In September, Sony announced the PlayStation 5 Pro and its $700 price tag. Immediately the reaction from folks online was negative. Many were confused by the high price point and weren’t convinced by Sony’s initial videos that the upgrades to games like Spider-Man 2 were worth it. After playing around with the PS5 Pro…
Joker: Folie à Deux will go down as one of the biggest failures at the 2024 box office after its dismal earnings and speedy debut on PVOD. Todd Phillips’ musical sequel earned $204M worldwide, paling compared to the original’s staggering $1B+ blockbuster performance. Opinions differ significantly about the film’s quality (depending on who you talk to). However, most say they feel betrayed by the follow-up, saying it lacks the spirit of the original. Regardless of how you think about the film, money talks in Hollywood, and right now, the Joker sequel comes off like a bad joke. When the film failed to launch above expectations (or remotely close), WB announced a digital release date less than a week into the drama’s theatrical run. Unfortunately, Fandango says sales for Joker: Folie à Deux match the underwhelming performance of its cinematic showing.
Joker: Folie à Deux limped onto the iTunes and Fandango charts in fourth place, positioned behind the excellent Demi Moore body horror The Substance, Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine, and Tim Burton’s surprisingly stellar Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Joker: Folie à Deux’s failure isn’t the only reason Todd Phillips is making headlines. Speaking with Empire, Phillips griped about the screening of ads ahead of feature films in theaters, saying, “Stop showing commercials before the movies. We’ve paid for our tickets. We’re excited to be there. The commercials tend to take the air out of the room.”
While I, too, loathe sitting through insufferable advertisements at the cinema, they’re a necessary evil if theater owners wish to keep the lights on. Partnerships and advertisements help pay for silver screen real estate, with sponsorships adding to a theater’s coffers. You’d think the outrageous concessions prices would be enough, but alas. I love a limited-time popcorn bucket as much as the next cinephile, but commercials bring in the big bucks from car manufacturers, cheerfully advertised pharmaceuticals and other companies. Want to learn more about Ozempic? Just ask! Groan.
Do you plan to check Joker: Folie à Deux out on PVOD? What do you think about ads in movie theaters? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Earlier this year, it was announced that actor Jay Hernandez, whose credits include Magnum P.I., Hostel, and Suicide Squad, would be making his feature directorial debut with with the survival horror thriller Night Comes, working from a screenplay he wrote with Jason Bourque and Nancy Isaak. The film stars Dafne Keen (Deadpool & Wolverine, Logan, Star Wars: The Acolyte) and Samantha Lorraine (Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado, You are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, The Walking Dead) – and now an image from the Night Comes production has been unveiled, giving us our first look at the characters played by Keen and Lorraine. That image can be found at the bottom of this article.
Coming our way from Impossible Dream Entertainment and the production and financing outfit Big Picture Cinema Group, Night Comes will unfold against the backdrop of a cataclysmic event that threatens to engulf humanity. Two sisters manage to escape the horror only find themselves thrust into a perilous struggle for survival, tasked with a mission that holds the fate of mankind in the balance. Drawing inspiration from genre-defining classics like Birdbox and The Descent, Night Comes promises to deliver a spine-chilling, edge-of-your-seat experience that will leave audiences breathless. Alexander Ludwig (The Hunger Games, Bad Boys for Life, Vikings) is also in the cast.
Impossible Dream Entertainment partners Shaun Redick and Yvette Yates Redick are producing the film alongside Big Picture Cinema Group partners Jayce Barreiro and Jacky Lai. Hernandez and Keen serve as executive producers with Jared Zhang, Graem Luis, Jason Bourque, Joseph Tuck, Steve Read, and Matthew Chow. Big Picture Cinema Group is co-financing the movie with Versatile Media. The Exchange is handling worldwide sales and will be introducing the project to global distributors at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival.
Hernandez previously told Deadline, “With Night Comes we have a chance to do two unique things simultaneously. We have a visually stunning exploration of genre, with edge of your seat action coupled with what I see to be a character study in a world where rules, gender roles and order no longer exist. And it’s a journey into how these two young women define sisterhood.“
Barriero said, “From the first minute we read it, we were captivated by the world Night Comes brings people into, and the potential of a film so relentless and action-packed for its genre. Jay has such an amazing vision for this movie and Dafne and Samantha are the perfect duo to bring this to life in memorable, eventized fashion.“
Are you interested in Night Comes? Take a look at the image of Dafne Keen and Samantha Lorraine in character, then let us know by leaving a comment.
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The corpse of Halloween is barely cold, but studios are keen to announce holiday-themed projects nonetheless. Thankfully, this one sounds like one hell of a ride! Maria Bakalova (The Apprentice, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) is catching a ride alongside Peter Mullan (The Magdalene Sisters, Children of Men) for No Way Off, a Christmas Eve thriller from Downton Abbey director Brian Kelly. Kelly directs from a script by Gaby Hull (Two Weeks to Live, We Hunt Together), with James Wilkinson producing.
Akin to movies like The Shallows, Buried, and Crawl, No Way Off finds Bakalova in the role of Laura, “a young mother who waits at a bus stop with her infant son. When the bus pulls up, its driver is wearing a latex Santa mask. Laura climbs aboard, collapsing into her seat. Exhausted and stressed, she soon falls asleep. When Laura wakes, night has fallen. The bus is now hurtling along a motorway, miles off its usual route. Apart from the sleeping baby, she is the only passenger left on board. She can’t outrun the driver – she’ll have to outsmart him.”
Finally! I holiday-themed Speed with a psychotic Santa Claus! I guess Santa got my letter.
Bakalova, who made a splash when she duped Rudy Giuliani into a faux interview in Sasha Baron Cohen’s Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, recently played Ivana Trump in The Apprentice. The Ali Abbasi-directed docudrama tells how a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) started his real-estate business in the 1970s and ’80s in New York with the help of infamous lawyer Roy M. Cohen (Jeremy Strong).
Meanwhile, Peter Mullan, a seasoned actor across multiple genres, plays King Durin III in Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. His upcoming film, I Swear, stars him in a drama focusing on John Davidson’s life story. Diagnosed with Tourette’s at 15, targeted as insane by his peers, he struggled with a condition few had witnessed. Campaigning for Tourette’s as an adult, he accepted his MBE from the Queen in 2019.
What do you think about the premise for No Way Off, starring Maria Bakalova and Peter Mullan? Would you board a bus piloted by a driver wearing a latex Santa mask? How will Laura escape her crisis? We can’t wait to find out.
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Metal Slug Tactics isn’t what I was expecting. Fortunately, that’s not a bad thing. Instead of Final Fantasy Tactics, it’s Into the Breach with some clever twists that help infuse it with some of the classic arcade series’ run-and-gun roots. I’m having a fun time with it so far, even if it has some glaring annoyances.
Metal Slug Tactics isn’t what I was expecting. Fortunately, that’s not a bad thing. Instead of Final Fantasy Tactics, it’s Into the Breach with some clever twists that help infuse it with some of the classic arcade series’ run-and-gun roots. I’m having a fun time with it so far, even if it has some glaring annoyances.
As another Halloween season dies, department stores rush to display Christmas decorations while Ariana Grande’s cover of “Santa Baby” plays on an overhead speaker. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” they say. Meanwhile, Jack Black is getting into the holiday spirit with the first images from his upcoming film, Dear Santa, directed by Bobby Farrelly (Champions, There’s Something About Mary).
The holly jolly comedy centers on Liam Turner (Robert Timothy Smith), a young boy who still believes in Santa Claus. Liam isn’t the best speller, and while writing his yearly note to Santa, he misspells the rotund elf’s name, addressing his wishes to Satan instead. Touched by the boy’s outreach, Satan (Jack Black) visits Liam, bringing the gift of devilish tricks, demonic shenanigans, and laughs to the spirited season.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Farrelly says Jack Black was the first choice to play Satan/Santa. “Jack is just that guy that with his arching eyebrows and his faces and all that, there’s a little bit of mischievous to him at all times, but he’s eminently likable, and that’s just Jack,” Bobby explained. “We never wanted to make it a horror movie or something like that. We wanted it to be comical. So it was a delicate ball of playing this iconic character but doing it in a way that the audience can have some fun with it. And Jack was the perfect guy.”
Jack Black won’t be the only one bringing Christmas cheer to theaters with Dear Santa. Brianne Howey and Hayes MacArthur play Liam’s parents, and Keegan-Michael Key stars in a primary role. PJ Byrne, Jaden Carson Baker, and Kai Cech also appear in the holiday-centric feature. Post Malone cameos in the film, playing himself, which makes us wonder what he’s doing hanging out with Satan/Santa.
“It is a family story because it is Christmas. But you know what? Pete and I, we’re the Farrelly brothers, so we wanted to put our skewed version on a Christmas story like this, but at the same time, we don’t want to just blow it up. We wanted it to have a sweetness to it underneath all the edge and all that,” Bobby says, adding, “so that’s the Farrelly Brothers Christmas movie.”
While Dear Santa is a family film, Farrelly warns that kids who still believe in Santa should skip it. The film shatters the illusion of Santa as a toy-toting B&E expert who thrives on cookies and milk, and some might not be ready to see the wizard behind the curtain.
What do you think about Jack Black’s look as Satan/Santa in the first images for Dear Santa? Can Bobby Farrelly make a family-friendly Christmas comedy without stepping over the line? We’ll know when Dear Santa parks its sleigh on Paramount+ on November 25.
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Stephen Belber wrote his story Tape as a play back in 1999, so it was always intended to get multiple interpretations over the years, with productions that would take place in different locations, with different casts and directors. Productions of Tape have been performed in Louisville, Kentucky; New York City; Dublin, Ireland; London, England; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Williamstown, Massachusetts; Buxton, England; Orlando, Florida; Alexandria, Minnesota; and Tehran, Iran, among other places. In 2001, Richard Linklater directed a film adaptation of the story that starred Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, and Uma Thurman. And now, Variety reports that Tape has gotten a Hong Kong reimagining. A trailer can be seen in the embed above.
Directed by banker turned film producer and director Bizhan Tong (Forensic Psychologist), the new cinematic take on Tape stars Kenny Kwan (The Legend of Luzhen), Selena Lee (Queen of News), and Adam Pak (A Guilty Conscience). The story explores the fallout from a traumatic event at a high school graduation party, forcing the three former friends to confront their past in a story that delves into themes of power, manipulation, and the subjective nature of truth. The remake transposes the story from the U.S. to Hong Kong, a region that has yet to fully reckon with the #MeToo movement, while adapting to today’s technology-dependent age. Traditionally, Tape centers entirely on three people talking in a hotel room, but the trailer for Bizhan Tong’s film reveals that this one goes outside of the hotel room. Tong, Lee, and Bonnie Lo wrote the Hong Kong adaptation of Belber’s story.
Tong and Lee produced the film, with Belber serving as an executive producer alongside John Sloss, Jaeson Ma, Kris Eiamsakulrat, Tenten Wei, and Andy Wang. Tong provided the following statement: “Bringing Tape to a Hong Kong setting has allowed us to explore a cultural dimension rarely touched upon in Asian cinema. The themes of the original resonate even more deeply in today’s context, and I’m excited to share this reimagined version with audiences around the world, in a further attempt to bridge East and West and support Hong Kong film.“
Variety notes that Beijing Sita Digital Technology has acquired the distribution rights for the film in China, and international sales are being handled by EST N8. Pre-release theatrical screenings will begin in Hong Kong on November 16th.
Richard Linklater’s Tape will always have a special place in my heart, because it was one of a group of films that I was watching on repeat during the weeks building up to my high school graduation, an event that happened long ago (the other movies in the rotation being Mission: Impossible, Mission: Impossible II, Vanilla Sky, and Linklater’s Waking Life). That movie is the only production of Belber’s story I have ever seen, but I’m interested in watching the Hong Kong reimagining.
Are you interested in seeing a Hong Kong reimagining of Tape? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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PLOT: When Anne and Patrick hail a black cab after a night out their driver is chatty, jovial even, but they are in no mood to talk. In fact, the couple is barely on speaking terms. That is, until they realize the driver has no intention of taking them home. Locked in the cab with no means of escape, the driver transports the couple to a stretch of deserted and supposedly haunted road. But what is his purpose? Is he mad or just plain evil? And why has he selected Anne and Patrick as his victims?
REVIEW: Most of us have had a less-than-enjoyable ride in a cab or an Uber. At least with rideshares, you can tell if the driver has been a creep or not, while a taxi is a complete crapshoot. Jumping into a cab, we generally trust that we are safe, but everyone knows someone who has a horror story about a nightmare ride. The new film Black Cab takes that idea and twists it for an unconventional ghost story involving a nameless driver and a young couple stuck in the backseat for a terrifying journey. With a rare dramatic performance from Nick Frost, Black Cab may not be nearly as scary as it could have been, but the lead role of the Shaun of the Dead actor makes up for the film’s shortcomings. With a brisk running time and some tricks up its sleeve, Black Cab is worth checking out.
Black Cab opens with Anne (Synnove Karlsen) and Patrick (Luke Norris) leaving a get-together with friends, and they reveal that they have recently gotten back together. The group’s mixed feelings at hearing the news throw a wrench in the shared ride home that they take in a typical British black cab. Driven by an unnamed but jovial driver (Nick Frost), the cab begins its commute with Anne and Patrick bickering about their reunion as a couple. The driver tries to lighten the mood by chatting up the young passengers, with Anne being quietly nice and Patrick acting like the worst fare. Rather quickly, the ride escalates as the couple’s argument shifts toward the driver, who makes repeated insults towards Patrick and several detours along the way. When they make one particular stop, things turn for the worse.
At first, Black Cab has the hallmarks of countless horror films about kidnappings and maniacs who take advantage of unsuspecting civilians. Echoing elements of The Hitcher and even The Vanishing, Black Cab starts out as an unsettlingly realistic thriller about what could happen if you set foot in an average taxi cab. Nick Frost’s performance begins with his sense of humor, making the driver seem like an average guy behind the wheel, making either groanworthy comments in their dad-jokiness or slightly off from what you would expect in a normal conversation. Frost does a great job of shifting his demeanor from awkward to friendly and suddenly to sinister and menacing without missing a beat, giving the driver an air of psychopathy that makes it difficult to know if he is crazy or just incredibly calculating. That is until the film shifts into the final act.
Without giving away the reveal/twist as to why the driver has taken Anne and Patrick hostage, I will say that it did not completely work for me. It does help shift your perspective as to why the driver does what he does, but it also changes the dynamic of what kind of a movie Black Cab is. The sequences outside of the cab offer a nice change of pace, but I was hopeful that Black Cab would mimic the single-location conceit of Steven Knight’s Locke rather than follow a more conventional genre route. Even so, the beats that Black Cab hits as it presses through the third act towards the ending did not entirely work for me outside of Nick Frost’s performance. By playing the driver as an everyman, Frost imbues elements of his physicality that could have you underestimate that this cabbie is capable of what he does over the course of the film, but without Frost’s charisma and presence, I don’t think this movie would have worked at all.
Written by Virgina Gilbert, Black Cab does boast some script work from Nick Frost himself. The nature of Frost’s character required his input, as I cannot imagine the role would have worked as well without his involvement in the dialogue. Gilbert has scripted and directed several films heavy in character drama rather than the supernatural. Still, director Bruce Goodison invests his visual style and approach to Black Cab in the tried and true of the genre. From jumpscares to the dimly lit sets, Goodison mines tropes from countless horror movies that came before it, which detracts a bit from the originality of what Nick Frost’s character brings to the tale. It is not a terrible horror film, but it certainly does not innovate much in the genre.
Black Cab would have been a forgettable horror movie without Nick Frost’s lead performance. As an unhinged driver with a supernatural mission, Black Cab is the actor’s third horror film of the year and one of the better performances of his career. When a film entirely hinges on a single performance, you know that there is something special about it. Nick Frost may be most associated with the lighter and more humorous genre outings in his filmography, but Black Cab proves that he is more than up to the task of playing dead serious dramatic roles. This is not a terrible movie or a great one, but Nick Frost makes it destination viewing with a charismatic and creepy lead performance.
Black Cab begins streaming on November 8th on Shudder.
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Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich may have moved on from that franchise, but she stays busy. We’ll soon be seeing her face off with Dave Bautista in her husband Paul W.S. Anderson’s fantasy film In the Lost Lands (a George R. R. Martin adaptation), we recently heard she’ll be working with Rosario Dawson and Alexandra Shipp on the action thriller Midnight, she’s gearing up to work with director Brad Anderson on both the sci-fi film World Breaker and the zombie movie Twilight of the Dead (based on an idea by the late, great George A. Romero), and now The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that she’s set to star in the Taken-esque action thriller Protector.
Adrian Grunberg, whose credits include Rambo: Last Blood, Get the Gringo, and The Black Demon, will be directing Protector from a screenplay by Bong-Seeb Mun. Filming is expected to take place in New Mexico this winter.
Jovovich will be taking on the role of Nikki, a former war hero who believed she had left her violent past behind to raise her daughter, Chloe, in peace. When she wakes up in an abandoned factory and learns that Chloe has been kidnapped, Nikki has navigate the city’s criminal underworld, pursued by both the cops and the military, to get her daughter back. The names of the other cast members have not yet been announced.
Bong-Seeb Mun is producing Protector alongside Kenneth Kim and Bang-Ok Joo for Aanaxion Studio. Arianne Fraser and Delphine Perrier of Highland Film Group are also producers on the film, and so is martial artist and stunt coordinator Ho-Sung Pak. Highland Film Group is co-financing the project and will handle worldwide rights. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Protector is one of a slew of action projects heading to the American Film Market this week, “as producers double down on a return to shoot-’em-up thrillers.” And a return to shoot-’em-up thrillers sounds like a great thing to me.
Are you a Milla Jovovich fan, and are you glad to hear that she’ll be working with director Adrian Grunberg on the action thriller Protector? Share your thoughts on this project by leaving a comment below.
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