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Can Family-Approved Biopics Sway Academy Voters?

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Can Family-Approved Biopics Sway Academy Voters?

While Hollywood long has embraced the biopic, it has become more common in recent years for family members of a film’s subject — or even the films’ subjects themselves — to take on executive producing roles to ensure that the movie is as accurate to their vision as it is entertaining.

Warner Bros.’ King Richard follows Richard Williams’ pursuit to turn his daughters Venus and Serena into the tennis superstars they are today. Executive producer Isha Price, sister of Venus and Serena and played in the film by Danielle Lawson, admits to THR that she at first was dubious of Zach Baylin’s script. “People had approached us about doing similar projects before,” Price says. “You don’t necessarily know the involvement you’re expected to have, and most of the time people don’t get the story right. They try to cover too much.”

After WME’s Dave Wirtschafter championed the script, Price gave it a chance — and was surprised by how accurate it was. “I called Dave and was like, ‘Who did this, and where did he get all this information?’ ” Price recalls with a laugh. Although more private elements of the Williams family story already had made it into the script, Baylin and producer Tim White initially were concerned with how much the family was willing to share. During their first meeting, Price says, “Out of stage left walked Oracene Price, my mom, the realest woman on the planet,” who was adamant that the film be as truthful as possible about her relationship with Richard Williams. “She was like, ‘We have to be honest about this or we can’t do it.’ We cover a lot of tough stuff that happened in our family — things that I would have never initially shared.”

While the family was willing to share personal history, Price says there was worry about protecting their father’s image or, at the very least, offering a counternarrative to the way Williams was depicted in the media. “He has been vilified in the press like a lot of tennis fathers,” she says, adding that it was Venus who suggested the film show the toxic behavior among the other parents in the junior tennis leagues. “He pulled them out of the juniors because it was not a healthy environment for [his] kids. This is a guy who stood up for his kids and didn’t let them get run all over by the media, by the world, by life in general. That should be the story [instead of] what the story was for so, so long.”

While the subjects of King Richard are alive and could weigh in on the film’s development, Netflix’s Tick, Tick … Boom! tells the story of the late Jonathan Larson’s early artistic endeavors, years before he wrote the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning musical Rent. But the composer, played in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s film by Andrew Garfield, wrote the source material as a one-man rock monologue about his self-imposed pressure to achieve musical theater greatness before his 30th birthday.

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“We’ve contemplated [a film adaptation] over the years,” says EP Julie Larson, Jonathan’s sister. “We wanted to make sure that there’d be a way to expand it — to be authentic to what my brother was thinking at the time but would also say something and that we could put it in the hands of someone we thought could do it justice.”

But it also was about doing justice to the stories of the people within his orbit. His original show included fictionalized characters from his real life — his girlfriend and best friend — all written from his perspective. With the film adaptation being closer to a traditional biopic, Julie Larson says she was “really conscious of [her] big responsibility” toward those figures in her brother’s life.

“I spent a lot of the last 25, 26 years being concerned about trying to make sure I protect and honor all the people in my brother’s sphere,” she adds. “It’s always weighed very heavily on me. Not everyone necessarily wanted to be front and center.” Ultimately, she says, everyone in Jonathan’s life sees the film as a snapshot of a long-lost era and a chance to spend time with him again. “Watching and experiencing Andrew play my brother was a joyful experience,” she says. “We got some of Johnny back.”

Getting that seal of approval from the people who personally knew the subject of a film is tricky. Aretha Franklin was involved in the development of MGM/UA’s Respect before her death in 2018 and even handpicked Jennifer Hudson to play her in the film. The movie earned an endorsement from her surviving family members, unlike this year’s competing Franklin project, Nat Geo’s Genius: Aretha, for which Cynthia Erivo earned an Emmy nomination.

MGM/UA’s House of Gucci — Ridley Scott’s crime saga that stars Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani, who ordered the murder of her estranged husband Maurizio Gucci in 1998 — sparked a scathing response from the Gucci family just after its November release. “The production of the film did not bother to consult the heirs before describing … the members of the Gucci family as thugs, ignorant and insensitive to the world around them,” the statement said.

The Academy may be unfazed by the Guccis’ response. After all, 2019 best picture winner Green Book — about the friendship between pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his driver Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga — was disavowed by the musician’s family as a misrepresentation. Ali won best supporting actor, and the film also earned best original screenplay for writer-producer Nick Vallelonga, who had the final say in his father’s story.

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This story first appeared in the Jan. 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Hitting the three-quarter-century mark usually means a retirement home, a nursing facility, or if you’re lucky to be blessed with relatively good health and savings to match, living in a gated community in Arizona or Florida.

For Sylvester Stallone, however, it means something else entirely: starring in the first superhero-centered film of his decades-long career in the much-delayed Samaritan. Unfortunately for Stallone and the audience on the other side of the screen, the derivative, turgid, forgettable results won’t get mentioned in a career retrospective, let alone among the ever-expanding list of must-see entries in a genre already well past its peak.

For Stallone, however, it’s better late than never when it involves the superhero genre. Maybe in getting a taste of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with his walk-on role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel several years ago, Stallone thought anything Marvel can do, I can do even better (or just as good in the nebulous definition of the word).

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The property Stallone and his team found for him, Samaritan, a little-known graphic novel released by a small, almost negligible, publisher, certainly takes advantage of Stallone’s brute-force physicality and his often underrated talent for near-monosyllabic brooding (e.g., the Rambo series), but too often gives him to little do or say as the lone super-powered survivor, the so-called “Samaritan” of the title, of a lifelong rivalry with his brother, “Nemesis.” Two brothers entered a fire-ravaged building and while both were presumed dead, one brother did survive (Stallone’s Joe Smith, a garbageman by day, an appliance repairman by night).

In the Granite City of screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Season of the Witch), the United States, and presumably the rest of the world, teeters on economic and political collapse, with a recession spiraling into a depression, steady gigs difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and the city’s neighborhoods rocked by crime and violence. No one’s safe, not even 13-year-old Sam (Javon Walker), Joe’s neighbor.

When he’s not dodging bullies connected to a gang, he’s falling under the undue influence of Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), a low-rent gang leader with an outsized ego and the conviction that he and only he can take on Nemesis’s mantle and along with that mantle, a hammer “forged in hate,” to orchestrate a Bane-like plan to plunge the city into chaos and become a wealthy power-broker in the process.

Schut’s woefully underwritten script takes a clumsy, haphazard approach to world-building, relying on a two-minute animated sequence to open Samaritan while a naive, worshipful Sam narrates Samaritan and Nemesis’s supposedly tragic, Cain and Abel-inspired backstory. Schut and director Julius Avery (Overlord) clumsily attempt to contrast Sam’s childish belief in messiah-like, superheroic saviors stepping in to save humanity from itself and its own worst excesses, but following that path leads to authoritarianism and fascism (ideas better, more thoroughly explored in Watchmen and The Boys).

While Sam continues to think otherwise, Stallone’s superhero, 25 years past his last, fatal encounter with his presumably deceased brother, obviously believes superheroes are the problem and not the solution (a somewhat reasonable position), but as Samaritan tracks Joe and Sam’s friendship, Sam giving Joe the son he never had, Joe giving Sam the father he lost to street violence well before the film’s opening scene, it gets closer and closer to embracing, if not outright endorsing Sam’s power fantasies, right through a literally and figuratively explosive ending. Might, as always, wins regardless of how righteous or justified the underlying action.

It’s what superhero audiences want, apparently, and what Samaritan uncritically delivers via a woefully under-rendered finale involving not just unconvincing CGI fire effects, but a videogame cut-scene quality Stallone in a late-film flashback sequence that’s meant to be subversively revelatory, but will instead lead to unintentional laughter for anyone who’s managed to sit the entirety of Samaritan’s one-hour and 40-minute running time.

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Samaritan is now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.

Samaritan

Cast
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton
  • Pilou Asbæk

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Matt Shakman Is In Talks To Direct ‘Fantastic Four’

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According to a new report, Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming MCU project, Fantastic Four. Marvel Studios has been very hush-hush regarding Fantastic Four to the point where no official announcements have been made other than the film’s release date. No casting news or literally anything other than rumors has been released regarding the project. We know that Fantastic Four is slated for release on November 8th, 2024, and will be a part of Marvel’s Phase 6. There are also rumors that the cast of the new Fantastic Four will be announced at the D23 Expo on September 9th.

Fantastic Four is still over two years from release, and we assume we will hear more news about the project in the coming months. However, the idea of the Fantastic Four has already been introduced into the MCU. John Krasinski played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The cameo was a huge deal for fans who have been waiting a long time for the Fantastic Four to enter the MCU. When Disney acquired Twenty Century Fox in 2019 we assumed that the Fox Marvel characters would eventually make their way into the MCU. It’s been 3 years and we already have had an X-Men and Fantastic Four cameo – even if they were from another universe.

Deadline is reporting that Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Shakman served as the director for Wandavision and has had an extensive career. He directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of The Boys, and he had a long stint on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is nothing official yet, but Deadline’s sources say that Shakman is currently in talks for the job and things are headed in the right direction.

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To be honest, I was a bit more excited when Jon Watts was set to direct. I’m sure Shakman is a good director, but Watts proved he could handle a tentpole superhero film with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Wandavision was good, but Watts’ style would have been perfect for Fantastic Four. The film is probably one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s upcoming slate films and they need to find the best person they can to direct. Is that Matt Shakman? It could be, but whoever takes the job must realize that Marvel has a lot riding on this movie. The other Fantastic Four films were awful and fans deserve better. Hopefully, Marvel knocks it out of the park as they usually do. You can see for yourself when Fantastic Four hits theaters on November 8th, 2024.

Film Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most iconic families makes it to the big screen: the Fantastic Four.

Source: Deadline

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Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase Star in ‘Zombie Town’ Mystery Teen Romancer (Exclusive)

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Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase have entered Zombie Town, a mystery teen romancer based on author R.L. Stine’s book of the same name.

The indie, now shooting in Ontario, also stars Henry Czerny and co-teen leads Marlon Kazadi and Madi Monroe. The ensemble cast includes Scott Thompson and Bruce McCulloch of the Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall.

Canadian animator Peter Lepeniotis will direct Zombie Town. Stine’s kid’s book sees a quiet town upended when 12-year-old Mike and his friend, Karen, see a horror movie called Zombie Town and unexpectedly see the title characters leap off the screen and chase them through the theater.

Zombie Town will premiere in U.S. theaters before streaming on Hulu and then ABC Australia in 2023.

“We are delighted to bring the pages of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to the screen and equally thrilled to be working with such an exceptional cast and crew on this production. A three-time Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner with book sales of over $500 million, R.L. Stine has a phenomenal track record of crafting stories that engage and entertain audiences,” John Gillespie, Trimuse Entertainment founder and executive producer, said in a statement.

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Executive producers are Trimuse Entertainment, Toonz Media Group, Lookout Entertainment, Viva Pictures and Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates.  

Paco Alvarez and Mark Holdom of Trimuse negotiated the deal to acquire the rights to Stine’s Zombie Town book.

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