Charles Bramesco
Patty Jenkins in Final Negotiations of Record-Setting ‘Wonder Woman 2’ Contract
She‘s poised to land the biggest check a studio has ever written for a female director.
Amy Schumer Appears in ‘Judge Judy’ Background Just Because She Can
When you’re famous, you can do whatever you want! Like hang with a celebrity judge!
‘Super Troopers 2’ to Open on 4/20/18, Tee Hee
The newly announced release date doubles as an in-joke for the weed-addled fanbase of the slacker comedy.
Lionsgate’s Making a Hunger Games and Twilight Theme Park
The movie studio has set plans for a Hunger Games/Twilight-themed amusement in South Korea.
‘Despicable Me’ Edges Out ‘Shrek’ As All-Time Highest-Grossing Animated Franchise
It’s a Minion world, and we’re all just living in it. The little pill-shaped yellow critters have left an indelible imprint on the cultural mainstream, for better (footage not found) or for worse (try googling “minions memes,” I dare you). Kids and adults alike have latched onto the phenomenon with an uncommon enthusiasm, and now the numbers reflect the totality with which the Despicable Me universe has permeated modern life. In the seven brief years since Illumination Entertainment loosed the original Despicable Me on an innocent populace, the franchise has grown into the largest of its kind — the highest-grossing animated franchise of all time.
‘Wonder Woman 2’ Will Reportedly Be Set in the 1980s and May Bring Back Chris Pine
The Wonder Woman sequel train has pulled out of the station, and even with Patty Jenkins’ crossover superhero hit still playing in theaters, it’s already begun to pick up steam. Star Gal Gadot will return for the second solo project for the indestructible Amazon, they’ve landed writer Geoff Johns (who co-produced the Green Lantern movie, so, yikes) to handle the script, and while Jenkins has yet to put her Jane Hancock on the dotted line for another film, details of plot are now solidifying. For Wonder Woman, Diana battled those no-good fascists in World War I, and the sequel will reportedly plop her down in another historical era to intervene in a real-life global crisis. This time, the Rooskies will be the ones shaking in their boots.
See Sony’s Mysterious Teaser Trailer for the ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ Re-Release
While you and I may know July 3rd as “Fasting in Anticipation of Tomorrow’s Onslaught of Grilled Meats Day,” a certain subset of conspiracy-monger recognizes it as World UFO Day. Apparently, one such believer resides at Sony, as the studio released a mysterious new video on the 3rd and included the hashtag #WorldUFODay in the caption on YouTube. In it, a glowing green air traffic controller’s matrix appears on screen with some slightly-garbled dialogue in the background about an enigmatic foreign craft entering their airspace. While some may find its significance confounding, Spielberg fans recognized the clip straightaway.
Bat-Signal to Shine for Adam West Over Los Angeles Tonight
Here’s how thoroughly Batman’s influence has permeated the mainstream: he’s claimed tacit ownership of the very notion of shining a light into the sky. The Bat-Signal, introduced in the comics as Gotham City’s method of summoning the Dark Knight, has been endlessly parodied in the annals of pop-culture — just earlier this month, the poster for Captain Underpants paid homage to the iconic (a word I mean here literally, and not in the ‘a photo of the Kardashians’ sense) design of the skyward spotlight. And all too appropriately, the Bat-Signal will now be used to give one former Batman, the dearly departed Adam West, a proper send-off.
A New ‘Frozen’ Short Is Coming to Theaters This Fall
Do you wanna build a snowman... again? Disney sure hopes so, as they announced in a new press release today that their mega-successful Frozen would gain a sort of mini-sequel in an upcoming short to be bundled with Coco. But Olaf’s Frozen Adventure is no ordinary lead-in to the main event; it sounds like quite a bit has gone into the short that Disney repeatedly refers to as a “featurette,” running at 21 minutes and including four new songs, as well as returning cast members Josh Gad, Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, and Jonathan Groff. Parents, batten down the hatches, for a new ‘Let It Go’ is close at hand.
Chloe Grace Moretz ‘Appalled’ at Trailer Featuring Snow White Body Shaming
When the Cannes Film Festival descends on the French Rivieira, movie billboards and banners crop up all around the Croisette area to catch the attention of industry big shots in town. One such poster advertised a little film called Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs, a new animated project out of Korea in which Chloe Grace Moretz voices the apple-eater of note Snow White. But the passersby at the festival were none too pleased with the advertisement, see if you can guess why: it displays two Snow Whites, one thin and tall, the other shorter and a bit plumper. The tagline? “What if Snow White was no longer beautiful and the 7 Dwarfs not so short?”
‘An Inconvenient Sequel’ Bumped Back to Incorporate Trump’s Paris Accord Decision
Between its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 and its theatrical release last month, Laura Poitras’ WikiLeaks documentary Risk transformed into a different film. In that interim year, her subject Julian Assange nabbed quite a few headlines as he stuck his thumb in the 2016 Presidential election, and Poitras rightly believed she’d have to recut the film to account for all the new developments. And now, in a similar situation, another festival-feted nonfiction film has been made to rewrite its own story as real-world news breaks.
Fix a Marmalade Sandwich and Enjoy the ‘Paddington 2’ Trailer
The Pooh-Paddington War will continue into perpetuity, as the public rages over which accident-prone storytime bear is the cuter and more lovable character. But the Paddington side just got a strong swell of support — the newly unveiled trailer for the marmalade-loving Brit’s sequel film has been unveiled, and Paddington turns the sweet-and-simple cuteness up to whatever 10 is in Britain’s number system. Do they use a base 10 number system? We have no way of knowing. But what we do know is that Paddington will get his little bear foot stuck in a bucket, and then a second bucket will fall on his head! Two for the matinee, please!
‘Beauty and the Beast’ Is Now the Highest-Grossing PG Movie of All Time
We‘ve only just entered May, but in the first few months of 2017, the year has yielded a surprisingly eclectic array of blockbusters. Survey the biggest earners to date, and you’ll see a socially critical horror flick from a first-time director, a spin-off based on a cross-property licensing deal within a corporate brand expansion, and a tough-as-nails superhero side project with post-apocalyptic Western overtones. The latest Fast and Furious installment looks most at home in the top five so far, but more unexpected still is that it’s been handily defeated by the year’s top earner, Disney’s handsomely mounted revival of Beauty and the Beast. And now, the unlikely box-office behemoth has claimed another record.
Susan Sarandon, Christine Baranski, Cheryl Hines to Deck the Halls in ‘Bad Moms Christmas’ Sequel
But it’s true that the upcoming sequel A Bad Moms Christmas will explore the bad moms that originally birthed the bad moms we came to know and love in last year’s sleeper hit. Variety reported last night that a power trio of Susan Sarandon, Christine Baranski, and Cheryl Hines have all joined the cast of the Yuletide-appropriate installment of the Bad Moms franchise, and the item reveals that they form the first generation of moms who dared to be bad. The new film revolves around one unending visit home for Christmas from the bad moms’ worse moms, with Baranski tormenting Mila Kunis, Sarandon nagging Kathryn Hahn, and (the 51-year-old) Hines portraying the mother of (the 36-year-old) Kristen Bell. Will the revelation that Bell’s Kiki was raised by a 15-year-old number among the twists in the new film? Maybe, but probably not.
Stephen King’s ‘Firestarter’ to Set the Screen Ablaze Once More With Upcoming Remake
The Overlook Film Festival just began its inaugural proceedings last night, inviting cinephiles and horror enthusiasts to take in some film with a singular location for a backdrop: the Timberline Lodge in Mt. Hood, Oregon, better known to you as the Overlook Hotel and the setting of Stephen King adaptation The Shining. One could scarcely imagine a scene more apropos for the revelation that another big King remake is in the works, so Blumhouse (you know, the studio behind every horror blockbuster of the last few years) head Jason Blum and director-writer Akiva Goldsman took full advantage of their unique surroundings for a major announcement. And in the immortal words of Nelly, it’s getting hot in here.
Booze, Burlesque, and Bad Taste: John Waters Is Running a Summer Camp
Ahh, summer camp: any kid who was shipped off for six-to-eight weeks of rigidly scheduled fun holds the memories near and dear. There’s something sweetly all-American about the mess hall meals, late-night gabfests, the smooches stolen after s’more-and-singalong campfires. And who better to desecrate all that is wholesome than the one and only John Waters, that baron of bad taste?