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Next year’s apparent climax to Marvel’s ‘Phase Five’ features an Avengers B-team with the little-remembered Bucky Barnes and Ghost among the sidekicks and also-rans

The trouble with Thunderbolts* is that this is a superhero team made up almost entirely of all those Marvel characters you had completely forgotten existed. Not the cool ones who get their own Funko Pops. We’re talking about the B-team – the backup Avengers. The ones who showed up to the superhero cookout but left before anyone got to taste the chimichangas.

It’s not that Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and David Harbour’s Red Guardian are boring, per se. Their spiky father-daughter banter was the highlight of 2021’s Black Widow. But if they had never turned up again in a Marvel movie – and that would have been a pity – it’s quite possible nobody would have ever noticed.

Earlier this year, we got word that a new live-action take on the tale of Beowulf is in development with an all-star cast on board. We've seen a number of animated and live-action adaptations of the ancient Danish legend over the years, but this one will be a little different.

Based on John Gardner’s acclaimed novel, Grendel will tell the story from the perspective of the monster, with Jeff Bridges set to provide the voice of the title character, and Dave Bautista on board as the mighty warrior who comes to Danish King Hrothgar's hall to put an end to the creature's rampage, Beowulf.

Now, Collider has unveiled our first look at the design for Grendel courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

“That is really exciting because it also balances this very cerebral world that Grendel lives in, where he's trying to understand humans, and he's trying to find his place among them,...

James McAvoy has revealed that his uber-masculine villain character in the upcoming film, Speak No Evil, was partially inspired by Andrew Tate.

Speaking to Empire, McAvoy explained that the character, Paddy, is “all masculine and throwing his dick around,” which was modeled to be similar to Tate’s persona. “The thing I thought I could exploit in the character was, he thinks he’s a bit of a… West Country Andrew Tate,” McAvoy said, per Deadline.

Touching on the nuances of the role, he continued, “He’s like, ‘I’m going to teach you what it’s like to be a man again.’ But there’s a sort of polite face on it that isn’t quite Andrew Tate, enough of a sheen of, ‘I’m not one of those guys.’ Paddy’s challenging you, ‘Do you have a big enough dick to have a drink with me?’ Or, ‘I’m sorry,...

For his upcoming role in the Universal remake of the 2022 Danish thriller “Speak No Evil,” James McAvoy knew he needed to capture a very specific, toxically masculine energy. To create his ruthless patriarchal figure Paddy, McAvoy drew upon perhaps one of the most toxically masculine characters in the world today, social media personality and current criminal defendant Andrew Tate.

“The thing I thought I could exploit in the character was, he thinks he’s a bit of a f— West Country Andrew Tate,” McAvoy said in a recent interview with Empire.

He added later of his character, “He’s like, ‘I’m going to teach you what it’s like to be a man again.’ But there’s a sort of polite face on it that isn’t quite Andrew Tate, enough of a sheen of, ‘I’m not one of those guys.’ [Paddy’s] challenging you, ‘Do you have a big...

James McAvoy is no stranger to the psychological thriller genre. The actor surprised fans with his skills playing multiple characters in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split and then reprised his role as the Did-diagnosed Kevin in the sequel, Glass. The actor will be seen in the upcoming thriller Speak No Evil, where he plays a murdering doctor.

McAvoy reportedly based his character, Paddy, off of controversial Internet personality Andrew Tate. The X-Men star mentioned that Paddy had touches of toxic masculinity in him and much of his interactions were based on that ideology. However, he did mention that he was more polite than Tate.

James McAvoy Based His Speak No Evil Character On Andrew Tate A still from Speak No Evil | Credits: Universal Pictures

Andrew Tate has been one of the most controversial Internet personalities of the past decade. The former kickboxer has widely generated a divisive response, with many...

Although there’s no shortage of toxic masculinity in today’s world, James McAvoy crafted his latest role around a very specific person.

The Speak No Evil star revealed that his sinister patriarch character Paddy from James Watkins upcoming Universal remake of the 2022 Danish thriller, which premieres in theaters on Sept. 13, was inspired by Andrew Tate.

“The thing I thought I could exploit in the character was, he thinks he’s a bit of a f— West Country Andrew Tate,” he explained to Empire.

“He’s like, ‘I’m going to teach you what it’s like to be a man again.’ But there’s a sort of polite face on it that isn’t quite Andrew Tate, enough of a sheen of, ‘I’m not one of those guys,'” added McAvoy. “[Paddy’s] challenging you, ‘Do you have a big enough d*** to have a drink with me?’, Or, ‘I’m sorry,...

James McAvoy used Andrew Tate as inspiration for his villain in 'Speak No Evil'.The 45-year-old actor stars as the sinister Paddy in the English-language remake of the 2022 Danish psychological horror film, and McAvoy has now revealed he loosely based his performance on the controversial 37-year-old social media influencer who is famous for promoting toxic masculine behaviour to his millions of followers.In an interview with Empire magazine, he said: "The thing I thought I could exploit in the character was, he thinks he's a bit of a f****** West Country Andrew Tate."He's like, 'I'm going to teach you what it's like to be a man again.' But there's a sort of polite face on it that isn’t quite Andrew Tate, enough of a sheen of, 'I'm not one of those guys.'"He's [Paddy's] challenging you, 'Do you have a big enough d*** to have a drink with me?...

This September, Prime Video is bringing you a lot of entertainment with a royal drama series titled A Very Royal Scandal and a brilliant coming-of-age film Snack Shack. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Prime Video this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 5 best films that are coming to Prime Video in September 2024 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Drag Me to Hell (September 1)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

Drag Me to Hell is a supernatural horror film directed by Sam Raimi from a screenplay co-written by Sam and Ivan Raimi. The 2009 film follows the story of Christine Brown, a loan officer who rejects an elderly woman’s loan application due to pressure from her boss. In retaliation, the elderly woman puts a curse on her in which she will suffer in extreme...

Netflix has renewed Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen for a second season.

Ritchie, who set the TV show in the world of Miramax’s film of the same name, will return to direct the series, while Theo James, Kaya Scodelario and Daniel Ings will reprise their starring roles. Additional casting for the second season hasn’t yet been announced.

The first season of The Gentlemen introduced James as Eddie Horniman as he unexpectedly became the new Duke of Halstead after inheriting his father’s sizable country estate. The snag is that the aristocratic pile came with an illegal weed farm run by ruthless Susie (Scodelario) and her crime boss father Bobby Glass, played by Ray Winstone.

Horniman became a reluctant yet genteel gangster and an ally of Susie as they faced down rival and hilarious gangster families in an equally back- and front-stabbing business world. The second season, to be...

Get ready for another go-around with the Guy Ritchie series, The Gentlemen. Variety has reported that the Netflix series has been renewed for season 2. In his review for season one, our own Alex Maidy said, “The Gentlemen series feels like a reimagining of the film. The story hits some vaguely similar notes but the vast majority is completely different. […] This is a unique reimagining of a successful story that takes it in a different direction and sets up future seasons.”

Netflix U.K.’s VP spoke ecstatically about the show’s successful first season, “With its gun-toting chickens and drug-dealing Dukes, The Gentlemen was a huge hit with audiences in 2024. Not really a surprise as Guy Ritchie remains one of the industry’s most iconic creators telling authentically British stories with his signature swagger, grit and wit. We are thrilled the series will be returning to Netflix for a second season,...

The criminal misadventures of Eddie Horniman and Susie Glass will continue in The Gentlemen Season 2. The series, inspired by the Guy Ritchie movie of the same name, is coming back to Netflix for a deeper look into the criminal underbelly of aristocratic Britain.

The Gentlemen follows Eddie (Theo James), who becomes the new Duke of Halstead following his father’s death. In addition to the new title, Eddie also inherits the family’s sizable country estate — and the illegal weed farm located underneath it, run by the sophisticated yet ruthless Susie (Kaya Scodelario) and her crime boss father Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone). Although hesitant to join the criminal lifestyle at first, he develops a taste for it and finds an unexpected ally in Susie as they face down the UK and Europe’s most notorious and hilarious gangster families. And by the end of the first eight episodes, Eddie solidifies...

From Olivia Colman’s fraught sojourn to the Greek Isles in The Lost Daughter to Jessie Buckley’s terrifying trip up the M5 to the English countryside in Men and M. Night’s bummer beaches in Old, taking a little “me time” away from home is often the single biggest mistake any movie character could possibly make. Horror, psychological drama, comedy, mystery, rom-com. The genre hardly matters. In film, the simple act of taking a vacation is rarely the relaxing, restorative interlude one hopes that it might be, placing uneasy personalities in uncertain—even harrowing—circumstances.

So with another holiday weekend upon us and the summer theoretically in full swing, it’s time to make peace with travel advisories being a moving target and hot spots foreign and domestic getting hotter by the minute. No surprise then, that many of us now eye these “escapes” with more than a little bit of skepticism.

The historic cinema Bromley Picturehouse is scheduled to cease operations in August, with screenings and events past this date cancelled.

Bromley Picturehouse cinema is set to close from 1st August, the venue announced over social media yesterday afternoon, putting a recently unveiled memorial to a local actor at risk.

The six-screen, art-deco style cinema has been managed by Picturehouse since 2019 after a significant refurbishment, and two weeks ago unveiled a plaque to local Harry Potter actor Rob Knox – who was fatally stabbed while protecting his younger brother in 2008.

Aaron Truss, trustee of the Rob Knox Foundation and director of ITV documentary (K)nox: The Rob Knox Story, had recently made the decision to move the Rob Knox Film Festival to the venue, and worked with Bromley staff to set up the memorial plaque.

“We were in negotiations for months planning this, planning how to introduce Rob to the community… The...

Sean Bean is among the ensemble for epic new BBC crime drama This City Is Ours. Here are the details.

Stephen Butchard has been a consistent presence on British TV screens since the early 2000s, creating the underrated Ray Winstone crime thriller Vincent and Warren Brown police drama Good Cop.

His latest series is the epic crime drama This City Is Ours, which is currently filming in Liverpool and Spain.

The synopsis reads as follows:

Set and filmed in Liverpool, This City is Ours is the story of Michael, a man who for all of his adult life has been involved in organised crime, working for his friend and the gang leader Ronnie. When Ronnie begins to hint at retirement, Michael too begins to imagine another life. Because, for the first time in his life, Michael is in love. For the first time in his life, he sees beyond the day-to-day,...

Dave Bautista and Jeff Bridges lead a stacked cast which will flip the Beowulf story and presumably also feature a puppet or two in the mix.

Here’s a fine story to kick off the week. The legendary Jim Henson Company is set to make Grendel, a live action version of Beowulf, the epic tale of heroes, monsters and the clashes between them.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Palisades Park Pictures is launching sales for the project at the upcoming Cannes marketplace. We’ve seen the tale of Beowulf rendered on the silver screen before of course, with Robert Zemeckis' 2007 version re-telling the Old English epic poem through the medium of computer animation.

Although that film is sometimes floated as an example in debates about the merits or shortcomings of CGI experimentation, it boasted an impressive cast that included Ray Winstone, Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright and Crispin Glover...

A new live-action take on the tale of Beowulf is in development, and the project has assembled a very impressive cast.

We've seen a number of animated and live-action adaptations of the ancient Danish legend over the years, but this one will be a little different.

Based on John Gardner’s acclaimed novel, Grendel will tell the story from the perspective of the monster, with Jeff Bridges set to play the title character, and Dave Bautista on board as the mighty warrior to comes to Danish King Hrothgar's hall to put an end to the creature's rampage, Beowulf.

The cast also includes Bryan Cranston as King Hrothgar, Sam Elliott as The Dragon, Thomasin McKenzie as Queen Wealhtheow and Aidan Turner as Unferth. T Bone Burnett will also appear, and provide original songs for the film.

Robert D. Krzykowsk (The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot) will direct. Jim Henson...

Actor and former wrestler Dave Bautista was last seen in Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic Dune: Part Two as Glossu Rabban. The actor has come a long way from his WWE days and has branched out into various roles in acclaimed films such as the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, Blade Runner 2049, Knock at the Cabin, and Glass Onion.

The actor will be seen next in Robert D. Krzykowski’s fantasy epic Grendel, which sees the actor play the popular character Beowulf. A retelling of the epic poem Beowulf, the film is adapted from a novel by John Gardner. It explores the story of Grendel, a monster whom Beowulf hunts. The film also stars Jeff Bridges, Bryan Cranston, Sam Elliott, Thomasin McKenzie, and more.

Dave Bautista Joins The Cast Of The Epic Fantasy Grendel A still from Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf

The epic poem Beowulf has been regarded as one...

Exclusive: Blackwater Pictures, the British indie production company behind the buzzy biopic about the life of veteran Snooker player Jimmy White, has set up what they describe as a “multi-million-pound” fund to support commercially-minded independent British films.

Helmed by Kevin Harvey and Antoine Dixon-Bellot, Blackwater Pictures will commit to supporting five projects as part of a slate focused on emerging directors. The fund will prioritize “commercial independent British films,” organizers said today.

The fund is being managed in collaboration with BAFTA-nominated producer Tiernan Hanby (The Karman Line, Summit Fever, Heavyweight) of Pin Sharp Pictures and Simon Marriott of development & production company Shout Loud Creative. Money for the fund was raised through private equity and personal funds.

The slate currently includes Antecedent, the directorial feature debut of Dan Bronzite. He is best known for his supernatural horror Long Time Dead produced for Working Title Films/Universal...

Margot Robbie and Rosamund Pike are among the nominees for the National Film Awards.The stars of 'Barbie' and 'Saltburn' respectively will compete against talent including Patricia Hodge ('Arthur's Whiskey'), Jo Hartley ('Swede Caroline'), Eiza Gonzalez ('The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare') and Emma Stone ('Poor Things)' in a star-studded Best Actress category.This year's ceremony is set to take place on July 3 at the Porchester Hall in London and marks the 10th anniversary of the prestigious awards. It will feature a lineup of nominees from around the globe consisting of seasoned acting veterans and emerging young talents.The Best Actor category is equally competitive with stars including Barry Keoghan ('Saltburn), Kevin Hart ('Lift') and Ewan McGregor ('Bleeding Love') competing for the prize with Kane Robinson ('The Kitchen') and Lakeith Stanfield ('Book of Clarence').Meanwhile,...

Remaking a 2002 Hong Kong hit and setting the story in Irish-Catholic Boston, Martin Scorsese seemed to be out of his element with The Departed—if not, that is, for the fact that the film marked a return to the director’s bread-and-butter mean streets, and that his source material, Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak’s Infernal Affairs, was itself heavily influenced by his iconic gangster films. Something of a genre homecoming after recent detours into the arenas of the historical epic (Gangs of New York) and the period biopic (The Aviator), The Departed again found him trawling a gritty, brutal urban underbelly where racial epithets spit from roughnecks’ mouths, class divisions are as sharp as a switchblade, and allegiances to others and one’s self are always tenuous at best.

The Rolling Stones’s “Gimme Shelter” plays over a blistering opening sequence edited by Thelma Schoonmaker with gunshot-punctuated...

While Steven Spielberg might hail superhero movies as Oscar-worthy, the likes of Martin Scorsese and Anthony Hopkins have gone on to criticize Marvel and DC flicks and even deemed them not cinema-worthy. Although each actor has a right to have their own opinions regarding different genres of cinema, fans have disliked how big names in Hollywood have time and again belittled superhero flicks and the actors who work in them.

Anthony Hopkins did not like acting in the MCU (Image: Thor)

Over the years, fans have waged war against such opinions, and comic book actors have defended such movies. And now, even Walton Goggins has joined them after Ray Winstone recently called out the excessive use of green screens in superhero flicks.

Walton Goggins Defends Marvel’s Use of Green Screens Walton Goggins as Sonny Burch in Ant-Man and the Wasp

It is no secret that superhero flicks, especially Marvel movies,...

Anna Paquin stepped onto a red carpet for the first time in well over a year to promote her latest movie, “A Bit of Light,” directed by her husband and “True Bood” co-star Stephen Moyer. The Oscar winner used a cane at the event to help her walk and disclosed to People that she’s had a “difficult” two years dealing with an undisclosed health issue that left her with mobility issues.

“It hasn’t been easy,” Paquin told the publication of needing a cane to walk.

Paquin also told People that her health issue resulted in her experiencing some difficulties with her speech. A sourced added that Paquin will hopefully make a full recovery. The specifics of the actor’s health issue have not been disclosed.

In her new film “A Bit of Light,” Paquin plays a down-on-her-luck mother who is forced to move in with her father (Ray Winstone...

Add Kristen Stewart to the list of actors you won’t see in a Marvel movie anytime soon.

“I will likely never do a Marvel movie … it sounds like a f*cking nightmare, actually,” Stewart said Tuesday on the Not Skinny, But Not Fat podcast. She is not alone.

Last Month, Ray Winstone said he almost quit Marvel’s Black Widow because it was such a hassle.

“It was fine until you have to do the reshoots,” said Winstone. “Then you find out that a few producers have come down, and your performance is too much, it’s too strong…That’s the way Marvel works. It can be soul-destroying, because you feel like you’re doing great work.”

Nicolas Cage also recently expressed his reluctance to return to comic-book fare.

“Would I return to the comic book genre?” Cage asked himself earlier this month. He answered with a lukewarm,...

At their best, films aimed at young kids can be enjoyed by adults as well and truly earn the "family movie" title. 2023 brought plenty of titles that fit the bill, from box office hits like "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" and "Migration" to streaming treats like "Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget" and "Leo."

Now it's 2024's turn to show us what it's got, and while the early months of the year tend to be pretty dry when it comes to family movies, as studios are holding them back for school vacations and long summer days, there are some fresh, funny, and heartwarming new releases on offer. From a new "Peanuts" special to a fantasy movie filled with dragon-related perils to the latest high-flying antics of "Kung Fu Panda," here are the best family movies of 2024 so far.

Read more: The 20 Most Underrated Disney Movies You Need To See

The Casagrandes Movie...

The 2024 British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) will take place on December 8 at the Roundhouse in Camden. The ceremony will mark a return for the BIFAs, which were last held at the storied London venue in 2007.

“We’re delighted to be returning to Roundhouse this year. The opportunity to work with our production partners and the brilliant team at the venue to do something different and really special in the space is incredibly exciting for us, and we hope for the industry we celebrate too,” said BIFA directors Amy Gustin and Deena Wallace.

The BIFAs have been staged at Old Billingsgate in the City of London for the last 14 years. The awards body’s last outing in Camden was hosted by James Nesbitt. Guests and honorees included Judi Dench, Daniel Craig, Ray Winstone, Jamie Bell, Sam Riley, Carey Mulligan, and Tilda Swinton. Film winners on the night included Control, Notes on a Scandal,...

Exclusive: Actor Steven Waddington (The Imitation Game) has penned a screenplay that he will direct based on the life of veteran Snooker player Jimmy White, with Aneurin Barnard (Dunkirk) and Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast) signed on to star.

Barnard — best known for his breakout in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk but also has credits such as The Goldfinch and the BBC’s popular 2016 War & Peace adaptation — will play White in the pic. Producers told us the film will condense the life and career of the colorful six-time Snooker World Championship finalist into “one crazy night” during which he “is forced to confront his darker side.”

Produced by Black Water Pictures and Lipsync Productions, the feature shoots in London this April. Winstone and his long-term manager, Michael Wiggs, are also on board as co-producers. The film will mark Waddington’s feature directorial debut.

“I want to illuminate the darkness Jimmy...

“Damsel”, the new live-action fantasy film starring Millie Bobby Brown as a sword-swinging princess, was #1 for the second week in a row on Netflix, clocking 50.8M views, with 86.1M views in 10 days, hitting #1 in 87 countries:

"... a princess is shocked to discover that she’ll be sacrificed to the kingdom’s sacred 'cave dragon'…

“…after being married to her prince charming.

"She must survive long enough until someone comes to save her – only no one is coming..."

Millie Bobby Brown is 'Princess Elodie', Nick Robinson is 'Prince Henry', Angela Bassett is 'Lady Bayford', Robin Wright is 'Queen Isabelle' and Ray Winstone is the 'King'.

Click the images to enlarge...

The Gentlemen features Ray Winstone as a barbeque-devouring drug lord, and the Guy Ritchie series has put in a meaty display with British audiences.

The crime drama premiered on March 7 with an audience of more than 3.5M, according to viewing figures made available by Barb, the UK’s audience research body.

The performance secured The Gentlemen 27th place in a list of the 50 most-watched TV shows in the UK during the seven days to March 10.

The highest-rated show of the week was Death In Paradise, which was watched by 7.3M on the BBC, according to the Barb figures.

The Gentlemen beat other notable Netflix launches in 2024, including One Day‘s audience of 1.7M in February and Millie Bobby Brown film Damsel, which was seen by 1.8M in its first week.

Starring Theo James and Kaya Scodelario, The Gentlemen could not, however, match Fool Me Once’s blockbuster debut of 6.3M viewers in January.

The actors from the current revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s “Merrily We Roll Along” have skyrocketed in Gold Derby’s combined odds for the 2024 Tony Awards nominations. The prediction center displays commanding leads for Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez and Daniel Radcliffe to win their respective categories. This is an understandable result considering this revival is the hottest ticket in town and this trio of performers has been ever-present in the media. But how often does a trio of actors from the same production pull off three separate acting victories at the Tony Awards?

It’s quite common for a musical to grab two acting trophies, but three awards is much rarer. To date, only 15 musical productions have earned three acting wins. The first time this feat occurred was at the 1956 ceremony, which was ironically the first time the Tony Awards ever announced a slate of nominees (previously...

Ready to head back to the Wasteland and experience another outlandish post-apocalyptic vision from George Miller? Well, step this way – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is revving up its engine, set to unleash a fresh batch of mayhem on the multiplexes. And the new issue of Empire is a world-exclusive deep-dive into the madness, speaking to Miller and his stars – including Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth – about their all-new action epic.

The issue hits newsstands on Thursday 14 March – but before then, take a sneak peek below at what’s inside.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Fire. Blood. Oil. Chrome. The world of Mad Max is exploding back onto the screen with the tale of the one and only Imperator Furiosa. We speak to filmmaker George Miller, stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth and more, getting the lowdown on Furiosa’s vengeful saga, the mind-blowing action, and Hemsworth’s wild new villain Dementus.

Netflix’s Global Top 10 Films ft Damsel ( Photo Credit – IMDb )

The list of Netflix’s Global Top 10 Films is now out. The list includes only English movies; dated from March 4 to March 10, 2024. Millie Bobby Brown’s Damsel sits at the top of the list. The movie released on the streaming platform on March 8, 2024, and within two days, it surpassed Code 8 Part II, which was at the top from February 26 to March 3. The streaming platform released the new list recently.

Millie Bobby Brown’s Damsel was released on Women’s Day with a twist to the fairytale of “damsel in distress”. Millie plays Elodie, who is married off to a Prince whose family sacrifices her due to a ruthless ancestral ritual. Elodie has to fight a fire-spitting dragon and save herself. The Juan Carlos Fresnadillo directorial also stars Ray Winstone, Angela Bassett, Nick Robinson, Robin Wright and others.

Damsel At Number...

"Within the Guy Ritchie world, you can really push it as far as you want." Already streaming on Netflix now. Netflix has revealed a 5-minute behind-the-scenes featurette for The Gentlemen, a streaming series from filmmaker Guy Ritchie. Crime meets caviar in this slick crime comedy creation! Meet the new class of criminals in The Gentlemen. A new British drama series inspired by the original 2019 film. Eddie Halstead inherits a large estate from his father, unaware it fronts Pearson's drug empire. With no crime experience, he must take over the operation or lose the estate. The Gentlemen is currently streaming on Netflix as of last week, but they're hoping to bring more attention to it with this extensive promo video. The series features Ray Winstone, Theo James, Kaya Scodelario, Daniel Ings, Joely Richardson, Vinnie Jones, Giancarlo Esposito, Chanel Cresswell, Michael Vu, Max Beesley, Jasmine Blackborow, Harry Goodwins, Dar Salim, Pearce Quigley,...

Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen was hailed as a return to form when it hit theaters in 2020, and now the gangster franchise is being expanded with an all-new series on Netflix. While it doesn’t feature the same ensemble cast, the show is very much in the same vein as the film, with Ritchie serving as executive producer and director on the first two episodes.

The entire season is now available on Netflix, and to celebrate the release, we sat down with a big chunk of the ensemble cast. First up were Theo James and Daniel Ings, who play the blue-blooded brothers at the show’s core. They play the sons of a late Duke who’s left them somewhat impoverished but land-rich. They discover their late dad was in cahoots with a major marijuana dealer. With the older brother, Ings’s Freddy, heavily in debt to the mob, the younger,...

Millie Bobby Brown is addressing criticism she’s been receiving for her accent.

The Stranger Things star grew up between England and the U.S. and has been criticized for the way she speaks in the projects she’s involved in. However, the young actress is firing back at those critics in a new interview.

“I’m an actor,” Brown said in an interview with Max Balegde on TikTok. “I grew up in the public eye. I grew up in America. I come to set and I’m an actor and I adapt, and so I want to mimic other people!”

She continued, “I can’t help that when I’m around my fiancé, or when I’m with people like Jimmy Fallon who have a very American accent, I wanna replicate it! And now I’m in England, I wanna replicate that [accent]! I don’t do it intentional, and...

Pour a glass of top-shelf whiskey and put your fists up, because a brand-new Guy Ritchie gangster romp is coming to steal your attention.

Premiering on March 7, The Gentlemenintroduces television audiences to a new slice of the world initially brought to life in Ritchie’s 2020 film of the same name. While the characters in the upcoming TV show will be totally different from the movie, The Gentlemen will have all the same bite — along with a bunch of fresh tricks up its well-tailored sleeve, as the new trailer above reveals.

The White Lotus star Theo James leads The Gentlemen as the Duke of Halstead, Eddie Horniman, the estranged son of an English aristocrat who finds himself embroiled in a world of criminality — specifically career criminal Bobby Glass’ (Ray Winstone) industrial cannabis empire on the East End of London. Crawl’s Kaya Scodelario stars as Susie Glass, Bobby’s effortlessly...

The Stranger Things star isn’t always convincing as a princess fighting for her life, but there’s some fun to be had from this rousing subversion of storybook tropes

Taking age-old expectations of how a fairytale is supposed to play out and giving them a brisk shuffle is by no means as fresh as some film-makers often like to think, upending cliches with a tired wink and a smug smirk. But Netflix’s Damsel, itself loosely similar to Hulu’s 2022 offering The Princess, doesn’t require our astonishment at its wheel reinvention to pass the bar and is far too sprightly to get overly bogged down in the self-satisfaction of such an endeavour.

There are, in fact, very few surprises in store here – perhaps Fast X writer Mazeau’s script could have benefitted from a few – but there’s a simple, mechanical satisfaction to watching an underdog fight her way back from the depths,...

Almost four years after Marc Helwig joined Miramax as Head Of Worldwide Television, he walked the London red carpet Tuesday for the global premiere of the company’s Guy Ritchie series for Netflix, The Gentlemen, alongside celebrity guests like David Beckham and Jason Statham.

The Gentlemen is a “pandemic series.” In 2020, after he took over Miramax TV, Ritchie’s The Gentlemen movie was on Helwig’s mind, literally. A billboard for the Miramax film had been put up on his street corner in late 2019 and stayed there until 2022, with Helwig passing by it daily.

“It started in the very early days of the pandemic when I first joined Miramax and found myself on these Zooms with Guy Ritchie and his producing partner Ivan Atkinson,” he said about the show’s origins. “The film had turned into a little bit of a cult success after its release; the movie was one...

Many of cinema’s hard men are notorious softies in real life. Ray Winstone may well be one of those, even if he admits to not looking particularly approachable.

“My wife always says to me, ‘Why do you look like you’re going to kill someone when you walk into a room?'” he tells Variety. “But I don’t mean to!”

Winstone’s long-standing status as the go-to man to depict violent approach-with-caution individuals or British mob bosses continues to serve him, however, as “The Gentleman” — Guy Ritchie’s eight-part Netflix spinoff of his 2019 gangster comedy feature of the same name — proves. In the series, awash in the classic Ritchie mix of guns, drugs, violence, aristocrats, boxing and tweed, Winstone stars as a gangland patriarch and head of a massive weed-growing empire. Because of course he does — who else would you cast as an elder statesman than the actor...

"Damsel" is the new live-action fantasy feature, directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo starring Millie Bobby Brown, Nick Robinson, Angela Bassett, Robin Wright, Ray Winstone, Brooke Carter and Shohreh Aghdashloo, streaming March 8, 2024 on Netflix:

"... a princess is shocked to discover that she’ll be sacrificed to the kingdom’s sacred 'cave dragon'…

“…after being married to her prince charming.

"She must survive long enough until someone comes to save her – only no one is coming..."

Millie Bobby Brown is 'Princess Elodie', Nick Robinson is 'Prince Henry'…

…Angela Bassett is 'Lady Bayford', Robin Wright as 'Queen Isabelle' and Ray Winstone as the 'King'.

Click the images to enlarge...

When the young women lock eyes, a quiet intimacy blooms. Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown) doesn’t know the unnamed girl meeting her gaze from a balcony some distance away, but she feels connected to her. Their smiles awaken flashes of mutual recognition. They share a milky complexion and gentle regard. But this stranger is more than Elodie’s mirror; she is an eerie omen of the young princess’ fate.

In Damsel, Elodie tries to escape the conventions of her own story. Trapped in a world of manners and expectations, the princess seeks adventure and longs to prove her independence. The conceit is familiar: A handful of recent films (and TV shows) have given audiences royal women eagerly subverting the tropes of medieval romances. Disney’s Brave introduced Merida, a fiery archer who brought a more overt contemporary feminism to the entertainment conglomerate’s brand. The Princess starred Joey King as...

The damsel in distress narrative device is a foundational storytelling element for the majority of people. Fairytales tell of princesses in peril and video games hide princesses in another castle. These women are treated as prizes to be won, a congratulatory gift to the men who saved these supposedly weak and helpless ladies who would have certainly perished without a man's intervention. Damsel in distress tropes date back to the ancient Greeks but the misogynistic belief that women are fragile creatures who need men to protect them is unfortunately still an intrinsically held value system for a shocking number of people. It's the grandmother of tropes like "fridging" as seen in media and literature, or more insidiously, "missing white woman syndrome" in real-life situations of women in harm's way.

Fortunately, plenty of alternative damsel characters exist to switch up the narrative. Megara in Disney's "Hercules" flipped the typical animated princess...

A medieval word with a highly specific (but often misused) meaning, “damsel” describes a young, unmarried lady-in-waiting. It’s also the broad title given many a helpless heroine in Hollywood movies — the proverbial “damsel in distress,” trussed to the train tracks or otherwise waiting to be saved. Elodie is neither of those in Netflix’s pleasantly disruptive fantasy story, which places “Enola Holmes” star Millie Bobby Brown squarely in control of her fate.

A revisionist fairy tale in which Elodie is hastily married off and served up as dragon chow to satisfy a generations-old curse, “Damsel” treats Elodie as an action hero for our less gender-rigid times. The loud-and-clear message, achieved by eliminating “distress” from the title (though it’s still an essential part of the formula): Passive damsels be damned! Here’s a woman who can fend for herself!

The eldest daughter of one Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone...

“There are many stories of chivalry where the heroic knight saves the damsel in distress,” a voice informs us before a single image appears on the screen. “This is not one of them.” It probably isn’t necessary to prep and/or warn viewers that Damsel, Netflix’s expensive-looking throw of the cinematic D&d dice, isn’t your typical sword-and-sorcery fantasy before it’s even started, but thanks for the heads up. For one thing, there’s no sorcery in it unless you count the magic that certain performers...

In our age of sprawling, ostentatious multi-film sagas about threats to imperial rule, Damsel’s mere existence as a completely standalone fantasy film almost feels like a blessing. Even better, the film is a welcome twist on the traditional princess narrative simply for giving its protagonist her agency without saddling her with too many archetypes.

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s film, written by Dan Mazeau, still treads through familiar fantasy terrain for its first 20 minutes, during which we meet Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown), a peasant girl whose father (Ray Winstone) and stepmother (Angela Bassett) have accepted an offer from a neighboring kingdom to marry her off to a handsome prince (Nick Robinson) in exchange for riches. The marriage goes off without a hitch. Elodie even has chemistry with the prince. But then the other shoe drops, and it becomes clear that the match is part of a grim ritual that’s...

Damsel Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Ray Winstone, Angela Bassett, Brooke Carter, Nick Robinson, Robin Wright

Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

Damsel Movie Review Out ( Photo Credit – IMDb )

What’s Good: Millie Bobby Brown has a striking screen presence

What’s Bad: The story

Loo Break: You can if you fail to survive the boredom

Watch or Not?: Rewatch the trailer, and that’s it

Language: English

Available On: Netflix

Runtime: 1 hour 49 minutes

User Rating:

In Damsel, Princess Elodie is married off to Prince Henry. From the outside, it looks like a fairy tale story. But Henry’s family sacrifices Elodie’s life to save their bloodlines. They throw her into a cave where a fire-spitting dragon resides, hungry for royal blood. It’s a story of this Damsel who is in distress but has no one to save her.

Damsel Movie Review Out ( Photo Credit – Netflix...

It’s Millie Bobby Brown versus dragon in Netflix’s dark fantasy adventure. Here’s our review of Damsel:

By pure coincidence, Damsel arrives on Netflix almost exactly a century after German director Fritz Lang introduced what was likely cinema’s first dragon in 1924’s Die Nibelungen. Lang and his collaborators brought their fearsome creature to life with a mixture of rubber, mechanical joints and puppetry (plus a bit of cocaine if one account is to be believed), and the result has a physical presence that is still captivating 100 years later.

In Damsel, director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and production designer Patrick Tatopoulos used CGI to create their dragon, but it still has plenty of weight, personality, and most importantly, menace. Unlike the gigantic winged beasts of, say, 1981’s Dragonslayer (which had terrific animation from Phil Tippett) or 2002’s Reign Of Fire, Damsel’s dragon is also relatively compact – it’s...

Written by Dan Mazeau and directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Damsel is based on the story of a damsel in distress. However, this distressed damsel doesn’t require any prince to save her, as she is equipped enough to save herself. Just like any other dark fantasy film—The Chronicles of Narnia or Maleficent—this film is replete with visual splendor. The most intriguing element of the lot is the wonderful cast of the movie. Casting renowned actors like Millie Bobby Brown (who is also known for her appearance in Stranger Things) has been an added advantage to the groundbreaking film.

Elodie

Played by Millie Bobby Brown, the character of Elodie has been portrayed to be that of a valiant warrior who is intent on making her way out of the abyss. She is gullible enough to be tricked into believing that her nuptial ties with Prince Henry would secure...

Plot: A dutiful damsel agrees to marry a handsome prince, only to find the royal family has recruited her as a sacrifice to repay an ancient debt. Thrown into a cave with a fire-breathing dragon, she must rely on her wits and will to survive.

Review: The idea of the anti-fairy tale is nothing new. From the grounded Cinderella tale Ever After starring Drew Barrymore to the John Wick-inspired The Princess starring Joey King, outdated stories of helpless maidens needing to be rescued by Prince Charming have lost their appeal in recent years. With empowerment narratives sometimes going too far in the opposite direction, striking a balance between good storytelling without archaic stereotypes is a tricky endeavor. While Disney has tried to flip the script with animated projects like Frozen or the live-action Maleficent, Netflix has delivered an update to the age-old stories of dragons, royalty, and knights with their dark fantasy Damsel.

Damsel is the latest fantasy film to be framed and sold as a deliberate subversion of typical fantasy tropes. While the traditional “prince saves the damsel in distress” fairy tale narrative hasn’t been common in fantasy for at least two decades at this point, the concept is so pervasive in popular culture that flipping it on its head has become just as, if not more, pervasive.

This most recent flipping aims to differentiate itself from other modern fantasy by combining the fairy tale approach with a darker Game of Thrones style tone. While the narrative is fairly simplistic, it still tackles very heavy material and does not shy away from the brutality and darkness of it all. And with the aid of a great lead in Millie Bobby Brown, it mostly succeeds.

Damsel Plot Millie Bobby Brown in Damsel

Our story centers on Elodie, played by Millie Bobby Brown,...

While forgettable to anyone not tasked with remembering it, Guy Ritchie’s 2019 feature film “The Gentlemen” does embody the two distinct halves shaping the writer-director’s career to date. At the height of its binary world are the aristocrats: affluent Englishmen whose titles and estates grant them access to a refined class of lords and ladies. On the other end are the criminals: conniving Brits who do the dirty work necessary just to get by. What brings them together is Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), an American living in London who builds a massive marijuana business by hiding his farms under the sweeping landscapes of the rich and fortified. The aristocrats get a hefty kickback to support their lavish lifestyle, and the criminals get the relative safety only wealth can offer. Two classes colliding — which happens once someone inevitably screws up — is what gives “The Gentlemen” its juice. Or it’s supposed to,...