The Criterion Collections is prepping a massive box set of Jackie Chan’s early movies, but the selection may puzzle die hard fans.

Jackie Chan is about to get a major new collection from Criterion, with the prestige label announcing a new set called Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar. The set will contain a few of Chan’s early classics, including Fearless Hyena (and its sequel) and The Young Master, as well as a later film, My Lucky Stars, and a pair of his earliest vehicles, Half a Loaf of Kung Fu and Spiritual Kung Fu. Fans of Chan’s may be scratching their heads at a few of the titles, as outside of Young Master and Fearless Hyena, none of the films included in the set are considered his best work.

It seems like rights issues are keeping legit early classics like Drunken Master off the set, with the most puzzling choice being to include Fearless Hyena 2, which is really little more than a curiosity for fans. Chan notoriously quit the film halfway through production after leaving his contract with producer Lo Wei, leaving the film to be finished with doubles.

That said, the set is set to be jam-packed with extras, including commentary tracks, interviews, alternate audio tracks (including a mix of vintage English dubbed tracks and newly created ones) and even, in the case of The Young Master, a Cannes Promo Reel that has some deleted footage.

Criterion previously released Police Story I & 2 as a well-received double set, and hopefully, this sells well enough that some of his legitimate classics get the Criterion treatment. Dragons Forever, Wheels on Meals, and some of his other Golden Harvest era movies, especially Drunken Master 2, deserve the Criterion treatment more than most of the movies in this set. Project A and Project A Part 2 are crying out for a new re-release in North America. Still, an issue used to be that The Weinstein Company had the rights to many Hong Kong classics, including most John Woo movies, explaining why none of those have ever gotten the prestige releases they deserve. It would be nice to see the much more deserving Hong Kong classics from Chan and his contemporaries get their day in the sun, as there are a lot of great movies out there that are out of circulation.

With The Toxic Avenger remake set to premiere at Fantastic Fest, the first image and some teaser art have arrived online

Two years have passed since filming wrapped on writer/director Macon Blair’s remake of the Troma cult classic The Toxic Avenger (watch it HERE), and now the movie is finally about to make its way out into the world! We still don’t have a release date, but we do know The Toxic Avenger is going to have its world premiere at Fantastic Fest next month – and along with the news of that screening comes the unveiling of the first image of Peter Dinklage as the title character, and a bit of teaser art! You can check them out at the bottom of this article.

Sure, Dinklage’s Toxie is shrouded in shadow in the image, but it’s still more than we’ve seen of him up to this point. The teaser art comes courtesy of our friends at Bloody Disgusting.

Blair’s version of The Toxic Avenger stars Dinklage as Winston Gooze, a stereotypical weakling who works as a janitor at Garb-X health club and is diagnosed with a terminal illness that can only be cured by an expensive treatment that his greedy, power hungry employer refuses to pay for. After deciding to take matters into his own hands and rob his company, Winston falls into a pit of toxic waste and is transformed into a deformed monster that sets out to do good and get back at all the people who have wronged him.

Dinklage is joined in the cast by Jacob Tremblay (presumably as Winston’s son), Taylour Paige as the “female lead” (we haven’t heard any details on her character), Julia Davis and Elijah Wood as unspecified characters, Jonny Coyne as a “shadowy criminal figure”, Sarah Niles as a “corrupt city official”, and Kevin Bacon as the primary villain, a role Wood had originally been rumored for. Blair is also in the cast as a guy named Dennis.

According to The Illuminerdi, the main villain is rumored to be Bob Garbinger – Leonine hair and eerie plastic surgery. Evil head of the shady company Garb X. He has no regard for the well being of anyone but himself and embarks on a murderous spree to become as powerful as Toxie. His ego is bolstered by his standing amongst the towns official but in reality he lives in fear of the underworld gang he’s indebted to.

The Toxic Avenger remake was filmed in Bulgaria. Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz produced with Legendary Entertainment. The film has received an R rating for “strong violence and gore, language throughout, sexual references and brief graphic nudity“ – and the gore includes a moment that has been referred to as “the butt guts scene“.

Are you looking forward to The Toxic Avenger remake? Let us know by leaving a comment below… and while you’re scrolling down, take a look at the first image and the teaser art.

Netflix’s Heart of Stone topped the global and U.S top 10 this week as the surprise hit Jackie Chan movie, Hidden Strike, fell off the U.S chart.

It looks like the obscure and long-shelved Jackie Chan/ John Cena vehicle Hidden Strike’s reign at the top of the Netflix charts is over, with Gal Gadot’s spy thriller Heart of Stone topping the global charts. Curiously, Hidden Strike, while still coming in at number 2 on the international charts, completely fell out of the top 10 on the U.S. chart, which seems strange considering how well it did last week (read our review of the underwhelming film here).

Gal Gadot’s mostly well-reviewed Heart of Stone raked in 33.1 Million views and 69.6 hours viewed. While promising, that puts the movie well behind a pair of Netflix’s most recent action flicks, Extraction 2, which raked in 88.4 hours viewed in its first week, and The Mother, which was watched for 83.7 hours. In fact, the latter film, which stars Jennifer Lopez, has turned into Netflix’s biggest hit of the year, currently sitting at number 7 on their all-time Most Popular Films chart. No other 2023 movie has managed to duplicate that feat, including the much-hyped Extraction 2.

Meanwhile, on the T.V. side, Peter Berg’s opioid limited series Painkiller has proven to be a hit, with it topping the charts despite its grim subject matter. Based on the Sackler family’s development of OxyContin, the series earned 7.2 million views. That’s pretty good for such a heavy show, and it looks like the Uzo Aduba, Taylor Kitsch, and Matthew Broderick-led series is a solid hit. Hopefully, its success will encourage Netflix to make more limited series like these. There’s plenty of room for fun and fantasy, but sometimes harder-hitting stuff should be on the menu too.

Sadly, it looks like Netflix’s They Cloned Tyrone never made much of a dent on the charts, with it falling out of the global and U.S. top 10 this week. Perhaps it was too off-kilter for the mainstream Netflix audience but good on them for taking a chance on riskier material.

Did you watch Heart of Stone or Painkiller this weekend? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Is Renny Harlin’s The Strangers remake trilogy actually a sequel trilogy? Cast member Ema Horvath implies it might be

Director Renny Harlin (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master) has already wrapped production on not only a remake of the 2008 film The Strangers (watch it HERE), but an entire remake trilogy. Well, the official announcement referred to this as a remake project, anyway. But that might not actually be the case. During a recent interview with CinemaChords’ Howard Gorman, cast member Ema Horvath (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) said the trilogy is set “in the same universe” as The Strangers and its follow-up The Strangers: Prey at Night. Which leaves fans to wonder if this is actually a sequel trilogy…

The new Strangers trilogy was filmed in Slovakia. Horvath was joined in the cast by Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale), Froy Gutierrez (Cruel Summer), Rachel Shenton (All Creatures Great and Small), and Gabriel Basso (Hillbilly Elegy). The first entry in the trilogy centers on Petsch’s character as she drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend (Gutierrez) to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest. When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers. Lionsgate plans from there to expanding the story in new and unexpected ways with its sequels.

Horvath couldn’t say much about the trilogy during her conversation with CinemaChords because she hasn’t received the PR talking points for it yet, but when she was asked if the new The Strangers is a remake or a sequel, she said, “It’s within the same universe, I’ll say that. It’s a trilogy. It was very fun to shoot and work with (Renny Harlin), and we shot it in Slovakia. I speak the language, so it was a delight to be in that country and work.“

Petsch has previously said that the trilogy is “not exactly a remake because it’s different characters, but it’s the same concept and idea, and I think people will feel like it’s an homage. They’re gonna feel like we handled the material with care and I think [they’re gonna feel] like we’ve dove deeper into it. So if anything, it should make Strangers OG fans really excited because you get more answers, you get more mystery and you get more scares, which is why we watch them.“

This Strangers remake / sequel / homage trilogy is being produced by Courtney Solomon, Mark Canton, Christopher Milburn, Gary Raskin, Charlie Dombeck, and Alastair Birlingham. Andrei Boncea, Dorothy Canton, and Roy Lee serve as executive producers. Rafaella Biscayn, Frame Film SK, Johanna Harlin, Juan Garcia Peredo, and Alberto Burgueno are co-producing.  Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland (Due Date) wrote the screenplays.

Harlin previously provided the following statement: “My mother instilled the love of movies in me through the world of Hitchcock and other masters of suspense and horror. My breakthrough to Hollywood happened with the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4. It is only fitting that I get to return to my favorite genre with the incredibly well written trilogy of The Strangers. The characters and the storyline are all grounded in reality and offer me an endless tapestry of haunting visuals in bringing these movies alive.“

What do you think of Renny Harlin’s Strangers trilogy being “within the same universe” as the previous films? Are you looking forward to this trilogy? Let us know by leaving a comment below.