Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes are starring in ‘28 Years Later’
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland are behind the new movie.
Sony is distributing the movie, the start of a trilogy of films.
After many years in the wild weeds of speculation and rumor, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland finally confirmed that they’re getting back to the world they created with 2002’s ‘28 Days Later’ for a brand new follow-up called ‘28 Years Later’.
And far from just making one movie, their plan is actually to launch a trilogy, with Garland writing all three and Boyle directing the first. The initial round of casting has begun with Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes joining the movie per Deadline.
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What’s the story of the ‘28 Days Later’ movies?
Cillian Murphy in 2002’s ’28 Days Later.’ Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures.
2002’s original movie saw Cillian Murphy playing Jim, a bicycle courier left in a coma after an accident. He awakes nearly a month later to discover London and the wider world have gone to hell after animal rights activists released a chimp infected with a virulent, genetically engineered plague that has spread to the population, leaving the city near deserted and haunted by roving packs of the rage-driven ‘infected’.
That was followed by ‘28 Weeks Later’ in 2007, which saw Juan Carlos Fresnadillo taking over directorial duties, with Boyle and Garland stepping back to be executive producers. The sequel is set as American forces arrive to help clean up Britain, civilians caught in the crossfire between soldiers and the remaining infected.
While the plot of the new movie is being kept under wraps for now, the title points to picking up the story decades after the original and seeing what has happened to the country since then. We’re guessing nothing good, but with Boyle and Garland involved, it’ll be entertaining finding out.
Who are the new actors playing?
(L to R) Bryan Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor-Johnson star in Sony’s ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield.
As with the story info, we don’t yet know who the three new actors will be doing in the movie –– but they’re interesting nonetheless, since the 2002 entry was largely cast with rising stars and a few veterans sprinkled into the mix.
While Comer and Taylor-Johnson aren’t exactly veterans, they’re well established –– and that goes without saying for Fiennes.
What’s happening with the ‘28 Years Later’ trilogy?
‘The Marvels’ director Nia DeCosta.
With Boyle taking on the first movie, the plan is for him to direct it this year and for production of the second to kick off once the first has wrapped to ensure continuity of storytelling while each director will bring their visual stamp to their movie.
The best part about ‘The Fall Guy’ is its clear affection and loving respect for stuntpeople and the incredibly dangerous work they do to make movies as exciting as possible. Some of the film’s many – almost too many – action sequences are designed just for this. It’s too bad, then, that the rest of the film is hampered by a sloppy script and halting pacing that the undeniable charm of Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt can only do so much to smooth over. It’s all in the execution, and ‘The Fall Guy’ never commits to what kind of film it wants to be.
(L to R) Director David Leitch and Ryan Gosling (as Colt Seavers) on the set of ‘The Fall Guy.’
‘The Fall Guy’ is based loosely – very loosely – on the hit 1980s TV series starring Lee Majors as a stuntman who uses his skills to moonlight as a bounty hunter. Aside from the title and the main character’s name, however, nothing else remains of the series in this film from stuntman-turned-director David Leitch (‘John Wick,’ ‘Deadpool 2,’ ‘Bullet Train’). In this version, Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is quite satisfied with just being a stuntman – even if the star he’s been doubling for six years, the insecure and self-obsessed Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), earns all the glory for Seavers’ risky, often awe-inspiring stunts.
All that comes crashing down, however, when Colt suffers a severe injury on the set that takes him out of commission for a year, reduces him to working as a valet, and sends him into a deep depression. It also estranges him from his girlfriend, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt), an aspiring director who in the interim lands her feature directorial debut – a sci-fi blockbuster starring none other than Ryder.
But then Colt gets a call out of the blue from the movie’s producer, Gail (Hannah Waddingham), who insists that Colt fly down to Australia to perform stunts on the film. Fearful of getting back on that horse, so to speak, Colt nevertheless heads down to the set in the hope that he can pick up his career and rekindle the spark with Jody. But when it turns out that Ryder has gone missing from the shoot, Colt is tasked with finding him – and discovers that Ryder’s disappearance may be part of a much more sinister plot than most Hollywood thrillers.
There’s no question that Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt both have charisma and screen presence to spare, and their verbal jousting and fast-paced repartee often provides enough entertainment to just get by when ‘The Fall Guy’ lags in the pacing department. There’s also no question that David Leitch loves the profession he came up in, and the movie goes to great lengths to show just how stuntpeople do their jobs – you may come away from the movie with a newfound respect for the craft (and an understanding of why stuntpeople really do deserve to get their own Oscar category).
But the movie itself is never quite sure what it wants to be. Is it a rom-com? A movie industry satire? An action thriller? It tries to be all three, but the script by Drew Pearce (‘Hotel Artemis’) never leans fully into any of those genres, creating a tonal and narrative hodgepodge that doesn’t quite come together as a cohesive whole or has much of anything to say. The tonal shifts give ‘The Fall Guy’ a herky-jerky feel, with some scenes coming to a standstill while the action sequences are frantic if exceptionally well-staged (although one highly destructive chase through the streets of Sydney has one wondering, even in the reality of the film, why not a single cop shows up).
Of the narrative’s three threads, the mystery involving Ryder’s disappearance is the weakest and most easily dispensable: it comes across as merely a means to create some action scenes. The romance probably plays the strongest, thanks to Gosling and Blunt’s chemistry, but even aspects of that are contrived (it’s kind of murky why the relationship ended in the first place). As for the film’s satirical aspects, they jump in and out of the story, fighting for space with Leitch’s yearning to show the below-the-line folks in the best possible light.
No Stunt Casting Here
Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers in ‘The Fall Guy,’ directed by David Leitch.
Anyone who watched the Oscars could see that Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt had comic chemistry together as presenters, and that connection is evident in ‘The Fall Guy’ as well. The two leads are the strongest aspect of the movie. Gosling’s comedic chops are on full display again, and he can’t help but be endearing and watchable even if he is playing a variation on the lovable but dim persona we’ve seen in ‘Barbie’ and ‘The Nice Guys.’ His Colt Seavers can barely articulate himself in front of Blunt’s Jody as the story begins, locked in his own sense of failure, but his character does evolve by the climax.
Like Gosling, Blunt is always a striking, strong presence on screen, and her Jody is someone who lets her own ambitions – her heartfelt desire to become a director – get in the way of real life to a degree. One of the best aspects of the movie is the way in which Jody and Colt initially communicate through the action they’re staging on the set; as she sets him on fire over and over again, among other things, they keep talking about how to fix the movie’s third act, when clearly they’re discussing what happened to their own broken relationship. Moments like that are clever indicators of the movie’s better intentions.
The most hilarious supporting character is Taylor-Johnson’s Tom Ryder, who also represents the film’s most satirical aspects (we have to wonder which major real-life A-lister this narcissistic, petty, spoiled man-child was patterned after). His complete insecurity in the face of Colt’s immense physical talents, his inclination to believe that his delivery of even the most brainless rallying-cry speech to a crowd of extras is some sort of Shakespearean monologue, and the post-it notes that cover his apartment – constant little reminders to himself that often contradict each other – are spot-on, and Taylor-Johnson plays him at a slight remove, as if the Ryder persona is just another role for this rather small person.
The rest of the cast are terrific in smaller roles, even if many of them don’t get much to do. Hannah Waddingham (‘Ted Lasso’) fares best as Gail, the producer who knows exactly what to say to everyone and how to manipulate them to get what she wants, while Winston Duke (M’Baku from the ‘Black Panther’ movies) is a welcome wingman who we’d like to see more of. Stephanie Hsu (‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’) and Teresa Palmer (‘A Discovery of Witches’) also make good impressions even if they largely disappear from the second half of the film.
Final Thoughts
Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers in ‘The Fall Guy,’ directed by David Leitch.
‘The Fall Guy’ has crowd-pleaser written all over it: a couple of big, attractive leads in a zany rom-com scenario, a mystery of sorts at its center, and a parade of “watch this one” action setpieces serving as its spine. Some of its elements get their chance to shine, but only intermittently, and not enough to make ‘The Fall Guy’ the fully satisfying popcorn picture it’s clearly engineered to be.
Luckily, Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt have enough sheer star power to keep the movie from becoming the kind of empty tentpole that it pokes fun at (with ‘Metalstorm,’ the ‘Dune’ knockoff movie inside the movie), and if David Leitch and Drew Pearce found a more seamless way to blend their romance with a bit more satirical zing, we’d be rooting for them all the way.
‘The Fall Guy’ receives 6 out of 10 stars.
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What is the plot of ‘The Fall Guy’?
After a severe injury sidelines him for a year, stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is recruited to perform stunts for action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in a new epic directed by Colt’s ex-girlfriend, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). Ryder’s sudden disappearance from the shoot, however, not only complicates Colt’s attempt to get back in Jody’s good graces, but finds the fall guy enmeshed in an increasingly sinister plot.
Who is in the cast of ‘The Fall Guy’?
Ryan Gosling as Colt Seavers
Emily Blunt as Jody Moreno
Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Tom Ryder
Hannah Waddingham as Gail
Winston Duke as Dan
Stephanie Hsu as Alma
(L to R) Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers and Emily Blunt is Judy Moreno in ‘The Fall Guy,’ directed by David Leitch.
(L to R) Aaron Johnson and Chloë Grace Moretz in ‘Kick-Ass.’ Photo: Lionsgate.
Preview:
Matthew Vaughn is talking about the next ‘Kick-Ass’ Movie.
He’s planning it as a reboot of the concept.
Two other movies will precede it.
With Matthew Vaughn out on the promotional trail for new spy caper ‘Argylle’, he’s naturally been fielding questions about some of his previous movies, including those requesting updates about a new entry in the ‘Kick-Ass’ franchise.
And from the sounds of it, he’s got some fascinating plans for the movie –– including the fact that it’ll reboot the concept and will work as the third part of a trilogy, just not the way we were all expecting.
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What was the story of ‘Kick-Ass’?
(L to R) Aaron Johnson and Chloë Grace Moretz in ‘Kick-Ass 2.’ Photo: Universal Pictures.
Based on Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s comic book series, the 2010 original ‘Kick-Ass’ and its 2013 sequel introduced us to Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a young man who is inspired by the comics he loves to become a vigilante and start fighting crime. It… does not always go well for him.
“We’re halfway through it. There’s a very, very dare I say it… and it’s gonna be a cliche coming out of this head of mine. It is a very, very meta universe. It is what, you know, ‘Kick-Ass’ was reinventing and creating an R-rated superhero, and no one was really doing it. This is taking that whole concept to a worthy… Not even a sequel, because I think it’s just a whole new way of doing ‘Kick-Ass,’ which couldn’t be more ‘Kick-Ass.’”
The plan, according to Vaughn, is more complicated than anyone imagined. Instead of simply making a third ‘Kick-Ass’ entry (which Vaughn has already said would reboot the story), it’ll actually be part of a new three-film series. But this ‘Kick-Ass’ won’t kick it off. Instead it’ll follow two new movies.
With Vaughn acting as producer, the two other films are already under way –– one, ‘School Fight’, directed by Damien Walters, is already in the can. The other, which Vaughn refers to as ‘Vram’ (though that may not be the final title) is shooting. And then Vaughn plans to make the new ‘Kick-Ass’. The three films are connected.
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When will ‘Kick-Ass 3’ be on screens?
2013’s ‘Kick-Ass 2.’ Photo: Universal Pictures.
There is no release date set for any of the three movies yet, though with ‘School Fight’ long finished it could arrive this year and ‘Vram’ may premiere at a festival in 2024 or 2025. Vaughn, of course, still has to finish writing ‘Kick-Ass 3’.
As for ‘Argylle’, the spy movie will be in theaters on February 2nd.
(L to R) Henry Cavill, Dua Lipa, and John Cena in ‘Argylle,’ directed by Matthew Vaughn.
Sony’s 2023 CinemaCon Presentation. Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures.
With audiences returning to theaters properly and box office returns climbing out of the trough of COVID, it was only natural that studio bosses were going to be bullish at this year’s CinemaCon event in Las Vegas.
First out of the gate this time was Sony, whose chairman Tom Rothman was in an upbeat, triumphant mood. “For the past three years, as the punditocracy pissed on your business, we at Sony held fast,” Rothman boasted. “We are the only studio that held entirely to theatrical. We were sure that movies in theaters would not only survive but triumph. Well, whaddaya know?”
Sony remains on the theatrical train, with several big releases planned.
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‘The Equalizer 3’
Among the biggest is ‘The Equalizer 3’, which represents that unusual franchise where the star –– in this case, Denzel Washington –– is actually bigger than the property. In an age of superheroes and ‘Star Wars’ selling seats, he’s an outlier.
The studio had Washington and co-star Dakota Fanning on stage to thank cinema executives for their support and, perhaps more crucially, to highlight the fact that it represents a reunion for the ‘Man on Fire’ stars. And a trailer played, which went online today…
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‘The Equalizer 3’ catches up with Washington’s government assassin-turned-kick-ass-do-gooder Robert McCall in Italy, where he’s trying to enjoy some downtime on the picturesque Amalfi coast and not be asked to take on villains.
Sadly, for McCall, that’s not the way his life goes, and he’s soon caught up helping some locals with Mafia goons and violence. Which means McCall has to break out his particular set of skills and lay the smack down on members of the criminal clan known as the Camorra (think an even more dangerous offshoot of the Mafia).
And while there are some very wild, violent thugs looking to tackle McCall, none of them are quite ready for what he brings to the table. Literally in one case, as we witness him applying nerve pressure to one of the enforcers. “That’s level three”, he tells the anguished henchman. “If “If it goes to level four, you will shit on yourself.” Thanks Denz!
But the highlight, as mentioned above, is in the reunion between Washington and Fanning. The latter was just 10 when she shared the screen with Washington ‘Man on Fire’ in 2004. Now, for ‘The Equalizer 3’, she’s playing a young CIA agent drawn to the village because of all the reports of violence.
And the two actors’ connection was clear, since they have stayed friends all these years. “She’s like a daughter to him, he loves her,” Antoine Fuquatold Empire of the off-screen dynamic between Washington and Fanning. “It was so beautiful to watch them together on the set, just talking, laughing. And they’re both so talented, they just get into it, they didn’t skip a beat. What was weird for me looking through the lens and seeing Dakota as a grown-up! She’s fantastic and watching them together was a joy because she’s a samurai. She knows it, she’s there, she’s pleasant, she does her thing. And it was a bonus her relationship with Denzel. She’s friends with his kids. It was very easy with those two.”
‘The Equalizer 3’ will be in theaters on September 1st.
Denzel Washington in ‘The Equalizer 3.’ Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures.
‘Bad Boys 4’
While ‘Bad Boys for Life’ represented one of the few hits as the pandemic began to bite, Sony was naturally excited to roll out word of the next movie. The movie is now filming (with ‘For Life’ directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah returning) but isn’t yet at a stage where the studio can show a trailer. Still, it had stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence ebullient in a video introduction.
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‘Gran Turismo’
Sony’s 2023 CinemaCon Presentation. Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures.
‘Gran Turismo’, adapted from the Sony racing game is much further along, though while the trailer played to the presentation audience, it has yet to head online.
The film will tell the story of Jann Mardenborough ( ‘Midsommar’s Archie Madekwe), a British teenager who in 2011 entered GT Academy, an esports tournament created to find ‘Gran Turismo’ players who were good enough at the game to be able to competitively drive real-life race cars. Mardenborough was victorious in the GT Academy competition and became a race car driver for Nissan, competing in the Dubai 24 Hour endurance race.
In the trailer, we see Jann arriving with other GT Academy contestants and being put through the wringer by racing trainer Jack Salter (David Harbour) who puts them through a rigorous boot camp to get them in shape. It’s one thing to know how to hit every corner on a world-class racetrack and to overtake in a simulation of a Nissan GT-R LM, but as Jann finds out, it’s hard to do it when the g-forces and hot temperatures of an actual race car are bearing down on you.
“If you miss a racing line in a game you can reset,” warns Jack. “If you miss it in a real race, you could die.”
‘Gran Turismo’ drives into theaters on August 11th.
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‘No Hard Feelings’
Sony’s 2023 CinemaCon Presentation. Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures.
Jennifer Lawrence and ‘No Hard Feelings’ director Gene Stupnitsky swapped onstage banter before introducing a new clip from the raunchy comedy about two helicopter parents who hire a woman to “date” their introverted 19-year-old son, so he doesn’t leave for college as a virgin. The comedy hits theaters on June 23.
Sony’s 2023 CinemaCon Presentation. Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures.
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‘Kraven The Hunter’
Also on display, Sony/Marvel Spider-adjacent superhero pic ‘Kraven The Hunter’, with star Aaron Taylor-Johnson playing the title character. He introduced the first look at the movie, enthusing that it’s Rated R.
In the footage, Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven is a tactical stalker with a penchant for cropped leather vests and five-star hair. He shreds his victims viscerally, often with primitive claw-shaped weapons. Blood pours freely over the screen and, at one intense moment, Taylor-Johnson rips the flesh off a target’s neck with his teeth and spits it out. Definitely an R-rating, then.
‘Kraven the Hunter’ will be in theaters on October 26.
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‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’
Sony’s 2023 CinemaCon Presentation. Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures.
Co-director Kemp Powers was joined by voice stars Shameik Moore (who plays Miles Morales), and Hailee Steinfeld (Gwen Stacey), and new recruit Issa Rae (Jessica Drew) to show off 14 impressive minutes of footage from the sequel, which be followed by another movie in 2024.
“It’s been over a year since the events of first movie and he’s still trying to learn to be a superhero,” Moore added, saying that this movie shows that “how you wear the mask is what makes you a hero.”
‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ will swing into theaters on June 2nd this year, with ‘Beyond the Spider-Verse’ due next year.
Sony’s 2023 CinemaCon Presentation. Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures.
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‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ Sequel
There was also a video from Jason Reitman and the team making the sequel to ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ (on which Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan have swapped jobs this time, Kenan directing while Reitman produces) confirming the story’s return to the New York haunts of the original 1984 ‘Ghostbusters’. The new film –– whatever its title –– hits theaters on December 20th.
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‘Napoleon’
While ‘The Equalizer 3’ wrapped things up, there was also room for a big get by the Sony executives, who had scored the chance to release Ridley Scott’s Joaquin Phoenix-starring ‘Napoleon’ in partnership with Apple.
“I know that he can do things cinematically that filmmakers half his age, can’t do,” Rothman said of the 85-year-old director.
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The clip shown had Joaquin Phoenix’s title character commanding the French army in a foggy, blurry wintery epic battle with the Russian and Austrian forces. Napoleon knows it’s coming; he has invited the attack. Lots of bayonets slicing and soldiers falling in the icy water.
‘Napoleon’ should be in theaters this Thanksgiving, followed by its arrival on Apple TV+ after that.
All in all, some big moves, and big movies from Sony.
Sony’s 2023 CinemaCon Presentation. Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures.
Movies Presented at Sony Pictures 2023 CinemaCon Presentation:
They may come from very different screen worlds – Winston Duke is currently best known for playing M’Baku in Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’ (and is a winning part of sequel ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ which just hit theaters), while British theatre actor Hannah Waddingham broke big with TV’s ‘Ted Lasso’ – but the pair of performers are about to unite on ‘The Fall Guy’.
When his movie work starts to dry up, Seavers pivots to become a bounty hunter, using all the know-how he’s acquired to craft film action to track down and defeat swindlers, thieves, bikers, conmen, fugitives, and corrupt officials using his fists and his vehicle skills.
Majors starred alongside Douglas Barr and Heather Thomas as Colt’s colleagues Howie Munson and Jody Banks, who helped him out on his missions. Though the show was often a giant slab of ‘80s cheese TV, the concept clearly has legs, with at least two movies going through development
(L to R) Heather Thomas and Lee Majors in ‘The Fall Guy.’ Photo courtesy of IMDB.
Word of Leitch and Gosling’s take first surfaced in 2020, then referred to as ‘Unknown Stuntman Movie’ and backing via Universal.
When Taylor-Johnson was cast, we got fresh information as to the storyline for this one, which looks to be largely jettisoning the side-hustle part of the original show.
Gosling is playing the battered and past-his-prime stuntman who finds himself back on a movie with a star he worked with long ago and who replaced him. The problem, however, is that the star is now missing…
Taylor-Johnson will be the movie star that Gosling is doubling, while Blunt is a prosthetic makeup artist that has a romantic past with our hero. Hsu, on screen this year in ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ will be a no-doubt harried assistant to Taylor-Johnson’s character.
Duke is on board to play the best friend of Gosling’s character, while Waddingham will bring all of her comic and dramatic chops to the role of the movie’s producer, likely none too happy that her production is going off the rails.
Given Leitch’s experience (and Gosling’s past playing stuntmen in ‘Drive’ and ‘The Place Beyond The Pines’), we’d expect a funny, action-packed movie.
With a script from ‘Iron Man 3’s Drew Pearce and cameras rolling in Australia, ‘The Fall Guy’ is taking aim at a March 1st, 2024, release.
Hannah Waddingham in “Ted Lasso” season two, now streaming on Apple TV+.
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(L to R) Bryan Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor-Johnson star in Sony’s ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield.
Now that the pieces have fallen into place (on a crash pad, we hope), director David Leitch and star Ryan Gosling are pushing their movie adaptation of ‘The Fall Guy’ into top gear.
When his movie work starts to dry up, Seavers pivots to become a bounty hunter, using all the know-how he’s acquired to craft film action to track down and defeat swindlers, thieves, bikers, conmen, fugitives, and corrupt officials using his fists and his vehicle skills.
Majors starred alongside Douglas Barr and Heather Thomas as Colt’s colleagues Howie Munson and Jody Banks, who helped him out on his missions. Though the show was often a giant slab of ‘80s cheese TV, the concept clearly has legs.
(L to R) Heather Thomas and Lee Majors in ‘The Fall Guy.’ Photo courtesy of IMDB.
Word of Leitch and Gosling’s take first surfaced in 2020, then referred to as ‘Unknown Stuntman Movie’ and backing via Universal.
With The Hollywood Reporter’s story on Taylor-Johnson’s casting comes fresh information as to the storyline for this one, which looks to be largely jettisoning the side-hustle part of the original show.
Gosling is playing battered and past-his-prime stuntman who finds himself back on a movie with the star he worked with long ago and who replaced him. The problem, however, is that the star is now missing…
Taylor-Johnson will be the movie star that Gosling is doubling, while Blunt is a prosthetic makeup artist that has a romantic past with our hero.
The new film will see Leitch – a former expert stuntman himself, who has used that experience in his action-packed directorial career – reunite with Taylor-Johnson after the latter played opinionated assassin Tangerine in ‘Bullet Train’.
With a script from ‘Iron Man 3’s Drew Pearce and cameras rolling in Australia, ‘The Fall Guy’ is taking aim at a March 1st, 2024, release.
(L to R) Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brad Pitt in Sony Pictures’ ‘Bullet Train.’
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In other casting news, the ever-busy Florence Pugh has another acting job. And it’s an intriguing one – as according to Deadline, the new movie is Alexander Skarsgård’s directorial debut ‘The Pack.’
Skarsgård will kick off shooting in March, and the story follows a group of documentarians who brave the remote wilderness of Alaska in an effort to save a nearly extinct species of wolves.
When the crew is brought back together at a prestigious awards ceremony, tensions flare as a deadly truth threatens to unravel their work. This team lived through the harsh elements of the wild but will a secret they share survive the night?
Skarsgård will star alongside Pugh as well as directing.
(L to R) Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brad Pitt in Sony Pictures’ ‘Bullet Train.’
‘Bullet Train’, which opens in theaters today, looks to add some violent fun to a summer movie season that hasn’t had too many original films on its schedule.
Which isn’t to say that the movie is completely original, as Zak Olkewicz’ script adapts Kôtarô Isaka’s novel ‘Maria Beetle’.
Anchored by a laconic but funny performance from Brad Pitt, ‘Bullet Train’ is the story of Ladybug, an assassin who got out of the game and sought out a therapist after bad luck seemed to haunt his every job. Now, he’s back and looking for a relatively easier job for his first new assignment.
(L to R) Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock star in ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield. Copyright (C) 2022 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.
His handler, Maria (Sandra Bullock, who is primarily heard over a phone line) assures him that grabbing a briefcase from a bullet train and getting off at the next station should offer him no real challenge.
Of course, it doesn’t work out that way at all. Turns out, the briefcase has connections to the kidnapping of a lethal crime lord’s son (Michael Shannon is the boss known as “White Death”, while Logan Lerman is his slacker kid), and a variety of other assassins.
Prime among them are Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), adoptive siblings who are also two of the most notorious hitmen around, who have rescued Lerman’s character and retrieved the ransom money – which is in the briefcase Ladybug has been sent to grab.
Elsewhere on the train is Kimura (Andrew Koji), looking for revenge on the person who injured his son, The Prince (Joey King), a young woman who uses her youth as a weapon as much as any gun or knife, The Wolf (Benito A Martínez Ocasio), with his own vengeful quest and The Hornet (Zazie Beetz), with a specific target for her poisonous talents.
Brad Pitt stars in ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield. Copyright: (C) 2022 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.
With Leitch in charge of the chaos (it’s worth remembering that he, along with Chad Stahelski, helped turn Keanu Reeves into a badass assassin for the first ‘John Wick’ movie), ‘Bullet Train’ is naturally crammed with inventive action. Leitch has spent his career performing stunts, coordinating them and now directing them and he knows how to craft a fun sequence that in places has echoes of Jackie Chan’s use of props as weapons.
There has also clearly been a lot of training involved, so the cast (and their stunt teams) throw themselves into the various fights and plot turns. It’s diverting to see the likes of Brian Tyree Henry, not normally known for his action work, give it their all.
Leitch and co., meanwhile have built a slick-looking set that keeps the action condensed and focused, cinematographer Jonathan Sela’s camera roaming the aisles and, later in the movie, heading outside the train to follow the combat as characters
Where it all goes off the rails (literally, at one point) is in the characters. Though some are handed backgrounds (Taylor-Johnson and Henry in particular), mostly the movie lets fists fill in the details.
(L to R) Bryan Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor-Johnson star in Sony’s ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield.
The problem with prioritizing fight scenes over story is that the latter can’t completely carry the former, and when you have an entire sequence explaining how a water bottle came to be crucial to the plot and yet seems to rely on coincidence to make it work, you’re in trouble.
This is a movie that is all surface and little substance, and while that’s not the sort of dilemma that troubles summer movie audiences too much, ‘Bullet Train’ starts to feel like a numbing collection of traits, quirks and insults, like a movie conceived by some teenagers who figured they could write the ultimate script with all the stabbing, shooting, punches and kicks they could put into one movie.
Cliches crop up all over the place, including the henchman who show up at every station to threaten Ladybug and co., snarling about handing over the briefcase (which serves as a McGuffin in more ways than one).
And given the Japanese setting, it leans heavily on cliched iconography and the movie is relatively light on Asian faces. When they do appear, they’re given stereotypical roles and dialogue, while the Westerners (there a few fake British accents here among the Americans) get the lion’s share of the screen time.
(L to R) Bryan Tyree Henry and Brad Pitt star Sony’s in ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield.
Everyone is clearly having a blast beating each other up or figuring out how to survive as the train speeds to its destination, but while that’s fun for a while, it doesn’t always translate to the whole journey of the movie.
Pitt makes a solid stab at breathing life into Ladybug, who is obsessed with fate and luck, and really would rather not get into scraps (but is very adept when he does). And his chemistry with old real-life friend Bullock overcomes the fact that she’s largely off screen.
Likewise Taylor-Johnson and Henry, who generate real squabbling sibling energy but can’t quite make their characters feel more than archetypes. And King (despite some accent issues) makes for a cold, calculating killer.
Shannon gets to parlay his steely menace effectively, making the most of a relatively brief screen time allotment.
Brad Pitt stars in ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield. Copyright:(C) 2022 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.
The likes of Ocasio (normally found performing in the music sphere as Bad Bunny) and Hiroyuki Sanada (who plays Koji’s character’s father) are largely wasted in nothing roles.
There are also a couple of big celebrity cameos that we won’t spoil here, and the reveal of Beetz’ character is at least entertaining.
Imagine a crossbreed of Guy Ritchie’s repartee-filled early gangster films with the sort of action-heavy titles for which Leitch has become known and you’ve got the idea for this movie. Some of the comedy works, and a lot of the fight scenes are great, but ‘Bullet Train’ runs out of steam.
‘Bullet Train’ receives 3 out of 5 stars.
Brad Pitt stars in ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield. Copyright: (C) 2022 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.
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The movie stars Oscar winner Brad Pitt as Ladybug, an assassin tasked by his handler (Sandra Bullock) with retrieving a valuable briefcase from a bullet train leaving from Tokyo to Kyoto.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Brad Pitt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Bryan Tyree Henry about their work on ‘Bullet Train,’ their wild characters, and working together on the movie.
(L to R) Brad Pitt and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Sony’s ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield.
You can read our full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews with Brad Pitt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bryan Tyree Henry, Hiroyuki Sanada, and director David Leitch.
Moviefone: To begin with, Brad your character in the film, Ladybug, believes he’s unlucky. But some would say that he’s actually very lucky and it’s really just all about perspective. What was your perspective on Ladybug?
Brad Pitt: I think you just nailed it. Thank you very much, that was so easy. Yeah, that’s it. I can’t say it any better. He’s just a bit of a whiner.
MF: Your character has a very peaceful approach to his mission. In real life, how does Brad Pitt maintain peace in his life?
BP: I don’t know. Peace. That is the old struggle, isn’t it? I don’t know. I just got some lovely friends. I try to stay in nature. I try to stay creative. I try to stay centered and just relax.
Brian Tyree Henry: It takes a village to raise a Brad Pitt. It’s all hands-on deck. See, you got to make sure that he’s centered. You want to make sure he is taking his vitamins.
MF: Is that what it’s like working on a Brad Pitt movie?
BP: Yeah. They’d give me pep talks when I get down. They’d come up and go, it’s all right, buddy. You got this. I’d go, “Thanks, man.” They were really supportive.
BTH: We really were there for him, man. He’s incredibly needy.
BP: That’s true. I’m a delicate flower, and it’s in my contract too.
(L to R) Bryan Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor-Johnson star in Sony’s ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield. Copyright: (C) 2022 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.
MF: Brian, your character and Aaron’s character are partners in the film and referred to as “the twins.’ Can you talk about their working relationship together?
BTH: You know what, man? I lucked out in the hugest way to have a co-star like Aaron Taylor-Johnson. He was the most amazing scene partner to have and the chemistry between he and I was immediate once we met. David Leitch let us play around with the relationship between Lemon and Tangerine, because we found that between Aaron and me. We just really got along and really cared about each other, so we wanted the audience to go along with that.
We wanted the audience to feel that. We just played. Honestly, I think that characters that you see really caring about each other and having such a good time, it’s undeniable that you have to go along with them. So, that’s what we wanted to bring to both of them because that’s who we were. We were very carefree and wanted to have fun.
MF: Finally, Aaron what was it like for you working with Brad Pitt?
Aaron Taylor-Johnson: I love this man, honestly. It was important for us. But it was also really rare. That doesn’t happen often, but we clicked instantaneously, and it was just magic. This guy’s beautiful.
BP: These guys are so funny in this movie.
(L to R) Bryan Tyree Henry and Brad Pitt star Sony’s in ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield.
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Brad Pitt stars in ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield. Copyright: (C) 2022 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.
If you’re an assassin by trade, can you really claim that it’s bad luck that people keep dying around you? If you’re Brad Pitt’s character in upcoming action comedy thriller ‘Bullet Train’, you might actually have a point.
The latest trailer for the movie is now online and is full of all the Pitt vs. assassin action you could hope for. It opens with Pitt’s Ladybug – a title given to him by his handle, Maria Beetle (Sandra Bullock), in the hopes that it might mean good luck – ticking off the ways that previous gigs have gone badly wrong. And even times when he’s not actively trying to murder someone, the bodies keep piling up. He’s stressed and looking for a less death-laden life.
Dispatched on what would seem to be a routine, relatively harmless mission to pick up an important briefcase on a Bullet Train in Japan, Ladybug hopes for a quieter time of things. Fate, however, may have other plans, as this latest job puts him on a collision course with lethal adversaries from around the globe – all with connected, yet conflicting, objectives – on the world’s fastest train… And he’s got to figure out how to get off.
Cue fists flying, swords swinging and Pitt nailing Aaron Tylor-Johnson with a bottle of fizzy water. Taylor-Johnson plays Tangerine, one half of a deadly duo with Brian Tyree Henry’s Lemon, with the pair after the very same suitcase. And they are not the only dangerous passengers onboard.
With David Leitch, the stuntman-turned-filmmaker who kickstarted his directing career with ‘John Wick’ and has since made movies including ‘Atomic Blonde’ and ‘Deadpool 2’ in charge here, the movie looks stylish and slyly funny, especially that moment in the quiet car (and Pitt punching a mascot who refuses to give up the case).
And, because this is Leitch we’re talking about, you can naturally expect a lot of inventive action within the cramped confines of the train, as his 87 Eleven stunt team goes to work finding new ways to create chaos.
There’s also a hint that Pitt and some of others (those left standing by the time the train reaches its destination) might actually end up joining forces to combat Shannon’s murderous men. It’s certainly more dangerous than the threat of a cancelled train or a blocked toilet stinking up a whole carriage.
‘Bullet Train’ will pull into theaters on August 5th.
(L to R) Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock star in ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield. Copyright (C) 2022 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.Brad Pitt stars in ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield. Copyright: (C) 2022 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.Brad Pitt stars in ‘Bullet Train.’ Photo: Scott Garfield. Copyright: (C) 2022 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.
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You might have seen the sneaky teaser for new Brad Pitt-starring action thriller ‘Bullet Train’, which purported to be a commercial for Japanese train service Nippon Speed Line. The full trailer has now arrived, which is much more a traditional promo for the movie.
Yes, while the teaser gave itself away earlier thanks to Pitt’s voice-over and his bruised appearance late on, the new trailer offers no such trickery. We’re introduced to his character, an assassin who seems to be tired of the killer life.
In contact with Sandra Bullock’s Maria Beetle, who appears to be his handler, Pitt’s Ladybug is complaining that every time he goes to work, someone dies. Dispatched on what would seem to be a routine, relatively harmless mission to pick up an important briefcase on a Bullet Train in Japan, he hopes for a quieter time of things.
(L to R) Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brad Pitt in Sony Pictures’ ‘Bullet Train.’
Unbeknownst to him, the deadly duo Tangerine and Lemon are also after the very same suitcase, and they are not the only dangerous passengers onboard.
Satoshi, “the Prince,” with the looks of an innocent school child and the mind of a viciously cunning psychopath, is also in the mix and has history with some of the others. Risk fuels him as does a good philosophical debate… like, is killing really wrong? Chasing the Prince is another assassin with a score to settle for the time the Prince casually pushed a young boy off of a roof, leaving him comatose.
When the five assassins discover they are all on the same train, they realize their missions are not as unrelated as they first appear.
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Cue fists flying, swords swinging and Pitt nailing Aaron Tylor-Johnson with a bottle of fizzy water.
With David Leitch, the stuntman-turned-filmmaker who kickstarted his directing career with ‘John Wick’ and has since made movies including ‘Atomic Blonde’ and ‘Deadpool 2’ in charge here, the movie looks stylish and slyly funny, especially that moment in the quiet car. Plus, the trailer is scored to a Japanese cover of “Staying Alive,” which offers a big nod to the tone that the director’s setting here.
(L to R) Brian Tyree Henry and Brad Pitt in Sony Pictures’ ‘Bullet Train.’
And, because this is Leitch we’re talking about, you can naturally expect a lot of inventive action within the cramped confines of the train, as his 87 Eleven stunt team goes to work finding new ways to create chaos.
Pitt’s never one to shy away from throwing himself into action (he’ll be in even spoofier form – and once again working with Sandra Bullock – in ‘The Lost City’, due on March 25), but this looks like another level for him.
‘Bullet Train’ will pull into theaters on July 15. The big question is, who will survive and what will be left of them? Which is not something you usually hear on an Amtrak train.
Brad Pitt in Sony Pictures’ ‘Bullet Train.’
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