After being delayed several months by the writers strike and the actors strike, season 5 of the hit Netflix series Stranger Things (which is also the last season of the show) finally went into production at the start of the year and has now passed the halfway point of its twelve month shooting schedule… and to mark the occasion, Netflix has released a promo video that gives a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of this new batch of episodes. You can watch this promo in the embed above. It has also been announced that Nell Fisher (Evil Dead Rise), newcomer Jake Connelly, and Alex Breaux (Joe Pickett) have joined the cast.
Stranger Things has the following synopsis: A love letter to the ‘80s classic genre films that captivated a generation, Stranger Things is a thrilling drama set in the seemingly normal Midwestern town of Hawkins, Indiana. After a boy vanishes into thin air, his close-knit group of friends and family search for answers and are pulled into a high-stakes and deadly series of events. Beneath the surface of their ordinary town lurks an extraordinary supernatural mystery, along with top-secret government experiments and a dangerous gateway that connects our world to a powerful yet sinister realm. Friendships will be tested and lives will be altered as what they discover will change Hawkins and possibly the world — forever.
Here’s the list of the cast members and the characters they played in season 4: Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Brett Gelman (Murray), Cara Buono (Karen Wheeler), Matthew Modine (Dr. Brenner), Paul Reiser (Dr. Owens), Jamie Campbell Bower (Peter Ballard), Joseph Quinn (Eddie Munson), Eduardo Franco (Argyle), Sherman Augustus (Lt. Colonel Sullivan), Mason Dye (Jason Carver), Nikola Djuricko (Yuri), Tom Wlaschiha (Dmitri), Myles Truitt (Patrick), Regina Ting Chen (Ms. Kelly), Grace Van Dien (Chrissy), Logan Riley Bruner (Fred Benson), Logan Allen (Jake), Elodie Grace Orkin (Angela), John Reynolds (Officer Callahan), Rob Morgan (Chief Powell), Amybeth McNulty (Vickie), and Freddy Krueger himself Robert Englund (Victor Creel).
Stranger Things is produced by Monkey Massacre Productions and 21 Laps Entertainment. Series creators The Duffer Brothers serve as executive producers alongside Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen of 21 Laps Entertainment, Iain Paterson, and Curtis Gwinn.
10 CloverfieldLane and Prey director Dan Trachtenberg is directing an episode of the final season before he heads off to make the new Predator movie Badlands, starring Elle Fanning. Also new to the cast for Stranger Things season 5 is Linda Hamilton (The Terminator).
Are you looking forward to Stranger Things season 5, and are you interested in seeing how the new cast members will be involved? Take a look at the promo video, then let us know by leaving a comment below.
The cult classic and lesser-known work of Star Wars creator George Lucas, Radioland Murders, starring Brian Benben and Mary Stuart Masterson, will be celebrating its 30th anniversary with a brand new special Blu-ray release, according to Blu-ray.com. The 1994 film was directed by Mel Smith and the screenplay was penned by Lucas with Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz, Jeff Reno and Ron Osborn. The movie was also produced by Star Wars: Special Edition and Star WarsEpisode I-III producer Rick McCallum.
The description reads, “The secretary at radio station WBN, Penny Henderson (Mary Stuart Masterson) is frantically trying to keep things in order as a broadcast goes on the air. Chaos breaks loose, however, when a series of murders occurs in the building, accompanied by an enigmatic voice over the airwaves. Penny’s writer husband, Roger (Brian Benben), tries to deduce who the killer is, but he also happens to be the prime suspect. As he evades the law, Roger gets closer to uncovering the identity of the murderer. NEW 2K RESTORATION.“
The ensemble cast also includes Ned Beatty, George Burns, Scott Michael Campbell and Brion James. There has not been much in the vein of special features that have been announced. However, the technical details read: Video Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Resolution: 1080p Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio TBA
Subtitles English SDH
Discs Blu-ray Disc Single disc (1 BD-50)
Playback 2K Blu-ray: Region A
Special releases like these have given new life for overlooked films. Recently, Kevin Costner has stated his belief that not everything will end up digital. The Horizon star said, “Death of the what? DVD is not dead, at all. That’s what they’d have you believe. Maybe it’s not making the same amount of money, but just try to go ask for that from the studio. They won’t give that up. A lot of people that like my movies, they can’t get to a theater, and they’re waiting for that moment. You can’t make your film for the opening weekend. You have to make it for its life.“
While it’s true that studios haven’t been putting the same importance on physical media as they once did, it’s been great to see boutique labels pick up the slack over the years. Lesser-known movies from around the globe have been given the prestige treatment, and I’ve certainly discovered many new favorites thanks to Criterion, Arrow Video, Kino Lorber, Vinegar Syndrome, Shout/Scream Factory, and more. Additionally, fans are growing tired of content purges on streaming services, which could be leading to a physical media comeback.
Eddie Murphy has a lot of standalone movies that are great like Trading Places, Harlem Nights, and the more recent Dolomite is my Name, but he’s also been a bit of franchise gold in the past. Obviously, Beverly Hills Cop is the biggest and most recent example, but he’s also been part of 2 48 Hours movies, a couple Nutty Professor flicks, a couple Doctor Dolittle movies and is an integral part of the mega franchise that is Shrek. While we unfortunately have to call Coming to America a franchise now after that abysmal rehash that Amazon dropped on us, there is another movie and character that I actually wouldn’t mind being brought back and has potential, under the right writer and director combo, to be a fun time and maybe even fix some of the mistakes from its predecessor. While Pluto Nash and Norbit are all time stinkers that have more business in Awfully Good territory than anything else, 1986’s The Golden Child (watch it HERE) is truly the Black Sheep of Eddie Murphy’s illustrious career.
Let’s get this out of the way. I used to have a joke that this movie is we have Big Trouble in Little China at home but there’s actually a lot to that. In addition to the movie being on the silly side when it was originally supposed to be something different, it also has 3 actors from Big Trouble with Victor Wong, James Hong, and Peter Kwong. Since James and Victor are probably more easily recognizable and Egg Shen and David Lo Pan, its understandable to miss Kwong who is a henchman in Golden Child but also one of the three storms in Big Trouble. He plays Rain and has that great fight with Wang in the big final battle. They both came out in 1986 and they both weren’t really loved by critics. A big one is that John Carpenter was originally going to direct The Golden Child but eventually turned it down to make Big Trouble with his friend Kurt Russell. Now, here’s a pretty big difference.
While Big Trouble in Little China has gone on to be beloved by nearly everyone and Golden Child is still seen as pretty lackluster, Golden Child was actually a pretty sizable hit. Big Trouble came out in the summer and even on the 4th of July weekend to attempt a run at big numbers, but it was swallowed up by the competition making it Russell and Carpenters 2nd summer failure together after 1982’s The Thing. It wasn’t marketed very well, and audiences didn’t know what to make of it with it only making 11 million on its 25-million-dollar budget. As much as we all love Kurt Russell, Eddie Murphy was a next level mega star at this time, and they released it in the first half of December. While it still didn’t get the best reviews, it raked in a solid 149 million on its 25-million-dollar budget. Its also an interesting note that the movie was almost another collaboration of Mad Max minds with Mel Gibson starring and George Miller directing. The original tone of the script would have worked there but Gibson could also have pulled off the silly if he needed.
The rest of the cast besides Murphy and the previously mentioned Big Trouble alumni is a fun one. Randall Tex Cobb, the beautiful Charlotte Lewis, and Charles Dance all put in great work here as the main henchmen, the main villain, and the love interest respectively. Charlotte Lewis is admittedly more complicated here as she was just barely 18 during filming but Murphy was also barely into his mid-twenties at this point. Charles Dance as the oddly named Sardo Numpsa yet again proves how great he is, and this character is right up there with his roles in Alien 3 and Last Action Hero. He just has a classy charisma weather he is playing a good guy or a bad one. Even the bad ones we love to hate.
The movie follows Murphy as a private detective who specializes in missing children’s cases. He is approached by Kee Nang who tells him about the abduction of the Golden Child, a scene we see at the opening of the movie, and that he is the chosen one who is destined to rescue the child. He doesn’t believe her but then his current case and that one intersects when the girl he is looking for is found dead and Nang tells him that the house was also where the Golden Child was held. He gets involved in the case and is introduced to a supernatural and mystical world. At times he feels like Axel Foley transported to a different universe with the same trademark laugh and ability to think quick on his feet. Charles Dance has long had regret about all the changes to the original script and even test screenings allegedly didn’t like the more serious tone, particularly with Murphy’s character so a lot of his humor was added later, and you can tell.
There are a few things to really like and call out about the movie. The soundtrack fits the tone well, something that was also changed from Alan Silvestri to John Barry and then Michel Colombier. I’ll never advocate for fewer Alan Silvestri or John Barry scores in the wild, but I’m not convinced that it would have worked as well here. There are still bits and pieces of the more serious version, a version that may have even been able to be put in a supernatural horror category. From the scenes where the Golden Child is captured to the insane dream sequence (more on that in a moment) and even a hanging wrapped up body in the chamber where the child is being held. All of that could have been a lot scarier but you can still see it. The acting is fun even if it feels like Murphy was forced to be even MORE like himself and it can fall flat. As I said earlier, Charels Dance is a delight and I wish we got him in even more villainous turns than we have.
That dream sequence I mentioned earlier is something that everyone remembers who saw the movie and if I tried to explain it to someone who hasn’t seen the movie, they may not believe me. There are 4th wall breaks, a live studio audience, and dream logic that’s straight out of a cartoon. Its really absurdist and fun and the movie could have used more scenes like it for the overall tone. The writer was former professional photographer Dennis Feldman and his initial vision of a Raymond Chandler type story. Paramount won the bidding war but changed a ton of what it was. Feldman also has credits like Just One of the Guys, Species, and Virus under his belt. The director choice isn’t as big a name as John Carpenter or George Miller, but Michael Ritchie was no slouch and is actually better at the type of movie that Golden Child turned into. He did the first two Fletch movies, The Survivors with Robin Williams and Walter Matthau, and Cops and Robbersons also with Chevy Chase. I guess he just knew how to write Chevy’s particular brand of asshole.
Much of the movie has Murphy as the odd man out. Kee Nang, James Hong’s doctor of the mystic arts, a half snake creature, and eventually Victor Wong’s high priest who is also Kee’s father all know exactly what is going on and Murphy’s character Chandler (an obvious tie to the inspiration of the movie and character) doesn’t take any of it too seriously until well over halfway. At 94 minutes the movie moves really fast as we follow Chandler go through increasingly dangerous and wild situations. The main villain is a demon played by Scooby Doo himself Frank Welker, but Charles Dance’s Sardo is his main follower who is trying to sacrifice the golden child and bring his master out. His henchmen are fun, and all have pretty good makeup effects. Later on, when Sardo takes the form a demon to try and finish Chandler off, the creature itself looks pretty good while unfortunately the effects that surround it do not. Sardo and his team have powers that heavily outmatch Chandler and Kee ends up sacrificing herself to save him. The only way to bring her back is through the Golden Child so now Chandler has personal stake in the game as well as his need to help missing kids.
The trials at the temple and the other non-action scenes like the flights and airport sequences give the film higher stakes and a more international feel than you think it will end up being as a smaller, more self-contained tail. While nobody was really happy with the final product from the studio who still saw it as a failure financially compared to 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop or the writer who thought that the original, more serious tone would have been better, the final product was still the eighth biggest movie of the year. Some of the actors like Charles Dance made his concerns known later but even Murphy later admitted that it was still a hit. In 1989 after a few more less than successful films he said quote “My movies make their money back. No matter how I feel, for instance, about The Golden Child – which was a piece of shit, the movie made over 100 million so who am I to say it sucks” Harsh words from the star to be sure.
Big Trouble in Little China is my favorite movie of all time but even I can see that this movie has its merits and should be properly defended and seen. It has a lot of fun things to see and hear and it’s a short excursion into a very different genre than Murphy normal dips his toes into. While A Vampire in Brooklyn is his only true horror movie, wait, we aren’t counting Haunted Mansion, right? Ok so while A Vampire in Brooklyn is his only real horror movie, there’s enough here to lump it into a hybrid fantasy type genre and its much better than I think most people are willing to give it credit for. While the long gestating Beverly Hills Cop franchise is getting another shot in the limelight and a new Shrek film is always an inevitability, I could see someone dusting off Chandler and throwing him into another fantasy setting to have fun in. Let Murphy write it and have a little more control and I bet we get a fun slice of 80’s Nostalgia. Throw this movie on if you’ve been avoiding it or haven’t seen it in a while. It’s gold isn’t close to an Oscar but its nowhere near the raspberry that its made out to be either.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Black Sheep can be seen at the bottom of this article. To see more, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
After multiple attempts at kick-starting new trilogies of films have failed, the live-action Terminator film series is, understandably, taking a bit of a break… but the franchise is set to continue with an eight-episode anime series called Terminator Zero, which is coming our way from Japanese animation studio Production IG and the Netflix streaming service. Terminator Zero is set to start streaming on August 29th – and today, a teaser trailer for the show has arrived online! You can check it out in the embed above.
Terminator Zero is set in the established Terminator universe but centers on new characters. Mattson Tomlin, who worked on the screenplays for The Batman and its upcoming sequel, is writer and showrunner on this series, which has the following synopsis: 2022: A future war has raged for decades between the few human survivors and an endless army of machines. 1997: The AI known as Skynet gained self-awareness and began its war against humanity.
Caught between the future and this past is a soldier sent back in time to change the fate of humanity. She arrives in 1997 to protect a scientist named Malcolm Lee who works to launch a new AI system designed to compete with Skynet’s impending attack on humanity. As Malcolm navigates the moral complexities of his creation, he is hunted by an unrelenting assassin from the future which forever alters the fate of his three children.
Terminator Zero is directed by Masashi Kudō, who is best known for working on the anime series Bleach. Tomlin serves as executive producer alongside David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, and Don Granger of Skydance. The voice cast includes Rosario Dawson(Ahsoka) as Kokoro, “An advanced AI and Japan’s answer to Skynet, if brought online, Kokoro will be endowed with the same power as Skynet. Kokoro must calculate for itself: is humanity the plague Skynet believes? Or are human beings worth saving?”; André Holland(The Knick) as Malcolm Lee, “A genius computer programmer and father of three, Malcolm Lee is haunted by prophetic nightmares of an apocalyptic future. He’s spent the last decade creating a secret artificial intelligence that he believes will be humanity’s last hope.”; Sonoya Mizuno(Crazy Rich Asians)as Eiko, “Coming from a post-Judgement Day 2022, Eiko is a resistance fighter sent back in time to stop Malcolm from launching Kokoro.”; and Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale) as The Prophet, “In the future, the Prophet is the philosophical guide for the human resistance, a light shepherding survivors in the darkness of the unknown future ahead.” Timothy Olyphant (Justified) provides the voice of a Terminator.
August 29th was chosen for the release date because the Terminator films told us that the Judgment Day event occurred on August 29, 1997. Coincidentally, that was also the day Marc Randolph and Reed Hasting launched Netflix as an online DVD rental service.
What did you think of the Terminator Zero teaser trailer? Will you be watching this show on Netflix? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, television vet and character actor James B. Sikking was announced by his publicist, Cynthia Snyder, to have passed away this Saturday at his Los Angeles home due to complications with dementia. Sikking was a regular and a frequent collaborator of Steven Bochco shows. The actor is known for portraying the stern Lt. Howard Hunter on the cop series, Hill Street Blues, as well as playing the dad to the titular teenage doctor character played by Neil Patrick Harris on the drama Doogie Howser M.D. Sikking was 90 at the time of his passing.
In addition to being known for television, Sikking can also be seen in a bevy of notable film roles. He played a mocking hitman in the John Boorman film Point Blank (1967). He was also the stuffy Captain Styles who James T. Kirk would defy in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), directed by Leonard Nimoy. Sikking was also seen as the director of the FBI in Alan J. Pakula’s Julia Roberts/Denzel Washington John Grisham adaptation The Pelican Brief (1993).
Sikking had a lengthy run of supporting roles as a TV actor. He would show up in episodes for many classic programs, which included The Outer Limits, Honey West, The Fugitive, Hogan’s Heroes and Mannix. After two decades of accumulating various TV credits, he would land the role of Hunter, the pipe-smoking leader of the SWAT-like Emergency Action Team, on NBC’s Hill Street Blues. Bochco would give Sikking the luxury of developing the character and Sikking had taken inspiration from a drill instructor he had encountered during basic training at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
Sikking had explained in a 2014 interview with The Fresno Bee, “The drill instructor looked like he had steel for hair and his uniform had so much starch in it, you knew it would [stand] in the corner when he took it off in the barracks. So when I started to play Howard, I picked out the way he should be dressed. It had to be a very military look.”
90s kids would most recognize the actor as the good-hearted doctor David Howser in another Steven Bochco production, ABC’s Doogie Howser M.D. Sikking would portray the father of Doogie, who would help guide his son through the perils of being a doctor, as well as acting as the traditional father figure when Doogie indulges in his teenage side. David Howser was the husband of Belinda Montgomery’s Katherine on the series that ran for four seasons (1989-93).
Sikking was devoted to raising money for the Susan G. Koman Foundation, which funded research for cystic fibrosis. He had also read to public school third-grade classes for 19 years for the SAG Book Pals program. Sikking was affectionately known as “Jim the Reader.”
His survivors include his second wife, Florine, an author whom he met at UCLA and married in September 1962; children Emily and Andrew; as well as his grandchildren Lola, Gemma, Hugh and Madeline.
Plot: Tormented by the murder of his family, the young, wary Caligula eliminates his devious adoptive grandfather Tiberius and seizes control of the declining Roman Empire as it descends into a spiral of depravity, destruction and madness.
Review: One of the most infamous movies of all time, Caligula has long been one of the most intriguing projects in cinema history. Developed and produced by Penthouse founder Bob Guccione, Caligula was the most expensive independently produced film upon its release. From filming to release, Caligula took four years and included the departure of screenwriter Gore Vidal and director Tinto Brass and the addition of explicit pornographic material by Guccione, which resulted in a critical drubbing and countless legal proceedings taken against the film. While restorations have been attempted before, producer Thomas Negovan’s ultimate cut of the film pored over almost one hundred hours of footage to compile a vision of Caligula, which hews closer to Gore Vidal’s initial script. While this nearly three-hour version of the story is superior to the prior cuts, Caligula remains a fascinating cinematic failure, albeit a beautiful and horrifying one.
Premiering at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Caligula: The Ultimate Cut is both the same and simultaneously distinct from the Guccione cut of the movie. While the final running time is only twenty-two minutes longer than the theatrical cut, it boasts over an hour of new scenes excised in favor of explicit sexual content, as well as alternate takes that subtly shift the way scenes play out, including a new animated opening sequence from artist Dave McKean and a new musical score from Troy Sterling Nies. This new footage reduces some characters, notably Donato Placido’s soldier Proculus, while adding forty-five minutes of scenes featuring Helen Mirren as Caesonia. The new film still has a fair amount of nudity, male and female, with quite a bit of moaning and orgasms visible and audible. But, by removing the shots of penetration and unsimulated sex, the film feels more erotic than pornographic but still fails to feel very sexy. Once you have seen breasts, vaginas, and penises to the degree they are visible in Caligula, they cease to feel relevant or even necessary.
The removal of the sex and violence in Caligula: The Ultimate Cut may be the most damning change in the entire movie. While Bob Guccione enlisted his own director to add more explicit content to the theatrical cut, Tinto Brass himself filmed sexual content that was no longer in the restored version. Negovan has stated that the Ultimate Cut is meant to follow Gore Vidal’s screenplay as closely as possible, but that disregards Tinto Brass’ vision. The director has tried to take legal action against the makers of The Ultimate Cut to no avail. At the same time, star Malcolm McDowell stated that this new edit would restore one of the actor’s career-best performances. Nevertheless, by cutting the sex and violence, Caligula: The Ultimate Cut is now densely packed with story, which means we must judge it by what is now included rather than what we have all heard via word of mouth.
Filmed five years after A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell’s portrayal of the debaucherous Caligula is in many ways a companion role to the Stanley Kubrick film. McDowell’s wide-eyed stare and maniacal smile give the Emperor a sense of being unhinged. This film heavily focuses on how much he despises the Roman people and would rather lavish himself with glory while also being paranoid that those he trusts are out to get him. Helen Mirren’s expanded role as Caligula’s wife offers the legendary actress more of an arc as Caesonia struggles with allegiance to her spouse and her emperor. Peter O’Toole’s unhinged performance and John Gielgud’s brief appearance remain largely the same as they feature in the more sexualized opening of the movie. But as the three hours tick by, the remaining sexual content feels less organic to the story than required because those scenes could not be edited around the nudity.
From a technical standpoint, the high-definition quality of the footage used for Caligula: The Ultimate Cut is impressive. While the gauzy and soft lensing of the production still remains, the film feels fully assembled rather than a workprint, as we have seen from other restorations. The new score, which replaces classical music cues, is appropriate in scale, as is the surreal opening animation sequence, which builds on the meaning behind Caligula’s name. Thomas Negovan does solid work piecing together the copious footage into a coherent narrative, but it still fails to work as well as intended. Gore Vidal’s original script emphasized the homoerotic elements of the Roman setting, while Tinto Brass’ approach to lensing the film does not necessarily align with the finished product. While Caligula was so full of explicit sexual content, The Ultimate Cut veers too far in the other direction, which limits the goal of what the story aims to convey.
Caligula: The Ultimate Cut is an interesting experiment in retroactively changing a completed film to achieve a distinct purpose. While many director and producer cuts come from the filmmakers themselves, Caligula: The Ultimate Cut does not match the desired result of Bob Guccione or director Tinto Brass. While it retains the recorded performances of the cast and the production values of the crew that created it, the use of alternate takes makes this a curiosity rather than a satisfying expansion of the original film. It is somewhat easier to watch for those with weak stomachs; Caligula: The Ultimate Cut still has a fair amount of nudity and violence but now feels nowhere near as intriguing as the original film four decades ago. Caligula: The Ultimate Cut is worth watching for the impressive performances from Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren, but beyond that, it still represents a failed attempt to tell an epic story of sex, debauchery, and excess from the decadent history of the Roman Empire.
What Do We Know About the second season of Wednesday? More thank you may think. The Jenna Ortega-led series by Tim Burton took the beloved characters from The Addams Family in an all-new direction. With casting announcements, plot twists from the first season, and more, we know what is to come. So, let’s jump in and discuss.
Season Two will bring back most of the main cast from the first season.
Ortega will be back as the title character alongside Emma Myers (Enid Sinclair), Joy Sunday (Bianca Barclay), Moosa Mostafa (Eugene), Georgie Farmer (Ajax), and Victor Dorobantu (Thing), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Morticia Addams), Luis Guzmán (Gomez Addams), Isaac Ordonez (Pugsley Addams), Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo (Deputy Ritchie Santiago) have all become series regulars. Jamie McShane (Sheriff Donovan Galpin) and Fred Armisen (Uncle Fester) will be back as guest stars, while Percy Hynes White (Xavier), Jamie McShane (Sheriff Donovan Galpin and Tyler’s father), and Naomi J Ogawa (Yoko Tanaka) will not be returning.
More famous faces join the cast this season.
New additions to the cast this season include Steve Buscemi (The Big Lebowski, Boardwalk Empire) as Barry Dort, Billie Piper (Scoop, I Hate Suzie) as Capri, Evie Templeton (Return to Silent Hill, Lord of Misrule), Owen Painter (Tiny Beautiful Things, The Handmaid’s Tale), and Noah Taylor (Law & Order: Organized Crime, Park Avenue). Announced guest stars include original Addams Family film star Christopher Lloyd, Joanna Lumley (Fool Me Once, Absolutely Fabulous) as Gradmama, Thandiwe Newton (Westworld, Crash) as Dr. Fairburn, Frances O’Connor (The Missing, The Twelve), Haley Joel Osment (The Kominsky Method, Somebody I Used to Know), Heather Matarazzo (The Princess Diaries, Scream), and Chewbacca actor Joonas Suotamo.
There will be an emphasis on horror over romance.
An executive producer this season, Jenna Ortega, has stated that season two will shift the focus to scares over teenage relationships. At the Emmys, Ortega said the second season is more action-packed, with each episode feeling more cinematic.
There could be a reunion for Christopher Lloyd and Christina Ricci.
While we do not know who Christopher Lloyd will portray nor whether Christina Ricci’s Marilyn Thornhill escaped at the end of the first season, the potential for the co-stars of the Barry Sonnenfeld films is an exciting possibility. The original Uncle Fester and Wednesday Addams sharing the screen would be very cool to see, but maybe this is indicative that Angelica Huston could drop in at some point as well.
Season 2 will expand on members of The Addams Family.
With Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzman, and Isaac Ordonez upped to regulars after guest roles in the first season, plus the addition of Joanna Lumley as Grandmama, it seems like Wednesday’s exploits at Nevermore Academy will be shown alongside additional glimpses at her home life. At a minimum, the relationship between Wednesday and her parents will be more central this season.
The main plot of the new season remains a mystery.
At the end of the first season, Wednesday defeated the ghost of Joseph Crackstone, who was working with Laurel (Christina Ricci) and Tyler (Hunter Doohan). In the final moments, we see Hunter escape from custody, and Wednesday receive a threat from a stalker, but how that will shake out in season two remains to be seen.
Season Two will likely arrive in 2025.
With production starting in Ireland in July of 2024, it seems unlikely that the series will be ready to premiere by Halloween, let alone by Christmas. With a solid amount of special effects work needed, it seems unrealistic for the production to wrap with enough time to debut this year.
Stay tuned to JoBlo.com as we learn more about Season Two of Wednesday and your other favorite shows. What do you expect to see in the upcoming season of Wednesday? Let us know in the comments, click like, and subscribe to follow all of our latest original videos.
It’s been thirteen years since HBO’s Game of Thrones debuted, and five years since the acclaimed adaptation of the George R.R. Martin saga wrapped. During that time viewers were feted with a staggering death toll and a compendium of medieval torture methods that would make even Genghis Khan wince. No show since has…
It’s been thirteen years since HBO’s Game of Thrones debuted, and five years since the acclaimed adaptation of the George R.R. Martin saga wrapped. During that time viewers were feted with a staggering death toll and a compendium of medieval torture methods that would make even Genghis Khan wince. No show since has…
Joan Jett may not give a damn about her reputation but the cast of Freaks and Geeks better fully realize that of the short-lived cult series. And by and large, they do. Really, how can anyone deny the impact that the Paul Feig-created and Judd Apatow-produced dramedy had on the careers of Linda Cardellini, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, John Francis Daley, Samm Levine, Martin Starr, and Busy Phillipps? Yeah, it was that stacked of a cast before we even knew it.
One who continues to be reminded of just how impactful Freaks and Geeks was is Seth Rogen, who played “freak” stoner Ken. As he told Entertainment Tonight, “I still am good friends with a lot of the people that were on the show. People kept watching it — I meet teenagers all the time who come up to me and say they love the show.” You can count myself among this ever-growing legion of fans of the cult show, having caught it when it first aired in 1999. Unfortunately – but probably justly, lest Freaks and Geeks burn out – the show only lasted one season. (MTV actually tried picking up the show after its cancellation but Apatow turned down the offer over financial and creative reasons.)
Rogen – who would soon enough write a handful of episodes of spiritual follow-up Undeclared – also remembered an especially ironic tidbit about his time on Freaks and Geeks. “That is crazy. I was 16, 17 years old when we were making that show. I dropped out of high school to go pretend to be in high school.”
Considering we are in the era of rebooting for nostalgic reasons, it’s sort of surprising in a way that Freaks and Geekshasn’t made the leap – then again, with so many projects for the cast within the Apatow Cinematic Universe, it’s like there already have been several. And if you want something akin to Freaks and Geeks in small screen form, I highly recommend the college-set Undeclared, which lasted one episode less than Freaks and Geeks.
Are you a fan of Freaks and Geeks? What about the show do you think makes it continue to be a cult favorite? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below!
