Vera Farmiga Says The Conjuring 3 Will Be ‘Massive"

Vera Farmiga Says The Conjuring 3 Will Be ‘Massive"

The Conjuring movies have been one of the most successful horror franchises of all time, creating what is probably the most popular and successful cinematic universe that doesn't involve superheroes. While the various spin-off titles have done well at the box office, fans are really waiting for the next proper Conjuring movie, and co-star Vera Farmiga says it will be worth the wait, because the next film is simply huge.

Vera Farmiga will be reprising her role as Lorraine Warren in the next creepy doll movie, Annabelle Comes Home, and the actress says that doing so is like a form of practice, so that she's ready when it's time to take on the role in a much bigger way. According to Farmiga...

Conjuring 3 is coming, and it will be a doozy. It will be big. So for me, visiting these characters [in Annabelle Comes Home], it's like practicing your scales and doing a few arpeggios before having to deep dive into the next one. Because the next one is massive.

These words to EW are music to the ears of the fans of the Conjuring films. We know that David Leslie Johnson, who also wrote the script for The Conjuring 2 has been working on the screenplay for the third film and at least one of the actors involved seems to be quite excited for it.

While fans are certainly looking forward to another Conjuring film, the next movie will be different in one big way. James Wan won't be directing the project. Those duties have shifted to Michael Chaves who will be giving the audience of taste of what he's capable of doing when The Curse of La Llorona hits theaters next weekend.

The Conjuring wasn't simply a successful horror movie that was able to generate sequels, but its various elements have been able to also generate spin-off stories, making for a widely successful cinematic universe. While a couple of the films have faltered with critics, all of them have been successful with fans and have brought in remarkable box office numbers. Even The Nun, which bombed with critics hard, is the second highest grossing film in the franchise.

The Annabelle movies have been so well received that we're seeing a third movie in the creepy doll franchise before we even get to the third proper Conjuring movie. The first Annabelle film was one of those movies that didn't hit with critics, and it's at the bottom of the domestic box office chart when it comes to the larger franchise, but the sequel was a whole different animal.

The Conjuring 3 is set to arrive in the fall of 2020, so we can expect production on it to finally get underway later this year. Maybe then we'll discover just how big the new film is going to be.

Some Guy On The Internet Figured Out How Fast Sonic The Hedgehog Is, Spoiler: It's Fast

Some Guy On The Internet Figured Out How Fast Sonic The Hedgehog Is, Spoiler: It's Fast

Sonic the Hedgehog's whole thing is about moving fast. Speed is the name of his game and the speedy little blue fuzzball certainly movies quickly in the trailer for the live action movie. But just how fast is he actually going? Somebody has done the math and figured out exactly how fast Sonic is moving, and it might be even faster than you think.

The math isn't all that complicated when it comes down to it. Kyle Hill of Because Science takes the brand new trailer for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie and, by using the dividing line on a two-way highway that Sonic runs down, where the dots have a fixed distance of three to four and a half meters, we can tell approximately how far Sonic is running. Because we know the trailer is running at 24 frames a second, we know exactly how long Sonic is running for. These two data points allow Hill to calculate Sonic's speed to be between 108 and 162 meters per second, or between 341 and 362 miles per hour, depending on the distance between the road marks, which vary slightly depending on where the road is located.

Needless to say, that is certainly some serious speed. Of course, it's not nearly as fast as the movie claims he is going. In the opening scene of the trailer a police radar gun appears to clock Sonic at 760 miles per hour, which is just short of the speed of sound. Considering we also see Sonic's speed set off a visible shock wave at the end of the scene that's being used to calculate these numbers, the movie is certainly trying to tell us that Sonic can break the sound barrier.

It's certainly possible that the scene in the trailer is Sonic just warming up, and he'll increase speed to a much faster pace closer to what we're being shown. What's more likely, however, is that showing Sonic move that quickly would actually have him move out of the frame so quickly that we'd never really see him, and so Sonic had to slow down to make the movie work as a movie. If Sonic moved so quickly that you could never really see him, it wouldn't be all that exciting.

Of course, showing people move at incredibly high speeds in a movie or on TV is always a difficult balancing act. How to show the speed while still making the scene look exciting is complicated. This is probably why the movie has at least one sequence that shows speed from Sonic's perspective, which has everything around him moving incredibly slow, similar to how the recent X-Men movies have shown Quicksilver's speed in the same way.

Check out the full explanation of Sonic's speed in the video below.

Of course, right now, few people, even Sonic the Hedgehog fans, are all that excited about how fast Sonic is moving. The focus is instead on what he looks like when he stands still. The design of the character has received a lot of negative feedback, so much so that the movie's director has said that changes to the character design will happen before the movie comes out later this year.

Sonic the Hedgehog hits theaters November 8.

Robert De Niro Addresses Joker’s Connection To The King Of Comedy

Robert De Niro Addresses Joker’s Connection To The King Of Comedy

After yesterday’s big unveiling of the trailer for Todd Phillips’ Joker, there were many connections and references that sprang to mind as fans dissected every inch of the footage. As expected, one of the big ticket references baked in was our first look at Robert DeNiro’s talk show host, Murray Franklin; a character that has been pegged as a huge connective tissue between this DC experiment and Martin Scorsese’s dark comedy gem The King of Comedy. And in a recent discussion, DeNiro called it like he saw it, stating the following:

There’s a connection, obviously, with the whole thing. But it’s not as a direct connection as the character I’m playing being Rupert many years later as a host.

So Murray Franklin is, indeed, a character set to invoke the spirit of Robert DeNiro’s Rupert Pupkin-- if he was to have gotten that fame he’d always wanted by taking over Jerry Langford’s show. That’s one hell of a deep cut for film fans to cheer for, as well as something for newcomers to latch onto, in hopes that Joker could turn the younger comic film audience onto the works of its executive producer, Martin Scorsese.

The connection only seems to make The King of Comedy required viewing for Joker, as Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck seems very much like a Pupkin-esque figure, waiting for one bad day to set him off on his path to become the clown prince of crime. He’s beat up and ridiculed by random folks in the neighborhood, leads a life of semi-quiet desperation, and ultimately want to become a standup comedian that’ll be featured on a late night TV show. So casting DeNiro as that late night host that Arthur is fixated on is definitely a connection, and bordering on turning Joker into an official sequel.

Though, as Robert DeNiro has pointed out in his interview with IndieWire, the idea of Joker officially continuing where The King of Comedy left off didn’t escape him. In that very same chat, DeNiro provided the following thoughts:

If they would’ve proposed that to me, I would’ve said, ‘That’s interesting, maybe we’ll try to do that.’ But by making this type of film, it is connected in a way, as you’ll see.

Deciding to pay homage to the 1983 film, rather than continuing its story in a direct capacity, was probably a better card for Joker to play out of its deck of winners. But thinking about how Rupert Pupkin could have not only returned, but also become the very thing he railed against, is something so subversive we would have totally been down to see it. But an homage can be just as effective as a direct lift. If it worked for Robert Redford in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as he sent up various anti-authority characters he once played in the role of S.H.I.E.L.D. power player/traitor Alexander Pierce, then surely Robert DeNiro and Joker can pull it off as well.

Joker puts a smile on the face of the world on October 4th, though if you’re looking for a chuckle way before then, take a look at the 2019 release schedule and find some laughs.

Apparently, The Twilight Movies Are Hits On Hulu

Apparently, The Twilight Movies Are Hits On Hulu

At the end of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, Bella and Edward promise each other that they will be together and love each other forever. Forever is a long time, and while I can’t speak to their current relationship status, the love fans have for the Twilight franchise burns as brightly as ever nearly seven years after the last film’s release. This is evident because apparently The Twilight Saga is a hit on Hulu.

Although we don’t often get a lot of clear insight into viewership numbers from streaming services, when you do hear something, it’s usually good. Such is the case with the Twilight films, which arrived on Hulu on January 1. Hulu revealed to Decider that approximately 5,000 of its subscribers binged all five movies in the saga on New Year’s Day. That shows that these hardcore fans were probably waiting for the films to drop and could think of no better way to spend the holiday than with the popular franchise.

Those 5,000 were just the Hulu subscribers and Twilight fans who had the most ambitious binging aspirations. Over 135,000 Hulu subscribers finished all five films within the first week of their availability on the now primarily Disney-owned service. There is clearly still a passionate Twilight fandom out there and likely some new Twi-hards as well considering how streaming services allow for people to discover things they might have missed.

Hulu also provided some insight into who was spending all this time with Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, and the most common age of Twilight streamers was 20 year old. That makes sense considering that those watchers would have been 9 when the first Twilight film released in 2008 and they essentially grew up with the franchise. Nostalgic properties are powerful value propositions for streaming services and Hulu has one in Twilight.

As you might expect, 63% of those who streamed The Twilight Saga on Hulu were females. The other 37% were dudes being forced to watch it (I kid). The combined heartthrob power of Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson persists. If only more Twilight fans would follow all the great work in smaller films Robert Pattinson has done since then. Maybe if he’s the next Batman, those who like seeing him as a brooding creature of the night will tune in.

Although The Twilight Saga anecdotally doesn’t seem to have maintained the pop culture relevance it once had, the series’ success on Hulu is a reminder that this franchise was no fluke. Over five films from 2008 to 2012, fans of the franchise and Stephenie Meyer’s books flocked to theaters to the tune of $1.36 billion domestic and $3.34 billion worldwide.

Twilight’s performance on Hulu shows that should the studio one day decide to pursue a reboot of the property or tell more stories in that world, they can point to these numbers and the continued fan enthusiasm as evidence that such an endeavor could be successful.

For all this year’s new movies hoping to have similar success, check out our 2019 Release Schedule.

Should More Disney Live-Action Movies Like Aladdin Get Sequels?

Should More Disney Live-Action Movies Like Aladdin Get Sequels?

Proving that all the handwringing over the look of Will Smith’s Genie was overblown, Aladdin proved shining, shimmering, splendid at the box office over Memorial Day weekend, taking the top spot on the domestic charts. It is just the latest example of the financial success Disney has had in recent years with adapting its beloved animated classics to live-action blockbuster films.

The formula that has made these films such a success for Disney (minus a few underperformers), has also been the source of the most consistent and prevalent criticism levied against these remakes. The critics often mention these live-action remakes are too safe and lack originality, often hewing as close as possible to the animated films upon which they are based.

Those criticisms seem unlikely to abate anytime soon with Aladdin just one of the many live-action remakes Disney has on the calendar this year. The more outside-the-box Dumbo began the year, but there is still the Disney+ bound Lady and the Tramp, as well as theatrical releases Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and The Lion King, the latter of which audiences would be forgiven for assuming is just a shot-for-shot remake of the 1994 zenith of Disney’s renaissance.

It is Maleficent 2 however that raises an interesting possibility and path forward that is worth talking and wondering about. Namely, should more Disney live-action movies like Aladdin get sequels?

The criticized lack of originality and sequels may not seem connected, but there are several reasons to think that Disney would be well served by turning some of its live-action reimaginings into film series. Disney is adapting its animated movies to live-action at a fairly rapid rate and I have wondered in the past what the studio will do once it exhausts the most beloved titles. These films are a big part of Disney’s theatrical strategy at the moment, alongside Star Wars, the MCU and Pixar/Walt Disney Animation. I'd assume the studio won’t want that revenue stream to dry up.

Giving films like Aladdin sequels would address this concern by providing Disney with more brand name titles to fill out its calendar for years to come. Sequels could also have the added benefit of the kind of risk-taking the live-action remakes to date have been criticized for lacking. To be clear, any perceived lack of originality hasn’t hurt these films at the box office, but I think it’s fair to say we’d all like to see Disney take some risks as well.

Whether it be theatrically or in its theme parks, Disney as it currently stands really values established brands and recognizable characters that audiences have already invested in. Sequels to Aladdin or The Lion King would bear all those crucial elements and could build off their predecessor’s success. They would have the benefit of nostalgic sentiment for the properties, while still having the creative latitude to innovate and tell a new story.

If you take something like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle or Cobra Kai as an example, familiar brand names and characters and a powerful nostalgic quality can go a long way towards getting audiences to check out something new and unique. Sure, Aladdin 2 or Cinderella 2 would probably share more in common with their predecessors than those two titles resemble their forebears, but you get the idea.

It’s true that Disney has already made sequels to many of its animated classics that could be theoretically be directly adapted, but those titles were generally straight-to-DVD and not always of the highest quality. Diverging too far from a beloved movie like Aladdin might result in major backlash, but I'm guessing not too many people are going to be heartbroken if Return of Jafar isn’t faithfully adapted or a sequel goes in an entirely different direction.

That gives Disney the kind of creative freedom to tell better follow-up stories to their iconic properties that are inventive and new while still playing to nostalgia.

In addition to allowing for new storytelling, sequels would also draw fewer comparisons to the original animated films because they wouldn’t be direct adaptations. Whenever something cherished is adapted to another medium, those things that are lost and changed in the translation are deeply lamented by fans. Sequels to Disney’s live-action remakes would have no such hill to climb.

So, sequels to Disney live-action remakes like Aladdin would fall into an advantageous middle ground that would confer the nostalgia of an established, beloved property as well as allowing for the kind of creativity many critics of Disney’s reimaginings want to see.

This is all theoretical, though, and alongside the surmised benefits of these sequels are a slew of potential pitfalls that could make such pursuits rather tricky.

The biggest problem is that originality does not equal quality. The live-action remakes that have arguably skewed the furthest from their animated counterparts, Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent, are also two of the least memorable adaptations. These films were successes at the box office to be sure, but they aren’t held up as Disney’s best reimaginings. Anecdotally, it seems to me that among many Disney fans Maleficent especially is disliked for how far it strayed from Sleeping Beauty by fundamentally altering the story.

Audiences hold these stories too dearly and any sequel that takes the story and the characters in a direction they don’t approve of might get rejected at the box office. Then again, sequels aren’t the original animated movies so perhaps audiences will be a little more open and forgiving than they otherwise would.

The other knock against going the sequel route with Disney’s live-action remakes is that it is basically an unproven formula at the moment. If you don’t count 2000’s 102 Dalmatians, which I don’t, the only modern sequel to one of Disney’s live-action remakes is 2016’s Alice Through the Looking Glass. That sequel was critically loathed and didn’t even crack $300 million worldwide when Alice in Wonderland made over $1 billion.

That’s a small sample size though and just because it hasn’t really worked doesn’t mean it won’t. We should find out eventually because The Jungle Book from 2016 will be getting a sequel. Jungle Book 2 will go a long way towards testing the efficacy of giving sequels to these live-action reimaginings.

After that who knows? Despite its tremendous box office, Beauty and the Beast does not look like it will be getting a sequel, even though it was once considered and Emma Watson seems down for one. If I had to put money on it, I’d guess The Lion King has the best shot at getting a sequel after Jungle Book.

Even without seeing it, that movie is bound to do boffo business and seems like it would have more interesting directions to go in a sequel as opposed to something like Cinderella’s pure happily ever after ending. Aladdin could also be an interesting choice with plenty of storytelling opportunities raised by the first film and mythology to delve into.

So there are some big theoretical benefits to Disney giving sequels to its live-action remakes, but those sequels come with big question marks and a risk of failure. Ultimately, the best approach, at least s it seems to me, would be the one Pixar took with the Toy Story franchise. Toy Story 3 was the last movie until the team at Pixar had a great story they wanted to tell and that became Toy Story 4. Disney should adopt that methodology and only give sequels to those films that are ripe for it, where there is a sequel in need of telling.

Aladdin is now playing. Make sure you know what ticket to buy before seeing it and after that you can look forward to The Lion King on July 19. Keep an eye on our guide for all of Disney’s upcoming live-action movies.

Disney Just Dropped A Bunch Of Surprise Star Wars Dates

Disney Just Dropped A Bunch Of Surprise Star Wars Dates

This December marks the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the final chapter of the Skywalker Saga. Following that, Lucasfilm had already made it clear that the franchise set in a galaxy far, far away would take a bit of a break from the big screen, but now we’ve learned that it won’t gone for too long. Because by 2022, Star Wars movies will be playing again at a theater near you.

Disney announced today that starting in 2022, three new “as-yet-untitled” Star Wars movies will be released on the pre-Christmas weekend every other year. That means Star Wars fans will get their fill of new cinematic adventures in 2022, 2024 and 2026. So once the Skywalker Saga wraps up, the franchise will take a three-year breather, and then return to turn the page on a new chapter of this space opera epic.

Movie studios announcing the release dates of major blockbusters years ahead of time is nothing new, but this now gives Star Wars fans a firm launch date on the post-Skywalker Saga era. It’s interesting that rather than release a Star Wars movie every year as has been happening since The Force Awakens came out, Disney and Lucasfilm are now taking a more reserved approach and delivering a Star Wars movie every two years.

What’s unclear is what Star Wars movies these will be. The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is putting together a new trilogy after his next movie, Knives Out, is released, and Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have their own trilogy in the works. Unless Disney and Lucasfilm change their minds and decide to throw additional Star Wars movies into 2023, 2025 and 2027, that means that whatever next set of films is coming next, we’ll have to wait a long time for the other set to arrive.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Friday before Christmas weekend in 2022 is December 16, and that’s the same day that Warner Bros has Aquaman 2 slated for release. So unless one of them is willing to move from that date, we’ll have a Star Wars vs. DC showdown at the box office. My guess is that Aquaman 2 is the likeliest to exit that slot, as aside from Solo: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars movies have all come out right before Christmas in the Disney era.

Related: Natalie Portman Had A Tough Time Dealing With The The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Backlash

Of course, even without any Star Wars movies between 2019 and 2022, it’s not like there will be a lack of Star Wars content during that time. Along with numerous novels, comic books and video games being churned out, Disney+ will keep fans entertained with The Mandalorian and the still-to-be-titled series focusing on Cassian Andor and K-2SO.

Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more updates on the Star Wars movies coming out on December 16, 2022; December 20, 2024; and December 18, 2026. In the meantime, you can look forward to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hitting theaters on December 20.

This Rotten Week: Predicting Us Reviews

This Rotten Week: Predicting Us Reviews

We’ve only got one movie on the docket this week, but it’s definitely an exciting one, as we are once again seeing writer/director Jordan Peele return to the horror genre following the Oscar-winning success of Get Out two years ago. Get ready to meet the doppelgangers of your nightmares in Us.

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.

After taking the horror world by storm, combining legit creeps with a commentary about race in America in the award-winning Get Out (98%), Jordan Peele is back. And his latest one looks, well, pretty fucked up in all the right ways. The guy is taking over the genre, and Us looks like it is going to be another huge win for the filmmaker

As we've seen previously in the genre, what we have here is another family outing/get together gone horribly wrong - this time the story playing out in a beach town where the Tyler family is stalked by... well, the Tyler family (just a creepier version). Where Get Out had plenty of frights with a slightly tongue-in-cheek tone, Us looks like a full-out horror fest. Even from the trailer one can tell the visuals will keep you up at night. Critics thus far are all over this movie. Following its debut at the SXSW Film Festival, it’s currently sitting at 100% through more than 50 reviews. I doubt it slips much, if at all. It’s tough to ever predict a movie hitting the 100% mark, and I don’t think this one will end up at the top of the mountain - but it'll be damn close. We’ll have one or two negatives come in over the course of the week, but the sentiment will remain the same.

While only one of the movies fell within ten percent of my predictions last week, the other two came incredibly close to being called wins. When it’s all said and done, and a few more reviews come trickling in, this week could look a lot better. Captive State (Predicted: 48% Actual: 49%) was nearly right on the money, dipping down under the 50% mark from Saturday into Sunday. Critics fell mostly in line with what I suspected was the case: the movie had too many moving parts. While the central theme is intriguing, they tried to do too many things within the framework and it ended up being confusing.

Meanwhile, Five Feet Apart (Predicted: 39% Actual: 52%) was looking like a clear win until it ticked up over 50% in the last two days. Frankly, I’m kind of shocked it fell out of range. Of the three movies from last week, this prediction was my most confident. Critics seemed to mostly agree that the two leads carried the movie out of the sappy and cliched depths it could have ventured considering the subject matter.

And finally, Wonder Park(Predicted: 41% Actual: 30%) also just missed the mark. See what I mean with this week? This could easily be a three-for-three. This animated movie had critics incredibly un-enthused. The general theme of the reviews was the plot line was just way too sad for what should be a sort of joyous kids’ flick about imagination and, well, wonder.

Next time around we’ve got Dumbo. It’s gonna be a Rotten Week!