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Warcraft Legendary Sam Raimi signed on to direct a movie based on “World of Warcraft” in 2009, but departed the project by 2012, citing scheduling issues and game publisher Blizzard not wanting to wait any longer, but that’s not the whole story. Speaking with Vulture in 2013, Raimi said he didn’t like the script he was handed that was written by the folks at Blizzard. Instead, he chose to write an entirely original story with “Saving Private Ryan” screenwriter Robert Rodat....

Avatar: The Way Of Water Trailer: James Cameron’s Long-Awaited Sequel Is Almost A Reality 20th Century Studios By Chris Evangelista/May 9, 2022 10:08 am EST While we still have doubts that the many, many “Avatar” sequels will ever arrive, James Cameron has been working non-stop to return audiences to the world of Pandora. And after years of delays and filming, the first “Avatar 2” trailer is here in all its blue-tinted glory....

Bubble Director Tetsuro Araki On How Attack On Titan Influenced His New Anime Movie For Netflix [Interview] Netflix By Rafael Motamayor/April 28, 2022 12:00 pm EST Ever since it jumped on the scene with “Devilman Crybaby,” Netflix has become one of the strongest anime distributors in the West, and the only real competition to Crunchyroll since Funimation essentially shut down. Since then, we’ve had some miraculous license acquisitions like “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” as well as truly unique originals like “Kotaro Lives Alone” and “Great Pretender....

An Absolute Misfire 20th Century Studios Yet what sinks “Death on the Nile” (you cannot expect me to avoid any water-based puns in this review, I’m sorry to say) isn’t even the backstory surrounding Hercule Poirot’s mustache, no matter how silly that collection of words is. It’s that the ensemble here — perhaps excluding Branagh and Bateman, and only in a couple of scenes — are working very hard at giving very bad performances indeed....

Euphoria Season 2 Yearbook: Nate The Not Great Eddy Chen/HBO By Valerie Ettenhofer/Jan. 16, 2022 10:19 pm EST School is back in session. At least, as much as it can be on a show like “Euphoria,” one that never shows classes or homework and recently went viral for a shot of Maddy (Alexa Demie) standing in the hall with a tiny purse and no schoolbooks. Rue (Zendaya), Jules (Hunter Schafer), Nate (Jacob Elordi), Cassie (Sydney Sweeney), and the rest of their classmates aren’t particularly concerned with their education this episode, as they’re still coming down from last week’s bloody New Year’s Eve party....

Everything Everywhere All At Once Spoiler Review: A Manifesto For A New Generation A24 By Witney Seibold/March 28, 2022 7:59 pm EST Warning: This review will discuss the writings of dead European philosophers like Albert Camus and Friedrich Nietzsche and Voltaire and Søren Kierkegaard, but the author assures you that these comparisons are apt Would it be inappropriate to refer to Directed by Dan Kwan’s and Daniel Scheinert’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” as a manifesto for a new generation?...

Here’s Where You Can Stream Or Buy Every Season Of Smallville Warner Bros By Jamie Gerber/Jan. 28, 2022 9:12 am EST (Welcome to Where to Watch, which provides a clear and simple answer to the question, “Hey, where can I watch this thing?”) Cue that earworm of a theme song, because we’re talking about how you can watch “Smallville!” The beloved Superman origin story aired a whopping 217 episodes across 10 seasons, beginning on The WB in 2001 and wrapping up on The CW in 2011....

In A Better World, We Would Have A Bill Murray Batman Focus Features By Lee Adams/Jan. 25, 2022 11:00 am EST Cinema is awash with intriguing almost casting stories; how about Nicolas Cage as Superman, Al Pacino as Han Solo, or Orson Welles playing Baron Harkonnen? All three (maybe) could have happened, no doubt altering the tone and direction of each IP significantly. One of my favorite alternate-universe casting rumors that was only just recently brought to my attention was that Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy were once lined up to play Batman and Robin....

Iron Man 2’s Rushed Production Pushed The Cast And Crew To Their Limits Disney By Witney Seibold/June 28, 2022 2:13 pm EST Jon Favreau’s 2010 superhero flick “Iron Man 2” was the third film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it was really the first. The 2008 films prior to “Iron Man 2” — Favreau’s own “Iron Man” and Louis Leterrier’s “The Incredible Hulk” — were distributed by Paramount and by Universal respectively, and their references to a larger universe (the Avengers Initiative in “Iron Man,” Robert Downey Jr....

Jon M. Chu Was Connected To Crazy Rich Asians Long Before Becoming Its Director Warner Bros. By Sandy Schaefer/May 17, 2022 8:18 am EST Who says romantic comedies are dead? Not Jon M. Chu. In 2018, Chu directed “Crazy Rich Asians,” a movie that lives up to the extravagance implied by its title. The film stars Constance Wu as Rachel Chu, a Chinese American economics professor who travels with her boyfriend, Nick Young (Henry Golding), to attend his best friend’s wedding in Singapore, only to learn his family is actually extremely wealthy....

Lucasfilm Casts Trans Actress Talisa Garcia In Willow Series, A First For The Company Starz By Sandy Schaefer/April 7, 2022 12:56 pm EST With post-production underway on the “Willow” sequel series, we’ve just gotten word the project will be the first by Lucasfilm to feature an openly transgender actress in the form of Talisa Garcia, star of “Baptiste,” “Serve and Protect,” and “The Girlfriend Experience.” According to Deadline, Garcia was already part of the “Willow” cast well before Lucasfilm’s parent company, Disney, came under fire for sponsoring Florida’s HB 1557, the anti-LGBTQ+ legislation also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill....

Does whatever Kamala can Disney+ While the filmmaker would probably love to reach the same successes and critical acclaim as Tom Holland’s Spidey, El Arbi is definitely speaking more from a narrative perspective here. Peter grew so much over the course of his three headlining films. Of course, a lot of that growing also took place during his time with the Avengers, but his films really focused on the things that make him the most relatable....

My Neighbor Totoro Stage Show To Use Puppets From Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Studio Ghibli By Debopriyaa Dutta/June 28, 2022 9:34 am EST No animated film has a hold over me like Hayao Miyazaki’s “My Neighbor Totoro.” And if you’ve ever wanted to see life-size puppets of the characters come to life, here’s good news for you! For their stage adaptation of Miyazaki’s classic 1988 film, Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company has teamed up with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop animatronics and visual effects studio to bring the characters from “My Neighbor Totoro” to life (via Deadline)....

For the love of Grogu Hallmark If you’re looking to load up your Christmas tree with as much Grogu as possible, Hallmark has you covered. There are two ornaments with the little guy in the hands of bounty hunters. First, he’s being held up by Din Djarin, who removes his helmet to reveal his face to the tiny creature. Then we also have Grogu securely fastened in a harness on IG-11, who is protecting him from Moff Gideon’s forces....

Where Venom 3 could go Sony Pictures Releasing The most recent entry in Venom’s solo film franchise was last year’s “Let There Be Carnage,” which received more mixed-to-negative reviews, but which was an even greater commercial success than “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” earning over half a billion dollars on a $110 million budget. Spoilers for the end of “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” follow. Tom Hardy’s “Venom” character, Eddie Brock, was last seen in a post-credits scene, too, though in this case, he was cameoing in a Marvel Studios film, “Spider-Man: No Way Home....

Watch the Outer Range trailer This twist on the Western genre comes from Brian Watkins and puts Josh Brolin front and center as the patriarch of the Abbott family. Notably, the series also comes from Plan B Entertainment, the production company that most recently produced Barry Jenkins’ epic Colson Whitehead adaptation “The Underground Railroad.” With “Outer range,” we stare at vast expanses of land and ponder existential questions as Brolin’s Royal Abbott muses about the world around him, stirring intrigue via voiceover: “You ever wonder if the world’s not what you think it is?...

Peaky Blinders Season 6 Finally Sets A UK Premiere Date BBC/Caryn Mandabach Productions By Jeremy Mathai/Feb. 15, 2022 10:57 am EST No need to call a family meeting for this one. With anticipation reaching a fever pitch for any and all news regarding when the sixth season of “Peaky Blinders” will air, the BBC finally decided to show a little mercy towards the legions of fans for the hit British gangster series....

Prehistoric Planet Review: Jon Favreau And David Attenborough Deliver A Docuseries For The Ages Apple TV+ By Sarah Milner/May 17, 2022 3:00 pm EST A mighty Tyrannosaurus rex swimming; a ferocious Velociraptor flexing its deadly, distinctive claw; Suropods showing off bulbous neck sacks — these are just some of the stunning visuals in the trailer for “Prehistoric Planet,” the new Apple TV+ documentary series about life on Earth “66 million years ago....

The Not-So-Likeable Lester HBO In an article last November, before any casting announcements were made, I noted that “the basic blueprint [for ‘The Boogeyman’] involves a man named Lester Billings relating to a psychiatrist, Dr. Harper, how the boogeyman slunk out of the closet and killed his three children, one by one, over time.” I also noted, “There’s a streak of casual ’70s sexism and racism running through Billings’ therapy session, and he’s not a very likable character....

The 12 Best Superhero Movies From Female Directors Warner Bros. By Billie Gagné-LeBel/May 12, 2022 2:56 pm EST As the saying goes, not all superheroes wear capes. Not all of them have superpowers, either, unless those superpowers are being a billionaire (see Bruce Wayne aka. Batman), being a genius whose experiments went wrong (see Bruce Banner aka. the Hulk), or a mix of being a billionaire genius (see Tony Stark aka....