Ben Affleck Will Direct, Write, And Star In Ghost Army

Ben Affleck Will Direct, Write, And Star In Ghost Army

Earlier this year, Ben Affleck noted that while he wasn’t sure what project would be the next he’d attach his directorial stamp to, he was keen to get something up and running by the end of the year. Looks like that search is narrowing down pretty quickly, as Affleck’s name is in the news today as potentially directing, as well as writing and starring, in Universal’s long developing film Ghost Army.

Based on a book/documentary on a crucial piece to the World War II war effort, Ghost Army would be about a specific group of warfighters: namely, a squadron tasked with fooling the Axis armies into thinking that Allied forces were greater than they actually were. Through creative means of deception including inflatable tanks, convincing sound effects, and fake intelligence, it was a secret directive that recruited notables like designer Bill Blass and photographer Art Kane into its efforts.

The project sounds like a dream come true for Ben Affleck fans, as his skill set for telling true stories about diplomatic fakery was proven back in 2012, with the Best Picture winning film Argo. So if anything, Ghost Army feels like a spiritual prequel to that film, as it’s another case of the U.S. Government enlisting the best and brightest creative minds to turn the tide of an international conflict.

It would be a welcome return of Affleck’s writing/directing efforts, as he’s been out of action in those respects since 2017’s unfortunate flop Live By Night. But with his acting chops still moving along, most recently in Netflix’s Triple Frontier, one third of the equation is already raring to go with the challenges that Ghost Army will present.

It’s a moment that has been long awaited for Ben Affleck, as when Variety grabbed the scoop, they also reported that he’d been looking to set up camp with Ghost Army for quite some time. But now, it looks like his scheduling has timed out just right with Universal’s intent for the project, allowing all to move forward.

That being said, it’s still up in the air as to when exactly Ghost Army will start marching into production, as Affleck will still need to do some rewrite work on the film. This is after a script originated by Shazam! writer Henry Gayden, as well as a rewrite by True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto.

Seeing Ben Affleck come back to writing and directing with Ghost Army is something exciting for fans, as his recent departure from the DCEU felt like a bump in the road for his recent career. Now all that has to happen is for Kevin Smith to write a reunion between himself and one of the characters Affleck played in his View Askew-niverse, or for Warner Bros to greenlight The Accountant 2, and all will be right with the world.

Ghost Army has no production start date specified, or release date in mind. If you want to see what 2019 has on offer for eager moviegoers, you can take a look at our 2019 release schedule and find your next night at the movies!

The Avengers: Endgame Trailer Has Us Obsessing Over Everyone's Hair

The Avengers: Endgame Trailer Has Us Obsessing Over Everyone's Hair

The final trailer for Avengers: Endgame has arrived, and it definitely didn't disappoint. While most of the film's plot remains a mystery, Marvel Studios revealed new glimpses of the surviving heroes, and the world Thanos left behind after he snapped his fingers and wiped out half the galaxy's population. The final trailer actually answered a few long standing questions, while inspiring countless others. But it's various characters' hairstyles that I'm obsessing with, as they seem to be teasing a variety of exciting plot points. Let's break down all the biggest coiffures in Endgame.

Black Widow's hair is an extremely fascinating aspect of the the Avengers: Endgame marketing, and one that has puzzled the fandom since the first trailer arrived. Widow had a short cut in Infinity War, dyed blonde presumably to keep her under the radar as she traveled the world with Captain America and Falcon. But with Thanos winning and half of all life eradicated, the Endgame trailer reveals that Widow doesn't appear to be worrying much about her appearance.

The passage of time from Infinity War to Endgame can be seen through Natasha's hair, as it grows quite a few inches since the last time we saw her. What's more, her natural red hair is growing out, leaving only the tips of her hair remaining blonde. There was already some debate about whether or not her hair was CGI'd in the last trailer, so it should be interesting to see how the timeline(s) all shakes out when Endgame finally hits theaters.

Jeremy Renner's Clint Barton is rocking his own unique look, as he's seemingly left Hawkeye behind him, and taken on the new mantle of Ronin. Clint was noticeably missing during the events of Infinity War, as he and Scott Lang were put on house arrest after the events of Captain America: Civil War. It's currently unclear what happened to him to make him the far more deadly Ronin, but smart money says at least part of his family faded to dust.

It looks like Black Widow will be the one to track her old S.H.I.E.L.D. buddy down, and hopefully help him return to the light side of the force. The trailers for Endgame show him dispatching enemies with a sword, rather than Hawkeye's trick arrows. But he ultimately appears with a new suit along with the rest of the Avengers, so hopefully his crazy hair cut and murderous alter ego don't stick around for long.

Captain Marvel is the most recent addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with her solo movie currently raking in the money at the box office. Fans have been eager to see how Carol Danvers will interact with the rest of The Avengers, and explain where TF she's been for the past few decades. Because Earth's Mightiest Heroes could have used the help during Infinity War, as well as conflicts in New York and Sokovia.

Brie Larson's character seems to have grown her hair out in the many years since she became Captain Marvel. While Carol Danvers hasn't aged a day, she seems to be rocking a new do and possibly some highlights. Her longer cut debuted in the Captain Marvel mid-credits scene, which was shot by the Russo Brothers and should appear in the final cut of Endgame.

As a reminder, you can check out the final Avengers: Endgame trailer below.

Does anyone else have chills? Moviegoers have been waiting a year since Avengers: Infinity War arrived in theaters, and shattered expectations and hearts with its devastating twist ending. Smart money says that the surviving characters will find a way to reverse Thanos' snap, although they might not all make it out of the conflict alive.

All will be revealed when Avengers: Endgame hits theaters April 26th. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

Aladdin Box Office: Disney Opens Big On Memorial Day As Brightburn And Booksmart Struggle

Aladdin Box Office: Disney Opens Big On Memorial Day As Brightburn And Booksmart Struggle

Dumbo, who? Disney rebounded from that movie's disappointing opening early this year, finding a whole new world of money with Aladdin. The 2019 live-action remake is making good use of Memorial Day weekend, and it's expected to make over $100 million just at the domestic box office alone by the time the four-day holiday is over. There wasn't much magic at the box office for anyone else, with Aladdin leaving everybody in the dust, including the three repeats just behind it -- John Wick 3, Avengers: Endgame, and Detective Pikachu. You have to head down to #5 to find the first other newcomer in Brightburn, followed by Booksmart.

Check out the full top 10 chart from the domestic box office. The results below are just for the usual three-day Friday-to-Sunday tally, and more money will be made Monday to finish out Memorial Day weekend.

If Aladdin can reach $110 million on Monday, that will make it one of the top five Memorial Day openings ever, per Box Office Mojo stats. It seems to be trending toward the higher end of the initial estimates for its opening weekend box office. That said, there's no chance it will take the #1 Memorial Day weekend spot from the reigning champion, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, which nabbed $139 million in its four-day debut.

Aladdin has already made more than $120 million at the international box office, for a current worldwide total of $207.1 million. It should easily pass Dumbo, which only has a current domestic total of $112,701,413 and a worldwide total of $348,096,055.

Speaking of Dumbo, though, it got a boost from Aladdin's opening. It actually just missed the top 10, placing #11 with a $1.046 million weekend. That's a +238.2% jump over its 18th place finish last week. Sometimes it seems like Disney is stacking these releases too close together, but as we saw from Captain Marvel when Avengers: Endgame came out, the releases don't cannibalize each other so much as give the previous film a nice ticket boost.

John Wick 3 was the top dog last week, finally dethroning Avengers: Endgame as #1 title on the weekend charts. They are both still toward the top this weekend, along with Detective Pikachu, which left the indie newcomers struggling for air. Brightburn is a superhero movie, but not a big studio comic book movie. It was made on a shoestring budget, so that $7.5 million isn't exactly a failure, but does it bode ill for the potential to continue the story from here? Same with Booksmart, which is one of the best-reviewed films of the year. It's earning raves, but only $6.5 million at the box office.

It's always tough to be a small film out there, but especially around a big holiday weekend like this. Brave of them to even try to take on Aladdin, John Wick, and Endgame with some counter-programming. But would another time of year have been more advantageous?

Looking ahead, next week is going to be another monster at the box office -- literally, with Godzilla: King of the Monsters ready to take your money. Rocketman will also open to try and claim the non-blockbuster crowd.

Who took your money this weekend and why? Poll time.

Olivia Wilde ‘Stole’ An On-Set Rule From Martin Scorsese In The Making Of Booksmart

Olivia Wilde ‘Stole’ An On-Set Rule From Martin Scorsese In The Making Of Booksmart

When taking on an intimidating new endeavor, it’s always helpful to take inspiration from those who are the best at what they do. After all, their methodology clearly results in success, and mirroring that methodology theoretically should result in mirrored success. This is something that is regularly seen in the movie world when filmmakers are preparing to make their first feature, and it’s a tradition that Olivia Wilde continued in the making of her directorial debut, the upcoming comedy Booksmart.

Specifically, she took a page out of the playbook of one of the greatest filmmakers of all time: Martin Scorsese. The two had the opportunity to collaborate in recent years working on the HBO series Vinyl (which Scorsese co-created and Wilde starred in), and that experience proved to be motivating for the actress-cum-director in the making of Booksmart. Speaking during a Los Angeles press event earlier this week, Wilde revealed that she borrowed an on-set tactic from the Oscar-winner, which was that all scripts and sides were not made available to the stars during production. Said Wilde,

I stole that rule from Martin Scorsese. I worked for him, and I was blown away by what happens when actors are not allowed to bring sides on set because it means that they are free to create, and with a very short schedule - like we had 26 days to shoot the film - I needed them to be ready when they got there to just play.

A script can often function as a safety net for actors, as they can look back on the material to remember specific lines, or it can help them find the proper emotion for a given moment in a larger story – but Olivia Wilde apparently wasn’t interested in letting her stars have that backup system. Instead, she felt it was more important for the cast to exist in the moment while cameras were rolling, and while it almost certainly led to deviations from what had been written, she felt that the freedom the environment provided was ultimately more important.

What makes this particular situation a little extra special, though, is that while Booksmart does feature some veteran adult stars - including Lisa Kudrow, Will Forte, and Jason Sudeikis – most of the ensemble is made up of younger actors (some of whom are making their feature film debuts). This in mind, you’d think that Olivia Wilde’s borrowed approach from Martin Scorsese might be seriously intimidating, but evidently that wasn’t the case.

Instead, as Wilde explained, they apparently weren’t flustered by that aspect of the experience at all – which came as a bit surprise to the first-time director:

What was amazing is this cast is so brilliant that that was no big deal. I think there's much more experienced actors who would've been terrified by that rule, and they were like, 'No problem; watch me work.' So I'm very, very proud. I think half of the brilliance you see in the movie, if you see it, it's because of the energy they brought that day, and they're looseness, and they're will to give it their all.

Based on a script by Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, and Katie Silberman, Booksmart centers on a pair of intelligent high school seniors (Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein) who start to feel a level of regret about their lack of high school partying when they realize that many of their more fun-oriented classmates still managed to get into good schools. They make the decision to subvert their reputations by attending an end-of-the-year blowout and letting loose for the first time in their lives – and it winds up leading to a fun adventure involving all kinds of strange roadblocks and weirdness along the way.

The film debuted earlier this year at the SXSW Film Festival, earning great reviews and heaps of buzz, and it won’t be long until audiences nationwide have the chance to see it for themselves. Booksmart will be heading into wide release next Friday, May 24th, so be sure to check it out, and stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more about the movie.

First Sonic The Hedgehog Trailer Gives Him Wild New Powers

First Sonic The Hedgehog Trailer Gives Him Wild New Powers

Studios have continued to try and crack the code of turning video games into movies the way they have with comic books and the result has been films with a lot of different looks and styles. Now, we have one of the most popular video game characters ever getting his first big screen adventure and it's...interesting, to say the least. Check out the first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog and see what the blue speedster can do in a world of humans.

Of course, the movie starts showing off just how fast Sonic is, that's his whole gimmick, but here Sonic apparently can move so fast that he goes full Quicksilver in a sequence where the world around him appears to be standing still. Even Sonic doesn't usually go quite that fast.

In addition to that, we see a sequence where the famous gold rings that Sonic collects in the video game can apparently be used as portals that transport Sonic's human friends from on place to another. i guess now we know why he picks so many of them up.

Sonic is a character born in the 1990s and that vibe permeates the trailer. Possibly not more so than in seeing Jim Carrey's version of Dr. Robotnik, which is born from a very old school Jim Carrey performance. It feels like something out of an Ace Ventura movie and to be honest, I can get behind that. It's certainly not the version of Dr. Robotnik I was expecting, and I'm not sure what it means to the film as a whole, it may not really work, but if you're a fan of old school Jim Carrey, it's nice to see.

For those fans a little thrown off by Carrey's look, the end of the trailer gives us a version of Robotnik more in line with the classic video game version, though how one becomes the other we don't know.

For fans of the classic video game, there are plenty of fun references in the trailer. The Paramount logo is scene surrounded by gold rings. James Marsden's police officer is a resident of Green Hills, a reference to the first level of the original Sonic the Hedgehog video game. Even the film's tagline about every hero having a "Genesis," is a cute reference to the Sega video game console on which Sonic had his best adventures. Possibly his only good ones.

The plot of the film is a bit vague based on the trailer. Sonic needs to "save the planet" though it's not clear here from what. Robotnik appears to be chasing Sonic, not the source of whatever Sonic is trying to save us from so what that is we don't really know.

Sonic the Hedgehog fans were more than a little concerned when the first posters came out for the new film. The character's look was a little disconcerting. I'm not sure this trailer is going to alleviate anybody's fears. It's a little over the top and Sonic still looks, odd. Having said that, Sonic has been portrayed as being full of attitude in pretty much all of his incarnations so this isn't all that out of line even if it seems a bit much.

Sonic the Hedgehog hits theaters in November.

Why Pet Sematary Went With That Ending, According To The Filmmakers

Why Pet Sematary Went With That Ending, According To The Filmmakers

SPOILER WARNING: Major spoilers for the ending of Pet Sematary are in this post! Come back after seeing the 2019 movie, unless you have no plans to see it, in which case read on.

Fans of Stephen King and horror films were treated to Pet Sematary this weekend, which adapts the famed author's most grim and depressing novel. There's already been a lot of discussion over the changes the film made from the book, but the biggest change is definitely its ending. For book readers, it's basically an entirely different ending from the source material, and while I'm sure that fans will be debating whether or not it was for the better, the film's directors have their reasons for making the change.

Okay, big spoilers coming up right now. Last chance to turn away.

Pet Sematary follows the Creed Family, who move to Maine and discover that a cursed Indian burial in the woods behind their house can resurrect the dead. Those brought back are usually pretty murder-y. In the film, 9-year old Ellie Creed is run over by a speeding truck. In his grief, her father Louis buries her behind the pet cemetery, and she basically returns as a murderous demon.

In the books, the resurrected child is 2-year-old Gage, who kills his mother, Rachel, and is put down by Louis, who goes insane and decides to bury Rachel in the woods hoping it'll be better this time. However, in the movie, both Rachel and Louis are killed and resurrected by Ellie, and they become a demon zombie family, with little Gage appearing to be next in line.

That's a significant change, and co-director Kevin Kölsch told Collider that the ending changed organically during filmmaking and it wasn't a change they initially set out to make.

It wasn’t necessarily an idea like, ‘We have to change the ending.’ It was just sort of other things changed within the movie. We changed it from Gage to Ellie, then obviously Ellie then being this character that could now have the awareness to know what’s going on with her and to have conversations about it. It changed the scenes afterward.

There were multiple different versions of the ending that were written and a couple of them were shot. One of them was the original ending in the books, and when they showed both endings to test audiences, the new one got the best response, according to producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura.

A lot of times with endings, you kind of just let the audience tell you what they’re feeling. We got to screen both of them to people and it just seemed like audiences really responded to that one.

In fact, the filmmakers had three different ideas that were ranked by darkness and they ended up picking the darkest one. They never intended for Pet Sematary to have a happy ending, and screenwriter Jeff Buhler said it gave the film an extra punch.

It felt right to have an ending that had a little punch to it and was kind of a wink. Like, ‘We’re in a horror movie people, it’s Friday night, you’re out with your friends, have some fun.'

If you are reading this, you've hopefully already seen Pet Sematary, so share in the comments below what you thought of the ending and if it was better than the book.

Oscar Isaac Says Episode IX Will Be A Fulfilling End To The Skywalker Saga

Oscar Isaac Says Episode IX Will Be A Fulfilling End To The Skywalker Saga

It was only a little over three years ago that the Star Wars franchise returned to the big screen with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but already we’re nearing the end of another era. Along with being the last chapter of the sequel trilogy, Star Wars: Episode IX will also be the final installment of the Skywalker saga that began with A New Hope all the way back in 1977. So obviously a lot is riding on Episode IX to deliver a satisfying conclusion to this corner of the Star Wars universe, and according to Oscar Isaac, the movie succeeds in that regard. In his words:

It is the end of the entire Skywalker saga. Nine stories. This is the culmination of the entire thing. What J.J. has done, and the entire Lucasfilm team, is incredibly fulfilling. It’s also special for us because you get to learn a lot more things about these characters.

In typical Star Wars fashion, Oscar Isaac is unable to talk specifically about what to expect from Star Wars: Episode IX, but during his visit to Today (via Indiewire), he promised that it will be a wonderful wrap-up to the saga we’ve watched unfold on-and-off over the last four decades. Along with hyping up Episode IX even more, Oscar Isaac has also made it clear in recent months that he had a blast shooting the movie, calling it a “looser” production compared to The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, and that audiences will be “blown away.”

Since Star Wars: Episode IX is the final tale in the Skywalker Saga, one would imagine there will be callbacks to the original and prequel trilogies. While it remains to be seen how the prequels will factor in, the original trilogy will at least get some representation through Mark Hamill reprising Luke Skywalker (presumably as a Force ghost), Anthony Daniels reprising C-3PO and Billy Dee Williams finally returning to play Lando Calrissian on camera, though he did voice the character a few years back in Star Wars Rebels. Unused footage of Carrie Fisher in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi will also allow for Leia Organa to have a presence in the movie.

That said, the current Star Wars trilogy has been following a new generation of main characters, so it’s good to hear Episode IX will be revealing more about them. The Star Wars media empire is vast, so no doubt we’ll see Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron and plenty of other characters introduced during the sequel trilogy in more novels, comic books and video games in years to come. But for all we know, Episode IX could be the last time we see any of them on screen again, as the franchise looking to go in new directions with the Rian Johnson trilogy and the film series being worked on by Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. It’s possible that a few decades down the line, we could see this particular gang again, just like how Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford returned, but for now, Episode IX is set to be their last cinematic appearances.

All we know for certain about Star Wars: Episode IX so far is that it will be set one year after the events of The Last Jedi. That movie ended with nearly all of The Resistance being wiped out, but thanks to Luke Skywalker’s sacrifice, the survivors were able to escape Crait and start rebuilding its numbers. However, Oscar Isaac said that that rather than become a massive force able to take on The First Order, the Resistance members in Episode IX operate as guerrilla fighters, so it won’t be easy for them to achieve victory once and for all.

Star Wars: Episode IX hits theaters on December 20, so keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more details about the highly-anticipated movie. Don’t forget to look through our 2019 release schedule to learn what other major motion pictures are coming out later this year.