Casting rumors say Kevin Bacon, Helena Bonham Carter, and Halsey might join Mia Goth in Ti West’s MaXXXine

Back in September, right before director Ti West’s Pearl (watch it HERE) – a prequel to his film X (watch that one at THIS LINK) – reached theatres, production / distribution company A24 revealed that they had given the greenlight to another chapter in this series: an X sequel titled MaXXXine. Since then, we’ve heard that A24 would be giving X and Pearl fans a chance to be extras in MaXXXine, and franchise star Mia Goth, who played the Maxine and Pearl characters in X, Pearl in the prequel, and will be reprising the role of Maxine in the sequel, has said that MaXXXine has “the best script of the three by far”. Now some very interesting casting rumors… and we have to stress, these are just RUMORS at the moment… have started making their way around the Internet. One rumor says that Kevin Bacon (Tremors) and Helena Bonham Carter (Fight Club) might be joining Goth in the cast of MaXXXine. On the podcast The Hot Mic, film journalist Jeff Sneider confirmed that he has heard Bacon’s name come up in connection with MaXXXine, and added that he has also heard that singer Halsey might have a role in the film. He hasn’t verified whether or not they’ve actually been cast in MaXXXine, but that’s what he has been told.

MaXXXine is being written and directed by West. Goth will be reprising the role of X survivor Maxine Minx, a burlesque performer and adult film actress with the goal of being a star. The film will follow Maxine, after the events of X, as the sole survivor who continues her journey towards fame, setting out to make it as an actress in 1980s Los Angeles.

MaXXXine is being produced by A24, Ti West, Jacob Jaffke, Kevin Turen, and Harrison Kreiss. Goth serves as executive producer.

Goth has said that filming will take place later this year. Our friends at Bloody Disgusting reported that West had this to say about MaXXXine: “What I can tell you is that we’re going to catch up with Maxine. And we’re going to find out what she’s up to. The way that X is a movie that is informed by and affected by independent exploitation auteur Americana and 1970s cinema, and Pearl is perhaps affected by the Golden Age of Hollywood and the glitz and glamor of cinema, MaXXXine will be more about within the industry itself and the boom of VHS.”

I really enjoyed both X and Pearl, so I can’t wait to see MaXXXine – and that’s whether or not Kevin Bacon, Helena Bonham Carter, and/or Halsey end up being in the movie. If they are, that’s cool. But if they’re not, I’ll just be glad to see this franchise continue with Goth in the lead.

Would you like to see Kevin Bacon, Helena Bonham Carter, and Halsey in MaXXXine? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Shortly after the high profile pair turned in their draft of the project, Lucasfilm opted not to go forward.

As Disney tries to find their bearings after bringing Bob Iger back on board, the recently reported top-secret Star Wars project that is to be directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, known for Ms. Marvel, has just lost writers Damon Lindelof and Justin Britt-Gibson. While Kathleen Kennedy navigates through rough developments of projects like the now-jettisoned Rogue Squadron, there have been no new Star Wars features announced, with the brand focused on TV projects, which include The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew. Kennedy mentioned before that she wanted to tread carefully before announcing film projects due to some turbulent productions, and it looks like many of the in-development movies aren’t panning out.

Indeed, Above the Line reports that the screenwriters, Lindelof and Britt-Gibson, turned in a draft of their script in mid-February, and it wasn’t long before they ended up leaving the film. Lucasfilm reportedly has a new writer now taking up the vacated position, although it is not yet known who it is. The plot of the film is being kept under wraps. However, there was to be a formal reveal of the project at Star Wars Celebration next month as the title and plot of the movie would be unveiled. The production was scheduled to begin in February of 2024 and is was scheduled for release sometime in December 2025.

In a recent interview at SXSW, Lindelof would be very cryptic about his strained involvement with the brand. “I will just say, that for reasons that I can’t get into on this Sunday morning, on this day, the degree of difficulty is extremely, extremely, extremely high. “If it can’t be great, it shouldn’t exist. That’s all I’ll say, because I have the same association with it as you do, which is, it’s the first movie I saw sitting in my dad’s lap, four years old, May of ’77. I think it’s possible that sometimes when you hold something in such high reverence and esteem, you start to get in the kitchen and you just go, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be cooking. Maybe I should just be eating.’ We’ll just leave it at that.”

While the Star Wars shows on Disney+ continue to thrive, the movies have suffered a great deal of complications after their announcements for future projects, which may still include a Rian Johnson trilogy and a Taika Waititi standalone film.

Andy Kaufman will be a member of the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2023, joining, you know, actual professional wrestlers.

Andy Kaufman, the legendary comedian, prankster and “inter-gender champion”, will be honored as an inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the celebrity wing.

Andy Kaufman may not exactly scream wrestling, but the WWE has defended its decision (certainly not the most controversial this year), noting his history in the world of sports entertainment, particularly his rivalry with Jerry “The King” Lawler. In their official statement, the WWE said, “The rivalry between Lawler and Kaufman became national news leading to a legendary exchange on Late Night with David Letterman. The interaction would later be memorialized in the 1999 movie biopic Man on the Moon, where Lawler appeared alongside Jim Carrey as Kaufman to recreate the iconic moment. Kaufman’s interactions with Lawler transformed the business and opened up pathways for future cross-over Superstars such as Johnny Knoxville who honored the comedian with his WrestleMania 38 ring gear.” Lawler, who was inducted in 2007, will be honoring Kaufman.

In addition to his infamous interactions with Lawler, Kaufman launched a long-running stunt in the late 1970s where he would challenge women to come wrestle him in the ring, at the same time declaring himself the Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion of the World. He reportedly would go on to wrestle around 400 women over a four-year span. Part of this was also featured in 1999’s Man on the Moon, the production of which saw Jim Carrey going method to play Kaufman. Andy Kaufman passed away in 1984, thus joining a long list of posthumous inductees into the WWE Hall of Fame, starting with the first ever, Andre the Giant, in 1983. Kaufman, however, does have the distinction of being the first posthumous celebrity inductee.

While Andy Kaufman was never officially a WWE Superstar, his peculiar mark on wrestling has been previously recognized by the WWE, receiving an action figure and turning up as a playable character in multiple video games. Now, if we can just get him as DLC in WWE 2K23!

You can see Andy Kaufman (in addition to Rey Mysterio, The Great Muta and more) inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on March 31st, the night before Wrestlemania 39.

How do you feel about Andy Kaufman being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame? Let us know in the comments section below!

With M3GAN coming to digital/Blu-ray, we discuss the global phenom with star Violet McGraw and director Gerard Johnstone.

You would have to be living under a rock to have not heard of M3GAN (check out our review HERE). The killer doll has absolutely taken the world by storm and provided a horror villain for Generation Z. I can’t count myself amongst the fans of the film, but I understand why everyone seems so smitten over it. I was lucky enough to sit down with director Gerard Johnstone (who made the criminally underrated Housebound) as well as star Violet McGraw to pick their brains about the killer doll. We discuss MEGAN 2.0 as well as a certain parting gift that the filmmakers gave MEGAN herself, Amie Donald. Check out the interview above!

One of the interesting things about talking to Johnstone was the fact that you can get a real sense that he knows and appreciates what a bonafide cult phenomenon the character of M3GAN has become. While he acknowledges that a M3GAN vs Chucky movie might happen at some point playfully, he also pitches M3GAN joining the Fast and Furious crew. Heck yeah – why not!

Did you like M3GAN? Do you think the unrated version that streamed on Peacock was better? Let us know in the comments!

She’s more than a toy. She’s family. And now she’s Unrated. The M3GAN UNRAT3D VERSION is yours to own on Digital and Blu-ray today!

After giving everyone a case of the chills because of his performance as Charlie Cullen in The Good Nurse, Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Theory of Everything, Jupiter Ascending) is ready to kill again. Redmayne will star in The Day of the Jackal series, a new project destined for Peacock and Sky. The concept is a reimagining of the 1973 film adaptation from Universal Pictures. In The Day of the Jackal, Redmayne plays the Jackal, a professional assassin hired by a French paramilitary dissident to kill French President Charles de Gaulle in 1962.

Inspired by Frederick Forsyth’s novel of the same name (and Universal’s film adaptation), the new version brings the character and story to a contemporary setting, letting our corrupt geo-political landscape loose in a world of deception, lies, cover-ups, and death. In addition to telling an intriguing tale of careful murder, The Day of the Jackal series will meditate on the concept of an anti-hero.

Ronan Bennett (Top Boy, Public Enemies, Gunpowder) will showrun and write the series, with Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones, Luther) directing. In addition to his starring role, Redmayne will executive produce alongside Carnival Films’ Gareth Neame and Nigel Marchant and Sky Studios’ Sam Hoyle. Marianne Buckland serves as co-exec producer, Frederick Forsyth is consulting producer, and Christopher Hall is producing.

The Day of the Jackal series will shoot its shot on Peacock in the U.S. and Sky in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. NBCUniversal Global Distribution is negotiating international sales of the new series.

Fred Zinnemann directed 1973’s The Day of the Jackal. Edward Fox starred as the Jackal, with Terence Alexander, Michel Auclair, Alan Badel, and Tony Britton supporting. With Bennett’s version bringing the story into the modern day, it will be fun to see what an update to the assassin thriller looks like and how today’s political climate plays with Forsyth’s characters and themes in mind.

Are you a fan of The Day of the Jackal? Are you excited about Redmayne taking on the lead role? We’ll bring you more news as this project develops.

A trailer has been released for the “humans hunting humans” thriller Hunt Club, starring Mena Suvari, Mickey Rourke, Casper Van Dien

Last July, we heard that production had wrapped on Hunt Club, a thriller starring Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers), Mena Suvari (American Beauty), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), Maya Stojan (Newness), Will Peltz (13 Minutes), and Jessica Belkin (The Orville). Now The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that Hunt Club has secured a distribution deal with Uncork’d Entertainment – and along with that news comes the unveiling of a trailer, which you can watch in the embed above.

Directed by Elizabeth Blake-Thomas (The League of Legend Keepers: Shadows) from a script by David Lipper and John F. Saunders, Hunt Club puts its own twist on Richard Connell’s 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game by telling the following story: A group of male hunters routinely lure women to their island with the chance to win 100K in a hunt, only to find that they are the hunted. But this time, the men mess with the wrong three girls and suffer the consequences.

A new synopsis reveals that the film centers on Cassandra (Suvari), a woman who has just lost her girlfriend and daughter and is desperate to find help. In walks Carter offering her the chance to win $100,000 if she participates in the hunt on his island. She soon finds other women who are there for the cash have been tied up, only to be released as the hunted. With the help of Tessa and Lexi, Cassandra turns the tables on the men showing that women can be better hunters.

Lipper and Robert A. Daly Jr. produced Hunt Club under their Latigo Films banner, alongside Keli Price, Kipp Tribble, and Commando director Mark L. Lester. Kimberly Hines serves as executive producer.

Uncork’d Entertainment’s Keith Leopard had this to say about the distribution deal: “We’re extremely stoked to be releasing this very hot tale of survival and revenge, with it’s exciting storyline and an incredibly gritty performance by Mena Suvari in the lead role. The action never lets up. Very excited for fans of the genre to see it.“

Director Blake-Thomas added: “This film was different from some of my past works, as it dealt more with stunts and adult themes. Working with stunt coordinators and stunt doubles, as well as actors doing their own stunts, was such fun. Experiencing the sort of dance that comes with stunts was a new aspect that I am happy to add to my directing repertoire.“

A specific release date for Hunt Club hasn’t been announced, but it’s probably not far off.

What did you think of the Hunt Club trailer? Does this look like a movie you would like to watch? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

A new report suggests Dwayne Johnson sabotaged Shazam! Fury of the Gods after vetoing several ideas for a character crossovers.

New Line‘s Shazam! Fury of the Gods is struggling to impact the box office despite positive word of mouth (in some circles) and featuring an all-star cast including Zachary Levi, Helen Mirren, and Lucy Liu. According to Box Office Mojo, the superhero sequel is at $64.7M worldwide, far from DC’s expectations for a film that reportedly cost $110-$125 million. While the upcoming sunsetting of the DCU could explain the film’s poor performance, a new report from The Wrap says Dwayne Johnson is partially to blame for Shazam! Fury of the Gods failing at the box office.

According to The Wrap, Johnson reportedly vetoed ideas that would have seen Zachary Levi’s Shazam cameo in a post-credits scene for Black Adam. There’s also talk about the Justice Society appearing in a scrapped post-credits sequence for Shazam! Fury of the Gods. The Wrap says Johnson wanted the DCU to go all-in on Black Adam and Henry Cavill’s Superman, leaving other heroes out of the equation. Johnson’s idea left no room for Shazam or his extended family of heroes. The school of thought is that Johnson’s interference with Shazam’s exposure in the DCU placed the character’s solo sequel at a disadvantage.

The outlet says that when Shazam! 2 producer Peter Safran tried to include the defunct Black Adam idea, Johnson swooped in and threw the idea out. This altercation is why characters from Peacemaker show up instead of members of the Justice Society.

For reasons we can speculate about all day, Johnson’s repeated stonewalling of Shazam is viewed by many as an attempt to take the boy-turned-superhero away from the spotlight. While Johnson may have sabotaged Shazam’s chances at the box office, Black Adam is also hitting the bench for DC’s reboot plans. According to DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran, there is no room for Black Adam to return now. Johnson says he’s been in touch with Gunn and that they’re keeping the door open for Black Adam’s eventual return, but that remains to be seen.

Are you disappointed Black Adam and Shazam won’t cross paths in the DCU? Do you think Johnson deliberately kneecapped Shazam to increase Black Adam’s chances of changing the hierarchy of the DCU? With Black Adam, Shazam, and Henry Cavill’s Superman no longer a part of the DCU’s plans, was bringing Johnson into the fold a mistake? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Musican Slash is teaming up with Rue Morgue, Raven Banner, and Hangar 18 Media to form the production company BerserkerGang

Several years ago, Raven Banner Entertainment picked up the Canadian rights to Nothing Left to Fear (watch it HERE), a horror film that was produced by musician Slash. A couple years ago, Raven Banner and Slash teamed up again on Rue Morgue Magazine founder Rodrigo Gudiño’s film The Breach (read our review HERE), which Slash executive produced and provided the score for. And now Rue Morgue has announced that Raven Banner, Slash, and Gudiño are looking to continue their working relationship, joining forces with Hangar 18 Media to form the production company BerserkerGang, which will be dedicated to edge-of-your-seat horror!

Slash and Gudiño are joined in this endeavor by Michael Paszt, James Fler, and Andrew T. Hunt (a trio described as “horror genre specialists”) of distributor Raven Banner and Pasha Patriki of Hangar 18 Media, which is Raven Banner’s in-house production wing.

Slash had this to say about BerserkerGang: “I’ve always been a huge horror fan, especially going back to the days when horror movies actually scared the hell out of you. I want to get into the heart of the producing business, so I can try and make movies that I’d like to see.“

Gudiño added: “The company slogan is ‘Films Forged in Fury,’ if that’s any indication of where we plan on venturing.“

Hunt wanted to assure genre fans, “The aim of BerserkerGang will be quality over quantity. We will be selectively choosing projects that we collectively feel best represent the brand.” The Rue Morgue write-up points out that BerserkerGang aims to be a benchmark of quality in genre film. To that end, the collective steadfastly refuses to crank out subpar quickies. Love and respect for horror are paramount to the team.

And Paszt said, “Our goal is to develop projects with filmmakers and writers who are just as passionate about genre films as we are.“

The first BerserkerGang productions will be announced at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

What do you think of Slash and these collaborators getting together to form BerserkerGang? Does this production company sound promising to you? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.