Most of us know Billy Corgan as the frontman of Smashing Pumpkins and outspokenness. But he’s also been the Owner and Promoter of the prestigious wrestling promotion the National Wrestling Alliance (AKA NWA) since 2017. To say that Corgan is busy would be the understatement of the century. So it was surprising to hear that he’s starring in his own reality TV show, Billy Corgan’s Adventures in Carnyland. But I suppose everyone is diversifying in this complicated media landscape.
I was able to catch the first two episodes of Carnyland and it’s a fun enough time. I’d say that it’s very much geared towards wrestling fans, so fans of Smashing Pumpkins may be a little disappointed. But as a big wrestling fan, there’s a lot of interesting insight. They still keep it more Kayfabe than I’d like but that old-school aesthetic is part of what NWA brings to the table, so I understand the reasoning. However, I’d argue that keeps the story being told at arm’s length rather than actually getting invested. It’s clear they’re trying to “work” the audience with silly storylines like any reality TV show versus focusing on the real-life drama that the behind-the-scenes of wrestling can elicit.
I took the opportunity to talk about all things wrestling with someone completely engrossed in the world. I asked Billy a bit about the responsibility of being the owner of the NWA. Billy acknowledged the heavy responsibility, “On one hand, I, of course, want to live up to the history that I inherited in buying the company. And, on the other hand, I want to honor that history by making the company successful again. Because if you think about it, those dismissive of the journey that I’ve taken basically say that type of wrestling and those types of wrestlers aren’t as valuable in modern culture as, say, what we value now. There’s never been greater athleticism in wrestling than there is in 2024. If you look at a Will Ospreay, I mean the level of athleticism is just off the charts. I mean, he’s mind-bogglingly amazing and great. But the guys I grew up with, you know, they were the guys who look like they could move a refrigerator because they look like a refrigerator. You know what I mean? And so there’s always room in the wrestling business for another Andre the Giant. You know, another Dick Murdoch. Another Dusty Rhodes. And so, you know, that’s very much the N.W.A style. In your face. Smash mouth.”
And anyone who knows wrestling knows how difficult it is to “get a Babyface over” AKA “make a good guy popular.” It’s a tough task and one that promotions have failed at time and time again. So I asked Corgan what he thought the ideal Babyface looks like in this day and age.
“You know what, that’s a great question and I know we don’t have a lot of time. So I’m going to try to be quick about it, but it’s a question I could literally answer for 10 minutes. I think the person has to naturally be a good-hearted person. I think you have to believe in that person’s good-heartedness. They have to have a genuine good quality in them. And you know, you could argue that Hulk Hogan is one of the greatest, greatest baby faces of all time. Hulk has a big heart. I’ve met him a few times. He really is that guy. You can’t fake being that guy. He was that guy. And is that guy. But to give a little bit more nuance: you have to be OK with representing something that most of the crowd thinks is kind of hokey. Which is why you end up with a lot of tweeners these days. You know the guy who cuts the mean promo, but he’s a good guy. No, the good guy truly is just as a good guy. He represents something that’s above a smart mark comment or, you know, calling out somebody in the crowd because they got a silly hat on a baby face. Really [they] should represent the best of what the world has to offer. Which is why there’s been so few great true baby faces in the history of professional wrestling. Ricky Steamboat comes to mind. He really is that guy. He’s still that guy. Which is why he was one of the great baby faces. He didn’t have to play a character. He was Ricky Steamboat!”
And given that Billy is the frontman, you can imagine that he gets asked by wrestlers about using his music as their entrance themes. “It happens a lot. They tend to be friends of mine. That’s been the sort of delineation point. Jay Bradley used Doomsday Clock, which is a Pumpkins song from 2007. [Marina] Markova uses Beguiled. I think Trevor Murdoch actually uses a really weird B side of the pump. It’s called Jack boot. And of course we use that and you know my songs for N.W.A. theme songs. It just worked out to be easier that way.
Billy Corgan’s Adventures in Carnyland plot summary:
When he isn’t churning out albums and touring the world with his legendary band The Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan is also a wrestling promoter who owns the storied National Wrestling Alliance, which he intends to restore to its former glory. As if being a rock star navigating the demanding politics of running both a band (Pumpkinworld) and a group of eccentric wrestlers (Carnyland) isn’t tricky enough, Billy is also a father of two AND he’s planning a wedding to his longtime partner, Chloe. Can he possibly keep all these balls in the air? Tune in to Billy Corgan’s Adventures in Carnyland to find out!
BILLY CORGAN’S ADVENTURES IN CARNYLAND IS STREAMING NOW ON THE CW APP.
Yesterday, it looked like John Krasinski’s IF would fall wildly short of industry exceptions, with the film initially tracking for a $40 million opening. While the final $35 million start marks a significant shortfall, the weekend matinees have been stronger than expected for this poorly reviewed family film. It did about $5 million more this weekend than I predicted. Many will undoubtedly view this as a poor start for a pretty expensive ($110 million) studio film, but there’s reason to be optimistic that the movie will have legs. The film has scored a superb A CinemaScore rating, which means that even if critics (such as myself) hated it, paying audiences like it. The star-studded flick includes Ryan Reynolds and Krasinski himself in front of the camera, while Steve Carell, Phoebe Waller Bride, Emily Blunt and more play the voices of the titular IFs (imaginary friends).
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes had a solid opening last weekend and slipped to second place with $26 million, marking a 55% week-to-week decline. This actually isn’t a bad hold, considering the movie’s middling B CinemaScore rating. With $101 million at the box office so far, it will likely come down to the international box office as to whether or not this franchise continues. I think the domestic number is strong enough that some follow-up is guaranteed, although Disney/20th Century Studios will likely keep the budget in check if it doesn’t at least pass $500 million internationally.
Meanwhile, The Strangers: Chapter 1, which is the first in Renny Harlin’s already-shot trilogy of low-budget horror flicks (rebooting the 2008 cult classic) over-indexed at the box office, making a strong $12 million for its opening weekend. With a budget in the $8 million range, the distributor, Lionsgate, is likely over the moon about the opening. The only caveat is that reviews have been poor (although our own Tyler Nichols vigorously defended it in his most recent livestream), and the CinemaScore rating (C) is nothing to write home about either. Nevertheless, the film will turn a nice profit for the studio and bodes well for the next two films. Will we see Chapter 2 before the summer is out?
Universal’s The Fall Guy also struggled to find an audience this weekend, only earning a middling $8.45 million for a $63 million domestic total. Rumor has it that the studio is dumping this movie on VOD on Tuesday, meaning it will likely struggle to reach an $80 million total at the box office, making it a serious money-loser for the studio, which is a drag as it’s a good flick. Amazon-MGM’s Challengers, which just hit VOD, made just under $3 million this weekend, with it likely to finish its theatrical run just shy of a $50 million total. The movie is destined for a Prime Video release pretty soon, so I expect the solid theatrical gross to propel it to huge streaming numbers for the service.
Focus Features, which has been struggling at the domestic box office this year, had another flop this weekend, with their Amy Winehouse biopic Back To Black only earning $2.85 million. The reviews have been mixed at best, but the studio does have the star-studded Jeff Nichols film, The Bikeriders, coming out in a few weeks.
The low-budget horror flick Tarot added another $2 million this weekend, passing the $15 million mark. Not bad for a movie that’s earned some of the worst reviews for a mainstream horror movie in recent memory. This spring’s big hit, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, made $1.71 million in 8th place, coming closer and closer to passing the $200 million mark (now at $194 million). The IMAX/ AMAZON event doc, The Blue Angels, made a decent $1.31 million this weekend. The aviation documentary debuts on Prime Video this Thursday (just in time for Memorial Day). Finally, the faith-based biopic Unsung Hero made just over $1 million, with a $19 million domestic total. While that’s not bad, it’s falling way short of what the studio’s previous faith-based hit, Jesus Revolution, made last year (it totalled about $50 million).
Next weekend sees some serious competition for IF, with Furiosa aiming for first place. Meanwhile, the animated Garfield movie should have family audiences wrapped around its orange paw over Memorial Day weekend. Do you think either movie will be the big hit Hollywood needs in a year when most movies have fallen short at the box office? Let us know in the comments!
Master of horror Wes Craven gave our favorite genre one of its greatest icons when he introduced Freddy Krueger in 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, but he had very little to do with what happened to Freddy after that. As his character’s story continued, Craven had zero creative control over the Nightmares – aside from when he co-wrote the third film and wrote and directed the seventh film – and didn’t see much money from them. As he told Fangoria, creating Freddy gave him great credibility, but not a great payday. So when Alive Films asked him to create a new horror franchise that he would have control over and a financial stake in, he jumped at the chance. Alive gave him complete creative freedom, and he gave them Shocker(WATCH IT HERE), mixing ideas from some of his previous films, like A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Last House on the Left, with elements inspired by the likes of The Hidden and The Thing, and a desire to examine television’s place at the heart of modern culture – by creating a character who can travel through TV land. “A diabolical mass murderer who harnesses electricity for unimaginable killing powers.” Shocker was supposed to give us a new genre icon, jump-start a franchise, and earn Craven stacks of cash. Instead, it had a mediocre run at the box office and never received a follow-up of any kind. So WTF Happened to This Horror Movie?
Looking back at the production and 1989 release of Shocker, it’s obvious that the legacy of Craven’s earlier creation Freddy Krueger was hanging over this project like a cloud. It’s almost like the movie was made as a challenge to Freddy. Set reports and interviews conducted at the time were packed with references to the character; for example, one article said that Craven was aiming to “build a better Freddy” here, and in a “making of” featurette Craven straight-out said that the villain in this film was “designed to retire Freddy” and was “more exciting” than Freddy. The concept originated as a TV series idea that Craven had pitched to Fox, and the title of the series he wanted to make was The Dream Stalker, which is how Freddy is often described.
The Dream Stalker would have been a fitting title for the film up to a point. The story is set in the city of Maryville, which Craven intended to be in his home state of Ohio, but it was filmed in the Los Angeles area and never feels like anywhere other than L.A. Even though the production went through the trouble of putting Ohio license plates on all of the vehicles, they didn’t bother hiding the palm trees in the background of some of the locations.
When the film begins, Maryville residents are living in terror because their city has been the site of a nine month killing spree being carried out by the Family Slasher, a maniac who has battered his way through locked doors to slaughter entire families, claiming nearly thirty victims. Police are baffled, and the crime might never have been solved if local college football player Jonathan Parker didn’t develop a psychic connection to the Family Slasher. Through his nightmares, Jonathan is able to witness these crimes before they even happen. The images he sees eventually allow him to deduce that the Family Slasher is TV repairman Horace Pinker. Using his dreams as a guide, Jonathan helps the police apprehend the killer.
Musician Mick Fleetwood, who had recently taken an acting role in the Schwarzenegger movie The Running Man, auditioned to play Pinker, this character who was supposed to replace Freddy in our hearts and minds, but the role ended up being played by Mitch Pileggi. Pileggi would go on to play Walter Skinner on nearly one hundred episodes of The X-Files, but at the time he was an unknown and he turned out to be the perfect choice. He really shines in the scenes he has in the first 45 minutes. There is no explanation given for Pinker’s madness, no mythology built up around him, this guy is just a violent, sleazy, scumbag. It’s not hard to imagine him plotting to commit the sex crime of the century with Krug and the gang from The Last House on the Left. We never find out why he chose to wipe out entire families, but we do learn that he had a family of his own once, one that he beat relentlessly. Until the day his seven-year-old son shot him in the knee, giving him a permanent limp. Pileggi turns in an incredible, intimidating, unnerving performance as Pinker. In those first 45 minutes.
Then Shocker earns its title by executing Pinker in the electric chair and turning him into a supernatural-slash-electrical force that can travel through bodies and appliances. From then on he’s kind of a joke. The character turns into a quip machine for the second half of the film; his offer to take Jonathan on a ride in his “Volts-wagen” is one of the all-time worst groan-inducing one-liners. He was scary when he was flesh and blood, but when he gains supernatural abilities he does things like transform into a Vibe-O-Matic recliner and chant “I think I can, I think I can” while elongating his fingers and fingernails so he can plug himself into an outlet. It’s unfortunate. It took Freddy a few sequels to become overly comedic, but Pinker gets there within his first movie.
Between Pinker’s execution and the point in the film when he starts jumping between TV channels, he possesses the bodies of several people, giving some other actors a chance to play the character. Vincent Guastaferro of Jason Lives, Michael Murphy, Alice Cooper’s guitarist Kane Roberts, Janne Peters, Dendrie Taylor, Sam Scarber, and even Craven’s son Jonathan all get a turn, but the standout of the bunch is Lindsay Parker – who was nine years old when the film was released – as a little girl who develops a nasty disposition and a foul mouth when Pinker briefly takes control of her. One thing that becomes quite obvious when Pinker is possessing people who have guns – like Jonathan’s adoptive father, Lt. Don Parker – is that this guy is a lousy shot. It’s no wonder he chose to use a knife when he was committing his Family Slasher murders.
Once again, it’s up to Jonathan Parker to stop Pinker, and along the way he finds out that he has the psychic connection to the killer because he is Pinker’s long-lost son, the kid who shot him in the knee. Jonathan is played by Peter Berg, who doesn’t look anything like Mitch Pileggi. These days he’s primarily known as a director, his credits including Friday Night Lights, Hancock, Battleship, Lone Survivor, and Spenser Confidential, but he’s a solid actor as well. He made his character a likeable person and is capable of bringing some impressive intensity to some of his scenes. Jonathan is easy to root for as he dedicates himself to taking Pinker down, whether he’s a slasher or an electric ghost, and lucky for him, his girlfriend Alison is so special that she’s even able to give him assistance from beyond the grave after Pinker kills her.
It could be that one reason why Shocker didn’t catch on with a larger audience is that it’s a slasher that doesn’t follow the standard formula and doesn’t feature much in the way of the usual slasher movie clichés. The biggest cliché in here is the presence of a wisecracking killer. Beyond that, there are no instances of sex equaling death, there isn’t any gratuitous nudity – not even when Alison is seen taking a bath – and it kills off the character you might expect to be the Final Girl. Alison is the lead female, and even though she also claims to have a chaste relationship with her boyfriend – which doesn’t seem likely, given that he’s a college athlete who rents his own place and they’ve been dating on and off for a year – she still gets killed by Pinker just 25 minutes in. Alison was played by Cami Cooper, and Craven and Cooper were clearly endeavoring to give the character an ethereal quality during her early scenes. Mainly they tried to do this by having her whisper nearly every line she says. Even when she talks on the phone, she whispers. It’s kind of irritating.
Alison is one of several people killed by Pinker over the course of the film, but this also happens to be a slasher movie that doesn’t revel in the kills. The Shocker doesn’t even use his ability to manipulate electricity to kill many people. Most of the deaths are bloody slashings, and we’re usually just seeing the aftermath. That’s partially due to the way the death scenes were shot in the first place, but Craven also had trouble securing an R rating from the MPAA on this one and some gore effects had to be removed. In all, the MPAA demanded that thirteen changes be made throughout the movie before they would give Craven the R.
Craven seemed to have a great time during the production of this movie, especially since he was working with his largest budget to date, but there were some bumps in the road during post-production. The trouble with the MPAA was one bump, and another came when the cheaper method they were planning to use for the film’s special effects fell through and they had to spend three times as much as they intended to on special effects that had to be thrown together in just two weeks. Craven was never happy with how those effects turned out, and in the days when he was producing remakes of The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left he was also talking about remaking Shocker, mainly just to have a chance to tell the story with better effects. But even though the effects in the film look silly at times, they’re still fitting for the mind-boggling scenes they’re featured in.
Craven was also uncertain about the rock soundtrack, which was a sign of the involvement of executive producer Shep Gordon of Alive Films, who was manager of several musical acts, including Alice Cooper. While Craven might have felt that an orchestral score would have worked better for some scenes, the film’s fans love that soundtrack and have a lot of fun rocking out to the likes of Megadeth, Dangerous Toys, Bonfire, Iggy Pop, Dead On, and The Dudes of Wrath while watching Horace Pinker do his thing.
The most likely reason why Shocker only developed a cult following instead of becoming a big hit is the fact that the story jumps around all over the place and the film is extremely inconsistent in tone. What starts off as a promisingly chilling slasher goes off the rails and becomes an insane live-action cartoon; those first 45 minutes are very dark, and yet a goofy-looking strangled corpse seen early on serves as a warning sign for the silliness that lies ahead. A villain who starts off frightening and repulsive ends up chasing the hero through an episode of Leave It to Beaver. On the audio commentary, Craven admits that he was seeing the world in a different way while he was making this movie because he was going through a rough divorce and it had given him a dark sense of humor. At one point he wonders aloud if he made it too whimsical.
Shocker reached theatre screens on October 27, 1989, just in time for Halloween and just two months after the release of the latest Nightmare on Elm Street movie Craven had nothing to do with, The Dream Child. In the end, the icon the film had challenged, the one whose success Craven was chasing, beat Horace Pinker at the box office. Shocker’s domestic total was $16.5 million, and the fifth Freddy movie made just over $22 million. That’s less than half what the previous Elm Street movie had made a year earlier, but it was still enough to overcome Horace Pinker.
While Shocker wasn’t successful enough at the box office to kick off the franchise it was supposed to lead to, and Alive Films didn’t last much longer as a company, it’s tough to feel cheated by the lack of sequels. Are they really necessary when Pinker already goes through multiple movies worth of changes within this one’s 109 minutes?
Shocker quickly developed a solid cult following, but someone checking it out for the first time more than thirty years down the line will have to be accepting of the issues its fans see as part of its charm. The film is a mish-mash of ideas that doesn’t really hold together. The fluctuating tone and the ridiculousness of it all is what earns the film a place in the heart of some viewers, while repelling others.
For audience members who find Shocker’s scattered ideas and tonal shifts to be off-putting, the movie is a mess and has been ever since it was released. But if a viewer can appreciate the craziness it has to offer and overlook the dodgy effects, it’s just as entertaining now as it was in 1989.
WTF Happened to This Horror Movie is one of several shows that we have on our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel. Check it out! And scroll down for some of our WTF videos.
Are you a fan of the battle between Horace Pinker (Mitch Pileggi) and Jonathan Parker (Peter Berg)? Crank up “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and let us know by leaving a comment below!
When a movie is as big as Crocodile Dundee, you better believe there will be a sequel. Audiences renting a VHS tape of the movie back in 1987 had a little introduction before the film, teasing the fact that a sequel was in the works, something all of us kids who grew up on this movie were psyched by.
So when the first one came out, Paul Hogan became a massive international star. He was already big in Australia, but before Crocodile Dundee, Hogan was mostly known for his ‘Shrimp on the Barbie’ Australian Tourism adverts. By 1987, he was so popular that he was one of the three hosts of the 1987 Academy Awards, opposite Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. Crocodile Dundee II would be a much bigger film than its predecessor. After all, this wasn’t a tiny Australian indie anymore. It was a big studio film, with Paramount Pictures, who distributed the first film, bankrolling it for $14 million. This was many times higher than the original film but relatively cheap for an American movie.
The first movie was famous for being a fish out of water tale, so they reversed the formula for Crocodile Dundee 2, putting the fish back into the water. As such, it falls into a different genre than the first movie, which was essentially a romantic comedy with nods to action adventure. This one would be an all-out action movie, albeit done lightly.
As the movie stars, Mick Dundee happily lives in New York with Sue Charlton. He’s adjusted to living in the big city and seems popular, with even the cops giving him an “oh Mick” when they catch him fishing with dynamite in the Hudson River. All is going pretty well until Sue’s ex-husband, an investigative journalist, is killed on assignment by a Pablo Escobar-style drug lord. It turns out that he caught the baron, Luis Rico, killing a man on camera and sent the film to Sue before getting killed. She’s snatched up by Rico’s henchmen and held for ransom, with them wanting the film.
When Mick tries to exchange the film, Rico’s henchmen try to kill him, only for him to foil the attempt thanks to some helpful Japanese tourists who think he’s Clint Eastwood (they notoriously looked a lot alike). He rescues Sue from the fortified mansion with the help of a streetwise buddy, Leroy (played by the great Charles S. Dutton), and a local street gang. But Rico and his men get away and swear to kill both Mick and Sue. So, what are they going to do? They head back to Walkabout Creek in Australia to get help from his old mates, the Aboriginals, and lead the drug lord on a wild goose chase through the Outback.
So while the first Crocodile Dundee movie featured Mick and his Aboriginal friends having quasi-mystical powers, the sequel doubles down, with them able to virtually vanish into thin air. We get a little more background on Mick this time, revealing that the Aboriginals raised him and that his family owns much of the Outback but that he’s always refused to consider it his property because he respects its original inhabitants and their rights to the land.
The film winds up becoming more of an action film, the most significant departure from the first movie being that humour takes a backseat. So much so that it was a sticking point for some fans and critics, but the film has a nice vibe, with Dundee as fun to watch in his element as out of it. The film has more than a few classic moments, albeit none entirely on par with “You call that a knife?” One is when he uses his knife on a mohawk, and another is when he takes a dive off his apartment’s balcony with a rope and crashes into an office with a charming “g’day.” The musical score is similar to the first film and effective in an action-driven setting. Also, keep your eyes peeled for early roles from people like Stephen Root, Luis Guzman, and even Colin Quinn of SNL fame.
While people may think back on this being a less successful sequel, that’s only true critically. It was a massive blockbuster, making $109 million domestically, meaning it was the sixth highest-grossing movie of the year. It infamously opened opposite Rambo III and grossed twice as much on a $14 million budget. That said, it was still over $70 million shy of what the first movie made. Worldwide, this made close to $240 million, but that was about $90 million short of the first movie’s gross.
Nevertheless, Hogan ended 1988 as a major star, but it wasn’t to last. In 1990, he made another movie with Paramount called Almost an Angel, which only made about $6 million, essentially ending his career in the States. Within a few years, he’d be playing third fiddle with Elijah Wood and a dolphin in the Flipper movie. He’d try to resurrect Mick with Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, but the series had run its course and only made $40 million worldwide. Tom Green took issue even with that figure, telling the media that kids bought tickets to Crocodile Dundee and snuck in to see his movie, Freddy Got Fingered, which was hard-R, instead. After that, Hogan stuck mainly to Australian films, although he did do the Curb Your Enthusiasm-style satire, The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee (which I interviewed him for), and was the center of a hoax revolving around a Super Bowl commercial that made it look like Danny McBride was playing Mick’s now grown son in a sequel. The commercial had cameos from almost every big Australian movie star except Mel Gibson, but it was all a joke.
While Crocodile Dundee’s run as a franchise was short, it can’t be denied that the first movie is a classic, and hey, part two is pretty damn good too!
I don’t think it’s an unpopular opinion anymore to say trigger warnings have gone too far. When you have people like Dame Judi Dench complaining about them, maybe the plot has gotten lost somewhat, so to speak. While many have taken issue with the wrong-headed warnings before movies like Blazing Saddles (a famously anti-racist movie) and the pretty tame early James Bond movies, perhaps the moment trigger warnings truly overstepped happened last week, when AMC aired Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas and attached the following disclaimer:
“This film includes language and/or cultural stereotypes that are inconsistent with today’s standards of inclusion and tolerance and may offend some viewers.”
So, let’s take a minute to take all that in. Firstly, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas is a movie for grown-ups and is about sociopathic gangsters. Is anyone watching this actually expecting an inclusive depiction of the Italian Mafia, which, of course, is famously known for their tolerance and kindness (note sarcasm)? The movie’s whole point is to depict the most unseemly aspects of that life. And cultural stereotypes? I suppose that has to do with the fact that members of the Mafia are shown to be Italian, which they were, so I’m not sure what the issue here is. Truth be told, I don’t get what purpose attaching a trigger warning to Goodfellas, perhaps one of the most universally loved movies ever, serves. What’s next? A warning attached to Casablanca because the Nazis are all really mean?
The bright spot about all of this is that trigger warnings have gotten so ridiculous that the backlash against them is steadily growing. Heck, Netflix is even releasing an ultra-violent Jessica Alba flick with the term Trigger Warning as its tongue-in-cheek title. If you look at the tweet embedded above, it went crazy viral, and no one is defending the use of a warning in this film, which really doesn’t need one. AMC also edits their movies for television, so the version of Goodfellas being aired was probably cut to ribbons anyway. I doubt anything was left over to truly upset people.
It’s funny; I first noticed trigger warnings becoming a thing when I attended TIFF in 2022, and they screened the Hugh Jackman drama The Son. Despite being an adults-only festival, where you actually can’t even get into to see most movies if you’re under 18, the film had a trigger warning in its program that spoiled it’s ending. I don’t know why movies nowadays are seen as something that should never challenge viewers. Many of the best movies ever made specifically try to “trigger” audiences because that’s the point. Think of something like Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. Do you think he wanted audiences to leave the theater whistling a happy tune? No, he wanted to shock and upset people to give an accurate depiction of the barbarity of the Holocaust. The fact is, movies are (sometimes) supposed to be provocative. Goodfellas is such a movie. Not everything can fit, as they say in the trigger warning, “today’s standards of inclusion and tolerance.” While that may offend “some” viewers (although I think they overestimate the number of people that really would be offended), that’s too bad. Goodfellas is a movie for grown-ups, and if AMC chooses to air it, they should treat the movie and the people watching it with the respect they deserve.
Let us know in the comments if you were as triggered as we were by this trigger warning.
While Disney’s Bob Iger has noted that Marvel content on Disney Plus will be cut down a bit, it was also announced that the channel was actively developing Hawkeye Season 2. That’s in addition to already announced shows like Daredevil: Born Again, Agatha All Along, Ironheart, and several others, meaning that even if the content is being cut back, there’s still plenty more coming.
A lot of the shows have received pretty tepid reactions from fans, but some, like the recent X-Men ’97 are being raved about. So what’s the best Marvel show on Disney Plus so far? Take our poll and weigh in with your thoughts in the comments!
Just when you got the Spider-Pig song out of your head comes word that another Simpsons movie could be greenlit…if the circumstances are just right. But The Simpsons showrunner Al Jean says the existence of a sequel actually has nothing to do with the record-setting sitcom itself but rather another property altogether.
Speaking with Screen Rant, Al Jean said that a Simpsons Movie sequel more centers around how well animated movies can still do at the box office. “I think it’s a bigger issue than The Simpsons. On several levels, we’re really hoping for Inside Out 2 to do great this summer. I want to see the animation business completely returned to what it was before the pandemic.” (A sequel was actually formally discussed prior to the pandemic.) “And then, I think if that was the case, it would make sense to do The Simpsons theatrically.” To back up Jean’s concerns, only two movies post-2020 are in the top 25 worldwide for animated movies.
But let’s not forget that we are in the age of streaming. So even if Inside Out 2 doesn’t pull in numbers that near the original’s $850 million worldwide, there can still be a place for a sequel to The Simpsons Movie, even if it’s not ideal. “We are, with the shorts and other things, streaming on Disney+, so I love seeing animated movies in theaters. I loved The Boy and the Heron that just won the Oscar, I’ll always go see the Miyazaki movies that come out. So, I really am all for animation being fully theatrical, so I hope that’s where it goes.”
While no official discussions have taken place regarding a sequel to The Simpsons Movie as of late, no doubt the fanbase is strong enough to warrant one. Now in its 35th season, the show may not be even close to its prime (then again, it wasn’t when the first movie came out in 2007, either…) and it may have gone through some significant changes but it remains insanely popular, especially now that it’s under the Disney umbrella. Their most recent Disney+ short, May the 12th Be with You, came out over the weekend to honor both Star Wars Day and Mother’s Day.
Would you like to see a sequel to The Simpsons Movie or are the series’ episodes and shorts enough for you? Give us your thoughts!
It’s the middle of May 2024 and that means we’re nearly halfway through the year. What has this year been like in video game news? Tons of layoffs (sad), lots of new games (glad), and some weird outliers, as usual. This week, we saw set photos and official shots from The Last of Us season two, dove back into the…
It’s the middle of May 2024 and that means we’re nearly halfway through the year. What has this year been like in video game news? Tons of layoffs (sad), lots of new games (glad), and some weird outliers, as usual. This week, we saw set photos and official shots from The Last of Us season two, dove back into the…
Brad Pitt has really stepped up his game as of late in the stunt department. Maybe it has something to do with Cliff Booth but he has gone full throttle, even doing 95% of the stunts in Bullet Train. Now, for his upcoming movie centering around Formula One racing, Pitt devoted months of his time to experience the adrenaline and show he can strap in with the pros.
Speaking with People, producer Jerry Bruckheimer gave some details on Brad Pitt’s dedication to the Formula One movie, saying, “He trained for four or five months. He’s an amazing driver. In fact, some of the F1 drivers said he’s a natural athlete. He really is. He’s amazing in that car.” When asked just how fast he got his car up to, Bruckheimer cheekily said, “I can’t tell you. The insurance company will kill me.” Notably, such cars can get to at least 220 mph.
Brad Pitt previously expressed his excitement about the action in the yet-to-be-titled Formula One movie, saying, “Tell you what’s amazing about it, you’ll see the cameras come out all over the car, the shots you’ve never seen speed, you’ve never seen G forces like this, it’s really, really exciting.” This will be no surprise to most going into the movie, as it is directed by Joseph Kosinski, whose Top Gun: Maverick featured some of the most thrilling aerial scenes in movie history. With that star wattage and talent behind the camera, consider this one of the most highly-anticipated rides on the docket.
As for plot details on this Formula One movie, Pitt outlined it as such: “I would be a guy who raced in the 90s. He has a horrible crash and kind of craps out and disappears and then is racing in other disciplines. Then his friend, played by Javier Bardem, is the team owner. They’re the last place team, they’re 21, 22 on the grid, they’ve never scored a point and they have a young phenom played by Damson Idris and he brings me in as kind of a Hail Mary and hijinks ensure.” These hijinks have cost a reported $300 million; while that budget hasn’t officially been confirmed, if it holds, that would make it one of the most expensive movies ever made.
Are you looking forward to Joseph Kosinski and Brad Pitt’s upcoming Formula One movie? What do you expect from that pairing?
