Gladiator II aimed to outdo the grandiose action scenes of the first film. But in a movie where combatants fight each other in the Colosseum with tigers and chariots abound, how did Ridley Scott go bigger? More animals. More elaborate environments. In the sequel to Scott’s own 2000 Academy Award-winner, audiences were treated to the gladiators being pitted against ravenous monkeys, charging rhinos and a simulated sea battle, complete with sharks in the water.
These sequences seem incredibly outlandish, but is it accurate? Well, yes and perhaps no. Variety reports that Chris Epplett, who is a Greek and Roman history professor at the University of Lethbridge, spoke with Vulture and stated that while the staged water battles were indeed a form of gladiatorial combat, he hadn’t personally learned if sharks were used. Epplett said that “there was a period when they could have flooded the floor of the arena. There was basically a period of, I think, 10 to 20 years before they put the full basement in, when they could have flooded the floor and had exhibitions with marine animals and that sort of thing.”
Scott, who has never shied away from being snide about his decisions, had joked at the Alien: Romulus premiere about how they would’ve gotten sharks in the Colosseum. He said, “That’s easy. Someone said, ‘How do you get sharks in the Colosseum?’ I said, ‘You can build the Colosseum — how stupid are you?’ I mean, you catch a few sharks and lob them in. They could do that.”
As for Gladiator III – which we should note hasn’t officially been greenlit – Ridley Scott is taking inspiration from Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather saga, particularly as it relates to the central character’s arc. As he told The Hollywood Reporter. “There’s already an idea. I always had this idea that The Godfather ends with Michael not wanting the job. He sits there, and there’s this push-in on Al. He’s already had his hand kissed. He’s betrayed his wife with lies. [Lucius] isn’t quite that evil at all. He’s wondering, ‘Father, what do I do?’ Paul not wanting the job is a good place to start.”
For his part, Paul Mescal – who plays Lucius, son to murdered father Maximus – has said he is “massively down” for a Gladiator III but hopes it won’t be another quarter-century until we get it. And with Ridley Scott at 86 right now, he definitely won’t have time to let his plans for Gladiator III sit.
While we wait for the final box office numbers to come in, Gladiator II is tracking around $60 million, which would be well over what 2000’s Gladiator made on opening weekend. With that, we can probably expect the sequel to fare better at the overall box office as well, despite the original pulling in over $450 million worldwide. With numbers like that, a Gladiator III does seem like a given, especially with how Gladiator II ended. Scott even said that he had to keep Lucius alive and kill off his mother, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), to help develop the character, suggesting it would help propel actions for another film.
Art the Clown. He’s a homicidal maniac. He’s a supernatural being. He’s disgusting. He’s amusing. He’s the latest cinematic madman to be added to the ranks of genre icons. And he’s been around longer than you might realize. He’s been lurking around for a couple of decades. His breakthrough moment came with the 2016 movie Terrifier – and we’re going to examine that film… and the bad clown at the heart of it all… with this episode of What Happened to This Horror Movie?
Writer/director Damien Leone first brought Art the Clown into the world with a short film called The 9th Circle, which was shot in 2006.The story centers on a young woman who’s creeped out by a strange clown in a train station. The clown ends up attacking her, delivering her to a coven of witches that are in direct contact with Satan himself. Leone never intended for Art to be the lead villain of the short. But he found that everyone who watched it thought Art was the best thing about it. So, a few years later, he decided to make a short that was all about the clown. That twenty minute short was called Terrifier. It follows a woman who’s driving down an isolated road when she crosses paths with Art at a gas station. And he proceeds to relentlessly pursue her for the rest of the night. Attacking, torturing, and disfiguring her. All just for his own amusement.
The Terrifier short caught the attention of a producer who wanted to include it in an anthology film. The rest of the anthology would be made up of shorts directed by other filmmakers. But the producer wanted to shoot new footage of Art the Clown to insert into those other shorts. Leone didn’t like that idea, so he pitched his own: he would build an anthology out of The 9th Circle, Terrifier, and a new story that deals with an alien invasion but includes a nod to Art. Titled All Hallows’ Eve, that anthology was released in 2013. And by the time it hit home video, Leone was already planning to make a feature film that would serve as a showcase for Art. This character that seemed to fascinate anyone who watched the short films. He made the monster mash Frankenstein vs. the Mummy first, but then he circled back to his killer clown.
Speaking with Bloody Flicks, Leone confirmed that he drew inspiration from multiple existing characters when he created Art. He said, “Pennywise from Stephen King’s It was the killer clown king even back then. So I knew if I was going to step into that arena, I was going to have to do something drastically different. If you compare Art to Tim Curry’s Pennywise side by side, you’ll notice they are almost polar opposites. Pennywise is colorful, Art is black and white. Pennywise has hair, Art is bald. Pennywise speaks, Art is silent. Pennywise doesn’t use weapons, Art carries around a garbage bag filled with weapons. I also took personality traits from my favorite slashers and attributed them to Art. For instance, Art is essentially the silent stalker à la Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, but with Freddy Krueger’s sense of humor. Art is ultimately my tribute to everything I loved about slasher movies growing up. I wanted to take familiar elements that we all embraced from American horror movies, combined with the graphic violence and atmosphere of Giallo films. Hopefully creating something fresh and exciting.”
The Terrifier feature was an independent production, with producer Phil Falcone providing funding. Some more money was raised through an IndieGogo campaign – but that campaign fell short of its fifteen thousand dollar goal. Only four thousand, three hundred and sixty dollars were contributed. Leone went ahead and made his movie anyway. Working with a budget that was around fifty-five thousand dollars. This is a good example for other indie filmmakers to follow. Make your movie, even if an attempt at crowdfunding falls short. Just because a fundraising campaign didn’t generate much interest doesn’t mean the project isn’t going to be successful.
And just because the Terrifier feature was going to be an hour longer than the short didn’t mean the plot had to get overly complicated. Leone crafted a very simple story for the film. It starts with two young women, Tara and Dawn, heading home from a party on Halloween night. They decide to stop by a pizza place so they can sober up a bit. And in walks Art the Clown. Once Tara and Dawn have caught his attention, he dedicates himself to ruining their night. He stalks, tortures, and kills them – and pretty much everyone else he happens across. There is no intricate back story given for Art, no motivations. There’s nothing going on here but sadistic mayhem. Extended stalk and slash sequences, with Art doing things that are weird, gross, and disturbing. Leone’s approach was to make the movie feel like a fever dream, with a relentless sense of dread. And he succeeded.
Jenna Kanell was cast as Tara, with Catherine Corcoran as Dawn. Samantha Scaffidi plays Tara’s sister Victoria, who gets pulled into the horrific events. Some of the other victims include characters played by Pooya Mohseni, Matt McAllister, Michael Leavy, Gino Cafarelli, and Erick Zamora. Katie Maguire, who played a babysitter in the All Hallows’ Eve wraparound story, also shows up. Playing a different character, but one who still has some very bad luck.
The project hit a bit of a speed bump when Mike Giannelli, who had played Art in the short films, decided not to return. He was replaced by David Howard Thornton, a stage actor with a background in mime and physical comedy. That experience was greatly beneficial to his performance, as Thornton was able to make the silent killer even more unnerving. Leone told Clout Communications, “Everything people loved about Art was a testament to how Mike Giannelli portrayed him and now I had to start from scratch. Very frightening indeed. But as luck would have it, David came in for an audition one day and my producer and I immediately knew this was our guy. David pantomimed the act of stabbing someone to death and sawing their head off with great exuberance and glee. He’s also extremely animated, tall and thin. I always envisioned Art to be of a more slender build and I was excited to see what little quirks and nuances David could bring to the character. Working with David was a total delight from start to finish.”
Terrifier was made specifically to let viewers watch Art do his thing for a longer period of time. We might connect with other characters and hope they’ll be able to get away from this insane clown. Because nobody here deserves what Art does to them. But it wouldn’t serve the viewer well to get too attached to any of them… because chances are high that Art is going to make a bloody mess of them. The film serves not only as a showcase for Art the Clown, but also for gory special effects. Which were provided by Leone himself. He had been interested in special effects since he was a kid, especially the work of Tom Savini. That’s what got him into filmmaking. And he proved to be quite capable of making nauseating death scenes. Turning Terrifier into a gore-drenched throwback to the ‘80s glory days when Savini was splashing blood across the screen on a regular basis.
The Terrifier short had a scratched up, Grindhouse-style look to it. But Leone and cinematographer George Steuber decided to ditch that aesthetic for the feature. Figuring viewers would get tired of the fake scratches very quickly. Steuber was able to give the movie an old school look without beating up the image. The story is clearly set in modern day. The characters use cell phones and laptops. They take selfies. But the movie still feels like a remnant from a time gone by.
The finished film made its festival debut in 2016. And ended up securing a distribution deal through Dread Central Presents and Epic Pictures. Genre fans began taking note of it right away. Then it reached a wider audience through streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video, and Tubi. Minds were blown. Stomachs were turned. And Art the Clown began gathering a large fan base. Leone always felt that Terrifier had the potential to lead into at least two sequels… and in 2019, he started working on Terrifier 2. Which had a higher budget than its predecessor; a little over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That film was released in 2022, and performed better than expected during its theatrical run. Opening the door to a Terrifier 3… which had a budget of a couple million dollars. And did so well at the box office, it humiliated the under-performing Joker sequel.
While we’re speaking of sequels, we should mention that All Hallows’ Eve spawned a franchise as well. Although the adventures of Art continue elsewhere, the All Hallows’ Eve sequels are a collection of short films from multiple different filmmakers. Just like the producer’s original vision for the first movie, before it ended up being made entirely by Leone. That movie led to Leone making the Terrifier feature. And as the series goes on, maybe we’ll see one of the sequels launch a filmmaker to a similar level of success. Either way, we have two separate franchises to enjoy.
So what happened with Terrifier is that Damien Leone came up with a character who appealed to viewers to a surprising degree. Even the filmmaker himself was surprised by how interested people were in Art the Clown. But he went with it, endeavoring to give the people what they wanted. They asked for more, so he gave them more. And even though he made it disgusting, people loved it. There have been ups and downs along the way, but the Terrifier franchise is a great success story. And an example of how to build on success.
This is shaping up to be a substantial franchise. Art the Clown is still out there. He’s more popular than ever, with fans who just can’t seem to be enough of him. There will be more Terrifier movies. Leone has said that he wants to wrap up the story before Art wears out his welcome. Aiming to end things with Terrifier 4 or 5… But he also knows that you can’t keep a good slasher down. Especially when they have a supernatural element to them. They have tried to end all of the major slasher franchises. But the iconic killers just keep finding new ways to come back. And the same thing could wind up happening with Art. We might be seeing this guy carve up new victims for a long time to come. So keep your stomachs strong, because there’s always more blood and guts to be spilled.
A couple of the previous episodes of What Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
Sony’s Marvel Comics adaptation Kraven the Hunter is set to reach theatres on December 13th. This movie is, along with Morbius, Madame Web, and the Venom trilogy, part of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (which was formerly known as the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters), which consists of Marvel adaptations that doesn’t have the creative team of Marvel Studios behind them, so therefore they’re not part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sony is able to make these films because they own the movie rights to all characters that were originally introduced in the pages of Spider-Man comics. The financial success of the Venom movies aside, these movies haven’t tended to go over well with movie-goers – and the film’s director, J. C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year) recently asked that people give Kraven the Hunter the chance to wash away the bad taste left by Morbius and Madame Web. Now, Sony’s marketing department has taken the step of dropping the film’s opening 8 minutes online in an effort to convince audiences that this movie will be worth going to see. You can watch those 8 minutes in the embed above.
The film is believed to have a running time of 127 minutes, so Sony is still keeping 119 of those minutes under wraps.
Directed by Chandor from a screenplay by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, Kraven the Hunter is the action-packed, R-rated, standalone story of how one of Marvel’s most iconic villains came to be. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Kraven, a man whose complex relationship with his ruthless gangster father, Nikolai Kravinoff (Russell Crowe), starts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences, motivating him to become not only the greatest hunter in the world, but also one of its most feared.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as the title character and is joined in the cast by Ariana DeBose as voodoo priestess Calypso Ezili, Fred Hechinger as Kraven’s estranged brother and master of disguise Dmitri Smerdyakov / Chameleon, Alessandro Nivola as Russian mercenary and human-rhino hybrid Aleksei Sytsevich / Rhino, Christopher Abbott as a mercenary and assassin known as the Foreigner, and Russell Crowe as Kraven’s estranged father, the ruthless crime lord Nikolai Kravinoff.
Taylor-Johnson, who is rumored to be in the running to play James Bond, recently recommended the film to fans of the Bond franchise as well.
Are you looking forward to Kraven the Hunter, despite the bad reputation of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe? What did you think of the opening 8 minutes? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
Amid the news that James Van Der Beek has been diagnosed with colorectal cancer, the actor is stepping up – and suiting up – to do his part to help families in need. As his Varsity Blues character once said, “We go out there and we give it absolutely everything: that’s heroic.”
In an Instagram post ahead of the holidays, James Van Der Beek wrote, “Merch drop! Excited to celebrate the 25th anniversary of #VarsityBlues with a limited edition #4 Moxon jersey—each one personally autographed by me. Grab yours now at the link in my bio or head over to JVDB.Shop. 100% of my net proceeds will go to families recovering from the financial burden of cancer (including my own)”.
On the website – which states that “100% of proceeds will go to families recovering from the financial burden of cancer” – you can purchase an autographed #4 Jonathan Moxon jersey for $80. But if you’re still looking for the jersey, you can grab one with Van Der Beek’s signature for half the price. Either way, it’s a pretty cool item to have, especially if it’s going towards a cause such as that.
Linking the cause to the 25th anniversary of Van Der Beek’s signature movie, Varsity Blues, is a nice touch, helping bring in that nostalgia that might get the right customer to snag one of the Moxon jerseys.
(Quarter)backed by James Van Der Beek not long into breakout series Dawson’s Creek and featuring a supporting cast of Amy Smart, Paul Walker, Scott Caan, and Ali Larter, Varsity Blues was exactly the sort of movie that appealed widely to the MTV crowd, holding the #1 spot at the box office for two weeks and going on to nab statues at the MTV Movie Awards and the Teen Choice Awards.
Sadly, two key cast members – Walker and Ron Lester, who played Billy Bob – have since passed away. As for his own diagnosis, Walker has said that he has reason to be optimistic.
Share your favorite James Van Der Beek performance with us and send some positive vibes to the man in the comments section below. Go Coyotes!
While a custom-made popcorn bucket designed to emulate a certain movie isn’t a new development, the trend has certainly spiked this year after the viral sensation of the Dune: Part 2 sandworm bucket that garnered many jokes online. One movie that definitely capitalized off Dune‘s suggestive imagery was Deadpool & Wolverine, as they made a bucket where the entry was the oversized mouth of Wolverine. This year also saw custom popcorn buckets for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Alien: Romulus, Gladiator II, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and even a special Batman one to commemorate the character’s 85th anniversary. Time has revealed that not only will there be a special edition popcorn bucket for next year’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, but Tom Cruise himself had helped to design it. According to Rob Bennett, the director of food and beverage product strategy at AMC, Cruise would be instrumental in guiding the design of the bucket and while it hasn’t yet been revealed, he would gleefully tease, “We nailed it.”
Cruise is known for being both passionate about the theater-going experience and going the extra mile in participating in the making of his movies. He’s famous for partaking in the death-defying stunts himself and would recently share behind-the-scenes footage of an underwater sequence. His caption would read, “The training and preparation we put into this film is a culmination of all before it. From the depths, to the skies, I can’t wait to share more with you.”
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning tells the second half of the story that began in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, with Ethan Hunt out to destroy an AI system called The Entity, which is housed in a sunken Russian stealth submarine.
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, and Dead Reckoning writer/director Christopher McQuarrie remains at the helm, working from a screenplay he crafted with Erik Jendresen.
Cruise is being joined in the cast by Hayley Atwell, reprising her Dead Reckoning role of thief-turned-IMF-recruit Grace; Vanessa Kirby as arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis, a.k.a. the White Widow, a character who was previously seen in both Fallout and Dead Reckoning; Ving Rhames as IMF agent Luther Stickell, who has been part of this franchise since the first Mission: Impossible movie in 1996; Simon Pegg as IMF agent Benji Dunn, who joined the party back in Mission: Impossible III; Henry Czerny as CIA director Eugene Kittridge, who was introduced in Mission: Impossible (1996) and finally made his long-awaited return in Dead Reckoning; Rolf Saxon as William Donloe, a CIA analyst who got in trouble after Ethan Hunt accessed his computer way back in the first Mission: Impossible; and more Dead Reckoning reprisals: Esai Morales as the Entity-serving terrorist Gabriel; Pom Klementieff as Gabriel’s former ally Paris; Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis as US Intelligence agents Briggs and Degas; Mariela Garriga as Marie, a mysterious woman from Ethan and Gabriel’s past; Mark Gatiss and Charles Parnell as the heads of the NSA and NRO;. There are also a handful of new additions to the franchise: Holt McCallany as Secretary of Defense Bernstein; Nick Offerman as Sydney, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Katy O’Brian, Stephen Oyoung, Tramell Tillman, Janet McTeer, Hannah Waddingham, and Lucy Tulugarjuk in unspecified roles.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is set to reach theaters on May 23, 2025.
Poor old Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League hasn’t had a good year. Launched to be Warner’s big live-service hope for 2024, it instead belly-flopped to very low player counts and deeply middling reviews. This all followed a very difficult development, and things haven’t improved much since launch. So, wanna buy…
Poor old Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League hasn’t had a good year. Launched to be Warner’s big live-service hope for 2024, it instead belly-flopped to very low player counts and deeply middling reviews. This all followed a very difficult development, and things haven’t improved much since launch. So, wanna buy…
With just one movie, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp felt destined to work together, bringing a unique presence of gothic oddity to the screen. But it obviously wouldn’t just be Edward Scissorhands that they collaborated on. No, they would have a total of eight big screen pairings. But the most recent was 2012’s Dark Shadows, with Burton having done five movies without Depp since. So what gives? Will we ever see another Tim Burton / Johnny Depp movie?
Tim Burton is confident that there will be a place for Johnny Depp in a future film of his, telling IndieWire, “Well, I’m sure there will be [another collaboration].” But Burton was careful to note that his reason for not working with an actor is never personal. “I never feel like, oh, I’m going to use this and that actor. It usually has to be based on the project I’m working on. That’s what film is all about. It’s collaboration and bouncing ideas off the people around you.”
Even with Johnny Depp and Tim Burton taking a dozen-year break from one another, Depp is still ahead of anyone else in the collaboration department (ex-wife Helena Bonham Carter trails by one but we’d have to imagine their collabs are over). That Burton remains optimistic about at least one more film does give us plenty of hope for a ninth. But we also can’t be too sour that there has been such a long gap. Really, where would he have fit in in Big Eyes or Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children or Dumbo? And we know that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice would have been as unnatural as any.
Johnny Depp has been on a bit of a hiatus with Hollywood and has shown a lot of disdain for the studio system, so that alone makes us wonder if he’ll ever return to Tinseltown. But maybe if the tinsel is hung by his good pal he’d be willing to give it another go?
Do you want to see Tim Burton and Johnny Depp work together again? What sort of project would be a fitting reunion? Give us your thoughts – along with your favorite Burton / Depp movie – below.
With just one movie, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp felt destined to work together, bringing a unique presence of gothic oddity to the screen. But it obviously wouldn’t just be Edward Scissorhands that they collaborated on. No, they would have a total of eight big screen pairings. But the most recent was 2012’s Dark Shadows, with Burton having done five movies without Depp since. So what gives? Will we ever see another Tim Burton / Johnny Depp movie?
Tim Burton is confident that there will be a place for Johnny Depp in a future film of his, telling IndieWire, “Well, I’m sure there will be [another collaboration].” But Burton was careful to note that his reason for not working with an actor is never personal. “I never feel like, oh, I’m going to use this and that actor. It usually has to be based on the project I’m working on. That’s what film is all about. It’s collaboration and bouncing ideas off the people around you.”
Even with Johnny Depp and Tim Burton taking a dozen-year break from one another, Depp is still ahead of anyone else in the collaboration department (ex-wife Helena Bonham Carter trails by one but we’d have to imagine their collabs are over). That Burton remains optimistic about at least one more film does give us plenty of hope for a ninth. But we also can’t be too sour that there has been such a long gap. Really, where would he have fit in in Big Eyes or Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children or Dumbo? And we know that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice would have been as unnatural as any.
Johnny Depp has been on a bit of a hiatus with Hollywood and has shown a lot of disdain for the studio system, so that alone makes us wonder if he’ll ever return to Tinseltown. But maybe if the tinsel is hung by his good pal he’d be willing to give it another go?
Do you want to see Tim Burton and Johnny Depp work together again? What sort of project would be a fitting reunion? Give us your thoughts – along with your favorite Burton / Depp movie – below.
Wax On, Wax Off. For those of us who lived through the 1980s, The Karate Kid has been in our lives in one way or another. Even if you have never seen any of the films, you know what Wax On, Wax Off means. In 2018, we got to take a trip back to the All Valley Karate Tournament to see what Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence were up to. The series Cobra Kai became a big hit on Netflix (after moving from YouTube Red), but with that series winding down, are we saying goodbye to our beloved characters? Not quite yet.
World’s Collide
Before Cobra Kai became a hit, they tried once again to get some juice out of the Karate Kid IP. Only this time without any previous characters. In 2010, a “remake” of The Karate Kid was made. They transported the action to China with a young Jaden Smith learning Kung Fu from a wise Jackie Chan. The movie was a hit, but a sequel never materialized.
When Cobra Kai hit, fans began to wonder when some of the characters from the movies would start appearing. Outside of Johnny and Daniel, not many showed up in the first two seasons. Then the gates opened up, and we’ve seen the likes of Elizabeth Shue, Martin Kove, Thomas Ian Griffith, Yuji Okumoto, and Sean Kanan reprise their characters from the movie series. We’re still holding out hope for an appearance by Hillary Swank in the final season.
With the new film Karate Kid: Legends, Ralph Macchio is reprising his role as Daniel LaRusso, but this time, he’ll be teaming up with Jackie Chan’s character Mr. Han. This creates a bridge and retcons what the 2010 film actually was. It’s no longer a remake but another story in the same universe.
What’s It About?
It seems like it might be more of the same as we saw in the original Karate Kid movies. A young kid is getting bullied and turns to martial arts and a wise instructor to help them through their problems. That was basically the plot of the original four movies and the 2010 reboot. This time, it looks like Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Han will be playing the wisened martial arts instructors. It looks like it will be set three years after the end of Cobra Kai. The premiere date for the film was even pushed back to accommodate the show’s series finale.
Different story synopsis doesn’t seem to know if the story is set in the United States or China. The official description on IMDB says it takes place in Beijing, while others, such as Wikipedia, claim that the titular “Karate Kid” will be a young kid on the East Coast. Either way, it looks like school will be back in session once again. What does a new Karate Kid movie look like in 2024, where bullying is looked at a whole lot differently than in the 80s, and a young kid hanging out with an old man might raise a few eyebrows?
Who’s In It?
Are we going to see some of our favorite characters from the previous movies and the Cobra Kai series? Sadly, it doesn’t look like it. As previously stated, Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan will be back, but the rest of the cast seems to be filled with new characters.
Ben Wang
Just like with the original film, producers searched worldwide to find the perfect fit for the title character. Ben Wang was chosen and will be playing Li Fong. He’ll be seeking the help of both Mr. Han and Daniel LaRusso. It seems he’ll be torn between his new mentors and which approach works best for him. Does he concentrate on Kung Fu with Mr. Han or immerse himself in Miyagi-Do?
Joshua Jackson
He is only listed as Victor on the IMDB page, and there is no indication of where that makes him fall. The great thing about Joshua Jackson is that over the past decade, he has proven that, with his acting chops, he can fall on either side of the fence. We all remember him as the lovable screw-up Pacey from Dawson’s Creek. Well, lately, he has been taking on darker roles, such as Dr. Duntsch on Doctor Death. It should be great either way.
Ming-Na Wen
A veteran actor, Wen is always great no matter what she is cast in. Old-school martial arts fans will remember her as Chun-Li from the disastrous 1994 Street Fighter film, but Disney fans will know her as the voice of Mulan. We’ve seen her tackle some fun action roles in the recent past on shows like Agents Of Shield and The Book Of Boba Fett. Maybe she’ll be able to play a more motherly role as Li Fong’s mother. However, most mothers can be scarier than just about anything when they find out their child is being bullied.
When Can We See It?
It was originally scheduled to be released on June 7th, 2024. However, the 2023 strikes pushed it back. They decided it might make a good release for the holiday season 2024 when the box office is quiet. When Netflix decided to split up the final season of Cobra Kai into three different parts, they realized it might confuse the audience as the final collection of episodes hadn’t come out yet. Finally, it has been decided that on May 30th, 2025, it will finally be time to drop it into audiences. We’ll have to see if that is a smart move, as the summer season is always crowded around Memorial Day.
Are you excited about catching Karate Kid: Legends? Let us know in the comments below.
