Wesley Snipes talked with Comic Book Resources about the return of Blade and if that return would be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Snipes also hinted Marvel may have another character in mind for the actor.
“Well, we’ve had some discussions. We have had very positive and favorable discussions about the Blade character and other things they have in mind. We’ll see where it goes. For those Blade fans, if we never reprise Blade, I have another character that will stand toe to toe with Blade any day. It’s not done yet,” said Snipes to CBR.
Do you want to see a fourth film or a Netflix series?
Worldwide Gross:
Blade (1998) – $131,183,530 (budget n/a)
Blade II (2002) – $155,020,032 ($54 million budget)
Blade: Trinity (2004) – $128,905,366 ($65 million budget)
Jimmy Fallon extended his NBC “Tonight Show” contract for six more years, which will take him through Fall 2021, Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt said on Thursday.
Kevin Hart and Ice Cube are back for Ride Along 2, Hart’s screams exploded on the internet today as the first trailer dropped. The dynamic duo are headed to Miami solve a case and Olivia Munn is added to the cast to kick ass and chew bubble gum (and she’s all out of bubble gum). If Hart gets tired of screaming the producers brought in Ken Jeong to help out.
Ride Along 2 will be in theaters on January 15, 2016.
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind the Emmy Award-winning program Sesame Street, and HBO, the nation’s leading premium cable network, today announced a new partnership that will make the next five seasons of the iconic series available on HBO and its multiplex channels, HBO GO, HBO On Demand and the new internet-only SVOD service HBO NOW. As a key part of the deal, Sesame will be able to produce almost twice as much new content as previous seasons, and for the first time ever, make the show available free of charge to PBS and its member stations after a nine-month window.
“Our new partnership with HBO represents a true winning public-private partnership model,” said Jeffrey D. Dunn, Sesame Workshop’s CEO. “It provides Sesame Workshop with the critical funding it needs to be able to continue production of Sesame Street and secure its nonprofit mission of helping kids grow smarter, stronger and kinder; it gives HBO exclusive pay cable and SVOD access to the nation’s most important and historic educational programming; and it allows Sesame Street to continue to air on PBS and reach all children, as it has for the past 45 years.”
In addition to the next five seasons of Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop will produce a Sesame Street Muppet™ spinoff series, as well as develop a new original educational series for children. HBO has also licensed over 150 library episodes of Sesame Street. The new episodes will begin airing as early as late fall 2015, and HBO will be the exclusive, first-run subscription television distribution partner for Sesame Street and the new series. HBO will have the right to air all series in both English and Spanish. All new series will also be made available to PBS and its member stations after the first window. Episodes of Sesame Street will continue to be made available, uninterrupted, as part of the PBS KIDS service on PBS member stations.
“We are absolutely thrilled to help secure the future of Sesame Street and Sesame Workshop’s mission for the nation’s kids and families,” said Richard Plepler, Chairman and CEO of HBO, and Michael Lombardo, President, HBO Programming. “Home Box Office is committed to bringing the most groundbreaking and creative shows to its audience. Sesame Street is the most important preschool education program in the history of television. We are delighted to be a home for this extraordinary show, helping Sesame Street expand and build its franchise.”
“I’ve long admired the creative work of HBO and can’t think of a better partner to continue the quality of Sesame Street’s programming,” commented Joan Ganz Cooney, co-founder of Sesame Street. “Over the past decade, both the way in which children are consuming video and the economics of the children’s television production business have changed dramatically. In order to fund our nonprofit mission with a sustainable business model, Sesame Workshop must recognize these changes and adapt to the times.”
In addition to Sesame Street, HBO will also license approximately 50 past episodes of the two acclaimed children’s series Pinky Dinky Doo, an animated series for preschoolers that focuses on early literacy, and The Electric Company, which was rebooted in 2009, from Sesame Workshop.
San Diego Comic Con is the biggest pop culture convention in the states. (Notice I didn’t call it a comic book convention.) Dragon Con boost the most insane cosplay, but 2015 was my first Mega Con and I was so impressed with amount and the quality of the cosplay in Orlando, FL.
FD Sedano from Miami put together not one but four insane cosplay music videos to showcase the talent from Mega Con 2015.
Earlier we reported that Garret Dillahunt tweeted out there were credible Deadwood movie rumors. In a statement released to The Hollywood Reporter, HBO confirmed those rumors.
“In reference to Garret Dillahunt’s tweet regarding the rumored Deadwood movie, there have only been very preliminary conversations,” the statement reads.
The series ran from 2004 to 2006 and was canceled due to budget concerns. Deadwood was created by David Milch and stared Timothy Olyphant, Ian McShane, John Hawkes, Molly Parker, Kim Dickens, Powers Boothe, Brad Dourif and Garret Dillahunt.
The Fantastic 4 released last weekend to a massive flop. The crazy part is that the super group had another awful foray in film in 1994, but would it still be better than the latest cut?
The short answer is yes the 1994 version of Fantastic 4 is better than the new one because I didn’t have to pay for it.
The long answer is no, because this movie would have been what nightmares are made of had it been released.
Painfully awful cinematography, the destruction of a few classic characters and a badass villain all while the strongest man on screen looks like a ninja turtle that was left in the sun for a decade.
Count me out.
At first I was fully prepared to say that I would rather sit through an unwatchable, unreleased Fantastic 4 movie but then I saw the sheer horror that the movie studios shielded the masses from and I take it back. Roger Corman definitely tried his best at the time but this trailer and the film, if you choose to watch it, are reminders of why comic book films were looked at as jokes up until recently.
One redeeming aspect is that Dr. Doom doesn’t look as awful as The Thing, but I can’t even imagine what it looks like when Human Torch turns the flame on.
I don’t care how painfully awful the new Fantastic 4 is, I would probably be brought to tears if I had to watch the full length film.
What do you think of this trailer? Let us know in the comments below if you toughed it out and watched the entire film!
Dillahunt starred as Francis Wolcott in the HBO series, which ran for three seasons before budgetary constraints forced the show off the air.
Naturally, this has fans of HBO’s Western all abuzz with the possibilities. Bringing Deadwood to the silver screen makes sense on a couple of fronts. First of all, the writing and the textures of the show beg for a sweeping, epic treatment. More importantly, if you ask me, we are in another one of those “Westerns are dead” doldrums in Hollywood. Perhaps The Hateful Eight will revive the Western first, but Deadwood could also change that stigma for the better.
Actor Regina Hall (Scary Movie) stopped by to talk about her latest film People Places Things, written and directed by James C. Strouse (Grace is Gone).
The film stars Jemaine Clement as Will Henry a newly single graphic novelist balancing parenting his young twin daughters and a classroom full of students while exploring and navigating the rich complexities of new love and letting go of the woman who left him. Regina plays Clement’s love interest.
Bonus track: Star Wars, Batman v Superman, and Civil War news
A photo posted by Regina Hall (@morereginahall) on
ABOUT REGINA HALL
Staking claim on her fame with her role in the comedy-horror spoof Scary Movie, Regina Hall has frequented the big screen in roles that far from betrayed her age. Born in 1971 in Washington, D.C., Hall earned a degree in journalism from N.Y.U. before embarking on a film career. In 1997, she began appearing in commercials at age 26, and then made the giant leap into movies. Her recurring role in Scary Movie and the sequel Scary Movie 2 exhibited the 30-year-old’s ability to maintain her youthful appearance, as she portrayed the high-school-aged Brenda Meeks. Hall’s first film role had come in 1999 with a small role in Malcolm D. Lee’s drama The Best Man. The following year, she made several film appearances, including her starring role in Scary Movie. In addition, she played small parts in two films directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, the drama Love and Basketball, and the TV movie Disappearing Acts, featuring Sanaa Lathan and Wesley Snipes. In 2001, Hall’s list of credits grew to include her first television role, as Corretta Lipp on the prime-time drama Ally McBeal, which was a recurring role for several episodes. Also that year, Scary Movie 2 was released, in addition to the Mandel Holland comedy The Other Brother, featuring Hall as Vicki. One year later, she starred in the action-drama Paid in Full, directed by Charles Stone III. She reprised her role as Brenda Meeks yet again for Scary Movie 3 (2003) and Scary Movie 4 (2006), and played a supporting role in the 2009 crime thriller Law Abiding Citizen. The following year she had some success for her supporting role in Neil LaBute’s remake of Frank Oz’s black comedy Death at a Funeral, in which she co-starred with Danny Glover, Peter Dinklage, and Martin Lawrence, among others. She co-starred with Kevin Hart and Michael Ealy in Think Like a Man (2012), which was adapted from Steve Harvey’s non-fiction self-improvement book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man
ABOUT HER MOVIE PEOPLE PLACES THINGS
When we meet quirky, offbeat Will Henry (Jemaine Clement), things are going pretty well. He’s making a decent living as a graphic artist and professor in Brooklyn and throwing an over-the-top fifth birthday party for his two lively twin girls, Collette and Clio (Gia and Aundrea Gadsby). But then he walks in on the twins’ mother Charlie (Stephanie Allynne), only to see his longtime partner in a compromising position with their mutual friend Gary (Michael Chernus), a shlumpy but surprisingly successful performance artist. In a heartbeat, Will’s world collapses.
A year later, Will has relocated to a tiny apartment in Astoria, and though he still puts in a good effort to mentor and inspire his students, his own artwork has grown as grim as his droll but self-deprecating sense of humor. When Charlie decides that Will needs to take on more responsibility in raising their daughters, Will finds that he lacks both the confidence and the experience to be an effective dad. And navigating the single life is no easy task either – at least until one of his more promising students, Kat (Jessica Williams) approaches him with a proposition. She sets up Will with her mother, Diane (Regina Hall) – something that both Will and Diane treat as a bit of a courtesy to Kat, rather than show much interest in each other.
An accomplished professor at Columbia, Diane isn’t much impressed with Will’s “comic book” art or his somewhat self-defeating attitude. But as time goes on, Will starts to find unexpected delight in the travails of fatherhood and bachelorhood. As he realizes that he’s going to have to learn how to both let go of and get along with Charlie, he also starts to open up more when he gets another chance with Diane, who sees the impact that he is having on her own daughter. Ultimately, it’s unlikely Will will find himself back exactly in the happy place he started – but he learns that there are always new people, places, and things that make the unexpected events in life that much more special and meaningful.
There’s a great deal to like in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., director Guy Ritchie’s highly-stylized take on the classic spy TV series of the 60’s, particularly in the casting and visual and storytelling aesthetics to which Ritchie so fully commits the film.
It’s too bad he and the three other writers credited with the film’s story didn’t come up with a strong enough plot to be worthy of all that style and the talent they brought together in front of the camera. Look past the well-crafted period setting and Cold War-era tropes and what they give audiences is a “buddy cop” film that predictably serves as a launching pad for what Warner Bros. clearly hopes can be a franchise. That’s not to say it’s not entertaining — it is, at times — but in comparison to other spy-themed action thrillers this year, it just doesn’t deliver the same level of innovative excitement.
1963 East Germany. The C.I.A.’s top agent, Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill, Man of Steel), finds himself being tailed and eventually chased and shot at by a rather formidable K.G.B. agent while attempting to reach Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander, Ex-Machina), the feisty daughter of a missing ex-Nazi rocket scientist, and extract her to Allied-controlled West Germany. He barely manages to get her out, but to his surprise, the mission doesn’t end with her extraction. Instead, he and Gaby are teamed with the very K.G.B. agent that tried to kill him the night before, Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer, The Lone Ranger), as part of a joint intelligence operation to find Gaby’s father and prevent him from building a nuclear weapon for the people presumably holding him.
Naturally, the rakish and glib Solo and the stolid, sometimes volatile Kuryakin have some issues to work out before they can effectively work together, and Gaby’s none too thrilled to have to play nice with the Russian, either. But the nefarious folks they’re after are clearly dangerous enough that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. feel it necessary to put aside their political differences and work together, so it’s not as though the spies and their asset have any choice. Make nice, stop the bad guys from starting a nuclear war, then they can all go back to trying to kill each other. Simple enough, right?
In re-imagining Solo, Kuryakin, U.N.C.L.E., and their world of international intrigue and spy-fi derring do, Ritchie and writing partner Lionel Wigram, with whom he previously worked on the Robert Downey Jr./Jude Law Sherlock Holmes films, retain the source material’s Cold War setting and recognizable tropes while also adopting a consciously European style of storytelling pace. The result is somewhat reminiscent of Steven Soderbergh’s deliberate style choices in the second of his Ocean’s trilogy, Ocean’s Twelve, or director Anton Corbijn’s vision and pace in another George Clooney vehicle, 2010’s The American, where the creation of atmosphere and full utilization of the film’s exotic settings seems to take precedence over keeping the action going at a breakneck pace. As such, while U.N.C.L.E. is certainly a pretty film to look at from start to finish, particularly in its second and third acts when the action is primarily set in Rome and in other parts of the Mediterranean, it doesn’t feel as tightly or efficiently plotted as it could have. While it never slows to a complete crawl, that lack of urgency, that prioritization of aesthetic over tension and adrenaline, may not appeal to all audiences, particularly those with Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation or even Kingsman: The Secret Service fresh in memory from earlier this year.
What should appeal to most audiences in U.N.C.L.E., to be fair, is the film’s casting. Cavill in particular shines here as Solo, who is, in essence, an American version of 007. Cavalier, impeccably tailored and styled while unmistakably dangerous, Solo was originally created for the TV series with input from Bond creator Ian Fleming himself; thus, in bringing Solo to life in this film in such a memorable way, Cavill is in part making his case to perhaps someday play Bond on screen himself. Hammer doesn’t get to have quite as much fun playing the super-serious and soft-spoken Kuryakin, but it’s undeniably fun to watch the two foils play off of each other, as they are each other’s opposite in every meaningful way save for effectiveness in the field. As far as the film’s action, both actors have no trouble with credibly delivering the requisite physicality to sell those sequences; in fact, they do so well with the action they’re given that you might find yourself wishing the film had more action-driven set pieces. The ladies in this ensemble also get a chance to hold their own and have a little fun, as the “Bond girl”/damsel in distress is one cliché Ritchie and Wigram wisely avoid using in their script. Vikander, who made a very strong impression in the critically-acclaimed Ex-Machina back in January, in particular gets to cut loose and give the boys a run for their money, while Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby) is deliciously cold and calculating as Victoria, the film’s true evil mastermind. Hugh Grant cheekily rounds out this terrific ensemble as Waverly, a British agent whose role in the entire affair will lead him to become very important in the lives of Solo and Kuryakin should U.N.C.L.E. in fact be the first in a new franchise.
But again, all that effort at European style and all that charisma in front of the camera can’t quite overcome the failings of a screen story that’s little more than a hodge-podge of the very spy movie plots that the film tries so hard to honor. Put a simpler way, the folks behind the camera in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. thought their concept and execution so clever that it could make a story built almost entirely from clichés feel fresh, vibrant, and fun, and it just isn’t. At the end of the day, it’s a film that can’t escape its conventionality, that you know exactly where things are going and where they’ll end up by the end. Perhaps that’s true of many mainstream films these days, particularly action films and thrillers, but the best ones of late, the ones that stand out and have audiences excitedly talking about them long after the credits have rolled, are ones where you may have an idea where things will end up by the end, but you have no idea how the film will get there once the bullets start flying and things get complicated.
Considering that Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows made their mark on the box office and on audiences in part by being so unconventional in its approach to its iconic source material, it’s a strange thing indeed to see him take on another iconic property and see it fall short because it’s “too conventional.” Suffice to say, this Man from U.N.C.L.E. probably won’t make even close to the kind of impression that the Holmes films did. Instead, it’s more likely to leave you thinking about how it could and should have been better.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Starring Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, with Jared Harris and Hugh Grant. Directed by Guy Ritchie.
Running Time: 116 minutes
Rated PG-13 for action violence, some suggestive content, and partial nudity.
