Happy Wednesday, folks!

I’m putting the finishing touches on a massive 5,000-word column about the WB-Paramount merger, but you know what? We all deserve a break from those headlines, if only for an hour.

So today, I’m moving the spotlight from Skydance to Universal, where if you listen closely, you can hear two kinds of screams — the ones emanating from the new Fast and Furious rollercoaster, and the kind from Vin Diesel, whose “family” reunion may need to wait another year.

I’ll be back soon, but for now, buckle up, because like Dom Toretto, I live my life a quarter mile at a time, and only premium subscribers are invited to come along for the ride…

Happy Friday, folks!

Not much time for a big wind-up this evening, but real quick…

TheWrap reports that Sony is poised to win the bidding war for a Battlefield, a military-themed action movie from director Christopher McQuarrie and producer Michael B. Jordan, who may also star in the film.

Several projects in this vein are in the works around town, from G.I. Joe at Paramount to Call of Duty at, um, Paramount. But Jordan and McQuarrie would be a tough package for Paramount to top, regardless of who is cast in Call of Duty.

This week, we learned who will play Duke in G.I. Joe — Bradley Cooper, who obviously has a relationship with Danny McBride based on his involvement in the final season of The Righteous Gemstones.

I also had a handful of scoops confirmed, from Eddie Murphy’s team-up with Matthew Weiner at Peacock and the theatrical release date for the hot TIFF slasher movie River to last year’s news that A24 is developing a TV series based on Kathryn Bigelow’s 1987 vampire movie Near Dark.

Speaking of “near-dark,” I started shvitzing in the early morning hours of Oct. 1 when I opened Netflix to watch Seinfeld and discovered that the show had gone dark — i.e., been removed from the service. Thankfully, it was just a blip, and the series returned an hour or two later. Netflix’s rights were due to expire Oct. 1, but reports suggested the streamer had extended the deal, which is why I panicked at first. Oy gevalt!

I’ll be writing more about all the WB moves soon, but time is tight, so here’s a rumor that’s hot off the presses thanks to a tip from the faraway land of Isla Nubar.

I wish you all a great weekend, but only premium subscribers may enter the Sneider-Verse to read more…

Happy Wednesday, folks!

I let my four-year-old niece paint my nails at her sister’s 7th birthday party last night, so this newsletter is brought to you by some very pretty, very messy fingers.

Before I dive into tonight’s top story — written with an assist from my consigliere, Jamie Williams — let’s recap some Warner Bros. news.

For starters, Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence is set to star in Zach Cregger’s next film, Flood. Not only is Lawrence’s casting a coup for the WB movie, but the movie is a coup for the actress, who hasn’t had one of those things called “an undeniable hit” in about a decade. This is going to be huge for her career.

Then again, I’m sure someone told Tom Cruise the same thing about Digger, yet the reviews have been absolutely brutal, for the most part, and the $175 million art film is expected to meet a cruel fate at the box office this weekend.

I’m going to keep an open mind as I enter the theater and, as the latest ad copy encourages, “decide for myself.”

After all, if I started trusting Film Twitter now, what would that make me?

Digger does seem like shameless Oscar bait for Cruise, but if he’s dead-set on winning a competitive Oscar, then Christopher Nolan is the director Cruise should be calling, not Alejandro G. Iñárritu, even if he did steer Leonardo DiCaprio to an Oscar win for The Revenant.

There’s a movie that I know Nolan would like to make that Cruise might actually be perfect for — a Howard Hughes biopic that was a passion project for the director. I’m not suggesting that’ll be Nolan’s next movie, but if, for some reason, he did wish to revisit it, couldn’t you see Tom Cruise, legendary aviator, playing Howard Hughes? Am I crazy, or could that work — even with DiCaprio leaving some big shoes behind?

Guys like Nolan and Ryan Coogler are who Cruise should be looking to work with, not Shawn Levy, whom Cruise reportedly aggressively courted to direct the Days of Thunder sequel before Levy snubbed him in favor of Ryan Gosling’s Ghost Rider movie at Marvel (and a nine-figure overall deal at Disney). Cruise was forced to “settle” for Mr. Irrelevant director Jonathan Levine.

I’m all for Cruise starring in a sequel to The Color of Money, and playing the Paul Newman part this time alongside some hotshot young pool player. But if Cruise is going to continue returning to his legacy characters, à la Top Gun and Days of Thunder, the one he should really think about revisiting is actually Jerry Maguire.

Cameron Crowe is still developing his Joni Mitchell movie, but Cruise should really give him a call and see if his old pal has any ideas about bringing Jerry into the modern age. Yes, Sony would have to show Cruise the money, but that $273 million movie equates to a roughly $600 million movie today. And hey, Jonathan Lipnicki is hot again right now after Primetime!

Finally, Warner Bros. has dated its upcoming live-action movie Game of Thrones: Aegon’s Conquest for June 6, 2029. We’re living in the future, man! Could WB’s Superman star David Corenswet be a good fit for Westeros?

Tonight’s column is about him and two other Davids you may have heard about this week — David Ellison and David Fincher.

That’s right, it’s The Book of David, and premium subscribers may now enter the Sneider-Verse to continue reading…

I was about to wish you all a Happy Monday… but I was saved by the bell, as we’re actually starting with some sad news tonight.

Dennis Haskins, best known for playing Principal Belding on Saved by the Bell, has died at age 75. I don’t know about you, but I grew up watching that show, and even though I was always rooting for Zack Morris and Co. to outsmart Belding, a part of me loved the guy and knew he was just looking out for those damn kids. He’s probably the best high school principal in all of TV history, so here’s to you, Mr. Belding! R.I.P. Dennis. My heart goes out to his friends and family…

Speaking of family, I’m back on the East Coast enjoying some family time this week, but I know I owe you guys some newsletters, so prepare for a busy week as I play catch-up.

Let’s start with a pair of big director hires this week — Lucasfilm has tapped Jon Watts to direct Star Wars: Episode X, while Mike P. Nelson is set to direct the Saw reboot for Lionsgate and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster.

Watts is a solid if unexciting choice for Star Wars. First of all, he makes total sense, having directed Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Spider-Man: No Way Home — a trilogy that grossed $4 billion and paved the way for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which has grossed nearly $2.5 billion all on its own.

Not only does Watts have relationships with Tom Holland and Zendaya — two stars Lucasfilm would love to get its hands on — but more importantly, he has a relationship with Dave Filoni and Carrie Beck, who run its creative side.

Filoni needed a filmmaker willing to make the Star Wars movie that he wants Episode X to be and one he could trust with the franchise’s future, and Watts fit that bill, having previously worked with Lucasfilm on the Disney+ series Skeleton Crew.

Episode X will continue the Skywalker saga, and while there’s no cast yet (Watts doesn’t even have a closed deal), I would expect Daisy Ridley to be involved in some capacity, as Disney has already spent significant resources investing in her character, Rey, over the past decade.

Again, Watts may not be the most exciting choice, but I really liked his Spidey trilogy, as well as his Kevin Bacon thriller Cop Car. Between those movies and Watts’ decision to cast Austin Abrams alongside A-listers George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Wolfs, it’s clear that he has a strong eye for young talent, which will likely come in handy for Episode X.

As for the Saw reboot, I feel similarly, in that Nelson isn’t the most exciting choice, but he certainly makes sense, having earned this opportunity. The Domestics was an interesting debut, and I really liked his 2021 reboot of Wrong Turn, where Nelson earned my respect. However, I was disappointed by his recent remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night, and I’ll admit that I haven’t given much thought to seeing his latest movie, Beware Boiuna, a movie about a giant snake.

I feel like Saw producers James Wan and Jason Blum could’ve made a more inspired hire, but at the same time, it could’ve been way worse, so I’m going to look on the bright side and give Nelson the benefit of the doubt here. I can’t wait to see who he casts as Jigsaw — if Jigsaw is a character in this reboot. Who knows, maybe Nelson is taking the franchise in a different direction? We’ll see…

I saw three new movies this week. One was pretty good, one was pretty bad, and one was okay.

Anyway, last week, I saw David Ayer’s Heart of the Beast, which nails one of the toughest genres to crack — it’s a good old-fashioned adventure movie. I’d call it a two-hander, but when one of the leads doesn’t have hands, that’s an awkward description.

As you know by now, Pitt plays a former soldier, and his dog, Odin, is a fellow veteran as well, having given one of his legs and several teeth for his country, and presumably, for Pitt himself.

Heart of the Beast rests on its two leads, and both are more than up to the task. This is the kind of picture that requires a true movie star to carry it, and Pitt plays the part to perfection. I can’t see many guys doing better, save for maybe Bradley Cooper. It’s the kind of role that Robert Redford might’ve played back in the day.

Meanwhile, Uber the Dog (and three of his offspring, technically) gives one of the greatest canine performances I’ve ever seen, right up there with Hooch, Beethoven, Air Bud, and Uggie from The Artist. 

The third act of Heart of the Beast takes on a more lyrical tone, which is what I assume Pitt — the star of The Tree of Life, for chrissakes — was probably fighting for in the editing room. For me, it really worked, and while I acknowledge that general audiences may find it too artsy-fartsy, I appreciated the film’s more emotionally vulnerable moments.

I also saw Lance Oppenheim’s new A24 movie Primetime, which I must say, was something of a disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, it was a compelling watch from start to finish — I just didn’t think it added up to all that much. I’m not really sure what the point of the movie was, or what its director was trying to say.

I’m also not sure he knew whose story he was telling. For a movie that is ostensibly about To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen, played by Robert Pattinson on a live wire, I was surprised that the film’s final scene follows a different character — a bizarre choice, in my opinion.

Oppenheim does nail the scenes that recreate the creepy vibe of To Catch a Predator, and some of his casting choices (Alex Winter, Jonathan Lipnicki) are inspired, but as far as probing Hansen’s psychology, the film comes up short. And while Pattinson proves himself as a movie star once again, I preferred his more layered work in The Drama and The Odyssey.

He has Hansen’s smarmy voice and the mannerisms down, but he only skims the surface here and never quite digs deep enough. This is not nearly on the level of Jake Gyllenhaal’s turn in Nightcrawler, and there’s no way it’s going to be nominated for an Oscar, so go ahead and place those bets right now. It’s a hugely competitive year for Best Actor, as you’ll see below.

In fact, if this film stands a chance of an acting nod, it’ll be in one of the supporting categories for either Skyler Gisondo, who is excellent as the primary decoy (alongside Phoebe Bridgers), or Merritt Wever, who shines as Hansen’s complicit producer.

Finally, I watched Run Hide Fight: Infidels, and I’m not ashamed to admit that. Did I sign up for The Daily Wire to do so? No, of course not. But I saw it, because I was actually a big fan of the first film, and I don’t mind giving what some critics would call ‘right-wing cinema’ a chance.

But I have to say, Infidels is simply not very good. Jonathan Majors, its much-ballyhooed star, is in the movie for something like 15-20 minutes. I didn’t actually count his screen time because I am not a nerd, but it felt like he was barely in the film. 

There are things that I think Infidels gets right, but it’s also cartoonishly heavy-handed. The film’s script and performances, Majors’ included, leave much to be desired, and the film is way, way too long at 130 minutes. Uwe Boll’s Citizen Vigilante was 89 minutes, and that’s because it knew what it was — a cheesy B-movie masquerading as a serious statement. This movie somehow believes it’s making a serious statement, but the thing is that only good movies get people to actually listen, and this one is underwhelming, delivering shock value for just that sake.

What’s truly wild is that there are some reading this right now who are judging me for watching Infidels, as if I’m somehow a worse person for doing so. I find this reaction to be absurd. It’s like saying you’re a serial killer if you like serial killer movies.

Moving on, being back in Boston and reading The Boston Globe each morning, I’m fully aware of the paper’s recent article about the COVID-conscious lesbian bar in Western Massachusetts that ignited outrage when it dropped its mask mandate for one night a week — a story that garnered the paper thousands of subscriptions.

It’s a good story by Annalisa Quinn, full of juicy local drama, but I must say, I’m a little surprised that it has generated major interest from Hollywood, as the central crux of the story — to mask, or not to mask — simply isn’t that interesting.

Hollywood makes so few LGBTQ movies (a shame, mind you) that I’m not sure it makes sense to use one of those precious slots on a movie (or show) about infighting within the community, or a movie that further inflames tensions between the able-bodied and those with disabilities. I love movies that dig into small, tight-knit communities, but usually the drama is a bit more substantial than whether someone’s safe space has been compromised by the unmasked.

Everyone deserves a safe space, of course, but not every story deserves the big (or small) screen treatment. Sometimes, a print newspaper is the perfect medium. Though I suppose a Netflix documentary couldn’t hurt — especially if it helps save the bar.

UTA has already fielded multiple inquiries, so it’s not “last call” for this story just yet…

It’s also not last call for Oscar predictions, though I do have a brand new crop for you tonight now that the dust has settled on the fall festivals, and I’ve had a chance to catch up on a few of the titles I missed.

One movie you can seemingly cross off your list is Digger, which flopped with critics — nearly impossible to do in this day and age, mind you. But there are still plenty of questions to address. For example, is The Odyssey a runaway train, or is this actually the deepest Best Picture lineup in years? And does Netflix stand a chance with an international LGBTQ-themed feature? Is I Play Rocky now Amazon MGM’s strongest contender, or is it still Project Hail Mary? And could a documentary crack the Best Picture lineup for the first time ever?

Not only will we explore those questions together tonight, but I have a little bonus for you — a list of every film submitted for Best International Feature thus far. And I’ll be back soon with tips on how to win Vulture’s Fantasy Movie League, so stay tuned!

Premium subscribers may now enter the Sneider-Verse to continue reading…

Happy Tuesday, folks!

Yesterday was one of those days when everything falls into place. I was magically able to drive across Los Angeles from screening to screening with relative ease because of light traffic due to the Jewish holiday.

In the morning, I saw Cristian Mungiu’s Cannes drama Fjord, a very good movie that was quite effective in making me very angry. It’s about a religious family with conservative values who move from Romania to Norway, where their different approach to child-rearing proves too much to bear for the locals, who sic Child Protective Services on the parents and take their three children into custody.

Obviously, child abuse is a very real, very terrible thing. But spanking your kid on the butt (within reason) when they misbehave is hardly a reason to be forcibly separated from them. Watching this particular situation unfold was absolutely gut-wrenching.

Ultimately, this is a movie about being different, and how those who dare to be different scare people, most of whom want to blend in and be perceived as “normal,” whatever that means.

Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve are both quite good, but they’re also stuck playing the same note over and over during this 2.5-hour movie. It’ll be interesting to see whether the Academy embraces Fjord, which is the kind of movie that keeps you at somewhat of a distance.

I was a big fan, mainly because Mungiu made me feel something, and I found the closing moments of magical realism to be thematically interesting. And yet, Fjord fell just short of true greatness in my book — unlike The Invite, which I rewatched this weekend and totally held up the second time around. Now that is a great movie.

Anyway, after sending Monday’s newsletter, I drove from Santa Monica to Culver City during rush hour to catch a screening of Bassam Tariq’s drama Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, in which two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali plays a Muslim hitman who lives by his own code.

The movie has him driving all over Houston, doing whatever it takes to secure breast milk for his child, whose mother has recently died.

This is Ali’s best role in years, and he really holds the screen here. There’s a reason the man has won two Academy Awards. Really, the entire cast is excellent. This is the kind of movie that should be in the conversation for a Best Casting nomination. I was impressed by Adia and Jahleel Kamara, who play Ali’s children, as well as Abubakr Ali’s supporting turn as a cocky young porn impresario.

I really liked Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, and I’m glad that something positive came out of Tariq’s failed Blade movie with Ali. However, the final reel, which prominently features John Cho as a gold-toothed pastor/gangster, gets a little silly, and I didn’t quite buy the ending, which prevented this B+ movie from being an A-tier thing.

As soon as that movie ended, I rushed from Culver City to the Harmony Gold Theater in Hollywood, where I caught the first three episodes of Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe’s new showbiz-themed series, The Screener, which follows the devastating leak of a screener from a talent agency, and the repercussions that follow.

As someone who recognized all of the character types in this show, from Jon Rudnitsky’s selfish agent to the ambitious mailroom interns, I certainly enjoyed The Screener, and I can’t wait to finish the series and find out if those responsible are brought to justice by Cummings, who plays an alcoholic, sex addicted district attorney.

Cummings gets the best lines here, and Rudnitsky delivers on the potential he showed on SNL, but I was most impressed by B.K. Cannon, who plays Cummings’ right-hand. Also, major agencies may want to keep an eye on Boni Mata, who is currently at Coast to Coast…

The Screener premiered at Sundance, where it sought distribution that, apparently, it didn’t get. Cummings now plans to release it independently. Personally, I think MUBI, which previously picked up Cooper Raiff’s indie TV series Hal & Harper, would be a great home for The Screener. Yes, Hal & Harper had Mark Ruffalo, but the premise never hooked me. The Screener, by contrast, offers a juicy premise I couldn’t ignore, and it features plenty of recognizable actors, from Kumail Nanjiani to The Office alum Creed Bratton.

I don’t know when or where The Screener will debut, but stay tuned to this space for more details, as I promise to keep you posted.

After that screening, I was starving, so I drove a few blocks to Burger King to sample their new chicken nuggets — delicious, in case you were wondering. Then I went home and began watching the new season of Love Is Blind. The best part? It’s set in Boston this year. Nothing can prepare you…

Finally, I want to offer my condolences to the friends and colleagues of veteran film editor Elliot C. Graham, who reportedly took his own life over the weekend. Graham earned an Oscar nod for Gus Van Sant’s Milk and won a BAFTA for the James Bond movie No Time to Die. He also worked with Danny Boyle on Steve Jobs and Aaron Sorkin on Molly’s Game, and cut popular superhero movies such as X2, Superman Returns, and Captain Marvel. Graham recently turned 50 years old. R.I.P.

And now, it’s time for a hot casting scoop about a cold movie — the romantic comedy Fake Skating, which is heating up at Sony.

Premium subscribers may now enter the Sneider-Verse to continue reading…

Well, I would start the week off right by wishing everyone a Happy Monday, but it’s Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, so it’s supposed to be a sad day. Oh, well!

I have plenty to atone for, so I’ll be busy today, but beneath the bluster, I am just a nice Jewish boy at the end of the day. Someone else must run the infamous Twitter account you either love, hate, or love to hate…

Yom Kippur aside, I know it’s a sad day for some in Hollywood, as Paramount has reportedly struck a deal with 12 state A.G.s, clearing a path for David Ellison to close a deal to acquire Warner Bros. I know Mark Ruffalo and thousands of other people will consider this a tragedy of some kind, but I’m pro-Ellison (not to be confused with pro-Trump), and I think he’ll make a fine steward of Warner Bros.

Will there be some bumps in the road? I’m sure there will be. Will a lot of people lose their jobs? Yes, they will, and I’m truly, genuinely sorry about that, having been there before myself a time or two (or eight). But it doesn’t do anyone any good to bury their head in the sand and ignore the reality of this constricting business.

I believe that Ellison loves Hollywood and respects its history. He’s going to make mistakes. We all do, myself included, obviously. For example, Ellison may regret threatening to leave California, especially now that he’s not leaving, but at the time, it was a necessary threat. And whether it was ultimately helpful or not, he now has a deal.

Enough said, no?

I’ll be writing about this circus — both political and media! — more now that the “concessions” have been announced, but until then, a simple congrats to Ellison for doing whatever it took to get this deal done, and to California A.G. Rob Bonta for coming to his senses.

I know this isn’t everyone’s desired outcome, but WB’s fate could’ve been much, much worse. I’m just glad the studio will live to fight another day, even if thousands of employees won’t be around to enjoy that day. After all, it’s the movies that must survive.

And we are going to get movies, folks. Bonta and Co. made sure of it…

What I can do to help the affected employees is put a spotlight on them and their professional skills — when they’re ready, of course. Not all recently laid-off job-seekers want a spotlight on them, but if you do end up losing your job at WB (or Paramount) as a result of this deal, not only will I offer you a free year of this newsletter, but I’d be happy to mention you and your accomplishments in this space with a link to your resume, if only to help get the word out about your talent and availability.

I’m also available to meet for coffee — my treat! Just a friendly reminder for those in the biz who still admit to getting thirsty.

Over the weekend, I saw Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil, which was a lot of fun and a real rollercoaster ride. It runs a tight 95 minutes, and this thing moves, baby! I thought the first 45 minutes were excellent, and a real showcase for Cregger as a director. He does some things in this movie that I haven’t seen from him before.

I also appreciated the humor in this movie, though it does make for some awkward tonal shifts. I’m not saying that Resident Evil should’ve been a straight horror movie played simply for scares, as Cregger’s comedy background is an asset, not a hindrance. But the third act gets a little goofy before the movie ends rather abruptly, setting up a sequel that Cregger almost certainly won’t direct himself.

For all its cool gore, the third act cheapens the movie a little bit and prevents it from being an A-grade thing, which is why Resident Evil felt more like a B/B+ in my book. I found it to be on par with Barbarian, but I think I preferred the narrative intricacy of Weapons to the bare-bones plot of Cregger’s latest.

I also finished watching Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, and I plan to write about that series this week, which should also bring a new set of Oscar predictions following the fall festivals.

One prediction, or rather, non-prediction, already seems to be paying off, as the buzz on Digger (now screening for critics who aren’t me) is fairly weak, and Oscar pundits have already begun removing the film (and its star, Tom Cruise) from their Gold Derby lists. If you’ve been paying attention, I made that decision weeks ago. Update your Kalshi portfolio accordingly…

Before I drop a huge DC scoop in today’s newsletter, a quick update on Friday’s newsletter about the 2027 release calendar — a story that did a good job of shaking the tree, which is pretty much the entire purpose I serve in entertainment journalism.

In Universal’s entry, I wrote that the Untitled Blumhouse Movie currently on the calendar for Jan. 15 was likely a placeholder, as I had no idea which Blumhouse movie it could possibly be. In the same entry, I wrote that Focus Features will release Joshua Giuliano’s slasher movie River — a recent hit at TIFF — at some point next year.

Well, guess what? Jason Blum executive produced River, and I can exclusively reveal Giuliano’s slasher film as the mystery movie slated for release on Jan. 15. Expect a trailer sooner rather than later…

Premium subscribers may now enter the Sneider-Verse to continue reading about the stars of Dynamic Duo, the first animated movie from DC Studios.

Happy Friday, folks!

Last night, I saw David Ayer’s survival drama Heart of the Beast starring Brad Pitt, and I’ll be writing about that movie next week once the review embargo lifts. Paramount must be happy with how it’s tracking, as the studio just announced a World War Z sequel with Pitt from Conclave director Edward Berger, whom he recently worked with on A24’s The Riders. So much for Berger’s Jason Bourne movie at Universal…

This is the second character Pitt has revisited lately, following the new Cliff Booth movie, and you have to wonder if he’ll ever revisit the role that made him a star — that of David Mills (“M-I-L-L-S, fuck off!”) in Se7en. What is that guy up to? I’m not sure I want to know, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t morbidly curious…

Tonight, I’m off to see Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil, which is shaping up to be the best-reviewed video game movie of all time. It’s also looking at an opening weekend north of $60 million. It’ll mark three straight hits for Cregger following Barbarian and Weapons, and he’ll make his next film, The Flood, for Warner Bros., which will release it in August 2028.

This week, I caught up with a pair of April releases from Neon — Genki Kawamura’s Exit 8, which played like a Japanese version of Backrooms, and Steven Soderbergh’s art forgery caper, The Christophers, starring Michaela Coel and Ian McKellen. I liked both overall, and I’m glad I watched them, but I didn’t walk away from either one doing cartwheels, as I felt both were anticlimactic and ultimately missing… something.

I’ve watched half of the Lizzie Borden series on Netflix, and I’ll have more to say about that one once I’ve finished it, but I can recommend a trio of comedy specials if you need a laugh this month — Jared Freid’s The Family Plan is now streaming on Netflix, and if you grew up in a loud Jewish family as I did, you’ll appreciate it that much more. It’s hilarious, as is Jeremiah Watkins’ new YouTube special, Crazy Pizza, which has already racked up more than 100,000 views on YouTube in just a few short days. I also watched Sam Morril’s upcoming Netflix special Incorrect, and I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say about it, but it’s safe to say that Morril remains a fantastic writer, and he doesn’t disappoint.

Finally, I watched Jeff Cameron’s new HBO documentary short, Miller Night Football, which chronicles comedian Dennis Miller’s unlikely arrival in the Monday Night Football broadcast booth alongside Al Michaels and Dan Fouts back in 2000, when ABC Sports was desperate to reinvigorate the franchise. It’s a fun 41-minute look back at the controversy surrounding Miller’s presence on-air and the impact it had on Monday Night Football, where many of his high-minded references sailed over the heads of the average viewer. Eventually, ABC replaced him with some guy named John Madden. The project is the latest from HBO and NFL Films following last year’s Emmy-nominated documentary short The Shuffle, and be sure to stay tuned through the credits for Dana Carvey’s uncanny impression of Miller and his uniquely sarcastic cadence.

On the news side, John Leguizamo has signed on to play the villain in Miami Vice ‘85 opposite Michael B. Jordan and Austin Butler. I love Leguizamo, and I love this part for him — he’ll make a great villain, and he deserves the gig after his sure-to-be Oscar-nominated role in The Odyssey. But it is funny that a guy who has loudly called for Latino actors to stop playing drug dealers and bad guys uses his clout from The Odyssey to take on what I assume will be a very similar role. Money talks, folks…

Speaking of which, Noah Baumbach made headlines this week when he left his longtime home at Netflix and signed a first-look deal at Warner Bros., where he and wife Greta Gerwig are hoping to get a Barbie sequel off the ground, though Margot Robbie has been dragging her heels.

I’m told that Baumbach’s movies have become very expensive — White Noise cost roughly $100 million!! — especially compared to the number of views (and awards) they brought in (or didn’t). I’m told that Netflix execs eventually grew tired of him and that the streamer barely even countered when they learned that WB had made him an offer.

Ouch!

And now for some congratulations…

First, to Sony Pictures, Tom Holland, and director Destin Daniel Cretton, whose Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now the highest-grossing movie of all time at the domestic box office. That’s in terms of dollars, not tickets sold, of course. And inflation is a bitch. Star Wars: The Force Awakens sold about 35 million more tickets. But it’s a brand new day, and Spider-Man’s name is now in the record books, which is all that really matters.

Congrats to the scrappy team behind the indie horror movie The Cat and the Hatchet, which has the potential to be the next Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey or Popeye the Slayer Man. With a new animated movie coming out in November, I’m sure WB is just thrilled about this one… It’s a clever title, and it looks like it could be a wild time, so don’t be a geezer — be a people pleaser and check out the teaser. Wouldn’t Dr. Seuss be proud?

Elsewhere, congrats to former TriStar exec Caellum Allan on being named Head of Film & TV at Wesley Wang Media and to former Bad Robot exec Jon Cohen on being named President of Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein’s Wonderlab banner, where he’ll be tasked with producing projects alongside the Final Destination: Bloodlines duo.

Finally, there has been a lot of talk about Paramount threatening to leave California, with sites like TMZ and Politico reporting on a potential move to Nashville, where David Ellison is reportedly considering a 400,000 square-foot space. However, as I wrote on Twitter this week, I’ll believe it when I see a “For Sale - Call Jay Luchs” sign on the famous Paramount gates.

Variety believes Ellison is bluffing, while Puck’s Matt Belloni described the situation as a “game of chicken.” Belloni later used the term “gamesmanship,” which I also used on Twitter. This is standard negotiation stuff — even if there’s nothing “standard” about Ellison’s threat to go nuclear.

Ys, Paramount might save half a billion dollars each year by moving its operation to Nashville, but it would also cost a ton of money to do so, and the workforce wouldn’t be very happy. However, it is arrogant of California A.G. Rob Bonta to think that the only talent out there lives in the Los Angeles area. There are talented artisans all over America these days.

I know how wily and spiteful these billionaires can be, and I think Bonta is playing with fire here. He should sit down and get a deal done… for everyone’s sake.

The thing about the Paramount-WB deal — and its coverage — is that people are making it a political issue when it’s not. I know it seems like one, because of David and Larry Ellison’s relationship with President Trump, but it’s funny how no one talked about David like this when he was running Skydance and producing Mission: Impossible movies. It’s the power grab that disturbs people, and what Ellison may do with that power. Let’s face it, this is all about the future of CNN, which is probably the last thing I’d spend my days concerned with if I were a billionaire who owned two movie studios.

Ellison’s threats may not make him look especially level-headed in the eyes of the judge, but I think he’s doing what he has to do to get this deal across the finish line — even if he has to bluff and look like the bad guy for a little while. Sometimes, the willingness to look like the bad guy is precisely what it takes to lead.

What matters, folks, is the movies. So let’s talk about next year’s crop. Premium subscribers may now enter the Sneider-Verse to continue reading…

Good evening. Sad news tonight in Los Angeles, where an NBC4 helicopter has crashed, leaving multiple people dead and several others injured.

The crash was captured live on camera, and veteran L.A. helicopter reporter Zoey Tur wrote on Twitter that it sounded like NBC4’s helicopter ran out of fuel, likely causing engine failure, though authorities have yet to announce any kind of official cause.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by this seemingly easily preventable tragedy, and I’ll keep them in my prayers tonight.

Last night, Mariska Hargitay hosted the Emmys, and I’ll share my thoughts on the show below the paywall, but first, I saw two movies since we last met — John Carney’s Power Ballad and Padraic McKinley’s upcoming drama The Weight.

I highly recommend both movies.

Power Ballad is one of the best movies of the year, period. Carney, the director of Once and Sing Street, is a master of the modern musical, and his latest is on nearly the same level. It’s about Rick Power (Paul Rudd), a musician who gave up on his dreams of becoming a rock star to settle down with his family in Ireland and sing in a wedding band. When he meets Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas), a former boy band star desperate to reinvent himself as a solo act, the two hit it off and stay up late one night, drinking and jamming together. Rick even plays Danny one of his songs.

Months later, Rick is in a mall when he hears that same song, which shoots to #1 on the charts and racks up 500 million downloads. Its success prompts Rick to track down Danny and seek proper credit for the song.

Jonas is solid as the global music sensation, but this is one of Rudd’s very best performances — he doesn’t just hide behind his goofball charm; he digs deep and really gets in there, especially during the third act. Meanwhile, Jack Reynor and Peter McDonald are perfect in supporting roles. The music itself isn’t as memorable as the songs in Once and Sing Street, but Carney really sticks the landing here, as the ending bucks convention and delivers something far better than what you’re expecting.

I loved this movie, and it’s a shame that Lionsgate never quite figured out how to sell it...

I also watched The Weight, which comes out on Friday. Ethan Hawke plays a single father who is ripped away from his young daughter and sent to a labor camp to do hard time — moving rocks and shit. He hits it off with his jailer, played by Russell Crowe, who offers him early release if he leads a dangerous expedition across a forest to transport government gold. And gold, as we all know, will make men do crazy things…

Meanwhile, if Hawke loses a single bar, he’ll have failed in his mission, and he may never see his daughter again, as she’ll be lost to the foster care system forever.

The Weight is basically a modern-day Sorcerer — the William Friedkin movie where the guys have to transport unstable dynamite across the jungle — with the gold standing in for dynamite. It proves to be just as explosive.

Howard Hawks once said that a great movie is “three good scenes and no bad ones.” Well, The Weight fits that description, and while it may be a little too familiar to be “great,” I can promise you this much — it’s “damn good.”

Speaking of damn good, Universal and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster snapped up the rights to Joshua Giuliano’s buzzy slasher movie River, which just premiered in the Midnight section at TIFF. Jane Levy and Jessica Rothe star in the movie, and though I haven’t seen River myself, it drew strong reviews from critics before selling for $10 million. This, after IFC and Shudder already had a deal for the movie, or so I thought. I’m sure Universal paid a pretty premium to pry it away…

The team behind ‘River’ is watching the money flow in the wake of fellow TIFF title ‘Obsession.’

Universal and Blumhouse entered TIFF bullish on this year’s festival after Focus spent $15 million to acquire Obsession last year, and the film went on to gross more than $500 million worldwide. To them, there’s plenty of gold in those horror hills, which get plenty of eyeballs.

Meanwhile, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother played through the roof at TIFF despite its unwieldy title. Bassam Tariq’s new movie stars Mahershala Ali as a Muslim hitman in desperate need of breast milk for his child, and Ali is said to have put his Blade training to good use in this film, which prominently features him with a samurai sword.

John Cho is also said to turn heads with his supporting turn. I’ve been high on this movie since I first saw the trailer at CinemaCon in April, and I can’t wait to see it next week. I just hope it finds an audience, for at least then something good will have come out of the whole Blade mess at Marvel.

Unfortunately, Zack Snyder’s new film, The Last Photograph, was greeted with, um, less enthusiastic reviews, shall we say, though I suspect that Snyder simply shared his film with the wrong audience. I saw lots of critics call it “racist” or “misogynistic,” which aren’t words I’d ever think of lobbing at a movie. Several invoked 2023’s Sound of Freedom, which I happened to enjoy, as I don’t get too caught up in a film’s politics — I care whether it’s entertaining and how well it tells the story it set out to tell.

The critics may very well be correct about The Last Photograph, but until I’ve seen the film myself, I’ll endeavor to keep an open mind, knowing how easily offended some critics can be with their delicate sensibilities. Naturally, Snyder has already responded, claiming critics had their knives out for him this time. Hmmm…

More from TIFF: Judging from thousands of miles away, the festival’s King and Queen this year have to be Anthony Ippolito, who plays Sylvester Stallone in I Play Rocky, and Rosalind Eleazar, who plays the title role in Chris Rock’s A24 movie Misty Green. Sight unseen, I expect both to be nominated for Oscars — and flooded with offers, too.

There’s one in particular that wouldn’t surprise me — Ippolito is Italian, in case you know any prominent Italian directors casting any high-profile movies right now — but whether it happens or not, I think we’re going to be hearing a lot more about Ippolito — and Eleazar — very, very soon.

And before we pivot away from festivals, May el-Toukhy’s drama Woman Unknown won the Golden Lion at Venice, though I’m not sure that’ll matter much when it comes to the Oscars. We’ll see…

Elsewhere, Jeremy Saulnier’s fugitive thriller October has reportedly been retitled Slayground, which is a terrible B-movie title. It feels like the kind of title that might’ve fit that Johnny Depp movie about Notorious B.I.G. back in the day (City of Lies). The film is also said to be 2.5 hours long, though it’s unclear whether Saulnier is still editing it down. This is one of my most anticipated movies of the year (now 2027, I guess), so here’s hoping Saulnier delivers once again, as I don’t think he’s missed yet.

We got some great trailers this week — The Further Mis-adventures of Cliff Booth (since removed), Minotaur, and Mr. Irrelevant, which, like I Play Rocky, is going to surprise a lot of people (not me, obviously), I think. After all, there’s a reason Paramount felt comfortable giving director Jonathan Levine the keys to Days of Thunder 2.

Speaking of ‘90s movies, Vertical is giving Renny Harlin’s new Cliffhanger movie a helping hand, agreeing to take over the distribution rights from the embattled distributor Row K. This is a smart bet from Vertical, which took a similar gamble on the Tom Hardy movie Capone and did very, very well with that film.

WB’s Practical Magic 2, on the other hand, underperformed at the box office this weekend, taking in just $29 million when it had been tracking for $40 million. I don’t think the reviews helped here. We’ll see if they can help WB’s next release, the Tom Cruise movie Digger, an arthouse movie with the budget of a blockbuster. Right now, it’s tracking for a $20 million domestic opening. Not good, Bob!

On the news front, Bob De Niro (just go with it for the sake of the segue) has signed on to play Tommy Lasorda in a new indie movie that reteams him with writer George Gallo, whom he worked with on Midnight Run and last year’s underrated comedy The Comeback Trail.

Speaking of reunions, Searchlight announced a sequel to The Family Stone that will bring back the entire cast and no doubt pay tribute to its late matriarch, Diane Keaton.

Just as I predicted, Amazon MGM Studios is giving Ron Howard’s war drama Alone at Dawn the American Sniper treatment, only the studio is doing it next year. Adam Driver and Anne Hathaway star in the movie, which will open in select theaters on Christmas Day 2027 before going wide in January. Sound familiar?

I’m also high on a pair of indies that were announced this week — Cory Finley’s Reasonable People, which will pair Paul Rudd and Sam Rockwell; and Ramin Bahrani’s Last Meals, which will star Mads Mikkelsen, Boyd Holbrook, Tessa Thompson, and Michael Shannon.

Finally, Skydance Animation and Netflix have ended their distribution pact, so John Lasseter’s Cosmic Motors — described as “Cars in space” — will now be released by Paramount, though Netflix will still release Brad Bird’s animated film Ray Gunn in November.

Oh, and Paramount’s mountain of lawyers will sit down with California A.G. Rob Bonta to discuss a possible settlement on Oct. 14 and 15, with billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of potential jobs at stake.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in that room! I wonder where they’ll order lunch from…

Besides Bonta’s lunch order, I’m working on a few scoops for later this month. However, we must first put a bow on the recent TV season and dive into the Emmys.

Despite being known as a film guy, I watch as much TV as anyone; I just don’t watch a lot of popular shows like Game of Thrones, Bridgerton, or Abbott Elementary. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never been terribly invested in the Emmys, which — not to be a movie snob — will never be the Oscars in my eyes. That’s because it’s impossible to watch every contender, unlike in film, where that mission is a bit more manageable.

Premium subscribers can continue reading for more thoughts on the Emmys, including Taylor Swift’s pre-taped skit with the SVU squad.

Welcome back, everyone, and thanks for sticking around. I know it’s a somber day today, with it being the 25th anniversary of 9/11, which I wrote about in yesterday’s newsletter.

It’s a tough day for a lot of people, and if anyone needs to talk, I’m available. It’s the least I can do after so many of you reached out this week with words of support, which I truly appreciated.

This weekend, I plan to cozy up with a good book and a screener for the new Ethan Hawke-Russell Crowe movie The Weight, which is higher on my list than the new Paul Greengrass movie The Uprising, now in theaters with mixed reviews. The latter film stars Andrew Garfield, who was aboard a plane full of industry peeps that had to make an emergency landing this week. Thank god everyone is alright…

I just wish I could say the same for The Human Centipede director Tom Six, who gave THR’s Gustavo Turner what he calls “the final interview” of his life as he succumbs to the pain of MS. I spent an afternoon with Six once, and I found his last words to be inspiring, as he goes off on the woke scolds who have become enemies of art. Who am I to argue with a dying man? Six came out of nowhere to make an indelible impression in the genre community, and I hope his final days are as comfortable as possible.

Sandra Bullock is looking comfortable at the box office, which is poised to have a new champ this weekend. WB’s Practical Magic 2 is looking at a $40 million weekend despite some rough reviews, but hey, that’s the power of Sandy, who has been dutifully playing the PR game in support of the sequel.

Speaking of PR games, though the Paramount-WB circus continues, there may be an end in sight, as California AG Rob Bonta has agreed to sit down and discuss a settlement with David Ellison’s lawyers next month. Again, I predict Paramount will prevail, no matter how much Netflix is posturing otherwise. The streamer announced this week that it will report box office, which is the latest step in Netflix’s not-so-secret quest to make its previously sworn enemy — movie theaters — part of its business strategy, as I wrote months ago when I saw the writing on the wall.

Elsewhere, there’s a report making the rounds about WB taking a “pause” on development of a planned Wonder Woman movie, which is plausible, due to both the pending Paramount-Skydance deal and Supergirl’s underperformance at the box office.

However, I wonder if it’s less a “pause” than a recalibration of sorts…

I still think there’s a way to make a Wonder Woman movie for a responsible number, and I think the answer is right there in the title. Whoever directs this movie needs to balance “wonder” with what makes this character distinctly feminine.

This movie needs to explore sisterhood and depict a world where women have each other’s backs. Who needs Mr. Terrific and Guy Gardner when you’ve got Mom on your side? This is a movie that needs to be grounded and show how the women in our lives — our mothers, sisters, wives, etc. — are the true superheroes. Because that theme is universal, and this version of Wonder Woman can’t simply be a variation on what we’ve seen before; it demands a unique take.

By the way, Being Heumann premiered at TIFF last night to warm, respectful reviews from critics, and its protagonist, Judy Heumann (played by real-life wheelchair user Ruth Madeley), is exactly the kind of character who should be backing up Wonder Woman, should she require her own version of a Justice Gang.

In a way, Heumann is Wonder Woman herself, for strength comes in many different shapes and sizes.

It’s not always about punching a villain through a building. Sometimes it’s about just getting out of bed in the morning, or facing a world that doesn’t want you in it and makes no accommodations for your existence.

I can’t wait to see Being Heumann this November, and regardless of when we see Wonder Woman’s next solo movie, I hope DC strives to think outside of the box, as there are real-life heroes among us, and Wonder Woman’s true power is one we all share — the ability to make a difference.

Anyway, the Emmy Awards are Monday evening, and the show will honor this year’s difference makers in the world of television.

Despite being known as a film guy, I watch as much TV as anyone, if not more, as I’m someone who is drawn to stories, regardless of the medium. I’m still reading books, people! I’m ancient.

As someone who ingests a fair amount of television each year, I have my thoughts about who is deserving and who isn’t, and for the most part, Emmy voters get things right. I’ve just never been that invested in the Emmys, because you get the same statue as a lead that you do for a seven-minute guest appearance.

There are just too many awards, too many categories, too many nominees, and, let’s face it, voters only watch a very narrow swath of shows, because they have busy lives. That’s how you get four or five nominees from the same show in one category — most voters watch the same shows they’re being told to watch, either by the trades, the almighty algorithm, or FYC consultants bombarding them with links and mailers.

Nonetheless, I am sharing my Final Emmy Predictions with my premium subscribers, just in case they want to head to Kalshi and place some bets — excuse me, make some predictions.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and may your favorite NFL team fare better than mine did in Week 1!

It’s Thursday, folks, and the Rams just got smashed by the 49ers in a battle of California’s finest football teams (the Chargers are still in ‘prove it’ mode, and don’t get me started on the Raiders).

Tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of 9/11, which is crazy to think about. I was a high school senior at the time, one who dreamed of attending New York University, so I was pretty shell-shocked when the Twin Towers fell one after the other.

I can’t imagine how I would’ve felt had 9/11 happened just one year later, and I’d actually been in the city. I don’t think my mother would’ve let me stay if we’re being honest.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to deal with the horror of that day in person, nor did my mother, to her credit, allow such an unprecedented attack on American soil to deter her first-born from attending NYU when he was finally accepted. In some ways, New York was the safest place in the world in 2002. There was no way anything would happen there again. I was appropriately wary of the big city, but I wasn’t afraid of it, and I’m grateful to my mother for putting her own fears aside to support my dreams.

Of course, in the fall of 2002, when I first matriculated at NYU, the city was still reeling from 9/11. The wound was still fresh. In some ways, it will always be fresh, perhaps because it is seared into our collective memories. My heart forever goes out to all the families who lost loved ones that day, and to the first responders whose lives were cut short because they ran towards the debris while everyone else ran away.

I hope to never witness another 9/11 in my lifetime, and if history does repeat itself, I pray it’s far, far away from my family and me, for I can’t imagine having the strength to go on. But people did find the strength, and they still do — every day. God bless ‘em. That’s the American spirit for you. It’s unbreakable.

Speaking of unbreakable spirit, I saw Guns N’ Roses rock out at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on Saturday night, and it was a pretty epic three-hour show featuring roughly an hour of pure shredding. Axl Rose’s voice may not be what it used to be, but he’s still a genuine one-name-only rock star. Imagine having two of those people in one band?

Yes, Slash is still crushing it on guitar, and he looks the exact same at 61 as he did at 31. Slash is probably one of the top five most talented human beings to ever hold a guitar, so it was pretty cool watching him do his thing last weekend — like watching Michael Jordan play basketball, or Richard Pryor do stand-up comedy.

Last night, I saw Na Hong-jin’s Korean creature feature Hope, which was a wild, overlong ride at 157 minutes (three minutes shorter than the version that screened as a work-in-progress at Cannes). The first 40 minutes and the last 40 minutes of this movie are fairly gripping extended action sequences, if a bit repetitive and monotonous. But there’s an hour in the middle of this movie that drags, and you never quite bond with the characters like you do in, say, Bong Joon Ho’s monster movie The Host.

The performances are fine… I just couldn’t get too attached to the characters, and I think part of the problem is that the humor in this movie is a little uneven, and it’s used to keep the audience at arm’s length.

Having said that, Na Hong-jin absolutely crushes the action sequence in this movie, to the point where I think he should be high on certain lists at Marvel Studios. Hope is a rollicking, kinetic thrill ride that doesn’t let up and offers a huge canvas for its characters to play on. The director’s sense of space and his use of space in this movie is seriously something to behold.

The movie may be flawed, and perhaps limited by its budget, but this is nonetheless a directorial feat that should result in studios offering Na Hong-jin multiple English-language projects. Whether he wants to “go Hollywood” is another story, and entirely up to him, but those opportunities will start to materialize after this.

Let’s just hope that if the director does, uh, “go Hollywood,” he doesn’t wind up making forgettable B-movies like The Mongoose, one of two new Liam Neeson movies debuting this fall.

Neeson has a small role in The Fix, which opens this weekend, but he’s very much front-and-center and in the driver’s seat in The Mongoose, in which he plays a military veteran named Fang who is framed for a crime he didn’t commit and forced to go on the run to prove his innocence with the help of his military buddies, including Ving Rhames. The whole time, law enforcement, personified by Michael Chiklis, is in hot pursuit, while his ex-wife (helpfully labeled as such in his phone), Marisa Tomei, watches news reports on TV and talks to him on the phone during breaks in the action.

The Mongoose is strangely watchable — such is the nature of movie stars doing what we love — but it’s also instantly forgettable, and I doubt anyone will be clamoring for a sequel here. Though when it comes to this side of the business, you never know.

The Fix actually fares a bit better, as Zachary Levi (Shazam!) makes a surprisingly effective action hero. He plays the leader of a special ops group (including Quincy Isaiah, who played Magic Johnson in HBO’s Winning Time) that heads back to Tehran on an off-the-books mission to retrieve $25 million in cash hidden in the walls of a hotel room — at least, that’s according to Levi’s former CIA handler (Neeson), who, by the way, has dementia.

Does Neeson remember correctly? Is he flat-out wrong? Or is he playing another game? Perhaps there’s something even more valuable than money hidden in those walls…

Throughout the movie, Levi’s character is haunted by what he must do in the film’s opening sequence — shoot an asset who has been kidnapped to spare him a worse fate. It’s a solid sequence, and most of the action sequences work here courtesy of director Guy Moshe, who served in the Israeli Army, but at 142 minutes, the film grows sluggish. It simply doesn’t earn that absurdly luxurious running time.

As soon as I saw that this movie was 142 minutes, I knew it would be a problem. This is why Hollywood needs a VP of Common Sense. Maybe they could help run my Twitter account…

Finally, on Tuesday night, I saw By Any Means, which has been getting middling reviews — one critic called it the single most crass movie of the year behind Melania — but I happened to enjoy it.

Mark Wahlberg plays a mob-adjacent tough guy from Brooklyn who isn’t afraid to swing a baseball bat at a kneecap or shoot a cop during an unwarranted traffic stop. He’s paired with a straight-laced FBI agent (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) who learns that if he really wants justice, he may need to crack some heads to get it.

I don’t care how ridiculous Wahlberg looks with a prosthetic nose; he’s absolutely delicious in this movie. You have to buy him as a stone-cold killer, but something of a teddy bear deep down, and Wahlberg walks that fine line between menacing and maniac. You root for him, and Abdul-Mateen II continues to show new sides of himself s a leading man.

I was a big fan of Elegance Bratton’s LGBTQ drama The Inspection, and while By Any Means isn’t quite as refined, it’s still an interesting story told in an entertaining way. I just wish the main villain (Ethan Embry) got what was coming to him. It took 30 years for the long arm of the law to catch up with him, but catch up with him it finally did.

On the news side, THR reports that Asa Germann (Scream 7) has been cast as Angel in Marvel’s X-Men movie after initially auditioning for Cyclops, and he certainly looks the part with that baby face, while Deadline reports Sacha Baron Cohen has landed one of the leads in Quentin Tarantino’s new stage play, The Popinjay Cavalier. If you’ll recall, Baron Cohen was poised to co-star in Django Unchained as a man from Broomhilde’s past, but he was forced to drop out due to a scheduling conflict with The Dictator, and the scene was ultimately cut prior to filming.

I suppose if you’re making a British comedy, and you’re Tarantino, who lives in Israel, it makes sense that Baron Cohen would be among the first people you’d call. I just wish I lived in London so I could see this in person. The first time I ever saw Tarantino was in person in a stage adaptation of Wait Until Dark (he played the Alan Arkin role).

Tomorrow, I’ll share my Final Emmy Predictions, but first, today marks the start of the Toronto International Film Festival, and I’m bummed I can’t be there. I simply had too much going on this year — apologies.

I hope everyone making the trek north of the border has a great time and sees some great movies, but I’ve got 14 questions ahead of the festival, which should provide a clearer picture of the Oscar race in the days ahead.

Premium subscribers may now enter the Sneider-Verse to continue reading and find out what’s on my mind as I put TIFF’s presumed awards contenders under a magnifying glass…

Happy Tuesday, folks! I hope you all enjoyed the holiday weekend and walked away from your fantasy football drafts satisfied.

It was a crazy weekend for yours truly, who lost nearly 900 followers on Twitter in the dumbest “controversy” of all time before gaining most of them back in a wild, well-timed twist after the Telluride Film Festival revealed Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, You Can See Everything, as its secret screening.

The reviews have been ecstatic, and I hope A24 will still have me at an upcoming screening after the dumb stunt I pulled this weekend.

Regardless, it’s true that this tiny, little newsletter that has zero advertising, even though everyone in town reads it, was the only outlet in the world to report on this top-secret project, which I first announced way back in March 2025.

Call me crazy, folks… just call me good, too.

And kudos to Fielder and Oppenheim for keeping this pretty quiet otherwise. A24 did a great job of surprising festgoers, and the studio could wind up making history for its troubles, as there’s buzz that You Can See Everything could become the first documentary nominated for Best Picture.

A24 has a stacked slate this fall, so we’ll see if one film emerges from the pack, though Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut seems poised to be the chosen one. We’ll see…

You Can See Everything wasn’t the only¹ awards contender to drop a teaser this weekend, as we also caught our first glimpse of Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial. Meanwhile, WB released a teaser for its supernatural romance Remain, which is a collaboration between Oscar-nominated director M. Night Shyamalan and bestselling author Nicholas Sparks. Both teasers, I must say, were a little underwhelming.

Last night, I watched the upcoming Netflix documentary The Widower, though that remains under embargo until the end of the month, so come back then. Of course, as with most Netflix documentaries, it’s best not to read much about this documentary beforehand, lest you spoil any twists and turns for yourself. I also watched the first four episodes of Season 3 of Nobody Wants This, and Apple’s Neuromancer pilot starring Callum Turner — though again, both remain under embargo.

Today, I’ve got some Summer Movie Awards to hand out — just brace yourselves for brutal honesty below. I feel bad about this weekend’s blow-up, but brutal honesty remains the brand, so if you’ve got the stomach — and a premium subscription — then enter the Sneider-Verse to continue reading…

Happy Friday, folks! TGIF, am I right?

You may have seen me trending on Twitter today. Yet another “controversy,” it seems. Must be a day that ends in the letter “Y.” I’ll address the situation below the paywall, so if you want the tea, you’ll have to pay for it. Sorry! Blame Jay Penske…

Last night, I saw Adam Wingard’s Onslaught, which was like a cross between The Guest and You’re Next, except for one important thing — it wasn’t good. Like, at all.

Adria Arjona is fine as the film’s badass momma bear — she has a daughter that she needs to protect — but I wouldn’t call this her finest moment. This movie is basically about a guy she once kicked in the nuts who became a super soldier and gets turned loose in her trailer park with two of his buddies. Everyone is dressed like something out of Splinter Cell, and none of them have an off switch. There’s a government agent (Drew Starkey) on MDMA who seems to be two steps behind at all times. In other words, the script is terrible.

I’m a big fan of Wingard’s early films, but Onslaught is nakedly lazy — the kind of B-movie you could write on a rainy afternoon. In this case, the “B” stands for “brainless.”

Speaking of brainless movies, I’ve got two more for you — The Runner and Runner. Yes, you read that right. No, you are not having a stroke.

Runner is an action movie from Angel Studios starring Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson, and while I can’t complain about said action — Act of Valor director Scott Waugh delivers on that front — the story is way too formulaic, and nearly every actor plays a stock character.

Ritchson plays a courier who must transport a valuable liver to a little girl with an ultra-rare blood type. Wilson plays the guy responsible for overseeing the transfer. Rodrigo Santoro (300) is actually pretty good as the persistent villain, who needs the liver for his ailing mother. It’s a scenery-chewing performance, to be sure, but at least he’s livening up the proceedings. Frankly, I enjoyed Santoro’s work here.

The beauty of Ritchson’s performance as Jack Reacher is his fuck-you attitude, but in Runner, Ritchson’s personality is reduced to “Recovering Alcoholic Turned Boy Scout.” His edge is so sanded down that he’s just playing a heroic archetype, and that’s boring. And that was my main problem with this movie — it was just a little too generic for its own good.

But I get it! This is a movie from Angel Studios, which targets a faith-based audience, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. In an effort to play to that crowd, the filmmakers played it safe — they were careful not to offend anyone with too much swearing or blood. Like, there is blood in this movie, but given the level of violence, I found it curiously bloodless. To be fair to Runner, it’ll probably appeal to action aficionados who appreciate a short movie about dudes with guns chasing each other, but I would’ve added a cool twist late in the game.

Speaking of which, I watched Gal Gadot’s The Runner this week, and that wasn’t very good, either, though it also wasn’t “9% on Rotten Tomatoes” bad. That’s why expectations are everything. I watched this movie thinking it would be a piece of shit, and it wasn’t — it just wasn’t very good. Hardly Gadot’s worst streaming movie, though.

Director Kevin MacDonald keeps the energy up, and Gadot makes a decent action star/desperate mom — she just shouldn’t be on the phone for an entire movie. In fact, she’s one of the last actresses who should be on the phone for an entire movie. But I do believe there’s a place for her in Hollywood post-Wonder Woman.

Falling somewhere in between The Runner and Runner was The Whisper Man, one of two new movies I watched on Netflix this week. I read The Whisper Man last year, and I thought the book was good but not great, though I was impressed when Netflix landed actors like Robert De Niro, Michael Keaton, and Michelle Monaghan for the movie.

That’s not to say I don’t like Adam Scott, because I do — I’m just not sure I like him in dramatic roles like this movie and Hokum. He’s a much, much better comedic actor. So right away, this movie is at a disadvantage. Next, De Niro is sleepwalking through this movie. Like, I don’t even know if he is awake — no disrespect to a legend.

The Whisper Man comes alive once Keaton enters the frame, and I won’t spoil the third act, but I like the younger actor it centers around. The movie is pretty dull and dreary for the first hour or so, but if you can push through it, you might find a few small pleasures late in the game. Overall, however, this is another disappointing AGBO production.

Director James Ashcroft made one of the best genre films of the past decade, Coming Home in the Dark, but I must say that he’s now 1-for-3 in my book, as The Rule of Jenny Pen also let me down.

My final note on all three of these movies? We need better child actors. God, I’m brutal today. I’m sorry. Perhaps I was just spoiled growing up. We had Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood trying to kill each other, and Culkin kissing Anna Chlumsky, and Christina Ricci kissing everyone. The ‘90s — what a time to be alive!

Let’s end this intro on a positive note. That other Netflix movie that I watched? It’s called Facing El Chapo, and I thought it was very well made by director Chava Cartas, who should absolutely be signed by a major agency. Are you listening, Hollywood?

The film stars Alfonso Herrera and Noe Hernandez as the federal cops who unexpectedly captured El Chapo (Hector Kotsifakis) and put up a hell of a fight to do so.

I actually stumbled upon this movie via the 90-second preview that Netflix runs whenever you land on a tile, and I’m glad I gave it a chance, because once it sinks its hooks in, it doesn’t let go. It runs a tight 90 minutes, the stakes are high, and there’s real suspense. Take my word for it — watch Facing El Chapo. And keep your eye on Cartas, who will almost certainly sign with a notable agency in the days ahead.

On the news side, set photos from the Daniels’ new movie vindicated my reporting about a heavy Power Rangers influence; Puck’s Matt Belloni confirmed my report from last week that called out the BS surrounding the James Bond casting search; and directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley confirmed my scoop that Training Day is among the main inspirations for the new Star Trek movie they’re developing.

Tom Cruise lent his support to the Paramount-WB merger, saying with confidence that the combined entity will release 30 films per year, something that I feel is easily attainable, and which my podcast co-host thinks is impossible. We’ll see on that front…

In terms of casting, Billy Barratt will play young Voldemort in HBO’s Harry Potter series, which dropped a new trailer, while trained ballet dancers Monica Barbaro and Margaret Qualley are reportedly the two finalists to play Fred Astaire’s sister opposite Tom Holland in a new biopic about the screen icon from Wonka director Paul King. Naturally, both actresses are coming off August bombs, but hey, bad movies gotta come out some time, right?

Oh, and Noah Jupe joined Avengers: Secret Wars in a top-secret role. Will he be playing Young Doom? What about Young Reed? Or, gasp, Franklin Richards? Stay tuned…

Speaking of top-secret, the Telluride Film Festival finally announced its lineup, which includes Wild Horse Nine, a film currently earning raves at Venice, where Werner Herzog’s Bucking Fastard landed with a predictable thud. Danny Boyle’s Ink earned mixed-positive reviews at Venice, while early word on Paul Greengrass’ The Uprising, which avoided all fall fests, is not very encouraging.

At the box office, The Odyssey finally clawed back the top spot from Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and the horror movie Buddy proved to be a hit with arthouse audiences even though it wasn’t my cup of tea, grossing $5.4 million on just 1200 screens, with an expansion to come this weekend.

Apologies for the long intro, but I’ve been MIA all week. I’m back with a vengeance, though, as today’s newsletter examines the controversy that has engulfed Twitter these past 24 hours, starring yours truly and Inde Navarrette.

Actually, it has nothing to do with Navarrette, and everything to do with her reps, but only premium subscribers can enter the Sneider-Verse to read more. May the rest of you have a great Labor Day Weekend!

Happy Friday, folks!

Not much time for a big wind-up this evening, as I’m off to a fancy soiree — and available for your private function, too!

Last night, I saw Macon Blair’s new comedy Idiots, which was another letdown, though I probably should’ve seen this coming, given that the film was released during the last week of August. Blair wastes decent performances from his three leads — Dave Franco, O’Shea Jackson Jr., and Mason Thames — because he doesn’t know what kind of movie he’s making. When Thames’ character bites a woman and reveals himself to be an actually bad person, the movie stops being fun and instead becomes mean-spirited. I didn’t care for the ending, either, which felt like it was ripped out of another movie altogether.

I really wanted to like Idiots, but alas, I’m not an idiot, myself. I think. Opinions may vary on that one!

Elsewhere, there’s a movie in the works about the creation of the Hooters “restaurant” chain, and I use the term “restaurant” lightly. Frankly, this is a genius idea, and I’m shocked it took people this long to think of it following the success of movies such as Air and Blackberry. This is an easy lay-up as far as movie concepts go — now let’s see if the producers can secure a release in IMAX and other PLF theaters. Better yet, 4DX!

On that note, this weekend, I plan to check out Robert De Niro’s new thriller The Whisper Man on Netflix. Reviews have been mixed, but I dug the book and was a big fan of the director’s first film, Coming Home in the Dark.

And speaking of whispers, I’ve got a hot rumor to share tonight about Eddie Murphy, who may be heading back to television from the sound of it.

I’m wishing all of you a great weekend, but only premium subscribers get to enter the Sneider-Verse to read more…

Happy Wednesday, folks! Apologies for the late send this week…

Today, Netflix released another brief teaser for David Fincher’s follow-up to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which apparently remains on track for an IMAX release on Nov. 25. It has also been retitled The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth.

Now, we’ve presumed that Cliff Booth would be an Oscar contender all along, and I told you what I said about Fincher being unhappy with the movie as it was currently constituted — something that is apparently par for the course on every one of his movies.

However, I later heard that screenwriter Quentin Tarantino also expressed disappointment with the current cut, which makes sense, given that he’s an extremely particular filmmaker, and for as great as Fincher is, he and Tarantino are very different directors. It should be a fun press tour!

Is this still my #1 most anticipated movie of the year, if not all time, given the Fincher-Tarantino pairing? Yes! Absolutely. But I wouldn’t be doing my duty to you, dear reader, if I didn’t pass along what I hear, which is the whole point of today’s newsletter.

For example, I hear that Danny Boyle’s new movie Ink, whose star, Jack O’Connell, currently graces the cover of Variety, is good, but hardly the stuff that Best Picture nominees are made of.

So, my question to you is, will this year be yet another year of Netflix misallocating its resources, and backing the wrong movies simply because they’re made by A-list filmmakers?

It seems to me like Los Javis’ Cannes hit, La Bola Negra, is poised to be Netflix’s top contender this year, and to be fair, the streamer is committing to a 47-day theatrical release, which is a big deal. I just hope it doesn’t take a back seat to Cliff Booth and Ink, because I’ve heard it’s the real deal.

Meanwhile, as you’ll read below, I’m hearing really good things about Peter Berg’s war movie/sports drama The Mosquito Bowl, which offers a different kind of contender that may appeal to a different kind of voter — the kind that propelled Green Book to a (well-deserved, in my opinion) Best Picture winner not too long ago. From what I hear, Netflix may want to consider putting more money behind campaigns for this movie…

Finally, I have to say that last night, I watched Julia Hart and Jordan Horowitz’s new movie Don’t Say Good Luck, and it was fucking devastating. I loved it. One of the best films of the year. Sunny Sandler shouldn’t have to wait for her father to get a greenlight at Netflix anymore. She should be on studio lists all around town, because she’s a genuine talent and a rising star. Anyone who calls her a “nepo baby” is completely blind to what she brings to the table.

This movie has no shot at a nomination, largely because I don’t think it received any kind of theatrical release, but if this were a Sony Classics title, it’s the kind of thing that could resonate with people of all ages. Leaving the god damn Oscars aside for a minute, this is a must-watch movie… even if it’ll be a very tough sit for some of you. I’m here for you, though, just as you’ve been there for me these past few years, so just email me if you need to chat after. Watch it with tissues…

Speaking of tissues, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the momentous passing of Dolly Parton, a legend in so many ways, and a true trailblazer for women in entertainment. I was always partial to Dolly’s country music hit “Jolene,” which has been covered by countless artists over the years. Perhaps we’ll see Sydney Sweeney in a Dolly biopic one day, though Parton was certainly more than her world-famous bust, as it was her generosity that knew no bounds.

You know who else was generous? Tim Curry, who passed away at 80 — the same age as Parton. He was a generous scene partner in movies ranging from Annie, Legend, and Clue in the ‘80s to Home Alone 2 and Loaded Weapon 1 in the ‘90s.

But it was two other roles that people most closely identified with Curry — Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which has proven to be an enduring cult classic, and Pennywise the Clown in the original miniseries based on Stephen King’s It, which is one of the most terrifying performances I’ve ever seen. He had tremendous range, and I hope he passed knowing how much he was loved by movie fans.

R.I.P. Tim and Dolly — both of whom were one of a kind.

On the news front this week, Nicholas Hoult dropped out of Season 2 of HBO’s Harry Potter, which replaced him with Kit Harington (yikes). Was he bullied off the project by the very loud critics of author J.K. Rowling, or was he faced with a legitimate scheduling conflict? After all, Days of Thunder 2 star Tom Cruise has been trying to work with Hoult for years; Dan Stevens has been cast in Amazon’s RoboCop series (a great call); Sacha Baron Cohen has released a trailer for his new Ali G movie; Paramount is developing a sequel to How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days with Kate Hudson; Ryan Gosling is producing a live-action Flintstones movie centered around a grown-up Bam-Bam; Focus Features has awkwardly grafted “Robin Hood” onto the title of Paul Greengrass’ new movie The Uprising; and writer-director Richard Kelly is going back to the Donnie Darko well with an 800-page novel that will serve as a proof of concept for a sequel that will never get made without Jake Gyllenhaal’s character returning from the dead. Oh, and Meghan Markle was cast and then immediately uncast from Season 3 of The Gentlemen, though she could always be recast down the line. Stay tuned… LOL.

Premium subscribers may now enter the Sneider-Verse to read my take on today’s hot James Bond headlines. Plus, I’ve got a pair of test screening reviews for two war movies — Ron Howard’s Alone at Dawn and Peter Berg’s The Mosquito Bowl, both of which I’m looking forward to myself.

P.S. Hit the Merch store and buy a hat or a hoodie. I just heard a crazy story about a guy in L.A. who wore one of my hats to a screening at the AMC Burbank, where a producer friend of mine noticed his hat and struck up a conversation with him. Cut to: the producer is now reading the guy’s script! All because of an InSneider hat! Wild…

Happy Friday, folks!

Last night, I took a break from watching Mike Flanagan’s upcoming Carrie series and Netflix’s upcoming Sam Bankman-Fried series The Altruists — both of which remain under embargo — and headed to a theater for my last chance to see Andrew Patterson’s honey-dipped crime movie, The Rivals of Amziah King, on the big screen.

Matthew McConaughey and Angelina LookingGlass star in this sticky-fingered caper, which features one of the worst titles I’ve ever seen. Hats off to the financiers who took a flyer on that one!

To be fair, Amziah King is a flavorful tale with real soul, and though it tells a fairly standard revenge story, it does so in a unique world we haven’t really seen before. The movie is full of musical sequences that help lift the energy, though in the end, the tone is kind of all over the place, and Patterson doesn’t quite get this story to the emotional place it needs to go. I found it a mixed bag, and I’m not sure I’d recommend it to everyone, but it’s worth a look on VOD — just be warned that your mileage may vary.

I also caught the new Jason Statham action movie Mutiny, which delivers exactly what you’d expect from a new Jason Statham action movie — namely, Jason Statham kicking ass and saying very little. This time, he’s on a cargo ship whose captain (Roland Møller) is tied up in human trafficking. Statham teams up with a blonde lady (Annabelle Wallis) to take down the bad guys, and he’s as vicious as ever. One guy gets both a metal lock and a knife through the same cheek.

The meat-and-potatoes film hails from director Jean-François Richet (Assault on Precinct 13), and it’s the very definition of a guilty pleasure. If you know what you’re getting into, you won’t be disappointed, though Mutiny doesn’t stand out like The Beekeeper or the Crank movies, either.

Statham’s next movie should follow him as he tracks down who accidentally uploaded a pristine copy of the movie on Prime Video this week, several days ahead of its theatrical release. Was it a clever PR ploy, or a costly mistake that distributors are going to have to pay for even though this error appears to have been Amazon’s fault? Stay tuned…

As tough as Statham may be, he won’t pose any threat at the box office to Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is expected to defeat Sony’s own Insidious sequel this weekend, though kudos to Blumhouse for keeping that franchise alive, as it still performs well ($25 million domestic opening).

Moving on, I have a quick update on Wednesday night’s newsletter, in which I wrote about two hot packages that were making the Hollywood rounds of late. Yesterday, Deadline reported that one of those projects, Dolly All the Time, had landed at Sony’s 3000 Pictures. The trade also confirmed the attachments I reported — Temple Hill and screenwriter Gemma Burgess.

No credit from Deadline, of course, but that’s not why I do this, folks. I do it for you guys. Besides, the trade broke the Sony element fair and square. So, Dolly fans, who do you think should play the protagonist? If you’ve read the book, email me your thoughts… and I’m also curious who you think should direct WB’s adaptation of Theo of Golden, which will star two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks. That’s a plum gig right there!

Elsewhere, Michael B. Jordan isn’t the only one getting a love interest in Miami Vice ‘85, as Deadline’s Justin Kroll reports that Camila Morrone will romance Austin Butler in Universal’s big-budget crime film. I was a big fan of Morrone’s work in the Netflix series Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, so I love this choice, and can easily see her opposite Butler.

In addition to celebrating The Odyssey as the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, Universal also landed the sci-fi movie Paradox Inc. from Tuner director Daniel Roher and producers Lord & Miller.

Based on the upcoming book by author Forrest Brazeal, Paradox Inc. concerns the race to create the first time machine for consumers — though in Big Tech’s haste, the technology doesn’t behave as expected. The premise sounds interesting enough, and Roher is a director to watch, or at the very least, listen to, given the way he used sound design to help tell the story in Tuner, which I liked but didn’t quite love.

What else happened since I last saw you? A24 has started screening Adam Wingard’s Onslaught for a lucky group of select critics. No invite for me, even though I’m an OG Wingard fan, but that’s okay — I’ll live.

It sounds like Charles Melton can live without the X-Men movie, which he has shunned in favor of a mentor role in Destin Daniel Cretton’s live-action Naruto movie. Meanwhile, Netflix pushed his Greg Kwedar movie Saturn Return to 2027. Rachel Brosnahan and Will Poulter co-star in that one, which sounds promising.

We’ve also seen a lot of movie trailers this week, from Dune: Part Three and Whalefall to Jordan Firstman’s A24 movie Club Kid and Angelina Jolie’s revenge thriller Without Blood. But none of them, for my money, was as effective as the trailer that Warner Bros. Clockwork released for its restoration of Ken Russell’s The Devils, which will go out with an NC-17 rating this fall. This is one of the best trailers of the year, and if this is what we can expect from Clockwork, then I say bring it!

Speaking of bringing it, physical media maestro Bill Hunt is the Magic Man today, reporting that Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days — one of my all-time favorite movies — is finally getting a 4K release after being largely unavailable on physical media for years. If you haven’t seen it yet, this is your chance! Co-written by none other than James Cameron, this film was way ahead of its time…

Premium subscribers may now enter the Sneider-Verse to read a little bit of gossip regarding Season 6 of Fargo, which I haven’t forgotten about — and fortunately, neither have Noah Hawley and FX.

Happy Wednesday, folks!

Yesterday, I woke up to the news that Sebastian Stan had seemingly confirmed his role in The Batman Part II — as Harvey Dent, no less. Hmmm… that would be bad for me! Fortunately, it turned out that the interview was from a French journalist (first red flag), it took place during the Cannes Film Festival (second red flag) before I reported Stan’s real role as Victor Zsasz in mid-June, and by the end of the day, Stan’s team was reaching out to the trades to say he’d been misquoted. This morning, the French journalist deleted their tweet and removed Dent from their story. Womp womp — nothing to see here, folks! Just poor critical thinking skills from the internet’s many editors…

Next, Page Six Hollywood reveals that Obsession breakout Inde Navarrette was forced to turn down a role in Heat 2 to play Rogue in Marvel’s X-Men movie. That’s kind of a bummer, as I think Navarrette could’ve learned something from Leonardo DiCaprio, Christian Bale, and director Michael Mann, but she knows what’s best for her career, and Marvel is the gift that keeps on giving, whereas a supporting role in Heat 2 might have been too thin on the page. Then again, DiCaprio himself eschewed superhero movies early in his career, as has Timothée Chalamet, who could’ve taken the easy money in the wake of Call Me By Your Name, but decided to forge his own path instead.

I think Navarrette is better than a role in Marvel’s X-Men ensemble, but I understand why she said ‘Yes’ to that giant blockbuster, which will keep her relevant — and employed — for years to come. Trust me, she’ll have plenty more opportunities to star in prestige projects. I just wish we didn’t lose so many talented young actors to the Marvel Machine, which requires that they sign years of their life away. Sigh…

Elsewhere, Cinemark, the country’s third-largest theater chain, is now supporting the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. What do these theater owners know that California A.G. Rob Bonta doesn’t? A lot? Oh, okay…

And finally, I want to tell Hollywood about an exciting new band, Angine de Poitrine, though I suspect they’re already on the industry’s radar, given their unique sense of showmanship.

Back in March, I started the process of playing the journalist card for a ticket to the band’s L.A. debut on Monday night, and hours before showtime, their PR team came through with a ticket.

Now, you can’t play the journalist card for tickets that often. It’s like a superpower that should only be used sparingly, as it’s an easy privilege to abuse, especially if you’re from a legitimate outlet like, say, Variety, as I used to be. These days, I can only hope that game recognizes game.

As true industry folks know, something special better be happening if you want people to brave downtown Los Angeles, and Angine de Poitrine certainly qualified. Tickets started at $35 and wound up reselling on StubHub for over $500. This was a genuine event.

The band chose to play at the Teragram Ballroom, a small, intimate venue that holds roughly 600-625 people and was absolutely packed, to the point that I could barely move in the center of the room. I actually got claustrophobic during the opening song and moved to the back of the venue so I could move enough to dance in place, which is kind of the whole point of attending a concert.

The Canadian jam band consists of Khn de Poitrine and Klek de Poitrine, who wear elaborate polka-dot-covered costumes while they play a double-necked guitar and the drums, respectively. Khn’s white nose sticks straight out like Pinocchio’s, while Klek’s black nose hangs limp and flops around as he pounds the drums. Their costumes also light up — a triangle illuminates over Khn’s head, while Klek’s eyes flash yellow.

The crowd offered a sea of bearded white guys in polka dots and glasses — I don’t even wear glasses, but I wore a fake pair on Monday night for some reason — most of whom were as high as the energy in the room, where joints were passed around like Bonnie Blue on a shoot day.

When they weren’t batting around beach balls in the form of giant dice (staying on theme with the polka dots), folks in the crowd often held up their hands to form a triangle, which reminded me of when I’d make the Weezer ‘W’ with my fingers as a teen… but it all felt very weird and cult-y. 

JJUUJJUU opened the concert on Monday night, and Angine de Poitrine were joined by Population II on Tuesday night. Khn and Klek took the stage a few minutes after 9 p.m. and wrapped up roughly 65 minutes later, playing the same eight-song setlist at each show.

They opened with “Angor,” the closing track on their new album, Vol. II, which features shifting time signatures around 6/8 and 4/4 structures. This let the crowd know just what they were in for — loud, fast computer rock.

Angine de Poitrine’s viral hit “Sarniezz” predictably drew the biggest applause of the night, though the live version of “Angor” really turned me on to that song.

That said, this music isn’t for everyone. If you strip away the artifice of the costumes and the weird shtick, the songs are hit-or-miss. There’s no question that Angine de Poutine would be far less successful as a traditional jam band. It’s their very weirdness that makes them cool, along with how committed Khn and Klek are to the bit.

I had a good time watching Angine de Poitrine do their thing, but without lyrics to hold on to, I’m not sure I could’ve stayed for another hour. The eight-song setlist proved to be the perfect amount of microtonal guitar, loops, and drums for one evening.

As far as Hollywood is concerned, I absolutely think that Angine de Poutine’s music could prove to be very popular in commercials and comedic trailers, and I do think the band could score a movie — it’d just have to be the right one. Personally, I think they could be a strong fit for something like the Daniels’ new film or Amazon MGM’s reboot of The Pink Panther with Eddie Murphy. They’re a fun, funky group, and they make upbeat music that sticks in your head like an earworm.

Angine de Poitrine will return to Los Angeles in December. Be sure to check them out at the Wiltern, which holds 3-4 times as many people as the Teragram Ballroom.

I was planning a cool comedy scoop for you guys this week, but I’m going to keep holding that one for a beat. Instead, tonight I bring word of Two Hot Packages making the rounds — one on the film side and one on the TV side. Will either one sell? We’ll see…

Premium subscribers may now enter the Sneider-Verse to read more… and don’t forget to hit THE MERCH STORE before the end of the year for cool swag from yours truly.

It’s a sad Monday in Hollywood, which is mourning the tragic loss of Heroes star Hayden Panettiere, who died on Sunday at age 36 from what appears to be a drug overdose after years of struggling with addiction. She was a true talent who was put through the wringer in this town, and sadly, despite her best efforts, she never quite recovered. May her memory be a blessing, and her story be a cautionary tale. R.I.P.

Before being stunned by the awful news on Sunday night, I spent the weekend in Joshua Tree dominating the pickleball court and avoiding the internet for my own mental health after that X-Men casting rumor about Storm blew up in my face. I’ll be addressing it later this week on The Hot Mic podcast, but I’d like to apologize to Suzy Bemba — not for posting a rumor about her that didn’t pan out (that’s part of the gig) but for setting her up for a tidal wave of hate that she didn’t deserve from the internet, which was absolutely vicious. I was left pretty disappointed in humanity.

The truth is that casting rumors never hurt anyone, and for the first time since Poor Things, people were talking about Suzy Bemba again, so the rumor put more eyes on her work. But in the end, she merely proved to be one of several finalists, as the role of Storm went to newcomer Maya Boyd, a stage actress best known for the Broadway play & Juliet. I’d never even heard of Boyd before Friday night and hadn’t seen anyone mention her, either. I was just glad that the internet was thwarted in its attempt to force the casting of Jayme Lawson.

Congratulations to Boyd, to Christopher Abbott and Adam Driver (whose castings I tipped before D23), and to Obsession star Inde Navarette, who telegraphed her X-Men casting in such an obvious manner that I thought she must be joking, but as it turns out, she was not. I thought for sure she’d be playing Mystique, not Rogue, but as it turns out, Freaky Nikki got the last laugh. The joke was on me…

Does this mean that Navarette will turn up in Michael Mann’s Heat 2, for which Driver has also been rumored? Perhaps… though their ability to do both projects will depend on scheduling. And the Heat 2 schedule depends on one man — Leonardo DiCaprio.

Speaking of DiCaprio, did you know that Whitney Peak nearly played his daughter in One Battle After Another? As I like to say, the right actor — Chase Infiniti — ultimately landed that plum part, but Peak is no slouch herself, having just landed the female lead opposite Michael B. Jordan in Miami Vice ‘85. If you’re keeping track at home, that’s her second major blockbuster following the next Hunger Games movie due in November. Take note — she’s a major star on the rise…

And speaking of the new Miami Vice movie, I’m told that Alden Ehrenreich won’t be playing the villain in the film, which supposedly has dark vibes in the vein of Nightcrawler. That’s what I heard, at least. On the flip side of that coin, I’m told that Charles Melton will be a villain of sorts in the Daniels’ new movie, which is currently filming with Matt Damon in the lead role.

This weekend, I fell further in love with Quincy Tyler Bernstine’s ferocious performance in the Hulu series Furious, though I must report that I found the new season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to be a tad disappointing, even though I loved the Ren Faire episode, which ends on a hilarious note. David Hornsby’s s Rickety Cricket is a supporting player, though he’s the season’s MVP nonetheless.

I’ve got an interesting comedy scoop coming later this week, but tonight belongs to the genre fans out there. Premium subscribers who love horror movies may now enter the Sneider-Verse to read more… and don’t forget to hit THE MERCH STORE before the end of the year for limited-edition swag from yours truly.

Happy Friday, folks!

Let’s see, where to begin? Well, for starters, Disney+ will not be moving forward with a live-action Power Rangers series.

I have no idea why that is, but part of me wonders if the studio has heard the same rumors I have about the Daniels’ untitled new movie — yes, the one with Matt Damon and Sandra Oh.

From what I hear, it’s basically a Power Rangers movie… without the name. It follows a young cast in color-coded costumes who team up to fight kaiju with the help of a superhero-esque character played by Damon, who has a Jarvis-like AI assistant played (not just voiced) by Oh. The wholly original movie has no official connection to Power Rangers, but I’m told it’s a pretty clear influence and that comparisons will definitely be made.

In other news, the internet had a meltdown over a Supergirl BTS video that WB put online yesterday. It showed director Craig Gillespie showing Jason Momoa a bunch of different looks of him as Lobo… with the help of AI. Naturally, people were horrified — because they have nothing better to do than overreact to pretty harmless headlines.

The idea that WB should be paying an artist or graphic designer to sit there and come up with 20 different looks is absurd. Who gives a shit? I hate AI; I don’t use it AT ALL to write this newsletter; and I don’t want to see AI actors or read AI books. But seriously, pick your battles, people! Meanwhile, why WB is paying some social media grunt to spend one more second uploading BTS Supergirl videos on YouTube is completely beyond me. The studio is just wasting more precious resources on an absolute stinkbomb of a movie — the lowest-grossing DC title since Catwoman. Just move on and don’t even mention it again.

And I have a right to say that… because I’m an American and I’m constitutionally protected by the First Amendment. Our founding fathers made it the First Amendment because it’s pretty fucking important. But not to Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor! She thinks the First Amendment shouldn’t protect assholes. Earth to Aunjanue — that’s literally who the First Amendment is designed to protect. Life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. We can’t go around demanding that rights are stripped from people we don’t like or disagree with. I shouldn’t have to explain this to a 57-year-old artist.

Finally, there’s a brand new episode of FYC today, in which I discuss The Odyssey’s Oscar chances with my esteemed co-hosts Perri Nemiroff and Scott Mantz. We all think Christopher Nolan’s epic will be nominated for a different number of Oscars, so tune in to find out its awards floor and ceiling.

Premium subscribers may now enter the Sneider-Verse to read more…

Happy Wednesday, folks!

Forget all the WB-Paramount drama; how about the big DC Studios update from The Ankler’s Lesley Goldberg and Variety’s alarming report about Barbie 2?

I’m not surprised that DC has canceled Waller and Paradise Lost, as I told you when James Gunn and Peter Safran did their big dog-and-pony show for the media that it’d be a miracle if we saw 40% of the projects they announced that day — such is the nature of development. Waller felt like an ancient relic from a past iteration of the DCU, and there’s no point in doing Paradise Lost before introducing Wonder Woman… unless her introduction is coming sooner than we think. Either way, this is part of a larger industry shift, and studios not feeling the need to greenlight a ton of superhero TV shows, as the unintended consequence is that they make the movies feel less special.

As for Barbie, let me tell you something — this movie is definitely going to happen. Because when you’re spending nearly $100 million on The Bride! and more than $100 million on Mickey 17, spending $200-250 million on a Barbie sequel that will likely gross a billion dollars is a no-brainer — even if the sequel underperforms the first film.

Everyone forgets the negotiations for The Hangover Part II, and how the three leads — and director Todd Phillips — wanted a major pay bump. For a while, it looked like the guys’ trip to Thailand wasn’t going to happen. That is, until WB’s Alan Horn stepped in and made it happen. Now, David Zaslav is no Alan Horn, but I predict that he’ll close this deal, and honestly, why wouldn’t he? I know it’s being reported that he’s balking at the outrageous salary demands of Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and Greta Gerwig, but it’s not like these deals are going to be his problem in a few years. Spend $100 million to bring the three of them back, spend less money on the supporting cast, and get it done. After all, WB could use some good headlines to distract from the miserable box office year they’re having — the result of kicking multiple cans down the road during last year’s charmed box office run.

Yesterday, I finished watching the BBC miniseries The Bombing of Pan Am 103 on Netflix, and I thought it was pretty damn good. Not Chernobyl-level great, but a very affecting drama featuring a solid performance from a 29-year-old English actor by the name of Connor Swindells, who looks like a young John Cena.

Best known for the Netflix series Sex Education, Swindells appeared in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and will soon be seen in Ruben Ostlund’s The Entertainment System Is Down. I bring him up because watching the Pan Am series, it’s clear that he had something special — a certain presence.

I’m not sure if Swindells is James Bond material, or more like the Rory Kinnear, head-of-MI6 type, but if Amazon isn’t dead-set on casting a “name” actor as 007, he’d be a pretty interesting choice, in my opinion. I’m just saying… I was impressed by his performance.

I also binged Netflix’s stomach-churning documentary The Predator of Seville, about a tour guide who raped dozens of tourists who trusted him to keep them safe. It’s not as strong as the streamer’s recent run of true-crime documentaries, but it’s worth a watch, if only to see how this group of women came together from around the world to demand justice. You’ll have to watch the three-part docuseries to find out whether they get it.

I wasn’t invited to see The End of Oak Street this week, so I have no idea whether the buzz is legit, but if it is, then I’m happy for Ewan McGregor and director David Robert Mitchell, both of whom could use a hit. I’m looking forward to seeing that one in theaters, and Matthew McConaughey’s honey-flavored crime movie The Rivals of Amziah King as well. Perhaps I’ll make it a McGregor-McConaughey doubleheader!

Tonight, I weigh in with my thoughts on the escalating battle between Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, and the state’s native son, David Ellison, the head of Paramount who has threatened to flee the Golden State unless his merger with Warner Bros. is approved.

Premium subscribers may now enter the Sneider-Verse to read more — a lot more, as there are nearly 4,000 words below. Buckle up!

Happy Monday, folks!

I had a pretty low-key weekend, as I hung in on Saturday night and rewatched two ‘90s classics — Martin Scorsese’s Casino and David Fincher’s Seven. Both are examples of god-tier cinema. I also watched the remake of That Darn Cat with Christina Ricci — don’t judge me. I’m a man of many layers and tastes. You know, like a gobstopper.

I also finished watching Season 2 of The Agency, which was absolutely dynamite. I had a blast with the finale, and I’m glad I stuck with that spy series, which absolutely fills the void left by Homeland so many years ago. Oh, and I watched the latest episode of Emmy Rossum’s Hulu show Furious, which is really, really good, and I’m glad that the streamer is releasing the show one week at a time vs. all at once.

In today’s news, Deadline reported that Jacob Elordi is in early talks to join Scarlett Johansson in Ari Aster’s new A24 movie, Scapegoat. We also got a glimpse at Johansson’s upcoming turn alongside Adam Driver and Miles Teller in James Gray’s crime drama Paper Tiger, which looks excellent.

Elsewhere, Alfonso Cuarón is returning to Apple TV after Disclaimer for a new horror series starring Caitriona Balfe, Indiewire embarrassed itself by naming Magic Mike XXL the greatest sequel of all time, and Variety’s Clayton Davis did the hard work of investigating the various questions marks hovering over this awards season and explaining which movies are more likely to debut in 2027. It sounds like Denzel and Robert Pattinson are going to have to get in line behind Danny Boyle and wait their turn…

Oh, and Brad Pitt is drinking again, and heralding AI as a potential savior of the mid-budget movie — because it’s not like he’s going to take a pay cut. If a production has to save $10 million, Pitt would much rather see the crew lose their jobs to robots than have it come out of his pocket. Those French vineyards don’t pay for themselves, folks!

Speaking of French vineyards, brothers Kieran and Brennan O’Dea might be able to afford one after selling their spec script The Ballad of the Ember Knight to Sony for nearly seven figures. I first read about this 190-page spec on ScriptShadow, whose Carson Reeves is always on the ball — just like yours truly. Congrats to the two first-time writers. I could barely write a best man speech with my brothers…

Finally, Spider-Man: Brand New Dollars continued to dominate the domestic box office, where One Night Only barely registered with audiences — something I warned would happen back in April at CinemaCon, where I first saw that terrible, chemistry-free trailer. Callum Turner as James Bond? Please give me whatever drugs you’re smoking…

I’m just kidding. I’m heading to Joshua Tree with the boys this weekend, so I’m all stocked up. I do have some fun scoops coming later this week before I venture off to the desert, though, so stay tuned…

For now, however, premium subscribers can enter the Sneider-Verse for an update on the future of Off-Campus, and the Season 4 premiere of Elsbeth on CBS. Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it…