Production has begun on Walt Disney Studios’ live-action musical Aladdin, starring Will Smith as the Genie, Mena Massoud as Aladdin, Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine, and Marwan Kenari as Jafar.
Aladdin is directed by Guy Ritchie.
Continue reading Disney’s Aladdin Begins Production! Will Smith Posts Selfie with Principal Cast!
Guy Ritchie made his bones (so to speak) on hard-edged crime films with wicked humor and striking visuals. Then he went big budget with Sherlock Holmes and provided a very different (but surprisingly canonical) consulting detective. Next up was the criminally underrated The Man From U.N.C.L.E. – the best non-Bond Bond flick since the first Jason Bourne.
Now Ritchie is dissecting and reassembling the Arthur legend in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword – and it’s a very kinetic movie that is also, simultaneously, more than a bit of a slog.
Continue reading King Arthur: Legend of the Sword Is a Kinetic Slog!
Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword looks to be a huge reimagining of the Arthurian myth – on a scale with John Boorman’s exquisite Excalibur, but considerably less shiny.
The new trailer for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is set against an immediately recognizable Led Zeppelin tune. The result is pretty impressive.
Continue reading The Born King Trailer: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword!
Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword promises us that ‘from nothing comes a king’ – and a king who murderous uncle has usurped the throne.
Arthur comes up as a kid from the back alleys and hard knocks of the life of the poorest of the poor – until he pulls Excalibur from that stone…
King Arthur: Legend of the Swords opens on May 12th. The film’s second teaser trailer follows the jump.
Continue reading Zero to Hero Teaser Trailer: Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur!
Guy Ritchie’s off the wall film Snatch – which starred Brad Pitt with an incomprehensible Pikey accent – is being adapted as a drama series by Crackle.
Rupert Grint has signed on to play posh con man Charlie Cavensish in the series. Dougray Scott and Ed Westwick will also star.
‘Inspired by a real life heist in London, “Snatch,” centers on a group of twenty-something, up and coming hustlers who stumble upon a truck load of stolen gold bullion and are suddenly thrust into the high-stakes world of organized crime.’
Snatch is set for a ten-episode/60-minute first season, and will premiere in 2017. For details follow the jump.
Continue reading Rupert Grint To Star In Crackle’s ‘Snatch’!
While Guy Ritchie’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E…. shall we say ‘underperforming’… he set his sights on the King Arthur legend.
As you might expect, it’s a vastly different interpretation than we’ve seen before – though it is a distinctly Ritchie production.
The first trailer was shown at Comic-Con 2016 today – but if, like me, you couldn’t afford to go, you can view it by simply following the jump.
Continue reading Comic-Con 2016: Raised in the Streets Trailer: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword!
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. opens with a breathtaking chase sequence as Napoleon Solo engineers an escape from East Germany (over the Berlin Wall) for a pretty auto mechanic named Gaby – who is the daughter of a missing nuclear scientist who has just revolutionized the creation of enriched uranium.
Solo has to work for the escape because a shadowy yet hulking KGB agent is less than a step behind. After succeeding, he is appalled to discover that agent is Ilya Kuryakin – and they will have to work together to find said scientist.
Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin – names to conjure with. The former the best agent for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement; the latter the youngest and best agent to join the KGB in its history. The two became the best partnership in espionage circles in the classic series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. – portrayed by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum.
Now, Guy Ritchie – he of darkly twisted crime films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and the steampunky resurrection of Sherlock Holmes – has adapted the series for film by updating it and setting it firmly in… the sixties.
Now we have Henry (Superman) Cavill as Solo and Armie (The Lone Ranger) Hammer as Kuryakin – but the basic situation remains much the same. The only question is this: what’s U.N.C.LE. got to do with it? As the movie’s first trailer shows, the pairing looks awfully good. Check it out after the jump. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. opens on August 14th.
Continue reading Cold War Deja Vu Trailer: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.!
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is almost as much fun as it predecessor but it may have been a mistake using Holmes’ greatest foe – Professor James Moriarty [The Napoleon of Crime] – so soon.
Let me be perfectly clear – although I’ve read the Holmes canon several time, and fifty or sixty [or so] of the multitudes of Holmes pastiches, I am not a Baker Street Irregular. Still, I would imagine that most Irregulars would find much to enjoy about Guy Ritchie’s take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal creation – but they would likely also [like me] find some jarring errors that do, indeed, detract from what is, essentially, a fun diversion.
One of the more egregious goofs concerns Dr. John H. Watson’s [Jude Law] first wife, Mary Morstan [Kelly Reilly], whom Holmes meets – in the canon, at least – while in the company of the good doctor. Not so here – though, as if to make up for that blunder, Ritchie’s Morstan has the kind of steel to her that attracted Watson in the canon.