I’ve been replaying God of War Ragnarök now that it’s on PC, and despite some clear, widespread technical issues with depreciating framerate, this is still fundamentally the same excellent sequel that launched on PlayStation in 2022. I put a few hours into the game again to test how it ran on PC, and revisiting it…
We’ve been having a blast in Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, even if there’s the weirdly high chance of getting schooled by a pro. However, basing these games off their arcade versions has unfortunately led to the occasional problem, and one particularly surprising issue is figuring out how to…
We’ve been having a blast in Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, even if there’s the weirdly high chance of getting schooled by a pro. However, basing these games off their arcade versions has unfortunately led to the occasional problem, and one particularly surprising issue is figuring out how to…
There are three generally accepted rules for living a long and happy life. 1) You don’t spit into the wind. That’s really just common sense. 2) You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. 3) By God, if you really want to live a long life, you 100%, not under any circumstances, for any reason, F*ck with John Wick’s dog. We have all learned nothing good happens from making John Wick angry. While we’ve already had one spin-off of the successful franchise, the upcoming film Ballerina promises to take us even further into the crazy underworld of one of the most fascinating franchises to emerge in a long time.
This film began life way back in 2017 as a stand-alone film. Shay Hatten wrote an action script with a female lead called Ballerina. The lead would be a ballerina assassin who goes on a revenge killing spree. Lionsgate picked up the script and decided to bring Hatten on board to rewrite it to make it part of the John Wick universe.
To give it a proper jumping-off point, the ballerina program was shown in John Wick 3, with Anjelica Huston leading the group as The Director. This was used to draw in the audience and make them curious about this other organization. The film was officially pushed forward as Len Wiseman (Underworld) was brought on to serve as director.
From the little information available about the film, it seems to be a revenge film set within the John Wick universe. Rooney is our title ballerina who this ruthless organization is training. She plans to use these newly acquired skills to hunt down the people responsible for murdering her family. Nothing quells the soul quite like good old bloody revenge. If the action scenes in the previous Wick films are anything to go by, we’re in for a wild ride.
Once the script was set, it was time to find some actors. Even before Len Wiseman joined the project, it was thought that Lady Gaga might be brought in for the lead role. Once Wiseman was on the project, it was said they were using actress Chloë Grace Moretz as the template for what they were looking for. Her turn in Kick-Ass as Hit Girl had set her up as a badass fighter, and the studio wanted someone similar.
In 2022, it was announced that Armas had secured the lead role and would lead this new hopeful franchise. The character of Rooney had a small cameo in John Wick 3 but was played by ballerina Unity Phelan. The filmmakers decided to recast her with someone who had more experience. Armas entered negotiations, and with her strong turn in the last James Bond film, it’s easy to see why they chose her.
The legendary actress returns in her role as the Director. This shady organization seems in line with the Black Widow program we saw in the MCU. They take young women and teach them how to become the perfect assassins. Having Huston in this role is excellent and gives it a nice balance with Ian McShane’s character from the Wick movies.
While Reedus has had major roles in films like The Boondock Saints and Blade II, he gained popularity in The Walking Dead as Daryl Dixon. He hasn’t done many film roles since, but this is one of his highest-profile roles since the end of the main Walking Dead series. Much hasn’t been released about his role, but it is thought he could be Rooney’s main physical adversary throughout the film.
Legendary actor Gabriel Byrne will lend his talents as the man behind everything that has gone wrong in Rooney’s life. He brings a grand presence to everything he’s in and will be great in this role. Looking at his range from movies like The Usual Suspects, End of Days, and Hereditary, you know he will bring something unique to the character.
Ballerina will be set between John Wick 3 and 4, allowing a few familiar characters to appear even if they are no longer living in the proper series. Ian McShane will be back as the head of the Continental Hotel. Lance Reddick will be seen in his last on-screen role after his sudden death last year. Of course, the biggest appearance will be Keanu Reeves dropping in as John Wick one more time. This is possible due to the film being set before the events of John Wick 4 since we apparently saw his death.
Well, we were originally supposed to see it in June of this year. In February, it was announced that the film would be pushed back by a whole year to June 6, 2025. The reasoning was said to be that they had devised some new action scenes that they wanted to include. Ian McShane, on the other hand, said that after seeing the first cut of the film, they brought in Wick mainstay and Ballerina producer Chad Stahelski to redo large parts of the film to “protect the franchise.” With this extra year, it looks like they were hoping to shore up any weak points. Let’s hope it’s worth it, as extensive re-shoots are not usually seen as a good thing.
Are you excited to see Ballerina when it opens in theaters next summer? Let us know in the comments.
The post Ballerina: Everything We Know About The John Wick Spin-Off appeared first on JoBlo.
We’re nearing the end of 2024, but it’s still gonna be a big year for Sonic the Hedgehog. Between the upcoming Sonic X Shadow Generations remaster, the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie, and the rest of its Year of Shadow celebration, fans of the blue blur are eating. Sega held a Sonic Central stream today,…
We’re nearing the end of 2024, but it’s still gonna be a big year for Sonic the Hedgehog. Between the upcoming Sonic X Shadow Generations remaster, the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie, and the rest of its Year of Shadow celebration, fans of the blue blur are eating. Sega held a Sonic Central stream today,…
If you’re gonna have someone like Lady Gaga star in your movie, it only makes sense to have her contribute, in some way, to the soundtrack. Indeed, when she did A Star is Born, Gaga received a Best Actress Oscar nomination, but she also won the award for her contribution to the soundtrack, “Shallow.” While Joker: Folie a Deux is being called a jukebox musical, in that most of the songs are covers of already existing tracks, Gaga has nonetheless recorded a ton of music inspired by the film and the character she plays (Harleen “Lee” Quinzel aka Harley Quinn), and now has announced a companion album called Harlequin, which is a pretty apropos title.
The singer made the announcement via Instagram.
In the posted artwork, Gaga is shown dressed in a very Harley Quinn-esque outfit, with her wearing a life preserver under a running shower head that seems to be washing away her character’s makeup. This marks Gaga’s first release since 2021 when she bowed the album “Love for Sale,” which was an album of duets with the late Tony Bennett. Her last mainstream pop album was 2020’s “Chromatica:, although she had a major hit with her contribution to the Top Gun: Maverick soundtrack, “Hold My Hand”, which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.
Only time will tell whether or not Gaga’s role in Joker: Folie a Deux will live up to her other hit star turns in A Star is Born and House of Gucci (a rare pandemic-era hit). The film was initially tracking for a pretty big box office debut, but industry estimates have cooled ever since word of mouth started to sour around the time it debuted at the Venice Film Festival. Whatever the case, the album “Harlequin” comes out on September 27th, with Joker: Folie a Deux set to premiere on October 4th.
The post Lady Gaga recorded a full companion album to Joker: Folie a Deux appeared first on JoBlo.
Universal Pictures and Peacock forked over an amount somewhere in the range of $400 million to acquire the rights to distribute a trilogy of sequels to the 1973 classic The Exorcist, which were going to be another collaboration between Blumhouse Productions and director David Gordon Green (who previously delivered a trilogy of Halloween sequels for Blumhouse and Universal). By the time Green’s first Exorcist movie, The Exorcist: Believer, reached theatres last October, the script for a sequel titled The Exorcist: Deceiver, which was scheduled for an April 18, 2025 theatrical release, was ready and the story of the third film was mapped out… Believer‘s box office numbers were okay, the movie pulled in $137 million on a $30 million budget, but Universal was hoping for a lot better than “okay,” and the reactions were largely negative. (You can read our 4/10 review HERE.) So the plans for The Exorcist: Deceiver were set aside and Green left the project. During a recent interview with IndieWire, Green addressed his departure from the Exorcist franchise and revealed that the second film in his trilogy would have followed Ann Dowd’s character Ann, a former prospective nun turned nurse, and would have been filmed in Europe.
Green crafted the story for The Exorcist: Believer with Danny McBride (who wrote all three of the new Halloweens with him) and their Halloween Kills co-writer Scott Teems, then wrote the screenplay with Peter Sattler (Broken Diamonds). Here’s the synopsis: Since the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake 12 years ago, Victor Fielding has raised their daughter on his own. But when Angela and her friend Katherine, disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, seek out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before: Chris MacNeil.
Speaking with IndieWire, Green had this to say about what happened behind the scenes as the franchise started to move forward: “It’s complicated. It’s long and complicated. We had our next one written and had it mapped out for the third one. Again, it was ambitious, complicated. We were going to Europe for some pretty extraordinary backdrops. It was one of those things where all of the creative parties got together. What I’m pitching, in terms of my professional ambition is, I need the creative freedom and give me the budgetary constraints so I can keep control of that. That’s something we learned pretty quickly, [with] expectations that are limitless and really daunting. So, for me to keep that creative freedom and be able to make the choices I wanted to make… 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. … (The Exorcist: Deceiver) was going to follow Ann Dowd’s character.“
He went on to say, “All I know is, give me some boundaries and let me loose. If there are a lot of people poking me about ideas and thoughts and notes? I’m not best in those environments. It’s just trying to make everybody get what they need. I’ve made such great friends with so many executives at Universal and Blumhouse and Morgan Creek, I just want to make sure they’re doing what they feel confident in and makes them the most money. Or whatever it is they’re looking for in their satisfying experience. For me, it’s creative freedom. Every time. And I’ll always turn a corner and figure out where the freedom is. And also where the spontaneity is. I like to reinvent myself. … And the other part of me thinks, well, shit, if I could have finished that Exorcist trilogy, I could be financing my own movies for the rest of my life. And that would be super cool if I could have turned that into what I had imagined it being, both creatively and financially. It would have been an amazing opportunity for me as a benefactor to indie movies and my own creative projects. So, that was kind of the goal in mind and it just seemed like that was going to not happen, so I took a different route.“
Blumhouse, Universal, and Peacock still intend to complete the trilogy of Exorcist sequels, just without Green’s input. Genre regular Mike Flanagan has since been hired to write and direct an Exorcist film that’s hoping to make the scariest film of his career.
What do you think of what David Gordon Green had to say about The Exorcist: Deceiver falling apart? Would you have liked to see what the film had in store for us, with Ann Dowd returning and European filming locations? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The post David Gordon Green’s sequel to The Exorcist: Believer would have followed Ann Dowd’s character to Europe appeared first on JoBlo.
It seems that Microsoft has been paying attention to all of those millennial nostalgia-bait posts about translucent iMacs and PlayStation DualShock controllers that go viral on social media, as it’s rising to the moment with its own lineup of see-through Xbox controllers. It is 100 percent working.
It seems that Microsoft has been paying attention to all of those millennial nostalgia-bait posts about translucent iMacs and PlayStation DualShock controllers that go viral on social media, as it’s rising to the moment with its own lineup of see-through Xbox controllers. It is 100 percent working.