There’s a plethora of rich and layered characters on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds who deserve more time on-screen, one of whom will get just that in season 3.
Movies
The success of Bosch can’t be stopped. New spin-off series Ballard, starring Maggie Q, is topping Prime Video’s streaming charts.
The mid-credits scene in the new I Know What You Did Last Summer movie nods to one of the earlier films in the franchise in an exciting way.
Sorry, Dredd fans: Karl Urban almost certainly isn’t going to be donning the helmet for the newly announced reboot from Taika Waititi.
In the wake of the 1995 movie starring Sylvester Stallone and the 2012 movie starring Karl Urban, the next big screen incarnation of Judge Dredd may be directed by Taika Waititi.
According to report from The Hollywood Reporter this afternoon, Waititi is attached to direct a new Judge Dredd movie in a hot package that’s making its way around Hollywood.
THR details, “The logline is being kept under the visor, but the pitch is said to take inspiration more from the comics than the previous screen iterations, leaning into the world-building and dark humor. It is also meant to be a fun sci-fi blockbuster that nonetheless speaks to this moment in culture. The desire is to see the movie launch a Dredd universe that could be explored with additional movies and shows across various platforms.”
Drew Pearce (Fall Guy, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) will be writing the script.
As you may recall, the character had been recently set to make his mark on the small screen with a series titled “Judge Dredd: Mega City One,” but it seems that project is no more.
Judge Dredd was created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. The character debuted back in 1977, with two (aforementioned) live action movies under his belt thus far.
Wikipedia reminds, “Judge Dredd is a law enforcement and judicial officer in the dystopian future city of Mega-City One, which covers most of the east coast of North America. He is a street judge, empowered to summarily arrest, convict, sentence, and execute criminals.”
‘Judge Dredd’ (1995)
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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 ended with a massive cliffhanger. Here’s how the season 3 premiere resolves all of that dramatic tension.
Oni Press hasn’t yet published their holiday horror comic book Yuletide but Deadline reports that Gale Anne Hurd’s Valhalla Entertainment has already picked it up for film adaptation.
Yuletide will debut on comic book shelves in October 2025 from Oni Press.
The upcoming comic book comes from writer George Northy (EC’s Shiver SuspenStories) and artist Rachele Aragno (Mike Mignola’s Leonide the Vampire).
Deadline details, “the comic is described as a fast-paced family adventure in the tradition of The Goonies, Goosebumps, and Hocus Pocus with a horrifying holiday twist.”
“In the story, ancient Norse creatures are let loose upon an idyllic Northeastern town at the height of the gift-giving season — and only three teenagers are capable of holding them at bay with an ancient secret tied to the origins of the holiday itself.”
Here’s a longer official synopsis for Yuletide:
“Welcome to the small town of Christmas, Pennsylvania – the merriest place on Earth… or so they’d like everyone to think. When December rolls around, these folks pull out all the stops for America’s biggest, brightest holiday display — but not everyone in Christmas, PA, is so enthusiastic.
“Teenagers Jake, Abe, and Wyn are more interested in the dark side of the holiday that their parents like to pretend doesn’t exist — the ancient legends of mythic monsters and pagan pandemonium that are deeply tied to the festival’s long-forgotten origins. So when their hobby leads them to an abandoned wing of the local Christmas museum to investigate, they’ll discover an ancient relic that, when activated, will bring a furious procession of yuletide horrors long since banished from our plane.
“And with it, a darkness that has been waiting centuries for its chance to overtake the world.”
George Northy will be writing the feature film adaptation.
‘Krampus’ (2015)
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The next movie from director Robert Eggers is going to be a full-on Nosferatu reunion, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson signing on for Werwulf and Lily-Rose Depp in talks to star.
Deadline reports today that Willem Dafoe is also in talks to star in Eggers’ Werwulf for Focus Features, the duo re-teaming after The Lighthouse, The Northman and Nosferatu.
Dafoe is also reportedly being eyed to play Ebenezer Scrooge in an upcoming adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens tale A Christmas Carol for Eggers, we recently learned.
Set in the 13th century and being described as a medieval horror movie, Robert Eggers’ Werwulf will howl its way into theaters from Focus Features on Christmas Day 2026.
The filmmaker co-wrote the screenplay for Werwulf alongside Sjón, the Icelandic poet and novelist who previously co-wrote the Viking movie The Northman with Eggers.
Chris Columbus, who produced Nosferatu, is on board to produce Werwulf.
Stay tuned for more on Robert Eggers’ Werwulf as we learn it.
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Scandal and horror aren’t exactly strangers to one another, and sometimes bad press is good for business. However, Captivity’s own controversy didn’t do it any favors, financially speaking; this 2007 movie flopped at the box office. What caused the public ire back then was a promotional campaign that onlookers found to be disturbing. In all likelihood, the most hardened horror heads probably didn’t bat an eye at that multi-paneled “abduction, confinement, torture, termination” billboard ad. Even that one poster of Captivity lead Elisha Cuthbert (House of Wax), the one where she’s buried in sand, pressed up against glass, and her chest is emphasized for obvious reason, isn’t especially egregious. Maybe it’s worth an eyeroll. Nevertheless, it wasn’t fans of the horror genre who took issue and aired their complaints to Lionsgate and the MPA.
Sure, Captivity’s ad blitz can be accused of being distasteful—it was just one example of “escapist art” found in that period of horror—but at least it wasn’t deceitful. The movie, in its finished state, is exactly what it was sold as; a young and popular model named Jennifer (Cuthbert) is held against her will, and she, along with another victim (Daniel Gillies, The Vampire Diaries), is tormented by an unknown captor. The weird thing is, Captivity wasn’t initially planned to be of the torture horror persuasion. Once After Dark Films picked up the thriller, reshoots were ordered nearly two years after production had wrapped. Executive producer Courtney Solomon, who oversaw the reshoots, thought inserting more graphic violence would replicate the success of Hostel and the like. Reflect the times and all that. Needless to say, he thought wrong.
Meeting the final cut of Captivity on its own terms isn’t ever easy, largely because this version lacks sincerity. The pivot to torture is transparent, not to mention uninspired and unscary. And what might have been a potentially intriguing story, one about celebrity, stalking and perception, is now compromised by these awkwardly grafted and gross set-pieces. For the most part, these sequences are front-loaded, but even still, they take up too much space and air out of the whole movie. They start to border on parody, due to their over-the-top nature and generic design. Cuthbert’s character is put through the wringer, just for the sake of it, then again and again until some semblance of the original form can finally emerge.
By then, though, it’s too late to salvage the movie.
Image: A poster for Captivity.
Looking past the silly embellishments and add-ins would take more effort than most are willing to make, but the few commentaries in the story—one cooked up by Larry Cohen—can’t be entirely blotted out by Solomon’s blunders. First off, Jennifer’s celebrity and openness make her an easy target for the public as well as her abductor. The perverse pleasure in Jennifer’s suffering is, with little subtlety, a twisted reflection of reality. It wasn’t that long ago when Hollywood starlets were hounded and ripped to shreds by the press; it was like a sick ritual every week. As for the torturer, he could be a remark on the relationship between directors and their actors, however, the idea is underdeveloped like the rest of the script.
There is a 30 Rock episode that’s worth mentioning when discussing the mishandling of Captivity. It’s also just damn funny. In Season Five’s “I Heart Connecticut” (2011), Jane Krakowski’s character Jenna Maroney is cast in an upcoming movie. After she explains the plot to her peers—”it’s kind of an artsy character study about a young woman who has a lot of holes drilled into her head”—one of them calls the movie a “torture porn thing like Saw.” And to that Jenna says “exactly!” and explains how the producers came up with the idea by simply renting Saw and watching it. Eventually, the project undergoes a series of drastic on and off-screen changes to better suit its constantly evolving target demographic, or appease a new backer, and as a result, the frankensteined product ends up being plain unwatchable. Now, if that doesn’t sound familiar…
Image: Elisha Cuthbert in Captivity.
It’s doubtful that 30 Rock was targeting Captivity with this particular subplot, yet the parallels are there. Of course, the modifications to Roland Joffé’s movie—Captivity being directed by the director of The Killing Fields is perhaps the most shocking thing about it—don’t include anything along the lines of enlisting Wal-Mart as a paid sponsor, or placating the state of Connecticut in exchange for tax breaks. There is, however, a shared desire to turn a profit by mutating the movie in question and appealing to a different audience. Courtney Solomon read the room at the time, albeit incorrectly, and believed people craved more splatter, not less, in their new horror. His estimation wasn’t completely unfounded; the Saw sequels were making big bucks for Lionsgate. That said, the Saw movies had cornered the market on torture and traps, and there was no room for competition, much less lousy imitators.
There will be those who read this and want to see for themselves how Captivity fares in their eyes. After all, it can be hard to resist what could be an underdog. Keep in mind, though, there are reasons why, when thinking back on this era of horror, no one brings up Captivity. And if they do, it’s likely because of its troubled history, which is far more interesting than the movie itself. Critics have definitely been known to rescind their negative reviews upon reassessment, but in this case, they were right the first time around.
Image: Daniel Gillies in Captivity.
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Big screen movie sequel Mortal Kombat II is headed our way this Halloween season, and Warner Bros. has unleashed the official trailer this afternoon. Give it a watch below!
Mortal Kombat II marks the arrival of Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage into the rebooted movie franchise, and the character takes center stage in this first official trailer. The new trailer also makes it clear that the sequel will actually depict the titular tournament this time around, and it looks much more like a video game come to life than the first movie did back in 2021.
That being said, I’m still not entirely sold on the approach of this particular big screen universe. A lot of what’s on display here looks much the same as the aforementioned 2021 movie, but Urban’s presence should help elevate the material and at least give us a character worth rooting for. Watch the trailer and let us know your own thoughts in the comments below.
Simon McQuoid returns to the director’s seat for Mortal Kombat II, which will feature a screenplay by Jeremy Slater (“The Exorcist,” “Moon Knight”). It hits theaters October 24.
Mortal Kombat II is rated “R” for “strong bloody violence and gore, and language.”
From New Line Cinema comes the latest high-stakes installment in the blockbuster video game franchise in all its brutal glory, Mortal Kombat II.
This time, the fan favorite champions—now joined by Johnny Cage himself—are pitted against one another in the ultimate, no-holds barred, gory battle to defeat the dark rule of Shao Kahn that threatens the very existence of the Earthrealm and its defenders.
Karl Urban stars as Johnny Cage, alongside Adeline Rudolph, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Mehcad Brooks, Tati Gabrielle, Lewis Tan, Damon Herriman, with Chin Han, Tadanobu Asano as Lord Raiden, Joe Taslim as Bi-Han, and Hiroyuki Sanada as Hanzo Hasashi and Scorpion.
Director Simon McQuoid returns to helm the follow up to his explosive 2021 cinematic adventure, from a screenplay by Jeremy Slater, based on the videogame created by Ed Boon and John Tobias. The film is produced by Todd Garner, James Wan, Toby Emmerich, E. Bennett Walsh and McQuoid, and executive produced by Michael Clear, Judson Scott, Slater and Lawrence Kasanoff.
New Line Cinema Presents an Atomic Monster/Broken Road Production, a Fireside Films Production, Mortal Kombat II. The film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, only in theaters and IMAX® across North America on October 24, 2025, and internationally beginning 22 October 2025.
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