Pages

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Disney’s Full Aladdin Trailer Has A Ton Of Songs And Magic

Disney’s Full Aladdin Trailer Has A Ton Of Songs And Magic

Disney has been on a roll with its live-action adaptations, as each new release has a mixture of nostalgia and modern hype attached. Starting with Maleficent, many of the House of Mouse's most beloved animated features have been brought back to the silver screen, with dazzling visual affects to bring extra bit of Disney magic. The next of these releases is Aladdin, with the project slowly building anticipation since it was announced.


While there's been some brief clips released, Disney Studios has finally revealed the full trailer for Aladdin, and it didn't skimp on the magic or musical numbers. Check it out below, and transport yourself back to Agrabah.


Well, this is exciting. It looks like Aladdin will be a pretty spot-on recreation of the 1992 classic animated film. And with Disney capable of wild effects in bringing the project to live-action, smart money says that generations of fans will be clamoring to theaters when the blockbuster arrives in May.





The Aladdin trailer starts right with the love story that is motivating its title character. While trying to escape the city's police, the street rat (Mena Massoud) has a meet-cute with the princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott). He's determined to become suitable enough to woo Jasmine, and is manipulated by Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) into finding the magical lamp. It's the story old as time, but this time it'll feel all the more real.


There's plenty of Will Smith in this first trailer, featuring his version of Robin Williams' Genie, including his signature song "Never Had A Friend Like Me." The character has gotten quite a bit of pushback ahead of its release, with fans worried when the first look showed Smith looking noticeably non-blue. Both the actor and Disney maintained the character would indeed have his blue appearance, although the first look of Smith's complete look went viral for all the wrong reasons.


But now it looks like the character will spend significant time without his blue pigment, presumably to disguise himself and help Aladdin as he attempts to become Prince Ali. This is no doubt going to turn some heads, so stay tuned as the twittersphere blows up.





Perhaps the most exciting moment of this new trailer is the clips from "A Whole New World", the movie's love ballad. We see as Jasmine and Aladdin take that iconic magic carpet ride, and belt it out as they soar through the clouds. The new trailer provided glimpses at the two most beloved musical numbers from the original, so it's clear that Disney is going to tug on our nostalgic hearts throughout the upcoming movie.


Aladdin will fly into theaters on May 24th. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Dark Phoenix's Director Assures Fans The Movie Connects To X-Men: Days Of Future Past

Dark Phoenix's Director Assures Fans The Movie Connects To X-Men: Days Of Future Past
X-Men Days of Future Past cast

Back in 2014, X-Men: Days of Future Past brought the original X-Men film series and the ‘First Class’ series together in a time travel epic that resulted in the timeline being changed and 2023 now being a peaceful time for mutants as opposed to being hunted by Sentinels in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Since then, the main X-Men movies have kept following with the ‘First Class’ characters in the past, with X-Men: Apocalypse being set in 1983 and the upcoming Dark Phoenix being set in 1992.


It’s been all but confirmed that Dark Phoenix will be the final chapter of the X-Men saga that began in 2000, but lest you think this franchise has forgotten about that brighter future ahead for the mutants, director and writer Simon Kinberg stated that he has an idea about how Dark Phoenix will connect to X-Men: Days of Future Past, saying:



I have some sense of it, yes, because I always feel as though I'm sort of responsible for the architecture of this and making sure that it all lines up. So I do have some sense of it, but I really did imagine this movie, in truth, as the culmination of this cycle of X-Men films and so I wasn't really thinking past this film other than wanting to make sure that the logic was all sound.





Whether this means that Dark Phoenix will allude to or establish a direct connection to X-Men: Days of Future Past remains to be seen. However, Simon Kinberg’s comments confirm that rather than X-Men: Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix establishing yet another separate continuity, which would muddy the X-Men film series mythos even more, these events are still leading towards the future shown at the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past, while simultaneously serving as the last chapter of this iteration of the franchise.


Of course, let’s not forget that Logan, which takes place in 2029, revealed that no new mutants had been born in the last 25 years, and the X-Men were no more after Professor X suffered a seizure that unleashed a destructive telepathic wave, killing several mutants. So if you assume that Logan is meant to follow after X-Men: Days of Future Past, then the future still doesn’t look good. However, if you’d rather consider Logan a one-off tale set in a separate universe, then things will eventually become better for mutants, or at least the ones under Professor X’s care.


In any case, Simon Kinberg also mentioned during his interview with ScreenRant that it was working on X-Men: Days of Future Past that helped him conceive the idea for Dark Phoenix. Kinberg recalled:





I actually would say that the Dark Phoenix idea was was set up in the end of Days of Future Past. In changing the timeline of Days of Future Past, part of the reason I did that was I wanted a chance to tell the Dark Phoenix story in a more fulsome way where it's really like the full Dark Phoenix story and focuses on Jean's story different than X-Men: The Last Stand.



X-Men: The Last Stand’s adaptation of The Dark Phoenix Saga was not well-received among fans, particularly because it had to share screen time with the mutant cure storyline. For Dark Phoenix, Jean’s corruption is the main attraction and like the source material, it involves aliens. We’re only a couple weeks away from learning how Dark Phoenix specifically unfolds, but Jean Grey, Beast, Cyclops, Storm and Professor X (among others) are all still alive in 2023, so we at least know they’ll make it out in one piece.


Dark Phoenix opens in theaters on June 7, and if you’re curious about what movies are hitting the big screen this year, look through our 2019 release schedule.



Dora And The Lost City of Gold Trailer Explores The Live-Action Jungle

Dora And The Lost City of Gold Trailer Explores The Live-Action Jungle

This summer, the popular Nick Jr. series Dora the Explorer is making the big jump to live-action with its first theatrical movie. Isabela Moner straps on the purple backpack to go on a journey through the jungle to save her missing parents and find a lost city of gold. Danger, friendship, and foxes dressed as burglars abound! Check out the first trailer for Dora and the Lost City of Gold right now.


Just about anything with a recognizable IP is getting the movie treatment these days and that's especially true for Dora the Explorer. The iconic children's education series was one of the longest running programs on Nick Jr. and it spun off a number of series, specials, and TV movies over the course of its 172-episode run.


Given the fourth-wall breaking nature of the show and its very specific format, it's fair to say that some people were curious how a live-action movie would work. Would it embrace those elements of the show or would it be a more straight-forward and grounded take on the material? The answer, it seems, is a little bit of both. The first trailer for Dora and the Lost City of Gold dropped last night and it presents a Dora who is more adept at navigating the literal jungle than the jungle of high school.




The new trailer lays out the basics of the plot. The film follows Dora (Moner), an energetic but reckless teenage explorer who is sent to high school by her parents (Michael Peña and Eva Longoria) to meet kids her own age. While Dora has trouble fitting in, she and some of her classmates are dragged back to the jungle in order to save her parents and find a mythical city of gold.


This trailer is a pretty solid confirmation that Dora is shooting for a younger target audience and it looks fun for that age group! It's silly and over the top, which is certainly a good tone to have when your main character hangs around with a monkey and keeps flare guns in her backpack instead of textbooks.


My only gripe is that Boots the Monkey isn't wearing any boots. Is he named Boots just because it's cute? #NotMyBoots




The only other thing missing from this trailer is Swiper the Fox. The kleptomaniac fox is voiced by Benicio del Toro, but it looks like the marketing team is saving the reveal of what Swiper looks and sounds like for a rainy day.


Regardless, you can watch Dora and the Lost City of Gold when it arrives in theaters on August 2, 2019. There's still quite a few months of movies left to go before then, and you can learn about each and every one of them in our handy 2019 movie release guide.

James Gunn Won’t Reveal Whether The Suicide Squad Is A Reboot Or Sequel

James Gunn Won’t Reveal Whether The Suicide Squad Is A Reboot Or Sequel
Deadshot and Harley in Suicide Squad

The superhero genre has been dominating the moviemaking industry for the past few years, and is showing no signs of slowing down. And with so many shared universes and properties arriving in theaters, plenty of film professionals have worked on rivaling franchises. That's certainly the case with Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, who will write and helm The Suicide Squad for DC before completing his signature Marvel trilogy.


Cinephiles and comic book fans are eager to see what James Gunn will do with the motley crew of DC villains, and how it'll relate to David Ayer's original movie. Early reports for the developing blockbuster indicate it would be a reboot, rather than a direct sequel to Suicide Squad. But Gunn hasn't confirmed this, and is remaining cagey about the DC project. When recently asked if The Suicide Squad was a reboot, he said:



You know, these terms are all so narrow. There’s so many terms. It is what it is. You’ll see in two years, when it comes out.





The suspense, it's killing me. It looks like James Gunn is going to keep mum about The Suicide Squad until we're closer to its release. But considering his involvement in the DCEU, the conversation about the movie should only grow in intensity in the coming months.


James Gunn's comments to Entertainment Tonight might not provide any concrete answers, but you can't blame the director for keeping tight-lipped about the upcoming blockbuster. The Suicide Squad isn't set to arrive in theaters until August of 2021, so we're still over two years away from the director's DC debut. So perhaps Gunn wants to actually work on the upcoming movie before making announcements regarding its contents.


Rumors about The Suicide Squad being a reboot started a few months ago. DCEU producer Peter Safran did an interview, where he discussed the villain-centric blockbuster, saying:





First of all, we don’t call it Suicide Squad 2 'cause it’s a total reboot, so it's The Suicide Squad and I think people should be extremely excited about it. It’s everything you would hope from a James Gunn script and I think that says a lot and that promises a lot and I know that we will deliver a lot.



This comment gained more steam when the casting for The Suicide Squad became public. When Idris Elba was announced to be joining the cast, it was originally reported that he was replacing Will Smith as Deadshot. What's more, Gunn is planning on bringing in new characters to the titular team, seemingly supporting the idea of a reboot.


Related: The Suicide Squad: Who Should And Shouldn’t Return




But then it was revealed that Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, and Joel Kinnaman would be reprising their roles from the original Suicide Squad. Plus, it turned out that Idris Elba would be playing a new character, not Deadshot. As such, there's been plenty of confusion regarding just what James Gunn is planning for The Suicide Squad. Unfortunately, it looks like we'll have to wait until Gunn is ready to reveal information about his DC movie.


The Suicide Squad is currently set to arrive in theaters on August 6th, 2021. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

Fantastic Beasts 3 Has An Official Release Date

Fantastic Beasts 3 Has An Official Release Date
Fantastic Beasts 2: The crimes Of Grindelwald

The Fantastic Beasts series hasn't been setting the box office on fire in quite the same way as the Harry Potter movies did before it, but that doesn't mean the series hasn't been making money or that it doesn't have fans looking forward to the next entry. Those fans waiting on an explanation of the bomb dropped at the end of The Crimes of Grindlewald will need to wait a bit longer, as the third entry in the franchise has been given an official release date of November 12, 2021.


This puts part three a bit behind the anticipated schedule, as the first two films came out two years apart, which would have resulted in Fantastic Beasts 3 coming out in November of 2020, instead, it will come out a full year later.


It was announced a few months ago that Fantastic Beasts 3 would not go into production this summer as previously scheduled, and would instead start filming in the fall. It seems that the quick turnaround between the first two films may be getting the blame for the second film's poorer performance, and it was decided the third film needed more time to prep.




The extra year of time could be for any number of reasons. However, we can be sure that the extra year isn't happening due to any significant retooling of the franchise's planned structure. The announcement of the date posted on Pottermore also confirms that the Fantastic Beasts franchise is still part of a five-film series.


There was some question as to whether or not we would still get all five announced films in the Fantastic Beasts series after the most recent movie, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald, became the lowest grossing movie in the entire Wizarding World franchise. It became the first movie to do less than $200 million domestically and the first to do less than $700 million globally.


Of course, "underperforming" for a Wizarding World movie is a relative term. The movie still did over $650 million globally and was a top 10 grossing movie in 2018. If your movie is doing worse than expected and is still making hundreds of millions of dollars, you've got a good problem on your hands.




Getting a movie that will need extensive post production digital effects done in 12 months or so was clearly deemed too fast, and so the film will have a longer than normal period to do post-production work.


While fans won't want to wait for another movie, the wait is the only negative to letting the next movie have more time. The more time all aspects of the movie have to do their best work, the better it will all be, and even the fans who wish the movie was coming faster will certainly be happier with a better movie, no matter how long it takes.


The biggest issue with the delay for Fantastic Beasts 3 may have nothing to do with it, and much more to do with Ezra Miller's long gestating Flash movie. It likely delays that movie even more, though it's also a Warner Bros. production, so the studio is clearly taking that into account. The fact that we haven';t heard anything about Flash going into production earlier than expected likely means it will be delayed even more.




November 12, 2021 was an empty weekend on the release calendar, and this time frame has largely been good to the Wizarding World movies over the years. There's currently an untitled Marvel movie set for the weekend before, but since we have no idea what Marvel has planned after this year, it's anybody's guess if that movie could cause box office concerns for Fantastic Beasts 3.


Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grtindelwald revealed the character played by Ezra Miller to apparently be a lost Dumbledore sibling. How all of ithis is going to fit into the canon established by the Harry Potter movies we can only guess at this point, and fan theories will now have a little extra time to figure everything out.

Brie Larson Had To Work On Her 'Cool' Face For Captain Marvel

Brie Larson Had To Work On Her 'Cool' Face For Captain Marvel
Brie Larson looking fierce while making cool face in Captain Marvel

It took a lot for Room actress Brie Larson to become Captain Marvel. We’ve seen the posts of the months of workouts the actress accomplished to get into shape. However, it takes more than heavy lifting and donning an expensive suit in order to truly become the types of heroes we’ve come to expect in the MCU. Recently, Brie Larson revealed she actually had to train to learn what she dubs Carol Danvers’ “cool face.”


During a recent visit to Jimmy Kimmel Live, the actress revealed that she actually worked with the stunt coordinators on Captain Marvel’s stances. There are moments we see the character in trailers and in posters looking extremely fierce, moments that did not come naturally to Brie Larson, who revealed her “cool face” was just one of “tons of things” she had to learn in order to play the character. She said:



I trained for nine months and got super strong. But then also you have to learn weird things, like how to make a ‘cool’ face. Yeah, they usually are laughing at you while you are trying to find it because it’s hard. At least, I mean it was for me. I would just bust up laughing. So, when I look at all of those posters with like my flaming hair and stuff it cracks me up because I know where I started.






In particular, Brie Larson mentions a scene that fans of the movie have already seen in the trailers. She said the scene is hard to miss because her hair is on fire and she looks somewhat otherworldly, but that it took a long time before she got to that point with the coordinators on set.


In fact, she even showed Kimmel what her original face looked like while she was practicing. Long story short, it’s easy to see why her “cool face” ended up being something Brie Larson really had to work at to play the iconic character.


I mean, that’s cute, but it’s not exactly as worldly and wary as the look she ultimately gives, a look that’s been splashed all over the marketing for Captain Marvel.





Millions of dollars are bandied about to make movies like Captain Marvel a reality. So while in some ways it’s ridiculous to think about someone being at their job and being told they need to work on their “cool face,” in other ways, we totally wouldn’t buy Brie Larson looking wide-eyed and amused at the camera.


Studios really need to get these details right in order to sell a character to the audience and I suppose I’m as thankful that Brie Larson practiced this as much as she did myriad lunges and squats.


We won’t have too much longer to wait and see if Captain Marvel is all that and a bag of potato chips. (Feel free to insert another nineties phrase if you have a better one.) The new MCU movie officially hits theaters on March 8, 2019. You can see the full list of all of the other fine movies hitting theaters in 2019 with CinemaBlend's release schedule or check out what reviews are saying about the flick.




Tuesday, September 17, 2019

John Wick Kill Count: All The Kills In All 3 Movies

John Wick Kill Count: All The Kills In All 3 Movies
John Wick Chapter 3 Parabellum John Wick (Keanu Reeves) fighting two dudes

SPOILER ALERT: The following article contains massive spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. If you have not yet seen the film, continue at your own risk!


There are many film franchises featuring characters who do everything in their power not to end the lives of their enemies/opponents, but John Wick is definitely not counted among them. Since launching in 2014, the assassin-centric series has demonstrated that it doesn’t really pay much attention to standard human morality, and has generated a death toll far greater than most action movies. This is a trilogy where people are being executed in crazy numbers, to the point where you’d think that it might be impossible to get a full tally.


Well, guess again. With John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum now in theaters, we’ve gone through the entire trilogy and tabulated all of the many, many kills that occur on screen – and not just those by John Wick himself. We’ve broken it all down in the feature below, so read on and discover the crazy amount of bloodshed we’ve witnessed in these movies thus far:




Guns: 73


It’s established very early in the John Wick trilogy that the hero definitely has a weapon of choice, and it’s clearly a gun. While this count also includes the confirmed kills by Marcus, Ms. Perkins, and Winston’s men, John accounts for the vast majority, as he absolutely mows down enemy assassins as he works towards completing his revenge mission.


Swords/Knives: 6


Of course, John Wick isn’t only deadly when armed with a loaded firearm, as he also proves to be quite efficient when handling knives as well. He doesn’t get too many opportunities to show off this skill in his first movie, but he does get a few good stabs and slices in among the many, many headshots. This includes his final kill, where he purposefully gets stabbed by Viggo Tarasov just so that he can take the weapon away and use it himself.


Other: 12


This is far and away the most depressing category in this feature simply because one of the 12 counted is John Wick’s puppy being kicked to death by Iosef Tarasov and his friends. That being said, the feature also has more death by explosions than any other movie in the series so far (seven), and adds in a broken neck, a strangulation, and a couple of car collisions.




Guns: 110


You’d think that 73 gun deaths would be hard to top, but director Chad Stahelski finds a way in John Wick: Chapter 2. It helps that the action flick features multiple sequences as big as the Red Circle Club rampage, including his escape through the tunnels following the “assassination” of Gianna D'Antonio (more on that in a minute).


Swords/Knives: 2


John Wick: Chapter 2 definitely has the most skewed kill ratio of all the movies so far, as only about 1.7 percent are executed via a blade. That being said, this is the method for one of the most significant deaths in the movie, as it’s with Ares’ own knife that John manages to take her out of the equation.


Other: 7


We really haven’t seen a good amount of stealth from John Wick in the trilogy to this point, as he clearly prefers to go in guns blazing, but we do get to see a couple of more quiet kills at the start of the second movie – which results in a few bodies hitting the floor because of broken necks and even some garrote action. We’ve also counted the death of Gianna D'Antonio here, as she definitely dies from her slit wrists before John puts a bullet in her head. And, if course, this is also the film where we actually get to see what the eponymous killer can do with a pencil, as he ends two lives with one writing utensil.




Before we get into John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, you can revisit all of the John Wick-specific kills by clicking play on our awesome supercut below:


Guns: 124


If you went into John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum thinking that the sequel wouldn’t be able to top the gun kill count from the previous installment, you’re clearly not paying attention. It’s worth noting that John does get a lot more help in this one than in the previous movies, as Sofia racks up a pretty high body count while under attack from Berrada's men in Casablanca, but the film most definitely affirms that the titular character knows his way around a firearm.


Swords/Knives: 32


There are far more deaths by sword/knife in the third installment of this franchise – mostly because of the stealthy attacks that are executed against John’s allies by Zero and his gang. That being said, John himself does use a blade more than a few times in the movie, most notably during the first act museum attack, and then later when he is accosted by Zero’s crew on motorcycles upon his return to New York. And, of course, there is the big final battle in The Continental as well.




Other: 11


John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum stars with an nontraditional kill, as our protagonist takes out an opponent with just a book – but from there we get to see 10 others scattered throughout the film. A good number of them are actually animal kills – three by dogs, and three by horses – and motorcycle crashes and a chucked axe complete the count.


It’s kind of hard to imagine the next sequel actually managing to go even bigger than what we’ve already seen, but given the cliffhanger at the end of Chapter 3, it certainly seems like Chad Stahelski, Keanu Reeves and the rest of the company are going to try. Be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for all of the latest developments about the John Wick franchise going forward, and hit the comments section below to tell us about your favorite kill in the series thus far!

 

Blogger news

Blogroll

About