Cinema isn’t just about the latest Disney/Pixar project or Star Wars spin-off. Memorable storytelling is happening all over the film industry, from Hollywood’s box-office-busting superhero smashes to small, innovative indie experiments. The Verge’s film section is here to help you sort through the latest Hollywood news and reviews, from favorite genres like sci-fi, fantasy, and horror to the independent movies that matter.
Spoiler alert: The Facebook Files are still more interesting than Aaron Sorkin’s new thriller.
Aaron Sorkin’s follow up to The Social Network puts the Facebook Files scandal on the timeline.
Though AI studio Fable has not yet announced which distributor will put its animated Gods Don’t Give Gifts feature into theaters, Variety reports that the project is now slated to premiere on December 4th — which would make it eligible for submission for the upcoming Oscars.
The acclaimed director, who worked on the first two Transformers films, will focus on “all creative aspects” of the next live-action movie that’s in the works at Paramount, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Michael Bay, who directed the first five movies, is “in talks” to direct this planned eighth film. Shia LaBeouf isn’t expected to return.
The game has an excellent single-player campaign, though if you hit any hitches due to Luna’s cloud streaming, they could be frustrating because Galactic Racer basically requires split-second reflexes. Check out my review of the game, which I played on PS5, if you want to learn more about it.
[Amazon Game Studios]
With its encore theatrical release ahead of Doomsday, Endgame has inched past Avatar to retake the throne as the highest-grossing film with $2.925 billion, versus $2.923 billion. Endgame overtook Avatar in 2019, only for James Cameron to retake it in 2021 with a rerelease ahead of Avatar: The Way of Water.
Revisiting rumors from earlier this year, Deadline and TheWrap report the adaptation of EA’s long-running FPS series would be directed and written by frequent Tom Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie. According to TheWrap, Sony is a “frontrunner,” following a bidding war that also included Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon MGM Studios, Universal, and Netflix.
Paramount, meanwhile, is already working on a film version of Call of Duty.
Go watch the ultra-low-budget black-and-white slapstick insta-classic Hundreds of Beavers, which Dropout’s Sam Reich calls “a masterclass in visual comedy.” Dropout mostly streams original content, but is increasingly licensing indie comedy; it launched the Don Hertzfeldt Collection last month.
The box office success of Avengers: Endgame’s re-release has apparently emboldened Sony, which is considering turning Spider-Man: Brand New Day around for a second run at cinema screens (and box office records) with new footage, The Wrap reports. It’s not clear if that means teases for future movies, or just deleted scenes.
The Samsung Art Store’s first cinematic collection includes 38 stills from A24 films that users can display like art on The Frame and other compatible TVs, including shots from I Saw the TV Glow and Midsommar.
Following backlash, YouTube posted on X that when the trailer was “submitted as an ad, it was temporarily restricted by our system. Following review the ad has been cleared to run.” Meta spokesperson Alex Dziedzan said, “This was an error,” and will now run the ads.
Update September 26th: Added statement from Meta.
YouTube, TikTok, and Meta have all apparently rejected the trailer for Alex Gibney’s documentary, scheduled to hit theaters on October 9th. It’s not surprising that X has refused to take distributor Bleecker Street’s calls given its owner’s notoriously thin skin. But as The Hollywood Reporter notes:
The unwillingness of platforms to accept even paid advertising is sure to raise concerns about free speech and the dwindling number of companies that control many of the platforms in this country — and ironically provide a proof-text for the very point the film is coming to make. Gibney’s doc is a four-hour look at a title character who attempts to control the conversation in various ways, including with alleged suppressions on X, which he bought in 2022.
Update September 26th: Both YouTube and Meta will now reportedly run the ads.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
As distressing as it is to see the mutants in Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil up on the big screen, it’s very cool to see the experimental stunt work that went into the monsters’ creation.
A24, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and The New York Times Company are all reportedly interested.
Other rumored potential buyers include Versant and The Ankler, as well as Netflix, Paramount, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
[New York Times]
While there are still some questions around the international rollout of Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk documentary, US distributor Bleecker Street is forging ahead, and has a new trailer to prove it. The trailer does a good job of summing up what to expect from a very, very lengthy film.
The next Gremlins movie is now coming on October 6th, 2028, 38 years after the release of Gremlins 2. It’s been pushed back by a year since Gremlins 3 was first announced, but now we have a seven-second teaser as reassurance it’s actually happening — and it looks like real puppets are involved!
The official trailer for Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary, You Can See Everything has dropped. The movie — which seems to involve Fielder living in Holmes’ home with her born-rich husband and small baby before she heads to prison for the criminal fraud that was Theranos — comes out October 16th.
Netflix has released the first trailer for the film — not to be confused with Raygun — a hardboiled sci-fi feature helmed by Brad Bird, best-known for animated classics like Ratatouille and The Iron Giant. It hits theaters on December 4th before streaming on December 18th.
Backrooms was a legit box office blockbuster. And now A24 is gearing up to make a movie based on the SCP universe (even if, for legal reasons, it might not use the SCP name). What internet horror franchise do you think should get big-screen treatment next?
Universal Pictures, which has the rights for Musk outside of North America, hasn’t put a release date on the film yet and sources told The Hollywood Reporter that they believed Universal would be dropping it. In a later report, though, THR said that its initial article led to meetings at Universal, and Universal’s head of comms said in a statement that that “The studio remains committed to releasing it in theaters internationally.”
My colleague Andrew Webster reviewed Musk this week.
Update: Added second THR report.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
The latest trailer for Laika’s next stop-motion epic provides a better look at the fantasy world at its core, including a very charming and distracted dog. The movie hits theaters on October 23rd, and you can read a little more about how it was created right here.
It has officially dethroned Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the highest-grossing domestic release to date, Variety reports. So far, Brand New Day has pulled in over $936 million domestically and $2.45 billion globally, making it the third highest-grossing film of all time, behind Avatar and Avengers: Endgame.
Yesterday I wrote about the gigantic new Elon Musk documentary that comes out next month. If you can’t wait to sit in a theater for four hours to watch it, there’s good news, as the premiere date has been moved up a week to October 9th.
Director Valerie Veatch’s excellent Ghost in the Machine documentary digging into the origins of generative artificial intelligence is set to make its debut on the PBS Documentaries YouTube channel this evening.
