Author: Trafficblast

The first trailer for the new Pixar movie Luca has been released. The film is an animated fantasy comedy set on the Italian Riviera, and it hits theaters on June 18.

The movie follows a young boy named Luca and his best friend Alberto, as they spend a glorious summer together, playing in the countryside and streets of a small seaside town. The only problem is that Luca and Alberto are actually sea monsters, who transform back into their “real” forms when they get wet, and it doesn’t look like the town people are very friendly towards strange aquatic creatures. It looks very funny, charming, and highly imaginative–check the trailer out below:

The voicecast for Luca has also been announced. The movie stars Jacob Tremblay (Room, The Predator) as Luca and Jack Dylan Grazer (Shazam, It) as Alberto, plus Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan as Luca’s parents and Italian comedian Saverio Raimondo as the town’s bully.

Luca is directed by Enrico Casarosa. While this is Casarosa’s feature debut, he previously worked in the art department on the Pixar movies Coco, Up, and Ratatouille.

In an interview with Collider, Casarosa spoke about how the movie might be viewed by younger audiences after the events of the past year. “I think that the relationship between the boys is gonna bring back a lot of memories when people watch this and I’m hoping that when people watch this, they’ll be able to forget about COVID,” he said. “But I mean, hopefully when this comes out, COVID would slow down. But right now, I think especially a lot of kids are really missing their friends and this movie is all about friendship.”

In related news, Disney’s animated fantasy Raya and the Last Dragon will be released next month. The film will be a simultaneous release with theaters and Disney+ Premium Access, and it arrives on March 5.

Fans of Respawn’s Titanfall series are eager for a third game, but it hasn’t been announced yet. EA Studios boss Laura Miele told IGN that the decision to make a third game or not will be decided upon by Respawn.

“Apex takes place in the Titanfall world and the Respawn team is incredibly proud of that legacy and brand,” she said. “That team will determine what the future holds for Apex and Titanfall. I don’t believe in directing or telling games teams what to create, it has to come from the player community, and the inspiration and motivation of developers.”

While Respawn will get to weigh in on if it wants to make a sequel, EA itself controls the money and will get to decide to fund it or not, it seems.

“There is a lot of creative autonomy within Electronic Arts but there are certain values and principles we have as a company that we just couldn’t allow to be compromised,” Miele said.

Also in the interview, Miele spoke about how EA has a renewed focus on listening to player feedback and including their opinions in the process of decision-making.

“In terms of our game development philosophy, our players are always our north star,” Miele said. “As I started this current role, I wanted to strip away some of the preconceived notions about what games we should be investing in and really start listening to players and incorporating their voice into our development process. Since then, we have announced a slate of games that players asked for: a new Skate, College Football, a Command & Conquer remaster, the Mass Effect Trilogy and we developed free content in Battlefront 2 for several years to turn the perception of that game completely around.”

You can read the full interview at IGN.

In October 2019, EA executive Blake Jorgensen said Respawn was spending a lot of its time focusing on the microtransaction-rich Apex Legends and that fans should stay patient for Titanfall 3.

“We really want to keep the team hyper-focused on [Apex Legends] because we see there’s so much opportunity there, so I can’t give you a sense of if and when [Titanfall 3] will come, but it’s still a great brand and we certainly won’t forget about it down the road,” he said.

As he has said before, Sacha Baron Cohen is finished with the Borat character. He told Entertainment Weekly that the 2020 sequel would be his last because filming the movies got “too dangerous” due to the stunts he was pulling and the risks he was taking.

“It got too dangerous,” he said. “There were a couple of times I had to put on a bulletproof vest to go and shoot a scene, and you don’t want to do that too many times in your life. I was pretty lucky to get out this time, so no, I’m not doing it again. I’m going to stay with the scripted stuff.”

Also in the interview, Baron Cohen spoke about the challenging nature of filming the Borat movies, which required him to fully immerse himself in the character while also keeping a section of his brain available to make notes for the production of the film.

“You can be physically assaulted. You can even be shot,” he said “I never broke character thought internally, and this is an old thing to talk about since I’ve never talked about it, is that mentally, while I’m still fully in character to the person that I’m with, I mentally taking notes of things that are useful for the movie. Like a good poker player, you can never reveal to your opponents that what they’ve said is significant or in any way shocking. Otherwise they’re not going to feel comfortable enough to reveal anything else.”

“There were two things going on. There’s the outward impression to the people around me and then there’s what is going on inside my brain.”

Back in January, Baron Cohen spoke about how he was “fairly traumatized” after filming the 2009 comedy Bruno and he thought he was done playing undercover characters. But he came back to make the Borat sequel because he believed that “democracy was in peril.” He wanted people to see the movie and decide to not vote for Trump.

“I brought Borat out because of Trump,” he said. “There was a purpose to this movie, and I don’t really see the purpose to doing it again. So yeah, he’s locked away in the cupboard.”

While Baron Cohen might not bring back Borat for a third movie, actress Maria Bakalova, who played Borat’s daughter Tutar in the sequel, has said she would be up for reprising her character.

Video game movies have long been seen as cursed, with adaptations usually turning out mediocre at best and terrible at worst. Yet something has shifted in the last few years, with films such as Detective Pikachu and Sonic The Hedgehog proving the formula can work, and studios snapping up adaptation deals at incredible rates. A feature by The Ringer has looked into the phenomenon, tapping a few industry experts to explain how and why the industry interest in games has grown so exponentially.

A few projects were singled out as turning points in the reputation of video game adaptations including Sonic The Hedgehog, the 2020 film which overcame a rough start to become one of the top performing video game movies ever.

Dmitri Johnson, who co-produced Sonic under his company dj2 Entertainment, was involved in the movie’s on-again-off-again production since 2012. He said that “everyone thought it was a joke,” during the early phases of production, but that attitudes changed following the film’s highly successful release. “Shortly after that, the incoming calls definitely increased from studios [and] networks saying, ‘Hey, whaddya got next?'”

“I think from the business side, that’s when that part clicked,” said Mike Goldberg, a partner at the talent agency that represents Johnson. He added that Sonic was “a huge win for the concept that movies can actually do well based off video game IP. It isn’t a curse, it’s all about what that partnership looks like and what that execution is.”

Simon Pulman, a lawyer who is frequently involved in licensing franchises for film, pointed the finger at Netflix’s successful adaptations as a reason for the industry interest. He pointed to the Henry Cavill-led Witcher series as “something that really raised all tides” for video game adaptations.

As far as why some of the new movies have been working out where past video game adaptations failed, all three of the professionals interviewed pointed to an increased spirit of collaboration with the studios and creatives who make the game.

“In the past, when a studio would take a game IP, be it Super Mario Bros., or name an early adaptation, I think it was common practice to take the IP, ‘Thank you very much,’ and kind of shove the partner to the side,” Johnson said.

“There is a new generation of executives who play games and understand games,” Pulman said. “And therefore, they understand the value of the IP. They understand the value of the community and the gamers, and they’re respectful towards the source material. I don’t think I’ve done a game deal in the last three years where the game publisher or the game developer has not been involved in some capacity, and that has been a big change.”

There’s plenty of examples of this spirit of collaboration in upcoming productions, such as the HBO The Last of Us TV series which has brought Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann on as a writer and collaborator.

Of course this doesn’t mean that modern video game movies are all going to be bomb-proof–last year’s Monster Hunter movie failed to hit with audiences or critics, no matter whether they liked the games or not. The Warcraft movie of a few years ago was another high-profile video game flop, but we can only hope that more adaptations of gaming’s most beloved franchises will see success on the level of Sonic, or Netflix’s Witcher.

Nickelodeon is establishing a new division dedicated entirely to creating content in the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise. Avatar Studios is being run by Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, creators of the original animated series. The duo will also serve as co-chief creative officers as the studio creates new animated series and movies set in the world of Avatar.

As reported by Deadline, Avatar Studios will produce content that will be aired on Nickelodeon, the home of the original series and its spin-off, The Legend of Korra. The content will also make its way to Paramount+, as well as third-party platforms. Theatrical releases are also expected for the movies.

An animated movie is the first project for Avatar Studios and will begin production later this year.

“Avatar The Last Airbender and [The Legend of Korra] have grown at least ten-fold in popularity since their original hit runs on Nickelodeon, and Ramsey Naito and I are incredibly excited to have Mike and Bryan’s genius talent on board to helm a studio devoted to expanding their characters and world into new content and formats for fans everywhere,” said ViacomCBS Kids & Family president Brian Robbins.

“Creator-driven stories and characters have long been the hallmarks of Nickelodeon, and Avatar Studios is a way to give Mike and Bryan the resources and runway to open up their imaginations even more and dive deeper into the action and mythology of Avatar as we simultaneously expand upon that world and the world of content available on Paramount+ and Nickelodeon.”

Beyond the two existing animated series, Avatar has branched out into comic books with some success. Less successful, however, was a live-action adaptation directed by M. Night Shyamalan, which was critically panned and is derided by fans. Netflix is currently working on an Avatar series, but the franchise’s original creators are no longer involved.

Beavis and Butt-Head are finally making a return. The animated comedy duo will star in a new movie headed directly to the new streaming service Paramount+, announced today during the ViacomCBS investors day call.

Both Beavis and Butt-Head joined the call via Zoom to announce the project. Check out their cameo below.

News about the movie’s planned premiere, premise, and production schedule have been kept a mystery. The movie has no title as of yet and it is unclear of who the original creative team will be involved at this time. The animated Zoom call certainly sounded like the work of series creator Mike Judge, but his name was not mentioned in the presentation. This is the second Beavis and Butt-Head feature film, following the 1996 theatrical movie, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.

Paramount+ will launch on March 4.

The slices of the streaming pie are getting smaller and smaller, but ViacomCBS is working hard to grab its piece. Paramount+, recently rebranded from CBS All Access, is heading to its back catalog once again. The service announced a raft of new shows greenlit for Paramount+ this week, cherry-picking from films as far back as 1969.

Joining the previously-announced Grease prequel musical and Godfather documentary are five new shows based on films from Paramount’s library: The Italian Job, Fatal Attraction, Love Story, Flashdance, and The Parallax View.

Each show is taking a slightly different approach to updating its material. The Italian Job acts as a sequel to the original 1969 film–ignoring the 2003 remake. The show will focus on the grandchildren of Michael Caine‘s character, Charlie Croker, who inherit his safety deposit box and set out to find the Italian bullion from the movie. Hawaii Five-O writer Matt Wheeler is helping the show. Donald De Line, who produced that 2003 remake, is onboard as well.

Fatal Attraction released in 1987 starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close as a man stalked by a woman with whom he had a one night stand. The new series will update the material, according to Paramount Television Studios President Nicole Clemens, with modern attitudes toward things like personality disorders and stalking. Stanley Jaffe and Sherry Lansing, who produced the original film, are back on board to produce. Alexandra Cunningham and Kevin Hynes of Dirty John will write the script.

Also coming are Love Story, based on the 1970 film and produced by The O.C. and Gossip Girl masterminds Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage; Flashdance will bring the 1983 feature to life in a modern-day setting focusing on a Black woman in the ballet world; The Parallax View, about a journalist investigating a secretive organization called The Parallax Corporation, does not yet have a writer attached, though Paula Wagner (Mission: Impossible) will executive produce.

Paramount has not revealed premiere dates or time frames for any of these shows just yet, as most of them are in very early stages of pre-production.

Paramount+ launches March 4.

The first footage of the highly anticipated Halo show has debuted–but you’re not allowed to see it. The footage was shown during ViacomCBS’s February 24 investor presentation, but as the company introduced whatever was shown, the screen faded to a blue screensaver for most of the people watching. It seems only the actual investors on the call got to see what the Halo show will look like.

No doubt Halo fans will find this to be a lackluster way for ViacomCBS to finally show off the Halo series. The footage was played directly after the company announced that the series won’t air on Showtime after all, but on the ViacomCBS streaming service Paramount+ (previously CBS All Access). That news came along with a ton of other Paramount+ news, like the announcement of a Beavis and Butt-Head movie and a Frasier revival.

The Halo show has been in the works for years, originally with Steven Spielberg attached. We still know very little about it, besides a handful of casting appointments (such as Orange is the New Blacks’ Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief and Jen Taylor, who played Cortana in the Halo games, reprising her role). We also know that the show has shot in Budapest.

Other than that, details about the Halo show are scarce–unless, of course, you’re a ViacomCBS investor who got to see the first footage from the series debut. So, yeah–if you know one, send them our way. In the meantime, look forward to Paramount+ debuting March 4, and the Halo show arriving sometime after that.