Tag: movie review

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: Behemoth Review: Pedro Pascal Shines in Tony Gilroy Drama

Fourteen years is a long time to wait. Tony Gilroy, the writer-director behind Michael Clayton and the creative force that elevated Andor into prestige television, has not directed a feature since 2012’s The Bourne Legacy. His return, Behemoth!, premiered October 2 as the centerpiece of the 64th New York Film Festival, and it was worth every year of the wait.

Searchlight Pictures opens the film theatrically on December 4, right in the heart of awards season. After watching the first reactions roll in from the NYFF premiere, that placement makes perfect sense. This is a film built for the season: a grown-up drama about music, family, and the people who make the movies sing.

A cellist’s homecoming

Pedro Pascal stars as Alex Serian, a renowned cellist and third-generation Hollywood studio musician who returns to Los Angeles to compose film scores and celebrate the artists who create them. Set against the world of music and movies, the story follows Alex as he confronts a fractured family history, a possible daughter he never knew, and the question of where he truly belongs.

Pascal stepped into the role after Oscar Isaac exited due to scheduling, and by all accounts, he made it his own. He described the script as a puzzle and threw himself into preparation with characteristic intensity. “The cello was the main character of my life for several weeks leading up to shooting,” he said. “I took it with me everywhere.” That commitment shows. The first reactions out of NYFF single out his performance as mesmerizing, the kind of lived-in, fully embodied work that reminds you why he became one of the most in-demand actors on the planet.

The ensemble around him is superb. Olivia Wilde plays Carol, a wealthy patron from Alex’s past. Eva Victor is Nadia, his old flame and fellow cellist. Will Arnett plays Alex’s brother Andy, in scenes reshot after David Harbour departed the project. Hank Azaria is Alex’s father Peter, JoBeth Williams his mother Ginnie, with Alexa Swinton as the 15-year-old pop prodigy who may be Alex’s daughter. It is a deep bench, and Gilroy gives everyone a moment to shine.

The music is the movie

Here is the boldest thing about Behemoth!: the score was written by nine of the most celebrated film composers alive. The Behemoth! Collective includes Michael Giacchino, James Newton Howard, Michael Abels, Emily Bear, Lukas Frank, Henry Jackman, Nami Melumad, Brandon Roberts, and Alan Silvestri. They wrote the scores for the fictional films Alex works on within the story. Then 303 AFM musicians in Los Angeles performed the on-screen musical sequences.

Read that again. Nine Oscar-caliber composers. Three hundred musicians. For a drama about a cellist.

It pays off enormously. Every review out of the festival, even the mixed ones, agrees the music is outstanding. The film is structured like a piece of music itself, intercutting present-day scoring sessions with flashbacks across Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles. Some critics found the time-jumping fussy. But when the music swells and Pascal is lost in a performance, the structure stops mattering. You feel it instead of following it.

Gilroy’s patient craft

What is most striking about Behemoth! is how unhurried it feels. At 124 minutes, Gilroy lets scenes breathe. He trusts his actors’ faces. He trusts the music. This is the work of a filmmaker who spent a decade and a half writing some of the most precise dialogue in television and came back to cinema with something to say about the people behind the curtain.

At the film’s press conference, Gilroy said he had “never wrote a character quite like this before.” You can feel that discovery in every scene. Alex Serian is not a hero or an antihero. He is a working musician, gifted and flawed, trying to make peace with his past while the orchestra tunes up around him. It is the kind of character the movies do not make enough of anymore.

The film also serves as a love letter to an invisible workforce. Session musicians are the unsung heroes of Hollywood, playing on scores heard by billions without ever being seen. Behemoth! puts them center stage, and the tribute lands because it comes from a filmmaker who clearly reveres the craft.

The verdict

Behemoth! is a warm, beautifully acted, musically glorious return for one of Hollywood’s finest filmmakers. Pascal delivers one of the best performances of his career, the score is a once-in-a-generation achievement, and Gilroy directs with the confidence of a man who waited until he had something worth saying.

Could the structure be tighter? Perhaps. But films this humane, this well-crafted, and this full of love for their subject do not come along often. When it opens December 4, go hear it in a theater with good sound. Your ears will thank you.

For more on this year’s prestige slate, read our take on Sorkin’s awards-season drama The Social Reckoning and Michelle Yeoh’s TIFF triumph in The Surgeon. And for a very different kind of December release, Johnny Depp’s haunted Ebenezer arrives just in time for the holidays.

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: Avengers Doomsday: Marvel’s Biggest Gamble Yet Explained

December cannot come fast enough. Avengers: Doomsday, Marvel Studios’ next team-up epic, has already crossed $40 million in domestic advance ticket sales, shattering presale records nearly three months before release. For a franchise some pundits spent the last two years eulogizing, that is quite the answer.

The film reunites the Russo brothers, Joe and Anthony, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the first time since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. Their return alone would be news. What they are building, though, is bigger than a reunion. It is a full-scale reimagining of what an Avengers movie can be.

Doctor Doom steps out of the shadows

The headline casting remains the boldest move Marvel has made in years. Robert Downey Jr., the man who built the MCU as Tony Stark, returns as Victor von Doom. The Russos have spoken about the emotional resonance of the choice: the most beloved hero in franchise history now wearing the mask of its most feared villain.

Recent comments from the directors have only deepened the intrigue. They hinted that Doom’s interest extends beyond Bruce Banner, lending weight to fan theories about the villain collecting MCU heroes, with Spider-Man’s name surfacing in speculation. Whether or not those theories pan out, Marvel is clearly playing a longer, stranger game than usual.

The studio has also been tidying up loose ends in public. When online speculation swirled about the roles of Captain Marvel and Thor, insiders moved quickly to address it. Marvel wants the conversation focused on Doom, and honestly, Doom is big enough to carry it.

The Encore strategy

One of the smartest things Marvel did this fall had nothing to do with Doomsday directly. The studio put Avengers: Endgame back in theaters as the Encore Edition, complete with new scenes, and it worked spectacularly. The re-release topped the domestic box office in late September, edging out Sony’s Resident Evil in its second weekend.

Those new scenes were not filler. Leaks and reports indicate they contain direct connective tissue to Doomsday, essentially turning a re-release into a stealth prequel. It is a clever piece of franchise management: remind audiences why they loved these characters, then hand them a reason to come back in December.

The Encore’s success also says something about theatrical appetite. A seven-year-old movie, even with new footage, does not top the box office unless audiences are genuinely hungry for the big-screen experience. Marvel read that hunger correctly.

A production like no other

The road to Doomsday has been anything but conventional. The Russos have been open about beginning production without a completed screenplay, a decision that raised eyebrows across the industry. It is a gamble, but it is worth remembering who is taking it: the directors of Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame have earned the benefit of the doubt.

There are also reports that audiences may get to see the film two days before its official wide release, a sign of the confidence rippling through Disney’s distribution team. When a studio starts talking about early access for a December tentpole, it believes it has something special.

What it all means

Doomsday arrives at a fascinating moment for the genre. Marvel spent the last few years rebuilding, experimenting, and occasionally stumbling. Sony’s Spider-Man universe keeps expanding on its own track, as our coverage of Alan Ritchson’s Helldivers casting shows. DC is betting big on horror-tinged comic book films. The superhero landscape is crowded again, which makes Marvel’s return to its flagship team-up feel like a statement.

The $40 million presale figure is the number that matters most. Advance sales that strong, that early, do not happen for movies audiences feel lukewarm about. They happen for events. Doomsday is being treated as an event, and Marvel has spent the entire fall making sure it earns the title.

The verdict

Everything about Avengers: Doomsday suggests Marvel understands the assignment. Bring back the directors who defined the franchise’s peak. Cast the most shocking villain choice imaginable. Prime the audience with a record-breaking re-release. Then let December do the rest.

It is the biggest gamble the studio has taken since the original Avengers, and if the presales are any indication, it is about to pay off enormously. The MCU’s next chapter starts in weeks. We will be there opening night.

For more on the year’s biggest franchise plays, see our breakdown of Takashi Yamazaki’s giant-robot epic Grandgear and Sorkin’s Facebook sequel. Hollywood’s heavy hitters are all swinging for the fences this season.

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: The Mummy 4: Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz Reunite

Some reunions take a quarter century. Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz are filming The Mummy 4 right now in the UK, and the first set photos have fans of Universal’s adventure franchise losing their minds. After 25 years apart on screen, Rick and Evelyn O’Connell are back.

Fraser revealed to Canal+ that cameras started rolling on September 7, saying that returning feels like reuniting with an old friend. The photos tell the story: Weisz, 56, spotted outside the British Museum in a mustard-yellow polka-dot skirt, cropped brown jacket, and wide-brimmed hat, clutching a vintage leather briefcase and an old-fashioned transistor radio. Fraser, 57, was photographed days later at a former military base in Suffolk, in a black leather coat, filming what looks like a record-speed trials sequence with a silver-and-red rocket car.

This is not a reboot. This is a homecoming.

The gang’s all here

The legacy reunion goes far beyond the two leads. John Hannah is back as Jonathan Carnahan, Evelyn’s mischievous brother. Oded Fehr returns as Ardeth Bay, the Medjai warrior. Kevin J. O’Connor reprises Beni Gabor from the original film. New additions include Numan Acar and Michael Johnson.

That casting tells you exactly what kind of movie this is. Universal is not distancing itself from the franchise’s past; it is embracing it. The original 1999 film, released 27 years ago, turned Fraser and Weisz into adventure-movie royalty. The Mummy Returns followed in 2001. Weisz sat out the 2008 third chapter, with Maria Bello stepping in, and fans never quite forgave the swap. Now the original chemistry is back where it belongs.

The period details in the set photos offer clues about the timeline. The original was set in 1926, the third film jumped to 1947, and the costumes here suggest the early-to-mid 1950s. Rick and Evelyn, older, wiser, and presumably still bickering beautifully. There is something deeply satisfying about watching these characters age in real time alongside the actors who play them.

Radio Silence takes the helm

Behind the camera, Universal made an inspired choice. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the Radio Silence duo behind the recent Scream films and Ready or Not, are directing from a script by David Coggeshall. Producer Sean Daniel, who has worked on every installment since 1999, returns, with Fraser himself serving as executive producer.

Radio Silence understands exactly what this franchise needs. Their Scream work proved they can honor beloved legacy characters while delivering genuine scares and big crowd-pleasing moments. The Mummy films were always horror-adjacent: cursed priests, flesh-eating scarabs, supernatural dread wrapped in matinee adventure. A directing team fluent in both horror and fun is the perfect fit.

The franchise has grossed $1.8 billion worldwide, and Universal clearly wants this chapter to feel like an event. Moving the release date up from May 19, 2028, to October 15, 2027, is a statement of confidence. Studios do not move blockbusters forward seven months unless they like what they are seeing.

Why this reunion matters

Fraser’s career renaissance has been one of Hollywood’s best stories. From his Oscar win to his carefully chosen recent roles, he has rebuilt himself as one of the industry’s most beloved figures. Returning to Rick O’Connell, the role that made him a star, is not a step backward. It is a victory lap.

And Weisz never really left the cultural conversation, but her return as Evelyn rights a 17-year wrong. The Bello substitution in 2008 remains one of the franchise’s sore spots. Seeing Weisz back in period costume, briefcase in hand, outside the British Museum, feels like the timeline correcting itself.

There is a broader trend here too. Hollywood’s legacy sequels work when they respect what came before and bring back the people who made it special. The 24 Jump Street team reuniting Tatum and Hill for December 2027 follows the same playbook. Audiences do not just want the IP; they want the people.

What we still don’t know

Plot details remain tightly under wraps. Universal has not confirmed a final title, and beyond the inevitable tombs, curses, and marital banter, nobody outside the production knows what supernatural threat Rick and Evelyn will face. Given the 1950s setting, the Cold War era offers rich territory for an adventure story.

What we do know is enough. The cameras are rolling. The cast is back. The directors are right. And October 15, 2027, cannot come soon enough.

The verdict

The Mummy 4 is shaping up to be the legacy sequel done right: original stars, original producer, horror-savvy directors, and a studio confident enough to move the date up. Some franchises chase nostalgia. This one is earning it, one set photo at a time.

For more on Hollywood’s franchise renaissance, check out our coverage of Johnny Depp’s haunted Christmas tale Ebenezer and the holiday return of the Angry Birds flock. The old gangs are all getting back together, and honestly, we love to see it.

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: Jurassic World Sequel: J.A. Bayona Eyed to Direct Return

The dinosaurs are getting a familiar shepherd. Universal Pictures has zeroed in on J.A. Bayona to direct the next Jurassic World film, the follow-up to 2025’s Jurassic World Rebirth, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit, who confirmed the news on October 2. It would be a homecoming eight years in the making.

Bayona directed 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the gothic-tinged entry that took the dinosaurs out of the park and into a haunted mansion auction. The film divided critics and delighted audiences on its way to more than $1.3 billion worldwide. Now, with Gareth Edwards having exited the Rebirth sequel over creative differences, Universal wants a director who already knows where the raptors are buried.

A franchise that refuses to go extinct

Let’s appreciate the run this franchise is on. Jurassic World Rebirth pulled in $869 million globally last year, powered by Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey. That is a number most franchises would kill for in their seventh film, and it is why Universal is moving at pace on the next one rather than letting the grass grow.

David Koepp, who wrote the original Jurassic Park back in 1993 and returned for Rebirth, has already finished the script for the sequel. When the writer of the most beloved dinosaur movie ever made hands you a finished screenplay, you do not sit on it. Johansson, Ali, and Bailey are all expected to return, schedules permitting, which means the new era’s core trio stays intact.

Steven Spielberg and producer Frank Marshall remain involved as well. That continuity matters. Whatever directors come and go, the franchise has always been steered by its original architects, and that steady hand is a big reason the series has survived five different filmmaking teams across seven movies.

Why Bayona fits

Bayona is not yet in formal talks, per THR, but he is at the top of Universal’s list, and it is easy to see why. Before Fallen Kingdom, he directed The Impossible, the 2012 survival drama that earned Naomi Watts an Oscar nomination and announced him as a filmmaker of uncommon emotional force. After Jurassic, he directed the first two episodes of Amazon’s The Rings of Power and then made Society of the Snow for Netflix, the harrowing true story of the 1972 Andes flight disaster that became one of the streamer’s most acclaimed films.

That is a director who can do spectacle and soul in the same frame. Fallen Kingdom’s best stretches, the volcano evacuation and the shadowy mansion climax, showed a filmmaker who treats dinosaurs as animals with weight and menace, not just pixels. Society of the Snow proved he can wring genuine human drama out of impossible situations. A Jurassic film needs both, and Bayona has both on his resume.

The InSneider’s Jeff Sneider first floated the news, noting Universal had previously considered Twisters director Lee Isaac Chung before turning to Bayona. TheWrap separately confirmed Bayona as the frontrunner. When the trades line up like that, the deal is usually a matter of when, not if.

The Edwards exit, in context

Gareth Edwards leaving over creative differences two months ago could have been a crisis. Instead, Universal turned it into an opportunity. The franchise has always thrived on fresh eyes: Spielberg to Joe Johnston to Colin Trevorrow to Bayona to Edwards. Each brought a different flavor, and the series is stronger for the variety.

There is a lesson in how quickly the studio moved. A finished Koepp script, a willing cast, and a shortlist topped by a proven franchise veteran. That is a studio that learned from the stop-start development cycles that have slowed other mega-franchises. It is the confident, no-drama way to run a billion-dollar series.

What we want from the next chapter

Rebirth worked because it went back to basics: a small team, a dangerous island, dinosaurs that felt dangerous again. The sequel should keep that discipline. Bayona’s horror instincts, honed on The Orphanage and Fallen Kingdom’s mansion sequence, are perfect for making the creatures scary in a way the franchise sometimes forgets.

The returning cast gives him a head start. Johansson brought movie-star authority to Rebirth, Ali brought gravity, and Bailey brought charm. A director who knows how to direct actors, not just effects, will get more out of all three. Bayona is exactly that kind of director.

The verdict

This is Universal making the smart, steady choice. A finished script from the franchise’s founding writer, a cast audiences already love, and a director with a $1.3 billion Jurassic hit and an Oscar-nominated drama on his resume. The dinosaurs are in good hands. We cannot wait to see what Bayona does with them this time.

It is also a reminder of how strong the studio’s franchise bench is right now. Between this and the Miami Vice revival revving up for 2028, Universal is playing the long game beautifully. And for pure blockbuster spectacle, our look at Takashi Yamazaki’s Grandgear shows the giant-monster crown is still very much up for grabs.

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: Star Wars Episode X: Jon Watts to Direct Skywalker Return

Star Wars is going home again. After years of streaming series, spin-offs, and start-stop feature plans, Lucasfilm is returning to the numbered chapters that built the franchise, and it has tapped one of the most reliable blockbuster hands in the business to lead the charge.

According to reporting first broken by Knight Edge Media on September 27 and confirmed by both The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline, Jon Watts is attached to direct the first installment of a new Star Wars trilogy written by Simon Kinberg. The film is expected to continue the Skywalker saga beyond 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, making it, in effect, Episode X. It would be the tenth chapter of a story that began with a farm boy staring at twin suns in 1977.

That is a big swing by any measure. The sequel trilogy ended seven years ago and the conversation around it has never fully cooled. Choosing to pick the numbering back up instead of starting fresh tells you everything about Lucasfilm’s confidence right now: this isn’t a side quest, it’s the main event.

Why Jon Watts makes sense

Watts arrives with credentials few directors can match. His Spider-Man trilogy for Marvel Studios grossed more than $3.9 billion worldwide between 2017 and 2021, and No Way Home remains one of the most beloved franchise films of the modern era. He knows how to balance fan expectation with genuine surprise, and he does it without losing the human story underneath the spectacle.

He’s also a known quantity inside Lucasfilm. Watts co-created Skeleton Crew, the Disney+ series that followed four kids through the New Republic era with the warmth of an Amblin adventure. The show drew a small audience but glowing reviews, and it proved Watts can speak fluent Star Wars.

The industry has noticed the pattern. Watts walked away from the Marvel machine, and this Star Wars assignment explains why. Filmmakers of his caliber don’t leave the biggest franchise on the planet unless the next offer is bigger.

The Kinberg plan and Rey’s return

Simon Kinberg has been quietly writing this trilogy since late 2024. He co-created Star Wars Rebels and wrote X-Men: Days of Future Past, so he understands both galaxy-sized mythology and the character work that makes it land. Per THR, the trilogy is being developed as the next chapter of the Skywalker saga itself, continuing the story of the family that has anchored all nine episodic films.

Daisy Ridley is expected to return as Rey in some capacity, though the size of her role is still unclear. Knight Edge Media reports that Lucasfilm is looking at relatively unknown actors for the male and female leads, with Rey potentially starting in a smaller role that grows across the three films. It’s a smart structure if true: pass the torch on screen the way the franchise once passed it from Luke to Rey.

That approach also appears to resolve the long, winding road of the standalone Rey film. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was announced as director at Star Wars Celebration 2023, and the script passed through several writers before the project stalled. Several outlets now report that film is on hold so Episode X can move first. One door closes, a much bigger one opens.

What comes next

Let’s keep expectations honest, because the trade reports are careful on this point: Disney has not greenlit the film yet. THR describes the project as still in development, though further along than any Lucasfilm feature other than Starfighter, the Ryan Gosling-led film arriving May 28, 2027. There is no release date and no official title, and Lucasfilm declined to comment.

Still, this is the most concrete the theatrical future of Star Wars has looked in years. Filming could begin as early as next year, according to early reports. And the timing couldn’t be better. The franchise spent the last half-decade rebuilding its television wing; now the big screen gets its turn, with the kind of marquee numbering that turns opening weekends into cultural events.

It mirrors what we’re seeing across the industry. Universal is moving fast on its next Jurassic World chapter, Paramount keeps doubling down on franchise revivals like Miami Vice, and legacy IP is the surest bet in town. Star Wars isn’t following that trend. It started it.

What this trilogy has to get right

The lesson of the last decade is that Star Wars works best when it trusts new voices inside a familiar frame. Skeleton Crew did it on a small canvas. Episode X has to do it at the largest possible scale: honor the Skywalker name without being trapped by it.

Watts has a real gift for that balance. His Spider-Man films kept Peter Parker grounded while the multiverse cracked open around him. If he brings that same instinct to Rey and a new generation of Jedi, the saga’s next act could feel less like a victory lap and more like a genuine new beginning.

There is also a practical reason for optimism. Kinberg has had nearly two years on these scripts. That is not the rushed timeline that burned the franchise before. It is the kind of runway that lets a trilogy actually be planned as a trilogy.

The verdict

This is the announcement Star Wars fans have been waiting for since the sequel trilogy wrapped. A director with a $3.9 billion track record, a writer who knows the lore cold, and a genuine continuation of the Skywalker story. There are still miles to go before cameras roll, but the galaxy finally has a direction again. And for the first time in a long time, that direction feels exactly right.

For a reminder of how the franchise machine keeps evolving, our look at Sam Raimi’s Every House is Haunted landing at a new studio shows just how competitive the IP landscape has become. Star Wars, though, remains the one that started it all.

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: Angry Birds Movie 3: Holiday Flock Returns Dec 23

Ten years after the first film turned a mobile game into a $352 million box office surprise, the birds are coming home for the holidays. Paramount Pictures has released the first trailer for The Angry Birds Movie 3, and the film lands in theaters on December 23, 2026. Seven years after the second installment, Red and the flock are back with the biggest adventure of the franchise, and the timing could not be better.

Red’s toughest challenge yet: fatherhood

The trailer teases what Paramount describes as Red’s toughest challenge yet. Not the pigs. Not a new villain. Fatherhood. Jason Sudeikis returns to voice the famously short-tempered bird, and the idea of Red navigating family life while once again finding himself in the middle of a mission to save the world is the kind of premise that writes its own jokes.

It’s also a smart evolution. The first film was about Red learning to belong. The second was about the flock learning to work with their enemies. A third film about Red learning to be a father completes a genuine character arc, the kind most animated franchises never bother with. When a third installment has something real to say about its lead, it’s usually a sign the filmmakers still care.

The flock expands

The returning cast is the good kind of familiar: Sudeikis, Josh Gad, and Danny McBride are all back, the comic engine that powered the first two films. But the new ensemble is where things get interesting. Emma Myers, Rachel Bloom, Walker Scobell, Marcello Hernández, Tim Robinson, Anna Cathcart, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Nikki Glaser, Sam Richardson, James Austin Johnson, Lily James, and Keke Palmer join the flock.

That’s a genuinely exciting mix. Bloom’s musical-comedy brilliance. Hernández’s breakout energy. Robinson’s deadpan chaos. Palmer’s star power. And yes, MrBeast and Salish Matter join the voice cast too, marking a real crossover between YouTube culture and mainstream Hollywood animation. It’s a shrewd move. The kids who grew up watching MrBeast are exactly the audience that will drag their parents to a Christmas animated film, and their parents will recognize every other name on that list.

John Rice directs from a screenplay by Thurop Van Orman, with producers John Cohen, Dan Chuba, Carla Connor, and Namit Malhotra. Rice and Van Orman are animation veterans, and the franchise has always been at its best when it trusted its artists to be funny first and faithful to the game second.

Why the holiday slot matters

Paramount moved the film up from its original January 29, 2027 date to December 23, 2026. That’s not a small adjustment. That’s a studio deciding its animated sequel deserves the holiday corridor, one of the most competitive and lucrative windows of the year. You don’t move a film into Christmas week unless you believe it can hold its own.

The history supports the confidence. The 2016 original, released by Sony Pictures, earned more than $352 million worldwide against a reported $73 million production budget, despite mixed reviews. The 2019 sequel is widely considered the better film. The franchise has a proven audience, a proven formula, and now a proven holiday slot. Christmas week is where family films become traditions, and Paramount is clearly aiming for exactly that.

The holiday season’s family anchor

Look at the December corridor and The Angry Birds Movie 3 stands out as the pure family play. It’s the film parents can take a five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old to and have everyone laughing. The franchise’s secret weapon has always been its layered comedy: slapstick for the kids, sly references for the adults, and just enough heart to make the whole thing stick.

It’s part of a holiday season that’s shaping up to be one of the strongest in years. Our recent coverage of Paramount’s Christmas slate, including the upcoming Ebenezer with Johnny Depp, shows the studio going all-in on holiday moviegoing. And with Warner Bros.’ animated ambitions arriving in November, the family audience will already be in theaters and ready for more.

The verdict: a holiday win in the making

The Angry Birds Movie 3 isn’t trying to reinvent animation. It’s trying to do something harder: deliver a genuinely funny, genuinely warm holiday movie that earns its spot in the Christmas rotation. With Red facing fatherhood, a voice cast that blends comedy royalty with new energy, and a studio confident enough to plant it in the year’s biggest family window, this one looks like a gift.

December 23. The flock is back. Don’t be surprised if this becomes the movie your family quotes all year.

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: The Cat in the Hat 2026: Bill Hader’s Animated Debut

There’s a special kind of bravery in taking on Dr. Seuss. The last time Hollywood gave the Cat a big-screen showcase, in 2003, the result was… let’s say memorable for the wrong reasons. Twenty-three years later, Warner Bros. Pictures Animation is trying again, and this time the signs are genuinely promising. The Cat in the Hat arrives in theaters and IMAX on November 6, and it has everything the 2003 version didn’t: a fresh story, a brilliant comic lead, and an animation studio making its feature debut with everything to prove.

A brand-new story

Forget the rainy day and the fish in the pot. This is a wholly original adventure. The Cat, voiced by Bill Hader in his animated feature debut, takes on his toughest assignment yet for the I.I.I.I., the Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, LLC. His mission: cheer up Gabby and Sebastian, a pair of siblings struggling with a move to a new town.

The twist is pure character comedy. The Cat is known for taking things too far, and this could be his last chance to prove himself. Or lose his magical hat. It’s a setup that gives the story real stakes beyond the chaos. The Cat isn’t just making mischief. He has something to lose. That’s the difference between a gag reel and a movie, and it’s a promising foundation.

The film is loosely based on the 1957 book but stands on its own, directed by Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Carloni from their own screenplay, with a story by Caroline Williams. Carloni’s animation pedigree is the real deal, and Rivinoja has one of the sharpest comedy voices in the business. This is not a committee product. It’s a filmmaker-driven film, and you can feel it in the premise alone.

Bill Hader was born for this

Let’s talk about the casting, because it’s inspired. Bill Hader has spent his career as one of the great comic shape-shifters of his generation, from his SNL years to the dramatic depths of Barry. He has never headlined an animated feature. That feels like an oversight the industry is finally correcting.

The Cat needs a very specific instrument: someone who can be anarchic and warm at the same time, someone who can sell mischief as joy rather than menace. Hader’s entire career is that tightrope. He can do unhinged. He can do tender. Often in the same scene. Giving him this role is like handing a Stradivarius to someone who has been playing air violin for years.

The ensemble around him is stacked: Matt Berry, Quinta Brunson, Xochitl Gomez, with Giancarlo Esposito and America Ferrera, plus Tituss Burgess, Bowen Yang, Paula Pell, and Tiago Martinez. Berry’s velvet absurdism, Brunson’s precision timing, Gomez’s rising-star energy. This is a voice cast that was assembled by people who understand comedy, not by a marketing department checking boxes.

The animation studio’s big moment

This is the first full-length feature from Warner Bros. Pictures Animation, the relaunched banner, with animation by DNEG. That’s a lot of pressure, and pressure can be a gift. First features have a way of swinging for the fences because there’s no franchise playbook to follow yet. The early trailers suggest a visual style that honors Seuss’s curves and chaos while pushing into something more cinematic, and the IMAX release confirms the studio’s ambitions.

The music signals the same confidence. Lorne Balfe scores the film, and the original song “CATastrophe” comes from Hilary Duff, released October 2 as the film’s big musical calling card. When a studio leads its marketing with an original song instead of hiding behind the IP, it usually means they believe in what they’ve made.

Why this could actually work

The 2003 film failed because it mistook Seuss for a license to be weird at children. The new film understands something deeper: Seuss was always about the emotional lives of kids. A move to a new town. The feeling that everything familiar is gone. A chaotic stranger who shows you that chaos can be a kind of love. That’s the book’s actual subject, and it’s the film’s too.

Warner Bros. is distributing worldwide, with international release beginning November 4 and North American theaters and IMAX on November 6. The holiday corridor is kind to family films, and there is very little direct competition in the animated space that weekend. The studio has given this film room to breathe, which is exactly what a new franchise needs.

It’s also worth noting where this sits in the current family slate. Our recent reviews of Universal’s upcoming Other Mommy and Paramount’s Street Fighter reboot show a holiday season packed with spectacle. The Cat in the Hat is the family-friendly anchor of that season, and it’s aiming for the widest audience of all: everyone.

The verdict: the Cat’s redemption arc

Every few years, a film arrives with the quiet job of fixing a past mistake. The Cat in the Hat has that job, and it looks ready for it. A great comic lead in his animated debut. A story with actual heart under the mayhem. An animation studio with everything to prove. A holiday release date with the wind at its back.

November 6. Bring the kids. Bring your inner kid too. The Cat is back, and this time he brought the good stuff.

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: The Social Reckoning: Sorkin’s Facebook Sequel Review

Sixteen years after The Social Network became one of the defining films of its generation, Aaron Sorkin is going back. The Social Reckoning, which opens in U.S. theaters on October 9, is the rare sequel that feels less like a corporate decision and more like a filmmaker returning to a story that refused to leave him alone. And this time, Sorkin isn’t just writing. He’s directing too.

Why this sequel exists

Sorkin has said he doubted anyone would write a follow-up to the 2010 original. It took finding one particular story to change his mind: Frances Haugen, the Facebook engineer who became a whistleblower, and her journey with Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz. Their work became the “Facebook Files,” the 2021 investigative series that pulled back the curtain on how the platform really operated.

That’s the spine of the film. Oscar winner Mikey Madison plays Haugen. Jeremy Allen White plays Horwitz. Jeremy Strong steps into the most scrutinized role of the year: Mark Zuckerberg. The Playlist calls it a companion piece rather than a conventional sequel, and that framing is perfect. This isn’t The Social Network 2. It’s a new story from the same world, told with the distance of sixteen years and the urgency of the present.

A cast built for awards season

Start with Madison. The Social Reckoning is her first big-screen appearance since her Oscar-winning turn in 2024’s Anora, and she chose to come back with Sorkin. That’s the kind of career move that tells you everything about the material. At the film’s gala screening in London on September 29, Madison arrived in sculptural couture and the internet noticed. She’s not just promoting a movie. She’s announcing her return as one of the defining actresses of her generation.

Jeremy Allen White, fresh from redefining television intensity, plays Horwitz, the reporter who turned Haugen’s documents into the Facebook Files investigation. If anyone can make a journalist’s quiet obsession cinematic, it’s him.

Then there’s Jeremy Strong as Zuckerberg. The preparation stories are already legendary. Sorkin revealed in a recent interview that Strong did not speak in his own voice on set or walk the way Jeremy walks. He told the rest of the cast not to expect casual interaction between takes: “He is going to treat you the way he imagines Mark treats the people around him.” The trailers already show a transformation that has everyone talking. You cannot argue with the results.

The ensemble runs deep: Wunmi Mosaku, Betty Gilpin, Billy Magnussen, Bill Burr, and Gbenga Akinnagbe. That’s a murderer’s row of character talent, and in a Sorkin script, every one of them will get a moment.

The craft behind the camera

The technical pedigree here is serious. Cinematography by Jeff Cronenweth, the Fincher collaborator behind the original film’s cold, surgical look. Music by Alexandre Desplat, who has scored everything from The Grand Budapest Hotel to The Shape of Water. Sorkin producing alongside Todd Black, Peter Rice, Tony A. Grier, and Stuart M. Besser for Columbia Pictures and Alcon Entertainment.

The film runs 112 minutes, carries an R rating, and was made for a reported $50 million. Principal photography ran from October through December 2025 in Vancouver. This is a filmmaker who knows exactly what his movie is and didn’t spend a dollar more than he needed. In an era of $300 million gambles, there’s something almost radical about a $50 million adult drama with this much ambition.

Why it matters now

The original Social Network captured the moment a dorm-room idea became a civilization-scale machine. The Social Reckoning captures the moment we started asking what that machine was doing to us. Sorkin has described the film as more thriller than the first, a David and Goliath story about an engineer with a conscience and a reporter with a deadline.

This is the kind of film that doesn’t get made anymore, except when it does. A smart, talky, actor-driven drama about something real, aimed squarely at adults, opening in theaters. Sony’s theatrical commitment is the real headline underneath the casting. The film had its premiere at Curzon Mayfair in London on September 29 and hits U.S. theaters October 9, with no streaming shortcut in sight.

For context on Sony’s current theatrical strategy, our recent pieces on Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s box office run and the studio’s 2027-2028 slate moves show a studio betting big on the big screen. The Social Reckoning is the prestige anchor of that bet.

The verdict: see it on the biggest screen you can

The Social Reckoning has every ingredient of an awards-season heavyweight: a legendary writer-director, an Oscar-winning lead making her return, a transformative co-star, and a story that is still unfolding in real life. But more than that, it looks like the rare film that trusts its audience. No capes. No multiverse. Just people, power, and the price of knowing too much.

October 9. This is what movie theaters are for.

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: The Surgeon: Michelle Yeoh’s TIFF Action Triumph

There is a special kind of electricity when a festival crowd realizes it’s watching something great. At the Toronto International Film Festival this September, The Surgeon premiered as a Centrepiece selection and detonated. A 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics calling it a “genre-bending swirl.” Sony Pictures swooping in after a multi-bidder battle to grab it for an April 2, 2027 release. Michelle Yeoh, at 64, reinventing the action hero once again. This is the kind of story that reminds you why festivals matter.

The premise that sells itself

Eliza Lim, played by Yeoh, is a veteran surgeon being nudged toward retirement. Decades of patching people up. Then the unthinkable: she’s abducted by a criminal gang and forced at gunpoint to operate on a member with a life-threatening condition. What the gang doesn’t know is that 35 years of surgical expertise isn’t just a healing skill. It’s a fighting one. Eliza turns her precise anatomical knowledge into a weapon and carves her way out.

The pitch writes itself: John Wick meets The Pitt. MovieWeb went further, calling it the kind of violent action effort “that even John Wick would envy.” Critics at TIFF described it as part medical drama (but gorier), part tense crime thriller, part action movie, part midnight movie, all laced with wit. That sounds like a lot of movies. It sounds like exactly the kind of movie Yeoh was born to carry.

Directed by a real doctor

Here’s the detail that elevates this from a clever premise to something genuinely interesting. Roshan Sethi, who wrote and directed the film, is a practicing radiation oncologist at Boston’s Mass General Brigham. He co-created the Fox medical drama The Resident and still works roughly two months a year as a doctor. He pushed to have his M.D. credential included in his directing credit, specifically to sell the film’s medical authenticity.

“The fact that it might be real is part of what makes it interesting to watch,” he told The Hollywood Reporter before the TIFF premiere. “You feel like you’re being exposed to something that you didn’t know before.”

Think about that. The action in this film isn’t choreographed by stunt people alone. It’s informed by someone who actually holds a scalpel for a living. The CineCorner UK review out of TIFF noted that Eliza’s surgical know-how becomes “surprisingly handy for dispatching thugs as well as sewing up arteries.” When a director understands where every artery runs, the action geography becomes something else entirely. Every wound, every pressure point, every moment of triage doubles as a combat beat. That’s a fresh engine for an action film, and it’s one nobody else is running.

Yeoh, once again ahead of the curve

Let’s take the long view for a second. Michelle Yeoh smacked people around in Yes, Madam in 1985. She anchored Supercop and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She won the Academy Award for Everything Everywhere All at Once. And now, four decades into a career that has never once felt routine, she delivers what TIFF audiences are calling a career-best action performance.

The film is 92 minutes. Lean. No fat. In an era when action films bloat past two and a half hours, a 92-minute thriller from Thunder Road and Tango Entertainment is a statement of discipline. Yeoh shares the screen with Martin Freeman, playing menacing instead of mild-mannered as the gang’s leader, alongside Laurie Davidson, Yuri Kolokolnikov, and Joseph Mydell. The Freeman casting is inspired. Putting one of the screen’s great everymen in the villain’s chair gives the film a tension it wouldn’t have with a stock heavy.

Why Sony’s bet looks smart

Sony acquired North American and select international rights, including Latin America, Italy, China, and Hong Kong. That’s a global play on a $100 million-quality concept made without a $100 million budget. The studio’s recent track record with audience-friendly genre films, from the Spider-Man franchise to its game adaptations like the upcoming Helldivers, suggests Columbia Pictures knows exactly how to position a crowd-pleaser.

And the timing is perfect. April 2, 2027 plants the film in the spring corridor, a slot that has become the action genre’s secret weapon. Audiences are hungry, the summer blockbusters haven’t arrived yet, and a tight 92-minute thriller with an Oscar winner doing her own stunts is the ideal counter-programming to everything else on the calendar.

The verdict: a genuine triumph

The Surgeon isn’t just a good action movie. It’s the kind of film that makes you wonder why nobody made it before. A real doctor directing a legend in the role of her career, with a premise that turns expertise into excitement and healing into heroism.

April 2, 2027. Clear your schedule. Dr. Lim will see you now, and you do not want to miss what she does with that scalpel.

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe: Spider-Man: Brand New Day Review, Sony’s Box Office King

Some records are built to be broken. Others look so untouchable that nobody bothers to check the math. Star Wars: The Force Awakens sat atop the domestic box office chart for a decade at US$936.66 million, and it seemed like it might stay there forever. Then Spider-Man: Brand New Day swung in and took it down, finishing its domestic run at US$936.77 million, with a global total of US$2.453 billion. It is now the highest-grossing domestic film of all time, and Sony Pictures’ highest-grossing film ever.

The reset

Brand New Day picks up after No Way Home, in which Peter Parker’s identity was erased from the world’s memory by Doctor Strange’s spell. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the film stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Sadie Sink, Jon Bernthal, Mark Ruffalo, Florence Pugh and Tramell Tillman.

The premise is a hard reset done right: Peter Parker, alone and forgotten, rebuilding his life from nothing. No Avengers safety net. No Stark tech. Just a kid from Queens with a camera, a conscience and a spider-sense. It is the most comic-book-accurate version of the character the films have ever attempted, and audiences responded like it was an event, because it was.

Why it landed

Three things. First, the timing. After years of multiverse sprawl, audiences were hungry for a Spider-Man story that was actually about Spider-Man. Brand New Day delivers exactly that: street-level stakes, personal consequences, a hero who has to earn every win.

Second, the craft. Cretton, coming off Shang-Chi, directs action with a clarity and physicality that the genre has been missing. The web-swinging sequences are the best in the franchise’s history, shot with a joy that reminds you why this character has endured for sixty years.

Third, the emotion. The film’s central wound, that nobody remembers Peter Parker, gives every relationship a ache that the spectacle never drowns out. When MJ looks at him like a stranger, it lands harder than any building collapsing.

The home release

If you missed it in theaters, the wait is almost over. Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives on digital October 6, with the 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD release following on December 15. The physical release is expected to include the usual bounty of deleted scenes, commentary and behind-the-scenes features. Given the film’s box office, expect it to dominate the holiday sales charts too.

The company it keeps

The domestic top ten is now a murderers’ row: Brand New Day at US$936.77M, The Force Awakens at US$936.66M, and the rest of the usual suspects. What is remarkable is not just the number but the margin: eleven thousand dollars. Eleven thousand dollars separated history from second place. Somewhere, a box office analyst is still double-checking the receipts.

The verdict

Brand New Day is the rare blockbuster that earns its records. It is thrilling, moving and genuinely surprising, a superhero film that remembers the hero is the interesting part. Sony bet big on a street-level reset, and it paid off beyond anyone’s wildest projections. Excelsior.

Make it a holiday outing: the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular is a New York tradition. And for the full season, the city’s holiday tree celebrations are unmissable. Or plan 20 fun things to do in NYC this weekend.