CiniemaCon 2024 is upon us, and as we prepare for a deluge of news, previews, and commentary from the show floor, JoBlo’s Editor-in-Chief, Chris Bumbray, has spotted the official title for Ridley Scott’s upcoming Gladiator sequel. Forgoing subtitles, such as Gladiator: Blood on the Sand or Gladiator: Wicked Empire, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator sequel is titled Gladiator II. While the title is simple, it aptly includes the Roman numeral for two. I see what you did there, Mr. Scott. Sometimes, the obvious choice is also the correct one.
Gladiator 2 is one of the year’s hotly-anticipated films after Ridley Scott’s original, starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, and Connie Wilson, became a favorite among film buffs, with some calling it “magnificent,” “compelling,” and “richly enjoyable.” Near the film’s release, you couldn’t go more than a day without someone shouting, “Are you not entertained?” in your face, referring to Crowe’s iconic character Maximus Decimus Meridius. The quote quickly became as memeable as violently kicking someone into an abyss, like in Zack Snyder’s 300.
Paul Mescal (All of Us Strangers, Normal People, Aftersun) leads Gladiator II, taking over the lead from Russell Crowe’s Maximus. Mescal plays Lucius, the son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), who is fully grown in the sequel. The story takes place several years after Maximus’ death in the original. Before he died, Maximus rescued Lucius and his mother from the clutches of the young man’s uncle, Commodus (Phoenix). The event left an impression on Lucius, who aspires to be as formidable as Maximus as he braves a harsh world.
Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us), Denzel Washington (Philadelphia), Connie Nielsen (Wonder Woman), Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things), Matt Lucas (Wonka), Fred Hechinger (The Woman in the Window), Derek Jacobi (Dead Again), and May Calamawy (Moon Knight) join Mescal as primary cast members in Gladiator II. Ridley Scott directs the Gladiator sequel from a script by David Scarpa (All The Money In the World).
The Gladiator II display at CinemaCon is a massive shield with the words “What we do in life echoes in eternity” etched into the formidable material. Beneath what looks like a crest (or the head of a statue), we see the title Gladiator II. The display is in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, where CinemaCon takes place. There’s lots to see from the show floor, so check back later today for a look at this year’s CinemaCon offerings.
Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II arrives in theaters on November 22, 2024.
Many people may not know this, but before Steven Seagal’s action movie heyday, he worked as a martial arts instructor and choreographer. Most famously, he was super agent Michael Ovitz’s martial arts teacher. Ovitz, notoriously, thought he could make anyone a movie star, and proved it by securing Steven Seagal a movie deal at Warner Bros, where he made Above the Law… and the rest was history.
Another guy Steven Seagal trained was Sean Connery, who was one of Ovitz’s first major clients. The agent paired Connery up with Seagal to get him into shape for the unofficial James Bond movie, Never Say Never Again. Connery was fifty-two at the time and had a couple of fight sequences in the film, so Seagal was brought in to whip him into shape. One day, while sparring, Seagal broke Connery’s wrist. The urban legend is that Connery did something that made him angry, and the assault was deliberate, but that seems hard to believe. Connery himself was fond of telling the story, always portraying it as an accident, such as in this interview he did with Jay Leno back in the nineties.
“We had this training in the building where I had an apartment, and he was really very good,” Connery says, mentioning that the training was in Aikido. Connery admits he got a little cocky because “I thought I knew what I was doing. The principle is that it’s defence so its a pyramid, and I got a bit flash and I did that (holding arm outside the pyramid) and (miming a chopping motion) he broke my wrist! It was so well put together here that I still have it…broken.” Indeed, Connery tells Leno that twelve years after the incident a doctor told him the wrist was still broken, and maintains it still gave him trouble in certain motions.
It should be said that Connery doesn’t seem all that fazed or even angry in the telling of the story, and at the time Seagal’s ego was in check enough that it (probably) was just that – an accident. Of course, his egomania did get the better of him as time went on, such as an infamous story we’ve written about here that involved him yelling at Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau of all people, and the fact that he only has forty-one minutes of screentime in Under Siege. Whatever the case may be, I maintain that the first five movies Steven Seagal made (Above the Law, Hard to Kill, Marked for Death, Out for Justice and Under Siege) are all pretty awesome, although you can absolutely stop there and – with the possible exception of Executive Decision – pretty much discard everything else he ever did.
Do you think it was an accident that Seagal broke Connery’s wrist, or do you believe the urban legend that Seagal was angry? Let us know in the comments.
Roland Emmerich is officially heading back to television, teasing his upcoming series Those About to Die. That sounds like it could have been the title of most of his works, but this time around Emmerich is stepping into the arena to focus on the world of gladiators.
Roland Emmerich took to Instagram over the weekend to show off new promotional art for Those About to Die which features star Anthony Hopkins and the release date: July 18th, 2024. He captioned the photo by writing, “For there are those about to rise and… THOSE ABOUT TO DIE”. Peacock has also released the teaser, although don’t expect to see any footage.
It’s a solid enough poster which seems designed to try to snag some leftover Game of Thrones fans with its stark imagery, dreary facial expressions and font style. Whether or not Those About to Die matches the visual aesthetic or goes for something unique to Emmerich is something we’ll have to wait to check out but we can see Emmerich delivering a solid series for Peacock here.
Those About to Die – which is based on Daniel P. Mannix’s book – sounds like something that could have fit with the Starz lineup a handful of years ago, but now that Peacock is trying to make a name for themselves with original programming, it could be a welcome home for Emmerich, especially as their first historical drama.
While announcing Those About to Die, Emmerich said, “I have always been fascinated by the history of the Roman Empire…So much still seems relevant for our society today – from the entanglement of politics and sports to the disciplines of the competitions, which haven’t changed much either over the last 2000 years. The most electrifying spectacles for the masses still involve two men in an arena, beating each other up, and the chariots of today are called race cars whose drivers still crash and often pay with their lives.”
Like his star Anthony Hopkins, Roland Emmerich hasn’t done a whole lot of television as of late. While Hopkins did at least have an important role on Westworld, it has been over a decade since Emmerich worked on the small screen, which will no doubt be a draw for his fans. But as he all know, this isn’t the first time Anthony Hopkins was glad he ate ‘er!
Are you looking forward to Those About to Die? Let us know below!
Sometimes your entire world can change in a single moment. For a young Tia Carrere’s world became more excellent one trip a local grocery store where the parents of a man who was producing a movie saw her and told her about this movie their son was shooting. This would lead Tia Carrere to land a role in the film Aloha Summer. She says she was super nervous because she had never acted before and hadn’t even thought of it as an option in her life but she did it! Ms Carrere grew up wanting to be a singer…. and she did that too!
After rocking everyone’s world in the Wayne’s World cinematic universe film franchise, Tia Carrere became a household name in the early nineties while also standing toe to toe with some of the biggest names in the business. But after a few bad turns at the box office it seemed she was destined for the direct to video bins that would lead her into a steady career of TV appearances that never seemed to match the immense talent she displayed when she first started. With two Grammy wins to her name and a Disney live action remake that might not be horrible in the pipeline, its time we ask that ever important question: WTF Happened to Tia Carrere.
Early roles
But as always we must begin at the beginning and the beginning began on her birthday 1967, Hawaii. Carrere would move to Los Angeles at the age of 17 and begin dating a man who acted as her manager. The man was a few decades her senior and although landing Carrere some gigs on shows like Star Search, The A-Team, MacGyver and General Hospital would end up stealing all of her money and leaving her homeless. Luckily she had a Modeling Agent who let her crash at their place. Carrere says she never even thought about going home as she came out to L.A with one goal in mind, there was never a plan B.
She was landing auditions for bigger roles including a chance to play David Hasselhoff’s girlfriend on Baywatch when she was presented with a new script that featured a strong female character that needed to have great style and most importantly could sing. For Carrere, it was the role of a lifetime that she knew she could nail. That role was of Cassandra Wong in the big screen adaptation of the hit Saturday Night Live sketch Wayne’s World which would go on to be the highest grossing SNL sketch turned movie of all time pulling in over $183 million on a $20 million budget and making us all feel like we were not worthy of Tia Carrere’s talents. She would even be nominated for the first ever Most Desirable Female at the MTV Movie Awards.
From there, Tia Carrere became the “it” girl of the early nineties. She wasn’t just another pretty face on the big screen, she was a multi-talented performer with screen presence that could stand up to the biggest stars, which she did when she starred opposite Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes in the $107 million grossing Rising Sun in 1993 before returning to her star making role later that year in Wayne’s World 2, although this one didn’t light up the box office as much as the first one earning $72 million against a $40 million budget, critics and audiences alike agreed that Carrere stole every scene she was in. While the cast and crew of Wayne’s World would reunite, virtually, during the pandemic for the Josh Gad hosted Reunited Apart, where Carrere would show that after all these years, she’s still got that star power!
True Lies
It would be that star power that would land her one of her biggest roles ever when she appeared opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the James Cameron directed True Lies where she would play a worthy antagonist with equal parts beauty and crazy! While many of us fell in love with her as the perfect woman in the Wayne’s World movies, her performance in True Lies showed a genuine range she possessed as an actress… and even as the villain we all still fell in love with her which was in large part due to her dance scene with Schwarzenegger which would nab the pair a Best Dance Sequence nomination from the MTV Movie Awards while she would receive a Best Supporting Actress nomination from the Saturn Awards.
In 1993, Carrere would fulfill her lifelong dreams by releasing her debut album.. titled Dream! The album would garner some solid reviews throughout the years, and would even go platinum in the Philippines. With her voice appearing over the final credits of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm as she sang the song I Never Even told You
There was no denying Carrere had a knack for comedy and in the early 90’s there kind of was no bigger comedy star than Pauly Shore, if you don’t believe us, go check out our WTF Happened to Pauly Shore video! So it would be no surprise when Carrere signed on the dotted line to take on the female lead in Shore’s film Jury Duty in 1995. The only problem was, this was when Shore’s films started to dip at the box office as Jury Duty could only manage $17 million off a $21 million budget.
Relic Hunter
From there the remainder of the 90’s turned into a bunch if direct to video titles like The Immortals, for which she also was an Associate Producer on, Hostile Intentions, Hollow Point, Natural Enemy, Top of the World, Scar City, 20 Dates, Five Aces while also still showing up in theaters a few times in films like Kull The Conqueror which was a massive dud only generating $6.1 million worldwide and the parody film High School High which only garnered $21 million.
She would close out the 90’s by shedding her wholesome perfect girlfriend image for the scandalous film My Teacher’s Wife where she plays, well, you get the picture! On TV, Carrere would appear in the shows Murder One and Veronica’s Closet before landing the lead role in the series Relic Hunter which would run for 3 seasons and 66 episodes and nab her an ALMA Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Syndicated Drama Series before discovering the world of voice acting when she landed gigs on Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child and Hercules which would make way for her entry into the world of Disney Animated Films with 2002’s Lily & Stitch where she would voice Lilo’s older sister and legal guardian. A role she would reprise several times over the years in projects such as the direct to video Stitch: The Movie (2003), Lilo & Stitch: The Series (2003-2006), Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch (2005) and 2006’s Leroy & Stitch.
From the early 2000’s on, Carrere would appear in a ton of limited or direct to video titles such as Back in the Day (2005), Dark Honeymoon (2008), Wild Cherry (2009), Hard Breakers (2010), You May Not Kiss The Bride (2011) and Gunshot Straight (2014) among others while her TV career has been filled with noteworthy projects like The O.C, Nip/Tuck, CSI: Miami, Hawaii Five-0, Family Guy, Blue Bloods with recurring roles on shows like In Plain Sight and showing off her pitch perfect comedic skills as Richard Lewis’ girlfriend who enjoys small talk on Curb your Enthusiasm. While also lending her talented vocals to the video games Saints Row and Saints Row IV as Lin. She would also have the distinct pleasure, I guess you would call it, of being fired by the Future President of the United States when she was Fired in the fifth week of the fifth season of Celebrity Apprentice. It would seem the fifth week of whatever competition program she was on was her achilles heel as she was also eliminated in the fifth week or the second season of Dancing With The Stars.
Music
Of course one area where Carrere has truly shined is her music. Despite her first album, 1993’s Dream not being a hit in the states, her passion for music never left her and after a 14 year break she would return with the Hawaiian inspired album Hawaiiana which would land Carrere her first ever Grammy Nomination for Best Hawaiian Music Album. She would follow that up a year later with the album ‘Ikena which would see her become a Grammy Winning Artist when she won in that same category. She would follow that pattern by releasing the 2009 album He Nani which would be nominated for Best Hawaiian Music Album in 2009, and then go on to win that award the following year for her album Huana Ke Aloha.
After toiling away in films that never really garnered much of a response like Showdown in Manila (2016) and the animated The Legend of Hallowaiian (2018), Carrere would land a series regular role on the RuPaul created Netflix series AJ and the Queen playing a scene stealing villain that Carrere has said she loves to play because she gets to just chew the scenery while performing. Sadly the series was cancelled after just a single season. But she would return to movie theaters in 2022 with the comedy Easter Sunday (which we interviewed her for)and earlier this year she would appear in an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, so there’s that.
Where is Tia Carrere now?
And that is where we find Ms. Carrere today, an actress who has had an over 30 year career in a business where such things aren’t always the norm. Seeing her pop up on your screen is like seeing an old friend, there is a familiarity we all share with her and that is because she was one of the first woman to command the screen with her sheer bad ass-ness without being an action hero. She was a rock star that we all fell in love with. Of course being a music star is where she is most comfortable and that is where you can still find her today, up on the stage singing some of her now iconic Hawaiian songs. And despite having big theatrical hits over the years, we may have seen nothing yet as she is set to star in the live action version of Lilo & Stitch. It is for those reasons, and so many more, that no one should give a F about what the F happened to Tia Carrere, because she is doing just fine!
For many around the world, there’s one name at the top of the action totem pole: Jackie Chan, and today marks his 70th birthday.
If you only know him as a goofy martial arts comedian from the Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon series, then consider this a wake up call. Because when Jackie did things HIS way on his home turf, he churned out some of the best action movies you’ll ever see.
Many would point to Drunken Master II as Jackie’s magnum opus. Fair enough, that is an all-timer, but for an example of his best modern day martial arts action, mixed in with some crime drama and his signature comedy, one of his absolute best outings is 1985’s Police Story.
In the 1970s, Jackie Chan soared to fame internationally once he was finally able to break out of the shadow of Bruce Lee. When Chan had started getting starring roles at the beginning of his career, martial arts cinema was in the middle of a Bruceploitation phase, where imitators were used and promoted to be Bruce Lee in a shameless copycat manner. Unfortunately, for Jackie, he was forced into the same kind of roles. Even casting him in a sequel to Lee’s Fist of Fury, titled New Fist of Fury, where played the brother to Lee’s character. It was an obvious misstep. When Jackie was finally able to do his own style, mixing in his biggest influences like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, he took the world by storm and, well, the rest is history.
When Police Story came around, it would not be his first non-period martial arts film, but it would be the first one that felt contemporary in 1985 Hong Kong cinema. Jackie would play a character named Chan Ka-Kui in the original Chinese version, but in international versions, he’s named Kevin Chan. Casual fans might know this character from Supercop released in the 90s by Dimension Films, but this movie is where it all originated since Supercop is actually Police Story III: Supercop.
Chan is a Hong Kong cop who is part of an elite task force that is assigned to fight organized crime. Right off the bat, as the opening credits end, we’re thrust right into the case. All the Police Story films, interestingly, start right in the midst of the plot and seemingly end just as abruptly without traditional character exposition or conclusion. The big sting operation introduces us to the key characters. The boss, Chu has many business ventures but is bleeding money, so he’s turned to drug dealing and always has his nephew Danny handling the dirty work. He also has a newly appointed secretary, Selina Fong, played by Brigitte Lin (famous in Hong Kong cinema circles for The Bride With White Hair and Swordsman 2).
The undercover sting is immaculately planned and many officers have a detailed role in a shanty town village where a big deal is about to go down. It all goes to sh*t and the police find themselves in a gun fight in the middle of the village. Chan takes the initiative to go after the fleeing suspects. And what follows is one of the most iconic chases ever put to celluloid. What first transpires is a car chase through the shanty town village. And when I say “through,” I mean STRAIGHT THROUGH. Each car cuts through buildings demolishing everything down the hill. Chan eventually loses his car and chases the bus down on foot as he steals a citizen’s umbrella. The second iconic part of this sequence is when Chan catches up and hooks himself onto the bus. He hangs on for dear life as he tries to avoid cars and ward of attackers. Chan gets kicked away and the third iconic part happens when he takes a short cut around a hill, cuts the bus off down the road and plays chicken with the driver. It all culminates in one of the most dangerous stunts as the bus stops just before Chan and hurls the criminals out of the front windows. Mind you – THIS WAS ALL DONE FOR REAL!
As Chan finally apprehends Chu and his cohorts, his superiors decide to release his secretary Selina in an attempt to get a solid case out of her. They assign Chan to protect her from any attempts on her life from Chu to keep her silent. However, Selina keeps refusing Chan’s security at every turn. In a hilarious sequence of classic Jackie humor, Chan has one of his fellow officers pose as a killer trying to off Selina while he fakes an attempt to rescue her. It more or less goes smoothly, but it works as Selina now sticks by Chan’s side seeking his protection. And not a moment too soon, when they get ambushed for real as Chu sends a gang of goons to kill both Chan and Selina.
As Selina goes into protective custody with Chan, we’re introduced into another staple of the franchise where Chan’s work always conflicts with his relationship with his girlfriend, May, played by Maggie Cheung, who American audiences also got to see in Jet Li’s Hero when it was released in the states (and of course, she’s still one of Wong Kar Wai’s favorite actresses). Poor May always seems to catch Chan in the most inopportune times as she sees him with Selina still sporting her sexy negligee. Chan gets a birthday cake to the face and in a bit of gratuitous posturing, Chan shows off his bare ass when getting cleaned up. Although, if you’re an action star in the 80s, it’s just in your contract to show off your finely tuned butt.
Chu eventually gets released and with all the trouble the police had put him through, he puts Hong Kong’s supercop through the ringer and destroy his name and reputation by framing him for murder. The last act of the movie has Jackie playing things rather seriously. He’s not making any jokes and his character is out for justice with a side of vengeance.
This sets up one of the greatest finales of Chan’s entire career. Selina goes on the run with a briefcase full of evidence of Chu’s dealings. When she seeks refuge at a mall, Chu, his nephew Danny, and his many henchmen chase her down. Chan catches up and fights with all of them in one of the most brutal finales in action movie history. So much glass is broken with all the fighting, Jackie said the crew started calling the movie, “Glass Story” during filming. And the whole scene gets capped off with one of Jackie’s most dangerous stunts where slides down a four-story pole lit up with decorative lights and falls into a children’s playhouse. This scene alone is what made me a fan of his. It’s pure, unadulterated fighting at its best. It’s also a best example of how Jackie stands apart from other action heroes who fight multiple enemies at once. In most movies, and especially martial arts films, the attackers usually come at the hero one at a time while the others seem to wait, here Chan gets attacked from every direction at once and can barely keep up fending off every attacker. That is, until he activates beast mode.
Police Story was spawned when Jackie made his second attempt at breaking through to the American market. His first attempt was the 1980 film, Battle Creek Brawl which co-starred Mako as his uncle. Jackie clashed with the director of that film, Robert Clouse, director of Enter the Dragon and Reel Action classic, China O’Brien. He hated how they specifically brought him over to the states based on his Hong Kong film work, but never let him control his action sequences. The same would happen with his second attempt, the 1985 film, The Protector, which co-starred Danny Aiello. In The Protector, Jackie has said they tried to make him more like Clint Eastwood and gave him tough guy lines as a gruff New York cop. This falls into the lower echelon of 80s action movies. He was again not in control of his action scenes and felt like the way the American action was shot left no room for his creativity and were rather dull. Before Jackie even premiered The Protector in Hong Kong, he actually reshot the fights to his own satisfaction and filmed an entire subplot not present in the American version.
The only thing Jackie gives The Protector credit for is giving him the inspiration for Police Story. Whereas Jackie had played cops before, Police Story was the best of both worlds. There would be a gritty crime story that involved political red tape of the Hong Kong police force along with a more grounded villain, mixed with some of the humorous situations that Jackie likes to weave into his movies. There’s even a bit in Chu’s trial where his lawyer uses the specific details of the opening chase scene as an argument for the defense. It’s an extremely nice touch that is rare in action movies where the action design is actually used as relevant information for the story to take a new turn.
Not only did Police Story change the face of Hong Kong action cinema, but its influence is evident in Hollywood films. In 1989’s Tango & Cash, Stallone gives a shoutout to Jackie with a sequence in the beginning that’s nearly a shot-for-shot recreation of the bus chase ending, complete with the criminals getting launched through the wind shield. Then, in 1992’s Rapid Fire, Brandon Lee was a professed fan of Jackie’s and used a stunt where he rams a guy with a motorcycle right through multiple panes of glass as well as incorporating a clothes rack into a fight scene. Then, in 2003, Michael Bay used the entire shanty town hill sequence in Bad Boys II.
Jackie would follow up Police Story with 1988’s Police Story 2. It’s a worthy follow up that ultimately doesn’t surpass the first, but it has some stellar action as well. Half of the movie is a continuation with Chu’s business partner torturing Chan’s personal life, then the second half introduces new villains with a trio of mad bombers. Then, 1992 saw Chan team up with Michelle Yeoh for Police Story 3: Supercop. Chan goes undercover with Yeoh to bring down a drug and weapons dealer. This film would veer more towards Rambo-like gunplay and explosions than Chan’s usual fighting, but the stunts are outrageous as ever as Jackie hangs from a helicopter and Michelle Yeoh matches the insanity with her own stunts. In the last entry of the first era of Police Story movies, we get Police Story 4: First Strike. Chan is working as a spy in sort of a James Bond-type adventure. This installment is pretty far removed from the rest and might as well have been its own movie – which New Line released it as – titled Jackie Chan’s First Strike in 1996.
Jackie would eventually come back to the brand name two more times with a standalone reboot called New Police Story (a sequel to this movie was announced this week). In this, Jackie got rid of the comedy entirely and wanted to show off his dramatic skills as he played a tortured cop who got his team killed by X-Game, rich kid criminals lead by Daniel Wu of Into the Badlands. Chan would do another reboot with Police Story: 2013. It would again be a more dramatic film for Jackie, and unfortunately the film gets severely bogged down by epileptic editing with nauseating shaky cam. The less said, the better.
As it is, Jackie Chan’s Police Story stands as one of the all-time greatest action flicks, and if you happen to have a Criterion Channel subscription, you can watch the three first Police Story movies right now. Check them out. They’re so much fun.
Do you want us to dig into more Jackie Chan movies? Let us know in the comments! In the meantime, check out a video we did on DragonsForeverright here!
Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire easily took the top spot this weekend at the box office, posting a much stronger-than-expected $31.7 million second weekend. We predicted about $25 million, so this is a significantly more extensive haul than expected for the MonsterVerse sequel, with it falling about 60% in week 2. That’s decent for a tentpole blockbuster like this. Everyone assumed the movie would be front-loaded, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, with it now on its way to at least a $200 million domestic haul – maybe more.
However, Godzilla and Kong’s good fortune at the multiplex spelled doom for two new genre titles – Monkey Man and The First Omen, both of which were gunning for some of that movie’s audience. Of the two, Monkey Man’s $10.1 million haul isn’t half bad if you consider that Universal picked it up for only about $10 million after Netflix opted to dump it. The film ended up getting a theatrical makeover courtesy of new exec producer Jordan Peele, and I’ve got to say, I liked Dev Patel’s debut as an action auteur and star. This flick should make a nice profit for Universal, and it will likely play very well on streaming and home video, where it could become a cult fave.
But, The First Omen really underperformed, with the Disney/ 20th Century Studios would-be restart for the Omen franchise whiffing with an $8.36 million opening. It was open on 300 more screens than Monkey Man and had the full might of Disney’s marketing muscle behind it. What happened? Despite good reviews (including ours) it could be that horror audiences found the movie looked too similar to the recently released Immaculate, or are maybe burned-out by unnecessary prequels. Whatever the case, I think it’s well worth watching.
Notably, it was beaten this weekend at the box office by Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which, in its third week, is starting to show signs of life at the box office. While it can’t be denied that the film has underperformed for Sony and may have doomed the franchise, at least now, it will likely finish over $100 million domestically. Whether or not that’s enough for Sony to kick the can again with another entry remains to be seen, but if the franchise continues, it will likely be on streaming.
Kung Fu Panda 4 and Dune: Part Two also continued to hold up well in fifth and sixth place, respectively, with both earning over $7 million. Panda’s domestic total is at $166 million now (it’s already the second-highest-grossing film in the franchise), while Dune 2 is at an impressive $264 million, on its way to potentially $300 million.
In seventh place is a specialty title, Someone Like You, a faith-based film by Fathom. It managed to make $3 million despite not having any recognizable stars. In contrast, the arthouse comedy Wicked Little Letters, with Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley, made about $1.56 million in a semi-wide release (just over 1000 screens).
Rounding out the chart is Mark Wahlberg’s family movie, Arthur the King, which has struggled to find an audience and is on the verge of ending its run with $1.54 million for the weekend and a $22 million total. Finally, Neon’s horror flick Immaculate made $1.4 million for $14.1 million. It’s actually Neon’s fourth highest-grossing movie ever and has become a modest arthouse hit, even if it never entirely capitalized on star Sydney Sweeney’s mainstream appeal.
Next weekend sees the release of Alex Garland’s controversial (but excellent) Civil War, which is booting Godzilla x Kong from its IMAX run. Do you think it will be able to take first place? Let us know in the comments!
Universal has a long history with vampire films, going back to the 1930s. Their latest, Abigail, offers a reboot of 1936’s Dracula’s Daughter, a hypnotizing work that still stands as one of the best follow-ups to 1931’s Dracula. Now, fresh from its premiere at the Overlook Film Festival, it looks like Universal has marked a successful return to their vampire lineup.
Many reactions from Abigail’s premiere praise the movie for being nearly endlessly entertaining, bringing something fresh to the genre while also giving off the vibe of some of our favorite vampire flicks from decades past:
ABIGAIL is expertly choreographed insanity from RADIO SILENCE that injects new blood into the vampire horror game. You'll be yelling until the very last plié.
— 𝐶ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑠𝑒𝑎 𝑁𝑖𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑒 @ Overlook Film Fest (@miss_tenenbaum) April 7, 2024
#Abigail is a bonkers bloody blast! It's a wild and entertaining ride from start to finish with great performances (especially Dan Stevens, Melissa Barrera, and Alisha Weir). As a big Dracula fan, the opening scene put a big smile on my face. pic.twitter.com/wgIFbufwxu
#Abigail is everything I want in a vampire flick: great characters, big laughs, and gallons of blood! The most fun I’ve had in the theater this year and I’m happy this sub-genre is making a big return. If you like Lost Boys and From Dusk Till Dawn, sink your teeth into this one! pic.twitter.com/kaIGeU6kqo
And yes, there is plenty of blood to go around in Abigail, something that is a given for the genre but it’s pretty awesome to see it be taken to the R-rated levels that it deserves:
#Abigail is MY kinda movie. (And in general, more and more convinced Radio Silence’s horror sensibilities heavily align with my own with each and every movie they make.) It’s a blood-soaked bonkers good time. A clever spin on the vampire genre filled with loads of wild set pieces… pic.twitter.com/z5k6jZXbwk
#Abigail REVIEW: Madly magnificent!!! Scream 5 & 6 directors return with glorious gore galore. A violent thriller with so much more. Triple that & multiply by four. This isn’t just another scary movie, it’s one of the best horror movies ever! A fitting end setting up what’s next. pic.twitter.com/zfFv1vwdcm
Hype has been strong for Abigail, especially since Radio Silence has been working to help ensure the horror genre is back in the mainstream. But with our man Michael Conway’s recent set visit – coupled with these initial reactions – Abigail has easily bumped up the list of most anticipated horror films of the year. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait much longer, as Abigail is set for release on April 19th.
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (the most recent Scream movies), Abigail has the following plot: “After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.”
The titular Abigail is portrayed by Alisha Weir, the teenage actress who led 2022’s Matilda: The Musical. But she has by all accounts transformed entirely, something she credits to the material and costumes/makeup, saying, “I like to transform myself so I’m not Alisha anymore. It definitely helped being on the set, being covered in blood, and the tutu outfit helped me get into the character. And when I put the teeth in, that was definitely the end.”
Are you more excited for Abigail now that the first reactions have arrived? Where do you think it will rank in the top horror movies of the year?
THE STORY: A covert army unit goes to war with Cash Bailey (Powers Boothe), a well-connected drug dealer, who also happens to be the childhood best friend of an honest Texas Ranger (Nick Nolte) who’s caught in the middle of what’s turning into a bloody drug war.
THE PLAYERS: Starring: Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe, Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown, William Forsythe, María Conchita Alonso, and Rip Torn. Music by Jerry Goldsmith. Directed by Walter Hill.
THE HISTORY: Let me take a moment here to pay tribute to an actor who never gets his due anymore: the late Powers Boothe. While never a household name, he was well-known as a character actor in a career that spanned four decades. He appeared in a lot of great movies, including Southern Comfort, The Emerald Forest, Sin City, heck – even The Avengers! But, one of the best roles he ever had was in Walter Hill’s almost completely obscure eighties action flick, Extreme Prejudice.
Extreme Prejudice is the last of the Mohicans. I don’t think we’ll ever see a film made like that again. It’s Walter Hill’s homage to Sam Peckinpah, and it’s just a gathering of some really amazing actors, heavyweights. Just to make a piece like that, something that just had this feeling of something long gone by… we’ll never see it again. But it was just a blast creating Buck Atwater, and then you had all these guys who are really nice, who are just one tick off-course in the world, so their causes are no longer clear. It was amazingly great working with all those actors. But it ended up being the only film I did with Walter Hill, and, to be honest, I thought I’d end up making a slew of movies with him. I loved working with him, and we got along great. Who knows? Maybe we’ll still get to work together again. – William Forsythe – Random Roles – AV Club
Sadly unknown to many filmgoers, it was a flop upon release in 1987, even though it reteamed Hill with one of the stars of his 1982 blockbuster, 48 HRS, Nick Nolte. It’s been called Hill’s homage to his mentor Sam Peckinpah, and sure enough, it does feel like a kinda-sorta remake of The Wild Bunch. Nolte stars in a rare, straightforward good guy part as a Gary Cooper-ish Texas Ranger who’s determined to stop the flow of drugs over the border but finds himself in a tight spot when the drugs lead him to a former friend, Boothe’s Cash Bailey, who’s become a drug baron on the other side of the border. What’s worse is that the two share the same love interest – played by María Conchita Alonso – and if that wasn’t bad enough, a crew of soldiers, called the “Zombie Squad” because they’ve all faked their deaths to do off-the-books work, is also after Bailey.
It’s a heavy-duty, blood-soaked actioner but also a complicated, morally ambiguous one, something that wasn’t an easy sell in 1987 when the studio Carolco (responsible for many action classics of the era) tried to sell it as another Rambo, which it definitely was not. It was cut down at the eleventh hour (and the footage has never seen the light of day), but all to no avail. It only eked out $11 million at the box office and remains obscure to this day, with only a horrible pan and scan DVD in circulation – a nasty fate for such a cool movie.
That was another one that got cut. That was Walter Hill. Andy Robinson and I play CIA agents, we’re trying to do this whole covert op, and my character was the go-between between the military side of the story, the police side of the story, and the government side of the story. But when they put it all together, Walter said to me, “It looks like it’s starring Michael Ironside, with Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe, and Rip Torn supporting him, so we’re gonna cut the whole Andy Robinson side of the film out.” [Laughs.]… They cut something like 45 minutes out of it! – Michael Ironside – Random Roles – AV Club
WHY IT’S GREAT: Walter Hill’s a guy who never gets his due. While he’s had a couple of stinkers, he doesn’t get enough credit for his top-flight filmography, which includes The Warriors, The Driver, 48 Hrs, Streets of Fire (a Best Movie You Never Saw fave), and time directing Deadwood as well as his contributions to Alien (he co-wrote, produced and made Ripley a woman). Too many of his movies are unacknowledged gems, like Johnny Handsome, Southern Comfort, The Long Riders, and this week’s entry, Extreme Prejudice.
This actually should have been a hit, as Nolte was on a career-high at the time, and eighties-era audiences loved gory R-rated, extreme action. Maybe it was the political subtext or the fact that the hero and the villain had such a complicated relationship, or the admittedly jagged construction (you really miss that excised footage) that kept it from getting major critical recognition. Thirty years later, it’s a real, lost classic.
There’s tons to love about the movie – with Nolte the closest he ever came to an old-school Hollywood hero in this rare action lead. But, the show is stolen by the supporting cast. Boothe is especially slick as the white-suited baddie, Cash, who’s got a death wish and half hopes his old buddy will come along and put him out of his misery – making the case the being the king in hell ain’t so hot. The “Zombie Squad” guys are also really cool, with Michael Ironside as their ice-cold leader (seemingly doing a dry run for Richter in Total Recall – which would come three years later). William Forsythe and Clancy Brown are my favorites of the gang, with Forsythe initially comes off as a maniac, only to gradually reveal a more heroic side, with Brown being the second in command who knows his C.O. is up to no good. It all comes together in a major, grand guignol shootout that must have set a squib record back then (only for Hill to be outdone by Paul Verhoeven a few years later). It’s a damn cool movie.
SEE IT: Up until a few years ago, this was a really difficult movie to find. In the DVD era, it was put out my Artisan Home Video is a shockingly poor transfer, which was basically just a rip of the old pan and scan VHS. Luckily, Lionsgate has since done well with the film, reissuing it in an extras-packed Blu-ray, which you can buy here.
PARTING SHOT: Extreme Prejudice really is the kind of movie that just doesn’t exist anymore. Sure, guys like Taylor Sheridan, Peter Berg, and David Ayer are giving it a go, but none of them have the latitude Hill did to totally go balls to the wall. It’s an imperfect film, but it’s a damn slick one.
PLOT: Residents of a rundown French apartment building battle against an army of deadly, rapidly reproducing spiders.
REVIEW: It’s been a long time since we were blessed with some good spider horror and right now, we’re fortunate to have multiple hitting the scene. Sting (which I highly recommend checking out Cody’s review) takes a more comedic approach, while Infested goes right for the throat. And they both have a place in our wonderful genre of horror. Because if there’s one thing that’s been missing, it’s those creepy crawlers we know as spiders.
Infested follows Kaleb and his sister as they’re trying to keep their lives together after the death of their mother. Kaleb is fascinated with bugs, and when he brings home an exotic spider, he makes the mistake of not properly caging it. What he unleashes onto his apartment complex is an unimaginable horror of deadly spiders that will not stop breeding and getting bigger and bigger. When I tell you that these spiders don’t play around, I mean that. Get ready to develop a slight case of arachnophobia.
Director Sébastien Vanicek was thrust into headlines earlier this year when it was announced he would be directing the next Evil Dead film. All the more intriguing is that he won the job because of his work on Infested. And it sure is earned. There’s a meanness present here that cannot be denied, with a wonderful blend of practical and digital effects. But his control of the camera made me really excited at all of the possibilities. The camera work here is top-notch, with some tricks being utilized to give the film more production value.
Infested is extremely intense, making full use of its creepy crawly villains. Not since Arachnophobia have spiders been utilized so well in horror films. But don’t be fooled into thinking this has the same lighthearted humor as the Frank Marshall classic. This film is mean and never cracks a joke. The kills are brutal in their intensity while still staying within the lanes of realism. A great bit involves a timed light, which gets multiple payoffs. Hell, every setup has a great payoff.
One of the only real issues I had with the film was the main character, Kaleb (Théo Christine). Remember the guy from the Evil Dead remake who reads the book and unleashes bloody fury amongst his friends? That’s Kaleb. He’s one of those protagonists who constantly does ignorant things that result in chaos. He claims to be a big expert yet constantly makes mistakes with the bugs. He often comes across as a petulant child, which can be frustrating.
Despite being a spider movie, there’s still plenty of focus on the humanity of it all, though not all of it is pretty. Infested does a great job of highlighting how much the world doesn’t really care about singular events. So long as it doesn’t affect them, most would rather turn a blind eye. This furthers the trope of police doing more harm than good, giving the characters even less hope for salvation. The only people they can rely on are themselves.
I’ll be honest: I was rooting for every character’s demise by the film’s end. A man can only take so many dumb decisions and incessant screaming. But I’d argue it doesn’t really harm the story a ton, as most are watching for the spiders and that element is spectacular. This is simply a conduit of fear and with how rampant the fear of spiders is, I can imagine this affecting many. Because Infested managed to make my skin crawl in a way that I haven’t felt since I was a wee lad. And for that, I’ll be forever grateful.
INFESTED IS PLAYING THE OVERLOOK FILM FESTIVAL RIGHT NOW AND IS STREAMING ON SHUDDER ON APRIL 26TH, 2024.
Whether you’re trying to deal with the obnoxious son of the late Shinra president and his pesky pet or just learn a cool new trick to help you tackle Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s battles, we’ve got you covered this week. We’ve also got the lowdown on how to rank up your Fortnite Festival pass without playing the game,…
