She mentioned that he’s stayed very humble despite fame and fortune and asked what grounds him.
Reeves replied, “Humility. I don’t know. I mean, I’m just an actor, I’m just a guy. I’m just trying to do the best I can. Hopefully people like what I do, you know?”
There was great rejoicing from Keanu Reeves’ fans when Hulu announced the “John Wick” star had signed on to star in “The Devil in the White City”, a limited series from producers Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio that would have been Reeves’ first major television role, with Todd Field (“TÁR”) on board to direct.
In October 2022, Field exited. This was followed by Reeves dropping out of the project, in which he would have played Daniel H. Burnham, described in the series’ logline as “a demanding but visionary architect who races to make his mark on history with the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair,” who found himself in the orbit of Dr. H. H. Holmes, described as “America’s first modern serial killer and the man behind the notorious ‘Murder Castle’ built in the Fair’s shadow.”
Following the news of Reeves’ departure from the project, Varietyis now reporting that Hulu has decided to pull the plug on the series.
Sources tell Variety that Reeves only joined the series because of Field’s involvement; when he dropped out, Reeves quickly followed suit.
However, “The Devil in the White City” may not be completely dead; those sources claim that producers are planning to shop the series to other outlets.
The fourth entry in the pulse-pounding action franchise John Wickpremiered on Monday. At least so far, the critics seem like they’re in love. Of course, it’s not odd to hear that critics are into it. The whole John Wick franchise has received glowing reviews, and it’s safe to say that the series is quickly becoming one of the most beloved action franchises of the 21st century.
For those who aren’t super familiar with the films, they star Keanu Reeves as John Wick, an assassin who retires to live a quiet life, only to get sucked back into the criminal underworld. In John Wick: Chapter 4, we’ll see our protagonist going up against the network of assassins he once belonged to. His actions, and the actions of others he considered allies, put him at odds with The High Table; essentially the regulatory body of the assassins. This may even put him at odds with some of the people he’s closest to. In a world like this, there aren’t really friends so much as there are temporary alliances between people with shared goals.
As far as the first reviews go, it seems that the only complaint critics really have is the extremely long runtime. Action movies tend to be short and sweet, but that’s not the case here. John Wick: Chapter 4 clocks in at a whopping two hours and 49 minutes. Luckily, there seems to be a critical consensus that the movie earns every bit of that runtime.
Even then, though, in the depths of the game’s nadir, I could see something in the distance, past all the anger and frustration of the moment. So much of the negativity seemed to be coming not from a place of true revulsion, but disappointment, of people’s expectations of Cyberpunk 2077 being “The Witcher 3, with cars” being fumbled.
That spot on the horizon, as tiny as it was, nevertheless had shape and form. It was hope. Big games simply cannot be allowed to die, so even then, as Cyberpunk was on the receiving end of an unprecedented backlash, I could see where this story was headed. The world loves nothing more than a bad game’s redemption arc—see No Man’s Sky for a similar example of the genre—and as bad as Cyberpunk had been at release, surely CD Projekt Red, after spending all that time and money to make the game, would eventually spend enough time and money to fix it?
Screenshot: Cyberpunk 2077 | Kotaku
As time did its thing and moved ever onwards, that spot on the periphery would get bigger, until one day it would displace the negative vibes around the game entirely. One day, Cyberpunk 2077 would be good. Could be good. Please, Cyberpunk 2077, you could hear being said louder by the day, be good.
This game has been out for a while. The team is well past the debut of their creative baby, but being the good parents they are, these devs continue to nurture and support their creation. This game, to this day, is still getting new content after all these years.
We were now free, two years after the game’s nightmarish release, to convince ourselves that this was no longer the same game it had been at launch. Two years of work had righted the ship, given people what they wanted. Cyberpunk 2077 was good now.
But was it? I, along with most of you, had played it in 2020 and thought it was terrible. How much could really have changed since then? With a bunch of time to kill on a recent vacation, and to address my own simmering curiosity over the shape the game was in, I spent a few weeks working my way through Cyberpunk 2077, front to back.
IS CYBERPUNK 2077 GOOD NOW?
That’s a complicated question! But it’s why we’re here, now, in March 2023. What I found was that yes, over the past two years and change a bunch of technical improvements have been made. And when I say improvements, I say it like a battlefield medic would, in that “sawing a man’s legs off” is an improvement over “dying”. My first encounter with the game in December 2020 had lasted for around 10 hours, and for that entire time, even with a relatively new PC, Cyberpunk 2077 ran like trash. So bad it was distracting me from the game itself.
Now it runs great. With DLSS working its black magic and a bunch of patches under its belt, Cyberpunk 2077 is a game reborn on my PC—the exact same PC I had played it on in 2020—with even my modest rig able to run it in 4K, ray-tracing enabled, without skipping a beat. A smoother framerate also made the game’s sluggish shooting and driving sections slightly more tolerable, and best of all everything looked fantastic. So far, so good.
Cyberpunk’s countless and often mission-breaking bugs also seemed far less frequent. There are some still there, ones I think are just part of the way the game was built, like how cars don’t appear in the world so much as they’re dropped, still rocking on their suspension as your character first spots them. Or how police chases simply do not work. Pedestrians still walk and stand through one another, like they’re re-enacting the end of Watchmen. But there are a lot less of these, and I didn’t run into any of the formerly huge issues—like cars and bikes catapulting off the screen—so again, progress.
If bugs and weird glitches were your primary hangup, then sure, Cyberpunk 2077 is “good now”. This technical triage didn’t really matter to me, though. I’m a Battlefield 2042 veteran, I am used to finding pleasure amidst uncooperative polygons. What their taming did at least allow, though, was the opportunity to stop worrying about them, and focus on the game itself. Not what I had wanted it to be, or expected it to be in a post-Witcher 3 world, not what its calamitous launch had prevented it from seemingly ever being. Just me, a smooth framerate and the entirety of Cyberpunk 2077 ahead of me.
OK, I have SOME THINGS I need to say that will sound review-like. I played through 85 hours of Cyberpunk 2077, much of it over my vacation, I need to talk about this with someone.
I started this whole endeavour thinking I’d be writing about one game, Cyberpunk 2077, but I ended up playing two very different ones over those hours. So different, in fact, that I’ve had to basically write this whole piece twice, since so much of my first draft would eventually end up in the bin.
The first Cyberpunk 2077 I played was how I imagine—actually, how I know after looking at Steam achievement statistics showing how few players had completed important sidequests—most people’s time with the game went. You aren’t led through the main storyline so much as you’re shoved, bombarded from the outset with urgent phonecalls, frantic messages, cutscenes where you’re coughing up blood, directions to travel here, have a shootout there, and before you know it you’re at the endgame wondering why you’ve barely scratched the surface of Cyberpunk’s world, cast or myriad of RPG systems.
Writing about this Cyberpunk as I went, my notes used the word “dogshit” a lot. The main storyline is the very worst of Cyberpunk. It doubles down on the game’s failed attempts to be an explosive FPS, shines its brightest lights on Night City’s dullest characters and moves so fast that Cyberpunk’s elaborate endings mean nothing because you haven’t had the time or space to give a shit about anyone affected.
My conclusion to this piece, as the credits rolled, was that Cyberpunk 2077 was unsalvageable. Its problems were too fundamental, the scathing reviews from 2020 justified in their damnation.
Screenshot: Cyberpunk 2077 | Kotaku
CYBERPUNK 2077, PART II
But then something weird happened. Instead of being dumped back at my lair in some kind of overpowered postgame, I found myself reloaded back to a checkpoint just before the final mission. There was no real endgame here (the storylines as they wrap up rule that out), just a soft reboot, presumably so players could jump straight back into those final hours and make different choices, enough to unlock one of the game’s four other endings.
Here, with the main quests all but resolved and my need to see a final cutscene already satisfied, another Cyberpunk 2077 unfurled in front of me. This Cyberpunk was full of unresolved sidequests, only now I had the time and space to resolve them. The game finally had time to breathe. It took its foot off the gas, stopped harassing me to sort out Keanu Reeves’ problems and began slowly serving me the game’s most memorable quests, most with meaningful consequence, each one taking me on a tour of previously-unseen corners of the game’s lavish world and giving me a newfound appreciation for its scale and detail.
I met all my favourite Night City residents in this second Cyberpunk, and I think it’s easily the best way to meet them. To be able to savour each little adventure at its own pace, instead of having them crammed in between main quests. In this second game, where I was no longer following a Keanu Reeves-led narrative laced with international intrigue but free to just be a guy doing murderous odd jobs around town, Cyberpunk felt so much closer to what I had expected from it back in 2020. A game about exploration, being a handyman, uncovering unforgettable little stories with sticky moral quandaries. The Witcher 3 with cars, basically.
My conclusion after this second Cyberpunk wrapped, after I’d rinsed it of every substantial (and less so) sidequest on the board, is…well, it’s what you’re reading now. My reflections of a game that is still broken in so many ways, and forgettable in many others, but which is also more than that, so much more than most people who (rightfully and understandably!) bounced off the main storyline in 2020 and never looked back will ever know.
It’s almost as though Cyberpunk’s main problem isnt with its various components themselves, so much as the urgency and order they’re thrown at you. Playing Cyberpunk 2077 as CD Projekt Red designed it is like going to a fancy restaurant and having the steak thrown at your face before you’ve even looked at the menu. Then getting your delicious entrée served 90 minutes later. The food is good, sure! But that wasn’t the best way to eat it.
Everyone who has ever said “just try the side missions, they’re better” in the time since Cyberpunk 2077’s launch, and sounded like a copium addict at the height of a trip, turned out to be right on the money. I’m sorry for ever doubting you. Some of these auxiliary quests are good, but many of them are excellent. A mayoral candidate having a little IT problem is a highlight, as is the tragic and unforgettable case of a cop’s missing nephew and a cattle farm. Claire’s tale of loss and revenge is handled with the utmost care. Judy’s evolution from peripheral quest-giver to her beautiful finale was a joy to play through, and Kerry’s mid-life crisis resolves in possibly the most cathartic moment of the whole game. These stories are well-written, deeply interesting and many of the best ones don’t even need you to shoot anything.
I could go on and on here, and kinda want to, but I’ve wasted enough of your time with my thoughts on a game that’s now over two years old, and was written about, at length, maybe more than any other video game in history. Thank you for sticking with me this long.
IT’S STILL CYBERPUNK 2077
Technical fixes aside—and they make a difference!—this is still Cyberpunk 2077. The good stuff was good in 2020, the bad stuff was bad in 2020, and they will forever be that way because you can’t save a game by patching in a new character arc (or any character arc) for Johnny Silverhand, or turn some dials and suddenly make the entire first-person shooting experience feel even remotely exciting.
I feel like I did everything I was supposed to do here, everything the zeitgeist and the blip on the horizon said I should do when it came to this game. I played it in 2020, bounced, then gave it time—time it may not have deserved if it was any other game from any other studio—to clean itself up. I revisited it to play the game this was supposed to be.
It’s not that game, of course. The “Cyberpunk can be saved” narrative is as delusional here as it is for so many other big-budget failures, when success had seemed assured but for whatever reason never arrived (of course Cyberpunk 2077 will always be, if nothing else, a financial success). Bugs and fundamental shortcomings in the game’s structure are two very different things. One can be patched, and mostly has been. The other, we’re stuck with forever.
Screenshot: Cyberpunk 2077 | Kotaku
And that’s OK? I’m OK with it, at least. There was so much anger and frustration tangled up in this game’s launch, all fed as much on people’s expectations as much as the reality of the game that was on offer before us. This was the next game from The Witcher 3 guys, it cost so much money to make, it took so long to make, it released so many incredible (and, turns out, quite fanciful) trailers, blah blah blah.
All this led to a consensus that the game was both busted and a huge disappointment. Now? Now it’s still a little busted and still disappointing in most of the same ways. There are still huge holes in this game, with shortcomings it will never overcome, but decoupled from the Bad Vibes of its 2020 launch I found myself free in 2023 to just fire up Cyberpunk 2077 and play what was in front of me.
What I found was a game that, when given the chance, could be more than just a trainwreck of a launch. It could also, with a bit of work and a bit more patience, be something truly special. And that was enough of a redemption arc for me.
The blonde icon with a bouffant is one of the few celebrities most Americans love unconditionally. She’s made believers of conservatives and progressives, country fans and indie contrarians, boomers who grew up with her and “Zoomers” who’ve posed with murals of her face. She is a feminist heroine, an ally to the LGBTQ community and a Southern girl from the Smokies whose story of success is a near-perfect example of the American dream come true. She helped fund Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine. Decades into her career, Dolly Parton is Teflon.
Parton is perhaps the most prominent example of an exceedingly rare category of celebrity – the American sweetheart. Over many years, sweetheart celebrities have cultivated reputations rooted in kindness, authenticity and hard-earned success that have elevated them above your average A-lister. They’re the kind of celebrities who host an inauguration celebration to appease a hurting country. They inspire sympathy when they’re photographed alone on a park bench eating a sandwich. And when they die, they prompt nationwide mourning, as though Americans just lost their own grandmother.
These “sweethearts” become symbols in American pop culture. We turn to them for inspiration, moral guidance, reliable entertainment and even solace, said Claire Sisco King, an associate professor of communication studies at Vanderbilt University who studies celebrity culture.
“It’s really difficult stuff that people experience every day – political divisiveness, concern about the future of the planet and the potential extinction of human life,” Sisco King told CNN. “So the idea that someone who’s famous could be really nice gives people a sense of hope.”
Some of our biggest American sweethearts have been cultural fixtures for decades. Scholars of celebrity culture spoke to CNN about how certain celebrities rise above the rest of the Hollywood set to become the public’s sweethearts and the meaningful relationships fans can form with these untouchable icons.
It might seem glib to focus so much on celebrities when their wealth and status largely shields them from everyday challenges, but celebrity culture serves a more important function than we realize, Sisco Kind said.
Celebrities do “emotional labor” for their fans and haters alike, she said. They allow us to feel things through them – we might feel love and adoration for someone like Dolly Parton or the late Betty White, because they can represent kindness and humility, but deride more divisive figures like Kim Kardashian or Taylor Swift, who to some may represent narrow beauty norms or disingenuity.
We also want to identify with celebrities, she said. The tabloid US Weekly regularly features the section, “Stars – they’re just like us!” – a collection of paparazzi shots of A-listers pumping gas, shopping for groceries or dropping their kids off at school. Those kinds of images can reinforce the idea that celebrities are relatable, Sisco King said.
It makes sense that we’d want to identify with famous people whose reputations for niceness are equally well-known, said Jenna Drenten, an associate professor of marketing at Loyola University Chicago who studies how celebrities leverage social media.
“Often fans use a simple rule of thumb: does this person seem like someone I’d want to be friends with?” Drenten told CNN.
It certainly helps a celebrity build a “sweetheart” reputation when they became famous for playing sweethearts, like Tom Hanks: In between playing an irascible toy cowboy, he’s portrayed a widower whose kindness attracts Meg Ryan, a Southern man who stumbles into historical events and compares life to sweets, a little boy who grew up too fast and Mr. Rogers. Because many of his best-known roles are of good-natured guys, we associate him off-screen with that same persona, Sisco King noted.
“We expect actors to show us authenticity and an earnest emotional experience,” she said. “Because of that emphasis on authenticity, we tend to conflate actors and the characters they play.”
Hanks is not Forrest Gump or Mr. Rogers, but he’s clearly aware of his reputation, and he lives up to it on red carpets or in interviews, Sisco King noted. He performs the “nice guy” persona because fans expect it from him.
These sweethearts also, often indirectly, support the fantastical “American dream” – that any of us can become hugely successful through hard work, Sisco King said. Oprah endured several traumas in her youth, and racism and sexism in the TV industry, and she still earned her own daytime talk show and burnished her reputation as a genuine TV personality. Even after she became a billionaire, her many fans continue to uplift her as a rare gem.
Dolly Parton famously grew up in poverty in rural Tennessee. Keanu Reeves has experienced a number of personal tragedies that have endeared him to fans. All the strife in their lives only contributes to their legend.
“(Celebrities’) stories, coming from humble beginnings to achieving greatness, become a way of affirming people’s faith in or hope that they can achieve similarly,” Sisco King said.
Put simply, per Drenten: “Americans love an underdog story.” And when those underdogs blossom into titans of their industry and seemingly hold onto their humanity, we often can’t help but root for them.
Our relationships to celebrities have become much more intimate in the last few years, particularly since the onset of the pandemic, Sisco King said. Our faves weren’t working or doing press junkets, so they stayed in the public eye with intimate online snapshots from quarantine or cheeky cooking segments on Instagram Live. This was when it almost felt like celebrities really were like us. (That didn’t last long once they started vacationing or escaping the virus in spacious, comfortable homes.)
Not to mention, Tom Hanks getting Covid-19 in March 2020 concretized the seriousness of the pandemic for many people – his was one of the first verified cases of the virus among major celebrities. It was shocking, at the time, that such an illness could penetrate a celebrity’s bubble. He shared the news directly with fans on Instagram.
That the pandemic happened in an “era of ubiquitous digital networks” was a “perfect convergence,” Sisco King said: We had easy access to famous people with whom we could develop parasocial relationships, or those one-sided relationships we have with celebrities we’ll likely never know. When most-to-all interaction occurred virtually, it only deepened the strong feelings we have for certain celebs.
“We can get kind of obsessed with particular celebrities because they are easier to get access to,” Sisco King said. “That kind of intensifies that kind of parasocial relationship.”
There remains an expectation that celebrities should continue to provide access to fans. Some sweethearts are up to the task – Parton’s team regularly posts on her behalf, sharing a mix of sponsored content, irresistible throwback photos and even memes. Hanks might even post personally if his “Hanx!” signatures are to be believed. Oprah shares candid videos about what she’s cooking, where she’s hiking and the shenanigans she’s dragging Gayle King into.
On Twitter, TikTok and other platforms, even brief anecdotes about celebrities can travel far and fast, which can help further boost the reputations of some sweethearts. Tales of stars doing basic acts of good, from Hanks delivering a platter of martinis to his table at the Golden Globes to Paul Rudd reaching out to a bullied fan, frequently go viral. It’s even more impactful when a sweetheart celebrity doesn’t divulge their good deed themselves – when Keanu Reeves’ $31.5 million donation to cancer research was revealed by the press, it only deepened the belief that Reeves is a humble, genuinely good person.
Even among American sweethearts, Parton is a “special case,” Sisco King said.
“Part of what has made her so beloved is that she’s adored by people of so many different walks of life,” Sisco King said. “She can mean so many different things to so many different people.”
Parton has been upheld as a feminist icon who has overcome sexism and objectification to rise to the top of her industry, which can endear her to people marginalized by race, gender or sexuality. She’s a talented lyricist whose songs still move listeners decades later. She is who we want her to be, Sisco King said.
The ever-savvy Parton has capitalized on this prolonged, social media-aided wave of stardom. In the last five years alone, she’s slapped her name onto a Netflix series inspired by her lyrics, an NBC Christmas special, Duncan Hines cake mix, a Williams-Sonoma collection, a T-Mobile Super Bowl commercial and a live New Year’s Eve show (the last two in collaboration her goddaughter Miley Cyrus). Then there are the third parties who sell prayer candles emblazoned with her face, cross stitch patterns with her lyrics, wrapping paper with her image or car air fresheners shaped like her wigged head. The brand Lingua Franca sells nearly $400 cashmere sweaters embroidered with “What would Dolly do?” and “In Dolly we trust.”
And yet, for the most part, fans haven’t grown cynical of Parton and her marketing prowess. When a celebrity we love does something we don’t love – Tom Hanks cursing at paparazzi and fans swarming his wife, maybe, or Parton lending her likeness to products we dislike – we can “suspend disbelief” in a way to “compartmentalize those concerns when you’re really deeply invested in a celebrity,” Sisco Kind said.
Parton has also accumulated “goodwill capital,” said Gayle Stever, a professor of psychology for Empire State College, State University of New York who studies fandom. “Her generosity and philanthropy are well-known, and people appreciate that.” Even if she makes a move we wouldn’t, we’re able to disregard it, because we think we know her well enough.
Celebrity sweethearts like Parton and Hanks can feel just as important to us as our real-life loved ones, Sisco King noted. We feel connected to the ones we think we know well, even if the love isn’t reciprocated.
When the biggest celebrities of the day include a billionaire tech exec with slippery Twitter fingers and a formerly lauded rapper who uses racist and antisemitic language, it can be something of a comfort when an affable figure like Paul Rudd or Keanu Reeves appears onscreen.
Engaging with beloved celebrities can also bring about more good than video tributes and merch with a famous person’s face. Stever said that often, adult fans of sweetheart celebs are motivated to join them in the causes their idols care about. It matters when Parton draws attention to children’s literacy or Oprah highlights antiracist efforts, or when Betty White publicized animal advocacy, because they may prompt their fans to get involved.
“Those kinds of role models encourage people to be philanthropic and to care about others,” Stever said. “I think this serves a huge cultural purpose … all of these people have accumulated a huge amount of positive social capital that inspires their fans to support the good works that these admired celebrities support. We need that.”
On a personal level, engaging with beloved celebrity sweethearts “allows us to process our own feelings,” Sisco King said. By viewing their work or supporting them, we can feel those emotions that we might otherwise bury.
“It’s the same reason we seek out films and television shows that produce emotional experiences – ‘I want to have a good cry,’” she said. “I think celebrity culture functions kind of similarly.”
LOS ANGELES — Just before Jessica Henwick was cast in “Game of Thrones” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” the then-aspiring actor had already left Los Angeles for her hometown in England.
“I ran out of money, so I went back and moved back in with my parents,” she recalled.
Although she hadn’t quite given up on acting, Henwick was struggling to find jobs in front of the camera. Before leaving LA, she did work as a crew member on sets — an experience she drew from for her role in Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” which debuts Friday on Netflix.
In the whodunit film boasting a star-studded ensemble cast, Henwick plays Peg, the assistant and handler to model and sweatpants line founder Birdie (Kate Hudson). But her experience as a crew member was more than just a source of inspiration for her character — it was “hugely educational” for her as an actor, Henwick said.
“To be on a set and listen to how the director communicated with the cast and with the crew and how it worked, it was hugely insightful,” she said.
Although her performance as Bugs in “The Matrix Resurrections” garnered critical praise, she still considers herself a “jobbing actor.”
“I’m not just getting things handed to me,” she said, though she admits working with Keanu Reeves felt like a turning point in her career as well as a personal triumph.
“I mean, what an icon. They just don’t make ’em like that anymore. It’s kind of sad,” she said.
Reflecting on her experience with Reeves, Henwick lamented the ways in which the Hollywood landscape has shifted.
“He’s from an era where it meant something to be a star or an A-lister,” she said. “There are so many actors nowadays. I don’t know if it’s just diluted or maybe we’re overexposed with social media.”
Henwick had always known the chances of her making it in Hollywood were slim, which she says informed her decision to drop out of acting school after being cast as the lead in the BBC series “Spirit Warriors” in 2009.
“Maybe I got too big for my boots. I don’t know. I just think that I realized you don’t have to do that,” she said when asked why she quit. “If I had continued going to that school, I would have been in debt.”
She said she struggles with the issue of equity in acting given the high cost of training in England.
“It’s definitely predisposed towards people of privilege,” she said. “I know that we have some of the best teachers in the world, so I fully support how much schools charge, but it does mean that people from lower income families can’t afford to go.”
Henwick, whose mother is Singaporean Chinese, was also mindful of the limited opportunities for people of color in England, which she said was one of the factors that prompted her initial move to Los Angeles.
“England’s main export, in terms of entertainment, is period dramas. We do it better than anyone else in the world. Shakespeare, Austen. Even at the time, the biggest show was ‘Downton Abbey,’” she recalled. “I used to want to be in one of those so bad. The costumes, the language. It’s poetry.”
When asked how to address that lack of representation, Henwick praised “Bridgerton” executive producer Shonda Rhimes for her ability to bring diversity to the genre.
Henwick is looking forward to a more rooted and restful 2023 after years of traveling and big projects. But she said, if she has her pick in the future, she hopes to work with Nicolas Cage one day.
“I just want to see the method behind the madness,” she laughed. “I also feel like I’m working my way through ’90s action heroes. I’ve worked with Keanu. I’ve work with Edward (Norton). Nicolas Cage, you’re next.”
It’s difficult to imagine any film in the John Wick universe not featuring Keanu Reeves in a major role. Luckily, we don’t have to. He’ll be back for the upcoming spinoff film, Ballerina. Ian McShane, who plays Winston in the series will also be appear in the spinoff. That being said, we don’t really know exactly where in the continuity this film takes place, so things could get complicated.
The thread which leads to Ballerina is self-explanatory enough. The Director, portrayed by Anjelica Huston in John Wick: Chapter 3, runs a ballet troupe. They aren’t your run-of-the-mill ballerinas though. They’re highly trained assassins, merely posing as dancers. The film will follow an assassin portrayed by Ana de Armas.
Basil Iwanyk, one of the film’s producers, recently shared that they had secured Ian McShane, stating: “We’re thrilled to have Ian McShane joining us for a pivotal role in Ballerina. He’s been such an integral part of the franchise since the original ‘John Wick.’ It’s been fun to have him on this journey as the ‘Wick’ universe expands”.
There’s really no indication yet when we can expect Ballerina to premiere in theaters, but we can definitely look forward to more and more John Wick in the foreseeable future. John Wick:Chapter 4 is scheduled for release on March 24, 2023.
The 10 Most Ridiculous Tropes In Action Movies
Good luck finding an action movie that doesn’t have at least a few of these stereotypes.
Actor Matthew Perry speaks onstage during the 64th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at Nokia Theatre … [+] L.A. Live on September 23, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
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Excerpts from Matthew Perry’s upcoming memoir, in which Perry gets candid with his struggles with addiction, have been inspiring headlines for several weeks. One passage, which took a random, mean-spirited jab at Keanu Reeves, sparked backlash online, prompting an apology from Perry.
In the passage, Perry discusses his close friendship with the late River Phoenix, and his reaction to Phoenix’s death in 1993 from an overdose.
“River was a beautiful man, inside and out — too beautiful for this world, it turned out,” Perry wrote in the book. “It always seems to be the really talented guys who go down. Why is it that the original thinkers like River Phoenix and Heath Ledger die, but Keanu Reeves still walks among us?”
It’s an odd, tasteless jab that seems to come out of nowhere, and Perry repeats the sentiment in a later passage where he describes his reaction to the death of Chris Farley, who also died from an overdose.
Perry writes. “I punched a hole through Jennifer Aniston’s dressing room wall when I found out. Keanu Reeves walks among us. I had to promote ‘Almost Heroes’ two weeks after he died; I found myself publicly discussing his death from drugs and alcohol. I was high the entire time.”
There aren’t many “unproblematic” celebrities out there nowadays, and Reeves is one of the few who remains almost universally beloved, especially online. So many celebrities have been outed as abusers, or become consumed by bigotry, while Reeves has a reputation of being a genuinely lovely person.
Hence, the internet instantly came to his defense.
Some speculated that Perry might be nursing some kind of personal grudge against Reeves, while others noted that the jab was particularly cruel, considering that Reeves has experienced more than his fair share of grief and loss.
In response to the flood of condemnation, Perry quickly apologized, and attempted to clarify his intentions. In a statement to People Magazine, Perry said:
“I’m actually a big fan of Keanu. I just chose a random name, my mistake. I apologize. I should have used my own name instead.”
Some commentators were confused by Perry’s apology, as Reeves didn’t seem to be a random name at all; like Perry, Reeves was once close friends with River Phoenix.
In previous interviews, Reeves has been candid about how much he still grieves the late actor. In an interview with Esquire, Reeves discussed Phoenix, stating:
“It’s weird speaking about him in the past. I hate speaking about him in the past. So I almost always gotta keep it present. He was a really special person, so original, unique, smart, talented, fiercely creative. Thoughtful. Brave. And funny. And dark. And light. It was great to have known him.”
Perhaps Perry, who rose to fame in the nineties, where “edgy” humor was much more popular, was simply making a bad joke that really didn’t land; tastes have changed, as audiences have become more empathetic.
Nowadays, that kind of mean-spirited humor has become strongly associated with right-wing provocateurs, or fading comedians clinging on to relevancy through controversy.
Whatever Perry was thinking, he surely learned his lesson – never target Keanu Reeves, the most beloved man on the internet.
