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Received yesterday — 20 June 2025

28 Years Later is a bleak fever dream with rage pumping through its veins

20 June 2025 at 19:20
A man and a boy both holding longg bows as they sidle up against a building.

While it wasn't the first film to feature fast-moving ghouls, there is no denying how much of an impact 28 Days Later had on modern zombie movies. It was a gripping and nauseating wonder, whose action felt uniquely visceral thanks, in part, to director Danny Boyle's inspired use of a digital video camera. And there was a gut-wrenching sense of hopelessness baked into writer Alex Garland's script that made 28 Days Later feel far more grounded than most of the zombie films that inspired it.

Boyle and Garland stepped back from the franchise as it continued with a graphic novel and director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's 28 Weeks Later in 2007, but they are back together again for 28 Years Later. Though it's set in the same world and calls back to the original, the new film hits very differently because of how much more overrun pop culture is with zombie-themed horror. You can feel Boyle and Garland trying not to echo other big pieces of zombie IP as they weave a new tale about how the world has changed almost three decades after the outbreak of a deadly virus. And in a couple of the movie's pivotal moments, the filmmakers manage to avoid being too derivative.

Many of this story's small …

Read the full story at The Verge.

A shark scientist reflects on Jaws at 50

20 June 2025 at 19:50

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Jaws, Steven Spielberg's blockbuster horror movie based on the bestselling novel by Peter Benchley. We're marking the occasion with a tribute to this classic film and its enduring impact on the popular perception of sharks, shark conservation efforts, and our culture at large.

(Many spoilers below.)

Jaws tells the story of Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), the new police chief for Amity Island, a New England beach town and prime summer tourist attraction. But that thriving industry is threatened by a series of shark attacks, although the local mayor, Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), initially dismisses the possibility, ridiculing the findings of visiting marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss). The attacks keep escalating and the body count grows, until the town hires a grizzled shark hunter named Quint (Robert Shaw) to hunt down and kill the great white shark, with the help of Brody and Hooper.

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Mel Brooks is returning for Spaceballs 2

13 June 2025 at 19:00

Spaceballs, which was first released nearly 40 years ago, is getting a sequel in 2027 from Amazon MGM Studios.

A Spaceballs 2 announcement trailer posted Thursday doesn’t have any solid details besides the date, though it does poke fun at the entertainment industry’s obsession with franchises and spinoffs by listing many of them out. (I particularly liked “DCU attempt Number 1” and “DCU attempt Number 2.”)

Mel Brooks, who played Yogurt (a Yoda parody) in the original film, also makes an appearance. “After 40 years, we asked, ‘what do the fans want?’” he says. “But instead, we’re making this movie.” The film’s logline, according to Variety, is “A Non-Prequel Non-Reboot Sequel Part Two but with Reboot Elements Franchise Expansion Film.”

Brooks will be reprising the role of Yogurt, and Bill Pullman and Rick Moranis will be back as Lone Starr and Dark Helmet, Deadline reports. Lewis Pullman (Bill Pullman’s son), Josh Gad, and Keke Palmer are also set to star in the film.

Can Donald Trump really put a tariff on films?

10 May 2025 at 15:00

After slamming everything from clothing to avocados with tariffs, now President Donald Trump has taken aim at films. "The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death," Trump proclaimed on Truth Social last week, while floating a 100 percent tariff on movies "produced in Foreign Lands."

The news stirred up confusion across Hollywood, as it would seemingly apply to a broad range of films, maybe even US films with scenes shot abroad. Though Trump has already begun to reel his original statement back in, as he told CNBC that he's "not looking to hurt the industry," it doesn't seem like he's given up on the idea completely. But like many of Trump's plans, he's relying on presidential powers that are stretched to a breaking point.

"A car has a value when it arrives at a US port that they can slap a tariff on," says Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University. "But because of the way the film industry works, it'd be much tougher to determine what proportion of the film you would actually apply a tariff to."

Trump's tariff plan appears to have spun out of a meeting with actor Jon Voight, a fervent Trump supporter who has been appointed a "special ambassado …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Old Guard sequel is coming to Netflix this July

23 April 2025 at 16:57
Three men and two women wearing black combat gear and standing together side by side on a dirt road.
Three men and two women wearing black combat gear and standing together side by side on a dirt road. | Image: Netflix

It only took five years, but Netflix has finally locked in its plan to premiere The Old Guard’s long awaited sequel.

Today, Netflix announced that director Victoria Mahoney’s (You, Lovecraft Country) The Old Guard 2 is slated to debut on July 2nd. Rather than dropping a trailer, Netflix released a handful of new stills from the film, and teased some of its plot details. Set some time after the first movie, The Old Guard 2 continues the story of previously-immortal warrior Andy (Charlize Theron) and her team of expert soldiers who have all been blessed / cursed with never ending lives. 

With Quynh (Veronica Ngô), another immortal, now free from her underwater prison and on the hunt for revenge, Andy and her teammates Nile (KiKi Layne), Joe (Marwan Kenzari), Nicky (Luca Marinelli) have no choice but to fight one of their own. Because they can both die, the situation’s particularly dangerous for Andy and ex CIA operative James Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor). But with Tuah (Henry Golding) potentially being on the verge of discovering how the groups’ healing powers work, Andy might not be spending all that much time as a regular woman.

In an interview with Netflix’s Tudum blog, Theron teased that, in addition to bringing Uma Thurman into the fold, the sequel will feature a little something for anyone who was a fan of the first film or the original graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández.

“Andy and her warriors are back with a renewed sense of purpose,” Theron said. “The stakes are even higher now that Andy is mortal and can die — but that certainly won’t keep her out of the action.”

Predator: Badlands turns the tables in new trailer

23 April 2025 at 16:41

We’re used to seeing Predators do the hunting — it’s in the name, after all. But it looks like the roles will be reversed somewhat in Predator: Badlands, at least according to this new teaser trailer.

Directed by Dan Trachtenberg — who also helmed the excellent Predator spinoff PreyBadlands follows a young Predator (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) who becomes outcast from his people, is stuck on a dangerous planet where everything wants to kill him, and is forced to team up with a human (Elle Fanning) to survive. Of course, he also has to be a Predator as well, and it looks like there’s an especially dangerous creature that he wants or needs to defeat, in order to gain back some respect. Much like Prey, it sounds like a clever twist on the formula, as it makes a Predator a protagonist for once.

Badlands hit theaters on November 7th, but it isn’t the only expansion of the Predator universe in the works. The animated anthology Killer of Killers starts streaming on Hulu on June 6th.

Tron: Ares blends the real world with the digital in its first trailer

5 April 2025 at 16:48
Tron’s Ares character standing by his light cycle.
Get ready for slick light strips and futuristic lightcycles.

Disney just released the first trailer for Tron: Ares, the long-planned Tron: Legacy sequel. The minute-and-a-half trailer doesn’t say much about the story but shows plenty of the movie’s visuals, which look dark, moody, and filled with the series’ signature light trails.

The trailer opens in the physical world at night, as Jared Leto’s Ares, a Program made physical, flees from police on a light cycle, slicing one in half using his light trail as a weapon. The shots that follow show a massive airship hovering over the real-world city, visible only by the red light strips on its outside. The rest has people looking on in horror at the airship, dogfights between human aircraft and fighters from the Tron digital world, and what looks like a clip of Ares being given his physical body.

All of that is set to the music of Nine Inch Nails, which is handling the soundtrack this time around. It ends with a voiceover from Jeff Bridges, reprising his role as Kevin Flynn and saying, “Ready? There’s no going back.” The movie hits theaters on October 10th.

Movie poster

Disney included the poster above in an email to The Verge announcing the trailer’s release. In a YouTube video from Thursday’s CinemaCon presentation about Ares, Leto said his character is “a highly advanced program” who has entered the real world on a “do-or-die mission to fulfill his directive,” and promised that the movie “will hit you right in the grid … wherever that is.” In addition to Leto and Bridges, Tron: Ares is directed by Joachim Rønning and its stars include Gillian Anderson, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Hasan Minhaj, Jodie Turner-Smith, Arturo Castro, and Cameron Monaghan.

Superman’s latest trailer introduces his team of robot assistants

4 April 2025 at 01:13

Though Superman is clearly going to get the living daylights beat out of him at some point in James Gunn’s upcoming DC Studios feature, the movie’s latest trailer puts a spotlight on how the Man of Steel gets put back together again.

During its presentation at this year’s CinemaCon, Warner Bros. shared an extended sneak peek from the new Superman, and the studio has just posted the footage online. For the most part, the video focuses on a very badly-wounded Superman (David Corenswet) begging for his dog, Krypto, to drag him home because he’s unable to walk or fly.

While it’s played for comedy, it’s a little morbid to see Superman’s body flopping around like most of his bones are broken. But the scene becomes much weirder (in a good way) as Krypto drags Superman to a very inspired take on the Fortress of Solitude, where a team of cape-wearing medical robots are ready to run triage. Along with a very wild shot of the robots concentrating the sun’s light to heal Superman, the trailer also features longer shots of Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), and Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion).

Gunn is obviously banking on audiences digging a wilder, more whimsical world of superheroes, and it might pay off when Superman hits theaters on July 11th.

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