What Do We Know About Y: Marshals, the upcoming Yellowstone spin-off series focused on Luke Grimes as Kayce Dutton? More than you may think. The CBS series is slated to continue where the original Yellowstone left off, but in a direction we have never seen from a Taylor Sheridan series before. From plot, casting news, and more, let’s dive in and look at what is coming up in the new addition to the Yellowstone franchise.

Y: Marshals will be a procedural.

While the term procedural may not be something the general public is familiar with, it represents many series on network television. Procedural refers to any series that follows a law enforcement or military agency as they investigate crimes, while the audience gets to follow along. Think of shows like Law & Order, NCIS, CSI, or any other acronym-titled show. In the case of this Yellowstone spin-off, Y: Marshals will follow Kayce Dutton, the youngest son of Kevin Costner’s John Dutton, as he “joins an elite unit of U.S. Marshals, combining his skills as a cowboy and Navy SEAL to bring range justice to Montana, where he and his teammates must balance family, duty and the high psychological cost that comes with serving as the last line of defense in the region’s war on violence” per the official logline.

The series will air on CBS.

Rumors about the new Marshals series have been floating around for some time, and we mentioned it back in our breakdown of the Yellowstone spin-off focused on Beth and Rip. The most significant shift for this series is that it will be the first Taylor Sheridan entry in the Yellowstone franchise that will debut on network television. While Yellowstone has been repurposed and edited for content to air on CBS after the initial run on Paramount Network, Y: Marshals will be explicitly designed for CBS standards. This likely means the series will look and feel very different from any other Yellowstone project.

Taylor Sheridan will not be the showrunner.

Taylor Sheridan has so many projects in flight, ranging from The Madison and the next Yellowstone origin series to Tulsa King, Mayor of Kingstown, Lioness, and more. The guy does not have time to run another series. Spencer Hudnut will step in as showrunner on Marshals, having worked on a similar procedural series, SEAL Team. Sheridan will remain aboard the new spin-off as executive producer alongside John Linson, Art Linson, Ron Burkle, David Hutkin, and Bob Yari. Star Luke Grimes will also get credit as an executive producer for the series.

The Yellowstone finale may have set up this spin-off.

The Yellowstone series finale saw Kayce sell the Dutton Ranch back to Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) for the price initially paid by his ancestors in the 19^th century, $1.25 an acre, while retaining a small parcel for his family to live on. The final episodes also saw Kayce call in some favors from his military connections to take down his brother Jamie and protect his family legacy. The brief moments of Kayce exercising his military skills should work well for his investigations in the new series. Still, it remains to be seen why he would join the marshals after reluctantly serving in any official capacity during his time on Yellowstone.

Which Yellowstone characters will appear?

It seems pretty much a guarantee that the new series will feature Kelsey Asbille as Kayce’s wife, Monica, and Brecken Merrill as their son, Tate. Because Kayce lives with his family on a part of the former Dutton property, we will likely see Gil Birmingham and other members of the Yellowstone cast who did not move away from Montana at the end of the flagship series.

Could there be crossover potential?

We should never rule out the opportunity for CBS and Paramount to find a way to maximize the potential for Y: Marshals to reunite Kayce with his sister Beth, played by Kelly Reilly, and Rip Wheeler, played by Cole Hauser. Because of the tonally distinct nature of Yellowstone and this procedural, the crossover may or may not happen often. Still, it would be a missed opportunity if they did not explore it.

When will we see it?

Production is slated to begin in Summer 2025 as Hudnut and Sheridan have a massive budget on their hands that will eclipse other network television shows. How watered down the content will be compared to premium cable and streaming services, which can present their series with nudity, violence, and profanity that CBS cannot. CBS has already announced a Sunday night timeslot of 9 pm EST for Y: Marshals and that the series will consist of 13 episodes. They also have locked in a Spring 2026 premiere, which means we will learn more about the casting and plot specifics of the series very soon.

Stay tuned to JoBlo.com as we learn more about Y: Marshals and your favorite shows. What do you expect to see in the upcoming Yellowstone spin-off series? Let us know in the comments, and click the like and subscribe to follow all our latest original videos.

The post Y: Marshals: Everything We Know About The Yellowstone Procedural Starring Luke Grimes appeared first on JoBlo.

The release of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning marks the culmination of the biggest undertaking of Tom Cruise’s professional career. Regardless or whether or not it turns out to be the last entry into the series, and Ethan Hunt’s final mission, it wraps up an epic two-film storyline. By the time it hits theatres, it will have taken up a full five years of Cruise’s career, with him working on little else since the first of the two films, Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning, started production in 2020. And, with us having seen the new film last week, we can confirm that it’s a direct continuation of the previous film’s storyline. With so much riding on this movie, now is a good time to look back at the last entry, which, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, failed to live up to expectations at the box office, putting pressure on this sequel to overperform.

Now, it should be noted that Dead Reckoning was not the first Mission: Impossible movie to open to a relatively cool reception at the box office. Back in the summer of 2006, Mission: Impossible 3 was supposed to be the blockbuster hit of the year, but Cruise’s stardom had taken a beating the year previously, thanks to some oddball press appearances which put the focus on his Scientology beliefs over the movies he was promoting. Indeed, the movie still ranks as the lowest-grossing installment in the franchise, with only $134 million in domestic grosses, which failed to match the budget and was significantly less than what the first two films had made. It kicked off perhaps the worst period of Cruise’s career, followed by a rare slew of flops that included Knight and Day, Valkyrie (very underrated), and Lions for Lambs.

Yet, the Mission: Impossible series also proved to be Cruise’s box office redemption, with him launching a fourth film, Ghost Protocol, which was an all-or-nothing attempt to do a soft reboot of the series. It took Ethan Hunt to far-flung international locales, and emphasized incredible stunt work performed by the star himself, with that film famous for Cruise climbing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. While the buzz had been that Jeremy Renner’s character, William Brandt, was meant to be an eventual replacement for Hunt, no one leaving the theatre after Ghost Protocol had any doubt over whether or not the series still belonged to Cruise. It was a much-needed box office hit for Cruise, as were the two follow-ups, Rogue Nation and Fallout, which saw the directorial reigns taken over by Christopher McQuarrie, and the envelope pushed even further in terms of action.

By all accounts, Dead Reckoning was a killer as far as production goes. It likely would have gone fine had its shoot not coincided with the worldwide pandemic, bringing everything to a standstill. The movie had been in production for about forty days when the pandemic reached its boiling point, leading to a months-long hiatus. In the meantime, the movie lost the actor who was set to play the young antagonist, Nicholas Hoult, leading to major re-writes, where Esai Morales eventually took over the reconfigured role, where the baddie, Gabriel, was now a former colleague of Ethan’s from his younger days. 

One thing worth noting is that all eyes were on Dead Reckoning as it was shot, as no one quite knew how a movie such as this could be shot amid a quarantine, leading to much tension on the set. This all hit the breaking point when audio leaked of Cruise having a meltdown on set over violated safety protocols, where he reaffirmed the fact that the movie industry, as a whole, was on the edge of a virtual complete shutdown. He said that people back home were looking at them as a way to go forward, and if they were shut down, it could spell disaster for every other big movie that was trying to shoot safely. The leaked audio actually bolstered Cruise’s popularity, and it’s worth noting that when his long-delayed Top Gun: Maverick, which had been shot pre-pandemic, finally hit theatres in 2022, it was one of the first monster hits of the pandemic era, and Cruise’s most popular film to date.

However, all of this on-set chaos led to Dead Reckoning having a massive budget that approached the $300 million mark. Thus, it had to clear an enormous hurdle to be considered profitable when it opened. Sadly, the movie fell victim to a few unforeseen events that seriously hampered its business. One was the SAG/AFTRA strike, which meant that Cruise, despite his pleas for an exception, had to cut short his worldwide publicity tour, badly impacting the global box office (it also led to a huge shooting delay for The Final Reckoning, leading to it being delayed a full year). Another issue was that movie didn’t resonate with audiences the way other instalments had, with many disliking the fact that it was only part one of a two-film saga, which left many people feeling that by the time the credits rolled they hadn’t gotten a whole experience, even if it was the longest movie of the series to date, and had some of the biggest action scenes ever film. Audiences also were upset that Rebecca Ferguson’s fan favourite character, Isla Faust, was killed off, while the movie also fell prey to the Barbenheimer phenomenon that took over theatres only a week after Dead Reckoning came out. 

Of the two movies, it was Oppenheimer that really cut into Dead Reckoning’s box office. While Fallout had been shot for IMAX, with large-scale, IMAX-aspect ratio enhanced sequences, Dead Reckoning was shot conventionally, and only optimized for IMAX after the fact, without the aspect ratio increase. This underwhelmed many fans who shelled out good money to see it in that format, and couldn’t compare to Oppenheimer, which took over IMAX screens and had been shot in the full IMAX aspect ratio.

But rather than pull the plug on the next movie, the choice was made to abandon the idea of releasing the film as Dead Reckoning Part 2. It was also slated to have action scenes shot in the full IMAX aspect ratio, making it one of the more anticipated movies to come out that way this summer.

As it stands, The Final Reckoning is much anticipated by fans of the series and of Cruise’s. If it does mark the end, one has to look at the entire saga as Cruise’s largest undertaking, with the one-two shooting of the Reckoning films the most ambitious thing he’s ever done. Whether or not it pays off remains to be seen, but one must admire Cruise’s dedication to his craft and the art of epic movie-making. 

The post Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: You need to revisit this before you see The Final Reckoning appeared first on JoBlo.

You know what sounds like a hard sell to a Hollywood studio? A chain smoking antihero with a bad attitude and terminal lung cancer whom God himself doesn’t like. Dipping in and out of actual Hell. Where, by the way, Satan can’t wait to torture him for eternity. Oh, and it’s a large-ish budget superhero movie based on a DC/Vertigo comic. It’s a road that would include lawsuits, a music video director, a comic book creator who would rather leave free money on the table than be involved, and the MPAA gumming up the works. But where there’s a Keanu Reeves….there’s a way. This is what happened to Constantine.

The origins of Constantine began in June of 1986 when famed comic creator Alan Moore introduced him in The Saga of Swamp Thing #37. The occult investigator from England was on the hunt for information about something big happening in the supernatural world, (something that might even be Satan himself) when he crosses paths with Swamp Thing. The smart-ass, cigarette smoking character proved to be a hit among fans and achieved his own series three years later titled Hellblazer. Running from 1988 to 2013 and becoming Vertigo’s longest running title. Constantine’s Hellblazer had become a major staple for the label that allowed DC to explore darker, more adult fare in their stories.

When the idea to produce the film came across Producer Lauren Shuler Donner’s desk, she saw it as an opportunity to turn a comic book into a classic horror movie such as The Exorcist. She began development in 1997 and would at one point attach Bulletproof Monk director Paul Hunter to the project before pivoting to visionary director of The Cell, Tarsem Singh. Needless to say that didn’t work out. Singh left the project around 2001 and was promptly sued by Warner Brothers for violating the terms of his contract. Singh retorted by counter suing them, claiming that they didn’t live up to their end of the bargain. He claimed Warner Bros took away his creative rights on the film and wouldn’t allow him to make changes to the script nor meet with the writers.

Speaking of the writers, you wouldn’t see creator Alan Moore’s name attached to the project at the time, either. He’d become jaded with the industry after adaptations of his work on League of Extraordinary Gentleman and From Hell. He not only demanded not to be credited for the film, but requested his royalties be dispersed among the others who had worked on the character. He really meant that sh*t!

The story would be written by The Glimmer Man writer Kevin Brodbin as well as writer Jamie Delano, with a screenplay by Frank Capello based loosely on the Hellblazer stories, with a particular focus on The Boys writer Garth Ennis’ Dangerous Habits story arc. This was something pitched by Cappello, who was fascinated with the idea that a larger than life hero who had dealt with as many dark forces as Constantine had being bested by something as simple as a cigarette. The title of the film was changed from Hellblazer to Constantine to avoid any confusion with another dark story about death and the afterlife… Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. Side note: Would love to see Keanu in a Hellraiser movie.

One on hand, Warner Bros and company played with a lot of dangerous sins themselves. The writers and studio took multiple liberties with the character from the comic books. They moved the story from England to LA. And I don’t know if anyone noticed? But Keanu Reeves isn’t British. He doesn’t play the character British, either. He in no way resembles the musician Sting as the comic book had. Neither does Nicolas Cage, who was at one point attached to play the titular character himself. Which would have been equally cool. The character doesn’t even have his signature blonde hair, nor does he wear the same jacket color. He is still carrying the same shitty attitude. And for Producer Akiva Goldsmith, that’s all that mattered. Goldsmith quipped that he was more concerned with getting the spirit of the character right than anything else.

Finally, director Francis Lawrence began to win over the folks at Warner Brothers one by one in his pitch for the job. Though he had only done music videos up to that point, the studio didn’t mind. They wanted a director who could keep the tempo up and keep the film stylish and believed he could be the man for the job. Lawrence had a vision for the project and only one more person to sell his involvement to: Keanu Reeves. Who told the production specifically NOT to hire a music video director. When Keanu Reeves made it back from his work on one of the Matrix sequels, Francis filled a pitch room with his storyboards and vision for the film. And ultimately won Reeves over as well. The pieces were finally in play.

With Keanu fully on board, the character of Angela Dodson went to the very capable Rachel Weisz, who had just impressed in the thriller The Mummy with Brendan Fraser and its subsequent sequel. The character of Midnite, which was said to be the character the movie stayed the most faithful to, went to Djimon Hounsou. While on the opposite end of the spectrum, the character of Chas had been changed quite a bit. What was once Constantine’s only real adult relationship and mostly his equal had been switched to more of an immature understudy that went to the younger Shiah LaBeouf. The funnest casting of the film might just go to Bush front man and rock star Gavin Rossdale, who portrayed Constantine’s well dressed but demonic nemesis, Balthazar. Rossdale, who was impressive in the role, was given the job and sent that very same day to Stan Winston’s studio to have his prosthetic head built where face sculptors were likely biting their tongues not to make Machinehead jokes.

Tilda Swinton as half breed Gabriel and Peter Stormare as one of the most entertaining and off putting Satan’s you’ll ever see on screen rounded out the films villains. The two ended up being favorites of the director, who appreciated the fresh energy they brought to the end of a shoot full of otherwise tired and weary crew members. It’s an energy boost you can literally feel while watching the film.

Though Constantine is pretty CGI laden and wide in scope, according to Lawrence, the hardest shot to film was actually a simple conversation at a diner on a rainy day between Reeves and Weisz. This because all of the special effects shot were planned down to every tiny detail, including the impressive exorcism mirror stunt in the opening. Whereas the diner scene involved eight pages of dialogue and important exposition between their tow leads. Of which it was imperative to get right.

That doesn’t mean the special effects were easy. They did have to recreate Hell after all. Which, as we know can make or break a film like this (cough, SPAWN). Visual Effects Supervisor Michael Fink and Lawrence decided to go for a more personal approach, basically creating Hell as a parallel version of Los Angeles. Their Hell involved a highway (in another nod towards LA traffic) littered with abandoned cars and demons with no eyes (because half their skulls were missing). The creatures would gather in large groups, sniffing and feeling their way for humans to rip apart. Flying versions of the demons, called Seplatives had their bottom torsos ripped off, so they were cursed to stay constantly in flight. The producers came up with this idea after visiting a place in Yugoslavia that served their drinks in glasses with broken stemware so you couldn’t set them down and would to finish quickly. What the hell is up with the people who run that bar in Yugoslavia? Someone give me an address so I can go tell them how wrong that is.

Hell was given the same look as the bright heat wave that happens just before a nuclear bomb destroys everything. Everything was made to look as if it were slowly disintegrating alongside a constant, directional wind replicating the blowback of an explosion. Some of their hell was practical and included a large set full of rotting cars and highway debris. They then draped the walls in Green Screen and added all of the nastiness of a living, breathing hell on top of it. An animatronic puppet of one of the demons was made by Stan Winston to add a realistic effect, while the larger hordes were created with CGI.

For a really rad scene where Angela is swooped away from Constantine by demons, they built a full scale building floor and rigged the doors to explode and pull away almost all at once, the same way dominos would fall. They then hooked Rachel Weisz up to a pulley system with a green screen around it and computerized her into the shot, also building a miniature model of a bunch of cubicles on the sides to destroy. Later, they added a bunch of debris such as flying paper and staplers in post. These shots all paid off extremely well. Especially when watching the 4K restoration of the film all these years later. It’s not the CGI fest it was sometimes unfairly panned for years ago.

The props were given extra care as well, with Constantine’s golden cannon being comprised of eight different working pieces that came together to create the unholy shotgun. It also was equipped with a functioning light and the actual ability to fire blanks. The unholy bible was actually full of Latin copy from the script before it was wrapped in plastic and covered in black slime for effect.

The demon throwdown at the end when Keanu decides to have his own demonic wet t shirt contest was filmed all in one shot, with the stunt crew led by coordinator RA Rondell planning the entire fight sequence to a tee.

The character of Vermin Man, a demon comprised fully of crabs, bugs, snakes, and even a bird somewhere in there almost never made the film. He was set to be introduced as a mid-movie fight scene which is just the kind of thing studios sometimes find disposable. Especially for a character this expensive that took over a year to create for the special effects crew who did so using a man in an actual Vermin Man suit, as well as a lot of computer design. The character was especially difficult to create because his body composition was always in flux and full of gross, moving oddities. To make matters worse, once the crew had the shot in the can, the director realized that it wasn’t dynamic or eventful enough. They had to go back and shoot more, with Keanu this time having to dive around in the street, avoiding CG cars to be added in post.

Keanu didn’t mind, however. In a recent interview, the beloved actor said that every day on the set was a mixture of production design, cinematography, writing and performance. Which was the best kind of thing you could hope for when making a movie. Plus, it’s not every day you get to throw a middle finger right to Satan’s face.

The sounds of Constantine were contributed by composer Brian Tyler and featured what was basically a half music video by A Perfect Circle and their song “Passive”, as well a track by The Dave Brubeck Quartet. The movie was finally ready to be released in February of 2005 after multiple delays. Including the fact that they were shooting for a PG-13 rating and were given an R by the MPAA anyways, likely due to the religious content of the film.

Constantine opened to nearly $30 million in its opening weekend. The film went on to nab a total of $230 million worldwide on a production budget of around $100 million. It’s one of those flicks that has aged surprisingly well. Critics weren’t exactly gushing over it upon release but it has garnered a following over the years. A following that’s hard to call “cult” considering the initial moderate box office success….but you could definitely say it’s more widely appreciated currently than it was upon release. Constantine currently holds an audience rating of 72% positive on Rotten Tomatoes.

So with that being said, a sequel is definitely on the way, right? They’ve been talking about it since 2005. But it does seem possible we’re headed in a positive direction. Reeves just as recently as February of 2025 confirmed that both he and director Francis Lawrence had presented an idea to DC Studios, who gave them the go ahead to write a script that would be set in the very same world as the 2005 film.

And that my friends, is what happened to Constantine. With hopefully a lot more happening soon.

A couple of the previous episodes of What Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!

The post Constantine (2005) – What Happened to This Horror Movie? appeared first on JoBlo.

Earlier this week, we dropped our list of the best Final Destination deaths (not including the new movie), and now we want to know which film in the series is the best as far as the fans go? Are people nostalgic for the one that started it all with Devon Sawa, or are the gorier sequels more in line with what our readers like? Or – is Final Destination: Bloodlines the best of the bunch? Take the poll below and let us know in the comments. 

The post Poll: What’s the best Final Destination movie? appeared first on JoBlo.

Some cliche somewhere said that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ This has proven to be the case for me and especially when it comes to fan art. I have always sought out great fan art and have wanted to share it with as many people as possible. “Awesome Art” is the outlet for that passion. In this column, I will showcase the kick-ass artwork of some great artists, with the hopes that these artists get the attention they deserve. That’s the aim. If you have any questions or comments, or even suggestions of art or other great artists, feel free to contact me at any time at theodorebond@joblo.com.

2001: A Space Odyssey by Joe Kim

Barry Lyndon by Alex Rodríguez

A Clockwork Orange by Adam Rabalais

Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb by Fabled Creative

Eyes Wide Shut by Neil Davies

Full Metal Jacket by Oliver Barrett

The Killing by Rich Davies

Lolita by Tomer Hanuka

Paths of Glory by Nikos Bogris

The Shining by Handy Kara

Stanley Kubrick by Mark Levy

The post Awesome Art: Stanley Kubrick with 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, The Shining appeared first on JoBlo.

Given how famous Tom Cruise has become for performing his stunts in a never-ending series of action films, one could be forgiven if they forget that before he became an action hero, he was better known as a romantic leading man. Indeed, Cruise was the heartthrob of all heartthrobs in the eighties and nineties, known for headlining some of the best dramas of the era, including Rain Man, Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men, The Firm, and Jerry Maguire. While yes, he’d had two massive action-driven hits with Top Gun and Mission: Impossible, Cruise didn’t really engage in classic action movie heroics in them. The hand-to-hand action was limited, gunplay was non-existent, and the stunts were modest considering what would come.

That all changed in the wake of Mission: Impossible 2. Once Cruise teamed up with legendary action director John Woo, he seemed to develop a real thirst for next-level action, with each subsequent instalment testing his physical endurance in ever-growing ways. Yet, Mission: Impossible 2 has seemingly become the least fondly remembered entry in the series, with many (including us) pegging it as the franchise’s worst instalment.

Its detractors mock its nu-metal soundtrack, including Limp Bizkit’s cover of the Mission: Impossible theme, but such was the era. Others poke fun at the over-the-top John Woo-style of it all, with lots of slow-motion, Tom Cruise’s flowing locks,  slow-motion flying birds, and our hero using two guns a la Chow Yun-Fat. But why is any of this a bad thing? In this video by our own Kier Gomes, we dig into why all of the things people make fun of Mission: Impossible 2 for actuallymake it a kick-ass entry into the franchise, especially as far as the climactic motorcycle chase and martial arts fight goes. 

Check out the video embedded above, and let us know if you also think Mission: Impossible 2 is hugely underrated. 

The post Mission: Impossible 2 – The Movie That Turned Tom Cruise Into An Action Hero? appeared first on JoBlo.

Last year, Final Destination 6 (which is going by the title Final Destination: Bloodlines) finally, after years of development and a long year gap between sequels, made its way through production. Now, just in time to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the release of the original film, the new sequel has arrived in theatres – and JoBlo’s own Tyler Nichols is marking the occasion by taking a look back at what makes the franchise what it is: the opening accidents. Because it’s hard to get on a plane, ride a rollercoaster, or drive down a highway without thinking of them. You can hear all about it in the video embedded above.

Directed by David R. Ellis from a screenplay by J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress (with Jeffrey Reddick, who crafted the initial script for the first movie, also receiving story credit), Final Destination 2 has the following synopsis: Kimberly has a premonition of a horrible highway accident killing multiple people — including her and her friends. She blocks the cars behind her on the ramp from joining traffic — and as a police trooper arrives, the accident actually happens. Now, Death is stalking this group of mistaken survivors — and one by one they are dying as they were supposed to on the highway. The film stars A.J. Cook, Ali Larter, Michael Landes, David Paetkau, James Kirk, Lynda Boyd, Keegan Connor Tracy, Jonathan Cherry, T. C. Carson, Justina Machado, and Tony Todd.

The video at the top of this article was Written, Edited, and Narrated by Tyler Nichols, who also previously made an episode of the WTF Happened to This Horror Movie series that was all about Final Destination 2. You can watch that video at THIS LINK.

Are you a fan of the logging truck highway crash scene in Final Destination 2? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post The Opening Accidents: The Most Important Part of Final Destination? appeared first on JoBlo.

The OFFICIAL JoBlo Originals’ Live Stream, The JoBlo Movie Show with Kier Gomes, is back!

This week, Kier is looking at the latest trailer for James Gunn’s Superman. The film seems to be sparking major chatter from many of our viewers, with some loving it and others absolutely despising it. If you’ve wanted to have your say, now is your chance, as Kier’s going to devote a big chunk of the show to discussing a topic that many of us can’t seem to get enough of. Plus, we’ll dip into the early reviews for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, other, less controversial trailer breakdowns (including the cool-looking Nobody 2), and is the Dave Franco/ Alison Brie horror flick Together a rip-off?

So, if you want to join the fun, you know where you need to be! You can watch the show on our JoBlo Originals channel (or via the embed above) – TONIGHT at 8pm ET/ 5pm PT. And if you’re wondering why this is airing on a Thursday night, it’s because we recently changed the schedule. Read all about it HERE.

So make sure to WATCH LIVE and participate in the chat!

What else would you like to hear Kier weigh in on the Live Stream tonight? Make sure to tune in TONIGHT at 8pm ET/ 5pm PT right HERE! Let us know in the comments!

The post The JoBlo Movie Show: Our Live Stream unpacks the latest Superman trailer, and more! appeared first on JoBlo.

Prom season has once again fallen upon us. Finding the prefect clothes, restaurant, and date all factors into having the best time possible but as we have seen in the horror genre, you also need to avoid some things. Be on the lookout for psychic killers, wronged students turned into slashers, and the cutthroat drama of being named prom king or queen. While the original Prom Night is hailed as a classic of both the slasher genre and that ridiculous early horror run for Jaime Lee Curtis, there are other movies to watch this time of year. You could put on any of the 4 Carrie entries which all deal with bullying and psychic powers, or a Nightmare on Elm Street which features a burned to death jerk coming back to kill people who wronged them years later, or you could middle Hellraiser movies that were just tagged as a sequel to put the series name on it to sell. Or… you could watch a movie that incorporates all three of those elements. Prom Night 2 isn’t just the Black Sheep of that somehow 4 entry series, no, it’s also secretly one of the best cash-ins, Carrie rip-offs, and Freddy homages you can find. Please come to the gym ceremony where we crown Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II as the rightful entertaining Black Sheep it is.

Prom Night, starring Jaime Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen amongst others, was released in July of 1980 during the beginning of the 80s slasher boom. It was a success financially for AVCO Embassy, making nearly 15 million dollars on its meager 1.5 million budget, but didn’t become a series like many of its contemporary films. At least, not at first and certainly not originally intended as such. Prom Night is fine and certainly has its legacy, but I find it kind of boring to be honest. I don’t love its relatively milquetoast if not faithful remake, but the sequels, those are fun, especially part two. Like I said though, the movie didn’t originally start that way. The movie was conceived, written, and shot as The Haunting of Hamilton High with plot similarities, the high school’s name, and even the tag line being the same as Prom Night were purely coincidental. The writer was Ron Oliver, and this was his first screenplay. He loaded it up with homages to horror movies of the past both recent and longer as well as giving names to many of his characters that were pulled out of horror culture such as Stephen King, Joe Dante, Tod Browning, and Wes Craven.

The director chosen was Bruce Pittman who had done tons of TV shows and made for TV movies up to that point and have a steady career after up to even productions in 2024. In terms of movies, this would easily be his most famous, at least for horror hounds, but he would direct episodes of the Twilight Zone reboot and the Friday the 13th Series too. Unfortunately, when it was all said and done, MGM came back at the movie and decided it wasn’t good enough for distribution. They wanted changes so they gave the screenwriter Oliver a bunch of money and little direction to reshoot a ton of the film. He ended up calling Wes Craven of all people to ask for advice and Wes gave him words that wound up basically being the foundations of what horror of the 80s was built off of. Craven said, “Give them a scare, give them a hard-on, and send them home.” Looking at the elements of what the final product is, well, he took Craven’s words to heart.

The movie opens in 1957 with Mary Lou Maloney seeing a priest before the prom of Hamilton high takes place. Mary Lou is there with her date Billy but sneaks off to have sex with another “high schooler” because yes, in slasher tradition most of the actors really don’t pass for high schoolers. Billy seeks a little harmless revenge and in the first call back to Carrie, he tries to embarrass Mary Lou after she wins prom queen by dropping a bucket of blood… I mean stink bomb… on her head. It backfires, literally, as the lit fuse causes Mary Lou’s dress to catch fire, and she burns to death in front of the rest of the school. It switches from Carrie to A Nightmare on Elm Street real quick though as an angry demon version of Mary Lou is awakened and kills off people that have to do with her death from beyond the grave, nightmare sequences included. We jump back to Carrie when the new main character Vicki is shown to be controlled by her overly religious mother. This causes her to seek a prom dress elsewhere where she finds a trunk with Mary Lou’s cape and crown that was initially meant as her royal garb. This of course awakens the evil spirit who wreaks havoc on both the current students as well as her old boyfriend Billy who is now the school principal and played by Michael Ironside.

Ironside is a legend with a voice to match and has shown up in everything from Scanners to Total Recall to The Machinist and more. Joining Ironside in the cast are Lisa Schrage, Wendy Lyon, Terri Hawkes, Louis Ferreira, and John Pyper Ferguson. The ladies don’t have a ton between them besides The Shape of Water, voices in Sailor Moon properties, and a handful of other TV things. Not to say they didn’t have wonderful and steady careers, they just didn’t show up in a lot of well-known things, particularly horror. This movie holds their genre legacy quite well though. Ferreira also showed up in the remake of Dawn of the Dead, Saw 4, and tons of TV runs on Breaking Bad, Stargate, and Motive. Ferguson might be the most recognizable name outside of Ironside with appearances in Unforgiven, Stay Tuned, Brisco County Jr, X-Files, Millennium, and so much more.

They all hold a special place in the movie from their wonderful Canadian accents ranging from subtle to Tim Hortons and their willingness to go all out. A lot of the extra scenes and budget with the reshoots went to the special effects and added kills. It further plays into Carrie and Nightmare on Elm Street vibe with these kills. One of them looks like something Carrie would do by psychically using something to hang someone but at the same time, it also almost copies one of the deaths from Nightmare 1. In a non-death scare, we get a possessed rocking horse that looks almost as scary before possession as it does after and very much feels like Freddy taking over a landline phone, tongue included. The kills are a bit few and far between with a body count of only 7, fairly low for a slasher movie, but they get the job done when they happen. These special effects and stuff like the whirlpool chalkboard make the movie more memorable than other knock off horror found in this decade and the next.

Eventually our main girl Vikki is possessed fully by Mary Lou and decides to take out both the people that wronged her killed her in the past and her competition at the high school. Buddy Cooper, who was the man Mary Lou ditched Billy for at the prom, is now the town priest and while he finds out what’s going on, he is too late, and Mary Lou takes him out. Another friend confronts her about her attitude and we are treated to one of the more inventive kills in horror. A fully nude Vikki stalks her friend Monica through the girl’s locker room and Monica hides inside one of the lockers. Instead of Vikki pulling her out and using a razor gloved hand, kitchen knife, or machete, she uses the surrounding lockers to squish Monica into raspberry cobbler. It’s wholly unexpected and just gross enough while leaving a little something to the imagination.

The prom kicks off in earnest and while Kelly tries to get the prom queen election results changed, Vikki/Mary Lou electrocute him through the computer in another good FX showcase. The movie ends by going full Carrie with Mary Lou bursting out of Vikki in the final great makeup and FX showcase, which includes a different actress playing the now very burned Mary Lou. Carrie Krueger kills some of the prom guests including Kelly before stalking Vikki’s boyfriend Craig and is seemingly unstoppable with Billy unable to kill her with bullets. Craig is able to evade her long enough for Billy to present her with her originally intended crown which seems to be the only way to break the curse. Vikki is returned and Mary Lou is gone. Billy offers to drive the young couple home, but we get the all too familiar horror twist where Billy is now possessed by Mary Lou, playing her signature music on the car radio and driving away like it’s the end of Phantasm 2 or something.

I mentioned early the movie being in the same boat as the Hellraiser sequels where Pinhead shows up for 5 minutes to tie everything together but this works a little better. While leaning heavily into other horror movies, especially and specifically the franchises of Nightmare on Elm Street and Carrie, this turning into a Prom Night movie actually changed the trajectory of the series. While movies that wouldn’t quite work would continue to get Pinhead thrown in and labeled Hellraiser would be derided, Mary Lou would show up in two additional sequels and continue down the route of the supernatural. Hamilton High would be an important location, and we would have a trilogy of movies that have much more to do with each other than they do with the original film.

Unfortunately, Prom Night 2 would be left underappreciated and underseen due to a lack of physical media and dismal box office with making only 2.7 million on its 2.5-million-dollar budget, but it has started to make a comeback. You can watch it on borderline VHS quality, though uncensored, on Tubi, and Joe Bob Briggs hosted it on The Last Drive-in with better quality and lots of insights. Later this year in 2025 we are getting treated to a complete upgrade courtesy of Synapse which further cements the need for these boutique labels to continue to rescue movies who may be unknown or just unloved by time. A great new 4k release and special features will hopefully lead to the whole sequel series getting the same treatment which this movie and series deserve wholeheartedly. It’s way more fun and cheesier than it has any right to be and is endlessly rewatchable. This prom season don’t vote for Carrie or the original slasher and instead say hello to Mary Lou, the true Prom Queen of the series.

A couple of the previous episodes of The Black Sheep can be seen at the bottom of this article. To see more, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!

The post Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987) Revisited – Horror Movie Review appeared first on JoBlo.

But, where does that leave Thunderbolts? More than likely, it will dip another 40-50% for a weekend in the high teens. While it’s doing decent business, it seems unlikely to cross the double century mark, making it one of Marvel’s lowest-grossing movies ever. However, the budget was lower than usual, so it’s probably not being considered too much of a flop at Disney, with its director, Jake Schreier, rumoured to be Marvel’s pick to helm their new X-Men movie. 

Sinners will have another great weekend, with it returning to IMAX screens for a one-week run (before they are taken over by Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning). It should make about $14 million, making it a close third-place winner to Thunderbolts. Heck, it’s not insane to think it could even theoretically hit second place (although that’s unlikely). 

A Minecraft Movie should take fourth place with about $5 million. At the same time, The Weeknd’s vanity project, Hurry Up Tomorrow, might be able to capitalize on the singer’s fandom to make $4 million. The fan-exclusive screening I attended last night was full, but the word-of-mouth on this one is already toxic.

What are you seeing this weekend? Let us know in the comments!

The post Weekend Box Office Predictions: Final Destination: Bloodlines will set a series record appeared first on JoBlo.

When the great Leslie Nielsen made the media rounds in 1996, promoting his James Bond spoof, Spy Hard, everyone wanted to know one thing. Was he shocked when O.J. Simpson was arrested for murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and Ron Goldman, and did he think he was guilty? Ever the Canadian gent, Nielsen retired the ever-present fart machine he enjoyed using in interviews, and tried to give a thoughtful answer. Basically, he said that the OJ he knew on set from the three Naked Gun movies they did together never gave him an inkling that he would be capable of murder, although, to read between the lines of his answer, it was clear Nielsen likely had serious doubts as to his innocence.

Indeed, when The Naked Gun 33 1/3rd came out on March 18th 1994, no one who went to see it – and I was one of them – would have ever thought that three months later, O.J Simpson would be arrested for murder, and, forever afterward, be known for something other than comedy- to put it mildly. Truth be told, there were far greater things at stake than the success of a film franchise. Namely, the lives of two innocent people and the collateral damage inflicted by the crime, which seemed to become a worldwide firestorm. However, it can’t be denied that his arrest was the final nail in the coffin of a film series that likely would have continued for several years under normal circumstances.

When OJ was hired to play the bumbling Nordberg in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad, it wasn’t considered all that unusual as far as casting went. Granted, he wasn’t known for comedy, with him being one of the all-time greatest football players. He had branched out into acting, but typically played serious roles. A few years before, he came close to playing the title role in The Terminator. This was likely why he was cast, as no one in the movie other than Nielsen was known for their comic chops. This was all part of the gag, where the klutzy Frank Drebin is dropped into an otherwise serious film, only to inflict maximum, comic mayhem. Co-stars O.J. Simpson, George Kennedy, Ricardo Montalban and Priscilla Presley were all cast against type, just as Nielsen himself was when he first co-starred in Airplane.

The movie was made by the filmmaking team, Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker aka ZAZ, who were the masters of slapstick comedy during this era, and it was a spin-off of their short-lived series, Police Squad. When the movie came out and was a blockbuster, all the “serious” actors in the cast received critical kudos, with many singling out OJ’s hilarious performance as the much-abused Nordberg. As such, his role was expanded in the following films, with him and George Kennedy’s Ed Hocken and Nielsen’s Drebin becoming a comic trio. The sequel was almost as big a hit as the first, and a third movie was quickly made.

Now, some might say that the series would have still ended even if OJ hadn’t “allegedly” killed two people. There is some evidence to that, as the ZAZ team was starting to go their own way. Jerry Zucker became a serious director, having a smash hit with Ghost, while Abrahams had a hit with Hot Shots, which teamed him with another of the movie’s writers, Pat Proft. When it came time for a third movie, only David Zucker and Proft were involved, with the directorial reins passed to Peter Segal, who made his directorial debut. 

Despite the subtitle, The Final Insult, there’s no evidence that this was meant to be the last movie in the series. In this, it found a now-retired Drebin is bored with his life as a househusband, and agrees to go undercover in a prison to foil a terrorist for hire, played by Fred Ward of Remo Williams and Tremors. The storyline was actually pinched from the classic Warner Bros gangster film, White Heat. His wife, Jane, once again played by Priscilla Presley, leaves him for a cross-country trip with a friend, spoofing Thelma and Louise, only to get embroiled in his plot. At the height of her fame, Anna Nicole Smith would play the femme fatale, and the movie climaxed at the Academy Awards, where Leslie Nielsen’s long-standing joke about his resemblance to TV talk show host Phil Donahue becomes part of the plot. 

While not as fondly remembered as the previous Naked Gun movies, there’s much to like about this one. It opens with a dead-on spoof of the infamous train station shootout from The Untouchables, while the Academy Award climax probably isn’t grasped by younger viewers, as the joke is how B and C-list all the celebrities are, like Pia Zadora, Florence Henderson, and Mary Lou Retton. Some of the jokes, like “best actor in a Columbus film,” are nods to the state of the industry at the time, as the year before this came out, there were two Christopher Columbus movies that duelled at the box office, and both were giant disasters.

While a smaller hit than the other films in the series, The Naked Gun 33 1/3rd was a solid money maker, grossing $51 million in 1994 dollars. Since Nielsen spent years after this making more spoof movies, including Spy Hard and Wrongfully Accused, one would have imagined they would have made another had…well…OJ not “allegedly” killed those two people.

Indeed, OJ’s arrest put a damper on the film’s home video release, which was delayed and notably didn’t feature OJ’s likeness on the box. Nevertheless, it was a solid hit in stores and on cable, but a fourth movie never happened. In 2009, Paramount was keen to reboot the series and was preparing a DTV sequel that would have featured Nielsen cameoing as Drebin.It never happened, but Nielsen stayed active until shortly before his death in 2011, playing the president in two Scary Movie sequels directed by David Zucker and two more Naked Gun writers, Jim Abrahams and Pat Proft. He also appeared in a few other spoofs, such as Superhero Movie and Spanish Movie. He was also terrific in an against-type dramatic role in The Music Within, a movie about the passing of the Americans With Disabilities Act, as Nielsen was born legally deaf and wore hearing aids his whole life. When he passed away, his will demanded that the Naked Gun fanfare be played as he was being laid to rest. ESPN paid tribute to him by running an obituary for Enrico Pollazo, the cover name he took at the first movie’s climax.

Notably, a new Naked Gun movie is due out this summer, and rather than hide from the complicated legacy O.J. Simpson left behind, the new movie seems to be embracing it. In the trailer, as Neeson, as Frank Drebin Jr and Paul Walter Hauser, as Ed Hockin’s son, pay tearful tributes to their fathers, the son of Nordberg, looking at his father’s portrait, frowns at the screen, in a moment that’s already gone viral. While the director of the first two movies, David Zucker, has complained about the reboot happening, many praised the trailer, which promises Neeson might be brilliant playing against typecasting, paying homage to how the original Airplane made Nielsen a comic legend overnight. And truly, Nielsen’s performances have allowed these movies to stand the test of time, and if people can’t get over the fact that OJ’s in them – well, it’s their loss. 

The post The Naked Gun 33 1/3: Was It Always Supposed to End the Franchise? appeared first on JoBlo.

While I still have some fun classic sci fi stories to address coming up, I wanted to break off and take a look as well as give props to one of the more prolific yet slept-on horror authors to get adaptations. Stephen King is the all-time number 1 but there are others in the 20th century that could at least eat at the same table as him. For the younger generation, that certainly means R.L. Stine has entered the conversation and maybe we will get to an adaptation video about his recent Fear Street collection but the guy I’m thinking of is a little different. Dean Koontz is often derogatorily referred to as a poor man’s Stephen King but he has sold and made millions while having plenty of his works turned into films. While The Funhouse from Tobe Hooper will certainly be discussed at some point as I had no clue it was based on a Dean Koontz novel and we all know that Ben Affleck is the bomb in Phantoms, today I want to look at a forgotten adaptation that somehow turned into a forgotten series of films. Get your Scrabble boards ready as we find out what happened to Watchers.

The Movie

Dean Koontz was already a solid name in the literary world by the time the late 80s rolled around. Well, he had, and he hadn’t at this point. Koontz wrote under a number of pseudonyms so while his books were fairly popular, his name hadn’t quite gotten there. 1987’s novel Watchers though seemed to skyrocket him into prominence. He had a couple of movies made before this with Demon Seed starring Julie Christie and the previously mentioned Funhouse directed by Tobe Hooper, but a couple of factors led to Watchers being greenlit. First was the book being a massive success for the author and second was the ridiculous star power of Corey Haim. Haim had made two successful horror films over the previous three years with another adaptation for 1985’s Silver Bullet and 1987’s The Lost Boys. The movie was picked up by Coralco pictures for production and would be distributed by Universal. Shot on location in Vancouver British Colombia in a little over 5 weeks’ time, it would eventually become the most expensive American movie to use the Canadian tax shelter laws, though I can’t find a budget for the life of me.

One of the producers on the film was Roger Corman and while this movie did not do well critically, with Leonard Maltin famously calling it awful and giving it a generous 1 and a half stars out of 4, nor commercially with it making just over 940k at the box office, Corman was able to get 3 direct to video sequels made which I’m sure made that man money. The original script was started by eventual Oscar winner Paul Haggis, but a writer’s strike forced him to halt the process. A Canadian producer named Damian Lee took over and when Haggis read the script, he took his name off and I don’t entirely blame the dude. He did keep his WGA pseudonym Bill Freed on it though. Damian Lee has a longer than expected resume but not all for the better. He will forever be known as the writer and director of Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe starring Jesse Ventura, and if you haven’t seen that one yet then pause the video and watch it now before finishing up here. You can thank me later.

The director ended up being Jon Hess who also gave us Excessive Force written by and starring Thomas Ian Griffith and a supporting cast too good for the final product and the entertaining dumpster fire that is Alligator II. The cast includes Corey Haim, who I actually met while managing a Blockbuster in Huntington Beach, California, Michael Ironside, Duncan Fraser, Blu Mankuma, Barbara Williams, and a young Jason Priestley who is simply credited as “Boy on Bike”. Mankuma is in over 200 projects as a reliable character actor, Fraser you may recognize from Needful Things, and Barbara Williams has had a steady career for almost 40 years. Ironside, as he often does, steals the show here as a psychopathic member of the company involved in the main story. His credits are massive and cover nearly every genre imaginable including video games and animated voice over but, in this video, I’ll give shoutouts to Visiting Hours and Highlander II. One other crew member of note is the score was done by Joel Goldsmith who is the son of Oscar winning composer Jerry Goldsmith.

The movie was released on December 2nd, 1988, to the previously mentioned dismal results but found life with sequels in 1990, 1994, and 1998. Sadly, at the time of this writing, it’s hard to come by both streaming and physical media but all 4 movies are available for free on YouTube with sub-par visual quality.

The Book

Dean Koontz was born in July of 1945 in Pennsylvania and like many creative types dealt with issues at home. In this case it was an abusive alcoholic father that would end up influencing his writing. He went to Shippensburg University where he won a fiction award in his senior year and also married his high school sweetheart whom he is still with nearly 60 years later in one of the nice stories regarding famous folks. While he was a high school teacher in the mid-60s he decided to mess around and become an author with his first book, StarQuest, published in 1968. He would go on to write over a dozen sci fi novels but transfer to horror and thrillers in the 1970s. He would begin using multiple pseudonyms as he was told it’s the best way to get all his creativity out while getting new readers but not alienating his existing audience.

1980 would bring a breakthrough novel in Whispers. While he had a couple other books hit over a million copies sold, this was the first one under his real name. Later in the decade he would see his first best-selling hardcover novel which is a big deal for authors and would give him financial stability that he was missing. Just a year after Strangers, he would release Watchers which was another solid hit and is often seen as his most popular work. It also showed his love of dogs as you can tell with one of the main characters and that love would spill into millions in charitable donations towards canines. He continues to write and remains a popular author in the horror genre while living in Orange County, California where many of his stories take place. This book was recommended to me by my dad who also recommended it to my oldest son years later as I’m sure many fans of the book have done generationally.

What is the Same?

Watchers sees a hyper intelligent dog find its way to a human named Travis after escaping a laboratory. The dog is found to be genius level for a dog and can communicate so he is named Einstein. There was another creature that escaped the lab that is hunting for Einstein and ends up taking people’s eyes when it kills them. It has the base features of a baboon but has the claws and mouth enhanced for increased ferocity. Nora, who is connected to Travis, ends up helping with both protecting Einstein but also fighting off the creature while other characters like Lem are on the hunt for both Einstein and the other creature with some of them being good and others out for their own means. A final stand with makeshift weapons happens in the woods area of a forest town where the villain hunting them and the other creature are both killed by Travis. Einstein is hurt while fighting the other creature, but he survives and stays with Travis and Nora.

What is Different?

The preceding section covers a ton including the beginning, middle, end, and most of the main characters but all of it is thrown into a blender to move things around to give it the reputation of “loosely based” on the source novel. That is very accurate as apart from the most basic outline, the two stories tell nearly completely different tales. Starting with the characters we have movie Travis as a young rebellious guy played by Haim and in the book, Travis is a 36-year-old former Delta Force soldier who is alone after fearing he is cursed with everyone close to him dying. Nora, who is the mom in the movie (which hilariously the same actress would play a love interest for Haim in a later film) but Nora in the book is a hermit woman who then ventures out and runs into Travis. Lem in the book is an NSA agent who is looking for Einstein and the Outsider but is turned into a different movie character while Lem more or less becomes Vince who is an assassin in the novel.

Both escaped creatures have a lot more depth in the novel with Einstein ending up surviving an illness and having puppies with a mate at the end of the story while the Outsider, or OXCOM has a lot more tragedy to its core. It takes the eyes of those it kills because it knows it is ugly to look at and feels shame. It is also violently jealous of Einstein, which is why it wants to hunt it. Nuances like these give the book more heart and at over 600 pages, make it difficult to put everything on screen in a typical 90ish minute movie. Einstein communicates a lot differently in the book too with him using a scrabble board to “talk” while that scenario is made of light reference with Travis and the dog playing scrabble together near the end of the movie.

The assassin Vince in the book, who Michael Ironside plays a version of here with a different character’s name, thinks that every person he kills gives him more power and inches him towards immortality while also looking to sell the super intelligent dog. Ironside tells other characters and the audience near the end of the movie that he is a secret third experiment. A killer made with no remorse. Other things left out entirely due to character role changers are Nora having a stalker and her aunt being crazy and emotionally abusive as well as her and Travis ending up together and even becoming pregnant. Theres a whole group of underground scientists that are there to expose what was being worked on, but they too are excised from the screen version.

Legacy

While the film spawned 3 sequels and should have worked with its cast and source material as well as being in the right time frame for the ingredients to gel, it falls flat. The movie is a long watch at only 86 minutes even with unhinged Michael Ironside and some fun gore effects. I’m sure it has a ton of fans out there, but it is rightfully forgotten to time. I’d still love to see a big box set Blu-ray release for the sake of preservation but the book is far superior and will be recommended much more often as one of horrors best writers best entries. Watchers could have been fun but instead drops the ball while the book still mostly holds up even with some stale caricatures and scenarios that we’ve seen before. The choice between which Watchers to watch is an easy one and you should keep the film version as an Outsider.

A couple of the previous episodes of WTF Happened to This Adaptation? can be seen below. To see the other shows we have to offer, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!

The post Watchers (1988) – WTF Happened to This Adaptation? appeared first on JoBlo.

What Do We Know About the upcoming second season of Taylor Sheridan-produced series Landman? More than you may think. The Paramount+ series starring Billy Bob Thornton and Ali Later was renewed for a second season shortly after the first episode dropped. From plot details, casting news, and more, let’s dive in and look at what is coming up in season 2 of Landman.

What is season 2 about?

The first season of Landman, based on the 2019 podcast called Boomtown, followed Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton), a veteran oil expert and the titular landman for M-Tex owned by Monty Miller (Jon Hamm). Between employee deaths, deals with Mexican cartels, and other challenges at work, Tommy must also contend with restarting his relationship with his ex-wife, Angela (Ali Larter). The first season ended with an explosive finale that found Monty dying from a heart attack, leaving the future of M-Tex in the hands of Tommy, who likely will not want to become CEO but lead the company in some other way.

Will Demi Moore return in a bigger role?

Demi Moore, who recently secured an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in The Substance, is the one who revealed that Landman would be returning for a second season. The boost to the actress’ career after landing the Golden Globe could put her in place to have a larger role in the second season. With Cami and Tommy being old friends, could she step into the CEO role in Monty’s place and allow Tommy to lead in another manner?

What about Andy Garcia’s character?

The finale of Landman’s first season also showed us Tommy moving up from dealing with cartel henchmen and middle management to facing Galino, the cartel leader. Played by the great Andy Garcia, the relationship between a legitimate business like M-Tex and a drug cartel could add major wrinkles to the plot of Landman’s second season. Thornton himself told the Los Angeles Times, “I would also hope that we explore the weird position that Tommy is in with Andy’s character. Tommy isn’t dealing with henchmen anymore. He knew how to deal with them. But now he’s got a smart guy on the opposite side of the law who is his equal. We’re in a chess match, and I hope that’s explored.”

Who is returning for season 2?

It is still too early to know who will be back in the sophomore run, but aside from Thornton and Moore, Ali Larter has been vocal in wanting to return and explore more of Tommy and Angela’s relationship. Michelle Randolph, who plays Tommy’s daughter, Ainsley, wants to see her character evolve for a second season. Most of the cast will likely be back, including Jacob Lofland, Paulina Chavez, Kayla Wallace, Mark Collie, James Jordan, Colm Feore, and Mustafa Speaks.

Who is new?

So far, there’s only one new confirmed cast member – but it’s a good one. The legendary Sam Elliott, who co-starred in Taylor Sheridan’s acclaimed 1883, has signed on for a season-long arc. No one knows who he’s playing, but he may be Tommy’s father? We’ll have to wait and see!

Production could begin very soon.

While Paramount+ has not officially announced the renewal of Landman, Thornton told Entertainment Weekly that production would likely begin in February or March 2025 to keep a late-year premiere in the cards. Thornton said, “I mean, we’ll see. It depends on how the chips may fall; you never know how it will fall in this business. But if we do it, I think [we’re] going to try to do it around that.”

When will we see it?

With nothing official yet, the earliest we could expect to see Landman back with new episodes would be November 2025, one year after the first season’s debut. The series is now shooting, and Taylor Sheridan shows tend to have a pretty quick post-production turnaround, so we may well get this before the end of the year.

Stay tuned to JoBlo.com as we learn more about Landman season 2 and all your other favorite shows. What do you expect to see in the upcoming second season of Landman? Let us know in the comments, click like, and subscribe to follow all our latest original videos.

The post Landman Season 2: Everything We Know About The Return of Taylor Sheridan and Billy Bob Thornton’s Oil Business Series appeared first on JoBlo.

And I’m very excited to be able to update this once I’ve witnessed the carnage of Final Destination: Bloodlines. Here’s hoping there are plenty of worthy additions.

Let’s get into the carnage.

Tod’s Shower Mishap – Final Destination

Our first instance in the series of the “rube goldberg” style of death, where one thing leads to another, which leads to another which finally ends in tragedy. This time, it’s Tod in the bathroom, set up perfectly to look like a suicide. Death by strangulation is bad enough, but the buildup to this, with the capillaries in his eyes bursting, makes this one stand out in its simplicity.

Racist Gets Dragged – The Final Destination

If there’s one thing the fourth film does right, it’s giving us characters that we WANT to see die. So it’s great to finally see this loser who’s trying to light a cross in this black man’s yard get a bit of karma. He’s lit on fire and dragged by his truck in the streets, which eventually blows up, sending parts of his body in every which way.

Olivia’s Eye Surgery – Final Destination 5

Feeling similar to the Dentist office scene in FD2, this one takes laser eye surgery and gives it a horrific twist, with the laser completely mangling poor Olivia. But it’s the fact that we get this long drawn out death AND a shock death, all in one. We never expect her to fall out a window, yet it happens and is a brutal ending to someone who just had their eye lasered out.

Mrs. Lewton Tries To Pack – Final Destination

This one just makes you feel bad for the poor victim. Mrs. Lewton is simply trying to pack up and leave town, but death has other plans, putting a knife through her chest before setting her whole house on fire. Part of me never felt too bad for her since she never believed Alex but hey, she definitely didn’t deserve this.

Crushed by Glass – Final Destination 2

There’s nothing quite like tricking an audience into thinking it’ll be one thing, only to have something else entirely. The glass panel is set up when Tim and his mom go to the dentist. Then, after being teased over and over that there’s going to be some kind of Dental mishap, he’s released, accident free. But, taking cues from Terry’s bus trip, we get a cacophony of violence that can’t be beat.

Ladder through the Eye – Final Destination 2

This one is so satisfying because the character himself is such a douchebag. Evan Lewis had just won the lottery, and his apartment is filled with all the crap that he’s just bought. Which adds a bit of irony when his house goes up in flames. We think it’s going to be the garbage disposal that gets him but instead it’s the ladder of the fire escape, which pierces his eye socket. Disgusting yet deserved.

Fence Dismemberment – Final Destination 2

Shortly after Kat has a pole slammed through her head, her death causes a chain reaction that sends a barb wire fence flying towards Rory. It takes a moment to realize what happened, but then his body just falls apart. The effect and shock value really make this one stand out. Poor Rory. One of the most underrated characters in the series.

Tanning Beds – Final Destination 3

They’ve fallen slightly out of vogue now, but in 2006 there were tanning beds EVERYWHERE. As someone in high school at the time, if you were a popular girl, you were going to a tanning booth. So to make this “everyday” item into a death trap, was enough to never get me inside one of these things ever. With some of the only nudity in any FD death, you hardly notice because it’s all so horrifying as these two girls burn alive.

Gymnastics Routine – Final Destination 5

I’ve been around gymnastics most of my life, so this one always hits different. There are so many things that it could be, from the loose screw to the electrically charged water, yet its simple physics that takes out Candice on her landing. The technical prowess of the effect really just brings this one home.

Terry’s Bus Trip – Final Destination

I’m not sure if there is any death more shocking in the franchise than when Terry steps out in the street and gets hit by the bus. It’s so out of nowhere, and would become a staple for the franchise going forward: the shock death. The reaction of the other characters and reverberation of the death throughout the next scene will often be repeated, but never imitated.

What are some of YOUR favorite Final Destination deaths? Did we miss any big ones? Let us know in the comments!

The post Best Deaths of the Final Destination Franchise appeared first on JoBlo.

Season Four will pick up from the Season Three cliffhanger finale.

After two seasons building towards the opening of the titular restaurant, the third season slowed things down to focus on the main characters dealing with the anxiety of first reviews for their establishment. Sydney (Ayo Edibiri) has an intriguing offer to leave the restaurant and branch out. Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) has yet to reply to his ex-wife’s wedding invitation. At the same time, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) has just gotten the first review of his restaurant, which is where the series left us with a massive “To Be Continued” cliffhanger, leaving us with zero doubt that the fourth season will pick up directly from the final scene of season three’s finale.

The main cast are all coming back.

Since season 4 will continue right where the third left off, expect Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Abby Elliott, Lionel Boyce, Liza Colon-Zayas, Edwin Lee Gibson, and Matty Matheson to all return. The final scene of season three also tells us that Oliver Platt will be back, and I would guarantee more flashbacks with Jon Bernthal will factor into the story.

Many guest stars could come back for new appearances.

The Bear has boasted some amazing guest stars, ranging from Sara Paulson to Jamie Lee Curtis. Season three saw the return of Olivia Colman as Andrea Terry, Will Poulter as Luca, John Mulaney as Stevie, and Joel McHale, with the addition of John Cena as Sammy Fak and Josh Hartnett as Frank. All these actors, as well as Jamie Lee Curtis as Carmy’s mother, will likely return in the next season. That does not rule out more famous faces, so stay tuned for more.

Season 4 may already be finished filming.

It was a pretty substantial announcement when The Bear was renewed for its second season. When the third season was renewed and in production, multiple news outlets reported the fourth season was already greenlit. Those sources reported that seasons three and four were being filmed back-to-back due to the busy schedules of award-winning actors Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, who have been in high demand since the series debuted. There is also the fact that co-star Ebon Moss-Bachrach has started production on Marvel Studios’ massively anticipated The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which will surely keep his schedule packed for the next several months, if not longer.

Season 4 could be the end of the series.

While it may seem strange for a series to end its run while at the top of critical lists and fan watchlists, it is not that far-fetched. AppleTV+ series Ted Lasso ended its run after only three seasons rather than overstay its welcome. The Bear showrunner and creator Christopher Storer has many new projects in development. With his main cast tied up, we could either see a long wait between seasons four and five, or the back-to-back production for the newest season could have been to satisfactorily tie up the tale.

Season 4 Premieres in June

Typically, Hulu and FX have dropped all episodes of each season at the same time during the summer months. Season 4 will be no exception, with June 25th earmarked as the official release date for the latest season. Here’s the teaser poster:

Stay tuned to JoBlo.com as we learn more about Season 4 of The Bear and all of your other favorite shows. What do you expect to see in the upcoming season of The Bear? Let us know in the comments, and click like and subscribe to follow all of our latest original videos.

The post The Bear Season 4 Release Date & Everything We Know appeared first on JoBlo.

Back in 2022, 20th Century Studios, director Dan Trachtenberg, and the Hulu streaming service brought the world a new addition to the Predator franchise, the 1719-set Prey – a film that went over so well, Tranchtenberg was given the opportunity to continue expanding the Predator series. In February of 2024, it was announced that he was moving forward with a project called Predator: Badlands, which is now aiming for a November 7, 2025 theatrical release. With more details on the new film starting to emerge, we figured this was the right time to put together a list of Everything We Know About Predator: Badlands:

PREY CREATIVE TEAM

Dan Trachtenberg directed Predator: Badlands from a screenplay he wrote with his Prey collaborator Patrick Aison – and they crafted a very different sort of story this time around. The studio has revealed that the film is set in the future on a remote planet, telling the story of a young Predator, outcast from his clan, who finds an unlikely ally in a synthetic being called Thia and embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary.

According to a casting call, the film had the following logline: A groundbreaking film in which one of the two main storylines delves into the intricate bond of two very different sisters, their familial ties are put to the ultimate test as they pursue divergent paths and missions. The casting call was searching for a lead actress who could take on the dual role of twin sisters Thia and Tessa: This casting is for a dual character, and describes both characters. Character identifies as female or non-binary, open ethnicity, mid 20s – mid 40s. Thia has spent most of her life in a laboratory and is now embarking on her first big adventure in the world. She is incredibly smart, witty, enthusiastic, and unflappable. She has an innate disregard for danger, not because she’s fearless, but simply because she’s naive. Strong comedy chops required. // The other sister, Tessa, has a militant intensity when it comes to achieving her family’s goals and mission objectives. She will not let anything get in her way, not even her twin sister. So, unless one of these characters is human and the other is a synthetic made in her image, it looks like we have identical synthetic characters in this film. The casting call noted the physical requirements of the role: “Must be comfortable training for heavy action/combat, must also be comfortable wearing prosthetics/heavy makeup, and MUST be 5’8” or shorter.” A teaser trailer revealed that Thia was created by the Weyland-Yutani corporation, tying this film to the Alien franchise.

Trachtenberg produced Predator: Badlands alongside John Davis, Marc Toberoff, Ben Rosenblatt, and Brent O’Connor. While O’Connor is new to the Predator franchise (but was an executive producer on Alien: Romulus), Davis, Toberoff, and Rosenblatt were also involved with Prey – in fact, John Davis has produced every Predator movie, going back to the 1987 original.

CAST

Elle Fanning was cast in the dual roles of Thia and Tessa, even though she’s not 5’8″ or shorter. Fanning is reportedly 5’9″. Close enough. Her previous credits include Super 8, Maleficent and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Trumbo, The Neon Demon, Mary Shelley, The Girl from Plainville, The Great, and A Complete Unknown. Trachtenberg has said that Thia’s story is similar to the main Predator’s situation. “[Her] story [has the same roots but] is a bit different thematically, and starts to go into a different branch of proving oneself.“

The only other cast member to be confirmed as of this writing is Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, who has been in Jonah, The Panthers, Upright, Far North, and Red, White & Brass. Schuster-Koloamatangi did the in-costume and motion-capture performances that bring the film’s primary Predator, known as Dek, to life on the screen. Speaking with ComicBook.com, Trachtenberg said, “Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi is the actor’s name. We had a very specific casting for Dek. We thought we would want a stunt guy and this was a real opportunity, because all the other Predators need to be like seven-foot-six. It’s very specific people that aren’t often trained stuntmen. They happen to be that size and they decide to get into this business. [Prey star] Dane [DiLiegro] did want to be in the business, but he also was an ex-basketball player, he was the one who played the feral in Prey. Here, it was the first time I was like, ‘Oh, we can get a proper stunt guy to be the guy who can move in the ways…’ And at one of our castings, we had a number of stunt guys and then this dude Dimitrius came up and the way he moved just had a great swashbuckle to it. He just was so cool. We set up a little physical obstacle course. That’s how we cast him. Then he did some dramatic stuff from the movie and it was awesome. I was not at all prepared for what he actually does, it’s so … I could not believe, how did we luck into this guy? It’s crazy that we found him.“

THE PREDATOR IS THE HERO

Finding just the right performer to play Dek was incredibly important because, as Trachtenberg revealed to Empire, the Predator is the protagonist in this story. He said, “The creature is front and center, leading the charge. He’s still badass, but there’s something there that touches you emotionally, too. Creating a character you connect with, but are also super-intimidated by, has been challenging. But exciting.” The idea for Predator: Badlands came from Trachtenberg’s desire to “find another essential piece of cinema that does what Prey did spiritually — pushing the franchise’s boundaries, letting us root for a hero we rarely get to root for — but in a different way. And that transformed into this big idea of rooting for the Predator.”

The focus on Dek is why the Predator’s face is not entirely practical in this film, but instead is a digital effect provided by Wētā Workshop. “This movie, you really wanted people to connect with Dek. Unfortunately, the rotors that go inside the mask that is usually adorned for the Predator not only affects all the physicality of the creature, so it makes people move a certain way, but also it just does not have the articulation to bring people in and connect to a creature. We were trying to do this thing of, we want you to bond with a horrific-looking creature. The methodology was a guy in a suit, and you’re seeing suit, the whole thing, other than his face. The face is all digital.“

This is where the motion-capture element of Schuster-Koloamatangi’s performance comes in, as there were dots placed on his face to help guide how the Predator’s face should be animated.

YAUTJA PRIME

Predator: Badlands was filmed in locations throughout New Zealand, with the country standing in for the Predator home planet of Yautja Prime. For the first time, we’re getting a story set on the world these creatures come from – and since it’s a Yautja Prime story, the filmmakers decided to create an official language for the Predators. Trachtenberg told ComicBook.com, “We’re on Yautja Prime, what is known as Yautja Prime mainly from extended universe stuff. There’s a lot in this movie that is more from the extended universe than is from things that are properly in the movie. I should mention the language. We, insanely, decided to really treat that properly and we reached out to the guy who does the Na’vi language [in Avatar], who was very occupied and recommended his mentee. We did it the way that, for The Lord of the Rings, you would do Elvish, for Game of Thrones, you do Dothraki. Except for those, there’s more precedent. For us, there’s very little. As we discovered, with him being a language expert, and frankly, actually working with [Predator special effects artist] Alec Gillis, all the stuff that you’ve seen in other Predator movies is complete garbage. There’s no sense of it. People from the Internet have tried to make sense of it, but none of it was made with intention. So we decided to make it with intention and we completely developed the language, so everything they’re speaking has actual rules and structure and all that stuff. And written as well as verbal. Very early on, we just did explorations, concept art explorations of what Yautja could be. I wanted to be very careful in making this, that I not fall into a trap that is making something that is more lore-focused than story-focused. I think, lots of times, when people do more in a franchise, there’s a tendency to really go whole hog into the Senate trading committees and whatever. I thought we should just have a little sliver of that, but not let the movie be like, there could be some expectation when people hear the premise that the movie is going to be all about the inner workings of the Yautja culture and that’s not — we wanted to still make it feel genre, feel very specific. Really, what it is, it’s an inversion of the premise of now the Predator is on a planet. He’s going to be hunted by things and has to use his guile to figure out stuff. While we were writing, we were doing concept art and things like that to figure out the world-building of it all.“

Schuster-Koloamatangi was able to learn and speak the Yautja language, which is something Trachtenberg wasn’t even able to do.

While figuring out the look and style of the film, Trachtenberg said (as reported by Bloody Disgusting) that he drew inspiration from the likes of Frank Frazetta, Conan the Barbarian, Spartans, The Book of Eli, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Shane, Clint Eastwood westerns, and Terrence Malick films. He also said, “I never thought [the Predator] was Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger. [Predators] had a code [like] hitmen or crime underworld Goodfellas. I felt like there was something cool to explore within that culture that’s different than just adding a bunch of stuff on top of it. It felt like we’re mining [ideas] as opposed to just throwing [more] at the franchise.“

NOT THE ONLY 2025 PREDATOR MOVIE

In the build-up to the release of Predator: Badlands, we’ve learned that this isn’t the only Predator movie we’ll be seeing this year, as Trachtenberg has also directed an animated anthology called Predator: Killer of Killers! The existence of a second film was originally revealed by 20th Century Studios president Steve Asbell during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Since this interview was conducted before the Predator: Badlands release date announcement, Asbell was asked if the next Predator movie would get a theatrical release (since Prey was a streaming release). He answered, “Yes and no.” Then, to clarify, he said, “Yes, a Predator movie will have a theatrical. I’ll tell you very simply. After Prey became a success, Dan [Trachtenberg] came back and said he didn’t want to do Prey 2. And we’re like, ‘What do you want to do?’ And he rattled off a bunch of ideas that were really crazy but really cool. We’ve actually done two of them. Two are coming out next year. One I can’t talk about yet, but the other one is the live-action Predator film with Elle Fanning that just wrapped in New Zealand. That’ll be out theatrically sometime next year. … It’s titled Badlands and it is an absolutely bonkers idea. It is a sci-fi thing, but it’s not what everybody thinks it is. And I mean, it’s awesome. It is so nuts. But in Dan, we trust. There’s a second Predator movie that we have different plans for. Dan has actually directed both. There’s a secret Predator movie that will come out before the theatrical one but I can’t say anything about yet.”

We have since found out that Predator: Killer of Killers will be released through the Hulu streaming service on June 6th. Here’s the official synopsis: The anthology story follows three of the fiercest warriors in human history: a Viking raider guiding her young son on a bloody quest for revenge, a ninja in feudal Japan who turns against his Samurai brother in a brutal battle for succession, and a WWII pilot who takes to the sky to investigate an otherworldly threat to the Allied cause. But while all these warriors are killers in their own right, they are merely prey for their new opponent – the ultimate killer of killers. Trachtenberg crafted the screenplay with Micho Robert Rutare and directed the animated feature alongside Josh Wassung of the animation company The Third Floor.

MARKETING

First unveiled at the CinemaCon event in early April, the first teaser trailer for Predator: Badlands made its way online at the end of April and can be seen right here:

The same day, we also got the first poster for the film:

And that’s everything we know about Predator: Badlands… for now.

The post Everything We Know About Predator: Badlands appeared first on JoBlo.

I come from the video generation. People today have their pick of whatever they want to see online – legally or not – so one can’t say there’s a lack of available stuff. In fact, I’d wager no movie, no matter how obscure, is totally impossible to find nowadays. But let me take you back to a time before the internet, when things weren’t so easy to find. In the eighties and nineties, we had video stores, where you could rent video tapes for a day, and were limited by the inventory, which is why everyone had at least two or three video stores in their circuit to hit. Each place had different things. Without the internet, renting older movies was a real crapshoot, especially if they were obscure, but sometimes you’d find gold.

Such was the case when, at thirteen years old, I walked into my local video store, hit the action section, and picked up a VHS tape for a movie called Big Trouble in Little China. Here in Canada, it never aired on TV, but it starred Kurt Russell, a hero of mine, so that was good enough for me. And no, I didn’t know who John Carpenter was at the time, but you can bet that once I saw it, I tracked down all of his movies. More than anything, I was lured in by the Indiana Jones-style cover art, which promised some high adventure.

Thus, when I popped it in my VCR, I was blown away by John Carpenter’s action-packed and often hilarious pastiche of Hong Kong action cinema and supernatural fare. I thought I had stumbled upon this amazing movie no one else had seen, until 1996, when I finally got my first computer, and discovered that Big Trouble in Little China had a big enough fan base to be considered a cult movie. Since then, its reputation has grown so much that many folks might be surprised to learn that it was a big box office flop in 1986, so much so that the budgets for Carpenter’s follow-up movies were slashed considerably. However, his creativity still made movies like They Live and Prince of Darkness cult classics like this one.

Big Trouble in Little China is the product of a wide range of influences. In the 1980s, Hollywood was fascinated with Asia, and many movies were made about the East meets West cliché, such as The Challenge, Forced Vengeance with Chuck Norris, Year of the Dragon, and even Eddie Murphy’s The Golden Child. The genre would essentially be killed the following year when the Sean Penn/ Madonna movie Shanghai Surprise became one of the biggest flops of the decade.

Written by Gary Goldman and David Z. Weinstein, Big Trouble in Little China was originally a western about a cowboy who teamed up with a Chinese railroad worker to rescue the latter’s fiancée. It was W.D. Richter, the man behind The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, who updated the script, making the cowboy a blowhard trucker named Jack Burton. Carpenter, attempting to branch out into another genre beyond horror, and had some success recently with Starman, was hired to direct by the studio, 20th Century Fox, who no doubt hoped this would be an Indiana Jones-style movie.

But did they even read the script? 

At the time, Kurt Russell, who had already made a few classics with Carpenter, was quickly rising in Hollywood, with him having the look of an action icon. Yet, the thing that attracted him, as well as Carpenter, to the project was how unconventional it was. Typically, there’s a cliche where the white hero, in American movies anyway, saves the day and protects his asian sidekick. Big Trouble in Little China inverted the formula. While a heroic lead, Burton is also a total klutz, with his John Wayne style swagger covering up for the fact that he has absolutely no idea what’s happening, but hey, at least he has the confidence to face whatever’s thrown in his way. Instead, the “sidekick”, Dennis Dun’s Wang Chi, is the real hero, which is fitting as he has more skin in the game, with his green-eyed fiancee being kidnapped by the minions of the villainous Lo Pan (brilliantly played by James Hong) so she can be sacrificed and restore him to life. 

Jack would get a love interest of his own, in Kim Cattrall’s Gracie Law, who, just like Jack, is a bit of a klutz and totally overwhelmed by what’s happening. The whole movie benefits from a great ensemble, with the two comic relief characters, Donald Li’s Eddie and Kate Burton’s Margot, also lovable in their own right, with their own little romance happening in the film’s background. Meanwhile, the great Victor Wong plays Egg Shen, a Chinatown sorcerer who is the heroic counterbalance to the evil Lo Pan and duels with him in the climax.

Besides the humour, what arguably makes the film is that Carpenter brought a genuine appreciation for the rhythms and style of what was happening in Hong Kong cinema at the time. Supernatural action comedies, such as the ones directed by Tsui Hark, were in vogue at the moment, and Carpenter did a great job mixing their vibe with his own rougher-edged take on action, with some horror and sci-fi elements mixed in for good measure. The action sequences, which James Lew choreographed, are better than anything Hollywood was offering at the time. For evidence, one needs only look at the failed English language movies Jackie Chan was shoehorned into – The Big Brawl and The Protector, which were bargain basement at best. Carpenter had the rhythms down, and wasn’t afraid to get fanciful, with plenty of wire fu. It helps that he, along with Alan Howarth, wrote one of the best action scores of the eighties, standing the test of time as the single best score he ever wrote. The theme song by his band The Coup De Villes is a banger too.

Yet, the movie was a flop in the summer of 1986. It was rushed to theatres because it had competition from the similarly themed The Golden Child, at the time, there was no bigger star on the planet than Eddie Murphy. The studio also had no idea how to promote it, and they hid the fact that Russell was playing a mostly comic character by having the classic Drew Struzan poster emphasize Russell’s muscles and the gun he carries around for part of the movie. Interestingly, Jack Burton only kills three people in the film, one of them by accident. 

It made a terrible $11.1 million at the box office, and Fox gave up on it shortly after the opening because their big summer movie, Aliens, was on the way to theatres, and they needed to put all their muscle behind it. However, the movie did benefit from coming out at the height of the VHS boom, and slowly but surely, folks started watching it on video and cable, with it eventually becoming a cult classic. When they recorded a memorably inebriated commentary track in 2001, Carpenter and Russell were pleased at how the movie’s cult had grown enough to afford a special edition DVD, with Russell even saying it was one of his favourite movies. The cult only grew from there, as many of the movie’s fans grew up to become movie stars, with Dwayne Johnson so massive a fan he tried to do a legacy sequel at one point. Its influence has become gigantic, with Taika Waititi’s reinterpretation of Thor, as played by Chris Hemsworth, heavily inspired by the film. Chris Pine’s character in the recent Dungeons and Dragons movie also seems heavily inspired by Jack Burton, although he played the part as a little too smug for my liking, as Burton was a lot of things, but wasn’t smug. Perhaps its most lasting effect on the pop culture was how it influenced the designs of two Mortal Kombat characters, with Raiden based on the henchman, Lightning, while Shang Tsung is based on Lo Pan.

Thirty-nine years after it came out, Big Trouble in Little China finally has the classic status it always deserved, with it big enough now that you can’t even really call it a cult movie anymore. What’s interesting is how well the movie plays with modern audiences, as it seems to embody all the best elements of the eighties, without any of the drawbacks that mar certain movies of the era. Hey – Carpenter and Russell aren’t only still alive, but they’re still pals. Is it too late for another ride on the Pork Chop Express? It’s all in the reflexes. 

The post Big Trouble in Little China: The Greatest Cult Film of All-Time? appeared first on JoBlo.

In 1992, the now acclaimed director Roland Emmerich, alongside action superstars Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, created Universal Soldier. A movie that was maybe under-appreciated in the golden age of action films but nonetheless a highlight in all of their careers. Regardless, financial issues loomed for the studio that created it. This resulted in rights being sold and two mostly horrendous television movies being released on Showtime starring Gary Busey and Burt Reynolds. Seven years later, in 1999, the franchise would attempt its big screen comeback with the legendary Jean Claude Van Damme desperate for a career win on a project no director seemed willing to touch. Would the result be a resurrection of not only the franchise but its leading man’s once unstoppable career? Or one of the final nails in the coffin of both of their big screen futures? This is What Happened to Universal Soldier: The Return.

Though moderately successful, it wasn’t long after the release of the original Universal Soldier that Carolco pictures went bankrupt. Though the company had several successful action hits such as Cliffhanger and Total Recall, years of losing money due to financial setbacks such as the ill-fated Cutthroat Island left the studio in shambles. In the shake up, the television rights to Universal Soldier were sold, resulting in two straight to TV sequels in the franchise: Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms and Universal Soldier III: Unfinished Business. The quality of both films were rather forgettable and the entire time Universal Soldier Producer Craig Baumgarten was itching to give the franchise the legit sequel it deserved. The rights eventually made their way to Baumgarten-Prophet Entertainment alongside TriStar Pictures (who distributed the first film) as well as Sony Pictures Entertainment. Jean Claude Van Damme was no doubt looking to return to box office domination after some rough outings with films like Maximum Risk and the Dennis Rodman team up Double Team. It seemed as if a sequel to one of his classic films could be the solution. Unfortunately the muscles from Brussels had burned a lot of bridges at this point in his career making a return to possible franchises like Timecop unlikely. However, a multi picture deal with Sony had the studio willing to take a chance on the actor once more despite the previous box office disappointments such as the underrated Sudden Death. They greenlighted a Universal Soldier theatrical sequel with one caveat: the film had to remain under a budget of $35 million.

A script for an original project written by Another 48 Hours and (later) Darkness Falls writer John Fasano was found and adapted into a sequel for the franchise. Much in the same way 10 Cloverfield Lane had been changed to fit its respective franchise years later. This alongside the help of The Return’s original director William Malone. Malone secured the job on the sequel after his work on horror projects such as Tales from the Crypt and Freddy Krueger television series Freddy’s Nightmares. He had hopes to create a more reserved, horror laden sequel to push the franchise forward. Unfortunately, Jean Claude Van Damme was keen to make the type of high flying, action packed film his audience perhaps expected of him. Despite the films modest budget. This impasse ultimately led to Malone leaving the project and instead going on to work on the surprisingly entertaining horror remake House on Haunted Hill instead. With the preproduction process taking longer than expected, the studio reached out to multiple other directors, including Roland Emmerich, with none of them showing interest in the project. This led them to Mel Gibson’s long time stunt double and first time director Mic Rodgers. Rodgers had a history in action films due to his succesful stunt career working on films such as Braveheart and Lethal Weapon. But had no experience directing whatsoever.

In the final script, the events of The Return would predictably ignore the events of the two previous sequels, instead directly following up the original film. We’re now fifteen years past the events of the original and Luc Deveraux has now been converted back into a normal human being. You just kind of have to ignore the fact that this somehow means the Unisol program basically solved the issue of HUMAN DEATH and go with it. Not to mention Deveraux is now working for the very company that put him through Hell, helping to refine the new generation of Unisol’s. The company’s moral focus is no doubt much more developed and they are now solely focused on reducing human casualties of war with their updated breed of soldiers. All this with the help of a futuristic AI computer program known as S.E.T.H., connected to each of the UniSol’s via neural implants. SETH can do everything from control the Unisol’s to babysit Deveraux’s daughter. When budget cuts promise to shut down the program entirely, SETH picks up on the betrayal and goes full blown Skynet. The computer program unleashes a group of Unisol’s to do its bidding, attempting to kill Deveraux as he is the only one left alive with the code that can shut its system down.

All this leads to Deveraux surviving the attack of a group of new and improved Unisols while trying to keep his daughter alive alongside his new and attractive reporter friend caught in the crossfire. At one point Deveraux drops the honestly pretty cool line, that “the only way is to blow them all up and hope the pieces don’t continue fighting us”. Meanwhile, SETH has managed to put his super computer essence into the brain of the most dangerous of all the UniSols… a body inhabited by none other than actor Michael Jai White, who we saw perish in the opening to the original film. Which, despite this wacky plot is a pretty cool callback.

Alongside physical specimens JCVD and Michael Jai White, the film casts wrestler Bill Goldberg as the most morally bankrupt Unisol, Romeo. In a role they originally had Stone Cold Steve Austin in mind for. Though Goldberg, who the director called “an Energizer bunny on steroids” was over the top and honestly corny throughout: physically, he was a fun and formidable physical opponent for Van Damme, who always thrived as the underdog. The love interest, reporter Erin Young is played by Heidi Schanz but was originally intended for the return of Ally Walker, who left the project early on due to other scheduled commitments. They instead killed her character off between films, leaving Deveraux as a single parent to their daughter. Terminator 2’s “Todd”, actor Xander Berkeley, plays one of the good guy geniuses responsible for the creation of SETH, who is dispatched a little too early in the film. Robocop 3 and Super Troopers actor, the late Daniel von Bargen plays an Army General trying to help stop SETH. Character actor Brent Hinkley rounds out the cast as a cartoonish and over the top guy in the chair cyber punk who listens to Gwar and helps SETH find his human form while eating cereal with a giant wooden spoon.

The ambitious script for The Return notwithstanding, the film is merely an action packed science fiction fight movie with various metal songs blasting off in the background. Not only was Goldberg’s WCW entrance song “Crush Em” by Megadeth featured at the wrestler’s request, but so were songs from everyone from Static-X to Anthrax. In another metal tie in, the Texas filmed flick even featured a strip club called “The Clubhouse” which was, in real life, owned by Pantera’s Vinnie Paul and Dimebag Darrell.

We’re not talking Citizen Kane by any means. But Universal Soldier: The Return still makes for a nonstop action rollercoaster with a plethora of fun fight scenes. The now human Deveraux has to repeatedly take on a semi-scary, mostly cheesy, Goldberg. Who is constantly resurrecting and appearing around every corner in pure Michael Myers fashion with the persistence of a Terminator. His prize? A final showdown with SETH’s ultimate Unisol in Michael Jai White where they repeatedly throw each other through a buffet of glass structures. Like it’s a goddamn fun house. The film walks a thin line between forgettable straight to video action fare and a fun 90s action movie with no fat left on the bone.

Jean Claude Van Damme seemed healthy, in prime physical shape, and far more committed than in recent films such as Street Fighter. During promotion he even mentioned that he had been training hard for a film that required him to be quick and in good shape for copious amounts of action scenes within.

Regardless, a lengthy pre-production and reshoots ended up ballooning the budget to around $40 million dollars and disastrous test screenings led the studio to take control of its editing. All told, The Return ended up with a running time of only an hour and twenty three minutes in the hopes that more screenings would provide a better box office return. This proved to be an unsuccessful endeavor.

Universal Soldier: The Return would finally release domestically on August 20th, 1999. The results were dismal. The film would only make just over $10 million domestically, with less than $3 million internationally. The reviews were even worse. As of today, The Return sits at a 5% Rotten rating on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, with a not much better Audience Rating of 24% Rotten. Reviews were savage and called the film (perhaps unfairly) idiotic, derivative, mind-numbing, and disappointing. The unfortunate result of all this for our beloved Jean Claude Van Damme was equally hurtful. Apart from a voice acting role in 2011’s Kung Fu Panda 2, the actor wouldn’t be seen on a big screen again until 2012’s The Expendables 2 in a rare villain role where he’s pitted against Sylvester Stallone. Though that movie did end in a pretty cool final fight scene between two action legends.

Villain Michael Jai White isn’t exactly fond in his recollection of the film, either. In a long after the fact interview the martial arts actor stated that he remembers the movie being “dumb as hell” and one of the worst movies he’s been in throughout the entirety of his career. Which, to be fair, is saying a lot. Jean Claude at least felt positively about it all at the time, saying he felt it The Return was all in all a good movie with a lot of rollercoaster-esque action scenes. That it featured actors in prime physical condition resulting in believable fight sequences.

In reality, director Mic Rodgers would never direct another film. The subsequent sequel a decade later, Universal Soldier: Regeneration, also starring Van Damme and bringing back Dolph Lundgren, would again cut this film out of franchise canon; deeming itself a direct sequel to the original.

Though Universal Soldier: The Return turned out to be a disappointment both financially and critically, it might be fair to say it’s a little better than given credit for. Sure, there are some questionable choices, dialogue, and acting moments. No doubt some bargain bin, music video quality cheese sprinkled throughout its brisk running time. But it also features a script with some interesting ideas about the Unisol program being led by a malicious AI powered computer. More importantly it’s a fun, turn your brain off, action movie with a ton of go for it action sequences and extended fight scenes. It’s an entertaining movie with a brisk running time and non-stop action featuring a handful of actors in amazing shape, beating the living hell out of each other. Universal Soldier: The Return is at its best a fun throwback to the action days of old and undoubtedly a far better entry in the franchise that the two television films that preceded it. And most importantly….long live Jean Claude Van Damme. And that is what happened to Universal Soldier: The Return.

A couple of the previous episodes of What Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!

The post Universal Soldier: The Return (1999) – What Happened to This Sci-Fi Action Movie? appeared first on JoBlo.

However, there’s arguably a downside to its success, as while many have tried to be another Marvel, none have succeeded. Too many superhero movies have given way to genre fatigue, with Marvel movies no longer the surefire smash hits they once were. While Thunderbolts and Captain America: Brave New World did blockbuster numbers by any other barometer, they were disappointments and lost money by Marvel standards. Meanwhile, entries like The Marvels tanked. Then again, Deadpool & Wolverine was a smash, and the upcoming Avengers movies seem like they could be a step back into the zeitgeist for the studio.

With that in mind, of the thirty-six Marvel movies, which is your favourite? Take the poll below and let us know!

The post POLL: What’s Your Favorite MCU movie? appeared first on JoBlo.

Some cliche somewhere said that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’ This has proven to be the case for me and especially when it comes to fan art. I have always sought out great fan art and have wanted to share it with as many people as possible. “Awesome Art” is the outlet for that passion. In this column, I will showcase the kick-ass artwork of some great artists, with the hopes that these artists get the attention they deserve. That’s the aim. If you have any questions or comments, or even suggestions of art or other great artists, feel free to contact me at any time at theodorebond@joblo.com.

Ballerina by Jaime Ventura

The Fantastic Four: First Steps by – Collin McCormack

F1 by Frosdee

How To Train Your Dragon by Hazem Asif

I Know What You Did Last Summer by Rafael Araujo

Lilo & Stitch by Rosemary Valero O’Connell

Sinners by Wallace Alexander

Superman by Daniel Bittencourt

Thunderbolts by Kevin Power

28 Ywars Later by Pronob Chakraborty

The post Awesome Art: 2025 Summer Blockbusters with, F1, Fantastic Four: First Steps, Lilo & Stitch, Sinners, Superman appeared first on JoBlo.

It’s time to look at the work of one of the greatest directors of our generation: Christopher Nolan. How big is Nolan these days? Interstellar, a movie which was never among the director’s top grossers, hit IMAX screens last week for its tenth anniversary, and screenings have been selling out constantly. The fact is – Nolan makes movies that belong on the big-screen, and he’s one of the few directors who’s arguably become his own franchise. For proof of that, one need only look at the fact that he’s planning a new movie, and the cast is jampacked with A-listers, because EVERYONE wants to work with Nolan.

A caveat – our Christopher Nolan movies ranked list is just one person’s opinion, and his work is divisive. Everyone has their favourites (and least favourites), so I’m hoping this ranking will open up some discussion in the comments below. We do not include Following in this list, as it’s only 69 minutes and can’t be put on the same level as his other work – although it’s an interesting black and white curio. Also, note that this list ranks all of his movies from worst to best, so if you don’t see your favourite film of his right off the top, don’t panic!

Insomnia (2002)

In my mind, Christopher Nolan has never made a bad movie. So, when I say one of his movies is his “worst,” that doesn’t mean it’s actually bad. Insomnia is based on a tremendous Norwegian film that stars Stellan Skarsgård in the lead, and I think his performance is slightly better than Al Pacino’s here. That said, Robin Williams gives a genuinely unnerving performance as the movie’s antagonist, and it also has gorgeous cinematography by Wally Pfister. It’s just that – at least compared to other films on this list – it’s the one that feels the most like an assignment.

Interstellar (2014)

One of Nolan’s most ambitious efforts, Interstellar is brilliant at times and annoyingly conventional at others. For me, the movie works wonderfully when Nolan is attempting to make his variation on 2001: A Space Odyssey. But I’ve never liked the side plot where Matt Damon is found marooned and becomes an antagonist. A movie like this doesn’t need a “bad guy.” However, Matthew McConaughey is terrific in the lead, and the cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema is a revelation. Originally, the movie “only” made $197 million, which was considered somewhat disappointing given the hype to the lead-up, but time has been kind to this movie, with the re-release a monster hit.

Tenet (2020)

I found this movie utterly incomprehensible when I saw it in theatres, due mainly to the atrocious sound mix. Throughout his career, Nolan has taken a lot of heat for not having clear dialogue, and he went overboard with the mixing here, as it obscured an already tough-to-decipher plot. It made me quite angry when I saw it the first time, but I enjoyed the movie more when watching it at home – with subtitles. Like all of his films, it’s visually arresting, and the score by Ludwig Göransson is a winner. Nolan has always been inspired by the James Bond franchise, and his two heroes in this one, John David Washington and Robert Pattinson, are likely the closest we’ll ever get to seeing how Nolan would tackle that series (although then again – who knows?). Also worth noting, Nolan must have taken the audio criticism to heart because all of the dialogue in Oppenheimer is clear as a bell. Like other movies on this list, I expect time to be kind to Tenet.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

I enjoyed Nolan’s divisive end to his Dark Knight trilogy, even if it couldn’t help but pale compared to its predecessors. Tom Hardy’s Bane is a bit of a letdown as a villain, at least compared to Heath Ledger’s Joker, but I still think it serves as a satisfying end to the franchise, with Bruce Wayne earning the retirement he’s spending with Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle. It’s also the first movie where Nolan’s sound mixes became problematic, and I’ll never forget how hard it was to figure out what Bane was saying the first time I saw the opening action sequence when it was attached as a teaser to IMAX showings of Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

Memento (2000)

I know this will be a controversial place for the movie that put Nolan on the map. Structurally, it’s brilliant; I just personally don’t think it holds up to repeated viewings as much as other movies on this list. Even still, it’s pretty audacious filmmaking, and one can see that this immediately made him a superstar director.

The Prestige (2006)

This one has always been the most underrated movie in Nolan’s filmography, as Disney’s Touchstone didn’t position it as the event it would have been had it come out just a few years later. Hugh Jackman gives the performance of his life as one of two duelling illusionists who have a rivalry over a teleportation trick that leads to devastating moral consequences for both men. This is one of Nolan’s movies that gets better every time you watch it, with Christian Bale’s performance a bit of a puzzle that only really comes together on its second viewing. This also has one of my favourite bits of Nolan casting ever – David Bowie as Tesla.

Batman Begins (2005)

Nolan started to reinvent the superhero saga with this, and I remember, when I first saw it, thinking it had more in common with epic adventure movies like The Last Samurai or Gladiator than anything else I’d seen. To me, it paid off, and Christian Bale makes for an iconic Caped Crusader (and a great Bruce Wayne), while Michael Caine will always be my favourite Alfred. 

Dunkirk (2017)

This one seems divisive, as some think Nolan’s WW2 movie is too thinly plotted. To me, they’re missing the point, as this is supposed to be a raw experience that puts you in the shoes of the various soldiers participating in the evacuation of Dunkirk. It’s his shortest movie since Following, and it can’t be beaten on a technical level. Tom Hardy has one of his best roles as a heroic RAF fighter pilot, acting almost completely with his eyes until the final shot.

Oppenheimer (2023)

When it was announced that this would be a three-hour biopic of Robert Oppenheimer, people cracked wise on Twitter that it would just be three hours of men talking in rooms. And you know what – it is. But Nolan knows precisely how to make a movie like this, and it’s one of the tightest, most explosive three-hour dramas you’re ever likely to see. This is genuinely epic filmmaking and a masterpiece on every level, featuring perhaps Nolan’s best-ever cast. Cillian Murphy is brilliant as a man who shaped the modern world, for better or worse, while Robert Downey Jr gives his best performance since Iron Man in a critical supporting role. 

Inception (2010)

What else can be said about one of our generation’s best science fiction movies? It’s the movie that proved a dazzling action movie can be just as challenging as an indie and still make hundreds of millions of dollars. It also boasts one of my favourite musical scores of all time, with Hans Zimmer’s work career-defining.

The Dark Knight (2008)

But, as good as Inception is, to me, Nolan’s masterpiece will always be The Dark Knight. It’s still the best superhero movie ever made, and I firmly believe it belongs in any serious conversation about the best movies ever made. It’s thematically rich and features one of the most outstanding modern performances, Heath Ledger’s Joker. Sixteen years later, it’s still the tentpole movie every would-be blockbuster wants to be. 

The post Christopher Nolan Movies Ranked: From Worst to Best appeared first on JoBlo.

Sometimes, a movie character is cast so perfectly that you can’t even fathom another actor playing the role. Cue Christian Bale in American Psycho, a career-launching breakout performance as Patrick Bateman, the greedy, materialistic Wall Street yuppie who moonlights as a murderous, stark-raving mad psycho killer while trying to preserve his public mask of sanity. Whether it’s all in his mind, Bale plays Bateman with such outward surety and inward insecurity, such brooding intensity and mordant comedy at once, that he keeps viewers guessing about Bateman’s sick, twisted, hyperviolent fantasies.

To think that director Mary Harron had to fight tooth and nail to cast Bateman in the role is preposterous to consider now, 25 years after the film was released. But again, even if Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt played Patrick Bateman, both of whom were attached to the role at one point, neither would likely strike the perfect balance of sidesplitting humor and head-splitting horror in the way Bale did in his first real starring movie role since Empire of the Sun. Indeed, Bale’s casting process in American Psycho is so fascinating that it’s only right, as the film celebrates its Silver Jubilee in 2025, to reflect on how the future Oscar-winning Welsh actor landed the role of a lifetime and what went into his performance as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho!

Despite the controversial nature of Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 source novel, Hollywood sought to adapt American Psycho as a feature film as early as 1992. At the time, Johnny Depp expressed interest in portraying Patrick Bateman, prompting producer Edward Pressman to purchase the rights to Ellis’s novel. Ellis was taken aback by Pressman’s unwavering commitment to adapting the book, and Pressman even met with Stuart Gordon to direct. Once Gordon was deemed the wrong fit, Depp left the project, and body-horror maestro David Cronenberg was soon attached to the adaptation.

When Cronenberg boarded the project, Ellis was hired to write the screenplay. At this time, Brad Pitt was slated to portray Patrick Bateman under Cronenberg’s direction, which is quite an intriguing prospect. However, Cronenberg stipulated that Ellis write a brief 65-70-page script at most, eliminate the graphic carnage, and delete all the restaurant and nightclub scenes, which Cronenberg cited as boring. Luckily, Ellis found Cronenberg’s demands “insane” and did not proceed to honor them.

Upon ignoring Cronenberg’s notes, Ellis wrote a screenplay draft that drastically veered from his novel. Ellis became restless after the three-to-four-year adaptation process and wrote a ridiculous ending where Patrick Bateman performs a musical number to Barry Manilow’s Daybreak atop the World Trade Center. The notion of Cronenberg directing Brad Pitt as Patrick Bateman in a song-and-dance ditty atop the Twin Towers is ludicrous to ponder now, then, or frankly, ever.

Cronenberg rejected Ellis’s draft and hired Norman Snider to draft a new version. Yet, Cronenberg hated Snider’s script more than Ellis’s. By January 1996, Mary Harron was asked to direct American Psycho, and she set her uncompromising sights on the unknown Welsh actor Christian Bale to play Patrick Bateman after director Todd Haynes claimed Bale was the best actor he’d ever worked with.

Before casting Bale, Harron hired Gwyn Turner, who plays Elizabeth in the film, to help rewrite Ellis’s script to emphasize the satirical social commentary about 80s excess. Once the screenplay was in shape, Billy Crudup was the first actor cast to play Bateman. Believe it or not, Crudup was attached to the role for six weeks before leaving on his own accord due to his aversion to the disturbing material and inability to find the character.

Years later, Bale and Harron maintain that the main reason they saw eye-to-eye on Bateman was their lack of interest in his backstory. Several actors who auditioned for the part kept droning on about Bateman’s abusive childhood and troubled upbringing. Yet, the actor-director duo couldn’t care less about Bateman’s psychotic past to explain his murderous motivations. For Bale, Bateman hardly registered as a real person, but rather as an alien monster from another world.

Once Crudup departed, Harron considered everyone from Ben Chaplin and Johnny Lee Miller to Robert Sean Leonard and Jonathan Schaech for the role. The producers pressed Harron to hire Edward Norton, but she refused and remained adamant about casting Christian Bale as her only choice.

Harron sent the script to Bale, who was working on Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine. Despite never reading the novel, Bale fundamentally understood the dark humor and expressed so much interest in playing Bateman that he turned down every movie offer he received for the next nine months. Even as other actors and directors became attached to the project, Bale remained fully committed and adamant that the role was his. This proved invaluable when Bateman and Harron were temporarily removed from the project when Lionsgate demanded that Leonardo DiCaprio be cast as Bateman instead.

Indeed, once DiCaprio expressed interest in playing Bateman, Lionsgate told Harron they would make the Titanic actor an offer to star. Harron threatened to leave the project if DiCaprio was hired and refused to meet with DiCaprio out of fear that he would be so charming in person that she would cave in and change her mind. Harron cited the notorious miscasting of Demi Moore in The Scarlet Letter as a reason why DiCaprio looked too young and immature for the role. Lionsgate called Harron’s hand to see if she was bluffing, and she was not. Lionsgate fired Harron as the director and Bale as the lead actor, hired Oliver Stone to replace her, and offered DiCaprio the role.

Alas, DiCaprio’s asking price was $21 million, more than half of the movie’s then-purported $40 million production budget (Harron claims the budget stayed at $6 million when DiCaprio was attached). Lionsgate lost DiCaprio, who left over creative differences to make The Beach with Danny Boyle instead. DiCaprio has since downplayed his involvement, saying he may have been slightly interested in the American Psycho script but, in the end, realized the story lacked meaning and didn’t amount to much. Meanwhile, Bale thanked DiCaprio for passing not just on American Psycho, but basically every role he played in his career.

At some point, Keanu Reeves was offered to play Bateman. So, too, was Ewan McGregor, who declined the part after Bale called him up and personally asked him to do so.

While Stone ultimately departed the project due to budgetary disagreements, his idea was to cast DiCaprio as Bateman, James Woods as Detective Kimball, Cameron Diaz as Bateman’s fiancée Evelyn, and Chloe Sevigny as Bateman’s secretary, Jen, who ended up in the role anyway.

After DiCaprio and Stone left, Lionsgate rehired Harron to direct American Psycho. Although the budget was severely reduced to $7 million, Harron immediately cast Bale as Bateman again. Bale and Harron persuaded Winona Ryder to play Evelyn, but she declined despite working with Bale in Little Women.

In preparation to portray Patrick Bateman, Bale kept the book by his side every day of filming, pored over the novel’s pages, and deliberately kept to himself on the set to immerse himself in Bateman’s twisted psychology and get into the character’s dissociated headspace. At first, Bale struggled with the American accent due to his character’s Manchester dialect in Velvet Goldmine.

Bale also underwent a grueling training regimen to get into tip-top physical shape. He stuck to the same morning routine that Bateman articulates in the film, had elaborate dental work done before filming commenced, stuck to a rigorous workout schedule that included several hours at the gym and three hours of on-set training every day, and feasted on a primary diet of chicken breasts. Harron nicknamed Bale “Robo-Actor” on set after his costars noticed that he would break into a sweat at the exact moment during each take while filming the hilarious business card scene. The point is that Bale had complete control over his physical instrument while making American Psycho, and the results still hold up 25 years later.

Bale’s chiseled, 180-pound physique became so striking that Harron admitted that most female crew members stopped and watched the actor shower during Bateman’s morning ritual. Once he nailed Bateman’s speech patterns, Bale also kept his American accent in between takes and was so convincing that several crew members were stunned to hear his authentic British accent at the wrap party for the first time. Bale also improvised two memorable scenes in the movie, including Bateman’s campy, maniacal moonwalk after gorily axing Paul Allen to death in his living room, and the playful instance when Bateman begins skipping his jump rope across the room like a schoolgirl while working out.

Once landing the role, Bale was so intent on impressing Ellis that he organized a restaurant meeting with the author. Bale arrived in full business suit regalia and introduced himself as Patrick Bateman, replete with the yuppie American accent. Ellis was so unnerved that he pleaded with Bale to stop pretending to be Bateman after 10 minutes. To this day, Ellis maintains it was one of the most disturbing encounters in his life.

Beyond Ellis’s inspirational source material, Bale based his performance as Bateman on two actors: Tom Cruise and Nicolas Cage. While preparing to play the part, Bale happened on a random Tom Cruise interview on television with David Letterman. As Harron tells it, Bale witnessed Cruise’s “very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes,” and used that as a psychological entryway into the pathology of Bateman’s morbid mental state. Bale also kept pictures of Cruise and his megawatt smile in his trailer. The irony is that, in Ellis’s novel, Bateman lives in the same apartment complex as Tom Cruise. Bateman and Cruise even interact in the apartment’s elevator, with Bateman insulting Cruise’s 1988 movie Cocktail by calling it Bartender.

The other actor Bale patterned Bateman on was Nicolas Cage, particularly in Vampire’s Kiss. Cage plays Peter Loew, a solipsistic New York yuppie with the same shallow, self-absorbed materialism as Bateman. But beyond the character parallels, Bale was drawn to the risky nature of Cage’s performance.

Indeed, several people cautioned Bale to decline to play Patrick Bateman, calling it akin to career suicide to portray such an irredeemable serial killer. Feminist leader Gloria Steinem was one person who advised against the role of Bateman, urging Leonardo DiCaprio not to accept the part when he was still attached to the project. Steinman claimed DiCaprio’s young female fan base would turn on him if he played such a violent misogynist. Ironically, Steinman eventually became Christian Bale’s real-life stepmother after marrying his father, whom she was dating when Bale was cast as Bateman. Bale has since stated he did not agree to play Bateman as a cruel joke to irritate Steinem.

Rather than discouraging him, these warnings made Bale want to play Bateman even more. From Bateman to Batman, American Psycho proved anything but career suicide. On the contrary, the cult-classic catapulted Bale into the upper echelon of A-list Hollywood actors, a bankable leading franchise movie star, a chameleonic character actor, and a future Academy Award winner to boot.

Speaking of boots, Luca Guadagnino’s dubious reboot of American Psycho has Austin Butler rumored to play Patrick Bateman. Whether Butler can hold a candle to Bale’s luminous turn is a tall ask, but at least he has an all-time great performance and Ellis’s novel as a blueprint.

As the original American Psycho celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, it’s worth noting that Bale was asked to reprise Patrick Bateman in Rules of Attraction, the 2002 movie adapted from Bret Easton Ellis’s novel, which follows Patrick’s brother, Sean Bateman. However, Bale declined. Regardless, Bale’s piercing performance as Patrick Bateman remains just as captivating as his casting process.

The post How Christian Bale was Cast in American Psycho appeared first on JoBlo.

The episode of What Happened to This covering Johnny Mnemonic was Written and Edited by Jaime Vasquez, Narrated by Tyler Nichols, Produced by Andrew Hatfield and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

The story of Johnny Mnemonic was one of the early standards of cyberpunk literature. And coming off the explosive success of Speed, Keanu Reeves took on the title role opposite Action icon Dolph Lundgren. The supporting cast was a solidly talented ensemble that included Ice-T, Henry Rollins, and a laser whip that cut right through characters, bones and all. So, how could this promising film adaptation die a death so pitiful that even Casper the friendly ghost would spit on its grave? How did too many cooks turn what was meant to be an arty tech noir film into an overcooked, underwhelming mess? And how did it lead to studios greenlighting The Matrix? I need to unload all this data, so stick around and find out What Happened to Johnny Mnemonic.

In 1981, sci-fi writer William Gibson’s story “Johnny Mnemonic” was published in Omni Magazine. It introduced the character of Johnny, a courier living in a high-tech fantasy world in 2021. It also introduced cyberpunk at the start of the ‘80s tech boom. The story was featured in Gibson’s collection Burning Chrome, released in 1986. Artist and filmmaker Robert Longo had massive success in the same decade with a series of hyper realistic drawings titled “Men in the Cities.” The artwork became such an ’80s staple that pieces of it were featured in the satirical horror-comedy American Psycho, displayed on the wall of lead character Patrick Bateman’s apartment. After directing TV and music videos in the ’80s and ’90s, Longo wanted to move on to film. A big fan of Gibson’s work, he wanted to adapt his popular debut novel, Neuromancer. But he would eventually change directions, as he ultimately felt that the story might be too ambitious for a film. Instead, he chose to take Johnny Mnemonic to the big screen. His intention was to echo the low budget style of Jean Luc Godard’s 1965 tech noir film, Alphaville, or Chris Marker’s 1962 French Sci-Fi feature, La Jetée, both filmed in black and white. The director envisioned Mnemonic to be colorless as well.

But Longo would discover that making a movie in the ‘90s meant you’re not doing it right unless you’re shamelessly burning through stacks of cash. After Longo and Gibson met in 1989, they worked on a few drafts of the script, but they struggled to find funding, as the financiers they met with preferred to invest in potential blockbusters. After production company Carolco had a box office hit with the Arnold Schwarzenegger film, Total Recall, they shortly owned the rights to Johnny Mnemonic. Following some financial matters, however, they sold the rights to Sony Pictures. Funny enough, Sony wanted the film to be more like Total Recall. With its similar sci-fi and action elements, they aimed to rival its major financial success.

In 1995, director Robert Longo told Starlog Magazine that it is “difficult to make art by committee” hinting at the film’s behind the scenes tension. But he added, “Ultimately, I think it worked out well.” In the years since its release, however, Longo has been more upfront about his unpleasant filming experience. The first-time director helplessly watched as his initial vision for Johnny Mnemonic was hacked to pieces like the wood chipper scene in Fargo. The film’s credited editor, Ron Sanders, a frequent Cronenberg collaborator, was replaced by a studio-appointed editor whose final cut had a notably different pace. Longo’s plan to hire Taxi Driver and Raging Bull cinematographer Michael Chapman was also scrapped due to Canadian tax incentives requiring more local hires. Instead, they brought in François Protat, whose biggest credit was Weekend at Bernie’s. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there was a clear contrast between Longo’s intended dark tech thriller and a comedy about a beach party with a dead host.

The casting process was also heavily monitored by Sony, as they wanted stars with multinational outreach, namely Japanese TV and film star Takeshi Kitano, to try and attract a Japanese audience. For the role of the Street Preacher, U2 lead singer Bono was considered. But keeping the worldwide box office in mind, Sony ended up hiring action film icon Dolph Lundgren. While Longo didn’t agree with this casting choice, he commended Lundgren for being a “big action star who was willing to take a big risk.” With Lundgren onboard, Longo and Gibson fleshed out his role a little more. The street preaching hitman became Karl Honig, a sadistic preacher who refers to himself as Jesus and wields a knife with a crucifix handle. The sadistic streak apparently continued off screen. Black Flag lead singer, Henry Rollins, played the role of former doctor Spider. For his fight scene with Karl, Rollins says Lundgren punched him head-on, with Rollins claiming that the punch caused his thinking to become “twenty percent slower.” Though it was an apparent accident, Lundgren allegedly told Rollins in response, “Don’t worry, you’re tough.” Meanwhile, Rollins practically had cartoon birds flying around his head. In 2024, Canadian radio show The Strombo Show featured Ice-T, who played J-Bone. He praised Keanu Reeves for his lack of ego and his strong work ethic, and added that though they never had any scenes together, he and Rollins became good friends. Actress Dina Meyer made her film debut as Jane, a character similar to fan favorite Molly Millions from Gibson’s novel, Neuromancer. Reportedly, another production company had owned the rights to Neuromancer, therefore Sony could not use Molly’s name or her specific features, such as retractable blades underneath her fingernails or sealed lenses for enhanced vision. Seasoned character actor Udo Kier was cast as Johnny’s handler, Ralfi. Though his role is small, it drives the story. And Kier brings all the gravitas he can to his short screen time, posing as a serious threat, while avoiding mustache-twirling levels of camp.

For the titular role, Robert Longo wanted Val Kilmer. And Kilmer was initially cast, but he vanished into the night to play the lead in 1995’s Batman Forever. Then allegedly a copy of the script landed on Keanu Reeves’s doorstep. The tactic caught his interest as did the role, and Reeves was cast as the lead. Gibson was satisfied with the casting choice, praising the actor’s understanding of the character.

The story begins with Johnny visiting a hotel in Beijing where a group of scientists implant his head with 380 GB of data. Trying to get their hands on the info, Yakuza members break into the hotel room, shooting the scientists and ripping their body parts off with a laser whip that looks like it took up about a quarter of the film’s budget. But Johnny makes a getaway and heads to Newark, New Jersey to unload the data, as it can only stay in his head for about another day before killing him. He is followed by Shinji and his men. Jane, a bodyguard in search of her next client, helps protect Johnny. The two end up at the headquarters of a group called the Lo-Teks, an anti-establishment group who are led by J-Bone, a man who looks like he wandered off the set of Battlefield Earth. Shinji’s superior Takahashi hires hitman Karl Honig to kill Johnny. Karl is an imposing Swedish man with long blonde hair, who looks like a Great Value Thor. Since Takahashi, Shinji and the overload of data in Johnny’s head are all racing to see who or what can kill Johnny first, Karl’s probably gonna bust his Swedish meatballs for nothing.

After Jane suffers from convulsions, they visit Spider, a doctor who treats Jane and discovers that the data in Johnny’s head is a cure for NAS, AKA “nerve attenuation syndrome.” This is caused by overexposure to electromagnetic radiation. Jane is one of many people afflicted, and the cure is top secret because it could be financially damaging to Pharmakom, whose clients rely on their medicinal relief. The data in Johnny’s head needs to be decrypted with three photos that work like access cards, but he only has access to one photo. Spider suggests that Johnny see Jones, a dolphin who was once active in the Navy and now lives at the Lo-Teks base, where an inevitable battle breaks out involving J-Bone, Jane, Johnny, and the men who are trying to kill him. This results in drama, betrayal, secrets exposed, and the laser whip finally being put to good use.

The film opened Memorial Day weekend 1995, with an underwhelming $7.4 million. The total gross also failed to impress, earning $19 million on a $26 million budget. Originally slated for a February release, plans changed when Keanu’s action thriller Speed became a monster hit during the filming of Johnny Mnemonic. With their lead actor becoming a bonafide movie star, the film was pushed to Memorial Day weekend, which saw the supernatural kid-friendly comedy Casper jump up to the top of the charts, while Mnemonic didn’t even break the top 5.

Critics derided the film for being confusing, cheap, and antiquated despite its futuristic premise. It currently holds a 20% score on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes ranked slightly higher with a 30% approval rating and a 5.6 out of 10 with IMDb users. But the film has gained traction since its release, becoming a cult hit. And 25 years after Robert Longo’s frustration with the theatrical version, he finally released a cut in black and white.

For the film’s silver anniversary, Longo planned to upload the film in black-and-white onto YouTube. After showing this version to Don Carmody, one of the film’s producers, Carmody was so excited about it that he got the studio involved. Longo, who was hesitant to work with Sony again, was pleasantly surprised to learn how supportive they were of the new version. The studio even provided the original footage, which resulted in Longo and Cyrus Stowe, the movie’s colorist, using the original high-resolution footage when re-grading it to black-and-white. The film hit sold-out screenings at the Tribeca and Rockaway film festivals in 2021. And in 2022, Sony released the Blu-ray simply titled Johnny Mnemonic In Black and White. This was much closer to Longo’s original vision, and he was finally happy with the film.

When The Matrix was pitched to production companies, Lilly and Lana Wachowski used Johnny Mnemonic as a template, with Lana noting that producers like to hear familiarity instead of untried concepts. Despite Mnemonic’s disappointing release, it paved the way for the success of The Matrix, which was a game-changer for the film industry and a career-changer for Keanu Reeves.

Another high point for Longo and Reeves was Johnny’s “room service” tirade. His character was extremely frustrated at that point, as were Longo and Gibson. While not originally in the script, Longo suggested the idea and Gibson wrote it overnight. It became the most memorable scene in the movie and Longo’s personal favorite. The rant may perfectly embody the film’s main purpose, which is escapism. Sometimes, amid life’s absurdity, the most cathartic release is to stop and yell at the top of your lungs about how much you just want room service.

A couple of the previous episodes of What Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!

The post Johnny Mnemonic (1995) – What Happened to This Sci-Fi Action Film? appeared first on JoBlo.

The 80s were a time when country music and a type of hero born of the good ol boy class that came into his own.  This could be seen in shows like The Dukes of Hazzard, BJ and The Bear, as well as movies like Any Which Way But Loose and Smokey and the Bandit.  They were a time of what would be considered fun action films and TV.  Again, this was personified in shows where usually no one got seriously hurt, like The A-Team. The bad guys went to the same shooting school as your friendly neighborhood Stormtroopers.  But, one TV show that would personify this “nobody better get hurt” adventure series was The Fall Guy.  

The series was designed as a vehicle for star Lee Majors, who had become a household name thanks to The Six Million Dollar Man, but struggled to find a worthy follow-up. This would be it, with him playing Colt Seavers, a likeable stuntman who supplements his income in an interesting way: he moonlights as a bounty hunter. For Majors, this would be a passion project, with him even singing the theme song. The show became a major hit, with Majors riding a second wave of fame while his gorgeous co-star, Heather Thomas, would become one of the biggest pin-ups of the 80s. The show has just been given the big-screen treatment, with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt starring in the well-received remake (read our review here), so now it’s time to pay tribute to the original show.

How did The Fall Guy get made?

The Fall Guy came to be in probably one of the most bizarre ways a TV show would happen.  And yet…for those who grew up with the series and that epic theme song, it makes complete sense.

Glen Larson, a name Gone But Not Forgotten viewers should recognize, was one of the gods of 80s television. He was hanging out with a friend of his named David Somerville who just happened to be a member of a music group named The Diamonds.  Somerville had written a theme song for a project about stuntmen called “The Ballad of the Unknown Stuntman,” which he was humming and singing. Larson heard him and asked his friend what it was. He had Somerville perform the whole song.  Based on that song, Larson had an idea for a TV series.

Armed with Somerville and literally no script, Larson went in to pitch the idea of a show to ABC.  The pitch consisted of Larson and Somerville singing the song.  Lo and behold, that was enough for them, and the show got the greenlight. It’s as crazy as some scenarios Colt Seaver would wind up in.

Larson’s idea became a series that would give viewers exactly what was promised: crazy stunts and behind-the-scenes of what it was like making Hollywood action films. But consistently doing that for an hour a week would get really expensive and exhausting.  So the lead character of our Fall Guy, Colt Seaver, would have a gig between his stunt jobs as a bounty hunter for bail jumpers, a scenario the film dropped for some reason.  This concept would keep a level of action still going and allow Colt to use his stuntman abilities and training while dealing with this other dangerous line of work.

Where is The Fall Guy cast now?

The Fall Guy wasn’t a deep premise, but it was a hell of fun.  And this was helped along in spades by casting Lee Majors as Colt Seaver.  Majors had a history with Glenn Larson thanks to his work in Six Million Dollar Man.  Lee was likable, had a glimmer in his eye, and was not from bionics this time. He had been around stuntmen and the industry for a while.  He had a good ol boy charm, which was something that would work years later when he was cast in the role he seemed born for, Bruce Campbell’s father in Ash Vs Evil Dead.

Majors would do many of his stunts in the series besides singing the theme song.  He also directed some episodes and produced the series.  A number of the guest stars who would show up or cameo were friends of Majors who had been around a while by this point in his career in numerous TV and film roles, several which were based in the Western genre.  

The Fall Guy definitely lent itself to this sort of “Redneck Cinema” genre, which was growing in popularity in the late 70s and early 80s, and Major’s western resume helped greatly with that mystique.  It was something Larson would bring to the small screen in other series like The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, BJ and the Bear, and, to some extent, Simon and Simon.

Majors is still working in both TV and film, most notably in the previously mentioned Ash Vs Evil Dead where he gave as great a chin as Bruce Campbell on screen.  

Douglas Barr played Howie Munson, the naïve and lovable sidekick for Colt.  Howie loved the ladies and would try his hand at being a stuntman alongside Colt and Jody, using his many failed attempts at degrees in college to help out when needed.  Barr’s charming smile, good looks, and loveable personality made him a great foil for Major’s, and there was a great chemistry there.  

Barr had already been in a few TV series and films at this point.  He’d go on to co-star alongside David Rappaport in the fantastic tv series called The Wizard as his bodyguard and partner.  He’s since become more known for writing and directing TV movies like the Hallmark Channel’s Notes from the Heart Healer and Taking a Chance on Love.  He’s also become a winery owner with the snazzily named Hollywood and Vine Cellars.

Heather Thomas played Jody, the stunt woman who helped keep Howie in line and was Colt’s right hand.  Thomas was a stunning actress whose poster wound up on the wall of a LOT of 80s teenage boys.  She appeared in several TV series in guest roles and some great cult films like Zapped alongside Scott Baio.   But my favourites were the Fred Olen Ray-directed Cyclone opposite a very young Jeffrey Combs and Red Blooded American Girl, where she starred alongside Kim Coates, Christopher Plummer, and Andrew Stevens.

Thomas’s time in Hollywood wasn’t an easy one though, and she’s talked about the struggles that happened while she was more in the public eye.  Stalking became a life-threatening issue when one of Thomas’s stalkers came to her house and climbed a fence while brandishing a knife.  Thomas did return to acting though and also became a writer, penning the book called Trophies.  

Jo Ann Pflug would star for the first season as Big Jack, Colt’s bondswoman boss.  Pflug was in many TV roles, TV films, and feature films.  But I’ll always remember her as the fast-talking Louise Harper from The Night Strangler.

Markie Post would take over the bail woman role as Terri Shannon for all but the series’ last season.  Post was a staple on TV throughout the 80s and had a massive career, with her most well-known role being Christine from Night Court.  In fact, her commitment to being on The Fall Guy prevented her from joining Night Court until its third season. Sadly, she would pass away at the young age of 70 in 2021 after a long battle with cancer.

But, we can’t recite the cast of The Fall Guy without mentioning its most iconic character…and that’s Colt’s GMC Pick-Up. Many who owned the toy car version of this baby would have it race alongside the other famous vehicles of the 80s like KITT, The ATEAM Van, and, of course, The General Lee.  The 1980’s was a magical time to be a car geek. The truck was a GMC K 2500 with some additions.  They did many stunts and jumps with the trucks. Eventually, GMC would modify the pickups to help cut down on the number of them being trashed during stunts.

The Fall Guy would become a major, pun not intended, hit for ABC thanks to a great mix of comedy, action, and a massive guest star list.  As said, Lee Majors got many friends to show up in the series.  Just in the pilot alone, Lou Rawls would play Country Joe.  And when you have a guy with a voice like Lou Rawls, you have to find someone with an equally unique voice to play the villain harassing him.  That role went to Percy Rodrigues, the voice of over 100 movie trailers. When you heard that voice coming onto a trailer you knew you were in for something terrifying.  From Jaws to The Exorcist, Rodriguez’s voice was always involved.  

Besides Rawls and Rodrigues, Delta Burke would appear as a waitress, and Lara Parker was a very unhappy resident in town.  Terry Kiser (Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s) was Jody’s director.  Eddie Albert, another staple from film and TV played Big John, the child hit and runner in a villainous turn.  

James Coburn played himself, and so did Farrah Fawcett.  Farrah’s appearance almost didn’t happen.  In reality, she and Majors were getting divorced, and it was playing out across many tabloids and in the news.  Her friends had asked her not to do the cameo, which was a really sweet moment where you could see the affection the actors still had for each other.  But Farrah wanted to show the world that she and Majors weren’t at each other’s throats as the headlines would have you believe.  So she did the cameo, which lends itself to the line Majors sings in the theme song (“I’ve been seen with Farrah”).

The guest stars and brief appearances over the show’s run were MASSIVE.  Here’s a short sampling.  Richard Kiel, Milton Berle, Linda Evans, Vincent Schiavelli, Lou Ferrigno, Tom Selleck, Heather Locklear, Richard Burton, Roy Rogers, Lindsay Wagner and many more.  Much like Dukes of Hazzard, some country music performers like Johnny Lee, Mickey Gilley, Dottie West, Ray Stevens, and Charlie Daniels would be a part of the show.

But my favourite episode of The Fall Guy had to be the one that aired on October 31^st, 1984…with the original title called October the 31^st.  This episode sees Colt, Howie, and Jody all at a supposedly haunted mansion alongside Elvira and John Carradine.  But John isn’t the only Carradine here as his sons David, Keith, and Robert are also in the episode.  This episode would be followed up the following year with October the 32^nd, which would have Elvira return where Colt and company are filming a horror film and dealing with an escaped mental patient.  This would see Doug McClure return as well as Schiavelli, and would also co-star Vernon Wells.

As I said previously, there were toy cars of Colt’s truck in different sizes and an airplane.  The merchandise was huge, with things like lunchboxes, action figures, t-shirts, and a board game. 

Overseas, the show was also a hit, with Fall Guy Annuals produced in the UK, which was something done for series like Doctor Who and the like.  If you want to see the original Fall Guy series, you can order it on Amazon Prime.

Is the movie a fitting tribute?

The answer to the question of if Fall Guy should return has already been answered.  This week, Ryan Gosling is starring in a big-budget remake feature film called The Fall Guy, with him playing Colt Seavers who in this isn’t a bounty hunter for bail jumpers but is simply a stuntman.  The Jody here, played by Emily Blunt, isn’t his assistant but the film director of the project he’s working on and who also happens to be his ex-girlfriend.  There’s no Howie around, but the rumour is that Lee Majors does have a role in the film, which follows Colt as he tries to find the missing leading man of the movie, Tom Ryder, played by Aaron Taylor Johnson before Jody’s film is shut down.

The trailers all show this looks like a great time with a funny and charming cast and lots of explosions and crazy stunts…which is exactly what The Fall Guy should be.  It’s an amped-up peek into Hollywood.  But more than that, it gives the guys and gals who risk their lives for our entertainment a spotlight that’s been well-deserved for a long time.  And here’s hoping that with a film like this most assuredly being a hit, it will inspire the Oscars to give us a best Stunt Person award FINALLY.  Check out our EIC Chris Bumbray’s review HERE!

The post The Fall Guy (1981-86): What Happened to the TV Show that spawned the movie? appeared first on JoBlo.

Deliverance is seen as the benchmark for backwoods, fish out of water thrillers (and yes, we cover thrillers too for all you folks in the comments that will say this isn’t horror) but it’s not alone. While it’s certainly true that the John Boorman 1972 thriller had more success with its 46 million dollar return on a 2-million-dollar budget and 3 Oscar nominations including Best Picture, it may have been bested 9 years later. Southern Comfort has just as good of a pedigree in front of and behind the camera and continues to gain a better and better reputation 44 years later. The horrors found within this movie permeate the entire run time and include one of the most intense and nerve wracking final 20 minutes ever put to the screen that will sit with you long after the credits. Don’t mess with the locals as we revisit Southern Comfort.

Let’s start with director/writer/producer Walter Hill. Hill is a legend in Hollywood on both the big and small screens. Starting in the early 70s as a writer he wrote the screenplay for Sam Peckinpah’s The Getaway before a string of popular hits that he would both write and direct like Hard Times, The Driver, and The Warriors. These classics would go on to inspire countless imitators and homages, but it was his first producing credit that would make its mark for decades to come with Alien which he would also have uncredited script additions for. He would go on to help with that franchise in various roles including as a writer on the much maligned Alien 3 and as a producer all the way up to 2024’s Alien: Romulus. He would later give us greats like The Long Riders, 48 Hours, Extreme Prejudice and help produce both Deadwood and Tales from the Crypt for HBO. It’s that horror pedigree that helps us ease into today’s movie.

In the late 1970s, Walter Hill and fellow producer David Giler had a deal in place with 20th Century Fox to “acquire and develop interesting and commercial scripts that could be made on a modest budget with a high return on investment.” One of these scripts ended up being Alien and the other was Southern Comfort that he originally wrote in 1976 as The Prey. Giler and Hill hired a screenwriter named Michael Kane and when he submitted it the two producers would rewrite it with all 3 men receiving credit. Kane wouldn’t have a ton else on his resume but did write additional uncredited dialogue for Jaws 3D and give us the screenplay for the Tom Cruise vehicle All the Right Moves. Producing partner Giler isn’t nearly as well known as Hill but he was just as instrumental with the development of the Alien franchise and Tales from the Crypt as his partner and friend.

Southern Comfort, if just described by someone to you, sounds derivative of Deliverance, but it’s got a lot more depth and has a Vietnam war allegory that Hill, like Romero and Night of the Living Dead’s casting of Duane Jones as a lead, denies as intentional. One of the theatrical posters saying “not since Deliverance” doesn’t help the comparison but this is no copy. The movie opens in a bayou in Louisiana where a squad of National Guard reserve soldiers are preparing for a weekend operation as practice. The squad is led by Poole, played by Peter Coyote, and also includes Spencer, Hardin, and Reece who happen to be played by Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, and Fred Ward. Coyote has been around forever and is great as Keys in E.T. and of course showed up in Sphere which is why we are covering this movie today. I loved seeing all the shoutouts for Southern Comfort after I mentioned it.

Fred Ward will forever be Earl Bassett in the first two Tremors movies but if you haven’t seen Remo Williams, please treat yourself to that beauty. Keith Carradine is my favorite of that acting family that also includes Robert and John. The Oscar winner worked with Hill often and was a great Wild Bill on Deadwood amongst many other roles. Finally of the big three Powers Boothe was selected by Hill after he saw him play Jim Jones but he’s amazing everywhere especially Tombstone and Frailty. The rest of the unit is played by fun character actors, including T.K. Carter from The Thing, Lewis Smith from Buckaroo Banzai, and Alan Autry from the TV series version of In the Heat of the Night. Boothe’s Hardin is over from the Texas reserves and isn’t impressed by what he sees from the leadership or the rest of the team even if he does get along with Spencer. The crew gets lost early in its journey to get across the landscape and decides to start trouble by taking some Cajun boats that they have intentions of returning.

The group of jokers freely uses their blank ammunition like college kids would joke and that comes back to bite them immediately when a group of Cajuns is glaring at them for stealing the boats. They try to yell to them that the boats will be returned but Stuckey stupidly fires his machine gun at them only to have return fire with real bullets kill Poole. The rest of the squad starts to fall apart emotionally and mentally with Reece also revealing that he brought real ammo, something that is known from a couple other men. The lack of leadership turns the men against each other in some cases and crazy in others. They are hunted by faceless assailants, dogs, and beset by traps that include falling trees and raising spike traps. They have become strangers in a strange land and are outnumbered and outgunned. Hill knew that the comparisons to Vietnam would come up and told the cast and crew that he saw it and didn’t want to hear about it for the whole shoot. It’s hard not to see and adds an angle to the movie that gives it legs that keep making the movie more and more relevant.

The group finds its way to a trapper’s house but find that he only speaks French and is unable and unwilling to help them. One of the men, Bowden, goes full Stallone from First Blood and blows up the shack that was full of food and weapons the rest of the men could have used before becoming catatonic the remainder of the movie. After that act of aggression, it becomes all-out war and confusion with Hardin killing Reece in self-defense, traps and quicksand killing a couple others, and the Cajun hunters picking off the rest until only Spencer and Hardin remain. They get out of the main swamp and are picked up by a friendly couple and taken to a seemingly friendly town, but everything is not what it seems.

Before getting to the riveting final 20 minutes, let’s talk about how horrifying this movie can be at times. The music, by frequent Hill collaborator Ry Cooder, follows the tone of the movie wonderfully. It’s jovial when times are good and becomes farcical in its tone when things fall apart. It adds a sense of confusion and trepidation that we see on the faces of the reserve soldiers as they stumble their way through increasingly dangerous locations. Something I hadn’t noticed until this viewing is how the Cajun hunters, at least the ones in the swamps, are like slashers in the fact that they have that Voorhees ability to teleport around and be where they need to be to kill off the soldiers. Even their camp where the boats are taken from feels like a den that the final girl finds with all their weapons and trophies. They are unstoppable and have a mysticism about them that is terrifying and inevitable. When we run into the one that the team had captured and later gets away, he speaks more than enough English to tell the final two friends that they are in over their heads. Even Bowden who has gone crazy halfway through the movie has a death that sticks with you.

Hardin and Spencer find him hung and we never get a clear answer if he did it to himself or it was bayou justice. The way most of the crew dies is down right horrifying too. While it was Stuckey’s stupid decision to shoot at the Cajuns that started the whole nightmare scenario, you still feel terrible for him and horrified as his wide eyes sink into the quicksand. What’s possibly worse is when Simms is shot while running away and mutters “I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not supposed to be here.” This may not be a horror movie, but it is damn horrifying. Back to Hardin and Spencer. They get to a very friendly village where they are offered food and drinks but just feels off. From the people that may or may not be watching them to the two pigs in cages waiting to be slaughtered mirroring their current situation, everything is tense. The happy music here finally betrays what we see on screen and it’s not until Hardin wanders off the grounds and runs into a surly looking Cajun played by Sonny Landham that we finally know how much trouble the two are in.

They run and fight their way out with everything they have and finally following the helicopter to the road and a truck that is only revealed at the very last minute to be a U.S. military one. They are presumably saved, and we get a happy ending that didn’t seem possible just minutes before. Interestingly in an Iranian version of the film that appeared in the late 80s under the name Operation Lagoon, the soldiers were openly against the Vietnam war and were sent by the government to be killed by hunters in the bayou. Even at the end when the two remaining soldiers seemingly escape, the movie fades out to gunshots after we see the U.S. Army logo on the side, implying that the government had the survivors killed even though they made it out of the swamps. That’s grim.

Southern Comfort wasn’t the success that Deliverance was, nor did it come close to the other script presented to Fox was in Alien. It made less than 3 million on its 7-million-dollar budget in the U.S. but did really well in Europe, something that Hill was always shocked by. Reviews were mostly nice to it with Roger Ebert giving it 3 stars and saying it was a remarkably well-made film but nearly everyone compared it to the previous decade’s Deliverance. It holds up remarkably well and toes a great line between slow burn and action while giving audiences a lot to think about. Vinegar Syndrome just gave it its due with an outstanding 4K release that begs to be explored and reexamined. Southern Comfort is an uncomfortable look at what happens when mistakes are made, and a group of people begin to fall apart in a part of the world that they are grossly in over their heads. It deserves a rewatch or a first time view for people looking for a non-traditional horror experience that will stay with you long after the survivors escape.

Two previous episodes of Revisited can be seen below. To see more of our shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals channel – and subscribe while you’re at it!

The post Southern Comfort (1981) Revisited – Horror Movie Review appeared first on JoBlo.

THE STORY: A mad IRA bomber (Tommy Lee Jones) escapes prison and travels to Boston, where he stalks his former protégé (Jeff Bridges) who now has a new identity and is a member of the police bomb squad.

THE PLAYERS: Director: Stephen Hopkins (Predator 2, Judgment Night, The Ghost & The Darkness, Lost in Space, TV’s 24). Writers: John Rice, Joe Batteer, and Jay Roach (yes, THAT Jay Roach). Starring: Jeff Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones, Lloyd Bridges, Forest Whitaker, and Suzy Amis (Titanic). Score by Alan Silverstri (The Avengers).

THE HISTORY: Blown Away was supposed to be the sleeper hit of 1994. It had all the ingredients. Tommy Lee Jones had just won the Oscar for playing U.S Marshal Samuel Gerard in The Fugitive, and this would be his first full-on bad guy part since Under Siege, which was an unlikely megahit towards the end of 1992. It also had Jeff Bridges in full-on action hero mode for the first time in his career. While Bridges is now regarded as a beloved character actor, twenty years ago he was more of a heartthrob, but for the most part, he avoided big action parts. This was primed to be the movie that would make him a Harrison Ford-style hero.

“My character is changed by his experiences of colonialism, racism and imperialism….But when I started using those terms; I emptied the room right quick. That language wasn’t popular with the writers or the producers. Instead, (my character’s) motivations were left purposely vague and ambivalent.” – Tommy Lee Jones

At the time, movies about bombs were curiously in vogue. Opening on July 1st, 1994, Blown Away was the second of three movies about bomb-makers/the bomb squad, sandwiched between Speed and The Specialist. If anything, Speed was to blame for Blown Away’s middling performance at the box office. You see, no one expected Speed to become a hit. Keanu Reeves was strictly B-list at the time, no one had heard of Sandra Bullock, and it was director Jan De Bont’s first movie. In fact, the biggest star in the cast, at the time, was Dennis Hopper. No one expected much from it, while Blown Away seen as a potential summer blockbuster.

When Speed opened to boffo box office and largely excellent reviews, Blown Away was all but doomed. Opening just a few weeks later, critics savaged it, mocking Tommy Lee Jones’s attempt at an Irish accent and complaining that the carnage was nowhere near as inventive as it was in Speed, which – to be fair – it’s not. Rubbing a little salt in the wound for Bridges was the fact that he was originally courted to play Reeves’s part in Speed (as per the IMDB). In the end, Blown Away eked out about $30 million at the box office, well below the $50 million budget. It didn’t help that it had to compete with The Lion King, and later True Lies and Forrest Gump, all which went on to make hundreds of millions. Worst of all, in week four, Speed still managed to top it over opening weekend (as did the now obscure Alec Baldwin superhero flick, The Shadow).

WHY IT’S GREAT: I’m not going to make a case for Blown Away being a classic. In fact, in the pantheon of action flicks released in 1994, it’s not even close to being the best, with Speed, True Lies and even Clear and Present Danger all cleaning its clock. I saw this theatrically with my folks opening weekend in 1994, and as a twelve-year-old, I liked it well enough, but it’s only been in recent years that I really started to appreciate it. The reason for this is simple – action movies have gotten horrible. What was initially only a mediocre nineties action flick now seems like a kind of mini-masterpiece, given how low the bar has been set. If Blown Away was released now, people would be tripping all over themselves raving about how stripped-down and raw it is (although a scene where a dog is murdered would have never made it passed test audiences).

While readers who remember seeing Blown Away when it was new will probably think I’m way off-base celebrating it, I honestly believe that our younger readers, who know Bridges most for his grizzled character roles in movies like True Grit, will get a big kick out of seeing him in action hero mode. Lean and handsome, even if he was in his mid-forties when this was made, Bridges did indeed make for a likable hero, with his Jimmy Dove being a solidly complex action hero for the time. He feels like an everyman, lacking the burliness of most action stars of the era.

The hero/antagonist relationship is deeper than usual, with it established that Dove was once the protégé of Jones’s Ryan Gaerity and in love with his sister – only to have betrayed him once he got wind of the fact that a bombing Gaerity was planning was designed to inflict maximum collateral damage. While he helped foil this attack, Gaerity wound up in jail, with his sister dead, while Dove high-tailed it to Boston and started a new life with the help of his Irish cop uncle (Lloyd Bridges – Jeff’s real-life dad – superb in a juicy character part).

“I loved acting with my dad, Lloyd Bridges, in Blown Away. He enjoyed the process so much. His joy was contagious. Everyone had more fun and took their work up a notch when he was on set. – Jeff Bridges

If the movie has any failings it’s that buddy-cop angle with Forest Whitaker’s hot-shot rookie also feels artificially antagonistic at first; although a scene where they work together to diffuse a bomb in Forrest’s earphones is top-notch. That said, the conflict between the two does drive home the fact that Bridges’s Dove is markedly different from most action heroes of the era, being more of a responsible type desperate to avoid any loss of life at all – making him feel more like a real cop. I also like the low-key romance with Suzy Amis, with them marrying early in the film and her and her daughter being jeopardized in the big chase finale. Sure, it’s a cliché, but it works.

Director Stephen Hopkins does a solid job orchestrating the action. Always an underrated action director, Blown Away was one of several good movies he made during this era. Predator 2, while lacking the bigger-than-life aspect of the original, was a fine B-movie, while Judgment Night was a slick thriller (with a great soundtrack). His next movie after Blown Away, The Ghost & The Darkness, was probably his best, although sadly it never quite found the audience it deserved – a fate shared by many of his movies. Hopkins has a knack for pulling off impressive shots, such as a really cool one where Bridges observes an explosion that claims the life of his Bomb Squad colleagues from the balcony of his hotel room, and another where he allows a “Bouncing Betty” to explode during his mano-a-mano showdown with Jones.

The score by Alan Silvestri is a little too bombastic for my tastes (although I typically really like his work from this era), but Hopkins manages to incorporate some classic U2 tracks that underscore the Irish aspect of the plot, even though Bono and the boys were probably shocked by Jones’s accent—which I’ll admit is not good.

SEE IT: Blown Away is widely available on DVD (it was one of the first films released in that format), 4K Blu-ray, iTunes, streaming and more.

PARTING SHOT: Again, Blown Away isn’t some kind of unheralded action classic. But, it is a superior thriller with a terrific performance by Jeff Bridges in an atypical part for him. While it may have paled alongside Speed or True Lies in 1994, twenty-two years and hundreds of subpar action movies make it seem far better now than it did then. As such, it holds up well and is a obscure little film well-worth checking out.

The post Blown Away: The Best 90s Action Movie You Never Saw! appeared first on JoBlo.

With more than 15 years and 30 movies behind it, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is still doing alright. Across this cavalcade of almost three dozen movies are a wide variety of iconic superheroes, grand stories, impressive visual tapestries, and the occasional entry that manages to be just “not bad.” We all have our rankings for the very best and the very worst of the Marvel series, but now JoBlo officially has the MCU movies ranked from Iron Man to the newly released Thunderbolts*. Here we go, from least to best:

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Director Taika Waititi harnessed the mighty power of Chris Hemsworth’s sense of humor and blended it with his own colorful sensibilities for the hilarious, character-reviving Thor: Ragnarok. All eyes were on the sequel, Thor: Love and Thunder, especially given it would see the return of Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster (taking on the mantle of Mighty Thor). Sadly, the rebellious, endlessly strange and hilarious vibe of Ragnarok was replaced by a sporadically funny, deeply messy outing that missed many chances to be a worthy follow-up. Waititi hacked a lot of movie out to reach the film’s 119 minute running time, but said everything that was cut was expendable. Most of it had been humorous tangents that wouldn’t have added anything but extra minutes and more laughs. But even the final cut feels like one long humorous tangent, a collection of half-baked ideas that were tossed together just to give Waititi, co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, and the cast excuses to tell some goofy jokes. There are some very dark and serious ideas at the center of the story, but they don’t have much weight because the movie feels ridiculous from beginning to end. Thor’s story is muddy and the character is extremely over-powered, Jane’s story is diluted from her excellent comics run, the pacing and tone are all over the place, and many of the gags are phoned in or hammered to death. Bright spots are an absorbing action scene or two, supporting plays from Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie, Russell Crowe’s Zeus, and the scene-stealing Christian Bale as villainous, unsettling Gorr. Thor: Love and Thunder is entertaining at times, for sure. But it’s an underwhelming mess overall.

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

You wouldn’t think that a planet-trotting action blockbuster with evil space elves and more of a Thunder God could be a total snooze, and yet, that’s what we got in 2013. Thor: The Dark World is proof that even after succeeding in setting up the MCU with several movies and with the massive hit of The Avengers at its back, Marvel was still capable of missing the mark. On a technical front, there are a few things the sequel to 2011’s Thor had going for it, like some solid costume design, visual effects, and great work from Brian Tyler on the score. Factor in yet another entertaining performance from Tom Hiddleston as Loki, and you have a movie that can at least be a distraction. But should you actually try to pay attention, you won’t get much back for that mental exercise. On a narrative and character development level for the title character (Chris Hemsworth), Dark World is a dud that seems to exist solely to introduce another Infinity Stone, all while wedging in Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster and a villain even an actor like Christopher Eccleston can’t make the least bit interesting.

Eternals (2021)

Marvel’s Eternals was one of the most poorly received films in the MCU, with a critical response that ranked it at the bottom of the franchise on Rotten Tomatoes when it was first released. (It has since been surpassed by the third Ant-Man movie.) But it does give the sense that director Chloe Zhao was really aiming to deliver something special. While other entries succeed on their showmanship and ability to add big, colorful pages to this cinematic compendium, Zhao’s vision here is singular and focused solely on the grand, existential challenges of its team of godly heroes. With a humanist lens and some of the most breathtaking visuals in the whole of the series, Eternals tells a massive, centuries-spanning story of these figures and what it means to love, lose, and embrace their own mortality and that of the humans they’ve sworn to protect. While it does fit in cataclysmic events, the film lives and breathes for the smaller moments. This is the first time we’ve met these characters, but the actors make you care for them, weaving in several heart-wrenching moments and some of the humor these movies are known for. There’s a whole lot of movie here and there’s no arguing it can struggle under that weight, but it also has an individually beautiful vibe.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

With the third Ant-Man film, Marvel and director Peyton Reed decided to shake things up, taking the characters from what had been a small scale series and dropping them into a story that builds up to becoming “an epic sci-fi war movie.” Ant-Man and the Wasp being part of Avengers: Endgame worked, but the sci-fi war scenario doesn’t fit them as well when they’re on their own. There’s some entertaining weirdness on display in this adventure through the Quantum Realm, but the film feels like it’s falling short of its potential – and so does it portrayal of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), who is never as interesting or as threatening as he should be, considering that Marvel was, at the time, hoping Kang would become their new Thanos-level villain. He is underwhelming and the end credits glimpse of his many variants is cringe-inducing. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania provides some laughs, but the action isn’t as thrilling as it should be and it’s just not as much fun as its predecessors were. Completely leaving out the Luis character (Michael Peña) was also a big mistake.

Black Widow (2021)

The movie arrived at least a half-decade too late, but Marvel finally got around to giving Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) her own solo adventure… two years after they already killed her off. The story shows what she was up to in between the wars of Civil and Infinity, giving a glimpse into Romanoff’s past and her family, providing the deepest look at the character yet. Black Widow succeeds largely thanks to the exploration of her family life, establishing a cast of characters that are worth coming back to in future movies, especially Florence Pugh’s Yelena. With a great ensemble and a welcome grounded espionage thriller approach, Black Widow does much more right than wrong. But those wrongs – namely a story that stays put for far too long and disappointingly messy action sequences – stop this from being the triumphant solo movie the character had been deserving for years.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Daniel Destin Cretten and his team did the work to make sure this was a world audiences would want to come back to, delivering a martial arts fantasy that’s brought to life by some wonderful visuals, a great ensemble of characters, and some of the very best fight choreography of the series thus far. Like with any origin story of this caliber, the story of the lead character can get lost in all the world-building. That makes the middle act feel a little deflated compared to the rest, dampening some of its impact with lots of MacGuffin talk and exposition. However, Simu Liu is such a capable lead and the world is so refreshingly mesmerizing, it doesn’t always feel like a total hindrance. Then you can tack on great work from veterans Michelle Yeoh, Fala Chen, and Tony Leung – the latter bringing to life a villain with some actual dimension. Even with its first-entry hiccups, Shang-Chi has opened the doors to a fantastic new section of the Marvel world that’s only just beginning to unfold.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a messy one. It’s a big, messy second child. The visual effects are all over the place, the set pieces are either appropriately exciting or God-tier noisy, and when there aren’t some of the more compelling character interactions of the whole series, there are some character choices that are just damn questionable. But it also features some of the biggest ideas to come from a Marvel movie yet, with writer/director Joss Whedon using this massive tentpole feature and its super-powered characters to question their ideologies and the very nature of herodom. Truly one of the better MCU villains, Ultron (James Spader) is a sentient AI system that acts as a mirror for the Avengers and forces them to examine their place in the world, one in which humanity is perhaps doomed to fail no matter all of their heroics. He was sort of right, in the end. For a billion-dollar movie that pretty much exists to set things up for the next movies, there’s some deep philosophical stuff going on here that makes it a more fascinating watch than you probably remember it being… although it’s surprisingly dull at times, despite some solid laughs and set pieces. Yes, it is a sloppy chap, but it’s also one of the rare entries that feels like it actually has something to say. It’s up to individual viewers to decide if what it’s saying is interesting.

The Marvels (2023)

Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel, played by Brie Larson), Monica Rambeau (played Teyonah Parris), and Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel, played by Iman Vellani) all have light-based powers, so maybe it’s appropriate that their team-up film moves along at the speed of light, blasting through an intergalactic adventure so quickly that The Marvels winds up being the shortest film in the MCU, sporting a running time of 105 minutes. Still, the quick pace director Nia DaCosta brought to the film winds up making it feel rather inconsequential, even when it’s dealing with huge stakes. It’s a fun movie that didn’t deserve to be written off as a failure the way it has, but it’s so light and fluffy that it also feels like it would have been right at home as a Disney+ streaming release. Given that it’s a direct follow-up to two Disney+ shows, Ms. Marvel and WandaVision (and it really relies on viewers being familiar with Kamala and Monica from those shows), a streaming release would have been fitting, if not for the massive budget. It’s better than its reputation would suggest, but there’s not much to it.

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

On the whole, Ant-Man and the Wasp is a colorful blast. The cast is hilarious, Paul Rudd is as charming as ever, Evangeline Lilly whips an insane amount of ass, and the shrinking/enlarging gags are a constant riot. As a palette cleanser after the destruction of the Avengers movie that came before it (Infinity War), it’s pure, undemanding Marvel fun. It also needs to be commended for how well it uses its returning characters. Scott (Rudd), Hope (Lilly), and Hank (Michael Douglas) are a team throughout the film, with Hope and Hank both getting even more to do than they did in the previous movie. This sequel also brings back Scott’s reformed criminal associates, who bring the laughs with them. Since Luis (Michael Peña) turned out to be a fan favorite last time, he was wisely given a fair amount of screen time here. The reason why the film ranks in the lower half of the list is because, despite being such an energetic blockbuster that it plays like Marvel-meets-Ferris Bueller, it’s kind of forgettable in the long run. But, it’s okay for the Ant-Man movies to be the quirky, low-key entries that never demand too much from the audience, and it’s fun while it lasts.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

As with a puppy peeing on the sofa, it’s hard to be completely upset with Iron Man 2 simply being the movie it is. Despite teasing big things at the end of the first movie, Marvel still didn’t quite know what they were doing with their film franchise, so with a sequel where they were juggling an expanding cast of characters, exploring heavy-duty subject matter for Tony Stark, and trying to recapture the magic of the first entry, you kind of had to expect it wouldn’t turn out to be amazing. The action sequences are kind of cool, Robert Downey Jr. is just as excellent as Stark, and there is some somewhat important stuff happening to his character that impacts who he is as a person going forward. But then there are all the symptoms of “sequel-itis” on display – such as too many villains who don’t spend enough time actually doing anything (which is a shame, because they’re played by Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell), and a bunch of characters wrestling for screen time (returning supporting characters, bad guys, a bigger SHIELD presence, the introduction of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, etc.) Iron Man 2 isn’t necessarily a bad movie – and it’s actually a solid summer blockbuster on its own – but compared to the rest of the series it’s definitely an example of how Marvel was still finding its feet.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Perhaps the reason why The Incredible Hulk often ranks low on viewers’ MCU lists is because, whereas the other 2008 series entry, Iron Man, signified a bold step forward for the genre as a whole, this one feels like a holdover from another era. This crack at Bruce Banner (played here by Edward Norton) and Big Green would feel right at home in the early era of comic book movies that simply play like over-priced action movies. While Norton is fine in the role as a Banner on the run, looking to find a way to control his rage, his journey could have been more exciting, and the supporting cast would have benefited from the quick-and-simple movie taking more breathers for character work. With the exception of the final fight between Abomination (Tim Roth), the spectacle is underwhelming, and director Louis Leterrier’s approach is very by-the-numbers, checking off boxes to deliver a not-terrible Hulk movie, clearing the very low hurdle set by Ang Lee’s take in 2003. The negative reaction to that earlier, much more serious film is part of why this one is so quick and simple. The more heavy psychological drama moments were snipped out during post-production.

Thor (2011)

As far as Shakespearean dramas wrapped up in cosmic summer blockbusters go, 2011’s Thor isn’t too bad. Director Kenneth Branagh did the work of exploring the complex dynamics between the cast of Asgardian gods like Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Loki (Tom Hiddleston), and Odin (Anthony Hopkins), the effects of which continued to impact the characters going forward. He did equally efficient work with the fish-out-of-water, romantic elements between Thor and the Earthbound Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), crafting a sweet, funny story to match the more outlandish elements. But that doesn’t stop Thor from having an uninspired look or from being sluggish in the spectacle realm. Branagh couldn’t quite nail the blockbuster excitement with loud, ham-fisted action sequences fumbling otherwise effective character work. But, on the whole, Thor was a decent if flawed start for the God of Thunder with a cast of characters well established against an unremarkable backdrop.

Doctor Strange (2016)

After getting audiences acquainted with gods and the cosmos, Marvel sent audiences into the realm of the mystic arts with Doctor Strange, and it’s… mostly fun. Yeah, fun is a good summation. Not the kind of mind-blowing, transcendental experience Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) went through, but, yeah. Inception-level visuals are trippy and exciting, and the individual action within them is often quite clever – making use of all sorts of magical spells and objects. Director Scott Derrickson got the most mileage out of the movie when it came to bringing those magical elements to life and establishing that world, but everything on the character and story front left a lot to be desired. Much of Strange’s arc feels rushed, the romance angle is wanting, Mads Mikkelsen is criminally wasted as the key villain, etc. As an intro to the world of Marvel magic, it’s a bold entry, but for the ground-level stuff that can truly set these movies apart, it’s about as exciting as a birthday party magician pulling pigeons out of a hat.

Captain Marvel (2019)

Brie Larson soared into the Marvel scene in the first entry to feature a woman in the leading role and in the director’s chair (Anna Boden, directing alongside Ryan Fleck), introducing a powerful new character in Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, who has limitless potential in the series. Her movie as a whole, though, wasn’t quite as marvelous. With a story instantly hindered by giving the character amnesia, much of the plotting feels centered on solving a mystery anyone will have solved from the jump, as well as on the prequel elements for Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s entry into the space game. In essence, it’s trying to be two origin stories at once, and while the aim of giving Danvers a story that finds her discovering her power and independence is admirable, the execution is too messy to be fully masked by the fine performances (Ben Mendelsohn is a great standout as a Skrull alien named Talos) and occasionally cool visuals.

Iron Man 3 (2013)

Director Shane Black (who co-wrote with Drew Pearce) clearly approached the process of making Iron Man 3 with this thought in mind: “Audiences want this, and I’m not giving it to them.” Not only did this apply to the villain, where a twist turned out to be perhaps the most controversial move in the MCU’s history, but to the general approach. The first post-The Avengers movie, it doesn’t cave to what was likely the audience’s expectations at the time, existing to tease future movies or feature a flyby from Thor. It operates entirely on its own terms, taking Tony back to the basics and crafting a colorful espionage story about him discovering that, even after an alien invasion, he’s so much more than just a suit. As for the villain, Guy Pearce understood the assignment as a smarmy corporate sociopath, who smartly uses the media – and Ben Kingsley – to stoke fear (which seems increasingly relevant nowadays) and works into that certain clever, hilarious switcheroo. Low points are “Rhodey”/War Machine (Don Cheadle) and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) feeling just sort of “there” or being in captivity, but even they aren’t totally wasted, and there’s little to impede this one from becoming one of the franchise’s most undervalued entries.

Ant-Man (2015)

Ant-Man is an undemanding, uniquely fun bit of Marvel entertainment with one of the stronger MCU origin stories, painting a heroic arc for “thief with a heart of gold” Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) while giving dimension to the supporting cast, including Michael Douglas as Ant-Man tech creator Hank Pym, Evangeline Lilly as Hank’s daughter (and Scott’s love interest) Hope van Dyne, and David Dastmalchian, T.I. Harris, and fan favorite Michael Peña as Scott’s thieving friends. Rudd’s Scott has that likable, everyman approach, and his journey from well-meaning cat burglar to superhero puts a spin on the formula, taking us away from genius billionaires, super soldiers, and thunder gods. It’s a superhero origin story that isn’t reliant on big set pieces (albeit the ones here are hilariously clever and gripping), but on how hard you’re rooting for Lang to pull through. Does that make it an entry that manages to stand above the rest? Not really, but everyone involved pulled out all the stops to make this entry one that’s impossible to ever fully write off.

Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

The first film to have Anthony Mackie’s character Sam Wilson in the lead as Captain America will always carry the stigma of having undergone extensive reshoots to drop characters, add characters, and rework some of its major action sequences (and who knows what else?). Despite being the result of many different cooks and having a rough ride through post-production, Captain America: Brave New World does still manage to be an interesting blend of superheroics with a dark, heavy political thriller vibe. So much of the movie involves people having conversations in small, dimly-lit rooms, it’s difficult to imagine younger viewers getting much enjoyment out of it, aside from some of the action moments – like the aerial encounter at Celestial Island and the climax involving Harrison Ford turning into the Red Hulk. Longterm MCU fans, on the other hand, might be glad to see some loose ends from The Incredible Hulk get tied up many years later. Sam Wilson’s Captain America movie could and should have been better (figuring out your script and characters before you start filming would be a great idea), but the film is of a higher quality than its initial reputation would suggest. If it had been come along earlier in the MCU, it might have gotten a better reception – but, of course, that would be impossible, because it’s a direct follow-up to the events of Endgame (and the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier).

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Yes, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a messy, jumbled, sometimes illogical journey through the MCU multiverse, all with sorcery and witchcraft mixed in just to spice things up. But of all the Marvel movies that make up the middle range of this ranking, the flick from Spider-Man and Evil Dead helmer Sam Raimi is the most welcomely bonkers, in no short order thanks to Raimi going, “Okay, yes to the Marvel formula, but also yes to Scarlet Witch emerging from a gong like the Ring girl with her limbs contorting and rearranging into place.” The horror movie elements are comparable to the likes of his Drag Me to Hell, and sometimes get vicious enough in ways that can shock and even repel longtime viewers, and possibly give young watchers some everlasting nightmares. It’s fascinating; on the one hand, character development and logic buckles under the weight of franchise world-building. On the other, the movie goes to places no other Marvel movie ever has, making it a heavily flawed entry that’s really great to have in the franchise. If they are willing to let Raimi have his villain turn a beloved comic book character into string cheese within minutes of them making their MCU debut, who knows what else is next?

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

What do you do when the actor playing your iconic title character passes away? In most cases, the answer would be to recast. But when Chadwick Boseman lost his secret battle with cancer, Marvel and director Ryan Coogler chose to acknowledge his passing and let the character T’Challa pass away as well. This sequel has a deeply mournful tone, as T’Challa’s loved ones are grieving. For most of the film’s (overly lengthy, at 161 minutes) running time, there is no Black Panther. But with a war over vibranium threatening to break out and an aquatic kingdom headed up by Namor (Tenoch Huerta) – given an interesting Mayan reimagining here – at odds with Wakanda, there’s still need for a Black Panther to step up for the climactic sequence. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a bit long-winded and overstuffed, and the cinematography is often too dark, but it features some great acting (Angela Bassett won a Golden Globe and earned an Oscar nomination for her performance), some interesting ideas, and stands as a heartfelt tribute to Chadwick Boseman.

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

To get the good out of the way, Tom Holland is still doing a bang-up job a Peter Parker, and director Jon Watts and his collaborators are still finding those ways to make him that relatable teen we all know and love – especially when it comes to him trying to juggle his personal and superhero lives. To boot, Jake Gyllenhaal rules as Mysterio, one of the better MCU baddies. And yet, when it comes to fully shaping who Parker is as a hero in this world, this movie proves that, even in death, this Spider-Man isn’t doing much without Iron Man. While Homecoming found him handling the presence of Tony Stark while trying to break out and (often failing) to do his own thing, this one is all about who he is in relation to Iron Man. Can he be a hero without him? Can he live up to the pressure of being the “new Iron Man”? Can he responsibly wield the unbelievable power Stark gave to him? Can he, ultimately, step out of Stark’s shadow? Given how Parker had been set up before this with his bond with Stark, Far From Home feels like a bridge that needed crossing because there was no other way around it. Gotta love that ending, though.

Black Panther (2018)

So much of what Black Panther achieves is monumental, we’ll likely be experiencing its impact long after the MCU as a whole gets the reboot treatment. Even with a whole universe of movies at its back, this film operates entirely on its own level. The world of Wakanda is richly drawn out, with director Ryan Coogler and his team injecting incredible amounts of culture and personality into every element. Costumes, art direction, music, makeup, etc. – all these details make simply looking at the movie an invigorating experience from start to finish. Staking its claim in the craft arena, Black Panther also features some of the series’ best storytelling, forcing new king T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) to confront his father’s legacy and Wakanda’s place in the world, with timely themes masterfully woven in. Alongside T’Challa is an incredible supporting cast including Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Letitia Wright, Daniel Kaluuya, Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Sterling K. Brown, Martin Freeman, Andy Serkis, and more. A standout from the group is Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger, who is one of the MCU’s best villains, filled with purpose and depth and brimming with charm, making him tough to root against. The film is only brought down by some poor visual effects.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Thor: Ragnarok proves that even if you don’t have the strongest story or make full use of the biggest members of the cast, you can still achieve peak excellence. Marvel mixed with Flash Gordon and the silly mind of director Taika Waititi, Ragnarok looks at everything surrounding the God of Thunder and confronts the reality that it’s all very weird and very strange and we just need to lean into it. This is easily the funniest movie in the MCU by however far the Rainbow Bridge can shoot, as Waititi and his team crafted the most colorful and effortlessly entertaining Thor movie, embracing the kind of comic book sensibilities that pull you into a world of bizarre. As a reinvention of Thor, it’s a huge success, embracing star Chris Hemsworth’s likability and humor, while not making him any less badass and god-like. Then you have Cate Blanchett as the key villain, Jeff Goldblum as The Grandmaster, and Mark Mothersbaugh on the music. There are simply so many levels on which Ragnarok pulled out all the stops, and you can feel that unrestricted sense of fun in every frame and from every cast member, making for an entry that’s easy to watch again and again.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

What is really admirable about James Gunn’s approach to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is that he looked at the sprawling adventure of the first movie and said, “Hey, for this next one, let’s slow it down a bit.” While its early minutes are chaotic, colorful mayhem, much of what follows is Gunn using the runtime to explore the core team, digging into many of their insecurities (especially Rocket and Yondu) and giving them scenes that make the fact that they come together as a team in the end all the more special. These folks are a bunch of assholes and they have stuff to work out, essentially. In that way, it feels like the antithesis to the nature of most blockbusters to “go bigger” the second time around. Gunn’s sequel values the characters over the (albeit stunning) spectacle, favoring small moments against gorgeous backdrops that deepen the characters, and thus makes the audience care more about them. The finale is a bit messy, but by the time the credits roll, it ends up being one of Marvel’s most heartfelt entries.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Spider-Man: Homecoming is a perfectly fun, well-crafted entry of the MCU. It’s digestible popcorn entertainment, and director Jon Watts and the team of Homecoming smartly took a John Hughes route and put this new Peter Parker smack dab into the madness that is high school. Not only does this set the clock back from Sony’s Amazing Spider-Man fumble, but going back to school makes his origin feel perfect for his character, so eager to make a name for himself as a hero that, like many teenagers, he’s always biting off more than he can chew and having to learn from his mistakes. Of course, his mistakes can have more destructive consequences, but that benefits his arc and makes the final act all the more triumphant as he literally lifts himself out of the rubble. As a result, it plays more like a simple teen comedy that happens to feature superheroes, and in turn, is easy to just pop on because it’s not terribly challenging or trying to do anything unique. While having a modern voice and sense of humor, it owes a lot to simply being in the MCU and having the likes of other series figures around to add a special flavor and make it stand out from past movies. But, what works about it works well. Fit with an on-point, funny ensemble of young and veteran stars, and some standout work from Michael Keaton as one of the MCU’s best villains, Homecoming is a knockout first entry for the Web-Head.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

For a brief period of time, it was looking like director James Gunn wouldn’t have the chance to complete his Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy – but thankfully, everything worked out. Sure, another filmmaker could have made a fun Guardians of the Galaxy movie, but they wouldn’t have made something as heartfelt, weird, and simultaneously fun and heart-wrenching at this movie is. With Rocket on the edge of death, we get a deep dive into his origin story as his fellow Guardians seek out his creator, the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji does an incredible job making this guy the most detestable villain of the MCU), in hopes of being able to save his life. If Rocket’s lines about “I didn’t ask to get made” in the first movie were already enough to make you teary-eyed, get ready for a rough ride when you head into Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. But it’s worth the journey, because Gunn delivered a beautiful movie and ended his trilogy in the perfect way.

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

We knew Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool would be making his way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Disney acquired Fox – but we never would have guessed that he would bring Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine out of retirement and take him along for the ride, or that their team-up film would be a heartfelt tribute to the Marvel Comics adaptations that happened outside of the MCU. Not just the X-Men films that the title characters emerged from, with several actors reprising their roles (Dafne Keen, Aaron Stanford, Tyler Mane, etc.) but also the likes of Fantastic Four (Chris Evans as Johnny Storm!), Daredevil / Elektra (Jennifer Garner as Elektra!), and Blade (Wesley Snipes reprising the role after twenty years!). Channing Tatum even gets his chance to shine as Gambit after struggling to bring his take on the character to the screen for years. Directed by Shawn Levy, Deadpool & Wolverine borrows elements from the Loki TV series to take viewers on a wild multiversal adventure that delivers a lot of laughs, a ton of great fan service, and also has some touching emotional content.

Thunderbolts* (2025)

Director Jack Schreier and initial screenwriter Eric Pearson (whose script received revisions from Joanna Calo and an uncredited Lee Sung Jin) assembled an interesting group of characters for this team-up movie: Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen), Antonia Dreykov (Olga Kurylenko), and the mysterious Bob (Lewis Pullman) – all characters that have troubled pasts. They’ve endured hardships, disgraces, and losses, and they have regrets. Which made them the perfect characters to take on the superhuman threat at the heart of the film: a troubled being with a dangerous “void” inside of them. This group may feel like they’re a bunch of losers, but they’re the underdogs who have what it takes to save the day. Thunderbolts* is a really entertaining movie with likeable characters, amusing moments and lines, and good action – a bit more low-key than what has been seen in a lot of Marvel movies, but there are high stakes. It’s also “about something.” It’s not just a fun movie about good guys thwarting bad guys; its superhero story is an allegory for overcoming trauma and depression. If you have dealt with these issues in your life, Thunderbolts* might just bring a tear to your eye.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

No one would have been surprised if Guardians of the Galaxy had been a failure… but there’s a freedom that comes with making a movie that features a talking raccoon who partners with a talking tree who can only say his name, and director James Gunn exploits every opportunity to embrace sci-fi weirdness. Blasting entirely off Earth, Guardians breathes life into Marvel in the cosmos, showing off just how strange and vibrant the galaxy is, loaded with colorful characters, warring factions, and mysterious planets. Coupled with a broad sense of humor and incredible visuals, and constantly delivering on unexpected thrills, Gunn’s vision of an adventure beyond the stars made space fun again. Gunn also understood the characters at its core. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and Groot (Vin Diesel) are all giant jerks, but that doesn’t make them any less endearing and relatable. Finding that duality and not being afraid to explore it and their eccentricities – all against the backdrop of a stupendous space adventure with a killer soundtrack – is what makes Guardians soar, and its huge heart makes it truly timeless.

Iron Man (2008)

Sometimes it’s hard to top the first, and even all these years later, the MCU’s first entry remains one of its very best. An indie movie as far as summer blockbusters go, 2008’s Iron Man was assembled by Marvel Studios alone on a massive gamble, hoping audiences would flock to see a relatively unknown character played by a leading man (Robert Downey Jr.) not very well known to mainstream audiences. But both that character and that leading man proved to be aces in the hole. The approach from director Jon Favreau and the team to make it a character piece about a man coming to terms with his life and creations – literally reinventing himself in the process – makes the movie a strong, singular character piece that explores Tony Stark beyond the armor, and gave RDJ more than enough ammo to make the character his own and bring his own charm and complicated past to Stark. Combine that all with a whip-smart sense of humor and super-powered set pieces, Iron Man only feels increasingly timeless as the series moves on without him.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

On the surface, it’s an easy – and even valid – complaint that Avengers: Infinity War is about nothing other than a big purple dude collecting space stones. In a way it is, and Thanos (Josh Brolin) being able to put his collection together so quickly feels like one of the MCU’s bigger plot holes. And yet, that doesn’t diminish the movie from being one of the more impressive feats of blockbuster filmmaking in cinema history. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo juggle the massive cast and equally massive set pieces very well for the most part, getting plenty of great character moments out of them and making Thanos the true main character (with Brolin nailing the big, ominous lug with menacing stature). The scope of the movie is immense, ranging between planets and various teams, seamlessly put together to feel like one massive adventure. It’s filmmaking at some of its most technically grand and, with a suitably epic score from Alan Silvestri, nothing can rob it of being an impressive feast for the eyes and ears. But what aids it beyond the “space rock heist” simplicity is how it makes the case that it’s about all these super-powered people realizing that they aren’t strong enough. All their upgrades and lessons learned are no match for a bigger threat, and seeing them having to operate on the back foot – and ultimately face their biggest failure – gives it more depth than the surface spectacle suggests.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

During one moment between Peter Parker and Dr. Stephen Strange, the latter admits that, despite everything they’ve been through together, which involves saving the universe, he forgets that Parker is still just a kid. No matter his abilities and all he’s managed to accomplish, he’s still a teenager trying to find time with his girlfriend and get into college. Trying to have it all drives him to make some extreme, possibly fabric-of-time-ruining decisions, and what makes No Way Home a special entry for him and the MCU is how having him deal with the universe-bending fallout of his actions shapes him on a ground level as both someone on the verge of adulthood and a web-slinging superhuman. Yeah, that journey goes through the lands of blatant fan service, meta gags, and Easter Eggs specifically designed to make audiences hoot and holler in crowded theaters, which at times can be both exhausting and undeniably, unforgettably fun. But weathering it all, the team behind the camera and an exceptional Tom Holland ensure that Parker remains the clear focus, using the ghosts of Spidey past not only to make audiences wilt in their chairs but to tell one of the more enriching, human Spider-Man stories to grace the big screen. And yes, it was amazing and spectacular to see Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield back in action.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) is very much the heart and the soul of the Marvel Universe. Despite a physical upgrade, he was always the kid from Brooklyn who stands up to bullies, no matter how big. That spirit drives his first outing from director Joe Johnston, an old-fashioned adventure filled with pulpy thrills, and one that ages like a fine wine. It’s the kind of heartwarming and inspiring movie that can bring you up when you’re feeling low, reaffirming why we love superheroes in the first place, brimming with romanticized, old school heroism that never feels cloying. The cherry on top of it all is some excellent work from Hayley Atwell, Stanley Tucci, and Hugo Weaving – giving Rogers a love, a mentor, and a villain all worth remembering. Perhaps that traditional approach is what turns some people off from the movie, as they feel it’s a bit too indebted to movies like Indiana Jones or The Rocketeer– but if anything, that makes First Avenger the perfect palette cleanser. There’s a simplicity to the movie’s themes and Rogers himself that – like Richard Donner’s Superman – really speaks to why audiences can love these characters so much and can be a much-needed ray of light when the franchise gets a bit too in the weeds.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

One of the best things about Captain America: Civil War is that it’s a movie that acknowledges and emphasizes – via the conversations between the characters and some of the action sequences – that these characters are people with defined viewpoints that have evolved over time, and that there’s gravity to the fissure erupting between the team. The airport sequence, Spider-Man, Black Panther, there’s some undeniably cool stuff going on here. But Civil War is at its best when – after a destructive scenario shows these heroes need some accountability – it puts the Avengers under a microscope and explores how they would respond to that event and each other’s actions as a result. There are a lot of strings being pulled, and it can get messy at times, but what’s respectable is how these heroes we’ve come to admire on the big screen don’t feel cheated out of development, which is an impressive achievement, considering how much is going on. If these movies are going to act in part as set up for what comes next, then they should at least use their time to leave an impact and do the work to make it feel like what happens during the runtime matters. Civil War does that, and in often spectacular fashion.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

The First Avenger found Captain America looking at the biggest bully around (Nazis and Hydra) and standing up to them against some awesome set-pieces. The Winter Soldier finds Cap in modern day, and writers Christoper Markus and Stephen McFeely, along with directors Joe and Anthony Russo, asked what kind of villain he would stand up to today. While the answer is still Hydra, the team went in less for red-faced baddies and more for governmental forces via a grounded spy thriller approach – leading to tremendous results. The movie gets great mileage out of centering the story so strongly on Cap as a modern man trying to exist and live up to his own ideals, having to also grapple with his past in the form of Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). Diverting away from the CGI mayhem of past movies, the kinetic action sequences and tone set it apart and made it compelling in ways Marvel hadn’t been up to that point, and still hasn’t again to this day. The Winter Soldier remains a fan favorite because the filmmakers had the confidence to look at how these movies could be different from how they had been before, which in turn pushed the excellent cast of new and returning actors to some of their best work in the series, resulting in an entry that still stands on its own.

The Avengers (2012)

The first wave of Marvel movies would’ve been nothing more than two great superhero movies and three so-so ones had The Avengers not pulled off the hat trick that it did. On top of being a masterclass of blockbuster entertainment – dishing out laughs and fun set pieces like it has them lying around – writer/director Joss Whedon proved that investment in character always pays off. Avengers works best during the downtime between showdowns, as the quarreling, budding team has to deal with their issues, mostly in ways that find them fighting each other. It doesn’t settle for getting the characters together and meandering through conversations before they can team up, but rather asks what would happen when a man like Tony Stark comes up against a man like Steve Rogers. It’s a movie that lives for the conflict between characters and uses the overcoming of conflict to form the backbone of what makes the team special. As the movie ages, it feels like a nostalgic entry unhampered by an over-abundance of CGI wherever it doesn’t need it. Locations, costumes, and sets feel lived in and authentic, and when the action gets going it’s bright and absorbing, with the perfect number of characters to make sequences feel uniquely epic without being too bloated. It’s as big as Marvel will ever get without ever having to sacrifice a single character in the name of a massive tapestry or story. That makes The Avengers a perfect balance of entertainment and pathos that Thanos would be proud of, and something that Marvel will perhaps never be able to recreate. (Aside from Endgame.)

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

There’s no easy way to put the final stamp on 11 years of moviemaking that included well over a dozen movies featuring twice as many superheroes, all while giving some of them the proper sendoff they deserve… but Avengers: Endgame did just that, and in tremendous fashion. If Infinity War is all about chaos and failure, Endgame is all about learning to overcome failure and put everything on the line to make things right. It’s a more methodical movie than one like this should be, and is all the better for it. Thanos is not in the picture as much, and in bringing the story down to the original six Avengers and a few others, the story feels more focused and character-driven, but no less epic in scope. It’s a love letter to everything that came before, and the time travel angle allows for a thrilling adventure wherein the characters are able to look back on where they’ve come from to determine where they’ll go next. Directors the Russos and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely bring home the whole shebang in ways that manage to dazzle, surprise, and break your heart, aided by some series-best performances and countless rousing moments. It’s Marvel at its biggest, most ambitious, and emotionally resonant. Exciting and poignant, this film is a triumph.

How do you feel about this MCU Movies Ranked assembly? Sound off below with your own lists!

The post MCU Movies Ranked: From Iron Man to Thunderbolts* appeared first on JoBlo.

1985 gave us one of the most important zombie movies of all time. It was a sequel to the movie that gave us zombies as we know them and probably signaled the end of the world on screen. Day of the Dead you say? As much as I love that slow-paced close-out to George Romero’s original trilogy, I’m talking about something a little different. I’m talking about running zombies that can’t be killed, rabid weasels, Burt and Ernie, partying when it’s party time, and a true return of the living dead. Dan O’Bannon horror comedy expertly walks the line between the two genres with genuine laughs and frightening thrills. It could have been a very different experience for audiences who now know it as a perfect summer horror film and celebrate July 3rd every year. It could have been more like the very obscure book it took its title from and been a 3D mega-flop directed by one of horror’s most respected masters. Thankfully we got the punk rock zombie masterpiece that has way more sequels than it needs. Send more paramedics as we revisit The Return of the Living Dead.

John Russo has nowhere the fame he maybe should have as George Romero had a co-writer on the original Night of the Living Dead. While George was primarily known for his Dead movies, he was at least able to branch out from time to time with classics like Martin, The Crazies, Knightriders, and Creepshow among others. Russo wasn’t so lucky on film. A quick look at his IMDb shows a couple other movies like The Majorettes and Midnight but those are both based on his own novels. Nearly everything else with his name on it is zombie related, especially his recut of Night of the Living Dead that was released in 1999. While the adaptations for The Majorettes and Midnight are relegated to hard-to-find Blu-rays or boutique physical media releases, his novel sequel to Night of the Living Dead became bigger than anyone would have guessed. When George and John split, Night of the Living Dead writers, not The Beatles, Russo was able to keep rights to films ending in Living Dead while Romero was able to make his own sequels using different titles. Return of the Living Dead the book was published in 1977, and the plan was to eventually make the movie around its release.

The movie’s story was developed by Russo himself with help from Rudy Ricci and Russell Streiner. Ricci has virtually nothing else on his resume, but Streiner will forever be immortalized as Johnny from Night of the Living Dead with his famous “They’re coming to get you, Barbara” line. Originally, the film would be a 3D spectacle during the 80s flirtation with bringing the format back and Tobe Hooper was signed on to direct. Delays would force Hooper to exit the project but thankfully we would get beautiful space vampire nonsense Lifeforce out of it. Dan O’Bannon was offered a script rewrite and the chance to direct which would completely change the trajectory and outcome of this beloved film.

The story follows 2 different groups that will eventually intersect. Group one follows Freddy, who is new at his job with a medical supply warehouse, and supervisor Frank going into the basement to look at allegedly the original ghouls from Night of the Living Dead, a story based in fact in this world. One of the canisters the ghouls are stuck in opens and it unleashes 245 Trioxin which is what causes the zombies in the first place. The boss of the warehouse, Burt, shows up and tries to help them deal with the mess they’ve caused which includes a reanimated corpse that won’t die, even when they do what the movies tell them. They chop the body up and take it to Ernie who runs the crematorium at the cemetery next door, and he agrees to burn them which causes acid rain that reanimates the whole cemetery. Waiting for Freddy to get off work is his girlfriend Tina and his group of friends led by Suicide. They deal with the first zombie that came out of the cannister in the first bit of the stories mixing before attempting to get to the mortuary. Frank and Freddy have now become technically dead while the reanimated corpses, who can full on run and talk mind you, start picking off the group even as they are together for the most part. The movie ends when Burt calls a number on the side of one of the cannisters and the military nukes the town and survivors…which of course makes it rain over a larger area and start the cycle anew.

That description doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel but what’s inside sure did. The movie inside that description executes things so perfectly well and that starts with the cast. There’s no Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt in their first horror roles, but it does have a handful of friends that we’ve grown up watching. Linnea Quigley as Trash with her iconic dance, Miguel Nunez Jr as Spider who that same year made a mistake of having the wrong enchiladas, Thom Mathews as Freddy a year before he took on Jason Voorhees, and Clu Gulager as Burt who would make a career out of fun horror roles. Looking even further, everyone plays their roles perfectly, be it part of the gang that gets humbled quickly by the zombies or a more than quirky mortuary worker that get caught up in things. Even the non-important roles like the paramedics who discover two seemingly dead men to the military colonel that nukes the town all hit. While I find Tina somewhat annoying in her screamy take on all the events, she’s the only character like that and it works fine.

A good cast can’t do much without a good script and that’s another thing that works flawlessly within Return of the Living Dead. I don’t mind horror movies with some gallows humor or even a comedy that has one or two horrifying scenes in it as the two styles are remarkably similar in their emotional outlook, but horror comedies typically fall flat. Things like Tremors or An American Werewolf in London seem to be the outlier but Return of the Living Dead is the benchmark which all other can be measured. The humor is great from James Karens facial acting to exchanges like “watch your tongue boy if you like this job.” “Like this job?!” Spider warning everyone that Trash is taking off her clothes again and zombies requesting more cops and paramedics all hit just as good today as they did 40 years ago. Even non-spoken things like Frank and Freddy getting their vitals checked and the paramedics exchanging first instruments and then patients works as well as an Abbott and Costello bit.

On the other side of that is the horror presented on screen. Through all the comedic moments are absolutely horrifying events that are sometimes subtle and other times in your face. Watching Freddy and Frank slowly become the living dead is heartbreaking as it is terrifying and their endings match that. Frank is convulsing but uses the very last of his humanity to put himself through Ernie’s cremator and Freddy dies but as soon as he does, clicks over to wanting brains. His cravings and willingness to destroy his own body to get what he wants to show you how miserable an existence the zombies have, and this is punctuated by the half a body zombies explaining that eating brains makes the pain go away, at least temporarily. Freddy’s eyes getting burned away and then explaining that he shattered his body to get to Tina and Ernie in the attic is heartbreaking in its horror.

Before this movie I never thought of a zombie’s moan as anything but a device to let you know they are there even when you can’t see them on screen. Now? All I think about is the pain that they are going through in their journey to get brains. The final horror of the movie that I want to point out is kind of a piggyback at the end of the film. Burt, along with Spider and a few of the gang are holed up in the warehouse while Ernie and Tina are hiding in the attic of the mortuary. Burt calls the cops and hears them get wiped out, exasperated he holds the phone up so the others can hear, and Ernie is seconds away from shooting Tina and presumably himself as to avoid Freddy eating them. As bleak as that is, Burt calls the government to ask for help and they decide to nuke the whole town. It’s a bleak ending for sure that ends on some dark comedy as we see the rejuvenating rainfall that will surely bring about more living dead.

Even though I mentioned the story doesn’t reinvent the wheel, there are some things that Return of the Living Dead brought to the zombie table that we hadn’t seen and that would be adopted by future movies. Zombies had never spoken on screen before and while they were known as “Shamblers” or the “Walking Dead” before these undead psychos could RUN. It is shocking and I’m not sure what my reaction would be seeing a screaming running corpse come at me. To make matters worse, and another new introduction, is that these ghouls can’t be killed, at least the way we had seen it happen before. You have to completely burn them or nuke them like the military does at the end and destroy every part. Maybe my favorite thing from the whole movie is the subversion of the zombie lore that comes out of Return of the Living Dead. It’s also funny to see that a movie that came out of an idea as a sequel to the original movie where the zombies could die, gave us a whole new set of rules.

The final piece that ties everything together is the look and feel of the movie. I attribute this success to the FX and the music. The music stands out whether it’s the iconic score that plays over the intro credits or the perfectly picked songs that accompany the gang running for their lives or the audience being asked if it wants to party as the dead crawl out of their graves. The FX do their job in spades, but we almost didn’t get what was seen on screen or rather we got a preview of it. The now infamous yellow zombie is a part of the old guard special effects team that were completely changed after it was seen as sub-par. What we got after is now legendary with the “Tarman” zombie or half woman mentioned. The blood spray from bites and the look of the undead all stand out as unique and a great time. While I don’t love how super zombie Trash looks after her transformation, it’s still a bang-up job with the makeup. Even the poster which mixes the theme and villains together has become iconic and one of the defining posters of the vaunted 80’s decade.

About the only questionable part of Return‘s contribution to horror is its legacy. While the first entry is great and continues to be celebrated with 4K treatment and special features, its sequels are the very definition of the law of diminishing returns. Part 2 is a bonkers comedy, 3 is a horror love story, and 4 and 5 shouldn’t have been made at all. A new entry is supposed to arrive in 2025 but to say I don’t have high hopes is an understatement. Even the original novel pales in comparison and it should be noted that Russo also wrote the novelization of the movie which chose to change nearly everything about his original story. Regardless of what came after, Return of the Living Dead is a masterpiece of the zombie genre and still holds up 40 years after its release. This year instead of being afraid to go into the water during the summer, send more paramedics and cozy up to a 4K viewing of Return of the Living Dead. Do you wanna party? It’s party time!

Two previous episodes of Revisited can be seen below. To see more of our shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals channel – and subscribe while you’re at it!

The post The Return of the Living Dead (1985) Revisited – Horror Movie Review appeared first on JoBlo.

So, why did Vin Diesel return as Xander Cage a full fifteen years after the first film? 

To understand why, one must look at what happened to Diesel’s career in the wake of the first film. Famously, Diesel had declined to return for a sequel to his breakout hit, The Fast and the Furious. The film, 2 Fast 2 Furious, went ahead with Paul Walker, and was a respectable hit. However, Diesel had his own tentpole franchise movie planned, The Chronicles of Riddick, which would spin-off his character from the horror hit, Pitch Black, into his own franchise. It was an insanely ambitious film, with it boasting a budget that was at least four times what the original cost, and swapping genre to become more of a fantasy film, in the vein of Lord of the Rings. It wound up being an embarrassing flop for Diesel, and his career ended up in serious jeopardy not long afterward, as with the exception of the Disney comedy, The Pacifier, all of his follow-up films flopped, most notably the French-produced Babylon A.D.

Unsurprisingly, at this moment, Diesel reconsidered his choice to drop out of the Fast & Furious franchise, reprising his role as Dominic Toretto in a cameo for Tokyo Drift. He was enticed back for Fast & Furious, which was a reunion film that, to the shock of many in the industry, was a major financial success. It was so big that Universal Pictures made the daring move to up the budget for the fifth film, Fast Five, and change it from an urban-set street racing film to a global heist franchise. The movie was a smash hit, as were all the sequels, and suddenly Diesel was once again a superstar.

With his new clout, Diesel was able to get another Pitch Black movie made, Riddick, but many believed the franchise that really should be rebooted was XXX, as the Fast Saga had morphed into a spy franchise of its own, and perhaps a Diesel led XXX would give a rival studio a small taste of the massive grosses those movies were pulling down consistently. 

As such, the decision was made to resurrect Xander Cage, with the notion in the film being that rumors of his death had been greatly exaggerated. Initially produced by Sony, the rights were instead picked up by Paramount Pictures, who would give the film a relatively lavish budget, albeit not one on par with the Fast Saga, to relaunch the franchise.

By this point, Rob Cohen, who had directed the first film, was out of the picture, and instead D.J Caruso, who has helmed the well-received Eagle Eye and Disturbia, was brought in to direct. The film would be heavily inspired by the Fast Saga, with it being a team-based film, peppered with international stars, in the hopes that the movie would play well to an international audience, who had made the Fast Saga a global phenomenon. Donnie Yen, the biggest star in Asia, was cast as Xiang, himself a xXx agent who is set up as the movie’s antagonist, but later becomes a secondary hero/protagonist. Bollywood star Deepika Padukone would play Xander’s love interest, yet another xXx agent who becomes part of his team, while Chinese rapper Kris Wu, Thai action film superstar Tony Jaa, and model Ruby Rose, would fill out the team. Samuel L. Jackson would reprise his role from the previous films as Augustus Gibbons, while Toni Collette, Nina Dobrev and Game of Thrones star Rory McGann would fill out the cast.

The action was notched up to Fast and Furious style levels, with the film adopting a distinctly tongue-in-cheek approach. This is perfectly summed up in Xander’s re-introduction to the franchise, where he land skis through a jungle. The film was so closely patterned on the Fast and Furious movies that they even hired that series’s composer, Brian Tyler, to score it. 

All involved hoped xXx would become a franchise, with threads being left dangling throughout the film, teasing a global franchise. Heck, they even brought back Ice Cube to make a cameo as Darius Stone, who saves the day in the finale with a line that I’m sure they hoped would become the XXX version of “we’re family” – “X takes care of its own”.

Here’s where it gets interesting. XXX: The Return of Xander Cage, was a gigantic flop in North America. It only made $44 million domestically, which was a disastrous result. Yet, it was a huge blockbuster internationally, making a stunning $300 million. As such, plans were put in motion to make another film, but so far the movie hasn’t happened, due in part to Diesel’s obligations to the Fast Saga, and the fact that the franchise’s rights are tied up in legal limbo. You see, a studio called Revolution Films, which was run by Joe Roth, owned the rights, and when that company ended, Roth brought in a Chinese Company called the H Collective to co-finance a new film, based on how huge a hit the movie had been in Asia. Sadly, the company has suffered a series of financial setbacks, and the question over who owns the franchise rights is, apparently, still up in the air. Had that not been an issue, we would have likely gotten a fifth xXx movie. While Diesel has teased the fact that he’s eager to continue with the franchise, many believe the moment might have passed, given the waning popularity of the Fast Saga, and that American movies are no longer the cash cows in Asia that they once were. In the end, perhaps Xander Cage’s most prominent foe was time. 

The post XXX: The Return of Xander Cage – Did this sequel happen way too late? appeared first on JoBlo.

The Christine episode of Revisited was Written by Vannah Taylor, Narrated by Niki Minter, Edited by Juan Jimenez, Produced by Tyler Nichols and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

The horror genre is littered with haunted objects. Anything under the sun could be the subject of a good popcorn thriller, whether it is cursed video tapes in chilling films like The Ring, possessed furniture in low budget comedies like Killer Sofa, or wind up toys that decide the fates of the characters in The Monkey. One of these killer objects is so enigmatic, she has her own name: Christine.

John Carpenter’s Christine (1983), adapted from Stephen King’s novel of the same name, has endured as an unusual yet effective blend of supernatural horror and adolescent drama. In a rare move, the film adaptation went into production before the book was even released—a testament to King’s immense popularity in the early 1980s following the success of works like Carrie and The Shining. Columbia Pictures quickly acquired the film rights, recognizing the market appeal of King’s brand. John Carpenter, fresh off the commercial failure of his now-beloved classic The Thing (1982), was brought on to direct in hopes of making a more accessible and financially successful film. Though Carpenter admitted he wasn’t particularly passionate about the story, saying, “it wasn’t very frightening,” he saw the opportunity to work with King’s material as a way to maintain momentum in his directing career. The screenplay, written by Bill Phillips, condensed King’s sprawling novel, focusing more tightly on Arnie’s transformation and the relationship between the boy and his car.

The film centers on a sentient 1958 Plymouth Fury that possesses a disturbing will of its own. But Christine is far more than a killer car story—it is a potent reflection on human desire, loss of self, and the destructive consequences of unchecked obsession. Through the transformation of its protagonist, Arnie Cunningham (portrayed by Keith Gordon), the film becomes a chilling allegory about repression, identity, and the danger of romanticizing the past.

Although Christine is a 1958 Plymouth Fury, many of the vehicles used in production were actually 1957 Plymouth Belvederes and Savoys, modified to resemble Furies. Over 20 cars were purchased and modified for various stages of damage and function. The practical effects used to bring the killer car to life, especially in the captivating scenes when we get to witness her ability to self-repair, were handled by Roy Arbogast. These effects included using inflatable body panels and even rigging one of the cars with internally-mounted hydraulics, which pull the framework inward to crumple the car and then the shot would be played backwards for the final film in an expert use of reverse photography. These well thought out techniques, combined with the directorial style of a Master of Horror like John Carpenter, create a film that is always rewarding on a rewatch. Unable to rely on excessive gore or cheap scares, Carpenter crafts a slow-building atmosphere of tension and psychological unease. His use of lighting, framing, and sound design creates a mood that is both nostalgic and sinister. Christine is frequently shot from low angles, emphasizing her power and giving her a predatory presence. Her bright red color, gleaming chrome, and glowing headlights contribute to her allure, while also serving as visual indicators of danger. Carpenter uses silence effectively, punctuating moments of calm with sudden bursts of violence. But through all of this, you might be asking yourself: why am I watching a movie about a killer car?

This adaptation leaves the question of “why” unanswered. Despite the novel’s explanation that the car is possessed by the spirit of the previous owner, whose death triggers the supernatural elements of the novel after Arnie’s purchase–the evil that lays beneath Christine’s hood awakens on the day of her production in the opening sequence of the film. This decision allows the film version of the bright red fury to act on her own intentions, which are also projections of Arnie’s innermost desires, rather than being the result of some other outside force. In Freudian terms, Christine functions as an embodiment of the id—the primal, instinctual part of the psyche that seeks pleasure, dominance, and vengeance without regard for morality. Arnie Cunningham, the film’s central figure, begins as a socially awkward, bullied teenager whose life is marked by passivity and humiliation. She becomes his outlet for repressed desires, enabling him to assert control over his life in increasingly violent ways. The evil car’s autonomy and acts of violence are not random. They correspond to Arnie’s emotional trajectory, reflecting his inner turmoil and growing disconnection from the real world. The car’s jealousy, possessiveness, and protectiveness mirror Arnie’s own psychological regression. As he loses his moral compass, Christine becomes a literal and metaphorical extension of his will, blurring the line between the boy and the machine. Carpenter uses this dynamic to suggest that repression, if left unresolved, will manifest destructively.

Arnie’s character arc is central to the film’s emotional and thematic core. When Arnie first lays eyes on Christine, it is a transformative moment, marked by romantic and even spiritual overtones. Though in disrepair, she captivates him. His decision to buy and restore her sets off a metamorphosis that is both physical and psychological. As Arnie invests time in rebuilding the car, his demeanor changes. He becomes confident and assertive, and adopts a new wardrobe and a rebellious attitude, shedding his submissive identity in favor of one shaped by arrogance and control. However, his dependency on Christine becomes an addiction, and he begins to prioritize the car over his relationships and moral obligations. Keith Gordon’s performance captures this descent masterfully, portraying a boy who slowly erodes under the weight of his own need for respect and control. What makes Arnie’s arc especially tragic is that his empowerment comes at the cost of his soul. Unlike other possession narratives where the protagonist resists the evil influence, Arnie embraces it. The deeper he falls under the Fury’s spell, the more he loses his individuality, becoming a hollow vessel for her malevolent intent. His desire to shed the humiliation of his former self blinds him to the fact that he is not becoming strong—he is becoming possessed.

One of the keys to understanding this tragic transformation is the fact that Christine is deeply embedded in American car culture. For many teenage boys in suburban America, owning a car was a rite of passage—a way to assert independence and attract social status. In this story, the 1958 Plymouth Fury is not just a car—it is a symbol of an era. Christine represents the dark side of nostalgia, the dangers of idealizing the past at the expense of the present. Arnie’s love for Christine is not merely about aesthetics; it reflects a deeper yearning for a time when roles were rigid, and personal power could be asserted through possession. In this sense, Christine is a vehicle for regression—a path backward rather than forward. The soundtrack also incorporated 1950s rock and roll, which played diagetically from Christine’s radio, creating a jarring contrast between the nostalgic tunes and the car’s violent actions.

The film’s bullies, especially Buddy Repperton, epitomize a hyper-masculine code based on aggression, dominance, and destruction. When Buddy and his gang vandalize Christine, it is not just an act of bullying—it is an emasculating assault on Arnie’s newfound sense of self.

Christine’s reanimation after being destroyed further drives home the idea that the past, once idealized, has a way of haunting the present. This revenge is not liberating but corrosive. Arnie’s transformation into a vengeful, controlling figure is symptomatic of a larger societal issue: the conflation of masculinity with dominance and retribution. Even the dynamic between Arnie and Dennis evolves into subtle competition. As Arnie becomes more aggressive, Dennis finds himself increasingly marginalized–he’s now the side piece as Christine becomes Arnie’s main squeeze.

Given the romantic undertones to Arnie’s obsession with his new car, Arnie’s romantic interest in Leigh represents a counterforce to Christine’s influence. She is intelligent, perceptive, and increasingly aware of the car’s sinister nature. Her role, while secondary in screen time, is vital in challenging the film’s masculine-centered narrative. Leigh is the one who voices concern over Arnie’s attachment to his car and becomes the target of the car’s supernatural aggression. A pinnacle moment in the film involves Leigh choking while sitting in Christine, only to be “saved” when the car’s radio suddenly turns off. The implication is that the car attempted to murder Leigh out of jealousy and she continues to actively sabotage his emotional connection to others–which is the film’s way of highlighting that this return to this nostalgic era ruled by patriarchal control cannot coexist with genuine emotional intimacy. Leigh and Dennis, who have both been tossed aside by Arnie, have to join forces to dismantle Christine’s destructive seduction. While Leigh may not be as deeply developed as Arnie, her role in the moral structure of the film is critical.

Perhaps the most chilling element of Christine is not the violence or the supernatural, but Arnie’s complete psychological collapse. By the film’s end, he is no longer recognizable as the boy viewers first met. His eyes are vacant, his voice cold, his relationships severed. Christine and Arnie become indistinguishable. This erosion of identity speaks to broader fears about adolescence, insecurity, and the desire to escape one’s limitations. The film uses horror to externalize the emotional violence that many teenagers experience: the pressure to conform, the yearning to be noticed, and the temptation to trade authenticity for acceptance. Arnie’s death, therefore, is not just a physical end—it is the culmination of a slow surrender of self.

Released on December 9, 1983, the film went on to earn a total of over $21 million at the U.S. box office against a $10 million budget. Initial critical reception was mixed, but over the years, the film has grown in stature. Even though the iconic horror author himself has stated that he finds this adaptation of his work, along with Kubrick’s The Shining to be rather boring, and is now recognized as one of the more compelling King adaptations.

Christine is a deceptively complex film. What could have been a simple tale of a haunted car is actually a rich exploration of the psychological trappings of adolescence. Christine herself is more than a monster—she is a mirror reflecting the darkest corners of the human psyche. The film’s enduring appeal lies in its ability to terrify not only through its killer car sequences. It is not just a cautionary tale about a boy and his car—it is a haunting reflection on the cost of becoming what we fear in order to feel powerful.

Two previous episodes of Revisited can be seen below. To see more of our shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals channel – and subscribe while you’re at it!

The post Christine (1983) Revisited – Horror Movie Review appeared first on JoBlo.