That’s one of the new images above, featuring Wade (Ryan Reynolds) and Peter at work together. It’s from a scene early in the film that screened at CinemaCon 2024 and you can read all about it here. Basically, Wade and Peter are car salesman and while Peter wants Wade to go back to being Deadpool, Wade does not. This is before the birthday party you see in the trailers.
Then here’s another photo of Peter that looks more like it’s from Superstore than a superhero film but hey, he’s great so we like it.
Image: Marvel Studios
Finally, here’s the new image of Cassandra Nova, the character we all expect to be the big bad of the film. Either way, she’s certainly one of the main villains, considering the trailers have shown here with a team of B-level X-Men characters, in a gigantic Ant-Man helmet, and her powers completely baffling Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). But here we get a bit more of her stare, a bit more of her fashion, and a bit more of her lair. She looks very calm, very confident, and very much like Professor X, whom she’s related to in the comics but…is she here?
Image: Marvel Studios
Just a brief tease of Deadpool & Wolverine, which is coming very, very soon. Starring tars Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin, Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, and Matthew Macfadyen, it opens July 26.
Fran (Gaylen Ross) heads to the mall to escape zombies in Dawn of the Dead.Screenshot: United Film Distribution Company
George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead arrived 10 years after he invented the modern zombie movie with 1968’s Night of the Living Dead. To mark the 45-year anniversary of its U.S. release in 1979—an international co-production, it world-premiered in Italy in 1978—star Gaylen Ross, who’s also in Romero and Stephen King’s 1982 anthology film Creepshow, reflected on her experiences making the movie and its enduring legacy.
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Speaking to Variety, Ross said she signed on to play Fran, a Philadelphia TV producer turned zombie-apocalypse survivor, before she even knew who Romero was. Once cast, she took an active role in helping shape the character. “It was an interesting dialogue that George and I had at the beginning about how are we going to make Fran not a victim, and part of the characters that were active?,” she recalled. “He rewrote it while we were working, because he also felt we needed to empower her more.”
Amid some fun behind-the-scenes tidbits about what it was like filming nights at a mall that was open for customers during the day—Dawn of the Dead had to take a pause when the Christmas decorations went up—and how Ross faked her way through an ice-skating sequence, the actor turned documentary filmmaker shared her memories of the film’s original ending. As horror fans have long known, Romero did not at first intend for Fran and Ken Foree’s character, Peter, to make a desperate yet hopeful escape. “We shot it! I prepared all day for it,” she said. “George was going to kill us off—Peter was going to put a gun to his head, and I was going to put my head through the blades of the helicopter. [Make-up artist Tom Savini] had already cast the head for that effect … but then the decision was that this was too dark an ending and that somebody had to survive. Whether or not anybody believes that we survived if I was driving a helicopter or not is another story.”
While Ross admits she was surprised Dawn of the Dead became a hit when it was released—and says its enduring impact is “incredible”—she knew all along that she was part of a special project. “What I learned from George wasn’t so much his horror vision, but a respect and a generosity to actors, giving them the space … the one thing that George had for everybody was a kindness and a respect. No matter how horrible the story was, he did that—and that’s why actors would return.”
Read the full interview with Gaylen Ross over at Variety.
There’s exactly one Marvel Studios movie coming to theaters this year, but it’s one of the biggest to date. Deadpool & Wolverine is scheduled for release on July 26 and it won’t only be the first MCU film for Ryan Reynolds’ wisecracking killer, but also the MCU debut of Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman.
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That alone already has fans excited and the number of people who watched the first trailer proved it again. Continuing the fun, Disney debuted new footage at CinemaCon 2024, and here’s what happened.
Wade Wilson grabs a staple gun, uses it to put on his wig, and says “Now let’s sell some certified pre-owned vehicles, motherfucker.” Smash cut to Wade in the back seat of a car with a family on a test drive. They ask him some questions but he keeps cursing and mentions he doesn’t have kids because he doesn’t have much vaginal sex. He’s bad at this.
Peter (Rob Delaney) apparently works there too and they talk in the locker room about how Wade may be a bad salesperson, but he can always go back to being a superhero. Wade explains that he’s done for good. This is the life he wants and if you “aim for the middle, you’ll never miss.” Peter shows him that he keeps an old Deadpool suit in his locker anyway.
Wade and Peter ride bikes home from work and Wade notices someone taking photos of them. The conversation continues about wanting to be superheroes again and Peter asks Wade if he’s just sad because it’s his birthday. He also mentions a very interesting piercing he’s just gotten.
Yes, it’s Wade’s birthday. He goes into his apartment and it’s a surprise party. There are all his friends from the first two movies: Negasonic, Colossus, Dopinder, Blind Al, and others. Wade goes around the room and catches up with everyone. One highlight of this is Wade and Al going back and forth with a ton of insults. She asks him if he wants to do some cocaine and he says that’s the one thing Kevin Feige said was off the table. She rattles off a bunch of different fake names and he says Feige knows them all. Finally she says, “Do you want to build a snowman?” To which he says, yes but I can’t.
Vanessa is also there and they are no longer together. She’s seeing someone from work though, and Wade is happy for her, though he’s not seeing anyone.
The group sings “Happy Birthday” and then Wade gives a heartfelt speech about how much he loves everyone in this room. He says that despite some tough years, he’s truly happy now because of them. He then goes on to blow out the candles… and the second he does, there’s a knock at the door.
You’ve seen some of this in the trailer. It’s the TVA. Wade assumes they’re a group of men who are there to have sex with him and he gets very dirty about what he wants them to do with all his holes. They then get fed up, knock him out, and put him through one of those TVA doors.
In the TVA, Mr. Paradox (Matthew McFayden) tells Wade that a) he soiled himself, and b) what the TVA does. “That’s a shit ton of exposition for a threequel,” Wade says. Mr. Paradox tells him he knows that Wade has been abusive of the timeline previously, with Cable’s time travel device, but that’s not why he’s there.
Apparently Wade has been chosen for a higher purpose. One that’s even unclear to the TVA. He needs to save the sacred timeline from a grisly fate at some point in the future. The two guys joke that it needs to be “Avenged.” That they’re going to “Marvel” at how “Cinematic” is. Wade says he wants it all, cameos, variants, the works.
They turn to the screen and on it is Steve Rogers as Captain America. Wade knows him and salutes the screen. “You’re no longer lost,” Mr. Paradox says, “You can now be a hero.” At this point, Wade notices a screen where Thor is holding a dying Deadpool and crying. “Why is Thor crying?” he asks. Wade isn’t supposed to see that though; that’s something that happens in the distant future.
Wade is all in and says he will return and help. He then turns to the camera, runs toward it, grabs it, shakes it and says “Suck it Fox! I’m going to Disneyland!” He also fellates the boom microphone a bit.
“Oh, there’s one more thing I need,” Wade says. It’s a costume. A TVA tailor makes him a brand new upgraded Deadpool costume, which comes together in a quick series of fast edits… which include more than a few of the tailor grabbing Wade’s crotch.
Wade loves the new costume, even if he has to tell them the tailor is a predator. He also mentions that his samurai swords are made out of adamantium. He jokes around that one of the TVA employees is eyeing him up and his underwear is getting tighter. The employee picks up the phone to call HR.
That leads into a montage of action scenes largely from the first trailer. Dog Pool running in slow motion. Lots of shooting. Wade in the back seat of a bloody car. And then, finally, we see him and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine sitting together in a car.
“What’s with the suit?” Wade asks. “Do the X-Men make you wear it?” He comments he looks like he fights crime for the Los Angeles Rams, but Wolverine isn’t having it. “I’m just trying to bond a bit,” he says.
Directed by Shawn Levy, Deadpool & Wolverine stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. It opens July 26.
Update: the headline on the original post was updated to more accurately describe the length of the footage.
One of the most surprising, exciting pieces of movie news so far this year is that writer Alex Garland and director Danny Boyle are going back to the world of 28 Days Later. Over two decades since the groundbreaking original zombie film and 17 years since its follow-up, the pair are getting ready to make 28 Years Later.
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Speaking to Garland on the occasion of his latest film, Civil War, io9 asked him why now was the right time to go back to the franchise that launched his career.
“It was partly to do with the passage of time,” Garland told io9 over video chat. “It sounds dumb, but you get locked in. Originally I wrote 28 Days Later as almost like a gag. It was making a caption into the title. You know, ‘12 hours later,’ ‘The next day,’ except make it the title. And then you’re stuck with it. [Laughs] You got to live with the thing. And 28 Months Later would have seemed weird given the amount of time that had passed. And, 28 Weeks Later, someone had already done it. And so our last time frame, unless we start moving to centuries, was 28 years. And enough time had passed to justify that right.”
But, of course, there were a few other big factors beyond just the timing. “Danny was interested in doing it, the producers were interested in doing it, and I had an idea,” he said. “I had not really had an idea that I was interested in prior to that. It had been floated. We’d talk about it. Every five years or something it would get discussed, but I had no motivation to do it. I said, ‘Look, if someone else wants to do it, that’s fine, but I haven’t got anything.’ For some reason, that passage of time unlocked a particular concept in my head that the film then goes with, and so, suddenly it made sense. I said, ‘Okay, I think I’ve got an idea.’ And I wrote it as a script, and showed it to Danny and Andrew [Macdonald] and Peter [Rice] who are the producers, and they said, ‘Yeah, okay, let’s do it.’”
Plus, Garland confirmed that the overall idea is for the series to be a trilogy, if audiences turn up for it. “That was key to the idea was it was a story that couldn’t naturally fit in one film,” Garland said. “And there was a possibility— which we may not have the opportunity to do—but to do a proper trilogy. Not a sequence of sequels that are effectively replaying the first thing just in slightly different forms, but an actual true narrative. And we don’t know if we’ll be able to do it because that relates, in the end, to market forces. Films cost a lot of money. Even cheap films cost a lot of money. You know, people talk low-budget, but it’s a lot of money always. And so that depends on really whether people want to see future ones after we’ve made it.”
But, either way, 28 Years Later from Alex Garland and Danny Boyle is coming. And ultimately it’ll be coming… almost 28 years after the original too. No release date is set, but you have to guess 2025 or 2026, 23 or 24 years after the first film, is probably a good guess.
Two days before Rosenberg and Dip appear in front of a SOLD-OUT crowd in Philadelphia, they’re together in New York City to discuss their big takeaways from last night’s Raw. (00:00) After that, Dip airs some grievances about the luxury towel industry, solicits bagel recommendations in Saudi Arabia, and then pulls it together for a little mailbag (28:40).
Then, Big E joins Rosenberg for a chat intended to be about WrestleMania, but becomes a much more important conversation (43:55). Rosenberg and Big E each open up about their own mental health struggles, and Big E sheds light on how meditation and living in the present moment has helped him overcome his demons. The guys then finish out the conversation with a discussion concerning the Bray Wyatt documentary and how Wyatt’s sudden death changed Big E’s perspective on life (01:08:45).
Thanks to Snickers for helping Big E join the program.
We’ll see you Thursday.
Hosts: Peter Rosenberg and Dip Guest: Big E Producer: Troy Farkas
Archeologists uncovered more than 1500-year-old mosaic mentioning a donor named Constantine and St. Peter at the “Church of the Apostles”
Press Release –
Aug 10, 2022
Galilee, Israel, August 10, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– Archeologists from Kinneret College in Israel and Nyack College, NY, led by Prof. Mordechai Aviam and Prof. Steven Notley, have uncovered a large Greek inscription during excavations of what is being called the “Church of the Apostles,” a Byzantine period basilica at el Araj/Beit haBek believed to be built over the Apostles Peter’s and Andrew’s home. The inscription was translated by Prof. Leah Di Segni (Hebrew University) and Prof. Yaakov Ashkenazi (Kinneret College). It references a donor, “Constantine, the servant of Christ,” and continues with a petition for intercession by St. Peter, “chief and commander of the heavenly apostles.” Framed with a round medallion made of two lines of black tesserae, the inscription forms part of a larger mosaic floor in the church’s diaconion (sacristy) that is partly decorated with floral patterns. The el Araj/Beit haBek site is located in the Beteiha nature preserve, and assistance was made by the Israel National Parks Authority. The El Araj Excavation Project is a joint project of the Kinneret Institute for Galilee Archeology at Kinneret College and Nyack College. The excavation is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins (CSAJCO), the Museum of the Bible, the Lanier Theological Library Foundation, and HaDavar Yeshiva (HK).
The title “chief and commander of the apostles” is routinely used by Byzantine Christian writers to refer to the Apostle Peter. “This discovery is our strongest indicator that Peter had a special association with the basilica, and it was likely dedicated to him. Since Byzantine Christian tradition routinely identified Peter’s home in Bethsaida, and not in Capernaum as is often thought today, it seems likely that the basilica commemorates his house,” said Steven Notley, academic director of the dig.
This discovery also bolsters the basilica’s identification with the church described by the 8th century bishop of Eichstätt, Willibald, who reported that it was built over the house of Peter and Andrew.
“One of the goals of this dig was to check whether we have at the site a layer from the 1st century, which will allow us to suggest a better candidate for the identification of Biblical Bethsaida. Not only did we find significant remains from this period, but we also found this important church and the monastery around it,” says archaeologist Mordechai Aviam, archaeological director of the excavation.
The Roman remains that have been excavated bear witness to the testimony of Flavius Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 18:28) that the village became a small polis called Julias that existed until the 3rd century CE. Altogether, these finds continue to strengthen the identification of el Araj/Beit haBek with the ancient Jewish village of Bethsaida.
Excavations will resume in October when the cleaning of the entire church will be completed with the aim to answer the question of its different phases and perhaps uncover additional inscriptions.
To learn more about the dig, or join in the excavations next season, click here.
BACKGROUND ON THE DIG:
During this season, students from Kinneret College, as well as volunteers from the USA, Canada, Hong Kong, Slovakia, Brazil, and the UK participated in the excavation. Efforts were concentrated on the area in and around the church, which was named by the excavators, “the Church of the Apostles,” due to Willibald’s description of his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. While traveling from Capernaum to Kursi he stayed overnight at a place he was told, “is Bethsaida from which came Peter and Andrew. There is now a church where previously was their house.” Simon Peter was the first to declare the messiahship of Jesus (Matthew 16:16) and so was considered chief of the Apostles. His prominence is demonstrated by the church of St. Peter in Rome that was built over his grave. It seems his home was likewise commemorated in Bethsaida.
