After the fantastic first season of Squid Game, anticipation is sky-high for season 2. It won’t be easy, but creator Hwang Dong-hyuk seems confident that the new season will live up to the hype with a darker story.
“I believe what we’ve created on Season 2 is a deeper, more advanced story,” Hwang told Empire. “I feel it could even surpass Season 1. But physically, mentally, it was not easy. Some of the sequences we shot were the most challenging in my whole career. It was… hell.” He went on to tease that the second season won’t be a walk in the part. “I even had some concerns because the story told in the second season is much crueller, scarier and more gruesome than the first,” he said. “Honestly, I thought to myself… ‘Is this too much for people to handle?’” Will Squid Game season 2 be the Empire Strikes Back of the series? Time will tell, but it’s already been announced that a third and final season will bring the series to a close.
The official synopsis for the new season reads: “Three years after winning Squid Game, Player 456 remains determined to find the people behind the game and put an end to their vicious sport. Using this fortune to fund his search, Gi-hun starts with the most obvious of places: look for the man in a sharp suit playing ddakji in the subway. But when his efforts finally yield results, the path toward taking down the organization proves to be deadlier than he imagined: to end the game, he needs to re-enter it.”
Hwang Dong-hyuk once again serves as director, writer, and producer of Squid Game season 2, with Lee Jung-jae, Lee Byung-hun, Wi Ha-jun, and Gong Yoo reprising their roles from the first season. New cast members include Yim Si-wan, Kang Ha-neul, Park Gyu-young, Lee Jin-uk, Park Sung-hoon, Yang Dong-geun, Kang Ae-sim, Lee David, Choi Seung-hyun, Roh Jae-won, Jo Yu-ri, and Won Ji-an.
Netflix is also moving forward with a second season of Squid Game: The Challenge, a reality series in which 456 players compete for a US$4.56 million cash prize by competing in challenges based on those in the series… although without all the death. There have also been rumblings that David Fincher is developing an English-language Squid Game series, but nothing has been confirmed. Squid Game season 2 will debut on Netflix on December 26th.
Ridley Scott is the king of director’s cuts. Some of his films have been completely transformed with alternate cuts (most notably Kingdom of Heaven), and while speaking with THR earlier this month, Scott said he’s already considering an extended cut of Gladiator II.
Gladiator II clocks in at 2 hours 28 minutes, but Scott said his first cut of the sequel was a whopping 3 hours 40 minutes. “It ended around 3:40. I know that’s unrealistic. I think with the titles it’s about 2:33, so the film itself is about 2:20. I wanted to put the opening titles at the beginning, not at the end. But they ran two-and-a-half minutes — which is a long time to look at a black screen,” Scott said. “So I called up [animator Italian artist Gianluigi Toccafondo] who did my [Scott Free vanity card animation] 20 or 30 years ago and asked, “Are you still alive and want to do this?” I had him animate the elements from Gladiator. So now you’re ‘being entertained’ before [the action starts].”
When asked if an extended cut of Gladiator II could be released at some point, Scott said, “Yeah, later,” but added that he would rather get moving on Gladiator III first. Whether another sequel happens will likely depend on how well Gladiator II performs at the box office. The film is already off to a good start, although Wicked will likely take the number one spot. It doesn’t sound like the Gladiator II extended cut is a big priority for Scott, but I’d certainly be down to see more.
“From legendary director Ridley Scott, Gladiator II continues the epic saga of power, intrigue, and vengeance set in Ancient Rome,” reads the official Gladiator II synopsis. “Years after witnessing the death of the revered hero Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius (Paul Mescal) is forced to enter the Colosseum after his home is conquered by the tyrannical Emperors who now lead Rome with an iron fist. With rage in his heart and the future of the Empire at stake, Lucius must look to his past to find strength and honor to return the glory of Rome to its people.”
Our own Chris Bumbray recently reviewed Gladiator II, and while he admits that it isn’t the instant classic the original was, “it’s nonetheless a highly entertaining, faithful sequel, jam-packed with action and spectacle. There hasn’t been a lavish, action-driven historical drama done on this scale in some time, with Scott, despite his advancing age, as energetic and kinetic a director as ever.” You can check out the rest of Bumbray’s review right here and be sure to let us know what you think of the film as well.
Fly Me to the Moon, the romantic comedy starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, is finally making its streaming debut. Apple Original Films announced today that the film will be available to stream on Apple TV+ on December 6th.
Fly Me to the Moon was originally slated to debut on Apple TV+, but after positive test screenings, it was given a theatrical release in July. Unfortunately, the film grossed just $42.2 million against a budget of $100 million. It also received mixed reviews from critics and audiences. That’s typically a recipe for a studio to immediately dump the film on streaming, so it’s surprising that Apple has waited so long. Perhaps they’re hoping the film will find a bigger audience over the holidays.
The film is “set against the high-stakes backdrop of NASA’s historic moon landing. Brought in to fix NASA’s public image, sparks fly in all directions as marketing wunderkind Kelly Jones wreaks havoc on launch director Cole Davis’s already difficult task. When the President deems the mission too important to fail, Jones is directed to stage a fake moon landing as back-up and the countdown truly begins…“
Our own Tyler Nichols found the film to be a “very light and fun experience” but found that the romantic comedy aspects sometimes clashed with the conspiracy theory elements. “The romance between Kelly and Cole makes this feel very ‘rom-comy’ at times. Their chemistry helps make it charming but it’s hard not to feel like it’s a bit cliche,” Nichols wrote. “Unfortunately, in trying to tell a romance story along with this very conspiracy-laden space mission, the film can feel a bit disjointed. The movie’s first half is essentially about funding the project and making the general public care. Then the second half is about the conspiracy theory regarding filming a fake moon landing. Because of this, it feels like the main plot doesn’t actually start progressing until almost an hour in. There are merits in both halves of the film, but the crux of the story resides in the second half, so I’m not sure why it wasn’t more built around that. At times, it feels like it could have had 30 minutes cut, while also having enough going on that this could have easily been a miniseries.” You can check out the rest of Nichols’ review right here.
There have been a lot of movies and TV shows based on the works of author Stephen King, but there are also still a good number of King stories that have slipped through the cracks and never received an adaptation. For example, the short story The Monkey has been around for over forty years, but it’s only just now getting the big screen treatment, with Neon planning to give a film based on The Monkey a theatrical release on February 21, 2025. With that date just a few months away, we figured this would be a good time for us to put together a list of Everything We Know About The Monkey.
STORY
King’s short story was first published in 1980, in the pages of the adult magazine Gallery, giving subscribers something to read amidst the pictures of nude women. The story was later revised and included in King’s 1985 short story collection Skeleton Crew. In its original form, The Monkey centered on a man named Hal Shelburn, who has been tormented by a cymbal-banging monkey toy since he was a child. He was only 4 years old the first time he saw it, finding it in one of the boxes left behind by his missing father. It was just a souvenir his dad picked up during his days as a merchant mariner… but this monkey toy is possessed or cursed. Every time it bangs it cymbals together, someone around Hal turns up dead, killed by sudden health emergencies or in what appear to be accidents. And Hal can’t seem to get rid of thing. If he tosses it in the trash, it will make its way back to him. If he drops it in a well, it will somehow get out.
The idea of building a horror story around a cymbal-banging monkey toy may seem silly to some… but these toys have been around since at least the 1930s, and they have never not been creepy to look at. It makes sense that they would get King’s imagination working.
The film adaptation of The Monkey has been written and directed by Osgood Perkins, whose previous directing credits include The Blackcoat’s Daughter (a.k.a. February), I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, Gretel & Hansel, and Longlegs. For his take on the story, he seems to have expanded the role of Hal’s brother Bill, who was a minor character in the source material. He has also made them twins, which they were not in the King version. The film has the following synopsis: When twin brothers Hal and Bill discover their father’s old monkey toy in the attic, a series of gruesome deaths starts occurring all around them. The brothers decide to throw the monkey away and move on with their lives, growing apart over the years. But when the mysterious deaths begin again, the brothers must reunite to find a way to destroy the monkey for good before it takes the lives of everyone close to them.
The monkey in the movie does not have cymbals to bang together; he’s a drummer instead.
CAST
Theo James (The White Lotus) plays twin brothers Hal and Bill in later years, while Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth) plays them in their younger days. Also in the cast are Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings), Tatiana Maslany (She–Hulk: Attorney at Law), Colin O’Brien (Wonka), Rohan Campbell (Halloween Ends), and Sarah Levy (Schitt’s Creek).
PRODUCERS
The Monkey is not only a Stephen King adaptation from Osgood Perkins, but it also happens to have been produced by another one of the biggest names in the horror genre these days: James Wan, whose credits include Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring. Wan is producing the film through his company Atomic Monster, alongside Michael Clear. Jason Cloth and Dave Caplan of C2 Motion Picture Group are also producers on the project. Executive producers include Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Fred Berger of Automatik, Peter Luo and Nancy Xu of Stars Collective, John Friedberg of Black Bear, and Chris Ferguson. Atomic Monster and Stars Collective developed the project, and C2 Motion Picture Group provided the financing.
Wan previously said, “Stephen King is the godfather of the horror genre. He had a huge influence on me as a child and throughout my career and it’s always been a dream to help bring one of his stories to life. The Monkey is a personal favorite, with its simple, iconic, and incredibly marketable conceit. And I can’t imagine anyone better than a visionary and lifelong genre fan like Osgood to bring this to life.“
This is Wan’s second King adaptation, as he also produced the Salem’s Lot movie that was written and directed by Gary Dauberman.
Jason Cloth and Dave Caplan provided the following statement: “We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Osgood, James, Brian and our friends at Black Bear International to present Stephen King’s The Monkey. It perfectly checks the box of what is working in the marketplace right now and will be a hot property. We can’t wait for audiences to see Theo James in this role – he is really going to knock it out the park with an amazing performance.“
TONE
So, we’ve acknowledged that the idea of a monkey toy being responsible for horrific events could come off as silly – and that’s something that Perkins was fully aware of when he was making the adaptation. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Perkins was asked to confirm that The Monkey is “the funniest movie he’s ever made.” (Which wouldn’t be a tough hurdle to clear, since his movies up to this point have been far from being comedies.) Perkins confirmed that it is, “By far. It’s deliberately comedic. It’s feeling more like an old John Landis movie or a Joe Dante movie or a Robert Zemeckis movie. I saw an opportunity to make a wry, absurdist comedy about death. It’s about the very basic fact that we all die — and how funny and weird and impossible and surreal is that? And to come at it from a tragicomedy kind of voice felt like it fit. At the end of the day, if you want to reduce it, it’s the haunted toy or evil toy subgenre, and I couldn’t imagine doing a serious one of those. To me, it rang utterly false to approach it that way, so I just went in the other direction. For me, the movie is a smile from top to bottom, and I’m really looking forward to people seeing it.“
We’ve seen some posters for The Monkey, and the fact that the marketing department has gone with the tagline, “Everybody dies. And that’s messed up,” (or a more vulgar variation of that) is a clear indication of the film’s sense of humor.
POSTERS
TRAILERS
Neon released a short teaser trailer for The Monkey back in August:
And that was followed by a more substantial teaser trailer in October:
If you’re familiar with the short story, you can see some traces of it in the teasers, but it’s also clear that Perkins took the concept and ran with it. Most of the imagery doesn’t match up with what King put on the page – but it looks like the film adaptation is going to be a gory, good time, and there might even be some Final Destination-style death scenes in there.
That covers everything we know about The Monkey for now, but with the film’s release date swiftly approaching, we’re sure to learn more about it very soon.
Full transparency, readers, I’m not thinking much about video games this weekend. It is a weekend for movies and music. It’s Wicked weekend and, on top of that, Kendrick Lamar just dropped a whole album. But if, for some reason, you’re looking for something to do other than watch Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo…
Full transparency, readers, I’m not thinking much about video games this weekend. It is a weekend for movies and music. It’s Wicked weekend and, on top of that, Kendrick Lamar just dropped a whole album. But if, for some reason, you’re looking for something to do other than watch Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo…
Earlier this week, Jay Leno was injured after he took a tumble down a 60-foot hill outside a hotel in Pennsylvania. Allegedly the former Tonight Show host was trying to find his way to a restaurant to order some food. However, not everything adds up in this story about an aging comedian falling down a dirt path.
Earlier this week, Jay Leno was injured after he took a tumble down a 60-foot hill outside a hotel in Pennsylvania. Allegedly the former Tonight Show host was trying to find his way to a restaurant to order some food. However, not everything adds up in this story about an aging comedian falling down a dirt path.
Wolfs, the action comedy starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, became the most-viewed movie in Apple TV+ history upon its release. The streaming service was already developing a sequel, but now Wolfs writer/director Jon Watts isn’t so sure it will happen.
While speaking with Collider, Watts said, “I don’t know what I’m directing next, and I don’t think there’s going to be a Wolfs sequel.” Given the success of the film, it’s somewhat surprising that the sequel isn’t moving forward, although audience reception was certainly mixed. The film found Clooney and Pitt reuniting for the first time since Burn After Reading. Clooney plays a professional fixer hired to cover up a high-profile crime. But when a second fixer (Pitt) shows up and the two “lone wolves” are forced to work together, they find their night spiralling out of control in ways that neither one of them expected. The film was originally intended for a wide theatrical release, but that was later changed to a limited release, with most of the attention paid towards its debut on Apple TV+.
Matt Dentler, head of features at Apple Original Films, praised Wolfs after its release. “When George, Brad and Jon approached us with the idea for Wolfs, it was an easy call — a crackling, fun movie starring two Oscar winners who everyone knows are iconic together,” Dentler said. “Now, audiences have chosen in droves to make Wolfs part of their weekend, making the movie a global blockbuster. We always consider Apple TV+ to be the home for the world’s most talented artists to create and deliver their best work, and it’s exciting to see audiences embrace that so overwhelmingly.“
Our own Chris Bumbray enjoyed the film. Although he admits that the premise isn’t exactly original, the film’s success is largely due to the wonderful chemistry between Clooney and Pitt. “Both actors play to their strengths here. They’re famous for playing cool and collected, albeit with human touches and a sardonic sense of humour. This served them well in the Ocean’s Trilogy, and Wolfs is very much in the same vein, albeit with a bit of a harder edge. Like those movies, this is a crime caper, but Watts has an R-rating to play with, meaning lots of F-bombs, and some violence,” Bumbray wrote. “This is the two of them having fun, and with a contained setting, it’s a great hangout flick. Watching the two of them do their thing together has always been a blast, and Wolfs is their best as a combo since the original Ocean’s Eleven.” You can check out the rest of his review right here.
Lego are neat, fun, and incredibly durable. Long after our names have been forgotten and our ancestral bloodlines have been wiped out, their colorful plastic bodies will persist until the heat death of the universe. They also hurt like hell to step on in bare feet.
