Disney Just Dropped A Bunch Of Surprise Star Wars Dates

Disney Just Dropped A Bunch Of Surprise Star Wars Dates

This December marks the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the final chapter of the Skywalker Saga. Following that, Lucasfilm had already made it clear that the franchise set in a galaxy far, far away would take a bit of a break from the big screen, but now we’ve learned that it won’t gone for too long. Because by 2022, Star Wars movies will be playing again at a theater near you.

Disney announced today that starting in 2022, three new “as-yet-untitled” Star Wars movies will be released on the pre-Christmas weekend every other year. That means Star Wars fans will get their fill of new cinematic adventures in 2022, 2024 and 2026. So once the Skywalker Saga wraps up, the franchise will take a three-year breather, and then return to turn the page on a new chapter of this space opera epic.

Movie studios announcing the release dates of major blockbusters years ahead of time is nothing new, but this now gives Star Wars fans a firm launch date on the post-Skywalker Saga era. It’s interesting that rather than release a Star Wars movie every year as has been happening since The Force Awakens came out, Disney and Lucasfilm are now taking a more reserved approach and delivering a Star Wars movie every two years.

What’s unclear is what Star Wars movies these will be. The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is putting together a new trilogy after his next movie, Knives Out, is released, and Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have their own trilogy in the works. Unless Disney and Lucasfilm change their minds and decide to throw additional Star Wars movies into 2023, 2025 and 2027, that means that whatever next set of films is coming next, we’ll have to wait a long time for the other set to arrive.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Friday before Christmas weekend in 2022 is December 16, and that’s the same day that Warner Bros has Aquaman 2 slated for release. So unless one of them is willing to move from that date, we’ll have a Star Wars vs. DC showdown at the box office. My guess is that Aquaman 2 is the likeliest to exit that slot, as aside from Solo: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars movies have all come out right before Christmas in the Disney era.

Related: Natalie Portman Had A Tough Time Dealing With The The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Backlash

Of course, even without any Star Wars movies between 2019 and 2022, it’s not like there will be a lack of Star Wars content during that time. Along with numerous novels, comic books and video games being churned out, Disney+ will keep fans entertained with The Mandalorian and the still-to-be-titled series focusing on Cassian Andor and K-2SO.

Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more updates on the Star Wars movies coming out on December 16, 2022; December 20, 2024; and December 18, 2026. In the meantime, you can look forward to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hitting theaters on December 20.

Read More

Shazam! Star Zachary Levi Doesn’t Know What’s Next For The DC Hero

Shazam! Star Zachary Levi Doesn’t Know What’s Next For The DC Hero

What the hell did you guys do to Shazam!? Despite David F. Sandberg turning in a winning origin story for the teenage DC hero, one that mixed humor and horror with the right dash of family heart, Shazam! stalled out at the box office with $137 million domestically. I think Avengers: Endgame earned that much in a single day last week.

Shazam! didn’t exactly catch fire with audiences, which explains why the movie’s star, Zachary Levi, is unsure about the fate of a possible sequel. During a fan panel at Fan Expo Dallas, Levi was asked about a next chapter for Shazam, and he told the audience (via ComicBook.com):

I see him wherever my bosses tell me to take him. That's above my pay grade, bro. Like, literally, I ... And I'm totally fine with that, too. You know, I'm still being introduced to the character that I played and to the world that he inhabits. You know, there are Geoff Johns and Walter Hamada, and all the people at DC, who are very smart and very talented. And they are putting together, I think, some very cool things and journeys for all of these characters, Shazam included, Captain Marvel included.

That sounds like a textbook answer when an actor is asked a question about a sequel that might be in doubt. Shazam! isn’t posting the types of numbers that guarantee a follow-up story. Sure, it’s going better overseas, posting a grand total of $358 million. But it’s the lowest grossing film in the DCEU to date, sitting far below the disaster that is Justice League, so that’s not a vote of confidence in a Shazam! sequel, no matter how good the reviews were.

Which is disappointing, because almost everything in the DCEU is getting a sequel at this point. Jason Momoa recently proclaimed that the story for Aquaman 2 is locked. We’re waiting patiently for Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot to deliver Wonder Woman 1984. And James Gunn is about to deliver a second Suicide Squad.

There are even some very cool places that another Shazam! movie could go. The post-credits scene teased the arrival of Mister Mind and the Monster Society of Evil. And there have been plans to bring The Rock’s villain Black Adam into the fold for some time now. But if there isn’t a sequel, none of this will happen.

Maybe DC and Warner Bros. look at Shazam! as a successful soft launch for a character who didn’t exactly have household name recognition? The reviews were solid for the movie – it sits at 90% Fresh with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 87% Fresh from audiences. And Levi largely got raves for his portrayal of the titular character.

We’ll see if a second Shazam! ever gets added to DC’s release slate, but for the time being, Levi himself seems to be in the dark. To stay up to date on all of the happenings in the DCEU, bookmark CinemaBlend’s DC Portal Page for this cinematic universe, and visit it often.

Read More

The Hellboy Reboot Will Surprise A Lot Of People, Ian McShane Says

The Hellboy Reboot Will Surprise A Lot Of People, Ian McShane Says

It's no secret that superhero movies are everywhere. Comic book adaptations have been proven the most profitable and popular genre in the business, with plenty of studios making their own attempts at box office supremacy. Guillermo del Toro adapted the Hellboy comics back in the early 2000's, and now a reboot is heading to theaters starring Stranger Things' David Harbour as the title character.

Joining David Harbour in the new Hellboy cast is Ian McShane, who has been seen in the John Wick and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises, as well as Game of Thrones. McShane is taking on the role of Hellboy's father figure Trevor Bruttenholm, which was played in the original Hellboy movies by John Hurt. According to the 76 year-old actor, the new movie is going to pack plenty of surprises. He recently said:

Hellboy, yeah! I think that’s going to surprise a lot of people. David [Harbour of Stranger Things] is a marvelous actor. He just fills out the role. It was nice and bittersweet taking over [Professor Bruttenholm] from a dear old friend of mine, John Hurt. But it’s not Part 3. It’s a complete reboot of [Guillermo del Toro’s] Hellboy, and I think they picked the right guy in David. It was a pleasure to work with him and be in Bulgaria for three weeks, a country I’ve never been to before. Greatest fresh vegetables I’ve ever tasted. And the scripts are funny and smart and bright, and the action is fantastic, and I have grandkids who love all that. They can’t wait.

It looks like Hellboy is going to be a blockbuster that somewhat defies genre, at least according to Ian McShane's description of the project. The script will feature comedy and brightness, while the R-rated reboot will also be far more violent and bloody than Guillermo del Toro's set of films. So basically, there's no telling what's coming down the pipeline.

Ian McShane's comments to the New York Times are sure to excite fans of Hellboy, as well as moviegoers who are curious about the new adaptation. Comic fans are always looking to how accurately the work on the page will be adapted for the silver screen. Guillermo del Toro brought the colorful world to life through his movies, but the PG-13 rating prevented them from being as brutal as the title character is wont to be. So that'll likely be one big way the upcoming movie will surprise audiences.

But Ian McShane also referenced how comedic and light Hellboy will be at the same time. The trailers showed how much attitude David Harbour will have as the big red guy, and it'll be fascinating to see how "funny and smart and bright" the bloody superhero adaptation ends up being.

All will be revealed when Hellboy arrives in theaters on April 12, 2019. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

Read More

How To Train Your Dragon’s Director Felt Like A Failure While Writing Each Movie

How To Train Your Dragon’s Director Felt Like A Failure While Writing Each Movie

The How to Train Your Dragon movies have been one of the more successful film franchises of any kind in recent years. All three films have been overwhelmingly popular with fans and have done quite well at the box office. While the creators of the series make it look easy, franchise director Dean DeBlois says it's anything but, as when he closes himself off to work on the story of each film, it feels like it's all going to fall apart. According to DeBlois...

But there is always a moment where we isolate ourselves from everyone else, and it’s just the two of us, in the case of the first film, or alone on the second and third, where I just work with an outline and kind of hammer that out in the most classic way possible. Just with pads of paper and lots of crumpled sheets in the trash. We’re trying to work out the structure of the story. Then we take that outline and transcribe it into script pages, fleshing it out and really developing character and plot that way. It’s a lonely and difficult process for me, because it’s full of self loathing and procrastination, and just feeling like a failure.

Considering what a success every movie has been, it's hard to imagine somebody feeling like a failure, but that's what Dean DeBlois tells Cartoon Brew. At the same time, each story is created from scratch, and there's no guarantee that just because you made one good movie, the next one will be any good. While you're writing it you can't be completely sure that your ideas will work, and the more success you have, the more you second guess yourself.

As both the writer and director of the How to Train Your Dragon series, there's nobody else to help you or to even tell you that you're on the right track. Dean DeBlois worked with collaborators on the first movie, but the second and third were all him.

Luckily, whatever magic that struck on the first movie hung around on the two sequels. All three films were massive hits and the newest one, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is being praised for the way it brings the series to a close. Ending a franchise has to be tough, it has to be done in a way that those who have been following from the beginning feel like it's all been worthwhile. Lots of stories that start out great have difficulty sticking the landing. Not this one.

Of course, now that Dean Deblois has ended the story, he has to find a new story to tell, which likely means the process will start all over again. Of course, we know that the How to Train Your Dragon movies were no fluke, so we can be confident that wherever he goes, a good story is likely to follow.

Read More

Shazam!’s Director Wants To Return For A Sequel

Shazam!’s Director Wants To Return For A Sequel

The next DCEU film may not have hit theaters just yet, but it looks like the filmmakers had such a blast working on the movie that they would say yes to making a sequel in a Shazam! Director David F. Sandberg and producer Peter Safran have confirmed their interest in continuing Billy Batson’s story past his upcoming superhero origin story, so stay tuned!

There’s still a couple of weeks before Shazam! hits theaters, but the movie has already received some early positive buzz from critics and will follow the DCEU hype after the recent massive success of Aquaman. So, whispers of sequels may not be completely beating the studio to the punch.

During an interview with ComicBook, Sandberg and Safran were asked if they were ready to take on a second Shazam! The producer jumped in first with an enthusiastic “Absolutely!” before turning to the Shazam! director, who said “Let’s do it!” How the movie is received when it makes its way to theaters does have quite the pull, so if you’re already excited for a sequel go see Shazam! On the big screen!

Early tracking estimates that the superhero flick will makes around $50 million during its opening weekend, as Stephen King remake, Pet Sematary treads closely behind with at around $40 to $45 million. In comparison, Aquaman nabbed $67 million during its first weekend alongside other big new openers Mary Poppins and Bumblebee and went on to become an over $1.1 billion hit. On the other hand, Aquaman wasn’t sandwiched between Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame.

Shazam! will also follow the releases of Disney’s live-action Dumbo and Jordan Peele’s second film after his buzzy Get Out debut. How will this change how much attention the next DCEU film gets in the midst of so many exciting releases? Only time will tell.

The movie starring Zachary Levi has been getting a warm reception so far, as early audiences have called it delightful, funny, heartwarming and a sweet call back to classics such as Big, The Goonies and Superman. Shazam! is unique from other superhero films because it is told from the perspective of kids and also looks to feature tons of DCEU jokes with jabs at Batman and Aquaman.

Shazam! follows Billy Batson (Asher Angel) and Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer), a pair of foster kids, as Billy obtains the ability to transform into an adult hero with superpowers (Zachary Levi). While the teenagers start off having a fun time playing around with his abilities, Billy must learn to become an actual superhero and take on a formidable foe named Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong).

The DCEU has had a mix of successes and disappointments, but from the looks of it, Shazam! has the makings of starting a hot streak for the franchise that could call for a sequel. Check out Shazam! on April 5 and maybe David F. Sandberg and Peter Safran will get their wish after all.

Read More

Why Dark Phoenix Reshot Its Original Ending, According To Simon Kinberg

Why Dark Phoenix Reshot Its Original Ending, According To Simon Kinberg

The following story will not contain spoilers for Dark Phoenix**. However, we will discuss the story a bit, so on the off chance you want to go into next week’s release knowing absolutely nothing, stop reading right now.**

Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) seems destined to interact with the Phoenix force. It happens in comics, in one of Marvel’s most popular comic storylines. It happened in the initial run of X-Men movies, captured in The Last Stand. And now that the timeline has been reset via X-Men: Days of Futures Past, it’s about to happen to the version of Jean that we met in X-Men: Apocalypse.

Longtime X-Men writer and producer Simon Kinberg steps into the director’s chair for Dark Phoenix, which opens everywhere on June 7. And in a recent chat with EW, he dropped a terrific tease of an alternate ending to his debut film that he ended up reshooting, mentioning only that it took place in outer space. (This isn’t so far-fetched, as trailers have shown us that the X-Men are on a space mission when Jean interacts with the Phoenix in this film.)

As a rabid fan of the X-Men characters, I was curious about this original ending, though when I asked Kinberg about it during a recent press event in London for Dark Phoenix, he candidly told me why he thought the space finale had to be changed. He told CinemaBlend:

That was a version that was when it was sort of the less-grounded version of the movie. … It wasn’t a version of the movie where the X-Men and the family are -- we weren’t as focused on them coming together at the end of the movie. It was really more entirely Jean, and what it lacked was this sort of emotional closure. Thinking of this movie as the sort of culmination of all of the X-Men movies, where these strangers have become this sort of surrogate family, and then in this movie they get challenged like they’ve never been challenged before, it felt like at the end of the movie, it would be much more satisfying for the audience to both see Jean have extraordinary power… but also see the X-Men come back together as a family and perform. I sort of wanted to do both.

How they come together, we will leave it for you to learn by checking out Dark Phoenix. But it can be shared that one of the most exciting elements of the new film is the fact that we see the X-Men working together as a team for one of the few times in franchise history (for real, this group is usually so fractured and ostracized), so it makes sense why Simon Kinberg made the decisions that he made.

In Dark Phoenix, the X-Men must figure out a way to contain one of their own after Jean (Sophie Turner) encounters an alien force that greatly amplifies her natural mutation.

The movie co-stars X-Men alums James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult, while giving more screen time to Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Evan Peters and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Dark Phoenix is being viewed as the culmination of this X-Men saga, so see where the story goes on June 7.

Read More

Toy Story 4 Is Going To Have More Easter Eggs Than You Can Count

Toy Story 4 Is Going To Have More Easter Eggs Than You Can Count

If you're a serious Pixar fan, then you probably enjoy hunting for classic Pixar easter eggs. From the Pizza Planet truck to the Luxo Ball, there are always little hidden nods to the history and future of Pixar in every feature film the company produces, but Toy Story 4 is going to put them all to shame, as the movie may very well have more easter eggs hidden inside it than it is possible to count.

Last month i had a chance to visit Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. While there i had a chance to take a pretty deep dive into the production of Toy Story 4 including the new locations the story will visit. One of those locations, as viewed in the trailer, is an antiques mall where Woody sees that Bo Peep has ended up, and where we meet the film's villain, the doll Gabby Gabby.

I spoke with Pixar Sets Supervisor Thomas Jordan and Sets Technical Director Rosie Cole about the work they did creating the mall, and they reveled how much work they did creating all the references. According to Jordan...

In the antique mall in particular there's so many objects that are just beyond the view of the characters and there's lots of fun things, especially easter eggs and homages to other Pixar films and jokes that you would get if you watched all of our movies.

The antiques mall is just full of objects. It's packed to the ceiling with stuff. However, it's not just any stuff. As the animation team responsible for creating the environment revealed, a lot of the objects that have placed around the characters are actually easter eggs referencing all sorts of other Pixar films.

Among the easter eggs to look out for in the Toy Story 4 antique store:

Elastigirl's Elasticycle from Incredibles 2 can be seen as a toy

A scream canister from Monsters Inc is partially visible

A pinball machine that uses the Maori statues from the aquarium from Finding Nemo

A record of "Remember Me" from Coco playing on a gramophone

Not every easter egg in Toy Story 4 can be found in the antique store however. The other major location seen in the Toy Story 4 trailer is a carnival, and and Thomas Jordan let me know about one very fitting Pixar easter egg that will be visible there.

The balloon cart from Up, because Carl was a balloon salesman. His balloon cart, complete with the balloons are in the carnival.

Several Pixar easter eggs are seen in all, or nearly all, of the studio's films. The Luxo Ball, the yellow ball with the red star on it, that was screen in Pixar's first short Luxo Jr. Can be seen as a sticker on the toy rockers in the image above from the trailer. The Pizza Planet truck, which made its debut in the original Toy Story will appear in Toy Story 4 as well, though Thomas Jordan told me in won't appear in a way that viewers might expect.

The Pizza Planet truck is in the movie, but it’s seen in a very unusual way. I think the audience will see it, and I think they will be surprised.

Another Pixar tradition is placing an easter egg for Pixar's next film in the current one. That means that we'll see a reference to Pixar's Onward at some point. I asked for a hint as to where we'll be able to see it. The only thing I was told was where it won't be found.

We can tell you it is not in the antiques mall.

Of course, since very little of Onward has been shown to the public, there's a decent chance we won't even know what the easter egg was until after we see the movie in 2020.

I asked the team how many easter eggs that they'd created might not even be visible in Toy Story 4 because they'd been covered by other objects, potentially other easter eggs, and they admitted that might very well be the case. It seems that to see every reference that the new film has to offer, it will either require multiple viewings in the theater, or more likely, a frame by frame analysis once Toy Story 4 comes out on Blu-ray.

Toy Story 4 arrives in theaters June 21.

Read More