Today, though (at least outside of set pics), we have our first proper look at Dr. Jones in person, via an exclusive carried by Empire magazine.
It’s been a long journey for the latest Indy movie, which has been in the works for quite some time. Through different versions and script drafts, it has evolved into an adventure that is mostly a secret for now, but it does seem to feature Indy in the 1960s.
Most notably, it’ll be the first without Steven Spielberg as director, ‘Logan’s James Mangold instead filling the big chair, and working on a script that has also seen work from Jez and John-Henry Butterworth.
And Ford, who has said that this will represent his final time playing the character, seems to be happy with the result.
Harrison Ford stars as Indiana Jones in the next ‘Indiana Jones’ movie, which will be in theaters on June 30th, 2023. Photo courtesy of Disney and Empire Magazine.
“It’s full of adventure, full of laughs, full of real emotion. And it’s complex and it’s sneaky,” Ford tells Empire, even if he admits that it was a big challenge. “The shooting of it was tough and long and arduous,” he says. “But I’m very happy with the film that we have.”
And more importantly, since he was ready to step away, the 80-year-old actor knew he wanted a sense of finality to this new outing. “I just thought it would be nice to see one where Indiana Jones was at the end of his journey,” Ford explains. “If a script came along that I felt gave me a way to extend the character.”
For Mangold, that was also the aim, while still staying true to what audiences have loved about these movies for decades. “It became really important to me to figure out how to make this a movie about a hero at sunset,” he says. “The issues I brought up about Indy’s age were not things I thought were being addressed in the material being developed at the time. There were ‘old’ jokes, but the material itself wasn’t about it. To me, whatever you greatest liability, you should fly straight towards that. If you try to pretend it’s not there, you end up getting slings and arrows the whole way.”
Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.’
Disney+ has been a place for the company to extend the already wide-reaching tentacles of the various franchises under its umbrella.
We’ve had a bevy of ‘Star Wars’ shows (which continues with the likes of ‘The Acolyte’, now in production under the leadership of Leslye Headland), a raft of Marvel TV series introducing new characters to the MCU or continuing the adventures of some such as Hawkeye and all sorts of other offerings for family audiences from Pixar, Disney Animation and others.
One notable exception – at least so far – has been Lucasfilm’s ‘Indiana Jones’, which in recent years, been confined to the big screen.
That, it would appear, is set to change. According to Variety, Disney and Lucasfilm are in the very early stages of exploring a new series set in the world of Dr. Jones, though given that they are only now meeting with writers to explore concepts, nothing is known about what this could be.
Given how much use Disney tends to get out of its various titles, it’s not out of the question that other writers and directors could re-cast Indy, even though that would meet with plenty of online backlash – as with the rumors that Chris Pratt could be taking over the role. He’s since said he won’t do it.
Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark.’
It would seem nigh-on impossible for any series to be built around Harrison Ford as Indy, since the actor has firmly stated that he’s done slapping on the famous fedora and handling the whip. So, we are once again facing the possibility that someone else will play Indiana Jones.
It has happened in the past on TV – ‘The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles’, which ran for two seasons between 1992 and 1993 saw Sean Patrick Flanery playing, as the title suggests, a young Indy. The shows were retooled into TV movies later.
But the history of the franchise stretches back to the late 1970s, when George Lucas and Steven Spielberg hatched an idea for a movie about an adventurer inspired by the radio and movie series they loved when younger.
Arriving on Netflix August 5th, ‘The Sandman’ is the culmination of years of efforts to bring Neil Gaiman’s classic graphic novel series to screens.
Filmmakers including Joseph Gordon-Levitt (‘Inception’), Roger Avery (‘Pulp Fiction’) and Eric Heisserer (‘Arrival’) have all tried to crack the code and bring Gaiman’s story to theaters. But in all the years of trying, no one has gotten close to making it happen. And Gaiman has gone on record as saying that one or two of the scripts he’s written (not by those listed above) are among the worst he’s ever read, let alone adaptations of his work.
You can imagine, then, the pressure on the team looking to bring it to Netflix. Fortunately, Gaiman is fully involved this time, and while he isn’t running the show as he did with Prime Video’s ‘Good Omens’, he’s had a lot of say in what ends up on screen, including co-writing the first episode with fellow executive producers David Goyer and Allan Heinberg (the latter of whom took the lion’s share of the work).
And, with the longer time permitted by a season of television and the hefty budget/credibility provided by Netflix, it’s a relief to say that the show really works – for the most part, at least.
(L to R) Tom Sturridge as Morpheus / Dream and Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’
The focus of the comics’ series (co-created by artists Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg) is the titular Sandman, called Dream, but also known as Morpheus, among other titles. He is one of the seven Endless, a family of anthropomorphic godlike beings. The other Endless are Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium (formerly Delight), and Destruction (also called ‘The Prodigal’).
Adapting the first couple of volumes of the comics, the show kicks off with Dream (played by Tom Sturridge) unexpectedly captured and held prisoner for over a century by magician Roderick Burgess (Charles Dance) through the use of an incantation.
Once Dream is able to finally free himself, he must journey across different worlds and timelines to fix the chaos his absence has caused.
That’s a very basic summary, especially for the sprawling source material, which has generated reams of stories and spin-offs. The show doesn’t try to squeeze everything into these initial 10 episodes, but there is plenty to see, including a trip to Hell, a convention of serial killers, a beautiful visit with one of Death’s siblings and one terrible night for the customers in a diner.
Boyd Holbrook as The Corinthian in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’
Like the comics before it, the series functions as almost a set of short stories, linked by the overarching characters of Dream, his family and various attendants/creations/humans. There’s an episodic feel to many installments, which means that if you’re not a fan of one, the next is likely to offer something you’ll enjoy instead.
Early on, the story is burdened by the need to set itself up, to introduce the world to newcomers (and not frustrate those who have feverishly consumed the comic across the years) and offer a briefing on Dream’s tough situation.
It helps that you have the likes of Charles Dance in the early going, bringing gravitas and grit to roles that could so easily be cartoonish, and if Sturridge takes a little while to warm up to playing such a tricky character as Dream, he does find his stride.
Dream could be a massive cliché, the sort of whispering goth guy who looks like a young Robert Smith (of The Cure). In Sturridge and the writers/directors’ hands, he’s a complicated, conflicted creation, rocked by his entrapment and thrown off balance by the changes to his dreaming realm upon his return.
Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer Morningstar in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’
His quest to reacquire his magical tools – a bag of sand, a helm that looks like gas mask affixed to a spine and a ruby with terrifying powers – is sometimes the least interesting story, feeling like watching someone play a video game and collect items while battling level bosses, but it’s still filled with enough of Gaiman and co.’s creativity and creatures to make it watchable.
One particularly disappointing aspect is the fourth episode, ‘A Hope in Hell’. Despite boasting ‘Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer, it ends up a ridiculous, poorly executed (several big effects shots look like a 1990s TV drama) battle of wills where the outcome is never in doubt.
That, however, is entirely balanced out by the sixth episode, ‘The Sound of Her Wings’, which features one of ‘Sandman’s most iconic and beloved characters, Dream’s older sister Death.
Eschewing the usual cloaked skeleton or otherwise imposing figure, Gaiman instead imagines her as an impish young woman, with a cheery face and a kind word to guide humans from the land of the living to “the sunless lands” once they die. Brought to life on screen by ‘The Good Place’s Kirby Howell-Baptiste, she’s a show highlight, a charming and effusive counterpoint to Dream’s gloomy, wet-eyed meandering.
(L to R) Tom Sturridge as Morpheus / Dream and Stephen Fry as Fiddler’s Green / Gilbert in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’
Yet even he gets some real moments to shine in that same episode, with the other half of the running time given over to the story of Dream’s encounters with Hob Gadling (Ferdinand Kingsley), whom he first meets in 1389. The subject of a bet between Death and Dream, Hob gets his wish to become immortal and meets Dream every hundred years in the same tavern.
We watch Hob’s fate rise and fall and Kingsley imbues him with real, deep emotion, crafting a character who watches the world change around him, sometimes using that to his advantage, other times suffering for it. It’s a magnificent performance and elevates the show around it.
Other elements to recommend include Matthew the Raven, who aids Dream in his missions. A winning combination of superb digital effects and real birds, Matthew also benefits from a charming voice performance by Patton Oswalt.
David Thewlis, meanwhile, brings pathos and cold sociopathy all at once to John Dee, whose ownership of Dream’s ruby goes very, very wrong. Thewlis is, in fact, like Kingsley, one of the actors whose performance is superior to the source material.
David Thewlis as Dr. John Dee in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’
‘The Sandman’ may never please every fan in exactly the way they hope – this is an adaptation, don’t forget – but it’s faithful where needed, spirited and fantastical. It also doesn’t shave away the more brutal ruminations on the darker side of humanity.
Faithful fans have waited many years to see the series realized; this might be as close to correct as it’s possible to get in the visual medium.
‘The Sandman’ receives 4 out of 5 stars.
(L to R) Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death and Jenna Coleman as Johanna Constantine in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’
Few genre projects are as anticipated at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con than Netflix’s series adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s ‘The Sandman’.
Sure, there are the gigantic likes of Marvel and DC bringing their own latest comic book-based treats to con audiences, but Gaiman’s sprawling, mystical and magical tale of the Lord of Dreams (and the various people, creatures and realms he encounters) is a truly special one to its fans.
And it’s a story that has long defied attempts at adaptation, especially on the movie front (and partly because Gaiman himself has tried to make sure that if it happened at all, it happens right).
The longer format of serialized television and the budgets/technology afforded by today’s streaming services finally appears to have cracked it, and the show is less than a month away. So Netflix naturally went all out with a Hall H panel featuring cast and creators.
The cast of Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’ at San Diego Comic-Con 2022.
For those who might be unaware of the comic book (which debuted back in the 1980s), this is the story of another world that waits for all of us when we close our eyes and sleep — a place called the Dreaming, where The Sandman, Master of Dreams (Sturridge), gives shape to all of our deepest fears and fantasies.
But when Dream is unexpectedly captured and held prisoner for a century, his absence sets off a series of events that will change both the dreaming and waking worlds forever. To restore order, Dream must journey across different worlds and timelines to mend the mistakes he’s made during his vast existence, revisiting old friends and foes, and meeting new entities — both cosmic and human — along the way.
That feels like a very CliffsNotes summation for something that is gigantic and filled with myths and monsters. Oh, and a talking Raven called Matthew (voiced in the series by Oswalt, a confirmed fan of the comics who read from issue one).
Comic book creator Neil Gaiman from Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’ at San Diego Comic-Con 2022.
Gaiman talked about how happy he was that the story was finally coming to the screen in the right way, while the cast enthused about getting to play their various characters. There were the usual anecdotes – Tom Sturridge, who plays Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, was cast after hundreds of other actors were auditioned, while Gwendoline Christie plays Lucifer as a “junkie angel”.
Perhaps the biggest news to emerge was that artist Dave McKean – who created so many of the beautiful covers for the comics, but who had effectively retired from work on it – was back for the show. “Every episode has end-title credits, and it’s a different sequence for each episode,” said Gaiman, “this amazing, flowing film that Dave McKean made.”
Clips from a couple of episodes were screened, though as usual those were only for attendees. Netflix was gracious enough to put a new trailer online for everyone to see.
Tom Sturridge from Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’ at San Diego Comic-Con 2022.
‘The Sandman’ will premiere on Netflix for its first season on August 5th.
Tom Sturridge as Morpheus / Dream in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’(L to R) Tom Sturridge as Morpheus / Dream and Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’(L to R) Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death and Jenna Coleman as Johanna Constantine in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer Morningstar in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’David Thewlis as Dr. John Dee in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’(L to R) Tom Sturridge as Morpheus / Dream and Stephen Fry as Fiddler’s Green / Gilbert in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’Boyd Holbrook as The Corinthian in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’Joely Richardson as Ethel Cripps in Netflix’s ‘The Sandman.’
Netflix is running its annual “Geeked Week” this week, making announcements, and releasing trailers for a host of shows and movies all themed around genre.
One of the most exciting pieces of news is word that the long-awaited adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s classic comic series ‘The Sandman’ will launch its first season on the streaming service this coming August.
To boil it down to the basics, the story is this: “When the Sandman, aka Dream (Tom Sturridge) — the powerful cosmic being who controls all our dreams — is unexpectedly captured and held prisoner for over a century, he must journey across different worlds and timelines to fix the chaos his absence has caused.”
Of course, this being Neil Gaiman, there is a lot more to it than that. A lot more.
‘Sandman’, for those who might be unfamiliar, was a 75-issue DC/Vertigo comics series published in the 1990s. Gaiman’s own one-line synopsis was: “The lord of dreams learns that one must change or die, and makes his decision,” yet the sprawling series takes in pantheons and mythologies from across the globe, via threads about fantastical quests, serial killers, road trips, and short stories only tangentially connected to the core narrative. Many tales featured Dream’s siblings, the Endless: Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire, and Delirium. There are some characters – such as members of his own family – who are happy to see Dream return, while others are not so sure this is a good thing.
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Gaiman himself has noted that the first, 10-episode season of the Netflix show only covers to the end of ‘The Doll’s House’, the second collected trade paperback of the comics. There are 10 in all, and that doesn’t even include the many spin-off stories.
Attempts have been made in the past to turn this one into a movie, though the streaming series format (not to mention the budget and scope afforded by the likes of Netflix) most certainly feels the natural home for something so sprawling. It’s hard to imagine a film franchise even the size of, say, ‘Harry Potter’ doing justice to what Gaiman and his various collaborators brought to the page.
Though the writer has directly overseen adaptations of his work before (‘Good Omens’ particularly), here he was more of a consultant, with Allan Heinberg and David S. Goyer developing the series with Gaiman and then running the show.
Is there such a thing as too muchShane Black in a Shane Black movie?
I wouldn’t have guessed it was possible — even in the late 1980s and ‘90s, when movies like the Black-scripted “The Last Boy Scout” were pilloried for being too brutal, aggressive and vulgar (and that was after “Lethal Weapon” and its sequel, the movies that made him such a hot property, were already considered wildly over the top). But “The Predator,” a combination sequel and soft reboot, feels like a throwback to that earlier, more simplistic era. The film is a hyper-masculine cocktail of breakneck storytelling, graphic violence and mean-spirited humor where the ingredients this time around seem either off or just wildly inconsistent. This is especially disappointing since it follows Black’s remarkable, measured comeback with “Iron Man 3” and “The Nice Guys.”
Simply bursting with too many ideas for what deliberately aims to be a small and self-contained story, the filmmaker’s latest is a muddled effort that never hits the highs of the (admittedly perfect) original film, though a terrific cast and more than a few clever surprises are sure to keep audiences on their toes (and on the edge of their seats).
Fox
Boyd Holbrook (“Logan”) plays Quinn McKenna, an Army sniper who encounters a sport-hunting alien while on a covert mission and absconds from the scene with a helmet and a handful of otherworldly trinkets that he inadvertently sends to his autistic son Rory (Jacob Tremblay, “Room”). Intercepted by Will Traeger (Sterling K. Brown, TV”s “This Is Us”), the head of a top secret organization investigating our extraterrestrial adversaries, McKenna is brought to a military facility and thrown in the stockade with a group of misfit soldiers while scientist Casey Brackett (Olivia Munn, “X-Men: Apocalypse”) studies the recovered materials for clues about where they came from and what they’re after.
When an alien Traeger has apprehended escapes from their lab and embarks on a killing spree, McKenna and his oddball cohorts escape during the melee to avoid further disciplinary actions — much less death at the hands of a Predator. But after realizing that the creature is heading directly for young Rory, whose behavioral issues have given him an unexpected advantage in activating the equipment, McKenna recruits his fellow prisoners to help kill it, rescue his son, and if possible collect enough evidence to present it to the world and prevent them all from becoming scapegoats for what is rapidly becoming a military mission gone wrong.
Black’s screenwriting conventions feel like traditional ones on adrenaline and “The Predator” unfolds with a lethal efficiency that both surpasses his previous efforts and undermines some of the elements that have traditionally made them work so well. There is simply an enormous amount of expository dialogue in the film, to the extent it sometimes feels like there’s nothing else, and as a result the actors feel like delivery systems for character and plot details rather than living, breathing people. Some of these characters work like gangbusters (Brown’s Traeger is cut from the same ice-cold, amoral, ruthlessly charming mold as Craig Bierko in “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” for example) while others, unfortunately including Holbrook’s McKenna, don’t leave an impression.
Fox
Holbrook, admittedly, was among the standouts in “Logan,” but teamed up with Trevante Rhodes (“Moonlight”) as a suicidal vet, and Munn as a wonderfully resourceful scientist-turned-Predator hunter, even his familial obligations to Rory don’t strike the deep dramatic impact the movie needs. At 107 minutes, the movie moves like lightning, so there are almost no moments to pause and explore these characters other than in relation to their “function” in the film. Meanwhile, folks like Keegan-Michael Key and Thomas Jane are clearly having a blast but exist on the periphery of the ensemble. They’re clearly enjoying their relative lack of responsibility but their presence only further undermines the cohesiveness of its momentum, and the consistency of its tone.
As a co-star and ghost writer on John McTiernan’s 1987 classic, Black long since established his firm grasp on the Predator universe, and he really embraces the established mythology of the creature and their technology. And all of those elements are a grisly blast: the body count is higher in this film than probably all of the others combined, including the jungle assault in the first, and the Predators (including the new Super Predator) dispatch their prey/victims with lethal efficiency. Paired with a score by Henry Jackman that liberally recreates Alan Silvestri’s iconic leitmotifs (from the jungle drums to the military-cadence Aaron Copland stuff), the action itself feels muscular and streamlined — a slightly less elegant Cliff’s Notes version of what McTiernan did some 31 years ago. But then again, with two direct and two more indirect sequels between then and now, it seems impossible to retell that story in form or content; the slow introduction of the creature in the first film gave audiences an opportunity to get to know the cast, and now it’s just trying to reinvent a Ten Little Indians scenario with new characters they want you to care about.
In which case, “The Predator” is a solid follow-up/ update that rights the franchise and diverts it from the “Alien Versus…” spinoff franchise, but it’s surprisingly not materially a much better film than “Predators,” which I probably mean more as a compliment to that underrated sequel than this one. Ultimately, one supposes that it isn’t that Black put too much of himself into this film, or somehow that a franchise stymied his voice; both challenges have paid handsome dividends for the filmmaker in the past. It’s just the proportions that are off. There’s something initially fun and undeniably cool about it (like tiny little Tremblay wearing a full-size Predator mask to go trick or treating) but it almost immediately proves unwieldy, and even bound together by fearless confidence and no small amount of elbow grease, in the end does more harm than good.
Shane Black’s “The Predator” just released its first trailer, and the stars shared their own character posters.
This is the fourth film in the franchise, set between “Predator 2” and “Predators.” The cast includes Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, Edward James Olmos, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane, Yvonne Strahovski, and Jacob Tremblay.
Yesterday, the stars previewed the first trailer and showed off their own character photos:
This morning, 20th Century Fox released the trailer:Here’s the movie synopsis:
“From the outer reaches of space to the small-town streets of suburbia, the hunt comes home in Shane Black’s explosive reinvention of the Predator series. Now, the universe’s most lethal hunters are stronger, smarter and deadlier than ever before, having genetically upgraded themselves with DNA from other species. When a young boy accidentally triggers their return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled science teacher can prevent the end of the human race.”
In case you’re confused about the beginning of the trailer, with Jacob Tremblay playing with with toys, his character is directly connected to what happens — he accidentally activated the alien ship.
Here are some details from IndieWire, from after the trailer played at CinemaCon:
“The footage begins with Tremblay’s young boy on Halloween playing with a toy box that has a toy alien ship inside of it. It turns out the toy is controlling a real alien spaceship, similar to the way Anne Hathaway controlled a monster in ‘Colossal.’ The vessel ends up crash landing on Earth and releasing tons of Predators.”
Bad news for Benicio Del Toro fans may be good news for Boyd Holbrook. Del Toro was negotiating to play the lead in Shane Black’s “The Predator” reboot, but he is now out. The scoop comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which added that Holbrook is Fox’s choice for the new lead.
Holbrook is not exactly a household name at this point, but he may be on your radar as the new villain in “Logan,” the third Wolverine solo movie. He’s also known from “Narcos,” and maybe “Gone Girl” and “Morgan,” to some extent. THR said Fox is “planning on beefing up the supporting cast” to compensate for the loss of an anchor like Del Toro.
Why is Del Toro out? The studio had no comment, but THR noted that his schedule was a challenge from the beginning, and it’s implied that they just couldn’t make it work — even after Fox pushed back “The Predator” start date to February to make room for the actor’s other projects. Sources told the site scheduling issues creeped up again when Del Toro’s other movies (including the sequel to “Sicario” and “Star Wars: Episode VIII”) had their own scheduling changes.
The original 1987 “Predator,” directed by John McTiernan, starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as a soldier hired by the U.S. government to rescue a group of politicians trapped in Guatemala, only to be hunted by the stealthy title character itself. So “The Predator,” scheduled for 2018, was aiming for its own Ahhnold-level action star. Maybe it will help boost Holbrook into the next level of stardom. Unless he drops out from too many other projects, too.
Hugh Jackman‘s Wolverine and Patrick Stewart‘s Professor X are much older in “Logan,” but we still pity the fool who tries to mess with them.
Director James Mangold has been sharing photos to tease the third (and final) Wolverine solo movie, and the latest post on the film’s official Instagram showcases our new villain:
“The character first appeared in the late 80s, modeled after Donald Sutherland with the character’s last name sharing the same last name of Sutherland’s M*A*S*H character Hawkeye Pierce. The Marvel villain was a mutant-hating genocidal maniac who infiltrated the Hellfire Club with the sole intention of murdering all of its members. Oh, and he’s also a cyborg, carrying four artificial limbs that grant him superhuman strength and a great resistance to damage—in fact, as long as his head is intact, he can survive pretty much anything, including a beating from The Wolverine himself.”
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Here’s some comic book backstory from