Scream (2022) and Scream VI star Melissa Barrera was fired from Scream 7 when comments she made about the Israel-Hamas war didn’t go over well with executives at Spyglass Media, but that doesn’t appear to be slowing her career. She recently starred in the horror rom-com musical Your Monster, which was given a PVOD release earlier this week. She’ll be starring with Simu Liu of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in an untitled espionage techno-thriller series for the Peacock streaming service and producer James Wan. And Deadline reports that she’ll be starring in a Western thriller called In the Cradle of Granite.

The English-language debut of Costa Rican director Ariel Escalante (Domingo and the Mist), In the Cradle of Granite is based on an original screenplay by Jay Holmes and set in the brutal American west of the late 1800s. The film will see Barrera taking on the role of a young mother who struggles to provide for her family after her husband dies and the local town folk won’t do business with her. But when she finds the body of a notorious wanted outlaw on her homestead, she strikes a deal with the bounty hunter who killed him — setting out across the dangerous frontier in hopes of a big reward and a better future.

Joel David Moore, Rishi Bajaj and Daniel Taborga of Balcony 9 Productions, Jonathan Sadowski and Daniel Pancotto of Ad Lunam Ent, and Gregory Thomas are producing the film, with Chase Hinton, Lynette Gurule-Thomas, and Michael Thomas serving as executive producers.

Barrera told Deadline, “Ariel is a beautifully poetic filmmaker and I am honored to join him in his English language debut. We are both very intentional in the narratives we choose to tell and seek to entertain while giving life to characters and situations that serve as a mirror for society. Jay Holmes’ script is thrilling and hypnotizing and I can’t wait to bring it to the big screen along with the teams at Ad Lunam and Balcony 9.“

Escalante added, “I find Jay Holmes’ script to be the perfect opportunity to bring my directorial vision to the United States. And working alongside such a strong and amazing actress like Melissa Barrera only fuels my desire to turn this into both an exciting contemporary take on the western genre and a bold reflection on colonial violence.“

Does In the Cradle of Granite sound interesting to you? Share your thoughts on this Melissa Barrera Western thriller by leaving a comment below.

The post In the Cradle of Granite: Scream’s Melissa Barrera to star in Western thriller appeared first on JoBlo.

A new job listing from Blizzard seems to indicate that the studio behind Warcraft and Overwatch might be working on an open-world shooter and based on past reports, it might be a Starcraft FPS led by a veteran Far Cry developer.

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A new job listing from Blizzard seems to indicate that the studio behind Warcraft and Overwatch might be working on an open-world shooter and based on past reports, it might be a Starcraft FPS led by a veteran Far Cry developer.

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Massive creatures with scales have become the focus of Empire‘s 2025 Preview as the entertainment magazine debuts new looks at Jurassic World Rebirth and Dean DeBlois’ live-action adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon. DeBlois, who directed all three of Dreamworks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon films, is partnering with co-director Chris Sanders for the anticipated project. Bringing Hiccup and Toothless’ tale to live-action gives DeBlois a chance to share the fantasy epic with audiences with a new dimension, emotionality, and action. “It’s so dialled-up in terms of stakes — having a fully credible, photo-real dragon stomping around trying to kill him,” DeBlois told Empire regarding the film’s central dragon, Toothless, interacting with Hiccup, played by Mason Thames (The Black Phone).

In How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup discovers dragons aren’t as terrifying as the stories would have him believe. Hiccup is an outsider, so people will likely brush his opinions aside. Still, when he proves to them that dragons are misunderstood and potentially friendly, he ushers in a new era where Vikings and dragons work together to build a shared society. “There was a bit of awkwardness, but also a vulnerability to him which [came] with the fact that he was 15 when we were auditioning him,” says DeBlois about Thames landing the role.

In the new photo for How to Train Your Dragon, we find Thames’s Hiccup in an arena and battle-ready. As the eager crowd looks down from above, Hiccup braces himself for a questionable outcome to the confrontation.

In contrast, Empire debuted a new image of Scarlett Johansson in Gareth Edwards’s Jurassic World Rebirth, a dinosaur action-adventure film set five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion. In Jurassic World Rebirth, an expedition into isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three prehistoric creatures goes awry. Are you remotely surprised? This sort of nonsense happens every time. When will humans learn and leave the dinosaurs alone? Probably never.

Scarlett Johansson’s Zora Bennett carries a massive gun through thick foliage in the new Jurassic World Rebirth photo. The weapon appears to have a giant needle at its tip, seemingly to extract the DNA. I don’t know about you, but you wouldn’t catch my slow-moving ass trying to poke a dinosaur with a giant syringe. Miracle cure or not, humanity can fend for itself.

What do you think about today’s new looks at How to Train Your Dragon and Jurassic World Rebirth? Would you stab a dinosaur’s scaly exterior with that needle gun? Let us know in the comments section below, and be honest.

The post New looks at Scarlett Johansson in Jurassic World Rebirth and Mason Thames as Hiccup for How to Train Your Dragon finally arrive appeared first on JoBlo.

Best known for playing the character Chris Alonso on 106 episodes of the CBS TV series S.W.A.T., Lina Esco has now become the latest actor to sign on for a role in RIP, a crime thriller that’s written and directed by Joe Carnahan and is set up at the Netflix streaming service. According to Variety, Esco will be taking on the role of Captain Jackie Velez.

RIP will follow a group of Miami cops whose trust begins to fray after they discover millions in cash in a derelict stash house. As outside forces learn about the size of the seizure, everything is called into question — including who they can rely on.

Esco joins a cast that includes Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, as well as Kyle Chandler of Super 8, Sasha Calle, who played Supergirl in The Flash, singer/songwriter Teyana Taylor, who starred in the drama A Thousand and One, Catalina Sandino Moreno of the MGM+ series From, actor star Scott Adkins (John Wick: Chapter 4), and Néstor Carbonell, who was recently seen on the FX / Hulu series Shōgun. Details on the specific characters being played by Damon, Affleck, Calle, and Taylor have not been revealed, but The Hollywood Reporter was able to learn that Moreno and Carbonell are playing members of the police force, while Chandler will be playing a DEA agent. Deadline reported that Adkins’ character and Affleck’s character are brothers.

Damon and Affleck are producing the film alongside Luciana Damon and Dani Bernfeld for Artists Equity. Michael Joe and Kevin Halloran of Artists Equity serve as executive producers. Filming is expected to begin later this month and will take place in Miami and Los Angeles.

Joe Carnahan has previously directed Blood, Guts, Bullets & Octane; Narc, Smokin’ Aces, The A-Team, The Grey, Stretch, Boss Level, and Copshop. He also worked on the screenplays for Pride and Glory, the Death Wish remake, El Chicano, and Bad Boys for Life. He was also attached to direct the Death Wish remake and Bad Boys for Life during the development of those films, but dropped out over creative differences – which is something he also did when he was attached to direct Mission: Impossible 3.

The other movies that have both Damon and Affleck in the cast are School Ties, Glory Daze, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, The Last Duel (which they wrote with Nicole Holofcener), Air, and Good Will Hunting (which they won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for writing). They were also extras on the set of Field of Dreams.

Are you interested in RIP? What do you think of Lina Esco joining the cast? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post Lina Esco from S.W.A.T. joins Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in Joe Carnahan’s RIP appeared first on JoBlo.

It’s a common refrain that Call of Duty simply needs to cut out the middleman and just turn into a full fledged multiplayer-only game, but there are some absolute sickos out there who just keep egging Activision on to keep giving us 3 or 4 hours of absolute military-industrial nonsense, and god bless ‘em that they…

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It’s a common refrain that Call of Duty simply needs to cut out the middleman and just turn into a full fledged multiplayer-only game, but there are some absolute sickos out there who just keep egging Activision on to keep giving us 3 or 4 hours of absolute military-industrial nonsense, and god bless ‘em that they…

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Fresh off of playing the character Francis Cobb on the hit HBO series The Penguin, Deirdre O’Connell has signed on to join Claire Danes (Homeland), Matthew Rhys (Perry Mason), Brittany Snow (Pitch Perfect), Natalie Morales (No Hard Feelings), David Lyons (Truth Be Told), and Tim Guinee (Horizon: An American Saga) in the cast of the the mystery thriller limited series The Beast in Me for Netflix – and Variety reports that O’Connell is just one of nine new additions to the cast! The other eight new additions are Jonathan Banks (Breaking Bad), Hettienne Park (The Last of Us), Aleyse Shannon (Leverage: Redemption), Will Brill (The OA), Kate Burton (Grey’s Anatomy), Bill Irwin (The Dropout), Amir Arison (The Blacklist), and Julie Ann Emery (Better Call Saul).

Created, written, and executive produced by Gabe Rotter, who previously worked on The X-Files, The Beast in Me has the following synopsis: Since the tragic death of her young son, acclaimed author Aggie Wiggs (Danes) has receded from public life, unable to write, a ghost of her former self. But she finds an unlikely subject for a new book when the house next door is bought by Nile Jarvis (Rhys), a famed and formidable real estate mogul who was once the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance. At once horrified and fascinated by this man, Aggie finds herself compulsively hunting for the truth – chasing his demons while fleeing her own – in a game of cat and mouse that might turn deadly.

Snow will be playing Nina, Nile’s spouse; Morales is Shelley, Aggie’s ex-wife; Lyons’ character is FBI agent Brian Abbot; and Guinee will play Wrecking Ball, an intimidating presence in Nile’s life. It’s not surprising to hear that the guy is intimidating, given that he’s called Wrecking Ball. As for the new additions, Park will be playing Agent Erika Breton, an FBI agent who works with Abbott (Lyons); Banks’ character is Martin Jarvis, Nile’s (Rhys) father; Shannon will play Olivia Benitez, a city council member who opposes Nile’s business plans; Brill is Chris Ingram, Nile’s missing wife’s brother; Burton is Mariah Ingram, Nile’s missing wife’s mother; Irwin is James Ingram, Nile’s missing wife’s father; Emery is Lila Jarvis, Martin Jarvis’ wife; Arison plays Frank Breton, FBI Agent Erika Breton’s ex-husband; and O’Connell is taking on the role of Carol McGiddish, Aggies’ (Danes) literary agent and trusted friend.

Rotter and Danes serve as executive producers on the show alongside Conaco’s Conan O’Brien, Jeff Ross, and David Kissinger, director Antonio Campos, writer Daniel Pearle (American Crime Story), Jodie Foster and Caroline Baron, and showrunner Howard Gordon, whose previous credits include Homeland, 24, and The X-Files. Gordon is executive producing through his company Teakwood Lane Productions. 20th Television is the studio behind the project.

Does The Beast in Me sound interesting to you? What do you think of the cast that has been assembled for this show? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post The Beast in Me thriller series adds Deirdre O’Connell from The Penguin and 8 others appeared first on JoBlo.

According to Predator: Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg, the upcoming installment in the sci-fi franchise is going to shake things up and make the alien hunter himself the protagonist.

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According to Predator: Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg, the upcoming installment in the sci-fi franchise is going to shake things up and make the alien hunter himself the protagonist.

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