On this latest edition of Cinemaholics Headlines, Jon Negroni jumps on the mic to share his thoughts on a few big news stories in the world of film. Our main story at the end covers a critic-curated list of the movies to watch in case you missed this year’s fall festivals.
The following is a general transcript of the podcast.
Hulu buys NUTCRACKERS.
First story we got here is from Deadline, there’s a new movie coming out called NUTCRACKERS, which was directed by David Gordon Green and stars Ben Stiller, Linda Cardellini, and Tim Heidecker. NUTCRACKERS opened the Toronto Film Festival, and has just been sold to Hulu in an 8-figure deal, so that’s tens of millions of dollars. It’s set to release around Christmas, though I don’t know 100% for sure if it will get a wide release in theaters, since it is Hulu. I think it’s safe to assume the movie will at least get a limited release so it can qualify for awards like the Oscars, but it is strange to me that Hulu would spend this much money on a movie if they didn’t have plans to make some of that cash back in theaters, especially through an awards season bump in the winter.
So not totally sure what’s going to come of this new movie, but it is heartening to see Ben Stiller back in action after not doing any films at all for about seven years, now. It’s also interesting to see David Gordon Green putting out a non-horror movie, since he’s recently been busy with the Halloween sequel trilogy and that Exorcist reboot sequel. Movie looks kind of charming, too, based on the short description. Kind of a small-stakes, Americana drama, that sort of thing. Why 8 figures for it, then? Well, I guess we’ll find out.
Matt Reeves confirms THE BATMAN II is part of a trilogy.
There’s a new show called THE PENGUIN coming to Max pretty soon, so that means Warner Bros and Matt Reeves have been pumping out some new info for the sequel to THE BATMAN , the Robert Pattinson version, I should say, as it’s tied directly to what’s going to happen in THE PENGUIN. I believe I saw a report the other day in fact that mentions how THE PENGUIN will apparently take place in the weeks leading up to the sequel. Anyway, Reeves confirmed pretty recently that he intends for these new BATMAN movies to be one trilogy.
He said specifically to Collider that “it’s sticking very closely to the path we envisioned.” He also talked a little bit about how he wanted to do THE PENGUIN as a show because he worried that the rogue’s gallery for THE BATMAN II would ultimately overshadow Batman’s story, which I think makes sense. Based on what we know so far, it does seem like you can jump into the sequel without having to watch THE PENGUIN. The show seems more like an extended prologue that gives you more context for why Penguin is in whatever shape he’s in when the movie starts. At least that’s my impression.
Clint Eastwood’s JUROR #2 gets a release date.
Quick story here. We just found out through The Hollywood Reporter that Clint Eastwood’s next film, JUROR #2, will be closing the AFI Fest in October and Warner Bros currently plans to open it in theaters on November 1st. The movie has a seriously stellar cast including Nicholas Hoult as the lead, along with Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, Chris Messina, Gabriel Basso, Zoey Deutch, Cedric Yarbrough, Leslie Bibb, and Kiefer Sutherland. This might be an awards contender, we’ll have to wait and see, but for the time being, Eastwood has not said either way if this will be his last film ever.
INSIDE OUT 2 coming to Disney+ on September 25.
Got a few stories here related to streaming services. First up, if you’ve been waiting to either watch or rewatch INSIDE OUT 2, the highest grossing animated movie of all time, then I have great news for you. Pixar’s big summer hit sequel will premiere on Disney+ later this month on September 25. I’m feeling anxious just thinking about it.
Max (the streaming service) gets some good news for a change.
I assume a lot of you are like me in that you probably don’t love what’s become of Max, AKA HBO Max, ever since David Zaslav took over as CEO of Warner Bros Discovery. I have a long list of grievances, myself, much of it related to how actors, writers, directors, and many others have been screwed over by the cancellation of literally finished projects like Batgirl. And just generally, it seems like Zaslav is a mercenary in terms of making the streaming service in particular a wasteland of lowest-common denominator content like trash reality shows.
The way they’ve gone about cheapening the HBO brand has been horrendous, and I’m still pretty sore about how they forced the second season of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON to be eight episodes instead of ten, totally messing up that entire season and maybe the rest of the show going forward. So obviously I’m not a fan, but despite all that, Zaslav said recently that they are managing to bring in new subscribers to Max. Specifically, they brought in 6 millions subs in the current quarter after managing 3.6 million in the previous. That’s decent growth and they’re attributing it to a new bundle they launched with Disney+ and Hulu, plus some expansion efforts they’ve been making internationally.
So look, the bottom line is that Max still is in no way profitable, but at the very least, they can hold this modest growth up as a sign that they’re on the road to something maybe resembling almost-profitability. I have to really hesitate on that speculation since all signs really seem to point to streaming returning to the cable model, albeit cable with the ability to watch things on-demand. We’re pretty much already there, honestly. So we’ll keep an eye on this of course, and for my money, Paramount+ is still the superior streaming service by comparison, but that’s just me.
The New SOPRANOS documentary just dropped. Don’t fuggetaboutit.
Speaking of Max…all of you fans of THE SOPRANOS might want to tune into a new two-part documentary about the making of the show, which just dropped on the service. It’s called WISE GUY: DAVID CHASE & THE SOPRANOS. I absolutely want to check it out as well, especially as a more recent fan of the show who just watched the whole series last year and truly loved it.
Big updates on CONSTANTINE 2, which is apparently happening.
Thanks to an interview with one of the producers over at ComicBook.com, we now know that CONSTANTINE 2 has a finished script and will have Keanu Reeves reprising the role with Francis Lawrence directing. Very curious how this one will turn out, honestly.
TRANSFORMERS ONE is good, actually?!
The reviews for TRANSFORMERS ONE are in, and its debut Rotten Tomatoes score is…well first, Will Ashton please skip ahead 30 seconds if you’re listening to this in case we get a chance to do the Rotten Tomatoes Game. Ok, the debut score is a whopping 91%, though it has already dropped a few points down to 88% over the last day. Still, it debuted to the highest ratings ever for a TRANSFORMERS movie and some critics are calling it one of the best animated movies of 2024, right next to THE WILD ROBOT, which is set to come out in the next few weeks.
Listen, I’ve seen the trailer for this movie, and I’m genuinely shocked. This might be a PADDINGTON situation where the marketing is atrocious but lo and behold, the actual movie turns out to be much better than expected. And I’ll admit, finding out that this movie was directed by Josh Cooley, who directed TOY STORY 4 and was a story artist for INSIDE OUT, definitely gave me the smallest ounce of hope, so I’m thrilled to see it’s getting some traction. Sadly, I won’t be able to check this one out early since the screenings are on a Saturday, and I will be traveling, but there’s a decent chance I’ll be to able to catch this one at a preview screening. And rest assured, Will Ashton has plans to check it out himself and will hopefully have time to share his thoughts soon.
These might be the best film of the fall festivals in 2024.
We had a lot, and I mean a lot of new awards contenders premiering over the last few weeks at festivals like Toronto, Telluride, and Venice. To help narrow things down, The Hollywood Reporter actually put out a list of their favorite films from the fall festivals according to their critics. So I’m just going to quickly share their list, which is not ranked in any particular order.
There’s APOCALYPSE IN THE TROPICS, a documentary about democracy, Christian evangelism, and politics. APRIL, which centers around an OB-GYN performing secret abortions in rural Georgia. BABYGIRL, which stars Nicole Kidman as a middle-aged businesswoman finding sexual liberation in a game of seduction with a younger intern played by Harris Dickinson. THE BRUTALIST, starring Adrien Brody, Brady Corbet’s third feature, which is about a Hungarian Jewish architect who flees to the U.S. after World War II and is shot in 70mm.
CONCLAVE, which has been getting tons of buzz and stars Ralph Fiennes as a Catholic cardinal overseeing the election of a new pope admidst recent church scandals, also with Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini starring. DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT, the directorial debut of actress Embeth Davidtz, centered around a child’s perspective of the Zimbabwe civil war.
FAMILIAR TOUCH, another directorial debut, this time from Sarah Friedland about an octogenarian grappling with dementia in an assisted living facility. THE FRIEND, a New York drama starring Naomi Watts as a writer mourning her best friend, played by Bill Murray and taking care of the Great Dane he left for her.
HARD TRUTHS, a drama that investigates the concept of happiness, with Marianne Jean-Baptiste as the lead. I’M STILL HERE, directed by Walter Salles, about life under military dictatorship in Brazil. LOVE, the second part in a thematic trilogy, following the movie SEX and the next one will be called DREAMS, as this is about dating customs in the age of apps.
NICKEL BOYS, the narrative debut of RaMell Ross, centered around two boys incarcerated in a Florida reform school. ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO, a new documentary from Kevin MacDonald that can best be described by its title. QUEER, which reunites Luca Guadagnino and CHALLENGERS screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes on a story about American expats in postwar Mexico City starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey and featuring a new score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
And last we have SEPTEMBER 5, a newsroom thriller from Tim Fehlbaum chronicling how an ABC sports broadcast handled the 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist attacks live to an entire nation, starring Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, and Leonie Benesch.
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