Netflix has unveiled the first official trailer for The Highwaymen, a new cops & robbers thriller based on a true story of the former Texas Rangers (played by Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson) who captured and killed the notorious outlaws Bonnie and Clyde. The film is set to have its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival on March 10.
Tag Archives: Kevin Costner
Jack Ryan Trailer Looks Better Than Expected
Diving back into the franchise started by the incredible author Tom Clancy, who sadly passed away last week, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit hopes to restart his franchise on the big screen. Directing is Kenneth Branagh (Henry V, Thor) whom also stars as the main antagonist opposite Chris Pine (Star Trek), who takes the titular role in this one, stepping into shoes previously filled by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and even Batman himself, Ben Affleck.
Joining him is Kevin Costner, who interestingly has signed a two-picture deal to reprise the same role in another Tom Clancy Series that Paramount is trying to kickstart, Without Remorse. Other notable faces are Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean) and David Paymer (Mr. Saturday Night).
Initially written by newcomer Adam Cozad, David Koepp (Spiderman) was called in to do rewrites, and the film is only based on Clancy’s characters, not a specific book.
The plot for this one centers around a CIA analyst, Jack Ryan, who discovers a Russian plot to destroy the US economy. It sounds somewhat generic, but nobodies pegging this to be a complex character study, instead just deliver on its promise as an action spy flick that entertains. By the looks of the well-cut trailer, it seems to succeed:
Going in I had zero expectations for this because it seemed like another throw away action movie, kind of what the Die Hard series has become, but damn is this trailer put together nicely. Between the music, and the practical action scenes, this looks to be one hell of a good time at the theater.
As I said, this one isn’t going for Oscar’s, but likely be more in the vein of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol , it looks to simply be a fun movie with some cool action set-pieces. Also, the playback between Pine and Costner is a nice touch, and Branagh as the stoic russian villain could surely add to the entertainment.
The first official poster was also released:
The film is due out Christmas Day against a packed line-up of new releases including Keanu Reeve’s 47 Ronin, Ben Stiller’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the expansion to wide release of the new David O’ Russle film, American Hustle, and the De Niro vs. Stallone boxing movie, Grudge Match.
Man of Steel: Newest Trailer! Now With Extra Action!
Apparently the formula for trailers nowadays is to keep releasing them until you find the perfect one. As if Man of Steel didn’t look fabulous enough in the last epic trailer that showed glimpses of Krypton and the other Kryptonians such as Jor-El and General Zod, the latest trailer shows a whole lot more of Kal-El-Clark-Superman in action! It was a little bit of a combo trailer with a quick TV spot that was shown at the MTV movie awards involving Zod calling out Kal-El to give himself up or Earth will pay the price and outing Superman as an alien. Pretty crappy of you Zod. Anyways, check out the trailer below:
Tons of goodness to come out of this one! Heat vision, Kryptonians pummeling one another, destruction in Metropolis and a weird looking robot that I can only hope is an early incarnation of Brainiac. My favorite part of the trailer was Faora’s line to Kal-El threatening to kill millions if he continues to fight. Very chilling. I’m hoping this movie shows the true extent and danger that more than one Kryptonian can present to the human populace. I know they sort of already did that with Superman II but let’s face it, it was a little bit on the lame side. The lameness is definitively evidenced here in another trailer below:
Best of the Genre: Biggest Badasses – Westerns (Part 1)
I love westerns. Love them. But unfortunately, I honestly don’t see any new westerns coming out that’ll totally upend and reinvent the genre, thus establishing a new character that could trump any of the following ten. That’s not to say that the western genre is stagnant, or recycling material, but it’s a genre that has clearly peaked, and is in its twilight years, where most modern movies are looking back at its respective genre, rather than looking forward. New great westerns are still being made, they’re just not nearly as popular as they once were, and as such, innovation is mostly being left by the wayside. I suppose you could count Django Unchained as innovation, but I’m still very skeptical on my opinion of that film, a skepticism I’m sure isn’t shared by my colleagues here at Grizzly Bomb.
Continue reading Best of the Genre: Biggest Badasses – Westerns (Part 1)
Man of Steel – We Have Two Teaser Trailers
Finally, we get the Man of Steel teaser trailer, and it’s surprisingly poetic for a big action film. The teaser trailers have been given with two versions – one with the narrator being Russell Crowe, who plays Superman’s Kryptonian father ‘Jor-El’. The other one featuring Kevin Costner, who plays ‘Jonathan Kent’. Both trailers will play at the The Dark Knight Rises showings at the cinema, not at the same time though. When I went to see The Dark Knight Rises it showed the Russell Crowe teaser, which I was happy about because its my favorite.
Russell Crowe Version
Kevin Costner Version
What did you think of the teaser? My thoughts are that it was very sweet and down to earth, it looked and felt like it was done similar to Gladiator in the style and realism to the scenes (might have just been Russell Crowe’s Voice over), but never the less very beautiful and touching for superman film trailer. Now they don’t really give you much to off in this trailer so you can’t really get much of a feel for what it’s going to be like. My view is that with Zack Snyder directing and Christopher Nolan producing, we will get a film that is going to be completely different in the way it feels and looks compared to any other ‘Superman’ film before it. Hopefully they can make a ‘Superman’ film that is more relatable to this era than the last.
Three “Avatar” Sequels in the Works
“No one ever dies in science fiction.”
James Cameron—blockbuster film director, deep-sea diver, and old lady diamond necklace fetishist—said this in the fall of 2011 when it was confirmed that Sigourney Weaver would return in the sequel to the 2009 mega-smash Avatar, despite the fact that her character died in the first movie.
Hero Express: ‘The Flash’ Movie Still Alive, New ‘Avengers’ TV Spot, and Animation Station!
Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the top five stories in comic based Film & TV news!
The RZA and Sacha Baron Cohen Join the Cast of Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’
Quentin Tarantino’s newest project, Django Unchained, which is set to release on Christmas Day 2012, has gone through some cast changes (most notably Kevin Costner to Kurt Russell which I’m extremely thankful for), as well as some unexpected casting (Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, and James Remar are also names seen in the cast list, but the newest additions are by far the most surprising.
Former Wu-Tang member Robert Diggs, better known as RZA, has been cast as Thaddeus, a role that hasn’t had much news released about it. As well as that, Sacha Baron Cohen has been cast as Scotty, a role that also hasn’t had much disclosure. In fact, the entire film itself has thus far been kept under wraps relatively well, considering you haven’t read the PDF version of the script floating around the internet.
Be as skeptical as you want, but The RZA can act. Surprisingly well, I might add. Besides doing some of the soundtrack for the Kill Bill films, RZA’s face has been popping up in numerous projects like Coffee and Cigarettes, Funny People, American Gangster, Repo Men, Due Date, The Next Three Days, and most recently, A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas. He’s known for being a scene-stealer, and there’s a good chance he’ll fulfill that duty in Django.
As far as Sacha Baron Cohen, we all know and love him from films like Borat, Bruno, Talladega Nights, the Madagascar movies, and Sweeney Todd. He’ll soon be starring in a new film called The Dictator (not to be confused as a remake of the 1940 Charlie Chaplin film, The Great Dictator), which will be directed by Borat/Bruno director, Larry Charles. Cohen will also be portraying Freddie Mercury in an upcoming and unnamed Queen biopic.
As for participating in Django, Cohen is a special kind of actor. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if he’s in a movie, the role was most likely written for him, so seeing him in a Tarantino film leads me to think that his role will be not only extremely interesting, but hovering around genius. I trust both Cohen and Tarantino when it comes to successfully making great films, so there’s no reason that a collaboration between the two won’t be explosive.
Tarantino is known for his offbeat but almost always-successful casting, and with stars of this caliber, there’s no doubt in my mind that Django Unchained will be one of the best films of 2012.
Django Unchained: Kurt Russell to Replace Kevin Costner in Tarantino’s Latest
Back in July we talked about Django Unchained and how Kevin Costner was set to appear. And that was accurate until recently when he dropped out and was upgraded to replaced by Kurt Russell. Russell of course worked with QT before when he played ‘Stuntman Mike’ back in 2007…
So Russell will play ‘Ace’ the sadistic whipmaster on DiCaprio’s plantation. Sound good to me. While I have nothing against Costner, I am more of a Russell fan. I mean come on –The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, Tombstone, Escape from New York...guy is a badass.
As far as the movie – Django Unchained – this is as stoked as I’ve been about a QT movie since walking out of Kill Bill and knowing I still had another 6 months till the 2nd part came out…
Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ – DiCaprio, Foxx, & Costner
Back in May I told you about the next Tarantino movie – Django Unchained. At that time it was believed that Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) was already locked in, and that it was rumored that star of the original movie Django – Franco Nero, would also be asked to take part. In addition, everyone just assumed that Sam Jackson would appear in his 6th Tarantino scripted movie.
Well as the production has rounded out, we’ve gotten some more names, the biggest of which was probably Leonardo DiCaprio. For the last month or so rumors have circled around DiCaprio being pegged to play the film’s villain – Calvin Candie…
“a charming but ruthless proprietor of Candyland, a despicable club and plantation in Mississippi where female slaves are exploited as sex objects and males are pitted against each other in “mandingo” style death matches. Candie is a slave’s worst nightmare and the freed slave Django must cross him in order to reclaim his wife.”
– Deadline
And while Leo’s name is attached to this all over the place, as far as I can figure, it isn’t actually official yet. If it does happen though, I think DiCaprio would be great. I’d love to see him in a villain role, and he has a real desire to work with the best directors in the industry with all the Scorsese movies in recent years, and Christopher Nolan’s Inception last summer. This guy is, in my opinion, one of the top actors in Hollywood today. As DeNiro, Pacino, Hackman, and Hoffman all ease into ‘Grandpa Roles’, the next generation of great actors is really starting to emerge, and Leo is at the forefront. However, like I said, he’s not confirmed yet to my knowledge.
Another big name QT was trying to wrangle in for the project was Mr. Blockbuster himself – Will Smith. This was the focus of our article in May, and now we’ve got an answer from the Fresh Prince: No.
So, once Will Smith (against the advice of everyone) turned down the lead in Quentin Tarantino’s newest movie, the search for ‘Django’ began anew. With Smith out, QT reportedly talked to Idris Elba, Terrence Howard, and Chris Tucker all before ultimately offering the role to Smith’s Ali co-star; Jamie Foxx, who has accepted.
Foxx is coming off of an extremely entertaining role in Horrible Bosses (which was awesome), where he played a character named ‘Motherf#*ker Jones’ and will now play a freed slave out for revenge. This should prove to be Foxx’s most talked about role of since Ray.
In addition to Jamie Foxx, it’s recently been announced that Kevin Costner will also join the cast. That means that Costner should be slated for a huge year in 2012 between this and his role as Pa Kent in Man of Steel. According to Deadline, Costner will play ‘Ace Woody’, the wicked plantation underboss who trains slaves to fight to the death.
Jamie Foxx’s Ray co-star Kerry Washington has also been tapped to appear as Django’s wife, and the motivation for his entire drive in the movie.
In addition, if you can believe the “always dependable” IMDb, Treat Williams (who we mentioned back in May) and Keith Carradine are both in the running to be included as well. Carradine is of course the younger brother of David Carradine, who was best known to QT fans as ‘Bill’. Now, while I’m pretty impartial towards Williams (even though I loved ‘Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead’), I really liked Carradine in his run on Dexter and I think he’d be a really under-rated addition to what’s shaping up to be one of the best casts of 2012…
So, what do you think? Excited or what?
Grizzly Bomb 