We already knew that there’s going to be another installment in the Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey horror franchise, because it was announced earlier this month that Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey and Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 (which is now on the last day of its three-day theatrical run) a part of a cinematic universe with other horror movies inspired by children’s stories, like Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, Bambi: The Reckoning, and Pinocchio Unstrung, and it’s building up to the crossover movie Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble, which will be released in 2025. But now Variety has been able to confirm that, in addition to Poohniverse, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 3 is also moving ahead. This sequel will have a bigger budget than either of its predecessors, and “will introduce new characters from the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories, including Rabbit, the heffalumps and the woozles.”
Variety wasn’t able to find out if Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 3 will film before or after Poohniverse.
These Pooh films come to us from director Rhys Frake-Waterfield and producer Scott Jeffrey Chambers of Jagged Edge Productions.
A.A. Milne’s 1926 children’s book Winnie-the-Pooh and the characters in it lapsed into the public domain at the start of last year, and that’s how Frake-Waterfield was able to make these movies happen, no permission required. In the build-up to the release of the first movie, the filmmaker explained to Variety that Pooh and Piglet (go) on a rampage after being abandoned by a college-bound Christopher Robin. “Christopher Robin is pulled away from them, and he’s not [given] them food, it’s made Pooh and Piglet’s life quite difficult. Because they’ve had to fend for themselves so much, they’ve essentially become feral. So they’ve gone back to their animal roots. They’re no longer tame: they’re like a vicious bear and pig who want to go around and try and find prey.”
Matt Leslie, writer/producer of Summer of 84, wrote the screenplay for the second movie, working from a story he crafted with Frake-Waterfield. Here’s the synopsis for Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2: Deep within the 100-Acre-Wood, a destructive rage grows as Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Owl, and Tigger find their home and their lives endangered after Christopher Robin revealed their existence. Not wanting to live in the shadows any longer, the group decides to take the fight to the town of Ashdown, home of Christopher Robin, leaving a bloody trail of death and mayhem in their wake. Winnie and his savage friends will show everyone that they are deadlier, stronger, and smarter than anyone could ever imagine and get their revenge on Christopher Robin, once and for all.
The film stars Ryan Oliva, Scott Chambers, Eddy Mackenzie, Marcus Massey, Tallulah Evans, Kelly Rian Sanson, Simon Callow, Alec Newman, Nicola Wright, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Lewis Santer, Tade Adebaio, and Nichaela Farrel.
It’s obvious what the Rabbit character is, but if you’re not familiar with the Milne versions of the other creatures Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 3 will be adding to the franchise, here’s some information: heffalumps are animals that resemble elephants and woozles are critters that leave tracks in the snow. In the source material, they’re both imaginary. Some adaptations have depicted woozles as villainous, weasel-like creatures that steal honey.
Are you glad to hear that Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 3 is going to be made? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
Reviving the classic X-Men animated series takes guts. In a list of beloved shows from a bygone era of Saturday Morning television, Marvel’s X-Men stands among select others at the top of Mount Nostalgia, with adamantium claws popped and a dream of equality for mutantkind in its heart. When Marvel announced a return to the fan-favorite animation, it was difficult to imagine the Herculean task of doing justice to the old series while carving a new path. Thankfully, Marvel’s X-Men ’97 launched to rave reviews from critics and fans, and we’ve got the show’s Supervising Producer and Supervising Director, Jake Castorena, to tell us about establishing a new era in mutant-related entertainment.
Speaking with Jake, we discussed the team lineup for X-Men ’97 and who could join the cast. We also talk about how X-Men ’97 is so true to the spirit of the original that it feels like Marvel is transporting you back to the ’90s when Chubawamba was thumping on tubs, and Savage Garden wanted you to try a sip of their Cherry Cola.
We also touch on Jake’s time working for other studios on projects like DC’s Batman, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Star Trek: Prodigy and how that compares to making animation magic at Marvel Studios. Finally, we step inside a time machine and discuss how best to write something with a ’90s frame of mind.
X-Men ’97 launched with a two-episode premiere on Disney+ on March 20. In addition to today’s interview, we have an X-Men ’97 review with opinions about the show’s highlights, challenges, and faults so far.
Here’s a snippet from the review:
“Smartly, X-Men ’97 is a continuation of the original series. The classic X-Men theme song from the jump transports you back to 1997, when the fifth and “final” season concluded. While not a one-to-one recreation of the original, the art retains the original show’s ’90s aesthetic, though characters and environments are polished. The mixture of hand-drawn art and CGI is seamless, giving the series a look and feel that complements the original presentation. Overall, X-Men ’97 displays a vibrancy the original series could not achieve due to technological restrictions.”
There’s more where that came from. Be sure to check it out!
Wes Craven, director of the first four films in the Scream franchise, passed away in 2015. So when Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media teamed up to revive the franchise with the new sequel that was released in 2022, the directing duo of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett took the helm. They then returned to direct Scream VI the following year, with both of their contributions to the franchise centering on sisters Samantha and Tara Carpenter, played by Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega. During a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett confirmed that they had been planning to return to direct Scream 7 and complete a Carpenter sisters trilogy… but they mistakenly thought they could fit the production of their Universal Monsters movie Abigail (formerly known as Dracula’s Daughter) in between the making of Scream VI and Scream 7. Turns out, Spyglass wanted to get moving on Scream 7 sooner than their schedules allowed, so the directors were, as they put it, “exited” from the project.
Gillett told The Hollywood Reporter, “We got exited.” After repeating that line, Bettinelli-Olpin said, “We’ll be sad that there’s not going to be an end to the Sam Carpenter story, but in our minds, we designed Scream VI so that the story feels complete.“
It’s a good thing they did that, because neither of the Carpenter sisters are going to be in the movie. Spyglass and Paramount had hired Freaky and Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon to direct the sequel in the absence of Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett, but then things fell apart. Ortega allegedly asked for a substantial pay raise – and as we saw when Neve Campbell dropped out of Scream VI due to a pay dispute, these pay issues don’t tend to work out. Then Barrera was fired from the project after comments she made about the Israel-Hamas war didn’t go over well with executives at Spyglass. Landon dropped out the of the project soon after. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett told The Hollywood Reporter that they had been in contact with Landon and discussed Scream 7 with him before he left the project. Barrera is the subject of the overall article, and she told the outlet, “I actually don’t know what happened (with Landon). He was very excited about it, and he had great ideas for it, so it makes me sad (that he dropped out).“
Scream 7 had to be reworked after the Carpenter sisters were out of the story. It was recently announced that Neve Campbell is returning to the lead as franchise heroine Sidney Prescott. We’ve heard that executives were hoping to get her Scream 3 co-star Patrick Dempsey to join her in this one, reprising the role of LAPD Detective Mark Kincaid – and industry scooper Daniel Richtman reports that Dempsey is “in talks” to do just that. Richtman’s sources also claim that Courteney Cox is locked in to return as author and reporter Gale Weathers… which would make sense, because Cox has never missed out on any of these movies.
Kevin Williamson, who wrote the screenplay for the original Scream, is set to direct this new sequel. In addition to writing the original Scream, Williamson has also written I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, The Faculty, and Halloween H20 (where his script contributions were uncredited). He wrote the initial drafts of Scream 3 and Scream 4, then those both received some major rewrites. For Scream 7, he’ll be working from a screenplay by 2022’s Scream and Scream VI writer Guy Busick, who crafted the story with his co-writer on the fifth and sixth films, James Vanderbilt. (Vanderbilt is also a producer on the most recent sequels.) Williamson made his directing debut with the 1999 thriller Teaching Mrs. Tingle. Twenty-five years later, Scream 7 will be his second directing credit.
Even though they were “exited”, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett will still receive executive producer credits on the new film alongside their Radio Silence production company partner Chad Villella. As for Barrera, she doesn’t entirely rule out the idea of her returning to the Scream franchise someday, but knows the odds are against it. “I’ve learned to never say never, but also a lot of things would have to happen for Sam to come back. For now, next page, next chapter, and then we’ll see what the future holds.“
What do you think of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett being removed from Scream 7 because executives couldn’t wait for them to finish working on Abigail? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
I am of that age that still thinks the 80s was 30 years ago and that the 90s just happened. Strange as that logic is, there’s nothing like movie anniversaries to pull me back into reality. Last episode we looked at In the Mouth of Madness and its impact now going strong 30 years later. That flick though, like most of John Carpenter’s catalogue, was something that was already out when I started my movie journey. I had already seen it on VHS and on TV from time to time which puts it in another category altogether. Move ahead just 5 short years to 1999, one of the greatest years in cinema history, and we start getting that 25 years of existence that puts that nice existential crisis right into my gut. Today we are going to look at one of those movies that probably isn’t considered a traditional horror movie but is absolutely horrific in nature. Does 8mm (watch it HERE) starring Nic Cage stand the Test of Time or should it be burned like the evidence in the movie?
Plot
I always forget this is a Joel Schumacher movie. When I think of him, it’s hard not to think of bright comic book neons and bat nipples on suits but his career was a very interesting one that had just shy of 40 projects. If you don’t think of the late 90s Batman movies, then you probably associate him most with The Lost Boys as it is a quintessential 80s horror and one of the best vampire flicks of all time. For horror, he also had Flatliners, The Number 23, and Blood Creek to pair with today’s flick. Blood Creek is something most people haven’t even heard of but look at the cast! I’ll wait. Joel also had prestige drama like The Client, Falling Down, and Phone Booth under his belt to go along with a whole lot more. He was central in the making of this movie, in fact, and it may not have happened if he hadn’t signed on.
Sony and Columbia were the production and distribution companies on the project and originally it was a much smaller handheld affair with Russell Crowe set to star. Before that though, they felt it was one of the riskiest scripts they had ever purchased and were honestly not sure it was going to be made. Schumacher, who had felt disappointment and a kind of emotional void with cinema heard about it and even though he was told it could be career suicide, eagerly signed on to do something different. Russell Crowe did not quite have the star power or multiple Oscar wins here and when Nic Cage was interested in the title it became a bigger budgeted affair and a very different movie. Part of this was due to the changes of the script originally written by Andrew Kevin Walker.
Walker is a heavy hitter as well. He started with Brainscan in 1994 but the following year gave us Seven for David Fincher. He would also do Sleepy Hollow, The Wolfman remake, and then reunite with Fincher again for 2023’s The Killer. Unfortunately, the script was altered going into production by Schumacher and Nicholas Kazan which caused Walker to disown the movie and not even visit the set during production. The story follows Nic Cage’s private investigator Tom Welles who is contacted by a wealthy widow named Christian who found a disturbing 8mm film in her husband’s belongings. Her lawyer Longdale sends him on the hunt to prove that the film isn’t a real snuff film, and it leads him to Los Angeles and New York into the seedy world of violent and fetishistic pornography. He befriends a knowledgeable store clerk named Max California who then leads him to Eddie Poole and Dini Velvet who find talent and make the movies.
They also run into Machine who has a signature tattoo on his hand and shows up in many of the movies. When the filmmakers find out that Welles is an investigator, they make him burn the movie before killing max and attempting to kill him. Welles gets them to fight amongst themselves over money with Longdale and Velvet killing each other. Welles escapes and tells the widow Christian it was all true and the movie was real. She ends her own life but sets up payments to both Tom and the victim’s family, but Tom sets out for vengeance. He kills both Poole and the Machine who turns out to be just a really messed up regular dude. He heads back home to pick up the pieces of his life and try to move on from the experience. The movie received mostly poor reviews but did make a profit with 97 million on its 40-million-dollar budget.
Signs of the Time
As a sort of Neo-Noir, the movie attempts a gritty realism that could pass for the 70s but being in 1999, it has some callouts. While Tom does use an early cell phone, like the one where you pull the antenna up to use it kind of old, they mostly use land lines and pay phones. How Tom Welles investigates shows its age a tad too. He doesn’t use the internet to investigate or research and rather goes into buildings and calls or interviews people in person. He tracks down people by studying the movies and gets help from people that can lead him to others who are involved. The Snuff film angle itself is also a forbidden object during the time of underground pornography in the 90s especially with the tail end of VHS and the boom of DVDs beginning where the products could be sold or traded without much tracking or responsibility. The movie has its genesis in two specific movies: Hardcore and Snuff. Snuff is the 1975 video nasty that was banned in multiple countries and was thought by some to be the real deal. Hardcore is the soul crushing Paul Schrader film that follows a similar story with a father trying to track down his daughter. Also, are there any non-soul crushing Schrader flicks? Asking for a friend.
The technical side of the film has its own sign of the times too as the color grading and filming style fit in with everything that Michael Bay was doing at the time as well as damn near every other action, horror, or drama director of the time who felt they had a pizazz going that would capture the cultural zeitgeist. This extends to the camera angles and music used for the movie that fit right in with everything else happening from the mid to late 90s. for a modern comparison, it’s very similar to the lens flairs that get made fun of in the most recent decade of filming. You could probably guess the year within a 2-year window just by watching parts of the movie. Finally, its impossible to talk about the 90s without discussing Nicolas Cages star power, particularly post his Oscar win for Leaving Las Vegas. The next year would give us The Rock followed by Con Air and Face Off in 1997. Snake Eyes the next year and then 8mm was paired with Bringing Out the Dead in 1999. Look at the directors and actors he worked with. His star power was something else at this time.
What Holds Up
This movie falls under the unfortunate flag of both what if and the sum being less than its parts. What holds up though? The story is a mean and gritty one with 75% of the humans we see not exactly being good, reputable people. It’s a mean movie with a mean story that unfortunately could have been even angrier, and we will sadly never see that. It has some wonderful performances from a young Joaquin Phoenix, a reliably slimy Peter Stormare, also slimy Anthony Heald, Chris Bower, and a True Romance level creep performance from the late, great James Gandolfini. The scene where they confront Cage and kill Phoenix before infighting with each other shows off how great all these guys are, and we are lucky to get them all in the same place.
This also leads to great lines like there’s no honor between perverts and pornographers to name just one gem that comes from Mr. Walker’s script. The actual titular 8mm snuff film is also unsettling as hell and sold to perfection by anyone that watches them. for the problems I have with cage, I think his intensity and disgust from the moment he watches the film to the end when he needs the catharsis of revenge is done really well. Unfortunately…
What doesn’t hold up
The rest of Cages’ performance is very lackluster. He doesn’t have the crazy outbursts we are accustomed to seeing and he is just never fully unhinged like he is in most of the other movies he made during that 5 year stretch we mentioned earlier. I hate to say it but I think we missed out on a superior film here with Russell Crowe operating with some version of the original script and idea. I like Nic Cage. I like his crazy unhinged performances, I like when he puts everything he has into his straight man dramatic roles, I love him in every genre he has shown up in but he just doesn’t have it here and it hurts the movie. He isn’t a bit part or a secondary character, he is the avatar for the audience and the one that guides our attention for 2 hours and 3 minutes. The movie has really great aspects to it but it is also a little bit too long and a little but too slow at points when the jolt it needs to push it over the edge just isn’t there.
Verdict
8mm is sadly a case of what could have been vs what we have. The movies it takes it’s inspirations from are far better experiences and the parts just don’t add up together to make the best sum. While many of the performances are great, the lead actor weighs the production down with a mostly sleepy portrayal. The story itself is good but was neutered down to lose some of its edge. While Scream Factory did what they always do and gave fans and collectors a worthy physical copy, the movie is destined to be mostly discussed in smaller circles and falls short of the potential it once had. It had been over 20 years since I saw the movie and while I remembered the most interesting parts, the rest I had forgotten about just like I did shortly after rewatching it for this episode. 8mm is a slow and ultimately frustrating watch as the movie we could have had stays tantalizingly out of our grasp while what we ended up with sadly doesn’t stand the test of time.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Test of Time can be seen below. To see more, click over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
PLOT: When a signal from an uncharted area of Hollow Earth riles up Godzilla, Monarch’s team has to investigate, while Kong discovers a lost society which may give him the home he’s long desired.
REVIEW: This holiday weekend sees the release of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which marks the fifth film in Warners and Legendary’s Monsterverse saga, which, to be sure, has been very hit-and-miss. For every Kong: Skull Island, there’s an entry that leaves us scratching our heads with its shared universe, mostly related to the evil company Monarch, which recently got its own show on Apple TV Plus. Interestingly, this universe has never been tremendously successful with audiences. WB would have likely thrown in the towel were it not that Godzilla Vs Kong was a surprise smash at the box office. It opened almost exactly a year into the pandemic, at a time when no one was going to see movies, but those who did found the dose of escapism it offered rather welcome. It made $100 million domestically and nearly four times that overseas, which is amazing considering that it went day and date on HBO Max.
Thus, it gets a sequel, Godzilla x Kong, a title which signifies the two are pals now and could become kind of the Tango & Cashof the Monsterverse.
If only.
While I had a ton of fun with this flick, I have one big complaint. While the trailers made it look like it’s a non-stop brofest between Godzilla and Kong, the two are kept apart for close to ninety minutes, and this movie is just under two hours. All of the scenes you’ve seen of them doing their thing together are from the last chunk of the film. While that’s a bummer, I must admit that I found myself surprisingly engaged by the build-up. While it has the misfortune of coming out hot on the heels of Godzilla Minus One, my choice for the best Kaiju movie ever, Wingard and his writers did something clever. They made this an action flick, with Kong our Stallone-esque underdog hero.
The movie concerns a distress call from an uncharted part of Hollow Earth that only Kong’s pal Gia (played by Kaylee Hottle) and Godzilla can sense, leading the latter on a rampage. Thankfully, Kong is up on earth getting some oral surgery via a badass vet named Trapper who works on Titans, played by an excellent Dan Stevens. He accompanies Gia, her adopted mother, Rebecca Hall’s Dr. Illene (who happens to be Trapper’s college ex) and Brian Tyree Henry’s Bernie down to Hollow Earth to figure out what’s happening.
One notable thing about Godzilla x Kong is how minor the human roles are. Kong is thoroughly the protagonist, as he discovers a lost civilization of apes and makes an arch-enemy he needs to do away with. He even gets a sidekick in a cute baby ape. Kong’s been given a bit of an action star makeover, with him having a six-pack and some Kong stubble. Seeing him next to the other apes, I couldn’t help but think how much better looking he is than the other apes. It’s almost like they were trying to make him…sexy?
If you’re more of a Godzilla fan, you’ll be disappointed by his limited screen time, although he does get a nice gag involving his favorite place on Earth to nap. Again, the humans are an afterthought, but Dan Stevens seems to know exactly the movie he’s in. He brings a lot of energy to his cool role. Someone compares him to Ace Ventura, which isn’t far off. Imagine Ace Ventura as an action star, and played by Kurt Russell in the eighties, and you get an idea of what they’re going for here. If anything, he seems somewhat based on Elliot Gould’s Trapper John from Robert Altman’s MASH, with him even dressed the same way in addition to sharing a name. It’s nice to see the often-underused Stevens in an uncomplicated hero role, and he’s the most memorable human in the film. Now, if only he and the director, Adam Wingard, would make The Guest 2 already. The rest of the humans are fine, but Hall is around basically to handle the exposition, while Henry is around to crack jokes. He and Stevens play off each other well and would be excellent in a buddy movie.
Wingard seems to have been given more creative freedom here than last time, with a lot of synth wave on the soundtrack mixed with the more traditional action score by Junkie XL (a state of his non-Monsterverse films). There are also a lot of seventies rock needle drops, with Trapper being a music guy. Even if this aspect seems plucked from Guardians of the Galaxy, I enjoyed the song choices, including a nice nod to Canadian rockers Loverboy. The fun, bubble gum-chewing vibe people dug in the original is back here, with it paced like a rollercoaster ride, even if you can’t help but wish the two monsters had more face time (perhaps in the sequel).
Is Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire a kick-ass kaiju movie? Kind of, but it’s not even remotely comparable with Godzilla Minus One. However, just like the last one, I had a more than decent time with it. I turned my brain off and enjoyed the ride.
While Russell Crowe has made it abundantly clear that he’s not in the upcoming Gladiator 2 that Ridley Scott is directing, Crowe is still particularly proud of an overlooked movie that he did with Scott after their Academy Award-winning film. While on social media, Crowe responded to a fan with the handle @DorothyOstra when she posted, “On @PrimeVideo, you can already watch 26 films with @RussellCrowe. And that’s truly impressive home cinema! And then someone wonders why I’ve seen some movies 13 or 16 times, … because I have the best within arm’s reach.”
Crowe would see the post and reply with an opportunity to promote the director’s cut of Robin Hood, which he made with Scott. The Oscar-winning actor replied, “One heart at a time @PrimeVideo, 26 movies ??!! What I really like: The directors cut of Robin Hood. It’s some 17 minutes longer than the theatrical release, but it’s a crucial 17 minutes. Gives the whole movie another layer of clarity, humour and emotional depth.”
One heart at a time @PrimeVideo , 26 movies ??!! What I really like: The directors cut of Robin Hood. It’s some 17 minutes longer than the theatrical release, but it’s a crucial 17 minutes. Gives the whole movie another layer of clarity, humour and emotional depth. https://t.co/lpxvye3LtU
It stands to reason that Crowe would want his hard work to be recognized. He did break both his legs on the movie, after all. Here’s one better — not only did he break his legs doing a stunt during the production, but he finished it and didn’t even find out his legs were broken until a decade later. Crowe explained earlier this year, “I jumped off a castle portcullis onto rock-hard uneven ground. We should have prepped the ground and buried a pad but we were in a rush to get the shot done in the fading light.” As he jumped, Crowe said that he knew it was going to hurt before he landed heel-first on the ground below. “It was like an electric shock bursting up through my body,” he said. “We were shooting a big movie, so you just struggle through, but the last month of that job was very tricky. There was a number of weeks where even walking was a challenge.“
Flash forward to ten years later, when Crowe was getting an MRI and was asked by his doctor when he broke his legs, “Apparently he could see the remnants of fractures in both shin bones,” Crowe said. “To jog my memory he said, ‘Would have been maybe 10 years ago?’” Crowe added, “Apparently I finished that movie with two broken legs. All for art. No cast, no splints, no painkillers, just kept going to work and over time they healed themselves.“
Easter Weekend is upon us, and Warner Bros is releasing another huge tentpole with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. While everyone knows the movie will no doubt rule the box office this weekend, the question remains: how much will it make? Folks are also curious to see if Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire holds up decently this weekend following its somewhat underwhelming opening. Indeed, this weekend may seal the fate of both WB’s MonsterVerse and Sony’s Ghost Corps.
While studio estimates have Godzilla x Kong making upwards of $60 million, I’m not quite so sure. The franchise has always had mixed results at the box office. The first Godzilla made a huge $93 million but was torpedoed by terrible word-of-mouth soon after. Kong: Skull Island opened softer at $61 million but legged out to a decent final gross. However, Godzilla: King of the Monsters was a flop domestically, opening at $47 million and only making over $110 million. In fact, there was even talk at the time of WB wanting to ditch the franchise, but they were already in production on Godzilla Vs Kong, which, to everyone’s surprise, ended up becoming a major hit.
While it had the franchise’s lowest opening ($31 million) and lowest final gross (just over $100 million), it’s worth noting the movie opened during the height of the pandemic, at a time when movie theatres were mostly closed. The movie was also day and date on HBO Max, and the fact that it made $470 million worldwide (more than King of the Monsters) made the film a sizeable hit for the studio, all things considered.
While Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire will no doubt open bigger than the last film, I’m not sure the franchise is big enough to double that opening. Were Apple TV’s Monarch a bigger hit, I might think differently, but that show really came and went without much fanfare. My conservative estimate is around $50 million for the 3-day weekend, thanks largely to the fact that kids are off school tomorrow, so matinees and early shows tonight should be huge.
Meanwhile, I’m expecting Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire to post a pretty big decline of around 60%, putting it in second place around the $18 million-ish range. I think the movie may have a hard time making much more than $120ish million domestically, which may not be enough to sustain a franchise. Godzilla x Kong may finish with roughly the same amount, but given that it’s a kaiju movie, the overseas business will be brisk, which isn’t really the case for Ghostbusters.
Here are my predictions:
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire: $50 million
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire: $18 million
Dune: Part Two: $13 million
Kung Fu Panda 4: $12 million
Arthur The King: $2 million
Are you going to see the new Godzilla and Kong romp? Let us know in the comments!
Back in 2021, Prime Video aired the first season of the horror anthology series Them (you can read our review HERE), which creator Little Marvin and executive producer Lena Waithe put together with the intention of telling stories that will “explore terror in America.” All eight episodes of the second season, which is called Them: The Scare, are set to be released through Prime Video on Thursday, April 25th – and with that date just four weeks away, a trailer for the new season has arrived online. You can check it out in the embed above.
A press release notified us that Them: The Scare will be, like its predecessor, set in Los Angeles. The first season, which is subtitled Covenant, took place in Compton circa 1952, while the new episodes move the time frame forward to 1991. The story of the second season centers on LAPD Homicide Detective Dawn Reeve, who is assigned to a new case: the gruesome murder of a foster home mother that has left even the most hardened detectives shaken. Navigating a tumultuous time in Los Angeles, with a city on the razor’s edge of chaos, Dawn is determined to stop the killer. But as she draws closer to the truth, something ominous and malevolent grips her and her family…
Deborah Ayorinde (Harriet) stars as Detective Dawn Reeve and is joined in the cast by Pam Grier (Jackie Brown) as Athena, Luke James (Insecure) as Edmund Gaines. Also in there are Joshua J. Williams (Cloak & Dagger), Jeremy Bobb (The Continental), Wayne Knight (Seinfeld), Carlito Olivero (Escape Room: Tournament of Champions), Charles Brice (Homeland), and Iman Shumpert (The Chi).
Here’s some more information on the characters:
Deborah Ayorinde as Dawn is one of the only women of color in the robbery homicide division, is sharp and observant, but she becomes uncharacteristically unnerved by her new case.
Pam Grier plays Dawn’s mother, Athena. She’s meticulous, clever, and prideful, but her mama bear qualities hide secrets.
Luke James plays Edmund Gaines, an aspiring actor who appears to be a sensitive soul but has a deep void within him.
Joshua J. Williams will play Kelvin “Kel” Reeve, Dawn’s teenage son, who’s harboring a secret from both his mom and his grandmother.
Jeremy Bobb will play Detective Ronald McKinney, Dawn’s partner, who has a reputation for closing cases quickly and through sometimes questionable means.
Wayne Knight will recur as Lt. Schiff, Dawn’s supervisor at the LAPD.
Carlito Olivero will play Joaquin Diaz, a newly minted detective who wants to impress Dawn.
Charles Brice plays Reggie Marks, a stylish and charming attorney for the city of Los Angeles.
Iman Shumpert plays Dawn’s ex, Corey, a musician who’s frequently on the road.
Little Marvin provided the following statement: “With Them: The Scare, we wanted to combine our love of horror with a look at Los Angeles’s rich history and evolution. This second installment is a new story set in the 90s, one of the most iconic decades for film, music and fashion, particularly in Los Angeles. I’m also excited about our amazing cast: Deborah Ayorinde returns as a completely new character, Luke James delivers an unforgettable performance and the legendary Pam Grier, who has played so many iconic and beloved roles on screen, makes her return to horror… We couldn’t have asked for a more fearless group to lead this second installment.“
Them: The Scare is a co-production of Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios. Little Marvin serves as showrunner and executive producer with Miri Yoon and Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment, as well as Steve Prinz.
What did you think of the Them: The Scare trailer? Did you watch the first season of Them, and will you be tuning in for this new season? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
If you are a fan of the classic TV sitcom Seinfeld, then you have seen how big a role cereal plays in Jerry’s life. However, the famous comedian has taken his love to a whole new level with the over-the-top portrayal of the reinvention of breakfast as Pop-Tarts hit the market in Unfrosted. Unfrosted is a comedy that stars Seinfeld, but it also marks his directorial debut for a comedy feature film. The cast list is also an amazing who’s who of comedy actors which features Jerry Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer, Max Greenfield, Christian Slater, Bill Burr, Daniel Levy, James Marsden, Jack McBrayer, Thomas Lennon, Bobby Moynihan, Adrian Martinez, Sarah Cooper and Fred Armisen.
The official synopsis from Netflix reads, “Battle Creek, Michigan, 1963. Kellogg’s and Post, sworn cereal rivals, race to create a pastry that will change the face of breakfast forever. A wildly imaginative tale of ambition, betrayal, and menacing milkmen – sweetened with artificial ingredients – UNFROSTED stars Jerry Seinfeld in his directorial film debut. It features a supporting cast of comedy greats including Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer, Max Greenfield, Christian Slater, Sarah Cooper, Bill Burr, and many more.”
Not only does Jerry star and direct the film, but he is also a co-writer on the script, which was also written by Spike Feresten, Andy Robin and Barry Marder. Seinfeld produces along with Spike Feresten, Beau Bauman and the executive producers on board include Andy Robin, Barry Marder and Cherylanne Martin.
Seinfeld told Netflix that the project actually started as a joke, “[Co-writer] Spike Feresten and I, as a joke, would say to each other, ‘Let’s make a movie about Pop-Tarts.’ And then when the pandemic happened and we had nothing to do, he said, ‘Let’s really write this as a movie.’ ” The comedian adds his personal experiences with the breakfast pastry, “My first memory of Pop-Tarts is, once I tasted it, I assumed they would not continue to make other types of food. It would no longer be necessary to eat anything else.” He then made it clear that he must toast his Pop-Tarts, “I do not like Pop-Tarts untoasted. The flavors come together in the toaster. There’s something sad about a cold Pop-Tart. It’s soulless. It’s devoid of emotion. Incomplete.”
There was a time where hate for Anne Hathaway was confoundingly strong. But what had she really done to deserve all of the backlash? It’s not like she was a one-note star – she balanced crappy rom-comcs with terrific performances in movies like Brokeback Mountain and Rachel Getting Married – or was a problem on the set. And yet people had seemingly decided to turn on her sometime in the early 2010s, with a new term, “Hathahate”, being coined. But one who remained faithful in her as an actress and a professional was Christopher Nolan, who cast her as Selina Kyle aka Catwoman in 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises and again in 2014’s Interstellar. And for that, Anne Hathaway is forever grateful.
In a new Vanity Fair profile, Anne Hathaway said of her time on the outs with Hollywood, “A lot of people wouldn’t give me roles because they were so concerned about how toxic my identity had become online. I had an angel in Christopher Nolan, who did not care about that and gave me one of the most beautiful roles I’ve had in one of the best films that I’ve been a part of.” She added, “I don’t know if he knew that he was backing me at the time, but it had that effect. And my career did not lose momentum the way it could have if he hadn’t backed me.”
While Anne Hathaway’s career hardly had a serious resurgence after her pair of Nolan collaborations, she did sneak in an Oscar win for Les Misérables in 2013, an impressive feat considering she barely has 15 minutes of screen time as Fantine. This win came just two years after co-hosting the Academy Awards, something she really had no business doing. What resulted was one of the worst hosting gigs ever, as she and co-host James Franco had zero chemistry, lacked comedic timing and presented themselves like they were being held hostage, no doubt contributing to the backlash that may have something to do with her overexposure. Such a mess it was, the Academy invited back former mainstay Billy Crystal, who hadn’t hosted since 2004.
Anne Hathaway has a number of projects lined up, including rom-com The Idea of You and David Lowery epic Mother Mary. She is also speculated to be circling season two of Beef.
What’s your position on Anne Hathaway and what do you make of the hate she got during that period?
