Pretty Deadly Mars

They put this one together real fast, huh.

Guess they knew they should strike while the Deadpool-was-a-hit iron was hot.

All glibness aside, I’m talking about Life, a space-set thriller about finding, well...life on Mars, and how said life just might try to take yours. Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal, and The Girl on the Train’s Rebecca Ferguson star.

Safe House’s Daniel Espinosa directed the movie, which is set for release next Memorial Day weekend.

Check its trailer now.

Photo: ScreenRant.com.

Forever, Biblically Young

Biblical epics are tricky – but don’t think that’s gonna keep Tom Cruise from trying his luck with one.

The star is set to headline Methuselah for producer David Heyman (the upcoming Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the Harry Potter franchise).

Up-and-coming director Joachim Rønning (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Kon-Tiki) is attached to helm the life story of the longest-living figure in the Hebrew Bible.

Photo: SamishLeather.com.

Hello Hello, J. Lo

It’s all turning shades of...a musical for Jennifer Lopez.

NBC has tapped the hardest-working multi-hyphenate in the industry – as you oughta know, she stars on the Peacock’s Shades of Blue – for the role of Rosie on Bye Bye, Birdie Live!, its next holiday musical presentation.

La Lopez will executive produce the 2017 title – the story of a rock singer named Conrad Birdie who travels to a small Ohio town for a farewell TV performance...and to kiss his biggest fan (enter J. Lo’s Rosie) before he is drafted into the Army – with her longtime manager and creative partner Benny Medina. Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, and Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas – whom, if memory serves, runs the triple threat’s production company – also are on board as producers.

Harvey Fierstein – who will be featured on this season’s Hairspray Live! special airing on Dec. 7 – is writing the teleplay adaptation.

Photo: Pinterest.com.

Ready to Fall a Third Time

This because like, last spring’s London Has Fallen did (comparatively) so, so well?

Gerard Butler and the powers that be are putting together an action-packed threequel to cap the unlikely franchise they launched in 2013 with the sleeper hit Olympus Has Fallen.

Angel Has Fallen will see Butler reprising his role as the indefatigable Secret Service agent Mike Banning, this time to keep himself safe from terrorists hellbent on taking him out, this, natch, in order to come down on Washington, D.C., again.

If he is to be in the movie, though, Aaron Eckhart just might die in this one: “Angel” will serve as the code name for...Air Force One.

Here’s to hoping he makes it to the escape pod we were told about in Harrison Ford’s Air Force One, huh.

Production on Angel Has Fallen is expected to get underway during the first half of 2017. A director has yet to be announced.

Someone should call on Mimi Leder.

Photo: ComingSoon.net (London Has Fallen).

Reset Time

Alrighty then.

It was a day for trailer premieres yesterday, what with the drop for the preview of Netflix’s Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life and that of (network) TV’s much-anticipated 24: Legacy, the Corey Hawkins-fronted reboot that Fox will debut right after Super Bowl LI in February.

Click here to watch the trailer for the new show, which is to co-star Miranda Otto, Teddy Sears (The CW’s The Flash), Dan Bucatinsky (TV’s Scandal), and Jimmy Smits. The story of a heroic Army Ranger (Hawkins) who turns to CTU upon his return home to the United States, for help in saving his life and stopping what could be a massive terrorist attack on America, looks like it’s gonna be one heckuva ride.

24: Legacy is scheduled to kick off with a two-night launch on Feb. 5-6.

I’ll def be watching.

Photo: ShadowAndAct.com.

The Moan of the Snake

King Cobra is now On Demand!

King Cobra, in case you don’t know, is this indie set in the world of gay porn that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, if memory serves, earlier this year, about the rise of and controversy surrounding porn star Brent Corrigan. The film was written and directed by I Am Michael’s Justin Kelly, and stars Garrett Clayton and James Franco and Christian Slater and Alicia Silverstone and Molly Ringwald and Keegan Allen, and looks kinda crazy (in the bestest way – in a Party Monster-esque sort of way).

Based on the Cobra Killer chronicle by Andrew E. Stoner and Peter A. Conway, the film explores the murderous lengths to which the shady men behind Corrigan – no pun intended – went to keep their exclusive making ’em money.

Check out the trailer for King Cobra now – and your On Demand menu right after, OKRRR.

And your local movie times right after that, OKRRR, OKRRR. If you feel like catching it up on that big ol’ silver screen, King Cobra is also playing in selected cities.

Photo: Out.com.

Gimme Gilmores!

One more month, kids.

Exactly one more month until we get to binge Netflix’s revivalicious Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.

I can already taste my Thanksgiving dinner and the awesomeness of the four Amy Sherman-Palladino-devised movielets starring Lauren Graham, Alexis Bledel, Kelly Bishop & Co. that the streamer will be serving for dessert.

Here’s the first full trailer for the good stuff now. Be warned, though: All. The. Emotions:

Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life is scheduled to premiere drop hit the Netflix on Nov. 25.

Zelda, Too

Oh snap, Jennifer Lawrence: Scarlett Johansson is doing it, too.

No, not modeling for Dior in her spare time – the Black Widow player is now an actual Parisian-popcorn-shop business onwer off camera. So rest easy, you Oscar-winning model!

“Don’t Call Me ScarJo” is actually also working on a biopic about Zelda Fitzgerald!

The Johansson-led, Fitzgerald estate-sanctioned project, though, will be titled The Beautiful and the Damned (J. Law’s Ron Howard-steered film is expected to go simply by Zelda). Its basis, as you likely have surmised, will be Zelda Fitzgerald’s husband F. Scott’s eponymous novel, which was inspired by his marriage to the so-called first American Flapper.

So that makes two – two! – Zelda Fitzgerald biopics in the works, 0 Madam C. J. Walker biopics in the works.

Get it together, Hollywood.

Photo: Mashable.com.

The Measure of a Man

I still want and have to go see Ben Affleck as The Accountant, but I will admit that the Affleck project I’m most curious about right now is the long-in-the-making period piece Live By Night.

Obviously. The guy gave us the Best Picture Academy Award winner Argo (and The Town). Plus, he worked on this one with producer Leonardo DiCaprio.

So like, duh.

Anyway. The Oscar-winning multi-hyphenate’s new film is now getting a Christmas Day release date in order to qualify for awards consideration (the film then will go wide on Jan. 13). So you know the wait probably was well worth the hassle.

Based on the eponymous novel by Dennis Lehane, set in the Prohibition Era, and co-starring The Neon Demon’s Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina (hulu’s The Mindy Project), Sienna Miller, Miguel, Scott Eastwood, Zoë Saldana, and Chris Cooper, Live By Night will be anchored, of course, by writer-director-star Affleck, who will play the bad-seed son of a Boston police captain who works his way into Beantown’s criminal underbelly in order to tear it apart from the inside out (when things sour between him and them).

Sounds oh-so-simple, and yet you just know it’s gonna be everything but, alright.

Click here to watch the Live By Night trailer now.

Photo: Deadline.com.

At Solange O’Clock

Still reeling from the Tobey Maguire-Jen Meyer split?

Well, then, take your mind off of that bit o’ news and down a way different direction by enjoying a docu-short.

Solange Knowles’ A Seat at the Table, Beginning Stages, to be perfectly precise.

I’ve only just now had the chance to watch the film, which is a making-of chronicle of her recently released A Seat at the Table album that sees her...struggling with – or dutifully working on – melody selection for some of her new material (her first output in four years), which includes a deeply personal and spiritual ditty titled “Don’t Touch My Hair,” featuring Sampha, a British electronic-music singer-songwriter.

The other Knowles sister really has come into her own, don’t you agree?

Photo: EW.com.

When Love Goes Bump in the Night

Amy Adams.

Jake Gyllenhaal.

Kim Basinger.

And The Birth of a Nation’s Armie Hammer.

They are all taking part in designer-turned-film auteur Tom Ford’s next cinematic effort, the thirstily awaited festival darling Nocturnal Animals, a sure-to-be-captivating-and-beyond-stylish offering scheduled to arrive in select cities on Nov. 18 before going wide on Dec. 9.

Adams stars as a Los Angeles gallery owner haunted by a novel written and sent her way by her ex-husband (the Gyllen-yum) due to its thriller-like violence, which she interprets as a veiled threat and a tale of fulfilled symbolic revenge. Check out the film’s trailer now (Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Laura Linney, and Birdman’s Andrea Riseborough all co-star) – and, maybe...perhaps, try to read Tony and Susan, the Austin Wright book that inspired Ford in the first place, before the movie comes out?

I know I’m going to try to.

Photo: Focus Features.

Ready for Her TV Comeback

It’s about to be 2017, and Carol Burnett is about to star on TV again.

The legendary Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actress has been tapped for the lead role in a potential multi-camera untitled-as-of-yet comedy executive produced by Amy Poehler.

The project will zero in on a family that gets the chance to purchase the house of everyone’s dreams on the condition that they live with the current owner, an older actress (that would be La Burnett), until she croaks.

ABC, not NBC, has called dibs on this one, btw. So Poehler is moving on up – and she’s taking Carol friggin’ Burnett with her when she does.

Photo: BuzzFeed.com.

Flapped

Jennifer Lawrence is not slowing down.

The Oscar winner’s going to team up with Inferno’s Ron Howard on Zelda, a biopic about the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, the so-called first American Flapper (and the wife of a very famous author). Howard is producing the project and considering stepping behind the camera to direct the story, which indubitably will touch upon her eventually diagnosed schizophrenia.

Zelda will center on the better half of F. Scott Firtzgerald, a woman desperate to define herself in her own terms, and also will strive to answer whether two creative equals can coexist in harmony. 

Emma Frost (Starz’s The White Queen) worked on the screenplay, keeping the biography by Nancy Milford in mind for inspiration.

Photo: DailyMail.co.uk.

Young Lando!

He may be all about FX’s Atlanta these days – but Hollywood? Hollywood is all about him.

Donald Glover is going to star opposite Alden Ehrenreich in Han Solo: A Star Wars Story, the second Star Warsverse spin-off anthology film that Phil Lord and Chris Miller are preppin’ for 2018. Glover is gonna play...young Lando Calrissian!

So. Smooth! I luh it.

Up first, though, Star Wars fans (who, of course, know this): This December’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Photo: LoveBScott.com.

Womanly Going

Alrighty then. Time to get in formation.

Next time I have a day off, Imma run to the movie theater to catch Kelly Reichardt’s Gotham Award-nominated Certain Women, which stars the never-more-It-than-now Kristen Stewart, Laura Dern, the writer-director’s go-to muse Michelle Williams (she starred in Wendy and Lucy for Reichardt), and newcomer Lily Gladstone.

An indie drama based on short stories by Maile Meloy, Certain Women follows three small-town-Montana women as their lives intersect as each imperfectly blazes a trail toward...something new, something...else.

Check out the film’s trailer now.

Photo: Indiewire.com.

It’s Showtime for Madonna

Guess I was onto something when I chose Madonna’s “Rebel Heart” as the Song of 2015, huh.

The Queen of Pop is among the hit-writing artists nominated to the 2017 Songwriters Hall of Fame, alongside an old collaborator, Babyface, Jay Z, Max Martin (Britney Spears’ go-to guy), Bryan Adams, George Michael, and Kool & the Gang, among others.

M FTW, though! Especially since she was previously nominated in 2013. 

So sit down, Lady GaGa. (There we were, doing so well for a bit, she and I....)

For someone so intent on standing apart from Madonna – btw, you know the Queen does write her own songs, alone or with collaborators (always has, always will), that is, of course, when she doesn’t quote-unquote take one from another artist, like Björk (who co-wrote “Bedtime Story” with two other talents), y’ know, just like just about everyone under the sun does – Mother Monster sure was happy to step on her elder a few days ago, to build herself up...and on the week her new record was due, no less.

Girl.

But back to Madonna.

Her latest tour doc, Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour will premiere on Showtime on Dec. 9 – on the same night M will be honored as the Woman of the Year at the 11th annual Billboard Women in Music event in New York City.

Check out the trailer for the televised tour now.

All together now: Long live the Queen of Pop!

Classic and Back

Cher is back (again), bitches!

And she’s putting on some shows to prove it.

So be sure to check and keep on checkin’ for tickets to her “Classic Cher” shows in Las Vegas and Washington, D.C., next winter. The fun kicks off on Feb. 7, at the Park Theater at the Monte Carlo in Vegas.

Welcome back, woman!

Photo: CherWorld.com.

Update: Look – the assault has commenced.

Look at Her Amazingness singing a classic with an oh-so-modern twist with James Cordern on his show last night.

Posh Does Target

And there you were, thinking you’d never find Victoria Beckham dead in a Target.

But there she goes, and for spring, no less.

The Spice Girl-turned-big-time-and-slayin’-the-game-fashion designer announced this week that her expanding empire will hit the retailer with a limited-edition collection of classic womenswear that also will introduce her first line of clothes for children (you probably can especially thank Harper Beckham for that one).

More than 200 pieces ranging in sizes from XS to 3X and in prices from $6 to $70 will become available in stores and online on April 9, with a few pieces selling internationally only on the designer’s website.

Now...while I am firmly Posh Spice 4ever, to this I say: Cool beans!

Photo: OK.co.uk.

You Know His Name

Taking a cue from the powers that be behind Jason Bourne – who named their eagerly anticipated summer-2016 fourthquel after the beloved character we the audience dutifully have been following for close to two decades – here comes...Logan.

Got that right: The boy with claws is going out in style and claiming his given name in the upcoming Wolverine threequel, the first trailer for which arrived today.

The Wolverine’s James Mangold is back in the director’s chair, calling the shots and delivering what looks like – from the subdued preview of it all – as a total thematic and stylistic departure for the Hugh Jackman-led franchise and, indeed, the Xverse as a whole.

It is as if sensible auteurship has taken hold of the mutants at last. (Could this last?)

Based on an arc from Jackman’s career-defining character’s Old Man Logan comic-book story, Logan appears to promise a sort of taking of stock for the guy, with the action set in a barren world in which an older Wolverine finds himself pretty much alone thanks to his healing powers (his face has begun to catch up to his years thanks, perhaps, to what happened to him in his 2013 sequel?).

Patrick Stewart’s Professor X is still around, although barely: Mutants have all but vanished or gotten vanished, and the former leader of the X-Men turns to his old ally for help in protecting a mysterious young girl (newcomer Sienna Novikov) not all that dissimilar from from the gruff mutant.

Mmm....

Wanna know what that’s about? Then mark your calendars for March 3, which is exactly when Logan – co-starring Boyd Holbrook (Netflix’s Narcos) and Elizabeth Rodriguez (AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead, Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black) – is scheduled to begin bustin’ some blocks.

Photo: EW.com.

Guernsey Gal

The Guernsey Literary Society and Potato Peel Pie Society will rise, but not with Rosamund Pike or Rebecca Ferguson or Kate Winslet as its lead.

No, no. The pleasure will be all Lily James’.

The Cinderella star has landed the coveted part of a British writer who travels to the remote island of Guernsey after World War II to learn about how a book club helped those living there cope with the embattled times. It only took four years to get to this casting point, but here we are, kids.

Bubbles for everyone!

Director Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) is attached to helm (Kenneth Branagh once held the gig), working off of a script written by Don Roos (Marley & Me, The Opposite of Sex) and Tom Bezucha (The Family Stone) based on the historical novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barros.

Photo: JustJared.com.

Stronger with J. Lo

She’s with –H.

Save the date, Miami: Jennifer Lopez is going to perform in town for you on behalf of Hillary Clinton on Oct. 29.

The multi-hyphenate is part of a fun-sounding Love Trumps Hate campaign concert series, which also includes Katy Perry and Jon Bon Jovi, among others.

Bon Jovi will put on a show for the next president of the United States in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27 and in Tampa on Nov. 5, while Perry also will take to the stage on Nov. 5, but in Philadelphia.

The National will perform on Nov. 2, in Cincinnati.

Now...about that J. Lo show in the Magic City...so #jelly!

Photo: iHeart.com.