It would be fair to say that the WTC final has failed to live up to the hype, mostly because of the inclement weather in England. More than two days are lost, and in all probability, the match between India and New Zealand would end in a draw. This stop-start match has left the fans disinterested as well.
Gavaskar's comments came on the back of some ineffective bowling by the Indian trio of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma.
Ravichandran Ashwin came out to bat after India vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane was dismissed for 49 and played an entertaining cameo of 22 runs.As you’d expect from someone who prides themselves on being the hardest worker in the room, Dwayne Johnson is always working on something, and even with his DCEU debut Black Adam in the thick of production, the A-list superstar has been drawing attention to Netflix’s upcoming blockbuster Red Notice.
All we’ve seen from the project so far is a few snippets of footage in the streaming service’s 2021 sizzle reel and a myriad of behind the scenes images, but the fact we’re getting Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot in the lead roles of the platform’s most expensive original film ever is more than enough to generate plenty of excitement.
The Rock hopped onto social media to unveil a pair of new images taken during production on the epic heist thriller, as well as teasing that some big news regarding the release date is coming soon, and you can check out the photos below.
Somewhere around Thanksgiving or closer to Christmas is when most folks are expecting Red Notice to drop, and given the talent on display and sheer scope hinted at in the footage, Extraction‘s record as the most-watched Netflix movie ever is in real jeopardy. Johnson, Reynolds and Gadot play an Interpol agent, conman and art thief respectively, drawn into an adventure when the titular arrest warrant is issued.
It’s the latest high profile gig for the world’s biggest movie star, who has Disney’s Jungle Cruise and a rumored cameo in Free Guy coming this summer, with Black Adam and DC League of Super-Pets releasing next year, while his autobiographical NBC sitcom Young Rock was recently renewed for a second season, so it’s all systems go.
Looking at the facts, it would appear as though nobody in Hollywood loves starring in a comic book movie more than Chris Evans, with the actor having racked up a huge number of credits in a variety of different of spins on the near-ubiquitous genre.
As well as playing the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Steve Rogers on ten occasions, eleven if the rumors of a What If…? cameo as an alternate version of Spider-Man pan out, he also suited up as the Human Torch in Tim Story’s pair of Fantastic Four blockbusters. On top of that, he voiced Casey Jones in the animated TMNT, stole scenes as Jake Jensen in The Losers, headlined Snowpiercer as Curtis Everett, and even original effort Push got a comic book tie-in before the movie itself hit theaters in 2009.
That’s without mentioning Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the cult classic still lauded by fans well over a decade after it was first released and flopped at the box office, which might be the most tragically overlooked and underrated entry in Evans’ back catalogue of seventeen outings and counting as a comic book character.
The star plays Lucas Lee, one of the many obstacles needing to be overcome by Michael Cera’s title hero in order to save the day and win the girl, and Chris Evans has an absolute ball with his performance. Sadly, Scott Pilgrim didn’t get to launch the franchise that was intended after earning less than $50 million globally, but it continues to find new fans on an almost annual basis. To illustrate that point even further, the kaleidoscopic adventure has mad its way up the Netflix viewership charts, and now ranks as one of the platform’s 20 most popular titles.
M. Night Shyamalan‘s career has been a rarity, in that the filmmaker has had almost complete creative control over his output since the very beginning, a luxury that very few writers and directors have been afforded in the modern era, all thanks to The Sixth Sense being one of the most impressive calling cards of the last quarter of a century.
The complete unknown’s first major studio film nabbed $672 million at the box office, punctured the zeitgeist and landed six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, but it can’t be argued that over the following two decades many of his subsequent projects were highly prone to self-indulgence.
It looked as though a resurgence of sorts was on the cards after the one-two punch of The Visit and Split did solid critical and commercial business, only for Glass to ultimately disappoint by failing to live up to the potential of the core Unbreakable crossover. Shyamalan is back with mysterious psychological thriller Old, which releases next month, and in a new interview he teased that audiences have never seen anything like it before.
“No one has ever seen anything like it in its tone and the way it’s just, I mean, it’s like nothing else. I’m deciding on the minor note; how to end on a minor note. Unbreakable ends on a kind of a dip, right? He goes to the dark note, that minor note at the end. The guy you thought was the best friend is the villain. The minor note sticks to you forever. My father’s very old right now. He has dementia. He comes and goes. And the kids are now directing and singing concerts and, you know, when did this happen? So I made a movie about that feeling.”
The bare bones of the Old‘s premise are inspired by acclaimed graphic novel Sandcastle, with a cast of characters trapped on a beach where they age rapidly every thirty minutes, forcing them into a race against the clock to figure out what’s going on and how they can stop it, before they simply die of old age by the time the credits roll. It’s definitely a unique hook, and the footage we’ve seen so far looks incredibly promising, but given his patchy track record, you never know until opening day which M. Night Shyamalan you’re going to get.
After first being dropped from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, something fans are clearly never going to let slide if the constant campaigning and petitioning is any indication, Johnny Depp then suffered the double blow of being axed from another major gig when Warner Bros. forced him to resign as Fantastic Beasts villain Grindelwald.
The actor’s supporters have already threatened to boycott the latest chapter in the Wizarding World saga when it arrives in theaters next summer, and you can guarantee that it’ll happen at least twice more when the sixth mainline Pirates of the Caribbean outing and Margot Robbie’s spinoff set sail into theaters around the world.
It’s not just the fans who have Depp’s back, but his friends and former colleagues as well, with Greg Ellis the latest member of the swashbuckling series’ ensemble to deride the decision made by Disney and Warner Bros. to boot him out of their respective properties.
“I’m mindful he’s still navigating his way through the legal system on many fronts, so the details of that I don’t talk about much. But I have been and will continue to be vocal. Many people have mis-characterised him. Part of it is the fear of media. Whether it be broadcast, whether it be movie studios, whether it be publishing, there is a fear that the perception of someone is negative, so they don’t want to be associated with that.
I do find it ironic that a man who is revered and loved and respected by so many people in the entertainment industry, and have nothing but great things to say about him, should be forcibly removed from a movie. Do I think he’s going to come back? Yes. To what degree, I’m not sure. There’s this reputation savaging that’s going on, this victimhood culture where victimhood is the new social currency and its economy is booming, and it’s been inflated.”
Ellis played the smarmy Lieutenant Theodore Groves in three of the first five blockbusters, and he clearly struck up a friendship with the leading man given that Depp has penned the introduction for his new book The Respondent: Exposing the Cartel of Family Law, based on his own experiences dealing with the legal system.
Most people would probably agree that the erstwhile Jack Sparrow has been harshly done by, but unless the Mouse House change their minds and backtrack on a decision that was initially made almost three years ago, then it’s full steam ahead for Pirates of the Caribbean without the brand’s main draw and selling point, which is definitely a risky strategy that could yet end up backfiring spectacularly.
There was clearly a lot more to Emilia Clarke‘s Qi’ra than met the eye, but unless the actress ends up rejoining the Star Wars franchise in a Disney Plus exclusive, something that’s admittedly been rumored on multiple occasions, then we won’t be getting to find out what really makes her tick.
The good news for fans of the expanded universe is that Qi’ra has made her return to official canon in the War of the Bounty Hunters comic book series, where she’s been revealed as the new leader of Crimson Dawn. Clarke revealed that she hasn’t been approached for a return to a galaxy far, far away just yet, but she has sought to pour cold water on a popular fan theory to have made the rounds in the aftermath of Solo.
Her connection to Darth Maul was deliberately left open-ended, and was poised to be continued in the sequel we’ll never get to see despite the best efforts of the fanbase, but one line of inquiry posited that Qi’ra was the one who tipped off Enfys Nest about Han Solo and Tobias Beckett’s attempts to pull of the train heist.
However, Emilia Clarke offered her own opinion on the matter, which included the revelation that she’d written pages upon pages of potential backstory and motivations for Qi’ra, had the opportunity to continue on in the role presented itself.
“Oh my goodness! That’s a really, really juicy one. I wrote pages about Qi’ra, behind-the-scenes Qi’ra, and all of the other stuff that was going on. But I think it is only when she sees Han that she realizes that there is a way out. That’s what I was playing. That’s definitely where I was at. I don’t think she felt herself to be strong enough at that point to go on and escape Dryden’s grip.
I think that Han is the slap around the face that made her go, ‘I was a whole person. I was this other thing. Where have the last three years gone?’. So it was that kind of thing, but I think your theory is very good. She had to have a plan before, you know what I mean? She had to go into that situation with her own agenda and with her own plan, that the audience then catches up with after the fact.”
The actress who embodied the character certainly has her own opinions on what really drove Qi’ra’s betrayal, but it remains completely open to interpretation seeing as we never got to revisit any of Solo‘s plot threads on the big screen. Fingers crossed, then, that the Disney Plus lineup will eventually dip into an aspect of the timeline that Star Wars fans would love to see more of.
