The Marvel Cinematic Universe has so many moving parts that it can be difficult to stay up to date on each individual project, but one that's been particularly interesting to keep an eye on throughout development has been Thor: Ragnarok.
James Franco is one of those actors smart enough to know a good thing when he's got it - the star's seen massive returns on his comedies with Seth Rogen, and so there's no reason to expect that he'll stop making them, and he's been met with significant acclaim for playing nastier characters in smaller, darker indie fare, which might explain his recent roles in everything from Spring Breakers to True Story.
Over the past few weeks, two things have become exceedingly clear about the future of James Bond. Firstly, Spectre was considered such a creative whiff that very few of those involved, including director Sam Mendes and star Daniel Craig, are all that interested in coming back for another outing. Secondly, there have been early discussions with a few actors about the possibility of one of them coming aboard to fill Craig's shoes, taking on the role of 007.
Thanks to American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, Penny Dreadful, and dearly departed Hannibal, small-screen horror is at the epicenter of the "peak TV" era. It's a genre that, once thought untenable on a continuing basis, has instead birthed some of the most narratively gripping, artistically ambitious series of the past 10 years, while simultaneously proving itself to be one of the most versatile groups of programming out there. While AHS has commodified the genre's garish, gory excesses and ostentations, Hannibal and Penny have plumbed the depths of its psychology. Elsewhere, The Strain, The Walking Dead, and its spinoff are busily weaving modern terrors (bioterrorism, systemic governmental breakdown, power vacuums) into crackerjack entertainment.
In this summer blockbuster season of franchise overkill and souped-up CGI decadence, it's not hard to crave the more understated, yet still electric thrill that can be found in watching two performers encircle one another, building in intensity with every exchanged snatch of dialogue, exploring their respective ranges through mere interaction.
When it first unfolded across viewers' screens in 1977, Roots dug deep, reaching into 85 percent of American households over the course of its run and radically redefining "event" television with its gripping, grim saga of an American slave. There's no escaping or denying the miniseries' impact; its ratings, and ensuing discussion around its thorny subject matter - brought this nation's greatest shame out of the shadows.
It's always exciting to see a big-budget original sci-fi idea take flight, even when its director is someone as hit-and-miss as Luc Besson, who has delivered some straight-up classics to the genre (The Fifth Element, among others) but also his fair share of duds (Lucy and Lockout, anyone? Anyone? I didn't think so).
Dwayne Johnson is one of the more social media-savvy stars out there, and as the actor prepares to delve into filming on Fast & Furious 8 (which has been underway for some time now, under the watchful eye of Straight Outta Compton helmer F. Gary Gray), he's teasing the gritty new look his breakout character, agent Luke Hobbs, will be adopting for his fourth film in the franchise.
Production on the third (and final) Maze Runner pic hit a serious snag a little over a month ago when star Dylan O'Brien was involved in a nasty accident and got hurt - pretty badly, though there were conflicting reports about the specifics of his injuries. Though there was hope at the outset that the actor would recover quickly enough to let shooting continue on a slightly delayed timetable, Fox ended up halting production indefinitely in order to let O'Brien heal.
Disney's first trip down the rabbit hole, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, made over a billion dollars globally six years ago, a staggering figure that has led some to surrender to the tide of popular opinion (combined, of course, with the haze of nostalgia) and start believing it was actually good.
