After years of waiting and months of leaks, Nintendo has shared the first official preview of what the Switch 2 actually looks like. The handheld hybrid hardware is more of an iterative upgrade on the existing console than perhaps any new device the company’s ever released. Even the launch game, which appears to be Mar…
Barbarian (watch it HERE) writer/director Zach Cregger has assembled a strong cast for his mysterious horror project called Weapons, including Julia Garner (Ozark), Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo), Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange), Amy Madigan (Antlers), Austin Abrams (Euphoria), June Diane Raphael (Grace and Frankie), and Cary Christopher (Days of Our Lives)… and during an interview with Collider, Garner said that we should not expect Weapons to be “a proper horror movie.”
Most details about Weapons are shrouded in mystery. It has been said that it’s “an interrelated, multistory horror epic” that’s tonally in the vein of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, and The Hollywood Reporter adds that the story revolves around the disappearance of high schoolers in a small town.
Cregger wrote the Weapons screenplay (which Brolin has said had “a really brilliant design”) and is directing the film. He’s also producing it with Roy Lee and Miri Yoon of Vertigo and J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules of BoulderLight Pictures. At one point, Pedro Pascal of The Last of Us was set to star in the film with and Renate Reinsve of The Worst Person in the World. Pascal had to leave the project so he could star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe reboot of Fantastic Four (which Garner also has a role in) instead, and it appears that Reinsve followed him out the door.
New Line Cinema went all-in on a partnership with Cregger and Barbarian’s producers at BoulderLight Pictures. New Line came out the winner in a bidding war over Weapons, which they’re planning to give a theatrical release date on January 16, 2026 (but they might end up moving it into 2025).
New Line Cinema is paying Cregger a sum in the eight figure range to make this movie. When they won the bidding war over the rights, New Line’s president and CCO Richard Brener released the following statement: “Zach proved with Barbarian that he can create a visceral theatrical experience for audiences and that he commands every tool in the filmmaker toolbelt. We couldn’t be happier that he, Roy [Lee] and Miri [Yoon], and J.D. [Lifshitz]and Rafi [Margules] chose New Line to be the home of his next film, and hope it is the first of many to come.“
When the subject of Weapons came up, Garner told Collider, “It’s not a proper horror movie. It feels very Zach Cregger in that element. There are some comedic elements to it. Barbarian felt like that as well.” It’s not clear what Garner considers to be “a proper horror movie,” but she does have some genre experience, as her credits include the Rosemary’s Baby prequel Apartment 7A and the Wolf Man reboot that reaches theatres this weekend.
Are you looking forward to Weapons, whether or not Julia Garner believes it’s “a proper horror movie”? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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PLOT: A man (Christopher Abbott) is scratched by a mysterious monster while defending his family. Soon, he begins to transform, endangering the people he was trying to protect.
REVIEW: Wolf Man is co-writer/ director Leigh Whannell’s attempt to ground yet another of the classic Universal Monsters following his hit The Invisible Man. Like that movie, it works more-or-less as its own thing, separate from any established lore. While The Invisible Man was basically an elevated stalker thriller, Wolf Man is an attempt to take on body horror with heavy doses of family drama baked in. The result is a decent-enough thriller that lacks the thrills one might expect from a werewolf movie, opting for atmosphere and emotion instead. While it sports a terrific performance from star Christopher Abbott, it also totally lacks scares, making it a movie that might alienate horror fans hoping for something a little more edge-of-your-seat than what Whannel delivers.
It has to be said that the director does seem less interested in making a horror film than a drama exploring the deeper theme of generational trauma. As the movie begins, we see Abbott’s character, Blake, as a child, being raised by his survivalist father, Grady (Sam Jaeger), whose intensity and demands for obedience leave Blake estranged from him as an adult. When he finds out his father has died, he takes his family, including his workaholic wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner) and adoring daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), to pack up his secluded home in Colorado. Of course, once there, they are attacked by a wolf that seems to stand on two feet and infects Blake.
Now, it should be said that Whannell dispenses with pretty much all the lore you’d expect from a werewolf movie, meaning no full moons or silver bullets. The transformation also seems to be a one-and-done thing, meaning once Blake becomes a wolf, there’s no way back. That makes it feel more like a generic monster movie, as it does away with the most interesting bit of werewolf lore, being that the hero transforms back and forth and has to live with the carnage he inflicts.
Pretty much the only element this has in common with the original Universal Wolf Man is that, like Lon Chaney Jr’s Larry Talbot, Blake is exceedingly mild-mannered, with him an innocent victim of the curse who winds up being infected due to his own heroism, as he got hurt trying to protect his family. Abbott gets a solid showcase as Blake becomes more beastly, gradually losing the ability to talk, with the make-up effects used for the full werewolf much better than what we saw in early images.
Given the remote settings, the movie is almost entirely confined to one location, with Abbott, Garner and Firth the only ones on-screen for ninety percent of the running time. Garner’s role as the breadwinning mom (Blake is a stay-at-home father) of the family initially seems one-note until she gradually becomes more active as the film goes on. Yet, the heart of the movie belongs to the relationship between Blake and his daughter, who is shown to have a special bond with him from the beginning and is the only thing allowing him to hold onto some shreds of his humanity.
While it’s well-acted and shot, the fact remains that Wolf Man has one major failing – it’s simply not scary. Blake’s transformation is played for pathos and drama, and even if we know there’s another wolf around there stalking the family, the attack scenes are limited and shot so darkly that a lot of the werewolf stuff is hard to make out.
As such, Wolf Man is a notch or two below The Invisible Man, a movie that had some really memorable scares, and the terrific Upgrade. It will likely pull in a solid crowd this weekend. Still, to me it’s another disappointing Wolf Man reboot (following the big-budget Benicio del Toro film) that’s forgotten what makes that iconic monster such a classic.
The post Wolf Man Review: Well-Acted But Not Very Scary appeared first on JoBlo.
PLOT: A man (Christopher Abbott) is scratched by a mysterious monster while defending his family. Soon, he begins to transform, endangering the people he was trying to protect.
REVIEW: Wolf Man is co-writer/ director Leigh Whannell’s attempt to ground yet another of the classic Universal Monsters following his hit The Invisible Man. Like that movie, it works more-or-less as its own thing, separate from any established lore. While The Invisible Man was basically an elevated stalker thriller, Wolf Man is an attempt to take on body horror with heavy doses of family drama baked in. The result is a decent-enough thriller that lacks the thrills one might expect from a werewolf movie, opting for atmosphere and emotion instead. While it sports a terrific performance from star Christopher Abbott, it also totally lacks scares, making it a movie that might alienate horror fans hoping for something a little more edge-of-your-seat than what Whannel delivers.
It has to be said that the director does seem less interested in making a horror film than a drama exploring the deeper theme of generational trauma. As the movie begins, we see Abbott’s character, Blake, as a child, being raised by his survivalist father, Grady (Sam Jaeger), whose intensity and demands for obedience leave Blake estranged from him as an adult. When he finds out his father has died, he takes his family, including his workaholic wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner) and adoring daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), to pack up his secluded home in Colorado. Of course, once there, they are attacked by a wolf that seems to stand on two feet and infects Blake.
Now, it should be said that Whannell dispenses with pretty much all the lore you’d expect from a werewolf movie, meaning no full moons or silver bullets. The transformation also seems to be a one-and-done thing, meaning once Blake becomes a wolf, there’s no way back. That makes it feel more like a generic monster movie, as it does away with the most interesting bit of werewolf lore, being that the hero transforms back and forth and has to live with the carnage he inflicts.
Pretty much the only element this has in common with the original Universal Wolf Man is that, like Lon Chaney Jr’s Larry Talbot, Blake is exceedingly mild-mannered, with him an innocent victim of the curse who winds up being infected due to his own heroism, as he got hurt trying to protect his family. Abbott gets a solid showcase as Blake becomes more beastly, gradually losing the ability to talk, with the make-up effects used for the full werewolf much better than what we saw in early images.
Given the remote settings, the movie is almost entirely confined to one location, with Abbott, Garner and Firth the only ones on-screen for ninety percent of the running time. Garner’s role as the breadwinning mom (Blake is a stay-at-home father) of the family initially seems one-note until she gradually becomes more active as the film goes on. Yet, the heart of the movie belongs to the relationship between Blake and his daughter, who is shown to have a special bond with him from the beginning and is the only thing allowing him to hold onto some shreds of his humanity.
While it’s well-acted and shot, the fact remains that Wolf Man has one major failing – it’s simply not scary. Blake’s transformation is played for pathos and drama, and even if we know there’s another wolf around there stalking the family, the attack scenes are limited and shot so darkly that a lot of the werewolf stuff is hard to make out.
As such, Wolf Man is a notch or two below The Invisible Man, a movie that had some really memorable scares, and the terrific Upgrade. It will likely pull in a solid crowd this weekend. Still, to me it’s another disappointing Wolf Man reboot (following the big-budget Benicio del Toro film) that’s forgotten what makes that iconic monster such a classic.
The post Wolf Man Review: Well-Acted But Not Very Scary appeared first on JoBlo.
Almost two years have passed since it was announced that James Mangold would be writing and directing the DC Comics adaptation Swamp Thing… but we haven’t gotten many updates on that project, because Mangold has been busy working on things like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and A Complete Unknown, and developing the Star Wars prequel Dawn of the Jedi. Mangold has been doing the press rounds for A Complete Unknown lately, and MovieWeb was able to get a fresh quote about Swamp Thing about him. A quote where he says he sees the project, which is part of the DC Universe that producers James Gunn and Peter Safran are building with the likes of Creature Commandos, Superman, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Clayface, Sgt. Rock, and The Brave and the Bold, as a standalone horror movie.
Mangold said, “With other kinds of IP, it gets to a religious level. While I’m sure DC views Swamp Thing as a franchise, I would be viewing it as a very simple, clean, Gothic horror movie about this man/monster… Just doing my own thing with this, just a standalone.” This is very similar to a quote Mangold gave to Variety a year and a half ago, so at least we know he has a consistent vision for Swamp Thing.
Mangold says he had been thinking of making “a kind of Frankenstein movie” for years, so when he heard that James Gunn and Peter Safran were taking control of the DC Comics adaptations at Warner Bros., he put in a call to suggest himself for the job of making Swamp Thing. While Swamp Thing is part of the first wave of DC movies Gunn and Safran are overseeing – as they call it, “Chapter One: Gods and Monsters” – the project still doesn’t have a release date, and it’s not clear when it’s expected to go into production.
Are you looking forward to seeing what James Mangold does with Swamp Thing? What do you think of the fact that he sees it as a standalone horror movie? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
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The Charlize Theron action film The Old Guard was a hit for the Netflix streaming service when it was released in 2020, but the sequel The Old Guard 2 has had an unexpectedly bumpy ride while making its way out into the world. It went into production back in 2022, and filming had to be halted briefly after a fire broke out at the film studio where the movie had been shooting; Rome, Italy’s historic Cinecittà Studios. Then there was a shake-up at Netflix during post-production, so the project got shut down for a while – and even though Theron was quoted as saying that it was back on track and coming soon last summer, it turns out that we’re going to have to keep waiting, because there are still reshoots to do. What’s on Netflix reported that The Old Guard 2 was supposed to undergo additional photography last October, and now World of Reel has heard that Netflix is aiming to get more reshoots done several months from now, in the early summer.
Based on a graphic novel series created by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández, The Old Guard was scripted by Rucka and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. The film introduced viewers to a covert group of tight-knit mercenaries with a mysterious inability to die who have fought to protect the mortal world for centuries. When the team is recruited to take on an emergency mission and their extraordinary abilities are suddenly exposed, it’s up to Andy and Nile, the newest soldier to join their ranks, to help the group eliminate the threat of those who seek to replicate and monetize their power by any means necessary.
Rucka wrote the screenplay for the sequel and serves as executive producer. The Old Guard 2 is being produced by David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, and Don Granger of Skydance, Theron, Beth Kono, and AJ Dix of Denver and Delilah, and Marc Evans of Marc Evans Productions. Prince-Bythewood is also on board as producer.
The Old Guard 2 was directed by Victoria Mahoney, who has previously directed episodes of multiple TV shows, including You and Lovecraft Country, and was also the second unit director on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Theron is joined in the cast by fellow returning Old Guard cast members KiKi Layne, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Luca Marinelli, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Veronica Ngo, as well as new additions Uma Thurman and Henry Golding.
Are you a fan of The Old Guard, and are you disappointed to hear that The Old Guard 2 still has to undergo additional photography? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The post The Old Guard 2 to undergo additional photography this summer appeared first on JoBlo.
Blumhouse has had a lot of success opening horror movies in January. M3GAN was a blockbuster, as was Leigh Whannel’s The Invisible Man, and this year, they’ve got another horror flick that seems bound for a number-one finish. Indeed, Wolf Man, which also comes from Whannell, was initially one of the most anticipated horror titles of 2025. However, in recent weeks, the buzz around the film has cooled, with poor reactions to the movie’s new werewolf designs, and mixed reviews that revealed the film lacks scares and does away with a lot of the classic character’s lore.
Even still, the movie is set to dominate the box office, although its opening seems to be more in line with last year’s Night Swim ($12 million) than either M3GAN ($30.4 million) or The Invisible Man ($28 million). As such, I’m expecting Wolf Man will open with about $17 million, which, given its rumoured $25 million budget, will no doubt make it quite profitable for Universal and Blumhouse.
Last week’s champ, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, should slide into second place with about $9 million, which would help drive it to a final tally in line with the $44 million the original made. Of course, Mufasa: The Lion King, could overtake it and finish in second place, although I’m thinking it will hit about $7 million this weekend. The Keke Palmer/ SZA vehicle, One of Them Days, should slide into fourth place with about $5 million, while Nosferatu should be right behind it with $4 million as it closes in on $100 million domestically. Expanding Oscar films, including The Brutalist and September 5 should have solid runs that will put them on the bottom half of the chart.
Overall, this seems to be relatively quiet given that it’s a holiday weekend (Monday is Martin Luther King Day) so it’s possible that if Wolf Man underperforms, one of the Christmas holdovers, like A Complete Unknown or Nosferatu might get a surprising boost at the box office. We’ll keep you posted as the weekend goes on!
Our Predictions:
The post Box Office Predictions: Wolf Man to have a howlingly good opening appeared first on JoBlo.
Blumhouse has had a lot of success opening horror movies in January. M3GAN was a blockbuster, as was Leigh Whannel’s The Invisible Man, and this year, they’ve got another horror flick that seems bound for a number-one finish. Indeed, Wolf Man, which also comes from Whannell, was initially one of the most anticipated horror titles of 2025. However, in recent weeks, the buzz around the film has cooled, with poor reactions to the movie’s new werewolf designs, and mixed reviews that revealed the film lacks scares and does away with a lot of the classic character’s lore.
Even still, the movie is set to dominate the box office, although its opening seems to be more in line with last year’s Night Swim ($12 million) than either M3GAN ($30.4 million) or The Invisible Man ($28 million). As such, I’m expecting Wolf Man will open with about $17 million, which, given its rumoured $25 million budget, will no doubt make it quite profitable for Universal and Blumhouse.
Last week’s champ, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, should slide into second place with about $9 million, which would help drive it to a final tally in line with the $44 million the original made. Of course, Mufasa: The Lion King, could overtake it and finish in second place, although I’m thinking it will hit about $7 million this weekend. The Keke Palmer/ SZA vehicle, One of Them Days, should slide into fourth place with about $5 million, while Nosferatu should be right behind it with $4 million as it closes in on $100 million domestically. Expanding Oscar films, including The Brutalist and September 5 should have solid runs that will put them on the bottom half of the chart.
Overall, this seems to be relatively quiet given that it’s a holiday weekend (Monday is Martin Luther King Day) so it’s possible that if Wolf Man underperforms, one of the Christmas holdovers, like A Complete Unknown or Nosferatu might get a surprising boost at the box office. We’ll keep you posted as the weekend goes on!
Our Predictions:
The post Box Office Predictions: Wolf Man to have a howlingly good opening appeared first on JoBlo.
Christopher Abbott has some big hairy shoes to fill as he follows the likes of Lon Chaney Jr. and Benicio Del Toro in his new film Wolf Man. The new Blumhouse horror movie from the director of The Invisible Man remake takes a similar route in reimagining the story of the Universal monster classic. Abbott would already be featured in a film recently where man and beast have a kinship — Kraven The Hunter, Sony’s latest offering in their Spider-Man villain solo series. Kraven, although it didn’t look like the trainwreck Madam Web nor Morbius was, still became Sony’s lowest-grossing Marvel movie.
Abbott would sit down with The Hollywood Reporter to promote Wolf Man when they inquired about the roll of the dice on movies like Kraven. Abbott responded,
Yeah, you never know, man. Absolutely. That’s the thing. This business is inherently the most collaborative art, and, essentially, the most expensive. So there’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen, sometimes, and whether that’s the actors, the director or whoever else is around, it takes a village.”
Abbott played The Foreigner in Kraven and his co-star, The Brutalist‘s Alessandro Nivola was dumbfounded with what happened with the studio’s dealings with the filmmakers as his experience was actually quite pleasant. Nivola attested, “I really don’t know what happened behind the scenes. On these kinds of movies, you hear about all the wranglings at the studio, and maybe there were too many chefs. I don’t know. I don’t know enough about what the process was beyond just my experience of being on set, which was really joyful.”
While Nivola got to turn into a rhino in Kraven, in the film Wolf Man, Abbott makes the famous metamorphosis into a wolf. In this incarnation, while the make-up was there to help him immerse himself into the creature, he also talks about using his body language in the prolonged process that the movie takes in transitioning him from man to beast. Abbott explained, “Yeah, the progression is very gradual in this movie, so being able to play with how much he progresses was really interesting. It starts with just the fingers, and then it eventually just works its way up through the arms and the rest of the body. So there was a lot to keep track of, but it’s fun to play with physicality like that.”
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The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman writer/director Robert Eggers‘ remake of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent classic Nosferatu (watch it HERE) made its way out into theatres last month and has stirred up a lot of positive reactions, with JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray even describing the film as a new horror classic in his 10/10 review. The film has been doing well at the box office, earning almost $137 million at the global box office so far, and it’s expected to reach the $100 million mark at the domestic box office by the time its theatrical run has come to an end… but soon, viewers will be able to check it out in the comfort of their own homes, as When to Stream reports that Nosferatu will be receiving a VOD and digital release next week, on January 21st.
An unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the original Nosferatu has the following synopsis: In this highly influential silent horror film, the mysterious Count Orlok (Max Schreck) summons Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) to his remote Transylvanian castle in the mountains. The eerie Orlok seeks to buy a house near Hutter and his wife, Ellen (Greta Schroeder). After Orlok reveals his vampire nature, Hutter struggles to escape the castle, knowing that Ellen is in grave danger. Meanwhile Orlok’s servant, Knock (Alexander Granach), prepares for his master to arrive at his new home. Werner Herzog directed his own remake of the film in 1979. Murnau’s film had a running time of 94 minutes and Herzog’s is 107 minutes long, so Eggers’ 132 minute version is substantially longer than its predecessors.
Eggers’ take on Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman in 19th century Germany and the ancient Transylvanian vampire who stalks her, bringing untold horror with him.
The cast includes Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man: No Way Home) as crazy vampire hunter Von Franz, Lily-Rose Depp (The Idol) as Ellen Hutter and Nicholas Hoult (Renfield) as her husband Thomas – a role Bill Skarsgard was going to play at one point. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Bullet Train) is in there as Thomas’s friend Friedrich Harding, with Emma Corrin (The Crown) as Friedrich’s wife Anna, Ralph Ineson (The Witch) as Von Franz’s cohort Dr. Wilhelm Sievers, and Simon McBurney (The Conjuring 2) as Herr Knock, Thomas’s employer. Bill Skarsgard (Stephen King’s It) is the title character and has said that playing Nosferatu / Count Orlok 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.“
Will you be watching Nosferatu when it gets a VOD release next week? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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