(L to R) Ice Cube and Kevin Hart in ‘Ride Along’. Photo: Universal Pictures.
Preview:
A third ‘Ride Along’ movie is in development.
Ice Cube, Kevin Hart and director Will Packer may all return.
Writer Daniel Gold has come up with a new script.
It has been 10 years since ‘Ride Along 2’ hit screens, so naturally Universal has been trying to get another one into development.
Per Deadline, the studio has a new script in the works with writer Daniel Gold (‘Workin’ Moms’), and if it all lines up, the lead duo of Ice Cube and Kevin Hart are likely to return.
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In addition to the actors, director Tim Story may also come back for the putative third outing.
(L to R) Kevin Hart and Ice Cube in ‘Ride Along 2’. Photo: Universal Pictures.
In ‘Ride Along’, security guard Ben Barber (Hart) must prove himself to his girlfriend’s brother, top police officer James Payton (Cube). In doing so, Ben rides along with James on a 24-hour patrol of Atlanta.
In part two, the duo head to Miami to take down a drug dealer who is supplying drugs to Atlanta.
There are no details yet on the story for the new movie, but Gold’s concept has reportedly got the main players excited to return after years of rejected ideas.
When will ‘Ride Along 3’ be on screens?
Universal has yet to confirm the new movie is in development (it made no mention of it at the studio’s recent CinemaCon presentation), but if the script is as good as hoped, expect this one to be fast tracked.
(L to R) Ice Cube and Kevin Hart in ‘Ride Along 2’. Photo: Universal Pictures.
(Left) John Cena at the Amazon Upfront on May 13th, 2025. Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Amazon. (Right) Kevin Hart stars in The Roku Channel’s ‘Die Hart 2: Die Harter.’
Preview:
John Cena and Kevin Hart will star in ‘The Leading Man’.
It’ll follow an action actor who discovers his co-star is a real-life agent.
Jon and Erich Hoeber adapted the script from a comic book.
John Cena and Kevin Hart certainly seem to like the action comedy genre –– and they’ve seen success with it too.
They’ll be hoping for more of that in a new example called ‘The Leading Man’, which, per Deadline, will see them team-up in a way that puts us in mind of Hart’s previous collaborations with Cena’s fellow wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson.
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It also marks a semi-reunion for Hart and Cena, since the latter popped up on the former’s series ‘Die Hart’, which sees Hart as a version of himself trying to become an action star.
Jon and Erich Hoeber, whose previous screenplay resume includes the likes of ‘RED’, ‘The Meg’ and ‘My Spy’, are adapting Jeremy Haun and B. Clay Moore’s comic book series about a self-absorbed movie star (Cena) who discovers that his co-star/man in the chair (Hart) is an actual agent.
He’s forced to swallow his pride and accept that action stars aren’t really action heroes… While trying to save the world.
Again, we’re reminded of ‘Central Intelligence’, though in that case it was Hart and Johnson as former high school associates who become wrapped up in Johnson’s latest case as an intelligence operative.
The concept was clearly compelling enough for Netflix, which picked up the project, with the actors jumping aboard to star and produce through their respective companies.
Where else can we see John Cena and Kevin Hart?
Kevin Hart stars in The Roku Channel’s ‘Die Hart 2: Die Harter.’
He’s lining up ‘Little Brother’, a Netflix comedy where he’ll star opposite Eric André, and will next be on our screens for the second season of HBO Max series ‘Peacemaker’, set in the DC universe. That debuts later this month.
Coming up, he has action pic ‘Matchbox’, which adapts the popular car toys and the resurrected release of Looney Tunes-based comedy ‘Coyote vs. Acme’, both due next year.
According to Deadline’s report, this one is in early development, so while it’ll likely hit a fast track, the lack of a director means it’ll have to wait a little bit to learn when it might hit the streaming giant’s servers.
Opening in theaters on August 9th is the new action-comedy ‘Borderlands’, which is based on the popular video game of the same name and was written and directed by Eli Roth (‘Thanksgiving’).
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with writer and director Eli Roth about his work on ‘Borderlands,’ the challenges of adapting a video game, cracking the story, the all-star cast, and making movies outside of the horror genre.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch the interview.
Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about the challenges of adapting a video game and cracking the story for ‘Borderlands’?
Eli Roth: Well, the story, that was producer Ari Arad and Randy Pitchford, who spent a long time with different writers trying different permutations until they settled on this story, and then that’s when they came to me. So, one of the things we talked about was how do we change stuff and adapt it from a video game to a movie, but I had the game creator Randy with me there the whole time. There are certain things that you obviously want to be faithful to, like the costumes, the design, the guns, the tech. There are certain things that are beloved in the game, and we could fill the movie with Easter eggs, but obviously in casting the movie, you’re going to cast people in real life that look different than the characters in the game. So that’s the first thing. It’s a very, very violent game, but to render the universe at this scale, the studio wants to make a PG-13 movie, and I wanted to make something for the nine-year-old boy in me that if this is a movie, if you’ve never played the game before and you take kids to go see at 10 or 11-years old, they’re going to laugh their ass off and have a great time. I wanted something that was just totally bonkers, a movie that was unhinged and fun. You can just turn off your brain, grab a bucket of popcorn and have a good time.
Moviefone: Did you play the game for research, and what did you like most about the source material?
ER: It’s so fun. Yes, I did play the game. I’m terrible at games, so I had to have Christy Pitchford take me through the game co-playing with her. But I love it. I love the sense of humor. Randy Pitchford and I are of the same age and have the same influences, whether it was ‘Mad Max’ or ‘Escape from New York’ or ‘Star Wars’. I love the creatures. I love the sense of insanity. I love the world. I love the detritus of the world. They’re trying to make something beautiful out of it and the trashed planet, and it made me think of ‘The Fifth Element’ and what I saw in that movie, and just the colors of that film and the Gaultier costumes that just blew my mind. So, to get to render something at that scale, I want it to feel like you took all your fluorescent pink neon clothes, put them in the dryer, sprinkled in some glitter, and then it just exploded everywhere and caught fire at the same time. So that was the idea of rendering something that didn’t look like any other movie you had seen before.
MF: Can you talk about putting together this terrific cast of actors?
ER: I had an amazing experience working with Cate and Jack on ‘The House with a Clock in Its Walls’, the kid’s movie I did with Amblin, and Cate was the first one I called. I said, “I’m making this insane kind of spaghetti western space opera, fun sci-fi video game adaptation, and I need someone to be a total badass, like Clint Eastwood in ‘The Man with No Name’ or Snake Plissken in ‘Escape from New York’,” and she’s like, “I’m in. Let’s do it.” So, Cate learned to twirl guns. She wanted to shoot, she wanted to do her own stunts. We put her in a harness, she was 100 feet in the air on wires. Then I said, “All right, what if you grab a flamethrower and you light these guys on fire?” So, Cate, she learned to do it. She’s really shooting a flamethrower in that scene. So, it was incredible. Once you have Cate, she’s actor bait. Everybody wants to act with Cate. So, I called Jack right away, said, “She’s going to be a pissed off bounty hunter, and you’re the annoying robot,” and he’s a big ‘Borderlands’ player, so he knew Claptrap, he was all in. Then Jamie Lee said she wanted to play Tannis, which was my first choice and she said yes. he’s like, “You had me at Cate Blanchett.” So, it’s great to be able to unite those screen icons in a movie, and the two of them became close friends. Everyone bonded on this movie. We were shooting in the pandemic, so there was a curfew in Budapest. We weren’t allowed out after 8:00pm, and the world of ‘Borderlands’ became our reality. So, everybody got close. We made lifelong friends on that movie, and you can feel that bond with the characters on screen.
MF: Finally, you are probably best known for making horror movies. But do you also enjoy working in other genres?
ER: I do. I love it. I’ve noticed, if I do too many horror films in a row, I start to get burnout. So, whether I switch and made my documentary ‘Fin’ about saving sharks or ‘Death Wish’, which is completely different, it’s good for me to switch it up and challenge myself creatively and learn new skills. You learn something every time, every day on set. Every shot, you’re learning something new. So, it’s great. I shot ‘Thanksgiving’ after ‘Borderlands’, so I learned how long the post-production is on ‘Borderlands’. So, it’s good for me to go back and forth, but obviously horror movies are my passion and my love. But if you do too many in a row… I never want to get tired of doing it.
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What is the plot of ‘Borderlands’?
Bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) is hired by interstellar business mogul Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) to find his missing daughter and the soldier-for-hire, Roland (Kevin Hart), who was sent to rescue her. The mission takes Lilith back to her ruined home planet, Pandora, where she reluctantly teams with Roland, a muscleman named Krieg (Florian Munteanu), a loopy scientist named Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), a wisecracking robot (Jack Black), and the girl herself, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), to battle monsters and vicious marauders while searching for a secret that could unleash unimaginable power.
A loud, clattering, off-brand mash-up of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ ‘Mad Max: Fury Road,’ and other recent tentpoles, ‘Borderlands’ is based on the hugely successful first-person shooter video game franchise launched in 2009 by Gearbox Software. Fans of the game can assess how faithful the movie, mostly directed by horror auteur Eli Roth (‘Thanksgiving’), is to the game, but as a film this fails on a number of levels.
‘Borderlands’ is simply dull, thanks to a bland script and setting, cheap-looking production values, and a cast that seems terrific on paper but veers between performances that are either bored or overwrought. Filmed more than three years ago in the spring and summer of 2021, ‘Borderlands’ collected dust until Tim Miller (‘Deadpool’) came on to direct reshoots in early 2023 when Roth proved unavailable. Either way, with recent video game adaptations like ‘Fallout’ and ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ earning praise for their approach to translating their games to the screen, ‘Borderlands’ is a disappointing throwback, a film that looks and plays like it came out of the 1990s, right down to the crappy CG and the pounding heavy metal needle drops.
As Cate Blanchett’s expository voice-over tells us at the beginning, a long-extinct alien race named the Eridians used to rule the galaxy, leaving behind some powerful artifacts hidden in secret “Vaults” throughout the cosmos that ruthless corporations like Atlas and Dahl, along with independent “Vault Hunters,” are interested in obtaining. Blanchett herself plays Lilith, a bounty hunter who is hired by Atlas himself (Edgar Ramirez) to ostensibly find his kidnapped daughter, Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). She’s gone missing on the planet Pandora (yes, same name as the planet in the ‘Avatar’ movies) along with the soldier sent to retrieve her, Roland (Kevin Hart).
Pandora also happens to be Lilith’s home world, and when she arrives there she finds it to be devastated by corporate mining and colonization efforts, with gangs of former prison laborers known as Psychos now roaming the land. She also finds Tina in short order, along with Roland, but the girl does not want to be rescued and shows her resistance by hurling explosive stuffed bunnies in Lilith’s direction. Nevertheless, Lilith, Tina, and Roland eventually team up – along with Tina’s self-styled bodyguard and former Psycho Krieg (Florian Munteanu), an eccentric scientist named Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), and a motormouth robot named Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black) – to block Atlas’s real agenda, which is to find a Vault hidden on Pandora and unlock the unimaginable power stored within.
The problem with ‘Borderlands,’ as with many video game adaptations, is that the movie must do a lot of world-building in a short period of time, leading to things like that voice-over narration and reams of expository dialogue. ‘Borderlands’ falls victim to this early on, mixing and matching characters from various editions of the game in a stop-and-start narrative that either comes to a crashing halt to explain its convoluted mythology or races from one frenetic action scene to another without balancing the two effectively. This leaves no room for any real character development, and while a pro like Blanchett tries hard, the cast falls into the ‘lovable band of rogues and misfits’ trope without doing anything to make it unique.
The movie is also hampered by its production values, which look cheap, constricted, and derivative despite a reported $120 million budget. Set on a world devastated by indifferent corporate colonizing, the movie looks like it was shot in perhaps two quarries made to look like junkyards (one character even asks at one point if there’s a way to escape that doesn’t involve schlepping through garbage). The post-apocalyptic wasteland has been done to death, and the fact that the Psychos resemble extras from the recent ‘Mad Max’ movies doesn’t help.
If Roth (or Miller) isn’t shooting in one of the film’s two junkyards, then they’re staging sequences in murky underground corridors and hallways that cinematographer Rogier Stoffers can’t solve. The result is an especially drab film all around. Adding to the problems, ‘Borderlands’ is rated PG-13, so Roth isn’t able to indulge his proclivities for copious amounts of blood and gore; the choppy editing suggests that much of this is being held back for a future ‘uncut’ release.
A finale laden with mediocre CGI only exacerbates the sense that this is a production where things went south pretty quickly, and the movie rapidly descends into a kind of numbing, generic rhythm that is thankfully only ameliorated by its relatively brief 100-minute runtime.
We’re not exactly sure how Cate Blanchett got roped into this, although she and Jack Black both starred in Roth’s slapdash 2018 Y/A fantasy, ‘The House with a Clock in Its Walls.’ Whatever her reasons, we’re not going to place this among the Australian actor’s finest performances. She’s good, never less than professional, but at times she doesn’t seem to know how seriously she should be taking any of it, and her CG-infused arc near the end of the film just ends up looking silly.
Jack Black has no such problems: for one thing, he’s never onscreen since he’s the voice of the R2-D2/BB-8 hybrid robot known as Claptrap, and as such gets the film’s best and funniest lines. Claptrap acts as a commentator on the action, edging close to a ‘Deadpool’-like breaking of the fourth wall (although it never happens) and offering up a stream of patter that alternates between sarcastic quips and ill-time bursts of into. But even Black’s energetic routine gets wearisome after 100 minutes or so of listening to Claptrap babble on.
We’re not sure what Jamie Lee Curtis is doing as the usually reliable actor plays Tannis as a weird combination of loopy and wearily cynical, with the two sides of her admittedly thin personality never meshing well. Kevin Hart is curiously low-energy, although he does pull off a few decent action moves, and while we dislike giving the thumbs-down to a young actor, Ariana Greenblatt (‘Barbie’) delivers an incredibly annoying, tic-laden performance as Tiny Tina, a character so poorly developed and inconsistently written that her central role in the story makes her faulty work even more grating.
We should have known we were in trouble the minute we saw Avi Arad listed as a producer on ‘Borderlands.’ While Arad was instrumental in the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he was long gone by the time it became a cultural phenomenon. He’s instead continued to plunder his stake in the Sony Spider-Man Universe with lackluster misfires like the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ and ‘Venom’ films, along with 2002’s equally forgettable adaptation of the ‘Uncharted’ video game.
‘Borderlands’ fits neatly into that filmography as a generic, soulless sci-fi actioner that really lacks any sort of distinctive personality or creative spark (a quick online search reveals that fans of the game are also disgruntled with what they’ve seen of the movie via trailers and clips). And while Eli Roth is no one’s idea of a great filmmaker, he’s out of his element here and unable to deploy the deliberately sleazy horror/exploitation tropes that at least make films like ‘Hostel’ and ‘The Green Inferno’ identifiable as his. ‘Borderlands’ is simply product, manufactured to cash in on a successful property without any understanding of what makes that property popular or why it should appeal to non-gamers.
‘Borderlands’ receives 2.5 out of 10 stars.
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What is the plot of ‘Borderlands’?
Bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) is hired by interstellar business mogul Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) to find his missing daughter and the soldier-for-hire, Roland (Kevin Hart), who was sent to rescue her. The mission takes Lilith back to her ruined home planet, Pandora, where she reluctantly teams with Roland, a muscleman named Krieg (Florian Munteanu), a loopy scientist named Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), a wisecracking robot (Jack Black), and the girl herself, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), to battle monsters and vicious marauders while searching for a secret that could unleash unimaginable power.
Ash had a successful career in comedic roles in shows such as ‘Real Husbands of Hollywood’ where she played Kevin Hart‘s ex-wife Brigette Hart. The spoof mockumentary-style show was created by Kevin Hart and was originally born out of a skit on BET Awards, offering a satire take on Hollywood couples.
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Remembering Erica Ash
(Far Right) Erica Ash in ‘Uncle Drew’. Photo: Lionsgate.
Her lengthy resume also includes appearances on shows such as the Fox sketch comedy ‘Mad TV’, Starz’s comedy-drama ‘Survivor’s Remorse‘, and the BET drama ‘In Contempt’ as public defender Gwen Sullivan.
Her family remembers Ash as ‘an amazing woman and talented entertainer who touched countless lives with her sharp wit, humor, and genuine zest for life,”
“Erica was an amazing woman and talented entertainer who touched countless lives with her sharp wit, humor, and genuine zest for life. Her memory will live eternally in our hearts.”
Fellow comedian and friend Loni Love paid tribute to the Ash on her Instagram, writing “Erica was talented and hilarious whether it was the show ‘Survivor’s Remorse’ or ‘Mad TV’ she would put her all into her work.”
BET and SAG-AFTRA have also taken to social media to remember the star:
#BETRemembers: Actress and comedienne Erica Ash has passed away at the age of 46. Known for her roles on BET’s “Real Husbands of Hollywood” and “In Contempt,” she will truly be missed. Condolences to her family. 🕊️ https://t.co/g37KcKwbSu
We mourn the loss of talented @sagaftra member Erica Ash. Erica was known for her role in ‘Survivor’s Remorse’ and appearances on ‘MADtv,’ ‘The Big Gay Sketch Show,’ and more. Our hearts go out to her family, friends, and fans. https://t.co/nX2dqP5Kwr
— SAG-AFTRA Foundation (@sagaftraFOUND) July 29, 2024
Erica Ash’s Career
Cast of ‘The Big Gay Sketch Show’. Photo: Logo TV.
Born in Florida on September 19, 1977, Erica Chantal Ash attended Emory University to study medicine. While traveling to Japan during a break from school, she “fell into a background singing gig my first week here”, the actress told LA Times in 2017. The actress also worked on Broadway in ‘Baby It’s You!’ in 2011, featuring music from The Shirelles.
In remembrance of the actress, Ash’s family asks for any donations to be made out to the Susan G. Komen Cancer Foundation or the Breast Cancer Foundation of your choice, “We are grateful for the kind expressions of love and support during this difficult time.”
Erica Ash in ‘Skin in the Game’. Photo: Kandoo Films.
When Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson get together you can usually expect two things –– plenty of friendly insults between the two and some candid moments.
Such was the case when Johnson guested on Hart’s Peacock show ‘Hart to Heart’, in which he has invited various people on to talk about their careers, their ambitions and more.
And in between the various funny jabs at each other, there was a chance for Johnson to open up about his disappointment around the character of Black Adam at DC.
The character, who was created for DC Comics as an antagonist for Shazam, has evolved since then on the page to become something of an antihero in his own right.
Cinematically, the plan had been for Adam to serve as a nemesis for Shazam (played on screen by Zachary Levi in twomovies so far), but when Johnson became involved in 2014, he urged producers to take it in a different direction.
A movie based solely around Black Adam went into development but took years to come to fruition. And when it did, it arrived in a vortex of post-Covid box office issues and changing regimes at DC.
The movie opened to $67 million, the biggest launch for a Johnson solo movie (we’re not counting the ‘Fast & Furious’ movies he has appeared in) but couldn’t weather the current moviegoing climate and ended up topping out at $393.2 million worldwide –– a disappointment for a film that cost at least around $200 million to make, more to market and had been viewed as a franchise starter.
Johnson had intended to see the character build to a confrontation with Henry Cavill’s Superman, going to far as to have him cameo in a post-credits sting. But given the new broom approach taken by incoming DC Studios bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran, that isn’t in the cards right now.
Johnson posted about his disappointment on Twitter in December:
Dwayne Johnson stars as Black Adam in New Line Cinema’s action adventure ‘Black Adam.’
Talking with Hart, Johnson mentioned the shift in studio leadership that had torpedoed ‘Adam’s’ future:
“‘Black Adam’ got caught in a vortex of new leadership. It was so many changes in leadership. Anytime you have a company, a publicly traded company, and you have all those changes in leadership, you have people coming in who, creatively and fiscally, are going to make decisions that you may not agree with. It was like new ownership coming in and buying an NFL team and going, ‘Not my coach, not my quarterback.’ It doesn’t matter how many times you won the Super Bowl or how many rings you got; you’re going with somebody else.”
And despite its seeming failure at the box office, the star defended the movie:
“That will always be one of the biggest mysteries. You have the biggest opening of your career. Sure, no China, which could’ve been maybe 100 or 200 million more dollars. You have a superhero, and you want to grow out the franchise. You bring back Superman and Henry Cavill, which the world went crazy. And we created a diverse superhero portfolio, where we have just men and women of color in ‘Black Adam.’”
You can see the whole segment of ‘Hart to Heart’ about ‘Black Adam’ below.
Season 2 of the popular series ‘Die Hart,’ which is cleverly entitled ‘Die Hart 2: Die Harter’ will premiere March 31st on The Roku Channel.
What is the plot of ‘Die Hart 2: Die Harter?’
Directed by Eric Appel (‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’), ‘Die Hart 2: Die Harter’ picks up after the events of the first season, which saw actor Kevin Hart (played by the real Kevin Hart) achieve his dream of becoming an action star when his reboot of ‘The Jeffersons’ becomes a box office hit. Now Kevin wants to cement his legacy as the greatest action star of all time.
Kevin’s developed a concept for a revolutionary movie where the action is so unscripted and unexpected that even he won’t know what’s coming next. But Kevin’s myopic dream comes with a blind spot, and he soon finds himself the victim of an evil revenge plot, orchestrated by someone from his past. Now, Kevin must enlist the help of his favorite co-star Jordan King (Nathalie Emmanuel), his over-eager assistant Andre (Ben Schwartz), Andre’s mom Cynthia (Paula Pell), and legendary Hollywood stuntman Mr. 206 (John Cena) if he wants to survive.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Kevin Hart about his work on ‘Die Hart 2: Die Harter,’ playing an exaggerated version of himself, becoming an action star, the show’s new characters, working with John Cena and the rest of the cast, the title, and which classic TV series he would like to see given a big screen adaption.
Kevin Hart stars in The Roku Channel’s ‘Die Hart 2: Die Harter.’
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interview with Kevin Hart.
Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about the challenges of playing an exaggerated version of yourself in this series and were you concerned that some people might think this is the real you?
Kevin Hart: No, I mean this is a fun role to play. The opportunity to play an exaggerated version of yourself can only set the table for you to do things that you wish you could do in real life. You can get away with so much more. So I think I’m very happy with the real version of myself, but I love now having the table and template set up to play this version, and people understand the difference.
MF: In the series, the character of Kevin dreams of being an action star. In real life, is starring in action films something you’ve always dreamed of doing in addition to comedy?
KH: I think the roles and the opportunity attached to them have put me in a space where I can dabble, or have dabbled in action. This here is just taking it to the next level of fun and participation. There’s real movies that are set up to happen later in the year where the action is, I can say, a massive upgrade than what you’ve seen me do in the past. Everything is done with a plan attached to it, right? Nothing is an accident. So in this case, setting the table up for the playful entry into action, and for the playful idea of Kevin wanting the opportunity, only to later expand and show me having it. It’s all thought out. So baby steps, the baby steps of association are what you’re witnessing. Only to eventually see the side that I know is coming, be presented, and be real, and be good. That’s the beauty of being creative. That’s the art and artistry of idea and execution. So I can only hope that the takeaway from this one is really significant and have an immediate understanding that, “Oh yeah, Kevin can do this because we saw him doing it before.”
Kevin Hart stars in The Roku Channel’s ‘Die Hart 2: Die Harter.’
MF: In addition to playing Kevin Hart, you also play a new character this season, Doug. What can you tell us about him?
KH: Doug is a stunt man to Kevin, who wants to be an action star. Well, you definitely need a stuntman. In this series, there’s a stance that Kevin has where he doesn’t need a stuntman, and he kind of overlooks, overpowers, overshadows him to the point where he says he doesn’t need him. His stuntman is left with kind of egg on his face because he’s done so much to get him where he got. Just like that, Kevin throws him to the side. So Doug basically goes, “Well, I’m going to get my revenge, and I’m going to make sure that you get yours. I’m going to take you down.” So there’s this thing of Kevin being haunted by his stunt guy. At the same time, trying to figure out the world of what this action thing is, while Natalie is convincing me of another, and John Cena’s doing what he’s doing. So there’s a lot of different directions that Kevin is being pulled into, and rightfully so. It just adds for great comedy and a great foundation for us to expand on.
MF: How did you create Doug’s unusual voice?
KH: Being silly, just being silly and finding something. It was very easy and then marrying myself to it. But yes, it wasn’t a difficult stretch or a difficult thing to pull through. The teeth and the costume, it all helped.
John Cena in The Roku Channel’s ‘Die Hart 2: Die Harter.’
MF: What was it like working with Nathalie Emmanuel again and new cast members Ben Schwartz and John Cena?
KH: Great, from top to bottom. We are following the amazing cast that participated in part one, including Josh Hartnett, John Travolta, and Nathalie Emmanuel. Following suit in this season, with Natalie returning, we also have John Cena and Ben Schwartz. You want a very diverse cast, but you want a cast that gives you the opportunity to attack a global landscape. We feel that we check that box with comedy, with action, and with personnel. So we’re very lucky and fortunate to have gotten the participation that we got. They’ve all exceeded our expectations just in performance. They elevated the material, they made it better, and that’s all you can hope for.
MF: Can you talk about collaborating with director Eric Appel on the series?
KH: He’s amazing. Eric and our writer Tripper (Clancy) have done an amazing job in just helping to shape and mold this IP into what it is today. I have a good time doing it, which is why I’m still here, right? Regardless of my landscape and the size of things that are going on, this is a priority and always has been.
(L to R) Nathalie Emmanuel and Kevin Hart in The Roku Channel’s ‘Die Hart 2: Die Harter.’
MF: In the first season, your character adapts the classic TV series ‘The Jeffersons’ in to an action movie. What classic television series would you like to see adapted in to a big screen movie?
KH: God, if you want to go and adapt it into a big screen movie, ‘Knight Rider.’ ‘Knight Rider’ could be a movie. I put that in that same space as ‘The A-Team’ and ‘Baywatch,’ of one of the ones that they can take and just have a bigger plot, a bigger twist, a bigger journey, so that it’s not one note. I would say ‘Knight Rider.’
MF: Finally, and obviously, the title of the second season is a spoof on the ‘Die Hard’ sequel, ‘Die Hard 2’ Die Harder.’ Is it safe to say that if there is a third season it will be called ‘Die Hart: With a Vengeance?’
KH: Hart definitely will be in there. We’re not losing the world of ‘Die Hart.’ So yes, you are spot on and we’ll cross that road when we get to it.
(L to R) Kevin Hart and Ben Schwartz in The Roku Channel’s ‘Die Hart 2: Die Harter.’
There has been some disturbed chatter in the last couple of days about video game adaptation ‘Borderlands’, which ‘Hostel’ and ‘Cabin Fever’ director Eli Roth shot way back in 2021 (it was long enough ago that star Cate Blanchett has had time to shoot ‘Tár’, which has just hit theaters).
But with word that Roth has stepped away from the film ahead of some re-shoots, there was naturally concern that it’s all gone a little wrong and that the director has somehow been fired.
Lionsgate is stepping up to do a little damage control and now comes word via Deadline that it’s more to do with a schedule clash.
Roth, you see, is finally ready to make the full-length movie ‘Thanksgiving’, spawned from a fake trailer he made to contribute to Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’ ‘Grindhouse’.
It was popular enough that there was talk of a full movie based on the trailer, but while Roth has sometimes mentioned it, he’s finally ready to make it a reality.
‘Thanksgiving’––in fake trailer form at least––features a slasher who makes his own carving board out of the inhabitants of a Massachusetts town during the annual turkey day. One of the pivotal scenes involved Roth himself, separated from his head while in the throes of passion with a date in a convertible.
(L to R) Director and actor Eli Roth and Brad Pitt in ‘Inglourious Basterds.’
Now, of course, there could be more to it than anyone is willing to admit––given the long post-production process of ‘Borderlands’, surely there has been time for Roth to schedule making ‘Thanksgiving’ so that it doesn’t clash with ‘Borderlands’. But movie shooting schedules can be tough to figure out with so much that needs to happen, so perhaps it really is just timing.
Still, the addition of Tim Miller––who last made ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’––is an interesting one. He’s got plenty of experience with the sort of effects load that might be involved in even re-shoots of something along the lines of the game adaptation.
‘Borderlands’ adapts the popular game title and stars Blanchett as Lilith, an infamous outlaw with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora to find the missing daughter of the universe’s most powerful man Atlas (Edgar Ramirez).
Lilith forms an alliance with an unexpected team – Roland (Kevin Hart), a former elite mercenary, now desperate for redemption; Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Florian Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound, rhetorically challenged protector; Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), the scientist with a tenuous grip on sanity; and Claptrap (Jack Black), a persistently wiseass robot.
These unlikely heroes must battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to find and protect the missing girl, who may hold the key to unimaginable power. The fate of the universe could be in their hands – but they’ll be fighting for something more: each other.
Naturally, ‘Borderlands’ has yet to announce a release date, but it’ll certainly need to impress to keep up with the current trend of successful movies and shows based on games.
Cate Blanchett as treasure hunter Lilith in Lionsgate’s ‘Borderlands.’
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The movie stars Kevin Hart (‘DC League of Super Pets’) as Sonny, a stay-at-home dad who finds himself with some “me time” for the first time in years while his wife (Regina Hall) and kids are away.
He soon reconnects with his former best friend Huck (‘Father Stu’s Mark Wahlberg) for a wild weekend that nearly upends his life.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking to writer/director John Hamburg about his work on ‘Me Time,’ making a “bromance,” working with Hart and Wahlberg, Seal’s concert for the crew, working with a mountain lion, and the possibility of a sequel.
‘Me Time’ writer and director John Hamburg.
Moviefone: To begin with, how did you come up with the idea for this movie?
John Hamburg: One of our executive producers was telling me that he was alone without his family for the first time in a while. It’s a moment as simple as that that gets my mind going and thinking, “Oh, maybe that’s the premise for something.”
Then I put that idea aside for a few years, and then was playing around with this Huck character, Mark Wahlberg’s character, in a different story entirely. Suddenly I was like, “Oh, well maybe I can marry the early idea of someone who’s alone without their family, but reconnects with this Huck character,” and the rest of the story grew from there.
MF: How often does that happen that you’ll take something that is not working in one project, and apply it to another project?
JH: It does happen because it’s all part of a world of comedy, awkwardness and characters that I traffic in, so it definitely does. Sometimes I’ll hear a story and years later, put that into a project. Or I’ll put a project aside because I can’t quite crack it or it’s not quite working, but I’ll take elements of that and put it into something that does come to fruition.
MF: The movie is very much a “bromantic comedy,” can you talk about the deep friendship between Sonny and Huck?
JH: I’ve worked in the bromance space before, and I guess it’s one of my themes. They say filmmakers, sometimes you just make the same movie over and over again. They just look a little different. But I just wanted to tap into the idea that when you make different choices in life, it can pull people apart and really, you’re not as far apart as you think you are. How does this friendship that has been put through the test come back together?
Because I had experienced it in my own life, making choices to start a family and settle down in a way, and I had other family members and friends who have made an entirely different choice. Often, I’d think, “Oh, they’re doing something crazy right now, and I’m a little jealous.” But they might be like, “I’m jealous that John just gets to hang out at home and watch TV with his family.” So, it’s interesting. I was trying to tap into those dynamics in writing this relationship between Sonny and Huck.
MF: Can you talk about working with Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg, and their chemistry on and off screen?
JH: Kevin and I had worked with each other before, but never when he was the global movie star that he is now. I worked a bit on the script of his movie ‘Night School,’ but I wasn’t the director. Kevin is the funniest human on the planet and also just a great person. He’s fun to work with, brings so much energy, and has so much creativity.
Then Mark, I hadn’t known. We hadn’t worked together, so I didn’t know what he’d be like. He is, first of all, incredibly professional. He truly takes the craft of acting seriously. He knows the script cold, knows things that I’d cut from previous drafts and would bring them back in, and also just sneakily very funny. That combination is lethal. Then the two of them just got along incredibly well, which made my job as a director much easier.
MF: Can you also talk about Sonny and Maya’s marriage and how Sonny’s own insecurities really put his marriage and his family at risk?
JH: I was trying to write about a modern relationship. I observed so many of these where the wife was the breadwinner and had a big career, and the husband chose to stay at home, or maybe sometimes didn’t choose. Maybe it was like, “My wife is killing it, and someone’s got to take care of the kids.” So, I was aiming to write about that.
Then, I had seen some men in my life who made that choice and were completely at peace with it, but that wouldn’t give me a comedy. I’d seen other people who made that choice, but clearly were a little bit insecure and not quite sure. They’re falling into old-school gender dynamics, and I was trying to approach that.
Insecurity, to me, is one of the through lines in all of my comedies. A character who’s insecure is going to make a lot of bad choices. Thus, Kevin’s character is insecure, and he overcompensates. He does so many stupid things that come from that one thing, which is if he could just take a breath, relax and know he’s doing fine, everything would be fine. But of course, we wouldn’t have the movie ‘Me Time’ in that case.
JH: So, I am a big Seal fan. I mean, he’s a great musician, and he has one of the great voices of all time. Kevin’s character was a singer-songwriter named Dr. Silk, and so it was like, “Who would this character have revered when he was coming up? Seal. That makes sense.”
Seal is so iconic, and so larger than life. I mean physically he’s a very tall, extremely handsome man. So, Kevin’s character would love this guy and he would be one of his idols. Then also, it would be really fun to have Seal, this larger-than-life figure, in Kevin’s suburban backyard. That was the combination.
Thankfully, we had a great conversation over the phone when he was on tour in England. I talked him through it, and he was down, and he was awesome. He was so great on the set. He was funny, and fun. When he was doing that concert, all the actors were just in awe. He stayed, and he did an acapella version of “Crazy” after the cameras stopped rolling just to entertain the crowd. It was one of my great days filming in my career.
MF: In the film, Sonny and Huck go on several adventures including skydiving and fighting a mountain lion. What was the most challenging sequence to shoot?
JH: Good question. The mountain lion was the most challenging because you have some real animals who don’t cooperate that well usually. You have a really hot, dusty location. A lot of it was CGI, and I hadn’t had a ton of experience doing this kind of sequence. So, I’m smart enough to know what I don’t know.
I relied on experts to tell me, “I know Kevin is wrestling with a blue stuffed animal. But this is going to look real. Trust us.” You have to have faith, put all these components together and hope that at the end it’s going to look seamless to the audience, and all they’ll see is Kevin Hart running from a mountain lion.
MF: Finally, can you see possibly revisiting these characters in the future and exploring their relationship further in a sequel?
JH: I do have a couple of ideas. They were so much fun to work with, and I do love the dynamics of this cast and these characters. There’s a couple of ideas percolating. You got to be careful with spinoff sequels. You have a reason to tell the story. But I do have a couple of thoughts that feel organic to the next choices these characters would make.
When a group of animals receive super powers, Lex Luthor’s (Marc Maron) guinea pig Lulu (Kate McKinnon) captures the Justice League and attacks Metropolis. Krypto (Dwayne Johnson), Superman’s (John Krasinski) dog, must now learn to work with his new friend Ace (Kevin Hart), in order to rescue his owner.
With the help of a turtle called Merton McSnurtle (Natasha Lyonne), Chip the squirrel (Diego Luna), and a pig named PB (Vanessa Bayer), Krypto must team with the other Super-Pets to defeat Lulu and save Superman, Batman (Keanu Reeves) and the rest of the JLA.
The result is a really fun, funny, and emotionally heart-warming animated movie filled with DC Easter eggs that is really about the love we share for our pets, and the unconditional love they give back to us.
The movie begins with a new origin story for Superman’s (Krasinski) dog Krypto (Johnson), which shows that Jor-El sent him with baby Kal-El to Earth to protect him while Krypton was exploding. Years later, Kal-El is all gown-up now living in Metropolis as Clark Kent by day and Superman by night, fighting crime with Krypto as his partner.
We soon meet Ace (Hart), a dog living with other animals at an animal shelter. While Ace devises a plan for he and the other animals to escape, Lulu (McKinnon), a guinea pig and former pet of Lex Luthor (Maron), utilizes orange Kryptonite to give herself and the other animals super powers. Using an army of mutated guinea pigs as her minions, she captures the Justice League and begins to destroy Metropolis.
With Superman missing, Krypto teams with the now super-powered Ace and his friends to form the League of Super-Pets in order to save the Justice League and stop Lulu. But Krypto only knows how to work with Superman and must now learn from his new friends how to be a team player.
‘DC League of Super-Pets’ works on several different levels and is a thoroughly enjoyable animated movie on all fronts. For kids, there is a lot of humor, lovable characters and fantastic animation. For adults, there is a sweet and sophisticated story about the unconditional love that our pets give us. And for DC fans, there are enough comic book Easter eggs and deep cut characters to make your head spin.
Writer and director Jared Stern, who helped pen the equally excellent ‘The Lego Batman Movie,’ perfectly captured the humor and fun of these classic DC characters that are pulled from different points of the cannon.
For example, Superman has a 1940’s Max Fleischercartoons inspired costume, but the character resembles Christopher Reeve. Aquaman has his 90’s era hook, while the filmmakers chose to include the recent version of Green Lantern from the comics, Jessica Cruz. All of this leads to a well-balanced and exciting animated version of the Justice League.
The voice cast is excellent, including actor and comedian Marc Maron, who plays a very realistic version of Lex Luthor. While her role is somewhat limited, Jameela Jamil plays an excellent version of as Wonder Woman, one that I wouldn’t mind seeing in live-action someday.
And speaking of actors we’d like to see reprise their roles in live-action, can someone please make a Batman movie starring Keanu Reeves already! The ‘John Wick’ actor is very funny but also very emotional playing an extremely depressed and haunted version of the Caped Crusader.
Kate McKinnon is also at her best in this film portraying the hilarious and absolutely evil Lulu. The actress is clearly having a lot of fun in her role, and the character is a great advisory for both the animal and human heroes in the movie.
But the film wouldn’t work quite as well as it did if not for the voice work of Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. The two actors have worked together before, and have great chemistry on and off the set, which is apparent watching the film and adds to their characters’ relationship.
Hart, who is certainly funny in the movie, gives a more layered and emotional performance than we’ve seen from him in the past, which works really well for his character. You understand by the end of the movie why Ace is destined to partner with Batman, and the film gives a new origin story for himself and the other previously established DC animal characters in the movie.
Johnson, who seems to be taking over DC with ‘Black Adam’ headed to theaters in October, was the perfect actor to play Krypto. His voice is familiar and already associated in audience’s minds with heroics, doing half of the actor’s job for him before he utters his first line. But he also brings Krypto to life in a way we haven’t seen before, showing off his fears as much as his strength, while emphasizing his unconditional love and faithfulness to Superman.
In the end, if you take the DC elements out of the film, you still have an extremely charming and funny animated movie about the unconditional love we have for our pets and they have for us. What ‘DC League of Super-Pets’ does best is remind us that every dog is a superhero!
‘DC League of Super-Pets’ receives 4 out of 5 stars.
