Latest news with #TheLordoftheRings:TheWaroftheRohirrim
Express Tribune
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Predator Killer of Killers expands franchise with time-traveling animated carnage
Dan Trachtenberg, known for Prey, returns to the Predator franchise with Killer of Killers, a blood-soaked animated anthology spanning centuries. Directed by Trachtenberg and Joshua Wassung, and written by Micho Robert Rutare, the R-rated film unfolds across three time periods, blending stylized action with heavy doses of gore. Part of a growing trend to animate mature franchises, Killer of Killers joins the ranks of The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, Netflix's Terminator Zero, and Disney's Star Wars: Visions. These projects aim to captivate adult audiences with bold storytelling and graphic visual styles. This latest Predator installment leans into the violence while using animation to stylize its brutality, making the carnage palatable while still intense. The first chapter introduces Ursa (Lindsay LaVanchy), a 9th-century Viking warrior haunted by trauma. When a Predator arrives, she shifts from vengeance to survival, protecting her son Anders (Damien Haas) in a battle of brawn and cunning. The second story, set in 17th-century Japan, follows two estranged samurai brothers whose long-standing feud is interrupted by a new enemy—one that forces them to put their blades and grievances to use together. Here, green Predator blood and elegant choreography heighten the tension. The final section brings viewers to World War II, where Torres (Rick Gonzalez), a Latino mechanic with pilot dreams, takes flight in a thrilling aerial showdown after a Predator wipes out his squadron. The trio ultimately joins forces for a gladiator-style final act, blending weapons and strategies from their respective eras. As with Prey, Trachtenberg's latest effort emphasizes gender and racial diversity while pushing genre boundaries.
Hindustan Times
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Upcoming OTT releases: What to watch on Netflix, Prime Video, JioHotstar and SonyLIV this week
The upcoming days promise an exciting lineup of movies and TV shows on various OTT platforms, catering to a variety of tastes. These new releases will be available on Netflix, Prime Video, JioHotstar, and SonyLIV, offering a mix of thrill, suspense, comedy, drama, and mystery. Let's take a closer look at this week's must-watch titles to get hooked throughout the weekend. The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (May 13, JioHotstar) This animated film takes viewers to Middle-earth, set nearly two hundred years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. It explores the history of Rohan, focusing on King Helm Hammerhand and his daughter, Héra. After a political marriage plan leads to chaos, Helm's actions spark a brutal war with the Dunlendings. The story follows Héra as she steps up to lead her people in the fight against their enemies. Directed by Kenji Kamiyama, this film blends classic Tolkien lore with vibrant animation. Also read: Mirzapur Season 4 release date: Pankaj Tripathi's popular crime drama series to release in… Maranamass (May 15, SonyLIV) Maranamass is a Malayalam dark comedy that centres on a serial killer who has caused terror in a Kerala city. After an unexpected event, the killer, a woman, and her partner end up on a night bus, which leads to a series of dramatic developments. As secrets unfold, the narrative deepens. Starring Basil Joseph, Siju Sunny, Tovino Thomas, and others, this film first hit theatres in April 2025 before its OTT release. Also read: Maranamass OTT release: Basil Joseph and Rajesh Madhavan's dark comedy thriller is releasing on… Bhool Chuk Maaf (May 16, Prime Video) This Hindi romantic comedy follows a man from Banaras who secures a government job to marry his love interest. However, he forgets his vow to Lord Shiva and finds himself in a trap, having to fulfil his promise to escape. The film stars Rajkummar Rao, Wamiqa Gabbi, Sanjay Mishra, and others. Initially planned for a theatrical release, the film will now stream directly on Prime Video. Dear Hongrang (May 16, Netflix) This drama tells the story of a girl searching for her brother, only to be drawn into a journey of self-discovery. Along the way, she uncovers dark family secrets and faces the dangers surrounding her. The show features Lee Jaewook, Jo Boah, Kim JaeWook, and more in key roles. Also read: Criminal Justice Season 4 release date: Pankaj Tripathi's courtroom thriller drama series releasing on… Hai Junoon! (May 16, JioHotstar) Hai Junoon! is a competitive web series where two groups face off in a high-stakes challenge. Starring Jacqueline Fernandez, Boman Irani, Neil Nitin Mukesh, and others, the series promises intense drama and exciting moments. For those looking for more content, OTTplay offers access to over 37 OTT platforms and 500+ live TV channels for just Rs. 149 – perfect for a weekend of unlimited entertainment. First Published Date: 12 May, 16:03 IST
New York Times
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Warner Bros. Renaissance Remains a Waiting Game
David Zaslav blew into Hollywood in 2022 like a tornado of fresh air, telling anyone who would listen about his rejuvenation plans for Warner Bros. As a lifelong television executive, he was new to the film business. But the merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia had put him in charge of the most storied studio left standing — a troubled Warner Bros. — and the solution to its woes, he said at the time, was relatively straightforward. Make more movies for exclusive theatrical release. Make a wider variety of movies, not just big-budget spectacles. And then watch multiplexes fill up. 'This business could be bigger and stronger than its ever been,' Mr. Zaslav said at a 2023 convention of movie theater owners, to jubilant applause. Yet two years later, the movie business finds itself weaker than it has ever been. Ticket sales are down 40 percent compared with 2019, just before the pandemic sped a consumer shift to streaming, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. And one reason (among many) involves Mr. Zaslav's Warner Bros. Warner Bros. has delivered only one homegrown hit over the last year. That was 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,' which was released in September. Since then, the studio has whiffed five times. 'Joker: Folie à Deux' died on arrival in October. 'The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim' fizzled in December. 'Companion,' a low-budget thriller, came and went in January. 'Mickey 17,' an expensive science-fiction adventure, bombed this month. 'The Alto Knights' — a mob drama starring Robert De Niro that Mr. Zaslav personally championed — added to the carnage last weekend. It cost roughly $50 million to make and another $15 million to market, but sold a mere $3.2 million in tickets over its first three days. That made the film a near-complete wipeout; studios and theaters split ticket sales roughly 50-50. In Hollywood, blame for a bad weekend at the box office usually gets spread among studio personnel. But this time much of it has been aimed squarely at Mr. Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery. 'Rammed through by the C.E.O. on behalf of his elderly cronies, against the best instincts of the people who make movies for a living,' one entertainment industry trade news outlet said. 'A type of film that's 30 years past its sell-by date,' reported another. 'A $50 million money pit' that 'anyone with any knowledge of the last 50 years of theatrical box office' could have spotted, a third asserted. Combined with snickering in studio hallways and private text-message rants, the commentary carried a clear undertone: Mr. Zaslav, they suggested, does not understand movies. Mr. Zaslav pushed for 'The Alto Knights' shortly after taking over in 2022. Some executives at the studio pushed back, saying the box office prospects were grim — it was a film for a streaming service, at best. But Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, whom Mr. Zaslav had hired to run the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group., agreed to give 'The Alto Knights' a shot. (One prominent dissenter, Courtenay Valenti, a 33-year Warner Bros. veteran, soon decamped to Amazon Studios.) Mr. Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment. Irwin Winkler, who produced 'The Alto Knights,' defended Mr. Zaslav and the film in a phone interview on Monday. The men are longtime acquaintances. 'I think David Zaslav is a really, really great executive,' Mr. Winkler said. 'I think the film is terrific. I wish it did more box office. Over the years, I'm sure that Warners will make some money on it.' Mr. Winkler, who has produced films since the 1960s, including 'Rocky' and the recent 'Creed' spinoffs, noted that 'Goodfellas,' which he also produced, had soft ticket sales in 1990. 'We never did big theatrical business with that one, but we certainly did in home entertainment — DVDs in those days. I think that in the long run 'The Alto Knights' will have the same kind of long-range audience acceptance.' Movies flop all the time. In a financial sense, 'The Alto Knights' is actually a relatively small miss. Disney's 'Snow White' stumbled last weekend on a more calamitous scale, costing at least $350 million to make and market and collecting $42 million over its first three days in domestic theaters. Perception also has a cost, however, and this is where 'The Alto Knights' takes on greater weight. It's a cliché to say that perception is everything in Hollywood, but it also happens to carry a lot of truth. Perhaps the movie business is turning out to be a little harder than Mr. Zaslav expected? Is the promised Warner Bros. turnaround ever going to materialize? Studio assembly lines move slowly: It takes years to develop, shoot, assemble, market and distribute a single movie — and that's if everything goes well. But Mr. Zaslav has now been in charge of Warner Bros. for three years. Adding to the pressure: Movies are now one of Warner Bros. Discovery's only clear problem spots. Warner Bros. Discovery generated $677 million in profit from streaming in 2024, up from $103 million a year earlier, according to securities filings. In February, Mr. Zaslav said streaming would deliver $1.3 billion in profit this year, exceeding previous guidance by 30 percent. The Warner Bros. television studio has new hits in 'The Pitt' on Max and 'Running Point' on Netflix, among others. HBO has been delivering, too, with shows like 'The White Lotus' and 'The Gilded Age' expanding their audience, and a second season of 'The Last of Us' arriving on April 13. Last year, the company reached new multiyear agreements for its cable networks (TNT, TBS, CNN, Discovery, HGTV, Food Network) with major pay-TV providers. As for movies? Mr. Zaslav acknowledged that film is 'a tough business' at a Morgan Stanley conference this month, and seemed to ask for a bit more patience. 'It's a long-cycle business, and we've been winding out of what wasn't ours,' he said, a reference to flops like 'War of the Rohirrim' and 'Mickey 17,' which were given a greenlight before he arrived. 'Over the next few years you're going to see what is ours, and I'm optimistic about it.' The next Warner Bros. release, 'A Minecraft Movie,' could break out when it arrives next week, box office analysts say. 'Minecraft,' which cost $150 million to make, is based on the popular game and aimed at families. (Legendary Entertainment contributed 25 percent of the budget and helped produce it.) A couple weeks later, Warner Bros. will release the R-rated 'Sinners,' a $90 million original horror thriller set in the 1930s and starring Michael B. Jordan. 'Sinners' was directed by Ryan Coogler ('Black Panther'). Both movies were overseen by Mr. De Luca and Ms. Abdy. At the Morgan Stanley event, Mr. Zaslav praised the pair for getting into business with Mr. Coogler and other marquee filmmakers on expensive original projects. 'In some cases, we may have overspent,' Mr. Zaslav said, an apparent reference to a Bloomberg article on Feb. 26 that questioned the strategy. 'I don't think we did. Because we wanted to bring the best and the brightest people back to Warner Bros.' The most important movie on Warner Bros. Discovery's immediate schedule is 'Superman' from DC Studios, which is managed by James Gunn and Peter Safran. It arrives on July 11 and represents an effort to reboot the company's superheroes for a new generation of moviegoers. Mr. Zaslav, noting at the Morgan Stanley conference that he had just spent an hour and a half with the DC Studios team, called the movie 'a huge moment for us.' The budget for 'Superman' isn't known, but superhero movies typically cost about $200 million to make, not including marketing. If it becomes a hit, the result would represent a turnaround for the studio from last summer, when Warner Bros. released duds like 'Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga' and managed only a 4.7 percent share of domestic movie-ticket sales. By that measure, it was Warner's worst performance since analysts started to compile seasonal box office data in 1982.
Boston Globe
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘A Complete Unknown,' ‘September 5,' plus more movies and TV shows to stream this weekend
Timothée Chalamet in "A Complete Unknown." Macall Polay/Searchlight Pictures 'A Complete Unknown' Available to buy on video-on-demand platforms Advertisement 'September 5′ Director Tim Fehlbaum's historical drama 'September 5″ debuted on Paramount+ this week (it's also streaming on MGM+). Nominated for best original screenplay at this weekend's Oscars, the movie stars Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, and Ben Chaplin, retelling the harrowing story of how ABC Sports covered the massacre at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Globe film critic Odie Henderson gave the movie Available on MGM+ and Paramount+ 'The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim' Head back to Middle-earth with director Kenji Kamiyama's 'The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,' which hits Max on Friday. While the film is set in the same universe as Peter Jackson's beloved live-action movies, this animated entry is set hundreds of years before those projects, following the ancestors of the kingdom of Rohan. 'Succession' star Brian Cox lends his voice to king Helm Hammerhand, while Miranda Otto reprises her role as Éowyn, the story's narrator. Available on Max TV shows now available to stream "Eye on the Prize III" is now streaming on Max. Courtesy of HBO 'Eyes on the Prize III' The acclaimed documentary series 'Eyes on the Prize' returned for its third installment on HBO and Max this week. Chronicling the history of civil rights in America, the new episodes take a look at moments from 1977 to 2015, examining everything from gentrification to police brutality. While the Available on Max Advertisement 'Toxic Town' The British miniseries 'Toxic Town' debuted stateside on Netflix this week. The new drama revisits the toxic waste incident in the English town of Corby, regarded by many as a British parallel of the famed Erin Brockovich case. The show follows the legal efforts of families whose children were born with defects due the town's mismanagement of dangerous materials. 'Doctor Who' alum Jodie Whittaker stars as Susan McIntyre, one of the real-life mothers involved in the case. Available on Netflix Binge-worthy weekend TV pick From left: Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch, Jamie Hector as Jerry Edgar in "Bosch." Amazon Studios 'Bosch' Before the spin-off series 'Bosch: Legacy' returns for its final season on Prime Video March 27, catch up on the action and binge watch the original show. Based on Michael Connelly's acclaimed novels, 'Bosch' stars Available on Prime Video Movie night picks Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in "Good Will Hunting." 'Good Will Hunting' Looking for a Massachusetts-themed movie night? There's no better flick to include than the 1997 classic 'Good Will Hunting,' starring and written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, which comes to Hulu and Paramount+ on Saturday. The Boston-set, Oscar-winning drama stars Damon as MIT janitor/math whiz Will Hunting, who forms a bond with his therapist, Dr. Sean Maguire, played by the late Robin Williams. Available on Hulu and Paramount+ beginning on Saturday Advertisement 'The Holdovers' The Available on Peacock 'Practical Magic' Set in Massachusetts (but filmed on the West Coast), the romantic 1998 flick 'Practical Magic' streams on Paramount+ starting Saturday. The film features a star-studded cast led by Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Stockard Channing, and Dianne Wiest, who play a family of witches who must use their magic to stop a demonic spirit. The film is based on Alice Hoffman's 1995 novel of the same name, and a Available on Paramount+ beginning on Saturday Matt Juul can be reached at
