The limits of imagination run wild in Sony Pictures’ trailer for Harold and the Purple Crayon, starring Zachary Levi as the keeper of a magical crayon able to bring any drawing to life! Based on the beloved children’s book written and illustrated by Crockett Johnson, the family-friendly adventure finds Levi starring as a grown-up Harold who rediscovers the power to manifest objects like a preschool Green Lantern.

Johnson’s classic novel, Harold and the Purple Crayon, is about a curious four-year-old boy with a magic purple crayon that has the power to make anything he draws become real. Hollywood has been attempting to bring the story to the big screen for decades, and it seems time has finally arrived. The new film, directed by Carlos Saldanha (Ferdinand, Rio, Robots), presents a new spin on the story, with Zachary Levi playing a grown-up Harold who escapes from the book into the real world alongside two of his friends, played by Lil Rey Howery and Tanya Reynolds.

In the Harold and the Purple Crayon trailer, Levi’s Harold arrives in the real world with his magical crayon ready to cast a spell on reality. After befriending a young boy, Harold uses the crayon to introduce otherworldly magic to create powerful objects, creatures, and unruly modes of transportation. While I get hokey vibes from the trailer, I love how the film represents the crayon’s magic.

Zooey Deschanel, Jemaine Clement, Camile Guaty, Ravi Patel, and Hillary Harley join Levi, Howery, and Reynolds as primary cast members in Harold and the Purple Crayon.

As I mentioned before, Hollywood has been attempting to bring the story to the big screen for quite some time, going back to 1992 when Where the Wild Things Are writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak acquired the rights. The Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick was attached to direct but ultimately departed to helm James and the Giant Peach. Spike Jonze then boarded the project to develop it as a live-action/animated hybrid, but he left as well. The project transformed into a CGI-animated movie almost fifteen years ago but couldn’t get off the ground. However, we did get a short-lived animated series nearly twenty-five years ago narrated by Sharon Stone for HBO Family.

What do you think about today’s Harold and the Purple Crayon trailer? Do you like the new story approach, or should they have kept the original plot? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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Writer/director Chris Nash’s slasher movie In a Violent Nature had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year (you can read a review by JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray right HERE), and it won’t be long before a wider audience has a chance to see it, as it has been announced that IFC Film will be giving the film a theatrical release on May 31st! Along with this release date announcement comes the unveiling of a full trailer for In a Violent Nature, and you can check that out in the embed above.

Sundance said In a Violent Nature is about “the enigmatic resurrection, rampage, and retribution of an undead monster in a remote wilderness.” Variety added that it features “a masked killer named Johnny traipsing through the woods, camping teens, a local who escaped death years ago, buckets of gore. But including these cornerstones doesn’t feel like a retread—instead, it gave Nash room to play freely. Like, for example, making the perspective largely tethered to the killer. There’s no spotlight on heroes or final girls here, only the glimpses and whispers of those unfortunate enough to find themselves in the path of Johnny’s reign of terror.”

Here’s the official synopsis: When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime, his body is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it. The undead golem hones in on the group of vacationing teens responsible for the theft and proceeds to methodically slaughter them one by one in his mission to get it back – along with anyone in his way.

The film stars Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love, Reece Presley, Liam Leone, Charlotte Creaghan, Lea Rose Sebastianis, Sam Roulston, Alexander Oliver, and Lauren Taylor. It was produced by Peter Kuplowsky and Shannon Hanmer.

Following the theatrical run, In a Violent Nature will be making its way to the Shudder streaming service. Shudder’s Samuel Zimmerman told Variety, “Chris had such a clarity of vision with what this film is. It takes elements of very classical slashers and the very classical slasher aesthetic, but I understood the language he wanted to tell it in. At the time he was talking about films like Gerald Kargl’s Angst, which is one of my favorite home invasion films from Austria from the early ’80s. It has really revolutionary cinematography, so I knew he wanted to make this artful slasher that didn’t reject the hallmarks, but evolved the language of it forward and gave you a different perspective by tying you to the monster himself.“

Scott Shooman, the head of AMC Networks film group (which owns Shudder), added: “When you surrender yourself to this movie at the theater, it’s a different experience. It’s got the best slasher kills. It’s why we share armrests: To have the experience of something like In a Violent Nature in the theater.“

I love slasher movies (Friday the 13th is my favorite franchise), so In a Violent Nature is one of my most highly anticipated genre releases of the year. Are you looking forward to this one? What did you think of the trailer? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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It’s finally here! After being teased for months, our first peek at Fede Alvarez’s all-new addition to the xenomorph universe, Alien: Romulus, is here! While the 60 second teaser trailer embedded above doesn’t give us too much of an idea what the film will be like, the blood-covered pod and glimpses of our heroine clutching a pulse rifle make this look like a hard-R rated throwback to both Alien and Aliens.

Here’s the studio’s official logline:

The sci-fi/horror-thriller takes the phenomenally successful “Alien” franchise back to its roots: While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe. 

The film’s cast includes Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla) and David Jonsson (Industry), as well as Isabela Merced (Madame Web), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Spike Fearn (The Batman), and Aileen Wu (Away from Home). Spaeny has previously revealed that the story takes place between the events of the original Alien and its follow-up Aliens. Merced has said there’s a scene in the film that’s so disgusting that a lot of viewers will have to look away, so that goes along with the “graphic and gruesome” description. “Graphic and gruesome” is what we expected from this movie as soon as it was announced that it was being made by the director of Evil Dead 2013 and Don’t Breathe.

When the project was announced near the start of 2022, it was said that Alvarez pitched this idea to Ridley Scott years ago. Whatever the idea was, it stuck with Scott. So in late 2021, he called Alvarez and asked if he still wanted to make an Alien movie. Clearly, the answer was yes. 20th Century Studios division president Steve Asbell told The Hollywood Reporter that they picked up the project “purely off the strength of Fede’s pitch. It was just a really good story with a bunch of characters you haven’t seen before.“

It has been said that the story Alvarez and his frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues crafted for Alien: Romulus is not connected to the other films in the Alien franchise. An early description said it will show us what happens when “a group of young people on a distant world find themselves in a confrontation with the most terrifying life form in the universe.” The Hollywood Reporter noted, “as opposed to the other movies which focused on adults in corporate, militaristic and scientific roles, this now-ninth installment of the franchise will focus on a group of young people. On a distant colony, the group finds themselves in a fight for their lives with the titular alien, a creature known as a Xenomorph, whose race propagates by implanting eggs into people’s stomachs via face-huggers, with the juveniles eventually violently bursting out of the host’s chest.”

This new Alien movie is coming to us from Momentum and 20th Century Studios, with Ridley Scott producing through his Scott Free banner. It hits theaters on August 16th! Find out everything else we know about it right here!

Are you looking forward to Alien: Romulus? What did you think of the teaser trailer? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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“Bustin makes me feel good!” That’s what Sony hopes fans will be saying when they turn out to see Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire this weekend in theaters. A very ambitious follow-up to Ghostbusters: Afterlife, with this one, Sony and their Ghost Corps production company, hope to spawn the series into an extended universe containing both old and new characters. You can read our review here, and to help celebrate the movie’s release, we were invited to take part in the film’s virtual junket, in which we got to interview stars McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon.

One thing that’s immediately evident when interviewing this crew is their unabashed love of the franchise. Everyone involved is clearly having a blast, and perhaps none more so than Carrie Coon and Paul Rudd, who, after sitting out most of the action in the last film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, finally get to slap on their proton packs and bust some ghosts. In our interview, Rudd mentions that no one brought their cell phones with them during the shoot and in between shots, they all just gathered around to hear stories from the OG Ghostbusters in the cast, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson. Carrie Coon also mentions her joy at becoming an official Ghostbuster (while shouting out physical media) while Rudd tells younger viewers which golden age comedies featuring the cast they should check out next.

And, of course, Frozen Empire also sees the return of McKenna Grace’s Phoebe and Finn Wolfhard’s Trevor, as the Spenglers relocate to New York. During our chat, Grace mentions how a classic villain, William Atherton’s Walter Peck, tries to sideline Phoebe, while Wolfhard talks about meeting the OG crew and being slimed by Slimer!

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire hits theatres on Friday. Check back later this week for even more from our interviews!

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“Bustin makes me feel good!” That’s what Sony hopes fans will be saying when they turn out to see Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire this weekend in theaters. A very ambitious follow-up to Ghostbusters: Afterlife, with this one, Sony and their Ghost Corps production company, hope to spawn the series into an extended universe containing both old and new characters. You can read our review here, and to help celebrate the movie’s release, we were invited to take part in the film’s virtual junket, in which we got to interview stars McKenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon.

One thing that’s immediately evident when interviewing this crew is their unabashed love of the franchise. Everyone involved is clearly having a blast, and perhaps none more so than Carrie Coon and Paul Rudd, who, after sitting out most of the action in the last film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, finally get to slap on their proton packs and bust some ghosts. In our interview, Rudd mentions that no one brought their cell phones with them during the shoot and in between shots, they all just gathered around to hear stories from the OG Ghostbusters in the cast, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson. Carrie Coon also mentions her joy at becoming an official Ghostbuster (while shouting out physical media) while Rudd tells younger viewers which golden age comedies featuring the cast they should check out next.

And, of course, Frozen Empire also sees the return of McKenna Grace’s Phoebe and Finn Wolfhard’s Trevor, as the Spenglers relocate to New York. During our chat, Grace mentions how a classic villain, William Atherton’s Walter Peck, tries to sideline Phoebe, while Wolfhard talks about meeting the OG crew and being slimed by Slimer!

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire hits theatres on Friday. Check back later this week for even more from our interviews!

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Annabelle Wallis – whose credits include Annabelle, Malignant, and The Mummy – has signed on to star in the sci-fi thriller Mercy alongside previously announced cast members Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, Variety reports. Details on the role Wallis will be playing have not been revealed, and the same can be said about Ferguson’s character.

Mercy reunites Pratt with his Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov to tell a story that is “set in the near future when capital crime has increased” and follows “a detective (Pratt] who is accused of a violent crime and forced to prove his innocence.” The screenplay was written by Marco Van Belle (Arthur & Merlin).

Coming our way from Amazon MGM Studios, the film is expected to go into production this spring and is already scheduled to receive a worldwide theatrical release on August 15, 2025.

Charles Roven, who just won an Academy Award for producing Oppenheimer, is producing Mercy with Atlas Entertainment SVP Robert Amidon, alongside Bekmambetov’s BEL banner and Majd Nassif.

In addition to the horror films mentioned in the opening line, Annabelle Wallis’s credits include The Tudors, X-Men: First Class, Pan Am, Sword of Vengeance, The Brothers Grimsby, Come and Find Me, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Tag, The Loudest Voice, Peaky Blinders, Boss Level, Mine, Star Trek: Discovery, The Silencing, and Silent Night. Keeping with the silence theme while also heading toward Mercy, Wallis recently worked on a film called The Silence of Mercy, which is currently in post-production and doesn’t have anything to do with this Timur Bekmambetov film.

Are you interested in Mercy? What do you think of Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, and Annabelle Wallis leading the cast? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.

As a Tom Cruise super-fan, I just think it’s fun to see that his The Mummy co-star Annabelle Wallis is going to share the screen with his Mission: Impossible franchise co-star Rebecca Ferguson in this film. My level of Chris Pratt fandom isn’t anywhere near the level of my Tom Cruise fandom, but I look forward to seeing how Mercy is going to turn out.

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Eternal Beauty director Craig Roberts is set to take the helm of a horror comedy called The Scurry, working from a screenplay by The Mash Report’s Tim Telling, and Deadline reports that Olivia Cooke of Bates Motel, House of the Dragon, and Ouija and Rhys Ifans of Notting Hill, The Amazing Spider-Man, and also House of the Dragon have signed on to star in the film. Paapa Essiedu (The Lazarus Project), Mia McKenna-Bruce (How to Have Sex), and Antonia Thomas (The Good Doctor) are also in the cast.

The story of The Scurry follows two pest controllers who are called to an eco-café in a country park to investigate what begins as a routine vermin problem but as nightfall approaches an avalanche of deranged squirrels descend, wreaking revenge and mayhem on the staff and visitors in the park. With many fatalities, the survivors take shelter in the café as a freak storm takes out the power and communications leaving them isolated and under attack. An eclectic mix of survivors include pest controllers, a sulky teenager, hypocritical vegans, and a drug dealer – there is only an outside chance of survival.

The project has a budget of just under $13 million and is set to start filming at Dragon Studios in South Wales on April 2nd. It’s coming our way from Water & Power Productions, Cliff Edge Pictures, and Circus Studios, with True Brit Entertainment on board as co-producer and UK distributor. James Swarbrick is producing for Water & Power while Adrian Bate does the same for Cliff Edge. Executive producers include Tom Miller and Sam Myer of Water & Power, Craig Roberts of Cliff Edge, Zygi Kamasa of True Brit, and James Spring and James Scott of Circus Studios.

Swarbrick provided the following statement: “It’s great to be back in business with the legend that is Craig Roberts, from his visual flair and skill with the camera meant that the moment we read Tim’s incredible script there was only one man for the job. Craig brings a humour and wit to his work, which is ideally suited to a horrifying rodent apocalypse.“

Bate added: “You may want to think twice about sitting in your garden or visiting your local park after seeing this movie. Through Craig Roberts’ unique directorial prism and with our stellar cast, we’ll witness the forest sending in their fur clad foot soldiers to avenge their mistreatment. It’s time for nature to bite back.“

Kamasa had this to say: “It’s rare to find a commercial, scary, and funny British genre film with such a terrific cast that the filmmakers want to build as a potential British franchise. Craig Roberts is enormously talented, and he and I share a love of legendary genre films like Shaun of the Dead or Gremlins. The ambition to make something similar is hugely exciting.“

And Scott had this to say: “The Scurry has an internationally recognizable cast and a universally resonant story of local vermin rising up to take control – something that city dwellers the world over know hovers over us as a possibility at every moment. We’re confident that it will land with audiences globally and give people a newfound phobia.“

For his part, Roberts simply said, “I’m really happy that somebody has employed me again.“

Does The Scurry sound interesting to you? Let us know by leaving a comment below. I was sold on this first one as soon as I saw it was going to be a horror comedy about deranged squirrels.

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Strap in for the new trailer for David Leitch’s The Fall Guy. Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt’s upcoming action comedy is getting immense praise for its action and comedy, as well as being a loving tribute to the world of stunt performers — a world Leitch knows very intimately. The film recently had its premiere at SXSW, where people took to social media to rave about it. And Gosling himself would get one of the industry’s biggest compliments with none other than Steven Spielberg told him how much he loved the movie. Universal has unveiled the new trailer, which expands more on the fun mayhem audiences are in store for on May 3.

The official synopsis from Universal reads,
“Oscar^® nominee Ryan Gosling (Barbie, La La Land, Drive) stars as Colt Seavers, a battle-scarred stuntman who, having left the business a year earlier to focus on both his physical and mental health, is drafted back into service when the star of a mega-budget studio movie—being directed by his ex, Jody Moreno, played by Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer, A Quiet Place films, Sicario)—goes missing.

While the film’s ruthless producer (Emmy winner Hannah Waddingham; Ted Lasso), maneuvers to keep the disappearance of star Tom Ryder (Golden Globe winner Aaron Taylor-Johnson; Bullet Train) a secret from the studio and the media, Colt performs the film’s most outrageous stunts while trying (with limited success) to charm his way back into Jody’s good graces. But as the mystery around the missing star deepens, Colt will find himself ensnared in a sinister, criminal plot that will push him to the edge of a fall more dangerous than any stunt.”

Gosling would steal the spotlight at the Academy Awards when performing “I’m Just Ken,” and when it comes to that event, especially when it is emphasized that the Academy is adding categories, many are livid that there is still no award that recognizes the stunt category. After his experience on the film, Gosling speaks up for the stunt people, saying, “There’s this sort of accepted dynamic where they come on set, they do all the cool stuff, they risk everything, and then they disappear into the shadows and we all pretend as if they were never there. Everyone else on set gets credit, but there’s kind of unspoken understanding that they won’t. That ends today!”

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We’ve heard rumblings that a trailer for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, director Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel to his 1988 classic Beetlejuice (watch it HERE) might be dropping online very soon – but while we wait for that trailer to show up, Entertainment Weekly has unveiled a pair of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice first look images that show Michael Keaton back in the role of the titular “ghost with the most”, Winona Ryder reprising the role of Lydia Deetz (accompanied by Catherine O’Hara, back as Lydia’s stepmother Delia), and also give us a glimpse of new characters played by Jenna Ortega and Justin Theroux! You can take a look at these images at the bottom of this article.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was in development hell for decades before it finally got made. In 1990, Jonathan Gems was hired to write a sequel that was going to be titled Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. Burton considered having Daniel Waters rewrite that script, Pamela Norris did rewrite it, and Warner Bros. offered Kevin Smith the chance to do another rewrite. He turned it down. Seth Grahame-Smith was hired to write and produce a new version of a sequel in 2011. Mike Vukadinovich was brought on to rewrite his script in 2017.

Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, co-creators and co-showrunners of Wednesday, have written the screenplay for Beetlejuice 2 that was actually filmed. Plot details are being kept under wraps. Brad Pitt’s Plan B is producing the sequel, which filmed in London before moving to Vermont and Massachusetts.

The actors mentioned above are joined in the cast by Monica Bellucci as Beetlejuice’s wife and Willem Dafoe as a law enforcement officer in the afterlife. Arthur Conti is also in there, in an unspecified role. Jenna Ortega’s character is Lydia’s daughter Astrid, but all we know about Justin Theroux’s character is his name: Rory.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is set to reach theatres on September 6th. Are you looking forward to it? Check out these images, then let us know by leaving a comment below.

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He may not have walked away with an Oscar this year, but Jeffrey Wright is hot off the acclaim of his Academy Award-nominated film American Fiction and has been reported by Deadline to be joining Denzel Washington for Spike Lee’s upcoming remake of the Akira Kurosawa film High and Low. The remake of the 1963 crime thriller will come from a joint production from Apple and A24 Films. It is not yet announced what role in the film that Wright will be portraying as of yet.

In addition to American Fiction, Wright also starred in the Oscar-nominated film Rustin for Netflix. He appeared in last year’s Asteroid City from Wes Anderson, who he also worked with on The French Dispatch. He would garner three Emmy nominations for his role as Bernard Lowe on HBO’s Westworld. And he would recently fill the shoes of Batman’s police ally, James Gordon, in Matt Reeves’ standalone Dark Knight film, The Batman, which stars Robert Pattinson in the titular role.

In Kurosawa’s High and Low, an executive of a Yokohama shoe company becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur’s son is kidnapped by mistake and held for ransom. Details about Lee’s remake are scarce, though we know it will be an English-language reimagining of the original—details about how and if the plot will differ from Kurosawa’s classic crime drama remains a mystery. This will be Denzel’s fourth collaboration with Lee after the pair made the bank heist film Inside Man. Lee would also work with Denzel’s son, John David Washington, on his award-winning BlacKkKlansman.

Alan Fox and Lee wrote the screenplay for the High and Low remake, with A24, Escape Artists, and Mandalay Pictures handling development. Production kicks off in March, with Todd Black producing for Escape Artists and Jason Michael Berman for Mandalay Pictures. In addition to directing and co-writing High and Low, Lee will executive produce through his 40 Acres studio and A Mule Filmworks. Joining Lee as an executive producer is Peter Guber for Madalay Films, Matthew Lindner for Juniper Productions, Chris Brigham, and Katia Washington. Mandalay’s Jordan Moldo is co-producing. According to reports, Spike Lee and Denzel Washington began thinking about collaborating on another film project last spring. Still, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes delayed any forward momentum.

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