Gemini Man's Big Challenge Revolved Around Will Smith's Performance, According To Ang Lee

Gemini Man's Big Challenge Revolved Around Will Smith's Performance, According To Ang Lee

Ang Lee’s next project has quietly been coming together over at Paramount for over a year. At CinemaCon, the director revealed he is “in the home stretch” for Gemini Man, a high concept new thriller that will hit theaters later in 2019 starring Will Smith.

The general premise of the movie is that Will Smith plays Henry, an aging assassin who at one point gets cloned. Now, his 23-year-old clone is out to get him. Sounds fun, and the first footage looks fun, but Ang Lee says there was one problem with trying to film Will Smith as a much younger actor—he’s gotten much better at acting over the years.

Per the director,

Working with him over a year I found that the present-day Will Smith is such a surprisingly fine actor. He brought the character Harry to such a sophistication, melancholy, courage and sophistication I would say. I found his performance, I would say, is just exquisite. Now the really hard part was as I mentioned the junior, the 23-year-old.

Will Smith’s caliber of acting has changed over time and Ang Lee also revealed that it was an unbelievable challenge to get the actor to play both roles, one with experience and sophistication and one with youth and courage. He also noted:

We have a very high class problem, which is Will Smith is a lot better actor today than what he used to be. I’m not joking. That’s a real problem for me because of how many layers, how daring an actor has to be, how willing he is to be so we can get down to the essence: peel the layers of his personality, his experience and his performance experience.

Back in the days when Will Smith was a catchphrase machine and one of the most energetic presences in Hollywood, he maybe hadn’t fully honed his craft year. Now 50, the actor has honed his skills in the acting arena considerably. Most of the time this was great on the set of Gemini Man, but it also presented challenges given the dual nature of the nature, which had Smith acting as a man of his age but also a much younger clone.

It should be noted Will Smith’s own challenge related to Gemini Man seemed to have more to do with bugs than playing a kid in his twenties.

However, when the actor had to tap into the raw nature of playing a 23-year-old clone, things got tricky. At CinemaCon 2019, Ang Lee also reflected that getting Will Smith to the point where he could capably play a character with decades of less experience was “heartbreaking,” saying,

Get down to the essence of the innocence of him [at 23] and performing from there, I found that the result is just heartbreaking. It’s something I’ve never experienced before. I’ve had him for like a year; I’m up to here with Will Smith. So much Will Smith in my life. I think I know this man’s essence as a friend as a person as a really fine, good actor.

But Gemini Man is not just about Will Smith’s acting performance. Having seen first look footage from the movie, the de-aging CGI technology used to create two versions of Will Smith looks pretty fantastic.

Ang Lee is also notably using the 120 frame per second technology for Gemini Man. It’s a premise he attempted once before in 2016 with Billy Lynne’s Long Halftime Walk, the director’s follow-up to Life of Pi. Average films are shot in 24 frames per second.

Although Billy Lynne didn’t really resonate with audiences or some critics – many of whom did not enjoy the visuals -- Ang Lee is giving the high frame rate another go with the 3D Gemini Man. The studio, Paramount,

Ultimately Ang Lee said he was lucky to be able to sign on a busy actor like Will Smith for the role – he said “very, very lucky” actually – and audiences will get to see whether or not the 120 frame per second rate is the wave of the future when the movie hits theaters on October 11, 2019.

Check out the flick’s competition with our full movies schedule.

Dark Phoenix Was Always Going To Be The End Of The X-Men Franchise

Dark Phoenix Was Always Going To Be The End Of The X-Men Franchise

Superhero movies are everywhere, as it has become the most profitable genre in the filmmaking world. As such, plenty of studios have gotten in on the action, and attempted to create their own cinematic universe. But years before Marvel Studios changed the filmmaking world with Iron Man, Marvel's heroes had hit theaters with the X-Men franchise.

The X-Men movies began with Bryan Singer's original blockbuster back in 2000, and was a big risk for Fox in regards to budget and fan interest. But the property is still going strong today, extending to both spinoffs and main installments. Dark Phoenix will arrive in June, and is expected to be the final installment in the franchise, as Fox and Disney's merger has been finalized. But it turns out the upcoming release was always meant to end the long running narrative. As director Simon Kinberg recently revealed:

From the beginning of conceiving what we were going to do with this film and writing it, which was three plus years ago, so long before there was a Disney merger, I felt like this was the natural culmination for this cycle of X-Men movies. Because it is seeing this family that you've come to love and know for how ever many films, and if you count the originals almost 20 years now, you see that family tested in a whole new way. You see that family start to fall apart in a real way for the first time, ultimately come back together.

Well, that's a relief. While some cinephiles have been scared for Dark Phoenix to be the finale of the X-Men franchise as we know it, looks like that was always the plan. As such, the conclusion will hopefully end up satisfy the generations of X-fans out there.

Simon Kinberg's comments to Comic Book should be a relief to lovers of Marvel's mutant group. Disney's acquisition of 20th Century Fox has put much of the developing X-Men projects in jeopardy. Just look at The New Mutants, which may not even make it to theaters, and whose reshoots haven't occured yet. So when it comes to Dark Phoenix being the big finale, moviegoers assumed the ending would fail to wrap up the narrative. But if Kinberg's directorial debut was always meant to be the finale, then perhaps the movie can deliver in the end.

Ignoring the merger with Disney, it does seem like a good time to finally wrap up the X-Men franchise. The property has been going for nearly two decades, and has a long and convoluted canon. There's been two generations of cast members, and their timelines should be pretty close to colliding. So it's best to end franchise, especially as the current cast departs their roles.

Dark Phoenix will arrive in theaters on June 7th. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

How To Train Your Dragon’s Director Felt Like A Failure While Writing Each Movie

How To Train Your Dragon’s Director Felt Like A Failure While Writing Each Movie

The How to Train Your Dragon movies have been one of the more successful film franchises of any kind in recent years. All three films have been overwhelmingly popular with fans and have done quite well at the box office. While the creators of the series make it look easy, franchise director Dean DeBlois says it's anything but, as when he closes himself off to work on the story of each film, it feels like it's all going to fall apart. According to DeBlois...

But there is always a moment where we isolate ourselves from everyone else, and it’s just the two of us, in the case of the first film, or alone on the second and third, where I just work with an outline and kind of hammer that out in the most classic way possible. Just with pads of paper and lots of crumpled sheets in the trash. We’re trying to work out the structure of the story. Then we take that outline and transcribe it into script pages, fleshing it out and really developing character and plot that way. It’s a lonely and difficult process for me, because it’s full of self loathing and procrastination, and just feeling like a failure.

Considering what a success every movie has been, it's hard to imagine somebody feeling like a failure, but that's what Dean DeBlois tells Cartoon Brew. At the same time, each story is created from scratch, and there's no guarantee that just because you made one good movie, the next one will be any good. While you're writing it you can't be completely sure that your ideas will work, and the more success you have, the more you second guess yourself.

As both the writer and director of the How to Train Your Dragon series, there's nobody else to help you or to even tell you that you're on the right track. Dean DeBlois worked with collaborators on the first movie, but the second and third were all him.

Luckily, whatever magic that struck on the first movie hung around on the two sequels. All three films were massive hits and the newest one, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is being praised for the way it brings the series to a close. Ending a franchise has to be tough, it has to be done in a way that those who have been following from the beginning feel like it's all been worthwhile. Lots of stories that start out great have difficulty sticking the landing. Not this one.

Of course, now that Dean Deblois has ended the story, he has to find a new story to tell, which likely means the process will start all over again. Of course, we know that the How to Train Your Dragon movies were no fluke, so we can be confident that wherever he goes, a good story is likely to follow.

All The Franchises Idris Elba Is In, (Plus 5 More We'd Love To See)

All The Franchises Idris Elba Is In, (Plus 5 More We'd Love To See)

With a fresh Coachella set, a Netflix original series and a slew of films on the way, it's a good time to be Idris Elba. The actor is doing a lot these days, so much so that it may be hard to keep track of every franchise he has a hand in at the moment. For that reason, we've compiled a list that highlights what all he has a hand in, and some of the things we'd like to see from him in the future.

Franchises Idris Elba IS In

Let's start off with all the major franchises he's already appeared in or officially has lined up for the future, like this first entry.

The DCEU

Idris Elba has joined the DCEU via James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, and was originally slated to replace Will Smith and play Deadshot. That plan has since changed, and Elba will be playing a different character, although we can only guess who. Hopefully whoever is picked has some crossover potential into other projects, and maybe the ability to get Elba his own spinoff movie.

The MCU

Idris Elba entered The MCU via Thor in the role of Heimdall. After heroically sacrificing his life in Avengers: Infinity War, one would assume his time in the franchise is over, but who can ever know when it comes to superhero features. With that said, Elba's had his complaints about the role as far back as Thor: The Dark World, so don't be surprised if his death tends to stick in the events following Avengers: Endgame.

Pacific Rim

In the role of Stacker Pentacost, Idris Elba delivered one hell of a speech that solidified Pacific Rim's status as a cult classic. Unfortunately, his death meant no future appearances in a sequel, but there are opportunities for Stacker to return should the Pacific Rim franchise venture into the prequel territory. That's a possibility given the amount of source material on the events before Pacific Rim, so fingers crossed Elba's feeling the urge to kick some kaiju ass again.

Disney/Pixar

While it's not necessarily as specific of a franchise as other entries, Idris Elba has done a decent amount of work for Disney and Pixar. Outside of his MCU work, he's exclusively played an animal in The Jungle Book, Finding Dory and Zootopia. That's a crazy coincidence, although maybe not given how many Disney films tend to revolve around animals in general. We're always down to see him in more projects. Perhaps next time in a live-action feature?

Star Trek

For Star Trek Beyond, the third adventure featuring the Kelvin timeline version of the original USS Enterprise crew, Idris Elba hopped in as Krall, an alien warlord who sicced his minions on Captain Kirk’s crew, destroyed their ship and stranded them on his planet. Later revealed to be a Starfleet captain from more than a century ago, Krall nearly succeeded in carrying out his revenge against the organization, but he was defeated and killed before that could happen. So one can logically surmise Elba won’t be popping back up in this franchise.

Fast & Furious

Soon, the world will get to see Idris Elba in the world of Fast & Furious, although probably not in a way some would've thought. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw features Elba as a villain who has been genetically enhanced and basically has super powers. Somehow we've reached a point where this franchise isn't about fast cars, although there's few people complaining. After seeing Elba in action, it isn't hard to see why.

Alien

This is one of the only roles in which Idris Elba played a character that shared his first name, as the actor portrayed Idris Janek in Prometheus. It was a one and done role, and surprisingly, ended in the way similar to Pacific Rim. Given his character's death and the Alien franchise's massive aversion to Prometheus, it's pretty safe to say that we shouldn't expect any more appearances from Elba in this franchise.

Honorable Mention: Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance

The Ghost Rider movies aren't considered part of the MCU, but we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the other Marvel character he played before the MCU really got legs. Idris Elba played Moreau, who offered to remove the "Spirit of Vengeance" curse from Johnny Blaze. He ended up being unable to fulfill the promise, and ended up dying at the hands of Blackout.

Franchises We'd Love To See Idris Elba In

That concludes the current franchises Idris Elba is/has been involved in, although we're sure he'll be a part of some in the future. With that in mind, here are a handful of film franchises the actor has yet to join that it'd be great to see him in.

James Bond

Was there any doubt this would be on the list? Folks have called for Idris Elba to be cast as James Bond for ages, and his name floated around quite a bit following Daniel Craig's confirmation that he was leaving as Bond. Unfortunately, Elba has been pretty adamant that he won't be replacing him, but there's still hope he could join one day as another character. He'd make a killer Bond villain!

Star Wars

Idris Elba is a bit late to the game to be a part of the Skywalker saga, but there's still a chance he could appear in a Star Wars film in the future. Personally, I think he'd be a great fit for the Game of Thrones showrunners' trilogy, which is rumored to involve The Old Republic. Imagine Elba playing an ancient Jedi, Sith or bounty hunter in an era before the Empire!

Fantastic Beasts

The Harry Potter spinoff series is still rolling strong despite less than favorable reviews of the last film, and why shouldn't it? It'll take more than one bad movie to turn fans off to this franchise, and bringing in someone like Idris Elba could make some forget all about how The Crimes of Grindelwald was a bit of a letdown outside of that one twist. He'd make a great villain or Auror.

Austin Powers

Idris Elba's comedic prowess is a highly underrated aspect of his acting, and one that could really shine in the Austin Powers franchise. With Mike Myers interested in getting a fourth movie made, Elba could appear in a comedic role for some spy-filled adventure. This may be the closest we'll ever get to seeing him play James Bond, so producers should try to get him involved if Austin Powers 4 actually has a shot at happening.

Pirates Of The Caribbean

As Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean reboot continues development, they're going to need a few big names to convince audiences to jump back into this franchise so soon after the the original run. Idris Elba is a name that can put butts in seats, and considering he's already ingratiated within the Disney family, getting in touch with him shouldn't be too hard to do.

Those with other wishes for franchises they'd like to see Idris Elba join can share their thoughts in the comments below. Stick with CinemaBlend for updates on the actor, his films and other goings on in the entertainment world.

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.