‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’ filmmakers Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein will make a ‘Venom’ animated movie.
Tom Hardy is aboard to produce.
The movie is at an early stage.
Having managed to get a movie trilogy out of slavering, ravenous Spider-Man character Venom, Sony is looking to keep the franchise alive in the animated realm.
The directors have become an in-demand duo since ‘Bloodlines’ helped to shock the horror movie series back to life with $315 million in box office receipts.
Venom, created by writer Bill Michelinie and artist Todd McFarlane, was famously introduced as a villain in 1988’s ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ No. 300, and quickly became a fan-favorite as well as one of his arch-nemeses. He got his first solo comic in 1993.
Sony produced three ‘Venom’ movies starring Tom Hardy as down-on-his-luck journalist Eddie Brock, who bonds with the symbiote. The eponymous first arrived in 2018, followed by sequels ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ in 2021 and 2024’s ‘Venom: The Last Dance.’
Hardy is aboard the new movie as a producer alongside live-action team Amy Pascal, Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach, alongside Kelly Marcel, who wrote on all three of the movies and directed ‘The Last Dance.’
There’s no word on a plot for the animated movie at this early stage –– Sony is in the process of opening a writers’ room to develop ideas, run by Lipovsky and Stein.
The pair are also at work with Chris Columbus on a new ‘Gremlins’ movie. They are also developing to direct the original thriller ‘Long Lost’, described as ‘What Lies Beneath’ meets ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and set up at Universal with Amblin Entertainment producing.
When will the new ‘Venom’ movie be on screens?
Given the development stage, Sony has yet to confirm a release date for the potential movie.
Venom in Columbia Pictures ‘Venom: The Last Dance’. Photo: Sony Pictures.
With Daniel Craig stepping away and Amazon MGM Studios taking over the franchise, finding a new James Bond is crucial to the series’ success.
Amazon supposedly has a wish list of actors, while other names have also been cropping up – sometimes for years.
Only six actors have officially played Bond in more than 60 years.
Who should be the next actor to don the mantle of James Bond, agent 007 of the British Secret Service? That question has vexed filmmakers since the franchise first launched in 1962, when then-superstars like Cary Grant and Richard Burton were bypassed in favor of a little-known Scottish actor named Sean Connery. In the 60-plus years since ‘Dr. No’ introduced Bond to audiences, six actors (seven, if you include David Niven in the non-canonical 1967 Bond spoof, ‘Casino Royale’) have worn the tuxedo, with a mix of established stars and relative unknowns taking on the role for stints varying from one film (George Lazenby) to seven (Roger Moore).
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Some Bonds, of course, have been more successful than others, but the venerable franchise faces a challenge on two fronts now: first, the property has changed hands for the first time in decades, with the Broccoli family’s Eon Productions – which has been behind every Bond film to date – ceding control to Amazon MGM Studios. Second, the next Bond actor will follow the five-film run of Daniel Craig, which yielded one of the franchise’s all-time best films (2006’s ‘Casino Royale’) as well as its highest-grossing (2012’s billion-earning ‘Skyfall’).
But there’s more to it than that. The next Bond, whoever he is – and all kinds of potential names have been circulating for years – has to find just the right balance of qualities. He should be young enough (early 30s) to have cross-generational appeal, but not too young that he seems to lack experience; he should be as quick with his gun as he is with a quip or double-entendre; he needs to portray both the ruthless brutality of a top-notch assassin and the vulnerability of a lonely, haunted man; and he must be both physically imposing and sexually alluring.
Not such a tall order, right? There’s no question that director Denis Villeneuve and producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman have their work cut out for them. So let’s take a quick scan of the names that are out there now – and analyze whether any of them are destined to become the next James Bond.
Let’s start with the actors who won’t be Bond. The irony is that all of them were mooted for the role at one point or another, but time has frankly passed them by. That short list includes Henry Cavill, a fan favorite who auditioned for the role at age 22 but lost to Daniel Craig. At 42, he’s the same age as Pierce Brosnan when the latter got the part, and three years younger than Roger Moore. But Cavill is also far too recognizable from playing Superman in the DC Extended Universe and the title role in ‘The Witcher’ TV series.
Also, outside of his stints as Kal-El, Cavill is not a box office draw. That in itself means nothing, especially if the producers go with a smaller name – but Cavill has been on screens long enough to prove that he lacks a certain quality that audiences flock to see.
Tom Hardy, likewise, has been in hits such as ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and the ‘Venom’ trilogy, but has had an erratic box office run outside of those. At age 47, he’s also pretty much aged out of the role already. The same goes for 52-year-old Idris Elba, a popular choice for a long time who was reportedly reluctant to consider the role because he worried whether audiences would accept a Bond of color. Of the three, he probably would have been the most formidable choice.
The Amazon MGM List
Tom Holland arrives on the red carpet of The 90th Oscars® at the Dolby® Theatre in Hollywood, CA on Sunday, March 4, 2018. Credit/Provider: Paul Hebert / A.M.P.A.S. Copyright: A.M.P.A.S.
Variety reported in June 2025 than Amazon MGM was interested in casting an actor under 30 as Bond. The studio’s wish list featured three actors: Tom Holland, Harris Dickinson, and Jacob Elordi — all decent-to-good actors still exploring their potential, but not necessarily able to nail the role of Bond.
Let’s dismiss Holland right off the bat. Fair or not, he’s a relatively small fellow with a baby face that will simply not suit Bond. Not only that, his global fame all stems from his portrayal of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in six Marvel films, with at least two more to go. Holland is simply too youthful and too associated with the web-slinger to step into 007’s shoes.
At 28, the Australian Elordi (the person playing Bond, by the way, can be British, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, or Australian – but not American) is probably the best all-around actor and may have just enough gravitas (and height) to evolve with the role. Dickinson, meanwhile, showed psychological and sexual intensity in ‘Babygirl’ and a rough physicality in ‘The Iron Claw,’ but like most of the actors attached to the role, would still have to bulk his slender frame up a bit.
When you get past names like Holland, Cavill, and Elordi, there is a whole crop of relatively young U.K. actors who, for the most part, are relatively obscure outside their home turf even if they’ve done some movie and TV work in Hollywood. Leading that pack is Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who’s been bandied about as a frontrunner for 007 for the past couple of years but remains fairly low-key with the public despite roles in high-profile films like ‘Nosferatu’ and ‘28 Years Later.’ Taylor-Johnson is a good actor, but he’s missing something – a certain magnetism – that makes us reluctant to consider him for Bond.
Theo James is another British actor who has scored some impressive credentials – most recently, he starred in the TV version of ‘The Gentlemen,’ Season 2 of ‘The White Lotus’ and the Stephen King film ‘The Monkey’ – but at 40 may be at the tipping point to play 007. Will Poulter, meanwhile, has shown physical prowess in the recent ‘Warfare’ and as Adam Warlock in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,’ and can be quite menacing (he’s frightening as a sadistic cop in ‘Detroit’), but may lack the sexual spark necessary to attract female audiences.
Jack Lowden in ‘Slow Horses’ season 3 premiering November 29, 2023 on Apple TV+.
One interesting candidate whose name has surfaced again and again is Scottish thespian Jack Lowden – at 35, he’s the right age, he has rugged good looks along with experience in physical action roles, and his resume (which also includes extensive stage work) ranges from high-level productions like the BBC’s 2016 version of ‘War and Peace’ to the acclaimed Apple TV+ series ‘Slow Horses,’ in which he plays – in an eerie coincidence – an MI5 agent.
Do any of these – or even the other candidates above – scream ‘James Bond’ at us? Not necessarily. But actors are capable of transforming themselves in ways that we ordinary folks can’t often imagine, and one of the above – if not someone yet unrevealed to us – will certainly emerge from that process as the next Bond…James Bond.
Sean Connery as James Bond in 1964’s ‘Goldfinger’. Photo: United Artists.
(L to R) Anson Boon as Eddie Harrigan, Joanne Froggatt as Jan Da Souza, Mandeep Dhillon as Seraphina Harrigan, Lara Pulver as Bella Harrigan, Paddy Considine as Kevin Harrigan, Pierce Brosnan as Conrad Harrigan, Helen Mirren as Maeve Harrigan, Tom Hardy as Harry Da Souza, and Daniel Betts as Brendan Harrigan in ‘MobLand’.Streaming on PLaramount+ 2025. Photo: Jason Bell/PLaramount+.
‘MobLand’ receives 6.5 out of 10 stars.
Arriving on Paramount+ on March 30th with its first episode, ‘MobLand’ is a new limited series set within the spiky world of intergenerational gangster empires in London.
Birthed by prolific filmmaker (and no stranger to British screen criminals) Guy Ritchie alongside Ronan Bennett, the creator of Netflix hit ‘Top Boy’, it’s the latest in a long legacy of violent, talky meditations on family within the gangland dynamic, and bolstered by a starry cast.
(L to R) Helen Mirren as Maeve Harrigan and Pierce Brosnan as Conrad Harrigan in ‘MobLand’. Streaming on Paramount+ 2025. Photo: Jason Bell/Paramount+.
‘MobLand’ has an odd history, since it began life as a spin-off of Showtime’s long-running family/crime drama ‘Ray Donovan’; you know, the one where Liev Schreiber played a “fixer” to celebrities and other powerful types whose one big failing was that he couldn’t mend his own dysfunctional family.
Yet somewhere along the line, for reasons that have yet to be revealed, what was going to be a look at the origins of the Donovan family focused on similar character types working in London has morphed into an original –– though that is stretching the term very broadly, as we’ll discuss –– story of conflicting crime families and the tough-nut type who sorts out issues for one of them.
Script and Direction
(L to R) Paddy Considine as Kevin Harrigan and Tom Hardy as Harry Da Souza in ‘MobLand’. Streaming on Paramount+ 2025. Photo: Luke Varley/Paramount+.
With creator/writer Ronan Bennett here working alongside Jez Butterworth (better known for the likes of ‘Ford v Ferrari,’ and ‘Edge of Tomorrow,’ but who tackled crime themes with 2015’s ‘Black Mass’), there is a lot about ‘MobLand’ that would lead to the description “Generic Gangster Drama #746”.
So much of what is on display here, the deep bones of the series, are tropes and ideas that have been explored many, many times before. You have, for example, the aging patriarch of the crime dynasty who is no longer sure who he can trust, even among his oldest friends. And his calculating wife, forever whispering in his ear about potential issues, proves to be one of the true powers in the family.
The less effective children are also used here, along with the primary focus of the show, the loyal fixer whose job it is the sort out the messes caused, mostly by those annoying younger clan members.
(L to R) Paddy Considine as Kevin Harrigan and Tom Hardy as Harry Da Souza in ‘MobLand’. Streaming on Paramount+ 2025. Photo: Luke Varley/Paramount+.
Between them, Bennett and Butterworth do manage to find some new ideas sprinkled between the established narrative, hewing away from some of the cliches (the fixer’s wife, for one, isn’t a naïve person who has no knowledge of her husband’s job) while leaning into others (the couple are still on the verge of divorce because of the pressures that come with it.)
Yet if you’ve watched particularly Bennett’s past work, it’s hard not to wonder why this is quite so generic at times.
Guy Ritchie, meanwhile, leads the directing team (which also includes Anthony Byrne –– who actually handles the lion’s share of the episodes –– Lawrence Gough and Daniel Syrkin) and tones down the visual zippiness from his other gangster TV series (Netflix’s ‘The Gentlemen’), here choosing a more somber palate and tone.
The series benefits from some impressive UK locations (especially the characters’ homes, which reinforce the idea that crime pays) and is shot well, dark and moody when needed, which is often, but rarely so murky that you can’t tell what is going on.
Cast and Performances
Tom Hardy as Harry Da Souza in ‘MobLand’. Streaming on Paramount+ 2025. Photo: Luke Varley/Paramount+.
Tom Hardy’s Harry De Souza is the focal point here –– he’s our eyes, ears and guide to this world. And the role takes full advantage of Hardy’s gruff strengths. He’s at his best when he’s using his stoic charm to threaten people –– usually more with his words than fists or weapons, but he’s not above that –– and get his way in the service of his bosses.
Harry also gives Hardy the chance to play the more subtle sides of the character, the family man who struggles to do right by his wife and daughter in anything other than providing them a great place to live and the money to do well.
As crime boss Conrad Hannigan, Pierce Brosnan sports an outrageous Irish accent (odd, since he was born in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland) and generally gives the character a vulnerability under the tough gangster side of things.
Helen Mirren, meanwhile, utilizing her own often impenetrable stab at the accent (similar to how she does in ‘Yellowstone’ prequel series ‘1923’), is the power behind the throne but, so far, at least, mostly resigned to wafting in and out of rooms and offering the occasional snide bit of advice.
(L to R) Emmett J Scanlan as Paul and Helen Mirren as Maeve Harrigan in ‘MobLand’. Streaming on Paramount+ 2025. Photo: Luke Varley/Paramount+.
‘House of the Dragon’ veteran Paddy Considine is good as Kevin Hannigan, Conrad’s son and Harry’s old friend (they met in prison, which is how the latter came to work for the family). Unlike some of his siblings, he comes across as capable, though not always comfortable with the criminal life.
Among the supporting ensemble, Joanne Froggatt shines as Harry’s increasingly frustrated wife, Jan, while Lara Pulver is good as Bella Harrigan, Kevin’s wife and a woman with whom Harry also clearly shares a history.
Tom Hardy as Harry Da Souza in ‘MobLand’. Streaming on Paramount+ 2025. Photo: Luke Varley/Paramount+.
It won’t win many points for originality, but ‘MobLand’ has enough going for it that it’s still a worthy entry to the gangster genre.
Solid work on both sides of the camera, and enough wit to stave off blandness are key to what makes it work.
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What’s the plot of ‘MobLand’?
Power is up for grabs as two warring crime families clash in a battle that threatens to topple empires. In the crossfire stands Harry Da Souza (Tom Hardy), a street-smart ‘fixer’ who knows too well where loyalties lie when opposing forces collide.
The first pictures of Tom Hardy in new thriller ‘Havoc’ are online.
He’ll play a detective who has to unravel a web of corruption.
Gareth Evans wrote and directed the movie.
A new action movie? From the director of ‘The Raid’ and its sequel, Gareth Evans? And starring Tom Hardy, a man with no little experience in the genre?
‘Havoc’ is the example of a movie we figured would be on the fastest of fast tracks, but despite backing from Netflix when it was originally announced in 2021, it has been a slow road to screens for the movie.
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Most of that can be chalked up to tricky scheduling –– after an initial shoot, he knew he needed to tweak certain scenes and had some footage he needed to add, but between the in-demand Hardy and the variety of brawlers and other actors in the cast, he had to wait.
Yet Evans, who has also worked on the likes of ‘Apostle,’ sees it as an advantage.
This is what Evans said about that to Empire:
“It’s had a profound effect on the film. It allowed me to better streamline it and make it what it was always intended to be, which is a blistering, fast-paced action-thriller with nods to the Hong Kong cinema that I grew up watching.”
After a drug deal gone wrong, bruised detective Walker (Hardy) must fight his way through a criminal underworld to rescue a politician’s estranged son, while unravelling a deep web of corruption and conspiracy that ensnares his entire city.
Here’s Evans talking up Hardy:
“When it comes to a film called ‘Havoc, with me and Tom Hardy, we deliver on the action front. That’s the primary focus. But with Tom, what you get as well is an intensely muscular central performance, and really well-developed character. There’s a lot going on under the hood.”
If you’ve been waiting for this one for a while, you’ll need to hold on a little while longer –– the movie is scheduled for a 2025 release on Netflix, but the streamer has yet to confirm an exact date.
Tom Hardy stars as Eddie Brock/Venom in Columbia Pictures ‘Venom: The Last Dance’. Photo: Sony Pictures.
Let’s be clear about one thing: when we say that ‘Venom: The Last Dance’ is the best of the three movies starring Tom Hardy as both former reporter Eddie Brock and the voice of the alien symbiote that lives inside him, we’re talking about a very low bar. ‘Venom’ (2018) and ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ (2021) were genuinely painful to sit through, with the latter in particular being unwatchable gibberish. ‘The Last Dance,’ written and directed by Kelly Marcel (from a story by Marcel and Hardy), is nonsense too – but it leans all the way into its ridiculousness from the start, which gives it a big advantage.
Whereas it was never fully apparent in the previous two movies, this time it seems like everyone is in on the joke – not just Hardy. So thin on plot that it’s practically transparent, ‘Venom: The Last Dance’ wants you to laugh at it from the start – which makes for a better time and even allows room for a smidgen of heart here and there.
Story and Direction
(L to R) Director Kelly Marcel and Tom Hardy on the set of Columbia Pictures ‘Venom: The Last Dance’. Photo: Laura Radford.
“Story” is a decidedly loose term here. As explained to us at least twice during the course of the film, the symbiotes (the species to which Venom belongs) have imprisoned their creator, a superbeing named Knull, on the planet Klyntar because he aims to destroy them as well as the rest of the universe (we’re kind of hazy on why, what else is new). The only way for Knull to break free is if he can obtain a “codex” – which looks like just a glowing light – that appears on symbiotes when they’re fully activated within their hosts. Only Venom has the right codex, so Knull sends an army of grotesque aliens called xenophages to find and kill our favorite symbiote and get the thingamajig.
Eddie and Venom, on the lam from the law and the government, are hiding out in Mexico, where we left them at the end of ‘Let There Be Carnage.’ After that quick trip to the MCU universe we saw during the post-credits scene of that film (“I’m sick of this multiverse s**t!” exclaims Venom when they return, echoing numerous moviegoers), they’re back in the Sony Spider-verse when Knull’s first tracker arrives (why they only come one or two at a time is a mystery that’s never adequately explained). The xenophage sets off in pursuit of our pals, a task made difficult by Venom deliberately remaining mostly a voiceover for the first 30 minutes or so of the film.
Meanwhile, a secret government operation located in a facility deep below Area 51, headed by Dr. Payne (Juno Temple) and General Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), is tasked with collecting as many symbiotes as possible. They’ve already got Detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham), who was infected in the previous film, but they want Venom as well. Between Strickland and his forces and Knull’s xenophages – who are all eventually going to clash — it’s no wonder that Eddie can barely keep a pair of shoes on his feet for more than five minutes.
(L to R) Director Kelly Marcel and Tom Hardy on the set of Columbia Pictures ‘Venom: The Last Dance’. Photo: Laura Radford.
That description gives the narrative more credit than it may deserve. For its first half, ‘The Last Dance’ is a loosely connected string of bits, jokes, and ideas, with Eddie and Venom bickering more like an old married couple than ever before (“I want to see a Broadway show!” rumbles the symbiote as they discuss their sketchy plans to hide out in New York City). Their back-and-forth – with Hardy once again literally talking to himself in an admittedly impressive comic performance – is as ludicrous as ever, but a little more endearing. Because the film starts from a place of absurdity and stays there, the half-formed collection of skits that passes for a plot goes down easier this time.
The rest of the film finds Eddie/Venom turning a horse into a symbiote, catching a ride with a hippie family led by one-time ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ super-villain Rhys Ifans in a psychedelic Volkswagen van, and taking a side trip to Vegas that serves no purpose except to allow Venom to participate in a dance sequence. All of it leads to an extended climax in which the plot strands, such as they are, unravel in an orgy of CG mayhem.
Marcel, making her directorial debut after toiling for years as a screenwriter, opens up the action more than the previous films, dumping Eddie in the Southwest and giving us the occasional nice vista to take in. But the entire third act takes place in one dark, bland military location, recalling the smallish feel of the first two films, and while she has a solid sense of place during the action scenes, the preponderance of CG-generated monsters in the third act turns much of the climax into sludge.
Yes, there is a bit of heart involved as well, with Eddie and Venom potentially facing the end of their marriage – sorry, we mean parasitic relationship – but none of it really matters. Whatever entertainment value ‘Venom: The Last Dance’ has all comes down to the fact that it revels this time out in its own dumbness, and is better off for it…as far as that goes.
The Cast
(L to R) Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor star in Columbia Pictures ‘Venom: The Last Dance’. Photo: Laura Radford.
This is the Tom Hardy show through and through. Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor are accomplished actors, but their characters are barely fleshed out beyond “stock scientist” and “stock soldier,” with Temple given some half-baked back story about she and her brother getting hit by lightning on a beach. Rhys Ifans’ Martin is the only other character who gets some significant runway, but even his character – along with his ever-patient wife and annoying kids – contributes pretty much nothing meaningful to the story.
Hardy, on the other hand, fills the screen, and even though Eddie isn’t the most articulate guy on the planet (although he’s a regular Chatty Kathy compared to Hardy’s grunting, mumbling motorcycle club leader in ‘The Bikeriders’), he’s clearly just letting rip here and having the time of his life without a thought about whether any of it makes a lick of sense. His throw-it-all-at-the-wall work across all three ‘Venom’ films may end up being the oddest sustained performance of any actor’s career.
Final Thoughts
Tom Hardy stars as Eddie Brock/Venom in Columbia Pictures ‘Venom: The Last Dance’. Photo: Courtesy of Sony Pictures.
As we stated at the beginning, ‘Venom: The Last Dance’ is not a good film – but it is a marginally more satisfying experience than its predecessors. Maybe it’s the crazy, old-school British comedy feel that Marcel and Hardy somehow filter their twisted superhero movie through, or perhaps it’s Eddie’s surprising admission that Venom is “his best friend,” but this one feels a little more bearable.
Having said that, three movies is enough. ‘The Last Dance’ does bring Eddie and Venom’s journey to a conclusion, although the post-credits scenes, of course, leave room for more. But Sony’s universe of Spider-Man villain movies without Spider-Man has been running on empty for a long time, and the ‘Venom’ franchise should go out now on what passes for probably the highest note it’ll ever hit. Let it be the last dance indeed.
‘Venom: The Last Dance’ receives 5.5 out of 10 stars.
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What is the plot of ‘Venom: The Last Dance’?
Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his alien symbiote Venom are on the run – not just from government authorities and law enforcement, but from Venom’s creator, the powerful entity known as Knull.
Who is in the cast of ‘Venom: The Last Dance’?
Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock/Venom
Chiwetel Ejiofor as General Rex Strickland
Juno Temple as Dr. Payne
Rhys Ifans as Martin
Peggy Lu as Mrs. Chen
Stephen Graham as Patrick Mulligan/Toxin
Venom in Columbia Pictures ‘Venom: The Last Dance’. Photo: Sony Pictures.
The original ‘Ray Donovan’ series starred Liev Schreiber as the title character, a tough nut fixer in the sprawling mecca of the rich and famous. Ray does the dirty work for LA’s top power players as the go-to guy who makes the problems of the city’s celebrities, superstar athletes, and business moguls disappear.
But he also had to juggle family issues, particularly his ex-con father, played by Jon Voight.
Liev Schreiber as Raymond “Ray” Donovan in ‘Ray Donovan.’ Photo: Jeff Neumann/Showtime.
This new show seems unlikely (at least at this point, it’s still being kept mostly under wraps) to feature anyone from ‘Ray Donovan,’ and indeed its title has shifted from ‘The Donovans’ to ‘Guy Ritchie’s The Associate.’ But thanks to Deadline, we do at least know who will appear.
According to Deadline, Tom Hardy, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan are all in final negotiations for the new series, which is backed by Paramount+.
Featuring a family of fixers who solve problems for the most powerful clients in Europe, ‘The Associate will see fortunes and reputations at risk, odd alliances unfold, and betrayal around every corner; as the nature of their business means there is no guarantee what’s in store tomorrow.
Hardy –– who appeared in Ritchie’s ‘RocknRolla’ –– will play Harry, the main fixer, a man who is as dangerous as he is handsome.
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Mirren and Brosnan ––who recently finished working together on the Netflix film adaptation of Richard Osman’s mystery novel ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ –– would star as the crime family’s matriarch and patriarch, respectively.
Ritchie, who, let’s not forget also has his TV spin-off of ‘The Gentlemen’ headed for a second season on Netflix and a film career to keep bubbling along, will be an executive producer and direct the 10-episode initial run of the show.
The actual writing and show-running duties fall to Ronan Bennett, who created ‘Top Boy’ and wrote movies such as ‘Face’ and ‘Public Enemies.’
When will ‘Guy Ritchie’s The Associate’ be on screens?
Given that it just started filming last month, we’re not sure we see the series debuting later this year as originally planned (though with Ritchie’s output of late, it’s not impossible), and would predict it’ll see screens next year.
Actor Jake Gyllenhaal (left) and director Guy Ritchie (right) on the set of ‘The Covenant,’ a Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film. Credit: Christopher Raphael / Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Tom Hardy will appear in ‘Blood on Snow’.
It adapts Jo Nesbø’s 2015 novel.
‘Beasts of No Nation’s Cary Joji Fukunaga is in the director’s chair.
Novelist Jo Nesbø’s work has been a frequent source for movies and TV series during the last decade in particular. But even when utilizing his particular blend of frosty climes and dangerous crimes, the results haven’t always worked out the way the filmmakers intended –– witness the misfiring 2017 adaptation of serial killer thriller ‘The Snowman’.
The ‘Blood on Snow’ narrative is set in 1970’s Oslo, where two rival gang leaders — Hoffman and the Fisherman (Hardy) —vie for control.
Hoffman’s trusted hitman, Olav (Johnson), is a cold, efficient killer, perfect for the job. But beneath his ruthless exterior lies an unexpected intelligence and an unwavering moral code shaped by a complicated childhood.
When Hoffman orders his own wife to be murdered, Olav’s principles clash with his loyalties. Instead of pulling the trigger, he hatches a scheme that makes him Hoffman’s next target and with nowhere safe to turn, Olav forms an uneasy alliance that places him at the heart of Oslo’s deadly gang war.
Once a violent enforcer, Olav’s choice makes him an unlikely hero in a world where no good deed goes unpunished…
Who else is working on the movie?
Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Sergei Kravinoff / Kraven the Hunter in ‘Kraven the Hunter.’
While Nesbø does write a fair amount of other projects (see below), he’s not usually found adapting his own books. Yet ‘Blood on Snow’ will see him doing exactly that, working alongside Ben Power to bring the novel’s story to screens.
Hardy will also produce the movie via his company, Hardy Son & Baker, WME Independent and Range handling sales of the title at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival market, where it’s expected to be snapped up quickly given the talent involved.
Taylor-Johnson, last seen in ‘The Fall Guy,’ steps up to lead Sony’s latest stab at a Marvel movie, starring in ‘Kraven the Hunter,’ which is due in theaters on December 13th. And before that, Hardy will be back in that Sony universe for ‘Venom: The Last Dance,’ which lands on October 25th.
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What other Nesbø adaptations are in the works?
There are a few Nesbø productions at different stages right now. The writer himself has created a new TV series based on his Harry Hole books, and that’s filming at the moment. He’s also written a series called ‘So Long, Marianne,’ which is in post-production.
On the movie side, his short story ‘The Jealousy Man’ was adapted into a film called ‘Killer Heat’ and there are several other projects either written by him or based on his work in different stages of development.
Available to own or rent at home beginning July 9th is the new film ‘The Bikeriders,’ which was written and directed by Jeff Nichols (‘Mud,’ ‘Loving’) and based on the book of the same name by author Danny Lyon.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with writer and director Jeff Nichols about the digital release of ‘The Bikeriders’, his passion for the project, the structure of the film, Jodie Comer and Austin Butler’s onscreen chemistry, Tom Hardy’s performance, the challenges of shooting the motorcycle scenes, and why he loves working with Michael Shannon.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interview with director Jeff Nichols.
Director Jeff Nichols talks ‘The Bikeriders,’ which is available to own or rent at home beginning July 9th.
Moviefone: To begin with, I know that making ‘The Bikeriders’ was a long passion project for you. Now that the movie is finishing its theatrical run and about to be released on digital, how does it feel to know that audiences are finally seeing this film?
Jeff Nichols: It feels great. The responses that I think I appreciate the most are from people involved in motorcycle culture, not having grown up in that culture and around bikes, especially not growing up in the Midwest, growing up in the American South. Anytime someone says, “Hey, I grew up in Chicago in the 60s and my dad rode bikes, or I was around bikes, and man, you just nailed it.” Like any comments, and I’ve gotten a few of those. They seem to mean the most to me just because it is a kind of pat on the back and it’s a little bit of validation to all the work we did. So yeah, that’s it. I think that’s the thing that’s been most enjoyable for me.
MF: Can you talk about what attracted you to this specific material and why were you so passionate about getting this movie made?
JN: Look, honestly, it’s because of the people contained inside Danny’s book. You could say it’s the bikes and the hair and the clothes, that’s certainly something I was attracted to, but the truth is, in these interviews, they just felt like real people because they were. They felt like people trying to understand their place in the world, and that was very attractive to me, even more attractive than the bikes and the clothes and the hair, which was damn attractive. I think as a storyteller, you’re looking for human beings and you’re looking for human behavior that people can relate to, and they can say, “I know someone like that”, or “I am like that”, this is our connection through cinema. When I looked at Danny’s book and I read those interviews, I saw people and I saw behavior that I felt like people could connect to.
MF: Can you talk about the choice of telling the story from Kathy’s point of view and utilizing a documentary structure?
JN: The truth is Kathy was just the most interesting one in the book. Her interviews, they just kind of glow and it’s because she’s completely unfiltered. Jodie said something interesting about it. She said, “It’s almost like no one ever asked Kathy what she thought about things until Danny Lyon showed up.” It was a big statement for me to hear. Yeah, this woman in the 1960s, it’s like no one had ever bothered to ask her opinion about anything, and she was ready to give it, and she did in this kind of unvarnished, completely unfiltered way. I think it was undeniable as someone looking at the book to say, “Well, she needs to be the one to take us through this world.” Not because she’s an observer, it’s because she’s a participant. It’s because she’s dealing with the same thing that these guys are dealing with, which is this tension between romance and attraction and violence, which is kind of held in the motorcycle and it’s held in the motorcycle club. As far as the documentary style, it was a real challenge for me as a filmmaker. A lot of my films are classical in the directing style. They’re very linear in the storytelling style. Part of the challenge for me as a filmmaker was, I wanted this to feel like maybe a documentary crew went back in time and captured half of this movie at least. There are certainly scenes that start to fall into more of a narrative feel, but I wanted parts of it to feel like a documentary, which is why beyond even just Kathy’s interviews, you’re having portraiture with these guys sitting on their bikes kind of explaining things. It was very much set up to feel like a documentary for, like I said, about half of the film. At some point you wake up into the narrative and you have a better understanding of these characters because of the time you’ve spent with them. It was a strange tightrope to try to walk as a storyteller and as a writer, but one I’m proud of in the film.
MF: Can you talk about Kathy and Benny’s love story and the incredible chemistry that Austin Butler and Jodie Comer have together onscreen?
JN: These things are magical, and I don’t mean to get kind of too dreamy with my answer, but as a filmmaker, you have very real things in front of you, budgets and schedules, actors, and you look at them and you say, “You look good and you’re a good actor. Let’s see what happens when I put you with this other person”, and then this thing happens. Part of it is they’re both just so talented, but they’re also just so charismatic. I found this with Ruth Negga on ‘Loving’, Jodie’s eyes are disproportionately sized to the rest of her face, which makes her perfect to put on camera because there’s so much information going on inside of her eyes. It’s just a beautiful thing to watch. Then you have Austin who has this supreme control over what he’s doing. When he walks into that bar, turns that chair in and sits down, it looks like something I’ve seen in cinema lexicon, that feels like it’s existed for 60 years. I knew we had something special, and I wish I could tell you that I engineered it and all these other things. It is a magical thing that happens when you put the right people together in the right setting and the right project, and it happened right in front of my eyes, and it was incredible to watch.
MF: Can you talk about the challenges of shooting the motorcycle scenes and because of the period setting of the movie, needing to have very famous actors ride bikes without helmets? Was it difficult just getting insurance for the film?
JN: It was. We had a person on set whose whole job was just to coordinate with the insurance companies. At some point we collectively, the actors, the production, the studio, the insurance companies, everyone had to just accept a certain amount of risk, which as a director is terrifying because we’re just making a movie. It’s not worth hurting anyone, but when you put people on motorcycles, you’re never going to reach zero risk. So basically, we collectively had to accept that there was risk, and then move from there, do everything possible from there to make this experience as safe as possible. It was terrifying, I mean, it took years off my life. You film those scenes the way that you film stunt sequences, if you get it right, you’re done. That’s your one shot. You don’t go back for another take, to just see if something else happens, you just get it. Like the bike shot of Austin, I believe we did that in two takes and I would’ve loved a third take, but we got it in the first take, and it was like, “We’re not going to do that again. We’re going to let this be.” The truth is a lot of that credit goes to our actors for the time they spent training on those bikes. Again, you must give credit to Austin, who’s not a stunt performer. He hasn’t been on these bikes for that long, but he makes himself look so comfortable while he’s riding. That is acting because I guarantee you, he doesn’t feel that comfortable on that bike. But he sold it and I’m so proud that we did it that way. I’m so proud that it’s in the film. In an age where everything is CG, everything is fake, I can’t help but think people will show up and watch this film and know somewhere in their brains that we did that.
MF: In the film, Tom Hardy’s Johnny is inspired to start the motorcycle club after watching Marlon Brando in ‘The Wild One’ and it seemed like Hardy was channeling Brando for his performance. Is that accurate and is that something you talked about with him?
JN: Yeah, it was a bit of his calculus. I think Jodie was sharing audio clips with me all along of the work that she was doing, but that’s because she had about an hour of actual audio of the real Kathy. So, she had something specific to go off. Tom didn’t. There was only one interview with the real Johnny, and we didn’t really like his voice. So, Tom was kind of, he had all the other audio examples to listen to, so he knew the world that he’d be living in, but he wanted to develop something for his character. What he kept saying to me was that he can’t be half a gangster. That seemed to be the mantra that he applied to his character, meaning this guy is, he’s not really a gang leader. He’s a guy that’s posing as a motorcycle gang leader, and that’s going to come back on him at some point because he’s not really built for this world. He’s playing a part. So, you have Tom Hardy playing the part of a person playing a part. Tom very clearly was like, “I think this guy grew up on movies. I think he grew up watching James Cagney. I think he grew up watching Marlon Brando, and I think he is putting on a persona.” So, he very intentionally took his voice into that higher inflection, and basically, it’s Johnny doing Brando. I didn’t hear his voice until the first day on set, and he only had a couple lines, and we kind of huddled afterwards. He said, “What do you think?” For me, it was like Domino’s kind of falling backward because I understood we had had all these conversations. I understood exactly what he’s connecting to. It’s like, “I think it’s great, man. Just go with it.” It adds this odd vulnerability to that character. Imagine him only just being gruff, it is less interesting, I think, in my opinion.
MF: Finally, you’ve cast Michael Shannon in every movie you’ve ever directed. Can you talk about why you love working with him and having him on your sets?
JN: Well, the set part, he adds a level of focus to everybody. We filmed his two monologues in the first week and getting this incredible group of actors together, who I’m not familiar with, who I haven’t done a lot of work with, but having everybody sit around and listen to Mike give a monologue, two monologues in a Jeff Nichols film, it was like a grounding force to the whole production, and it kind of set the bar. It was like, “Okay, we’re in a Jeff Nichols film now. We just heard Mike Shannon give a monologue”. I know that the younger actors look up to him, but Tom as well. He and Tom, I think I’ll get this correctly, they used to be in an acting troop together that Philip Seymour Hoffman led, so they knew each other. Austin tells a great story of about three takes in on Mike’s first monologue, the one leaning on the bike, Tom leaned into him and said, “Oh, he’s in it now.” It was a great actor recognizing another great actor for being in the moment. That’s always the case with Mike. I’ve learned to direct because of Mike, and the truth is he makes me look better. He makes my dialogue better. He’s so thoughtful. But you hear a lot about these actors that they’ll show up and rip out the script pages and start to do their own thing. Look, to each their own, but Mike has a tremendous amount of respect for the words that I write. He knows how much time I spend, and he likes the words I write. They make sense to him the way that I think and the way that I write dialogue and character behavior and movement, they seem to make sense to Mike. So, when he shows up, he’s taking what’s on the page and just bringing it to life in a way that I love the way it looks and sounds and moves. He makes all my work better every time. He doesn’t miss.
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What is the plot of ‘The Bikeriders’?
‘The Bikeriders’ captures a rebellious time in America when the culture and people were changing. After a chance encounter at a local bar, strong-willed Kathy (Jodie Comer) is inextricably drawn to Benny (Austin Butler), the newest member of Midwestern motorcycle club, the Vandals led by the enigmatic Johnny (Tom Hardy). Much like the country around it, the club begins to evolve, transforming from a gathering place for local outsiders into a dangerous underworld of violence, forcing Benny to choose between Kathy and his loyalty to the club.
Motorcycle club culture remains an enigma to most people; to some, it represents freedom and the ability to live outside the mainstream, while to others it appears to be a dangerous and even criminal lifestyle. Set in the 1960s, ‘The Bikeriders’ balances right on the cusp of those two extremes, with writer-director Jeff Nichols chronicling the history of a (semi-fictional) biker club and the people in its orbit navigating both a changing American landscape and the nature of their community itself.
Bolstered by several great performances from Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, and the supporting cast, ‘The Bikeriders’ is always entertaining and often fascinating. But its shifting point of view and meandering narrative keep it from becoming the great American epic that Nichols clearly wants to make.
In 1968, photojournalist Danny Lyon published a book called ‘The Bikeriders,’ which illustrated through photos and text the four years he spent with a motorcycle club known as the Chicago Outlaws. Jeff Nichols, writer-director of ‘Mud,’ ‘Loving,’ and ‘Take Shelter,’ was inspired by Lyon’s book to create a fictional club, the Vandals, incorporating elements of Lyon’s book and versions of the real-life club members into the rambling narrative of his first feature film in seven years.
Lyon appears in the movie as well, played by Mike Faist (‘Challengers’), and it’s his interviews that in some ways form the spine of the film. Much of it is told in flashback by Kathy (Jodie Comer), a blue-collar Midwestern girl who meets and falls in love with (and eventually marries) Benny (Austin Butler), a brooding, charming Vandals member who is the protégé of Johnny (Tom Hardy), the founder and leader of the club.
Kathy is our way into the story, but it’s here that Nichols’ narrative structure begins to run into problems. With much of the story told from her viewpoint, we never quite get into the inner workings of either Benny or Johnny, the two men who dominate both her life and that of the club. We learn that Johnny – who has a wife and two daughters – decides to form the Vandals after watching the Marlon Brando movie ‘The Wild One’ on television one night. Most of the members of the club are working class, but it’s hinted that Benny – who is as non-verbal as a person can be – comes from a more prosperous background that he’s estranged from. Do these men congregate in the Vandals as a means of rebellion? Or to find a surrogate family? It’s never really made clear.
What is clear is that the club slowly begins to evolve from a kind of weekend hobby into a criminal organization, attracting more unsavory characters and activities into its orbit. After Benny is almost beaten to death when he walks into a rival bar wearing the gang’s colors, Kathy wants him to quit. But of course, the Vandals are the means through which Benny finds identity and purpose, and he’s also being groomed by Johnny to take over when the latter retires, although why Johnny’s motivations for wanting to bow out are murky at best.
The heart of the film is the tug-of-war between Kathy and Johnny for Benny’s love and loyalty, set against the shifting societal background of late ‘60s America and the changing nature of the club and its purpose. Yet the way in which Nichols tells the story, shifting back and forth in time and never quite allowing us to get into the heads of either Johnny or Benny, makes for a story that lacks urgency or drama, with the allure of the club itself and the stakes for its members never as forcefully presented as they should be.
Despite its structural flaws, ‘The Bikeriders’ still manages to be an entertaining watch. The film is bursting with exacting period details, and Nichols recreates the ramshackle late ‘60s milieu of Midwestern suburban, blue-collar enclaves, rundown homes, and darkened, grimy bars with perfectly immersive effect. And you can’t help but be fascinated, amused, and sometimes gripped by the antics of the club and its members, although Nichols never quite allows the film or its characters to make the case strongly enough for what draws them to this lifestyle.
While most of the characters are thinly drawn, Jodie Comer’s Kathy is the exception: Comer is outstanding as the no-nonsense, plainspoken, common-sense-smart Midwestern woman who is pulled in a feral way toward Benny and who can appreciate the protective, strength-in-numbers nature of the club (never more so than in a harrowing scene when some bikers who crash a Vandals party try to rape her).
At the same time, Kathy’s eyes are always open to the changes in Benny, Johnny, and the Vandals. For her it’s not just matter of love, but practicality: she wants her husband to live, and their lives to stabilize. Through her voice (and dead-on accent), her reliable way of telling the story, and her agency in dealing with both Benny and Johnny, Kathy proves that she knows who she is and what her life has become, and how to change it. Comer shines throughout the film, her expressive eyes and collected demeanor telling us plenty about this engaging woman.
As for the two men in her life, Tom Hardy kind of grunts and mumbles his way through a lot of the movie as a man who has never truly learned to express himself until he got on a bike, and for whom the Vandals may be the greatest thing he ever created, until it’s not. But even with minimal dialogue, Hardy is always such a formidable presence that he captures Johnny’s quiet strength and fearlessness effortlessly. Even though he becomes a criminal, one can almost empathize with Johnny thanks to his steadfast loyalty and unwavering devotion to his own ways (even as the other bikers grow their hair long, Johnny keeps his greased back, just as he saw it in ‘The Wild One’).
Austin Butler’s Benny is less successfully fleshed out, and of the three main players has the least to do. He basically broods, sulks, and occasionally lashes out in anger, his own motivations hidden behind a curtain of tics and poses. Butler, so electrifying in ‘Elvis’ and ‘Dune: Part Two,’ is still charismatic here, but he’s the weakest link in the dramatic triangle of Kathy, Johnny, and Benny, only because he’s pulled between the two yet doesn’t offer enough insight into what he really wants.
While much of the supporting cast, meaning basically the members of the Vandals, don’t get a chance to differentiate themselves from their compatriots, two stand out: Nichols muse Michael Shannon is excellent as always as Zipco, the often hilarious yet clearly unstable wild card of the gang, while Norman Reedus puts Daryl Dixon on steroids as Funny Sonny, a California biker who comes out to Chicago to scope out the Vandals and ends up hanging on with them (in one amusing scene, he even gets paid to stand outside a movie theater and encourage passers-by to go in and watch ‘Easy Rider’).
Jeff Nichols seems to be going for an objective portrait of the Vandals with ‘The Bikeriders’: he wants to document this lifestyle without passing judgment on it. But that leaves the movie without a point of view: the sheer freedom and exhilaration of the lifestyle is never quite captured, leaving us more often with a view of the Vandals’ grubby, hand-to-mouth, dissolute existence. The fall of the Vandals might be more tragic if we got a sense of what made being part of the gang – or any club of this kind – so compelling.
Even at over two hours, ‘The Bikeriders’ feels in the end like a series of sketches that never quite add up to the story that Nichols seems to want to tell. In this case, a limited series might have worked better, giving us a chance to dig into the characters’ lives and the existence of the club with more clarity and understanding. As it stands, ‘The Bikeriders’ is like a photo book with no accompanying text: intriguing and often arresting to look at, without enough context of what we’re seeing.
‘The Bikeriders’ receives 6.5 out of 10 stars.
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What is the plot of ‘The Bikeriders’?
In the late 1960s, Kathy (Jodie Comer) begins a relationship with Benny (Austin Butler), a member of the Chicago Vandals motorcycle club led by Johnny (Tom Hardy). The couple’s ups and downs parallel that of the club as they go through a turbulent period of transformation and growth.
The third ‘Venom’ Movie’s title is ‘Venom: The Last Dance’
Tom Hardy is back to star, with co-writer Kelly Marcel directing.
This new film will now be released in October.
Things are changing for the third movie in the successful (though seemingly despite itself) ‘Venom’ franchise –– and for once in the increasingly beleaguered superhero genre, it’s more in a positive direction. Not only has the film been moved forward in terms of its release, but we now know it’ll be called ‘Venom 3: The Last Dance’.
‘Venom’ has proved to be one of the few bright spots of Sony’s Marvel-adjacent Spider-Man universe. While they have never been the biggest hit among critics, the Tom Hardy-starring movies have certainly scored with audiences, as the box office figures have shown.
So what can we speculate based on that title? ‘The Last Dance’ suggests the end of the story for now, but also the potential for a musical element. Given the bizarre partnership of man and symbiote that are a key point of the movies, we could certainly posit a crazed musical sequence.
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What’s the story of ‘Venom’ so far?
Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and Venom in 2021’s ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage.’
Launching in 2018 with the first movie, ‘Venom’ sees Hardy as Eddie Brock, an investigative journalist struggling to keep his career afloat and hang on to his crumbling social life.
His world is already falling apart before he’s accidentally infected with the alien symbiote, which takes over his body and causes him to become a violent creature that is only too happy to eat people.
Eddie eventually forges an unlikely partnership with the creature that shares his body, and they end up fighting evil (and occasionally, yes, still eating people) together.
Though the original ‘Venom’, directed by ‘Zombieland’s Ruben Fleischer, scored some awful reviews, it was a big box office hit, earning more than $850 million dollars.
Naturally, Sony commissioned a sequel, which saw Kelly Marcel, a long-time friend/collaborator of Hardy working together with the actor to write the script (they’d taken over from previous writers Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg on the first movie, sharing credit that time).
2021’s ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ saw actor-turned-director Andy Serkis taking over the director’s chair, with Eddie and Venom facing off against violent, psychopathic serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), who merges with another symbiote and becomes the terrifying monster known as Carnage.
It was another blend of less-than-enthusiastic reviews but still healthy box office, ending up with a little over $500 million.
Who is making ‘Venom 3: The Last Dance’?
(L to R) Director Andy Serkis and Tom Hardy on the set of 2021’s ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage.’
Even with the latest title news, there are few plot details available for the new movie. We can expect some of the usual hand (tentacle?) wringing about whether he’s an antihero or a slavering, sarcastic alien beast, and probably some of the comedy for which the franchise has been known so far.
For the third, Marcel has stepped up to direct, which might seem like a daunting task, but we’ll wait and see how it works out. Juno Temple, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Clark Backo are all among the cast joining Hardy on screen this time.
Venom, created by writer Bill Michelinie and artist Todd McFarlane, was famously introduced as a villain in 1988’s ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ No. 300, and quickly became a fan-favorite as well as one of his arch-nemeses. He got his first solo comic in 1993.
