Variety is reporting that The Ritual — a new horror film starring Al Pacino and Dan Stevens — has been sold to numerous outlets in the international market by XYZ Films. Both Pacino and Stevens will be portraying priests in the exorcism movie, while Ashley Greene and Abigail Cowen join them in the cast. David Midell is helming the film. Midell directs from a script written by himself and is co-written by Enrico Natale. The film is produced by Andrew Stevens, Mitchell Welch and Natale. The Ritual plans for release sometime in 2025.

The plot synopsis, according to Variety, says the movie is based on a true story and “follows two priests — one questioning his faith (Stevens) and one reckoning with a troubled past (Pacino) — who must put aside their differences to save a possessed young woman through a difficult and dangerous series of exorcisms. The film is an authentic portrayal of Emma Schmidt, an American woman whose demonic possession culminated in harrowing exorcisms. Her case remains the most thoroughly documented exorcism in American history.”

International sales for the horror film includes companies like Umbrella for Australia/New Zealand, PremiereTV for Benelux, KMBO for France, Leonine for Germany/Austria/Switzerland, TFG for Greece, Plaion for Italy, NOS for Portugal, Inopia for Spain, Altitude for U.K./Ireland, Pro Rom for Eastern Europe, Volga for CIS Baltics, Falcon for Middle East, Siyah Beyaz for Turkey, IDC for Latin America, PVR for India, PT Prima for Indonesia, Antenna for Malaysia, Filmbridge for Mongolia, Pioneer for Philippines, Shaw for Singapore and JNC for South Korea and Vietnam. 

BondIt Media Capital provided the financing for the project, with Matthew Helderman, Luke Taylor, and Tyler Gould for BondIt all on board as Executive Producers.

A number of upcoming titles from XYZ Films include Daniela Forever, starring Henry Golding and Beatrice Grannó; Full Throttle Mindset starring Josh Duhamel and Lukas Gage; He Bled Neon with Joe Cole and Rita Ora; Kill Me with Allison Williams and Charlie Day; Free Fall starring Zachary Levi and directed by Zoë Bell; Sundance title Skywalkers: A Love Story, which sold to Netflix; Ash starring Eiza González and Aaron Paul and is directed by Flying Lotus; as well as the Netflix Original Havoc, directed by Gareth Evans and starring Tom Hardy and Forest Whitaker.

The post The Ritual: Al Pacino and Dan Stevens exorcism movie sells to international territories from XYZ Films appeared first on JoBlo.

The Tyranids and Thousand Sons are dangerous armies to fight, but fortunately, the Emperor has the backing of the Space Marines to help keep humanity safe. While playing Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 in Operations mode and PvP, you can pick from six different classes. This guide will detail everything you need to…

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The Tyranids and Thousand Sons are dangerous armies to fight, but fortunately, the Emperor has the backing of the Space Marines to help keep humanity safe. While playing Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 in Operations mode and PvP, you can pick from six different classes. This guide will detail everything you need to…

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And thus begins the start of spooky season! Halloween is next month, but fans of ghosts and ghouls are able to start getting their fix with the release of Tim Burton‘s long-awaited sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which was 36 years in the making. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was in development hell for decades before it finally got made. In 1990, Jonathan Gems was hired to write a sequel that was going to be titled Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. Burton considered having Daniel Waters rewrite that script. Pamela Norris did rewrite it, and Warner Bros. offered Kevin Smith the chance to do another rewrite. He turned it down. Seth Grahame-Smith was hired to write and produce a new version of a sequel in 2011. Mike Vukadinovich was brought on to rewrite his script in 2017.

With all the numerous script revisions that went into making sure the sequel could lovingly match the original, Tim Burton would admit he still would go back to his roots and improvise the film during production. The payoff seems to be working well so far as the buzz has been positive and Deadline reports that the ghost with the most returns to theaters with a $12 million early Thursday box office gross. Comparatively, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opened with numbers that resemble the 2017 horror hit IT, which would open with $13.5 million in early numbers and holds the record for the biggest September opening with $123.4 million.

The reviews for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice are mainly positive with a certified fresh Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus of 75% and an audience score of 85%. Our own Chris Bumbray giddily said in his review, “Truth be told, I was wary of a Beetlejuice sequel, as I figured they should leave well enough alone after thirty-six years. But, once Danny Elfman’s score kicked in, and I got a look at returning production designer Bo Welch’s sets, I was all in on a sequel I had a total blast with. This one is a very pleasant surprise. Here’s hoping this isn’t the last time Burton says Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.”

Are you excited about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice? Will you be seeing it this weekend?

The post Beetlejuice Beetlejuice conjures up $12 million in early Thursday box office previews appeared first on JoBlo.

There was once a time when the most controversial installment in the Halloween franchise was 1982’s Season of the Witch. Now that that movie has an incredible cult following (of which I count myself a devout member), the most clear choice for many is Halloween Ends, David Gordon Green’s trilogy capper that found Michael Myers living in a sewer and nearly passing his torch to a neighborhood outcast…Yep.

Although far from being the worst-reviewed movie in the Halloween franchise – which David Gordon Green resurrected 40 years after John Carpenter’s original – and it does have its share of fans – so many of the decisions made by Green and his writing team were questionable to say the least. But Green is well aware of this and the disconnect he created from the bulk of fans. “As you see with the Halloween movies, the choices I make aren’t always the most popular ones. So it’s trying to make something that me, and my great friends at Blumhouse and Morgan Creek, want [for] that property to be fulfilled, as much as the audience is there and has the appetite for it. I don’t think they were on the journey I was excited about taking.”

To many, that journey found him betraying all that had been set in motion. Halloween Ends did give us that final showdown between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode but David Gordon Green wasted too much time with a character that didn’t need to be introduced, especially in what was always poised as the grand finale. That Michael Myers doesn’t even have a majority of the kills — that goes to his underground buddy Corey — is also a fatal sin for the franchise.

With David Gordon Green having concluded his promising Halloween run on a low note and getting his planned Exorcist trilogy yanked away, that doesn’t exactly leave in the best graces in the horror community. But there’s something admirable in his continued fight for his vision, even if it brings disappointing results.

Where do you think Halloween Ends ranks in the franchise? Do you think it will find its audience years down the line? Sharpen that knife and let us know below.

The post David Gordon Green knows that Halloween Ends disconnected fans appeared first on JoBlo.

PLOT: A depiction of the early days of Donald Trump’s (Sebastian Stan) business empire and how his friendship with Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) paved the way for his rise to power.

REVIEW: The Apprentice is one of those movies everyone seems to have an opinion about, regardless of whether they’ve seen it or not. Indeed, only a privileged group who saw it at Cannes and Telluride can really say what it is or isn’t, and now, thanks to a special, invite-only surprise screening at TIFF (where it’s not playing as part of the official selection), you can add JoBlo to that list. 

So, I walked into The Apprentice expecting a dark, political drama akin to the work of Oliver Stone. This isn’t that movie, with director Ali Abbasi making this a somewhat apolitical work. Trump’s foray into politics isn’t mentioned beyond one or two moments of foreshadowing or a bit where a young Roger Stone tries to convince Trump to consider running for office. Instead, this is all about how Trump became one of the world’s most controversial, aggressive businessmen – long before he ever thought about becoming president.

In it, we see how the ambitious Trump initially seeks to come out from the shadow of his father, Fred (an unrecognizable Martin Donovan), and how he finds a patron who, in many ways, molded him into the man he is today. Abassi has said that he thinks Trump would like his film, and for most of the movie, I agreed with him, as it presents him as utterly ruthless, which is a trait about himself I don’t think Trump would disagree with. But, the movie also depicts Trump as raping Ivana (played by Maria Bakalova), and if the film gets slammed by him, it will be because of that.

Otherwise, this isn’t all that different from a movie like The Wolf of Wall Street, with Sebastian Stan not overplaying Trump in a caricature-ish way. As the film progresses and he becomes more of the guy we know now, he adopts more of the mannerisms, but for much of the running time, he’s still a young man. In many ways, the movie’s true star is Succession’s Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn. 

For those who don’t know, Cohn was a notorious figure in New York high society, with him a pit bull of a lawyer famous for defending mobsters and being utterly without mercy or scruples. He was also Joseph McCarthy’s lap dog during the Red Scare and played a direct role in sending The Rosenbergs to the electric chair. He was also a homosexual who, nevertheless, was publicly homophobic and suffered from AIDS for years, which he denied until his dying day. 

Strong initially plays Cohn as a diabolical figure who uses Trump as a pawn in his own desire for power. But as the film goes on, we see that Cohn, in his own way, grew to love Trump as a surrogate son, only to be discarded as his profile became toxic and he lost what made him so fearful of an opponent. His tragedy is nearly Shakespearean, and he makes you see that the human (and soul) is a man many consider utterly repugnant. 

Abbasi gives The Apprentice a tremendous sense of pace, with it a lean and mean two hours, and entertaining from start to finish, regardless of where on the political spectrum you may be. The look of the film is intriguing, with it shot in a 1:33:1 aspect ratio. The film’s early parts look like grimy seventies 16mm, while it segues to a stylized, analog video look as we enter the eighties. The song choices are excellent, running the gamut from New Order to Pet Shop Boys to punk rock. Despite a limited budget, it’s also highly evocative of a time when New York was still a place to be feared by many people, way before it became gentrified by people like Trump.

More than anything, this movie is about how men like Trump are formed and somewhat cautionary about how the desire for power breeds ruthlessness. Again, I don’t think Trump himself would dislike much about this—save for the way it depicts the unravelling of his relationship with Ivana. It is a thoroughly entertaining film with a broader appeal than you might think, even if some are positioning it with their own agendas as something it is not. 

The Apprentice

GREAT

8

The post The Apprentice (TIFF) Review: We Saw the Trump Movie Everyone Is Talking About appeared first on JoBlo.

Tim Burton, who turned goth into chic and made nightmares fun, has received a much-deserved star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice now out in theaters (read our review here), there was no better moment for his showtime.

Tim Burton received his star – the 2,788th on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – on Tuesday, with a crowd gathering to show off their love for the filmmaker. Also in attendance to pay tribute were frequent collaborators Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder, who of course all worked together on 1988’s Beetlejuice and its much-anticipated sequel.

In his speech, Michael Keaton remembered their greatest box office achievement, 1989’s Batman, which was the second of four collaborations, preceding the aforementioned Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Dumbo (although he’d probably rather forget about that one). Keaton, as many do, gave Tim Burton credit for showing the box office potential of comic book movies. “There are a lotta people making a lotta money out there with their superhero movies because of his choice and his vision of what those movies can be.”

Winona Ryder – who also worked with Tim Burton on 1990’s Edward Scissorhands and lended her voice to Frankenweenie (the full-length adaptation of his delightfully wicked short) – went a more sentimental route in her speech, acknowledging the powerful role he had in her early career. “You affirmed my voice, you reinforced my confidence to be myself, to go against the tides of conformity. Your creative inclusiveness showed me what true artistic collaboration looked like. In other words, you make being a weird girl not just OK but something to celebrate and even kind of cool.”

Tim Burton has a storied career that found him garnering the attention of Disney early on. And while his distinct style didn’t quite fit their brand all of the time and the studio eventually got rid of him (for the time being, at least), he built clout and soon established a fringe audience. His first feature was Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure before laying the foundation for his legacy with Beetlejuice and Batman. Burton had an incredibly strong run through the ‘90s with films like Edward Scissorhands, my personal favorite Ed Wood and the underrated Mars Attacks!, just to name a few.

While some of Tim Burton’s adaptations – chiefly Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows and Dumbo – didn’t stick the landing with his core fanbase, there’s no denying his visual style has made a mark on the industry.

What is your favorite Tim Burton movie? Tell us why it’s your fav in the comments section below!

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Glintstone Nail and Glintstone Nails are Sorceries that can be purchased exclusively in Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. These similar spells are some of the best Sorceries in the game and very much worth seeking out. One fires a single glintstone nail for a low FP cost, while the other fires multiple…

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Glintstone Nail and Glintstone Nails are Sorceries that can be purchased exclusively in Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree expansion. These similar spells are some of the best Sorceries in the game and very much worth seeking out. One fires a single glintstone nail for a low FP cost, while the other fires multiple…

Read more…

Many celebrities use stage names. They can be variations of the name they received at birth or something completely different, yet I nearly always find myself shocked when I learn that someone whose name I’ve known my entire life turns out to be a lie. That might be a bit dramatic. I should get out more. Some of you may have already known this (it’s never been a secret), but Michael Keaton was not born Michael Keaton; he was born Michael Douglas, and he’s looking to take the name back. Perhaps some Highlander-type battle is in order.

When Michael Keaton started his career in the 1970s, he was forced to choose a different name as the Screen Actors Guild doesn’t allow members to use another member’s professional name. Michael Douglas was already taken by… Michael Douglas, and there was also Mike Douglas, the talk-show host, so that option was out as well. Keaton told People that he may have actually turned to a phone book to pick his stage name.

“I was looking through — I can’t remember if it was a phone book,” Keaton said. “I must’ve gone, ‘I don’t know, let me think of something here.’ And I went, ‘Oh, that sounds reasonable.” After over forty years as Michael Keaton, the actor said he’d like to use a hybrid of his birth name and stage name: Micheal Keaton Douglas. He had wanted to use the new moniker on Knox Goes Away, the thriller which he directed and stars in as a dementia-afflicted hitman, but forgot to make it happen. “I said, ‘Hey, just as a warning, my credit is going to be Michael Keaton Douglas.’ And it totally got away from me,” Keaton said. “And I forgot to give them enough time to put it in and create that. But that will happen.“

Michael Keaton, or Michael Keaton Douglas, will next be seen in Beetlejuice Beetljuice: “Beetlejuice is back! After an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid, discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened,” reads the official synopsis. “With trouble brewing in both realms, it’s only a matter of time until someone says Beetlejuice’s name three times and the mischievous demon returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem.” The film has been praised as a return to form for Tim Burton, with our own Chris Bumbray calling it the director’s “most energetic, playful, and creative film in years.” You can check out the rest of Bumbray’s review right here.

The film will be released in U.S. theaters on September 6th.

The post Look out, Micheal Douglas! Micheal Keaton is ready to take back his real name appeared first on JoBlo.