Movie News: Disney Does Horror? Stephen King Reigns. More Dune, Legolas!

September 9, 2024
ALEXANDER

Movie News: Disney Does Horror? Stephen King Reigns. More Dune, Legolas!

I'm your Gay News Guy – this is the news, casual, sassy, unfiltered, and a little hungover. Ok here’s this week's movie news as I see it!

It’s a hit! Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, pardon the pun, killed it at the box office for its opening weekend. It was such a hit that in its first weekend, the movie doubled the gross of the original film’s 1988 run. This might mean that a third movie will be quickly on its way because we know a studio loves a cash grab! Did you see our review? It was fun, and that’s about it. Not sure there’s enough here to warrant a third. But it was fun!

Is Barry Keoghan returning as The Joker for The Batman II? Our Saltburn naked hottie made a brief appearance as the villain in the first The Batman movie. No, not that Batman, the other Batman. No, not that one, the Robert Pattinson Batman. Sigh. Anywho…he did not deny his return for the upcoming film and played a bit of a tease which usually means that yes, he will have some part in the future sequel.

In other return news. Is Orlando Bloom coming back as Legolas to The Lord of the Rings franchise? In a recent interview, he says he has talked to The Hunt for Gollum mastermind Andy Serkis about his return and that perhaps the use of AI would be used to de-age him for the storyline. Hmm…we aren’t such a fan of AI CGI, it hasn’t really worked out that convincingly, but we are always up for more Orlando Bloom with pointed ears!

Even though Dune (reboot) director Denis Villeneuve said that he was going to take some time to work on other projects and that Dune 3 was only a distant possibility, he did confirm that a script is in the works and that he is actively in development for the 3^rd movie. No doubt the financial success of the first and even more with the sequel has progressed the studio to fast-track the next one. Hollywood loves money! Let’s hope they do take their time enough to make a quality movie.

The first reviews for The Life of Chuck, horror guru Mike Flanagan’s adaption of the Stephen King novella, are out! The movie premiered at Toronto International Film Festival last week and it is being hailed as one of the best Stephen King adaptations of all time. As we know, most movie versions of his work haven’t gone so well. Apparently, Flanagan had a very close working relationship with King and went to him for much advice and many approvals. Can’t wait!

In other Stephen King news, a clip has been released for the highly anticipated redo of Salem’s Lot, King’s vampire story. It will hit Max in October and, after many delays, is sure to be a hit for the network. The book is super scary, the film version from yesteryear, not so much. Here’s the clip:

In other horror film news, the trailer for Wolf Man, the reboot of the 1941 classic, hit the web. The film stars Julia Garner and is part of Universal's redo of its early Hollywood monster movies. It will be updated much in the vein of the recent Invisible Man.

Andrew Garfield has put rumors to rest that he would be returning as part of the multi-universe for Spider-Man 4. The 4^th installment of the Tom Holland version has been in limbo for a while and a big way to get audience attention after so much time is to bring back other fan-favorite iterations of the superhero. Garfield debunked these rumors and said, nope, he isn’t coming back.

Disney is working on a young adult version of The Phantom of the Opera for its streaming service. Disney does horror? Or will this rely on its romantic aspect? Will it be a musical? No one knows yet. Why can’t Disney leave anything alone? We know the movie version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical was a complete mess. Sigh.

Brad Pitt and George Clooney are officially in talks to return to their roles for Ocean’s 14. The whole cast could potentially return with the exception of Bernie Mac and Carl Reiner, who have passed away. In a fun spin, it could potentially include Sandra Bullock from the female-led spinoff. We love seeing this team on screen, so this is a sequel movie we can get behind.