Will Smith Has Seen Aladdin’s Final Cut, And He’s Hyped

Will Smith Has Seen Aladdin’s Final Cut, And He’s Hyped

Disney fans rejoice! The studio’s live-action season soon awaits as Dumbo, Aladdin and The Lion King get ready to hit theaters in the coming spring and summer months. It’s a lot of nostalgia to process at once, and each movie has some beautifully animated shoes to fill ­– metaphorically anyway: elephants, genies or lions don’t need footwear.

Of all the highly-anticipated performances, Will Smith’s Genie might be the one we are most anxiously bracing ourselves for, following Robin Williams’ iconic, hilarious and touching animated performance as the entity of the lamp. The actor recently took to his Instagram to announce he’s seen the upcoming movie and he’s blazing with joy. Check out his reaction below:

Are we ready to get on the hype train with Will Smith? The Aladdin star is calling it straight “FIRE” (emojis and all) and he doesn’t seem to mean that in a “hot garbage fire” kind of way.

A past Aladdin teaser revealing the first look of Will Smith’s blue genie caused some concern in fans of the movie’s CGI. The first image of the character went completely viral and was criticized for being "terrifying." However, the recent first full trailer eased some of this apprehension, as the wish-granting character’s CGI looks more complete.

The new trailer also offered a closer glance at the movie’s music numbers and recreations of famous scenes, such as Aladdin’s first meeting with the Genie, his makeover into a prince and one romantic magic carpet ride. The latest preview certainly looks promising and has many fans getting the memorable songs back in their heads and ready to see Disney’s new take on the popular animated film from the studio’s renaissance.

We should note the reaction from Will Smith is, of course, a bit of self-advertising on his part, and the actor certainly wants people to get excited and go out to see the movie. If Smith went on social media and said he hated the movie, that would certainly hurt the film’s chances at gaining positive buzz. However, it does help to hear the star sound excited for the release and the fact that he’s seen it means it’s that much closer to hitting big screens.

Following the in the footsteps of 1992 film, Aladdin follows a street urchin (Mena Massoud), who comes across a magic lamp, thanks to shady deal with Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) and finds a genie inside who helps disguise himself as a prince in order to woo the beautiful Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott) as a vile power play unfolds between Jafar and the Sultan of Agrabah (Navid Negahban).

The film also stars Alan Tudyk as Iago the parrot and SNL’s Nasim Pedrad as a new character named Dalia, and it will include two new songs. Aladdin flies into theaters on May 24.

Sonic The Hedgehog Co-Creator Thanks Fans For Pushing To Change Movie

Sonic The Hedgehog Co-Creator Thanks Fans For Pushing To Change Movie

If you are a fan of video games, Sonic the Hedgehog, or train wrecks, then you must have had an interesting week. The first trailer for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie debuted and showcased the first real look at the Blue Blur in live-action. It was not received well at all, and the online backlash was so extreme that the film is now redesigning Sonic. Fans reacted positively to that news and now the co-creator of Sonic has shared his support for the re-design.

Even before the trailer released, fans had an inkling the film had made some significant changes to Sonic's design. The director, Jeff Fowler, had indicated in an interview that they had to tinker with the design to make it believable in the real world, and that Sega was not entirely on board with those changes.

There was also some promotional material that leaked and didn't do many favors. After the trailer dropped, the outcry and ridicule over the movie was so extreme that Paramount is re-designing Sonic to be more in line with his video game appearances.

It's certainly a unique situation, as not many films have changed the design of the main character so late in the game (think of all the posters and marketing that will need to be changed now). However, it's a decision that Yuji Naka, the co-creator of Sonic, is totally all right with.

The video game designer took to Twitter to thank Sonic fans for being vocal and getting the movie design changed. Naka sees this as a positive direction for the film. He doesn't outright say this, but the tweet would indicate that Naka wasn't a fan of the live-action Sonic either and now his creation has a second chance.

It's understandable if Naka didn't like the movie's version. Sonic video games may have their rough patches, but pretty much the one perfect thing about them is Sonic's appearance. The guy has a great look that's endured since 1991, so the fact that it was altered so much for the movie is a bummer.

Now, we'll all just have to wait to see what the filmmakers come up with. Will they merge Sonic's eyes and give him less shapely legs? Just because they change the design doesn't mean the movie will get better or worse, but it's a decent way to earn some goodwill before the film releases later this year.

All our questions will be answered when Sonic the Hedgehog arrives in theaters on November 8, 2019. It'll be a race for the film to get all those changes made. For everything else arriving in theaters this year, be sure to check out our 2019 movie release guide to plan all your future viewings.

Brie Larson Wishes Marvel Would Move Faster With Diversity

Brie Larson Wishes Marvel Would Move Faster With Diversity

Brie Larson became the first woman to lead a Marvel movie solo when she starred in Captain Marvel earlier this year. The actress has been a champion of diversity since long before her role in the major franchise, but with her new platform as a Marvel star, she's become an even louder voice, and while Hollywood has been doing a lot in recent years to better diversify, including Marvel Studios, Larson would love to see this all happen much faster.

In a conversation with Mark Malkin of the Big Ticket podcast, the host relates a conversation he had with Marvel producer Victoria Alonso in which she said it was time to have an LGBTQ superhero. Brie Larson clearly agrees, and actually seems to feel that it's long past time for such things to have happened. According to Larson...

I don’t understand how you could think that a certain type of person isn’t allowed to be a superhero. So to me it’s like, we gotta move faster. But I’m always wanting to move faster with this stuff.

To be fair, Brie Larson clearly thinks that Marvel, overall, is doing a positive job with representation, saying they are at the forefront of changing story structures and norms, such as the fact that Captain Marvel doesn't need a love interest.

The issue isn't that things aren't changing for the better, it's that in Larson's eyes things just aren't changing fast enough, though even she admits she's somewhat impatient in this regard.

If you're the person who is underrepresented on the screen, even knowing that things will get there eventually, it can certainly be hard when you want it all fixed now.

Marvel has made a commitment to increase diversity before, though exactly what form that will take is largely unclear. We do know that Shang-Chi is one of the movies in the slate for the upcoming next phase of the MCU, which will make an Asian superhero the star for the first time in the franchise. The film is also being directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the director of Short Term 12, which happened to star Brie Larson, which means the film will be helmed by an Asian-American as well.

Also behind the camera, it's been reported that Cate Shorland has been hired to direct the upcoming Black Widow movie.

However, while race and gender diversity are taking some positive steps forward, LGBTQ inclusion is still very much in its infancy at Marvel. The recent Avengers: Endgame was actually the first Marvel film to include a character of any kind who was clearly gay. Hopefully, that's a first step on the way to an LGBTQ superhero. Considering how little we know about the future of the MCU, it's certainly possible there could be plans for such a thing as early as the next phase.

The Key Ways Greta’s Script Changed To Make Isabelle Huppert A Perfect Fit

The Key Ways Greta’s Script Changed To Make Isabelle Huppert A Perfect Fit

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the film Greta**. If you have not yet seen the film, read on at your own risk!**

Over the course of Neil Jordan’s Greta, Isabelle Huppert’s titular character evolves quite a bit. When we first meet her, through the eyes of Chloe Moretz’s Francis she appears to be a lonely old woman with a lot of love to give and nobody to give it to, but developments in the plot reveal that to only be a fraction of the real story. It makes for a fun performance from a veteran star, and it should surprise few to learn that it was tailor made for Huppert – as I recently learned from the film’s writer director:

When Isabelle [Huppert] read it, and Chloe [Moretz] read it, they liked it, and we began to have a serious prospect of making it as a movie. I got out my pen and I rewrote the part for Isabelle. In the initial script she was an older Hungarian woman. And I said to Miss Huppert that we would develop all sorts of dimensions to this character.

Earlier this month I sat down with Neil Jordan during the domestic press day for Greta in Los Angeles, and one of the earliest subjects discussed during the interview was the film’s evolution. Jordan told me that he had a lot of appreciation for Ray Wright’s script when he first read it, particularly the story about a female stalker and its approach to what he called “familiar” material, but when Isabelle Huppert started to express interest he started to produce new drafts of the movie that had her very much in mind for the antagonist.

One of the key ways that Greta changed is that she became a Hungarian woman who pretends that she is French – playing specifically to Isabelle Huppert’s natural accent – but that was only the start. Based on Neil Jordan’s description, the character was originally going to be considerably older, and appear to be a lot more helpless. Having Huppert interested brought Greta’s age down, but Jordan’s version also gave her a bit more flair and charisma. He explained,

We gave her a French persona that she presents to the world. We gave her sophistication, we gave her a piano. We'd give her all sorts of stories about our life, which turn out not to be true - made her considerably younger, and gave her an elegance.

From the outside Greta appears to be an innocent woman in need of good company, but as we witness as the story unfolds that’s not really the case. Francis first meets her when she discovers Greta’s “lost” bag on the subway, and the two quickly begin a mother-daughter-esque relationship as Francis tries to help her (and it doesn’t hurt that Francis just recently lost her mom and has only just moved to New York City). Before too long, however, she realizes that the bag was planted to try and lure her in, and Greta’s obsessive personality starts to become excessively disturbing.

The key to everything in Greta is the relationship between Francis and Greta, and Neil Jordan stressed how changing the latter in new drafts of the script significantly altered their dynamic. While Ray Wright’s script had Francis primarily motivated by sympathy and a level of benevolence, the alterations that Jordan made had it so that Francis was almost entranced by the woman, and wanted to spend more time with her:

In the first script, Francis' relationship to Greta was one of the pity really. She pitied this apparently helpless woman. But in this iteration of it, Francis was kind of seduced by Greta. She's seduced by her piano playing, by her elegance, by her offer of friendship.

It’s pretty easy to imagine anyone falling into that same trap, but after watching the nightmarish results that play out in Greta, audiences may be a bit more wary.

Greta, which stars Maika Monroe, Colm Feore, and Stephen Rea in addition to Isabelle Huppert and Chloe Moretz, is now playing in theaters nationwide.

Wait, Is Avengers: Endgame Getting An Intermission Internationally?

Wait, Is Avengers: Endgame Getting An Intermission Internationally?

One of the most talked about aspects of Avengers: Endgame has been the film's length. It clocks in at over three hours long, which has many people wondering how they're going to withstand it, sitting in a theater for that long, not really wanting to take a break for fear of missing anything. It turns out this might only be a problem domestically, as Avengers: Endgame may be getting an intermission in other countries.

The above image purportedly comes from a screening of Avengers: Endgame which recently took place in Italy, the film opened there on April 24. It appears that if you see the film in cinemas there, there is a five minute intermission inserted into the film.

This is something that a lot of people in North America would probably like to see. A five minute break to run to the bathroom or go get more snacks or just to stretch your legs would not be out of line. There are certainly going to be people who need to use the bathroom but aren't going to want to leave the theater for fear of missing something important in a movie that has built up over the last 11 years.

Intermissions aren't entirely unheard of in film, but they haven't been common in recent years. Films like Gone with the Wind and Lawrence of Arabia had intermissions built into them. Many films around three hours long did decades ago.

The most recent film with an intermission that I can recall was Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, though that was only included as part of the longer "Road Show" version of the film. I found it a nice break, and it was structured in such a way that it helped add to the tension of the story. You had a few extra minutes to wonder what was going to happen next before you saw the result. Certainly, such a thing could certainly happen with Avengers: Endgame. And if we're all here for over three hours, what's an extra five or ten minutes?

It's unclear how widespread this phenomenon is. It could be just Italy, or even just this one theater, that has added the intermission, but it certainly wouldn't be surprising to see other places do something similar.

While movies, especially of the epic blockbuster variety, are routinely breaking the two hour mark these days, a movie hitting three hours is still a fairly rare occurrence. It's just a long time and it's a potentially difficult thing to juggle. On the one hand, you don't want to go to the bathroom in the middle, so maybe you forego food and drink before the film. But then again, you don't want to be distracted by your own hunger during the movie, so maybe food is needed.

Some places may get an extra break, but it won't be happening here, so if you're prepping for Avengers: Endgame tonight, be ready for three straight hours of sitting. Hopefully the chair is comfortable.

Full Downton Abbey Trailer Reveals A Visit From The King And Carson's Return

Full Downton Abbey Trailer Reveals A Visit From The King And Carson's Return

Downton Abbey won’t be hitting theaters until September, but Focus Features has wasted no time giving us early glimpses regarding what to expect. Following a quick teaser trailer a few months ago, we’ve finally gotten a good look at the grandeur and the opulence of the new season.

It’s 1927 and the King and Queen are coming to Downton. Yes the King and Queen! What does that entail? Take a look.

People are in a tizzy about the big and unexpected visit, to the point where Lady Mary asks the now-retired Carson to return to his post at the manor.

There’s more seemingly going on, as Lady Mary seems to be contemplating leaving Downton Abbey altogether, although her trusty maid Anna seems to be at least attempting to talk Lady Mary out of whatever she’s planning.

Although we’ve seen a teaser, a lot of this is big news, particularly Carson’s return, but also just knowing the very royal premise of the movie is quite exciting. It looks as if the household has changed somewhat since we've last seen it, but as much as things have changed, they've also stayed the same.

In fact, the same old “the world is continually modernizing” narrative that has been a major component throughout the history of Downton Abbey will certainly be present in the big screen venture, which should feel very familiar to fans of the show.

Most of the cast is present in the trailer for Downton Abbey, including Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess, who once joked her character would be over 100 by now. She also point blank said she didn’t want a movie repeatedly, but she’s definitely going to be back for the big screen venture, as are most of the major characters from the TV series (or at least those who were around at the end of the show). All in all, it's nice to see everyone get a little screen time in this trailer.

The trailer closes with a grand entrance from the “Your Majesties,” although we don’t get to see their faces or full looks yet. In fact, the movie has cast quite a few newcomer actors and actresses who haven't made appearances in this first full trailer yet. For now, Downton Abbey fans will need to content themselves with talking about the premise, the returning characters and, of course, whether or not we enjoy Lady Mary's current haircut.

Still, we're still quite a bit of a ways away from the release of Downton Abbey later in 2019. Downton Abbey will officially hit theaters on September 20th, but if you'd like to see what's heading into theaters in the meantime, take a look at CinemaBlend's full movies schedule.

Zachary Levi Says You Don’t Need To Hate Captain Marvel To Love Shazam!

Zachary Levi Says You Don’t Need To Hate Captain Marvel To Love Shazam!

It's no secret that superhero movies are everywhere. The genre is extremely popular, and able to make massive sums of money at the box office. If the fans are behind it, that is. With so many comic book adaptations in theaters, studios are challenged to craft blockbusters unique perspective, that will set it apart from the already bloated genre. Luckily for Warner Bros., DC is breaking new ground with David Sandberg's upcoming origin story Shazam!

Shazam! will bring the titular DC superhero to the big screen for the first time, and will tell a story with plenty of heart and comedy. Zachary Levi is playing one half the title character, as he'll be the heroic persona of 14-year old Billy Batson. There was a time when the character Shazam used to be called Captain Marvel, so the DC and Marvel rivalry has been once again heating up for each heroes' big movie. But Levi doesn't want to hear it, especially when it comes to throwing hate Brie Larson's way. As he tells it:

It came to my attention, what was going on, because I was on Twitter or something. And I was getting added by people that were saying what was very clearly fictitious, defaming things about Brie and about Captain Marvel. I’m not affiliated with anything; I’ve known Brie over the years and I think she’s delightful and talented. By the way she doesn’t need anybody sticking up for her. I was trying to talk to people who thought they were doing me a favor. They were like ‘We’re not gonna see that, we’re gonna see Shazam!’. You can just say you want to see Shazam!. You don’t have to go and speak ill of someone else in order to raise me or this movie up.

And just like that, Shazam has spoken. Because while Marvel and DC may have fought over the title of "Captain Marvel", Zachary Levi doesn't feel that sort of rivalry with Brie Larson's Marvel blockbuster. And he doesn't want his success to be at the cost of another comic book movie.

Zachary Levi's comments come from his recent conversation with The Associated Press ahead of Shazam!'s release. Comic book fans are very passionate, and the rivalry between DC and Marvel has been going on for decades. But Captain Marvel was met with a particular level of hate ahead of its release, and that's not something that Levi wants any part of.

The rivalry between Shazam! and Captain Marvel comes from the comic book origins, where the mantle of "Captain Marvel" was fought for by both DC and Marvel comics. The name was originally held by the character played by Zachary Levi, while Carol Danvers went by Ms. Marvel. Eventually legal issues hampered the original character, and Marvel comics scooped up the name. As such, DC renamed the character Shazam.

The hate for Captain Marvel was due to Brie Larson's comments about diversity in the press. But that didn't stop the movie from getting solid reviews and making a ton of money at the box office. Now we'll just have to see if Shazam! follows suit.

Captain Marvel is in theaters now, and Shazam! will arrive on April 5th. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.