PLOT: A veteran assassin is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and authorizes a kill on himself. After ordering the kill, an army of former colleagues pounce and a new piece of information comes to light. Insanity ensues.

REVIEW: There’s a certain type of film that has been relegated to streaming services in recent years. Sadly, mid-tier action films sprinkled with comedy stopped being considered worthwhile theatrical investments. Thus, those movies our grandparents would claim as “that great movie you need to see” were left to be discovered on Netflix and Max. But something strange is happening with Lionsgate this year and they felt a theatrical release was justified for The Killer’s Game. At first, I was intrigued because Bautista is known for picking interesting roles and the quality must be great to warrant such a release. Instead, I was met with a generic action film that switches gears so many times it doesn’t know what it wants to be. And proving why these are better left on streaming.

The concept of The Killer’s Game is quite intriguing with a veteran assassin, Joe Flood, being told he only has six months to live. Having just met the love of his life, he wants his life insurance policy to go to her, so he puts a hit on himself. Only to find out that the doctor’s switched up his paperwork and he’s not actually dying. Unfortunately, he also discovers that the contract can’t be terminated. So with an army of assassins baring down on him, Joe has to fight to stay alive, so he can finally live the life he’s always wanted. It practically feels straight out of the 90s and is very charming. Unfortunately, it becomes so generic and stereotypical that nearly every single story beat can be guessed. 

As a Dave Bautista fan, I’m disappointed to say that he’s just kind of middle-of-the-road here. He’s essentially just playing a bland hitman with a heart and it doesn’t go much further than that. Even his line delivery feels like he’s just kind of sleepwalking through the part. However, I did enjoy his chemistry with Sofia Boutella, who surprised me with her vulnerability in the more romantic moments. As someone who tends to roll my eyes when she pops up in a movie, this is a big step for me. Terry Crews also has a fun part as one of the hitmen on Joe’s tail.

The Killer’s Game has this really bad habit of giving these big grand entrances to the assassins, only for them to be taken out lickety-split. This wouldn’t be an issue if it just happened the one time but it happens repeatedly, lessening the impact of each introduction. This wants to be Smokin Aces only it forgot to actually introduce interesting characters that the audience wants to see more of. Instead, all of these assassins just blend together and feel as generic as the next. The only one that really stands out is Crews, who is essentially just playing the same guy he always plays in action movies, and WWE’s Drew McIntyre, a non-sensical Scottish man who defecates in his own pants. Pom Klementieff feels severely underutilized and they really don’t take advantage of her action chops.

There are some fun action moments but most of them devolve into a grenade exploding and bodies being thrown in every direction. There’s one scene that involves jiu-jitsu that feels like a fun little chess battle. But otherwise, the action feels so overly choreographed that it loses all realism and therefore impact. I’m not saying I need a completely grounded film but every stuntman is just waiting to be pummeled. And the CGI blood is absolutely out of control and may be the most egregious of any 2024 release. It’d be one thing if it actually looked good but most of the time it just looks like blueberry jam. I would have preferred no violence over this CGI nonsense.

Despite Bautista’s great dramatic track record, he just can’t seem to pull it together when it comes to non-Marvel action. I think this can be attributed to the man clearly wanting to star in a Rom-Com, therefore taking any role that even somewhat resembles that. But this script is so weak that he’s unable to elevate the material to any considerable degree. There are some fun moments, but everything about The Killer’s Game screams generic and average. And with Bautista seemingly wrapping down his time as an action star, I really hope he figures it out before it’s too late. Because god knows the man can act his ass off.

THE KILLER’S GAME IS PLAYING IN THEATERS ON SEPTEMBER 13TH, 2024.

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Viewer Ratings (0 reviews)

On Halloween of 2022, it was announced that Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller would be developing a Friday the 13th series called Crystal Lake for A24 and the Peacock streaming service… but things have turned out to be more complicated than expected. First, the lengthy writers strike slowed down the progress of the show, then Fuller got the boot and was replaced. It remains to be seen when Crystal Lake will be going into production, but since Friday the 13th has come back around on the calendar, we thought this would be a good time for us to share Everything We Know About Crystal Lake!

FIRST SHOWRUNNER

As mentioned, Bryan Fuller was steering this ship when it was first announced, and it nearly started filming with him (and his frequent collaborator Jim Danger Gray) at the helm. Production was set to begin on July 22nd, with filming to last for seven to eight months. Charlize Theron was being considered for the role of Pamela Voorhees, Claire Danes was offered the role and turned it down, Vincenzo Natali (Cube) and Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry) were on board to direct episodes. Peacock had provided a budget of $85 million for the first season, which was set to consist of eight episodes, and a $300,000 deposit had been placed on soundstages in Canada… then A24 decided to “go a different way” with the material, moving ahead with Crystal Lake without the involvement of Bryan Fuller. So for right now, it could be said that we don’t know anything about what Crystal Lake will be. We only have an idea of what the Fuller version would have been. That information follows, with an update on the new showrunner at the bottom of this article.

Why did Fuller lose the job? The Wrap tried to get to the bottom of the problems, unearthing talk of unpaid writers, inexperienced executives, and questionable bookkeeping. One source said that A24 didn’t feel confident in the vision Fuller and Gray had for the show and had to pull the plug. Another source said, “It felt like everybody on the Bryan/Jim side were trying very hard to make the show. A24 felt like they were doing everything they could to not make the show.” There’s confusion over whether or not Peacock was aware of the decision to fire Fuller and Gray, were directly involved with the decision, or if the order came from one of the top executives at Universal… but whatever the case, they were fired.

Each episode of Crystal Lake was set to have a budget of $9.6 million, but A24 reportedly wanted to cut that in half. Instead, the budget was rising. In a story that The Wrap heard from more than one source, “Inman Young, A24’s production head whose previous credits include projects like The Whale (budget: $3 million) and Waves (budget: $6 million), claimed the show wasn’t just slightly over budget, it was 100% over budget. Several members of the Crystal Lake production team refuted that assertion.” The Wrap found that the show was 4 to 6 million over budget for the entire season.

RIGHTS SITUATION

While the Friday the 13th franchise has been at a standstill in recent years due to a copyright lawsuit between original Friday the 13th producer/director Sean S. Cunningham and screenwriter Victor Miller, that lawsuit has come to an end. Miller has been awarded the copyright to the 1980 classic within the United States (as well as non-exclusive foreign rights), and to get this TV show rolling he has teamed up with his lawyer Marc Toberoff and Rob Barsamian – an investor in the original Friday the 13th who has a stake in the rest of the franchise. Due to the involvement of both Miller and Barsamian, the makers of Crystal Lake will be able to use anything they want from the existing Friday the 13th franchise. From Mrs. Voorhees to every variation of Jason Voorhees, it’s all fair game.

As Fuller told Fangoria, “We can use everything. We can go to Hell, we can go to space. That’s not to say that we will do those things … although if we do go 10 seasons, I will be lobbying hard to go to space. (laughs) A24 and Marc Toberoff, have beautifully and excruciatingly assembled all of the Friday the 13th rights. As a streaming series, we have the rights to do everything underneath the Friday the 13th umbrella. The movie rights are a completely different thing. They are tied up at New Line and are super, super messy and probably won’t be untangled anytime soon, but as far as us chickens in the television industry, uh, roost, we have access to anything and everything that Friday the 13th has done up until this point.“

Crystal Lake is part of A24’s goal to expand into more commercial projects, as they were specifically looking for a globally recognized property that could move them into more mainstream territory. So the idea of expanding the Friday the 13th franchise is very appealing to them. According to The Wrap’s article, Fuller’s approach to the material was to make each season a deconstruction of the first four Friday the 13th films. “The series would incorporate lore from several sequels but remix that material in a way similar to Fuller’s Hannibal, which interpolated the Thomas Harris novels for three seasons.” A source close to A24 confirmed, “We had the mask, we had the sequels, we could do whatever we wanted. He had a good path forward, which I did really like.“

CAST

Only one cast member was announced when Fuller was involved, but it’s a name Friday the 13th fans will be familiar with. Adrienne King, who played final girl Alice Hardy in the original film (and returned for the opening sequence of Friday the 13th Part 2, where she was killed off) will have a recurring role on Crystal Lake. It has not been revealed who King would be playing on the show, or if she’ll still be involved now that Fuller has moved on.

Fridaythe13thFranchise teased that there would be “big surprises coming for actors involved as well as who will be portraying certain characters“. We do know that Fuller met up with Friday the 13th (1980) and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter FX artist Tom Savini, but we don’t know what was discussed during that meeting.

WRITERS

When Fuller was showrunner, he was writing episodes of the show. He also revealed that Scream writer Kevin Williamson would be scripting an episode, which Williamson later described as an hour-long chase episode… and we learned that the chase sequence would be “set entirely on a frozen Crystal Lake, with the summer camp’s cabins trapped under snow drifts.” Fuller gathered a group of writers for what would usually be called a “writers room”, but for some reason it couldn’t legally be called that in this situation. Instead, it was called a “think tank” and these writers were brought together to brainstorm ideas for the show over the course of six weeks. In this think tank were Fuller’s “three lieutenants”, who have worked with him on previous shows like Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, and American Gods, as well as Tommy Pico, who is on the Reservation Dogs staff; Tananarive Due, who has written multiple novels over the last thirty years and executive produced Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror; and Steven Barnes, who is also an author and has also contributed scripts to shows like Stargate SG-1, The Outer Limits, and the ’80s version of The Twilight Zone. There were others in the think tank, but their names haven’t been revealed.

On Barnes and Due’s podcast Lifewriting: Write for Your Life!, Barnes said the work they did in the “think tank” was “The weaving together of a dozen different threads, the epitome of the plotter technique“… that being used to describe the approach of completely plotting out a story before writing it. “To write without any sense of an outline is diametrically opposed to what was happening in that room.” Every idea was broken down with meticulous detail.

Due was awed that “an entire room of very, very high level and smart storytellers can swim in the same direction and do so peacefully, and then if the showrunner says, ‘Eh, I don’t like that direction,’ then bam! They’re all swimming in another direction.” The goal in the room was to “integrate with the mastermind”, the mastermind being Fuller in this case. “You’re not in charge, it’s not your story, you are in service to the mastermind, in service to the showrunner.”

Barnes pointed out that the showrunner is then “in service to the money people who are actually paying for all of this, so he needs to able to communicate to the writers and keep a group of people on track, but also be able to understand how they would be able to produce this and comfort the money people that their money is being spent well.“

Apparently traditional writers rooms last for much longer, something like thirteen weeks. But Due and her collaborators were told “this room was moving very, very fast. That we broke the number of episodes we had in six weeks, whereas some rooms would have only broken one episode in six weeks.” They said they were able to work at that speed and figure out the episodes so quickly because of the “extraordinary leadership” of Fuller.

Williamson said the script Fuller wrote for the pilot episode “was so beautifully realized. A gorgeous portait of a mother unraveling in her grief. Not to mention bloody horrific!” Cube director Vincenzo Natali, who worked with Fuller on Hannibal, added that Fuller’s Crystal Lake would be “another Hannibal-level reinvention that was simultaneously beautiful, sad, poetic, funny and horrifying.” We don’t know if any scripts that were written under the guidance of Fuller will be used for the final version of the show.

MUSIC

Harry Manfredini created the memorable scores for most of the Friday the 13th films – including the iconic “Ki ki ki ma ma ma” sound effect. Other composers took over for Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Freddy vs. Jason, and the 2009 Friday the 13th. Fuller planned for there to be two musical options to choose from when fans watch Crystal Lake on Peacock: a classic Harry Manfredini score and a modern score.

“PRE-REMAKE-UEL”

When Crystal Lake was first announced, it was described in news reports as a “prequel” to the films. That’s not a term Fuller would use, and when asked about it he said it was a “pre-remake-uel”… whatever that may mean. During a later public appearance, he said, “We’re honestly going to be covering it all. The series is covering the life and times of these two characters” (presumably he’s referring to Pamela Voorhees and Jason Voorhees there!) The plan was that we would see “many familiar manifestations of Jason” throughout the series while revisiting Camp Crystal Lake.

Fuller also said the Crystal Lake series would be appropriately murderous, probably “dropping bodies every episode”. Much like Hannibal, the show would have a distinctive look.

MULTIPLE SEASONS

Peacock has given Crystal Lake a full-season commitment with a penalty if they don’t do a season 2, so it’s basically a two season commitment. Thinking ahead, Fuller mapped out four seasons of the show. When the show was announced, Fuller provided the following statement: “I discovered Friday the 13th in the pages of Famous Monsters magazine when I was 10 years old and I have been thinking about this story ever since. When it comes to horror, A24 raises the bar and pushes the envelope and I’m thrilled to be exploring the camp grounds of Crystal Lake under their banner.“

NEW SHOWRUNNER

Despite running into problems on Crystal Lake, A24 is still committed to making the show, which is said to be very important to Peacock. A source close to A24, lawyer Marc Toberoff, and a source close to NBCUniversal all confirmed that Crystal Lake is still moving forward. With Fuller removed from the job, it just needed to find a new showrunner – one A24 would be confident going into production with. It remains to be seen if they will use the original Fuller scripts and outlines, or start over completely. Nick Antosca – a co-producer on Hannibal and an executive producer on Chucky – was one of the contenders for the showrunner job, but it was believed that Antosca (who wrote the screenplay for an unmade Friday the 13th reboot back in 2015) would scrap Fuller’s work and rebuild Crystal Lake from the ground up if he signed on.

After a three month search, the showrunner job ended up going to Brad Caleb Kane, who also serves as co-showrunner and executive producer of It: Welcome to Derry, the It prequel series that’s coming to HBO next year. In addition to showrunner, Kane will be credited as creator, writer, and executive producer of Crystal Lake.

Kane hasn’t said whether or not he has any intention of salvaging elements from the Fuller scripts, but he did provide the following statement: “From the moment I watched Jason Voorhees squeeze a guy’s eyeball out of its socket (in glorious 3D!) at the tender age of 8 years old, I knew my creative path was someday destined to converge with The Man Behind The Mask. Nothing defined my childhood more than growing up in the golden age of the slasher flick, and nothing’s defined the genre more than Friday the 13th. I couldn’t be more excited for the opportunity to contribute a chapter to this iconic franchise, particularly with such fearless partners as Peacock and A24.“

Now, we wait to find out what Kane is going to do with this project now that it’s in his hands.

That’s everything we know about Crystal Lake at this point – but as more details are revealed, we’ll be sharing the news with you here on JoBlo and Arrow in the Head!

Buzzfeed and Netflix are negotiating to present the spicy interview show Hot Ones with Sean Evans in a live format.

Welcome to Hot Ones, the show with hot questions and even hotter wings. Today, we’re joined by the popular streamer Netflix to announce that Buzzfeed is in talks with the platform to launch our clever YouTube interview show for a live, spicy presentation. No deals are in place, but the meticulously researched show putting guests through the Hot Ones gauntlet is in the early stages of negotiations.

According to Variety, the show’s regular host, Sean Evans, could host select episodes of the live Hot Ones show on Netflix. The outlet emphasizes that no deal is in place yet, with Buzzfeed and Netflix remaining mum about any plans.

In case you’re unfamiliar, First We Feast’s Hot Ones, hosted by Sean Evans, finds celebrities in the hot seat fielding carefully curated questions while dining on a serving platter of hot wings. The wings get hotter with each question, causing many guests to break down under the pressure of millions of Scoville units. The clever interview formula puts guests in an increasingly vulnerable state as Sean turns up the heat, with unpredictability being the name of the game. Many guests act like they’re hot shit at first, but as the heat increases, they eventually lose their cool. Well, unless you’re Charlize Theron, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Olsen, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Padma Lakshmi, Brie Larson, Lorde, or Jenna Ortega.

In a recent episode, Sean hosted Donald Duck for the iconic character’s 90th birthday. The episode features seamless Who Framed Roger Rabbit-style animation, with Donald reacting to each wing with extreme expressions and desperation as he climbs the ladder.

Netflix hosting Hot Ones for a live presentation is interesting, considering the project’s real-time approach. Part of the appeal of Hot Ones is watching the show at your leisure on YouTube, removing the need to sit down at a specific date and time. Is Hot Ones popular enough to get people in front of screens when the show goes live? What if a guest is late or needs to cancel? I have a lot of questions.

What do you think about Netflix and Hot Ones possibly partnering for a live show? Would you set a Google alert reminding you to tune in? Let us know in the comments 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.

Friday the 13th slasher icon Jason Voorhees gets a nice shout-out in writer/director Kevin Smith’s new film The 4:30 Movie

There are some minor SPOILERS ahead if you don’t want anything about writer/director Kevin Smith’s new film The 4:30 Movie given away before you see it… but for those of you who would like to weigh whether not these are the sort of spoilers you feel you should avoid, I will say that this only concerns one exchange of dialogue and some of the special thanks seen in the end credits. Now, to get to the point: The 4:30 Movie is in theatres as of today, and since its release date also happens to be a Friday the 13th, I thought it was worth pointing out and celebrating the fact that Jason Voorhees, the iconic star of the Friday the 13th franchise, gets a shout-out in the movie!

Set in the summer of 1986, The 4:30 Movie is a coming-of-age comedy that follows three sixteen-year-old friends who spend their Saturdays sneaking into movies at the local multiplex. But when one of the guys also invites the girl of his dreams to see the latest comedy, each of the teens will learn something serious about life and love before the credits roll.

Austin Zajur (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark), Nicholas Cirillo (Outer Banks), and Reed Northrup (High Maintenance) play sixteen year old friends Brian David, Burny, and Belly, with Siena Agudong (Resident Evil) as the dream girl, Melody Barnegat. Ken Jeong (The Hangover), Sam Richardson (Veep), Genesis Rodriguez (Tusk), Justin Long (Barbarian), Jason Lee (Almost Famous), Rachel Dratch (I Love My Dad), Kate Micucci (The Big Bang Theory), Adam Pally (Sonic the Hedgehog), Harley Quinn Smith (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood), Jason Biggs (American Pie), and Method Man (Garden State) are also in the cast.

The 4:30 Movie was filmed at Smodcastle Cinemas in New Jersey, a theatre Smith now co-owns and used to hang out in every weekend when he was a teenager. Liz Destro, Josh Bachove, and Jordan Monsanto produced, with Bill Bromiley, Shanan Becker, and Jonathan Saba executive producing.

Since the movie follows a trio of movie-obsessed teens living in the ’80s, it’s not too surprising that they end up talking about slasher movies at one point – and since the viewing of slasher movies, especially Friday the 13th movies, takes up a large chunk of my life, this dialogue exchange happens to be one of my favorite parts of The 4:30 Movie. After Burny says he’s a horror movie expert and a slasher fan, Brian David asks him, “Who wins in a fight between Jason, Freddy, Leatherface, and Michael Myers?” Burny answers, “My man Jason Voorhees.” Which is a great answer, because my man Jason would also be my pick – and it’s nice to see the slasher icon get such respect in a movie that has been released on a Friday the 13th. But Brian David says the correct answer is, “The audience. We all win.” Which, if such a movie were to be made, would be true.

During the end credits scroll, Smith gives a special thanks to a long list of people, characters, and pastimes that gave him a happy childhood – and included on that list is Jason Voorhees, along with his fellow slasher Michael Myers.

As mentioned, The 4:30 Movie is in theatres now. JoBlo’s own Alex Maidy and I both rank it highly as one of the best movies Smith has ever made. You can read Alex’s review HERE.

Will you be watching The 4:30 Movie, and are you glad to hear that Jason Voorhees gets a nod in the movie? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

A trailer has been released for the Melissa Barrera horror rom-com musical, which has an October release date

Scream (2022) and Scream VI star Melissa Barrera – who was fired from Scream 7 when comments she made about the Israel-Hamas war didn’t go over well with executives at Spyglass Media – has the lead role in the film Your Monster, a project she had previously described as a “horror rom-com musical.” JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray had the chance to see the movie at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and wrote a 6/10 review you can read at THIS LINK. A wider audience will be able to see the movie when Vertical gives it a theatrical release on October 25th – and with that date just one month away, a trailer is now online. You can check it out in the embed above.

The feature directorial debut of Caroline Lindy, who wrote the film based on her 2019 short of the same name, Your Monster tells the story of the soft-spoken actor Laura Franco, who is dumped by her longtime boyfriend while recovering from surgery and retreats to her childhood home to recover. With her future looking bleak, insult is added to injury when Laura discovers her ex is staging a musical that she helped him develop. But out of these gut-wrenching life changes emerges a monster with whom she finds a connection, encouraging Laura to follow her dreams, open her heart and fall in love with her inner rage.

Barrera plays Laura Franco, with Tommy Dewey (Casual) as the monster and Edmund Donovan (Tell Me Lies) as her ex. Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus) and Kayla Foster (The Deuce) are also in the cast.

Speaking with Digital Spy, Barrera said Your Monster is “a horror rom-com musical. My character is a musical theatre actor, so there’s a musical in the movie. There’s a lot of singing and dancing in it. And it’s like a rom-com with elements of horror. It’s scary at times, and really funny at times. And it’s everything that I love in a movie combined into one.“

Vertical Partner Peter Jarowey had this to say about the distribution deal: “We were captivated by Caroline’s film at Sundance and thrilled it has made a home here at Vertical. Marking her directorial feature debut, she has created a fantastic, fresh, genre-defying film that perfectly balances the mix of comedy, romance and horror topped off with a dash of musical theater that will captivate and delight audiences later this year.“

Lindy and Foster produced the film with Shannon Reilly of Bombo Sports and Entertainment and Kira Carstensen and Melanie Donkers from Mermade, “a division of Sharon Horgan and Clelia Mountfor’s entertainment company Merman, which focuses on projects from emerging creators.” Dewey serves as an executive producer with Bombo’s Bob Potter. Jackson Sinder and Mermade’s Jack Taylor Cox are co-producers.

What did you think of the Your Monster trailer? Will you be catching this movie on the big screen next month? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

James McAvoy says he was a last-minute addition to Split after Joaquin Phoenix dropped out of the movie just before shooting was to begin.

James McAvoy did such an incredible job juggling multiple characters in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split that it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role, but McAvoy was actually a last-minute addition. Joaquin Phoenix had originally signed on to star, and James McAvoy told Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he got the role after Phoenix reportedly dropped out just two weeks before shooting was set to begin. Not a lot of time for McAvoy to prepare for so many characters.

The actor didn’t think it was weird to take over the role from Phoenix. “No, definitely not,” he said. “I’m confident enough to think that I will do it better anyway. I’m joking. I just like saying the wrong thing.” He added that Phoenix is “an amazing actor” and would likely have given “a very different performance than the one I did, but I think he’d give an incredible performance.” That would have been interesting to see.

McAvoy continued, “Sometimes coming in last minute is the best way. I think he ditched it two weeks before they started shooting. It was really last minute. I had a couple of weeks [to prep]. Two weeks. The script was well put together so a lot of it was clear what I wanted to do straight away. A couple characters took a little longer to find. Patricia came real quick. Dennis came real quick. Hedwig took awhile.“

Joaquin Phoenix is no stranger to dropping out of projects last minute; in fact, just last month, he exited a gay romance movie from Todd Haynes just days before filming was due to commence. It’s been said that Phoenix got “cold feet” about the project, which has unfortunately been scrapped entirely.

McAvoy can currently be seen in Speak No Evil, a psychological horror thriller which follows an American family who are invited to spend the weekend at the idyllic country estate of a charming British family they befriended on vacation. But what begins as a dream holiday soon warps into a snarled psychological nightmare. Our own Tyler Nichols was a fan, particularly of McAvoy’s performance. “James McAvoy is absolutely the star of the show and gives a riveting performance as Paddy. He’s electric from one moment to the next and brings such a chaotic energy,” Nichols wrote. “This is an all-time performance from McAvoy and will likely stand out as a career-best. As evil as the trailers make him out to be, the performance is much more nuanced and he draws you in. He’s like a dog playing with a new toy, just testing how best to tear it apart.” You can check out the rest of Nichols’ review right here.

The Batman director Matt Reeves is still aiming for a trilogy, saying they’re “sticking very closely to the path we envisioned.”

From the beginning, it was expected that The Batman would be the first part of a new trilogy. However, no one could have anticipated that a new DC Universe would take shape in the months after the release of the first movie. We’re still awaiting the release of The Batman Part II, but director Matt Reeves confirmed to Collider that he still plans on completing the trilogy.

“Yes, that is still the plan,” Reeves said. “I mean, it’s sticking very closely to the path we envisioned.” The director admitted that some things have shifted, most notably in the choice to showcase Penguin’s (Colin Farrell) rise to power in a TV series. “I had always intended to continue Penguin’s story, and wanted to tell this story of his beginning of rise to power. Because we know that he’s introduced in The Batman as a kind of mid-level, sort of overlooked, mocked figure, who’s not yet in anyone’s eyes the kingpin we come to know him as in the lore,” Reeves explained. “And so, that was deliberate because I wanted— whereas it wasn’t Batman’s origin story, I wanted the origin stories of these other characters, of the Rogues Gallery and that story was originally going to be the entrée into the next movie.“

The Batman Part II co-writer Mattson Tomlin has said the sequel will finally start shooting next year. It is currently slated for an October 2, 2026 release.

Just last week, Reeves revealed that DC is super excited about the sequel. “We’ve shared [the script] as we’ve been going along with DC, and they’re super excited,” Reeves said. “It’s going to dig into the epic story about deeper corruption, and it goes into places [Bruce Wayne] couldn’t even anticipate in the first one. The seeds of where this goes are all in the first movie & it expands in a way that will show you aspects of the character you never got to see. Batman is constantly battling these forces. But those forces can’t be entirely exorcised. So the next movie delves deeper into that.“

As for The Penguin, the series will premiere on HBO next week. Taking place after the events of The Batman, the series will find Oswald Cobblepot taking advantage of the power vacuum created by the death of Carmine Falcone. In addition to Farrell, the series stars Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone, daughter of the late Carmine, Rhenzy Feliz as Victor Aguilar, Oswald’s driver, Michael Kelly as Johnny Vity, Falcone family underboss, and Clancy Brown as Salvatore Maroni, a rival gangster. Shohreh Aghdashloo, Deirdre O’Connell, James Madio, Scott Cohen, Michael Zegen, Carmen Ejogo, and Theo Rossi also star in the series. Our own Alex Maidy called the series “a masterpiece that will be the defining performance of Colin Farrel’s career.” Damn! You can check out the rest of his review right here.

Roland Emmerich wants to take inspiration from The Godfather Part II for season 2 of Those About to Die, Peacock’s historical drama.

Although Those About to Die was a success for Peacock, it remains to be seen if we’ll see season 2 of the historical drama, but that hasn’t stopped Roland Emmerich from dreaming about it.

Should Those About to Die return for a second season, Emmerich told THR that he’d like to take a little inspiration from The Godfather Part II and feature dual timelines. “We hope to do a little bit what Godfather II did,” Emmerich said, adding that the show would continue the story in the present timeline and explore The Year of the Four Emperors in the flashback timeline. The flashbacks would take place 10 years before the events of the series and begin with the suicide of Emperor Nero (Emmerich is already thinking of who could play the character). This event led to power struggles and rebellions, with Galba, Otho, and Vitellius each being proclaimed Emperor one after another before Vespasian (played by Anthony Hopkins in the series) finally took control.

Those About to Die is “an epic drama set in the corrupt world of the spectacle-driven gladiatorial competition, exploring a side of ancient Rome never before told — the dirty business of entertaining the masses, giving the mob what they want most…blood and sport. The series introduces an ensemble of characters from all corners of the Roman Empire who collide at the explosive intersection of sports, politics, and dynasties.” Although the series wasn’t quite on the same level as something like HBO’s Rome, I did find myself enjoying it as pulpy entertainment. However, the same can’t be said for our own Alex Maidy, who found himself underwhelmed by the series.

“Those About To Die struggles to balance the historical accuracy of life in 79 A.D. with the complexities and dramatic tension needed for a long-format television series. There are characters in this series worth rooting for and despicable ones you will hate. The violence is explicit, and the action is well-choreographed. But that is all established in the premiere episode and repeated with minimal variation for ten episodes,” Maidy wrote. “Those About To Die is one of Peacock’s most visually ambitious projects, and it also says a lot about the limitations put on streaming series these days. I wanted to like Those About To Die but felt bored and underwhelmed. This series asked if I was entertained, and I responded with a big thumbs down.” You can check out the rest of his review right here.

Would you like to see season 2 of Those About to Die?

The author of the series that has been a huge hit for HBO has vowed to unveil the unwelcomed changes to his books.

It’s not unusual for changes to be made to the source material when adapting it to a different medium. It happens all the time with books as they make the leap onto movie or television screens. However, late last month, Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin vowed to detail the behind-the-scenes problems on the new HBO series House of the Dragon. In a new blog post on his official website, Martin said he’d reveal “everything that’s gone wrong” with House of the Dragon, the latest live-action series set in the Game of Thrones universe. Martin co-created the show and is an executive producer, with the series based on his novel Fire and Blood.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Martin explained (in a post that has since been deleted) that he was strongly opposed to changing Aegon and Helaena’s three children to just two for the show. Changes like that are common and seemingly don’t have an impact on the story. However, Martin professes that it causes a “butterfly effect” of consequences. In the “Blood and Chase” sequence in the season two premiere, Helaena is forced into a “Sophie’s Choice” moment between her two children, but in the book, it’s between all three children.

Martin writes in his blog, “I still believe the scene in the book is stronger.  The readers have the right of that. The two killers are crueler in the book. I thought the actors who played the killers on the show were excellent… but the characters are crueler, harder, and more frightening in FIRE & BLOOD. … I would also suggest that Helaena shows more courage, more strength in the book, by offering her own own life to save her son. Offering a piece of jewelry is just not the same … As I saw it, the ‘Sophie’s Choice’ aspect was the strongest part of the sequence, the darkest, the most visceral. I hated to lose that. And judging from the comments on line, most of the fans seemed to agree.”

He also explained, “I argued against it, for all these reasons. I did not argue long, or with much heat, however. The change weakened the sequence, I felt, but only a bit. And Ryan had what seemed to be practical reasons for it; they did not want to deal with casting another child, especially a two-year old toddler. Kids that young will inevitably slow down production, and there would be budget implications. Budget was already an issue on HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, it made sense to save money wherever we could. Moreover, Ryan assured me that we were not losing Prince Maelor, simply postponing him. Queen Helaena could still give birth to him in season three, presumably after getting with child late in season two. That made sense to me, so I withdrew my objections and acquiesced to the change.”

Martin, then, added, “Sometime between the initial decision to remove Maelor, a big change was made. The prince’s birth was no longer just going to be pushed back to season 3. He was never going to be born at all. The younger son of Aegon and Helaena would never appear.”

Months after being fired from X-Men ’97, creator Beau DeMayo blasts back at Marvel, alleging “near criminal working conditions.”

A week before the premiere of X-Men ’97, Marvel shockingly fired creator Beau DeMayo. At the time, it wasn’t entirely clear why DeMayo was fired from the series, but subsequent months have seen tensions rise between Marvel and the former showrunner. Marvel later claimed that DeMayo was fired following an internal investigation that turned up findings of an “egregious nature,” but DeMayo is fighting back.

Per Deadline, DeMayo claims the “allegations of egregious misconduct are false” before bashing Marvel for fostering a “toxic environment” and “near criminal working conditions” that “turns individuals against one another, stokes paranoia to ensure compliance.” DeMayo acknowledges that “personality conflicts happen” and that he wasn’t “everyone’s cup of team,” but claims that the real issue Marvel has was him “being gay, Black and open about it at Marvel Studios.“

“The rumors being spread around me online are lies, and they are offensive, but more concerning is that they’re a smear campaign designed to discredit my credibility in order to cover up the egregious prejudicial misconduct stretching from select crew members on X-Men ’97, all the way all the way to the top at Marvel Studios,” DeMayo said. “In the end, the offenses Marvel and others have leaked are designed to distract you from what really offended them. Someone like me dared to speak truth to people like them. They wanted me to be the Black stamp of approval on this project, I declined. They wanted to erase aspects of my personality that clashed or proved inconvenient with the misguided narratives they wanted to establish. I declined. They tried to intimidate me with both explicit and implied threats. I was not intimidated. Everything they have done since then has been designed not just to silence me and smear me, but to crush me and to remind me to know my role.“

He’s also going to court to have an “illegal non-disparagement provision” removed from his exit package documents and to keep his “bonus and writing credits.” Attorney Bryan Freedman said, “There are only two possible explanations for why Marvel and Disney had Beau sign an NDA that so obviously violated basic California law. Either incredulously Marvel and Disney’s hundreds of lawyers who advise over 250,000 employees all just happened to make a mistake or Marvel knowingly and intentionally attempted to silence Beau so they could have total control as to why he was no longer at Marvel, why he had his credits removed on season 2 and why he was uninvited to attend the very award show that nominated his hard work for an Emmy.“

DeMayo also claims he has “the receipts and the eyewitnesses so long as you stop coercing them to lie, you can keep attacking me with lies and misinformation, but we can become the ugliest, most annoying version of that of that … or you can start acting like a studio that is worthy of a show like X Men ‘97.” Now, I’m no big city country lawyer, but I have a feeling we haven’t heard the last of this.