
Matthew Monagle


‘Star Wars’ Actor Ian McDiarmid Doesn’t Want Anyone Else to Play Emperor Palpatine
Anyone familiar with the now-defunct Star Wars extended universe knows that characters like Emperor Palpatine are considerably less dead in the books than they are in the movies. With cloning a huge canonical part of the Star Wars mythology, it was only a matter of time before some adventurous writer decided to bring major villains back from the dead; that is how Luke Skywalker ended up facing off against the clones of a young Palpatine (not to mention an evil Luke Skywalker clone). And with Lucasfilm demonstrating a willingness to pick and choose from the extended universe as they see fit, you’d be forgiven for wondering if we’d eventually find out that Palpatine 2.0 was the one pulling all the strings.

Mel Brooks Calls Political Correctness the ‘Death of Comedy’
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a middle-aged white comedian sits down for an interview and starts complaining about the things he can’t say onstage. This isn’t exactly a new complaint in the stand-up industry. For years, the old guard of legendary comedians have argued that modern audiences are too sensitive these days to the detriment of comedy; and sure, while there are certainly those who look for offense in any commentary — no matter how benign — it’s more than a little frustrating to hear some comedians claim that their decades-old material isn’t funny anymore.

Selma Blair on Not Joining ‘Hellboy’ Remake: ‘My Job Is Done’
While most of the articles regarding the new Hellboy remake have focused on the lack of involvement by Ron Perlman and Guillermo del Toro, it’s worth nothing that Selma Blair’s Liz Sherman was also an integral part of del Toro’s franchise. Neither fully human nor fully supernatural, Blair’s character served as an important transition point between the film’s two worlds (as well as the main love interest of the titular character). So maybe it’s about time we poured one out for Selma Blair as well; after all, she had just as much involvement in the success of the franchise as anyone.

New Study Shows Rotten Tomatoes Scores Don’t Affect Box Office
Well, that’s kinda awkward timing. On Thursday of last week, the New York Times published an article titled “Attacked by Rotten Tomatoes,” an in-depth look at the popular review aggregation site and the role it may have played in this summer’s disappointing box office numbers. The article ends with a prolonged examination of the various ways that studios are trying to “battle Rotten Tomatoes on multiple fronts,” seemingly accepting the idea that Rotten Tomatoes has been bad for the movie industry (despite the fact that Rotten Tomatoes is, in fact, owned by said members of the movie industry). The article may have been an interesting read for those unfamiliar with the controversy, but for those in the know, it was old news, part of an ongoing debate that tried to argue that critics were duping poor, easily misled moviegoers.

Weekend Box Office Report: ‘It’ Breaks a Whole Slew of Box Office Records
As we head deeper into September, two things have become pretty clear about 2017 box office numbers: one, Hollywood desperately needs to bounce back a little bit from the doldrums of August, and two, whoever decided to hedge their studio’s bets with a September release date for a movie about a killer clown is looking like a [profanity] genius right about now. We’ll get to all of that in a moment, but first, here are the box office numbers as of Sunday afternoon:

Sylvester Stallone Hints That ‘Creed 2’ Will Begin Filming in 2018
Despite the fact that Creed 2 remains very early in the pre-production process, Sylvester Stallone hasn’t shied away from providing fans with regular updates on his screenwriting process. That’s included photos of his handwritten Creed 2 script as well as a promise that his character would face off against Dolph Lundgren’s Ivan Drago in the much-anticipated sequel. And while star and studio have avoided giving us a firm timeline for the sequel’s release — I mean, other than a rumored 2017 release date that they, uh, are clearly going to miss — it sounds like Stallone is making a lot of progress on he film.

Danny Trejo Calls Out Actors (Cough-Tom Cruise-Cough) for Doing Their Own Stunts
It was the set video seen around the world: Tom Cruise, leaping between rooftops for a Mission: Impossible 6 stunt, and slamming into the side of the building at high speed. In the weeks since the accident was officially confirmed — it turns out that Cruise had broken his ankle in the fall — the entire production has been trying to put a positive spin on the news, with director Christopher McQuarrie saying Cruise’s injury actually offered the crew an ‘opportunity’ to tinker a bit with the edit mid-production. Still, the injury shows the downside of Cruise’s legendary attention to detail for movie stunts, and at least one fellow actor had a few unkind words to say about the whole process.

Matt Damon Explains Why Donald Trump Has So Many Movie Cameos
Have you ever scrolled through Donald Trump’s IMDb page? Owing to his background as a New York City socialite, Trump has appeared as himself in many talk shows and entertainment news segments; at last count, Trump has approximately 266 appearances in movies and televisions shows ranging from Late Night With David Letterman to his many, many appearances on the various iterations of The Howard Stern Show. What’s more interesting, however, are his appearances that fall under the ‘actor’ category. How did Trump continue to pop into shows like Spin City and Sex and the City despite his questionable reputation among New Yorkers?

Weekend Box Office Report: ‘Hitman’s Bodyguard’ Wins a Historically Bad Weekend
There are bad weekends, there are bad weekends, and then there are historically terrible weekends the likes of which haven’t been seen in decades. Guess which one applies to this past weekend? With the overall box office dipping more than $30 million from last week, and the overall numbers landing as historically bad, we seem to be ending August on a terrible note. Nevertheless, here are the box office numbers through Sunday afternoon:

‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ Director Tobe Hooper Dies at 74
One of the underrated elements of the horror community is how many of them have the opportunity to meet their heroes. When famous actors and filmmakers die, they tend to be remembered at a distance on the quality of their work; when horror icons like George Romero or Wes Craven pass, however, people have first-hand accounts of meeting them at festivals and conventions. So as word spreads today about the death of legendary Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper, you’ll hear more than a few first-hand accounts of what it was like to talk about the genre with Hooper. That’s the power of the horror community.