Deadline reports that Paul Walter Hauser has joined the cast of the upcoming Naked Gun reboot. While these casting announcements don’t always reveal who the actor will be playing, this time, it does! Hauser will play Captain Ed, the role played by George Kennedy in the previous Naked Gun movies.

Liam Neeson has long been attached to star in the Naked Gun reboot, and it was announced last month that Pamela Anderson would be starring alongside him. It’s not known precisely who Anderson will play, but it’s expected that she’ll be the romantic lead, similar to Priscilla Presley’s role in the original movies. Production will kick off later this year with Akiva Schaffer directing from a script by Dan Gregor and Doug Mand.

Paul Walter Hauser is also attached to play Chris Farley in a biopic about the iconic comedian directed by Josh Gad.

David Zucker, who directed the first two movies in the franchise and co-wrote the script, isn’t involved in the new reboot and remains skeptical. “We were not excited about having the franchise given to other people,” Zucker said. “At the time, I couldn’t believe it because we thought we had a great script, and they loved the script from what we heard. I don’t have any control over it. I’m not involved, and they haven’t asked me for my help… It’s completely their concept, and they’re just going to go ahead and do it.“

Although Liam Neeson has experience in the realm of comedy, he’s never led one himself. He explained why he wanted to take on The Naked Gun earlier this year. “It’s funny because right before Christmas, my sons and I were looking through the Academy screeners and trying to find something silly, some silly, stupid movie that we could giggle at,” Neeson explained. “There was none, of course, as they were all very heavy and international. I mean, brilliant movies but all very heavy. When Seth MacFarlane approached me about it — this was about two years ago, now — I thought, yeah, I guess I could do that as long as I play it dead seriously and not try and imitate Mr. Leslie Nielsen. He was wonderful. Akiva Schaffer is directing it and he’s from the [Saturday Night Live] world. I’m looking forward to it. It’s a good script, and there’s a few laugh out loud moments in it.“

Neeson has also confessed that he’s a little nervous about the project. “I’m honored to be offered the part of Frank Drebin, and a little bit nervous about it because I’ve done a couple of skits before that were just very short TV things, but this would be, I don’t know, 95, 100 minutes of a film,” Neeson said. “They’re still casting it so hopefully my other cast members will be funny and sexy so that I could just be dead absolutely straight.“

Do you think Paul Walter Hauser will be a good fit for the world of Naked Gun?

The post Paul Walter Hauser joins The Naked Gun reboot alongside Liam Neeson appeared first on JoBlo.

If you’ve ever wanted to spend a night at Xavier’s Institute for Higher Learning, now’s your chance. Over the last few months, a mansion in Westchester County, New York has been meticulously transformed into the X-Mansion from X-Men ’97 by Airbnb, complete with Professor X’s office, Beast’s lab, the danger room, and even a giant severed head of a Sentinel sitting out front.

You can check out a handful of pics from the Airbnb X-Men mansion below, plus a hell of a lot more on the listing page itself.

Hosted by Jubilee, the X-Mansion has room for 8 guests and includes 4 bedrooms, 5 beds, and 2.5 baths. It will cost $97 per guest, with requests for bookings closing at 11:59 PM PT on May 13th.

Here are some of the things you’ll be able to do during your stay, according to Jubilee:

• I’ll lead you through new student orientation (don’t worry we’ll get to the fun stuff fast).

• Enter Beast’s totally gnarly lab! It’s like a science playground where you’ll be able to power-up with mutant energy elixirs.

• Take a class in the Danger Room, where some of our combat professors will teach you how to improve your fighting skills—you never know when you’ll have to fend off The Hellfire Club!

• Head to the War Room to try on Cerebro, and find out your mutant superpower. Maybe you’ll be an Omega level mutant like Storm!

• Before you leave, we’ll debrief you on your new powers AND you can snag your official diploma and class photo.

• Oh, and beignets for breakfast (Gambit’s secret recipe) My fave!

The X-Men mansion is part of Airbnb’s new “Icons” effort, which will allow guests to star in iconic pop culture properties. One of the others includes Carl’s house from Pixar’s Up, which is actually lifted off the ground by a giant crane. “The name Airbnb is a noun and a verb used all over the world, that’s a good thing, that means everyone knows it. But the downside is kind of like Kleenex or Xerox, it’s associated with one thing, and we want to do more things,” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told THR. “We want to be in the business not just of places to stay, but experiences and more. And so I think this is a gateway for us to offer more types of services and more types of offerings, and really just do something I think that brings magic in the world and attaches us to some of the biggest icons in culture.“

The first season of X-Men ’97 is coming to a close on Disney+, with the final two episodes set to drop on May 8th and May 15th. You can check out a review from our own Steve Seigh right here.

The post Airbnb has recreated the X-Men mansion from X-Men ’97 and you can stay there! appeared first on JoBlo.

In a move that should surprise absolutely no one, Crunchyroll, the Netflix-esque repository for all the anime you could probably ever need, is increasing its prices. The price hike, however, only affects the two most expensive tiers in certain countries. But regardless, it’s the first price increase Crunchyroll has…

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In a move that should surprise absolutely no one, Crunchyroll, the Netflix-esque repository for all the anime you could probably ever need, is increasing its prices. The price hike, however, only affects the two most expensive tiers in certain countries. But regardless, it’s the first price increase Crunchyroll has…

Read more…

A year ago, Legendary Entertainment’s remake of the infamous 1978 box office hit Faces of Death (get it HERE) went into production in Louisiana, with Barbie Ferreira of the HBO series Euphoria, Dacre Montgomery of Netflix’s Stranger Things, Josie Totah of the recent Saved by the Bell revival, Jermaine Fowler of The Blackening, and singer Charli XCX making up the cast. We haven’t heard a release date for this one yet, but it did just take a major step forward: it has gotten its rating from the Motion Picture Association ratings board. They have announced that the Faces of Death remake has received an R rating for strong bloody violence and gore, sexual content, nudity, language and drug use.

The first Faces of Death was about a pathologist exploring gruesome ways to die via footage purportedly culled from around the world. In reality, most of the death scenes were staged, but no matter, the movie had its producers’ desired effect: outrage, revulsion, banning (although not in 52 countries, as hyped by the film’s makers), and, of course, a money-making hit that spawned sequels and imitators. It was written and directed by John Alan Schwartz, who used multiple pseudonyms for several crew jobs on the flick.

Seven sequels followed over the next twenty-one years. Now writer Isa Mazzei and director Daniel Goldhaber, the team that brought us the Netflix release Cam, are making the remake for Legendary Entertainment and producers Don Murphy and Susan Montford’s company Angry Films.

Mazzei and Goldhaber provided the following statement about their approach to the concept: “Faces of Death was one of the first viral video tapes, and we are so lucky to be able to use it as a jumping off point for this exploration of cycles of violence and the way they perpetuate themselves online.“

When it was first announced that Mazzei and Goldhaber were taking on the project, it was said that their story will center on a female moderator of a YouTube-like website whose job is to weed out offensive and violent content and who herself is recovering from a serious trauma, who stumbles across a group that is re-creating the murders from the original film. But in the story primed for the digital age of online misinformation, the question is: Are the murders real or fake? 

Ferreira recently told Collider, “It’s spooky. It’s scary. My family hates horror movies, but I will be forcing everyone to watch it. But it’s very scary. It’s such a fun watch, and it’s gruesome and scary. … So in this movie, Faces of Death exists in the universe, but we’re obviously not recreating it frame-to-frame because that would be, like, animal gore, which no one wants to see that. But it’s a contemporary take on it. I play a young woman who is a content moderator and I start seeing some videos that are alarming , and then the story goes on. Faces of Death, I’ve seen it many times now in the movie and on YouTube. It’s gonna be really fun. It’s an interesting way to go about it because it’s not a remake, per se, but it is a reimagining of it in the universe. It’s super scary, and it’s a cool, fresh take on horror movies right now. It’s scary as hell, though.“

Murphy and Montford are producing the Faces of Death remake with Divide/Conquer’s Adam Hendricks and Greg Gilreath. Rick Benattar serves as executive producer, with Cory Kaplan co-producing. Murphy and Montford have been hoping to make a new version of Faces of Death ever since 2006, and for several years they had J.T. Petty attached to write and direct. They started the development process over from scratch when they hired Mazzei and Goldhaber.

Are you interested in the Faces of Death remake? What do you think of the reasons given for the film’s R rating? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post Faces of Death remake earns an R rating for strong bloody violence and gore appeared first on JoBlo.

What if a game show took one of its games and made it into a video game? Is that confusing? Well, it happened. On May 1,Dropout TV’s Sam Reich, host of the internet game show/social experiment Game Changer, announced the release of a new video game based on a specific game played on a recent episode of the show.

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What if a game show took one of its games and made it into a video game? Is that confusing? Well, it happened. On May 1,Dropout TV’s Sam Reich, host of the internet game show/social experiment Game Changer, announced the release of a new video game based on a specific game played on a recent episode of the show.

Read more…

Billy Dee Williams’ Lando Calrissian is one of the coolest characters in Star Wars and now, finally, this cape-wearing, smooth-talking scoundrel will soon be available in Fortnite along with a lot of other Star Wars-related content, too.

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Billy Dee Williams’ Lando Calrissian is one of the coolest characters in Star Wars and now, finally, this cape-wearing, smooth-talking scoundrel will soon be available in Fortnite along with a lot of other Star Wars-related content, too.

Read more…

Sibling rivalry will hit Prime Video when Tomorrow Studios’ The Better Sister comes to the streaming platform. Based on the novel by bestselling author Alafair Burke, The Better Sister stars Emmy award-nominated actress Jessica Biel (Candy, The Illusionist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Emmy award-nominated filmmaker Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games, The Lego Movie, Migration) in a thriller that will have you looking over your shoulder.

Here’s the official synopsis for The Better Sister courtesy of Prime Video:

The Better Sister is an electric thriller based on the novel by bestselling author Alafair Burke, who will also be consulting on the series about the terrible things that drive sisters apart and ultimately bring them back together. Chloe (Biel) moves through the world with her handsome lawyer husband Adam and teenage son Ethan by her side while her estranged sister Nicky (Banks) hustles to make ends meet while trying to stay clean. When Adam is brutally murdered, the prime suspect sends shockwaves through the family, laying bare long-buried secrets.

In addition to her starring role, Elizabeth Banks is an executive producer for the series. Olivia Milch (Ocean’s 8) and Regina Corrado (Mayor of Kingstown) will serve as showrunners and executive producers on the series, with Craig Gillespie (Pam & Tommy) as director and executive producer. The series is a co-production between Tomorrow Studios and Amazon MGM Studios. The series will premiere exclusively on Prime Video in over 240 countries and territories worldwide.

“Beyond being an enticing thriller full of twists and turns, The Better Sister is a gripping story about family feuds and forgiveness,” says Vernon Sanders, head of television at Amazon MGM Studios. “The brilliant duo of Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks are sure to bring these characters to life in the most authentic way alongside Olivia, Regina, Craig, and the talented team at Tomorrow Studios. The series is in the best hands to bring Alafair Burke’s original IP to life for our global Prime Video customers.”

Personally, I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of either Biel or Banks. The idea of them locking horns after a gnarly murder makes me feel uneasy, and I’ve no doubt they’re willing to spill blood before the circumstances get sorted. Buckle up, folks!

Are you interested in learning more about The Better Sister? Do you think both siblings will survive the ordeal? Place your bets in the comments section below.

The post Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks star in the thriller series The Better Sister as siblings who encounter terrible things appeared first on JoBlo.