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Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan & Tandi Wright Join New ‘Evil Dead' Film

Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan & Tandi Wright Join New ‘Evil Dead' Film

Yahoo22-05-2025

EXCLUSIVE: Hunter Doohan (Your Honor), Luciane Buchanan (The Night Agent), and Tandi Wright (Pearl) are set to star opposite Souheila Yacoub in the next Evil Dead film, co-financed by New Line and Sony Pictures.
Character details are under wraps. Sébastien Vaniček, the filmmaker behind haunting spider flick Infested, is directing from his script written with Florent Bernard. The film will be produced by franchise veteran Rob Tapert and series creator Sam Raimi. Romel Adam, Jose Canas, and Lee Cronin will exec produce alongside Bruce Campbell, the cult icon known for his starring role as Ash in various Evil Dead projects, beginning with Raimi's iconic 1981 film The Evil Dead.
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New Line will distribute the film domestically through Warner Bros. Pictures on July 24, 2026. Sony will distribute internationally with StudioCanal distributing in the UK and Metropolitan distributing in France.
Best known for starring opposite Bryan Cranston on Showtime's Your Honor, Doohan has also appeared on the shows Daredevil: Born Again and Truth Be Told. Upcoming, he'll be seen in the second season of Netflix's juggernaut Wednesday. He is repped by McCaffrey Talent Management, WME, and attorney Jeff Bernstein.
Buchanan stars alongside Jason Momoa a in the upcoming Apple TV+ series Chief of War and can currently be seen in Netflix's The Night Agent opposite Gabriel Basso. She is repped by WME, Entertainment 360, Gail Cowan Management, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
The New Zealand-based Wright can be seen in Ti West's A24 pic Pearl and the series Creamerie, currently streaming on Hulu in the U.S. Other notable credits include Jack the Giant Slayer, Love and Monsters, and The Wilds, to name just a few. She is repped by Johnson and Laird Management and Lisa Mann Creative Management.
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Meet the new Karate Kids of 'Legends': Ben Wang and Aramis Knight
Meet the new Karate Kids of 'Legends': Ben Wang and Aramis Knight

USA Today

time33 minutes ago

  • USA Today

Meet the new Karate Kids of 'Legends': Ben Wang and Aramis Knight

Meet the new Karate Kids of 'Legends': Ben Wang and Aramis Knight Show Caption Hide Caption 'Karate Kid: Legends' trailer: Ralph Macchio teams with Jackie Chan Ralph Macchio's karate sensei and Jackie Chan's kung fu shifu work together to train a martial arts prodigy in "Karate Kid: Legends." In every 'Karate Kid' movie, there's a teen hero and an absolute jerk of a bully. The original 1984 movie featured Ralph Macchio getting pummeled mercilessly until he finally beat William Zabka, though their rival characters became friends in 'Cobra Kai.' Then there's 1994's 'The Next Karate Kid,' which gave us Hilary Swank vs. young Walton Goggins. A couple of new enemies, both 25, enter the fray in 'Karate Kid: Legends' (in theaters now). Ben Wang plays Li Fong, a kung fu-trained youngster recently moved to New York City, and Aramis Knight is Conor Day, a karate-champ classmate who seethes after the newcomer befriends Conor's ex (Sadie Stanley). Trash talk and beatdowns commence, all leading to a faceoff in the championship of a local karate tournament. Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox Director Jonathan Entwistle says Wang has a 'Marty McFly quality' to him, playing a Chinese Peter Parker-type character, and he told Knight he was 'playing something actually quite iconic: the bad guy in a cool outfit.' Time will tell if their characters hug it out 30 years from now, 'Cobra Kai' style, for a Netflix show. In the meantime, here's what fans of these new karate kids need to know about Wang and Knight: Ben Wang shares a similar origin story to new 'Karate Kid' In 'Legends,' Li Fong relocates from his native undefined with his mother (Ming-Na Wen). Wang finds a parallel to his own life story, but with a twist: He moved from Shanghai to small-town Northfield, Minnesota, with his mom when he was 6, and ended up at drama school in the Big Apple. 'I didn't have to dig very deep for a lot of the stuff. Mostly the hardest part was the squats,' says Wang, who starred in the Disney+ series 'American Born Chinese' and also appeared in the movies 'Mean Girls' and 'Chang Can Dunk.' His next film is the Stephen King dystopian horror adaptation 'The Long Walk' (undefined) and Wang has also been cast in next year's 'Hunger Games' prequel 'Sunrise on the Reaping." Like his 'Karate Kid' character, Wang trained in martial arts early, doing after-school taekwondo, and has studied other Chinese forms like Wing Chun kung fu. The acting aspect, however, came when he realized, 'I wasn't any good at sports, and I wanted friends.' Wang's first play at age 10 was 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' he says, 'but it wasn't Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' ' Still, "I was like, oh, I've never actually had that kind of fun before in my life. I mean, I had no plan to do it professionally, but it ended up working out for the best." Aramis Knight earned his martial arts stripes in the 'Badlands' Knight might seem like a Hollywood newcomer, but he's already built an extremely varied 20-year career, on shows including 'Lost,' 'Dexter' and 'NCIS,' plus movie roles in 'The Dark Knight Rises' and 'Ender's Game.' Most noteworthy, however, is his action-packed TV work: Knight starred in the post-apocalyptic drama 'Into the Badlands' as well as Marvel's 'Ms. Marvel.' 'Badlands' was 'the perfect crash course' in martial arts, and co-star Daniel Wu became his mentor in wushu. The night he heard he got the role, "I remember me and my mom just thinking like, 'Damn, how am I going to do this?' " While he was "fairly athletic" and played a lot of basketball when he was younger, "I was not flexible at all," he says. "undefined' After training and doing the show for three seasons, 'I'm pretty sure I tore and rebuilt every muscle imaginable just to get to the point where I'm at now,' Knight says. 'I'm by no means an expert but I'm no slouch. I can definitely look like I'm very good at it.' Knight wants to play 'bigger-than-life, almost unrecognizable' characters, yet "it's harder when you're young to play those like Gary Oldman-esque parts,' he says. Being a karate villain is a step in that character actor direction. 'You kind of get the free pass to do things that you wouldn't normally do in your real life. Just be a little more disrespectful than Aramis would personally ever be,' Knight says. 'I'm an integral part in Li Fong becoming this triumphant hero. There's got to be sort of a fall from grace, and that's really what Conor is for Li. 'I wanted to fill those shoes and be this iconic but also traditional 'Karate Kid' bad guy. I felt like I was carrying the torch a bit.'

Breaking Baz: ‘Bring Her Back' Star Billy Barratt Says He Performed Best In The Horror Pic After Being Locked Alone In A Room Without His Phone
Breaking Baz: ‘Bring Her Back' Star Billy Barratt Says He Performed Best In The Horror Pic After Being Locked Alone In A Room Without His Phone

Yahoo

time37 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Breaking Baz: ‘Bring Her Back' Star Billy Barratt Says He Performed Best In The Horror Pic After Being Locked Alone In A Room Without His Phone

EXCLUSIVE: Billy Barratt, star of Danny and Michael Philippou's grippingly intense, dark and twisted Bring Her Back, was able to get into the mood for horror by being locked alone in a room, he reveals. Brit actor Barratt, 17, who also plays Casper Morrow, one of the few humans able to communicate with the alien invaders in the Apple TV+ drama Invasion, tells Deadline: 'There were moments where Danny would basically lock me in a room by myself, and he goes, 'Just try and get in character.' He shut the door, I'm not allowed to leave. I ended up just sitting there with no phone, no nothing — which is great, by the way. I just sat there for ages, and then when I came back outside of that door, back into the scene … you just feel like you are there are in it.' More from Deadline Horror Twins Danny & Michael Philippou On The Evil That Lies Beneath In Their Latest 'Bring Her Back' – Crew Call Podcast 'Bring Her Back' Review: Sally Hawkins Gaslights Kids & Channels Grief Into Terror In The Philippous' Trauma-Soaked Sophomore Feature 'Lilo & Stitch' Still Rich With $60M-$64M Second Weekend, 'Mission Impossible 8' Near $27M, 'Karate Kid: Legends' Looks To Punch $21M+ - Box Office Update It was funny at first, but then he found it freaky and scary. However, he adds, being shut away for half-hour stretches at a time was useful. 'Seeing the effect it had actually helped me so much, not just in the script but in future projects as well. So thank you, Danny,' he says with gratitude. Bring Her Back is a horror film underpinned by a solid tale involving siblings Andy and Piper, who is vision-impaired, played by Barratt and Sora Wong, respectively. Following the death of their father, they're fostered by Laura, a seemingly — at first glance, at least — kindly, grieving mother whose daughter has died, played by two-time Oscar nominee Sally Hawkins. 'It's more emotion than just jump scares and gory things,' Barratt says with a dramatic shiver. This isn't a spoiler, because it's in all the trailers, but Hawkins scares the living daylights out of those kids – and the audience. There's a third kid involved in the story called Oliver, played with macabre relish by Jonah Wren Phillips. I saw the A24 picture on a recent morning at a screening kindly set up by Sony at its HQ in Paddington, London, and it left me shaken for the rest of the day — and night. Hawkins fully immerses herself in her role. Barratt recalls chatting to her at the wrap party. 'She said to me, 'We should meet up in London because I haven't actually got to meet you as me yet properly.' And I was like, 'Oh, OK. Cool. Right. So you were really Laura in that!'' He makes clear that the actress wasn't 'terrifying' the whole time. 'It only clicked for me when she said that. And I was like, 'Oh, so you were fully immersed the whole time?'' It can be 'quite handy' to stay in character all day, he says, and go the full Daniel Day-Lewis. There were three weeks of pre-production in Adelaide, Australia, the Philippous' home state, which he says, 'actors at my level aren't usually involved in.' Ordinarily, 'you just sort of show up on the first day, they've done their pre-production, and then you just start. Here, everyone felt so involved. Me especially. It actually helped me and Sora to have that sort of brother-sister relationship, which is hard to get until you actually hang out with them. Those first three weeks of pre-production were fun for sure, because it felt like the whole thing was a great big icebreaker.' Barratt studied acting and music at Sylvia Young's drama school in London, and he was cast in several TV shows, films and one musical. That was with Kelsey Grammer in the musical Big Fish, which I happened to have caught. His breakthrough came when he was 12 in director Nick Holt and writer Sean Buckley's Responsible Child , the 2019 Kudos and BBC TV drama that won him the International Emmy for Best Actor, followed by two seasons of Invasion. He's already filmed a third season, possibly coming to screens later this year. There's a genuine brother-and-sister warmth between the Andy and Piper characters in Bring Her Back — and plenty of sibling bickering too. He's always holding her hand, and the relationship doesn't seem at all feigned. 'And also the fact that I'm not sure how much she could see,' Barratt tells me, because like Piper, Sora is partially blind, though she could see more than her character. 'Anywhere we'd go,' he gently adds, 'we'd end up just sort of linking arms. And so I explained to her what I could see, what was going on, and just sort of paint an image for her. Andy's whole thing is he wants to make the world look like a better place for his little sister.' Hawkins' Laura does a bunch of things that I can't spoil here, though as we discuss them, the word that Barratt and I kept repeating was 'weird.' I'd go so far to say, wonderfully weird. Maybe terrifyingly weird is more appropriate. And as Barratt points out, 'Piper cannot see what's going on.' It's a whole mind game and such great writing from Danny Philippou and Michael Hinzman, who wrote Talk to Me. Barrett didn't meet with any psychologists or social workers whilst preparing for the film, but he tells me that he was introduced to Miranda Harcourt, the distinguished dramaturg and acting coach who often works with the likes of Nicole Kidman. 'She helped me and Sora … and also just how to approach certain scenes and just gave options and different exercises to do before a scene to get you real wound up,' he explains. He says that the crew 'were also my therapy.' How so, I ask. 'Because anytime that it was like a sad scene or a really happy scene or whatever, they would match the vibe on set all day. And it was just so a 'We are one' sort of thing.'' For instance, if he had to do a really sad scene, 'everyone would be really quiet for the whole day.' Reviewing Barratt's performances from Responsible Child, through two seasons of Invasion and now Bring Her Back, there is a discernible deeper progression in his acting. I mean, he's growing up. He's not a little kid anymore; he's gained confidence in front of the camera as he's gotten older. It's not something that he's noticed himself, though he notes that there's 'definitely a feeling of being more comfortable on set' that first day when you don't know anyone. 'It's nerve-wracking, and all you can really think about is the scene, but then at the same time, are they going to like it? Am I doing the right thing? There's still time to pull me out of the movie. But that's just what goes through my mind, at least.' Reflecting on Invasion, he points out that he's been on the set with his castmates since he was 13, 'and I'm turning 18 next month.' Shaking his head, he adds, 'It's just been a mad trip, a mad drive, especially through Covid and everything.' There were stops and starts during the pandemic, though there was a period where they had to stop shooting 'for ages.' But when they resumed 'we'd all grown up by that point and all the growth spurts had happened.' The plus factor is that he made lifelong friends through his involvement with Invasion. He took Cassius, his younger brother, to the set while shooting the final episode of Season 2. 'He was acting a little bit before this and then stopped. And then when I took him to that set, he was so amazed by all the lights and the lasers. It was a mad thing to see. He was like, 'I want to start acting again.' There's video on YouTube of the 2020 International Emmy ceremony done remotely. Barratt's at home with his family, and when he's announced as the winner, he turns to Cassius, now 13, and says, 'Man, I love you,' rubs his brother's head affectionately and says, 'That'll be you next.' It's a telling moment. Also in Bring Her Back there are aforementioned moments with Wong, and in certain scenes in Invasion, there's a sort of inherent caring gene that he has that comes through the screen. The matter is not something he's, thought about or is aware of, obviously, but Barratt acknowledges there's something in what I'm suggesting. 'I think that's what freaks me out when I'm watching myself back. Is it too much like me or have I actually got the character down or have I just half-assed that? Because I'm seeing parts of me in there. But then I also think on the flip side of that, I think it's quite important to have a little bit of you in there because that's what makes it natural.' During the Bring Her Back shoot, he says that he saw a lot of his brother in Sora because they're a similar age 'and they have fights and that sort of thing.' He adds: 'It's just siblings, there's a real deep love in it. I definitely saw a lot of my brother in Sora's character.' We spent a long time chatting, and it's clear, at least to me, that Barratt's in it for the long haul. 'I'd love to be involved in every aspect of a film from the moment it started right up to when it comes out,' he says. 'I think there's moments that I miss because as an actor it's just not your job to be involved in those certain scenarios. And I wish I could be involved in that. And I look at some really big actors who will sit next to the director and have a say in what happens. And I don't know if that's because they're able to produce as well or whatever. 'I am not like, massive. You say to anyone: 'What's his name?' I dunno,' he shrugs. 'I'm definitely new. I'm definitely starting, even though I've been doing it for about 11 years now, almost. I'm a new actor, I guess.' Every actor arrives in some shape or from, I suggest. Leonardo DiCaprio didn't arrive fully formed, nor did Timothée Chalamet or Tom Cruise. Taking issue, Barratt argues that 'Leonardo DiCaprio did come fully formed. I love him. And I think every single film I've seen him in from when he was younger than me in these films like Basketball Diaries or What's Eating Gilbert Grape he's just incredible in all of it. I just think there's just some people that have just got it straight away, and I don't class myself with one of those people, I'm still learning, for sure. And I think that's what I mean when I say an 'actor at my level' — someone that doesn't understand a lot of it but really wants to. Wants to be involved in all of it.' We order French fries, a Coke for him and more piping-hot tea for me. Making Responsible Child, about a 12-year-old boy accused of helping to kill his abusive stepfather who was tried in court the same as an adult in England and Wales, opened his eyes to the power of film. After it came out, he realized 'how much of an impact' it had had, with changes made in how police and courts handle such cases. He remembers reading about it and thinking: 'Oh, shit! It's not just sitting down and watching something on Netflix. It can change people's lives.' Certainly, Responsible Child hold is one of those films that stay with you. There are a bunch of movies that have stayed with him too. Like David Fincher's Fight Club, Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island and Christopher Nolan's Inception. He's a big fan of Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation as well. And Michael Curtiz's Casablanca! He likes Francis Coppola's The Godfather, and now — having watched the Paramount+ series The Offer, about producer Albert S. Ruddy's experience of making The Godfather — he wants to see the whole trilogy. He'd like to work with the Philippou brothers again and admires what he calls their 'genius' way of working. They'd work a full day in the studio and then home and be up until the early hours editing the footage of the day and 'be back at 7 in the morning.' They shot with the same crew and used the same studio they filmed Talk to Me in. It was once an insane asylum. The Babadook was shot there. Apparently, he regales, the studio's haunted on one particular floor. 'We went up to have a little look around,' he recalls, 'This one room was so scary, and there was a pile of dead bees. A lot of bees bang in the center of the film. And people had told stories of cleaners quitting and a security guard going up there and in his ear he could hear whispering. He left and never came back. I would never come back. That's terrifying,' he says, pausing to add, 'a great place to shoot a horror movie.' Season 3 of Invasion was shot in Canada, with Barratt's scenes being shot before and after working on Bring Her Back. 'My hair was really long, and then I went to shoot Invasion, they cut my hair really short. And then I went back out to Canada, and my hair was still short. So then they a wig. But the wig, it just didn't look like it did before. I don't blame anyone for that. I just think it just didn't fit me correctly. It just wasn't right. I've actually watched it back on the cameras, and it looked good. But me actually walking around, it just didn't work.' He's not allowed to give anything away about Season 3 of Invasion, but he does let slip that … Oh, no! I realize that it's way too much of a spoiler to impart. Whatever happens to his Casper Morrow in Invasion, Billy Barratt's in for a long and fruitful career. 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