Game of Thrones‘ Natalie Dormer and Chicago Fire‘s Taylor Kinney have just begun work on The Forest, a supernatural thriller directed by Jason Zada, with production underway in Tokyo and around the Aokigahara forest at Mt. Fuji’s base. The film’s based on an original idea by David S. Goyer (the Dark Knight trilogy, Da Vinci’s Demons) and was written by Sarah Cornwell and Nick Antosca.
Lava Bear Films and AI Film are co-financing and co-producing the thriller.
“We are proud to see this film going into production and fortunate to have AI Film join us on the film,” said Lava Bear head David Linde. “The team both in front of and behind the camera promises to deliver a well-crafted thriller designed to engage audiences all over the world.”
AI Film CEO and executive producer Aviv Giladi added, “We are thrilled to be working with David Linde’s Lava Bear and Focus Features on this film, who have brought on board a great cast and creative team which is already attracting the attention of international distribution.”
Focus Features has planned a January 8, 2016 U.S. release date.
The Plot:
The Forest, which is set in the Aokigahara forest at the base of Mt. Fuji, tells the story of a young American woman who goes in search of her twin sister, who has mysteriously disappeared. Despite everyone’s warnings to “stay on the path,” Sara enters the forest determined to discover the truth about her sister’s fate, only to be confronted by the angry and tormented souls of the dead who prey on anyone who wanders into the forest.
Alan Van Sprang is going from playing King Henry II on Reign to playing Valentine, a major villain on Shadowhunters. ABC Family announced Van Sprang’s casting as a recurring guest star on the upcoming series and provided this description of his character:
“Brilliant, cunning, and dangerously handsome, Valentine is a mysterious Shadowhunter wielding immense power. His stoic, charming, and confident presence allows him control over his many followers. To seek out what he wants, Valentine executes anyone in his way, never thinking twice about it.”
Van Sprang joins the cast, which is led by Katherine McNamara as Clary Fray and includes Dominic Sherwood as Jace Wayland, Alberto Rosende as Simon, Emeraude Toubia as Isabelle Lightwood, Matthew Daddario as Alec Lightwood, and Isaiah Mustafa as Luke Garroway. McG (Terminator Salvation) is executive producing the series and will direct the first episode.
The Plot:
Based on the bestselling young adult fantasy book series The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters follows 18-year-old Clary Fray, who finds out on her birthday that she is not who she thinks she is but rather comes from a long line of Shadowhunters – human-angel hybrids who hunt down demons. When her mother, Jocelyn, is kidnapped, Clary is thrown into the world of demon hunting with mysterious Shadowhunter Jace and her best friend, Simon. Now living among faeries, warlocks, vampires and werewolves, Clary begins a journey of self-discovery as she learns more about her past and what her future may hold.
Maroon 5 (Photo by: Michael Parmelee / NBC)The Voice judge Adam Levine will be taking the stage with his band Maroon 5 on The Voice season finale airing May 19, 2015 at 9pm ET/PT. Also confirmed to perform on the finale are Kelly Clarkson, John Fogerty, Ed Sheeran, Luke Bryan, and Meghan Trainor.
According to NBC’s official announcement, Maroon 5 will perform “The Summer’s Gonna Hurt Like a Motherf***er,” their latest single just released today. Grammy Award winner Kelly Clarkson will sing “Invincible” and Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year Luke Bryan will hit the stage to sing “Kick the Dust Up.”
Grammy nominee Meghan Trainor will perform “Dear Future Husband” and Ed Sheeran will sing “Photograph” from his second album, x.
The Voice season eight has been averaging 13.8 million viewers.
Stefanie Scott stars as teenager Quinn Brenner and Dermot Mulroney stars as Quinn’s dad, Sean Brenner in Focus Features’ ‘Insidious: Chapter 3’ (Photo Credit: Matt Kennedy / Focus Features)
Focus Features is releasing Insidious: Chapter 3, a prequel to Insidous 1 and 2, in theaters on June 5, 2015 and today they’ve unveiled two new clips from the upcoming horror film. Clip one has Dermot Mulroney comforting his daughter played by Stefanie Scott after she encounters an entity in her room. The second clip features series veteran Lin Shaye assuring Scott she’ll live a long life.
Leigh Whannell wrote, directed and co-stars in this third film of the franchise.
The Plot:
The newest chapter in the terrifying horror series is written and directed by franchise co-creator Leigh Whannell. This chilling prequel, set before the haunting of the Lambert family, reveals how gifted psychic Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) reluctantly agrees to use her ability to contact the dead in order to help a teenage girl (Stefanie Scott) who has been targeted by a dangerous supernatural entity.
Fox chose not to renew The Mindy Project for a fourth season, but fortunately for fans of the series Hulu has officially picked up the half-hour comedy for a fourth season. Not only are they going forward with a new season, Hulu’s also upped the season order to 26 episodes. The Mindy Project seasons one through three are currently available for streaming to subscribers.
“Mindy has been a beloved member of the Hulu family, so this deal is a natural extension of our relationship,” said Craig Erwich, Senior Vice President and Head of Content, Hulu, announcing the pick up of the series. “With so many of her fans already catching up and tuning in to the series on Hulu, we know her millions of fans will be eager to find out what Mindy has in store for the next chapter.”
“I am thrilled The Mindy Project has found a new home on Hulu, where so many of our fans are already watching the show. It’s such an exciting place to be,” said Kaling.
Hulu hasn’t set a premiere date for season four.
The Plot: The Mindy Project is a single-camera comedy series created by and starring Emmy(R)-nominated writer/producer and New York Times best-selling author Mindy Kaling that follows a skilled OB/GYN navigating the tricky waters of both her personal and professional life. The series also stars Chris Messina, Ed Weeks, Ike Barinholtz, Beth Grant and Xosha Roquemore.
STX Entertainment’s released the first TV spot for the psychological thriller The Gift starring Joel Edgerton, Rebecca Hall, and Jason Bateman. Edgerton pulled triple duty with The Gift, not only acting in the film but also writing and directing the dramatic movie. Produced by Jason Blum (The Purge, Insidious franchise), The Gift will arrive in theaters on July 31, 2015.
The Plot:
Can you really go through life having never wronged anyone? Even if you are unaware of how, or when, and even who you may have wronged….chances are there is someone out there who won’t ever forget it…or you.
Simon (Bateman) and Robyn (Hall) are a young married couple whose life is going just as planned until a chance encounter with an acquaintance from Simon’s high school sends their world into a harrowing tailspin. Simon doesn’t recognize Gordo (Edgerton) at first, but after a seemingly coincidental series of encounters proves troubling, a horrifying secret from their past is uncovered after nearly 20 years. As Robyn learns the unsettling truth about what happened between Simon and Gordo, she starts to question: how well do we really know the people closest to us, and are past bygones ever really bygones?
Cover art for The Lonely Island’s album “Turtleneck & Chain”
Universal Pictures says filming has begun on their no longer top secret Lonely Island movie with Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone. Judd Apatow is producing and Schaffer and Taccone are co-directing the comedy set in the world of music.
Taccone, Samberg, and Schaffer formed Lonely Island back in 2000 and created SNL‘s popular Digital Shorts. Fan favorite digital shorts include “D**k in a Box” (with Justin Timberlake), “Lazy Sunday” (a rap about The Chronicles of Narnia), “The Natalie Portman Rap,” “YOLO (featuring Adam Levine & Kendrick Lamar),” “I Just Had Sex (featuring Akon),” and “I’m on a Boat (featuring T-Pain).”
“Not to be hyperbolic, but we are seriously zazzed about this movie,” stated The Lonely Island.
“I have begged these fine gentlemen to allow me to produce one of their films since day one,” added Apatow, “and finally they decided my whining needed to come to an end.”
Samberg, Taccone, and Schaffer are also involved as producers, with Morgan Sackett executive producing.
For perhaps the first time in 2015, audiences will actually have to decide between two good movies being released the same week. Of course, considering one of them is Pitch Perfect 2, and the other is Mad Max: Fury Road, there may be different demographics at play.
You can go find my review of Anna Kendrick and her fellow Barden Bellas elsewhere but this review is about the return of Max Rockatansky (with Tom Hardy stepping into Mel Gibson’s shoes). It’s been thirty years since we went Beyond Thunderdome (“Master Blaster runs Bartertown!”), and while it’s been a long, delayed effort, the result that director George Miller has been able to craft is nothing short of spectacular (and much more in line with the first two films in the series).
Keep in mind this is not a reboot. Miller brings us right back into Max’s post-apocalyptic hellscape without some long, drawn-out exposition and without any overt redaction of previous events. While you should have already seen those earlier films, all you need to know here is that Max used to enforce law and order long after society fell to pieces. The death of his wife and child drove him to live his life out alone in the desert wasteland, scrounging for gas and water while fending off the attacks of would-be warlords and their henchmen.
What Miller does so beautifully about that back story is give it to us in Fury Road via haunting visions and hallucinations experienced by Max. It’s all pretty much given in the first minute or two of calm build-up, right before Max is off barreling through the desert, attempting to outrun a horde of baddies. From there on out, it’s practically a non-stop thrill ride.
I won’t get into the plot too much, honestly, it’s rather formulaic and not too surprising considering the genre (Ozploitation, which is one of my personal favorites). But the action … Great Googly Moogly … the action. It’s INSANE. And I mean that in a good way. You see, for all you young folk out there, before the days of fancy computers practically composing every shot, there used to be these things called stunts. And these stunts meant putting real people in real danger in order to get amazing footage.
Miller knows how to do this better than almost anyone (seriously, go back and watch at least The Road Warrior). The large majority of the action is practical, and CGI only really comes into play to add color and weather effects to the Namibian desert where filming took place and for digitally erasing most of one of Charlize Theron’s arms (she starts off without it, so this is no spoiler).
By doing things practically and shooting things not only in sequence but from a distance, the action is intense, visceral, and astounding. (OMG, you mean this isn’t a ridiculous assortment of fast cuts that only serve to confuse the audience as to what’s happening? Suck it, Michael Bay. ) Really, the biggest question I have is how in the hell do you get insurance to do all of this in today’s litigious society?!? I’m fairly certain AAA or Geico would have laughed at the notion of insuring any of these vehicles, let alone the people inside.
Snarkiness aside, what takes place over the course of two hours in Fury Road is something audiences haven’t really seen in a long time. Not only is the action simply stunning, the look and design of the characters are as well. If the makeup team isn’t nominated for awards at the end of the year, I’m calling shenanigans. Likewise, the production design of what few sets there are, and the composition of the many, many vehicles, turn the overall effort into a treasure trove of visual delights (though some are a bit twisted … in a good way).
I may have some problems with the pacing of the last thirty minutes as there’s a definite moment when it almost feels like the credits could roll, and I would have been fully satiated, but that feeling quickly washes away once the action kicks back into full gear. And really, the movie is practically one long chase sequence. Much in the same way Gravity gave very few moments of respite for Miss Congeniality to tumble back onto terra firma, Fury Road simply asks us to strap in, marvel at the breathtaking visuals, and cringe at the heart-racing action.
While I hope we never actually have to live in a world like Max’s, I’m so very, very happy we get to visit that world on-screen and should sequels spring forth (Hardy has signed on for three more), I can’t wait to see what Miller has in store. The bar has been set very high, but this is like a refreshing counter-programming to all the family-friendly superhero fare that will dominate cinemas for at least the next five years. And something tells me we’re going to need properties like this simply to keep the movie-going experience from becoming nothing more than a competent paint-by-numbers exercise.
Now go get out there and watch this movie. Mad Max: Fury Road is the reason you go to theaters, even with that 70-inch curved OLED screen in your man cave. Action and imagery like this demands the biggest and best presentation you can find. Anything less, and you’re only hurting yourself.
GRADE: A
MPAA rating: R for intense sequences of violence throughout and for disturbing images.
Ryan Murphy’s latest anthology series Scream Queens will be part of Fox’s 2015-2016 primetime lineup, airing on Tuesday nights at 9pm ET/PT. The network’s already released a couple of super short teasers for the show, but now they’ve unveiled two slightly longer looks at the horror comedy series.
The cast is led by Murphy’s American Horror Story actress Emma Roberts and includes big screen scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, Glee‘s Lea Michele, Oliver Hudson, Keke Palmer, Ariana Grande, Skyler Samuels, and Nick Jonas.
The Plot:
Award-winning executive producers Ryan Murphy (Glee, American Horror Story), Brad Falchuk (Glee, American Horror Story) and Ian Brennan meld comedy, mystery, and horror in Scream Queens. All hell is about to break loose for the Kappa House sisters of Wallace University when a murder takes place exactly 20 years after a mysterious death originally rocked their college campus. The super-charged anthology series is a modern take on the classic whodunit with a killer cast. With at least one casualty each week until the mystery is solved, anyone could be the next victim – or the murderer.
Film Movement’s picked up the dramatic film The Automatic Hate for a North American winter release. The Automatic Hate, directed by Justin Lerner (Girlfriend), premiered at the South By Southwest Film Festival and stars Joseph Cross, Adelaide Clemens, Richard Schiff, Ricky Jay and Deborah Ann Woll.
Lerner co-wrote the script with Katharine O’Brien.
“It’s been such an exciting journey already, which began at SXSW, and now to be partnering with a company like Film Movement — that has such class and taste in both foreign and American independent cinema — we feel very fortunate to be teaming up with them to get the film out to more audiences,” said writer/director Lerner.
“Justin is a fresh new voice in American independent cinema, and his growing work is a great example of the kinds of films we want to support as we branch out to releasing more American indie films,” stated Michael Rosenberg, President of Film Movement.
The Plot:
The Automatic Hate explores what happens when Davis Green’s alluring young cousin Alexis appears on his doorstep one night and he discovers that a side of his family has been kept secret for his entire life. Against his father’s wishes, Davis travels to rural, Upstate New York to meet his other cousins. As he and Alexis attempt to reunite their families, they try to uncover the shocking secret that tore their families apart, while wrestling with a taboo attraction to each other.
