Morgan Freeman and Florence Pugh have joined the cast of A Good Person, a drama that is set to be directed by Zach Braff. Braff is known for his acting roles, but has also established himself as a director of series like Scrubs and Ted Lasso, as well as films like Garden State and Going In Style, which starred Freeman as well.
A Good Person “will follow Allison (Pugh), whose life falls apart following her involvement in a fatal accident. In the following years, it is the unlikely relationship she forms with her would-be father-in-law (Freeman) that helps her live a life worth living.”
Freeman will next be seen in the sci-fi anthology series Solos, as well as the sequel film The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. Pugh will next be seen in Black Widow, as well as the Disney+ Hawkeye series, and Olivia Wilde’s upcoming film, Don’t Worry Darling.
Exclusive The Mallorca Files Season 2 Clip From BritBox’s Crime Drama Series
ComingSoon.net has an exclusive clip from the second season of BritBox’s crime drama series The Mallorca Files. The series is created by Dan Sefton (The Good Karma Hospital) and stars Elen Rhys (Broadchurch, Silent Witness) and Julian Looman (Nightlife, Pagan Peak). Season 2 will debut on the streamer on Tuesday, March 2. You can check out the clip now in the player below, which features our detective duo being followed by a mysterious man.
The Mallorca Files centers around two mismatched Detectives – DC Miranda Blake (Elen Rhys), an introvert who is used to living by the rules – and her German counterpart Max Winter (Julian Looman), whose approach to policing is based on gut-instinct, with little interest in procedure. The first season proved to be a hit with audiences and critics alike and the second season recently returned in the UK where it increased significantly in viewers.
The second series has attracted well-known guest stars including Phil Daniels (Adult Material, Sliced, Quadrophenia); Craig Kelly (Trick or Treat, Queer As Folk), and Kacey Ainsworth (Grantchester, EastEnders).
Additional writers include Damian Wayling (Riviera, Call the Midwife, Thanks for the Memories), Liz Lake (Riviera, EastEnders, Call the Midwife) and Tim Whitnall (Best Possible Taste: The Kenny Everett Story, The Hide) as well as emerging talents such as Jackie Okwera (Emmerdale) and Emily Fairweather.
The first season is available to stream on BritBox.
San Diego Comic-Con has announced that they will not hold an in-person event this year in 2021. Instead, they have decided to do a virtual event again. This event will be held over the course of three days from July 23rd to the 25th.
I really hate that the in-person event is being skipped again this year. But, what can ya do. They are just trying to be safe and responsible during the pandemic. At the same time, I really sure do miss that experience! I miss hanging out with my friends that I really only get to see during the convention.
But, Comic-Con International, the organization behind SDCC, also announced that they are planning an actual in-person convention in San Diego that will be held in November 2021, so fans have that to look forward to! I’m not sure what that will entail, but I’ll go if I can!
The organizers shared the following statement:
“While we are buoyed by the rollout of the vaccine and the growing number of individuals being inoculated, it appears that July will still be too early to safely hold an in-person event of the magnitude of Comic-Con. While we lament the postponement of the in-person Comic-Con, our commitment to this community of fans and our celebration of comics and the related popular arts endures as an important part of who we are.”
It’s also explained that both attendees and exhibitors planning to attend SDCC in July will have the option of rolling over to the November 2021 convention or the July 2022 convention. In their announcement, organizers say details on these plans “will be forthcoming.” In regards to the in-person convention in November, they are still working on specific details as to attendance capacity, badge cost, and related information.
Would any of you be interested in attending an in-person Comic-Con convention in November in San Diego?
Here’s the full press release:
As you may be aware, due to concern for public health and safety, San Diego Comic Convention had to cancel both of its in-person events in 2020 and recently announced that our spring 2021 show, WonderCon in Anaheim, will also be canceled. In its place, WonderCon@Home will once again be held as a free online event on March 26 and 27, 2021.
It is the policy of the organization to continue to closely monitor information from local and national healthcare officials as it pertains to the COVID-19 pandemic. Never could we have imagined what the world experienced in 2020 and continues to experience today. While we are buoyed by the rollout of the vaccine and the growing number of individuals being inoculated, it appears that July will still be too early to safely hold an in-person event of the magnitude of Comic-Con. For this reason, we have made the challenging decision to postpone Comic-Con 2021 as an in-person gathering until our 2022 dates, and once again hold this year’s celebration as the free online Comic-Con@Home. Unfortunately, the challenges of this past year and the multiple postponements of our two largest events have left us with limited financial resources, so this year the online experience will be reduced to a three-day event, spanning July 23-25, 2021.
While we lament the postponement of the in-person Comic-Con, our commitment to this community of fans and our celebration of comics and the related popular arts endures as an important part of who we are. As the timing and scope of our larger event factored greatly into our decision to postpone, we believe that launching a smaller in-person event at a later time may be a safe alternative. For this reason, we are happy to announce that San Diego Comic Convention is planning to present a three-day in-person convention in San Diego in November. At this time, we are still working on specific details as to attendance capacity, badge cost, and related information, and those details will be forthcoming. Please continue to visit our website, comic-con.org, for official updated information as it becomes available.
At this time, individuals who have purchased badges that were rolled over to the 2021 show will have those badges automatically transferred to the 2022 event unless a refund is requested. To submit a badge refund request, visit www.comic-con.org/cci/comic-con-cancellationrefund-policy. All confirmed exhibitors with a rollover payment from Comic-Con 2020 will receive a separate email with instructions and deadlines for continuing to forward your payment on to Comic-Con 2022, or for requesting a refund. In addition, we are currently working on an option for those wishing to transfer their badge or exhibitor deposits/payments as full or partial payment towards our 2021 November event. Information will be forthcoming, so please watch your email inbox and the Comic-Con website for further details.
The past several months have taken a great toll on both families and friends, and we hope this effort is a small move toward a return to gathering as a community to not only celebrate popular art, but also friendship, education, and the enduring spirit of the fandom that is so much a part of Comic-Con. We thank you all for your continued and unwavering support during these most challenging times.
Deception games have boomed in the last years. Between Among Us, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, and The Chameleon, we have seen a plethora of different approaches to games about lying, getting away with stuff, and defending oneself. While Cult of the Deep has a bit less of the discussion that you get with other deception games, it still stands as a fun experience to have with a slightly larger party.
The basic idea of the Cult Of The Deep is that a group of cultists is trying to weed out evil-doers, while the “bad guys” are trying to kill off the high priest. Players are given a hidden role, a character, and a hidden, one-time-use spell at the beginning of the game. Then players will roll dice and assign them to do damage, heal or add to powerful rituals. It ends when a player/s reach/es his or her end goal stated on their role card. The overall gameplay is fun, fast, and makes each turn feel impactful. There are a few issues with the “hidden dice” formula and deception parts of it, but it stands as a cool, more involved game of hidden agendas.
Let’s talk about the good parts first. Each turn a player takes can make a difference. Their rolls, the damage they deal, the health they heal, and the rituals they contribute to can turn the tides of the game if they want. It is also nice to have special powers and other ways to be involved in other people’s turns so that players aren’t just sitting there doing nothing. Most turns are incremental levels of damage/healing/ritual building, but it is up to the player and situation to do more or be discreet. Also, the art is beautiful, and the various coins, cards, and materials are great, even for the demo version I played. However, one of the best parts of the game is that when a person is killed off, they aren’t totally kicked out. They come back as a wraith with a new way to help or hurt others. This allows players to still enjoy the game even after they are killed off, unlike other games that just force dead players to watch in silence. The different roles, characters, one-time-use spells, rituals, and wraiths add a huge amount of replayability because of the randomness and combinations that can come from those things passed out to each player and when they come up in the game.
There are a few issues that might be addressed or changed before release, but here is what we saw as of now. The hidden roles mechanic isn’t as hidden as we would’ve hoped or expected. After a few rounds of attacking certain people (the first fifteen minutes of the game), it can be pretty clear who has which role and what their goals are. Once that is established, it becomes a complex and more involved version of Yahtzee, trying for the best rolls or sabotaging enemy rolls. It is still a fun game, but the mystery of who is playing which role can fade pretty quickly unless people are purposely deceptive in who they are attacking and defending from the beginning. We also found the number of ritual cards was somewhat low; we cycled through them very quickly, and it felt a lot less interesting to try and fulfill the same rituals every playthrough. The last issue we found was that the players were often gaining health faster than taking damage. If characters started with more health from the start but could regain less throughout the game, it may run a bit more naturally and become less of a tug of war, especially in the final rounds.
Cult Of The Deep is a well-produced and far more involved version of Mafia and Werewolf. It allows and calls for planning, surprise attacks, and trust between players. Giving out different roles and unique character powers make each turn feel impactful and allow for a lot of variety on repeat playthroughs. But the levels of deception between players can be peeled back very quickly and very easily, and the health/damage systems could be tuned a bit better. With all that said, Cult Of The Deep is an interesting and slightly less mysterious way to approach classic deception games that still has good moment-to-moment gameplay for each player from beginning to end with a good amount of variety and great aesthetics. Cult Of The Deep is currently on Kickstarter, and its campaign is ending soon! If you want more information, check out their Kickstarter to learn more about the game.
The Ice Road: Netflix Acquires Liam Neeson’s Action-Thriller in Domestic Deal
Deadline brings word that Netflix has acquired Oscar nominee Liam Neeson’s (Schindler’s List, Kinsey, The Grey) action-thriller The Ice Road. The streaming giant won the U.S. rights to the project in a “record domestic only-deal,” reportedly offering $18 million for the movie off of a promo. The deal was closed during the virtual European Film Market (EFM) over the weekend.
Neeson most recently appeared in the action titles The Marksman and Honest Thief, as well as the James D’Arcy comedy Made in Italy.
In The Ice Road, after a remote diamond mine collapses in the far northern regions of Canada, an ice driver (Neeson) leads an impossible rescue mission over a frozen ocean to save the lives of trapped miners despite thawing waters and a threat they never see coming.
The movie is written and directed by Jonathan Hensleigh (The Punisher, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Jumanji) and also stars Laurence Fishburne and Holt McCallany.
Now that the dust has settled on a fantastic third season of Cobra Kai, the series has promoted Vanessa Rubio and Peyton List to series regulars. Rubio has been in the series since Season 1 as Carmen Diaz, Miguel’s mother and Johnny’s Season 3 love interest. List joined the show in Season 2, playing Tory Nichols, a girl with a tough past that joins Cobra Kai and is taken under the wing of John Kreese.
Both characters had bigger parts this season, and it only makes sense that they get headliner billing like their co-stars. The series has also added two new characters to the fourth season with young actors Dallas Young (Mixed-ish, The Big Show Show) and newcomer Oona O’Brien, who has starred in stage productions of Annie and School of Rock.
Young will play “Kenny, a bullied new kid in school who turns to karate as a way to defend himself.” O’Brien will play “Devon, a potential new karate student who is relentlessly competitive, a quick study, and equally quick-tempered when she’s provoked.”
These sound like solid new characters, and I can’t wait to see them in the next season of Cobra Kai.
Ariana Greenblatt to Play Tiny Tina in Eli Roth’s Borderlands
Ariana Greenblatt is set to play Tiny Tina in Eli Roth’s movie adaptation of the best-selling video game franchise Borderlands after a worldwide casting search. Greenblatt will join Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jack Black in the film. Last year, Greenblatt starred in Love and Monsters for Paramount, The One and Only Ivan for Disney, and had a voice role in Warner Bros.’ Scoob!. The actress will now take on Tiny Tina, who, in the video games, is a non-player character described as being an unstable thirteen-year-old explosives expert.
“Ariana is a spectacular new talent in cinema. She has already worked with many of my close collaborators and everyone raves about her. She blew us all away in her audition, and I cannot wait to see her bring the wild, insane, and unpredictable Tiny Tina to the big screen. She’s going to blow up on screen like one of Tina’s grenades,” said Roth.
It was announced in May 2020 that Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett (Carol, Blue Jasmine, The Aviator) will lead the cast as Lilith, a siren and legendary thief equipped with magical skills. Hart signed on to star as ex-soldier-turned-mercenary Roland. Curtis will play Tannis, an archeologist on Pandora who might have the key to finding the vault, but whose complicated history with Lilith (Blanchett) isn’t going to help. Jack Black will play the beloved robot companion Claptrap.
Based on the bestselling PC and console gaming experience from developer Gearbox Software and publisher 2K, a wholly owned label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., Borderlands will be produced by Avi Arad and Ari Arad, who produce through their Arad Productions banner, and Erik Feig, through PICTURESTART, who have shepherded the project and overseen development, including the latest draft of the screenplay by the two-time Emmy-winning screenwriter Craig Mazin. The film’s executive producers are Randy Pitchford, executive producer of the Borderlands video game franchise and founder of the Gearbox Entertainment Company, and Strauss Zelnick, chairman and CEO of Take-Two Interactive.
Borderlands is one of the world’s most successful video game franchises, with more than 57 million units sold-in worldwide, including over 22 million units of Borderlands 2, which is the highest-selling title in the history of 2K. The most recent installment, Borderlands 3, which launched in September 2019, already sold-in nearly 8 million units worldwide and was honored with the award for “Best Multiplayer Game” at Gamescom.
Amazon has released another teaser trailer for it’s upcoming historical fiction miniseries, The Underground Railroad. The series comes from writer and director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk), and it’s inspired by the metaphorical Underground Railroad, which was a network of secret routes and safe houses used in the mid-19th century to help slaves escape out of slavery into the free states.
This new story imagines the Underground Railroad that we’re all familiar with as an actual railroad located beneath the southern soil, taking slaves on the first journey of their free life. This actually looks like a beautifully made series.
The show is based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, and the story follows Cora, “a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia who is an outcast even amongst her fellow Africans and is struggling coming into womanhood when she meets Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia who informs her of the Underground Railroad, inspiring them both to take the risk and escape to freedom.”
These events lead Cora on a journey “as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. After escaping her Georgia plantation for the rumored Underground Railroad, Cora discovers no mere metaphor, but an actual railroad full of engineers and conductors, and a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the southern soil.”
The series stars Thuso Mbedu, Chase W. Dillon, Aaron Pierre, Joel Edgerton, Damon Herriman, William Jackson Harper, Amber Gray, Jim Klock, Lily Rabe, Fred Hechinger, and Owen Harn.
The 11-episode limited series has been in development for a long time and it will debut on Amazon Prime on May 14th.
New The Walking Dead Final Season Teaser Sets Summer 2021 Premiere
Following the premiere of The Walking Dead’s bonus Season 10 episodes last night, which focused heavily on the return of Lauren Cohan’s Maggie Rhee and introduced new enemies called the Reapers, AMC revealed a brief teaser for the final season of The Walking Dead. The teaser announced that Season 11 will premiere this summer on AMC following season 10c. The clip doesn’t reveal much besides cameras in an interrogation room, but the caption, “A New World Order,” hints that fans can expect The Commonwealth to play a major role in the final episodes of the hit series. You can check out the teaser below!
The Walking Dead is a story that started 10 years ago with one man trying to find his family. That family grew and gradually communities took shape. They fought and survived, thrived, and gave birth to a new generation. It is a tale of humankind and there are more stories to tell.
Last on The Walking Dead, we witnessed the fall of Alpha (Samantha Morton) and the end of the Whisperers War. The Kingdom had fallen, Hilltop was virtually destroyed and Alexandria abandoned to prepare for the final battle. Our survivors were trapped and separated from one another. Yet, when faced with almost certain death, they rallied together to fight, killing Beta (Ryan Hurst) and eliminating the threat of the horde.
In these six new episodes of The Walking Dead season 10c, we find our survivors trying to pick themselves up by their bootstraps following the destruction the Whisperers left in their wake. The years of struggle weigh upon them as past traumas surface, exposing their more vulnerable sides. As they question the state of humanity, the state of their collective community, and the states of their minds, will they find the inner strength to persevere with their lives, friendships, and group intact?
The Walking Dead stars Norman Reedus, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Cailey Fleming, Josh McDermitt, Christian Serratos, Seth Gilliam, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton, Cooper Andrews, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Avi Nash, Nadia Hilker, Lauren Ridloff, Angel Theory, Dan Fogler, and Kevin Carroll.
