Welcome to B.H.’s Screen Time, where every week, we’ll give you the cliff notes on what’s happening in the entertainment industry. From various stages of development chatter and our take on the newest releases, to a fun throwback worth revisiting, think of it as an insider’s digest meets movie club.
Coming Soon
Video game movies haven’t historically fared well (commercially or critically). But in a post-HBO’s The Last of Us slash Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout era – and the success of its Sonic the Hedgehog adaptations – Paramount has a potential Call of Duty movie in its crosshairs.
Weeks after the studio’s protracted merger with Skydance was finalised (and CBS lawsuit settlement), as well as the inking of a US$1.5 billion contract extension for the South Park boys, reports indicate Paramount’s new chairman and CEO, David Ellison, is extremely to keep that chequebook out.
“Per two sources, Paramount is negotiating to acquire film rights,” notes the ever-trusted Matthew Belloni of Puck renown.
“No talent is attached yet, and the first-person shooter IP seems pretty tough to adapt. But it’s said to be a priority for Ellison and his studio chiefs, Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, and an indicator of the kind of youth-skewing game franchises he wants to pursue.”
Waning cultural relevance aside, a key obstacle will involve Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, who seems fairly hesitant about the Hollywood beast of adapting IP (despite the recent success of his company’s Minecraft Movie and the aforementioned Fallout via Bethesda).
“The video game business is successful by itself. It doesn’t need this outlet,” Spencer told Variety.
“You’ve got to start with a partner who understands our team and the story of that IP, and then letting them work through the process. That’s my only barrier: let’s never turn this into something where it has to get done, every franchise has to have a game or a movie or a TV show, and it becomes more like licensing. It’s got to be about the creative outlet that linear media offers for our franchises.”
It also doesn’t help that Paramount+ pretty comprehensively botched a major Microsoft property in Halo across two universally panned seasons of lore-bastardising boredom. But who knows? Perhaps they’ll write a number with enough zeroes, and get the green light for a shoot ’em up affair helmed by – oh, I don’t know – Sicario screenwriter and Paramount streaming’s golden goose, Taylor Sheridan?
Sheridan has also tangentially dabbled in video games with Amazon Prime Video’s adaptation of the Tom Clancy novel, Without Remorse (which inspired the Rainbow Six franchise), directed by Sicario: Day of the Soldado filmmaker Stefano Sollima.
Conversely, this whole undertaking could simply fall apart as it has in the past: before being welcomed into the Microsoft fold, Activision had announced that a Call of Duty cinematic universe was in development. That obviously went nowhere. And history does tend to repeat itself.
Keep an eye out on B.H. for potential updates regarding Paramount’s Call of Duty movie (casting, release date, story, trailer, news, etc.).
As far as unions go, the one between HBO and Sky has been fruitful: The Young Pope/The New Pope, Chernobyl, and Catherine the Great, to name a few. Now, it’ll have a chance to continue proving itself with the forthcoming legal thriller War.
From the creator of Netflix sensation Lupin and Apple TV+’s Hijack, George Kay, comes this new anthology series starring Dominic West (The Wire, The Crown, SAS: Rogue Heroes) and Sienna Miller (Layer Cake, American Sniper, Anatomy of a Scandal).
The story follows tech mogul Morgan Henderson (West) and his estranged wife, international film star Carla Duval (Miller), as they navigate a scandalous divorce case “set to shake up boardrooms, bedrooms, and courtrooms across London.”
“War follows two of London’s most prestigious rival firms – Cathcarts and Taylor & Byrne – as they go head-to-head in the divorce case of the century. Each side is certain they’ll win. But as the case spirals and loyalties fracture, reputations are on the line, and everyone’s playing to win. This is just the beginning – season one’s explosive case is the first in an anthology of headline-making legal battles.”
HBO Max
Suffice it to say, we’re in. And so is HBO: War has already been greenlit for two seasons.
The cast also features Phoebe Fox (HBO’s Task) as Serena Byrne and James McArdle (HBO’s Mare of Easttown) as Nicholas Taylor, partners in life and business at Taylor & Byrne; Nina Sosanya (Baby Reindeer) as “Her Majesty” Beatrice “Queen Bea” Ubosi, and Pip Torrens (HBO’s Succession, The Crown) as St John Smallwood, their counterparts and fierce rivals at Cathcarts; plus Archie Reneaux (Alien: Romulus) as ambitious lawyer Jonathan “Johnny” Warren.
War release date (Australia): TBA.
And finally, Glen Powell steps into a role we daresay he was born for with the Hulu sports comedy Chad Powers.
Taking the Ted Lasso route of turning mildly humorous short-form content into its own series, as some of you may have already gathered from the title, this is an adaptation of that undercover prank involving two-time Super Bowl champion Eli Manning. Here’s the story they’re choosing to assign it:
“When bad behaviour nukes hotshot quarterback Russ Holliday’s (Powell) college career, he disguises himself and walks onto a struggling Southern football team as the talented, affable Chad Powers.”
Additional cast members range from Perry Mattfeld as Ricky, Quentin Plair as Coach Byrd, and Wynn Everett as Tricia Yeager, to Frankie A. Rodriguez as Danny, and Steve Zahn as Coach Jake Hudson.
Chad Powers has been executive produced by a team that includes Eli Manning and his older brother/fellow Super Bowl champion Payton Manning, Michael Waldron, as well as Glen Powell. Waldron and Powell also serve as co-creators.
Chad Powers release date (Australia): October 1st via Disney+.
Now Showing
When the trailer first dropped for this one, we called it the American answer to Guy Ritchie’s Snatch. Having actually seen it now, we understand it’s a shallow Ritchie impression from the Academy Award-nominated Darren Aronofsky at best. There’s a whole lot of American-style violence with none of the classic grit or wit.
Enjoyable? You bet, in all its twists and turns. But this darkly humorous crime caper is overstuffed with a cast of colourful convicts and subplots that ultimately lead… well, nowhere. Don’t expect anything deeper beyond Austin Butler’s admittedly charming smile.
Caught Stealing was more sizzle than steak, if you will (kind of like how everybody exudes “sexiness” on social media without any real sex appeal these days). Which is surprising, given both the filmmaker we know Aronofsky is (side note: The Wrestler is still all-time) and the fact that Charlie Huston, who penned the novel of the same name, adapted his story.
The B.H. perspective: It’ll be a cracking movie to watch the next time you’re on a long-haul international flight, right after you give up on that dry-ass WWII tome or who-gives-a-f**k self-help pulp you ambitiously packed.
They Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To…
We’ll never get another movie like Enter the Dragon again. Not just because it’s so deliciously 70s, but because we’ve yet to find an action star as magnetic and commanding as the one and only Bruce Lee.
Equal parts kung fu classic and spy-adjacent thriller, this iconic oldie is paced to edge-of-your-seat perfection and delivers action sequences you can feel the impact of through the screen. A welcome bonus to casting the forebearer of MMA as your leading man, who viewed cinema as a side hustle to his martial art endeavours (and not the other way around).
Of course, this wasn’t exactly a solo undertaking. Enter the Dragon also wouldn’t quite be what we know it as today without the roguish charms of John Saxon as Roper, the effortless cool of Jim Kelly as Williams, the animalistic intimidation of Bob Wall as O’Hara, or the villainous stylings of Shih Kien as Han.
