Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2021 by Ben Pearson
Indira Varma, who is probably best known for playing Oberyn Martell’s ruthless and scheming paramour Ellaria Sand on HBO’s Game of Thrones, has just become the latest performer to go from Westeros to a galaxy far, far away.
A new report says Varma has joined Disney+ and Lucasfilm’s Obi-Wan Kenobi cast opposite star Ewan McGregor. Read More »
Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2021 by Hoai-Tran Bui
There are a few givens in this industry, two of them being: Netflix has a bottomless well of money to burn through, and Liam Neeson is not yet done making action movies. Both are true in this latest acquisition news story, which is that Netflix has set a record for domestic-only deals for the Liam Neeson action-thriller The Ice Road.
Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2021 by Ethan Anderton
Between the second season of The Mandalorian and Marvel’s WandaVision, Disney has cornered the market on weekly merchandising tied to the latest episodes of their biggest shows. After every new episode, there has been some kind of new memorabilia tied to the events of each series, and this week is no exception.
WandaVision made a couple huge revelations in the Marvel Cinematic Universe during the last two episodes, and two new Funko POPs inspired by the events of the series will allow you to commemorate them on your collectible shelf. But since we’re talking major spoilers here, keep reading only if you’re caught up on the show. Read More »
Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2021 by Ben Pearson
Eli Roth‘s Borderlands cast continues to expand.
Ariana Greenblatt, who played Young Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War, is the latest performer to join Roth’s film adaptation of the action-heavy, sci-fi video game. She’ll play a character named Tiny Tina, a dangerous 13-year-old who is hellbent on revenge.
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Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2021 by Peter Sciretta
On the March 1, 2021 episode of /Film Daily, /Film editor-in-chief Peter Sciretta is joined by /Film weekend editor Brad Oman, senior writer Ben Pearson and writer Chris Evangelisa to discuss the latest film and tv news, including the Golden Globes winners, Superman Reboot, Doctor Strange 2, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Terminator & More.
Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2021 by Chris Evangelista
It was inevitable. Like last year, San-Diego Comic-Con 2021 will remain virtual. While there are multiple COVID-19 vaccines right now, the pandemic remains a very serious issue. And as much as everyone would like things to go back to normal, it’s unlikely that we’ll see anything close to “normal” anytime soon. With that in mind, Comic-Con has made the tough but wise choice to remain virtual for one more year.
Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2021 by Ben Pearson
In just a few weeks, devotees of director Zack Snyder will finally be able to see what they’ve been desperately wanting for three years: his unvarnished vision of the comic book film Justice League. But if you thought the unlikely release of the “Snyder Cut” on HBO Max means that his most ardent fans would heave a contented sigh and move on to some other obsession for a while, think again.
The Zack Snyder’s Justice League ending concludes with a “massive cliffhanger,” according to the director, and I’m wondering if that will spark a whole new wave of fan response attempting to convince Warner Bros. to fund a sequel. Read Snyder’s quote below, along with some other details about his four-hour movie, including the unexpected dynamic between Batman (Ben Affleck) and Deathstroke (Joe Manganiello).
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Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2021 by Hoai-Tran Bui
A different kind of plague has emerged with renewed force in the last year alongside COVID-19: the rise of hate crimes against Asians and Asian-Americans in the U.S. The spike in anti-Asian violence began around a year ago when the coronavirus pandemic first reached American shores, and was exacerbated by former President Donald Trump and other federal officials repeatedly calling COVID-19 the “China virus” or the “Kung flu.” But recent months have begun to rack up a body count — notably, an elderly Thai man who was killed in San Francisco in January — and the growing public advocacy of Asian-American celebrities, who have called for change.
Last week, Disney+ released a statement offering its support to the AAPI organizations amid the rising hate crimes, and now Pixar has gone a step further: releasing two Pixar SparkShorts created by Asian filmmakers in solidarity with the Asian and Asian-American communities.
Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2021 by Ben Pearson
If you were to make a list of the most indelible actor/director pairings of all time, it wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi. The duo have worked together multiple times since first teaming up for a short film back in 1976, and now Campbell has taken to Twitter and may have hinted that they’ve just added another tally to their long list of collaborations. Is Bruce Campbell in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the big Marvel Studios sequel that Raimi is currently directing? We admittedly don’t know the answer for sure, but the actor is certainly having fun purposefully stirring up a conversation to that effect. Check out his tweet below. Read More »
Posted on Monday, March 1st, 2021 by Jeremy Mathai
(Welcome to The Soapbox, the space where we get loud, feisty, political, and opinionated about anything and everything.)
This post contains spoilers for The Mandalorian and the latest episode of WandaVision.
For better or worse, the debuts of The Mandalorian and WandaVision on Disney+ within just 14 months of each other represent something of a game-changer in this Streaming Era. Amid so many different shows all competing for the same spotlight in a post-Game of Thrones vacuum, here comes the unstoppable might of Disney’s Star Wars and Marvel brands to break through the clutter of our current “Peak TV” reality. Achieving pop culture relevance as these two shows have is no small feat, to be sure, but it’s even more notable to do so while expanding from dominating cinemas to taking over our living rooms on a weekly basis.
Because of these factors, it’s difficult to compartmentalize one smash-hit series from the other – as divergent as their goals and intentions may be – when evaluating the ripple effect they both will have (and have already had) on the trajectory of their respective franchises… and most significantly, on how we as viewers engage with them. Weirdly enough, the stories of a lone bounty hunter looking after his orphan sidekick and a grief-stricken superhero cocooning herself in a television fantasy have become a bellwether for studying the volatile dynamic between pop culture entertainment and audiences on a large scale.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the many eerie similarities between these two shows: from misplaced complaints about “filler episodes” throughout both seasons of The Mandalorian and the first few episodes of WandaVision, to their gradual prioritization of shared universe connections over self-contained narratives.
