‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ is coming to Disney Plus early for May the Fourth
Rejoice, “Star Wars” fans, the wait is over. “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” lands on Disney Plus on May 4. To celebrate May the Fourth, Disney is rolling out “The Rise of Skywalker” on its Disney Plus streaming service a full two months early, uniting all nine chapters of the Skywalker Saga films in one place for the first time. “What began in 1977 with George Lucas’ groundbreaking film ‘Star Wars: A New Hope,’ the nine-part saga is available within Disney+’s extensive collection of Star Wars movies and series including ‘The Mandalorian,’ ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars,’ and ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,'” Disney wrote in a statement.
Halle Berry, Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie And More Brawl In Zoe Bell’s Virtual ‘Boss Bitch Fight Challenge’
The most badass actresses and stuntwomen of Hollywood had a full-out, virtual battle royale thanks to actress and stuntwoman extraordinaire Zoe Bell (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Death Proof) and her video appropriately titled Boss Bitch Fight Challenge. “I’m so bored! I just want to play with my friends!” she proclaims as it is clear she wants to liven things up during her quarantine. What happens next is over five minutes of virtual fisticuffs. Similar to a viral video made by stuntmen, the ladies show the men how it’s really done as Bell stitches together vignettes of an all-star, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them roster of women serving us some action-packed, fighting moves that are quite entertaining.
Lovecraft Country’s first trailer teems with monsters, genre subversion, and social allegory
HBO’s upcoming eight-episode horror series Lovecraft Country may not have been on your radar before now. Although it’s co-created by Jordan Peele and executive produced by Peele and J.J. Abrams, Lovecraft Country hasn’t really had a lot of mainstream attention. But HBO just dropped the show’s debut trailer, which is full of eerie supernatural creatures, intriguing genre subversions, and lots of socially conscious horror — and it’s gotten our full attention. Based on Matt Ruff’s fantastic 2016 horror novel, Lovecraft Country is set in the 1950s and follows a young black man named Atticus (Jonathan Majors) as he searches for his father (Michael K. Williams), who’s gone missing in the New England wilds that his family calls “Lovecraft country.” He and his pal Letitia (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) go on a road trip to search for him — but they quickly wind up confronting a host of eldritch abominations along the way.
James Wan, ‘John Wick’ Scribe Derek Kolstad Adapting ‘Hunting Season’ Tale
James Wan is prepping a film adaptation to Frank M. Robinson’s time travel story, Hunting Season, with Transformers producer Don Murphy and John Wick franchise writer Derek Kolstad on board to script. The story follows a law officer who is sent back to the past where, deemed an enemy of the state and is facing execution, must acclimate in order to survive. Starlight and Star Plus are financing the project, which Wan and Michael Clear will produce via Atomic Monster with Murphy and Susan Monford of Angry Films. Exec producers are Peter Luo and Atomic’s Judson Scott. Cory Kaplan will oversee production on behalf of Angry.
MARVEL To Resume New Comics Releases May 27, Announce Schedule Through July 8
Marvel Comics has outlined its plans to resuming shipping weekly comic books following an extended break due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Marvel will begin releasing new titles starting May 27, with what it calls a “balanced release schedule” aimed at publishing comic books “in the most thoughtful way we can for fans, creators, and the industry during these unpredictable times,” in the words of their release. Most publishers, including Marvel’s main competitor DC, paused distribution of new comic books due to main industry distributor Diamond Comic Distributors shutting down as a result of coronavirus work stoppages. On Friday, Diamond outlined its plans for publishing a new Previews catalog for resumed distribution.
Dive into over 25,000 comic books with Comixology Unlimited’s free 60 day trial
Comixology Unlimited contains more than 25,000 digital comics from DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, and many other publishers. That’s a whole lot of reading material to occupy the children’s imaginations, or reacquaint yourself with some of your favorite superheroes. After the trial period ends you’ll be charged a reasonable $6 per month. To try it, sign-in to Comixology with your Amazon account, and then click Try Comixology Unlimited Free button at the link above. If you’ve had a free trial with Comixology Unlimited in the past 12 months you won’t get the free trial. The Unlimited subscription doesn’t include some of the more recent issues so don’t expect to read Bendis’ full Superman run with this service, for example. Still, you can get a surprising amount of comics with Unlimited for a ridiculously small amount of money.
Seth Rogen Comedy ‘An American Pickle’ Jumps From Sony To HBO Max
Deadline has confirmed that the Seth Rogen/Point Grey Pictures comedy An American Pickle is heading to HBO Max. I’m informed that a release date for the movie remains TBD even though the service is launching May 27. WarnerMedia has taken global rights to the feature, which stars Rogen in dual roles, from Sony. The Culver City studio was set to open the feature later this year, but they’ve moved a large number of pics on their feature slate to 2021 (only three theatrical titles remain for Sony this year: Monster Hunter, Connected and Happiest Season). In the wake of exhibition’s shutdown out of safety for COVID-19, a number of smaller, mid-sized films are segueing to streaming with theatrical distributors selling them off, i.e., STX’s My Spy to Amazon, and Paramount/MRC’s The Lovebirds to Netflix.
