It looks like both Abigail and Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare aren’t likely to make much of an impact at the box office.

Last Updated on April 22, 2024

It looks like this weekend’s two big, original IP, new releases, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and Radio Silence’s Abigail, are struggling to find an audience at the weekend box office. While we predicted that Abigail might have a chance at cracking $20 million this weekend, the film will make closer to half that, with Deadline’s numbers suggesting it’ll likely only make about $10 million, despite decent reviews (including ours). Why is it struggling? It’s hard to say, but part of the reason might be that A24’s Civil War, which was last weekend’s box office champ, is having a better hold than expected. It’s looking like it will only slip about 57% in week 2, which is a surprise as everyone thought the B-minus CinemaScore and controversial premise meant that the film would be front-loaded. Rather, it looks like the film has become a must-see, with the controversial word-of-mouth helping make it a movie people need to see. Sometimes, controversy can be a good thing, folks (check out our chat with Alex Garland, who weighed in on the movie’s California/ Texas team-up here). 

Meanwhile, Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is having a devil of a time finding its audience, with it currently being trounced by Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire in its fourth week. Due to its complicated financing structure, the movie isn’t out on Canadian screens, which is certainly hampering its box office potential, and as of right now, it looks like it’ll open with $8.7 million. That’s not a great number for the movie that was supposed to help launch Henry Cavill as a leading man, but the notion of it hitting streaming in Canada and in most international territories (including the UK – where it should have done its best business) is a mind-boggling choice, although I suppose that’s how those movies are financed these days.

What did you go see this weekend? Let us know in the talkbacks. 

Sasquatch Sunset will be a hard sell for most, but it’s weird and kind of charming in its own peculiar way.

Last Updated on April 22, 2024

PLOT: A year in the life of a family of Sasquatch, as they forage for food, hook up, and narrowly avoid civilization.

REVIEW: Sasquatch Sunset is unique; I’ll give it that. David and Nathan Zellner’s film has two big stars in the leads – Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough – but covers them in enough prosthetics to make them completely unrecognizable. The film doesn’t contain a single line of dialogue. Indeed, the whole movie is in grunts and yells because…well… they’re Sasquatch! 

While some may find the very idea of this movie tedious, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Sasquatch Sunset. The Zellner Brothers have a unique voice, as depicted in Damsel and Kumiko the Treasure Hunter. It’s weird to say that a movie with no dialogue or humans could actually be considered their most accessible movie to date – but it’s true. This movie is surprisingly cute and ends before the premise wears out its welcome.

In it, we follow a Sasquatch family consisting of two males (Nathan Zellner and Jesse Eisenberg), a female (Riley Keough) and a child (Christoph Zajek-Denek). Zellner plays the older, more dominant male, albeit the one that’s less favoured by the female both male Sasquatch want to be with. It’s never really clear who the father of Zajek-Denek’s character is. It takes place over a year, as the family roams the Pacific Northwest and narrowly avoids civilization. As the film goes on, nature and the unpredictable hand of fate prove to be their greatest adversary, as the power dynamics constantly shift as tragedy strikes.

The entire cast is heavily buried under prosthetics, which are so good that I honestly couldn’t tell apart Zellner and Eisenberg’s characters until about twenty minutes into the film. It’s a lot funnier than the premise suggests, with the mating rituals, random aggression and near-misses with civilization being quite amusing. But the film also gets downright tragic at times, with a standout scene involving a log in a dam that’s highly reminiscent of a classic sequence from the Paul Newman movie Sometimes a Great Notion. 

The film also has a surreal, evocative score by The Octopus Project, which pays homage to one of the Zellner Bros chief inspirations, the old Leonard Nimoy “In Search of” conspiracy theory show – where Bigfoot was a favorite topic.

It’s hard to rate the movie’s performances, but I’ll say this – both Keough and Eisenberg are fearless. Keough especially has a scene where she takes a dump in the middle of the road which eschews any sense of vanity she might have as an actress. Physically, everyone involved delivers excellent performances, although for many viewers this might come off as a one-joke premise stretched too far. 

It’ll be interesting to see how Sasquatch Sunset is received when it comes out via Bleeker Street this April. It’s certainly too odd of a movie to ever connect with a mainstream audience, but if you have a tolerance for things that are “out there” you might actually find that you have a good time with this tale of the Bigfoot. 

Zack Snyder is again explaining why he decided to include the infamous “Martha” moment in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Last Updated on April 22, 2024

Save Martha or scrap her? The “Save Martha” moment in Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was divisive to say the least, with Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent having a connection that somehow changed the entire mood and gave them some common ground, ultimately snubbing what should have been one of the all-time great fights in superhero movie history. To some, it was a deep moment of confrontation over their mutual losses, a necessary inclusion that built on the mythology of each man. But to most of us, it was just about the hokiest thing imaginable.

Zack Snyder has been open in his understanding that the Martha scene in Batman v Superman may not work for everybody, but now he is again explaining why he decided to move forward with it. During the writing process, Snyder was told by co-writer Chris Terrio, “‘You know that [their] mothers have the same name’…And he goes, ‘Yeah, like imagine that Batman sees Superman as an alien, as a monster, but realizes that his dead mother has the same name as this thing that he considers nonhuman. Like, that’s gonna get him.’ And I’m like, ‘That is gonna get him, that’s amazing.’”

Snyder built on his stance on the Martha scene, saying, “What else could he say to Batman, holding the Kryptonite spear about to plunge it into his heart? Like, what is he gonna say to convince him that his love of humanity is as high as Batman’s? I mean, really, Superman could kill him in a second, like literally in a second, so that was why I was like, ‘Ok well, he’s gotta play every possible trick.’”

That trick would essentially rob viewers of the full-blown showdown – with a determined victor – that the title Batman v Superman promises (hell, even Freddy vs. Jason got closer!). On top of that, Snyder’s explanation kind of sounds like he and Terrio weren’t all that confident in how to get themselves out of the jam of taking a side and so threw the Martha moment in to force a redirection.

What did you think of the Martha scene in Batman v Superman? Did it work on any level or is it a silly moment? Give us your take in the comments section below!

Back in 2000, director Ridley Scott (and screenwriters David Franzoni, John Logan, and William Nicholson) took us back to 180 AD for Gladiator, which told the story of Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius (played by Russell Crowe), who is favored by Emperor Marcus Aurelius to be his successor because his own son, Commodus, is unfit to rule. Commodus disagrees, so he murders his father, has Maximus arrested, and has Maximus’s wife and son killed. While Commodus establishes himself as the new emperor, Maximus escapes from captivity – only to be captured again, this time by slavers who sell him off to become a gladiator. Soon he’s fighting in front of Commodus in Rome’s Colosseum… and it all builds up to Commodus challenging Maximus to a duel. Gladiator was a major box office success and racked up multiple Academy Award wins, including Best Picture. So there was already talk of a sequel in 2001, but it ended up taking more than twenty years to get a sequel into production. Gladiator II is now ready to reach theatres on November 22nd – so we have put together a list of everything we know about this sequel.

DIRECTOR AND SCRIPT

Ridley Scott always planned to return to the helm for Gladiator II. The hold-up was the script. Since Maximus died at the end of Gladiator, screenwriters found it very difficult to figure out how to continue the story, especially since the initial idea was that Russell Crowe would return as Maximus in some capacity. The first writers to be involved were David Franzoni and John Logan, who crafted a story that would pick up fifteen years after the events of the first movie and center on the Lucius character, who was a child played by Spencer Treat Clark in Gladiator. While the Praetorian Guards rule Rome, Lucius would be trying to find out the truth of his parentage because the idea was always that, even though his mother (Commodus’s sister Lucilla, played by Connie Nielsen) would say that his father was the late Lucius Verus, it was actually Maximus. This story would have allowed for some prequel elements, but would have also seen Maximus being resurrected… somehow. According to Crowe, there was a time when they were just going to have Maximus rise from the dead like Jesus Christ.

Musician Nick Cave was hired to write his own version of the script, and this one has gotten a lot of attention because how over-the-top and insane it was. Cave’s title of choice was Christ Killer, and would have (as Cave explained on Marc Maron’s podcast) “found Maximus in purgatory as he’s sent down by the gods, who are dying in Heaven because there’s this one god, there’s this Christ character, down on Earth who is gaining popularity and so the many gods are dying so they send Gladiator back to kill Christ and his followers. Maximus was tricked by the gods, as the Christ character that they’ve sent him to kill was his own son, the one who died in the first movie. The end of the film would have found Maximus living forever, fighting battles throughout history, such as the Crusades, World War II, and Vietnam, before ending up as a General in the modern-day Pentagon.”

Things got quiet for a decade after Cave turned in his script, but in 2017 Scott started pushing the sequel forward again while swearing that he had found a way to bring Maximus back that would make sense. The Town and Top Gun: Maverick writer Peter Craig was hired to write a new script that would again center on Lucius, this time 25 to 30 years after the events of Gladiator. Craig found the idea tough to crack, so then Scott brought on his Napoleon writer David Scarpa. And it’s Scarpa who wrote the script that finally went into production in 2023.

CAST

Paul Mescal (Normal People) leads the long-awaited sequel, playing the adult Lucius. One report let us know, “Before he died, Maximus rescued Lucius and his mother from the clutches of the young man’s uncle, Commodus. The event left an impression on Lucius, who aspires to be as formidable as Maximus as he braves a harsh world.” Mescal is joined in the cast by Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus) as Emperor Geta, Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things) as Emperor Caracalla, and – in roles that weren’t specified when their involvement was announced – Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us), Lior Raz (The Crowded Room), Peter Mensah (Spartacus), and Matt Lucas (Wonka).

May Calamawy (Moon Knight) is in there as well, and while we don’t know who she’s playing, it was said that her character is quite important to the story, so Scott did a “thorough search” before Calamawy earned the role over the course of multiple auditions.

Gladiator cast member Derek Jacobi is reprising the role of Senator Gracchus and Connie Nielsen is back as Lucius’s mother Lucilla. Scott made sure to involve Nielsen as much as possible during the development of the story.

Denzel Washington (American Gangster) is playing someone Scott described to Deadline as being a character who is parallel to Lucius. “The owner of a business that supplied weapons for the Romans, who supplied the oil when they traveled, who supplied the wine they drink. They wouldn’t drink water, they drank wine. When they traveled, who would supply wagons and horses and tack? There had to be the arms dealers of the period; here is a man who already rich from supplying the weapons, the catapults. His hobby is like a racing stable except it’s gladiators. He’s got a stable of 30 or 40 gladiators. He likes to actually see them fight and it evolves that that’s where he came from. He was captured in North Africa, and evolved into a free man because he was a good gladiator. But he hides that because also he’s now realizing the potential of his actual power. He’s wealthier than most senators, so already has thoughts and designs of the possible idea of taking power from these two crazy princes.”

Absent from the cast is Russell Crowe, as Maximus remains in his grave after all. Crowe doesn’t seem pleased that people keep asking him about the sequel – during an appearance at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, he said, “They should be f*cking paying me for the amount of questions I get asked about the f*cking film that I am not even in.” – but he has also said that he thinks it will be “absolutely spectacular” and he’s jealous of the experiences Mescal got to have on set.

PRODUCTION

Gladiator II started filming in May of 2023 – and the production wasn’t an easy ride. A month into filming, six crew members were left with non-life-threatening burn injuries when they were accidentally caught in a large explosion that went off during the filming of a stunt sequence. A studio spokesperson assured The Sun that “The safety and full medical services teams on-site were able to act quickly so that those who were impacted immediately received necessary care. They are all in stable condition and continue to receive treatment.”

Two months into filming, production had to shut down due to the Screen Actors Guild strike. The strike went on from July into November, with Scott using that time to edit together 90 minutes of footage (and possibly film some more footage with non-SAG extras). Before filming could resume in December, the deteriorating sets had to be repaired. A massive recreation of ancient Rome, including a life-size Colosseum, had been built for the production, and these open-air sets had to be left sitting there for four months while the strike played out. So it took some time to fix them up before the cast and crew could get back to work.

The strike helped the budget get out of hand. The movie was supposed to cost $165 million, but The Hollywood Reporter revealed that costs had ballooned to somewhere in the $250 million to $310 million range. For this project alone, the studio lost $600,000 a week during the strike.

There were also rumblings from PETA about the mistreatment of horses and monkeys on the set, but crew members refuted those claims, saying the Humane Society was always on set to oversee the treatment of the animals.

Filming wrapped in January after taking place in England, Morocco, and Malta. By filming in Malta (which was also a filming location for the first movie), the production earned a €46.7 million rebate, which is over $50 million in USD. So that brings some relief, despite the budget being out of control.

CINEMACON TRAILER

A five-minute trailer, which was preceded by a video introduction in which Scott said Gladiator II is “more spectacular than the original,” was screened at the CinemaCon event in early April. JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray was in attendance and reported that the trailer was incredible. He wrote in, “Paul Mescal looks a lot like Russell Crowe, with the same beard. Lucius is a gladiator trained by Denzel Washington’s character. Meanwhile, Pedro Pascal is a Roman general trying to lead a revolt against the sadistic emperor (Joseph Quinn). At some point, Quinn and Mescal meet in the gladiator ring for a battle. The games are more sadistic this time, with the gladiators fighting wild baboons unarmed and a rhino. You also see lots of Connie Nielsen, who seems to be in cahoots with Denzel and opposes the emperor. Gladiator II has a ton of action and intrigue. Mescal and Pascal look like they handle the action side, with no shots of Denzel fighting.”

Not mentioned in that write-up was the fact that the trailer features “a scene where they flood the Colosseum and have the gladiators fight sharks.” Which might sound over-the-top and ridiculous to some, but in the early days of the Colosseum, the place would occasionally be flooded so it could be used to host staged ship battles called naumachia… and yes, apparently they would release sharks and other sea creatures into the flooded structure as well. So there is a reflection of reality in this insanity.

That’s everything we know about Gladiator II right now, but with the release date just seven months away, we should be learning more about the film very soon.

Last Updated on April 22, 2024

Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is now playing in theaters throughout the United States. However, the ensemble action romp, starring Henry Cavill, Alex Pettyfer, Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, Babs Olusanmokun, and Cary Elwes, is currently absent from UK and Canadian theaters. Lionsgate distributes The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare domestically. At the same time, Prime Video inked an eight-figure deal for international rights across Europe, Latin America, ANZ, Canada, South Africa, India, and pan-Asian PayTV. So, what’s the deal with The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’s international availability? Why won’t The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare get a theatrical release in these territories?

According to Yahoo!, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare won’t screen in UK cinemas. Instead, the film will stream on Prime Video in territories like the United Kingdom and Canada, robbing certain areas of the big screen experience. It’s safe to assume that Amazon plans to attract more subscribers to its streaming service by debuting The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare on Prime Video, but at what cost? Judging by the trailer, Ministry looks like the type of explosive action film made for the silver screen. Will a streaming release sour potential viewers altogether?

Here’s the official synopsis for The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare:

“Based upon recently declassified files of the British War Department and inspired by true events, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is an action-comedy that tells the story of the first-ever special forces organization formed during WWII by UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill and a small group of military officials including author Ian Fleming. The top-secret combat unit, composed of a motley crew of rogues and mavericks, goes on a daring mission against the Nazis using entirely unconventional and utterly “ungentlemanly” fighting techniques. Ultimately, their audacious approach changed the course of the war and laid the foundation for the British SAS and modern Black Ops warfare.”

Luckily, I have a Prime Video subscription. However, I planned to see The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare in theaters before hearing this news. This situation is a bummer, and I wonder what cinephiles overseas think about being denied the theatrical experience. Considering the film’s franchise potential, it’s an odd decision. Then again, streaming services must find a way to draw people to their service.

What do you think about this trend? If you live outside the United States, are you upset about watching Ritchie’s new film at home instead of in a theater? Let us know in the comments section below.

About the Author

Born and raised in New York, then immigrated to Canada, Steve Seigh has been a JoBlo.com editor, columnist, and critic since 2012. He started with Ink & Pixel, a column celebrating the magic and evolution of animation, before launching the companion YouTube series Animation Movies Revisited. He’s also the host of the Talking Comics Podcast, a personality-driven audio show focusing on comic books, film, music, and more. You’ll rarely catch him without headphones on his head and pancakes on his breath.

Saturday Night Live alum doesn’t think her Debbie Downer character could sustain a 90-minute feature film.

Last Updated on April 22, 2024

Saturday Night Live skits have given us some of the funniest and most enjoyable movies of their eras. OK, there aren’t many – we’re really mostly talking about The Blues Brothers, the Wayne’s World double feature and MacGruber – but what’s there is choice comedy. On the other side, we have crap like It’s Pat, The Ladies Man and Stuart Saves His Family, all proving that just because something works for five minutes doesn’t mean it can sustain 90. Take another recurring skit, Debbie Downer, for another example, who Rachel Dratch turned into a signature character in more than a half-dozen appearances. Thankfully such a movie never happened – something that Dratch is perfectly fine with.

Speaking with ComicBook.com, Rachel Dratch recognized that while the character stands as one of her greatest contributions to SNL, she just wouldn’t have the legs to make it on the big screen. “I used to get asked that a lot about the Debbie Downer movie, but the thing about Debbie Downer is she’s best in small doses, I think. I think with a whole movie – even a sketch, like the first couple were great and then people are on to you after, you know, they know what to expect – So I think a whole movie might not work. I think some things are best in teeny tiny little snippets…We never did because she barely could make it the seven minutes sometimes…So 90 minutes would probably be a snooze fest.” While she’s absolutely correct – then again, imagine how much of Debbie Downer’s life there is to explore… – we’d also like to imagine Dratch went full-on Debbie Downer when saying so, complete with sad sack sound effects.

We haven’t gotten a new Saturday Night Live adaptation in well over a decade. Not that we’re overdue or clamoring for one, but there might be some interest in, say, The Californians or Stefon getting their own movies. Going back to the ‘90s, two were actually in at least minor discussion: one centering on Chris Farley’s motivational speaker Matt Foley, as well as another for Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon’s bodybuilders Hans and Franz, with the pair close to recruiting Arnold Schwarzenegger for the movie. The latter was more or less axed due to some of the aforementioned SNL movies tanking and Arnold stepping aside.

What is your favorite Saturday Night Live adaptation? Which skit do you think would make a great movie?

David Fincher unveiled the 8K version of Seven over the weekend, although it had to be screened in 4K because technology hasn’t caught up.

There may be seven deadly sins but David Fincher is maxing his Ks at eight — well, four, as there is really no set distributor that can handle 8K. As such, it was a 4K restoration of Seven that was screened at this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival, although Fincher is still proud of the work presented to viewers.

Appearing at the annual festival, David Fincher pointed out that those who catch this quasi-8K transfer of Seven may be caught off guard by the “imperfections”, which he is well aware of. “It is what it is, warts and all…And some of it is spectacular and some of it is stuff that I would change or fix today, but I didn’t want to mess with that. There’s a lot of imperfections, there’s a lot of things that you just don’t see on film. When people say they love the look of film, what they’re talking about is chaos, entropy, and softness. Now, of course, we live in an HDR world where you get those kinds of very deep, rich, velvety blacks for free.”

As with any high-definition transfer, that of Seven presented the issues of “how much”, something that can easily limit the authenticity and filmic quality — too much and the transfer looks overproduced, ruining the experience and discrediting so much of the filmmakers’ work. For this, Fincher had plenty of meticulous details (no surprise there) on how this was approached for Seven. “And we had to negotiate that fine between what to fix or not…So we attempted to go back in and fix to make it match. And kind of repaint stuff and just take out water spots and little edge flashes. And some of it is impossible to get it to match, certainly by today’s standards. So there was a lot of excavation.”

It took around six months alone for David Fincher and his team just to compile their notes to get moving on the Seven transfer. It will be pretty incredible once distributors can catch up with 8K, which will allow all of Fincher and company’s work to be seen the way they intended three decades later. Even so, a 4K downscale is nothing to lose your head over, so fans should be on the lookout for the Blu-ray release early next month.

Will you be checking out Fincher’s Seven on 4K? Which other film of his would best benefit from an 8K treatment?