About two years ago, we heard that Halle Berry had signed on to star in a horror movie called Mother Land, with genre regular Alexandre Aja on board to direct. Last year, the project went into production under a new title, Never Let Go. Last month, Lionsgate unveiled a teaser poster, which can be seen at the bottom of this article, and announced they will be giving Never Let Go a theatrical release on September 27th (the date they previously had reserved for Saw XI, which has been pushed back a year). Now a tailer for the film has made its way online, and you can check it out in the embed above!
Berry is joined in the cast by Percy Daggs IV (The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey) and Anthony B. Jenkins (Florida Man). Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen, and Dan Levine of 21 Laps (the production company behind Stranger Things and Free Guy, among other things) are producing the film with Aja. Berry is executive producing alongside Holly Jeter and 21 Laps’ Emily Morris. Chelsea Kujawa and Scott O’Brien are overseeing the project for Lionsgate.
Scripted by KC Coughlin and Ryan Grassby, Never Let Go follows a mother (Berry) and her fraternal twin sons (Daggs and Jenkins) who have been tormented by an evil spirit for years and are convinced to never let go of their family’s protective bond. But when one of the boys questions if the evil is real, their connection is severed, triggering a terrifying fight for survival. Here’s a different version of the synopsis: As Evil takes over the world beyond their front doorstep, the only protection for a mother (Berry) and her twin sons is their house and their family’s protective bond. Needing to stay connected at all times – even tethering themselves with ropes – they cling to one another, urging each other to never let go. But when one of the boys questions if the evil is real, the ties that bind them together are severed, triggering a terrifying fight for survival.
Aja’s previous directing credits include High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes, Mirrors, Piranha 3D, Horns, The 9th Life of Louis Drax, Crawl, and Oxygen. We first heard about Never Let Go (then known as Mother Land) almost exactly two years ago, when it was announced that Mark Romanek had signed on to direct the film. There were eight years between Romanek’s first film One Hour Photo and his second feature Never Let Me Go, and it looked like this was going to be his third movie. Eleven years (at the time) after Never Let Me Go. But then Romanek dropped out and Aja signed on. Now we continue to wait and see if Romanek is going to make a third feature.
What did you think of the Never Let Go trailer? Will you be catching this movie on the big screen in September? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Anthony B. Jenkins as Samuel, Halle Berry as Momma and Percy Daggs IV as Nolan in Never Let Go. Photo Credit: Liane Hentscher
It had been reported earlier that Francis Ford Coppola’s newest movie, Megalopolis, was going to be a tricky sell for distributors because, even though there is a definite commercial appeal, there was also an artsy quality to it that might make it seem less accessible to sell to general audiences. However, as the first clip and the teaser trailer have shown, the new film from the Apocalypse Now director has stunningly dynamic cinematography and some very cinematic special effects sequences. It has the look of a grand sci-fi epic, and The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that it will be getting the treatment of a grand cinema epic as the film will be screening in IMAX globally.
IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond addressed the press Thursday as Cannes about Megalopolis. He stated, “The film is going to get an IMAX release. One of the things that we pride ourselves on is being filmmaker-friendly. So we’ve committed to Francis to do a global Imax release.” According to THR, Gelford also said “that he met with Coppola in Cannes and that IMAX will probably wait to see who will distribute the film in the U.S. and when before dating its Imax release. The film has already sold to multiple international territories.”
The teaser trailer featured a tag at the end that read, “Experience it in IMAX.” This came after amazing images of a rebuilt New York that mixes in traditional Roman imagery like a chariot race and Greco-Roman Wrestling taking place at Madison Square Garden. The teaser clip that would release before the trailer featured a sequence of Adam Driver’s character on top of the Empire State Building and stopping time.
Here is the official plot of Coppola’s Megalopolis: “Roman Epic fable set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.”
Coppola, who is renowned for his work on The Godfather series, Apocalypse Now and The Conversation has made the claim, “Our new film MEGALOPOLIS is the best work I’ve ever had the privilege to preside over.”
Some people run away by packing their bags. Others run away by standing in one place for too long. Others don’t run away at all. And that’s just what Fiona Harvey – who says she is the inspiration for Martha in Baby Reindeer – is refusing to do, pressing forward with her lawsuit against Netflix.
The lawsuit stems partly from Netflix allegedly making no attempt to contact Harvey leading up to and after Baby Reindeer becoming a hit for the service. Chris Daw KC, a barrister working with Harvey, said that the series also grossly misrepresented her persona and past, thus profiting from false portrayals. “Portraying someone as a convicted criminal who has done time in prison, when that is not true, is a pretty clear cut case of defamation, as it is bound to cause serious harm to that person’s reputation…There are strict laws on the use of a person’s image for commercial gain, particularly in the U.S., which do not seem to have been considered.”
In Netflix’s Baby Reindeer, the character of Martha Scott is depicted as stalking Donny Dunn – portrayed by series creator Richard Gadd, whose real life supposedly inspired the story – and subsequently ending up in prison. However, there are apparently no convictions against Fiona Harvey; this, in addition to being unhappy that Netflix has continued to fail to reach out, have led to legal action, something she has been threatening.
In addition to Netflix, Harvey has also gone after Baby Reindeer creator Gadd, saying he suffers from “main character syndrome.” Gadd initially pleaded with viewers to not try to identify the actual people who inspired the characters, saying it would only harm their experience. But now that Harvey has outed herself, Gadd and Netflix may have no choice but to confront what he tried to stop. In the meantime, Netflix has been mum on the lawsuit.
Baby Reindeer hit Netflix just over one month ago but all that has followed so far has become a saga in its own right. Harvey even has some issues with Piers Morgan following a rather exploitative interview, saying she was offered a lowball number to appear but thinks she deserves £1 million (around $1.27 million) for what he has made off of the sitdown.
Do you see Fiona Harvey being successful in her lawsuit against Netflix?
PLOT: Thirty years after the events of the 1994 serial killer thriller Nightwatch, the daughter of two of the deeply damaged surviving characters takes her dad’s old job as night watchman at the Department of Forensic Medicine. Investigating the events that ruined her parents’ lives, she accidentally kicks off a new killing spree.
REVIEW: Back in 1994, Danish filmmaker Ole Bornedal brought the world a serial killer thriller called Nightwatch, about a young law student named Martin (played by future Game of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who takes a job as night watchman at the Department of Forensic Medicine in Copenhagen and inadvertently gets mixed up in the investigation of the serial killer case that has been providing the morgue with a lot of fresh corpses. By the end of the film, Martin, his girlfriend Kalinka, and his best friend Jens have all had close calls with the killer, who is revealed to be policeman Peter Wörmer (Ulf Pilgaard). Nightwatch was so well received that it even received the English-language remake treatment, with Bornedal also directing that version of the story (which starred Ewan McGregor as Martin), working from a script he wrote with Steven Soderbergh. The result was a remake that may be just as good or even better than the original film – but, of course, viewer mileage will vary.
Bornedal has continued to work as the decades have passed, directing films like I Am Dina, The Substitute (2007), Just Another Love Story, Deliver Us from Evil (2009), The Possession (2012), and The Way to Mandalay, among other things, but none have gotten a warm international reception on the level of Nightwatch. Now, thirty years later, he has returned to the subject he has covered twice before to bring us the sequel Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever (a sequel to the original film, not the remake), and he has brought several familiar faces back with him.
If you thought Martin and Kalinka were in for a happily ever after as Nightwatch came to an end, Bornedal crushes that dream right up front in Demons Are Forever. They stayed together, they even had a daughter they named Emma, but happy they were not. Kalinka was tormented for the rest of her days, she was a drinker, she told Emma she was a mistake. She eventually committed suicide. So Sofie Gråbøl doesn’t reprise the role of Kalinka here, but Coster-Waldau is back to play Martin in this sequel… and he’s not in a good place, either. Not only is he traumatized by what happened in ‘94, but he’s also mourning the love of his life, so he spends his days medicated to oblivion and doesn’t communicate well with his daughter. Bornedal cast his own daughter, Fanny Leander Bornedal, as Martin and Kalinka’s daughter Emma – and say what you will about nepotism, but the younger Bornedal delivers a fine performance in the film. The writer/director couldn’t have hoped for a non-relative to do any better than his daughter does. She carries much of the film on her shoulders.
Martin and Kalinka never told their daughter why they were so damaged. So Emma – who is now attending medical school – takes it upon herself to find out what happened to them. When she finds out that her parents got mixed up in a serial killer case while Martin was working as a night watchman, she takes her dad’s old job at the Department of Forensic Medicine… and when she finds out that Wörmer is still alive and locked up in a psychiatric hospital, she makes the poor decision to go there and confront the old man. (Pilgaard returns to the role.) She finds that Wörmer is a shell of his former self… but still, by visiting him, Emma accidentally kicks off a whole new killing spree that even gets Martin’s old friend Jens (played again by Kim Bodnia) and Jens’ ex Lotte (Vibeke Hastrup replaces Lotte Andersen in this role) involved. Emma’s boyfriend Frederik (Alex Høgh Andersen) and their classmate Sofus (Sonny Lindberg) also have roles in the story, but it’s classmate Maria (Nina Terese Rask) who really stands out. Not just because she has a bad haircut and wears shirts with slogans like “I f*cked your dad,” but because Rask does good work in the role while her character pays a price for being close to Emma.
It takes a while for danger to truly enter the picture in Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever; Emma doesn’t even visit Wörmer until almost the 40 minute mark, but once Emma has stirred up the hornets’ nest, the rest of the 113 minute running time (the movie is a bit longer than it needed to be) becomes a suspenseful ride. There is a mystery element, as we’re left to ponder who can be doing the killing while Wörmer is locked away, but we know from the start he has one disciple in the form of fellow mental patient Bent, who is brought to life in a strange, effectively and memorably creepy way by Casper Kjær Jensen.
Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever isn’t quite on the level of either of version of Nightwatch. The story and structure just don’t work as well. But it is a good “thirty years later” sequel with an intriguing mystery, strong performances, bloodshed, intense scenes, creep-out moments, and some nice suspense. It’s interesting to catch up with the surviving characters from the first Nightwatch all this time down the line, even if things didn’t go well for them over the years. I’m glad Ole Bornedal returned to this story decades later, and I think fans of serial killer thrillers will have a good time watching this continuation.
Now, we wait and see. Will Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever get an English-language remake with Ewan McGregor, Josh Brolin, and Nick Nolte reprising their roles from the ‘97 film? We probably shouldn’t get our hopes up, but it would be pretty cool.
Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever will be available to watch on the Shudder streaming service as of May 17th.
For a while, Jar Jar Binks seemed to be the most hated character in cinema. The backlash against him was something to behold following the release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace 25 years ago, but attitudes towards the Gungan have softened somewhat as a new generation has embraced the character. While speaking with Inverse, Best revealed that Star Wars creator George Lucas gave him a valuable piece of advice at the height of the Jar Jar backlash.
“I think it’s wonderful the younger generations are embracing not only the prequels, but Jar Jar specifically,” Best said. “This is something that George kind of predicted when all the backlash happened. He was like, ‘Thirty years from now, nobody’s going to be talking about this.’ And it was tough to realize that in the moment, but now here we are, 25 years later, and he was right.“
At the time, Best took the Jar Jar backlash extremely hard, even contemplating suicide, but he’s proud of his contribution as the first person to perform motion capture in a movie, even if he doesn’t get the credit for it.
I was the first person to do motion capture in movie history, yet I’ll probably get all that credit when I’m no longer here, because you have to admit that it was a Black man who did that. And you gotta pay me. Those are two things that Hollywood has a challenging time doing.
Best continued: “I was the first Black man to do it… and the last Black man. There has not been any other Black man to be a main character in a major motion picture as a performance capture, CGI character. Twenty-five years, and that’s an entire group of people completely X-ed out of an art form. Zoe Saldaña is probably the only other person who’s done this. But in 25 years, the industry has decided to not deal with Black people, specifically Black men. We are still talking about a large demographic of artists who are being denied opportunities. And that’s frustrating to me.“
Jar Jar Binks was front and center in The Phantom Menace, and although he did appear in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, his screen time was drastically reduced. Best has reprised the role in various animated projects over the years, including Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Robot Chicken, and LEGO Star Wars. He also portrayed Jedi Master Kelleran Beq in The Mandalorian, where it was revealed that Beq was the one who helped save Grogu during Order 66.
Jar Jar, or rather, Darth Jar Jar, will next be seen in LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy, which will premiere on Disney+ on September 13th.
What are your thoughts on Jar Jar Binks 25 years after the initial backlash?
Netflix has dropped a handful of first-look photos at Back in Action, which stars Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz as Matt and Emily, two ex-CIA spies who find themselves dragged back into the world of espionage when their cover is blown. The streaming service also revealed the release date for Back in Action, with the action comedy flick set to premiere on November 15th. You can check out the first-look photos of Back in Action below!
In addition to Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz, Back in Action also stars Glenn Close, Kyle Chandler, Andrew Scott, Jamie Demetriou, McKenna Roberts, and Rylan Jackson. Seth Gordon (Baywatch) directed the movie and co-wrote the script with Brendan O’Brien.
Back in Action is Cameron Diaz’s first movie in a decade. The actress hasn’t appeared in a movie since the Annie remake in 2014 (which also starred Jamie Foxx), as she had decided to retire from the industry to focus on her family. Although there were rumblings that she might step back into retirement following this movie, she did take a role in Outcome, a black comedy starring Keanu Reeves and Jonah Hill for Apple TV+.
During the final week of production on Back in Action, Jamie Foxx experienced a “medical complication” and was rushed to hospital. It’s still not exactly clear what happened, but Foxx later said he went through “hell and back” and couldn’t walk at first, needing physical therapy to recover.
After working together on Any Given Sunday and Annie, Foxx has said that he was eager to team up with Diaz once more. “A lot of people don’t know this, but after Cameron and I did Any Given Sunday and Annie together, we became friends in real life — and I’ve been begging her to come play with me again,” Foxx said. “We all know there’s just something about her…” Diaz responded, “I couldn’t have asked for a better partner, on-screen and off.“
Back in Action will premiere on Netflix on November 15th.
As the Lord of the Rings franchise has pulled in nearly $6 billion over the course of six movies, it was only natural that Warner Bros. would return to the well. That’s why it didn’t come as a big surprise when it was announced that more Lord of the Rings movies are in development, the first of which will be Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum.
In addition to reprising his role as Gollum, Andy Serkis is set to direct The Hunt for Gollum, which will be written by Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens and produced by Peter Jackson. As for why the OG Lord of the Rings team has decided to return to Middle-earth, Jackson told Deadline that although we saw some of Gollum’s backstory in the previous six movies, there’s still a lot of story to be told.
“The Gollum/Sméagol character has always fascinated me because Gollum reflects the worst of human nature, whilst his Sméagol side is, arguably, quite sympathetic,” Jackson said. “I think he connects with readers and film audiences alike, because there’s a little bit of both of them in all of us. We really want to explore his backstory and delve into those parts of his journey we didn’t have time to cover in the earlier films. It’s too soon to know who will cross his path, but suffice to say we will take our lead from Professor Tolkien.“
After directing the previous six films in the franchise, passing the reigns to Serkis was a no-brainer for Jackson. “Andy was a joy to work with directing Second Unit on The Hobbit,” Jackson said. “He has the energy and imagination and, most importantly, an inherent understanding of the world of the story that is needed to step back into Middle-earth. We have collaborated on eight films together and each time it has been a fantastic experience. There’s no one in this earth better equipped to tackle Gollum’s story than Andy.“
As for Serkis, he said he was “absolutely floored” when he got the call to direct The Hunt for Gollum. “They have done this to me before, and this had the same effect as when I got the call telling me I was going to direct second unit on The Hobbit,” he said. “I’m very honored that they’ve asked me to come back. I really am. I love them as filmmakers because they are honest. They always go for the truth. They are the most hardworking people on the planet, and their search for excellence never ends, and now I get to help reach that bar again. It was Philippa who first called me actually and said, look, this is what we’re thinking. And I was just flushed with a sort of, oh my God, I’m going back in there. Yeah, it was a terrific moment.“
Motion-capture technology has advanced quite a bit since the early days of Lord of the Rings, and Serkis plans to take full advantage of it. “At that time, the motion capture technology back then was pretty much restricted to interior sets and it was just motion capture at that time,” Serkis said. “It really has now reached a level where the authorship of the performances…allows you to actually internalize more without any sense of overacting, or the closeup is the detail within a closeup when you’re being very still. This is something that is clearly working at a much greater and a deeper level now.” Serkis also teased that appearances from Lord of the Rings actors are a possibility.
That’s a difficult question to answer right at this moment in time, because we’re really in the nascent stages of what it is exactly where we’re doing, and where the story’s going to take us. So I don’t want to commit anything right now. I mean, because it’s so raw and so raw and wriggling, and we are just literally having very early state script discussions and ideas of exactly where and how we’re going to drop anchor with the character and his journey and how he is or comes into contact with other characters, and the characters that we know and don’t know. So still, I would hate to say anything that’s going to commit us at this point, because it’s literally all up for grabs.
Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum is set for a 2026 release.
Furiosa: A Max Max Saga had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, nearly a decade after the debut of Mad Max: Fury Road at the same festival. The first reviews for Furiosa have begun pouring in, and while they’re just as full of praise as those first reactions, it doesn’t sound like it reaches the heights of Fury Road.
Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman said that while Furiosa contains “a handful of awesome action moments,” the action doesn’t take center stage in the same way it did in Fury Road. “The most important thing to say about ‘Furiosa,’ however, is that what it all adds up to is a movie that can be darkly bedazzling, and that will be embraced and defended in a dozen passionate ways — but it’s one that, to me, falls very short of being a ‘Mad Max’ home run,” Gleiberman wrote. “And here’s the thing: I’d be lying if I denied that a ‘Mad Max’ home run is what I was craving. In ‘Furiosa,’ George Miller invests himself so heavily in the ‘Mad Max’ mythology that he competes with it, tops it, and tears it apart at the same time. I’m tempted to rechristen the movie ‘Mad Miller: Beyond Asunder Dome.’“
BBC‘s Nicholas Barber said the film was more “exhausting” than “exhilarating” in his review: “If [Fury Road] was essentially one long car chase, with a few brief pit stops, this one is an episodic Bildungsroman, complete with chapter headings, that stretches across several locations and time periods. It’s an hour before Taylor-Joy and Burke first appear; there’s half an hour in the middle when there’s no sign of Hemsworth; there are various political negotiations between rival warlords; and an entire war is consigned to a montage.“
IGN‘s Lex Briscuso said: “It’s hard to overstate how immaculately crafted Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is, both as a prequel to Max Max: Fury Road and as a stand-alone story of how the Wasteland created a powerful character. With a ferocious and savage heart, George Miller’s film takes flight into epic status. Weaving together top-notch worldbuilding, an emotionally resonant directorial eye, searing performances, sharp cinematography, and a Hell-raising score, this is a remarkable hero’s journey punctuated by incredible action scenes and an utterly stunning reflection on life and love prevailing beyond the fall of civilization.“
Empire‘s John Nugent said: “[Furiosa] is a lot. Where Fury Road was set over a mere 36 hours, this story spans 15 years. Where Fury Road was singular, unstoppable action ecstasy, this is more episodic tension, divided into five chapters, each with cryptic titles like ‘The Pole Of Inaccessibility.’ It is markedly different from that last film in so many ways, and yet inextricably tied to it, deepening our understanding of what Charlize Theron’s Furiosa meant when she spoke of ‘looking for redemption’ and said that her ‘mother died on the third day.’ Places only whispered of or glimpsed before — Gas Town, the Bullet Farm, the Green Place — are finally rendered on screen, vast and grandiose. The Wasteland feels bigger and busier — shout out to new characters Scrotus, The Octoboss and Piss Boy — and also somehow lonelier and more oppressive, like if David Lean did dieselpunk.“
Deadline‘s Pete Hammond singled out praise for Chris Hemsworth. “Dementus in particular is given long stretches of Shakespearean-style dialogue and speeches that are impeccably delivered by Hemsworth in what I think is the best performance of his career,” Hammond wrote. “In this brutal, appropriately-named Wasteland, he shows the remnants of a man for whom violence and lack of humanity have become his only means to exist in a scorched-earth world where only the strong and gas hoarders survive. Hemsworth, employing a distinct accent and look, locks into this role with abandon and steals the picture. He instantly becomes one of the great villains, complex and endlessly watchable and charismatic like all of the most misguided leaders.“
THR‘s David Rooney said: “Anya Taylor-Joy is a fierce presence in the title role and Chris Hemsworth is clearly having fun as a gonzo Wasteland warlord, but the mythmaking lacks muscle, just as the action mostly lacks the visual poetry of its predecessor. That’s not to say there aren’t mind-blowing action sequences. One 15-minute set-piece mid-film, in which Alyla Browne as the 10-year-old title character makes way for Taylor-Joy 15 years later, is electrifying.“
Collider‘s Therese Lacson said: “Because of the nature of this story, the pacing and tone are completely different from the previous one. The heart-pounding action that was Fury Road is not fully present here, and in some respects, the story is weaker for it. It’s clear that Miller has a vision for Furiosa and has dedicated many years to her creation. She’s fully fleshed out in a way Max never has been, and this origin story feels like one of mythic proportions, with parables being bounced around as we watch Furiosa learn time and time again that the Wasteland will take everything from her. However, there is such a thing as too much information, and unfortunately, Furiosa falls victim to a problem that Fury Road never had. There are parts of the film that feel like a pure info dump, like Miller is filling in a picture that’s better left bare.“
All in all, the reviews make it sound like Furiosa is a hell of a good time with plenty of world-building and eclectic characters, but if you go in expecting a clone of Fury Road, particularly when it comes to the action, you might be disappointed.
The official synopsis for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga: “As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland they come across the Citadel presided over by the Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.” The film will hit theaters on May 24th.
The selection of games rotating into PS Plus at the end of May isn’t that impressive, save for one: Red Dead Redemption 2. Rockstar Games’ open-world Western returns to the subscription service after a nearly two-year hiatus. Will you beat it this time?
The selection of games rotating into PS Plus at the end of May isn’t that impressive, save for one: Red Dead Redemption 2. Rockstar Games’ open-world Western returns to the subscription service after a nearly two-year hiatus. Will you beat it this time?
