The Walking Dead fans who’ve analyzed the season six finale don’t believe it’s Norman Reedus’ Daryl – a fan favorite – who dies after being beaten to a pulp by Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). And, there is the whole “If Daryl dies, we riot” fan campaign that’s held strong since the first season so killing off Reedus character wouldn’t be a smart move on AMC’s part. However, the ‘is he dead or isn’t h3’ discussion has nothing to do with AMC’s new Norman Reedus announcement. The network’s just announced his non-fiction show Ride with Norman Reedus will premiere on June 12, 2016 at 10pm ET/PT. In addition to announcing the premiere date, AMC also revealed the new teaser trailer will debut during the April 24th episode of Fear the Walking Dead.
Ride with Norman Reedus will air after the new dramatic series Preacher starring Dominic Cooper. Reedus’ new show’s first season will consist of six one hour episodes.
The Plot:Ride with Norman Reedus follows The Walking Dead fan-favorite star and motorcycle enthusiast as he hits the open road to explore local biker culture and celebrate the best and brightest collectors, mechanics and craftsmen around the country. Each one-hour installment of Ride with Norman Reedus will feature Reedus with a riding companion – notable guests include Peter Fonda, Robert Rodriguez and Balthazar Getty – as they journey to new destinations throughout the United States, including North Carolina, Florida, California, Nevada, Texas and Louisiana. Reedus and friends stop by various locales such as custom bike shops, tattoo parlors, collector’s warehouses, or a roadside smokehouse. The series is produced by Left/Right Productions.
The soundtrack to the romantic drama Me Before You will arrive in stores on the day of the film’s release in theaters. Interscope Records is releasing the soundtrack on June 3, 2016, however a new music video from X Ambassadors featuring clips from the film has already been unveiled on Youtube. The soundtrack to the movie based on Jojo Moyes’ bestselling novel also includes songs from Ed Sheeran, Imagine Dragons, The 1975, Jessie Ware, and Jack Garratt. New tracks from the film include X Ambassadors’ “Unsteady”, Imagine Dragons’ “Not Today” and Jessie Ware’s “Till the End.”
Moyes adapted her book for the screen with first time feature film director Thea Sharrock directing. Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) and Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games franchise) lead a cast that includes Charles Dance, Jenna Coleman, Matthew Lewis, Vanessa Kirby, Stephen Peacocke, Brendan Coyle and Janet McTeer.
The Plot: Louisa “Lou” Clark (Clarke) is quirky and creative, but her cheery outlook is put to the test when she meets Will Traynor (Claflin), a once adventurous young man whose whole world changed dramatically in the blink of an eye. The now cynical Will has all but given up…that is until Lou determines to show him that life is worth living, and that love can take you where you never expected to go.
Me Before You Soundtrack Song/Artist List
Max Jury – “Numb”
HOLYCHILD – “Happy With Me”
X Ambassadors – “Unsteady” (Erich Lee Gravity Remix)
Jessie Ware – “Till The End”
The 1975 – “The Sound”
Jack Garratt – “Surprise Yourself”
Cloves – “Don’t Forget About Me”
Ed Sheeran – “Photograph”
Imagine Dragons – “Not Today”
The annual Summer Movies Survey found that Captain America: Civil War, which has been receiving positive advance reviews, is this year’s most anticipated summer action film. Disney/Pixar’s long-awaited Finding Nemo sequel, Finding Dory, edged out the competition in the animated film category. And it was the female-driven reboot of Ghostbusters that earned the top spot among comedy releases.
“According to our survey, fans will be spending more time at the multiplex this summer,” says Fandango Managing Editor Erik Davis. “Last year’s record-breaking movie line-up has inspired fans to return to theaters, and this summer there is truly something for everyone.”
Most Anticipated Family Film of the Summer:
1. “Finding Dory” (June 17)
2. “The Secret Life of Pets” (July 8)
3. “Alice Through the Looking Glass” (May 27)
4. “Ice Age: Collision Course” (July 22)
5. “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” (June 3)
Most Anticipated Summer Comedy:
1. “Ghostbusters” (July 15)
2. “Central Intelligence” (June 17)
3. “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising” (May 20)
4. “The Nice Guys” (May 20)
5. “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates” (July 8)
The world is once again under attack by invading aliens in the long-awaited Independence Day sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence, heading to theaters on June 24, 2016. Fox has just released a new trailer for the sci-fi action film directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, Vivica A. Fox, Brent Spiner, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jessie Usher, Maika Monroe, and Sela Ward.
The Plot: We always knew they were coming back. After Independence Day redefined the event movie genre, the next epic chapter delivers global spectacle on an unimaginable scale. Using recovered alien technology, the nations of Earth have collaborated on an immense defense program to protect the planet. But nothing can prepare us for the aliens’ advanced and unprecedented force. Only the ingenuity of a few brave men and women can bring our world back from the brink of extinction.
Snowpiercer director Bong Joon Ho has begun work on his new dramatic film Okja in Seoul, South Korea. Netflix announced the start of production along with confirming the cast is led by Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Paul Dano. Joining the cast are The Walking Dead‘s Steven Yeun (who might not have survived the season finale), The 100‘s Devon Bostick, The Mortal Instruments‘ Lily Collins, and The Host‘s Byun Heebong. The cast also includes Shirley Henderson, Daniel Henshall, Yoon Je Moon, and Choi Wooshik.
The film is co-written by Bong and Jon Ronson (Frank). Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Lewis Taewan Kim, Dooho Choi, Woo-sik Seo and Bong Joon Ho are on board as producers. In addition to South Korea, the sci-fi thriller is shooting in Canada and the United States. Netflix is planning a 2017 premiere on the streaming service as well as a limited theatrical release.
“With Okja I want to show the beauty that can exist between man and animal, and also the horror between them,” said director Bong.
The Plot:Okja follows Mija, a young girl who must risk everything to prevent a powerful, multi-national company from kidnapping her best friend – a massive animal named ‘Okja’. Mija will be played by Seohyun An.
The Huntsman: Winter’s War is advertised as a prequel to 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman, which it is for a very short while before it transforms into a live-action Frozen spinoff morphed with a sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman. The prequel/sequel brings back Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Sam Claflin (for all of five minutes) and the backside of someone who is not Kristen Stewart playing Snow White for a blink and you’ll miss it scene. What this return to the world of huntsmen and evil queens fails to bring back is any sort of a cohesive story.
Emily Blunt joins the fairy tale adventure as The Huntsman’s version of Frozen’s Elsa, complete with white hair, the ability to freeze whatever she touches, and her own ice castle far away from her sister. The only thing the writers forgot was to give her a talking snowman as her closest friend which, now that I’m thinking about it, would have greatly improved the story. How anyone connected with this offspring of Snow White and the Huntsman could possibly have thought going the Frozen route was the right path to take is incomprehensible. And if the writers didn’t take into consideration that comparisons would be drawn between this overwrought CGI spectacle and Disney’s beloved Frozen, then they’re obviously out of touch with movie audiences.
I can honestly say I’ve never heard anyone asking when there would be a prequel/sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman, but we’re being served up one anyway because of the first film’s respectable box office take. The original film’s popularity was driven by fans of Twilight’s Kristen Stewart, but with the behind the scenes shenanigans between Stewart and director Rupert Sanders the sequel moved on without either the first film’s star or director. Stewart’s not really missed as Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain more than make up for her absence, but Sanders’ absence is felt. Visual effects supervisor Cedric Nicolas-Troyan makes his feature film directorial debut and despite his visual effects background, fails to make The Huntsman as visually attractive as Sanders’ Snow White.
As for the plot, basically Ravenna (Theron) activates her sister Freya’s nasty powers by killing her baby. That sends Freya into full-on Frozen mode and off she goes to set up her own ice castle and then conquer all of the surrounding lands. Freya decides that if she can’t have love, then no one in her kingdom is allowed to experience that particular emotion. She also figures out the best way to create her army is by rounding up all of the children in her land and training them to be huntsmen or huntswomen. Of course two of the children grow up to be adults (played by Hemsworth and Chastain) who fall in love, and of course those two huntspeople are the best of Freya’s army so she’s doubly angry about the betrayal. The mirror of “mirror, mirror on the wall” fame enters the picture with The Huntsman transforming from prequel to sequel at that point, and then it’s all a matter of keeping the mirror out of Freya or her evil sister Ravenna’s hands for the rest of the movie.
There are many, many battles and occasionally it’s even possible to tell who is fighting who. There’s also a batch of dwarves played by Nick Frost, Rob Brydon, Sheridan Smith, and Alexandra Roach who turn out to be the best part of the whole story. Even the discussion over their enjoyment of water is better than most of the dialogue given to Hemsworth, Theron (who is absent for most of the film), Blunt, and Chastain. And speaking of the dialogue, I’m still stumped as to what accent Hemsworth and Chastain were attempting to wrap their tongues around.
The costumes are gorgeous and, as noted above, the dwarves were entertaining, but overall The Huntsman: Winter’s War feels like just a cash grab by the studio. Hemsworth and Chastain have decent chemistry and Blunt and Theron are impressive as evil sisters/queens, but there’s only so much they can do with a story that’s unnecessarily convoluted and characters that are completely one-dimensional. Stick an arrow/axe/your weapon of choice in it, this franchise is done.
GRADE: C
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for fantasy action violence and some sensuality
Fox is set to premiere the new dramatic series Houdini & Doyle starring Michael Weston as Harry Houdini and Stephen Mangan as Arthur Conan Doyle on May 2, 2016. The series follows the legendary magician as he and his reluctant partner, Sherlock Holmes author Doyle, help New Scotland Yard solve crimes that may involve the supernatural. Houdini’s the skeptic while Doyle is a believer in the otherworldly. Together, they attempt to determine if the crime was committed by a human or some sort of supernatural being.
Series star Michael Weston appeared at the 2016 WonderCon in Los Angeles in support of the show’s upcoming premiere and I had the opportunity to speak with Weston before Fox presented the Houdini & Doyle panel to find out the behind-the-scenes scoop on how he prepared for the role of Harry Houdini. He also shared his own ghost story, even though he still insists he’s a skeptic just like his character.
Michael Weston Interview:
How much torture did they put you through filming Houdini & Doyle?
Michael Weston: [Laughing] “There was a lot of torture. First, we were living in Manchester, which is not torture, but it is definitely north of London. It was cold and I was often wet and in weird situations, like off the docks and in weird rivers, and hanging upside in tanks and buried alive. But I signed the fine print, so I knew what I was getting into. If you’re going to play this guy, you have to be willing to do that.”
How much research did you do into Harry Houdini? Did you want to learn as much as possible about him?
Michael Weston: “I had a sort of very light working knowledge of Houdini, so I didn’t really understand who he was in terms of the place he held in our history and in our culture. I knew people say, ‘Hey, he pulled a Houdini,’ but he held this place in people’s hearts. My wife told me, she said, ‘Oh my god, I love Houdini!’ I’ve been with her for 10 years and I had no idea. He holds a place in people’s sense of wonder and their imagination. And then probably even deeper in that thing of being able to free yourself from whatever oppresses you, whatever shackles are in your life – your religion to your family to whatever it is pulling you down – I feel like this guy, at his time especially, was a tangible symbol of freedom and that sort of American dream. He sort of actualized it before anyone else did. So, I did, I learned a lot going into it, but I literally got this part a week before we started shooting.”
Why did you get it a week before it started shooting? How did that come about?
Michael Weston: “You know, I think it’s just this process of being an actor where sometimes you just never know. I was doing a play [in Los Angeles] with my buddy Scott Caan, and I was running lines with my mom in my living room when I got a call, ‘They need you to audition in London.’ I was like, ‘When?’ ‘Today.’ So I got on a plane that night and I flew to London, and then the next morning I auditioned. I had done an audition months before…something like that. So, it’s this weird process and then suddenly everything comes to a head and then you’re shooting and here you go.
The thing about this series is that we steer history a little bit for our own purposes. Houdini is a great character and a great backdrop for this, and so is [his] friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle. And then Adelaide Stratton, the first female Constable, wasn’t a real person necessarily, but there was a first female Constable somewhere and it was pulled from something that these guys read. They compressed it all into this turn-of-the-century period piece. Finally, it’s sort of Houdini but then it’s me and Stephen [Mangan] too, whoever we are in this time. I feel like the series plays on our nostalgia and some of who we are today. I feel like it’s very present day.”
Were you able to quickly get on the same page with Stephen Mangan?
Michael Weston: “That’s the magic of this stuff. I definitely think as the series goes on our rapport and our comfort level gets deeper and better as friends, on and off set. When you work with old friends, you have this sort of immediate thing. But these guys in the series are searching each other out. They find each other in the first episode. And even though it’s an embattled friendship and they don’t really agree on anything, they gradually over the course of time, I think they find a really deep friendship and need each other. I feel like that’s the deepest and most fun elements of the series, besides all of the adventure and supernatural. There’s a really fun, deep friendship between these guys that are also sort of bitter enemies.”
Houdini was a skeptic. Are you a skeptic?
Michael Weston: “Yeah, I’m pretty pragmatic. I think of myself as a realist and then I have weird doubts about it. No one can really just put that period on it, except maybe David Shore thinks he can. There’s always a question mark. Anyone who says they have it all figured out, there is no proof of it. I think there’s enough out there in the world that breeds uncertainty. And then I’ve had a couple weird experiences in my life that I’ve never really talked about except now with this series. [Laughing] I didn’t want to admit it, but I’ve had a couple of those things where I’m like, ‘I have no idea how you’d explain that.’ Even though I’m a cynic about that stuff, it breaks you down a little bit.”
Can you say what the experiences were? You can’t leave us hanging!
Michael Weston: “My grandma lived in this old house in Paris. It was there for hundreds of years, and it was occupied by the Gestapo. They fled to America at the time but then when they came back, the house was stripped of everything. It has this very sinister other side of it, as well as being a great old house. She passed away there and my grandfather passed away there, and right after they did I went there with a friend of mine, just to say goodbye to it. We were standing in this hallway and we were looking at these old pictures that hadn’t been taken down yet which were of our family from youth…my grandfather, my father, and ancestors. I was with my big friend Jess from New York and you couldn’t convince him to do anything, especially that there’s a ghost. He’d laugh you out of the room. So, he’s standing there and he turned his head [waving at something by it] and I was like, ‘What?! I didn’t feel anything.’ He was like, ‘Something just brushed my head,’ and he was freaking out.
And then I went there about a month later with a girlfriend of mine and I was going to the bathroom. And as I went to the bathroom just down the same hallway I came back and at the very end of the hallway there was just this weird, amorphous, globe. I was half asleep, but I was like [scared] and I’m like, ‘Okay, whatever, I’m going to go in.’ I go into the bedroom and my girlfriend at the time is sitting up. She’s pale and she’s hyperventilating. I went in there and was like, ‘Did you just see…?’ and she was like, ‘I just saw a ghost. There was a ghost. I swear to god, there was a ghost.’ Even after that we were like, ‘All right, we’ll go to sleep now,’ and we just sat there staring at the ceiling for a while. I haven’t been able to explain that or get over it. Even though your life goes on and I sort of buried that deep in the recesses of my imagination, yet it’s still there. So when I’m asked about it I guess I have to admit that, even though I’m still not sure.”
How can you not be sure?
Michael Weston: “I don’t know! I never got to grab the glob and be like, ‘Who are you?!’ And that’s what the series is about. These guys want to get their hands on it and prove it. Until they can really prove it with science and they have the evidence in their hands, there are so many question marks and there continues to be. Even though they solve the crimes sometimes, there’s still a sense of, ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure,’ even with the biggest skeptic Houdini, which I love because he’s a magician and yet he’s the one who doesn’t believe in any of this stuff.”
Is it fun to get to do the big performances or is that all so technical you can’t have fun?
Michael Weston: “I did the Chinese water torture one and they literally hang you upside down and there’s these two I wish they were stronger looking, relatively strong looking guys holding a rope on an old pulley, and you trust them with your life. I was sort of cocky about it. I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got this,’ and as they do it, they’re lowering you into this water and you’re completely out of control. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. The sense of joy sort of came when you’re doing this and we were actually shooting in the old theater where Houdini did his performance a hundred years ago, almost to the day. I was looking at this gorgeous old theater that had been there called The Palace Theatre in Manchester, and you see all of the extras dressed up. You have this moment as an actor that you rarely get where it’s so beautifully done and you’re in it enough and scared out of your mind enough that you’re just sort of there and so present in it that you believe it for a second. There’s a little bit of magic in that.”
Is one of the benefits of doing the show that it is a short season and you don’t have to commit to it for so long?
Michael Weston: “The terrain of TV has changed so much and maybe people’s appetites with it. I know that I binge-watch a show and I’ll watch 10 episodes in a weekend or something like that. I think it changes the way that people write and it changes our lifestyle as actors. I love that that you get to do 10 episodes of something and you get to concentrate. 25 episodes is a lot to ask of anyone. My friends who have been on those shows for years it’s like athletes. They’re exhausted and they’re just wired for that. It’s a luxury actually to be able to do that for six months and then have six months off. I just had a baby, so I’ve just been staring at my kid for the last four months.”
Were there any cases featured in the episodes that you found particularly fun to delve into?
Michael Weston: “The scripts are so dynamic for me because the friendship really grows each time, and the triangle between these three deepens and the repartee is more fun. To me, we were shooting in these amazing places. We got to go to Derbyshire. We were shooting entrenched in the cities most of the time, but we went out to the country to these gorgeous green meadows, extending hills [going on] forever and spotted with fluffy sheep. You’re like, ‘This is what I imagine England to be!’ So, I had those moments when you sit in a pub and you’re like, ‘I’m into this! This is lovely!'”
Episode 11 of The 100 season three did feature the death of another supporting character, but at least this time it wasn’t someone most viewers were emotionally connected to or rooting for to survive. The death had a devastating impact on Monty (Christopher Larkin) and it’ll be interesting to see how he deals with it in upcoming episodes and, hopefully, he’ll have time to grieve before someone else he’s close to dies.
Airing on April 21, 2016 at 9pm ET/PT, the episode titled ‘Demons’ was directed by P.J. Pesce from a script by Juel Gillmer. Pesce also directed 2014’s Murphy’s Law and Many Happy Returns episodes as well as 2015’s Coup de Grace episode.
The Season 3 Episode 12 Plot: JAHA RETURNS TO POLIS — Jaha (Isaiah Washington) returns to Polis, and Murphy (Richard Harmon) has a surprise encounter. Meanwhile, Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos) uncovers a clue. Eliza Taylor, Bob Morley, Devon Bostick, and Lindsey Morgan also star.
Michael Keaton in The Weinstein Company’s ‘The Founder.’
The first trailer for The Weinstein Company’s The Founder definitely doesn’t shine a positive light on the founder of McDonald’s. Oscar nominee Michael Keaton stars in the film which charts Ray Kroc’s history with the brothers Mac and Dick McDonald. Directed by John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks), the cast also includes Linda Cardellini, Laura Dern, BJ Novak, Patrick Wilson, and John Carroll Lynch.
The Founder will open in theaters on August 5, 2016.
The Plot: Written by Robert Siegel, The Founder is a drama that tells the true story of how Ray Kroc (Keaton), a salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald, who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California. Kroc was impressed by the brothers’ speedy system of making the food and saw franchise potential. He maneuvered himself into a position to be able to pull the company from the brothers and create a billion-dollar empire.
Filming has begun on the eight-episode second season of the sci-fi drama Humans. AMC and Channel 4 announced the start of production on season two and confirmed Carrie-Anne Moss, Sam Palladio, Marshall Allman, Sonya Cassidy, and Letitia Wright have joined the cast. Returning cast members include Gemma Chan, Katherine Parkinson, Tom Goodman-Hill, Emily Berrington, Will Tudor, Colin Morgan, Ivanno Jeremiah, Neil Maskell, and Ruth Bradley.
Season one averaged 2.1 million viewers. Season two will premiere in the UK later this year and in the US in 2017. The series is written by Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley, with Lewis Arnold directing. Vincent, Brackley, Derek Wax, Chris Fry, Henrik Widman, and Lars Lundström executive produce.
The Plot:Humans is set in a parallel present and explores what happens when the lines between humans and machines are blurred. The second season picks up several months after the events of season one, with Niska (Berrington) is still at large and in possession of the consciousness code. Her synth family, Mia (Chan), Leo (Morgan) and Max (Jeremiah), unaware of her location, are each trying to find their place in the world while Joe (Goodman-Hill) and Laura (Parkinson) attempt to mend their marriage. As unconfirmed reports of synths behaving inexplicably surface, the ripple effects of one simple yet seismic decision sees the past return dramatically and surprisingly to the door of the Hawkins house. Joe, Laura and the entire family are faced with a difficult choice that will put the family under an intense spotlight. As an emerging form of intelligent life – the synths – and an established one – humanity – fight for their places in the world, a thrilling multi-stranded narrative evolves which continues to ask: who has the right to determine what it means to be alive?
Carrie-Anne Moss will play Dr. Athena Morrow, a pre-eminent Artificial Intelligence expert who is driven by her own motives to create a new kind of machine consciousness. Sam Palladio is Ed, a struggling café owner trying to breathe life into his family business. Marshall Allman plays Milo Khoury, a young Silicon Valley billionaire, founder and CEO of a leading technology company; intent on changing the world.
