70 takes to nail. And with it came the bumps, bruises and breaks that show up on screen. Teague (who got the role after Scott Glenn turned it down) took to antagonizing Swayze to get more out of the fight, firing up the star, who also wanted it all to look as real as possible. And real it was, with the two having to be broken up at one point because they thought Swayze and Teague were actually beating the shit out of each other!…which they kind of were, since Teague gave Swayze broken ribs, forcing him to undergo four total surgeries, while Swayze would also have 2.5 ounces of fluid drained from his knee. Who says “Pain don’t hurt”? Don’t worry, Teague got his, too, ending up with a broken eye socket…Despite the injuries, it was actually his haircut that Swayze called “the bane of my existence.” But it is a damn good fight, a standout of over-the-top hand-to-hand combat in ‘80s cinema, ending with one of the wildest moments of the decade: Swayze ripping out Reno’s throat. For that? Just one take.
But it wasn’t all pain on the set. There was some love, too – and we don’t just mean the flock of female fans were trying to get a glimpse – and probably more – of Swayze. As far as that moment between Swayze and Lynch, which starts against a fireplace, she remembered: “They really liked everything about the way that scene looked, with the blonde hair against the rocks behind me, but I was like, ‘Isn’t this kind of…mean?’ So they put a thin padding under my dress, so you can’t see it. But he’s still slamming me against the rocks, so I had to be careful not to hit my head. Thank God Patrick was so strong.” He, too, had some fond memories, saying, “The love scene is probably the hottest I’ve ever done, and clothes don’t even come off.”
It might not be that memorable for most of the male audience, but there is one family that can’t get enough of it. As it turns out, Bill Murray and his brothers have made it a habit to ring up Kelly Lynch’s husband, writer Mitch Glazer, every time that scene comes on, altering their voices and informing him, “You don’t know me, but your wife is getting slammed up against the wall by Patrick Swayze. She’s not putting up much of a fight.” For the Murray brothers, no time of night is off limits for the prank call. (Murray isn’t the only famous fan, though, as Anthony Bourdain counted himself among its biggest supporters.)
But long before the lewd messages, Road House had to hit theaters; and it did on May 19th, 1989, opening against newbiesFright Night 2 and Miracle Mile. But there would be other movies keeping it from hitting #1, with its $6 million opening weekend landing it just behind the previous week’s champ, See No Evil, Hear No Evil…and ahead of five-weeker Field of Dreams. And that’s where it would peak. With a total gross of $30 million, Road House may have doubled its budget but it wasn’t exactly a smash, barely beating out a re-release of Disney’s Peter Pan on the year-end charts.
Critically, it was a disaster, even going on to earn five Razzie nominations, tying for the most that year with The Karate Kid Part III and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. They were: Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Actor, Worst Supporting Actor (poor Ben Gazzara!), and Worst Screenplay, “losing” most to The Final Frontier.
But Road House’s reputation decades on can’t be denied. Sure, it has a lot of corn, a sprinkle of homoeroticism and easily mockable sequences, but it has actually proved useful in real-life situations. Following the 2014 murder of Eric Garner, which sparked outrage and protests against police departments for use of excessive force, the NYPD implemented the movie’s Three Simple rules as part of a new retraining program: 1) Never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected; 2) Take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it’s absolutely necessary; and 3) Be nice…OK, so they did modify these a bit and we’re still waiting to see the long-term effects, but at least they weren’t getting inspiration from Denzel in Training Day…
The movie truly found its fanbase and would later do remarkably well on the home video market, already beginning to build a newfound fanbase. As such, it’s really no surprise that studios have gone back to the Road House well, first producing a 2006 direct-to-video sequel which followed the exploits of Dalton’s son, Shane. There, too, most surprisingly, was an off-Broadway production in 2003, whose full title is: Road House: The Stage Version Of The Cinema Classic That Starred Patrick Swayze, Except This One Stars Taimak From The 80’s Cult Classic “The Last Dragon” Wearing A Blonde Mullet Wig. Yes, there were multiple sold-out shows.
In 2015 – six years after the death of Patrick Swayze – a remake was on the table with Ronda Rousey starring and Nick Cassavetes directing. That was KO’d, but a new one was finally greenlit and is out in 2024 with Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead. But we won’t spend too much time here, as it has so much going on behind the scenes – original Road House writer R. Lance Hill claiming copyright infringement, the release moving from theatrical to streaming, the subsequent protests from director Doug Liman, the allegations of AI use to replicate actor’s voices amid the SAG-AFTRA strike – that it might end up getting its own “WTF Happened to This Movie?!” episode someday. But we should still note that Marshall Teague found the fight scenes “humorous” and that we highly doubt Jake Gyllenhaal saw the injuries that Patrick Swayze did.
But there’s just no replacing the original Road House, which has an intense following that has inspired theme nights and screenings, typically within college crowds. No doubt this was spawned partly by seemingly constant spots in AMC’s rotation…And we can still see exactly why Joel Silver called it “the best drive-in movie ever made”, even though most of us probably never saw it at the drive-in.
As Rowdy Herrington put it, “It’s harder to throw a meatball past a hungry dog than it is to make a picture that endures.” Now that’s a one-liner worthy of Road House!
They did it. They said it was impossible, and that all the odds were against them, but the bastards did it. Over the weekend, Arrowhead Game Studios passed down the final phase of Operation Swift Disassembly, a major order that tasked Helldivers 2 players with wiping out the robot Automatons for good. Despite…
