After making a strong return to the director’s chair with 2012’s well-received Jack Reacher, Chris McQuarrie opted not to take the helm of its 2016 sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back as he took a little break before beginning prep on Mission: Impossible – Fallout. 

Unfortunately, the Edward Zwick-directed Jack Reacher sequel didn’t quite reach the thrilling heights of its predecessor, ultimately resulting in the film franchise being rebooted and retooled for the small screen as Amazon Prime Video acquired the rights and promptly ordered it to series, set to stream sometime in either 2021 or 2022. 

Despite all that, it looks like Cruise and McQuarrie, in the wake of Never Go Back‘s underwhelming box office return, did still have significant discussions about a potential third film that would’ve course-corrected and taken the franchise in a considerably different direction while seriously upping the badass factor. He tells Empire, 

“Tom and I were talking about, had the series continued, to take Reacher to a place where, in the post-Deadpool, post-Joker world, Reacher could have been an R-rated movie and an R-rated franchise and really fed into the brutality of those books. We were fully ready to lean into that.”

However, while that project might be dead, it sounds like he and Cruise may be cooking up something even better in the lab that he claims would let us see Cruise in a light unlike any we’ve seen him in before. And, yes, it would be an R-rated project.

“It’s a very un-Tom character, and we have plans for an even more un-Tom character that we’ve been talking about, which I’m hopeful about in the future. […] The franchise has moved on, and we haven’t. So we’ve now got stuff in the hopper. The [Jack Reacher] stuff we’re talking about now is tinker toys [compared to it], I’m actually very, very excited.”

Before they can get to that, the dynamic filmmaking duo are currently hard at work – or well, waiting on getting back to work – on Paramount’s two-part Mission: Impossible 7 and Mission: Impossible 8, which are due out in theaters November 19, 2021, and November 4, 2022, respectively. Cruise’s slate also has an untitled actioner scheduled that he plans on shooting in space with SpaceX and director Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow). A sequel to Edge of Tomorrow has also been rumored to be in the cards, but nothing on that front is official just yet.

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Looking back over the four movies Joe and Anthony Russo directed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s fair to say that the filmmakers excelled at introducing new characters. Whether it’s Black Panther, Zemo, or most memorably, Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War, they brought a lot of big names to the table and set the stage for future stories in the process.

Had the Disney/Fox merger happened that little bit sooner, we could have seen them bring some of those heroes and villains into the MCU, and when we talked to the Russo Brothers about Pizza Film School and Relic (ahead of its release this Friday), we made sure to ask if there were any names, in particular, they would have chosen to add to the mix in Avengers: Endgame. 

“I mean, Wolverine was always one of my favourite characters,” Joe revealed. “Incredible Hulk #181 was one of the first comic books that I remember collecting, which was the first appearance of Wolverine. Hugh Jackman has done an incredible job with that character over the years, and I think they should take a break for a little while before someone else takes a crack at it.”

Seeing Wolverine assemble alongside Earth’s Mightiest Heroes would have been something truly special, though it sounds like Joe Russo believes the character needs to remain on the shelf a little while longer, especially as Hugh Jackman’s tenure as the clawed mutant was so undeniably memorable.

Still, it’s hard not to hope that the Russo Brothers won’t one day get the opportunity to play with some of the once Fox-owned characters as there’s no doubt a lot they could do with both the X-Men and Fantastic Four (we just need to keep our fingers crossed for a Secret Wars movie). 

Check out the awesome – and surprisingly catchy – Pizza Film School theme tune below:
 

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Avengers: Endgame was, well, a masterpiece, but there’s one thing fans are desperate to see: Captain America’s trip back through time. There obviously wasn’t time (no pun intended) to delve into that in the already three-hour movie, but many fans have been holding out hope that the Russo Brothers might return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to tell that story. 

When we spoke to Joe and Anthony about Pizza Film Stories and horror movie Relic, we had a couple of big questions about the “Infinity Saga” finale, including whether they feel that’s a tale that needs telling and if anyone other than Captain America was given that iconic “Avengers Assemble!” line.

Like a lot of fans, I would love to see Captain America’s trip back through time, but is that a story you think needs to be told and would you like to be the ones to tell it? 

Joe: It would be a great story to tell, no question. I don’t know whether it needs to be told, but it would be a great story to tell, and we’d love to tell it, but I think there are other stories to move on to now. 
 

Avengers: Endgame‘s “Avengers Assemble” moment is iconic and, well, perfect, but did you ever consider giving that line to another character like Iron Man or Thor?

Anthony: No!

Joe: We really didn’t. We always felt like it needed to be Cap’s moment, and I’m not sure why, but for us, we always thought it was going to be Cap’s moment. 

Anthony: I don’t ever remember a moment where we ever talked about it being anything other than Cap’s moment. Cap was always a special guide for us through the storytelling because he was the access point to the MCU for us. So, we do certainly look to and rely upon that character for a lot of the important parts of the narrative for sure. 

The fact Joe says that he would Anthony would “love to tell” that story of Captain America travelling back through time with the Infinity Stones is hard not to get excited about, but it definitely sounds like if they do ever return to the MCU, the filmmakers will have an eye towards the future, not the past.

In the latest edition of Pizza Film Stories, the Russo Brothers talked to Josh Brolin about his work in No Country For Old Men, and their in-depth, fascinating discussion can be found below:
 

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For eighteen years, Academy Award-nominee Hugh Jackman captivated audiences with his instantly iconic portrayal of X-Men fan-favorite Wolverine, starting his career – and effectively the entire superhero movie boom as a whole – as a relative unknown with 2000’s X-Men and bringing his career and his character full circle in 2018’s Logan.

In the James Mangold-directed masterstroke, Jackman bid farewell to his legendary part in epic fashion, holding his heart in his hand, and while he’s certainly spoken on it in the past, he revisited that memorable final day on set during a recent conversation with former Les Misérables co-star Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises) as part of Variety‘s Actors on Actors issue. 

After touching how he always knew it was going to be the end of the line for him, saying, “There were so many crossovers by the end, because I’d played it for so long… I knew it was going to be my last one way before we wrote it. I made that decision. There was a weight of expectation that I’d been carrying. I was super invested.”

Jackman continues on to explain how filming his death scene was moved up unexpectedly due to bad weather, which didn’t allow him to think about it much before shooting. He also further elaborates on how Mangold allowed him to fully embrace the moment during filming, even allowing him multiple takes to just fully grasp the magnitude of a scene nearly two decades in the making. 

“I was so invested. I felt so in it. I was working with a director that I worked with three times before, who I trust implicitly, Jim Mangold. I remember when we shot that scene, we were shooting very high altitude, and there were thunderstorms going off everywhere, and we had to shut down. He just said, ‘We can’t do this big stunt scene. But we’re just going to do the death scene.’ I’m like, ‘Like, now?’ He goes, ‘I’m just going to have you and Dafne, and if you could just do that.’ I’m like, ‘All right.’ He knew that’s best for me.”

“We got there and we’re shooting the scene. Dafne was 11. She was fantastic. We shot Dafne, and she turned around in two takes and he goes, ‘Let’s just kick out. Let’s do another.’ I said, ‘You sure? I feel like–‘ and he goes, ‘Man, let’s just stop the clocks. Let’s not worry about everything. This is the end of 19 years. Sit it in for half an hour’”

“He rolled the cameras. Him allowing me — not just as an actor, but as Hugh — to remember that moment. It was a luxury that I’ll never forget.”

It’s an unprecedented accomplishment, the likes of which we may never see again as the overwhelming majority of superhero movie actors tend to bow out long before they even reach the decade mark. Just last year, both Marvel Cinematic Universe stars Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans said goodbye to their roles as Iron Man and Captain America in Avengers: Endgame after putting in eleven and eight years, respectively, although the latter could always be enticed to come back at some point in the future. 

In the near future, a weary Logan cares for an ailing Professor X in a hide out on the Mexican border.

But Logan’s attempts to hide from the world and his legacy are up-ended when a young mutant arrives, being pursued by dark forces.

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Earlier this year, the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign finally paid off when Zack Snyder confirmed that his cut of Justice League will be released on HBO Max in 2021. Since then, we’ve seen a lot of filmmakers and actors share their thoughts on the news, but how do Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo feel about the news?

When we caught up with the filmmakers to discuss their new series Pizza Film Stories and Relic (a must-see horror movie they produced through AGBO), we asked for their thoughts, and Joe commented briefly on Zack Snyder’s Justice League seeing the light of day, while also reflecting on how fortunate he and Anthony were to never run into similar issues while working with Marvel Studios. 

“I think it’s always great when a director’s original vision can find its way to the screen,” Joe responded when asked for his thoughts on the “Snyder Cut” as the helmer of similar superhero ensembles.

“We have been very, very fortunate in our careers that everything we did for Marvel, we would call our director’s cuts. They were very gracious and deferential, and very supportive of our vision for those movies, and there’s nothing sitting on the editing room floor that we suddenly want back into those films. We worked very hard at what the current cut of those movies are, so we’re very fortunate to have released our director’s cut on all four of those films.”

It’s definitely interesting to hear that there’s nothing from their Marvel movies that Joe and Anthony were unable to include in the final cut, and that might just tell us all we need to know about the differences between the creative process at Marvel Studios compared to Warner Bros. 

We’ll have our full interview with the filmmakers tomorrow, but in the meantime, make sure to check out the trailer for Relic below ahead of its release this Friday (trust us, it’s well worth watching). 
 

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Following an extended conversation between United Kingdom culture secretary Oliver Dowden and 3x Academy Award-nominated megastar Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible – Fallout; Edge of Tomorrow) last weekend about restarting filming on his highly anticipated Mission: Impossible 7, the U.K. government has announced plans to issue travel exemptions to him and several other leading U.S. actors and crew in an effort to speed up the restart on major film and television productions. 

The exemption will allow actors and crew members to skip the required 14-day travel quarantine that is required for any travelers from the United States, granted, however, that those who receive the exemption will have to live and work within a protected bubble environment for two weeks and will have to follow strict guidelines on managing the risk of COVID-19, as set by the British Film Commission. 

The move will now allow Cruise, director Chris McQuarrie, and the entire Mission team to restart at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden on schedule in September, possibly even sooner depending on how the situation develops between now and then.

It’s currently unknown how many other films may be immediately affected by the ruling. The biggest film outside of Mission that is filming in the U.K. is Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion, which already had its stars go through quarantine and is expected to resume filming tomorrow. Warner Bros.’ The Matrix 4 has also reportedly resumed work in Germany, but The Batman, as far as we know, is still on an indefinite pause. These exemptions could help speed it back into production. 

Mission: Impossible 7 & 8 are headlined by Cruise (Top Gun: Maverick) as IMF ace Ethan Hunt, as well as fellow returning stars Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) as Ilsa Faust, Simon Pegg (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) as Benji Dunn, Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) as Luther Stickell, and Vanessa Kirby (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) as the White Widow. Newcomers to the storied action franchise include Hayley Atwell (Avengers: Endgame), Pom Klementieff (Avengers: Endgame), Shea Whigham (Joker) and Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: Dark Phoenix), who is rumored to be playing the villain. Henry Czerny (Sharp Objects) has also been confirmed to reprise his role as Eugene Kittridge from the first film.

There is also likely still more information to come regarding who will make up Ethan Hunt’s team for his seventh and eighth adventures, with fans holding out hope that some combination of Jeremy Renner (William Brandt), Angela Bassett (Erica Sloane), Paula Patton (Jane Carter) and/or Maggie Q (Zhen Lei) will also return. 

Both sequels are expected to film back-to-back, with Mission: Impossible 7 set to light the fuse in theaters on November 19, 2021, while its sequel, Mission: Impossible 8, will open the following fall on November 4, 2022. 

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With a premiere date set and a sixth season secured, Entertainment Weekly has shared first look black-and-white stills at a very special noir episode of Lucifer, which returns with the first eight episodes of season five on August 21.

The hour is titled “It Never Ends Well for the Chicken” and, barring any unforeseen changes, will be season’s fourth installment. Also, in addition to paying homage to noir films, the episode will also feature a pretty significant homage to The Princess Bride with Lucifer and Trixie (Scarlett Estevez) assuming the storytelling roles.

There’s no official synopsis currently available, but the plot is said to follow Lucifer Morningstar’s (Tom Ellis) first “unofficial” case in 1940s Los Angeles and will delve deep into fan-favorite Maze’s (Lesley Ann-Brandt) mysterious past, which should be welcome news. 

Along with series lead Tom Ellis (Lucifer Morningstar), the principal cast also features Lauren German (Det. Chloe Decker), Kevin Alejandro (Det. Dan Espinoza), D.B. Woodside (Amenadiel), Lesley-Ann Brandt (Mazikeen), Scarlett Estevez (Trixie Espinoza), Rachael Harris (Dr. Linda Martin), and Aimee Garcia (Ella Lopez).

 

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With New Zealand having effectively curbed the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the country has recently granted border exemptions to seven overseas productions to allow them to get back into the nearly shut down country to resume or begin filming. 

The crew of James Cameron’s Avatar sequel were among the first let back into the country last month to resume work, with 31 crew members already there and ten more soon set to join them. Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog has also already resumed production.

While those were previously known, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has now revealed five additional productions that have been granted exemptions. They are as follows: Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings prequel series, Hasbro’s Power Rangers Dino Fury, Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop, Sweet Tooth, and Greatest Beer Run Ever.

The crews of the aforementioned series will arrive within the next six months. 

The Lord of the Rings had already been filming prior to the shutdown, so it will likely be able to pick up where it left off relatively quicker than the others. The new season of Power Rangers and Cowboy Bebop had not yet begun shooting, so they are expected to begin a little further out. 

It’s currently being forecasted that the production restarts could bring up to 3,000 new jobs to the country and possibly over $400 million in revenue as major studios look for alternatives with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic showing no signs of slowing down in the U.S.

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ABC has released the official synopsis and thirteen new promotional stills from this Wednesday’s installment of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., an hour that’s shaping up to be one of the most fun of this seventh and final season as Mack (Henry Simmons) and Deke (Jeff Ward) find themselves stuck in 1982.

While the pair, especially Deke, will undoubtedly embrace their new ’80s environment they won’t have much time to dilly dally as they’ll have to lead a new team against an army of killer robots – without knowing whether their own team is coming back for them. 
 

DON’T YOU FORGET ABOUT DEKE ON AN ALL-NEW EPISODE OF ABC’S ‘MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D,’ WEDNESDAY, JULY 8

“The Totally Excellent Adventures of Mack and The D” – After being unexpectedly stranded in 1982, Mack retreats to his childhood home to process the death of his parents, while Deke gets to work scouting a chart-topping group of new agents. With no idea if or when the team is coming back for them, time seems to finally be on their side … at least until the killer robots show up, on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” WEDNESDAY, JULY 8 (10:00–11:00 p.m. EDT), on ABC. (TV-14, DLV) Episodes can also be viewed the next day on demand and on Hulu.

From ABC Studios and Marvel Television, MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.” returns for its seventh and final season on WEDNESDAY, MAY 27 (10:00 – 11:00 p.m. EDT). Coulson and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are thrust backward in time and stranded in 1931 New York City. With the all-new Zephyr set to time-jump at any moment, the team must hurry to find out exactly what happened. If they fail, it would mean disaster for the past, present and future of the world. “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” stars Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson, Ming-Na Wen as Agent Melinda May, Chloe Bennet as Daisy Johnson, Elizabeth Henstridge as Agent Jemma Simmons, Iain De Caestecker as Agent Leopold Fitz, Henry Simmons as Director Alphonso “Mack” MacKenzie, Natalia Cordova-Buckley as Elena “Yo-Yo” Rodriguez and Jeff Ward as Deke Shaw. “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” was co-created by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen, who also serve as executive producers along with Jeffrey Bell and Jeph Loeb.

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