Preparations for Edgar Wright’s remake of Stephen King’s The Running Man are moving at full speed as the list of cast members continues to grow with show-stopping additions. Today, The Hollywood Reporter says Lee Pace (The Fall, Halt and Catch Fire, Pushing Daisies) is joining Glen Powell (Anyone But You, Twisters), Josh Brolin (Dune, The Goonies), Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), and Daniel Ezra (All American, A Discovery of Witches) for Paramount’s adaptation of the classic short story by Stephen King.

Last Night in Soho and Baby Driver director Edgar Wright directs The Running Man from a script he co-wrote with Michael Bacall. Production for the dystopian Contest of Champions kicks off early next year in London.

Powell stars as a “desperate man, needing money for his sick daughter, who joins the most popular show, The Running Man, in which teams of killers hunt down contestants. The longer that a contestant survives, the more money that person makes. But as the game show’s producers and killers will find out, this desperate man will break all the rules and expose the show’s dark secrets.” Josh Brolin plays “the antagonist behind the violent reality show.” In contrast, O’Brian plays a contestant in the wicked game. Ezra’s role remains a mystery. However, THR says Lee Pace is “essentially the heavy of The Running Man, playing the brutal chief hunter for the network airing the game shows and tasked by the producer with tracking down Powell’s character.”

Previously, Wright said that the remake of The Running Man would be closer to the original Stephen King novel than the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. “I like the film but I like the book more, and they didn’t really adapt the book,” Wright said. “Even as a teenager when I saw the Schwarzenegger film I was like, ‘Oh, this isn’t like the book at all!’ And I think, ‘Nobody’s [done] that book.’ So when that came up, I was thinking, and Simon Kinberg says, ‘Do you have any interest in The Running Man?’ I said, ‘You know what? I’ve often thought that that book is something crying out to be adapted.’ Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy!”

Edgar Wright’s The Running Man enters the theatrical arena on November 21, 2025.

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Director Renny Harlin shot an entire trilogy of Strangers movies at the same time, and while there was a point when it looked like Lionsgate might be releasing all three of the movies within 2024, that idea has clearly been pushed aside. The Strangers: Chapter 1 (read our review HERE) reached theatres back in May, and a release date still hasn’t been announced for The Strangers: Chapter 2. It’s coming soon, though… at least that’s what the newly unveiled teaser trailer promises. You can watch the teaser in the embed above.

Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale) has the lead role in this trilogy and is joined in the cast of the films by Froy Gutierrez (Cruel Summer), Rachel Shenton (All Creatures Great and Small), Gabriel Basso (Hillbilly Elegy), and Ema Horvath (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power). The Strangers: Chapter 1 centers on Petsch’s character as she drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend (Gutierrez) to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest. When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers. Lionsgate plans from there to expanding the story in new and unexpected ways with its sequels.

The new Strangers trilogy was filmed in Slovakia. Courtney Solomon produced them with Mark Canton, Christopher Milburn, Gary Raskin, Charlie Dombeck, and Alastair Birlingham. Andrei Boncea, Dorothy Canton, and Roy Lee serve as executive producers. Rafaella Biscayn, Frame Film SK, Johanna Harlin, Juan Garcia Peredo, and Alberto Burgueno are co-producing. The first film earned an R rating for “horror violence, language and brief drug use.”

Harlin has said The Strangers: Chapter 1 “is close to the original movie in its set-up of a young couple in an isolated environment in a house and a home invasion happening for random reasons.” Then Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 “explore what happens to the victims of this kind of violence and who the perpetrators are of this kind of violence. Where are they coming from and why?“

Are you looking forward to The Strangers: Chapter 2? What did you think of the teaser trailer? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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Earlier this month, we shared the news that Charles Band, founder of the legendary entertainment company Full Moon, will be hosting an event called Church of Chills Live!, a revival of the classic Full Moon Roadshow experience, at the Cleveland, Ohio church that Full Moon recently purchased (and which served as the primary filming location for their latest movie, Death Streamer). Now it has been announced that this event will feature special guests Andrew Divoff (the Wishmaster himself) and Dana DeLorenzo of Ash vs. Evil Dead, along with Robin Sydney, Full Moon’s own “First Lady.” Tickets are now available (in limited supply; there were only 200 to begin with) at THIS LINK! More information can be found at ChurchofChills.com. The one-night-only event is set to take place on October 26th – the last Saturday before Halloween – at begins at 7pm.

A press release promises that “B-movie madness, haunted venues, and boner-inducing scares” will “collide into one unholy Halloween bash.” In addition to having the chance to interact with Band, Sydney, Divoff, and DeLorenzo, attendees will get to watch Death Streamer in its filming location. Also: “The infamous Boner Meter is back to measure just how hard and fast this night goes off the rails. Plus, there’ll be prizes, giveaways, and a Full Moon merch booth stacked with crazy collectibles. And don’t forget—this all takes place in a 130-year-old haunted church, so you might just leave with a ghostly friend (good luck with that).”

If you can’t make it to Cleveland to attend the event in person, you’ll still be able to take part from the comfort of you own home. “For just $10, you can live stream the insanity via Patreon’s Moment program. And because we are feeling particularly generous, Charles Band throwing in a $10 gift code for the Full Moon store with every virtual ticket purchase. That’s like getting paid to have your mind blown. You’re welcome.”

In-person attendees will also be getting presents for purchasing their $125 tickets: in this case, they’ll receive a Gingerdead Man Blu-ray box set inside a cookie tin. “That’s a $119.95 value, FREE! And both in-person and virtual attendees can snag the SUPER RARE Blood Splattered Blade figure—available only during the event. Miss it, and it’s gone forever, like your childhood innocence.“

Band provided the following statement: “I’m beyond thrilled to bring the Church of Chills to life for this outrageous, one-of-a-kind Halloween bash. It’s been way too long since we’ve unleashed a Full Moon roadshow event and let me tell you – this one’s going to be wilder, weirder, and more insane than anything we’ve done before. Bringing together horror legends, haunted locations, and, of course, the Boner Meter, we’re cranking up the madness. I can’t wait to share this night of unhinged fun with our fans – whether you’re joining us in person or streaming from your own haunted house, it’s going to be a night to remember!“

How does the Church of Chills event sound to you? Will you be attending, or streaming? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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New Line Cinema is marching into New York City Comic-Con with a special presentation for the upcoming original anime feature The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. The panel places LOTR fans at the heart of the world, which J. R. R. Tolkien created, giving them a front-row seat for an animated event film arranged by the award-winning filmmaker Kenji Kamiyama (Blade Runner: Black Lotus and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series). Today’s BTS video for The War of the Rohirrim brings us behind the magic of Kamiyama’s film, highlighting the painstaking process of creating a high-concept fantasy adventure from scribbles and scratches.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim BTS video begins with rough pencil sketches of characters and mythical locales before showcasing charcoal drawings and the storyboarding process. After completing the look of the world and its characters, the art team imports the drawings into a computer program to start the animation stage. As the artists work tirelessly to bring everything to life, the filmmakers submerge themselves in an ocean of sound to accompany the action and drama.

Set 183 years before the events chronicled in the original trilogy of films, “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” tells the fate of the House of Helm Hammerhand, the legendary King of Rohan. A sudden attack by Wulf, a clever and ruthless Dunlending lord seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg—a mighty fortress that will later come to be known as Helm’s Deep. Finding herself in an increasingly desperate situation, Héra, the daughter of Helm, must summon the will to lead the resistance against a deadly enemy intent on their total destruction.

The talented voice cast is led by Brian Cox (Succession) as Helm Hammerhand, the mighty King of Rohan; Gaia Wise (A Walk in the Woods) as his daughter Héra; and Luke Pasqualino (Snowpiercer) as Wulf.  Miranda Otto, who delivered an unforgettable, award-winning performance in “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy, reprises her role as Éowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan, who serves as the tale’s narrator.  The voice ensemble also includes Lorraine Ashbourne (Netflix’s Bridgerton), Yazdan Qafouri (I Came By), Benjamin Wainwright (World on Fire), Laurence Ubong Williams (Gateway), Shaun Dooley (The Witcher), Michael Wildman (Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw), Jude Akuwudike (Beasts of No Nation), Bilal Hasna (Sparks) and Janine Duvitski (Benidorm).

Per New Line Cinema’s official press release:

With Kamiyama at the helm, the original feature is being produced by Oscar winner Philippa Boyens, from the screenwriting team behind “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” Trilogies, alongside Jason DeMarco and Joseph Chou, who, in addition to their many separate animation projects, collaborated on the “Blade Runner: Black Lotus” series. The executive producers are Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson, Sam Register, Carolyn Blackwood, and Toby Emmerich.  The screenplay is by Jeffrey Addiss & Will Matthews and Phoebe Gittins & Arty Papageorgiou, and the story is by Addiss & Matthews, and Boyens, based on characters created by J.R.R. Tolkien.  The team of creative collaborators returning from “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy also includes Oscar winners Alan Lee and Richard Taylor, along with esteemed Tolkien illustrator John Howe.

A New Line Cinema Presentation, a Warner Bros. Animation / Sola Entertainment Production, “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” will be distributed theatrically worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, released in cinemas nationwide on December 13, 2024, and internationally beginning on December 11, 2024.

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I had a great time with Parker Finn’s original feature Smile. It was a fun flick with great performances. Even still, when I stepped into the theatre for Smile 2, my expectations were in check. And yet, I, along with the rest of the audience, all responded to the new sequel. The surprisingly excellent sequel offers a compelling story that builds on its creepy premise. The kills are intense, and for a longer film, it never wears out its welcome. Much of the success can be given to the talent of its filmmaker, Parker Finn. However, you also have to give credit to the film’s star, Naomi Scott. The actress gives an incredible performance and makes you truly care about her dilemma. Check out our own Chris Bumbray’s review here.

It’s always nice to step into an interview with genuine excitement for the film. And I loved this movie. First up, I spoke with the filmmaker, Parker Finn. He talked about building this cinematic world and casting Naomi Scott in the lead. Next up I had the chance to speak with Ms. Scott. Having interviewed her before, I was more than pleased to talk again. Naomi is excellent here, and she opened up about playing a pop star who is facing a serious crisis in her life. Smile 2 is a terrific horror film, but it’s also incredibly unsettling, and it rarely pulls any punches. It’s more than a little refreshing to see a genuinely great sequel, and for me, this one is certainly up there.

Check out Smile 2 this weekend with a crowd!

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I had a great time with Parker Finn’s original feature Smile. It was a fun flick with great performances. Even still, when I stepped into the theatre for Smile 2, my expectations were in check. And yet, I, along with the rest of the audience, all responded to the new sequel. The surprisingly excellent sequel offers a compelling story that builds on its creepy premise. The kills are intense, and for a longer film, it never wears out its welcome. Much of the success can be given to the talent of its filmmaker, Parker Finn. However, you also have to give credit to the film’s star, Naomi Scott. The actress gives an incredible performance and makes you truly care about her dilemma. Check out our own Chris Bumbray’s review here.

It’s always nice to step into an interview with genuine excitement for the film. And I loved this movie. First up, I spoke with the filmmaker, Parker Finn. He talked about building this cinematic world and casting Naomi Scott in the lead. Next up I had the chance to speak with Ms. Scott. Having interviewed her before, I was more than pleased to talk again. Naomi is excellent here, and she opened up about playing a pop star who is facing a serious crisis in her life. Smile 2 is a terrific horror film, but it’s also incredibly unsettling, and it rarely pulls any punches. It’s more than a little refreshing to see a genuinely great sequel, and for me, this one is certainly up there.

Check out Smile 2 this weekend with a crowd!

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We’re somehow already in the fourth quarter of 2024, but the good news is that we’re getting a new Nick Frost horror movie every month as we wrap up this year. The action horror comedy Krazy House, which JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray hated when he caught a screening at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, was given a VOD release on October 4th. The serial killer thriller Get Away will be getting a theatrical release on December 6th. And slotting in between those two is the supernatural horror movie Black Cab, which is coming our way from Shudder, Sony Pictures Television, and Stolen Pictures, and will be released through the Shudder streaming service on November 8th. Our friends at Bloody Disgusting got the first look at the trailer, which is now embedded above.

Directed by Bruce Goodison (Murdered By My Father) from a screenplay by A Long Way from Home writer/director Virginia Gilbert and David Michael Emerson (whose name, I have to note, happens to be a mash-up of the names of two characters from The Lost Boys), Black Cab sees Frost taking on the role of an erratic cab driver. The film has the following synopsis: When Anne and Patrick hail a black cab after a night out their driver is chatty, jovial even, but they are in no mood to talk. In fact, the couple is barely on speaking terms. That is, until they realize the driver has no intention of taking them home. Locked in the cab with no means of escape, the driver transports the couple to a stretch of deserted and supposedly haunted road. But what is his purpose? Is he mad or just plain evil? And why has he selected Anne and Patrick as his victims?

Frost is joined in the cast by Synnove Karlsen (Last Night in Soho) as Anne and Luke Norris (Poldark) as Patrick. Also in the cast are George Bukhari (The A Word) and Tessa Parr (Alice & Jack), with Tilly Woodward (Everything I Know About Love) listed in the credits as playing The Ghost.

Jan Roldanus produced Black Cab, with Michaela Fereday and Lucy Robinson serving as executive producers.

What did you think of the Black Cab trailer? Will you be watching this movie on Shudder next month – and do you plan on watching all of these Nick Frost horror movies? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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The people at Paramount will also be smiling ear-to-ear as the sequel to the 2022 horror film Smile keeps the scares going this October after Terrifier 3 topped last week’s box office top ten. Smile 2 blew away our own Chris Bumbray as he glowed in his review, “Smile 2 dwarfed its predecessor, but it could rub people the wrong way with its heavy doses of pitch-black comedy. However, Finn also doesn’t skimp on the gore, with it being more gruesome than the original and having a big payoff, which is an all-timer for me as far as these things go. Indeed, I was shocked at how much I loved Smile 2. For me, it’s one of the more entertaining films I’ve seen this year, with the two-hour-plus running time racing by. It’s an all-out gore-soaked blast.”

Deadline is now reporting that audiences lined up for a good scare for the early Thursday preview of the Parker Finn horror movie, and Smile 2 would conjure up $2.5 million as it started its run at 5pm through 3,000 locations. This would best the first movie’s early preview by half a million, while the first would go on to make $22.6 million in its opening weekend and finish its theater life with $105.9 million. The ticket presales were also a good sign for this sequel and the buzz is pretty positive as it sits on a certified fresh 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes while it waits for an audience score.

The Halloween-going crowd also had last week’s Terrifier 3 to give some good scares. The Thursday estimates indicate a slight drop with $1.5 million earned, which will bring its first week run to $26.9 million. The Terrifier movies made a splash with audiences due to the over-the-top violence and dark humor and many are saying that Terrifier 3 is the best in the series yet. The success of this new film is also priming audiences for an inevitable follow-up.

Meanwhile, not all of these October new releases are aiming to scare audiences, the Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh romantic drama We Live in Time from A24 expanded its release to 955 theaters. The film wouldn’t fair with the bigger releases and earned a humble $500k on Thursday.

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After playing Evil Dead franchise hero Ash Williams on screen for around forty years, spanning three feature films and three seasons of the TV series Ash vs. Evil Dead, Bruce Campbell formally retired from the role, saying he’s not physically able to handle the action sequences any longer. But he is still willing to voice the character, as evident from Evil Dead: The Game… and a while back, he said would gladly provide Ash’s voice if there were ever to be an Evil Dead animated series. Franchise creator Sam Raimi has let it be known that he wants to continue making Evil Dead projects with Campbell, and he must have heard Campbell’s answer to the animated series question, because Campbell said more than a year and a half ago that they were actively pursuing the idea. Now, during an interview with ComicBook.com, Campbell has confirmed that an Evil Dead animated series is being developed… but it’s a slow process, so we shouldn’t expect to see the show any time soon.

Campbell said, “We’re just developing it. So we are, but these are slow-motion, molasses processes, so it could be years away.”

Hopefully not too many years. Clearly there aren’t many details to share about the project at this time – but many fans are hoping that it would pick right up from the futuristic ending of the Ash vs. Evil Dead TV series. Campbell has previously said it would. “You pick up right where the show left off. You can do the future a lot easier in animation.“

While we wait to see what happens with the Evil Dead animated series, we have at least two more Evil Dead movies to look forward to. Movies that will, like Evil Dead 2013 and Evil Dead Rise, not feature Campbell as Ash. Francis Galluppi is on board to write and direct one of them, and Sébastien Vaniček is working on the other. A couple of months ago, Campbell told EW, “The future is two more damn movies. We’ve got two new fabulous directors that have two new scripts in the shoot, and we think we’ve suckered a studio into coughing up the dough for both, since they seem to still make money. The funny thing is, the Evil Dead movies, the last one made $140 million, and the Evil Dead movies don’t usually make that much money. They’re cheap, so they don’t have to make that much — but now that they’re making real money, it’s kinda hard to look away. And we want to do it — the last one was 10 years ago, Fede [Álvarez’s reboot] was 2013! So we want to get a little more of a pipeline for folks who still follow it, who want to see it. They want to see it in the new incarnation! We’re out of the cabin, Sam [Raimi] doesn’t have to direct, I don’t have to star as Ash. The trick is to take the elements that people like, which is innocent people being tortured by a malicious entity, and it’s people who have no skills to stop it.“

Are you looking forward to the Evil Dead animated series and/or the movies Galluppi and Vaniček are working on? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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PLOT: Annie (Mikey Madison) is an exotic dancer with Russian ancestry. When Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a Russian Oligarch, arrives at her club one night, she becomes a favourite of his due to her fluency in Russian. When they impulsively marry, she finds herself in conflict with his family’s minions, who are desperate to get the marriage annulled. 

REVIEW: Sean Baker’s Anora is a movie that plays with audience expectations right from the get-go. Crime dramas have conditioned us to assume a story such as Annie’s, where this young exotic dancer ends up in conflict with shady Russian types, to take a dark turn ultimately. Instead, Baker’s Anora takes another route entirely, with it ultimately one of the funniest films of the year, being a modern (albeit gritty) variation on classic screwball comedies.

As the titular character (Anora is her Russian birth name), Mikey Madison is a firecracker. Best known as the Manson Family member Rick Dalton torches in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, this should make her one of the hottest up-and-coming actresses in town. Annie is a stripper at a club who doesn’t turn her nose up at the occasional escort job, although she hates being labelled that way. Unapologetically opportunistic, she’s eager to get what she can from young Vanya, the spoiled son of a shady Russian character with seemingly unlimited funds. 

While some may tut-tut at the premise, Baker’s film never judges Annie, with her using Vanya the same way he’s using her for sex – it’s a transactional relationship where both parties are walking away satisfied. It’s only when it gets legitimized that there’s an issue. When confronted by his dad’s goons, Vanya takes off into the night, leaving Annie to deal with them. The movie ultimately becomes a hilarious chase movie, where Annie is forced into an unlikely partnership with three Russians: the boss, Toros (Karren Karagulian), who’s in trouble because the marriage happened on his watch, his brother Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan), who spends much of the film fried on pain pills (thanks to Annie breaking his nose), and the thoughtful thug Igor (Yura Borisov). 

Anora is one of the best recent movies about New York, with Baker taking us on a neon-soaked tour of the grimier side of NYC and Brooklyn, giving us entree into a part of the city we don’t often see on film. Madison is clearly the star, but the supporting cast is spot-on. Karagulian’s Toros is a hilarious foil, with him walking out on his godson’s Christening and having to deal with angry calls from his relatives in order to deal with Vanya’s mess. Yura Borisov, a leading man in Russia, plays the most interesting character outside of Anora, initially coming off as a stereotypical thug, only for him to reveal an aversion to violence and a kind heart, and his chemistry with Madison is terrific. 

Eydelshteyn also deserves praise as the often good-natured Vanya. Many say he’s like the Russian Timothee Chalamet, which is a good comparison. Vanya is hard to dislike despite being a ketamine-snorting, Vodka-swilling, Call of Duty-playing brat, and he finds a certain poignancy in his role as the movie progresses. 

But it’s Madison who emerges from this as a full-on star. Many are saying Anora plays out like a more realistic Pretty Woman, and it’s not hard to imagine this movie making her a star if it breaks out beyond the arthouse circuit. Despite running close to 140 minutes, it’s fast-paced, breezy, and furiously entertaining. Even if the premise doesn’t immediately make this a must-see for you, give it a shot, as Baker’s turning into a modern master. This is his best movie to date, and the performances are too good to miss. 

Anora

AMAZING

9

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