News

Lionsgate is set to give the thriller Clear Cut, which stars Clive Standen of the Taken TV series, Tom Welling (Smallville), Stephen Dorff (Blade), and Alec Baldwin (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation), a theatrical, digital, and VOD release on July 19th – and with that date just a few weeks away, a trailer for the film has arrived online. You can check it out in the embed above.

Brian Skiba directed Clear Cut (formerly known as Cold Deck) from a screenplay by Joe Perruccio, who earns his first feature writing credit on this film. The Hollywood Reporter let us know that the story centers on Jack (Standen), who tries to leave his past behind him when he starts a logging job but finds that a team of criminals with a score to settle are out to kill him.

Jesse Metcalfe (Desperate Housewives), Lucy Martin (Vikings), Lochlyn Munro (Freddy vs. Jason), Chelsey Reist...

Nicolas Cage, Heather Graham and Stephen Dorff are set to star in the western ‘The Gunslingers’.

Written and directed by filmmaker Brian Skiba, the film will also star Costas Mandylor (Saw), Scarlet Stallone (Tulsa King), Tzi Ma (The Farewell), and Randall Batinkoff (Dead Man’s Hand).

The story is set in a rugged town named Redemption. Reformed gunslinger, Thomas Keller (Dorff) and mad genius Ben (Cage) are guided by spiritual leader Jericho (Mandylor) as they strive for vindication. Confronting his violent history, a brutal bar fight and deadly feud reignite between Thomas, Ben and the notorious Five Points Gang. Now baptised and reborn, Thomas grapples with fresh challenges, testing his newfound peace amidst a town steeped in secrets, violence, and a relentless quest for revenge.

Also in news – Paul Giamatti, Joely Richardson & more join cast of ‘Downton Abbey 3’

The project is produced by Batinkoff, Laurie Love, and Skiba. Executive producers...

Having starred in only his first Western films in the last few years with “The Old Way” and “Butcher’s Crossing,” Nicolas Cage is doubling down on the genre, having teamed up with Heather Graham (“The Hangover”) and Stephen Dorff (“True Detective”) for “The Gunslingers.”

Costas Mandylor (“Saw”), Scarlet Stallone (“Tulsa King”), Tzi Ma (“The Farewell”), and Randall Batinkoff (“Dead Man’s Hand”) also star in the film, which is being launched in Cannes with Brilliant Pictures handling international sales. Grindstone has U.S. rights to the film.

Written and directed by prolific genre filmmaker Brian Skiba (“The 2nd,” “Dead Man’s Hand”), “The Gunslingers” is set in a rugged town named Redemption. Reformed gunslinger, Thomas Keller (Dorff) and mad genius Ben (Cage) are guided by spiritual leader Jericho (Mandylor) as they strive for vindication. Confronting his violent history, a brutal bar fight and deadly feud reignites between Thomas, Ben and the notorious Five Points Gang.

Stars: Emile Hirsch, Jake Manley, Alexandria DeBerry, John Cusack, Andrew Stevens, William Katt, Elizabeth Faith Ludlow | Written by Brian Skiba, Ben Fiore, Dawn Bursteen | Directed by Brian Skiba

It took about ten minutes for me to realize that Pursuit was going to be an epic shitshow. That’s how long it takes to get to the first shootout. Between the overuse of slow motion, blood that looks like red paint and a pile of cash that explodes into the air for no apparent reason it’s more laughable than funny.

As it turns out Rick Calloway has just shot up an undercover police operation. Why? Because the same dealers the police were targeting apparently were involved in the disappearance of his wife. So, being an expert hacker he disabled the police cameras and went in shooting. After a chase through Little Rock pretending to be the Big Apple in which...

Time is running out to stream the animated series “Bordertown,” the tearjerker classic “My Girl” and the cult favorite comedy “Galaxy Quest” on Netflix. These are among the handful of films and TV shows departing the streaming service in May, which also includes Steven Soderbergh’s Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum-fronted thriller “Side Effects,” the Hailee Steinfeld coming-of-age comedy “Edge of Seventeen” and the terrific animated film “Rango.”

Check out the full list of what’s leaving Netflix in May 2023 below.

Also Read:

What’s New on Netflix in May 2023 May 4

“Pup Star: World Tour”

May 10

“Bordertown” (Seasons 1-3)

May 13

“Weed the People”

May 14

“Booba: Food Puzzle” (Season 1)

May 16

“Side Effects”

May 18

“The Last Days”

May 27

“Collateral Beauty”

May 29

“The 2nd”

May 31

“Barbershop 2: Back in Business”

“The Boy”

“Edge of Seventeen”

“Galaxy Quest”

“Hachi: A Dog’s Tale”

“Little Boxes”

“Midnight Diner” (Seasons 1-3)

“My Girl”

“Rango”

“The Space Between Us...

(Welcome to SlashClips, a series where we bring you exclusive clips from hot new Digital, Blu-ray and theatrical releases you won't see anywhere else!)In this edition:

Pursuit  A Week in Paradise The Desperate Hour A Peloton of One

Our first exclusive clip of the week features movie star John Cusack in Lionsgate's action-thriller "Pursuit," which also stars Emile Hirsch ("Into the Wild"), Jake Manley ("Midway"), and Elizabeth Ludlow ("Godzilla: King of Monsters"). It was co-written by Brian Skiba ("The 2nd"), Andrew Stevens ("Night Eyes"), Dawn Bursteen, and Ben Fiore and directed by Skiba. The film is scheduled to hit select theaters and on demand on February 18,...

The post Clips Round-Up: John Cusack In Pursuit, Malin Akerman Has A Week In Paradise, & More! [Exclusive] appeared first on /Film.

Exclusive: Zack Stentz, writer of blockbusters Thor and X-Men: First Class and creator of Netflix’s Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, is teaming up with producer Geoffrey James Clark (The 2nd) to launch production company Electric Brain Entertainment.

Named after the Chinese characters that form the Mandarin word for computer, the LA-based film and TV firm will develop and produce genre-driven, IP-based and original content.

Stentz and Clark previously sold a scripted pilot to Apple+ in 2019 based on the Arabian Nights IP, and concocted a re-imaging of The Island Of Dr. Moreau with production partner Gunpowder & Sky, where Clark previously had a production deal. Clark most recently produced Ryan Phillippe action movie The 2nd, which was sold to multiple markets by Voltage Pictures.

Stentz said: “Like a lot of writers, the enforced shutdown of the pandemic ended up lighting a creative fire in me. After a career spent largely playing in established franchises,...

The Action Scene is a column exploring the construction of action set pieces, but it also considers “scene” in the sense of field or area: “action” as a genre and mode that spans different cultures and historical periods. By examining these two levels in tandem—one oriented toward aesthetic expression, the other toward broader contexts and concepts—this series aims to deepen appreciation for and spark discussion about action cinema.Above: Lost BulletWith 2020 behind us, we’ve rounded up some of the year's best action scenes. Although the pandemic-related delays to several would-be high-profile action releases invited worry that the year's genre pickings would be slim, such concerns turned out to be misplaced. If anything, the relative absence of blockbusters left more room for less “mainstream” fare to enter the conversation, which is precisely what this piece aims to facilitate. Structurally, this article approximates my best-of-the-decade roundup from 2019. The caveats...

The first week of December saw a lot of people watching holiday films at home. Makes sense; ’tis the season, even in this dreadful year. There’s also little in the way of new titles as competition — and the one major film to debut, timed to the awards season, failed to gain traction.

“Mank,” David Fincher’s Netflix biopic of screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, is considered a leading Oscar contender but debuted to very little initial response. Available on Friday, it showed up at #10 Saturday (the first day it could chart), and has not reappeared since. The black-and-white film starring Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried didn’t gain the attention of other high-profile originals like “Da 5 Bloods,” “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” and “Hillbilly Elegy,” all of which debuted at first or second. Bumping “Mank” from 10th place was the 2000 Adam Sandler comedy “Little Nicky.”

On the four VOD charts we track,...

As this past week was the first week of December, Netflix got things rolling with the usual glut of new titles. It’s easy to miss everything that went up on the streaming giant over the past seven days, so we’ve compiled a handy recap of every single movie and TV show that dropped from Monday, November 30th to Sunday, December 6th. In total, that’s 58 new additions.

The 1st obviously delivered the bulk of the haul, serving up a ton of fresh films to keep you entertained as we begin the festive season. Among the highlights was the original Jurassic Park and one of its sequels and if you missed them at the beginning of the week, you can also catch the likes of romcom 50 First Dates, animated film Monster House and the one and only E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. As for TV shows, all of Stargate was likewise added the same day.

It has begun. The steady trickle of films about Labradors who save Christmas, American girls marrying European princes, and parents learning that their kids are more important than their jobs, is with us. Netflix is responsible for a good proportion of the above, with several new festive titles arriving over the next few weeks.

If that does nothing for you, then you might be more interested in the arrival of three non-tinsel films on the service this month. There’s David Fincher’s Mank streaming from December 4th, followed on the 18th by Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, featuring the much-missed Chadwick Boseman, with George Clooney-starring The Midnight Sky landing a couple of days before Christmas on the 23rd.

TV-wise, there’s a new season of animated comedy Big Mouth on December 4th, the debut of slick-looking Shondaland period drama Bridgerton on the 25th, and right at the end of the month,...

Though we’re now beginning to see life starting to return to at least some sense of normality, a lot of people are still spending much more time at home than usual thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, and that probably won’t change for a while yet. As such, streaming services are more popular than ever now and thankfully, all of the major players have been delivering the goods when it comes to adding new content.

Of course, Netflix are still the leaders and each and every month they bring us a healthy helping of fresh material that ensures subscribers are kept entertained at all times. Admittedly, the summer was more fruitful in terms of new releases, but there are still a lot of great titles coming down the pipeline as we head into the fall and today, the streaming giant have revealed their November lineup, which you can check out below.

The range of pricing in VOD play has never been so clear. Two films at the extreme ranges of budget and premium stand out among new releases. At $3.99, which represents rock-bottom for a new film, Dinesh D’Souza’s latest right-wing polemic “Trump Card” is #1 at both Apple TV and Google Play, charts that rank by transaction volume.

At the same time, Disney’s “Mulan” is now available on platforms beyond Disney+ for $29.99, and is #1 at the revenue-based FandangoNow. “Ava” also continues its successful showings, with first place at Spectrum.

“Trump Card” is pitched as an expose of “socialism, corruption, and the deep state,” and clearly aimed at Election Day interest. In his past films (which received theatrical release), D’Souza preferred to specifically demonize Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. This time, the target is far broader than the tougher-to-hate Joe Biden. It placed #2 at FandangoNow, where its low price hurts its ranking.

With “Mulan” arriving on more platforms October 6 and non-premium VOD titles like “The Witches” and Amazon’s “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” later this month, the home-viewing market was on pause with no new premium titles this weekend. That didn’t stop Jessica Chastain’s “Ava,” however: It had the best showing for a non-premium title in the six months we’ve covered weekly VOD performance.

The $6.99 female-assassin action film, which debuted September 25, placed #1 at the three transactional sites and second at FandangoNow, which lists by revenue. Other recent titles like “The Outpost,” “The Tax Collector,” and “The Silencing” have thrived for multiple weeks, but none topped the charts for two weeks.

Beating out “Ava” at FandangoNow, thanks to its $19.99 price point, is “Antebellum.” In its third week, it’s also #2 at Spectrum. It fell off Apple TV and Google Play, even with less competition among premium titles.

“Alone,” budgeted far lower...

VOD is for more than low-budget action movies. Janelle Monae, Millie Bobby Brown, and Jessica Chastain rule this week, starring in three distinctive films available only to home audiences. “Enola Holmes” on Netflix, and “Ava” are new to VOD this week, while the premium-price “Antebellum” is riding high in its second weekend at $19.99.

“Ava,” released September 25, currently sits at #1 on both AppleTV and Google Play at a standard new-release price of $6.99. It was a troubled production: Matthew Newton wrote the film (originally titled “Eve”) and developed it with Chastain, who stars as an assassin in a secret organization. However, he stepped down as its director about a month before production began in September 2018 after facing public backlash to his past charges of domestic violence and assault. (Newton pled guilty.)

Tate Taylor, who previously directed Chastain in “The Help” and “Ma,” replaced Newton; after the film wrapped, it was retitled “Ava.

Five months after its scuttled April theatrical date, “Antebellum” is showing strong initial response on multiple VOD platforms. The premium-priced horror/thriller (with similarities to Jordan Peele’s hit “Get Out”) scored as the first top studio PVOD release since “Bill & Ted Face the Music” three weeks ago. With about 75 percent of North American theaters now open, they would have benefited from this title.

As always, we don’t have actual revenue totals. For “Antebellum,” however, its opening-weekend status is clear: It found top ranking on charts that rate by total gross (it achieved this in three days on FandangoNow and Vudu) and high placement on two other charts that list by transaction volume. (It debuted too late to place at Spectrum).

Lionsgate retained 80 percent of the take on “Antebellum,” compared to perhaps 50-55 percent for a theatrical run. On that basis, it means that if 500,000 consumers rented it,...

“Mulan” (Disney) likely had the greatest revenues of any feature films available in homes this weekend. At $29.99, five times or more costly than alternatives and only in its second week of availability, the big-budget remake more than ever needs PVOD to bolster its chances to recoup its cost. With disappointing initial theatrical results in China ($23 million for its initial weekend), one of the countries where it is not streaming, Disney+ interest becomes even more important.

Perhaps the Chinese fiasco could lead to Disney replicating what Universal did with “Trolls World Tour” after its second weekend of home sales. It was an earnings call (not due for several weeks now though), but that is the one time the studio has released specific numbers on one of its releases ($95 million to that point).

After a weekend where much of the media finally noticed that “Tenet” had its initial domestic gross success overstated...

The newest trend in home viewing: the hot title that seems to come out of nowhere. This week it’s “The 2nd,” which jumped to #1 on the AppleTV and GooglePlay movie rental charts. An actioner starring Ryan Phillippe and Casper Van Dien would never register within film Twitter, but that’s not the ruling sensibility of VOD.

This week had a range of alternative offerings, led by the Disney+ debut of “Mulan.” At an estimated $200 million cost, it is by far the most expensive feature film to skip domestic theaters for Premium VOD. This is also the second week of “Bill & Ted Face the Music” (United Artists), as well as first for “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” the start of Netflix’s fall awards-intended original releases. All that comes as “Tenet” (Warner Bros.) began its muted run in the U.S. as it tries to bring struggling theaters into recovery.

Each weekend brings the latest batch of new releases to VOD and the various streaming services competing for both the eyes and wallets of viewers around the world, and the latest offering serves up a more eclectic bunch of titles than usual. One which covers everything from a $200 million epic and a surrealist horror to the usual mix of bargain basement genre flicks and even the return to our screens of Pauly Shore.

The most high-profile release of the weekend is obviously Disney’s Mulan, which has finally arrived six months behind schedule and exclusively to the Mouse House’s streaming platform. Although the calls to boycott the latest live-action remake have resurfaced, there’s no way that Niki Caro’s historical actioner turns out to be anything other than a huge money-spinner, especially when reviews have largely been very positive.

Documentary Robin’s Wish is also available, and promises a...

Momentum Pictures has debuted a new trailer for the action flick ‘The 2nd’ starring Ryan Phillippe’.

Secret-service agent Vic Davis (Ryan Phillippe) is on his way to pick up his estranged son, Shawn (Jack Griffo), from his college campus when he finds himself in the middle of a high-stakes terrorist operation. The daughter of a Supreme Court Justice (Lexi Simonsen) is the target and this armed faction will stop at nothing to kidnap her Vic quickly realizes that there’s no one coming to rescue them and must now use his entire set of skills to save her and his son from an incredibly dangerous and lethal situation.

Directed by Brian Skiba, the film also stars Casper Van Dien, Jack Griffo and Lexi Simonsen.

Also in trailers – Ethan Hawke stars in trailer for ‘Tesla’

The film hits Demand and On Digital September 1st.

The post Ryan Phillippe is handy with...

"Did you saw your driver was new?" Momentum Pics has unveiled an official trailer for an action thriller titled The 2nd, from Arizona-native genre filmmaker Brian Skiba. Unfortunately this looks like jingoistic propaganda disguised as an action movie - tread carefully. Ryan Phillippe stars as a secret service agent on his way to pick up his estranged son from his college campus when he finds himself in the middle of a high-stakes terrorist operation. The daughter of a Supreme Court Justice, and his son's friend, is the target and this armed faction will stop at nothing to kidnap her and use her as leverage for a pending landmark legal case. Also starring Casper Van Dien, Jack Griffo, Lexi Simonsen, & William Katt. No surprise - this looks really awful. A wannabe, knock-off White House Down with bad lighting and bad performances. Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Brian Skiba's The 2nd,...

President Trump is a big fan of Abraham Lincoln, the one president he believes to be his equal. Throughout his time in office, Trump has made several bizarre attempts to compare himself to “Honest Abe,” the most recent on Sunday during a Fox News town hall event in front of the Lincoln Memorial. “I am greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen,” Trump groused.

“The closest would be that gentleman right up there. They always said nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse,...

Exclusive: FX Networks has given a formal pilot green light to Little Demon, I have learned. The half-hour animated comedy stars Danny DeVito, his daughter Lucy DeVito and Aubrey Plaza. It comes from the Danny DeVito’s Jersey Films 2nd Avenue, ShadowMachine and FX Productions, with Rick & Morty co-creator Dan Harmon executive producing. I hear production is slated to begin next week

Created by Darcy Fowler, Seth Kirschner and Kieran Valla, in Little Demon, 13 years after being impregnated by the Devil (Danny DeVito), a reluctant mother (Plaza) and her Antichrist daughter (Lucy DeVito) attempt to live an ordinary life in Delaware, but are constantly thwarted by monstrous forces, including Satan, who yearns for custody of his daughter’s soul.

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