By Creative Media Times

Warner Bros. is having a great year so far and that seem continue with Denis Villeneuve’s “Blade Runner 2049,” the long-awaited sequel to the 1982 dystopian cult classic.

Review embargo was lifted today and the first set of reviews are glowing. As of 7 P.M., the neo-noir sci-fi stands at 98% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with 42 reviews counted.

USA Today’s Brian Truitt called it “best film so far this year,” while The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw described the film as “a gigantic spectacle of pure hallucinatory craziness.” Dan Jolin’s Empire Magazine is equally enamored with his excellent summation: “visually immaculate, swirling with themes as heart-rending as they are mind-twisting, 2049 is, without doubt, a good year. And one of 2017’s best.”

“Blade Runner 2049” is set three decades after the events of the 1982 landmark original with star Ryan Gosling as LAPD Officer K and Harrison Ford reprising his Rick Deckard role. Joining the duo is Jared Leto who is seen on the trailer as the wicked Niander Wallace, as well as Dave Bautista, Robin Wright, Ana de Armas, David Dastmalchian, and Mackenzie Davis.

The excellent reviews can’t come at a better time. According to Fandango, “Blade Runner 2049” advance ticket sales is “significantly outpacing” that of “The Martian”, “Gravity” and ‘Mad Max: Fury Road.” All three films were box-office hits and critically lauded and received multiple Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, a level of success rarely seen in the sci-fi genre. “Fandango is seeing strong advance ticket sales for ‘Blade Runner 2049’ as the film continues to attract great buzz,” said Fandango managing editor Erik Davis.

“Blade Runner 2049” opens on October 6th 2017, almost a year after director Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi hit Arrival.

By Creative Media

With Denis Villeneuve’s latest “Blade Runner 2049” set to conquer boxoffice next weekend, the French Canadian writer/director is apparently also being eyed by Sony Pictures to helm “Cleopatra” remake, Deadline reports.

The news is another vote of confidence for the director’s profile as one of Tinseltown’s most sought after. After back to back acclaim for 2015’s “Sicario” and last year’s “Arrival”, early reviews for “Blade Runner 2049” have likewise been stellar.

The director is also currently developing an adaption of another 80s cult film “Dune” for Legendary Pictures, and is set to direct “The Son,” an adaptation of Jo Nesbø’s crime novel.

Angelina Jolie was once rumored to play the last Queen of Egypt, while James Cameron, David Fincher and Paul Greengrass were once either considered or showed interested but no commitments were announced.

The “Cleopatra” project is based on the book “Cleopatra: A Life”, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff. The best-selling book was published in 2010 to great acclaim and appeared on year-end top 10 lists.

By Creative Media Times

With the release of the trailer just around the corner, Universal Pictures released three new posters for “Pacific Rim: Uprising”, the first one unveiled on star John Boyega’s Twitter account Tuesday morning.

Since then, two more cool posters showed up online: one which features Scott Eastwood (Suicide Squad, The Fate of the Furious) in a stance similar to Boyega’s version of the poster, and another with graffiti-type illustration.

The sequel to the 2013 film sci-fi monster film will take place ten years after the events of the Battle of the Breach, when the Jaeger program has become a powerful global defense force, and the Pan Pacific Defense Corps calls upon a new generation of elite fighters against Kaiju threat. Boyega will play Jake, the son of Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) from the original film.

Joining Boyega and Eastwood are Pacific Rim alums Charlie Day, Rinko Kikuchi, and Burn Gorman. The film also stars Cailee Spaeny, Adria Arjona and Jing Tian. Uprising will be directed by Steven S. DeKnight, who is best known for his TV work on Starz series Spartacus. The original’s director Guillermo del Toro is credited for the story.

Pacific Rim: Uprising is scheduled to stomp into theaters on March 23, 2018.

By Creative Media Times

It looks like it’s finally coming to fruition. After multiple false starts, the sequel to the highest grossing film of all time worldwide began production Monday, Deadline reports. But not without a hefty price tag: $1 Billion.

Director James Cameron is also shooting four sequels back-to-back, another uncharted territory. Couple that with Cameron’s penchant for pushing the boundaries of technology and cinema special effects, the sequels make it the “most expensive shoot of its kind.”

The closest we’ve seen a production of this magnitude was Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which was filmed simultaneously in New Zealand.

The sequels certainly have plenty to live up to. The original Avatar was both a box-office phenomenon and an innovative undertaking at the time, where Cameron made use of his virtual camera system which showed the actors’ virtual counterparts interacting with their digital surroundings in real time, as well as innovative special effects with improved motion capture techniques.

Last April, Avatar production team announced via their Facebook page that the four movies will be released from 2020 to 2025, giving the filmmaker just three years to put the first film together.

By Creative Media Times

Warner Bros. and New Line has set the stage for the return of Pennywise the evil clown. According to Hollywood Reporter on Monday, the imminent sequel to the blockbuster horror will be hitting screens on Sept. 6, 2019.

This means the studio is sticking to that same post-Labor Day weekend that saw It’s predecessor smash box-office records two weeks ago when the film opened to an unprecedented $123.4M domestically. That number is the largest September opening ever, as well as biggest horror domestic opening, bigger R-rater film, and biggest for a book adaptation.

The post-Labor Day weekend is traditionally a dumping ground smaller films. But Stephen King’s hit film helped redefine the box-office calendar, with this month’s overall film grosses now on track to break all time September record, a welcome turn around for Hollywood after a sluggish summer season.

Though director Andy Muschietti is still in negotiations to return, co-scriptwriter Gary Dauberman is already on board to come back for the sequel. According to Variety’s interview this summer with the director: “Part one is only about the kids. Part two is about these characters 30 years later as adults, with flashbacks to 1989 when they were kids”.

The currently untitled sequel is currently up against an untitled Blumhouse Productions film slated to open on same date, though this early a lot will most likely change.

By Creative Media Times

Its been 26 years since the world saw Linda Hamilton play badass heroine Sarah Connor in James Cameron’s groundbreaking sci-fi action Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Yesterday, according to Hollywood Reporter, Hamilton will be reprising her role in the currently untitled reboot.

Cameron and “Terminator” himself Arnold Schwarzenegger are already attached to the planned film, though Cameron is not directing but producing the project and working on a story. Instead, Tim Miller (Deadpool) will be directing the film. Cameron is currently involved in the pre-production of the first two of four planned Avatar sequels.

“There are 50-year-old, 60-year-old guys out there killing bad guys, but there isn’t an example of that for women,” Cameron stated, hoping the film will make a statement on gender roles the same way Terminator 2 did back in 1991 with Hamilton’s strong portrayal of Sarah. Cameron was briefly married to Hamilton from 1997 to 1999.

According to the article, the film will be a direct sequel to Terminator 2, which means that reboots and installments released in between such as Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator Salvation (2009) and Terminator Genisys (2015) which intended to reboot the franchise, will be ignored. Neither Cameron nor Hamilton were involved in those titles, although Hamilton provided her voice for Salvation, while Cameron was reportedly consulted on Genisys.

In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Sarah Connor’s son John (Nick Stahl) mentioned that she died of a disease. How Hamilton’s character will be brought back remains unknown, though not implausible in Terminator franchise’s time-travel plots.