Dev Patel’s extreme action film Monkey Man swings into the top spot during Thursday previews at the box office, exorcising Arkasha Stevenson’s The First Omen with $1.4M to the origin story’s $725K. Monkey Man’s preview screening started at 5 PM at 2,750 theaters on Thursday, while The First Omen screened at 7 PM.
Meanwhile, Adam Wingard’s Monsterverse rumble, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, punched its way past $100M on Thursday, with estimates calling for $32M during its second weekend in cinemas. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire continues to dominate IMAX screens, while Monkey Man and The First Omen play on PLF screens.
Here’s the official synopsis for Monkey Man courtesy of NBCUniversal:
“Monkey Man is an action thriller about one man’s quest for vengeance against the corrupt leaders who murdered his mother and continue to victimize the poor and powerless systemically.
Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash.
After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
Packed with thrilling and spectacular fight and chase scenes, Monkey Man is directed by Dev Patel from his original story and his screenplay with Paul Angunawela and John Collee (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World).“
Sharlto Copley (District 9, The A-Team), Sobhita Dhulipala (Made in Heaven, The Night Manager), Pitobash (Million Dollar Arm, Go Goa Gone), Vipin Sharma (Hotel Mumbai, Like Stars on Earth), Ashwini Kalsekar (Ek Tha Hero), Adithi Kalkunte (Hotel Mumbai), Sikandar Kher (Aarya, 24) and Makarand Deshpande (RRR).
Monkey Man is produced by Dev Patel, Jomon Thomas, Oscar winner Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld, Ian Cooper, Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Christine Haebler, and Anjay Nagpal. Jonathan Fuhrman, Natalya Pavchinskya, Aaron L. Gilbert, Andria Spring, Alison-Jane Roney, and Steven Thibault executive produce.
The First Omen was directed by Arkasha Stevenson, and based on characters created by David Seltzer. Here’s the synopsis: “When a young American woman is sent to Rome to begin a life of service to the church, she encounters a darkness that causes her to question her own faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy that hopes to bring about the birth of evil incarnate.”
Free is joined in the cast by Tawfeek Barhom (Mary Magdalene), Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman), Ralph Ineson (The Northman), and Bill Nighy (Living).
The film was produced by David S. Goyer and Keith Levine, with Tim Smith serving as executive producer with Whitney Brown and Gracie Wheelan. The First Omen has earned an R rating for violent content, grisly/disturbing images, and brief graphic nudity.
What will you see in theaters this weekend? Let us know in the comments section below.
Way back in 2011, Sony Pictures acquired a spec script titled The Big Stone Grid, which was written by S. Craig Zahler – who is best known these days for writing and directing the films Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99, and Dragged Across Concrete. As of early 2012, Michael Mann was in talks to work on script revisions with Zahler and to direct the film. The Mann take on the material didn’t come to fruition, and four years later the project moved over to Lotus Entertainment, with Pierre Morel on board to direct. Morel couldn’t get it into production, either. Eight more years down the line, World of Reel reports that Zahler is now set to direct the film himself.
Part of the reason why Zahler has gone six years without directing a new film is the fact that the project he was pursuing, Hug Chickenpenny (an adaptation of his book Hug Chickenpenny: The Panegyric of an Anomalous Child), fell apart due to lack of funding. That was going to be a gothic tale with a cast of puppets provided by the Jim Henson company – and apparently Zahler was envisioning it as a 3-hour black & white film that would have been reminiscent of David Lynch’s The Elephant Man.
Described as a high-concept, hard-edged suspense thriller and compared to the likes of Seven and Marathon Man, The Big Stone Grid centers on a pair of big-city detectives caught in a cat-and-mouse game with serial killers who have themselves been extorted into committing heinous crimes. World of Reel also heard it described as a crime noir with horror elements.
In addition to writing and directing Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99, and Dragged Across Concrete, Zahler also wrote the horror films Asylum Blackout (directed by Alexandre Courtès) and Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (directed by Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund). According to World of Reel, Ridley Scott is currently gearing up to direct an adaptation of Zahler’s Western novel Wraiths of the Broken Land, which tells the following story: “Desperate to reclaim two kidnapped sisters who were forced into prostitution, the Plugfords storm across the badlands and blast their way through Hell.”
Are you a fan of the films Zahler has written and/or directed, and are you glad to hear he’ll be directing The Big Stone Grid? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
Recently, JoBlo was invited to Dublin, Ireland to the set of Abigail. You can read about our day-one coverage here and coverage from day two with interviews with Kevin Durand and Giancarlo Esposito here. Now, with the film gearing up for release, we had the pleasure of taking part in a round table with the rest of the cast and directing duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett.
Here is a transcript of the interviews.
First up was Dan Stevens, who plays Frank in the film.
One of the big things about this movie is when we visited the WGA strike was ongoing. Can talk about the experience of making this film. First during the WGA strike and then returning to finish it.
DAN STEVENS: “It was certainly one of the longest periods it’s ever taken to finish a movie for me. You hear about movies that were made in the 70s that took two years to shoot or something, but it’s been a while. So yeah, it was strange. I think for everybody who was in the middle of something and then had to return to it, there was a frustration. I think I speak for most people that they’re just keen to work, keen to complete the thing that they set out to do. It was definitely a sort of an interesting challenge. I think what it did enable us to do was really focus the work, when we came back on, we kind of reappraise what was needed in this sort of epic fight sequence. And we had an incredible fight coordinator come in. And so, there was a real sort of scale to that fight sequence that maybe wouldn’t have happened if we’d just gone straight into it… So, we had a sort of two-week period to shoot this amazing fight sequence involving myself, Melissa and Alisha Weir. There were sort of some strange benefits to that kind of pause. It was definitely a curious challenge for sure.”
When we saw you ever so briefly on set, the sequence we saw being shot was sort of all the characters grouping together. They had seemingly successfully captured this girl. but we were just starting to learn about the dynamics and the backgrounds of these characters. I’d like to know a little bit more about your character’s role on the team and the relationships with those other characters.
“Yeah, it’s a good question. And it’s one that I think we’re still a little bit of the dark about because of the nature of this sort of motley group. It initially follows quite a sort of classic heist movie trope where you’ve got the getaway driver, and you’ve got the tech girl who’s going to hack the computers, and then you’ve got the medic who’s going to administer the sleeping drugs, or whatever. And then, you got Kevin Durand playing the muscle. And everyone seemed to have a very, very sort of clear role in this in this band of criminals. And then there’s Frank, who just seemed to be an asshole. And that seemed to be his special skill, really. We could never quite figure out what he was doing there. I mean, for all intents and purposes, he was the boss of the group. So maybe that’s it. And maybe bosses are just assholes. I don’t know. But yeah, that really seemed to be his special skill. That and cursing…frequently.”
Can you talk a little bit about working with Alicia as a young actor and what that was like?
“Yes. Absolutely incredible. I mean, I was incredibly impressed with her in Matilda. I assumed she was British. Then, I hadn’t met her before we sat down to do the read-through. She just walked in with her mom and sat down, and we started reading through the script. And then I thought, oh, she’s American. And she did this flawless American accent in the read-through. Really brilliant. (It Was) Really kind of scary and assured, and I was like, oh, she must be American. That’s incredible that she did this British accent in Matilda. And then I chatted to her afterwards. It turned out she was from Dublin. And I said, ‘Well, that’s extraordinary. Do you have a dialect coach?’ And she said, ‘No, I just watched the telly.’ And she is the sweetest, loveliest character. One of the most professional people I’ve ever worked with, just absolutely on point with everything she’s asked to do, whether it’s gymnastics, acrobatics, ballet, you know, being a scary, tiny vampire with teeth in. She’s just completely sort of committed and unfazed by everything. And I think we were all just in awe of her, really. And it was definitely by the end, there was a real sense that we were sort of witnessing the dawn of a very exciting career there. She’s got a very good head on her shoulders, and I have no doubt is going to go and do incredible things.”
Matt and Taylor have teased that this is like their goriest, bloodiest film to date. And they’ve even apologized to the cast and crew. Can you tell us a little bit about what that was like to work with?
“I couldn’t speak to the sort of full gore of it because I haven’t seen the finished movie yet. But it was definitely the bloodiest thing I’ve ever worked on in terms of volume. Just pints of red syrup that were required on set. And just the sort of the fun and the ridiculousness of that as well. If somebody vomits up blood, it’s like ‘ok, we’ve seen this before, but what if it lasts a minute.’ And sort of having real fun with that. For Matt and Tyler as well, who have a great sense of humor and are like really, really fun, lovely, funny guys. When we weren’t shooting sort of gory scenes, we were just generally quoting I Think You Should Leave. There’s been a thousand vampire movies. There’s been a thousand heist movies. What can we do that’s a little bit different? And one of those things is definitely bringing in more blood.”
Next up were Melissa Barrera and Alisha Weir.
Alisha, can you talk about your journey to the project, auditioning for the part, and your relationship with the horror genre?
ALISHA WEIR: “Well, I’ve never done a horror film before. My first big film was Matilda, which is completely different to Abigail. But my agent sent us the script for us to read. And me, my mom, and my dad all read it. I’ve always wanted to be in a horror film. Me and my two older sisters always watch horror films, and we absolutely love them. So when I was reading the script, although it is a horror film, we all thought it was hilarious. I then jumped on a Zoom with Matt and Tyler, the directors, and we just talked about the character and the script. I then did another audition where I was going through the sides of it. I just fell in love with Abigail, and I really hoped I would get the part. My last audition was with Melissa, which was our chemistry read. And then, two days later, I got the call that said I got the part.”
Melissa, you’ve worked with Matt and Tyler before, of course. What was your reaction when you first heard about this project, and how is this different from that previous work?
MELISSA BARRERA: “Well, I was excited for Matt and Tyler to venture out and do their own thing outside of a franchise where they have to follow certain rules and aren’t free to do whatever they want to do. When I heard they were doing this movie, and it was vampire-related – I grew up watching monster movies – I was excited about them taking on the vampire world. And when I read the script, I thought, ‘I could be in this.’ But it’s obviously up to them. I never wanted to be like, ‘Hey, cast me because you know me.’ So, I didn’t mention it to them at all. I just went to my team and told them I wanted to audition. And when they found out I was interested, they said, ‘Okay, let’s do another one.’ It’s such a privilege when you can just make movies with friends. They’ve become a family at this point. They know how I work. They know how to talk to me to get what they need out of me. I know when they like something or when they don’t like something. It’s so wonderful to see them get to do their own thing in this movie. They’re kind of going back to their Ready or Not roots but on steroids. It’s exactly the kind of movie that people would want to go see at the theater as a community.
This character is so different from your own personality. Was there something you would do to help you get in the mindset of this maniacal, vicious vampire?
ALISHA WEIR: “For me, when I get into a character, I like to transform myself so I’m not Alisha anymore. It definitely helped being on the set, being covered in blood, and the tutu outfit helped me get into the character. And when I put the teeth in, that was definitely the end.”
When we were on set, there was at least one room where we had to be careful where we stepped because it was floor-to-ceiling covered in blood. How bloody does this get?
MELISSA BARRERA: “This is the most blood that I’ve ever experienced in a movie. I’ve seen movies that would have bathtubs or blood or someone coming out of blood. But talking about the amount of blood throughout a movie, this is probably up there with the most. We have blood cannons, so that says a lot. Matt and Tyler- we have this joke, even from Scream VI – they always ask for more spritz, like more sweat and more blood. Hair and make-up will get you ready, and I would always tell them, ‘They’re going to want more.’ And they would say, ‘Okay, well, we can always add more, but can’t take away.’ And it was always they want more. Although at one point by the end, I was so bloody, I looked like nothing but eyes and teeth. So they had to wipe away some to give me some sort of dimension, which was a first for them and me.”
Alisha, can you tell me about doing your own stunts and one of your favorite things that you did?
ALISHA WEIR: “I had so many favorite stunts. I mean, I got to do wire work, which is something I’ve never done before. The only thing I had done, I do acro, so I know how to do flips. But I’ve never done wire work. I’ve never flown. And I was on banisters. There was so much rehearsing. I would go home and tell my dad, ‘I was on wires, and I was flying.’ And he would be like, ‘No you weren’t, Alisha. There’s no way.’ It was so much fun. When they asked me if I was up for it, I was a hundred percent ‘yes.’ It’s not every day you get asked to walk around on banisters with wires and flying. The stunts were different to the ballet side of it as well. They were both new to me, and I enjoyed doing both. I’ve never gone on point before, either. And I was very determined to do it. If I couldn’t do it, then I would keep trying. I would go home and practice it until I could do it.”
Last but not least, we got to talk to the directors a little more.
Can you tell us a little bit about the house and why it was the perfect location for slaughter?
MATT BETTINELLI-OLPIN: “Yeah, that house is called Glenmaroon. I think it was owned by the Guinness family as a party house. It’s two houses with a little connector. One of the things we always try to do when we’re doing anything is find a location, ideally practical as much as possible, and apply the story to it and let the story change with the location. We’ve been doing that since V/H/S. That house is just all the things we were hoping to find for this movie and more. It’s weird; it doesn’t quite sit in a time because it’s been updated, and parts are sort of demolished and run down…Everything you see in the movie, except for the cellar and the library, was in the house. It was walking through it with Guy (Busick), and was like, ‘How can we use this location to fuel the story and using it to our benefit so we’re not retrofitting stuff.”
TYLER GILLETT: “I’d say one of the things you didn’t see is that house was empty when we moved into it. The amount of production design and set-decoration that happened. While that was going on, we’d show up and our minds were just blown. Watching it come to life was really an inspiring part of the process.”
When we were on set, everyone kept talking about how great Alisha Weir was. What was it like working with a child actor, and how did you find her?
TYLER GILLETT: “It was incredible. That was our big source of anxiety going into this project. Just on the page, Abigail is such a character, and so much of what’s fun and interesting about the tone of the movie is about the contrast between this innocent child becoming this horrific monster. We knew that the movie was only going to be good as that role because it’s the lynchpin of everything. There was a lot of anxiety in the casting process. We were really blown away to see how many incredible young actors there are out there. We saw some really amazing reads. It was actually hard to narrow it down. When we met Alisha, we were immediately texting each other how she’s so incredible the way she presents herself. She’s so kind, so curious. And then she did a live read on Zoom. There was a moment in sides, which she was reading, where she has to switch from a young girl to this sort of jump-scare vampire moment. And she committed so fully to it on the Zoom, that it actually scared us. It was fearless. It was really clear after that Zoom that we hit gold with her. Coincidentally, she happened to have lived in Dublin. Every day on set with her was just truly remarkable.”
Filming amid the strikes- on one hand, you have Guy Busick, who you’ve worked with before and have a lot of trust in his work, but I also think about the end of Ready or Not when it was Samara Weaving’s idea to laugh at the end, which I thought was such a great note. I was just curious how you navigated this movie through the WGA strike and then after when everything got resolved.
MATT BETTINELLI-OLPIN: “The strikes were hard for everyone. And they were hard to shoot during. I think the writer’s strike, we got to a good place where we felt okay going into production with the draft we had. The actor’s strike was really hard. It definitely shifted the momentum, but the good news is, and we felt very lucky, is that we were able to jump right in to post and edit. We basically shot the movie in order, so we were able to edit the first two acts of the movie, know what we had, and then go back ready to finish now knowing what we had to hit. A lot of times, you get to that point and think, ‘Man, I hope I’m getting the right stuff.’ We’ve never done reshoots or anything before. So we were ‘really fingers’ crossed on most projects. But on this one, we got to go back. The studio had seen the movie, and they really liked it. They had some thoughts to throw at us for the third act that were really good. One of the ‘big adds’ is that we got to bring on Wade Allen to help us do some of the fun stunt choreography. He was kind of a second-unit director on this, and he’s incredible. It really just helped us hone the third act. There were a million trials and tribulations in this movie of all different sizes. The fact that we got through it was really just a testament to the kind of family the cast, the crew, and everybody built out in Dublin. At the end of the day, yes, the strikes were hard, but everybody stuck together, held hands, and we all got through it.”
You guys have such a great style by bringing fun back into horror. With this film, was there anything that inspired you, or any previous vampire films going in?
MATT BETTINELLI-OLPIN: “I think one of the touchstones for us, and many people our age, was The Lost Boys. I think it was the first vampire we were aware of seeing. It’s that fun that we grew up with. And it’s not in a nostalgic way. We’re not chasing nostalgia. Our thing is, let’s try to do that, but in a modern way. Let’s do that now so that kids can watch this movie- well, sneak into this movie- and have that effect that we all had when we saw The Lost Boys. Where it’s scary, it’s funny, and has really great lines that you can just say over and over. But we went through everything like Dracula and Dracula’s Daughter, all the Universal horror movies, Near Dark, Interview with the Vampire, 30 Days of Night…
TYLER GILLETT: “Let the Right One In was another big one inspiration.”
MATT BETTINELLI-OLPIN: “Yes, definitely. We kind of go all over the place and look at everything. You never know where you’re going to find inspiration. Again, this movie is a few different genres that are put into a blender together. And it doesn’t stop there. We talked a lot about crime movies like The Usual Suspects and Heat and those kind of movies, and see how we can take our favorite things from those and see how we can make them fit into this weird little box with these weird characters who don’t belong in the same movie. And then have it fit to where it feels like it actually does belong together.”
David Bruckner mentioned working on V/H/S/85 after finishing Hellraiser felt like a nice return to home. Do you feel that way with this movie after working on the Scream movies?
MATT BETTINELLI-OLPIN: “Oh yeah. Big time. That was Tyler and I’s thing going into this. We loved making the Scream movies and had a wonderful experience for those few years, but you’re stepping into gigantic shoes. There’s a lot of expectations, a lot of pressure. With this, from the jump, we were like, ‘Let’s make this ours.’ We don’t have a lot of expectations to live up to. If people hate it, it’s because they don’t like what we like, and that’s fine. It’s not like we are letting down a decades-long franchise. There’s just something so refreshing to be able to turn to each other and go, ‘Do we like this? No. Then let’s not do it.’ You know, we don’t have to live up to anything, except our own expectations. There’s just something freeing in that. And at the end of the day, it’s better for not just our movies, but movies in general benefit from that kind of approach. We really got to do that with Scream VI to a degree, but that was still in the world of Scream.”
TYLER GILLETT: “Yeah, existing within a franchise.”
MATT BETTINELLI-OLPIN: “We were constantly pushing against something. In this, we didn’t feel like we were constantly pushing against anything because everything was of our own making. So yeah, it was very freeing. Make more original movies!”
Growing up, The Omen franchise was one of my favorites. And like many a film series, the subsequent sequels couldn’t come close to the original. Even still, I appreciated the first three films. I was doubtful this would be remotely good. That is until me and my horror loving buddy Matt Van Winkle were happily shocked after seeing the new flick. The prequel is frankly one of the best franchise horror films I’ve seen in a long while. Arkasha creates a wonderful sense of dread with a final act that will creep you the f*ck out. Add to that, Nell Tiger Free is utterly sensational as a young idealistic nun facing true evil – and dare I say it’s an award worthy performance. I absolutely loved this film.
Not only did I love the film, talking to both Arkasha Stevenson and Nell Tiger Free was a marvelous experience. For Arkasha, it’s almost hard to believe someone could pull off a successful continuation to the franchise. Yet Stevenson showed her expertise on the genre during our interview. She talked about her own inspiration, and finding the right story to tell. She discussed bringing body horror elements into the new film, and telling a story that feels relevant for today. I cannot wait to see what this amazing talent does next.
Instantly, I was engaged the second I sat down opposite the ridiculously talented Nell Tiger Free who you may know from the acclaimed series Servant and Game of Thrones. Nell is incredible in this film. Sometimes horror offers performers the chance to truly takes risks, and she does so marvelously. This incredible talent discussed taking on a role with absolutely none of the regular tools that actors often use, research into the world they are diving into. Instead, she just trusted her director. I had major doubts about The First Omen. And now, I’m planning on seeing it again tonight. It’s an excellent horror film, and it’s perfect to see with a large audience in a packed theatre. Check out our review here!
28 Days Later director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland are finally reuniting 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 may even launch a whole trilogy of 28 Days Later sequels. Last year, 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy said he’d gladly be in a sequel if it was made by Boyle and Garland, and when this project was announced, it was confirmed that Murphy is on board as an executive producer… but we still don’t know for sure if he’s going to be stepping in front of the camera for this one. While we wait to find out if Murphy is going to be starring in 28 Years Later, industry scooper Daniel Richtman is reporting that Jodie Comer is in talks to join the cast.
Comer’s credits include The End We Start From, The Bikeriders, Killing Eve, The Last Duel, Free Guy, and Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. Details on the character she might be playing in 28 Years Later have not been revealed.
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. If Boyle and Garland decide to put him in the story. 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.”
Garland (whose movie Civil War reaches theatres next Friday) is already writing the screenplay for the sequel that will come after 28 Years Later. Of the two 28 Years Later projects currently in the works, Boyle is only planning to direct the first one. For the follow-up, he’ll be passing the helm over to someone else. Thanks to the deal with Sony, each of these new films will be receiving a theatrical release and will have budgets in the $60 million range.
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. As mentioned, Murphy is executive producing.
Would you like to see Jodie Comer in 28 Years Later? Share your thoughts on this possibility by leaving a comment below.
If you’re in the mood for a light-hearted spy adventure with plenty of twists and turns that will make your head spin, Argylle is set to make its streaming debut later this month. Although director Matthew Vaughn has plans for sequels, he stated that he wanted to wait and see how the first film fared. Unfortunately for Vaughn, it wouldn’t become a success at the box office, earning just $92 million worldwide on a budget of $200 million. After its low performance, the star-studded action comedy will hope to find a second life as it premieres on AppleTV+ on Friday, April 12.
The plot synopsis from Apple reads, “Elly Conway, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, is the reclusive cat loving author of a series of bestselling espionage novels about the impossibly glamorous secret agent Argylle (Henry Cavill) on a mission to unravel a nefarious spy syndicate. When Elly, with the help of feline hating real life spy Aidan (Sam Rockwell), discovers that her story mirrors the actions of an actual spy organization, a dangerous game of cat and mouse results. In order to stay one step ahead of the syndicate’s assassins, while also working to prevent a global crisis, these two unlikely conspirators, accompanied by Alfie the cat, find themselves in an adventure story of their own.”
In anticipation of the streaming debut of Argylle, K-pop superstars THE BOYZ have reimagined “Electric Energy,” the Ariana Debose-led hit from the film. The soundtrack and today’s single release of “Electric Energy (Reimagination)” by THE BOYZ are available on all music streaming platforms. Originally written by Gary Barlow, Stuart Price, Matthew Vaughn and Lorne Balfefor for Matthew Vaughn’s razor-witted, reality-bending spy thriller, the song undergoes a remarkable transformation as produced by Stuart Price in collaboration with Lorne Balfe for Platoon.
Argylle is another outrageous spy adventure in the same vein as Kingsman by director Matthew Vaughn. He directs from a screenplay by Jason Fuchs and features a stacked ensemble of stars, including Bryce Dallas Howard, Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, John Cena, Ariana DeBose, Richard E. Grant, Dua Lipa, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Sofia Boutella, Samuel L. Jackson and Chip, the real-life cat of supermodel Claudia Vaughn (née Schiffer).
An Apple Studios production inassociation with MARV, Argylle is directed and produced by Vaughn, and produced by Cloudy Productions with Vaughn’s regular collaborators Adam Bohling and David Reid, as well as Fuchs. Claudia Vaughn, Carlos Peres, Zygi Kamasa and Adam Fishbach serve as executive producers.
Anybody who has ever taken a stab at acting knows one aspect of the process deemed the absolute worst: the audition. Imagine stepping foot into a room filled with several people who are all there to judge you. Your looks, personality, emotions… every aspect of who you are on display for a room full of strangers. Well, in Hollywood, there is a legend of one audition that has been deemed the best put on tape. It was an audition for a new film by a director who was credited with single-handedly creating the summer blockbuster and who had a dream about crafting a more intimate family story about a kid and an alien. Imagine the immense pressure any actor, let alone a ten-year-old child, would be under to nail this audition. Yet this audition was so good that within seconds, the director, Steven Spielberg, uttered the words that would forever change this ten-year-old life: “Ok, kid, you got the job!” For many of us, we know Henry Thomas simply as “the kid from E.T.,” but in the last 40 years, we have seen this child prodigy emerge into one of the most successful supporting players in roles many of us probably didn’t even recognize him in. Allow us to delve into the world of that kid from E.T. as we find out just WTF happened to Henry Thomas!
E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial:
But as always, we must begin at the beginning, which started on his birthday, September 9, 1971, in San Antonio, Texas. While some performers languish in their craft for years, even decades, before landing something worthwhile, Henry Thomas would get his big break after only being alive for a decade! A movie was being cast that needed a child actor to carry a film who could command the screen with the skill of a seasoned professional. It would be a fateful game of Dungeons & Dragons that would lead Thomas to the role of a lifetime. As casting director Marci Liroff would explain in a 2014 interview, they had chosen a different child to play the lead of Elliott in a script tentatively titled A Boy’s Life to be directed by Steven Spielberg, who was on a hot streak with such hits as Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark. The unnamed child actor had nailed his audition as a lovable, sweet little angel, but during a game of D&D with the fellow child actors, a fateful role of the dice would show this child’s true colors to reveal someone who was not as wholesome as he seemed. Liroff said that in just three minutes it became clear that none of the other actors liked this kid at all, so she had to completely start over.
That is when Steven Spielberg would take a call from Raggedy Man director Jack Fisk who sang the praises of this young actor named Henry Thomas, who had played the son of Sissy Spacek in the Golden Globe-nominated film. They would fly Thomas out to audition in front of Liroff, Spielberg, and a few others, and what would result would be an audition that has gone down in history books as one of the greatest auditions ever. They would set up a scene where Thomas would act opposite Spielberg, and instead of having Thomas read the lines, they let him improv the scene where he begs them not to take his little alien friend away.
The film, which had been retitled E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial, would premiere at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival before receiving a wide release on June 11, 1982, where it opened in first place with $11 million (roughly $35 million in 2024 dollars). The film would remain atop the charts for six straight weeks before falling to second place, where it fluctuated between first and second place until December. E.T. still holds the record for most weeks (non-consecutive) in first place at 16, a record not even Titanic could break as it only was in first place for 15 weeks. The film would surpass Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time in 1983 (it is currently number 29 on the Domestic list and 104 on the Worldwide list). Not only was it a commercial hit, E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial would become a major awards player, being nominated for nearly 100 awards, including 9 Academy Awards, with Thomas receiving Best Actor nominations from The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, The Bafta’s, the Young Artists awards, and the Golden Globes.
Life after E.T:
After such success, Thomas did the unthinkable thing… he went back to a relatively everyday life! He says that he struggled in the immediate aftermath of E.T not just in his personal life but with his career, so he would return to San Antonio, Texas where he would go back to school while doing some student theater and even taking up side jobs painting houses and working at a video store where people would come in and rent E.T with some customers recognizing him too much embarrassment. He would also learn how to play the guitar and write songs, which became his big passion as he later formed the Celtic Rock band Blue Heelers (sometimes known as Rain Dogs.) He would pop up in films from time to time, such as 1984’s Gene Hackman drama Misunderstood and Cloak & Dagger, a fun adventure flick for kids; he plays a gamer who gets involved in a real-life game of deadly espionage with the help of his super spy imaginary friend – for which he received a Young Artist Award nomination. Young Henry got thrown back on a bike in 1985’s Frog Dreaming (aka The Quest), a fun, spooky kid’s movie set in the Outback and 1989’s Valmont from master filmmaker Milos Foreman, while also appearing as a young Norman Bates in Psycho IV: The Beginning – which is some brilliant casting – turning the ET boy into a killer, automatic sympathy is added, making his transition into Mr/Mrs Psychoman even more powerful. This is where he gets to show us that he does very well in the horror genre… foreshadowing his future with Flanagan.
Thomas says that getting older and growing physically helped him separate himself from his child stardom. This helped him nab a role in a different kind of Alien movie: Fire in the Sky (1993), a film which many still hail as one of the scariest films ever made, followed by appearing in the Sam Shepard stage adaptation of Curse of the Starving Class (1994) before having a bit of breakout with the Academy Award-winning film Legends of the Fall. This would lead to a bit of a resurgence in Thomas’ career that would nab him his second Golden Globe nomination for his supporting turn in the 1995 made-for-TV movie Indictment: The McMartin Trial,followed by starring in the 1997 film Niagara, Niagara before appearing in the excellent ensemble cast of Suicide Kings.
It would seem that after E.T., Thomas couldn’t find much work worth doing, but as soon as he grew up, his resume saw few gaps. Sure, a lot of his movies may be little-seen titles such as Bombshell (1997), Fever (1999), The House That Screamed (2000) and other un- notable titles, while appearing on TV in titles such as Riders of the Purple Sage and Moby Dick. Still, he would also pop up in supporting roles in films that garnered strong reviews, with many of those reviews pointing out the strong ensemble casts, such as 2000’s Billy Bob Thornton directed All The Pretty Horses and 2002’s Martin Scorsese epic Gangs of New York.
Mike Flanagan and horror fame:
While continuing to earn a respectable living as an actor with a steady flow of little-seen titles in the early 2000s, Thomas was also beginning to build up his horror cred by appearing in notable TV productions such as Masters of Horror, Stephen King’s Desperation (2006) and Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From The Stories of Stephen King as well as the films Ghost Writer and Red Velvet. He would also land some mainstream gigs in the romantic drama Dear John, followed by some memorable guest spots on shows such as Without a Trace, CSI and The Mentalist before landing the lead in the Hank Williams biopic The Last Ride (2011) that even though critics didn’t like the film, most praised Thomas’ performance calling it a “Heartfelt portrayal.” All those roles would lead Thomas to nab a leading role in the new ABC drama Betrayal, which unfortunately never caught on and was cancelled after just 13 episodes.
Luckily, big things were right around the corner. We often look at collaborations between actors and filmmakers and think about the big ones: Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, Quentin Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson and so on… but a 2014 meeting between Henry Thomas and future horror heavyweight Mike Flanagan would sow the seeds that would start a new collaborative powerhouse. Thomas says that at the meeting, he had one foot out of the door regarding his acting career. Still, Flanagan not only told him that he wanted to cast him in his film Ouija: Origin of Evil but also that he wanted him to be a part of every project he ever worked on! As Flanagan would go on to be one of the biggest names in the horror genre, he stayed true to his word by casting Thomas in his Netflix film Gerald’s Game as well as every single one of his hit Netflix horror shows, The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club and the global hit The Fall of the House of Usher while also giving Thomas the chance to portray his inner Jack Nicholson when he cast the actor as Jack Torrence’s ghost in The Shining follow up Doctor Sleep... something I bet a lot of you are just now realizing was him!
It would be late in 2019 when Thomas would again make good and bad headlines. When asked if I want the good or bad news first, I always take the bad so we end on a good note. So, let’s start with the bad headline. On the evening of October 21, 2019, a concerned citizen in Portland, Oregon, where Thomas has a home, noticed a car stopped in a travel lane and called the cops. When the cops arrived, they found Henry Thomas passed out in his car. After shaking him awake, they noticed his eyes were bloodshot, and he had bottles of Marijuana Tincture, which is a form of liquid concentrated THC, in the driver’s side door. Thomas would refuse a field sobriety test, resulting in him being arrested for Driving Under the Influence. At the police station, Thomas tried to fake taking a breathalyzer test by blocking the mouthpiece while faking heavy breathing, which I know isn’t a laughing matter, but that must have been hilarious for the officers to watch! I’m sure they see that move all the time! Then when asked to give a urine sample, he supposedly filled the cup with toilet water, again not a laughing matter… but pretty damn funny! Ultimately, Thomas would accept a plea deal in which he had to enter a diversion program for a year and pay a $500 fine. Look, being intoxicated behind the wheel of a car is never right… but in the grand scheme of things, this ranks pretty damn low on the celebrity scandal meter! For his part, Thomas seemed to have learned his lesson from this incident and moved on. So too shall we… to that good headline!
Because just about a month after his arrest, Thomas would return to his most famous role when he reprised his role as Elliott in the short film/ Xfinity commercial: E.T- A Holiday Reunion. The short played on the nostalgia boom that sees many classic movie characters return in extended advertisements around NFL Playoff/ Super Bowl time. But this one was special. The second that classic John Williams score kicks in. At the same time, the screen is still black, the hairs on your arms immediately stand up, and by the end of this four-minute short, when Elliott and his family are standing back in the woods as E.T leaves them again, your heart is taken back to that moment in time when you first saw E.T. Then it is immediately lost when the Xfinity logo hits the screen. Still, before that glimpse of commercialism, you felt something you probably hadn’t felt in decades. That is the lasting impact of E.T. and Elliott.
We often talk about how a single role can embody a performer’s entire career, and for Henry Thomas, that role came at just ten years old. In the aftermath, he tried to live a typical child’s life and found that Hollywood was a place that was not suited for child actors. But he returned as a well-adjusted adult and paid his bills by starring in many films that didn’t register with audiences, yet knowing there are genuine opportunities around every corner as long as you are open to them. He went from being the kid from E.T., where he won a Youth in Film Award, to becoming a genuine horror icon with his memorable collaborations with Mike Flanagan, where he would win a Saturn Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Haunting of Hill House. He has said that he never expected to be considered a “horror icon” but loves his resurgence, especially when he was so close to giving it all up. He is busy with recent projects, including Netflix’s To All The Boys: Always & Forever, Sam & Kate and 2023’s Pet Sematary: Bloodlines. So, as we don’t always get to say in these videos, but are extremely happy to say here: no one should give a f**k about WTF happened to Henry Thomas because Henry Thomas is truly doing just fine!
Carla Gugino has been able to sustain a lengthy career with a wide array of projects. From her early days, she made a mark co-starring with Pauly Shore in Son-In-Law and continued with indies such as Electra Luxx and Women in Trouble. Over her forty years on screen, starting way back in an episode of Webster when she was 17, Carla Gugino was able to bring an ability to play comedy, drama, sci-fi, and action with equal measure. She starred in sitcoms like when she acted opposite Michael J. Fox on Spin City. Recently, she’s been able to parlay a collaboration with Mike Flanagan on projects like The Haunting of Hill House and Bly Manor, as well as her recent turn in The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix.
In 2001, Gugino would star as a spy mom in the Robert Rodriguez family film Spy Kids. According to Variety, Gugino reflected on the role while on BuzzFeed and said that when she took the part, she was in her late twenties, which did not logistically add up with her character. Gugino explained, “It is so funny because I was 27. It was a really beautiful kind of double-edged sword because I love that movie so much. And the whole experience was incredible, and the movies continue.” She continued,
I love Ingrid Cortes. But it was funny because I was 10 years, at least, too young for the role because I was a spy for 10 years and then somehow had children who were like 9 and 11. So it was physically totally impossible.”
Spy Kids also featured Antonio Banderas as her husband, and her children were played by Alexa PenaVega and Daryl Sabara. The movie was already in the midst of filming for the past two weeks when Gugino met with Rodriguez for the role. “He was like, ‘I feel like I’m looking for a mother for my kids.’ We were talking about it, and I had auditioned for him and he said, ‘I think if we do our job right, no one will ever question it.’ And it’s so funny like you said, nobody did. Antonio Banderas and I had worked together on a movie called Miami Rhapsody that David Frankel directed, so we also had a little bit of a history, which was really nice to come into it that way.”
Just a couple days after saw some great images of Charlie Cox and Jon Bernthal on the set of the Disney+ series Daredevil: Born Again – where they reprise the roles of Marvel heroes Matt Murdock / Daredevil and Frank Castle / The Punisher, characters they originally played on shows that were released through the Netflix streaming service (and can now be found on Disney+) – it has been revealed that Daredevil: Born Again has wrapped production. Central Casting broke the news by sharing a picture of Cox at the wrap party.
The show didn’t have an easy ride through production. Filming started in early 2023, then when the strikes hit, it was decided that it needed to undergo a creative overhaul. This overhaul has ensured that this new series is now directly connected to the Daredevil series that ran for three seasons on Netflix. As of the recent Daredevil-related series Echo, all of the Netflix shows (which also included Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, The Punisher, and The Defenders) have been made canon to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So the versions of the Daredevil and The Punisher characters we’ll be seeing on this show are the same ones fans previously saw on Netflix.
Dario Scardapane, who worked on Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and the Netflix series The Punisher, was brought in to serve as showrunner on Daredevil: Born Again during the creative overhaul. The behind-the-scenes shake-up also led to Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the directing team who were at the helm of multiple episodes of Moon Knight and Loki season 2, being hired as directors on the show. Matt Corman and Chris Ord were previously the head writers on the show, but they were let go.
In addition to Cox and Bernthal, the cast of Daredevil: Born Again includes Vincent D’Onofrio, Elden Henson, Deborah Ann Woll, and Wilson Bethel, reprising the roles of criminal kingpin Wilson Fisk, Murdock’s associates Foggy Nelson and Karen Page, and Benjamin “Dex” Pointdexter / Bullseye. Also in the cast are Margarita Levieva as Matt Murdock’s love interest Heather Glenn, Michael Gandolfini as a character named Daniel Blade, Genneya Walton as BB Urich, Jeremy Earl as Anti-Vigilante Task Force member Cole North, and Sandrine Holt, who replaces Ayelet Zurer as Wilson Fisk’s wife Vanessa. Yesterday, it was announced that Lou Taylor Pucci is also in the mix, taking on an unspecified role.
Are you looking forward to Daredevil: Born Again, and are you glad to hear that filming has finally wrapped? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
| Footage from 'DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN'.
Anti-Vigilante Task force in action with Jeremy Earl as Officer Cole North.
Jon Bernthal shared a behind-the-scenes picture with Charlie Cox and Deborah Ann Woll from the set of ‘DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN’ pic.twitter.com/86DWmlCoSf
JoBlo.com recently launched a new weekly documentary series called 80s Horror Memories, where each year of the 1980s has five episodes dedicated to it. Looking back at 1980, we discussed Maniac, Dressed to Kill,Alligator, Friday the 13th, The Shining, Prom Night, and The Fog. The second five episodes were a journey through 1981, covering The Funhouse, The Burning, Friday the 13th Part 2,My Bloody Valentine, Halloween II, The Evil Dead, The Howling, and An American Werewolf in London, as well as the careers of horror hosts Elvira and Joe Bob Briggs. The next five were, of course, all about movies that came out in 1982: Conan the Barbarian, The Thing, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and Poltergeist, with an examination of the short-lived 3-D boom along the way. For 1983, we talked about a trio of Stephen King adaptations, Jaws 3-D, Sleepaway Camp, the rise of TV horror anthologies, and Psycho II.
For 1984, we covered the creation of the PG-13 rating, The Terminator, Gremlins, Ghostbusters, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Our trip through 1985 included Teen Wolf, Re-Animator, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s RevengeFriday the 13th: A New Beginning, Fright Night, Lifeforce, Day of the Dead, and The Return of the Living Dead. For 1986, we covered David Cronenberg’s The Fly, the horror comedies that were released during the year (including Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), Aliens, the connection between horror movies and heavy metal, and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. For our trip through 1987, we looked at Hellraiser, RoboCop, Predator, Evil Dead II, and The Lost Boys. And of 1988’s horror offerings, we examined They Live, The Blob, Beetlejuice, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, and Child’s Play.
Now we’re making our way through the final year of the decade, and we got our look at 1989 started with an episode about the first movie from Charles Band’s legendary company Full Moon, Puppet Master. Unfortunately, ’89 was a year when three major franchises – A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween – all got sequels that many fans found to be underwhelming. There were A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, and Halloween 5, and you can hear all about them in the video embedded above.
New episodes of 80s Horror Memories are released through the YouTube channel JoBlo Horror Originals every Friday.
Here’s the info on 80s Horror Memories: It’s been over 40 years since the decade that shaped the horror movie industry began and having lived through most of those years personally, we at JoBlo/Arrow in the Head have decided to create a 10-part documentary series in which not only cover every nook and cranny of the biggest horror themes from 1980 to 1989 but also what was happening in the world at the time. Join us as we walk down Horror Memory Lane!
And here’s the info on this particular episode: Today on 80s Horror Memories, we are going to examine 3 movies that came from some of horror’s biggest franchises, all from 1989, and see why slam dunk franchises don’t always produce slam dunk movies.
This episode of 80s Horror Memories was written by Andrew Hatfield, narrated by Tyler Nichols, edited by Mike Conway, produced by Berge Garabedian and John Fallon, co-produced by Mike Conway, and executive produced by Berge Garabedian. The score was provided by Shawn Knippelberg. Special Guest: Craig Perry (Final Destination).
Let us know what you thought of this episode, plus share some of your own ’80s horror memories by leaving a comment!
Two of the previous episodes of 80s Horror Memories can be seen below. To see more of our shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals channel – and subscribe while you’re at it!
| Footage from 'DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN'.