Two years have gone by since we heard that director Steven C. Miller (Silent Night) was heading into production on a werewolf horror film that, at the time, was going by the title Year 2. That movie is now set to make its way out into the world under the title Werewolves, with Briarcliff Entertainment and The Solution Entertainment Group teaming up to give it a wide theatrical release in the United States on December 6th – and with that release date just a couple of months away, the Motion Picture Association ratings board has revealed that the movie has secured an R rating for violence, some gore, and language.
Starring Frank Grillo of the Purge and Captain America franchises, Werewolves will show us that a supermoon event triggered a latent gene in every human on the planet, turning anyone who entered the moonlight into a werewolf for that one night. Chaos ensued and close to a billion people died. Now, a year later, the Supermoon is back.
Grillo is joined in the cast by Katrina Law (NCIS), Ilfenesh Hadera (Godfather Of Harlem), James Michael Cummings (City On The Hill) and Lou Diamond Phillips (Young Guns). Miller directed from a screenplay by Matthew Kennedy (Inheritance).
An image of one of the film’s werewolves can be seen at the bottom of this article.
Miller also produced Werewolves with Myles Nestel, The Solution’s Craig Chapman, Monty the Dog’s James Michael Cummings and Jim Cardwell, Pimiente Films’ Luillo Ruiz, and Sevier Crespo. Grillo serves as executive producer alongside Tom Ortenberg, The Solution’s Lisa Wilson, Rainmaker Films’ Clay Pecorin and Russell Geyser, Burke Management’s Victor Burke and Vanzil Burke, and Sherborne Media’s Gary Raskin and Alastair Burlingham.
Nestel, who is co-CEO of The Solution, provided the following statement: “We are super excited to be releasing Werewolves later this year, exclusively in theatres. Our cast is incredible, from the amazing Frank Grillo to powerhouse performances from Katrina Law and Ilfenesh Hadera. The use of practical werewolves designed and built by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr (known from the Alien and Predator series) takes the genre back to its roots in a fresh and exciting way. We hope audiences will have as much fun experiencing the film in theatres as we had making it!“
Are you looking forward to Werewolves, and are you glad to hear that it has gotten an R rating ahead of its December release? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore directorial effort, A Real Pain, was anything but out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Not only did it earn Eisenberg the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award but it was also up for the Grand Jury Prize, a remarkable achievement considering he’s so fresh to that particular field. Now, ahead of the film’s fall release, Searchlight Pictures has released the official trailer.
As per Searchlight, A Real Pain has the following plot: “Mismatched cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the odd-couple’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.” OK, that might seem fairly heavy, but there is still some comedy – albeit plenty of it dark – to be found in the movie, marked through the chemistry between Eisenberg and Culkin.
On this matter, Eisenberg said, “I became interested in that topic and thinking about the privilege versus trauma and how people like me walk around feeling bad for themselves over petty things when I actually know for a fact that my family suffered existential trauma, and just trying to reconcile how to think about that. So I’ve been thinking about it and writing stuff around this topic for a long time. And then the movie came.”
Outside of Eisenberg, A Real Pain is garnering praise for co-star Culkin, landing his first major role since HBO’s Succession – which earned him an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor and a pair of nominations in the supporting category – went off the air last year. The supporting cast features Will Sharpe and Jennifer Grey.
A Real Pain is Jesse Eisenberg’s first directorial work since 2022’s When You Finish Saving the World, which our own Chris Bumbray gave a 7/10 out of that year’s Sundance Film Festival. But more to the point, you can read his 9/10 review of A Real Pain, a movie he ultimately named as one of the best of this year’s fest.
A Real Pain arrives in theaters on November 1st.
What did you think of the trailer for A Real Pain? What are your thoughts on Jesse Eisenberg as a director so far?
Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore directorial effort, A Real Pain, was anything but out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Not only did it earn Eisenberg the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award but it was also up for the Grand Jury Prize, a remarkable achievement considering he’s so fresh to that particular field. Now, ahead of the film’s fall release, Searchlight Pictures has released the official trailer.
As per Searchlight, A Real Pain has the following plot: “Mismatched cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the odd-couple’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.” OK, that might seem fairly heavy, but there is still some comedy – albeit plenty of it dark – to be found in the movie, marked through the chemistry between Eisenberg and Culkin.
On this matter, Eisenberg said, “I became interested in that topic and thinking about the privilege versus trauma and how people like me walk around feeling bad for themselves over petty things when I actually know for a fact that my family suffered existential trauma, and just trying to reconcile how to think about that. So I’ve been thinking about it and writing stuff around this topic for a long time. And then the movie came.”
Outside of Eisenberg, A Real Pain is garnering praise for co-star Culkin, landing his first major role since HBO’s Succession – which earned him an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor and a pair of nominations in the supporting category – went off the air last year. The supporting cast features Will Sharpe and Jennifer Grey.
A Real Pain is Jesse Eisenberg’s first directorial work since 2022’s When You Finish Saving the World, which our own Chris Bumbray gave a 7/10 out of that year’s Sundance Film Festival. But more to the point, you can read his 9/10 review of A Real Pain, a movie he ultimately named as one of the best of this year’s fest.
A Real Pain arrives in theaters on November 1st.
What did you think of the trailer for A Real Pain? What are your thoughts on Jesse Eisenberg as a director so far?
When it comes to comics you don’t get many names that can be recognized as quickly as Todd McFarlane. The man who gave us Spawn and brought us action figures we’d never thought we’d see has become a legend in the world of comics. Another familiar name in the comic realm is that of actor/writer/producer David Dastmalchian, a monster kid and comic fan who is quickly becoming a go-to for comic writing and creating in his own right. Hot on the heels of his success with Count Crowley and the recent announcement he would be taking over on Creature Commandos for DC (as well as helming the DC Halloween Special) Dastmalchian has penned another new series filled with the fantastical and fanged with Knights Vs Samurai.
The title is accurate with the story taking place in an alternate historical timeline where monsters exist and mankind’s journey over the oceans is even more dangerous thanks to the number of creatures roaming both land and sea.
Here’s the synopsis of issue one: Sir Charles Ward, “The Dragon Butcher,” has achieved knighthood, and acclaim, and is leading a legion of royal warriors on a noble mission, yet his self-doubt and grief haunt him. Venturing to a mysterious island in the Far East, Charles leads his diverse assembly of fighters (including a giant and two clerics) to seek vengeance against savage monsters who ambushed a group of English missionaries. Arrival on the island reveals that the truth may be drastically different from what Charles was led to believe, and the “savage monsters” he will face are a regiment of skillful warriors the likes of which he has never seen.
The artwork is beautiful and bloody. It shows a world that is a blending of different mythologies and cultures that come to life on the page in a way that’s perfect for the story.
I was lucky enough to get a chance to chat with both Todd McFarlane and David Dastmalchian about the series which you can buy RIGHT HERE!
Where did the inspiration come from and how did the world building happen for this?
Dastmalchian: Jess, we’ve talked a lot about my love of horror and the Friday Night Creatures feature. But another thing that really great for me as a kid was the Saturday matinée with the Ray Harryhausen films and all of the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and classic adventure stories in the realms of fantasy. So you combine that with my deep and abiding love for English mythology, Knights of the Roundtable, Arthur’s Court, and then Dungeons and Dragons. And I, as a young imaginative kid, was starting to get really caught up in role-playing and gaming and reading stuff that nurtured that. Now, at the same time, I don’t know what it was that grabbed a hold of me, but I, very young, became very fascinated with Japan, Japanese culture, and Japanese history, especially warrior mythology and culture. I studied Japanese formally. And so I used to have this fantasy of bringing knights and Samurai in battle, clashing. And then I grew up and I developed a passion for storytelling and telling stories about characters that were going through things that I could relate to, even if the circumstances were totally different than anything I’d ever experienced. And so over the many years, I started to develop this idea, which by the time it reached germination and was ready to be shared with somebody, the very first person or the very first place that I thought of taking it to was McFarland Productions.
What Todd was doing and had been doing over many decades in storytelling, I thought, I doubt they’ll bite on this, but I should take… You want to take your first shot at the best shot because if they say no, then you learn from that and you go to all the other opportunities. So this was the first… It’s amazing. It’s very, very few times in my life where my first pitch on an idea was taken by the first person I pitched to, but this was one of those circumstances.
That’s amazing. And one thing that I love that I can tell Todd brought to this, too, is the artwork is such a neat combination of gritty shadows. It almost looks like wood carving and just a really neat antique theme to how it was presented. Can you talk about the process for bringing the look of it together, both of you?
Todd McFarlane: Well, I’ll start first, and then David can put the exclamation on it. Once we signed off and we knew what the idea was, then for me, I knew it was going to take an artist… I mean, you always try to put the proper artist, the look to fit the story that the writers are writing, right? I mean, and this may seem weird, but there are lots of artists I would put on Batman, I would never put on Superman or vice versa, because Superman, you need a handsome, beautiful type of artist, I think, for that book. And for Batman, I think you need somebody who can do shadows and grit, right? And sometimes when you flip them, they don’t quite work with the other one. Given the story that David had come up with and all the looks that I was imagining in my head, I knew we were going to need a nontraditional, beautiful superhero artist. I think that was a given in my head because otherwise, I didn’t think it was going to translate. And so I’ve said before that there’s a lot of artists that come out of Europe that I think have the right look.
And maybe it’s because they’ve been raised on the folklore and the history of so many stories outside of comic books, just the historic ones. I just think they got a great… I just think they have a great look. And Fede was one of the ones on our list, and we ran it by David, and David was as excited as we were, and he’s been working with them ever since.
Dastmalchian: That’s it. I mean, truly, this is a classically trained artist who lives in Rome, who’s passionate for form and line and color, and the human body is just… It’s his life. And he has played powerfully in the world of high-action stuff, Spawn Universe, et cetera. He can really capture high-stakes battle sequences. And then when I read his self-published Macbeth adaptation that he did, which is It was only in Italian, so although I know the story pretty well, it was basically a story told to me only through images, no text, because I wasn’t trying to translate as I went along. And I go, This guy is going to be able to, and Todd said this from the beginning. He’s like, I really think this is the guy because our characters, even the most brave on the battlefront, are riddled with all kinds of deep dark secrets, complexities, insecurities, trauma, grief. And I wanted you to see guys hacking and slashing their way with broad swords and katanas, throwing stars, nun chuck, et cetera, and at the same time being real human beings who are challenged with some really difficult stuff.
McFarlane: The thing is, I could add one more piece, Jess. One thing that’s frustrating from an artist’s point of view, and I’m sure equally from a writing point of view, because I’ve been on both sides at that point, is that the first issue of almost any storyline you do, in hindsight, is your weakest, right? Because you’re just trying to get comfortable with, how do I move this around? What are the characters doing? What are they? Because you’re starting to play with them in your mind. And the more you do of any title, I don’t care what it is, the more comfortable you become with it, right? I’m telling you, my first Hulk was a bit of a shambles, and the Spider-Man, and then you can just see the evolution as you go, Oh, and you figure stuff out. For his pretty and as well done as issue number one is that Fede did artistically, and he did a terrific job. David and I have been able to see now the next three issues, and literally, he’s ramping up, right? You just go, Oh, man, look at these pages. I wish people could see these pages now.
So hopefully, if people are excited with issue number one, then I know they’ll be even more excited, visually, at least, by issue two, three, because Fede’s really in a groove with David right now. And David will have basically gotten his sea legs underneath him to go, Okay, here’s how we’re going to move all this around. And yeah, it’s always weird. It’s always where the issue number one are not necessarily… They’re sometimes your best seller, not necessarily your best book. It’s an odd equation. The worst book I ever wrote in my life is the one that set a record for sales, Spider-Man Number One. And it was terrible, but thanks for buying a lot.
Well, as I said, you’ve gotten a lot of my money if you look in this office. I love the various creatures and dragons and designs in this. And I was just curious if you created a bestiary for these, because I’m a nerd about that. I’m a nerd who loves the whole biology and creation of monsters. And if you’re a kaiju fan, you know that that’s a big thing, how they work. And I was just curious if you did that.
Dastmalchian: Yes. So the bestiary that I started with mythological… I have a whole file in my drive. Mythological beings, the world of Knights versus Samurai. So going into it, I was very certain that I wanted to see Samurai and knights battling English-looking dragons, English-looking, sometimes allying with and sometimes battling with witches, trolls, ogres, some Icelandic creatures, sea creatures. But getting into the Japanese mythological bestiary that I was working on, because it’s so expansive and because I’m not as familiar as I would like to be, I was very fortunate that my now friend, but at the time someone I was just a fan of, Thersa Matsuura, who is the host and creator of Uncanny Japan and one of the foremost authorities on Japanese mythology Monsters and Folklore, she agreed to be a consultant for me on the project. And we got really into some cool conversations about how wonderful would it be to see a group of English knights, archers, swordsmen, battling Tengu, battling Senen. There are so many fascinating what the mountain witches are in Japan, the Yamamba, and how different they are from the English impression that we have of them. So that was really exciting for me to get to go down that path.
So yes, the answer is yes, and I hope it just keeps expanding. We’ve got all kinds of mystic creatures, some of whom have really intimate, important, deeply bonded relationships with some of our humans. I’m introducing animal companions. I love it. I can’t wait for people to see.
I was just curious. This popped into my head. Are you thinking about doing an RPG on this?
Dastmalchian: My dream, Jess, is that people love this book, and they care enough about these characters that I have that it makes… That, yes, of course, yes. I would love a tabletop game, Knights Samurai, which ultimately is like Risk meets D&D. That is an ultimate dream of mine. And you know what’s great about working under the mentorship of someone like Todd is he just keeps reminding me, just focus on the task at hand. You make the best script, the best comic we can, one comic at a time. You keep getting it to our readers and fans at an affordable price. Let them discover the work, and then they’ll show up. Don’t get ahead of yourself and don’t get too anxious. Just trust that time and the work will speak for itself. I do. I dream of ancillary projects. I dream of other writers coming to us and pitching their version of a certain battle that maybe was spoken of in the mythology of this world. Who knows? I always love to say the sky is the limit, but right now, one day at a time, let’s just make the best comics we can.
So one thing I liked about it, too, was you’ve got a very inclusive and eclectic crew in here. And you’ve got women, you’ve got different ethnicities. And I was just curious. It feels like there’s some Viking and Norse vibes within it. And I really dig how you’ve meshed this together. How did you come up with that? What was the process of creating that?
Dastmalchian: For me, the world in which Knights vs Samurai takes place exists in the human historical timeline. So it’s the late 16th century, where at the time when the Queen was ruling England, and the word was being spread around the globe and there was lots of colonization happening. In Japan, it was major civil unrest. All of the Daimyo were fighting for control of the nation. But it’s 2024 in which I’m writing this. And the readers who are going to be picking it up, whether they’re in America, they’re in London, if they’re in Tokyo, wherever readers are around the world that pick up Knights versus Samurai and get invested in these stories, the most important thing to me is that they see themselves within the stories portrayed here. And what is this story about at the end of the day? Is it about Great War warriors and historical mythology and the kick-assness of seeing a knight and a Samurai hacking and slashing each other? Of course. But underneath it all, the beating heart of this story is a story about people who look different from one another, who speak different languages from one another, who come from different cultures from one another.
And because of those differences, they have been very easily manipulated by the powers that be, by the puppet masters, by the great elites, which is not uncommon. And it’s been happening to all of us throughout history. And these people have been told that guy, that’s your enemy. He looks different than you. He speaks differently from you. He fights differently from you. That’s your enemy, without ever really questioning the bigger picture. So to me, populating this world with women, knights, and people that look different, different ethnicities, and different presentation, it just makes sense because it’s a soup. And in the end, I don’t want to give any spoilers away, but these people are going to start to question the missions they’ve been sent on and who are their real enemies.
I like it. Well, and I also really dug the concept of the Samurai looking like demons to the knights. When they saw them and the Anglo-Saxons or whatever you want to call them as they saw them. And then I’m like, oh, I bet I know who they are. And then sure enough, they come at the end, you see that beautiful image of them all there. And I wondered if we were going to see a flip side of this. What do we see? Maybe an issue two, we see what the other side looks like to them.
Dastmalchian: Dude, hold on to your hats, folks. In issue two, you get the complete turnaround. Now we see the Samurai looking at these people that are on their land and their beach, and then all hell breaks loose. It is Fede who just killed it. Every panel, every splattering of blood, every head that’s removed. It’s so good.
I had one more question. You kind of answered it, but I was really curious because we have the Shogun TV series right now, and James Cavill’s Shogun has been around, and there was an English-born Samurai. And I was just curious about if any of that historical context worked into this because you said that you did historical research in terms of the supernatural aspects and the monsters. And I was just curious about if you were going to plan on including anything in the series in the future about the historical context, the real-life samurais that were in the world at that time?
Dastmalchian: It’s in all of the fabric and the DNA of the story, all of the history, the research and the years that I’ve spent just reading about and being fascinated with the feudal system in Japan as well as the feudal system in medieval England, the similarities, the great differences. I hope for those who are into that stuff, this will be a fun read as they’ll see the parallels between what was going on historically and what’s going on in the fantasy world of Knights versus Samurai, because I did think it was important to help me as a guiding post with what’s going on in human history to use what was really happening, even though now I’ve got some big giant dragons.
Tentacle Monsters, which we always have to have. Well, David, Todd, thank you so much for creating this and bringing this together and being a part of this conversation. I can’t wait to see where you guys go with this. It looks beautiful. It’s fantastic. I want more. I want Knights versus Samurais versus vampires. I want it all.
McFarlane: Jess, let me just say that if you like it and you enjoy it, then the vast majority of the heavy lifting is on David’s side, so give him most of the accolade. My job is to come in and take some of the other part that is part of comic book reading and keep that message clear. The title, Knights and Samurai, is about as succinct as you could come up with. You didn’t get esoteric with it. You already know as soon as you say those three words, you’re halfway there visually. I don’t care who you are. And then to just do the balancing, David’s got to make these characters matter. I mean, if you don’t have that, you don’t have anything. And then make sure that on paper, because we are a visual medium, that we’re not novelists, we have to have that in an exciting way. So I remember I used to be up on stage with Stan Lee, and he could talk a lot about why people like Spider-Man and Peter Parker. And he would go on and on about people relating to Peter Parker in his age, and he made errors and all those other stuff.
And then my take was, I think I like Spider-Man because he’s fucking cool, and he crawls up a wall. Who doesn’t want to crawl off a wall? And who doesn’t want to swing? So if you can figure out that balance of like, yes, there’s all that in-depth stuff that Stan had, but it was really fun to look at, exciting to look at, there’s a combo that you have a good chance of basically convincing an audience to at least take a cursory look at, if nothing else, and hope then at that point, the pressure is on David and I to deliver the goods.
Well, and I’ve seen David’s work with Count Crowley and with the Headless Horsemen, and he’s very good at taking the genre and creating something that really hits you hard without making it a mallet. He’s really good at that.
McFarlane: He is good, that that’s why we got him. And soon-to-be Commando Creatures, I believe. Yes.
Creature Commandos.
McFarlane: Very excited. Sorry, I got it backwards.
Dastmalchian: Yeah, Jess, you can imagine when Todd McFarlane listens to your pitch and doesn’t exit the Zoom, but instead he comes in and goes, You got something here. It’s pretty amazing. So every step of this has been a dream. We have an amazing team. We have an incredible editor. I’ve got such great support. And Todd showing up and giving us a variant on issue one is insane. So everybody that reads this, get to your shop. If you haven’t put in your pre-order, getting it on your pull list, please let them know. And then get ready for the blood to flow. Get out your buckets and your towels because there’s a lot of blood, and nobody’s safe on this chessboard. They gave me permission to… We could kill whoever needs to die to tell the right story that we need to tell.
Yes, get it in your box. Get it in your box, kids. This is what we want. Thank you guys again so much. This has been fantastic. I can’t wait for this to hit hard because it’s going to… So thank you again.
You can pick up the first issue of Knights Vs Samurai here!
When it comes to comics you don’t get many names that can be recognized as quickly as Todd McFarlane. The man who gave us Spawn and brought us action figures we’d never thought we’d see has become a legend in the world of comics. Another familiar name in the comic realm is that of actor/writer/producer David Dastmalchian, a monster kid and comic fan who is quickly becoming a go-to for comic writing and creating in his own right. Hot on the heels of his success with Count Crowley and the recent announcement he would be taking over on Creature Commandos for DC (as well as helming the DC Halloween Special) Dastmalchian has penned another new series filled with the fantastical and fanged with Knights Vs Samurai.
The title is accurate with the story taking place in an alternate historical timeline where monsters exist and mankind’s journey over the oceans is even more dangerous thanks to the number of creatures roaming both land and sea.
Here’s the synopsis of issue one: Sir Charles Ward, “The Dragon Butcher,” has achieved knighthood, and acclaim, and is leading a legion of royal warriors on a noble mission, yet his self-doubt and grief haunt him. Venturing to a mysterious island in the Far East, Charles leads his diverse assembly of fighters (including a giant and two clerics) to seek vengeance against savage monsters who ambushed a group of English missionaries. Arrival on the island reveals that the truth may be drastically different from what Charles was led to believe, and the “savage monsters” he will face are a regiment of skillful warriors the likes of which he has never seen.
The artwork is beautiful and bloody. It shows a world that is a blending of different mythologies and cultures that come to life on the page in a way that’s perfect for the story.
I was lucky enough to get a chance to chat with both Todd McFarlane and David Dastmalchian about the series which you can buy RIGHT HERE!
Where did the inspiration come from and how did the world building happen for this?
Dastmalchian: Jess, we’ve talked a lot about my love of horror and the Friday Night Creatures feature. But another thing that really great for me as a kid was the Saturday matinée with the Ray Harryhausen films and all of the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and classic adventure stories in the realms of fantasy. So you combine that with my deep and abiding love for English mythology, Knights of the Roundtable, Arthur’s Court, and then Dungeons and Dragons. And I, as a young imaginative kid, was starting to get really caught up in role-playing and gaming and reading stuff that nurtured that. Now, at the same time, I don’t know what it was that grabbed a hold of me, but I, very young, became very fascinated with Japan, Japanese culture, and Japanese history, especially warrior mythology and culture. I studied Japanese formally. And so I used to have this fantasy of bringing knights and Samurai in battle, clashing. And then I grew up and I developed a passion for storytelling and telling stories about characters that were going through things that I could relate to, even if the circumstances were totally different than anything I’d ever experienced. And so over the many years, I started to develop this idea, which by the time it reached germination and was ready to be shared with somebody, the very first person or the very first place that I thought of taking it to was McFarland Productions.
What Todd was doing and had been doing over many decades in storytelling, I thought, I doubt they’ll bite on this, but I should take… You want to take your first shot at the best shot because if they say no, then you learn from that and you go to all the other opportunities. So this was the first… It’s amazing. It’s very, very few times in my life where my first pitch on an idea was taken by the first person I pitched to, but this was one of those circumstances.
That’s amazing. And one thing that I love that I can tell Todd brought to this, too, is the artwork is such a neat combination of gritty shadows. It almost looks like wood carving and just a really neat antique theme to how it was presented. Can you talk about the process for bringing the look of it together, both of you?
Todd McFarlane: Well, I’ll start first, and then David can put the exclamation on it. Once we signed off and we knew what the idea was, then for me, I knew it was going to take an artist… I mean, you always try to put the proper artist, the look to fit the story that the writers are writing, right? I mean, and this may seem weird, but there are lots of artists I would put on Batman, I would never put on Superman or vice versa, because Superman, you need a handsome, beautiful type of artist, I think, for that book. And for Batman, I think you need somebody who can do shadows and grit, right? And sometimes when you flip them, they don’t quite work with the other one. Given the story that David had come up with and all the looks that I was imagining in my head, I knew we were going to need a nontraditional, beautiful superhero artist. I think that was a given in my head because otherwise, I didn’t think it was going to translate. And so I’ve said before that there’s a lot of artists that come out of Europe that I think have the right look.
And maybe it’s because they’ve been raised on the folklore and the history of so many stories outside of comic books, just the historic ones. I just think they got a great… I just think they have a great look. And Fede was one of the ones on our list, and we ran it by David, and David was as excited as we were, and he’s been working with them ever since.
Dastmalchian: That’s it. I mean, truly, this is a classically trained artist who lives in Rome, who’s passionate for form and line and color, and the human body is just… It’s his life. And he has played powerfully in the world of high-action stuff, Spawn Universe, et cetera. He can really capture high-stakes battle sequences. And then when I read his self-published Macbeth adaptation that he did, which is It was only in Italian, so although I know the story pretty well, it was basically a story told to me only through images, no text, because I wasn’t trying to translate as I went along. And I go, This guy is going to be able to, and Todd said this from the beginning. He’s like, I really think this is the guy because our characters, even the most brave on the battlefront, are riddled with all kinds of deep dark secrets, complexities, insecurities, trauma, grief. And I wanted you to see guys hacking and slashing their way with broad swords and katanas, throwing stars, nun chuck, et cetera, and at the same time being real human beings who are challenged with some really difficult stuff.
McFarlane: The thing is, I could add one more piece, Jess. One thing that’s frustrating from an artist’s point of view, and I’m sure equally from a writing point of view, because I’ve been on both sides at that point, is that the first issue of almost any storyline you do, in hindsight, is your weakest, right? Because you’re just trying to get comfortable with, how do I move this around? What are the characters doing? What are they? Because you’re starting to play with them in your mind. And the more you do of any title, I don’t care what it is, the more comfortable you become with it, right? I’m telling you, my first Hulk was a bit of a shambles, and the Spider-Man, and then you can just see the evolution as you go, Oh, and you figure stuff out. For his pretty and as well done as issue number one is that Fede did artistically, and he did a terrific job. David and I have been able to see now the next three issues, and literally, he’s ramping up, right? You just go, Oh, man, look at these pages. I wish people could see these pages now.
So hopefully, if people are excited with issue number one, then I know they’ll be even more excited, visually, at least, by issue two, three, because Fede’s really in a groove with David right now. And David will have basically gotten his sea legs underneath him to go, Okay, here’s how we’re going to move all this around. And yeah, it’s always weird. It’s always where the issue number one are not necessarily… They’re sometimes your best seller, not necessarily your best book. It’s an odd equation. The worst book I ever wrote in my life is the one that set a record for sales, Spider-Man Number One. And it was terrible, but thanks for buying a lot.
Well, as I said, you’ve gotten a lot of my money if you look in this office. I love the various creatures and dragons and designs in this. And I was just curious if you created a bestiary for these, because I’m a nerd about that. I’m a nerd who loves the whole biology and creation of monsters. And if you’re a kaiju fan, you know that that’s a big thing, how they work. And I was just curious if you did that.
Dastmalchian: Yes. So the bestiary that I started with mythological… I have a whole file in my drive. Mythological beings, the world of Knights versus Samurai. So going into it, I was very certain that I wanted to see Samurai and knights battling English-looking dragons, English-looking, sometimes allying with and sometimes battling with witches, trolls, ogres, some Icelandic creatures, sea creatures. But getting into the Japanese mythological bestiary that I was working on, because it’s so expansive and because I’m not as familiar as I would like to be, I was very fortunate that my now friend, but at the time someone I was just a fan of, Thersa Matsuura, who is the host and creator of Uncanny Japan and one of the foremost authorities on Japanese mythology Monsters and Folklore, she agreed to be a consultant for me on the project. And we got really into some cool conversations about how wonderful would it be to see a group of English knights, archers, swordsmen, battling Tengu, battling Senen. There are so many fascinating what the mountain witches are in Japan, the Yamamba, and how different they are from the English impression that we have of them. So that was really exciting for me to get to go down that path.
So yes, the answer is yes, and I hope it just keeps expanding. We’ve got all kinds of mystic creatures, some of whom have really intimate, important, deeply bonded relationships with some of our humans. I’m introducing animal companions. I love it. I can’t wait for people to see.
I was just curious. This popped into my head. Are you thinking about doing an RPG on this?
Dastmalchian: My dream, Jess, is that people love this book, and they care enough about these characters that I have that it makes… That, yes, of course, yes. I would love a tabletop game, Knights Samurai, which ultimately is like Risk meets D&D. That is an ultimate dream of mine. And you know what’s great about working under the mentorship of someone like Todd is he just keeps reminding me, just focus on the task at hand. You make the best script, the best comic we can, one comic at a time. You keep getting it to our readers and fans at an affordable price. Let them discover the work, and then they’ll show up. Don’t get ahead of yourself and don’t get too anxious. Just trust that time and the work will speak for itself. I do. I dream of ancillary projects. I dream of other writers coming to us and pitching their version of a certain battle that maybe was spoken of in the mythology of this world. Who knows? I always love to say the sky is the limit, but right now, one day at a time, let’s just make the best comics we can.
So one thing I liked about it, too, was you’ve got a very inclusive and eclectic crew in here. And you’ve got women, you’ve got different ethnicities. And I was just curious. It feels like there’s some Viking and Norse vibes within it. And I really dig how you’ve meshed this together. How did you come up with that? What was the process of creating that?
Dastmalchian: For me, the world in which Knights vs Samurai takes place exists in the human historical timeline. So it’s the late 16th century, where at the time when the Queen was ruling England, and the word was being spread around the globe and there was lots of colonization happening. In Japan, it was major civil unrest. All of the Daimyo were fighting for control of the nation. But it’s 2024 in which I’m writing this. And the readers who are going to be picking it up, whether they’re in America, they’re in London, if they’re in Tokyo, wherever readers are around the world that pick up Knights versus Samurai and get invested in these stories, the most important thing to me is that they see themselves within the stories portrayed here. And what is this story about at the end of the day? Is it about Great War warriors and historical mythology and the kick-assness of seeing a knight and a Samurai hacking and slashing each other? Of course. But underneath it all, the beating heart of this story is a story about people who look different from one another, who speak different languages from one another, who come from different cultures from one another.
And because of those differences, they have been very easily manipulated by the powers that be, by the puppet masters, by the great elites, which is not uncommon. And it’s been happening to all of us throughout history. And these people have been told that guy, that’s your enemy. He looks different than you. He speaks differently from you. He fights differently from you. That’s your enemy, without ever really questioning the bigger picture. So to me, populating this world with women, knights, and people that look different, different ethnicities, and different presentation, it just makes sense because it’s a soup. And in the end, I don’t want to give any spoilers away, but these people are going to start to question the missions they’ve been sent on and who are their real enemies.
I like it. Well, and I also really dug the concept of the Samurai looking like demons to the knights. When they saw them and the Anglo-Saxons or whatever you want to call them as they saw them. And then I’m like, oh, I bet I know who they are. And then sure enough, they come at the end, you see that beautiful image of them all there. And I wondered if we were going to see a flip side of this. What do we see? Maybe an issue two, we see what the other side looks like to them.
Dastmalchian: Dude, hold on to your hats, folks. In issue two, you get the complete turnaround. Now we see the Samurai looking at these people that are on their land and their beach, and then all hell breaks loose. It is Fede who just killed it. Every panel, every splattering of blood, every head that’s removed. It’s so good.
I had one more question. You kind of answered it, but I was really curious because we have the Shogun TV series right now, and James Cavill’s Shogun has been around, and there was an English-born Samurai. And I was just curious about if any of that historical context worked into this because you said that you did historical research in terms of the supernatural aspects and the monsters. And I was just curious about if you were going to plan on including anything in the series in the future about the historical context, the real-life samurais that were in the world at that time?
Dastmalchian: It’s in all of the fabric and the DNA of the story, all of the history, the research and the years that I’ve spent just reading about and being fascinated with the feudal system in Japan as well as the feudal system in medieval England, the similarities, the great differences. I hope for those who are into that stuff, this will be a fun read as they’ll see the parallels between what was going on historically and what’s going on in the fantasy world of Knights versus Samurai, because I did think it was important to help me as a guiding post with what’s going on in human history to use what was really happening, even though now I’ve got some big giant dragons.
Tentacle Monsters, which we always have to have. Well, David, Todd, thank you so much for creating this and bringing this together and being a part of this conversation. I can’t wait to see where you guys go with this. It looks beautiful. It’s fantastic. I want more. I want Knights versus Samurais versus vampires. I want it all.
McFarlane: Jess, let me just say that if you like it and you enjoy it, then the vast majority of the heavy lifting is on David’s side, so give him most of the accolade. My job is to come in and take some of the other part that is part of comic book reading and keep that message clear. The title, Knights and Samurai, is about as succinct as you could come up with. You didn’t get esoteric with it. You already know as soon as you say those three words, you’re halfway there visually. I don’t care who you are. And then to just do the balancing, David’s got to make these characters matter. I mean, if you don’t have that, you don’t have anything. And then make sure that on paper, because we are a visual medium, that we’re not novelists, we have to have that in an exciting way. So I remember I used to be up on stage with Stan Lee, and he could talk a lot about why people like Spider-Man and Peter Parker. And he would go on and on about people relating to Peter Parker in his age, and he made errors and all those other stuff.
And then my take was, I think I like Spider-Man because he’s fucking cool, and he crawls up a wall. Who doesn’t want to crawl off a wall? And who doesn’t want to swing? So if you can figure out that balance of like, yes, there’s all that in-depth stuff that Stan had, but it was really fun to look at, exciting to look at, there’s a combo that you have a good chance of basically convincing an audience to at least take a cursory look at, if nothing else, and hope then at that point, the pressure is on David and I to deliver the goods.
Well, and I’ve seen David’s work with Count Crowley and with the Headless Horsemen, and he’s very good at taking the genre and creating something that really hits you hard without making it a mallet. He’s really good at that.
McFarlane: He is good, that that’s why we got him. And soon-to-be Commando Creatures, I believe. Yes.
Creature Commandos.
McFarlane: Very excited. Sorry, I got it backwards.
Dastmalchian: Yeah, Jess, you can imagine when Todd McFarlane listens to your pitch and doesn’t exit the Zoom, but instead he comes in and goes, You got something here. It’s pretty amazing. So every step of this has been a dream. We have an amazing team. We have an incredible editor. I’ve got such great support. And Todd showing up and giving us a variant on issue one is insane. So everybody that reads this, get to your shop. If you haven’t put in your pre-order, getting it on your pull list, please let them know. And then get ready for the blood to flow. Get out your buckets and your towels because there’s a lot of blood, and nobody’s safe on this chessboard. They gave me permission to… We could kill whoever needs to die to tell the right story that we need to tell.
Yes, get it in your box. Get it in your box, kids. This is what we want. Thank you guys again so much. This has been fantastic. I can’t wait for this to hit hard because it’s going to… So thank you again.
You can pick up the first issue of Knights Vs Samurai here!
When fans think of Netflix‘s Bridgerton, elaborate soirees, delectable food, and forbidden love come to mind. So, when a “Bridgerton Ball” held in Michigan offers fans a chance to “step into the enchanting world of the Regency-era … for an evening of sophistication, grace and historical charm,” it’s difficult not to imagine living like a high-profile socialite for the evening. Unfortunately, reports about the “Bridgerton Ball” turning out more like the Fyre Festival or Willy Wonka Experience are swirling, leaving fans feeling like a lump of coal in the face of an opportunity to shine like a diamond.
According to online reports, the “Bridgerton Ball” was a disorganized, unmitigated mess. Fans who paid to attend felt like the organizers scammed them out of money and a good time. One Bridgerton fan who paid $300 to participate in the event but could not attend collected photos and comments from others who managed to make the party, and the evidence is clear that the “Bridgerton Ball” was a nightmare. Among other low-rent features, the Ball featured a lone stripper as the evening’s entertainment, vendors selling Kit Kats, and a costume contest that never happened.
Thread about the Bridgerton Ball SCAM in Detroit that I (and hundreds of others) spent $300 on pic.twitter.com/EUgX482w8j
While Netflix does host a touring Bridgerton-themed event called the “The Queen’s Ball: The Brigerton Experience,” the recent “Detroit Bridgerton Themed Ball” is anything but authentic to what fans expect when the price of admission is $150 to $1,000.
“The way it was described was this would be [a] Bridgerton event and we were going to have classical music, a good dinner, and there was going to be a play, and they were going to pick diamonds the season,” one attendee told ABC. “They were going to give away all of these prizes. And we went in, and it’s completely empty in there.”
“It was complete chaos,” said another in the report. “They never even scanned our tickets. We paid to eat dinner, and there were random people all throughout the venue.”
On Reddit, one person who attended the Ball wrote, “My family and I just left the Detroit Bridgerton Ball. It was absolutely HORRENDOUS. There was nowhere to sit. Although the venue was nice, the decor was sparse and extremely tacky. It wasn’t even Bridgerton-themed! We spent $400 on tickets for a complete b*s experience!”
“Besides the lackluster event itself, they promised a cash prize to the best dressed (didn’t happen), that they’d choose a diamond of the season like they do in the show/other bridgerton inspired balls (didn’t happen), and had an itinerary with contradicting information,” wrote another fan on Twitter.
Food apparently ran out after an hour, and some was raw. No one was there to pick up plates, so you had to deal with strangers’ leftovers yourself pic.twitter.com/VpbZqHZxwS
When asked to explain the event’s lackluster conditions and woefully underwhelming presentation, Uncle N Me LLC, who promoted the party, released a statement, saying: “We understand that not everyone had the experience they hoped for at our most recent event Sunday night at The Harmonie Club, and for that, we sincerely apologize. Our intention was to provide a magical evening, but we recognize that organizational challenges affected the enjoyment of some guests. We take full responsibility and accountability for these shortcomings. Please know that we are working diligently to address all concerns to ensure that all guests have the enjoyable experience they deserve …we are committed to doing everything in our power to make this right.”
Yikes! No one wanted cocktail franks and wilted salad when they were expecting champagne and caviar. Some fans demand a full refund for the disastrous experience, while others wonder what the hell happened. Where’s Lady Whistledown when you need her to pen a scathing review?
Do you think attendees of the “Detroit Bridgerton Ball” deserve to get their money back? What’s the worst “sponsored” party you’ve ever been to? Let us know in the comments section below.
Nine years ago, writer/director Jason Krawczyk brought the world the horror comedy He Never Died, which introduced viewers to a badass immortal character named Jack (played by Henry Rollins), who had been around for thousands of years. This character had franchise potential that Krawczyk and Rollins were well aware of; they were planning to continue his story through a feature sequel and an eight episode mini-series. But for some reason, they were never able to get a follow-up off the ground, and Krawczyk’s sequel script ended up being rewritten into a film called She Never Died, which focused on a different character and wasn’t directed by Krawczyk. According to online trivia, the action comedy thriller Don’t Mess with Grandma (which Krawczyk wrote and directed under his preferred title of Sunset Superman) is a project that grew out of the filmmaker’s frustration over the He Never Died franchise not gaining traction. To deal with that heartbreak, he decided to make a movie that would allow him and other viewers to watch Michael Jai White punch as many people as possible in 80 minutes. And while the finished film doesn’t actually feature a huge number of people getting punched, we do get to watch White throw plenty of punches and toss a specific group of people around.
White’s character is Jasper, or J.T., a guy who spends his days dealing with the elderly as part of his job at Trusted Trays, a meal delivery service. Then he spends his evenings dealing with the most frustrating elderly person in his life: his own grandmother, Granna (Jackie Richardson). This movie catches up with J.T. on a particularly annoying evening when he has stopped by to have dinner with Granna, fix a sink for her, and try to convince her to move from the home she shared with her late husband to an assisted living residence called Shady Acres… a difficult subject to broach. But the most annoying thing about this evening is the fact that Granna’s house has become the target of a group of mask-wearing, blade-and-gun-wielding thieves who have arrived to carry out a home invasion.
These hapless thieves (one of whom happens to be played by Billy Zane, sporting a horrendous mustache) quickly come to suspect that J.T. has a military background as he repeatedly thwarts their attempts to invade and ransack the house – but while this “Terminator dude” knocks the home invaders around with ease, getting some assistance from Granna’s dog, the movie retains a lighthearted tone throughout. This is an action comedy with a fun sense of humor, and J.T. is so confident in his ability to handle the threat that he does his best not to hurt any of the thieves. He doesn’t want to put them down, he just wants to keep them out of the house… and strives to keep their presence a secret from Granna. So every bit of physical violence that occurs happens without Granna witnessing it.
Details on J.T.’s history are revealed as the story goes on, giving an explanation for why he’s so adept at handling home invaders, and we also learn more information about the thieves and why they have shown up to rob Granna’s house. So fear not, questions are answered – and J.T. gets the necessary info on the robbers when he manages to capture one of them and bring him in to maybe play the card game Rummy with him and his Granna. Which was a nice touch on Krawczyk’s part, as I used to play Rummy with my own grandma, and since that scenario made its way into this movie, I assume many others have as well.
Krawczyk was reportedly drawing inspiration from the tone of Big Trouble in Little China when he was making this movie, and while this movie is more down-to-earth and yet goofier than that John Carpenter classic, it does provide a whole lot of entertainment and laughs. The interactions between the bumbling thieves are quite amusing, and White does great work in the lead role, making J.T. a very likeable, fun guy to watch. Apparently White wasn’t even aware of Krawczyk’s Big Trouble in Little China inspiration for the bulk of production, but was drawing inspiration from that movie himself when coming up with his approach to his character, aiming to make J.T. someone who could have fit into Carpenter’s movie. He may not be Jack Burton, but he is as capable in a fight as Wang, and has an iconic moment toward the end (a moment that inspires the song “Sunset Superman” to kick in on the soundtrack) that could boost him onto lists of the great action heroes for many viewers.
Krawczyk may not be fond of the title Don’t Mess with Grandma, but if all goes well, this is a title we’ll be hearing action and comedy fans mention frequently in the future, because the movie is a blast to watch and deserves to be referenced and recommended. Michael Jai White has starred in a lot of action movies over the years, and this is one of his best, with J.T. being one of the best characters he has ever played.
Don’t Mess with Grandma had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest and will soon be making its way to the Tubi streaming service.
Nine years ago, writer/director Jason Krawczyk brought the world the horror comedy He Never Died, which introduced viewers to a badass immortal character named Jack (played by Henry Rollins), who had been around for thousands of years. This character had franchise potential that Krawczyk and Rollins were well aware of; they were planning to continue his story through a feature sequel and an eight episode mini-series. But for some reason, they were never able to get a follow-up off the ground, and Krawczyk’s sequel script ended up being rewritten into a film called She Never Died, which focused on a different character and wasn’t directed by Krawczyk. According to online trivia, the action comedy thriller Don’t Mess with Grandma (which Krawczyk wrote and directed under his preferred title of Sunset Superman) is a project that grew out of the filmmaker’s frustration over the He Never Died franchise not gaining traction. To deal with that heartbreak, he decided to make a movie that would allow him and other viewers to watch Michael Jai White punch as many people as possible in 80 minutes. And while the finished film doesn’t actually feature a huge number of people getting punched, we do get to watch White throw plenty of punches and toss a specific group of people around.
White’s character is Jasper, or J.T., a guy who spends his days dealing with the elderly as part of his job at Trusted Trays, a meal delivery service. Then he spends his evenings dealing with the most frustrating elderly person in his life: his own grandmother, Granna (Jackie Richardson). This movie catches up with J.T. on a particularly annoying evening when he has stopped by to have dinner with Granna, fix a sink for her, and try to convince her to move from the home she shared with her late husband to an assisted living residence called Shady Acres… a difficult subject to broach. But the most annoying thing about this evening is the fact that Granna’s house has become the target of a group of mask-wearing, blade-and-gun-wielding thieves who have arrived to carry out a home invasion.
These hapless thieves (one of whom happens to be played by Billy Zane, sporting a horrendous mustache) quickly come to suspect that J.T. has a military background as he repeatedly thwarts their attempts to invade and ransack the house – but while this “Terminator dude” knocks the home invaders around with ease, getting some assistance from Granna’s dog, the movie retains a lighthearted tone throughout. This is an action comedy with a fun sense of humor, and J.T. is so confident in his ability to handle the threat that he does his best not to hurt any of the thieves. He doesn’t want to put them down, he just wants to keep them out of the house… and strives to keep their presence a secret from Granna. So every bit of physical violence that occurs happens without Granna witnessing it.
Details on J.T.’s history are revealed as the story goes on, giving an explanation for why he’s so adept at handling home invaders, and we also learn more information about the thieves and why they have shown up to rob Granna’s house. So fear not, questions are answered – and J.T. gets the necessary info on the robbers when he manages to capture one of them and bring him in to maybe play the card game Rummy with him and his Granna. Which was a nice touch on Krawczyk’s part, as I used to play Rummy with my own grandma, and since that scenario made its way into this movie, I assume many others have as well.
Krawczyk was reportedly drawing inspiration from the tone of Big Trouble in Little China when he was making this movie, and while this movie is more down-to-earth and yet goofier than that John Carpenter classic, it does provide a whole lot of entertainment and laughs. The interactions between the bumbling thieves are quite amusing, and White does great work in the lead role, making J.T. a very likeable, fun guy to watch. Apparently White wasn’t even aware of Krawczyk’s Big Trouble in Little China inspiration for the bulk of production, but was drawing inspiration from that movie himself when coming up with his approach to his character, aiming to make J.T. someone who could have fit into Carpenter’s movie. He may not be Jack Burton, but he is as capable in a fight as Wang, and has an iconic moment toward the end (a moment that inspires the song “Sunset Superman” to kick in on the soundtrack) that could boost him onto lists of the great action heroes for many viewers.
Krawczyk may not be fond of the title Don’t Mess with Grandma, but if all goes well, this is a title we’ll be hearing action and comedy fans mention frequently in the future, because the movie is a blast to watch and deserves to be referenced and recommended. Michael Jai White has starred in a lot of action movies over the years, and this is one of his best, with J.T. being one of the best characters he has ever played.
Don’t Mess with Grandma had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest and will soon be making its way to the Tubi streaming service.
Anthony and Joe Russo, the Russo Brothers, have directed some of the biggest movies of all time, with their film Avengers: Endgame coming in second place just behind James Cameron’s Avatar… but that hasn’t made it any easier to get their sci-fi adventure film The Electric State out into the world. The project was first announced back in 2017 and experienced multiple ups, downs, and behind-the-scenes shake-ups on its way to production, with filming beginning in 2022 and wrapping in early 2023. Reshoots followed in 2024. Now it looks like The Electric State might finally be ready to make its way out into the world, so we figure it was time to put together a list of Everything We Know About The Electric State:
SOURCE MATERIAL
The story of this film begins in July of 2017, when Free League launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a new narrative artbook from acclaimed artist Simon Stålenhag – a book called The Electric State. Through a Facebook post, this book caught the attention of screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who have worked with the Russo brothers on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and The Gray Man. McFeely is continuing the collaboration on the upcoming films Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. And they weren’t the only ones who became interested in it. At least four studios and numerous producers and directors were pursuing the adaptation rights, kicking off “a heated bidding war” that the Russo brothers ended up winning. In December of 2017, it was announced that Russos would be producing a film adaptation of The Electric State, with the script being written by Markus and McFeely.
Stålenhag’s book had the following description: In late 1997, a runaway teenager and her yellow toy robot travel west through a strange USA, where the ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside heaped together with the discarded trash of a high tech consumerist society in decline. As their car approaches the edge of the continent, the world outside the window seems to be unraveling ever faster as if somewhere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in. The film has kept that alternative 1990s setting.
Angela Russo-Otstot, the Creative Chief for the Russo brothers’ production company AGBO (and she also happens to be their sister), told The Hollywood Reporter that the film is “a really interesting exploration of a world where service robots live alongside humans. Within their time performing specific services for humans, the robots start to realize that they may want something more than the purpose they [were made] for, and the humans begin to fear this. So, eventually, a conflict plays out. There’s a war between the humans and the robots, and the humans leverage technology to win, and they take all of the robots and banish them into an exclusion zone in the middle of a desert wasteland in the center of the U.S. But it’s a global conflict as well. So there are other stories and narratives that can play out in different countries around the world, but we witness the U.S. story in this film.” The writers are said to have “built out a really rich mythology. There was an existing mythology in the book, but they expanded upon it.“
Russo-Otstot also mentioned that the robots “have a real nostalgia to them.”
DIRECTORS
When the Russos first secured the rights to Stålenhag’s book, they were too busy working on Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame to direct the film themselves, so they tapped Andy Muschietti, who had just had massive success with his first It movie, to take the helm. But Muschietti had to make It: Chapter Two first… and by the time he was finished with that Stephen King adaptation, he had been offered the chance to direct The Flash for Warner Bros. and DC. So while he focused on making a superhero movie of his own, the Russos decided they would direct The Electric State after all. They just had to get the action thriller The Gray Man made for Netflix first. This is why it took five years for The Electric State to start filming: all of the directors that have been attached to it were too busy to make it.
In addition to directing the film, the Russos produced it with Mike Larocca, Chris Castaldi, and Patrick Newall. Markus and McFeely serve as executive producers with Russo-Otstot, Jake Aust, Geoff Haley, and Jeff Ford.
CAST
Mille Bobby Brown of Stranger Things signed on to star in the film at the end of 2020, taking on the role of the teenager mentioned in the book description. She’s said to be “a young woman traveling across the country after a civil war between humanity and the robots that once served them spirals out of control. While searching for her missing brother, Brown’s character meets a mysterious smuggler.” That smuggler is played by Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy). Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) plays an antagonist called the Marshall, who operates a robotic drone remotely and is tasked with hunting down the robot traveling with Brown’s character on her quest. Ke Huy Quan (The Goonies) plays a doctor Brown’s character is desperate to find. Quan’s Everything Everywhere All At Once co-star Michelle Yeoh was once attached to play the character, but had to drop out due to scheduling issues.
Anthony Mackie (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) and Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade) provide the voices for robot characters. Mackie’s robot is a sidekick to the smuggler played by Pratt, while Thornton’s robot is a key figure in the civil war. Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada), Brian Cox (X-Men 2), Martin Klebba (the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise), Woody Norman (C’mon C’mon), Jenny Slate (It Ends with Us), and Jason Alexander (Seinfeld) are also in the cast. Woody Harrelson (Zombieland) plays a robot that was inspired by Mr. Peanut. Russo-Otstot said, “I remember when we had to approach Hormel to ask permission to do this. We were like: ‘It has to be Mr. Peanut. We have to make this work.’ And fortunately, it did work out.“
RELEASE
The Electric State was set up at Universal in 2020, by which time Muschietti had stepped back into an executive producer role while the Russos took the helm. The plan was for the film to get a theatrical release, but then Universal passed it over to Netflix, where the project was overseen by Nick Nesbitt. So, while it may end up getting some theatrical play, this is going to primarily be a streaming release. The film is expected to start streaming on Netflix sometime in March of 2025.
In the build-up to the release, the Motion Picture Association ratings board has revealed that they’ve given the film a PG-13 rating for sci-fi violence/action, language and some thematic material.
And that’s everything we know about The Electric State at this time. Are you looking forward to this film? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
A Martin Scorsese movie is always something to look forward to, but Variety reports that his next two projects have unfortunately been delayed. Martin Scorsese planned to shoot two movies back-to-back this year, including The Life of Jesus, based on Shūsaku Endō’s 1973 novel, and a biopic about Frank Sinatra.
Variety’s report states that both these projects have been postponed, with neither to be filmed this year. The Life of Jesus was expected to be up first, although there’s been nothing officially announced regarding the cast. That said, Andrew Garfield, who starred in Scorsese’s Silence, was rumoured to be eyeing the film. The project is still in development, with Scorsese hoping to shoot the film in Israel, Italy, and Egypt. Earlier this year, the director said he was still figuring it out. “I’m contemplating it right now,” Scorsese said. “What kind of film I’m not quite sure, but I want to make something unique and different that could be thought-provoking and I hope also entertaining. I’m not quite sure yet how to go about it.“
The last time Martin Scorsese tackled a project about Jesus Christ, he was the focus of outrage. The Last Temptation of Christ starred Willem Dafoe as Christ, who struggled with various forms of temptation, including lust, fear, and doubt. As a result, it came under fire from Christian groups, who went so far as to claim the movie was blasphemy.
As for Frank Sinatra, Martin Scorsese has been considering a biopic about the legendary singer for quite some time. He was reportedly looking at Leonardo DiCaprio to star as Sinatra alongside Jennifer Lawrence as Ava Gardner, but as with The Life of Jesus, nothing has been officially announced. At one point, the film was supposed to start production in November. However, multiple sources told Variety that those involved in the project were notified last month that the start date had been cancelled. It’s unclear if the project has received the blessing of Tina Sinatra, who controls her late father’s estate. Such approval would be essential, so perhaps the production is waiting until they have all their ducks in a row.
Scorsese’s last film was Killers of the Flower Moon. Based on David Grann’s best-selling crime thriller, the film told the real-life mystery of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma in the 1920s, who became wealthy after oil was discovered beneath their land. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off, and the ensuing spiral of conspiracy, greed and murder got so bad that the FBI had to step in.
