It was previously reported that Cillian Murphy would return to play Jim in 28 Years Later, but producer Andrew Macdonald has confirmed that Murphy won’t actually make an appearance—at least not in the first movie.
“[On] this, we wanted him to be involved and he wanted to be involved. He is not in the first film, but I’m hoping there will be some Jim somewhere along the line,” Macdonald told Empire. “He’s involved at the moment as an executive producer, and I would hope we can work with him in some way in the future in the trilogy.“
When the first trailer for 28 Days Later was released, some fans believed the emaciated infected person glimpsed was Murphy. It wasn’t. The role was played by an extra named Angus Neill, and director Danny Boyle’s partner even warned him that his appearance would cause some debate on whether or not they were looking at Murphy. “I showed my girlfriend the trailer and she said, ‘People will think that’s Cillian,’” Boyle said. “I said, ‘Don’t be silly.’ I ignored her. So I’ve eaten a bit of humble pie since.“
28 Years Later stars Jodie Comer (The Bikeriders), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (The Fall Guy), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave), and Erin Kellyman (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier).
The sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, has already been shot, so Murphy may appear in that movie. A third film is planned, but production won’t start until after the release of the first movie.
The official synopsis for 28 Years Later: “It’s been almost three decades since the rage virus escaped a biological weapons laboratory, and now, still in a ruthlessly enforced quarantine, some have found ways to exist amidst the infected. One such group of survivors lives on a small island connected to the mainland by a single, heavily-defended causeway. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.” The film will hit theaters on June 20th, with the sequel slated for a January 16, 2026release.
Julia Garner plays Silver Surfer in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, but she hasn’t commented on her involvement in the Marvel movie… until now. The actress didn’t say much about the character when she spoke with Entertainment Weekly, only to assume that she will be “really shiny” in the finished film.
“I can’t really speak a lot about that project,” Garner said. “All I can just say is that I’m very lucky to have a part in that project, and the Fantastic Four are fantastic. They are so amazing in this. I’m very excited for people to see them. I’m assuming that this Silver Surfer is gonna be really shiny like in the other previous ones and the comic books. So, yeah, that’s all I’m gonna say.“
The Fantastic Four: First Steps stars Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic; Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, aka the Invisible Woman; Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm, aka The Thing. Ralph Ineson plays Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds, with Paul Walter Hauser, John Malkovich, and Natasha Lyonne involved in undisclosed roles.
The official synopsis for The Fantastic Four: First Steps: “Set against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” introduces Marvel’s First Family—Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Ben Grimm/The Thing as they face their most daunting challenge yet. Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). And if Galactus’ plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren’t bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal.” The Fantastic Four: First Steps will hit theaters on July 25, 2025.
Garner will next be seen starring alongside Christopher Abbott in Wolf Man. The film follows Blake (Abbott), a San Francisco husband and father, who inherits his remote childhood home in rural Oregon after his own father vanishes and is presumed dead. With his marriage to his high-powered wife, Charlotte (Garner), fraying, Blake persuades Charlotte to take a break from the city and visit the property with their young daughter, Ginger (Matlida Firth). But as the family approaches the farmhouse in the dead of night, they’re attacked by an unseen animal and, in a desperate escape, barricade themselves inside the home as the creature prowls the perimeter. As the night stretches on, however, Blake begins to behave strangely, transforming into something unrecognizable, and Charlotte will be forced to decide whether the terror within their house is more lethal than the danger without. Wolf Man will hit theaters on January 17, 2025.
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. Over on Deadline, they’re running a Read the Screenplay series that spotlights the scripts behind the awards season’s most talked-about movies – and as part of that series, they have officially released Eggers’ Nosferatu script online! You can check it out at THIS LINK.
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.“
Are you a fan of Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, and will you be reading the script? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
If you’re like me, you couldn’t get enough of Donnie Yen’s John Wick character, Caine, in John Wick: Chapter 4. With his calm and cool mystique, Yen raised the bar of Baba Yaga’s latest fight for survival. Caine is the type of character fans want to see again, and thanks to Collider, we’ve got a killer update for the John Wick spinoff featuring Yen’s vision-impaired warrior. Speaking with Collider’s Steve Weintraub while promoting his movie The Prosecutor, Yen said there’s a high probability he’ll direct the solo pic featuring his character.
As if hearing the news from the horse’s mouth wasn’t enough, John Wick director Chad Stahelski confirmed the chatter, to which Yen said he felt a tremendous amount of responsibility to bring fire to the project.
“I think both the fans, as well as the studio, want this to happen, and we’ll see,” Yen told Weintraub. “I don’t know, Steve. I can only tell you that much. But yes, we are talking, and we are talking intimately. We’ll see what happens.”
“But at the same time, I hold responsibility as well as a pressure that I don’t want to ruin the franchise,” Yen added. “I try to do my best to bring something fresh to the franchise itself. I don’t want to bring down the expectations for the fans. I try to do my best, like always.”
Yen has been getting behind the camera since 1994, when he was an uncredited director for High Voltage. He’s directed a handful of films since then, including 2023’s Sakra and 2024’s The Prosecutor, an action-oriented legal drama about a poor young man wrongly charged with drug trafficking after being deceived. An ex-prosecutor investigates the case, uncovers a corrupt lawyer team’s scheme, and restores justice despite obstruction from evil forces.
Of all the wonderful characters from the John Wick franchise, Caine is one of the most intriguing. I suspect Donnie Yen would take great care with the Caine spinoff, and I’d like to see him get a crack at the director’s chair.
What do you think about Donnie Yen possibly directing the John Wick spinoff featuring Caine? Let us know in the comments section below.
After a strong holiday season, the box office seems set to slow down this weekend, with the only new release being Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, starring Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. The original film opened with a better-than-expected $15 million on its way to a $44 million domestic total. Pantera isn’t expected to open quite as well, and I’m predicting it will open in line with Butler’s own Plane, which made just over $10 million almost exactly two years ago (although that was the more lucrative MLK Jr weekend – which doesn’t happen this year until next week).
I’d expect Pantera to make about $12 million, and come in just behind Mufasa: The Lion King, which should make about $15 million. Number three will likely go to Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which will make about $10 million.
The other big new release this weekend is Better Man, the Robbie Williams biopic which recasts the singer with a CGI Chimpanzee. Truth be told, I absolutely loved this movie (read my review), but the box office outlook isn’t good. Better Man opened in limited release over the holidays, and its per-screen average has been poor, with it only making $26k on six screens last weekend. The fact is, in North America, Williams just doesn’t have a big following, and the unusual way it’s filmed might turn off more viewers than it will attract.
As such, expect the top five to be rounded out by two holdovers – Nosferatu and Moana 2. Otherwise, I wouldn’t expect too much from the weekend box office, especially given the horrific wildfires in Los Angeles, so this will be a largely uneventful, quiet weekend before The Wolf Man sweeps in for next weekend’s MLK Day.
After a strong holiday season, the box office seems set to slow down this weekend, with the only new release being Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, starring Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. The original film opened with a better-than-expected $15 million on its way to a $44 million domestic total. Pantera isn’t expected to open quite as well, and I’m predicting it will open in line with Butler’s own Plane, which made just over $10 million almost exactly two years ago (although that was the more lucrative MLK Jr weekend – which doesn’t happen this year until next week).
I’d expect Den of Thieves 2: Pantera to make about $12 million, and come in just behind Mufasa: The Lion King, which should make about $15 million. Number three will likely go to Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which will make about $10 million.
The other big new release this weekend is Better Man, the Robbie Williams biopic which recasts the singer with a CGI Chimpanzee. Truth be told, I absolutely loved this movie (read my review), but the box office outlook isn’t good. Better Man opened in limited release over the holidays, and its per-screen average has been poor, with it only making $26k on six screens last weekend. The fact is, in North America, Williams just doesn’t have a big following, and the unusual way it’s filmed might turn off more viewers than it will attract.
As such, expect the top five to be rounded out by two holdovers – Nosferatu and Moana 2. Otherwise, I wouldn’t expect too much from the weekend box office, especially given the horrific wildfires in Los Angeles, so this will be a largely uneventful, quiet weekend before The Wolf Man sweeps in for next weekend’s MLK Day.
Here are our predictions:
Mufasa: The Lion King: $15 million
Den of Thieves 2: Pantera: $12 million
Sonic the Hedgehog 3: $10 million
Nosferatu: $8 million
Moana 2: $7 million
What are you seeing this weekend? Will you be adding to the box office of Mufasa, Den of Thieves 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Nosferatu, Moana 2, or Better Man?
28 Days Later director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland have finally reunited to make a sequel to their zombie (or, if you prefer, infected people) movie classic. As we reporter earlier this year, this sequel is set up at Sony, is going to be called 28 Years Later – and it’s meant to launch a whole trilogy of 28 Days Later sequels. In fact, when producer Andrew Macdonald confirmed that filming on 28 Years Later had wrapped back in August, he followed that up by saying that they were about to start working on the second chapter in this trilogy. Boyle directed the first one, then for the second film he passed the helm over to Candyman and The Marvels director Nia DaCosta. The sequel, 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple, wrapped production in October. 28 Years Later is set to reach theatres on June 20th, 2025, and 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple will follow six months later, on January 16, 2026. But what about 28 Years Later Part 3? Who will be directing that one, and when will it start filming? According to Empire, Boyle is likely to return to the helm for the trilogy capper, which won’t go into production until after the first movie is released, so the filmmakers will have the chance to see how audiences respond to it.
Garland wrote the screenplays for 28 Years Later and 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple, and is expected to write the last entry in the trilogy as well. While we don’t have any information on what happens in The Bone Temple, cast member Ralph Fiennes (Conclave) revealed some details on 28 Years Later: “Britain is 28 years into this terrible plague of infected people who are violent, rabid humans with a few pockets of uninfected communities. And it centers on a young boy who wants to find a doctor to help his dying mother. He leads his mother through this beautiful northern English terrain. But of course, around them hiding in forests and hills and woods are the infected. But he finds a doctor who is a man we might think is going to be weird and odd, but actually is a force for good.“
In addition to Fiennes, the cast of 28 Years Later includes Jodie Comer (The Bikeriders), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (The Fall Guy), Alfie Williams (His Dark Materials), and Erin Kellyman (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier). It has also been said that 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy returns “in a surprising way.”
In the original film, Murphy played bicycle courier Jim, who wakes up from a coma to find himself in an apocalyptic England that’s overrun by people who have been infected by a rage virus. Boyle and Garland went through several endings for 28 Days Later before landing on the one movie-goers saw in theatres – and that ending was the only one where Jim survived. So he’s still out there, ready to live through another rage virus nightmare 28 years later. As The Hollywood Reporter previously noted, “The 2002 film grossed $82.7 million globally and spawned a sequel, 2007’s 28 Weeks Later, though Boyle and Garland were only nominally involved as executive producers.”
Empire gives some more information on the plot, revealing that Britain’s straggling survivors (the rest of the globe remains relatively unaffected, leaving the UK to fend for itself) have learned to live in a full-on post-apocalyptic world. Here, Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Jamie, Jodie Comer’s Isla, and their 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams) are part of a community on Holy Island, aka Lindisfarne, connected to the UK mainland by a causeway only briefly accessible when the tide recedes each day. It soon comes time for young Spike to take a rite-of-passage trip beyond the safety of Lindisfarne, to open his eyes to the true state of the nation. Needless to say, things don’t go to plan.
Boyle told Empire that the characters live in “a closed and necessarily very tight community. There are very strict defence laws, obviously, to survive that long in what is effectively an ongoing hostile environment. They’ve created a successful community, as they see it.“
Garland said, “This is very narratively ambitious. Danny and I understood that. We tried to condense it, but its natural form felt like a trilogy.“
Thanks to their deal with Sony, each of these new films will be receiving a theatrical release and will have budgets in the $60 million range. 28 Years Later has a budget of $75 million. Boyle and Garland are producing 28 Years Later with Bernie Bellew, original producer Andrew Macdonald, and Peter Rice, who was the head of Fox Searchlight Pictures when that company backed 28 Days Later. Murphy is executive producing.
Are you looking forward to the 28 Years Later trilogy, and are you glad to hear that Danny Boyle is likely to direct 28 Years Later Part 3? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
While Cynthia Erivo continues to astonish audiences with her stunning portrayal of Elphaba Thropp for Jon M. Chu’s Wicked, she’s still dreaming of roles she’d like to conquer after the Wicked Witch of the West’s musical adaptation rides a twister out of theaters early next year. Speaking with the National Board of Review, Erivo told the outlet one of her dream roles is Ororo Munroe, aka Storm from Marvel’s X-Men. Erivo says she wants to explore the character’s depth and “inner turmoil,” feeling like a lot has been left on the table by previous incarnations.
“I really want to play Storm,” Erivo told the outlet. “I know it sounds frivolous but I think we haven’t uncovered how grand she is and all of that inner turmoil that she has, so I think there’s a world where we could do something like that.”
Erivo is correct regarding Storm’s potential in Marvel’s X-Men universe. Halle Berry and Alexandra Shipp gave solid performances as the weather-wielding character, but anyone who’s picked up a Marvel comic lately knows Ororo is capable of more. In addition to being one of the X-Men’s most formidable team members, Storm is a commanding political leader, fierce warrior, and master of omega-level powers. Marvel Studios should feature her prominently in the upcoming X-Men reboot and give Wolverine a rest. Don’t get me wrong, I like Logan as much as the next X-Men fan, but we’ve been there and have done that for decades. Let’s give some of Marvel’s other X-Men a chance to take center stage.
In November, Kevin Feige said fans can expect X-Men characters to appear in upcoming Marvel movies before the team’s official reboot. “I think you will see that continues in our next few movies with some X-Men players that you might recognize,” Feige said about drip-feeding X-Men characters with new films and television series.
“Right after that, the whole story of Secret Wars really leads us into a new age of mutants and of the X-Men. Again, it’s one of those dreams come true. We finally have the X-Men back,” Feige teased.
Could members of the X-Men appear in Marvel’s Fantastic Four: First Steps? Would Cynthia Erivo be a fantastic casting choice for Storm? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
The second season of the new Goosebumps TV series, Goosebumps: The Vanishing is set to make its premiere on January 10th on Disney+ and Hulu – and with just hours to go until all of the episodes drop, Disney+ has unveiled the opening scene of the first episode. This scene, which takes us back to 1994 Brooklyn and has Beastie Boys on the soundtrack, can be viewed in the embed above.
The first season of Goosebumps centered on a group of five high schoolers as they embark on a shadowy and twisted journey to investigate the tragic passing three decades earlier of a teen named Harold Biddle — while also unearthing dark secrets from their parents’ past. The show is taking the anthology route, so we can expect a second season that has “an entirely new cast and setting based on R.L. Stine’s iconic Scholastic book series.” Season 2 will also consist of eight episodes, two shorter than the first season. Season 2 will pick up when teenage siblings discover a threat within their home, setting off a chain of events that unravel a profound mystery. As they delve into the unknown, the duo find themselves entangled in the story of five teenagers who mysteriously vanished in 1994.
The cast of Goosebumps: The Vanishing includes Arjun Athalye (Are You Afraid of the Dark?), Eloise Payet (The End of the Party), Christopher Paul Richards (The Kids Are Alright), Kyra Tantao (Zombies 3), Stony Blyden (American Born Chinese), and Sakina Jaffrey (Billions), and the only details that have been shared about their characters are their names. As Deadline reported, “Athalye plays Sameer; Payet is Hannah; Richards plays Matty; Tantao portrays Nicole; Blyden is Trey and Jaffrey portrays Ramona.” Also in the cast are Sam McCarthy (Dead to Me) and Jayden Bartels (Side Hustle) as fraternal twins Devin and Cece, respectively; Elijah Cooper (That Girl Lay Lay) as CJ; Galilea La Salvia (Party Down) as Frankie; Francesca Noel (R#J) as Alex; and Ana Ortiz (Devious Maids) as Jen, “a dedicated police detective who remains rooted in her Brooklyn neighborhood after experiencing a tragic event that involved her friends in adolescence.” Friends‘ David Schwimmer is also in there as Anthony, “a former botany professor and divorced parent of teenage girls who is juggling the responsibilities of overseeing an aging parent while having his kids for the summer.“ The twins Devin and Cece are the children of Schwimmer’s Anthony.
Rob Letterman, who directed the first Goosebumps movie, created this series with Nick Stoller, and Hilary Winston serves as showrunner on the new season. Stoller is executive producing the show through his company Stoller Global Solutions. Letterman and Winston are also executive producing Goosebumps alongside Neal H. Moritz and Pavun Shetty of Original Film, Conor Welch of Stoller Global Solutions, and Erin O’Malley. The show comes to us from Sony Pictures Television Studios.
Are you looking forward to Goosebumps: The Vanishing? What did you think of this opening scene clip? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The upcoming TV series It: Welcome to Derry, which will serve as a prequel to Warner Bros’ two-part adaptation of the classic Stephen King novel It (pick up a copy HERE), was originally meant to be for the Max streaming service, but we recently learned that it will be airing on HBO as well. The show went into production in Port Hope, Ontario at the end of last year, aiming for a 2025 premiere, and wrapped in August after 237 shooting days. We’re still waiting to hear exactly when the nine episode first season is going to start airing – but while we wait, executive producer Andy Muschietti, who direct the two It feature films, has revealed that each season of the show will go further into the past.
Brad Caleb Kane (Tokyo Vice) and Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman), who was a co-producer on It: Chapter Two, are the showrunners on It: Welcome to Derry (and Kane recently signed on to be showrunner on the Friday the 13th series Crystal Lake as well.) The show is being executive produced by Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti, the sibling director/producer duo that was behind the two It movies, through their production company Double Dream. Kane and Fuchs are also executive producing, as are Shelley Meals, Roy Lee, and Dan Lin. The series is produced by HBO Max and Warner Bros. Television.
Fuchs wrote the script for the first episode, working from a story he crafted with the Muschiettis. Andy Muschietti has directed four episodes of the nine-episode series.
Stephen King had this to say about the series: “I’m excited that the story of Derry, Maine’s most haunted city, is continuing, and I’m glad Andy Muschietti is going to be overseeing the frightening festivities, along with a brain trust including his talented sister, Barbara. Red balloons all around!“ The Muschiettis added, “As teenagers, we took turns reading chapters of Stephen King’s It until the thick paperback fell to pieces. It is an epic story that contains multitudes, far beyond what we could explore in our It movies. We can’t wait to share the depths of Steve’s novel, in all its heart, humor, humanity, and horror.“
The cast of Welcome to Derry includes Taylour Paige (Zola), Jovan Adepo (Watchmen), Chris Chalk (Perry Mason), James Remar (Dexter), Madeleine Stowe (Revenge), Stephen Rider (Daredevil), Alixandra Fuchs (Hatfields & McCoys), Kimberly Guerrero (The English), Dorian Grey (Star Trek: Discovery), Thomas Mitchell (Gangland Undercover), BJ Harrison (Family Law), Peter Outerbridge (Saw VI), Shane Marriott (Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent),Chad Rook (Billy the Kid), Joshua Odjick (Little Bird), Rudy Mancuso (Música), and Morningstar Angeline(Westworld). We don’t know anything about the characters they’ll be playing, either. In fact, the only character we know anything about is Pennywise.
Muschietti told Radio TU (with thanks to our friends at Bloody Disgusting for the transcription), that the plan is for It: Welcome to Derry to run for three seasons. “It’s a story that’s based on the interludes of the book. The interludes are basically chapters that reflect Mike Hanlon’s research. They’re fragments of his research. For 27 years, it’s the guy trying to figure out what it is, what did it, who did it, who saw it, and all that stuff. So they talk about catastrophic events from the past, like the fire in the Black Spot, the massacre of the Bradley Gang, a gang of bank robbers in the ’30s, and the explosion of the Kitchener Ironworks. Every time [Pennywise] comes out of hibernation, there is a catastrophic event that happens at the beginning of that cycle. We are basing the three seasons of this series on each of these catastrophic events. There’s a reason why the story is told backwards. So the first season is 1962, the second season is 1935, and the third season is 1908.” He added that Warner Bros. is happy with the first season and wants to start production on season 2 as soon as possible.
Are you looking forward to It: Welcome to Derry? Do you want to see this three season journey into the past play out? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
