The original Road House movie starring Patrick Swayze is a classic, so I’ll admit to being more than a little skeptical of the upcoming remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Well, Amazon MGM Studios has released the first trailer for the new Road House movie and damn if it hasn’t won me over completely.

You’ve got Jake Gyllenhaal slapping the shit out of everyone, a colourful Florida location filled with alligators, hard-hitting action you can actually follow, and Conor McGregor chewing the scenery in his first film role; I love it.

Per the official logline: “In this adrenaline-fueled reimagining of the ’80s cult classic, ex-UFC fighter Dalton (Gyllenhaal) takes a job as a bouncer at a Florida Keys roadhouse, only to discover that this paradise is not all it seems.” In addition to Gyllenhaal, Road House stars Daniela Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Williams, Joaquim De Almeida, and Conor McGregor. The film aims to pay homage to the original while providing its own unique and exhilarating spin to introduce Dalton, the roadhouse, and all its chaos to a new generation.

Now that we’ve got a look at how fun the movie appears to be, it’s all the more disappointing that it won’t be released in theaters. In fact, Doug Liman criticized that choice yesterday, saying he will be boycotting the movie’s premiere at SXSW. Road House reportedly tested higher than any movie in Liman’s career, more than Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity, and Liman feels that it could be a smash hit in theaters if Amazon would allow it. “Contrary to their public statements, Amazon has no interest in supporting cinemas,” Liman said. “Amazon will exclusively stream Road House on Amazon Prime. Amazon asked me and the film community to trust them and their public statements about supporting cinemas, and then they turned around and are using Road House to sell plumbing fixtures.“

Road House will debut on Prime Video on March 21st in more than 240 territories worldwide.

What did you think of the Road House trailer?

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It may have taken some people a while, but it looks as if Ryan Gosling has shown that he’s Kenough. While there is much commotion around nomination snubs for Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig for Barbie, Gosling would make a statement that showed his gratitude for the recognition. But mainly, he would also defend and praise his co-star and director in the wake of them receiving no nominations. While Gosling stood by Robbie and Gerwig, Gosling’s better half, Eva Mendes, would show her excitement as his nomination became a catharsis for the backlash he would receive upon first getting cast in the role of Ken. Many had voiced their opinion on social media that Gosling was too old to portray Ken.

According to Variety, Mendes took to her Instagram to post a photo of a Rolling Stone article that featured the headline, “Sorry to be the one to say it, but Ryan Gosling is giving major cringe as Ken in Barbie.” In Mendes’ post, she wrote the caption, “So proud of my man. So much hate when he took on this role. So many people trying to shame him for doing it. Despite all the #NotMyKen ridicule and articles written about him, he created this completely original, hilarious, heartbreaking, now iconic character and took it all the way to Oscars. So beyond proud to be this Ken’s Barbie.”

Last summer, prior to the film’s premiere, Gosling himself responded to online critics who mocked his age as he dryly joked with GQ, “I would say, you know, if people don’t want to play with my Ken, there are many other Kens to play with. It is funny. This kind of clutching-your-pearls idea of, like, #notmyken. Like you ever thought about Ken before this?” The humorous star would continue, “Ken’s entire existence has been to just enjoy the beach and not really exist for any sake other than to be Barbie’s guy. And everyone was fine with that, for him to have a job that is nothing. But suddenly, it’s like, ‘No, we’ve cared about Ken this whole time.’ No, you didn’t. You never did. You never cared. Barbie never f*cked with Ken. That’s the point. If you ever really cared about Ken, you would know that nobody cared about Ken. So your hypocrisy is exposed. This is why his story must be told.”

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PLOT: Will Ferrell learns that one of his closest friends and collaborators is now trans. Unsure of the ground rules in the next stage of their relationship, the two drive from New York to Los Angeles together and reconnect. 

REVIEW: Will & Harper is a gentle, often hilarious documentary about two friends reconnecting after one comes out as trans. The fact that one of the friends is Will Ferrell made it a must-see for me at Sundance. But, it has a lot of resonance beyond its showbiz aspects, with it a nuanced portrait of a life in transition. It starts with essentially being about how the world views Ferrell’s friend, Harper, but eventually, it becomes more about how she views herself.

It’s a complex question because Harper Steele made her transition later in life, with her being sixty-one as the movie starts. She’s interesting, having been the writer on many of Ferrell’s best-loved comedies and SNL skits. As Ferrell mentions in the intro, anything that he did in his career that was unusual, such as Eurovision, his Spanish film Casa de mi Padre, The Spoils of Babylon, or the Lifetime movie A Deadly Adoption, was written by Harper. She also wrote The Ladies Man and worked on Saturday Night Live for twenty years. That she and Ferrell are so funny makes this an uplifting, good-hearted documentary that’s empathetic toward everyone.

One of the best bits in the movie follows Harper as she enters a dive bar in Oklahoma. We learn that she’s always enjoyed visiting seedier places, and she’s not sure how well a trans person will be accepted. As such, when she walks into the bar and sees a Confederate Flag hanging next to a Trump for President and anti-Joe Biden posters, we assume the worst. Instead, the customers are universally kind and accepting, even before Will Ferrell shows up. 

Somewhat less uplifting is an episode where the two visit a steakhouse in Texas and receive an awkward reception. Ferrell himself makes an ill-advised decision to make a show of the event, donning a Sherlock Holmes costume and holding court, leading to the two being observed as if they were in a fishbowl. 

That makes Will & Harper effective, showing how people across all political and social spectrums react to the trans community. To its credit, no one is especially vicious to Harper’s face outside of a sequence where they read cruel tweets. She’s misgendered a few times, but it’s pretty much always by accident, and she never takes it personally – nor does Ferrell. They don’t go around lecturing people; they’re just honestly interested in how people genuinely feel – and for the most part, everyone they meet face to face is tolerant and means well.

Of course, the fact that Will Ferrell is around for the whole thing skews the experience, as it’s unlikely anyone would disrespect this beloved entertainer to his face. But, as the Oklahoma episode proves, even those Harper herself prejudges as intolerant may not be so. It’s an essential lesson for everyone to remember, as political division often binds us to the fact that people are people.

As such, Will & Harper is a hopeful, uplifting film that feels like a story of our time. Director Josh Greenbaum includes plenty of Will Ferrell schtick (he once again takes his clothes off for comic effect) and starry cameos from their real friends (including Kristen Wiig, Tim Meadows, and Will Fortee, among others). Still, he doesn’t overload the film with comedy. Ultimately, it’s a slice of life that will resonate for many of us. 

Will Ferrell

GREAT

8

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Imagine you’re in the middle of watching Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon try to outscore each other in game 5 of the NBA Finals when all of a sudden your broadcasters cut to O.J. Simpson slowly engaging in a police chase. Imagine further that you’re now so invested in the chase that you couldn’t possibly pull yourself from the TV. And who is that you see but Snake Plissken. That’s right, Kurt Russell has direct ties to the O.J. Simpson chase which came a few days after the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman.

As Kate Hudson told Jimmy Kimmel, the family lived near Simpson’s home at the time and Kurt Russell found his opportunity to be part of history. “It was the big chase. And Kurt…O.J. was on the 405 and Kurt all of sudden just went, ‘Oh, he’s going home’ Next thing you know, he gets in the car and he leaves and he goes to O.J.’s house. I don’t know why! Just to see what happened, you know? And we’re all like, ‘Where are you going?’ He’s like, ‘I’ll be right back.’ And then he goes with his friend…Literally, we’re watching the news because we’re watching the NBA Finals, it was interrupted. And we saw our dad on television behind the caution tape.”

That’s wild enough, but as Kurt Russell’s son Oliver added, there were far more infamous figures that his old man encountered. “He had a run-in with Ted Bundy” sometime after his prison escape, with the serial killer allegedly eating Russell’s food while he was camping. Oliver Hudson, too, claimed that “he beat up…Tex Watson, who was Manson’s right-hand guy,” although Kate seemed a little skeptical on that one…Details on that story are even slimmer, but we hope he gave him the what-for à la Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – a movie Kurt Russell acted in. We wonder if he shared that story with Tarantino…

Later that year, Kurt Russell would lead Stargate to a nearly $200 million worldwide gross. So we’ll just go on and assume this was some sort of viral marketing.

But Kurt Russell isn’t the only celebrity with ties to the Manson Family, as fellow Disney Legend Angela Lansbury saw that Charlie and company were having too great of an impact on her daughter and so moved her family to Ireland. There is no evidence that she shared campfire beans with Ted Bundy.

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Tom Hollander and Tom Holland may share 95% of a name, but what they don’t share is a massive Marvel paycheque.

While appearing on Late Night With Seth Meyers, Tom Hollander revealed that he was once mistakenly sent a box-office bonus meant for Tom Holland. “People in the account’s department of my agency got confused. We were with the same agents briefly. And it was a terrible moment,” Hollander said. “I went to see my friend who was doing theater in England. I sat smugly in the audience just having done a BBC show for $30,000 … the interval came and I checked my email and I got one from the agency saying, ‘Payment slip for first box office bonus for ‘The Avengers.’”

Hollander was curious, but upon opening the email, he was left shaken by just how much it was. “It was an astonishing amount of money,” Hollander said. “It was not his salary. It was his first box-office bonus. Not the whole box-office bonus, the first one. And it was more money than I’d ever [seen]. It was a seven-figure sum.“

While Tom Hollander may not be quite as recognizable as Tom Holland these days, it’s not like he hasn’t appeared in his own share of blockbusters. He played Cutler Beckett in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, and also appeared in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Valkyrie, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Bohemian Rhapsody, The King’s Man, and more. He will next be seen playing Truman Capote in the second season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud anthology series, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans. The series will debut on January 31st.

As for Tom Holland, he’s expected to return as Spider-Man for a fourth installment of the franchise, but he’s said that he will only return if it makes sense for the character’s legacy. “All I can say is that we have been actively engaging in conversations about what it could potentially look like for a fourth rendition of my character,” Holland said last year. “Whether or not we can find a way to do justice to the character is another thing. I feel very protective over Spider-Man. I feel very, very lucky that we were able to work on a franchise that got better with each movie, that got more successful with each movie, which I think is really rare, and I want to protect his legacy. So, I won’t make another one for the sake of making another one. It will have to be worth the while of the character.“

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According to THR, screen tests for the role of Supergirl took place yesterday, with sources saying that the casting has been narrowed down to Milly Alcock (House of the Dragon) and Meg Donnelly (The Winchesters).

DC Studios’ James Gunn and Peter Safran were said to be present for the Supergirl testing. The character is expected to be introduced in Superman: Legacy before taking the lead in her own movie, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. Milly Alcock and Meg Donnelly were first mentioned as contenders for the Supergirl role two weeks ago, along with Emilia Jones (Locke & Key).

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow will be scripted by Ana Nogueira, based on the Tom King comic series of the same name. The search is still on for a director, but Gunn has teased that this version of Supergirl will be different. “In our series we see the difference between Superman who was sent to Earth and raised by loving parents from the time he was an infant, versus Supergirl who was raised on a rock, a chip off Krypton, and watched everyone around her die and be killed in terrible ways for the first 14 years of her life, and then came to Earth when she was a young girl,” Gunn said. “She’s much more hardcore, she’s not exactly the Supergirl we’re use to seeing.“

James Gunn is currently prepping Superman: Legacy, which is expected to start shooting in March. The film will star David Corenswet (Pearl) as Clark Kent, with Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Ms. Maisel) as Lois Lane. We’ll also see Nathan Fillion (The Rookie) as Guy Gardner, a charismatic and slightly obnoxious member of the Green Lantern Corps; Isabela Merced (Dora and the Lost City of Gold) as Hawkgirl; Edi Gathegi (X-Men: First Class) as Mister Terrific; Anthony Carrigan (Barry) as Metamorpho; María Gabriela de Faría (Deadly Class) as The Engineer, a member of The Authority; Sara Sampaio (At Midnight) as Eve Teschmacher; and Skyler Gisondo (The Righteous Gemstones) as Jimmy Olsen. Nicholas Hoult is also set to appear as Lex Luthor, which Gunn finally confirmed last month. Superman: Legacy is slated to hit theaters on July 11, 2025.

If it comes down to Milly Alcock and Meg Donnelly, who would you like to see take on the role of Supergirl?

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The upcoming Road House remake is set to premiere at the upcoming SXSW film festival, but director Doug Liman won’t be attending. This isn’t down to any scheduling issue or because he’s busy with another project, but a purposeful choice to protest Amazon not giving Road House a theatrical release.

In a guest column for Deadline, Doug Liman explained why he won’t be attending the Road House premiere, despite considering it to be one of his best movies.

“When Road House opens the SXSW film festival, I won’t be attending. The movie is fantastic, maybe my best, and I’m sure it will bring the house down and possibly have the audience dancing in their seats during the end credits. But I will not be there,” Liman said. “My plan had been to silently protest Amazon’s decision to stream a movie so clearly made for the big screen. But Amazon is hurting way more than just me and my film. If I don’t speak up about Amazon, who will? So here we go.“

Liman added that he had signed on to make a theatrical motion picture for MGM, but when Amazon bought MGM, the streaming giant told Liman, “make a great film and we will see what happens” in regard to its release. Road House has reportedly tested higher than any movie in Liman’s career, more than Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity, and Liman feels that it could be a smash hit in theaters if Amazon would allow it. “Contrary to their public statements, Amazon has no interest in supporting cinemas,” Liman said. “Amazon will exclusively stream Road House on Amazon Prime. Amazon asked me and the film community to trust them and their public statements about supporting cinemas, and then they turned around and are using Road House to sell plumbing fixtures.“

Not only does this voice deprive Jake Gyllenhaal, who Liman says gives a “career-best performance,” the opportunity to be recognized come award season, but it could negatively shape the industry for decades to come. “If we don’t put tentpole movies in movie theaters, there won’t be movie theaters in the future,” Liman said. “Movies like Road House, people actually want to see on the big screen, and it was made for the big screen. Without movie theaters, we won’t have the commercial box office hits that are the locomotives that allow studios to take gambles on original movies and new directors. Without movie theaters we won’t have movie stars.” Liman tried to convince Amazon to give Road House a theatrical release, even asking them to allow him to sell the project to another studio that would, but they said no. You can read the entirety of Liman’s letter on Deadline.

Road House will debut on Prime Video on March 21st in more than 240 territories worldwide.

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The live-action How to Train Your Dragon movie began shooting last week, and there have been a few new additions to the cast.

Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2), Gabriel Howell (Bodies), Bronwyn James (Masters of the Air), and Harry Trevaldwyn (The Bubble) have joined the cast of How to Train Your Dragon as Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut, respectively. In the original animated movie, Fishlegs was voiced by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Snotlout was voiced by Jonah Hill, Ruffnut was voiced by Kristen Wiig, and Tuffnut was voiced by T.J. Miller.

Dean DeBlois, who wrote and directed all three of the animated movies, will return to write, direct, and produce the live-action movie. It was announced last year that Mason Thames (The Black Phone) would star as Hiccup alongside Nico Parker (The Last of Us) as Astrid. Gerard Butler is also set to reprise his role of Stoick the Vast, the character he voiced in the animated movies, with Nick Frost also cast as Gobber the Belch, Stoick’s trusted friend and advisor.

The original animated movie takes place in a mythical Viking village and follows Hiccup, a young Viking who aspires to continue his tribe’s tradition of becoming a dragon slayer. But after finally capturing his first dragon, Toothless, he learns that there is more to the creatures than he had assumed. It was followed by How to Train Your Dragon 2 and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, with the three films grossing over $1.6 billion worldwide. The franchise also spawned a handful of short films, TV series, video games, and more. The last How to Train Your Dragon movie was said to bring the entire series to a conclusion, but the franchise has been a hugely popular one, so it made sense when Universal and Dreamworks Animation first announced that they would be rebooting it with a live-action adaptation.

How to Train Your Dragon will be released on June 13, 2025.

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A year and a half ago, Get Out, Us, and Nope writer/director Jordan Peele‘s production company Monkeypaw Productions acquired the genre film pitch Goat from writers Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie, the plan being that Peele would be producing Goat as part of Monkeypaw’s overall deal with Universal Pictures. Earlier this month, we learned that Goat is finally moving forward, with Marlon Wayans (Scary Movie) signing on to star in the sports-related horror film as the titular greatest-of-all-time athlete. Now Deadline reports that Wayans is being joined in the cast by Tyriq Withers, whose previous credits include Horror Noire, Senior Year, Tell Me Lies, The Game, and an episode of Atlanta.

Justin Tipping – who made his feature directorial debut with the 2016 drama Kicks – will be directing the film.

Akers and Bronkie’s script centers on a promising young athlete who is invited to train with a team’s retiring star. How exactly horror enters the picture is being kept under wraps. ComicBook.com has heard that the script centers on a rookie QB who goes to train with a retiring star QB who may hold a secret about how he has played so long at such a high level. So obviously the GOAT has been using unusual methods to achieve his success, and finding out about them are going to cause the rookie some trouble.

Withers will be playing the promising young athlete / rookie QB. Deadline notes that “while execs always had their eyes on Wayans for the retiring star, Monkeypaw and Universal met with a number of up-and-comers for the younger star, with Withers rising to the top of the list.”

Writers Akers and Bronkie previously created the Facebook Watch series Limetown, which starred Jessica Biel. Since making Kicks, Tipping has gone on to direct episodes of multiple TV shows, including Black Monday, The Chi, Dear White People, Dare Me, Twenties, Run the World, Flatbush Misdemeanors, and Joe vs. Carole.

Peele is producing Goat with Win Rosenfeld, Ian Cooper, and Jamal Watson. David Kern and Kate Oh serve as executive producers. Universal EVP Production Development Sara Scott and Director of Development Tony Ducret are overseeing the project for the studio.

Does Goat sound interesting to you? What do you think of Marlon Wayans and Tyriq Withers leading the cast? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.

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Roll out the red carpet because Ethan Coen’s upcoming feature, Honey Don’t, is ready to add some of Hollywood’s heaviest hitters to the cast. Coen will reteam with Margaret Qualley (Poor Things, Maid, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) for the new project, with Aubrey Plaza (Ingrid Goes West, Emily the Criminal, Legion), and Chris Evans (The Grey Man, Knives Out, Captain America: The First Avenger) leading the cast. Details about the plot remain a mystery, but whispers around the watercooler suggest it’s a comedy in the vein of Focus Features‘ Drive-Away Dolls.

Coen teased his follow-up to Drive-Away Dolls in July of last year. Coen directs Honey Don’t! from a script he wrote with his wife, Tricia Cooke. The duo paired off for Drive-Away Dolls, starring Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan (Miracle Workers, Rumble). The duo’s Drive-Away Dolls revolves around Jamie, an uninhibited free spirit bemoaning yet another breakup with a girlfriend, and her demure friend Marian, who desperately needs to loosen up. In search of a fresh start, the two embark on an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee, but things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals along the way.

Beanie Feldstein, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo, Bill Camp, and Matt Damon join Qualley and Viswanathan for Coen and Cooke’s unique crime caper, with Focus handling domestic distribution. Meanwhile, Universal Pictures will bring the film overseas. Robert Graf, Tim Bevan, and Eric Fellner join Coen and Cooke as producers.

After getting delayed because of the pandemic, Drive-Away Dolls comes to theaters on February 23, 2024.

Margaret Qualley recently starred in Yorgos Lanthinos’ Academy Award-nominated feature, Poor Things. She also stars in Lanthimos’ upcoming feature Kinds of Kindness alongside Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Haunter Schafer, Hong Chau, and Mamoudou Athie.

Aubrey Plaza recently reprised her role as Julie Powers for the Netflix animated series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. With several projects in various stages of production, you can catch Plaza in Marvel’s Agatha: Darkhold Diaries and Francis Ford Coppola’s long-gestating dream project, Megalopolis.

Finally, Evans joins Plaza in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off as the evil ex-boyfriend Lucas Lee. Evans also stars alongside Dwayne Johnson in the upcoming Jake Kasdan-directed holiday comedy Red One, starring J.K. Simmons as a jacked-up Santa Claus, with Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Liu, Bonnie Hunt, Nick Kroll, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis leading the cast.

Are you excited to learn more about Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s Honey Don’t! What do you think the movie is about? Let us know in the comments section below.

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