Sean Connery and F. Murray Abraham engaged in “playground” tactics on The Name of the Rose, according to director Jean-Jacques Annaud.

With a career that goes back nearly 50 years, director Jean-Jacques Annaud was bound to run into some troublesome actors. But the French filmmaker has been relatively lucky – and it wasn’t Brad Pitt or Jude Law or Two Brothers’ Kumal and Sangha that gave him headaches, it was F. Murray Abraham.

Speaking at the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, France (via Deadline), Jean-Jacques Annaud said that working with F. Murray Abraham on 1986’s The Name of the Rose – a 4K presentation of which was screened at the festival – was a nightmare compared to what he expected from his co-star. “Everybody warned me that Sean Connery was impossible and an extremely difficult character. He was an absolute dream and I got on with him fantastically…My only bad memory of an actor across my whole career, and I’ve directed, I think, thousands of actors, was F. Murray Abraham, who played the inquisitor…He was terrible, not so much with me, but rather with Sean. He would say, ‘I’ve got the Oscar, and he’s an old idiot’. They would both arrive late because Sean didn’t want to wait for F. Murray, and F. Murray didn’t want to wait for Sean… it was like the school playground.” Of note, Connery and Abraham would both later appear in 2000’s Finding Forrester.

When it all came to blows, however, Jean-Jacques Annaud won out, as the director shifted the schedule around to meet Abraham’s apparent primadonna ways. From there, he had a team of lawyers on hand, telling his star, “You’re going to stay here and pay your costs out of your own pocket’. He looked at me and said, ‘Touché’. He stayed on at his own cost and we shot his final scene on the last day.”

But Jean-Jacques Annaud’s account of on-set difficulties with F. Murray Abraham may not be much of a surprise. Abraham was reportedly canned from Mythic Quest over sexual misconduct. Connery passed away in 2020 at the age of 90.

The Name of the Rose is actually quite a good movie, worth checking out for the aforementioned leads and an early turn from Christian Slater.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom director James Wan says behind-the-scenes drama regarding reshoots is far from the truth.

Aquaman will likely go down as the most successful film in the DCEU, grossing $1.1 billion worldwide, so it didn’t take long for Warner Bros. to get the ball rolling on a sequel. Unfortunately, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has been plagued with rumblings of lackluster test screenings and multiple reshoots, but director James Wan told Empire that a lot of the behind-the-scenes drama written about online is far from the truth.

“I’ve had to learn to be more Zen in dealing with all the noise around me, for sure,” James Wan said. “I’m a pretty private person. I don’t get on social media and have fights, but it’s difficult because this narrative has emerged that is not the reality. The noise is fun to write about, and it gets clicks, but people don’t know the truth.“

Wan added that the Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom reshoots have been made to seem like a bigger deal than they actually are. “We probably did seven or eight days,” he said. “Which is nothing for a movie of this size. It was just spread out because it’s so hard to get your actors back once you’ve finished the initial shoot.“

The new DC Universe may be heading in a new direction, but Wan said that he’s open to directing another Aquaman movie. “I haven’t directed a third movie [in a series] before, so I’d be open to doing another [Aquaman] if I got the same freedom I’ve had on these first two,” he said. “I’m not sure what direction [Gunn and Safran] are going in, though, so who knows? I’ve learned to never say never.“

“Having failed to defeat Aquaman the first time, Black Manta, still driven by the need to avenge his father’s death, will stop at nothing to take Aquaman down once and for all,” reads the official synopsis for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. “This time Black Manta is more formidable than ever before, wielding the power of the mythic Black Trident, which unleashes an ancient and malevolent force. To defeat him, Aquaman will turn to his imprisoned brother Orm, the former King of Atlantis, to forge an unlikely alliance. Together, they must set aside their differences in order to protect their kingdom and save Aquaman’s family, and the world, from irreversible destruction.“

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will hit theaters on December 20th.

Good Omens season 3 renewal is looking good, but co-showrunner Douglas Mackinnon won’t be back for what will likely be the final season.

It took four years for the second season of Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens to arrive, but hopefully, the wait won’t be quite so long for season 3.

Deadline reports that it’s “looking good” that Amazon and the BBC will renew Good Omens for a third season, which will likely be the last for the fantasy series. However, Douglas Mackinnon, who served as executive producer, director, and co-showrunner of the first two seasons, won’t be returning for Good Omens season 3. Mackinnon confirmed his exit on Instagram after posting a photo from the set. In response to a fan, he stated, “I’m not involved with this show anymore.” A fan asked Neil Gaiman what was going on, and he said “Douglas has moved on to other projects.“

Based on the novel of the same name by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens follows the demon Crowley (David Tennant) and the angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen), longtime acquaintances who have “grown accustomed to each other’s company, and to a pleasant life on Earth as representatives of Heaven and Hell, and who have agreed not to let the conflict between their sides prevent their friendship.“

The second season of Good Omens “explores storylines that go beyond the original source material to illuminate the uncanny friendship between Aziraphale, a fussy angel and rare book dealer, and the fast-living demon Crowley. Having been on Earth since The Beginning, and with the Apocalypse thwarted, Aziraphale and Crowley are getting back to easy living amongst mortals in London’s Soho when an unexpected messenger presents a surprising mystery.“

Neil Gaiman comments on Good Omens season 3 back in August, saying it was already “planned and plotted” and he would have been writing it at that moment if the WGA strike wasn’t happening. Now that the strike is over, Gaiman is likely in the middle of putting the new season together. The creator also confirmed that this will indeed be the end of the series as “there won’t be a [season 4].“

What do you hope to see in Good Omens season 3?

Blackberry, the movie about the creation of the world’s first smartphone, will premiere on AMC as a three-part limited series.

Blackberry, the comedy-drama movie starring Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton as the two men responsible for the launch of the world’s first smartphone, will premiere on AMC next month, but there’s a twist. AMC announced today that Blackberry has been transformed into a three-part limited series.

The release of Mission: Impossible 8 has been pushed back to 2025, along with new dates for A Quiet Place prequel.

Tom Cruise was in the middle of production on the next Mission: Impossible movie, when it was forced to shut down due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. The sequel was slated to hit theaters next summer, so it should come as no surprise that Paramount has pushed the release of to 2025.

To note, the film no longer carries the Dead Reckoning – Part 2 subtitle, with a new title to be released shortly. The next Mission Impossible movie was originally scheduled for June 28, 2024, but that release has been delayed to May 23, 2025. Paramount also shuffled the dates of several of its other movies around, with A Quiet Place: Day One moving from March 8, 2024 to June 28, 2024. The studio also bumped a new Spongebob Squarepants movie from May 23, 2025 to December 19, 2025.

The SAG-AFTRA strike has now reached the 100-day mark, but talks with the AMPTP are expected to resume on Tuesday. Hopefully, a fair deal can be reached, and everyone will be able to get back to work. However, if the strike isn’t resolved, we can expect to see the release of more movies pushed back.

In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the fate of the world at stake, and dark forces from Ethan’s past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan is forced to consider that nothing can matter more than his mission – not even the lives of those he cares about most.

You can check out a review of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One from our own Chris Bumbray right here, and be sure to let us know what you thought of the film as well. Dead Reckoning Part One (although the Part 1 will likely be dropped on all further releases of the film) will be released on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on October 31st.

A new wax figure of Dwayne Johnson has raised some eyebrows, with The Rock himself already calling for updates.

Do you smell what The Rock is cookin’? If so, you’d know that Dwayne Johnson isn’t exactly pleased with a new wax figure, which features a rather inaccurate depiction of the star. Johnson has taken to social media to express his dismay with the wax figure, particularly in how it shows him with a far lighter skin tone, with many pointing to it as an example of whitewashing.

Posting on Instagram, Dwayne Johnson took a chance to slam his new wax figure at the Grevin Museum, writing, “I knew my boy @jamesjeffersonj had this Rock wax statue in his roasting crosshairs…is this how y’all felt when you lost the Little Mermaid?”, referring to the somehow controversial casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel in the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid. Johnson added he “legit belly laughed at this…For the record, I’m going to have my team reach out to our friends at Grevin Museum, in Paris France…so we can work at “updating” my wax figure here with some important details and improvements- starting with my skin color…And next time I’m in Paris, I’ll stop in and have a drink with myself”.

Wax figures can be hard to get right, but it seems like this interpretation of Dwayne Johnson could have been avoided by, you know, looking at the guy. Don’t they know Johnson is one of the most decorated professional wrestlers ever, capable of laying out anybody with a Rock Bottom and a People’s Elbow? Those alone seem enough reason to make sure that Johnson looks as good as possible and not like – as many have made the comparison to – Mr. Clean.

As far as wax figures go in the Fast and Furious community, Dwayne Johnson is in the minority of those disapproving of their museum representations. A few years ago, Jason Momoa (who played Dante Reyes in Fast X) came face-to-face with Aquaman and seemed to be in a more positive disbelief than Johnson.

What do you think of Dwayne Johnson’s new wax figure? What is the worst wax figure you’ve ever seen? Let us know in the comments section below!