Matthew Monagle
Hope Is Still Alive in This New ‘Rogue One’ TV Spot
We’re just about a month away from Disney’s biggest gamble on the Star Wars universe. While odds are good that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will do well at the box office — projects this big rarely fail to find their audience — there must be a little anxiety in the hearts of Star Wars fans and Disney executives alike. The studio has made some pretty big financial investments in their upcoming slate of standalone Star Wars stories; if Rogue One disappoints in its opening weekend, it could be seen as a shot across the bow of Disney’s future slate.
Director Joe Carnahan Provides Some Much-Needed ‘Bad Boys 3’ Updates
If there’s one thing that Joe Carnahan excels at, it’s overshooting our expectations. I promise that isn’t just faint praise: Carnahan has rebooted The A-Team as a summer movie; shot a feature-length film where Liam Neeson punches wolves; released an ensemble action film about the mob trying to kill a magician. Each of these films could have been a disaster in the wrong hands, but Carnahan has consistently delivered fun and thoughtful action movies where audiences least expect it. For my money, that makes him one of the most underrated writer-directors working in the action genre today.
The Secret Ingredient Is Magic in the New ‘Fantastic Beasts’ Clip
Do you prefer pie or strudel? It’s a valid question. If you ask the faceless horde over at Yahoo! Answers, the correct response is pie (and it isn’t really even that close). But if you ask Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them character — and noted muggle — Jacob Kowalski, there’s nothing that hits the spot quite like a piping hot strudel for dinner. The secret ingredient? Why, magic, of course.
This Horror Movie Supercut Is Perfect for Your Halloween Party
How are your plans for Halloween shaping up? For me, the hardest part of throwing a Halloween party is choosing a soundtrack. We can probably all agree that those sound effect CDs — the ones with creaking doors and thunder and maniacal laughter — have no business outside of an elementary school haunted house, but then what? Do you put together a playlist of all the obvious soundtrack selections? Do you choose pop songs that have some vague tie-in to the season? Who really wants to hear Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” on Halloween for the umpteenth time, anyways?
‘Rogue One’ Gets a Rumored Runtime
Sometimes I feel sorry for studio executives. You put so much time and money into making sure you run a tight ship — absolutely no leaks, meaning that you get to dictate when and where details about your new film are released to the public — and then one of your corporate partners accidentally posts a key plot point or a character photo on their website earlier than you intended, and all that hard work has been wiped away. It’s tough work keeping Hollywood’s secrets, especially for a movie as big as Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Rumor: Han Solo Will Win the Millennium Falcon in His Standalone ‘Star Wars’ Movie
Even if you do live under a rock, you probably still heard the news on Friday that Donald Glover would be joining the Star Wars Han Solo prequel movie as dapper smuggler Lando Calrissian. Since the news broke, fans have speculated as to how the two characters would come together in the story. Would Lucasfilm focus on the earlier days of Han Solo’s smuggling career and the friendship between the two men? Or would it get right to the heart of the matter and show Han Solo winning the Millennium Falcon from his friend?
Watch This Supercut of All Available ‘Rogue One’ Footage
It seems like the only time that people talk about trailers is to complain about them in some fashion. They gave away too much, they gave away too little, they didn’t feature the right colors or characters or soundtrack. It’s tough to cut an enticing movie trailer in 2016, not least of all because of our culture’s increasing hand-wringing about what constitutes a spoiler. A good trailer — one that gives you just enough without giving you everything — should be celebrated as its own miniature art form.
Matt Damon Must Defend ‘The Great Wall’ in the First Theatrical Trailer
If the first teaser for The Great Wall piqued your interest, you’re in luck: Universal Pictures just released the first full-length theatrical trailer for The Great Wall as part of their New York Comic-Con panel on the film. Unlike the first trailer, here we actually get a good look at the monsters and an explanation for why Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal are fighting in China in the first place.
Carrie Fisher Weighs in on Why Han and Leia Split Up Prior to ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’
Any Star Wars fan knows that nobody speaks as bluntly about the franchise as Carrie Fisher. While Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill might be counted on for the occasional funny soundbite or bit of interesting backstory, if you really want one of the Star Wars actors to lay their chips on the table, it’s Carrie Fisher you need to listen to. The actress and writer possesses one of the most acerbic wits in all of Hollywood and has never shied away from trying to spin her sense of humor into backdoor Star Wars cannon.
‘Jurassic World 2’ Director J.A. Bayona Confirms ‘Jurassic World’ Trilogy
About a year ago, Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow went on a Jurassic Park-themed podcast and talked about Universal’s plans to make his film the first in a trilogy of movies about dinosaur-induced mayhem. And while nothing really seemed to indicate that the creative team had switched gears since then, today we did finally get confirmation that a Jurassic World trilogy is still the plan going forward.
Watch the Olympic Games Trailer for ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’
While fans of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series may always secretly resent the Olympic Games for not recognizing Quidditch as an official sport, that doesn’t mean the Olympics have nothing to offer them. This past week, the newest trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them premiered during the international events, offering us perhaps our best look yet at the upcoming expansion of the Harry Potter universe.
New ‘Rogue One’ Trailer to Premiere During Olympics on Thursday
If the prospect of watching thousands of athletes from over 200 countries compete for sporting immortality wasn’t enough to get you watching, there is now another reason for you to turn on the Olympics this week. According to a short teaser that ran during today’s events, NBC will be airing a brand new trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as part of their Thursday night lineup. Here is one of the teasers (via Heroic Hollywood).