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    Margot Robbie Very Excited to Add Key Female Element to New 'Pirates of the Caribbean' Movie

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    When asked about the revival of the Disney movie franchise, the ‘Dreamland’ actress teases that while it is too early to talk about, it will have ‘lots of girl power.’

    Nov 24, 2020
    AceShowbiz – Margot Robbie teased details of a female-led “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie during a recent interview.
    The original Disney movie franchise stars Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow but, according to speculation, it’s set to be revived with a female-fronted spinoff.
    While promoting her new movie “Dreamland (2020)”, the 30-year-old actress was asked about the project, which is believed to be written by Christina Hodson, who wrote Margot’s movie “Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn”.
    Although Disney has not officially announced the movie yet, Margot told the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast: “(It will have) lots of girl power. No, it’s too early to talk about it.”

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    “I love Christina, obviously. I’m not a producer on Pirates, so I’ll sit back and kind of wait for the process,” she continued. “We’re really, really excited at the prospect of adding obviously a very key female element to that world.”
    Earlier this year, it was reported Margot would lead the new movie, which is believed be a new version with a new central story and characters as opposed to a spin-off.
    As for Johnny, longtime “Pirates Of The Caribbean” producer Jerry Bruckheimer previously admitted he was unsure about whether the actor would reprise his character as Captain Jack Sparrow in the next film. “The one we’re developing right now, we’re not sure quite what Johnny’s role is going to be,” Bruckheimer revealed in May. “So, we’re going to have to see.”
    Johnny debuted as Captain Jack Sparrow in 2003’s action-adventure “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”. The movie also starred Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush and Orlando Bloom.

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    George Clooney Gets Candid About Incorporating Felicity Jones' Pregnancy Into 'The Midnight Sky'

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    While he and his leading actress initially tried to hide her pregnancy during filming, the director of the Netflix film notes that the unborn baby ‘became somebody that was important’ to all of them.

    Nov 24, 2020
    AceShowbiz – George Clooney has Felicity Jones’ baby son to thank for making his new movie, “The Midnight Sky”, extra special, because her pregnancy news made him rethink the whole story.
    Clooney cast the Brit as an astronaut in the Netflix film he directs and stars in weeks before she realised she was pregnant, and when she told him, he eventually decided to incorporate her real-life story with the one in the film.
    “Wilber (son), while he was still in the womb, really was a character suddenly,” Clooney tells Deadline. “He became somebody that was important to all of us.”
    “The first thing you do is go, ‘Great. I’m thrilled for you’. Now it’s (your pregnancy) a problem for us and we’re going to have to solve it. The way we tried to solve it initially was by pretending it didn’t exist. Like shooting her from the neck up and doing body doubles and all that kind of stuff. On top of it being really tedious, it was draining the life out of the scenes.”

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    “We’re shooting scenes three times and she wasn’t comfortable with it because she was trying desperately to hide it, and she was showing pretty good at that point.”
    Clooney then had a moment of clarity and decided there was no reason for Jones’ character not to be pregnant too.
    “I woke up in the middle of the night and I just said, ‘People have sex’,” he recalls. “That’s what happens on two-year trips, and then I sort of pitched it to Felicity as, ‘Think of Frances McDormand in ‘Fargo’, where there was no real reason for her to be pregnant. That wasn’t a real storyline…’ Pregnant women do go to work every day, they do all of these things and they sort of never get represented.”
    “I said, ‘Let’s just make her a pregnant astronaut’. Then, as it went on, we had to start writing scenes to introduce that. It started to become really clear that little Wilber there was so important. He was the future and we were to guard him really carefully.”
    Jones’ pregnancy prompted Clooney to rework the ending of the film, and now he insists, “It ended up feeling as if it should have been in the script all along.”

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    Margot Robbie Very Excited to Add Key Female Element to New ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ Movie

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    Shawn Mendes Partners With Manager to Venture Into TV and Film With New Production Company

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    Permanent Content’s first offering will be ‘In Wonder’, a documentary which details the ‘In My Blood’ hitmaker’s rise to fame and is set to be released on Netflix on November 23.

    Nov 24, 2020
    AceShowbiz – Shawn Mendes and his manager Andrew Gertler have partnered for Permanent Content – a new film and television production company.
    The singer-songwriter and Gertler will develop scripted and documentary projects “focused on issues that impact or are important to today’s youth” under the moniker, with the Netflix Original documentary, “Shawn Mendes: In Wonder”, detailing Mendes’ rise to fame, their first offering.
    “I’m so excited for the launch of Permanent Content, with the Netflix documentary as our first project, and so many more exciting things we’re working on,” said the “In My Blood” star, reported Variety.

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    “Our goal is to create content that motivates and inspires people, by elevating young voices that are making change in the world around us, and highlighting the issues dearest to them.”
    Gertler added: “We’ve been hard at work for years assembling the right projects and partners to launch Permanent Content with. Working hand in hand with the “Where Were You in the Morning” singer, his foundation, Anonymous Content, and some other amazing producing partners, we have some really exciting projects in the works, with the goal of making an impact and leaving a permanent mark.”
    Additional projects will be developed via a joint venture with Anonymous Content.
    In Wonder debuted on Netflix on Monday, November 23, ahead of the release of Mendes’ fourth album, “Wonder”, on December 4. Leo Pearlman and Anonymous Content’s Zack Hayden are associate producers on the project, Island Films and Polygram produce. Also among the executive producers were Michele Anthony, Darcus Beese and Dave Harris.

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    John Boyega Gets Call From Studio Boss After Accusing Disney of Using His 'Star Wars' Role as Token

    Walt Disney Pictures

    The ‘Attack the Block’ actor who plays the former Stormtrooper Finn in the new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy reveals he had a heart-to-heart conversation with Kathleen Kennedy following his public complaints.

    Nov 24, 2020
    AceShowbiz – John Boyega had a heart-to-heart with Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy after he went public with his frustrations with his role in the “Star Wars” franchise.
    John’s portrayal of ex-Stormtrooper Finn was key to reboot instalment “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, but became less central to the plot of its two follow-ups – and he went public with his disappointment in a GQ interview this summer (20).
    He had previously revealed that he had buried the hatchet with Disney chiefs, but has now detailed how Kathleen offered him support once he had outlined his case to her.

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    “So I got on a phone call with Kathleen Kennedy and she verbally showed support and we got to have a really nice, transparent, honest conversation that is beneficial to both of us,” he tells BBC News.
    “I think these kinds of conversations, you can go into the realm of sounding like you’re just trying to save your own career, but what is great now is that it is a conversation that anyone has access to.”
    “Now people can express themselves about this knowing that any character we love, especially in these big franchises like the Marvels and Star Wars, we love them because of the moments that they are given, we love them because of those moments, and they’re heroic moments that these producers all decide for these characters so we need to see that in our characters that are maybe black and from other cultures.”
    In his chat with GQ, the “Attack the Block” star accused Disney bosses of marketing his character as, “much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side,” and made a similar point about Finn’s on screen love interest Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran.

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    'Predator 5' Could Be Set in the Past

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    Words are the plot of the upcoming new installment of the ‘Predator’ film franchise matches the description of a project called ‘Skulls’, which will center on a Comanche woman.

    Nov 23, 2020
    AceShowbiz – “Predator 5” is officially happening with Dan Trachtenberg on board as director. While details of the project are still kept under tight wraps, rumors have been floating around about a supposed plotline of the upcoming movie.
    According to Alien vs. Predator Galaxy, which claims to have known about the fifth “Predator” movie for a while now, the new installment of the sci-fi film franchise will be set in the past. The site reports that “it will focus around Native Americans before the territories were taken by the American settlers, featuring a First Nations cast.”
    The site additionally points out the similarity of the said “Predator 5” plotline to the plot description of “Skulls”, which Trachtenberg has been developing with 20th Century Studios and Disney since 2019. Citing Discussing Film as the original source, it is said that “Skulls” will follow a Comanche woman who goes against gender norms and traditions to become a warrior. “Skulls” is also said to be set during the American Civil War.
    With this, AvPGalaxy notes that “Skulls” is possibly a working title or codename for “Predator 5”.
    Besides tapping Trachtenberg at the helm, Disney’s 20th Century Studios has hired Patrick Aison, whose television credits include the series “Kingdom”, “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” and “Treadstone”, to write the script.
    After the news about his involvement in “Predator 5” broke, Trachtenberg took to Twitter to confirm it. “This was meant to be a surprise. Been working on this for almost 4 years now,” he wrote, before sharing his mixed feelings at how the news got leaked and spoiled their plans for an official announcement.

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    “I am very sad that what we had in store for how you could discover this movie will no longer happen. It’s a bummer,” he added. “But also…YAY!”

    Dan Trachtenberg confirmed he’s working on ‘Predator 5’.
    The original “Predator” movie was released in 1987 from director John McTiernan. It starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers and Jesse Ventura as commandos attempting to rescue hostages while being stalked in a jungle in Central America by a fearsome extraterrestrial, played by Kevin Peter Hall.
    The follow-up, 1990’s “Predator 2”, starred Danny Glover, Ruben Blades, Gary Busey, Maria Conchita Alonso and Bill Paxton along with Hall, who reprised the title role in a story set a decade after the events of the first film. Stephen Hopkins served behind the lens for the sequel.
    A third “Predator” movie, 2010’s “Predators”, was directed by Nimrod Antal and starred Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins and Laurence Fishburne as a group of mercenaries who are abducted and placed on a planet which acts as a game reserve for two warring tribes of extraterrestrial killers.
    Shane Black later gave his take on the hit franchise with 2018’s “The Predator” starring Boyd Holbrook and Olivia Munn among others. It follows a group of PTSD-afflicted soldiers and a scientist who must team up to fight off an invading pair of Predators and discover their plans for mankind.
    The four “Predator” movies earned $443 million worldwide, with John Davis producing all installments.

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    ‘Shawn Mendes: In Wonder’ Review: A Skin-Deep Portrait

    An early moment in “Shawn Mendes: In Wonder” shows its pop-heartthrob subject in the shower. You’ve seen this one before: a man in the raw, ready to reveal himself to the world.And so Mendes does, kind of, in the fragmented, glossy pieces of this coming-of-age tour doc that seeks to expand our understanding of where he is, where he’s come from and where he’s headed. The music video director Grant Singer’s Netflix feature captures the pop sensation at a complicated time full of teen-idol dualities, as he reconciles his explosive music career with his not-so-private life. He admits to longing for the mundanities of small-town life as an Ontario nobody, where he could just get high, eat beef jerky, kick back and stare at the stars with his friends. But the purity of what made him the global somebody he is today — performing covers of pop songs on Vine as a young teen — is now disrupted by superstardom. His life as captured by Singer involves swarms of tween girls and boys pouring their adoring tears all over him. And when he can’t perform a gig in Brazil because he has laryngitis, he beats himself up for disappointing 40,000 fans. All this pressure catches up to Mendes.[embedded content]So even if his music career is extraordinary, his problems are not. Singer’s behind-the-scenes performance and hometown footage marginally grounds the godlike perception of Mendes, who reveals his conventional human struggles: the fear of imperfection and the deriving of self-worth from his accomplishments. The movie chronicles him learning to let go of both.“In Wonder” wants so much to be a humanizing portrait, but it doesn’t go deep enough to crack Mendes’s polished love-crooner veneer, nor does it say anything new about fame that hasn’t been said in other pop-star docs of recent years. With its revelations tenuous, its function is clear: to promote his upcoming album.This one’s for his roughly 26 million Twitter followers fine with seeing Mendes performing acoustically in an empty bathroom, and sharing stolen moments with girlfriend Camila Cabello. Less enthusiastic fans might wish the film’s opening shower metaphor wasn’t just a tease. I, for one, was hoping there’d be more behind the curtain.Shawn Mendes: In WonderNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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    Meryl Streep Spits Bars About Michelle Obama in New Movie 'The Prom'

    More Magazine/David Slijper

    The ‘Mamma Mia!’ actress name-checks the former First Lady as she shows off her rapping skills in an adaptation of the 2018 critically-acclaimed Broadway show.

    Nov 23, 2020
    AceShowbiz – Meryl Streep raps about Michelle Obama in a brand new track from her movie musical “The Prom”.
    The star performs the original song “Wear Your Crown” in the flick, also starring Nicole Kidman and James Corden, with the “Mamma Mia!” star spitting bars about the former FLOTUS.
    “Gotta wear your crown or your tiara / Now is the time to bust out the mascara / Who needs shade, there’s nothing dullah,” Meryl raps. “We’re living life in full technicolour / But if your sparkle starts to fade / Go out and start your own parade.”
    “And if somebody starts in with new drama / Just go high like Michelle Obama,” she adds in the tune, which was written during post-production because director Ryan Murphy decided the movie needed to “end on a high.”

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    [embedded content]
    Co-songwriter Adam Anders told USA Today they wrote a female-empowerment pop/Broadway hybrid “that would encompass all of the emotions of the film, but wrap it all in an uptempo banger you can dance to.”
    “Of course, we had to do this all during Covid, so it all had to happen via Zoom sessions as we were locked down,” he assured.
    “The Prom” is due to hit Netflix on 11 December (20).
    “We wrote a song that was a sad song, but it didn’t fit with the tone of the movie,” Ryan Murphy said. “And then we got to the end of the movie, with the end-credit design sequence. When I saw that, I think we needed an end-credit song that’s about the women. It’s about the female power in the film. I told the songwriting team and the composer, ‘Let’s do something upbeat, that we can send people out in a celebratory fashion, and let’s have all the women do the vocal tracks. Furthermore, let’s have Meryl Streep rap.”

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    Settle In for the Season With These Films

    We’ve reached that time of year when the small screen is filled with Christmas movies, populated by happy folks in coats and scarves, frolicking in the snow. This will not be a list of those kinds of films. This collection is more for all of you who love the chilly weather, but who can’t stand “Jingle Bell Rock.”Below, you’ll find winter sports stories, icy outdoor adventures and intense dramas set in places so cold that the characters have no choice but to shelter inside — however uneasily. Consider this list counter-programming for the holiday season, for when you’re eager to stream something completely Santa-free.‘The Ice Storm’Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.This adaptation of Rick Moody’s novel is set over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, but it is in no way a “holiday movie.” The director Ang Lee and the screenwriter James Schamus — and a cast that includes Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Tobey Maguire and Christina Ricci — concentrate on the subtle feelings of betrayal, arousal, loneliness and nostalgia, experienced by an upscale suburban Connecticut family and their neighbors, at a time when kids and adults alike seemed to be experimenting with recreational drugs and libertine sex. As these characters stumble through this new world, a literal ice storm transforms their surroundings, making every move more treacherous.[Read the New York Times review.]‘Transsiberian’Stream it on Amazon Prime, Peacock, Tubi or Vudu; rent or buy it on Google Play or YouTube.Something about the cold and snowy weather seems to lend itself to stories about trains, ones that snake their way through a forbidding wilderness. (See also: “Snowpiercer.”) In “Transsiberian,” two couples with troubled pasts meet on a train, speeding from China to Russia. The cramped spaces and the inhospitable outdoors create problems for these travelers, as they find it increasingly difficult to keep secrets from each other — or from the shady characters who are on their tail. The director Brad Anderson makes great use of some real Baltic locations, staging white-knuckle action sequences in places that look like the edge of the world.[Read the New York Times review.]‘A Simple Plan’Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.Frigid winter landscapes also factor into the plot of “A Simple Plan,” a script adaptation by Scott B. Smith of his taut thriller novel and directed by Sam Raimi. Billy Bob Thornton and Bill Paxton play brothers who find a downed airplane and a sack of money in the Minnesota woods. Their previously placid lives are then violently disrupted as they try to figure out how to hold onto the cash. They quickly discover how hard it is to stay cool — so to speak — in a snow-covered small town, where each step leaves a mark, leading back to their door.[Read the New York Times review.]‘The Hateful Eight’Stream it on Netflix; rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.Most of this leisurely western takes place indoors, at a remote Wyoming trading post, where an eclectic assemblage of outlaws and lawmen — many of them veterans of the Civil War — wait out a blizzard and stew over old beefs. An all-star cast (including Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Dern, Tim Roth, Kurt Russell and an Oscar-nominated Jennifer Jason Leigh) makes the most of the writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s flavorfully vulgar dialogue, treating the material almost like a stage play. But Tarantino never lets the audience forget how harsh the conditions are outside, where the bitterly cold winds of a still-divided nation seep through the cracks in the walls.[Read the New York Times review.]‘Miracle’Stream it on Disney+ or Netflix; rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu or YouTube.In the winter of 1980, millions of Americans cheered the U.S. Olympic hockey team as they skated to an improbable gold medal. “Miracle” dramatizes this inspiring victory, with Kurt Russell playing the coach, Herb Brooks, a thoughtful leader who convinced his players that if they put aside their old rivalries, fought through their aches and pains and played selflessly, they could beat anyone — even the dominant Soviets. The film’s director, Gavin O’Connor, emphasizes the story’s Cold War backdrop not so much for political reasons, but to remind viewers that the United States was in a bleak place back then, in need of a little uplift and warmth.[Read the New York Times review.] More