Denzel Washington is about to grace us with his new villain character in Gladiator II, where he looks to be having the time of his life. He’s currently doing the promotional blitz as the Ridley Scott sequel hits theaters soon. Washington would whet everyone’s appetites with some of his planned projects after Gladiator II. Black Panther 3 is something interesting that he revealed is on his radar when he explained, “I played Othello at 22, I’m now going to play it at 70. After that, I’m playing Hannibal. After that, I’ve been talking with Steve McQueen about a film. After that, Ryan Coogler is writing a part for me in the next Black Panther.”
Esquire recently did a profile piece on Washington as he promotes Gladiator II and the iconic actor gets very candid and honest about certain struggles he faced during his career. A revelation included how he his escalated drinking of wine slowly influenced his behavior, especially when he became bitter about not winning the Oscar for his performance in 1999’s The Hurricane. Washington said, “I think I had won the Golden Globe for Hurricane—see, I barely remember now, ain’t that crazy? But then at the Oscars, they called Kevin Spacey’s name for American Beauty. I have a memory of turning around and looking at him, and nobody was standing but the people around him. And everyone else was looking at me. Not that it was this way. Maybe that’s the way I perceived it. Maybe I felt like everybody was looking at me. Because why would everybody be looking at me? Thinking about it now, I don’t think they were.”
He continued, “I’m sure I went home and drank that night. I had to. I don’t want to sound like, Oh, he won my Oscar, or anything like that. It wasn’t like that. And you know, there was talk in the town about what was going on over there on that side of the street [with Spacey], and that’s between him and God. I ain’t got nothing to do with that. I pray for him. That’s between him and his maker.”
Washington also admitted to turning his back on the Academy at that time, “I went through a time then when [his wife] Pauletta would watch all the Oscar movies—I told her, I don’t care about that. Hey: They don’t care about me? I don’t care. You vote. You watch them. I ain’t watching that. I gave up. I got bitter. My pity party. So I’ll tell you, for about fifteen years, from 1999 to 2014 when I put the beverage down, I was bitter. I don’t even know offhand what movies I made then—I guess John Q, Manchurian Candidate. But I didn’t know I was bitter.”
Disney Dreamlight Valley has an incredible amount of content available in its base game, and it receives new free updates for its core experience on a regular basis. But if you want to get the most out of this cozy game, you should know it’s all about the expansions. The Storybook Vale is the game’s second and latest…
Baldur’s Gate 3 was a huge success for both Larian Studios and Dungeons & Dragons, which is owned by Wizards of the Coast and its parent company, the massive toy conglomerate Hasbro. The two sides ended up splitting instead of pursuing Baldur’s Gate 4 together, but Hasbro’s CEO says the company is doubling down on…
Baldur’s Gate 3 was a huge success for both Larian Studios and Dungeons & Dragons, which is owned by Wizards of the Coast and its parent company, the massive toy conglomerate Hasbro. The two sides ended up splitting instead of pursuing Baldur’s Gate 4 together, but Hasbro’s CEO says the company is doubling down on…
Season 2 of the Netflix series Wednesday is currently in production – but in between working on the two seasons of that show, Emma Myers, who plays Wednesday Addams’ werewolf roommate Enid Sinclair on Wednesday, has also managed to fit in a season of a show where she plays the lead character: a series adaptation of the Holly Jackson novel A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (pick up a copy HERE), which made its premiere this past summer. Now, Variety reports that the Netflix streaming service has officially ordered A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder season 2!
The six-episode first season, which was adapted by Poppy Cogan and directed by Dolly Wells, saw Myers taking on the role of 17-year-old Pip Fitz-Amobi. Smart and single minded, she isn’t sure about whether, five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend Sal Singh. But if Sal Singh isn’t a murderer and the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth? Here’s the official logline: The series takes place five years after a murder-suicide shook the town of Little Kilton. Popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. At least, that’s what everyone believes, including the police. Case closed, right? But Pip Fitz-Amobi (Myers), now a high school senior herself, sees how the gruesome murder still has a grip on her hometown, and she thinks there’s more to the story. Pip begins an investigation of her own as she looks into the case for her senior project, determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. But if Sal didn’t do it, that means a murderer is still out there — and Pip herself may now be in danger.
The six-episode second season will be based on Good Girl, Bad Blood, the second book in Jackson’s series of novels. Jackson and Cogan are working on the adaptation together. The story picks up in the aftermath of Pip (Myers) and Ravi Singh (Zain Iqbal) getting to the bottom of what happened to missing student Andie Bell. The logline: As Max Hastings’ trial approaches, key witness Jamie Reynolds suddenly disappears and Pip finds herself in a race against time to find him. This new mystery will take Pip to unexpected places as she struggles with the idea of justice, straying even further from the ‘good girl’ she once was.
Jackson provided the following statement: “I am BEYOND thrilled that we can continue Pip’s story and, this time, I’m writing on the show! We owe everything to the dedicated fans, and I can’t wait to reunite with my AGGGTM family!“
Cogan added, “I’m delighted to be back in Little Kilton with Pip and friends for Season 2 and to have the opportunity to bring another of Holly’s gripping stories to the screen.“
Myers was joined in the cast of the first season by Zain Iqbal, Anna Maxwell Martin, Gary Beadle, Mathew Baynton, India Lillie Davies, Rahul Pattni, Henry Ashton, Mitu Panicucci, Orla Hill, Ephraim O.P. Sampson, Carla Woodcock, Yasmin Al-Khudhairi, Jessica Webber, Matthew Khan, Georgia Aaron, Oliver Wickham, Adam Astill, Annabel Mullion, Jude Morgan-Collie, Raiko Gohara, Asha Banks, and Yali Topol Margalith.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is coming our way from Moonage Pictures and producer Florence Walker. Jackson, Wells, and Cogan serve as executive producers alongside Moonage Pictures’ Matthew Read, Matthew Bouch, and Frith Tiplady, as well as the BBC’s Lucy Richer and Danielle Scott-Haughton.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was the first in a series of three novels. The other two books in the series are Good Girl,Bad Blood and As Good as Dead. There’s also a prequel novella called Kill Joy.
Have you watched A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder on Netflix, and are you glad to hear there’s going to be a season 2? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The new DCU kicks off with Creature Commandos this December, but the inaugural movie, James Gunn’s Superman, will be coming next year. While the new shared universe revamps the DC continuity, the brand doesn’t shy away from side stories either, with bonus Batman projects like the Todd Phillips Joker movies and Matt Reeves’ The Batman movies with The Penguin spin-off. However, there’s another director who is interested in telling his own side story with the famous Caped Crusader.
Nobody 2 director, Timo Tjahjanto recently celebrated the wrapping of the filming and he has talked with our own Chris Bumbray about how in awe he was of his workhorse star Bob Odenkirk. Tjahjanto proclaimed, “I underestimated just how crazy Bob Odenkirk is! Honestly, Bob is a 61-year-old man and his dedication and the training that he undergoes…man….like, I’m embarrassed. I’m significantly younger than him and I get tired by the time we are shooting.” Now, Tjahjanto has recently taken to his social media to say he wants to pitch to DC a movie with “old Batman” starring Odenkirk. His post features an image rendering of an elderly Bats and a set picture of him with Odenkirk and simply says, “Whats them DC films @ ? Ima pitch an Old Batman Film with Bob Odenkirk.”
Empire recently previewed Nobody 2 as Tjahjanto tells them, “Now that he’s back at it in full throttle, how does his family react to this beast? You’ll see a lot of the questions that fathers and husbands ask — ‘How do they react to this other side of me who’s constantly hustling and working for the family?’ It’s gonna be quite a journey.”
In Nobody 2, Odenkirk is reprising the role of Hutch Mansell, with Christopher Lloyd confirmed to be back as his father, David, and Connie Nielsen returning as Hutch’s wife, Becca. It remains to be seen if Gage Munroe and/or Paisley Cadorath will return as Hutch and Becca’s children, Blake and Abby, or if RZA will appear as Harry. It has been announced that Sharon Stone has joined the cast of Nobody 2 as a “stone cold villainess,” while Colin Hanks is playing a corrupt sheriff.
“At my signal, unleash hell.” For those of us that were alive back in the year 2000 and avid movie fans, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator was an event. While historical dramas aren’t especially rare nowadays, back then, they were relatively rare. Sure, there was the occasional Braveheart or Rob Roy, but they weren’t considered a bankable genre. Yet, that all changed when director Ridley Scott, whose career was at a low ebb following the failure of almost every movie he made in the 90s (1492: Conquest of Paradise, White Squall, G.I. Jane) decided to revive the so-called “sword and sandal” genre with a gritty, lavish redux of the historical epic.
In the fifties and sixties, these types of movies were commonplace, although in movies like The Robe or Ben-Hur, they usually told biblical tales. That changed a little with Spartacus, El Cid, and The Fall of the Roman Empire, but before long the genre was considered a mainstay of Italian “pablum” pics and somewhat trashy. For Ridley Scott, this was a challenge as a modern Roman epic hadn’t been done in a long time. One of the reasons was that studios couldn’t afford the amount of sets and extras needed for a film like this, but cutting-edge CGI suddenly made the creation of sets and animated extras affordable and convincing, so Scott was able to make an epic for a budget that wouldn’t wreck a studio were it to go awry (such as what happened to Carolco with Cutthroat Island).
In the lead, he cast a rising star named Russell Crowe, who was respected following his acclaimed turn in L.A. Confidential and an Oscar-nominated role in Michael Mann’s The Insider. Yet, he was never considered an action hero, but the film’s massive success turned him into an icon overnight. This week sees the release of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, which aims to make Paul Mescal the next iconic big-screen hero and is already earning excellent reviews (read ours here). But, how does the original fare after nearly a quarter of a century? Check out our video retrospective above and find out!
After more than a decade on PC and console, Final Fantasy XIV is coming to smartphones. Square Enix’s hit MMO revealed a mobile version this week that has the potential to bring millions of new players into the rich RPG world of Hydaelyn. It also raises a lot of questions about just how exactly a mobile version of…
If there’s one horror genre that gets the blood pumping in this particular gore-hound; it’s vampires! Ever since the German silent classic, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, bared its teeth way back in 1922, I’ve been obsessed with the genre. And no, you cheeky undead humanoid creatures, I’m not old enough to have caught that movie way back when. I can’t even remember where I first caught the sight of Max Schreck as Count Orlok, but it left a lasting impression. Ever since, I’ve gorged on human blood, figuratively speaking of course, with everything from The Lost Boys, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Let the Right One In, to more action oriented series like Blade and Underworld. Plus many, many more. The small screen has also had its fair share of awesome vampire action, with the countless TV re-imaginings of Dracula, the sex and claret spilling extravaganza that was True Blood, plus of course, the hilarious What We Do in the Shadows, on both the big and small screen. Leading up to the early noughties, the vampire genre had been simmering nicely, if not spectacularly, and the nineties brought us the aforementioned Bram Stoker’s Dracula plus other fun entries like From Dusk Till Dawn. We also got a young Kirsten Dunst drinking blood alongside Tom Cruise in platform shoes, in the better-than-you-may-remember Interview with the Vampire from 1994. These are just a few examples of how the genre had legs, or should that be fangs? However, for every decent entry, we also got prize turkeys like the lamentable Eddie Murphy horror comedy, Vampire in Brooklyn. So, by the time the year 2000 arrived, it also brought a deeply bizarre black horror-comedy about the Nosferatu vampire legend, with awesomely absurd central performances, including a vampire performance that you could legitimately compare to the silent 1922 classic. However, looking back on Shadow of the Vampire (watch it HERE) twenty four years after it was first released, does it still have fangs? Terrible jokes aside, let’s find out here on WTF happened to Shadow of the Vampire.
On March 4, 1922, eager members of the public filtered into the Marble Hall of the Berlin Zoological Garden to witness horror movie history with the aforementioned Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. The legendary silent movie opens with a young clerk traveling to see a wealthy count at his castle in the mountains. When he gets there, a tall man dressed all in black greets him. Before long the clerk soon begins to realize that his host has been spending his days asleep in a coffin beneath the building and may in fact be a blood sucking vampire. The movie brought many memorable images to the big screen that have been pilfered ever since; Count Orlok’s shadow creeping across a wall, or his fatal reaction to sunlight, are now tropes of the genre the film helped to create. However, Nosferatu’s innovations were overshadowed by a copyright battle over the film’s blatant similarity to Bram Stoker’s famed 1897 novel, Dracula, the result of which burned all but one existing print. Much like a vampire in the sunlight.
However, artistic license wasn’t much of an issue for Shadow of the Vampire director E. Elias Merhige, when it came to his vision of a piece of Hollywood folk legend. I mean, this was the guy who brought to the world the experimental silent horror movie Begotten, which features an opening scene where God disembowels himself with a straight-razor. Subtlety wasn’t in his wheelhouse, clearly. Which, let’s face it, is no bad thing gore-hounds! So, instead of making a formulaic, traditional Hollywood picture, Merhige proposed the theory that Max Schreck was so completely and utterly convincing as vampire Count Orlok because, and here’s the kicker; he was actually a vampire. He makes a pact with the movie’s director, F.W. Murnau that he would agree to appear in the movie, in return for the promise of feasting upon the blood of its leading lady.
The premise is great, and as well as featuring holy disembowelment in his previous movies, director Merhige had form for creating horrific imagery in his work; which is probably why the likes of Marylin Manson and Danzig came to him to direct music videos for them. However, who did Merhige turn to in order to bring to life, so to speak, not only a convincing real life vampire, but also an egotistical and delusional director? For the latter he turned to the great John Malkovich whose previous work was more than enough evidence that he could play an unhinged movie director in his sleep. Just take a look at any scene from the weird and wonderful Being John Malkovich from 1999 and you’ll see that the prolific actor was the perfect choice as Friedrich Wilhelm.
The role of ‘real life’ vampire Count Orlok was arguably a touch more difficult to cast, but with the movie being produced by Nicholas Cage’s Saturn Films, another one of his past co-stars ultimately won the role; Willem Defoe. Cage was initially keen to play Orlok but later turned to the versatile Defoe when he expressed an interest in the project. Defoe is amazing in the movie but just imagine what kind of crazy shenanigans Cage would have brought to it. Perhaps that’s why he chose not to play the count, as the production needed something slightly more subtle, rather than bombastic. Joining the lead cast members was an eclectic cast featuring the awesome and hilarious English comedian / actor Eddie Izzard as actor Gustav von Wangenheim, and Udo Kier as producer Abin Grau. We also get the evergreen Cary Elwes (I mean, does this guy ever properly age?) as photographer Fritz Arno Wagner, Catherine McCormack as leading lady Greta Schroder, plus smaller roles for Aden Gillett, Nicholas Elliot and Ronan Vibert.
Another cool little tasty morsel to note is that the movie was originally due to be called Burned to Light, which would have been a neat way of shoehorning some vampire and filmmaking terminology into the movie. However, bizarrely, Willem Defoe thought the title was ‘Burn Ed to Light’ and asked his perplexed director who this Ed dude was. Shadow of the Vampire is a cool title and ties in nicely with the classic imagery from 1922’s Nosferatu, but Burned to Light would have been a decent alternative. Also, to create the aesthetic of old film sock, cinematographer Lou Bogue shot much of the film with Kodak Vision 800T film stock, a high speed specialty stock with very coarse grain, in Super 35mm format, which further enhanced the effect when cropped and enlarged to anamorphic.
When all is said and done though, does Shadow of the Vampire have enough avant garde bite and blood spilling to satisfy the most hardened gore hounds? Well, there’s plenty of the former and very little of the latter, but that isn’t a criticism, at all. I thought the movie was a delight. Bizarrely, I hadn’t caught the movie when it was first released all those years ago. Seriously, where has twenty four years gone? But watching it for the first time for this retrospective reminded me just how much I enjoy this kind of almost experimental, art-house filmmaking, and also really brings home how pumped I am now that the awesome Robert Eggers is also taking on the classic, Nosferatu.
You can see that Merhige may have been inspired by the legendary relationship between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, who of course brought us the 1979 Nosferatu remake. The plot follows the making of the 1922 movie and focuses on the efforts John Malkovich’s flamboyantly selfish director goes to bring his vision to the world. It’s set in Berlin in 1921, and we meet the confused cast and crew of Murnau’s film who go about their roles in the production without any real clue as to what the film is about, and they have no idea a real vampire will be joining them on set.
This is where the film really comes to life, as we first meet Defoe’s wonderfully unhinged Count Orlok, facial tics, teeth and long menacing claws in all their macabre glory. At first the crew mock Count Orlok, thinking he’s little more than an actor with a massive method-sized chip on his hunched shoulders. He takes part in the movie with the pretense to the crew that he’ll stay in character every waking second, without breaking out of the role for any reason. Before long, however, he starts munching on crew members and begins to fuel the ire of his increasingly unhinged director, before getting his wish to feast on the blood of the movie’s leading lady.
Both Malkovich and Defoe are great in their roles and while the avant garde art-house stylings of the movie won’t be to the taste of anybody looking for Interview with the Vampire style big star action, the movie holds up as a curious look into the making of a vampire classic. Plus, the lead actors nail every moment they’re on screen. You really believe Defoe is an undead humanoid creature, such is his dedication to getting into character, and one scene where he goes full Ozzy Osbourne and chomps on a poor bat is a hoot. While this film may not appeal to anybody expecting more mainstream vampire madness, if you get a chance to sit down with Count Orlok and friends, and you understand the art-house sensibilities on display, I highly recommend revisiting this little gem of a movie.
Shadow of the Vampire had its world premiere at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival and It was also given a limited release in the United States on December 29, 2000. It had a wider release on January 26th, 2001 and grossed a total of $8.3 million domestically and $11.2 million worldwide. Its widest release saw it launch in 513 theaters and although it didn’t set the box-office alight, it at least brought in a small profit theatrically off of its estimated $8 million budget, not taking into account home entertainment sales.
Critically the movie was mostly met with a positive reaction, with a lot of the accolades thrown in the direction of the excellent Willem Defoe as Count Orlok. The film holds an 82% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on one hundred and forty reviews, with an average rating of 7.0/10. The site’s critical consensus states: “Shadow of the Vampire is frightening, compelling, and funny, and features an excellent performance by Willem Dafoe.” Roger Ebert also had kind words for the film, writing that, “director E. Elias Merhige and his writer, Steven Katz, do two things at the same time. They make a vampire movie of their own, and they tell a backstage story about the measures that a director will take to realize his vision”, and that Defoe “embodies the Schreck of Nosferatu so uncannily that when real scenes from the silent classic are slipped into the frame, we don’t notice a difference.” This is one of those instances where a modestly budgeted genre flick manages to achieve great acclaim from critics but probably missed the mark with more of a mainstream audience.
For this writer at least, Shadow of the Vampire is an intriguing, creative delight with exceptionally over the top performances and an aesthetic that harks back to the 1922 classic perfectly. While I’m not sure those looking for generic vampire thrills will buy into what director Merhige and the cast brought to the movie, it’s nonetheless a great throwback to the days where horror could be found in the most unsuspecting, and silent, places. However, the most important opinion we always love to hear is from YOU guys, so what’s your take on Shadow of the Vampire? Did you buy into the wonderfully over the top performances, especially Defoe as the very real Count Orlok? Or was it one chewed bat away from absurdity? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you wonderful gore-hounds next time. Thanks for watching!
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!
