Sinemia is Dead: While the zombie corpse of MoviePass continues to shuffle on, one of its movie ticket subscription service rivals is dead. Sinemia has shut down and users got a final letter from the company when they recently opened the app this week. Sinemia tried to capitalize on the MoviePass fiascos of last year but it never reached the numbers of even MoviePass at it’s lowest and they were involved in a class-action lawsuit brought by users who claimed they were ripped off by an undisclosed change in fees.
Saving Private Ryan returning to theaters: This year marks the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in June and the greatest cinematic portrayal of that event, Saving Private Ryan, is returning to theaters. Fathom Events is having special shows of Saving Private Ryan on June 2nd and June 5th in 600 theaters around the country.
Dune sequel plans confirmed: Denis Villeneuve is currently shooting his remake/reboot of Dune with the insane cast he assembled and Lionsgate confirmed that the current plan is for Dune to basically be a two-part movie, although box office and critical reception could scuttle the sequel. The movie is out next November with Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, David Dastmalchian, Stephen Henderson, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem starring and Cary Fukunaga.
New Ripley’s Believe it or Not arrives in June: Ripley’s Believe It or Not is coming back to TV with a new Travel Channel series that is hosted by none other than Bruce Campbell and it was revealed this week that the show will debut on June 9th and will run for a 10 episode first season. Campbell hosts the show from the Ripley’s warehouse in Orlando, FL.
Netflix turns Hateful Eight into a miniseries: Netflix recently debuted the Extended Edition of The Hateful Eight, which is the version that was shown only in 70mm and is just over 3 hours long. Netflix took the strange step of breaking the movie up into a “miniseries” with 4 “episodes” cut at each chapter in the movie. It’s not clear what the deal is, as there are movies like Schindler’s List that are over 3 hours on the service that didn’t get chopped up.
Bond 25 details confirmed: There was a special Bond press event on Thursday this past week from Jamaica to kick off the movie’s production and it was confirmed that Rami Malek will indeed play the villain in his first post-Oscar role and that the plot involves Bond being lured out of semi-retirement by Felix Leiter to help rescue a missing scientist. Daniel Craig is back for what is most likely his last turn as 007 and Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Lea Seydoux, Ben Whishaw and Rory Kinnear are back from the previous Craig Bond movies with Lashanna Lynch, Ana de Armas and Billy Magnussen joining along with Malek. The movie is scheduled for release in April next year but still doesn’t have an official title.
Ken Watanabe starring in Japanese remake of The Fugitive: As part of the 60th-anniversary celebrations of Japan’s TV Asahi, the network is shooting a remake of The Fugitive with Ken Watanabe in the starring role. Watanabe will play surgeon Kazuki Kakurai, whose wife is murdered by a man with a prosthetic hand but Kakurai is the only witness and is charged with her murder. He escapes custody and goes on the run to clear his name. The movie will air on TV Asahi and will be set in present-day Tokyo just before the 2020 Olympics.
Ben Affleck starring in and directing WWII movie Ghost Army: Ben Affleck is back behind and in front of the camera for a movie set in World War II called Ghost Army. The movie is based on a special squadron of artists, designers, and photographers in World War II whose objective was to fool the Axis into thinking the US had more troops than it actually did. They used inflatable tanks, sound effect records and other means of deception. True Detective’s Nic Pizzolatto wrote the script.
James Wan producing a new Salem’s Lot: The Stephen Kingaisance continues with James Wan producing a new version of Salem’s Lot. Gary Dauberman, who wrote both chapters of IT, is writing the script. Salem’s Lot previously got a film from the legendary Tobe Hooper and a 2004 miniseries starring Rob Lowe and both versions followed King’s story where a writer travels back to his hometown and discovers the townspeople are becoming vampires.
The Raid remake still happening: Since the first Raid movie hit the US, there have been talks of an English language remake and it’s apparently still happening. Joe Carnahan has been attached to direct since 2017 and revealed this week that they are still working on the script. Frank Grillo is taking over in the lead role and the new “reimagining” will follow Grillo’s special forces soldier who learns that his brother that he thought was dead has actually been working for a villain in Caracas and he has 18 hours left before he’s executed.
Jerome Flynn joins The Dark Tower: Game of Thrones’ Bronn is heading over to Amazon for another epic fantasy series in an unnamed role in the upcoming The Dark Tower series. Sam Strike, most recently seen on Nightflyers, has been cast as the younger Roland Deschain aka The Gunslinger, and the series will be set in Roland’s earlier years as he trains in gunslinging and first encounters the Man in Black, which follows more in line with the fourth book in series, Wizard and Glass.
