Two great Hollywood flavors that taste great together, Will Smith and Michael Bay, could return to the genre that inspires audiences to grip the armrests of their theater chairs for the upcoming action film Fast and Loose. According to Deadline‘s exclusive report, the duo who launched the Bad Boys franchise hopes to strike a deal with Netflix for their next collaborative project. Michael Bay is in the final negotiations to direct Fast and Loose for Netflix, which could be Smith’s next move after exiting the thriller Sugar Bandits.

Fast and Loose, written by Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, Chris Bremner, and Eric Pearson, “follows a man who wakes up in Tijuana with no memories. As he pieces together his past, he learns he’s been living two lives: one as a crime kingpin and the other as an undercover CIA agent.”

Smith has been developing Fast and Loose for a while, thanks to an adrenaline shot of momentum after the latest film in the Bad Boys series, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, grossed $400 million at the worldwide box office. After showing he’s ready to return to the spotlight, Smith aims to hit Hollywood with cinematic bangers for audiences to enjoy. While the deal remains in flux, Netflix is keen to reunite Smith and Bay for obvious reasons.

While Smith is busy behind the scenes as a producer of various projects, Bad Boys: Ride or Die lit a fire under action fans craving the chemistry of Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence). In the sequel, Lowrey and Burnett’s late police captain gets linked to drug cartels. To clear his name, a wisecracking Miami cop duo embarks on a dangerous mission to clear his name.

Bay and Smith’s working relationship goes back to 1995’s Bad Boys, an action rampage that helped make them household names. The duo teamed up again in 2003 for Bad Boys II, which banked $273M+ worldwide. After directing 2019’s 6 Underground and the 2022 thriller Ambulance, Michael Bay is two movies deep at Netflix. Fast and Loose could be the filmmaker’s most significant movie at the streamer, especially with Smith attached to lead the charge.

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When Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova debuted in 2021’s Black Widow, fans immediately took to the character’s snappy dialogue, thirst for violence, and inability to relinquish her vendetta against the people who broke up her found family. Pugh’s performance quickly established Yelena as one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s more exciting new characters in a post-Endgame era, which makes you wonder: Would the character have had the same impact if played by someone else? Saoirse Ronan, perhaps? While speaking with the Happy Sad Confused Podcast, Ronan more or less confirmed Marvel offered her the role of Yelena Belova before her Little Women co-star, Pugh, superhero-landed in the MCU.

“How did you hear about that?” Ronan asked the Happy Sad Confused host, Josh Horowitz. To which he replied, “OK. I’ll take that that non-answer as an answer.” Horowitz then asked Ronan if she had anything “against the Marvel stuff.”

Ronan, careful not to invite MCU fans into the comments to roast her response, said, “I can’t see myself doing Marvel.” Adding, “I don’t… No, I would prefer to do Bond.” Not wanting to stoke flames, Ronan continued, “There’s nothing wrong with [Marvel] and I think they’re brilliant films. I want to do more big movies. I’m at the point where I’ve done… I love making independent film, I really do, but to know — especially in this landscape that we’re in, in film right now — to know that a film is going to be seen is such a luxury.”

Saoirse Ronan has come a long way from appearing in films like Atonement, City of Ember, and The Lovely Bones. It may bestarring role in 2011’s Hanna makes her a perfect fit for a character as calculated, surprisingly vulnerable, and badass as Yelena Belova. While Ronan typically sticks to indie fare like Lady Bird, Ammonite, and Nora Fingscheidt’s The Outrun, filmmakers are likely to line up when they hear Ronan wants a chance to step into Hollywood’s big-budget spotlight.

Would Saoirse Ronan have made a good Yelena Belova? Should whoever makes the next Bond movie give her a call? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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Earlier this year, we learned that Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation director David F. Sandberg is re-teaming with Annabelle: Creation screenwriter Gary Dauberman for a movie based on the horror video game Until Dawn. Production began in August, and now Sandberg and his wife / frequent collaborator Lotta Losten have both taken to Instagram to announce that filming on the video game movie has wrapped!

As The Hollywood Reporter previously noted, first released in 2015, Until Dawn is an interactive horror video game that follows eight friends and frenemies who are brought together a remote mountain retreat. With live or die scenarios featuring a mysterious killer, cannibalistic wendigos, a cable car, and a long-ago mining cave-in that reverberates into the present day, the members of the group must fight through their fear if they all hope to make it through the night in one piece. The game proved to be a surprise hit with critics and received numerous gaming awards nominations.

Sandberg and Dauberman haven’t revealed what exactly will be going on in their movie version of Until Dawn, but the project is described as being an “R-rated love letter to the horror genre, centering on an ensemble cast.” Dauberman’s script is a rewrite of a previous draft by Blair Butler, who wrote the vampire movie The Invitation. Judging by the blood splatter seen in Sandberg and Losten’s pictures, the chances of this getting an R rating do look promising.

Until Dawn is set up at Sony’s Screen Gems, where Dauberman has a first-look deal as part of the plan to “rebuild Screen Gems, Sony’s division focused on lower-budgeted fare, into a more productive label, with horror being a top focus.” Dauberman is producing the film through his company Coin Operated while Sandberg and Lotta Losten produce through their Mångata shingle. Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment and PlayStation Productions’ Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan are also producing. Ashley Brucks and Michael Bitar are overseeing the project for Screen Gems.

The film’s cast includes Ella Rubin of The Idea of You and the upcoming Fear Street: Prom Queen, Odessa A’zion of the recent Hellraiser reboot and the sitcom Fam, Michael Cimino of Love, Victor and Annabelle Comes Home, and Ji-young Yoo of Expats and Smoking Tigers. His fellow new additions are Belmont Cameli of Along for the Ride and Saved by the Bell and Maia Mitchell of The Fosters and Good Trouble. Peter Stormare (Fargo, John Wick: Chapter 2) is also in there, reprising his role from the video game.

Are you a fan of the Until Dawn video game, and are you glad to hear that the movie adaptation has wrapped filming? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.

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One of the best games in the Alien franchise is getting a sequel! Ten years ago, Alien: Isolation terrified gamers followed engineer Amanda Ripley onto the space station Sevastopol to investigate the case of her missing mother, Ellen Ripley. What begins as a search for answers quickly devolves into chaos as Amanda comes into contact with a lone Xenomorph aboard the ship. The game emphasizes first-person, stealth gameplay as Amanda fights to survive the encounter. Alien: Isolation 2, developed by Creative Assembly, is sure to excite fans of the original, as they’ve been asking for a sequel for close to a decade.

Today’s news about Alien: Isolation 2 comes as the original game celebrates its 10th anniversary. Creative director Al Hope said the studio will share more details “when we’re ready.” Hope leads the sequel’s development, saying, “On the 10th anniversary, it seems only fitting to let you know that we have heard your distress calls loud and clear.”

“Today, I’m delighted to confirm, on behalf of the team, that a sequel to Alien: Isolation is in early development,” Hope added. “We look forward to sharing more details with you when we’re ready.”

Alien: Isolation sold one million copies within three months of going on sale and 2.11 million after six months. Unfortunately, the numbers did not inspire confidence in Sega, which sidelined any plans to develop another game in the series. Fans of the original have been beating the drum for Alien: Isolation for a decade, considering it’s one of the best games based on the Alien IP. Don’t worry, I see you Aliens, Alien: Extermination, and Alien vs. Predator.

News about Alien: Isolation 2 comes as the franchise celebrates the success of Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus, which banked $348M at the worldwide box office. With faith sufficiently restored in the Alien franchise, it’s exciting to hear Creative Assembly is in the early stages of development for a sequel to one of the best games in the lineup. Alien: Isolation expertly recreates the sensation of dread associated with being stalked by a Xenomorph and needing to navigate a derelict space station for clues related to Ellen Ripley’s whereabouts.

Are you an Alien: Isolation fan? Are you excited about Alien: Isolation 2 being in development? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Last year, writer/director Justin M. Seaman brought us a sequel to his 1989-set slasher The Barn (check out my review HERE, get the movie HERE)… and now he’s working on wrapping up the trilogy with a film appropriately titled The Barn Part III! The Barn and The Barn Part II (get that one HERE) featured genre icons like Ari Lehman (who played young Jason Voorhees in the original Friday the 13th), legendary scream queen Linnea Quigley, drive-in critic Joe Bob Briggs, Diana Prince (a.k.a. Darcy the Mail Girl), Troma’s own Lloyd Kaufman, and Hellraiser star Doug Bradley. The Barn Part III is also going to feature some familiar faces, as the cast includes Children of the Corn‘s Courtney Gains and Kelli Maroney of Night of the Comet and Chopping Mall!

In case you need a reminder, The Barn told the following story: Its Halloween 1989, best friends Sam and Josh are trying to enjoy what’s left of their final Devil’s Night before graduating high school. But trouble arises when the two pals and a group of friends take a detour on their way to a rock concert, finding an old abandoned barn and awakening the evil inside. Now it’s up to Sam and Josh to find a way to protect their friends and defeat the creatures that lurk within “The Barn”.

Here’s the synopsis for The Barn Part II: It’s been three years since Michelle escaped the events in Wheary Falls. However, she is still plagued with the questions of what truly happened to Sam and Josh and the rest of her friends that disappeared on Halloween night. Now in college, Michelle and best friend, Heather are put in charge of the annual Gamma Tau Psi haunted house. Unfortunately for Michelle some uninvited trick or treaters from her past come knocking… and this time they’ve brought their friends…

And this is what they’re telling us about The Barn Part III: Years after the events of The Barn Part II, the group is still left in fear that the evil three might come back to finish the harvest once and for all.

Gains and Maroney are joined in the cast by Kansas Bowling (The Third Saturday in October Part V), Ellie Church (Space Babes from Outer Space), Tristan Olsen (American Flake), Amanda Byrne (Moonshine), Jake McClellan (HeBGB TV), and returning The Barn and The Barn Part II star Mitch Musolino.

Seaman is directing the movie from a screenplay he wrote with cinematographer Zane Hershberger. P.J. Starks and Eric Huskisson are producing, with Simon Lustenberger and Gareth ‘Slasher Trash’ Morgan serving as executive producers. Coming our way from Nevermore Production Films in association with Blood Moon Pictures, The Barn Part III is currently raising funds with an Indiegogo campaign that is approaching its goal of $25,000.

Are you a fan of The Barn and The Barn Part II, and are you looking forward to The Barn Part III? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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It’s a special occurrence when a film can pull off something entirely original. We’ve seen so many iterations of so many different stories, that sometimes watching movies can feel a bit like playing the same mad libs-style game over and over. Thankfully people like Greg Jardin exist who can bring something new to the table. Using science as the crux for the swapping of bodies, the story for It’s What’s Inside is able to focus on identity and the complex nature of relationships. And it does so brilliantly. This is easily one of my favorite horror films of the year (Bumbray saw it earlier this year and loved it too) and you’re going to want to check it out when it comes to Netflix.

It can be a little chaotic when interviewing so many people but thankfully the It’s What’s Inside cast made it fairly easy. Reina Hardesty, Brittany O’Grady, James Morosini, Gavin Leatherwood, Nina Bloomgarden, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Devon Terrell, and David Thompson make up the cast. Given the body-swap nature of the story, I had to ask which character the actors enjoyed playing the most. It really sounds like the set was a blast, with summer camp vibes in full effect. And finally, I had to inquire about a sequel. Writer/Director Greg Jardin was also a wealth of knowledge as I picked his brain about some of the editing tricks in the film.

IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE plot synopsis:

A pre-wedding party descends into an existential nightmare when an estranged friend arrives with a suitcase containing a mysterious device capable of inducing body swaps. Tempted into playing a twisted game, the group uncovers hidden truths, suppressed desires, and deep-seated grudges. As their lives are swept up by deceit and startling revelations, IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE peels back layers of intrigue with its mind-bending twists and turns. Greg Jardin’s debut feature, celebrated at Sundance and SXSW, merges thriller, dark comedy, and sci-fi into a provocative and stylish narrative, daring viewers to question: How well do we really know ourselves?

IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE IS EXCLUSIVELY STREAMING ON NETFLIX ON OCTOBER 4TH, 2024.

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Filmmaker Mike Flanagan believes that “Physical media is critical,” which is not a belief that was shared by his former employers at the Netflix streaming service. Flanagan recently said that he tried very hard to get Netflix to release the work he did for them on Blu-ray and DVD, but they “refused at every turn.” But while several Flanagan projects remain on Netflix and aren’t available on physical media, he did confirm earlier this year that he has taken his 2016 film Hush away from the streaming service so he can give it a long-awaited physical media release. The 4K UHD and Blu-ray release is coming from Scream Factory on November 26th (copies are available for purchase at THIS LINK) – but before we reach that date, Shout! Studios will also be bringing Hush to the big screen! The movie is set to reach U.S. theaters for a special engagement beginning on October 16th at 6:30 pm PT (9:30 pm ET), and it will be accompanied by a live Q&A with Flanagan and the film’s star, Kate Siegel.

A press release informs us, “The film has been fully restored and approved by Flanagan. This eagerly anticipated theatrical engagement will showcase a newly restored version of Hush for the first time on the big screen. Additionally, the event screening will feature a livestream Q&A with filmmaker Mike Flanagan and the film’s co-writer and star Kate Siegel. The live Q&A, featuring Flanagan and Siegel, is set to be held at Vidiots in Eagle Rock, California, immediately after the screening, and will be livestreamed to select theaters nationwide.“

Hush has the following synopsis: After losing her hearing as a teenager, author Maddie Young has lived a life of isolation fully retreating into her now silent world. When the masked face of a psychotic killer appears in the window of her secluded home, she must push herself beyond her mental and physical limits in order to survive the night. Siegel is joined in the cast by John Gallagher Jr., Michael Trucco, Samantha Sloyan, and Emma Graves.

Are you interested in catching Hush on the big screen? Share your thoughts on this special theatrical engagement by leaving a comment below.

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Recently, while Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis received criticism from audiences and critics alike, a few filmmaking peers had given their impressions of the film with some high praise. Guillermo Del Toro glowed about the Coppola passion project when he said, “Francis is still the same bold, fearless, inventive filmmaker that he was in his 20’s. I was Swept by Megalopolis!” And Steven Soderbergh, who has the horror film, Presence, coming out, reacted, “WOW! This might be the craziest thing ever shot on American soil. Certainly, one of the most sustained acts of pure imagination I’ve ever seen. I dreamt about it all night—it was inspiring!”

Now that Joker: Folie à Deux has been released, and to its own underwhelming response, one filmmaker that has come to its defense is Coppola. The Megalopolis director, who has been outspoken about the Marvel films, took to his official Instagram account to show his support for the Todd Phillips sequel. He posted a picture of Joker‘s poster with the caption, “@ToddPhillips films always amaze me and I enjoy them thoroughly. Ever since the wonderful The Hangover he’s always one step ahead of the audience never doing what they expect. Congratulations to Joker: Folie à Deux! I am also honored that the films DP, Lawrence Sher, mentioned that the film is visually inspired by One From the Heart.”

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Despite being a sequel to a movie that made a billion dollars worldwide, Joker: Folie à Deux has posted a truly disastrous opening. According to Deadline, the film didn’t even crack $40 million this weekend, with them estimating a dismal $39 million finish.  It seems fans didn’t go for Todd Phillips’s rather ambitious idea to make this a musical, with it peppered with fantasy musical sequences in between some rather dull courtroom melodrama. The star pairing of Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga wasn’t enough to win over fanboys or general audiences, who slammed it with an almost unheard of (for a comic book movie) D CinemaScore rating.

In his review for Joker: Folie à Deux, JoBlo’s Chris Bumbray stated, “As such, the audience who cosplayed Joker and Harley Quinn at the screening I attended couldn’t help but look a little dejected as the credits rolled. The film lacked the same kind of impact the original movie had despite a longer, bloated running time and a much heftier budget.”

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Legendary author Stephen King’s vampire novel Salem’s Lot (buy a copy of the novel HERE) has received three direct adaptations over the decades. The first was the 1979 mini-series directed by Tobe Hooper, which had a running time of 183 minutes. A mini-series directed by Mikael Salomon followed in 2004, and that one had a 181 minute running time. So when it was announced that Gary Dauberman was going to write and direct an adaptation that would try to fit the story into a single feature, fans wondered how Dauberman would accomplish that… and how long this single feature would be. Dauberman’s Salem’s Lot was finally released through the Max streaming service last week (you can read our review HERE), and the filmmaker has said he whittled the story down to a 113 minute film by focusing on the core group of characters and dropping subplots with side characters. Still, turning Salem’s Lot into a single movie was quite a task, so it’s no surprise to hear that Dauberman’s first cut of the film was 3 hours long, just like the mini-series adaptations.

This new take on the concept is set in 1975, the same year King’s novel was first published. Here’s the synopsis: Haunted by an incident from his childhood, author Ben Mears returns to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot in search of inspiration for his next book, only to discover the town is being preyed upon by a bloodthirsty vampire and his loyal servant.

The film stars Lewis Pullman as author Ben Mears; Makenzie Leigh as Ben’s love interest Susan Norton; Spencer Treat Clark as Mike Ryerson, “one of the town’s simple folk”; Bill Camp as Matthew Burke, “a former high school English teacher who knows about the Marsten House’s evil past and helps out Ben”; Alfre Woodard as Dr. Cody; Pilou Asbæk as the vampire’s familiar Richard Straker, whose style this time around includes a purple cloak, feathered Homburg hat, and push broom mustache; Nicholas Crovetti and Cade Woodward as Danny and Ralphie Glick; Jordan Preston Carter as horror fanatic Mark Petrie; William Sadler as Constable Parkins Gillespie; and John Benjamin Hickey as Father Callahan. Alexander Ward is the vampire Kurt Barlow.

James Wan and Michael Clear produced Salem’s Lot for Atomic Monster alongside Roy Lee of Vertigo and Mark Wolper.

Dauberman told Den of Geek, “There’s so much great stuff. It’s like, what do you have to weed out? An audience’s attention span only goes so long. There are a lot of great side stories and B-stories in this book that I love, and it was hard to let those go in order to give more real estate to our core group of heroes. That was probably the biggest challenge—editing the story, and then figuring out those repercussions and those ripple effects into the main storyline. My first cut was about 3 hours. There’s a lot left out. My first draft of the script is 180-odd pages or something because you’re trying to include everything. And a lot of it has to do with a lot of the secondary characters and stuff that I spoke about. So it was sad to see that stuff go, but it’s like a necessary evil. In the book, Ben sneaks into the Marsten House and he sees the ghost of Hubert Marsten. I shot that and it used to open the movie, but it seemed to muddy the waters for audiences; the ghost story within the vampire story. To me it’s so important because it’s why Ben believes the vampire stuff, but we’re not telling that story, so that was the hardest thing to cut because I love the sequence.“

Do you think Dauberman did a good job of whittling Salem’s Lot down from 3 hours to 113 minutes? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.

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2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand has one hell of a backstory, not the least of which was a director swap that found Matthew Vaughn being swapped for Brett Ratner. But why did Vaughn leave such a high-profile project, especially when it would have helped really get his career going? It comes down to Halle Berry and a phony script.

Halle Berry was lured back into the role of Storm (aka Ororo Munroe) after the script she was given showed her character tending to and saving children in Africa. Vaughn made the revelation about the swapped scripts last year, saying he made his own last stand to leave the X-Men movie once he found out that version that was being given to Berry was just a studio ploy to get her to sign on, at which point they would ditch it. To this, Berry is forever grateful. Posting to social media, Berry wrote, “Ya just never know the shady sh*t going on behind ya back! Thank you Matthew Vaughn for bringing the dark to light.” She added, “Hollywood is really political and odd. I went into an executive’s office, and I saw a script that was a lot fatter. I was like, what the hell’s this draft? They said, ‘don’t worry about it.’” At this point, we have to assume that the original X-Men script Berry was given didn’t have the infamous “toad line” in it…

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On the matter of the fake pages of The Last Stand that Halle Berry was given, Matthew Vaughn said he liked the idea of giving Storm that standout moment but was told by the studio that “it was the Halle Berry script. ‘She hasn’t signed on yet, but this is what she wants it to be. So once she signs on, we’ll throw it in the bin.’ I said, ‘Wow, you’re going to do that to an Oscar-winning actress? I’m out of here.’ So I quit at that point. I figured I was mincemeat.”

With Vaughn gone, The Last Stand landed on Ratner, then between Rush Hour movies. To many, The Last Stand remains the worst movie in the entire X-Men franchise – which is really saying something! Berry – who has said she is open to playing the character again – would play Storm once more in 2014’s Days of Future Past, having not been invited to Deadpool & Wolverine.

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