Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail and Julia Roberts have worked together multiple times already. She starred in the series Homecoming, which he co-created; he was an executive producer on the limited series Gaslit, which she starred in; and she starred in his thriller Leave the World Behind, which was a big hit for the Netflix streaming service, landing on their list of Top 10 Most Popular Movies. As of right now, Leave the World Behind stands as Netflix’s fifth most popular English-language film of all time, with 143.4 million views. Last week, we learned that Esmail and Roberts are going to continue their working relationship with another thriller, this one called Panic Carefully… and in the last couple of weeks, Esmail has been building a supporting cast around Roberts. Elizabeth Olsen (WandaVision) and Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) are in there, and now Deadline has revealed that Brian Tyree Henry of Godzilla vs. Kong, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Atlanta, Eternals, and Bullet Train is in final negotiations to join the cast.

Esmail will be directing Panic Carefully from his own screenplay. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but the project is being described as “a paranoid thriller in the vein of Esmail’s Emmy and Golden Globe winner Mr. Robot, as well as The Silence of the Lambs.“ According to The Hollywood Reporter, the story involves the hunt for a cyber terrorist.

The project went out to assorted studios and streamers earlier this year, kicking off an intense bidding war. Warner Bros. came out the winner of that bidding war, and Deadline notes that their victory was “in part due to their commitment to a theatrical run.” So, while Esmail and Roberts had great success taking Leave the World Behind to streaming, they want this one to get more play on the big screen. (Leave the World Behind got a limited theatrical release about two weeks before it started streaming.)

Esmail and Chad Hamilton are producing Panic Carefully for Email Corp. Roberts is also producing the film, as are Scott Stuber, Marisa Yeres Gill, and Lisa Gillan. Kevin McCormick and Chrystal Li are overseeing the project for Warner Bros. Filming will take place in England and cameras are expected to start rolling in January.

What do you think of Brian Tyree Henry joining Julia Roberts, Elizabeth Olsen, and Eddie Redmayne in the Sam Esmail thriller Panic Carefully? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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Deadline has just revealed that Gus Van Sant’s upcoming project, Dead Man’s Wire, has secured Bill Skarsgård and Dacre Montgomery for his leads. The movie is a hostage thriller that is based on a true story. “The film follows a former real estate developer who takes the mortgage banker who did him wrong hostage, demanding $5 million and a personal apology.” The script was written by scribe Austin Kolodney.

The producers on Dead Man’s Wire include Cassian Elwes (Bride Hard, Mudbound), Joel David Moore (Bride Hard, The Immaculate Room), Tom Culliver, Sam Pressman, Mark Amin, Remi and Noor Alfallah, Andrea Bucko, Matt Murphie, and Paula Paizes. Exec producers are Jon Gosier, Emily Salveson, Rishi Bajaj, Cami Winikoff, Michael Merlob, Divya Shahani, Jordan Claire Robbins, Robert MacLean, Svetlana Dali, Konstantin Elkin, Vlad Lapidus, Oliver Trevena, Lee Broda, Jeff Rice, John Pitts, Alan Helene, Nini Le Huynh, and Veronica Radaelli. WME Independent is in charge of handling the worldwide rights.

The producer, Elwes, shared his enthusiasm for the project, “It’s an absolute thrill to reunite with one of the greatest directors in the world and I can’t wait to work with the fantastic actors he’s assembling for this film.” Zach Glueck of WME Independent also stated his excitement, “We’re really proud to be out in the market with an absolute giant of cinema working in such a commercial genre space.”

You’ll be able to catch Skarsgård soon as he becomes another reimagining of a notorious horror figure next to his stint as Pennywise. He plays Count Orlok for Robert Eggers’ Christmas release, Nosferatu. The look of the character is shrouded in mystery, but Skarsgård has said that getting in the make-up and costume was like “conjuring pure evil. It took a while for me to shake off the demon that had been conjured inside of me. … I do not think people are gonna recognize me in it.“

Eggers teased, “This Orlok is more of a folk vampire than any other film version. That means he’s a dead person. And he’s not like, ‘I look great and I’m dead.’ Folk vampires in some ways are more visually similar to zombies. The reason why he looks the way he looks and he dresses the way he’s dressed is because for the first time in a Dracula or Nosferatu story, this guy looks like a dead Transylvanian nobleman . Every single thing he’s wearing down to the heels on his shoes is what he would’ve worn. That’s never been done.” He also said, “Only when audiences arrive in theaters on premiere day this Christmas will the general public see the results of the full hair, make-up, and prosthetics.“

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Kraven the Hunter is finally upon us after multiple delays. The bar for Sony’s Spider-Villain universe movies is pretty low, as the most successful movies in this universe are the Venom films, which are still not the most well-received. However, Kraven has an uphill battle being in the company of online punching bags — Morbius and Madame Web. Those films were unanimously panned and even the director, J.C. Chandor, wants to wash away the bad taste of those movies, “People have got to give us a chance and come out and support this film, and literally try to wash away some of the other stuff that’s happened. Give our film a chance.“

So, now that Kraven the Hunter is out, what did you think of it? Our own Chris Bumbray had higher hopes for this one but came away disappointed when he said in his review, “Kraven the Hunter’s failure is a shame, as Aaron Taylor-Johnson is well-cast, and had he been left to his own devices, I think Chandor would have delivered a good movie (heck – maybe there’s a fantastic director’s cut sitting on a hard drive somewhere). This feels like one of the bad superhero movies Fox regularly churned out in the 2000s. It’s marginally better than Madame Web or Morbius, but it’s still far from being a legitimately good film – although there was potential.”

The shared universe of Spider-Man villains will seemingly end with Kraven. As The Wrap reports, For Sony, the future appears to lie in projects more directly connected to Spider-Man himself. A source informed that them Sony has “developed what they want to develop for now. It’s really about the next Spider-Man film.” According to a second Sony insider, the studio is now focusing its efforts on [Tom] Holland’s highly anticipated fourth Spider-Man film, the next installment in the acclaimed Spider-Verse animated film series with Beyond the Spider-Verse, and a Spider-Noir television series featuring Nicolas Cage — projects that lean into, rather than away from, the web-slinger’s central appeal.”

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.

So, did you see Kraven the Hunter? And if so, what did you think of it? Sound off below!

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For eight seasons and 96 episodes, from 2006 to 2013, the series Dexter ran on Showtime, telling the story of Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who is also a vigilante serial killer. Clyde Phillips was showrunner on Dexter for the first four seasons, and in 2021 he and Showtime brought us the revival series Dexter: New Blood… which, for a time, also seemed to be the end of it all. But that’s not the case. Showtime has tasked Phillips with continue to build up the Dexter franchise, with the prequel series Dexter: Original Sin premiering on the Paramount+ streaming service as of today, December 13th (the Showtime premiere will follow on December 15th.) We’re also getting a New Blood follow-up called Dexter: Resurrection – and Phillips has revealed to DiscussingFilm that we’ll only have a six month wait between Dexter: Original Sin and Dexter: Resurrection! Phillips said, “We start shooting the first week in January, and it airs in June of 2025.“

Michael C. Hall played Dexter Morgan in the original series and Dexter: New Blood, and also provides the in-character narration for Dexter: Original Sin. He’s back in the lead for Dexter: Resurrection, and Chris McCarthy, Paramount Global co-CEO and president/CEO, Showtime & MTV Entertainment Studios said in a statement, “We are thrilled to have the brilliant Michael C. Hall reprise his iconic role as Dexter Morgan in Showtime’s most successful series ever… While Dexter: Resurrection will appeal to the tens of millions of longtime fans, Dexter: Original Sin will introduce a whole new generation of viewers into this iconic series by starting from the beginning, which is sure to satisfy existing audiences as well.”

While we wait to find out what’s going to happen in the Resurrection series, we know that Dexter: Original Sin follows Dexter in 1991 Miami, as a student transitioning into a serial killer in training. When his bloodthirsty urges can no longer be ignored, Dexter finds solace and understanding in Harry. As his only confidant, he teaches Dexter a Code that’s designed to help him find and kill people who deserve to die—all while avoiding getting caught by law enforcement. This is a particular challenge for young Dexter as he begins a forensics internship at the Miami Metro Police Department.

Will you be watching Dexter: Original Sin, and are you looking forward to seeing Dexter: Resurrection in June? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post Dexter: Resurrection showrunner reveals series will premiere in June appeared first on JoBlo.

I love Keanu Reeves’ performances most of the time. Yeah, the Matrix and John Wick actor maybe doesn’t have a huge range in terms of acting styles, but his somewhat soulful, sometimes flat delivery can work for a myriad of roles. He’s successfully played the stoic leading man in films like the aforementioned Matrix and…

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I love Keanu Reeves’ performances most of the time. Yeah, the Matrix and John Wick actor maybe doesn’t have a huge range in terms of acting styles, but his somewhat soulful, sometimes flat delivery can work for a myriad of roles. He’s successfully played the stoic leading man in films like the aforementioned Matrix and…

Read more…

Radio Silence, the filmmaking team behind Ready or Not, Abigail, and the two most recent Scream sequels, are gearing up to go into production on Ready or Not 2 – but while Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are directing that sequel and producing it with Chad Villella, the trio are also producing a feature expansion of Colleen McGuinness’ short film Loser. Deadline reports that Angourie Rice, who also starred in the short, is set to star in the Loser feature alongside Ella Purnell (Fallout), Finn Bennett (True Detective: Night Country), and Lukas Gage (The White Lotus).

Details on the characters being played by Purnell, Bennett, and Gage have not been revealed, but we know that Rice will be playing Alice, a brilliant but troubled physicist, as she attempts to heal her trauma by using time travel, but gets caught in a twisty, cat-and-mouse game of murder and violence in New York City.

McGuinness will write and direct Loser, and will produce the film with Radio Silence. Tyson Bidner, who produced the short, will line produce the feature and serve as an executive producer. The short version of the concept was released earlier this year and has a running time of 11 minutes. It won the Best Film and Best Actress storytelLA awards at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

McGuinness told Deadline, “With Loser the short, I wanted to examine that specific turbulence of your early 20s, when your hopes and fears seem magnified, and it’s easy to feel like a loser — until you realize how much bigger the world is, and how good we really have it. In the feature, these feelings spill over into a female-led time travel thriller, which further explores the anxieties, violence, and overwhelming technological advancements of today’s world, and how we cope and heal from them. Radio Silence are truly my dream producers — supportive, visionary, and enthusiastic. This collaboration is especially meaningful because Matt and I have been friends since we both worked at New Line Cinema, during our own precarious early 20s. I couldn’t ever have foreseen that my incredibly talented friend Matt, along with the amazing Chad Villella and Tyler Gillett, would produce my first feature, and yet it feels exactly right. I am beyond grateful to partner with these wonderful filmmakers on this adventure.“

Radio Silence added, “Loser is a fresh, original movie that blends genres and has fantastic characters at its core. We are thrilled to be a part of the team that brings Colleen’s vision to reality and we think audiences around the world are going to love it!“

In addition to both versions of Loser and the movie version of the Mean Girls musical, Angourie Rice has starred in The Nice Guys, The Last Thing He Told Me, Honor Society, Senior Year, Mare of Easttown, the recent Spider-Man trilogy, These Final Hours, Walking with Dinosaurs 3D, and The Beguiled, among other credits. She has also teamed up with her mom, Kate Rice, to write a young adult romance novel called Stuck Up and Stupid, which will be published by Candlewick Press on May 6, 2025.

Does Loser sound interesting to you? Have you seen the short film? Share your thoughts on this Colleen McGuinness / Angourie Rice / Radio Silence thriller by leaving a comment below.

The post Loser: Angourie Rice, Ella Purnell, Finn Bennett, and Lukas Gage to star in Radio Silence thriller appeared first on JoBlo.

You can never count out Ted Danson. From horror classics like Creepshow to an Emmy-winning performance on Cheers to box office champs (sorry, Three Men and a Baby helped define ‘80s comedy) and beyond, he has conquered pretty much every front in the world of media. Now, Ted Danson has a podcast in Where Everybody Knows Your Name, and it’s there that he revealed that an unlikely turn as himself on Curb Your Enthusiasm offered a career revival.

Ted Danson would eventually give more than 30 gos as himself on Curb Your Enthusiasm – going back to season one and extending to the final shot – but he initially hated the project, saying of the pilot, “I thought it absolutely sucked, and I felt sorry for my new friend, Larry David. So, in trying to be an encouraging kind of thing, I said, ‘If you ever need us to play ourselves, we’d be happy to.’ And in that sort of idiocy, I ended up being part of something that changed my life.”

As for what Curb Your Enthusiasm did for Ted Danson, he noted, “Curb really did change my life, because it reinvigorated my desire to be funny.” Hm, that doesn’t seem to be too much of a compliment to Becker…Danson has done a whole lot of big-time movies since Curb, but he did land the crucial role of Michael on The Good Place, which I think is one of the best comedy shows of the past decade. And for it, Danson would earn three Emmy nods for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, which, coupled with his 11 for playing Sam Malone on Cheers, made him the most nominated person in that category.

While Curb Your Enthusiasm never snagged Ted Danson an Emmy nod, he – along with the cast – received a SAG nomination for Outstanding Ensemble in a Comedy Series. But no doubt Danson made the most of his time playing himself, giving one of his best performances ever as both friend and foe (all over a whitefish sandwich!) to Larry David.

What is your favorite Ted Danson performance? Share your movie or TV pick in the comments section below.

The post Ted Danson says Curb Your Enthusiasm changed his life – even though the pilot “sucked” appeared first on JoBlo.

PLOT: Centers on a group of female soldiers who disguise themselves as medics to rescue a group of teenagers caught between ISIS and the forces of the Taliban.

REVIEW: Martin Campbell is mostly known for being franchise Viagra for the 007 series but he’s been chugging away at action movies for decades. Outside of his Bond work, I’ve never really connected with any of his films but I appreciate how he shoots action. And I’m a sucker for creative re-team-ups, so it’s nice to see it’s nice to see him and Eva Green join forces again. Especially with Green taking on a role that is so different from her usual choices. But sadly nearly everything about Dirty Angels feels dated and uninspired.

The film follows a group of female soldiers who are tasked with rescuing a group of kidnapped girls from ISIS. Tensions in the area are at an all-time high, with The Taliban and ISIS fighting for control. This makes the rescue effort all the more difficult.  There are stretches of Dirty Angels that really impress. The first twenty minutes where a bunch of schoolgirls are kidnapped by ISIS are riveting. There’s a moment where girls are thrown off a roof that is so well shot, that you really feel the impact of the moment. When you don’t stop and think long on the geopolitics of it all, the story is intriguing enough. But the film can get hampered by trying to make a point while not realizing how tone-deaf it actually is.

Eva Green is absolutely fantastic as Jake, a tough soldier who we see captured at the beginning. She’s tough as nails and works really well in the role. It’s hard to believe this is the same woman who portrayed Vesper all those years ago. The film needed to be entirely focused on her and tell the story through her eyes. At least that would have given us some kind of perspective instead of this “all sides” one that we receive. This results in a very surface-level experience that doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. This is a team-up movie without the actual characterization required to keep it interesting.

She doesn’t have a lot of screen time, but May Kurtz really impresses. Her story could have easily carried an entire movie and she brings a strength to a role that really needs it. I was worried when I saw Ruby Rose on the cast list, but she’s properly utilized here, with very limited dialogue. It’s been interesting to see all the different roles Maria Bakalova has taken since coming on the scene with Borat 2. She’s very lowkey here and blends in with the other characters. It’s really only Green who gets a chance at any proper characterization. Everyone else could be swapped with another, and there’d be little change to the story.

The action is very old-fashioned, with very simple setups, explosions, and gunfights. I won’t lie, it’s kind of charming, if not a bit dated. There are some moments, like the hand-to-hand combat with Eva Green, where it gets a little interesting but it happens with infrequency. Otherwise, this could have fit in with the low-budget action fare of the 2000s. This also really highlighted why I hate CGI bullet hits: the sheer lack of impact. They don’t interact with the world around them properly and always feel very digital. Combine these with the lame character deaths that come out of nowhere, and it makes for a very unsatisfying experience.

Unfortunately, Dirty Angels is more of a whimper than a bang. The story has moments of intrigue but often falls into an absurdly myopic view of the world. The great performance from Green isn’t enough to get past the by-the-numbers action beats. I’ll give them credit for not having any girl power moments and just treating the cast as they should: like they’re soldiers. Because there is a very human story here at its core. It’s just too bad that it’s bogged down by trying to be an action ensemble.

DIRTY ANGELS RELEASES TO SELECT THEATERS ON DECEMBER 13TH, 2024.

Dirty Angels

BELOW AVERAGE

5

The post Dirty Angels Review: Eva Green is great but the movie misses the mark appeared first on JoBlo.

What if Pong was played in a bloodbath? If Tim Miller and Dave Wilson, producers of Amazon Prime Video’s adult animation series Secret Level, have their way, we’ll see something of that sort across our TV screens in the near future. Speaking with ScreenRant, the pair discussed the video games they would love to put a…

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