2024 was a year filled with good games, especially if you looked beyond the biggest AAA releases and played some of the amazing indie titles and smaller games we got over the last 12 months. But there were some bad ones, too.
2024 was a year filled with good games, especially if you looked beyond the biggest AAA releases and played some of the amazing indie titles and smaller games we got over the last 12 months. But there were some bad ones, too.
Mark Eydelshteyn, who turned heads with his show-stopping performance in the critically acclaimed romantic comedy Anora, is leaping to American TV as the lead of Season 2 of Prime Video’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith. In the upcoming season, Eydelshteyn will play Mr. Smith, a role previously occupied by the show’s co-creator, Donald Glover. Word around the watercooler was that Billie Eilish would become the female lead of the new season, but Deadline says her touring schedule will likely keep her away from the role. Prime Video’s search for other actors to play John and Jane Smith found the studio looking for a couple in their 20s with one-year deals waiting to get inked.
The first season of Mr. & Mrs. Smith starred Donald Glover and Maya Erskine as “two lonely strangers who land jobs working for a mysterious spy agency that offers them a glorious life of espionage, wealth, world travel, and a dream brownstone in Manhattan. The catch? New identities in an arranged marriage as Mr. and Mrs. John and Jane Smith. Now hitched, John and Jane navigate a high-risk mission every week while also facing a new relationship milestone. Their complex cover story becomes even more complicated when they catch real feelings for each other. What’s riskier: espionage or marriage?”
When the series was renewed for a second season earlier this year, reports said it was unlikely that Glover and Erskine would return. This move makes the show somewhat of an anthology series, with a new couple taking up the alias of Mr. & Mrs. Smith each season. The first season finale left things somewhat open-ended, with it unclear if Glover and Erskine’s characters survived.
Commenting on the conclusion of Season 1, Mr. & Mrs. Smith co-creator Francesca Sloane told Deadline their ending is “a nod to a ’70s cinema cliffhanger.” It remains to be seen if Glover and Erskine will reprise their roles in the second season to any degree. Sloane returns to the series as an executive producer and showrunner, with Glover executive producing.
Joining the cast of Mr. & Mrs. Smith will boost Mark Eydelshteyn’s star power exponentially, placing him in front of casual audiences looking for a hit of action from a classic spy setup. We can’t wait to see who stars opposite Mark Eydelshteyn when Mr. & Mrs. Smith Season 2 lands on Prime Video.
The post Anora star Mark Eydelshteyn signs on for Season 2 of Prime Video’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith as the show’s next lead appeared first on JoBlo.
Early this year, it was announced that Zac Efron (The Iron Claw) had signed on to star in the A24 thriller Famous for director Jody Hill, and it was revealed that he’ll be playing dual roles in the film, which is based on a novel by Blake Crouch. Phoebe Dynevor (Bridgerton) has since joined the cast, along with Nicholas Braun (Succession), Stephanie Koenig (Lessons in Chemistry), Debby Ryan (Insatiable), Mekki Leeper (Jury Duty), and Cory Michael Smith (Saturday Night) – and now that the project is in production, it has been revealed that Bill Pullman (Independence Day) and Daniel Zovatto (Woman of the Hour) are also in the cast!
Scripted by Chad Hodge, who created the short-lived, Crouch-inspired TV series Wayward Pines back in 2015, Famous has the following synopsis: Lance Dunkquist has one asset that’s about to change his life – he has the face of a movie star. And not just any movie star – Lance is the spitting image of a Hollywood icon, James Jansen. Lance is about to travel to Los Angeles to make his dream come true. Lance is going to be famous, no matter what it takes… The film aims to be a “provocative and highly entertaining Los Angeles-set thriller that explores the dark side of celebrity, and the lengths people will go to attain it.”
Efron is playing both overzealous fan Lance Dunkquist and Hollywood heartthrob James Jansen.
Copies of Crouch’s novel can be purchased at THIS LINK. It has the following description: “My name is Lancelot Blue Dunkquist, and the best thing about me is, when you doll me up right, I look just like the movie star, James Jansen.” Meet Lance. 38-years-old. Works a meaningless job. Still lives above his parents’ garage. By all accounts, a world-class loser. Except for one glaring exception… He has a million-dollar face. Lance has been mistaken twenty-eight times for the Oscar-winning movie star, James Jansen, and for the last 10 years, he’s saved his money, studied Jansen’s films, his moves, his idiosyncrasies, even the way he speaks. Now, after an unceremonious termination from his job, Lance has decided that the time has come to go after his dream. From New York’s ridiculous avant-garde, off-off Broadway scene, to the surreal glitter of Los Angeles, follow Lance on his madcap journey of self-abandonment to become his likeness. Part comedy, part human tragedy, and part suspense, the world through the eyes of Lancelot Blue Dunkquist is like none you’ve ever seen.
Mr. Robot creator / Leave the World Behind director Sam Esmail is producing Famous with Chad Hamilton for Esmail Corp. The company’s Nick Krishnamurthy serves as executive producer. Jody Hill’s previous directing credits include The Foot Fist Way, Observe and Report, The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter, and episodes of Eastbound & Down, Vice Principals, The Righteous Gemstones, and Peacemaker.
Are you interested in Famous? What do you think of Bill Pullman and Daniel Zovatto joining the cast? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been out for about a month now, and with the holidays approaching, BioWare and EA have put the game on sale for consoles. So if you’ve been waiting to try the fourth entry in the fantasy RPG series, you can get it for a bit cheaper at the moment. However, for whatever reason, the…
Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been out for about a month now, and with the holidays approaching, BioWare and EA have put the game on sale for consoles. So if you’ve been waiting to try the fourth entry in the fantasy RPG series, you can get it for a bit cheaper at the moment. However, for whatever reason, the…
One of the most popular video sharing apps in the world might not be on your phone come next year. A U.S. ban of TikTok will move forward unless Chinese-owned tech company ByteDance divests its control by January 19 after an appeals court rejected its argument against the constitutionality of the new law.
One of the most popular video sharing apps in the world might not be on your phone come next year. A U.S. ban of TikTok will move forward unless Chinese-owned tech company ByteDance divests its control by January 19 after an appeals court rejected its argument against the constitutionality of the new law.
Back in 2021, Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, and director Scott Derrickson brought us an adaptation of the Joe Hill short story The Black Phone (check out our review HERE) that appeared to tell a complete story that would stand on its own… but the film was made on a budget of around $16 million and earned over $160 million at the global box office. So, on October 17, 2025, we’ll be getting The Black Phone 2 – and with the project a month deep into production, Deadline has broken the news that Arianna Rivas has joined the cast. Rivas previously had a supporting role in the comedy Prom Dates, which was released through the Hulu streaming service earlier this year, and has her first lead role in the upcoming Jason Statham action thriller Levon’s Trade. Details on her Black Phone 2 character have not been revealed.
Based on a short story by Joe Hill, The Black Phone centered on Finney Shaw, a shy but clever 13-year-old boy, who is abducted by a sadistic killer and trapped in a soundproof basement where screaming is of little use. When a disconnected phone on the wall begins to ring, Finney discovers that he can hear the voices of the killer’s previous victims. And they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to Finney. If you’d like to read the short story that The Black Phone is based on, it can be found in Hill’s collection 20th Century Ghosts, which you can buy HERE.
Derrickson wrote the screenplay for the first film with C. Robert Cargill, and Derrickson and Cargill have written the screenplay for The Black Phone 2 as well. They’re also producing the sequel with Blumhouse’s Jason Blum and Ryan Turek. The sequel will see the return of Mason Thames (How to Train Your Dragon) as Finney Shaw, Madeleine McGraw (Secrets of Sulphur Springs) as Finney’s sister Gwen, Jeremy Davies (Justified) as their dad Terrence, and Miguel Mora, whose only previous credit is The Black Phone, as Robin, a friend of Finney’s who was killed in the first movie. Ethan Hawke (Moon Knight) is reprising the role of the child-killer known as The Grabber. Another new addition to the cast is Demián Bichir of The Hateful Eight.
Are you looking forward to finding out what’s going to happen in The Black Phone 2, and to finding out who Arianna Rivas is playing? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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Most people can’t conceive of the hardships and strife inflicted on others. It’s not entirely their fault. Television places onlookers behind a screen while horrors lurk outside their door, and news outlets are questionable these days at best. What I’m trying to say is oppression is omnipresent, and Los Frikis, the latest film from The Peanut Butter Falcon directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz, is ready to throw audiences into a mosh pit of drama for a story about breaking the chains that bind us. What? You don’t believe me? Watch today’s emotionally charged trailer for Los Frikis and then decide.
Inspired by true events, Los Frikis is a coming-of-age story set in early 90s Cuba, where a group of punk rockers in search of freedom deliberately inject HIV to live at a government-run treatment home so they can create their own utopia. Produced by Oscar winners Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Sony’s Spider-Verse films), Los Frikis opens in New York and Los Angeles theaters on December 20, with an expansion set for December 25.
The original score is by Academy Award winner Steven Price (Gravity), and the cinematography is by Santiago Gonzalez (Beyonce: Black is King). Los Frikis features music by The Rolling Stones and Nirvana, who get name-dropped in today’s trailer. The movie stars Adrià Arjona (Hit Man) and some of Cuba’s best actors. It premiered at the Miami Film Festival, where it won the grand prize, and it has gone on to win top awards at Nantucket, SCAD Savannah, Mallorca, and others.
“Set against the backdrop of 1990s Cuba, Los Frikis tells the raw, unforgettable story of brotherhood, sacrifice and the search for freedom. Inspired by true events, the film follows Gustavo, who idolizes his older brother Paco and his punk bandmates – the “Frikis.” As oppression and extreme poverty tighten their grip, the Frikis take a desperate and defiant stand, intentionally injecting themselves with HIV to gain refuge in government-run sanatoriums. There, in a world meant for isolation, they carve out their own anarchic utopia—an oasis of rock ‘n’ roll, joy and freedom, where the spirit of resistance thrives, and Gustavo will risk everything to be reunited with those he loves. Los Frikis is a powerful coming-of-age tale about the price of freedom and the lengths we go to find it.”
In the Los Frikis trailer, two friends contemplate the greatness of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger and Nirvana’s fallen grunge icon Kurt Cobain. As the trailer continues, we witness hardships thrust upon the Cuban people as they navigate the law, poverty, and subjugation. “It’s impossible to survive without breaking the law,” Paco (Héctor Medina) says in the trailer, reinforcing the dire circumstances of his people. To change their lives, a group of punk rockers infects themselves with HIV, forcing them into a shared living situation where they can live by their own rules. Their self-inflicted semi-quarantine leads to all manner of revelations in life and love as they navigate a world that wants nothing to do with them.
What do you think about the Los Frikis trailer? Who’s more iconic: Mick Jagger or Kurt Cobain? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
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