Day: September 30, 2021

Daniel Craig isn’t an idiot, so he’ll be fully aware that the rest of his career will find him fielding questions about the James Bond franchise any time he hits the press circuit for his latest project. It comes with the territory, and even though predecessor Pierce Brosnan has admitted that he’s long since grown tired of it, he’s resigned himself to the fact it’s part of the package when you play a cinematic icon.

No Time to Die arrives in international theaters today, and the early reactions to Craig’s swansong as 007 have been encouraging. The 25th installment in the series is tracking for a bumper opening weekend at the box office, but once the dust settles, the focus will immediately turn to what comes next for cinema’s premiere secret agent.

Quentin Tarantino has had such a huge influence on modern cinema that his name long since became an adjective, with any crime thriller featuring a sprawling ensemble cast, back-and-forth dialogue laden with pop culture references and a fractured timeline being described as ‘Tarantinoesque’.

Of course, very few of the pale imitations can come close to matching one of the most distinctive filmmakers of our time, who gifted audiences with a string of classics dating back decades including Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, the two-part Kill Bill saga, Django Unchained and more.

Outside of Rosario Dawson, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, no other talent on either side of the camera has been officially announced for Star Wars Disney Plus series Ahsoka, but that hasn’t stopped the rumor mill from throwing all sorts of names out there.

One of the more recurring slices of scuttlebutt we’ve been hearing since the project was first revealed to the world is that Lars Mikkelsen will reprise his animated role as Grand Admiral Thrawn in live-action, with Aladdin‘s Mena Massoud reportedly set as fan favorite Ezra Bridger.

During the buildup to Season 2 of The Mandalorian, there was widespread talk on the internet that WWE star Sasha Banks had been cast as Sabine Wren, which obviously turned out to be wide of the mark. The professional wrestler’s role as Koska Reeves wasn’t particularly integral or pivotal to the narrative, but she was still a welcome addition to the ensemble.

Fans were receptive to her performance and happy to see her become a recurring figure in the Disney Plus Star Wars universe, even if there was the inevitable cancellation attempt, but the grappler could be teasing a return in The Book of Boba Fett, which was revealed to be premiering on December 29.

On paper, a mysterious psychological thriller written and directed by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, starring Academy Award winners Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway in the lead roles with support from Oscar nominees Diane Lane and Djimon Honsou, is enough to pique your curiosity.

Throw in a plot that follows a fishing boat captain who finds his life turned upside down when his ex-wife shows up on the scene desperate for help, asking him to murder her abusive new husband to protect her and the son they share, and Serenity sounds like the sort of promising adult-skewing genre film that Hollywood doesn’t really tend to make anymore.