Bad News, Marvel Confirmed Shuri’s Death In Avengers: Infinity War

Bad News, Marvel Confirmed Shuri’s Death In Avengers: Infinity War

For months, the fate of Letitia Wright's Shuri in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a mystery. Despite having a prominent role in Avengers: Infinity War, the blockbuster never showed audiences what happened to the character after Thanos snapped his fingers with the completed Infinity Gauntlet, so we were all left in the dark regarding how she fared during The Decimation.

Admittedly the first trailer for Avengers: Endgame released in December 2018 did provide us with a solid lead - showing her on a monitor as being among the world's dead heroes - but now it looks like we have official confirmation courtesy of the new movie's character posters: Shuri got dusted.

Earlier today Marvel Studios released a grand total of 32 new one-sheets for Avengers: Endgame, and during the rollout it wasn't hard to discover a pattern: all of the living characters are featured in color, and all of the dead ones are in black-and-white. There were a few exciting surprises mixed in, such as revelations regarding Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie, Benedict Wong's Wong, and Jon Favreau's Happy Hogan (all revealed to be alive), but the artwork also seems to confirm that Shuri was one of Thanos' many, many victims.

This isn't really a surprise for those who took the information provided in the first Avengers: Endgame trailer at face value, but it's understandable why some people questioned the preview's credulity. After all, Shuri's face was featured right next to a picture of Paul Rudd's Scott Lang on the aforementioned monitor, and the very end of that footage showed Scott very much alive and at the front door of the Avengers facility. Also, Joe and Anthony Russo have confirmed that marketing material has been doctored to protect certain elements of the movie, so who knows what we can really trust?

All that being said, there actually was good reason to believe when the first trailer said that Shuri was counted among the Decimated. After all, her situation at the time of the Thanos snap was a lot different than Scott Lang's. None of the heroes specifically knew where Scott was when half of life in the universe was eliminated, so when he didn't turn up after the event it was just assumed that he was dusted (the reality actually being that he was trapped in the Quantum Realm). Shuri, on the other hand, was present in Wakanda with the Avengers battling against the Black Order and their Outriders, so the team knew exactly where she should have been... and clearly she wasn't there.

This is obviously a bummer, as Shuri is one of the most exciting new characters featured in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and audiences are hungry to see more of her in big screen adventures. I guess this just means that fans will be rooting that much harder that the heroes will somehow be able to reverse the events of Avengers: Infinity War and save the fallen.

As of today we now just have one month to wait for the arrival of Avengers: Endgame, and excitement is near the point of boiling over. Obviously we'll been covering the hell out of it here on CinemaBlend for the next few weeks, so stay tuned as we get closer and closer.

Forrest Gump Was Originally Getting A Sequel, And It Sounds Wild

Forrest Gump Was Originally Getting A Sequel, And It Sounds Wild

Forrest Gump was the rare film that succeeded at the box office while also being a major award winner. With something like that, you can practically hear the studio green-lighting the sequel, but one never happened. However, it turns out a sequel actually came quite close to happening. Eric Roth, who won an Oscar for his screenplay of the original Forrest Gump, actually completed work on a script for a sequel. Unfortunately, the new script had just about the worst possible timing. According to Roth...

Literally, I turned it in the day before 9/11. Tom and I and (director Robert Zemeckis) got together on 9/11 to sort of commiserate about how life was in America and how tragic it was. And we looked at each other and said, ‘This movie has no meaning anymore,' in that sense.

Forrest Gump was a movie that was built entirely out of optimism. The main character almost always had a positive outlook and attitude that carried him through life. On 9/11, you can bet that few people were feeling such optimism. Clearly, the team behind the first film looked at this new sequel and just figured the world they were now in was not a place where a Forrest Gump 2 made any sense.

Of course, even if things had gone differently, one has to wonder just how well a sequel to Forrest Gump would have actually worked, because this story was weird. The first film was all about watching Forrest Gump coincidentally find himself part of major historical events, and the sequel would have continued that idea, while moving the story closer to the modern day. This included, as Roth tells Yahoo, somehow making Gump part of the O.J. Simpson murder case.

I had (Forrest) in the back of (O.J. Simpson's) Bronco. He would look up occasionally, but they didn’t see him in the rearview mirror, and then he’d pop down.

Needless to say, putting Forrest Gump in O.J.'s famous white bronco is an...interesting choice. It was certainly a moment that everybody watching the film would remember, but not exactly in the best way. It's not quite the same as watching him report the Watergate break-in.

Forest Gump also had a tendency to have certain skills that made him incredibly good at various activities. In the original movie it was football and table tennis. In the sequel, we would learn that Forrest Gump was an excellent ballroom dancer, a skill which would apparently result in him dancing with Princess Diana at one point.

Forrest would also begin a new relationship in the sequel, with a Native American woman. This would lead to what actually may have been one of the major reasons the script died. It included a sequence that would likely have been viewed very poorly as a post-9/11 movie.

The big event in that, which you could see was only diminished in tragedy, I guess,because it's the same tragedy. Every day he'd go wait for his native American partner. She taught nursery school at, sort of a government building in Oklahoma City. And he was sitting on the bench waiting for her to have lunch, and all of the sudden the building behind him blows up.

Somehow, I feel like the decision to not make a sequel to Forrest Gump was probably the right one, regardless of the reasons why it didn't happen. While enough time may have passed now for moments like these to have a similar impact to the original movie, back in the early 2000's these sorts of things would have been too fresh in our minds. It feels a lot less like the pleasant nostalgia of the first movie a lot more like making references for their own sake.

What do you think of these ideas for a Forrest Gump sequel? Let us know in the poll below

During Clueless Cast Reunion, Paul Rudd Finally Explained Why He Never Ages

During Clueless Cast Reunion, Paul Rudd Finally Explained Why He Never Ages

Clueless came out in 1995, and it has become a running joke that Paul Rudd -- who will turn 50 on April 6, yes, 50! -- simply does not age. The cast of Clueless just reunited for a panel at Chicago's C2E2 expo. Paul Rudd (Josh) ended up a main attraction, after he arrived a little bit late, sitting next to co-stars Alicia Silverstone (Cher Horowitz), Breckin Meyer (Travis Birkenstock), and Donald Faison (Murray).

During the panel, Ant-Man star Paul Rudd was asked about the recent death of Stan Lee, and told a wonderful story. Rudd was also asked about his own apparent lack of aging, and had a great response, with backup from Breckin Meyer:

Paul Rudd: I'm 80-years-old on the inside. It's a mess underneath all this.

Breckin Meyer: On the set of Clueless they would come and they would get us like 20 minutes before set, and then on Paul's trailer they would knock like an hour beforehand because he had to finish sucking the lifeblood out of the babies he takes in order to maintain [his youth], and then he was camera-ready.

Paul Rudd: Hey, it's a tough business.

As IF the rest of the cast has aged much in the past 24 years either.

Thanks to Danielle Solzman for asking that question during C2E2, and sharing more of the context around his answer. This next one is great, with Ant-Man star Paul Rudd talking about "the real thrill" of meeting and working with Marvel icon Stan Lee for his cameo:

One of the things that I will always treasure was when we were working on the first movie and he did his cameo, he showed up and it was like the president showed up. Everyone on the crew, we were all kind of starstruck and reverential. He couldn't have been sweeter to everybody. Then he stayed and watched a bit of the scene. We were sitting and he was telling me how happy he was that Ant-Man was being made into a film....

Paul Rudd's story continued, and you can watch in a fan's full video below. Rudd said Stan Lee was excited to see his vision of Ant-Man from the comic book finally play out on screen.

Very sweet. Since it was a Clueless panel, they did talk some Clueless. @ClareKramer was there with some great live feed Q&A reactions. Here's one funny exchange:

Of course, Paul Rudd was partly a focus of attention because there's so much hype for Avengers: Endgame, and he seems to be a major player in what happens. Ant-Man and the Wasp ended up a key bridge between Infinity War and Endgame with the Quantum Realm factor, and we'll have to see how it all plays out when Endgame opens April 26. That hugely anticipated movie is just one of the many titles heading to the big screen in 2019.

Apparently Luke James’ Dance Scene In Little Caused Quite A Stir On Set

Apparently Luke James’ Dance Scene In Little Caused Quite A Stir On Set

In this weekend’s new comedy Little, moviegoers will see a ton of big-screen breakout performances, including 14-year-old Marsai Martin, best known for her role in ABC’s Black-ish, roll with Insecure’s Issa Rae and Regina Hall from Girls Trip, shaping up into an impressive female-centric cast. On the Little set, there was one performance everyone couldn’t bear to miss… R&B singer Luke James taking the floor for his character’s seductive & hilarious dance.

In my interview with Little’s writer/director Tina Gordon, she painted the picture of one of the most memorable days for the cast and crew on set. In her words:

Luke James was the lightning rod that brought everyone together on the rooftop in an Atlanta penthouse maybe because he was going to dance. Regina [Hall] flew in allegedly to support us as a producer but probably also to enjoy Luke James’ dancing. It was a great memory: it was like a hot night and we were on this gorgeous rooftop in Atlanta, overlooking the city with great music playing and Luke is just the kindest, most generous actor who can sing and dance. It was near the end of production, we just relaxed and Luke was dancing for us.

It looks like Luke James’ scene was quite the event, so much so that Regina Hall may have bought a plane ticket just to see the show. The Grammy-nominated singer is best known for his falsetto voice found in sultry songs such as "These Arms” and “Drip," and he has recently transitioned into acting. He guest starred in an episode of Insecure, the Fox series Star and the 2013 film Black Nativity.

In Little, he contributes to a few funny moments as he tries to win the heart of mean-spirited tech entrepreneur Jordan, who magically wakes up one morning as a 12-year-old version of herself after bullying a young girl. Here’s a bit of the scene, via the film’s Instagram:

Now when you watch the scene, you can imagine J. Holiday’s “Bed” was likely laid over “oohhs” and roars of laughter from the cast and crew who all couldn’t help but be in attendance for the filming of the scene. Tina Gordon, who also recently penned What Men Want, continued by saying this about the day on set:

If the camera could turn around and I think we have that footage – literally every woman in the crew and some men made it to that rooftop.

Looks like Luke James used a mix of his song-and-dance talent and some comedy chops to pull off the highlight of the filming process. You can see the funny scene when Little opens on Friday, alongside Hellboy and Missing Link. Hellboy was originally predicted to edge over the comedy this weekend, but with its disappointing reviews, maybe Little will find a few more reasons to dance.

This Rotten Week: Predicting Hellboy, Little, Missing Link, And After Reviews

This Rotten Week: Predicting Hellboy, Little, Missing Link, And After Reviews

So far, April 2019 has been a month of great variety. We had a mix of colorful action, dark horror, and historical drama in the first week, and this time around we have an unlikely superhero, body switching, stop-motion animation, and a YA love affair. Get ready for Hellboy, Little, Missing Link and After.

Just remember, I'm not reviewing these movies, but rather predicting where they'll end up on the Tomatometer. Let's take a look at This Rotten Week has to offer.

When in doubt with a comic book franchise, you reboot the thing. Fourteen years after our hornless, crimson protagonist emerged from the fiery cauldrons of the underworld, we get... well, the same thing happening in this new movie. Hellboy is back to fight evil and navigate a world that doesn't take too kindly to demons patrolling the streets.

The original movies in the franchise, Hellboy (81%) and II (86%) starred Ron Perlman and had Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro as the director. Neither are back for the reboot, which now has David Harbour as Big Red and Neil Marshall (Doomsday - 51%, The Descent - 85%) at the helm. It looks quite a lot like the original movies, right down to the costume. Hell (pun intended), it’s kind of tough to even tell Harbour and Perlman apart here. The new Hellboy looks every bit as fun as the original, but I'm not sure critics will take to it as warmly just because it looks so much like a carbon copy. More than anything else I think that keeps the Tomatometer score a little lower than the originals.

The body switch/body change comedy seems to have been around practically forever. We get multiple looks at this theme each year, and it’s coming back around again this time with Little. A hard-charging and rude corporate executive (Regina Hall) is transformed into a 12-year-old girl (Marsai Martin) overnight. She must then navigate a world in which she’s just a kid, with all of society treating her as such. These movies tend to fall flat in my opinion because the theme is over tread and the jokes remain sophomoric and easy. But I will say, Little does look like it has some laughs in it.

Issa Rae, the star of HBO’s Insecure,gets her first shot at starring in a movie with Little, and the trailer suggests that she's part of a winner. Sure, the jokes aren’t groundbreaking, but the timing looks on, and the leads are all tremendously talented. Director Tina Gordon hasn’t had much critical success in the recent past, helming Peeples (37%) and penning What Men Want (46%), but I think this latest finishes better than both of them.

Missing Link comes from Laika, a stop-motion animation studio that’s brought us huge critical hits like Coraline (90%), ParaNorman (88%) The Boxtrolls (76%), and Kubo And The Two Strings (97%). That’s a heck of a run of success, and Missing Linki looks right in line with their other work. It’s sitting at 85% with 27 reviews posted on the Tomatometer, with critics praising both the visuals and the story.

Laika's latest is mostly a monster-out-of-the-forest buddy comedy about an explorer (Hugh Jackman) who finds a Yeti named Susan (Zach Galifianakis) and tries to acclimate it to the human world while also finding it's ancestors. It looks every bit of the heart-warming and hilarious story for which the animation studio is known. Considering Laika's track record and the early buzz, I think it's safe to say they have another hit on their hands with Missing Link.

As far as I can tell from the trailer, After is mostly about how many different places the protagonist, Tessa (Josephine Langford) and the love interest/bad boy/mystery dude, Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), can find to cuddle and make out. According to my count, there’s the lake, his car, a bathtub, the patio at a party, and an aquarium. That’s just from the 90 second sneak peek into the movie. Who even knows how many other places they find during the film's full runtime.

Based on the book of the same name that was published in installments online, After follows Tessa as she navigates a love affair with a dude who everyone tells her is trouble. You know how these things work out right? Typically near the bottom of the Tomatometer is how. I can’t imagine critics buying into this at all. It appears geared solely for the unapologetic young adult crowd, and no one else, and that's not a group that includes a ton of professional writers.

I went two for three with my predictions last week, with only Pet Sematary (Predicted: 75% Actual: 61%) missing the mark. While reviews were initially very positive, they progressively got more negative over the course of the week causing the score to drop out of range. It still did remain fresh, however, as most felt it was scary enough, but that the plot misses some crucial elements from the Stephen King classic.

That was a miss, but my guesstimate for Shazam! (Predicted: 92% Actual: 91%) was not. Instead, I was nearly right on the money, and it's another huge win for the DC Extended Universe. This franchise has struggled a bit in the tone department (something Marvel has basically nailed), but its newest films suggest that the folks behind the scenes are starting to figure things out. Critics loved Zachary Levy’s titular character, and the film seemed to hit all the right notes. A kid becoming a superhero basically overnight has to be something that’s fun and doesn’t take itself too seriously. They got it right with Shazam!

Finally, Best Of Enemies (Predicted: 54% Actual: 51%) was another solid prediction. This one was rather easy to seeing falling right in the middle. It didn’t look like it had enough teeth to really wow critics, but was such an interesting story that I couldn’t imagine folks truly hated it.

Next time around we have Breakthrough, Penguins and The Curse Of La Llorona. It’s gonna be a Rotten Week!

Ian McShane's John Wick 3 Teases Are Big, Good And ... Cryptic

Ian McShane's John Wick 3 Teases Are Big, Good And ... Cryptic

God love Ian McShane. The man is a gift, and he is never dull. The 76-year-old actor is out there promoting American Gods, the Deadwood movie, the Hellboy reboot, and -- of course -- the new John Wick movie. McShane's Winston returns for John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, which opens in May. Ask him about the movie, and this is what he'll say:

That will be big and that will be good.

Slow your spoilers, man! That was Ian McShane to the New York Times, as part of a larger interview about his many upcoming projects. It ain't much, but he's right that the third John Wick movie will be big -- it's meant to have the highest death count of the franchise so far, and the director said it's about 20% more movie than Chapter 2.

The follow-up question to Ian McShane added more potential clues. Or it might just confuse you.

Ian McShane's John Wick character Winston is the owner of the Continental Hotel, which is neutral ground for the criminal underworld. John Wick (Keanu Reeves) did a major no-no in the second movie to kill on Continental grounds. He was excommunicated, with a $14 million global contract out for his life. Everyone is after him. But Winston, that old softie, gave Mr. Wick a one-hour head start. Winston also gave John a Marker for potential use as a favor.

Ian McShane was asked if there would be payback against Winston for letting John Wick get away. Here's his answer:

Well, the High Table doesn’t like anybody stepping out of line so maybe they’ll take me to task, giving John an out, even. And you’ve got Laurence Fishburne and me, and maybe we get together, maybe we’re unvirtuous. Who knows? Because nothing is the same.

Nothing is the same? Yes, Laurence Fishburne is also returning as underground crime boss The Bowery King, and one of the first photos promoting John Wick 3 showed Winston and The Bowery King standing together. Here is that photo:

Are they plotting to help John? Just plotting to help themselves if the High Table turns on them? What's this about nothing being the same?

Ian McShane had previously teased a lot of "shifting alliances" in John Wick 3, so maybe that ties into this potentially unvirtuous team-up.

Speaking of the High Table, John Wick 3 sees the addition of Anjelica Huston as The Director, a member of the High Table who has a connection to John Wick's past. Halle Berry joins the movie as assassin Sofia, who also has a connection to John's past. So we're going to get to know more people who knew John way back when. It sounds like maybe not everyone on the planet will be trying to kill John to get that money, but he'll be facing quite a few foes ahead -- some new, some familiar. Thankfully he has his own dog by his side, plus two more that Halle Berry's Sofia has on hand.

What will Winston's role be in all of this be? We'll have to wait and see. Ian McShane also echoed what he had previously said about maybe doing a voice-over for The Continental TV spinoff series, but not appearing himself as Winston. There haven't been many details on that John Wick series yet, but it's meant to be set in Los Angeles, as opposed to the New York hotel of the John Wick films.

John Wick 3 -- directed by Keanu Reeves' former stunt double from The Matrix -- opens in theaters May 17, as one of the many films to keep an eye on with our 2019 movie release date schedule. Here's what the "Parabellum" of the title means, per Keanu himself.

John Wick 3 Filming Was Hijacked By A Thousand Ballsy Cats

John Wick 3 Filming Was Hijacked By A Thousand Ballsy Cats

So far, 2019 has been the year of the movie cat -- between Captain Marvel’s Goose and Church in Pet Sematary. So while the John Wick franchise has always centered on dogs, including the upcoming third chapter, felines marked their territory.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum director Chad Stahelski recalled a particular cat invasion during the filming of the sequel in Essaouira, Morocco. The sequence features Keanu Reeves’ Wick and new character Sofia (played by Halle Berry) and her pair of Belgian Malinois hound protectors fighting off a small army of assassins. Here’s what happened, in Stahelski’s words:

The Moroccans are not big on canines. Love a fucking cat, though. There had to be thousands. We went there in the winter when we scouted and they weren’t that prevalent. We were like, There’s a few cats here, we’ll get a cat department, and we’re going to move all the cats out. We show up to shoot and there were literally a thousand cats, okay? And the cats have balls of steel. They’re not afraid of anything.

The irony! The director told Entertainment Weekly that, as a result, the crew had to build massive cages to house the cat residents while they shot the scene. They also tasked themselves with feeding them, Chad Stahelski commenting that there were more felines to feed than cast and crew members put together.

Halle Berry’s hounds, who she trained herself, were to be a major component of the scene in Morocco. But, as you can imagine, thousands of cats are distracting. Chad Stahelski continued with these words:

What do Belgian Malinois love to chase? Fucking cats! While Keanu Reeves is killing ten guys over there, Halle is killing ten guys over here, and [there is the] stunt guy the dog’s got to focus on. You want that dog focused on what he’s supposed to bite, and what he’s not supposed to bite. Hit the mark, right? And there’s ten cats walking around and you’re going, ‘Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.’ You’re sitting behind the monitor going, ‘What’s the dog looking at? What’s the dog looking at? Oh my god oh my god, he’s going to bite — Argh!’ It got a little crazy between cat-wrangling, and dog-wrangling, and people-wrangling. And you’ve got the studio back [in America] going, ‘Why are you a little behind? Just get the dog to do [it].’ And you’re like, I don’t speak dog. If I did I’d be fucking rich! Anyway, that was kind of fun.

Sounds like a bit of a mess… but it makes for a great story and hopefully some great content for the John Wick 3 bonus features. The crew did not expect to run into cats, of all problems on set -- especially during a scene featuring dogs, no less.

In addition to working closely with the hounds -- such as a sequence where one of the dogs jumps off her back, scales a wall and takes someone down from above -- Halle Berry also trained hard to do her own badass stunts during the movie’s fight scenes. The actress has the bruises to show for it because she actually broke three ribs during rehearsal. She doesn’t know how it happened but considers it her "badge of honor."

Unexpected cat setbacks aside, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is shaping up to be a highly-anticipated release. It's already being highly praised by critics, with one reviewer deeming it an “action masterpiece." The movie is expected to make $30 to $40 million during its opening weekend, making it the biggest debut for the franchise yet. John Wick hits theaters on May 17.