Hobbs And Shaw Just Re-Wrapped After Filming Some Major New Scenes

Hobbs And Shaw Just Re-Wrapped After Filming Some Major New Scenes

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson posts so many "wrap" photos he could stack them under a Christmas tree. (I'll see myself out.) He just wrapped Jumanji 3 and now he has announced another wrap for Hobbs & Shaw.

That Fast and Furious franchise spinoff is coming out August 2, not even three months from now, so it would be strange to see it just wrap filming this week. Dwayne Johnson previously shared an emotional wrap video in mid-February, when initial filming was complete. But it's common to head back to set for reshoots and "additional photography," and it looks like Hobbs & Shaw did just that for a few key scenes -- including a massive showdown with Idris Elba's criminal mastermind Brixton Lore.

Here's The Rock's first of three posts on re-wrapping Hobbs & Shaw, with this one teasing the fight ahead as the "Biggest showdown the FAST & FURIOUS franchise has ever seen":

After that, The Rock -- aka Pig Daddy? -- showed off his ride before filming one last scene for the movie.

Finally, he shared an official this-is-it production wrap post, sharing this photo to tease "a fun final touch for our movie":

Nice! Hobbs & Shaw takes place two years after The Fate of the Furious. Dwayne Johnson's "ice cold can of whup-ass" Luke Hobbs has to team up with "champagne problem" Jason Statham's Deckard Shaw to take down Idris Elba's former MI6 agent Brixton, who is now a "super-human" terrorist (aka "Black Superman"). Vanessa Kirby co-stars as MI6 field agent Hattie Shaw, who happens to be Deckard's sister, with Helen Mirren as Magdalene Shaw.

The official title of this thing is Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, but that still sounds like a variety show to me. Hobbs & Shaw opens its can of whup-ass in theaters on August 2, as one of the many movies worth keeping track of in 2019.

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Why James Gunn’s Brightburn Is Rated R

Why James Gunn’s Brightburn Is Rated R

Currently there are two movie genres especially blowing up box office numbers and discussion amongst moviegoers: superheroes and horror. The upcoming James Gunn-produced film Brightburn will explore a bit of both genres by putting a terrifying spin on the Superman origin story. The horror flick starring David Denman and Elizabeth Banks looks to be leaning a lot more into its horror elements, per the recent release of its rating. Check it out:

Rated R for horror violence/bloody images, and language.

The Motion Picture Association of America has deemed Brightburn with a rating only fit for mature audiences, so get ready for some serious frights and gore. The horror will be set off by a young boy named Brandon Breyer (Jackson A. Dunn) who mysteriously falls to Earth in a spaceship as a baby, is found by the Breyers and raised as their own. The story is quite reminiscent of Clark Kent, right down to having superpowers such as super strength, flight and heat vision. There’s a twist though: instead of becoming a boy scout superhero who saves the world time after time, the boy starts using his powers to inflict pain on others and looks to become the evil entity of Brightburn.

From the trailers that have been released for Brightburn so far, it looks terrifying. So it doesn’t come as much of a surprise the flick would receive an R-rating ahead of its spring release. The footage sees Brandon transform from an unassuming kid who is bullied to one who resorts to violently breaking the hand of a classmate and testing the limits of his powers. Once he gets the gist of his strength, he starts to use it to wreak havoc on people all over town in a red mask, even putting in danger his adopted parents.

Brightburn was written by James Gunn’s two brothers Mark and Brianz and is directed by David Yarovesky, who helmed The Hive in 2014. As mentioned earlier, Guardians of the Galaxy’s James Gunn is also on as producer for this intriguing take on a familiar origin story that is usually much more innocent. The movie certainly looks to be a fun take on the Superman story that flips it on its head and goes for a much more mature and frighteningly dark tale. How else will it use its comic book roots, I wonder?

Brightburn was originally set to come out in fall of 2018, but with the controversy surrounding James Gunn's firing from Disney possibly factoring in, the film was pushed back to May 24, alongside the live-action remake of Aladdin. Since the date shift, Gunn has been hired to helm The Suicide Squad for Warner Bros and rehired for Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, putting the filmmaker’s name in much better condition to be slapped on marketing for Brightburn, beside the many other exciting 2019 releases coming this spring.

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Glass’ Poor Reviews Made M. Night Shyamalan Cry

Glass’ Poor Reviews Made M. Night Shyamalan Cry

It’s never easy to learn that something you’ve made isn’t liked by others. Director and writer M. Night Shyamalan has experienced this several times in his career, most recently with Glass, the final chapter of his Eastrail 177 trilogy that began with Unbreakable and continued with Split. In fact, Shyamalan cried upon learning that Glass was taking a critical beating back in January. As he recalled:

I was in London when I heard the U.S. reviews for Glass were poor. I was in a makeup chair for a TV show, and I cried… We’d just come back from the London screenings, which were through the roof. We had only great screenings of the movie around the world. So essentially I wasn’t prepared. I had this false sense of being a part of the group in a safe way. But boy, did I feel distraught that day.

For nearly two decades Unbreakable was a standalone feature in M. Night Shyamalan’s filmography, but the filmmaker finally revisited that world with Split, which, in typical Shaymalan twist fashion, had Bruce Willis’ David Dunn appear at the end. Like Unbreakable, Split was met with positive reception, so shortly after its release, Shyamalan announced he’d be making Glass next. The hype surrounding Glass only grew over the next two years (give or take), especially after the first trailer dropped last summer.

Unfortunately for M. Night Shyamalan, Glass didn’t receive anywhere near the same level of approval as its predecessors, ranking at 37% among critics on Rotten Tomatoes. In other words, it wasn’t a flop across the board (as The Last Airbender and After Earth basically were), but it wasn’t a critical triumph either.

Hearing that Glass wasn’t being well-received was enough to make M. Night Shyamalan shed some tears while he was promoting the movie across the pond, but he felt better once he accounted for how commercially successful it was. Elaborating on how he felt at the time during a recent lecture at NYU’s Stern School of Business (via Indiewire), Shyamalan said:

Honestly, I was feeling like, ‘Will they never let me be different without throwing me on the garbage pile?’ The feeling of worthlessness rushed me, and to be honest, it doesn’t ever really leave. But anyway, the film went on, right? It became number one in every country in the world, and it represents my beliefs.

Glass ended up making nearly $247 million worldwide off a $20 million budget, so on the money side of things, it definitely performed splendidly, although it still ended up falling short of Unbreakable and Split’s hauls. In any case, M. Night Shyamalan appears to have made peace with how things turned out on Glass, though he still acknowledged that he still gets “tired” dealing with this kind of critical reaction to his work.

M. Night Shyamalan is now working on his upcoming Apple series Servant and also has a movie called Labor of Love in development. When more details become available on either of those projects, we here at CinemaBlend will let you know about them. Glass can be purchased Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD, and you can look through our 2019 release schedule to learn what movies are coming out later this year.

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Has Anyone Seen The Ending To Avengers: Endgame Yet? Here's What The Russos Say

Has Anyone Seen The Ending To Avengers: Endgame Yet? Here's What The Russos Say

When Avengers: Endgame comes to an end, it will mark not just the ending of a 3-hour film, it will also complete the fight began in Avengers: Infinity War, close out Phase 3 and conclude the 11-year, 22-film Infinity Saga. Needless to say, this is a highly anticipated ending, and that hype is matched only by the secrecy surrounding it. However, some people have already seen the ending to Avengers: Endgame, as the Russo Brothers explained:

Joe Russo: We haven’t told anyone. Certainly people have seen it. We have a lot of technicians who are working on the movie at the end there. There’s a couple of hundred people who have seen the film.

Anthony Russo: But it’s important – look we wouldn’t want to spoil the film for anybody. We love the experience in the theater, you know, and the sense of discovery you have as the movie unfolds. We just try to provide for others what we want for ourselves.

The Russo Brothers are trying to keep the film’s secrets as best as possible, and although they haven’t told anyone the ending to Avengers: Endgame, they are far from the only ones that have seen it. This is to be expected. The Russo Brothers are the directors, but there are a ton of people that need to work on a film, especially one of this magnitude, after the cameras stop rolling.

So while secrecy is paramount, those production realities, especially with the movie so close to its theatrical release, necessitate that other people see the ending to Avengers: Endgame. As Joe Russo told Digital Spy, there are a couple hundred people who have seen the ending to Endgame at this point; a couple hundred people that know how the dusted characters return and who sacrifices themselves to ensure that victory.

That might sound like a lot, but there is no way for this film to be complete and have an ending without some people working on that ending. Those lucky technicians putting the finishing touches on the ending also had the pleasure of seeing that much speculated and theorized-about conclusion before any of us. That early look seems like a fair trade off for their hard work and secrecy.

Nevertheless, as Anthony Russo added, the directors really want audiences to go in and enjoy Avengers: Endgame unspoiled. The Russo Brothers love sitting in a theater and being surprised like the rest of us and they want to preserve that pure experience for audiences as much as possible. It’s important to them that this movie, that they have worked so hard on for so long, is able to surprise and thrill audiences in the way it was meant to.

Therefore, I imagine Marvel and the Russos have kept the circle of trust as small as they could, which I expect means that Tom Holland and Mark Ruffalo have not yet had the privilege of seeing Avengers: Endgame. But even the secrets that the actors do know have been quite stressful to keep, as Scarlett Johansson recently lamented. It’s one thing to keep a secret between friends, it's another entirely for a massive film with a budget in the hundreds of millions and people constantly asking and trying to trick you into revealing its mysteries.

You can find out for yourself how Avengers: Endgame ends when it opens on April 26. Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to see this and all the biggest movies headed your way this year.

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John Wick 3 Filming Was Hijacked By A Thousand Ballsy Cats

John Wick 3 Filming Was Hijacked By A Thousand Ballsy Cats

So far, 2019 has been the year of the movie cat -- between Captain Marvel’s Goose and Church in Pet Sematary. So while the John Wick franchise has always centered on dogs, including the upcoming third chapter, felines marked their territory.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum director Chad Stahelski recalled a particular cat invasion during the filming of the sequel in Essaouira, Morocco. The sequence features Keanu Reeves’ Wick and new character Sofia (played by Halle Berry) and her pair of Belgian Malinois hound protectors fighting off a small army of assassins. Here’s what happened, in Stahelski’s words:

The Moroccans are not big on canines. Love a fucking cat, though. There had to be thousands. We went there in the winter when we scouted and they weren’t that prevalent. We were like, There’s a few cats here, we’ll get a cat department, and we’re going to move all the cats out. We show up to shoot and there were literally a thousand cats, okay? And the cats have balls of steel. They’re not afraid of anything.

The irony! The director told Entertainment Weekly that, as a result, the crew had to build massive cages to house the cat residents while they shot the scene. They also tasked themselves with feeding them, Chad Stahelski commenting that there were more felines to feed than cast and crew members put together.

Halle Berry’s hounds, who she trained herself, were to be a major component of the scene in Morocco. But, as you can imagine, thousands of cats are distracting. Chad Stahelski continued with these words:

What do Belgian Malinois love to chase? Fucking cats! While Keanu Reeves is killing ten guys over there, Halle is killing ten guys over here, and [there is the] stunt guy the dog’s got to focus on. You want that dog focused on what he’s supposed to bite, and what he’s not supposed to bite. Hit the mark, right? And there’s ten cats walking around and you’re going, ‘Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.’ You’re sitting behind the monitor going, ‘What’s the dog looking at? What’s the dog looking at? Oh my god oh my god, he’s going to bite — Argh!’ It got a little crazy between cat-wrangling, and dog-wrangling, and people-wrangling. And you’ve got the studio back [in America] going, ‘Why are you a little behind? Just get the dog to do [it].’ And you’re like, I don’t speak dog. If I did I’d be fucking rich! Anyway, that was kind of fun.

Sounds like a bit of a mess… but it makes for a great story and hopefully some great content for the John Wick 3 bonus features. The crew did not expect to run into cats, of all problems on set -- especially during a scene featuring dogs, no less.

In addition to working closely with the hounds -- such as a sequence where one of the dogs jumps off her back, scales a wall and takes someone down from above -- Halle Berry also trained hard to do her own badass stunts during the movie’s fight scenes. The actress has the bruises to show for it because she actually broke three ribs during rehearsal. She doesn’t know how it happened but considers it her "badge of honor."

Unexpected cat setbacks aside, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is shaping up to be a highly-anticipated release. It's already being highly praised by critics, with one reviewer deeming it an “action masterpiece." The movie is expected to make $30 to $40 million during its opening weekend, making it the biggest debut for the franchise yet. John Wick hits theaters on May 17.

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Godzilla Fan Dies Before Drive-In King Of Monsters Screening Can Be Arranged

Godzilla Fan Dies Before Drive-In King Of Monsters Screening Can Be Arranged

It's a scenario we've seen several times in the last few years. Somebody is a huge fan of a particular movie property, excited to see the next installment that's set to come out. Unfortunately, this fan is terminally ill and may not live until the official release date. Social media then picks up the call to try and make an early screening happen. It's remarkable how frequently these stories have had happy endings. Unfortunately, the most recent example has had no such result. George Root III, who wanted nothing more than to see Godzilla: King of the Monsters, has passed away before having a chance to do so.

It was only within the last couple of days that the story of George Root III broke through the noise of the internet to really get noticed. Root had stage four cancer and was a massive fan of two things, Godzilla and the Transit Drive-In in Lockport, New York. Root was friends with the theater's owner, Rick Cohen and it was Cohen who attempted to get his friend's dying wish to come true and get a screening of the upcoming Godzilla: King of the Monsters to screen at the theater for Root.

Unfortunately, almost as soon as the request began to pick up steam, it was announced that it was already too late. George Root III died Thursday of the cancer he'd been fighting for four years.

Part of what makes this all the more heartbreaking, is that there's a pretty decent chance that if Root had lived, he would have received his wish. This is far from the first time that a terminally ill person has made a request like this and frequently, those requests have been granted. Disney has granted personal screenings of both Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Avengers: Endgame to under similar circumstances. Studios have been remarkably willing to accommodate these requests so there's no reason to believe this one would have been any different.

Yesterday Godzilla: King of the Monsters director Mike Dougherty retweeted a post referencing George Root's struggle, after he had passed, which means the director had been made aware of the situation. Things really might have worked out if only the timing hadn't been so tight.

Considering that we're dealing with terminally ill patients, it's actually remarkable just how often these stories have happy endings. Of course, that makes it all the sadder that this one does not.

Still, those that picked up the call for George Root III aren't done simply because he's gone. According to the Buffalo News, those that were once campaigning to get him a screening are now campaigning to get him added to the credits of Godzilla: King of the Monsters. It would certainly be nice to see a dedication or "In memory of" added to the beginning or end of the film. Such a tribute would probably mean the world to the loved ones he left behind.

We'll have to wait and see if anything like that happens. Godzilla: King of the Monsters will be in theaters May 31.

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The Last Jedi’s Rian Johnson Really Loves First The Rise of Skywalker Trailer

The Last Jedi’s Rian Johnson Really Loves First The Rise of Skywalker Trailer

Unofficially, there seems to be a war between those who support Star Wars: The Last Jedi and those who are embracing Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. With J.J. Abrams returning to the fold as co-writer and director of this new film, it felt to some like a bit of a rejection of the bold new direction that Rian Johnson had brought his Star Wars film towards. Those feelings are invalid now, as Johnson himself saw the trailer for the ninth episode of the Skywalker Saga, and shared the following rave review:

It’s hard to argue with a statement like that, as Rian Johnson is as much of a Star Wars fan as J.J. Abrams is. While some may have thought that Abrams’ return would look radically different from Johnson’s middle installment of this third act trilogy, the trailer to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker looks like it fits nicely into the trajectory that the previous film already set up.

What’s also nice to know is the admiration between these two directors is mutual, as earlier today J.J. Abrams handed out a very special thank you to Rian Johnson, in particular for hiring actor Kelly Marie Tran. This comes after Johnson commented on how he’s actually interested to see what J.J. Abrams does with the Star Wars universe in his latest film, even if it happens to retcon pieces of The Last Jedi in order to close this portion of the series.

Though it’s not like Rian Johnson isn’t heading back to that galaxy far, far away himself. Much as Abrams came back for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Johnson will be making more magic in the franchise himself. As previously reported, Rian Johnson is still on track for the trilogy of Star Wars films that take place outside of the Skywalker Saga’s episodic structure. When exactly that’ll take place is in question, particularly in the light of the hiatus recently announced by Disney CEO Bob Iger. But at least for now, as exhibited in his Twitter feed’s latest output, Johnson is still very much on board for whatever comes next.

Star Wars fans, as any fandom at its best behavior, lift each other up in the name of their appreciation of the series. Now that both J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson have provided a bridge between their theoretical halves of the property, it’s up to the fans of both directors to meet in the middle, as they await this next and last chapter of the classic story arc to come to a close.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker heads to theaters on December 20. However, if you’re looking for some movie excitement to tide you over until then, head to our 2019 release schedule to get a jump on this year’s biggest debuts.

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