Live-action adaptations of beloved animated movies are nothing new. Disney has been creating such films for three decades. However, they didn’t hit their stride until the last 10 years or so. After the immense success of Alice in Wonderland (2010), Maelficent (2014), The Jungle Book (2016), Beauty and the Beast (2017), and many others, Disney has delved deep into their vault, seemingly remaking every popular animated property they have at their disposal.  It was only a matter of time before another animation powerhouse dipped their toes in these waters, and DreamWorks Animation has unsurprisingly become the first to bite. The…

About half a year ago, I had a disagreement with a colleague about the prospects for Wicked. Admittedly, I am the more agreeable when it comes to musicals, but even as someone who never loved the Wicked stage show, I got a shiver of excitement when I heard the first teaser end with Cynthia Erivo’s voice warming up a “Defying Gravity” crescendo. It was like a vocalized mic drop. Even so, my musically-allergic friend seemed less impressed about Wicked’s box office future. After all, didn’t the In the Heights movie, which like Wicked was directed by Jon M. Chu, and…

In the first trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds’ ever loquacious Wade Wilson gives a suspicious glance at the batons in the hands of the TVA Agents who interrupted the birthday party. “Is that supposed to be scary? Pegging isn’t new for me, friendo,” Wade tells his assailants. Then, after waiting the appropriate beat of time for an audience giggle, he looks directly into the camera. “But it is for Disney.” With that last part, Deadpool his full arrival in the MCU. The gag doesn’t just highlight the Merc with a Mouth’s famous fourth-wall breaking awareness. It also indicates…

When audiences return to Rome’s Colosseum for Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II they will surely be entertained by the spectacle of warriors fighting for their lives—and for the fickle attention spans of Roman emperors and an angry public. It’s WWE 200 A.D.. Much like its Oscar-winning predecessor Gladiator, Gladiator II is a story of an unlikely hero from humble beginnings who wants to rain bloody vengeance upon an empire’s elite. In that regard, Paul Mescal’s Lucius is not so different from Maximus, the titular gladiator played by Russell Crowe. But what many fans might not know is that Maximus was almost…

What is the most underrated James Bond movie? That is a question that might have as much to do with when you ask it as it does the films themselves. Take On Her Majesty’s Secret Service for example. Over years and decades, it was generally treated as the black sheep of the Eon Productions canon; the one that was rejected by audiences in 1969 because Sean Connery isn’t there, and the one that would get slipped in very late at night on TBS marathons in the ‘90s because it starred the one-and-done George Lazenby. Yet today the film’s bittersweet tone…

As it turns out, Christmas did not come early this past weekend at the box office, even with a nominal holiday action movie playing in theaters around the world. Indeed, the long troubled and forthcoming Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans two-hander, Red One, saw its Yuletide hopes dashed over the weekend when estimates came in pegging the Christmas spectacle’s opening at $34 million. While technically the number one movie in North America, that number is down considerably when even compared to plenty of Johnson’s other family friendly high-concept films like Black Adam (which was considered a disappointment when it opened…

Surprise cameo appearances have become the bread and butter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The MCU has been chock-full of cameos since the franchise’s inception, from introducing major players in post-credits scenes to featuring A-list celebrities in hilarious bit parts. So today we are counting down the 25 best cameos the mega-franchise has to offer.  Before we begin, it’s essential to specify precisely what constitutes a cameo. For the sake of our list, cameos are brief appearances from a notable character or actor which do not extend for longer than a couple of scenes. Some surprise reveals, such as Tobey…

Both the Rebel Alliance and the Resistance have called a few different planets and moons home over the course of Star Wars’ history, and yet Yavin 4 continues to be the best of them all. Finding somewhere safe outside the purview of a fascistic government can’t be an easy task, but Rebels somehow keep finding their way to the jungle moon of the gas giant Yavin Prime. We first see this moon in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope as the home base of the Rebel Alliance and again in Rogue One. Though we’ve yet to see how or…

By this point, the interstellar hunters known as Yautja have appeared in several movies, comics, and video games. Yet, each Predator movie follows the same basic structure: we’re introduced to human protagonists, we see them get killed by a mysterious force, and it’s not until late in the film that we finally see the ugly motherf—-r in its full glory. Not so for upcoming new entry Predator: Badlands, which is seemingly changing up the usual formula. This film puts the Predator “front and center, leading the charge,” according to director Dan Trachtenberg in an interview with Empire. “He’s still badass,…

This article contains Deadpool & Wolverine spoilers. As is typical of the one they call the Daywalker, Blade is unimpressed. In the front seats of an abused and debased Honda Odyssey, two of his superpowered colleagues are jabbering about variants, different versions of the same characters, and all those other multiversal nonsense things that’s made superhero movies a chore in the 2020s. “That’s Punisher’s AT4,” Jennifer Garner’s Elektra says about the glorified rocket launcher resting snugly in Wesley Snipes’ arms. “Which Punisher?” quips Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool, “there’s been like five of them?” That is when Snipes gets the line of…

When most people think of Mission: Impossible III, two things leap to mind. First, people remember Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s tremendous performance as villain Owen Davian. Second, people ask, “What was the deal with the Rabbit’s Foot?” While the Entity, the self-aware AI villain of the upcoming Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, probably won’t prompt any comparisons to Davian, the Rabbit’s Foot may come up again. The first trailer for The Final Reckoning features plenty of images one would expect from this well-established franchise. Tom Cruise runs. Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames look on with awe. Tom Cruise jumps. Side…

It’s no secret that the film side of Star Wars has really struggled to get off the ground again following the end of the Sequel Trilogy. Countless Star Wars movie projects have been announced in the last five years, but The Mandalorian & Grogu is the only film that’s actually completed production since The Rise of Skywalker. A trilogy of films said to be helmed by The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson was announced and then put on hold indefinitely; new movies to be developed by Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were shelved; Patty Jenkins’s exciting…

The James Bond franchise is one of the oldest and most respected in movie history—and it currently sits at a crossroads. It’s been several years since Daniel Craig hung up his Walther PPK and stepped away from the role in No Time to Die, the end of an era on the road to a new one. Since then, there’s been a lot discussion about who or what Bond will be next, even as producers Barbara Broccoli and her step-brother Michael G. Wilson keep things close to the chest. Speaking with The Independent at an event honoring the late Albert “Cubby”…

This post contains spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine. He might arrive spinning his cards, accompanied by triumphant music and a slow-mo stride, but make no mistake: Gambit is introduced as a joke in Deadpool & Wolverine. Gambit’s a joke on a plot level, as he alone represents one-quarter of the resistance army that the titular heroes hoped would be much larger; he’s also a deep cut in-joke, even by Deadpool standards, because he’s played by Channing Tatum, who tried for years to get a Gambit solo film out of development hell; and he’s a comic book nerd joke, decked out…

By the end of 1994, two filmmakers pointed to the future of cinema. One was Quentin Tarantino, whose sophomore feature Pulp Fiction made high-art out of lowbrow exploitation. The other was Kevin Smith, who famously funded his debut Clerks entirely on a credit card. With its vulgar dialogue and focus on the working class of the service industry, Clerks announced Smith as an exciting new talent, one who could capture the voice of a generation—Generation X, in particular. Decades later, both Tarantino and Smith continue to work in the industry. But while at least some critics and audiences greet each…

Midway through the latest trailer for Thunderbolts*, CIA chief Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (aka Julia Louis-Dreyfus for the civilians) welcomes the titular team into her headquarters. “The place wasn’t cheap, but it’s got good optics,” she quips. She’s not kidding. We first saw that place in 2012’s The Avengers, a movie that’s filled with hero shots. In the final one, which is set to Alan Silvestri’s rousing theme, we see Stark Tower, a monument to Tony’s hubris and individualism, rechristened Avengers Tower, a symbol of what can happen when different personalities come together for the greater good. And even though…

There’s a lot to be excited for with the return of Andor next year. This second and final season is set to bridge the gap between the Cassian (Diego Luna) we saw in season 1 and the Cassian we see in Rogue One. This means that the potential for familiar characters to appear is has increased, including fan-favorite K-2SO (Alan Tudyk). Thanks to a trailer shown to audience members at D23 in Anaheim, we already knew that our favorite sassy droid was going to show up this season, but that doesn’t make his appearance in a recent teaser any less…

This article contains spoilers for The Penguin and The Batman. Let’s consider two different ways of meeting the Batman. In 1989, Batman made his onscreen debut by first dropping as a shadow in the background, behind two crooks counting their ill-gotten booty. When he finally appears in full, the Caped Crusader grabs the cowardly and superstitious baddie and stares into his face. “I’m Batman,” he growls. In 2022, Batman makes a slower, more drawn-out appearance. Voiceover from Bruce Wayne assures us that Batman is present and watching, waiting to make his move. He chooses to intercede in a group of…

Mr. Blue is back in the latest trailer for Captain America: Brave New World, doing what he does best. What? You don’t remember Mr. Blue? One of the first antagonists in the MCU? You see him all over the Brave New World trailer, talking on the phone from a shadowy alleyway and chiding Anthony Mackie‘s Sam Wilson for simply following orders as the new Captain America. Okay, maybe you recognize that guy as the great character actor Tim Blake Nelson, who plays Hulk villain the Leader in Brave New World. But you might also recall that Nelson first played Sterns…

The Terminator, which turns 40 years old this year, is one of the seminal science fiction/action films of the 1980s, spawning a franchise that has included five additional movies, two TV shows, and other associated media. Written and directed by James Cameron, it starred Arnold Schwarzenegger in his breakout performance as the T-800, a cyborg sent back to our time by the AI defense system controlling the Earth in the future, so as to exterminate the mother of a yet-to-be-born human resistance leader. Initially a sleeper hit with all the makings of a cult classic, The Terminator is now recognized…