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Don’t Worry Darling: Cast, Plot, and Release Date For Harry Styles Thriller

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Don’t Worry Darling: Cast, Plot, and Release Date For Harry Styles Thriller

Olivia Wilde’s film Don’t Worry Darling stars Harry Styles and Florence Pugh, and has created frenzied excitement while remaining a mystery.

Florence Pugh wears a bathing suit while sitting in a chair in Don't Worry Darling
Warner Bros. Pictures

2022 is set to be a year of big movies, but few are more secretive than Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling. Information about this film (featuring One Direction superstar Harry Styles) has been kept under wraps almost as much as new Marvel movies are, leaving many fans scrambling for any details they can find. Set pictures were leaked during filming in late 2020, sparking massive conversations about the plot and details of the film online. When director Olivia Wilde released a teaser of the film, it only created more chaos without answering any questions.

Although what is known about Don’t Worry Darling is limited, this has not stopped fans from getting excited about the film’s release; in fact, it’s probably just increased the anticipation. Hype about the film has been massive, especially considering the actors involved have said nothing about their roles or the filming process, and their involvement (prior to the release of the very brief teaser) was only known because of press releases and leaked photos.

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Who’s in Don’t Worry Darling?

To say that Don’t Worry Darling has star power would be an understatement. Helming the film is the acclaimed Olivia Wilde, who is directing here for the second time; her directorial debut Booksmart was very successful and allowed her a jumping off point to direct future projects. Don’t Worry Darling came to Olivia Wilde soon after, but production was delayed due to the pandemic and some casting issues. The main role of Alice was originally planned to be played by director Wilde, until she saw Florence Pugh in Midsommar. Wilde enjoyed Florence’s acting so much that she knew Pugh would be perfect for the part. Pugh is an up and coming actress with recent leading parts in Midsommar and Little Women, along with quickly becoming entrenched in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Yelena Belova in Black Widow and the Disney+ series Hawkeye. Pugh’s career is being launched into the stratosphere, and Don’t Worry Darling will likely add to that ascent.


Before production began, Alice’s husband Jack was originally set to be played by Shia LaBeouf. It was originally said that LaBeouf left the project due to sceduling conflicts, but Wilde eventually stated that he did not mesh with the cast. LaBeouf was replaced with Harry Styles, the X-Factor and One Direction singer who had, at the time of filming, only acted in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, but has since appeared in Marvel’s Eternals. Despite some early mix-ups with the cast, Don’t Worry Darling seems to have one of the hottest leading pairs of the year. The beloved Chris Pine and Nick Kroll also star.

Related: New Olivia Wilde Movie Sparks Massive Studio Bidding War

What is Don’t Worry Darling About?

Since there is not yet a full trailer for the film, what we know about the plot is gleaned at the surface-level. At it’s core, Don’t Worry Darling seems to be a psychological thriller set in 1950s California, in a kind of utopic, suburban desert community. Harry Styles and Florence Pugh play a husband and wife who’ve been having issues in their relationship, with her husband sometimes mysteriously absent and Florence’s character Alice having questions about her mental state due to recent events in her life. The film will chronicle this trauma along with the lives of people surrounding the couple. The addition of Pugh’s suffocating face in a plastic bag in the teaser has certainly also sparked massive interest.

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Despite the limited amount that is known about the plot, fans continue to theorize about what will occur and who the villain is, if any; as with many psychological thrillers, the line between good and bad is blurred, but fans are excited to see where their favorite celebrities fall on that spectrum. Many feel that the story may contain cults, murder, and possibly psychological manipulation and gaslighting, thanks to certain gun-pointing and grave-digging scenes in the sometimes sexy teaser. There is certainly not much more known about the plot , but the star power and massive bidding war between studios over the film nearly ensures viewers will be in for the ride of a lifetime.

Related: Olivia Wilde Praises Harry Styles as She Shares First Look at Don’t Worry Darling

When Will Don’t Worry Darling Be Released?

The film is currently set for a theatrical release in September 2022. Despite the filming getting a full theatrical release date, many are unsure if that will actually happen, due to the pushbacks in the last two years (as a result of the pandemic); Omicron has made plan-making seem almost laughable. A full trailer for the film has yet to be released, but director Olivia Wilde has marked the official release date as September 23rd.

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No matter when the film is released, fans will flock to theaters and/or streaming services to see it, and Don’t Worry Darling is very likely to be a success no matter the form in which it’s released. The September premier of Wilde’s movie also allows it to fit into the perfect window for an awards season run, something which seems immensely possible considering the talent and excitement surrounding the film.



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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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