FX’s horror series The Strain is set to return for a 10 episode season three on August 28, 2016. The series, which is based on the books by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro, is set in New York at the beginning of a vampire outbreak. Seasons one and two chronicled the spread of the epidemic and in season three there will no longer be any doubt that threat is very real. With the third season about to premiere, FX once again brought cast members from the popular series to San Diego for the sold-out Comic Con. Among the stars who made the trip were Ruta Gedmintas and Richard Sammel who play Dutch Velders and Thomas Eichorst, respectively.
The two, who shared one of season two’s most disturbing storylines, teamed up for interviews where they provided a little insight into what fans of the series can expect from the upcoming season.
Asked if we can expect more scenes featuring Dutch and Eichorst, Sammel replied, “The thing is that you at a certain point if you have a structure that imposes itself – like you used to have a lot of scenes with Palmer or you used to have a lot of scenes with Fet – at some point you have to break it just to make it sexy again because you can’t wait until it becomes un-sexy. You have to stop when it’s sexy. You certainly won’t see another pineapple scene between Dutch and Eichorst in season three because the thing is it’s done. We have to find the next level of it, and you’ll have the next level of that but in a very surprising way and perhaps not extended over five episodes.”
Speaking of scenes with their co-stars, the fearless group of vampire hunters is split up when season three begins. Asked if she missed working with some of the actors from seasons one and two, Gedmintas answered, “There were times where I would call up the writers and be like, ‘Can I have more scenes with this character, please? I miss them.’ But it was great because I got to work with people who I didn’t work with much in the first two seasons. I work a lot with Corey [Stoll] this season, so that was really fantastic. But it’s been a great sort of mix of storylines. I think that really powers the plot.”
Season three’s been described as the best yet and Gedmintas agrees. “It’s so epic. In actor terms I feel like they spent a lot of money because we were walking onto sets and they were…I mean, they’ve always been incredible but it was like a blockbuster movie every day. It was hugely ambitious,” said Gedmintas. “Everything is just amped up because we’re still in New York and so you have to, in order to keep the story moving, you have to create more tension and the stakes must be higher. So, this season really barrels through the pace.”
“It’s a little bit like the Statue of Liberty. Have you seen the Statue of Liberty and the tongue coming out? I’m not only talking about the (poster) that is in front of the hotel; I’m talking about the teaser you saw on the internet. I was so impressed by it and then I remembered that’s actually what I experienced the whole season through at the beginning of my working time when I went on set. I don’t know how many times I went on set and I was just (overwhelmed) by what they prepared in terms of sets and special effects,” added Sammel.
“You are given the means to be impressed yourself, even though you are one of the leads. I’m the bad guy and I’m supposed to know what happens, and I’m here and I’m like a kid. That’s a very, very, very good motivator to give it all. Give it all in, to be ready to go through 16 hours. I actually broke my record. I’ve done nearly 100 movies and I went through a lot of hard times, but this one is – what was my longest time on set? It was 21 hours and you don’t complain because you know they don’t do it in order to f**k you up. They do it because they know they need to. They have to wrap the set or whatever, and you go with it. If you are tempted to complain, you just have a look at your older comrades like David Bradley and he gives you a lesson of humility. So in whatever situation you are, you are inspired and supported.”
Watch the Ruta Gedmintas and Richard Sammel interview:
The Plot: The transformation has begun. It can no longer be denied — New York City is rapidly falling to an evil epidemic, and no one is coming to its rescue. Its citizens must fight or die.
Dr. Ephraim Goodweather and his unlikely allies tried to take down the embodiment of this evil — the Master — and failed. Now Eph and Dr. Nora Martinez concentrate on creating a biological weapon to wipe out the creatures, while Abraham Setrakian searches for an ancient book he hopes will reveal the strigoi’s entire history…and possibly a way to kill them. Meanwhile, the Master is out for revenge, unleashing new and even more terrifying breeds of bloodthirsty creatures. They need to find a way to defeat him before the infection spreads too far and becomes irreparable…before they become monsters themselves.
CBS’ new summer drama American Gothic premiered on June 22, 2016 and airs on Wednesday nights at 10pm ET/PT. Virginia Madsen stars as Madeline Hawthorne, the matriarch of a wealthy, dysfunctional family who may have a killer – or even two – in their midst. Antony Starr (Garrett Hawthorne) and Justin Chatwin (Cam Hawthorne) star as brothers who are each battling their own inner demons. Teamed up together at the 2016 San Diego Comic Con, Starr and Chatwin actually acted like siblings, attempting to one-up each other while answering questions.
I asked the onscreen brothers if they wanted to be told who the killer was from the start, and Chatwin says he definitely didn’t want to know. “When I first did Shameless I had that issue where I wanted to know where the characters are going so I can build the arc,” explained Chatwin. “And at the end of the day, I would get every script and I really enjoyed the process of just being a fan and being moment by moment and not knowing where it’s going because to me that’s more real life. I don’t know where this conversation’s going to go and I don’t know where I’m going next. So, I think I would craft an idea and it wouldn’t be as fancy.”
Starr had a different approach to his character. “I needed to know everything about the character. I had a very different trajectory. I was coming back after 14 years and clearly Suspect Number One so I needed to know everything that happened in the 14 years, everything that led up to that, and whether or not I did it,” explained Starr. “Everything the character knows, I needed to know. I went to Corinne [Brinkerhoff] with that and she was accommodating, which was good. I didn’t want to know anything more than that.”
“He wrote a bible,” added Chatwin. “He came in with a bible on his character.”
“It wasn’t a bible. It was a very long document that probably annoyed the writers,” said Starr, laughing.
“It was the Old Testament,” joked Chatwin.
“It was a little fire and brimstone,” replied Starr, laughing. “It was basically just a breakdown of, I guess, specifically the 14 years absence. But, it went a little Freudian in certain areas. There were not many adjustments being made as a result of my bible being presented. They didn’t give a f**k. They got my bible, threw it on the fire, and stayed warm all winter.”
Watch the Justin Chatwin and Antony Starr interview:
American Gothic Plot:American Gothic centers on a prominent Boston family reeling in the wake of the chilling discovery that someone in their midst is linked to an infamous string of murders. As shocking secrets from the past and present are revealed, their mounting suspicion and paranoia that one of them is a killer threatens to tear the family apart.
Season two of CBS’ summer series Zoo, based on the bestselling book by James Patterson, is currently airing on Tuesday nights at 9pm ET/PT and in a recent episode one of the main cast members was killed off. (Note: If you’re not caught up, do not read any further.) Almost immediately after Jackson Oz (James Wolk) and Chloe (Nora Arnezeder) kissed, Chloe fell victim to a poisonous gas. Moving forward, Jackson has to not only help his friends find the cure before his altered DNA changes him into one of the infected but also has to work through the loss of Chloe just when the relationship was getting started.
At the 2016 San Diego Comic Con, James Wolk took part in the CBS Fan Favorites panel alongside stars from the network’s other primetime shows. He also sat down for roundtable interviews to discuss Zoo‘s second season. In our interview, Wolk talks about what’s happening with Jackson, animals on the set, and working with spiders.
Watch the James Wolk interview:
Zoo Plot:Zoo is a global thriller about a wave of violent animal attacks against humans sweeping the planet. Jackson Oz is a young renegade American zoologist who spent his days running safaris in the wilds of Africa with his best friend Abraham, who has a deep understanding of wildlife. Shortly after the attacks begin, Oz begins to see a link between the strange animal attacks and his late father’s controversial theories about impending threats to the human race. They team up with news reporter Jamie Campbell, veterinarian Mitch Morgan and French investigator Chloe Tousignant and are thrust into the race to unlock the mystery of the pandemic. In season two, the danger escalates as the animal mutation moves to phase two, and they begin attacking infrastructure and creating deadly environmental phenomena in an effort to make the planet uninhabitable. Along the way the team encounters Logan, a mysterious stranger who may be holding a dangerous secret, and Dariela, a part of a military unit which encounters a strange and troubling new development in the animal mutation. Also, the team discovers a shocking mutation that threatens the life of one of their own.
It is absolutely too early to get into the Christmas spirit, however Paramount Pictures has just released the first trailer for the winter holidays comedy Office Christmas Party which is fortunately more ho-ho-ho than humbug. Directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck (Blades of Glory), the holiday-themed comedy stars Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Vanessa Bayer, Jillian Bell, Jamie Chung, Rob Corddry, Abbey Lee, Kate McKinnon, TJ Miller, Olivia Munn, Randall Park, Sam Richardson, and Courtney B. Vance. Office Christmas Party opens in theaters on December 9, 2016.
The Plot: In Office Christmas Party, when the CEO tries to close her hard-partying brother’s branch, he and his Chief Technical Officer must rally their co-workers and host an epic office Christmas party in an effort to impress a potential client and close a sale that will save their jobs.
Lucy Lawless (as Ruby), Bruce Campbell (as Ash), Dana DeLorenzo (as Kelly), and Ray Santiago (as Pablo) in ‘Ash vs Evil Dead.’
Lucy Lawless is back as Ruby opposite Bruce Campbell as Ash in season two of Starz’s Ash vs Evil Dead, the horror series based on the Evil Dead film franchise. Ash vs Evil Dead season two will arrive on September 23, 2016 and Starz brought the cast along with executive producer Rob Tapert to the San Diego Comic-Con to discuss what fans of the horror comedy can expect when season two premieres.
Real-life spouses Lawless and Tapert teamed up for interviews in which they talked about the possibility of more Evil Dead films and Ruby’s backstory.
Does the focus remain on more seasons of the show before a new movie?
Rob Tapert: “Yes, the focus is on more seasons of the show. Sam, bless him, talked about doing Evil Dead as a movie for many, many years and teased the fans forever and a day. Finally, when the day came, we went, ‘Well, we think it might be better as a TV show.’
That was other people who thought that and Bruce really welcomed the idea, and I welcomed the idea because Bruce said, ‘Look, I did three movies. I’m not certain I knew my last name so at least in a TV show I get to explore the character and who he is and all that more.’ Is there a movie out there that we are thinking about that would continue on that would merge everything? There certainly are those thoughts starting to percolate.”
Would it crossover with Fede Alvarez’s movie, or could you address that in the TV show?
Rob Tapert: “I love Jane Levy, so I would love to work with her again.”
How does letting Pandora’s box open affect Ruby’s relationship with Ash?
Lucy Lawless: “Things get away on her. She’s basically forced Pablo to birth these demon spawn and it all goes pear-shaped, so she finagles her way into Ash’s crew and teams up a little bit with Kelly, actually. There’s a bit of firepower going on, girl power. They go on a rampage so she’s kind of brought into the fold, which just means you get shot with a lot more mucous. You get vomited on, you get blood, brain matter. That means you’re in the game, you’re in the family. We’ll see how that goes.”
Will we learn more about Ruby?
Lucy Lawless: “Yeah, she becomes a real character this season.”
Where does Ruby fit in your oeuvre of strong female lead characters?
Lucy Lawless: “That’s a good question. She’s in a way a little nastier. Like she chooses to be nasty where Lucretia was a bad person but she really was left with no options. In the world that she lived in, I could justify it, whereas Ruby’s just mean as a snake. So you’ll get to see her softening and then you get to see payback for that.”
Do you prefer playing that range, being able to be nasty?
Lucy Lawless: “Not necessarily, but if I’m playing a ‘good’ character, I always look for the qualities in them that are not so pleasant just to get tension and make somebody watchable. To play somebody who’s wholly good is a bore. I’d hate that, or wholly bad. Every bad character has to have redemptive qualities and every good character has to have a little grit. Otherwise who gives a damn?”
Were you a little worried when Ruby “died” in episode five or six?
Lucy Lawless: “I can’t remember a character I played that didn’t die. So, no.”
Rob Tapert: “Number Three died a lot of times in Battlestar. You died a lotta times as Xena.”
Lucy Lawless: “Xena, Lucretia.”
What was the biggest surprise for each of you filming the first season?
Rob Tapert: “I can say from a creative point of view, the show was harder than I ever thought it would be and I think we were all surprised that it was hard. Hard adapting these small movies into television shows that want to cram as much as you can in a half hour. So it was a real clash of what works in horror, which was telling a small story in a very elongated fashion, as opposed to a very big story in a compacted fashion. That’s been a creative challenge.”
Lucy Lawless: “Particularly this season has been so massive and so high octane, the cuts are really fast. We’re shooting maybe more footage than we ever did on even Spartacus, but it’s crunched down into just a half hour to get that pace. If this show was an hour long, it would be drudgery.”
How much fun was it working with Bruce Campbell again?
Lucy Lawless: “Oh, wonderful. He’s kind of like my rotten handsome cousin. He was kind of my mentor in terms of how to behave as a star starting out. Rob paired me up with him. I was really bewildered. ‘Why is Mr. Tapert making me go out with his buddy from college?’ It was to teach me not to be a pain in the ass.”
Rob Tapert: “He taught her well.”
Does having that family atmosphere bring something special to a project like this?
Rob Tapert: “It brings something special and it also sets a base rule about how you can act. Meaning we’re all in this together. We all want the best product. It takes away any room for bad behavior.”
Lucy Lawless: “This is a theme in Rob’s shows.”
Rob Tapert: “No bad behavior. Shows are hard enough. In that regard, it’s been great. It was great having Sam [Raimi] when he did the first episode, the three of us back together. This season we’ve got Ted Raimi and suddenly, without trying to give away spoilers, Bruce and Ted and myself found ourselves back in 1986 in the exact same scene, at the exact same moment going, ‘Oh my God, what has happened to our life?'”
And adding Lee Majors?
Rob Tapert: “Lee was great.”
Lucy Lawless: “Lee Majors, man! The most famous guy in the world at that time, the most famous couple, him and Farrah. Are you too young to know all this? I’m old enough. Lee, his character really explains Ash and he makes Ash look like a gentleman, like a triumph of nature over nurture because Brock is a pig. He’s a chauvinist. He’s got a bit of a fetish. You can quiz him about that. I’m not sure how much he’ll tell you. And they’re highly competitive for the ladies, which the father wins.”
Was creating that character a chance to explore how Ash could have turned out?
Rob Tapert: “You know what, it was really a way of grounding Ash and trying to pull him back into the real world and giving him an antagonist to rub up against. Because that’s what really works about the series, Ash finding himself in a situation, finding himself blocked. What is he going to do? Dad is something, as we all know, parents are something that a lot of baggage goes into that relationship so that was really just a great antagonist in a different way. You learn hey, nobody believed him and they all blamed him for getting his sister killed and a bunch of other kids killed. Why he never went to jail, we never answer.”
Is there a theme to season two?
Rob Tapert: “Going home.”
Is there a balance of scope you try and maintain, making it more intimate and horrific as opposed to bigger and bombastic?
Rob Tapert: “Yes. It’s a very hard road to walk and we get scripts that are way too big and we have to figure out how do we get the small intimate stuff, Ash alone against the evil, that’s the franchise, versus a lot of character stuff, a lot of Ruby. So how do we get all of these elements and balance them right for the ultimate audience entertainment and enjoyment. It’s the balancing act we’re constantly looking at and measuring, going, ‘Throw this out, add this in.'”
Lucy Lawless: “This season’s much bigger. It’s really much bigger. When you see the trailer, you’ll get a sense of the kind of — and we were surprised, weren’t we, just how massive it is.”
Danai Gurira as Michonne; Michael Cudlitz as Sgt Abraham Ford; Lauren Cohan as Maggie Greene; Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes; Sonequa Martin-Green as Sasha; Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Negan Chandler Riggs as Carl Grimes; Josh McDermitt as Dr Eugene Porter in ‘ The Walking Dead’ (Photo Credit: Gene Page/AMC)
AMC’s The Walking Dead ended season six by introducing the new villain, Negan (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan), and his weapon of choice: a baseball bat named Lucille. The season finale left off with key members of Rick’s band of zombie apocalypse survivors kneeling in front of Negan and waiting to find out who he would kill as revenge for Rick’s people killing some of his men. One – or more – of Rick’s group will be meeting their death most likely on the first episode of season seven, and at the 2016 San Diego Comic Con the cast gathered for a press conference to discuss the season six finale and their new cast member, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. And while they didn’t spill the beans on who will bite the dust, they did provide details on shooting that scene and Morgan talked about joining the cast of the hit series and being immediately welcomed.
Season seven of The Walking Dead will premiere on Sunday, October 23, 2016 at 9pm ET/PT.
The Walking Dead Press Conference:
What reaction have you gotten from fans? Are they telling you they hope your character doesn’t get killed off?
Ross Marquand: “It’s still ongoing. I think every time you post a photo that’s even somewhat related to the show, I think all of us have had people saying, ‘I hope it’s not you. I hope it’s not you.'”
Josh McDermitt: “I think Eugene has gotten to a great point in his life and the fans recognize that and they say, ‘I really hope it’s not Eugene because he’s got this new amount of confidence and we want to see him continue.’ That’s great to have people rallying around your character. But at the same time, it’s kind of beautiful. Maybe only one or two instances where I’ve ever seen, ‘Well, I hope it’s so and so.’ That was Christian’s Twitter. But what’s going on is everybody has their favorites, but really they just don’t want to see anybody go. So the fan base is rallying around everybody, even though there’s the favorites and stuff like that. It’s beautiful to share that.”
What were the complications of deciding who would be Negan’s victim?
Greg Nicotero: “I think the biggest challenge is you know it’s coming. Ever since issue 100, we were at breakfast four years ago today when that issue was out. I remember reading it and just thinking how brutal and unexpected and senseless it felt. So we’re going into that moment where we know it’s going to happen. I think that is the trickiest aspect of the first episode is living up to, number one, the expectation of that moment and then what’s even more interesting for me as the director of the episode was how that changes the direction of the survivors forever. When we shot the episode, that to me was as critical as the actual moment which is the five minutes after, the 10 minutes after, the 20 minutes after. When the smoke clears in the battlefield sort of scenario. So it’s a fascinating exercise in emotion because shock and denial, all these things play into it. It was a master class in acting from these people right here to watch on a daily basis, but every time you get the outlines of the scripts, or Scott and the writers pitch, you never want to hear that it’s coming. I think the trick with this particular episode is everybody knows it’s coming. So it’s agonizing to think about the fact that we’re changing the landscape of our cast.”
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: “But they’re adding another cast member.”
Greg Nicotero: “I said changing the landscape. I didn’t say taking anybody away.”
Gale Anne Hurd: “So many of us are so familiar with the comic book, know all of this, but for those fans who aren’t, the introduction of Negan is so important because they don’t have the expectation already from the comic book. They get to see him and experience him in the comic books now being expanded from the end of season six into the beginning of season seven. It really sets up just what a formidable, but somehow incredibly charming character Negan is. We just get really up close and personal with Lucille. For those of you who don’t even know who Lucille was, by the end of seven, they will know that Lucille is a very close friend of Negan’s and also an inanimate object, a baseball bat.”
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: “Inanimate to some.”
David Alpert: “This comes up a lot and this has been a serious conversation for us. Two things. One is if a character is killed off the show and it doesn’t hurt and it doesn’t upset somebody, then we weren’t doing our jobs making a show that people care about. The other aspect is that we try to make that promise that death is not done for arbitrary reasons. There’s no reason someone is killed off just because we need a plot point. We try to take that seriously but at the same time do it in a way that fulfills the organic nature of the story.”
Jeffrey, how has your experience been with fans?
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: “Right now, this Comic Con is going to be okay. It has been. I think next year it could be a little different. That’s what I think. I think next year’s gonna be a salute of middle fingers and language when I come out onto the stage but right now it’s been great and being with these guys, because I know it’s a hard deal. It’s what the show is drawn to. It’s been hard. Being the cause of that in kind of a way it also has sucked. That being said, I feel like I’ve been embraced by the cast and I sure embrace them. But it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be hard until it’s not anymore and I don’t know when that’s going to be.”
Greg Nicotero: “I’ll tell you too, the two nights that we shot that last sequence, Jeffrey was still finishing The Good Wife, flew in, one day of costume fittings. We shot that entire 12 page dialogue scene and you would think about just how you have to prepare for that. He nailed it. It was really amazing to watch. On the DVD, the Blu-ray, we have the alternate dialogue from the comic book which he says f*** every three words. But it was amazing and these guys who were literally sitting on their knees watching them go back and forth, when I would say cut, they’d get up and be like, ‘That was f***ing great, man.’ The cast really surrounded him and brought him in. We’re so lucky.”
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: “Not only are they on their knees but they were acting their asses off. To do that and be that vulnerable for a guy that’s just walking in to turn the show upside down is a testament to everybody sitting up here. I’ve never seen anything like it. Off camera, the extent that everybody up here went to is amazing.”
What was that moment like when you stepped out of the trailer as this long awaited character?
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: “I was a little bit nervous going in but I remember right before I walked out of the trailer for the first time, this weird calm came over me. Which oddly enough I think the character needs, but I remember it was a spot that I don’t know I’ve ever settled into as an actor before. I torture myself. I don’t sleep the night before. Andy, I know, does the same thing. We’re very hard on ourselves and nothing is f***ing right ever. I remember right before I walked out the door, it was okay. I knew what I had to do. Eerily, it was weird and it’s been like that by the way, the whole time. This role for me is something really special and with everybody here helping, it’s finding it’s cool place.”
Andrew and Chandler, have you felt a smidgen of the trauma the characters have been through with all the loss, losing your co-stars?
Andrew Lincoln: “You’re too busy with exams, right?”
Chandler Riggs “AP Tests, yeah. It’s been like that every year for the past seven years for both of us, really. Really everyone on this cast, not even just me and Andy, every time we lose someone, it sucks, really sucks. We hate to see them go but, ultimately, what’s most important for the show is the story and these deaths are what keeps the show moving forward.”
Andrew Lincoln: “Honestly, the cool thing is we get to see them at Comic Con all the time anyway. I’m seeing Jon Bernthal tonight and Sarah Wayne Callies tomorrow night. All the dead ones show up here.”
Greg Nicotero: “It is kind of a cool exclusive club that once you’re on set in your character, you’re never out of the club. You’re always part of it. It’s pretty amazing.”
What did you go through prepping for the big scene?
Christian Serratos: That’s kind of like asking Mickey Mouse to take his head off. I don’t know. I feel like we all have our own individual processes. We all have our own way of doing it.”
Andrew Lincoln: “I think we’re lucky on our show because everybody’s really committed to it. There’s just an atmosphere on set that we want to tell the best story every scene. We don’t want to drop a scene and I think that it’s infectious. I think that you get on set and you see somebody emoting and you start forgetting about cameras. I think that the cool thing about it as well is we have a crew that has been incredibly loyal to the show. They’re all filmmakers. They’re all film industry people and they keep coming back to be brutalized in the Georgia heat. They feel the same focus. You feel it on set. There’s an energy that is about just trying to do your best and also being fearless. I think for me, I don’t talk about it because it’s a sacred space in the same way I wouldn’t go, ‘What inspires you?’ You would tell me what inspires you as a writer. I’m sure you probably would far more eloquently than I would ever say, but it is a sacred space. There’s a uniqueness. And, it’s luck and it’s magic and all the cool sh*t that we do. Sometimes you get lucky. In this show, with the cast that we have and the producers, we get lucky a lot.”
Where is Rick emotionally in those last moments with his sense of responsibility and being too confident?
Andrew Lincoln: “I think hubris was very much part of the back eight in Rick. I think it was probably a good strategic, as Danai [Gurira] said in the panel, it was probably the right thing to do but with too much pride behind it. I think he’s powerless for the first time since he woke up from the coma. He’s truly terrified for his and his child’s life and his fellow family. And everything that he’s fought and bled for and had family members die for and everything they’ve worked for two years to get to has been shattered in 24 hours. So it’s not a good look by all accounts. He’s not in a good space. I think if he makes it through the first episode, he will be a different man. He can’t not be.”
Jeffrey, did you go back to the comics?
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: “The comics only give you so much, obviously. They’re great to have and it’s a wonderful foundation, but with Negan, I was talking to Gale just before we came out here, it’s given me an opportunity to do something I’ve never done before. There’s just not a trace of Jeff in Negan. Usually I can figure out, put myself in there. It’s a good comfort place for me. With Negan it’s what Andy just talked about being fearless. I found myself having to just be fearless. I’d see glimpses of Negan in a comic book. How can I bring that to life? I change the way I move, the inflection in my voice. It’s just turned into this weird thing. Scenes happen and we’ll look at each other and just be like, ‘What was that? What just happened there?’ It just gets seriously weird with Negan around.”
What can we expect from season seven zombies?
Greg Nicotero: “There’s some amazing stuff coming up. We came up with some pretty amazing gags that, again, all serve the story. Anything that happens in the show, we never stop the show to do an elaborate special effect. Everything is very important to the storyline and intrinsic to the storyline. But we also don’t want to see the same zombies every single episode. So my team and I spend a lot of time just finessing things and fine tuning things. Any artist that has an opportunity to revisit something and tweak it and see what they thought worked and didn’t work about it. We’re seven years of doing it. We did a walker on Wednesday on set and my guys were like, ‘This is my favorite walker we’ve done ever since the beginning.’ They still bring the same enthusiasm to the job and that’s critical. I would’ve thought at some point that they were like, ‘F***, do we have to do another zombie?’ But they’re still in it and they’re still committed every day. We take great pride in continuing to push the envelope and put stuff on television that seven years ago, there was nothing like this on TV. From a storytelling standpoint, from an acting standpoint, from a makeup effects standpoint, to me the thing I’m most proud of is when someone will come up to me and say, ‘I want to be a makeup artist because I watch The Walking Dead.’ That’s how I got into it, because of the movies I watched when I was a kid. And the fact that I get to pay that forward to an entire new group of filmmakers is the greatest compliment for me.”
Gale Anne Hurd: “And they’re nominated for an Emmy as are our visual effects guys.”
How does Carl feel about Negan?
Chandler Riggs “He doesn’t like this guy at all.”
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: “Come on!”
Chandler Riggs “Nope. As of the finale, Carl highly dislikes Negan. Just from the Saviors just being jerks of people to begin with and trying to kill his friends and kill his family, they kind of got off to a bad start. I think Carl is one of the only ones in the group in that scene that stands up to Negan and wants to fight along with Abraham and Darryl.”
How much of the war from the books will you bring on screen?
David Alpert: “I think from season one, the goal was always to use the comic as a road map but never make it so that if you read the comic, you would be bored in the show. So that the show has to have a life of its own, the actors, the writers, the directors all bring things to the show that allow it to live and to breathe. What I would say is this season and the plan to come is very much the same in the sense that we’re going to be hitting a lot of the milestones that those of you who are familiar with the comic will recognize. If you saw the trailer, Ezekiel coming is a big thing. Having Shiva, that’s a big thing. That’s not going to play out exactly the same as it did in the comic. There’ll be a lot of swerves. There’ll be things that you don’t expect. There’ll be things that you’ll be like, ‘Oh, I recognize that beat. It was Hershel who had his head cut off outside the prison. That’s a different take on having Tyrese.’ So it’s the same moment done in a different way. There’s going to be a lot of that type of stuff, but it’ll be the same sort of strategy of zigging and zagging around the milestones of the comic.”
Have the two of you talked about how Negan mirrors Rick?
Andrew Lincoln: “I think the blurring of lines between who’s the hero and who’s the villain is part of the DNA of the show. In the same way that the first zombie that I killed, seeing the human behind the monster and the monster behind the human, I think that those are great themes that play out. I would never dare to riff about someone’s character choices when they’re just arriving on set. That’s his business. Of course, you can read into things what you want but I tend not to do it. I tend to react to what’s in front of me. I don’t know about Jeffrey, but that’s my way.”
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: “We talk a lot but not directly about character stuff. That being said, you helped me a couple times through a speed bump or two. It’s been nice.”
Andrew Lincoln: “That’s because it’s hot and you’ve had so many lines to say. It’s like, ‘Dude, what about…?’ It is a collaboration. It feels like everybody’s intention is just for everybody to be frigging awesome every day. That’s what we do for each other. If that means emoting off camera as much as we can just to help their performance, that’s what we do. Hopefully you guys get to feel as well. There’s a quote that’s very pretentious but I’m going to finish upon it. Bertolucci said that film is a very sensitive medium. It captures not only what’s in front of the camera, but all around it. I think that’s true of this show. It’s a good atmosphere. We link arms, we look after each other but we dare as a result, hopefully.”
Christian Serratos: “Yeah, we definitely look out for each other. I remember in 616, I hadn’t even had a conversation with Jeffrey yet. I hadn’t met him but I think we just went straight into it. The camera was going past me and Steven, our little group at the end. As soon as we cut, Jeffrey gave me his hand and helped me up. Even though he plays such an aggressive character, I hadn’t even met him. Maybe if it was a different set or situation, maybe we would keep our distance. I think that really resonates with what family we are and that you were going to fit in so well, that you accepted us so well because we hadn’t said words to each other but we already had that trust. You gave me a hand and I recognized even though he had traumatized me, we still had each other’s back.”
Greg Nicotero: “Jeffrey was kinda geeking out a little bit the first moments. He’s like, ‘That’s Rick Grimes over there.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know who it is. You’re going to ruin his life.'”
Andrew Lincoln: “I remember the first time we were there and he’d just come on set and everybody was kneeling down. We shot this way. The camera’s just set up and there were like eight cameras on you. You just went, ‘Are we doing a rehearsal?’ I looked at him like, ‘You’re on your own, kid.’ And he nailed it in one take. It was amazing. It was so exciting. When you see good actors kicking it, that’s what I love. I don’t watch the show but I get to live it with you guys and it’s beautiful, man. Jeffrey said sometimes you have scenes and you see people breaking down and doing work that is so cool, man, it’s so cool. That’s why I do it. That’s why I get up in the morning.”
Warner Bros Pictures showed off the new trailer for The LEGO Batman Movie at the 2016 San Diego Comic Con and now it’s available for everyone else to check out. The spinoff from The LEGO Movie stars Will Arnett reprising his role as the voice of Batman. Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson and Ralph Fiennes also lend their voices to the animated film from director Chris McKay (animation co-director on The LEGO Movie). Warner Bros will be launching The LEGO Batman Movie in theaters on February 10, 2017.
The Plot: In the irreverent spirit of fun that made The LEGO® Movie a worldwide phenomenon, the self-described leading man of that ensemble – LEGO Batman – stars in his own big-screen adventure: The LEGO® Batman Movie. But there are big changes brewing in Gotham, and if he wants to save the city from The Joker’s hostile takeover, Batman may have to drop the lone vigilante thing, try to work with others and maybe, just maybe, learn to lighten up.
Warner Bros. Television brought a record-breaking number of shows to the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con including The Flash which is heading into season three. Season two ended on a shocking twist that found Barry Allen/The Flash (Grant Gustin) traveling back in time to save his mother, an act that completely changed history. And at Comic-Con, The CW released the first official teaser trailer for the much-anticipated third season.
The first-look footage includes the “upcoming season’s primary DC villain, Dr. Alchemy, but also sheds some light on how Barry’s decision to travel back in time and save his mother would open the door to the iconic Flashpoint storyline as the show races into Season 3.” The Flash season three will star Gustin, Tom Cavanagh, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Jesse L. Martin, and Tom Felton.
Season three will premiere on October 4, 2016 at 8pm ET/PT.
RENTON (Ewan McGregor), SPUD (Ewen Bremner), SICK BOY (Jonny Lee Miller) BEGBIE (Robert Carlyle) in ‘T2: Trainspotting’
‘Tease’ is right…the official teaser trailer for T2: Trainspotting is just 40 seconds long but at least it features Renton (Ewan McGregor), Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) in a scene echoing one from the original. It’s been a little over two decades since Trainspotting hit theaters and after 20 years of having to answer questions about a sequel, director Danny Boyle’s much-anticipated second Trainspotting film will finally arrive in theaters on February 3, 2017.
It’s here! The official Wonder Woman trailer was first released to the San Diego Comic Con crowd followed quickly by a release online. Gal Gadot made her debut as the Amazon princess in the Batman v Superman film, and in 2017 she’ll be the star of a stand-alone movie. Directed by Patty Jenkins, the cast also includes Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, David Thewlis, Danny Huston, Elena Anaya, Ewen Bremner, and Saïd Taghmaoui. Wonder Woman opens in theaters June 2, 2017.
The Plot: Before she was Wonder Woman, she was Diana, princess of the Amazons, trained to be an unconquerable warrior. Raised on a sheltered island paradise, when an American pilot crashes on their shores and tells of a massive conflict raging in the outside world, Diana leaves her home, convinced she can stop the threat. Fighting alongside man in a war to end all wars, Diana will discover her full powers…and her true destiny.
