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Alessandro Nivola, acclaimed for his role in The Brutalist, experienced a starkly different reception with Kraven the Hunter. Sony’s latest addition to its Spider-Man universe faced scathing reviews and flopped at the box office, possibly marking the end of the franchise.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Nivola, who portrays the villain Aleksei Sytsevich (Rhino), opened up about the film’s poor reception and shared insights into the production process.

Reflecting on his experience, Nivola admitted he wasn’t fully aware of the behind-the-scenes challenges but emphasized that his time on set was thoroughly enjoyable:

I really don’t know what happened behind the scenes. On these kinds of movies, you hear about all the wranglings at the studio, and maybe there were too many chefs. I don’t know. I don’t know enough about what the process was beyond just my experience of being on set,...

Alessandro Nivola has been praised for his role in The Brutalist but faced a very different response for his performance in Kraven the Hunter. Sony’s latest (and probably final) film in its Spider-Man universe received harsh reviews and bombed at the box office.

Nivola, who plays the villain Aleksei Sytsevich (Rhino), addressed the movie’s reception during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, as well as some other details from the filming process.

He said he didn’t know much about the issues behind the scenes, only that things on set were enjoyable:

I really don’t know what happened behind the scenes. On these kinds of movies, you hear about all the wranglings at the studio, and maybe there were too many chefs. I don’t know. I don’t know enough about what the process was beyond just my experience of being on set, which was really joyful.

The Rush Hour film series has delivered epically over the years, both with the action as well as the comedy, even if the critics weren’t all appeased. But that series of hilarious events ended with the third film, and Rush Hour 4 has been nothing short of a myth ever since. But even for this unmade film, one really epic parody trailer made its way to the screens.

Rush Hour 4 Face/Off 2. | Credits: Funny Or Die / YouTube.

Surprisingly enough, this one starred P Diddy in the lead, and co-partnering him was none other than Player 001 from the smash-hit Squid Game season 2, Byung-Hun Lee. But even though the trailer has been made for entertainment purposes only, it’s actually so out of the box with its ridiculousness that it could leave fans wheezing with laughter at its unexpectedness.

A Rush Hour 4 with P Diddy and Lee Byung-Hun?

While...

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This January, Paramount+ is bringing you a ton of entertainment with the highly anticipated new film in the Star Trek universe alongside a great new series based on Sherlock by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Paramount+ this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 8 best films coming to Paramount+ in January 2025 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Arrival (January 1) Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94% Credit – Paramount Pictures

Arrival is a sci-fi drama film directed by Denis Villeneuve from a screenplay by Eric Heisserer. Based on the 1998 short story titled Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang, the 2016 film follows Louise Banks, a linguistic expert tasked with interpreting the language of aliens who have come to Earth in a giant spaceship.

Although cinema is an art form, first and foremost, it is also a business that requires financial support to be sustained. A healthy box office is necessary for the medium to remain a cornerstone of popular culture, as studios will only be willing to invest in future projects if it is proven that there is an audience that is willing to go out and see them. 2024 was a year in which there were tremendous box office highs, but the delays due to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes did lead to some crushing lows.

Box office performances are a compelling way to examine where the industry is headed, but it is not necessarily an indication of quality. Although films like “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Inside Out 2,” “Kung Fu Panda 4,” “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” and “Wicked: Part One” performed extraordinarily well this year, few publications that take themselves seriously...

You know a movie is legendary when, even decades later, its characters are still imprinted on our minds. When you think of Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 crime masterpiece, Pulp Fiction, what flashes before your eyes? The razor-sharp dialogue, the unforgettable dance between Mia and Vincent, or perhaps the sight of Vincent Vega in that iconic black suit, exuding effortless cool?

For those of us who lived through the early ’90s cinematic revolution, Pulp Fiction is one of those rare films that stuck in our minds like gum on the bottom of a shoe.

Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction | Credit: Miramax Films

But, there’s an aspect of this cult classic that’s far less talked about—the paycheck that Travolta took for playing the unforgettable Vincent Vega. Now, you’d be forgiven for assuming that an actor of Travolta’s pedigree would waltz onto the set and...

Alessandro Nivola as Aleksei Sytsevich in Jc Chandor’s Kraven The Hunter.

In the fourth instalment of my conversation with Alessandro Nivola before he headed off to the Venice International Film Festival to promote two world premières of films that he is in, we discussed his role as Aleksei Sytsevich (aka Rhino) in Jc Chandor’s Kraven The Hunter, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson with Russell Crowe, Christopher Abbott, Ariana DeBose, Fred Hechinger. Working again with Chandor after A Most Violent Year, David O Russell casting him twice, Alan Taylor’s The Many Saints Of Newark, John Woo’s Face/Off, Joe Johnston’s Jurassic Park III also came up.

Alessandro Nivola with Anne-Katrin Titze on Aleksei Sytsevich, aka Rhino: “I'm the main antagonist to Aaron Taylor-Johnson's character, who is this other Spider-man villain called Kraven. And I am scary. ”

In Venice, Alessandro was the lucky charm: Pedro Almodóvar won the Golden Lion...

A recent update reaffirms that Face/Off 2 is still in the works, and that both original actors are also set to return.

A sequel to the 1997 action hit Face/Off has been in the works for several years now, but things never seem to have progressed much further than that, not least because the project’s director, Adam Wingard is so busy.

Until recently, Wingard had a Godzilla x Kong trilogy to juggle, along with Onslaught, a Thundercats adaptation, another project called Hardcore and the sequel to Face/Off on his slate. As we tend to see with filmmakers with such packed schedules, something always gets lost in the shuffle and so the possibility of Face/Off 2 ever coming to fruition never felt like a sure thing.

Since Wingard stepped away from helming the third Godzilla x Kong film, and with Onslaught currently filming, the director’s upcoming slate looks noticeably lighter,...

Since making his acting debut in 1982's "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," Nicolas Cage has gone on to amass an astounding filmography that has never stopped evolving. He's admittedly made some baffling choices as an actor, starring in the infamously terrible "Deadfall" (which has a zero rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and the 2019 dud "Grand Isle," whose flaws have more to do with its storytelling than Cage's performance as a haunted war veteran. Really, we would be here all day if I were to list the scores of middling-to-awful straight-to-video flicks Cage has starred in, yet the actor never, ever phones it in and shows up to every role with an intensity that is tough to match.

Being one of those actors who shines brighter than ever when given layered, intriguing roles to work with, Cage has delivered several unforgettable performances worth rooting for. For starters, we have the lesser-known...

Nicolas Cage Thought He Was An Alien ( Photo Credit – Wikimedia )

Nicolas Cage’s flair for the eccentric might have otherworldly roots—or so he thought as a kid. The Face/Off actor revealed in an interview with Rampstyle magazine that he genuinely believed he was an alien growing up. And the twist? He was shocked to learn otherwise.

“I was certain I was from another planet,” Cage confessed, explaining how his father fueled the idea. “He felt like he had to introduce himself to me because I was such an alien.” That belief stayed with Cage until a doctor’s visit shattered his cosmic self-image. “I found out I had normal organs and a skeleton,” he shared. But that “alien” feeling didn’t just fade away—it shaped his journey. Struggling to connect with people, Cage found solace in David Bowie’s The Man Who Fell to Earth. That movie inspired...

Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures With its clever premise and a flurry of twists and turns, Face/Off became an instant classic when it was released in 1997, with a fan base big enough that they’re still talking about making a long-awaited sequel. The action film had stars John Travolta and Nicolas Cage switching identities, each getting to play each other’s character for part of the movie. For Travolta, the idea of doing that — especially with somebody like Cage — made the movie impossible to pass up. (Click on the media bar below to hear John Travolta) https://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/JOhn_Travolta_Faceoff_.mp3

Face/Off is currently streaming on Paramount+ and Peacock, and it’s also available on DVD, Blu-Ray, 4K, and most digital platforms.

The post John Travolta Wanted To Get ‘Face’ Time With Nicolas Cage appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

The preview for the eighth Tom Cruise-starring "Mission: Impossible" movie was released on November 11, 2024, and it looks to be the final film Cruise will be involved with. Titled "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning," the preview is full of portent and global threats that, perhaps naturally, only Ethan Hunt can quell. The story, it seems, will continue directly from "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One" (the "Part One" has since been dropped) as it follows Hunt's rivalry with a dangerous artificial intelligence broadcasting from a lost submarine somewhere in the Arctic Ocean.

Since 1996, the "Mission: Impossible" movies have been gigantic cinematic events, with each one drawing huge crowds, and allowing Tom Cruise to increasingly assert his influence over their creative elements. Cruise doesn't write or direct, but a lot of the direction, editing, casting, and music rests in his hands. Brian De Palma's 1996 original is downright...

Nicolas Cage is one of America’s greatest movie stars, and certainly its most distinctive one. His singular genius will be the subject of a retrospective festival at Metrograph, the wonderful independent movie theater in New York City.

IndieWire reports that “Nicolas Uncaged” will present 35mm showings of 10 of Cage’s iconic films: “Adaptation,” “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” “Con Air,” “Moonstruck,” “National Treasure,” “Pig,” “Red Rock West,” “Vampire’s Kiss,” “The Wicker Man,” and “Wild at Heart.”

“Heaped with praise and panegyrics as one of the finest screen actors of his generation, pilloried and parodied as an anything-for-a-paycheck hambone with a weakness for weird wigs and prostheses, Nicolas Cage is a one-man sideshow, a mixture of Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum, Lon Chaney, and a stick of TNT who takes back ‘serious thespian’ prestige whenever he wants to, dives into grindhouse material and Academy Award hopefuls with the same mad enthusiasm,...

Nicolas Cage is one of our most impressive living actors, and a big part of that is because of his intense love of cinema. He's a true student of the craft, with an obsession for older films that has led him to an extensive knowledge of all the medium has to offer. Cage's passion for his projects has led to him becoming the subject of many memes, mostly using his most over-the-top performances, but the man really knows his stuff. So, when Rotten Tomatoes asked Cage for his five favorite films of all time, he came a little over-prepared, offering his top 13 favorite films instead. He said that he simply couldn't narrow it down to five because "there's different movies for different reasons in different lifetimes," which is the most Nicolas Cage thing he could have said.

The actor often looks back to older cinema for inspiration and compares...

UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Alex “Poatan” Pereira is in talks to join Adam Wingard’s new action-thriller film “Onslaught” for A24, with Lyrical Media and Ryder Picture Company, according to an insider with knowledge of the project.

Adria Arjona was previously announced as in talks to star in the film. While plot details are under wraps, Pereira would play the villain opposite Arjona.

“Onslaught” reunites writers Wingard and Simon Barrett. Wingard will direct.

Aaron Ryder and Andrew Swett will produce under their Ryder Picture Company (Rpc) banner alongside A24, Alexander Black for Lyrical Media, Wingard and Jeremy Platt under their new shingle Breakaway Civilization, and Barrett. Lyrical’s Jon Rosenberg and Natalie Sellers will serve as executive producers.

Lyrical Media and A24 will co-finance. A24 will handle worldwide releasing.

Wingard is also developing a live-action/animation adaptation of beloved 1980s animated series “ThunderCats” and a “Face/Off” sequel that would re-team...

Sandra Bullock's name above the title has meant mega-bucks for movie studios over the last 37 years. Combined, her movies have grossed billions of dollars at the global box office, making her one of the most bankable stars of her generation. She's done it by mostly exhibiting good taste in material and, of course, being her irresistibly bubbly self. Everyone, it seems, loves Sandy.

Bullock has a lot to be proud of (most notably the Best Actress Oscar she won for 2009's "The Blind Side"), but when it comes to her bombs, she'll be the first to tell you how lousy they are. She's earned the right to dish on disappointments like "All About Steve," "Two If By Sea" and, dear god, George Sluizer's Hollywoodized remake of his masterful Dutch thriller "The Vanishing." Hang around long enough in the film industry, and you're bound to appear in a stinker or two.

As the film’s opening credits proclaim: Nic Cage is The Surfer, but he’s struggling to catch a wave. Securing his family’s future with a seafront house on a glorious beach in Western Australia is his main ambition. There’s just one issue: the locals aren’t friendly. Spearheaded by their cultish leader Scally (Julian McMahon), the jumped-up blokes who claim the beach as their own would rather knock your teeth out than let you surf. However, ‘The Surfer’ is determined, he’ll just have to suffer first.

Unfortunately, so will we: The audience.

I have a theory about Nic Cage and his relationship with the filmmakers that cast him. You see, the man operates on multiple levels of ‘Cage-ness’ based exclusively on what is asked of him. For example, in Face/Off or Con Air, we probably have near total levels of Cage-ness. Even this year, we saw...

This article contains spoilers for "It's What's Inside."

As fantastical as the concept seems, the first body swap movie dates all the way back to 1916 with the British fantasy flick "Vice Versa," where a young schoolboy magically swaps bodies with his overbearing father. It's based on the even older 1882 novel of the same name and would mark the start of one of the most evergreen cinematic tropes that exists beyond the confines of genre. Body swap movies are most prominent in family-friendly comedy flicks like the "Freaky Friday" franchise or the criminally underrated "Wish Upon a Star" with Danielle Harris and a young Katherine Heigl, or even action films like John Woo's "Face/Off." Science-fiction films usually explore body swapping as some sort of technological advancement, comic books boast plenty of body swap stories (so it's only a matter of time before we see one in live-action), and even horror...

Exclusive: Legendary director John Woo has signed with Independent Artist Group. Famous for his pioneering work in the Hong Kong action genre stamped with balletic scenes of stylized violence that inspired a generation of Hollywood films, Woo just directed the remake of his signature film The Killer. The new one stars Nathalie Emmanuel and Sam Worthington and was released by Universal Internationally and ran on Peacock domestically.

Last year Woo directed the Lionsgate action thriller Silent Night, which starred Joel Kinneman as a man bent on revenge, but unable to speak.

Woo has always split time directing in both North America and China over an illustrious career that began with the Hong Kong action classics A Better Tomorrow, Bullet In The Head, Hard Boiled, and The Killer. He was courted by Hollywood, where his films have included Broken Arrow, starring John Travolta and Christian Slater, Face/Off, starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage,...

Nicolas Cage’s net worth should’ve come to par with some of the A-listers in Hollywood. At one point in his career, Cage was one of the highest-paid actors in the industry, earning $20 million each for Gone in Sixty Seconds, Windtalkers, and National Treasure. However, his net worth came crashing down when his spending habits got out of his hands.

Nicolas Cage in a still from National Treasure | Credits: Walt Disney Pictures

He owed debts to the IRS and a couple of other financial institutions. The actor claimed that he paid off the debts by taking on multiple films in a year, including even video-on-demand movies. His net worth went from over $100 million in the early 2000s to a mere $25 million and is currently reported to be $40 million.

Nicolas Cage Was One Of The Highest Paid Actors In Hollywood At One Point Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas | Credits:...

It’s been four decades since The Terminator first blasted onto the big screen – seemingly from the future – and propelled writer-director James Cameron to the big time. Now, for its landmark anniversary, Empire celebrates cinema’s greatest cyborg in the November 2024 issue, featuring a major new candid Cameron interview, and much more.

The issue doesn’t hit shelves until Thursday 26 September – order online here – but in the meantime here’s a sneak peek inside its pages.

The Terminator At 40

For 40 years now, The Terminator has been unstoppable. Empire celebrates cinema's ultimate cyborg in a huge new James Cameron interview – talking the franchise’s ongoing legacy; Cameron’s most prominent thematic preoccupations; his changing relationship with the original film; and what the Terminator’s future holds.

Plus, producer Gale Anne Hurd writes exclusively for Empire, remembering the casting of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and how he boosted The Terminator to iconic status.

Paddington In Peru...

In Michael Samoski's 2021 drama "Pig," Nicolas Cage plays a quiet, bearded recluse named Rob Feld who lives in a remote woodland cabin with his unnamed pet pig. The pig is a skilled truffle forager, and Rob makes a living selling truffles to a restaurant supplier (Alex Wolff) who occasionally drives out to his cabin. Rob clearly has a dark past, but has seemingly found peace in the woods. One night, however, Rob is attacked, and his pig is stolen. Rob has to trek into nearby Portland to retrieve his animal friend, and, we learn, confront his past.

As the film progresses, we discover that Rob had unusual connections in the world of Portland's high-end restaurateurs, and that he participated in eatery-related underground fighting rings (!). He's also still in mourning over the death of his wife years before, which was the primary impetus driving Rob to become a recluse. More than anything,...

The popular 2005 police procedural series "Bones" is full of murder, gore, desiccated corpses, and ... bones. Most episodes begin with the two main characters, "Bones" Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz), coming across a corpse, often discovered in an unusual or disturbing death pose. The two agents, backed up by a team of passionate pathologists, will then reverse-engineer the circumstances of the corpse's death and determine the depth of foul play involved. There was typically a great deal of foul play involved. 

Like other violent shows about death, murder, and corpses, "Bones" was ideal comfort viewing. Despite all the blood, violence, and misery, "Bones" often skewed tonally light, usually involving eccentric side characters and flippant gallows quips. Also, Bones and Brennan typically solved the mysteries of the rotten cadavers, displaying a police investigative system that worked as perfectly as it was designed to. 

In order for the jokes to work,...

"Batman & Robin" was so panned for its campiness that Warner Bros. had no choice but to pivot to a dark and gritty reboot, resulting in Christopher Nolan's acclaimed "Dark Knight" trilogy. This is filmmaking mythology almost as well-known as Batman's own origin of alleyway orphaning. Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige even calls "Batman & Robin" one of the most important superhero movies, for it taught studios that fans wouldn't settle for schlock. In hindsight, it's almost unbelievable that "Batman & Robin" and "Batman Begins" premiered only eight years apart; the Dark Knight's fall didn't last long!

There were abandoned plans for director Joel Schumacher to make a third Batman film, though. "Batman Unchained," to be penned by Mark Protosevich (rather than previous screenwriter Akiva Goldsman) was supposedly going to be "darker." The villains would've been Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow and Harley Quinn, which makes sense. At the time,...

Jennifer Lopez wasn’t just known for her romcoms and dramas. She carved out a nice career for herself in action films as well. So much so that this filmmaker only saw Lopez as believable in the genre.

Jennifer Lopez impressed a well-known action director Jennifer Lopez | Marleen Moise/WireImage

Lopez made a career starring in thrillers and action features. She burst into the movie scene with action flicks like Money Train. She further proved herself capable of headlining her own action movies like Enough.

Her performances in the genre helped catch the attention of filmmaker John Woo, who was known for some of his exciting, adrenaline-fueled work such as Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2. He’d also worked with Lopez’s ex-boyfriend Ben Affleck in Paycheck.

Woo might’ve paid Lopez the highest compliment he could’ve by speaking about her legitimacy as an action star.

“I would love...

When you think of John Woo, you think of action. With movies such as The Killer, Hard Boiled, Face/Off, Mission: Impossible 2, and more, the director has delivered some of the greatest action in the history of cinema, but his next project will be a big departure. While speaking with Empire, John Woo confirmed that his next movie will be a “half-musical” made in collaboration with Sparks, the pop and rock duo formed by brothers Ron and Russell Mael.

“My next project is actually a half-musical,” Woo said. “I’m going to be working with the Sparks Brothers, who wrote the script and songs — we are just starting work on some changes to the script.” The director then joked that this “will be my first movie where I don’t need to hire a stuntman.” Woo has wanted to tackle a musical for some time, even coming close to helming...

John Woo movies always have a spark – the legendary Hong Kong director is responsible for some of the greatest (and most bonkers) action ever committed to the screen, in Hard Boiled and Face/Off and The Killer, to name but a few. But we’ve never had a John Woo movie with Sparks – the legendary cult pop duo also known as Ron and Russell Mael, behind such earworms as ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us’. Until now, that is. Because, as the filmmaker tells Empire in a major upcoming interview, he’s currently working with the art-pop icons on a very different kind of Woo movie.

“My next project is actually a half-musical,” Woo confirms to Empire. “I’m going to be working with the Sparks Brothers, who wrote the script and songs — we are just starting work on some changes to the script.” While the...

Director John Woo is a name synonymous with action-packed cinema and stylized violence. Once a Hollywood favorite, known for his unique brand of gunfights, slow-motion scenes, and explosive action sequences, Woo helmed some bonafide blockbusters such as Mission: Impossible 2 and Face/Off.

Nicolas Cage and John Travolta in Face/Off. | Paramount Pictures

However, despite his early success, Woo underwent a bit of a Hollywood exit after a Ben Affleck flick that made around $117 million at the box office. This, against a budget of $60 million, was seen as a failure, which led to a lack of offers for the director himself.

Woo himself believes that the failure of a couple of his later projects, including Paycheck, led to his status as an action movie pioneer being overlooked.

John Woo was highly-rated in the Hollywood for his action films

John Woo. | John Woo, Instagram

Woo’s journey from Hong Kong to Hollywood led...

It had been over two decades since Hong Kong director John Woo stunned audiences with his hyper-stylized action classic, The Killer. Released in 1989, the film pushed boundaries with its balletic gunplay and tragic melodrama. Chow Yun-fat gave an unforgettable performance as a dedicated assassin struggling between his deadly profession and humanity. With influences like Jean-Pierre Melville, Sergio Leone, and John Cassavetes, Woo pioneered what became known as “Heroic Bloodshed.” He brought swift-paced action and complex character drama together in a wholly unique way.

Hollywood soon came calling for Woo to export his brand of mayhem stateside. Films like Broken Arrow, Face/Off, and Mission Impossible 2 dazzled worldwide crowds with the director’s expertly staged set pieces. However, it had been 20 years since Woo last delivered a stand-alone Hong Kong production. Fans wondered if he’d ever return to the wellspring of his signature style.

In 2024, that question was answered. With a...

Plot: Zee is a mysterious and infamous assassin known, and feared, in the Parisian underworld as the Queen of the Dead. But when, during an assignment from her shadowy mentor and handler, Zee refuses to kill a blinded young woman in a Paris nightclub, the decision will disintegrate Zee’s alliances, attract the attention of a savvy police investigator, and plunge her into a sinister criminal conspiracy that will set her on a collision course with her own past.

Review: Before coming to Hollywood and delivering modern action movies Broken Arrow, Hard Target, Face/Off, and Mission: Impossible II, John Woo revolutionized action cinema with the one-two punch of The Killer and Hard Boiled. Both films starred Chow Yun-fat and changed the landscape of action movies forever. In the years since their release, John Woo’s signature style has been copied ad nauseam, resulting in the appearance of slow motion, doves,...

John Woo's "The Killer" from 1989 is, without exaggeration, one of the greatest action films ever made. The Hong Kong filmmaker revolutionized action cinema across the globe with his bullet ballet style of gun-fu, expert use of slow motion, subversions of Western cinema tropes, and high-stakes heroism covered in blood. When he made his way to Hollywood, he melted eyes and brains with "Hard Target" and his masterpiece, "Face/Off," but audiences have distilled Woo's vision down to tropes instead of giving themselves over to the story. He became the guy known for big shoot-outs, doves, wuxia-style leaps, objects giving off sparks for no discernible reason, and at least one character with a tragic backstory that would make the Lifetime Movie Network blush.

Stripping those elements away, Woo has also been devoted to telling stories about complex characters — namely men — and the way a shared sense of honor/duty/revenge can...

If you ask any action fan hailing from any country, that has some kind of internet connection or cable television, about the most influential director in the genre, they’ll definitely talk endlessly about John Woo. Before checking out his Hong Kong productions, I was watching his Hollywood films on loop. I was mesmerized by Woo’s use of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s mullet in Hard Target. I was forced to watch Broken Arrow multiple times by one of my friends, and even though it didn’t hit me during the first few viewings, eventually, the utter insanity on display blew me away. Obviously, I wasn’t ready for the bonkers premise of Face/Off and the even more bonkers performances from Nic Cage and John Travolta. I didn’t like Mission: Impossible 2 initially because it was so different from Brian De Palma’s work, but now I think it’s a masterpiece.

It’s been more than 30 years since John Woo first came to Hollywood, and it often feels like he’s been looking for a way back to Hong Kong ever since — or at least a way back to the iconic action filmmaker he was when he worked there in the ’80s and early ’90s. Orgiastically blending the muted cool of a Jean-Pierre Melville neo-noir with the explosive melodrama of a Martin Scorsese crime epic and the florid grandiosity of a Chinese opera, Woo’s elevated style clashed with the meat-and-potatoes ethos of American blockbusters. The same ecstasy that defined Cantonese-language classics like “Hard Boiled” and “A Better Tomorrow” seemed more like self-parody after being translated into “Mission: Impossible 2,” and last year’s dreadfully generic “Silent Night” suggested that Woo had lost whatever was left of his voice as an artist.

Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly filled with...

Jc Chandor’s Spider-Man adjacent supervillain comic book film Kraven The Hunter has a gory first trailer which can be watched in this post.

In the same year that also brought us the now legendary Madame Web, Sony Pictures has another Spider-Man adjacent comic book movie on the horizon: Kraven The Hunter.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as the title villain – more of an anti-hero here we suppose – who’s on a vengeful rampage after he’s left at death’s door following a lion attack. Fortunately for Kraven (name on birth certificate: Sergei Kravinoff), the lion bite gives him superpowers, which he plans to use on his own gangster father (Russell Crowe) who rather unkindly left him for dead.

Kraven The Hunter is rated R in the US for ‘strong and bloody violence’, and there’s a considerable amount of it in the first trailer (see below). In fact, it’s...

Needle-drop music cues have been a hallmark of the "Deadpool" franchise stretching back to the opening credits of the first film, which kicks off with an amusingly chaotic freeze-frame action sequence set to Juice Newton's cover of "Angel of the Morning." This was a strong statement of irreverent purpose, and a signal to the audience that the artists behind this big-screen take on Marvel Comics' had a mile-wide sentimental streak.

The one constant through all three films has been the trio of star Ryan Reynolds and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. After the travestying of the Merc with a Mouth in 20th Century Fox's botched "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," these gentlemen have worked overtime to deliver a version of Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza's character that respects the fans who keep this superhero movie train chugging. And while you may love these films for their gleefully profane humor or,...

Prime Video is the place to be in August with an incredible month of new releases. The month kicks off with the premiere of the animated series Batman: Caped Crusader on Aug. 1. The series was produced by J.J. Abrams and The Batman‘s Matt Reeves. We also return to Middle Earth this month with the premiere of The Rings of Power season 2 on Aug. 29.

As far as movies go, the Amazon original Jackpot! arrives on Aug. 15 starring Awkwafina and John Cena. This comedy is set in a world where Lottery winners have to survive until sundown in order to claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot – anyone who kills them before that gets to claim their prize.

The Hobbit trilogy also joins the Prime Video library this month, as do 21 and 22 Jump Street, Superman I-iv, Superman Returns, Night Swim, Drive Away Dolls, and 10 Cloverfield Lane.

Here’s everything coming...

There's a scene midway through Chuck Russell's 1994 comedy The Mask that stands out as an absolute comic masterstroke—zero CGI cartoon antics required. Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) squirms under the magnifying glass of Lt. Mitch Kellaway (Peter Riegert), the detective sizing up the lowly bank clerk in his dinky apartment.

Having a decades-long career in the film industry, Nicolas Cage has delivered unforgettable performances in films such as the National Treasure series and his Oscar-winning role in Leaving Las Vegas, as well as fan favorites like Vampire’s Kiss, Face/Off, and Ghost Rider.

Nicolas Cage | Credit: Image by Nicolas Genin, licensed under Cc By-sa 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Despite his extensive filmography, the actor recently emphasized the significance of Pig, as a drama that stands above the rest. Cage, who is returning to the silver screen with Longlegs, recently revealed the 2021 film as the film he most wants his fans to experience, describing it as a “folk song” to him among his 120 roles.

Nicolas Cage Declares Pig His Most Essential Film

In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Hollywood star Nicolas Cage was asked for a recommendation on which film would be the best starting point for someone new to his work,...

Director John Woo has remade his iconic 1989 Hong Kong action film The Killer in America. Here’s the trailer.

John Woo is, of course, one of the forefathers of the modern action film, helping to create an entire subgenre known as Heroic Bloodshed.

From his earliest martial arts film Hand Of Death through the legendary Hard Boiled and The Killer to his underrated English language debut Broken Arrow and blockbusters like Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2, Woo’s action sequences are as majestic as they are brutally balletic.

The Killer, released in 1989, followed Chow Yun-Fat as a troubled hitman who injures a singer during a bloody shootout. He must commit one last hit to raise the money for her operation, without which she will go blind. It’s often cited as one of the greatest action films ever made – if you’ve never had the pleasure, it really is incredible.

Peacock has revealed the official trailer and poster for John Woo’s radical reimagining of his 1989 Hong Kong classic, The Killer, which will be available to stream on August 23. Woo is the action director behind films like Face/Off, Mission: Impossible II, Paycheck, Broken Arrow, and Hard Boiled.

From the Oscar-winning producer of Oppenheimer, the kinetic action thriller stars Emmy nominee Nathalie Emmanuel as Zee, a mysterious and infamous assassin known and feared in the Parisian underworld as the Queen of the Dead.

Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy

But when, during an assignment from her shadowy mentor and handler (Avatar‘s Sam Worthington), Zee refuses to kill a blinded young woman in a Paris nightclub, the decision will disintegrate Zee’s alliances, attract the attention of a savvy police investigator, and plunge her into a sinister criminal conspiracy that will set her on a collision course with her past.

In addition to Nathalie Emmanuel,...

Peacock has just dropped the trailer for The Killer, John Woo’s upcoming remake of his own 1989 action classic. This new version stars Nathalie Emmanuel as Zee, a mysterious assassin known as the Queen of the Dead. When she refuses to kill a young blind woman (Diana Silvers) on the orders of her handler, Finn (Sam Worthington), her world implodes, and she finds herself on the run, attracting the attention of police investigator Sy (Omar Sy).

When he was asked why he decided to remake his popular Chow Yun-Fat film, Woo said, “Well, the project was in the works for many years, but it was hard to find a director to direct it. So when I came back [to the States], we got support from Universal, and they asked me to do it. So I decided to give it a try, and we have a very good script from Brian Helgeland. He’s so wonderful,...

The legendary John Woo is back with The Killer, a radical reimagining of his own 1989 Hong Kong classic.

John Woo’s The Killer remake comes to Peacock August 23. Watch the trailer below.

Action auteur John Woo returns to reimagine and re-direct his own classic with the brand new movie, written by Matthew Stuecken and Josh Campbell (10 Cloverfield Lane), as well as Eran Creevy (Welcome to the Punch, Collide) and Brian Helgeland (42, Legend).

From the Oscar® winning producer of Oppenheimer, the kinetic action thriller stars Emmy nominee Nathalie Emmanuel as Zee, a mysterious and infamous assassin known, and feared, in the Parisian underworld as the Queen of the Dead.

But when, during an assignment from her shadowy mentor and handler (Avatar’s Sam Worthington), Zee refuses to kill a blinded young woman in a Paris nightclub, the decision will disintegrate Zee’s alliances, attract the attention of a savvy police investigator,...

John Woo, who got his start making films in Hong Kong before directing bombastic Hollywood blockbusters like "Face/Off," "Broken Arrow," and "Mission: Impossible II," is one of the unquestioned masters of the action genre. He's one of the most influential directors of all time and the maestro of "heroic bloodshed," a subgenre about violence, brotherhood, and redemption populated by thieves, killers, cops, and scoundrels. In his movies, Woo was able to infuse his action scenes with a style, liquidity, and balletic sense of movement that was unlike anything moviegoers had seen before. After a long break from Hollywood filmmaking, Woo returned last year for the theatrically released "Silent Night," and now he's back again with an unusual new film for Peacock: "The Killer," which is a remake of his own 1989 action classic that starred Chow Yun-fat and Danny Lee.

This time around, Nathalie Emmanuel faces off against Omar Sy ("Lupin") in the lead roles.

El cine independiente triunfa. © DeAPlaneta

Este fin de semana, “Longlegs” ha arrasado en la taquilla estadounidense, situándose en el puesto número 2 de la taquilla, solo superada por la película familiar “Gru 4: Mi Villano Favorito”. Con una recaudación de más de 20 millones de dólares, una cantidad impresionante dado su presupuesto de menos de 10M de dólares, “Longlegs” se ha alzado como el mejor estreno con calificación R del año y la película de terror independiente con mejores datos de estreno de los últimos 20 años. Además, la película se ha convertido, junto con “Civil War” de Alex Garland, en la segunda película no producida por una major en superar los 20M de dólares en su primer fin de semana en Estados Unidos este 2024.

Influenciada por obras maestras del thriller como “El Silencio de los Corderos”, “Zodiac” o “Se7en”, la sinopsis de “Longlegs” dice así: mientras el FBI intenta atrapar a un retorcido asesino en serie,...

Editor’s note: this list was originally published in July 2021. It has since been updated to coincide with the release of “Longlegs.”

It’s amusing, in hindsight, to look back at Nicolas Cage’s first lead role. After a small role in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” the scion of the Coppola dynasty headlined 1983’s “Valley Girl,” playing the teen heartthrob that swoops Deborah Foreman’s LA blonde off her feet. Sure, Cage was playing a punk instead of a football player, but it was altogether a rather conventional stock character, the kind that populates many teen films that came before (“Grease”) and after (“The Breakfast Club”).

As soon as he moved on from teen rom-com parts (see also: “Peggy Sue Got Married”), Cage largely has taken roles that have been anything but ordinary. The intense star specializes in playing men on the edge of madness, who feel deeply and express those emotions loudly.

If you’ve never seen a Nicolas Cage film — and, let’s face it, there are a lot of them to choose from — which should you see?

Cage was asked this question during a sit-down with The New Yorker. The actor has appeared in nearly 120 films since his breakout starring role in 1983’s Valley Girl and will be next seen in a rare supporting role in the horror movie Longlegs. Along the way, he won an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas and racked up several fan-favorite performances in films such as 1987’s Moonstruck, 1988’s Vampire’s Kiss, 1995’s Face/Off and 2002’s Adaptation.

Yet, Cage didn’t pick any of those.

Instead, he chose Michael Sarnoski’s 2021 drama Pig, in which Cage plays a despondent loner and former acclaimed chef on the hunt for thieves who stole his beloved truffle pig. The film earned some of Cage’s best reviews in his career,...

Pulp Fiction turned 30 this year and fans love the film even more when they hear the rare behind-the-scenes stories from the Quentin Tarantino classic. Well, here’s one that most fans might have missed — John Travolta was never the first choice for the role of Vincent Vega. Tarantino had another actor in mind who worked with him in his 1992 film, Reservoir Dogs.

John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in a still from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction | Miramax

Michael Madsen is a frequent collaborator on Tarantino films. However, when he was offered Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction, he had to turn it down due to his commitment to the 1994 Western flick Wyatt Earp. However, Madsen felt that Travolta’s addition to the film was one of the major reasons behind the success of Tarantino’s Oscar-nominated film.

Michael Madsen Shares Why His Replacement John Travolta Was Perfect For Pulp Fiction...

Influenciada por ‘El Silencio de los Corderos’ y ‘Zodiac’. © DeAPlaneta

Ya está disponible el nuevo (y final) tráiler de la esperadísima “Longlegs”, que promete ser la nueva sensación de terror del año.

Influenciada por obras maestras del thriller como “El Silencio de los Corderos”, “Zodiac” o “Se7en”, la sinopsis de la película dice así: mientras el FBI intenta atrapar a un retorcido asesino en serie, una agente descubre una serie de pistas que podrían llevarla hasta el criminal y poner fin a su terrorífica ola de asesinatos.

La película, escrita y dirigida por Osgood Perkins, hijo del mítico protagonista de “Psicosis”, Anthony Perkins, está protagonizada por Nicolas Cage y Maika Monroe.

Tras las primeras proyecciones en Estados Unidos, la película se ha generado un gran revuelo entre sus espectadores, que han afirmado que Monroe está de fábula, Cage presenta un personaje perturbador y aseguran que la película es una experiencia...

IGN got the exclusive first look at The Killer, John Woo’s upcoming remake of his own 1989 action classic. This new version stars Nathalie Emmanuel as Zee, a mysterious assassin known as the Queen of the Dead. When she refuses to kill a young blind woman (Diana Silvers) on the orders of her handler, Finn (Sam Worthington), her world implodes, and she finds herself on the run, attracting the attention of police investigator Sy (Omar Sy).

You can check out three first-look images from The Killer below.

“[Zee] has a very specific code in how she likes to do things,” Emmanuel told IGN. “And when she’s told who and when to kill somebody, she does it in her own specific way. And her dilemma in this movie is that she’s being asked to kill somebody who she doesn’t believe deserves it. And for some reason she can’t...

Here’s a nice summer surprise: a new action thriller directed by John Woo is arriving this August. Following up last year’s Silent Night, Woo has directed a reimagining of his own 1989 classic, The Killer. Scripted by Brian Helgeland, the update of the same name (which has nothing to do with David Fincher’s film from last year) stars Nathalie Emmanuel, Sam Worthington, Omar Sy, Diana Silvers, Saïd Taghmaoui, Tchéky Karyo, Eric Cantona, and Grégory Montel. Sadly relegated to just streaming, it’ll arrive on Peacock on August 23 and now the first images have arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: Nathalie Emmanuel is Zee, a mysterious and infamous assassin known, and feared, in the Parisian underworld as the Queen of the Dead. But when, during an assignment from her shadowy mentor and handler Finn (Sam Worthington), Zee refuses to kill a blinded young woman, Jenn (Diana Silvers), in a Paris nightclub,...