I’ll watch anything with Zendaya in it. Even without the genius-level marketing that was the Challengers press tour — complete with those tennis ball Loewe heels — I still would’ve rushed to the theater to watch Challengers. Due to last year’s strike, its delayed release made one thing obvious: anticipation really does make the reward that much sweeter. Challengers finally comes out on Friday, April 26th and after watching an early screening, I can confirm, it’s well worth the wait.
What is Challengers about?
Challengers is about tennis. Challengers is about a love triangle. Challengers is about Zendaya’s bob. Directed by Luca Guadagnino of Call Me By Your Name, it’s no surprise that this movie is also about sex. It follows three young tennis players — two lifelong friends who are rising stars and superstar prodigy Tashi Duncan with whom they are massively enamored — over their messy love lives and careers.
Zendaya leads as Tashi Duncan, the intense and intensely ambitious woman at the center of this story. After a devastating injury, Tashi goes from the top of the game to her husband’s coach, trying to recall what she felt at the height of her career.
Ambition battles desire as the love story between the three twists and turns over the course of time. Shifting between time periods and storylines, it feels like a Christopher Nolan film if it slayed. And with Luca’s expert directorial eye, styling from JW Anderson’s Loewe, and Zendaya as heroine, it’s a cinematic feat — tense, vivid, and utterly irresistible. Zendaya herself recommends watching the movie at least three times while “viewing” it from each character’s perspective each time. Well, what Z says, goes.
Clearly, Mike Faist (Dear Evan Hansen, West Side Story) as Art and Josh O’Connor (The Crown, God’s Own Country) as Patrick have been inducted into the exclusive club of Luca’s muses. If you weren’t in love with them before, you will be by the movie’s end. The film has confirmed them as the white boys of the month. But they’re more than just pretty faces. They are Actors — with a capital A.
And Challengers is their launch pad for Hollywood’s latest leading men. Their performances are masterful, their characters are tight and consistent, and their chemistry is unmatched.
While their chemistry with Zendaya is electric, it’s their chemistry together that keeps the film pulsing with anticipatory tension. Whether they love each other or hate each other, the best scenes are those when Faist and O’Connor can play off each other — whether it’s literally tennis or a battle of wits and the battle for Zendaya’s heart.
Of course: we have to talk about that scene. Teased in the trailer and the promo images alike, everyone is all aflutter over the film’s alleged menage a trois. Appearing early on, it’s a taste of what the film does well: emphasizes sex appeal without denigrating any of its characters — especially Zendaya — as mere sexual objects.
Sex in this film is often implied. Yet, sensuality and the power exchange of desire are foregrounded. It’s about power. But it’s also a game. And, like tennis, Zendaya is a master. “You don’t know what tennis is,” she tells Art and Patrick. “It’s a relationship.” For the three of them, this certainly proves true. The central question here is: who will win?
This is a movie about tennis, actually.
The internet has noticed a strange trend: the women who’ve played Spiderman’s love interest in the major Spiderman franchises have all gone on to do movies about tennis. Kirsten Dunst did the underrated rom-com Wimbledon. Emma Stone portrayed Billie Jean King in Battle of the Sexes just three years after her term as Gwen Stacey. And now, Zendaya is playing her own version of a tennis star.
But this isn’t just a film about tennis players. It’s a movie deeply in love with the game of tennis itself. It plays with the form of the game by mirroring a tennis match — each act of the film feels like a set of a match. It moves through scenes and time periods like perfect volleys. The key scene that ties it all together is a tennis match. We watch the ball go back and forth as we are transported to and from the past, wondering which player will get the upper hand.
“What do you want?” The boys ask Tashi early in the film. “To watch some good fucking tennis,” she says.
In the end, the sentiment is repeated. In tennis, love means zero. And that’s the Challengers’ conceit. Sitting across from the umpire (who is — fun fact — played by her real-life assistant Darnell Appling) in the central tennis scene, her judgment is all. It’s like the final scene of Love and Basketball — they’re playing for her heart. And her heart is always with the game.
Challengers will make a tennis fan of you. While you don’t need to know the game in order to follow the plot, its artistic representation of the game — from the writing to the directorial shot list — will satisfy the superfans and intrigue the newbies.
Let’s get to the point (pun intended): Is Zendaya’s Tashi a triumph?
Earlier this year, Timothee Chalamet achieved the impressive feat of starring in two of the year’s highest-grossing films — Dune: Part Two and Wonka. I predict that by the time they stop this weekend’s Box Office count, Zendaya will achieve the same feat with Dune: Part Two and Challengers.
While she’s the heart of Dune: Part Two, she’s finally taking her rightful place as a leading lady with her turn as Tashi Duncan. After playing high schoolers for decades from Spider-Man to Euphoria, the role of Tashi is the perfect transition. We meet Tashi the summer after high school, before she heads to Stanford, and watch her grow into an adult in real-time. Zendaya and her character get similar arcs.
Zendaya deftly handles Tashi’s youthful confidence with her jaded older self while rocking that damn bob. It’s up to you to decide whether you love this character or despise her. There’s a viral interview in which an interviewer remarks that as much as he loves Zendaya, this character kind of made him hate her. Meanwhile, I — lover of maneaters and female manipulators — am pinning photos of Tashi to my vision board as we speak.
Audiences are split on their takes on Tashi but everyone agrees: Zendaya played her with the chill-inducing complexity she deserves. EGOT soon! This is Zendaya’s magnum opus — so far. She’s proven she’s a movie star, a leading lady, and an adult woman ready to play older roles. I can’t wait for what she does next.
Challengers will hit theaters on Friday, April 26th. Watch the full trailer here:
In the first three months of the year, all eyes are often on the films that came before — the contenders that dominated the fall, vying for Academy Awards. But while studios usually save their glitziest, prestige-iest films for the horse race, there are, in fact, many movies worth your time and attention that have graced us in late winter and spring. Some might be epic-scale blockbusters (Dune: Part Two), but most of this year’s best so far are smaller films, released without a major studio’s marketing budget. One is a violent swashbuckling-adventure film, and another is a brilliant comedy as bleak as it is funny. Two mark the debuts of commanding new voices in film; another is a bittersweet good-bye to a great composer and musician. All will reward you for seeking them out. Here, the best of the many dozens of movies we’ve seen this year so far.
Photo: Neon
Alice Rohrwacher’s film follows Arthur Harrison (Josh O’Connor), a strange man with a strange gift for robbing graves, finding and lifting the antique knickknacks the ancient Etruscans of central Italy used to bury with their dead. A former archeologist, he seems haunted by his own exploits, and this occasionally rambling, often gorgeous film’s queasy dream logic suggests that we’re watching a man halfway between this world and the next, struggling to find his place. Rohrwacher, one of Italy’s foremost filmmakers, makes earthy movies with a dash of what we might call magical realism. The performances are naturalistic, the location shooting authentic and ground level, but the stories often hover on the edge of fantasy. The director fills the picture with folk ballads, naif art, playful asides to the camera, and bursts of sped-up slapstick, giving it all the quality of a ramshackle operetta. But O’Connor’s concave, melancholy demeanor undercuts the picture’s levity, likely by design: The more the film goes on, and the more fanciful it becomes, the more Arthur seems unable to reconcile himself to the world around him. He’s a sad, walking embodiment of the notion that those who spend their time worrying about the next life will never feel peace in this one. —Bilge Ebiri
Caustic and brilliant, Radu Jude’s latest is a comedy about the terrible absurdity of life under late capitalism that includes among its wide-ranging reference points classical haiku, Goethe, the German schlockmeister Uwe Boll, and a series of profane TikToks records by its main character, an overworked PA named Angela (Ilinca Manolache). Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World consists primarily of Angela’s encounters as she drives around auditioning possible subjects for a company employee safety video, a worker-blaming production made even more absurdly bleak by the fact that Angela has been putting in such long hours she’s in danger of falling asleep on the road. But woven in, brilliantly, are clips from a communist-era film about a female taxi driver, also named Angela (Dorina Lazar), whose state-sanction dramas under the Ceaușescu regime provide a counterpoint to the present day Angela’s gig economy life, until the two characters converge for the final act, which involves the shooting of the corporate production, and is one of the most blackley funny sequences you’ll see this year. —Alison Willmore
A few months before he died in March 2023, Ryuichi Sakamoto recorded what he himself suspected might be his final solo concert. It had been created across a few days out of pre-recorded segments that were then assembled and streamed around the world. An expanded version of that concert now exists as a feature film, directed by the late musician’s son, Neo Sora. And it’s a moving, spare, and self-reflective work. Sakamoto was a savvy and thoughtful performer, always aware of his audience and in playful conversation with them. Now, as he communes with his music, we feel like we might be intruding on a private requiem. He doesn’t seem particularly frail during this performance. The fragility lies in the music, in the vulnerability with which he plays it, and in the austere cinematic presentation. The shimmering black-and-white photography and elegant camera moves heighten the intimacy of the performance. —B.E.
If the first Dune was Timothée Chalamet’s movie, the second belongs to Zendaya, and it’s better and more emotionally accessible for it. Denis Villeneuve’s Frank Herbert adaptation continues to be a spectacular and genuinely alien epic about genetically engineered messiah figures, space witches, massive sandworms, and BDSM-inflected goth fascist planets. But it’s Zendaya’s character, the Fremen warrior Chani, who provides the film’s heart, as a fierce-hearted rebel who’s won over by Chalamet’s Paul despite knowing better, and despite being aware that he’s saying all the right things to win her community to his side for what may be his own purposes. Dune: Part Two has incredible sweep, but it also manages to have recognizable human drama, and that comes entirely from Chani’s perspective as the representative of a people whose own desires are forever subsumed by the machinations of much larger powers. —A.W.
Noora Niasari’s debut is based on her own childhood experiences, which is evident from the tangibility of its details, but also from the poignant sense that it’s a film about revisiting turbulent young memories with the distance and knowledge of an adult. Holy Spider’s Zar Amir Ebrahimi gives an astounding performance as the title character, an Iranian immigrant in Australia who’s fled an abusive marriage and brought along the young daughter, Mona (Selina Zahednia), that she’s terrified will be taken from her. Shayda deftly lays out the dynamics of the womens’ shelter, and of the local Iranian enclave, pitching its story of escape as a kind of intimate thriller in which Shayda must try to create a sense of normalcy and safety for her child while never being able to let her own guard down. —A.W.
Photo: Magnolia Pictures
Mads Mikkelsen is a phenomenally skilled actor, but he’s also clearly the kind of performer who understands the value of a good, cold, hard stare. This makes him uniquely well-suited for the role of Captain Ludvig Kahlen, an impoverished, stoic Danish war veteran who sets out in the mid-18th century to try and tame the Jutland Heath, a huge and forbidding area where no crop can grow and where lawlessness reigns. The Danish title of the film, Bastarden, translates as “the bastard,” and could be both a literal and spiritual description of Kahlen. He was born to an unwed servant, and he is a tough, at times heartless taskmaster. As he learns that he has to learn to rely on others in order to survive, Kahlen also finds himself at odds with a local landowner, a preening and sadistic aristocrat named Frederik de Schinkel. And so, The Promised Land transforms from a stately and lyrical tale of rural survival to something more primal and intense; think Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven crossed with Michael Caton-Jones’s Rob Roy, only with more scenes of people being boiled alive. —B.E.
This terrifically bittersweet documentary from Bacurau’s Kleber Mendonça Filho is part memoir, part history of the director’s hometown of Recife, and part meditation on the nature of photography that outlasts the subjects it has captured. But more than anything, it’s a tribute to a life shaped by cinema that manages to avoid the syrupy sentimentality of so many other movies about movies. Filho starts his film in the childhood apartment where he shot so much of his work, and then guides it outward, to the city’s once-grand downtown, studded with cinematic palaces that have mostly been repurposed into other businesses. In doing so, he gracefully reflects on the faded glories of his favored medium. —A.W.
Phạm Thiên Ân’s first feature can be elliptical to a fault in the way it chooses to unfold its story of a drifting young man named Thiện (Lê Phong Vũ) who, after the death of his sister-in-law, inherits custody of his nephew and embarks on a journey to find his brother, the child’s father. But the virtuosity of its filmmaking is remarkable, and some of the shots that Ân composed (with the help of his cinematographer, Đinh Duy Hưng) have lingered with me like persistent afterimages. In particular, there’s the sequence that starts the film, in which the camera drifts from a nighttime soccer game in Saigon, past street vendors and spectators and over to a bustling outdoor cafe where three men are talking about faith over beers until they’re interrupted by an off-screen collision. It’s impressive in its complexity and utterly haunting in its execution, as if it contains the whole world before its focus narrows in on one particular figure. —A.W.
There have been many movies about Frida Kahlo over the years, but none have given us such a sense of the artist as an actual living, breathing person as Carla Gutiérrez’s innovative new documentary. Gutiérrez, an award-winning editor, has built the movie entirely out of archival material, using Kahlo’s own words and pictures to present her life as seen through her own eyes. Thus, we hear Frida’s own achingly confessional words (spoken by Fernanda Echevarría del Rivero) as she narrates her childhood, growing up with a deeply religious mother and an atheist father; her vivacious teen years as a hip young medical student, adored by many; her lengthy, turbulent marriage to the lecherous, revolutionary muralist Diego Rivera, who overshadowed her in her time; as well as her own passionate affairs with both men and women. The director has also taken Kahlo’s drawings and paintings, including some of the most immortal ones, and animated them so that the images now shift before our eyes to reflect her emotional transformations, with pictures often mutating into one another. It’s an inspired path into the work of an artist who often painted her own visage in visually striking arrangements. By the time the movie is over, we feel, perhaps for the first time, like we’ve gotten to know this legendary, almost mythical figure. —B.E.
Sony’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire will have no trouble winning a relatively quiet weekend at the box office but opinion is divided as to whether it can reach $42 million to $44 million in its domestic opening.
Sony remains bullish that it will indeed hit that mark after earning $16 million on Friday, including $4.7 million in Thursday previews. Rival studios, however, show Frozen Empire coming in at around $41 million, behind the $44 million launch of the pandemic-challenged Ghostbusters: Afterlife in 2021. Nearly 40 percent of Friday’s gross came from premium-format screens, including select Imax locations. (Dune: Part Two still has a large Imax footprint.)
The newest Ghostbusters entry is challenged by middling reviews and a B+ CinemaScore from audiences, compared to an A- for Afterlife. Another challenge is bad weather along the east coast.
Frozen Empire is a direct sequel to Afterlife, which succeeded in restoring the luster to the classic franchise created by the late Ivan Reitman. His son, Jason Reitman, directed Afterlife, but this time turned over helming duties to series co-scribe Gil Kenan.
The movie features returning castmembers Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Celeste O’Connor and Logan Kim, alongside Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and William Atherton, who starred in the original 1980s films. Series newcomers include Kumail Nanjiani and Patton Oswalt.
Written by Kenan and Reitman, the story follows the Spengler family as they return to the New York City firehouse to team up with the original Ghostbusters, who have developed a top-secret research lab to take busting ghosts to the next level. But when the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an army of ghosts that casts a death chill upon the city, demon fighters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second Ice Age.
The weekend’s other new nationwide opener is Neon’s specialty horror pic Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney, who is fresh off her hit rom-com Anyone But You.
Immaculate, fueled by younger women, is on course to place No. 4 with an estimated $5 million, in line with expectations for the indie film. The pic earned a C CinemaScore, which isn’t unusual for a horror film.
In Immaculate, Sweeney plays a devout nun traveling to a remote convent in the picturesque Italian countryside, but her journey soon devolves into a nightmare as it becomes clear her new home harbors a sinister secret and unspeakable horror. It is tracking to open in the low single digits.
Legendary and Warner Bros.’ Dune sequel is holding at No. 2 with an estimated weekend haul of $16 million in its fourth outing. The movie will finish Sunday with a sensational domestic cume of $230 million, or thereabouts.
Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 4is also holding in nicely as more and more kids are sprung from school for spring break. The movie, now in its third outing, looks to earn an estimated $14.5 million for a domestic tally of $131 million through Sunday.
Rounding out the top five is Lionsgate’s Arthur the King, starring Mark Wahlberg. The movie, about the inspirational bond formed between a dog and a group of professional adventurers, is pacing to earn $4.5 million in its second outing for a subdued domestic total of $14.3 million.
As was foretold in Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” music video, in which Christopher Walken danced to a line from Dune (“Walk without rhythm, It won’t attract the worm”), the actor would be destined to join Frank Herbert’s sci-fi universe in Denis Villeneuve’s acclaimed adaptation. In fact, Dune: Part Twobrought Walken out of a four-year acting break.
Denis Villeneuve on Ending Dune: Part Two That Way
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Walken discussed why he took on the role of the formidable Emperor who sets in motion the fall and rise of House Atreides in Dune. “I had, of course, seen the first Dune a number of times. I loved it, and I admired [Villeneuve’s] movies. Arrival, I thought, was wonderful. And to be with all those terrific actors—Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh, and Stellan Skarsgård—and to go to Budapest, which is a beautiful city. And of course, that’s what I do for a living. It was only, I think, three weeks. So, everything about it was attractive,” he said to the magazine.
Walken, who had somehow not yet been scooped up by a sci-fi epic, also revealed that he was almost in Star Wars but the timing wasn’t right. “I think it was for Han Solo,” Walken shared. “Yes, I auditioned for it. And if I’m not mistaken, my partner in the audition was—I think this is true—it was Jodie Foster. I think we did a screen test. I’m not sure we did a scene. Maybe we just sat in front of, in those days, those old videotape cameras… I did audition for Star Wars, but so did about 500 other actors. It was lots of people doing that.” But as was fated by “Weapon of Choice,” Walken was all along meant to be the Emperor in Dune.
The blockbuster Dune: Part Two is nearly three hours long, but it could have been even longer. And director Denis Villeneuve says that any cut scenes will not be seen by the public.
“I’m a strong believer that when it’s not in the movie, it’s dead,” the director told Collider when asked if he will release deleted scenes from the film for its upcoming Blu-ray release. “Sometimes I remove shots and I say, ‘I cannot believe I’m cutting this out. I feel like a samurai opening my gut. It’s painful, so I cannot go back after that and create a Frankenstein and try to reanimate things that I killed. It’s too painful. When it’s dead, it’s dead, and it’s dead for a reason. But yes, it is a painful project, but it is my job. The movie prevails. I’m very severe in the editing room. I’m not thinking about my ego, I’m thinking about the movie …. I kill darlings, and it’s painful for me.”
“I’ve made movies in my life that were 75 minutes, and this one is two hours, 45 [minutes], I think, something like that,” Villeneuve added. “It’s not the runtime, it’s about the storytelling, and I felt that I wanted to create a momentum. I wanted an energy in the movie that I was looking for that excited me, and I thought that was the perfect runtime … You can be bored by a five-minute movie.”
Villeneuve joins a list of directors who generally decline to release deleted scenes — such as Christopher Nolan and Martin Scorsese.
At least one actor who was entirely cut from the film: Tim Blake Nelson (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) in an undisclosed role. Nelson told Movieweb, “I don’t think I’m at liberty to say what the scene was. I’d leave that to Denis if he wants to talk about it. I had a great time over there shooting it. And then he had to cut it because he thought the movie was too long. And I am heartbroken over that, but there’s no hard feelings. I loved it, and I can’t wait to do something else with him and we certainly plan to do that.”
Internet sleuths have speculated that Nelson might have been cast as Count Hasimir Fenring, an assassin and advisor to the Emperor (Christopher Walken), who is married to Lady Fenring (Léa Seydoux). The character has a larger role to play in future Dune books, so perhaps he might still appear in Dune: Messiah should Warner Bros. greenlight another sequel (which seems rather likely given the film’s $80 opening weekend box office). Nelson will next be seen in Captain America: Brave New World.
There was another actor who didn’t make the film as well: Stephen McKinley Henderson played the House Atreides Mentat Thufir Hawat in Dune: Part One. He was officially announced as among the cast when filming began in July 2022, though curiously, Villeneuve recently suggested the decision was made earlier.
“One of the most painful choices for me on this one was [to not include] Thufir Hawat,” Villeneuve told Entertainment Weekly. “He’s a character I absolutely love, but I decided right at the beginning that I was making a Bene Gesserit adaptation. That meant that Mentats are not as present as they should be, but it’s the nature of the adaptation.”
So instead, the audience is left to assume Hawat was killed during the invasion. Interestingly, Count Fenring is also a Mentat, which could help explain why Nelson was cut.
Villeneuve has said he wants to make a Part Three based on Frank Herbert’s novel Dune Messiah and is actively working on script.
Critics have dug their heads out of the sand to share what’s happening on Arrakis. Dune: Part Two, out March 1, is a triumph of vision, according to the early reports, but that doesn’t mean director Denis Villeneuve’s monumental scale and formal austerity have pleased everyone. For select reviewers, the film amounts to sand, beautiful sand, and some tepid anti-imperial themes. Other, more satisfied critical responses argue that Villeneuve’s casting and craft alchemy, juiced by a story with far more interesting beats than the first one had, make for an arresting watch. Part Two “belongs firmly to Zendaya, who gives the second half of Denis Villeneuve’s Frank Herbert adaptation an emotional tangibility that the first, in all its exotic majesty, eschewed,” writes Vulture critic Alison Willmore. New faces Christopher Walken, Austin Butler, and Florence Pugh reinvigorate the future hellscape, while the returning Timothée Chalamet does a movie-star turn, critics say. Let’s stick our hands in the popcorn-bucket orifice and see the first reactions from critics who watched Wonka ride the sandworm.
“Rather than soften the strangeness of its source material, Dune: Part Two shifts its perspective to one on the ground — to Zendaya’s character, the Fremen warrior Chani. She was more promise than actual presence in 2021’s Dune, a figure from Paul’s visions who’s only encountered in the flesh after the Harkonnen family ambushes and wipes out most of the Atreides forces. But she’s the soul of the new film, skeptical of all the messiah talk she rightfully believes was planted to control her people, and skeptical of this off-world upper-cruster who comes seeking refuge, swearing he’s not like the others and that he only wants to learn the ways of her people and help them.” —Alison Willmore, Vulture
“Whatever you do, don’t mistake this follow-up for a sequel. It’s the second half of a saga, which Villeneuve has hinted about wanting to carry through a third installment, provided Part Two earns enough for him to keep going. Like Christopher Nolan, the director is operating on the largest possible scale, pushing the medium to accommodate his vision. Also like Nolan, he has composer Hans Zimmer’s help in making everything sound as stunning as it looks.” —Peter Debruge, Variety
“If the movie is, among other things, a timely parable of Arab liberation, it’s at best a slippery and reluctant one, in which the politics of revolution feel curiously under-juiced. In retaining the material’s Arabic filigree, albeit with a glaring paucity of Arab actors in key Fremen roles, Villeneuve and his co-writer, Jon Spaihts, follow the text with a cautious, noncommittal blandness.” —Justin Chang, The New Yorker
“Like its predecessor, Dune: Part Two thrums with an intoxicating big-screen expressionism of monoliths and mosquitos, fevered visions and messianic fervor — more dystopian dream, or nightmare, than a straightforward narrative.” —Jake Coyle, Associated Press
“It’s only toward the end of the film, a mighty crescendo in which big, universe-altering choices are made, that the film trips over its own momentum. Paul’s complicated evolution is slow and steady until, all of a sudden, it’s moving at breakneck speed. It feels as if we’ve skipped a crucial expositional step in order to get to the massive finale sequence. Chalamet is an effective communicator of Paul’s tortured ambitions, but he has trouble making it legible when it really counts, because Villeneuve hasn’t given him the time.” —Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
“Heavy with biblical themes of prophecy, sacrifice, redemption and resurrection — with Shakespearean grace notes of fate, family and revenge — Dune: Part Two manages to be busy and oddly inert at the same time.” —Ann Hornaday, the Washington Post
“Part Two is plagued by a nagging shallowness when it comes to portraying the Fremen, an indigenous people fighting for self-determination within the empire; the film has difficulty fully embracing the nuance of Herbert’s anti-imperial and ecologically dystopian text.” —Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter
“Chalamet and Zendaya make an appealing duo, and the two performers fit together with tangible ease as their characters grow close. Both actors are fun to look at, and every bit as watchable and glamorous as old-fashioned Hollywood stars (I kept wondering what product he uses to tame his curls), which is amusing but makes sense for their outsize roles. Chalamet and Zendaya tend to overwork their glowers and puppy eyes in their less chatty scenes (the desert quiet can make loose talk deadly), but together they humanize the story, giving it the necessary personal stakes and a warmth that helps balance the chilling violence.” —Manohla Dargis, the New York Times
“While the plotting in Part Two is undeniably richer than the first film, its greatest assets are once again on a craft level. Greig Fraser, who won the Oscar for cinematography the first time, tops his work there with stunning use of color and light … Hans Zimmer’s Oscar-winning score felt a bit overdone to me in the first film, but he smartly differentiates the cultures here, finding more metallic sounds for the cold Harkonnens to balance against the heated score for the Fremen. Finally, the effects and sound design feel denser this time, and the fight choreography reminds one how poorly this has been done in other blockbuster films.” —Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
“Once again, the biblical solemnity of Villeneuve’s approach — along with the tactile brutalism of his design — have combined into a Timothée Chalamet movie that shimmers with the patina of an epic myth. And once again, the awesome spectacle that Villeneuve mines from all that scenery is betrayed by the smallness of the human drama he stages against it, with the majesty of the movie’s first hour desiccating into the stuff of pure tedium as Paul Atreides struggles to find his voice amid the visions that compel him forward. It’s a struggle that Dune: Part Two continues to embody all too well.” —David Ehrlich, IndieWire
“In Villeneuve’s hands, a sci-fi epic like Dune: Part Two can deliver what’s expected — big stakes, big conflicts, big explosions — but it can do so in a clear and rigorously consistent visual language that serves the story. Even in the biggest battle scenes, his camera keeps us focused on what matters most — the human cost of it all.” —Glen Weldon, NPR
“[Villeneuve] widens our eyes with big action hugeness — the products of an army of visual effects experts — but then asks us, as he did with 2016’s Arrival, to interpret and connect the dots. Less an act of literary fidelity than generosity, his sequel plunges us into the book’s messianic prophecies, but also into spiritual uncertainty, cultural conflict and doubt, as it must. Somehow, Villeneuve has made a Dune for right now — and tomorrow.” —Joshua Rothkopf, the Los Angeles Times
No secret was ever made of the fact that Austin Butler went above and beyond to allow the spirit of Elvis Presley to possess his body for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. Fortunately, Butler realized that sort of all-immersive approach isn’t suited for every role.
This time around, Butler’s shoring up the star-studded cast of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, and those of you even tangentially familiar with his character Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen know that, in this case, a Method acting approach would have been an unmitigated disaster.
Speaking recently to the Los Angeles Times, Butler compared and contrasted the approach he took for Elvis and that of Feyd-Rautha, noting that immersing himself in the King of Rock is one thing, and Method acting a sadistic, bloodthirsty killer is quite another.
I’ve definitely in the past, with ‘Elvis,’ explored living within that world for three years and that being the only thing that I think about day and night. With Feyd, I knew that that would be unhealthy for my family and friends.So I made a conscious decision to have a boundary.That’s not to say that it doesn’t bleed into your life. But I knew that I wasn’t going to do anything dangerous outside of that boundary, and in a way that allowed me to go deeper.
From the glimpses we’ve gotten of Butler’s vicious bald head in the Part Two trailers, it doesn’t seem like the actor’s reeled-in approach to the House Harkonnen successor harmed his performance whatsoever. Indeed, this on-screen iteration of Feyd-Rautha looks to be oozing ruthless tenacity in every frame, and judging by the number of jugulars he’s probably going to dice up across the film’s runtime, I daresay that taking a Method approach to this character would have actually been the biggest possible drawback to this performance, in that there would be no one left alive on set to make the movie in the first place.
If you want to see Dune: Part Two before the busy opening night crowds, there is an option. The highly anticipated sequel to Denis Villenevue’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi masterpiece is one of the most beloved stories in the genre. So can you see it early in theaters?
Fan First Premieres offers fans the opportunity to see some of their favorite movies before their release. Dune: Part Two has had a few release date changes and delays, and will now hit theaters on March 1. Many fans are ready to finally see the second part of Paul Atreides’ (Timothée Chalamet) story and see how he handles living among the Fremen with his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson).
New additions to the cast include Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) and Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), along with some other mysterious cameos. The anticipation is real so here is what we know about the Fan First Premiere!
When is the Fan First Premiere?
The premiere is set for Sunday, February 25. While that is not a huge advantage, you are seeing Dune: Part Two roughly four days before the general public heads into theaters. After waiting for months after its original release date, that four-day head start will give you time to ponder everything that happens in Part Two before you return to theaters to see it again on March 1!
The premieres start at 7:00 PM on the night of the 25th!
Where can you buy tickets?
(Warner Bros.)
If you don’t know where the Fan First screenings are, don’t worry! You can check out theaters and timing on Fandango to see what theater near you has a premiere available. It’s pretty nice to have all your options in one place!
For the rest of fans who maybe don’t have a Fan First screening near them, you can get your tickets now for Villeneuve’s latest film when it hits theaters nationwide the following Friday.
Rachel Leishman (She/Her) is an Assistant Editor at the Mary Sue. She’s been a writer professionally since 2016 but was always obsessed with movies and television and writing about them growing up. A lover of Spider-Man and Wanda Maximoff’s biggest defender, she has interests in all things nerdy and a cat named Benjamin Wyatt the cat. If you want to talk classic rock music or all things Harrison Ford, she’s your girl but her interests span far and wide. Yes, she knows she looks like Florence Pugh.
Austin Butlerwas hospitalized after he wrapped filming on Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis,” and it appears it was something of a miracle he avoided a similar fate on the set of Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two.” The Oscar nominee joins the epic franchise as Feyd-Rautha, the cruel and sadistic younger nephew of and heir to Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). Butler told Entertainment Weekly that heat stroke impacted several people on set during his first week of shooting. How’s that for a welcome?
“It was 110 degrees and so hot,” Butler said. “I had the bald cap on, and it was between two soundstages that were just these gray boxes of 200-foot walls and sand. It became like a microwave. There were people passing out from heat stroke. And that was just my first week.”
“It really bonds the entire crew,” Butler added. “There’s something so humbling about being in such an uncomfortable environment.”
The first scene Butler shot for “Dune 2” was Feyd-Rautha’s gladiator match on the Harkonnen’s home planet as he battles fighters to prove he should be his uncle’s heir. During prep, Butler made sure to pay close attention to Skarsgård’s vocal performance in the original “Dune” movie as it held the key to bringing his version of Feyd-Rautha to life.
“I felt that because he grew up with the Baron, the Baron would be a big influence on him in many ways,” Butler explained to Entertainment Weekly about nailing the voice. “So then I started thinking about the way that he speaks, and that being linked to the person that you see with the most power from the time that you’re a child, who you do end up emulating in some way.”
Nearly all of the “Dune” cast had to endure hot temperatures while filming the space epic, which is one reason Villeneuve was grateful he didn’t go the usual Hollywood route and film both “Dune” films back-to-back with no break in productions.
“Both movies were made in very harsh conditions, and it’s very physically taxing, so to have a break in between them was a blessing,” Villeneuve said. “My first thought was to shoot both movies back to back together, but now I think I would have died. It was really intense, and seeing how the world reacted to ‘Part One’ was a boost of positive energy to go back into the desert.”
“Dune: Part Two” opens in theaters March 1 from Warner Bros.
Austin Butler is clearing the air about the time he referred to his former longtime girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens as a “friend,” which many people felt minimized their nine-year-long relationship.
During The Hollywood Reporter‘s 2023 actor roundtable — which featured last year’s award season’s leading men including Butler, Colin Farrell, Brendan Fraser, Jeremy Pope, Ke Huy Quan and Adam Sandler — the Elvisactor was asked if he always wanted to play the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. He responded with an anecdote, saying his “friend” had told him he should do it one day.
“The month before I heard that Baz [Luhrmann] was making the movie, I was going to look at Christmas lights with a friend, and there was an Elvis Christmas song on the radio, and I was singing along, and my friend looked over at me and goes, ‘You’ve got to play Elvis,’” he recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, that’s such a long shot.’ Then my agent called and said, ‘So Baz Luhrmann is making an Elvis film…’”
At the time, social media was in a tizzy because it was clear he was talking about Hudgens, who posted on Instagram about him being cast as Elvis Presley when the news broke, and fans felt he was downgrading the role she played in his life. In a cover story for Esquire published online Monday, Butler explained why he referred to her that way at the time.
“I felt that I was respecting her privacy in a way and not wanting to bring up a ton of things that would cause her to have to talk,” he told the publication. “I have so much love and care for her. It was in no way trying to erase anything.” He added, “I value my own privacy so much. I didn’t want to give up anybody else’s privacy.”
Elsewhere in the lengthy profile, Butler also opened up about how, when his mother died of cancer in 2014, he considered quitting acting because he “had a lot of turmoil” in his mind. Shortly after her funeral, he needed to fly to New Zealand for The Shannara Chronicles. He showed up, did his job and, every night after filming, would return to the hotel and sob. Once production ended, he decided to take a break for the first time in his career.
Eventually, the Oscar nominee started to believe in his path again. “He realized his mom wouldn’t want him to stop,” his longtime friend Ashley Tisdale told Esquire. “His mom would want him to keep going. I think that was a driving force. And I believe she’s seeing all of these things and is there with him now.”
Almost immediately after Butler wrapped production on Elvis, the actor was due in London to begin filming his new AppleTV+ series Masters of the Air. But the actor had spent so much time becoming Elvis Presley that it took a lot for him to come out of the person he embodied for years, despite already working on another project.
When he wasn’t in front of the cameras, portraying Buck Cleven in the series, he was working to rediscover himself. “I was just trying to remember who I was,” he told the publication. Similar to the way he had a dialect coach to adopt the Memphis drawl of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, he had one on the Apple project whose main job was to help him stop talking like Elvis.
Looking back at his time on the set of Masters of the Air, Butler admitted it all kind of feels like a blur at this point. “I hardly remember filming that,” he explained. “Almost the full year that I was in London.”
In addition to the series that explores World War II through the eyes of the Mighty Eighth Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces, the actor also has Dune: Part Twocoming out this year, in which he portrays Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.
Together, he and director Denis Villeneuve worked to create the ruthless and psychotic assassin’s look, which ended up being bald, with no eyebrows and teeth painted black. Butler also wanted an accent, and Villeneuve agreed to let him do one.
When the cast — which includes Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Christopher Walken, Rebecca Ferguson and Javier Bardem, among others — sat down for their first table read, Chalamet knew Butler was next-level.
“He’s questioning everything. He’s on a mission. He’s on a search,” the Wonka star told the publication. He’s not pretending to be the guy with answers. He’s constantly tinkering.”
Denis Villeneuvehas been quite vocal about his intention to make a third “Dune” movie, which would be based on Frank Herbert’s second novel in the series, “Dune Messiah.” Warner Bros. has not yet given the official greenlight on “Dune 3,” but should the studio move forward it will most likely mark Villeneuve’s final installment in the franchise despite Herbert’s literary series continuing with various sequels such as “Children of Dune,” “God Emperor of Dune,” “Heretics of Dune,” and “Chapterhouse: Dune.”
“’Dune Messiah’ should be the last ‘Dune’ movie for me,” Villeneuve confirmed to Time magazine in a new interview ahead of the theatrical release of “Dune: Part Two.”
The director said last December that “Dune Messiah” is “being written right now,” adding: “The screenplay is almost finished but it is not finished. It will take a little time…There’s a dream of making a third movie…it would make absolute sense to me.”
Zendaya, who stars as Chani in Villeneuve’s “Dune” movies, was recently asked by Fandango whether or not she would want to return for a third movie.
“Would we be down? I mean of course,” Zendaya said when asked about making another. “Any time Denis calls it’s a yes from me. I’m excited to see what happens. I started ‘Messiah’ and I was like, ‘Woah, I’m only shooting the first movie. Let me just go back to the first one.’ It’s so much to take in, but there’s no better hands with better care and love for it than Denis.”
“The idea excites me very much,” franchise leading man Timothee Chalamet later added to Total Film magazine. “If the time and opportunity comes to complete the story with ‘Messiah,’ I think we’re all super-enthusiastic about that.”
If Villeneuve gets the chance to direct “Dune Messiah,” it might not happen for a bit of a time. He’s spent the last six years devoted to making his first two “Dune” movies, and he might need a palette cleanser before he makes a third. He said at a press conference in South Korea last year that “there was no gap” between the first two movies, and he’ll want space before “Messiah.”
“I don’t know exactly when I will go back to Arrakis,” Villeneuve said. “I might make a detour before just to go away from the sun. For my mental sanity I might do something in bet
“Dune: Part Two” opens in theaters March 1 from Warner Bros.
During a cast interview with Fandango, posted online Friday, the Euphoria actress revealed she would “of course” reprise her role of Chani in a potential Dune Messiah film.
“Would we be down? I mean of course,” Zendaya said. “Anytime Denis calls it’s a yes from me, at least. I’m excited to see what happens. I started Messiah and I was like, ‘Woah, I’m only shooting the first movie. Let me just go back to the first one.’ It’s so much to take in, and I think there’s no better hands with better care and love for it than him [Villeneuve].”
Dune: Part Two, which also stars Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Josh Brolin and Rebecca Ferguson, is set to hit theaters on March 1. As for the future of the movie franchise, Zendaya added that she’s “just excited to see … It’s just anticipation.”
She continued, “Whenever he is ready. I know he’s a perfectionist in many ways and doesn’t want to share things unless he’s fully ready to do that. So [I’m] respecting that and waiting until he’s ready.”
While a third film hasn’t been confirmed, Villeneuve told Empire magazine last year that he’s very interested in creating a third movie based on Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah, the second book in his Dune series.
“If I succeed in making a trilogy, that would be the dream,” the director said at the time. “I will say, there are words on paper [for a third film].”
Dune, released in 2021, grossed more than $402 million at the worldwide box office. It also won six Oscars, including best achievement in film editing and best original score.
2023 was a great year for movies, but we’ve spent enough time talking about 2023. We’re done with her. It’s time to think about 2024 and all the new movies we can’t wait to see.
The new year is an opportunity to wipe the slate clean. For cinephiles, it’s a brief period of optimism; a chance to really mean it when we say we’ll keep up with new movie releases. And I do mean it, just like I mean it every year. Following the WGA and SAG strikes of 2023, the trades are predicting fewer new movie releases, which may very well be true. But there are still plenty of new movies hitting theaters this year for us to get worked up over—even if the year looks a little front-loaded at the moment.
Mean Girls (January 12)
(Paramount)
Despite not being marketed as such, Mean Girls is indeed a musical. Based on the Broadway production, which in turn is based on the 2003 comedy (which was based on a book!), Mean Girls features Renee Rapp reprising her stage role as Regina George alongside returning star and screenwriter Tina Fey. The new ensemble also includes Angourie Rice, Avantika Vandanapu, Bebe Wood, and Ashley Park. –Britt Hayes
The Book of Clarence (January 12)
(Sony Pictures Releasing)
LaKeith Stanfield actually has two movies hitting theaters on January 12: action-thriller The Beekeeper, co-starring Jason Statham, and The Book of Clarence. We’re a little more stoked for the latter, a biblical-era dramedy and the second film from Jeymes Samuel (a.k.a. British singer-songwriter The Bullitts). Stanfield plays the titular role, a man struggling to make ends meet for his family when he decides to follow in Jesus’ footsteps—at first as a scheme, but we know how these things turn out. –BH
The Kitchen (January 19)
(Netflix)
We all want to know what a Barney movie directed by Daniel Kaluuya will look like, and The Kitchen might give us something of an idea. Kaluuya makes his feature directing debut alongside Kibwe Tavares with this dystopian sci-fi set in a version of London where social housing is eliminated. Starring Jedaiah Bannerman, Kano, and Hope Ikpoku, The Kitchen looks like a real conversation starter. –BH
Miller’s Girl (January 26)
(Lionsgate)
Another one sure to get people talking is Miller’s Girl, an indie thriller that evokes the erotic thrillers and dramas of the ‘90s. Jenna Ortega stars as a college student who becomes intimately involved with her professor (Martin Freeman) during a creative writing assignment. After last year’s Fair Play, we’re eager to see another movie that navigates the complexities of gendered power dynamics. This one comes to us from first-time feature filmmaker Jade Bartlett, and gives Ortega a chance to explore her range. –BH
Argylle (February 2)
(Universal Pictures)
What is Argylle? No one knows. We’ve seen trailers for it. Maybe. We know it stars Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson, and Dua Lipa. And also there’s a cat? Matthew Vaughn’s latest is, according the synopsis, about a novelist (Howard) whose books about a dashing spy (Cavill) begin resembling the actual doings of a real spy organization. It sounds a little like Le Magnifique, the wacky 1973 French film starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. –BH
Lisa Frankenstein (February 9)
(Focus Features)
It’s written by Diablo Cody. It’s the feature directorial debut of Zelda Williams (daughter of the late Robin). It stars Kathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse. It’s a Frankenstein riff set in the ‘80s. It’s called LISA FRANKENSTEIN for crying out loud. What more could you possibly need here? –BH
Madame Web (February 14)
(Sony Pictures)
We’ll finally get to see what happened when he was in the Amazon with her mom when she was researching spiders, right before she died! Madame Web is Sony’s latest attempt to expand its Spider-Man universe, this time with actual Spidey-people instead of villains and antiheroes people may or may not care about. (That said, I am so down for Venom 3 and the return of The Brock Report.) Starring Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, and Isabela Merced, Madame Web is a Valentine’s Day movie, apparently, because girls? –BH
Drive-Away Dolls (February 23)
(Focus Features)
The first solo effort from Ethan Coen (of the Coen Brothers), Drive-Away Dollsis an exciting film for a number of reasons. One, we’re getting Pedro Pascal in a Coen movie, but we’re also seeing a female-centric story from the filmmaker. Centered on Jamie (Margaret Qualley) as she goes through a break-up and her friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan), who’s helping her through it, the trailers make Drive-Away Dolls look like a return to the Coen antics we’ve come to love over the years. Getting to see Ethan Coen shine on his own (as Joel Coen has already done) is exciting! –Rachel Leishman
Dune: Part Two (March 1)
(Warner Bros.)
While I was tempted to mount a Jan. 6 on Warner Bros. to liberate Dune: Part Two from the vault (no jury would convict me), I’m glad I decided to remain a free woman so that I can see Denis Villeneuve’s epic sequel in a movie the-a-ter. Timothée Chalamet, fresh off Wonka, returns as ostensible chosen one Paul Atreides, leading the Fremen (including love interest Chani, played by Zendaya) in a revolt against the corrupt forces of the galaxy. –BH
Love Lies Bleeding (March 8)
(A24)
Rose Glass’ follow-up to the haunting Saint Maud is Love Lies Bleeding, a romantic thriller starring Kristen Stewart as Lou, a gym owner who gets it bad for bodybuilder Jackie (Katy M. O’Brian). Come for the lesbian crime thriller that’s giving off Bound vibes, stay for scary Ed Harris with a skullet. –BH
Imaginary (March 8)
(Lionsgate)
Last January, Blumhouse introduced us to M3GAN, who briefly became the Mariah Carey of horror. This year, Blumhouse seems to be hitting the same sweet spot (or trying to) with Imaginary. DeWanda Wise plays a woman who returns to her childhood home to discover that her imaginary friend is so pissed at her for moving away and growing up that it possesses the body of a teddy bear to get revenge. Sounds wild, let’s go. –BH
The American Society of Magical Negroes (March 22)
(Focus Features)
Actor and comedian Kobi Libii makes his directing debut with The American Society of Magical Negroes, which imagines a world in which the tired racist trope is crucial to the functioning of society. Justice Smith stars as a young man recruited by the eponymous society, comprised of Black people with magical abilities, each assigned to help a white person navigate life. Co-starring David Alan Grier, Aisha Hinds, Rupert Friend, and Nicole Byer, The American Society of Magical Negroes looks hilarious and maybe a little sweet, too? –BH
Mickey 17 (March 29)
(Warner Bros.)
Three years after sweeping the Oscars with Parasite, Bong Joon-ho is finally back, and this time he’s returning to the science fiction genre. Based on a novel by Edward Ashton, Mickey 17 is set in the future, and stars Robert Pattinson as a worker clone sent on a mission to help colonize the ice world Niflheim. Not that you should need more reasons to watch after that description, but Director Bong’s latest co-stars Mark Ruffalo, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette, and Steven Yeun. –BH
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (April 12)
(Warner Bros.)
Legendary’s MonsterVerse gets a little bigger with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which brings back director Adam Wingard for the ultimate showdown. Two titans enter the ring (which is our planet, btw) and duke it out for … actually, I don’t really know why they’re fighting. This seems like an intersectional situation where they need to realize that people have been pitting them against each other and that they should just team up and kill us already. –BH
Civil War (April 26)
(A24)
Alex Garland is best known for dark, genre-bending sci-fi (Annihilation, Ex Machina) and horror (28 Days Later, Men), which makes his latest film something of a curiosity. Civil War is set in an imminent future in which the United States has dissolved into warring political factions, and follows the journalists (led by Kirsten Dunst) covering the conflict. Civil War might be Garland’s most ambitious film in more than one aspect; his work, while relatively grounded, doesn’t typically deal in current events. It also reunites the filmmaker with Devs stars Nick Offerman, Cailee Spaeny, and Stephen McKinley Henderson, and co-stars Wagner Moura and Jesse Plemons. –BH
Challengers (April 26)
(Amazon MGM Studios)
The minute we learned what Challengers is about, we were hooked. A movie in which Zendaya is married to Mike Faist but also sort of being in a throuple with Josh O’Connor? We’re in. Yes, there is tennis involved, but okay, whatever. The new Luca Guadagnino film was written by Justin Kuritzkes, the partner of Celine Song (who wrote and directed Past Lives, leading plenty of people to make comparisons to their relationship). There are just a lot of things going on with Challengersthat make it exciting, and we’ve been hyped about it since last summer! –RL
The Fall Guy (May 3)
(Universal Pictures)
What is better than Ryan Gosling behind the wheel of a car? Ryan Gosling as a stuntman—yes, again, but this time it’s funny. The Fall Guyis giving “What if Drive was sort of light-hearted and maybe a bit like The Nice Guys?” and I’m not exactly mad about it. Starring Gosling and Emily Blunt, we can just pretend like this is another Barbenheimer right? Written by Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3, Hotel Artemis), directed by David Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde), and sort of based on the TV series of the same name, The Fall Guy has me stoked to see Ryan Gosling in a car again. –RL
Back to Black (May 10)
(Focus Features)
Amy Winehouse was a once-in-a-lifetime talent, with a soulful voice and indelible songwriting to match. Her life and her career were far too brief, cut short by painful struggles with addiction and an eating disorder, which exacerbated the pressures of fame and the demands of her work. Some of this was explored in the documentary Amy, which drew the ire of the late singer’s father, Mitch Winehouse, who felt he was unfairly represented. Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, Back to Black stars Industry‘s Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse, whose estate cooperated with the production. While that means we’ll get to hear Winehouse’s music in the film, there’s a chance it might not dig as deep as some of her fans would like. All the same, Abela is fiercely talented and definitely looks the part, Taylor-Johnson is a fine director, and as a Winehouse fan, I’m eager to see how Back to Black shakes out. –BH
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (May 24)
(Warner Bros.)
George Miller’s long-developing Fury Road follow-up is finally upon us. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (that title couldn’t be more studio-mandated if it tried) features Anya Taylor-Joy in the title role and explores her life before Max—when a younger Furiosa was taken from the Green Place of Many Mothers by the sinister Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) to the Citadel, where she begins plotting her liberation. As far as I’m concerned, George Miller can do whatever the hell he wants. If Furiosa is half as good as Fury Road, we should count ourselves lucky. –BH
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (May 24)
(20th Century Studios)
In the tradition of the classic Planet of the Apes films, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes centers on a new main character, Noa (Owen Teague), a chimpanzee disillusioned by the apes’ corrupt leader, Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) and his oppression of other apes. Set 300 years after the events in Rise, Dawn, and War for the Planet of the Apes, Kingdom is directed by Wes Ball (the Maze Runner series), and seems to be good enough to land him a gig directing the live-action Legend of Zelda movie for Nintendo. –BH
Ballerina (June 7)
(Lionsgate)
I’m absolutely torn on Ballerina. On the one hand, John Wick is an incredible franchise and Ana de Armas is inarguably talented and fun to watch. On the other hand, Ballerina—potentially the first in a series of John Wick spinoff movies—was directed by Len Wiseman, a guy with an underwhelming track record (Underworld, Live Free or Die Hard, Total Recall remake) that does not gel with the dynamic action of the Wick movies. THAT SAID: the ballerina assassin lore teased in the third Wick movie was like catnip to me, and if this thing is good, we might have a solid substitute for the Black Widow movie we should’ve gotten. –BH
The Watchers (June 7)
(Head of Zeus)
We’re getting two Shyamalan movies this year. Ishana Shyamalan, daughter of M. Night, is making her feature directing debut with The Watchers, based on the novel by A.M. Shine. Starring Dakota Fanning and Georgina Campbell, the horror film centers on an artist who gets stuck in a cabin in an Irish forest with three strangers and must contend with the mysterious creatures that stalk them each night. –BH
Inside Out 2 (June 14)
(Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Remember when a bunch of adults cried in a movie theater over Inside Out? Well, now we can do that again with Inside Out 2! Pixar is back with Riley and all the emotions in her head and this time, she’s got a new one: Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke)! As someone who very much wishes I had Inside Out when I was growing up, I can’t wait to see what the sequel has in store for Riley and how I will embarrass myself again in a theater, sobbing over a movie for children. –RL
Twisters (July 19)
(Warner Bros.)
What’s better than the 1996 film Twister? A sequel with Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Anthony Ramos. The original film starred Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt as part of a crew of scientists and storm chasers working together to launch Dorothy (a data-gathering device). What we’re getting with Twisters is a direct sequel to the film, and look, great. I don’t care what happens, it’s a sequel to Twister. We’re so in. –RL
Deadpool 3 (July 26)
(Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Logan (Hugh Jackman) dealing with Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is how our love of Reynolds as Deadpool began, so we are very excited for Deadpool 3. Any time there is a new Deadpool movie, we’re gifted with whatever nonsense Ryan Reynolds is up to, and we’ve been getting a whole bunch of treats because he is truly on one with this movie. Still, it’s just fun to know that Wade and Logan are back in action, and we can’t wait to see what director Shawn Levy and Co. have in store for us, especially now that Deadpool belongs to Disney. –RL
Trap (August 2)
(Carlos Alvarez, Getty Images)
M. Night Shyamalan’s latest co-stars his other daughter, Saleka Shyamalan, alongside Josh Hartnett and Hayley Mills (yes, of The Parent Trap fame). We know pretty much nothing about Trap, which isn’t likely to change until we see a trailer in the next few months. Speaking with NME, Shyamalan described it as “very unusual and very new compared to what I’ve been trying to do (recently).” The filmmaker has been on one heck of a run since returning with The Visit, and I can’t wait to see whatever the hell he’s up to with Trap. –BH
Alien: Romulus (August 16)
(20th Century Studios)
The latest installment in the Alien franchise comes from Fede Álvarez, the filmmaker behind Evil Dead (2013) and Don’t Breathe, and stars Cailee Spaeny and Isabela Merced. Spaeny recently revealed that Alien: Romulus is set between Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) and James Cameron’s Aliens (1986). Will Álvarez’s film bridge the differences between the two, sort of like Doctor Sleep did with the Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick versions of The Shining? That’s my only hope. Well, that, and more practical xenomorphs. –BH
Kraven the Hunter (August 30)
(Sony Pictures)
Am I the one person in this world determined to love and support Kraven the Hunterno matter what? Yes. That’s okay. Directed by J.C. Chandor (Triple Frontier), Kraven promises to bring to life one of Spider-Man’s greatest foes: Sergei Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Famously, Kraven loves animals but also is a hunter (hence the name). How that is going to work without Spider-Man will be interesting, but I am just so excited to see my boy in live action that I don’t even care! Kraven is coming! –RL
Beetlejuice 2 (September 6)
(Warner Bros.)
We don’t need to relitigate the ups and downs of Tim Burton’s career, but suffice it to say, the visionary director has a little something to prove with Beetlejuice 2. But with Michael Keaton back as the ghost with the most and Winona Ryder reprising her role as Lydia Deetz (every goth girl’s platonic ideal) alongside Jenna Ortega, I’m optimistic for what this sequel could be. –BH
Saw XI (September 27)
(Lionsgate)
It’s wild that it took seven films for the Saw franchise to figure out how to course-correct the grievous error of killing off its main antagonist in the third film. Saw X was such a damn good time that I am fully back on the Saw hype train. Saw XI was almost immediately greenlit, and I can’t wait to see what silly prequel-sidequel-inbetweenquel nonsense is in store. –BH
Joker: Folie à Deux (October 4)
(Warner Bros.)
If you told us that we’d be excited about Joker: Folie à Deux after so many of us didn’t like the first Joker movie, I wouldn’t believe you. And yet I truly cannot wait to see Joker: Folie à Deux. I’m going to blame the Harley Quinn-and-Joker of it all. Todd Phillips’ sequel to Joker features Lady Gaga as Harley and is said to be a musical—all elements that make me increasingly more excited about this. –RL
Venom 3 (November 8)
(Sony Pictures)
I have but one request for Venom 3: Bring back The Brock Report. We need to see Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock back in VICE reporter mode, maybe with a little help from his sidekick and number one tater tot fan Venom. Venom 2 was a surprising success that managed to overcome the clownery of the first film’s post-credits teaser and deliver a superior sequel. With Venom 2 screenwriter Kelly Marcel back on board and also sitting in the director’s chair, we’re sure to get a little more of that goofy, gloopy magic. –BH
Gladiator 2 (November 22)
(Universal Pictures)
Ridley Scott is on a roll. The 86-year-old filmmaker is following up 2023’s Napoleon with another historical epic—a sequel to his own Gladiator, released in 2000. This time, Scott’s courting the fan girls with Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, Denzel Washington, and Fred Hechinger. Just make a wall calendar, why don’t you! –BH
Wicked Part One (November 27)
(Universal Stage Production)
Wickedis being split into two parts, which means Part One will (probably) end with Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) singing “Defying Gravity” and leaving us gooped. So why are we excited? Because it is Wicked. For the record, Wicked does rule even if I do think it is an overrated musical. But with Jon M. Chu at the helm and a cast that includes Ariana Grande, Michelle Yeoh, and Bowen Yang, I can’t help but look forward to this one. –RL
Nosferatu (December 25)
(Focus Features)
The big holiday treat this year is Nosferatu, a new iteration of F.W. Murnau’s silent horror classic from Robert Eggers, the filmmaker behind The Witch and The Northman. Eggers’ retelling is set in 19th-century Germany and follows a young woman tormented by the ghastly vampire who is obsessed with her (relatable). Nosferatu stars Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe (but of course), Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin, and Bill Skarsgard as—who else?—the vampire Count Orlok. –BH
(featured image: TriStar Pictures / Warner Bros. / Focus Features / A24)
The ramifications of the actors strike at the weekend box office continues to be felt, as ticket sales this weekend plummeted to $58.3M, which is currently the third-lowest of 2023. Remember, Legendary/Warner Bros’ Zendaya-Timothee Chalamet-Austin Butler-Florence Pugh sequel Dune: Part Twowas originally set to play this weekend, and with its departure, there’s at least $50M — if not substantially more — missing from the box office.
Legendary opted to move that sequel, based on the Frank Herbert novel, to March 2024, so that the actors could properly promote the sci-fi pic; the first pic’s ticket sales siphoned from a day-and-date theatrical play with streaming service Max.
‘Dune: Part Two’
Warner Bros
After this weekend, the next two lowest at the box office for 2023 to date were Super Bowl weekend (Feb. 10-12) with $52.6M, and Sept. 22-24, which saw $51.8M.
Speaking of day-and-date, the good news with Universal-Peacock’sFive Nights at Freddy‘s is that it cracked past $100M, becoming one of a few titles with such a dynamic distribution model to do so (alongside Black Widow, Dune, Godzilla vs. Kong and Jungle Cruise). The bad news is that the movie’s availability in the home to Peacock paid subs, plus the massive YA leaning nature of the IP, has the videogame movie dropping like a rock at $17.8M in weekend 2, -78%, for a running ten-day total by tomorrow of $112M.Freddy‘s is No. 1, benefiting from the circumstance that there’s no Dune 2.
Can you imagine if we didn’t have the Taylor Swift: Eras Concert Film on the schedule? Her faithful continue to make the movie No. 2, with an $11.9M take in weekend 4 and running total of $164.3M.
While some in distribution think it’s hard to quantify the impact of the actors strike (now in its 114th day) at the box office, its pretty clear that thespians are needed to promote and deliver large halos around tentpoles so that the message is transmitted around the globe that there’s a must-see event.
In certain cases, particularly with horror, and movies like Nun II and Five Nights at Freddy‘s, IP can get a studio by. But brand alone doesn’t sell. You need stars. It can be argued that part of the expected slowdown next weekend with the opening of Disney/Marvel Studios’ The Marvels stems from the studio’s inability to promote the pic properly at Comic-Cons. Even if the strike settles this weekend, it’s not clear whether the pic’s cast will be able to attend the movie’s “fan event” in Las Vegas this coming week. It would not be shocking if we see The Marvels charting one of the lowest openings for a Marvel Studios movie next weekend in November with less than $70M –lower than 2021’s The Eternals ($71.2M)— the movie not only a sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel, but also a crossover from the Disney+ series, Ms. Marvel. Presales for The Marvels are pacing behind that of Black Adam and The Flash (those respective openings at $67M and $55M).
Some specialty affair and wide releases from smaller distributors have vied to take advantage of the marketplace this weekend in the lack of competition from a major studio wide release.
‘Priscilla’ starring Jacob Elordi and Callee Spaeney
A24
A24’s critically acclaimed film festival darling Priscilla from Sofia Coppola is seeing around $4.9M in 4th place from its expansion from four NYC and LA theaters last weekend to 1,350 theaters. That’s better than the expanded weekend on Coppola’s The Beguiled from Focus Features back in July 2017 ($3.2M at 674 theaters), almost near topping the entire cume of the filmmaker’s Bling Ring ($5.8M), and almost near the opening weekend (at 859 theaters) of her Marie Antoinette ($5.3M) back in 2006.
No CinemaScore, but Comscore/Screen Engine PostTrak audiences gave the Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny movie a 71% positive and 50% recommend. Women attended at 67%, with 61% between 18-34 and the largest demo being the Euphoria Elordi 18-24 fans at 38%. Diversity demos were 48% Caucasian, 33% Latino and Hispanic, 8% Black, and 12% Asian/other. Priscilla played best on the coasts, but was the strongest in the West. AMC Burbank is the pic’s richest in the nation, with a running total of $11K. Yesterday was $1.9M, $450K of that coming from Thursday night previews.
Radical
Mateo London
Lionsgate’s Pantelion has the robust Eugenio Derbez Spanish-language pic Radical, which is posting a very strong theater average of $5,2K from 419 theaters, or $2.2M for the weekend in 5th place after a $780K Friday. The weepy pic, which follows an aspiring teacher who is giving hope to a down on its luck Mexican border town, spurred word of mouth with Latino and Hispanic audiences in its initial Mexico release on Oct. 20, the movie having grossed $5M there. Strong numbers for Radical in Los Angeles, El Paso, Dallas and Houston. Exhibitor Relations firm PaperAirplane handled marketing on this. Derbez has the highest grossing Spanish-language at the domestic box office, Instructions Not Included, from 2013, which grossed $44.4M.
Meg Ryan and David Duchovny in ‘What Happens Later’
Bleecker Street
Bleecker Street has the Meg Ryan directed return to rom-com, and first feature starring role in eight years, What Happens Latterat 1,492 locations, which did an estimated $603K on Friday, for what’s shaping up to be a $1.5M opening weekend in 9th place. A theatrical release will help prop this holiday title, which also stars David Duchovny, on PVOD menus come December, which is where all the money is in these short theatrical window plays. Audiences, like critics (51% on Rotten Tomatoes) aren’t excited about this return to form for Ryan at 43% positive on PostTrak, 25% recommend. Those who bought tickets were women at 70% with the largest demo being those over 55 at 28%. Diversity demos were 57% Caucasian, 13% Hispanic and Latino, 8% Black, and 23% Asian/other. What Happens Later played in the South, Midwest & West. The AMC Lincoln Square in NYC is the pic’s best venue in the nation, with just over $2K.
Daisy Ridley in ‘The Marsh King’s Daughter’
Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions
Outside the top ten, Roadside Attractions has the STX Daisy Ridley-Ben Mendelsohn starring, Neil Burger-directedThe Marsh King’s Daughter, with $851k for the weekend after a $310K Friday at 1,055 theaters. With a $806 theater average off Rotten Tomatoes reviews that are at 39% — nobody’s going.
Top 5 pics:
1.) Five Nights at Freddy’s (Uni) 3,789 (+114) theaters, Fri $5.4M (-86%) 3-day $17.8M (-78%), Total $112M/Wk 2
2.) Taylor Swift: Eras Tour (AMC) 3,604 (-169) theaters, Fri $3.6M (-23%) 3-day $11.9M (-23%)/Total $164.3M/ Wk 4
3.) Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple/Par) 3,786 (+154) theaters Fri $1.94M (-27%) 3-day $6.45M (-31%)/Total $51.7M/Wk 3
Hold on to your seats, sci-fi fans, because Dune: Part Two is about to gears up for its release! The hotly anticipated sequel to the 2021 hit Dune is on track to surpass its predecessor’s box office performance and treat audiences to an extended run in IMAX theaters. Directed by Denis Villeneuve and produced by Warner Bros., the sci-fi epic promises stunning visuals and a star-studded cast that will leave fans on the edge of their seats. Fans are eagerly awaiting the next installment in theaters on November 3, 2023. With an extended IMAX run, its box office potential is looking brighter than ever.
The prospect of an extended IMAX run and the absence of major competition bode well for Dune: Part Two’s box office potential. Unlike its predecessor, the sequel won’t face the challenges of a pandemic release, offering a clear path to audience engagement. With no simultaneous streaming release, fans are encouraged to flock to theaters, contributing to the film’s projected box office triumph.
Warner Bros. assures fans that Dune: Part Two picks up right where the first part left off, promising a captivating continuation filled with stunning cinematography and an ensemble cast that includes Timothée Chalamet, Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa, Zendaya, and Rebecca Ferguson.
About Dune
Dune captivates audiences with its immersive storytelling. Part one of the film sets the stage flawlessly, delving into the history and politics of the planet Arrakis. The story leaves us on a thrilling cliffhanger, as Paul Atreides and Lady Jessica join forces with the Fremen to bring peace to Arrakis. With Villeneuve’s plan to split the 800-page novel into two parts, fans can look forward to Dune 2.
Dune: Part Two continues the epic tale of Paul Atreides, portrayed by the talented Timothée Chalamet, as he navigates a treacherous desert planet in search of the valuable resource known as ‘spice’. Villeneuve’s visionary direction and the stellar performances of the cast bring Herbert’s intricate world to life, garnering critical acclaim and audience adoration.
With accolades from the 94th Academy Awards and the overwhelming success of its predecessor, the stage is set for Dune: Part Two to claim its rightful place among sci-fi masterpieces. While fans eagerly await its release, Warner Bros. is already working on a television spinoff, Dune: The Sisterhood, exclusively for their streaming platform Max.
Two years after the first Dune, the story will continue (and conclude, at least as far as adaptations of the first Frank Herbert Dune novel go) with Dune: Part Two.
Director Denis Villeneuve purposefully chose not to adapt all of Herbert’s epic novel in a single film, the way David Lynch had with his original movie version. Instead, he split the book in half, and made a movie of just the first chunk, hoping that the film would be successful enough to get a sequel greenlit. Although the first Dune was released simultaneously to theaters and on HBO Max, even though the fall of 2021 was still not a great time for movie theaters or theatrical attendance, the movie did well enough to get this second film greenlit. It is scheduled to arrive in theaters. (This time, the movie will not debut simultaneously on HBO Max or Max; you’ll have to wait if you want to watch it at home.
The first poster for the film is here, and it frames stars Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya in front of an enormous setting sun. The tagline, “Love Live the Fighters,” comes from Herbert’s Dune novels. Take a look:
The poster’s many names also confirms several new additions to the cast for Part Two, including Elvis star Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha and Christopher Walken as Emperor of the Universe Shaddam IV.
Dune: Part Two is currently scheduled to open in theaters on November 3, 2023. And as the trailer notes, the movie was shot for IMAX theaters, so it should be even more spectacular to be seen that way.
UPDATE: Warner Bros. also a released a first teaser for the film; the full trailer debuts tomorrow.
![Zendaya Says She Would “Of Course” Return for ‘Dune 3’: “Anytime Denis [Villeneuve] Calls It’s a Yes”](https://reportwire.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Zendaya-Dune-everett-H-2024.jpg?w=1024)
