Movies
Yup, Jeremy Renner Could Be the New Snake Plissken!
Update: We’re told this is VERY early and a premature announcement. Some news we’ve been hearing but couldn’t firm up until just now is that Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) is in close talks to land the lead role of Snake Plissken in Escape from New York, the Breck Eisner-directed remake of John Carpenter’s classic 1981 post-apocalyptic thriller that followed antihero Snake Plissken (played by Kurt Russell) as he tries to save the President in gang-ruled Manhattan. New Line Cinema’s new spin follows along the lines of the original in which ] Plissken — an iconic soldier-turned-criminal — is given 24 hours to find the President following the crash of Air Force One. Eisner directed The Crazies for Overture. We’ll let you know the second anything becomes official.
Final Destination Bloodlines filmmakers Zach Lipovsky & Adam Stein return to their mutant roots with Freaks Part II, their follow-up to 2018’s Freaks. The first look has arrived ahead of the film’s world premiere.
Freaks Part II is the official closing film of Fantasia, where it will make its world premiere.
In the sequel, “Several years after a traumatic escape, we meet Mary (Amanda Crew, Freaks) and her daughter Chloe (Lorelei Olivia Mote, Riddle of Fire) as they live on the road, hiding their powers and identities. They are hunted by the Abnormal Defense Force, paramilitary police that specialize in ruthlessly exterminating ‘freaks‘ like them. Mary is fueled by revenge, determined to find the ADF officer (Lili Taylor, The Conjuring) who killed her first child.“
It’s not just the story that’s progressing with this sequel, but also the gore. Fantasia teases, “There’s also inventive gore – the most we’ve seen in a Canadian film in years – that punctuates the outstanding performances and serious subject matter.”
Mote takes over for Lexy Kolker, who played Chloe in the 2018 film that saw the young protagonist with growing powers confined to her home by an overprotective and paranoid father (Emile Hirsch).
Rafael Motamayor wrote in his review, “Freaks feels like an even more grounded, small-scale version of the X-Men, a sci-fi film filled with surprises, a message about parenthood and wanting to keep your child safe and isolated from the world, and a future star in Lexy Kolker.”
Lipovsky & Stein’s have a packed slate ahead, co-writing Gremlins 3 with Chris Columbus, directing the sci-fi survival film The Earthling for Columbia, directing the psychological horror film Long Lost for Amblin, and directing the sci-fi drama The Traveler for Paramount.