Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is far more than one of the best Will Ferrell movies, as it’s also a comedy staple of 2000s cinema. Adam McKay’s racecar comedy sees Ferrell at the peak of his powers, and it features some moments that still make me laugh today. One of the most surprising moments in the film happens during the ending, at which point Bobby shares a passionate kiss with Sacha Baron Cohen’s Jean Girard. Now, I’m looking at that differently after learning some key behind-the-scenes information.

In the film, Bobby and Girard become fierce rivals upon the latter joining NASCAR but, in time, they do find a bit of common ground. Their competitiveness culminates into a showdown and eventual car wreck at the Talladega Superspeedway, where they later engage in a foot race. Ricky ultimately wins that (illegal) race, and Girard concedes. While Girard extends a congratulatory handshake after that, Bobby, instead, offers him a passionate kiss, which is cheered on by the thousands of fans in attendance.

Adam McKay recently reflected on the making of the film as part of a retrospective conducted by Business Insider. Eventually, McKay discussed the kiss seen around the race car stadium or, at least, I thought it was seen by spectators. McKay revealed that there were no live crowds present when the kiss was filmed and, not only that, but the moment came together in a relatively surprising way:

Said scene does indeed hit the right note, and I’d argue that it’s one of the most memorable moments from the film (which is currently streamable with a Hulu subscription). Considering the emotional weight of that moment, I’m really surprised to hear it was improvised. Also, I do indeed know scenes in movies and TV that take place in crowded areas don’t always necessarily include various extras. But I could’ve sworn this kiss moment was shot in front of various onlookers. McKay also added this in regard to how the scene was received:

A lot of improvisation apparently happens with McKay’s movies, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that even a big moment like that smooch would be a spur-of-the-moment kind of addition. To that point, Will Ferrell previously spoke about improvising with co-star John C. Reilly, who made him crack up on set. What McKay, Ferrell, Reilly, Cohen and co. captured was lightning in a bottle, and the result is a flick that deserves to be named amongst the great sports movies.

In hindsight, the film is even more precious due to the fact that Will Ferrell and Adam McKay have since split up as creative partners. The pair had different career goals at the time they parted ways in 2019, but McKay is opening to working with Ferrell again. So that begs the question of whether they could ever come back together to produce the Talladega sequel they talked about so many years ago.

Such a sequel would have a high bar to clear, though, since Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby works so well as a standalone film. Nearly 20 years after its theatrical release, it’s still worth a watch and, on that note, I’m going to give it another look and pay keen attention to that kiss scene.

Hollywood has seen some truly iconic comedy-based partnerships over the years, and Will Ferrell & Adam McKay certainly fit the bill. Together, they produced some of the most beloved comedies of all time, like Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Unfortunately, in 2019, it was confirmed that Ferrell and McKay had parted ways as partners, and they haven’t worked together since. McKay is now opening up about that split and sharing whether he’d ever reunite with Ferrell.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Talladega Nights (and, yes, I did just say 20th), McKay took part in an interview and laid out the finer details of the film’s production. The Oscar-winning filmmaker was eventually asked about the breakdown of his relationship with Ferrell, which led him to share some candid thoughts. McKay admitted it was a “shame” that he and his longtime collaborator weren’t able to keep their partnership intact. From there, he also went into detail about why that relationship ultimately broke down after 13 years:

Ferrell and McKay co-ran the since-dissolved Gary Sanchez Productions, which produced not only many of Ferrell’s best movies but other notable comedies as well. These comments that McKay shared with Business Insider shed a lot of light on the specifics, and they also align with sentiments shared by Ferrell in 2021. At the time, the famous SNL alum explained that he wasn’t eying the “growth and a sphere of influence” that McKay was pursuing.

As a fan of much of the work that the two Step Brothers producers did together, I was honestly shocked and saddened that they decided not to make films anymore. I have been wondering, however, whether there’s any chance that they could patch things up and work together again. Well, fans may feel somewhat optimistic about that possibility after seeing what Adam McKay had to say about a potential reunion:

What’s more is that McKay also says he holds “no hard feelings” towards Ferrell and acknowledged that they had “a great run.” It’s hard to argue against that last point, considering their filmography. I’d love nothing more than to see McKay and Ferrell working together again and, if they did join forces again, I’m sure they could come up with something fun. Maybe they could even pursue the discarded Talladega Nights sequel, which McKay even talked up in his recent interview.

Until there’s actual movement, though, fans will just have to hope and pray that Will Ferrell and Adam McKay are reunited by their mutual love of comedy. Fans can still enjoy their work in the meantime, though, as the nearly 20-year-old Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is now streamable with a Hulu subscription.

Wicked Part 1 is making a splash in America. The Jon M. Chu film broke box office records and continues to do well in the month following its release. It was also a surprising favorite of some iconic filmmakers like George Lucas, who called Chu to congratulate him on the film, and Steven Spielberg even watched the film with Chu, so the two could discuss it afterwards. Now, Adam McKay is giving his two cents on the blockbuster film, offering a new perspective on the storyline and its political message.

McKay recently took to X to share his opinions on Wicked, and the director admitted to being quite impressed by the film. While many have singled out incredible performances by Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, McKay was more interested in the storyline at the center. He pointed out that this is a rare instance of a big studio film taking a political stance, as the film is a clear allegory for facism and oppressive governments. He said:

Many of McKay’s followers who had yet to see the film were surprised to hear this. The actual plot at the center of Wicked was mostly hidden during the marketing campaign, which mostly focused on the impressive musical performances and world building. While it's fun to watch the Wicked cast dance and sing their hearts out, the movie is truly about marginalized populations (which are represented by talking animals) being othered by the government (the Wizard of Oz and Madame Morrible).

With such a left-wing plot in a big Hollywood film, McKay suggested the film could potentially be banned as America’s government becomes more right wing. He said on X:

Whether or not this is actually the case remains to be seen. For the most part, Wicked is receiving praise across the board from media outlets with all different backgrounds, and widespread backlash doesn’t seem to be a current reality. However, the allegorical nature of the film allows its message to hint towards real-world parallels without outworldly taking a political stance about the real world. McKay compared its storyline to movies like The Hunger Games and The Sound of Music, which both have political messages yet also have mass appeal.

It makes sense that Adam McKay would be drawn to the political ideology of Wicked, as McKay’s own films as of recent have been deeply political. The Big Short offered a condemnation of the big banks that pummeled America into a recession in 2008, Don’t Look Up satirized the media and government’s response to climate change, and Vice portrayed Dick Chaney as the puppet master behind the War on Terror.

While Wicked isn’t quite as brazen as McKay’s filmmaking choices, it does take a hard stance rarely seen in mainstream blockbuster filmmaking. Let’s hope McKay is wrong to predict it will be banned, and Wicked’s message continues to be heard by as many people as possible.

You can see Wicked Part 1 in theaters now, as it’s still playing nationwide. Fans of the film, like Adam McKay, can also look forward to Wicked Part 2, which is set to release on November 21st, 2025. For more information on other exciting titles heading to the big screen in the near future, make sure to consult our 2025 movie release schedule.

Before Adam McKay worked on purely silly movies, he got to work with some incredible comedic actors like Chris Farley during his time writing for Saturday Night Live. And in more recent years, he also worked with Matthew Perry, who passed away at 54 in October, on the film Don't Look Up. (Though Perry's scene was ultimately cut.) Given those two experiences, McKay knows what it's like working with actors who've had struggles with addiction. The former SNL scribe recently recalled working with Farley on the iconic sketch series during the height of his addiction while also discussing his hopes for Perry in the apocalypse movie.

After Chris Farley was let go from his post at SNL in 1995, he returned to host two years later. At the time, his health was noticeably declining due to his drug addiction. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Adam McKay was the head writer of SNL during at that point, and he spoke about his experience seeing the Tommy Boy actor return to Studio 8H to host:

This is sad to hear, and many would agree the comedian was taken from us far too early. Chris Farley was fortunate to be part of one of SNL’s best single-season casts. As one of Season 19's stars, he worked with greats like David Spade and Adam Sandler. He was in one of the funniest sketches as well, as he played wild motivational speaker Matt Foley. Farley also had a prominent movie career, with films like Tommy Boy and Airheads under his belt. Tragically though, he passed away due to a “speedball” overdose on December 18, 1997. At the time, many stars honored him, with Adam Sandler even singing “The Chris Farley Song” numerous times in his honor. 

The Anchorman director seemed hopeful that the Beverly Hills Ninja star would be able to turn his life around. And it seems he had that same optimism when it came to his work with Matthew Perry. At the time the actor was casting, he hadn't been doing much acting. The filmmaker discussed how he hoped Perry’s small part in Don’t Look Up (which is available with a Netflix subscription) would provide him with a good comeback role:

Just as he was hoping Chris Farley's SNL return would encourage him to get clean, it seemed like Adam McKay was keeping the faith that his Netflix satire would do the same for Matthew Perry. The Talladega Nights director revealed that the Friends icon was able to shoot one scene -- in which he played a Republican journalist -- before he had to leave for rehab:

Matthew Perry faced his fair share of obstacles during his lifetime and was incredibly candid about them. In his memoir, which was released just last year, he opened up about how Friends may have saved him during a medical emergency, during which his heart actually stopped. He also got candid about how former co-star Jennifer Aniston approached him about his addiction struggles and voiced her concerns. All in all, the late star truly had a number of people in his corner.

Adam McKay was very lucky to work with Chris Farley and Matthew Perry, and we were fortunate enough to have them on our screens. While the deaths of these two extraordinary talents were very tragic, their legacies will remain intact, and fans will surely continue to enjoy their work for years to come. You can stream Farley's best episodes of Saturday Night Live with a Peacock subscription, and episodes of Friends are available for Max subscription holders. 

Over the last decade, Margot Robbie has become a household name and a Hollywood powerhouse, with diverse roles that have garnered her critical acclaim and a legion of fans. From her breakout performance as Jordan Belfort's fiery lover in The Wolf of Wall Street to her recent billion-dollar block-buster turn as Barbie, the Aussie actress’s career has been nothing short of impressive. However, one scene that has remained etched in the minds of many moviegoers is her memorable bubble bath moment in Adam McKay’s 2015 financial crisis comedy-drama, The Big Short. We will dive deep into the sudsy behind-the-scenes of what made this scene so iconic and how the Suicide Squad star’s stance on nudity in film has evolved over the years.

A Brief Yet Memorable Appearance

Margot Robbie's role in The Big Short may be fleeting, and you're forgiven if it slipped your memory – there's even a hilarious viral video where Brad Pitt and the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood lead struggled to recall that they shared the screen. However, her performance leaves an indelible mark for those who do remember. 

In a film dominated by intricate financial lingo and intense drama, her character offers a refreshing and unexpected break. The iconic bubble bath scene, where the Terminal actress plays herself, was a breeze to shoot. In 2018, she told a packed audience during The Hollywood Reporter Actors Roundtable discussion:

In this memorable scene – which you can watch below – Robbie's “character” indulges in a luxurious bubble bath, sipping champagne while elucidating complex financial concepts with a blend of wit and insight. This moment serves as a refreshing departure from the Wall Street chaos proceedings and contributes to the movie being one of the best stock market movies of all time. 

Margot's Perspective And History With Nudity In Film

The I, Tonya star's journey to Tinseltown stardom has been remarkable. From bursting onto the scene as the seductive Naomi in The Wolf of Wall Street to the role of an exotic dancer in Terminal, she has fearlessly embraced diverse characters. She hasn’t shied away from the more vulnerable scenes–even when feeling awkward.

Robbie has been candid about her views on nudity and its portrayal of sexual power in the film industry. Drawing from her own experiences of appearing nude in previous films, she doesn't inherently oppose such scenes. However, she emphasizes the importance of having clear motivation and self-awareness within a role to ensure that these moments contribute meaningfully to the overall narrative. 

Unlocking The Significance Of The Bubble Bath Scene

The Birds of Prey megastar wasn't the sole high-profile performer to grace The Big Short with a fourth-wall-breaking scene. She was joined by other notable figures, including Richard Thaler, Selena Gomez, and Anthony Bourdain, who took on the task of unraveling intricate concepts in a humor-infused manner. In a 2015 IndieWire interview, Director Adam McKay described his inspiration as a fusion of the frenetic Jason Bourne style with Wall Street drama, incorporating the inventive fourth-wall-breaking approach seen in the 2002 Steve Coogan comedy 24 Hour Party People.

The Focus performer's emphasis on the scene's nudity underscores its purpose and self-awareness, elevating it into a memorable cinematic moment. The iconic bubble bath scene showcases her knack for infusing even the shortest appearances with charm, wit, and unexpected humor. As her career evolves, Margot Robbie continues to captivate audiences in front of and behind the camera, establishing herself as a formidable presence in Hollywood.

Fans of the Promising Young Woman producer should check our ranking of her movies, and our coverage of why Stephen King believes cult classic status is in store for her Babylon performance. Also, be sure to take a gander at our 2023 movie schedule, which her movie Barbie was prominently on, to plan your next trip to the cinema. 

Christopher Nolan is a man who enjoys great cinema, which tracks, because he himself has produced some of the greatest films to ever grace the silver screen. Most of his features can be a bit dark and emotionally heavy, as Memento, The Dark Knight and Dunkirk exemplify that.  Still, that doesn’t mean the acclaimed filmmaker behind some of the best movies of the 2000s doesn’t enjoy his share of light-hearted fare. As a matter of fact, he revealed that a beloved comedy is one of his favorite “remote drop” movies. And you may not believe this, the flick that he can never turn off is a classic entry from Will Ferrell’s filmography.

The director was on The Rich Eisen Show (where he tapped in by phone), when the titular host asked him about the movies he can’t help but stop and watch whenever he’s channel surfing. Christopher Nolan may not have been aware of the phrase “remote drop” before Eisen muttered it, but he seemed to be totally game for the idea. As you’d imagine, he’s an admirer of vintage films, and name-dropped the great Stanley Kubrick while responding. But fans may be more shocked by the fact that he’s an admirer of a Will Ferrell-headed sports flick: 

That’s right, folks. The Interstellar director is a fan of 2006’s Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. That detail alone is cool enough, but the icing on the cake is that he even quoted the film during his appearance on the talk show. When Rich Eisen double-checked him on his fandom, the British director simply said, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” That line – which was first uttered by the father of the comedy’s titular character – has become incredibly popular amongst fans, and I never thought I’d hear the Tenet helmer say it. But I’m so glad to be surprised. 

Talladega Nights marked the second big-screen collaboration between Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, who wrote the screenplay together. The film centers on successful and arrogant race car driver Ricky Bobby, whose career is turned upside down after a skilled Formula 1 driver hits NASCAR and upstages him. The film features a strong ensemble that sees Ferrell joined by John C. Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen, Leslie Bibb, the late Michael Clarke Duncan, Jane Lynch, Gary Cole and Amy Adams, who reteamed with McKay for Vice years later. The movie proved to be a box-office success and earned positive reviews from critics at the time. Check out classic, chuckle-worthy trailer below:

For some time, fans were hoping for a follow-up movie that featured the further adventures of Ricky Bobby. Plans never materialized, but there was, at the very least, an idea for the plot. A few years ago, CinemaBlend caught up with McKay, who revealed that the story could’ve seen Bobby make his way to Europe to become a Formula 1 driver. The director acknowledged that there were plenty of potential ideas but at the time, said he planned to “stick with original [movies]” for a while. 

Christopher Nolan may actually agree with that last sentiment. Aside from the Dark Knight trilogy, he’s mostly aimed to tell self-contained, one-off stories. In doing so, he’s crafted some jaw-dropping films, and his most recent is Oppenheimer, which received strong reviews and is making serious money at the box office. It’s probably safe to assume that Nolan doesn’t have any plans to do a screwball comedy of his own, based on his body of work. That’s totally fine with me, as I’m more than content with the simple fact that he enjoys a quality comedy like Talladega Nights. Here’s hoping that he, at some point, releases a ranking of his favorite laugh-inducing flicks. 

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is available to rent if you have a Prime Video subscription handy. You can also see Oppenheimer in theaters now alongside other titles on the schedule of 2023 new movie releases. 

Writer/director Adam McKay’s instincts for political satire have always been killer. Thanks to movies like The Big Short, Vice and Don’t Look Up, laughs are often paired with sharp barbs about actual social issues that have plagued the world at large. While it’s not something we should expect to see on the 2023 new movie releases schedule, McKay’s latest movie is re-teaming him with Amy Adams, as well as bringing Robert Pattinson and more into a story that is absolutely a killer. 

Deadline has reported that the Academy Award winner has his next film planned, and it’s titled Average Height, Average Build. The premise so far is simple, but absolutely in Adam McKay’s wheelhouse. In this movie, Robert Pattinson will be playing a serial killer who has made friends with a lobbyist, played by Amy Adams. His purpose: to get the laws surrounding murder changed so he can do his job a lot easier. 

If you thought that was amazing, just wait until you see who else is on deck, with this project aiming to get into production either in late 2023/early 2024. Also slated for the cast of Average Height, Average Build are fellow superstars Robert Downey Jr., Forest Whitaker, and Danielle Deadwyler. 

While Whitaker and Deadwyler’s roles aren’t specified just yet, Downey is set to play a retired detective who’s obsessed with catching Robert Pattinson’s serial murderer. Much like the forces assembled for his Don’t Look Up cast, Adam McKay has assembled a lineup of prime talent that can deliver his vision with cutthroat precision. 

If this isn’t an example of the right concept in the right hands with the right cast, I don’t know what is. Reuniting McKay with his Vice lead Amy Adams is already the first step into potential greatness. But with Pattinson and Downey set to play adversaries in the realm of law and order, Average Height, Average Build has crossed into a sort of rarified air of potential. 

Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Pattinson have been known to go wild from time to time in their careers. Specifically, the two performances that come to mind in such an ecosystem are Good Time, which is one of Robert Pattinson's best movies, as well as Downey's semi-controversial Tropic Thunder gig. A Downey/Pattinson showdown of crazy could be something beautiful, especially when presented against such a politically charged backdrop. 

If that promise is realized, and with the striking roster that's been put together to do so, this could be another awards darling for McKay to put on his resume. Average Height, Average Build is currently shopping around for a studio home, after which it’ll presumably get into production with the cast specified above. Presumably we might be able to see this movie debut at some point in 2024 if the intended plan holds up. 

If you still haven’t seen Adam McKay’s incendiary satire Don’t Look Up, those with a Netflix subscription don’t have to wait to catch up. Meanwhile, you can next see Robert Pattinson in Mickey 17, which has wrapped production for its March 9, 2024 release date. 

The latest project from Anchorman and Don't Look Up filmmaker Adam McKay has arrived with the HBO series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty. Based on Jeff Pearlman's book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s, Winning Time tells the story of the NBA team’s domination of sports and pop culture throughout the '80s. Critics got to see eight of the first season's ten episodes before their release, and while we know Lakers legend Magic Johnson won’t be checking this one out, hopefully these reviews can help you decide if this groovy series is one you want to dive into.

Leading the cast is John C. Reilly as legendary team owner Jerry Buss, and he’s accompanied by a long list of talented players, including Quincy Isaiah as Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Jason Clarke as former Lakers star and general manager Jerry West, Adrien Brody as coach Pat Riley, Solomon Hughes as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and many more. With so much talent both behind and in front of the camera, let’s see how Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty fared with critics.

Jack Hamilton of Slate says that as a fan of Adam McKay’s and basketball, he thinks Winning Time is just okay, and that it feels like a missed opportunity, especially with good performances by a handful of the actors, including Quincy Isaiah as Magic Johnson. Hamilton says there isn’t much basketball to be witnessed, and the HBO series is flashy without the substance to back it up:

Daniel D’Addario of Variety echoes the above sentiment, saying Winning Time is trying to convince viewers it’s fun, but forgets its fundamentals. He says even the Showtime Lakers wouldn’t have held fans’ attention if they didn’t have the talent to back up everything else. D’Addario also compliments Quincy Isaiah on his portrayal of No. 32, saying:

More positive was Dave Nemetz of TVLine, who calls the series a “wild, energetic slam dunk,” while giving it a grade of B+. Adam McKay and company probably bit off more than they can chew by featuring too many characters, this critic says, but the show’s dynamic style and the intriguing personalities make up for its misgivings.

Bill Goodykoontz of USA TODAY rates Winning Time 3.5 stars out of 4, saying that just like the team it’s based on, the HBO show is flashy, fast-paced, and fun to watch, and viewers don’t have to be up on basketball knowledge to enjoy it.

Josh Sorokach of Decider also points out that viewers don’t have to be basketball fans to enjoy Winning Time’s “sharp writing and dazzling performances,” but the series should be appointment viewing for NBA fans.

The critics seem to agree that newcomer Quincy Isaiah was the right choice to portray Lakers legend Magic Johnson, but it’s somewhat of a mixed bag as to how well the rest of the series comes together. Anybody looking to see Last Dance-levels of court-centered drama may be disappointed, but those hoping to see sports debauchery that doesn't happen much these days may be in for a treat.

If you want to give it a shot, Winning Time premieres on Sunday, March 6, at 9 p.m. ET on HBO. Be sure to check out our 2022 TV Schedule to see when new and returning shows are premiering.

With Oscar nominations right around the corner, CinemaBlend is taking a look at which films and performances are likely to be in contention for nominations. Let’s look at the Best Director race. 

Locked In

The director’s branch has dealt some brutal snubs in the past, but if there’s one candidate who is immune, it’s Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog. Her thoughtful, meticulous direction has earned her more critics awards than any director this season by far.

Denis Villeneuve is likely to find himself in the director race again with Dune. It’s perhaps the most stunning looking and sounding big budget film of the year, and one that will be supported with nominations in just about every tech category.

Paul Thomas Anderson solidified himself in this category after a DGA nomination for Licorice Pizza. The Academy was the only major awards body to nominate him for Phantom Thread, so it’s hard to imagine he’ll miss for his latest, which will easily show up in Best Picture and Original Screenplay as well.

Likely Bets

This branch of the Academy is no stranger to nominating directors from international films, even ones that don’t make the Best Picture lineup like Cold War and Another Round. Ryusuke Hamaguchi has a great shot at being that sort of nominee with Drive My Car. The film is a frontrunner in International Feature, and is one of the most acclaimed of the year. BAFTA nominations in Screenplay and Directing add a lot of confidence to this pick.

Nearly every year, this category produces a shocking snub or two. Should Hamaguchi make it in, it’ll likely be Steven Spielberg or Kenneth Branagh who misses. Films with strong visual craftsmanship excel here, so it’s baffling to imagine Spielberg missing for West Side Story. However, Spielberg isn’t always nominated alongside his films, and a weak performance from BAFTA makes me skeptical of his nomination. I think West Side Story is a weaker contender overall than Belfast, so shockingly, I am predicting Spielberg misses for Branagh and Hamaguchi. 

Dark Horses

Adam McKay seems likely on paper to be nominated for Don’t Look Up, but he hasn’t received support with precursors like DGA and Critics Choice the way he did for his previous two awards contenders. Guillermo del Toro and Joel Coen have certainly made some of the most eye-popping films of the year with Nightmare Alley and The Tragedy of Macbeth, respectively. However, their films are weaker contenders overall. 

Perhaps there’s another international contender we should consider like Julia Ducournau for Titane or Joachim Trier for The Worst Person in the World, but Hamaguchi is more likely to be that candidate.

You can check out our other category breakdowns for Lead Actor, Lead Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay and Adapted Screenplay.

Major spoilers for Don’t Look Up lie ahead.

2021 saw the release of a number of interesting films, but few were arguably as intriguing and polarizing as Don’t Look Up. Adam McKay’s apocalyptic satire raised a lot of eyebrows when it was released back in December, and many are still talking about it. One point of contention among viewers is the film’s ending, which borders on both silly and sentimental. But as it turns out, there was another moment cut from the final few minutes that would’ve leaned heavily into the latter category. But apparently, it was too “gut-wrenching” to include.

Don’t Look Up centers primarily on two astronomers (Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio) who seek to warn the people of Earth of a major comet that’s set to destroy the planet. By the end of the movie, the cosmic rock does indeed hit, though the aforementioned characters spend their final moments at a dinner table surrounded by their loved ones. Meanwhile, other characters accept (or escape) their fates in more humorous ways. 

Hank Corwin, the film’s editor, sought to execute Adam McKay’s vision in a detailed way. This apparently included trimming a scene that depicted a suicide during the movie’s final montage. However, he had to completely cut a religion-based scene that was even too much for McKay to handle. And to be quite honest, I think there may be others who might’ve felt the same: 

Some may find it hard to believe that the Big Short director, known for his sharp wit and occasionally cynical brand of storytelling, couldn’t bear to keep that sequence in. But of course, like all of us, he is human, and such a shot would draw plenty of emotions from viewers. Admittedly, it is a beautiful-sounding scene, though and one that could’ve added another layer of emotional resonance during the ending. Hank Corwin, however, told Insider that he has no regrets in regard to the creative decision his director made: 

The reactions to said story and script have been interesting, to say the least. In the early reviews for Don’t Look Up, many critics derided the film for not delivering on big laughs or sharper social commentary. Day After Tomorrow director Roland Emmerich also thought it lacked bite. However, many pundits and general viewers seemed to enjoy the film, with many taking to the web to defend it. High-profile creatives like Seth MacFarlane even praised it. The film also received support from its stars, including Leonardo DiCaprio who defended the controversial ending. Meanwhile, Ron Perlman dropped a few F-bombs while chastising those who panned the flick. 

Regardless of how you feel about Adam McKay’s latest, I think we all can agree that the movie is generating some interesting discussions amongst viewers. Based on the way things are going, it would appear that the discourse could continue for a little while. It’ll be interesting to see how viewers feel about the ending, and the movie as a whole, a decade from now. 

If you’re hoping to get in on the Don’t Look Up discussion as well, you can grab a Netflix subscription and stream it!

A lot has been said about Don’t Look Up since it hit Netflix late last year. While some enjoyed it, others felt the film's execution wasn't worthy of its A-list cast. Even though the movie itself has been divisive, its shocking ending sequence still left many of us who watched it with a lot of feelings (and an existential crisis or two). One of the film’s stars, Leonardo DiCaprio, knows its wild final moments are unforgettable – and he has shared why he thinks the movie had to end that way. 

Don’t Look Up follows two astronomers, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) on their frantic mission to notify the world that a massive asteroid is heading straight for Earth. While the movie is decisively a darkly comedic satire, the ending is more dark than it is funny. The asteroid hits its target, triggering earthquakes, tsunamis, fireballs raining from the sky, and, obviously, mass extinction. 

Many apocalypse-themed films, especially those starring A-listers like the ones in this cast, tend to end with a heroic eleventh hour rescue. The fact that this feature did not has been somewhat controversial. But the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood star told The Today Show’s Savannah Guthrie that he stands by the ending: 

Don’t Look Up has seen a less-than-favorable reception from critics, many of whom found writer-director Adam McKay’s scathing satirical rebuke of modern media to be too on the nose. However, CinemaBlend’s own Sean O’Connell noted in his review that the film’s final moments, which include a surprisingly sentimental scene featuring Leonardo DiCaprio’s character and his friends and family, was indeed impactful. Witnessing the end of the world, even in fictional form, is pretty hard to forget. 

Given the fact that the ending resonated even with those who didn’t enjoy the movie overall, the actor has grounds to defend it. Beyond the narrative rationale, he also has a personal reason for believing so strongly in the message his latest feature sends. 

Adam McKay has said it is an allegory for the world’s sluggish response to climate change, an aspect that's received praise from people like Seth MacFarlane. Also, Leonardo DiCaprio has used his platform as a global star to raise awareness about the climate crisis for years. But while he has contributed to several documentaries, this is the first fictional film he’s made that deals directly with the topic. And given his passion for the topic and his efforts to convince the world to take climate change seriously, it probably won’t be his last. 

Just last month, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson broke out the tequila to celebrate an incredible record for his Netflix film Red Notice when it became the most watched movie in Netflix history. The action flick also starring Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot beat out a record set by Bird Box back in 2018. Unfortunately for Red Notice, it looks like it’s going to be dethroned soon now that another new release is coming for its numbers. 

Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up is not only the #1 Netflix movie of the week, the climate change comedy has now racked up the most viewing hours for a movie on the streaming service in its history. According to Deadline, between December 27 and January 2, Don’t Look Up collected 152.29 million viewing hours around the world. In one week, the movie is already coming for Red Notice’s big record. 

This is insane, because when Red Notice received its record as the most watched movie in Netflix history, it had been available for close to a month. Don’t Look Up is already closing in on taking home the all-time record in a much shorter time. It goes to show that a lot of people were excited to see Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Timothée Chalamet and Ariana Grande in the same movie. 

Adam McKay, who famously directed Step Brothers, The Big Short and Vice ahead of his latest film, shared his reaction to the numbers coming in. He said this on Twitter: 

Don’t Look Up left critics mixed, with CinemaBlend’s own Sean O’Connell leaning toward disinterest in the film and calling it a “disaster” in his review. However, audiences overall dug the satire, applauding the movie tackling the subject of climate change with laughs and compassion. The movie follows two low-level astronomers (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence) who go on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet they believe will destroy planet Earth. 

Netflix doesn’t typically share its viewing numbers, creating a bit of a blindspot in streaming in comparison to box office results. Still, seeing Don’t Look Up climb up top and approach Red Notice’s record goes to show a lot of people were streaming movies over the holiday season from Christmas to New Years, and looking for a new release to enjoy. 

Additionally, it goes to show that star power still has a hold on the movie world. The top two Netflix movies as 2022 goes forward stands to star some of the most well-known talents in Hollywood. Another interesting element of all this is Don’t Look Up isn’t an action flick or franchise. It’s simply a comedy about a very real topic. So don't expect this movie to stop being talked about anytime soon.

It’s been nearly two full decades since Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy captured pop culture. The legacy has continued to live on through quotes and references. The first film’s cult status led to the sequel Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues being released years later. Anchorman 2 director Adam McKay watched the sequel come together – both in good and bad moments. The filmmaker recently recalled an Anchorman 2 stunt putting leading star Will Ferrell in a scary situation.

Anchorman 2 followed in the footsteps of his predecessor with its hijinks and satire. Of course, with any Will Ferrell film, physical stunts were part of the humor. Adam McKay oversaw the funny sequel, but everything didn’t go as smoothly as he wanted. Thinking about the recent accident on Rust jogged McKay’s memory about a scary incident while making the sequel. The Don’t Look Up director gave The Hollywood Reporter a story about how an Anchorman 2 stunt going wrong informed his approach to on-set safety protocols:

The Big Short director’s recount made the low point in Ron Burgundy’s life feel more serious than in the film. As any devoted fan will recall, Burgundy attempted suicide after losing his job at Sea World. While the result was hilarious, knowing how close Will Ferrell was to death gave the scene a unique perspective. His revelation proved set accidents happen more often than fans are made aware. As Adam McKay said, Ferrell and no one else were hurt seriously, and the filmmaker was able to come together with the cast and crew and discuss better safety measures afterward.

But that wasn't the first time an incident went down while capturing the essence of Ron Burgundy. Adam McKay recalled the iconic bear scene in Anchorman almost going left as the animal hinted at charging toward Will Ferrell and Christina Applegate. So Ferrell had a close call with death twice, but at least McKay learned from both incidents for future projects.

Unfortunately, since the last Anchorman film dropped, McKay and Ferrell have gone their separate ways. Hopefully, the Vice director and the Eurovision Song Contest star will be able to set aside their differences and give the audience more Ron Burgundy in the future. To catch those now-dangerous scenes, you can watch Anchorman and Anchorman 2 on Prime Video.

2021 was probably the worst year in the Golden Globes’ 77 year history. They were rightfully called out earlier this year for a total lack of Black members, as well as other unethical practices, resulting in NBC refusing to air their ceremony for 2022. 

The HFPA is currently in the process of making reforms to their organization, and has recruited 21 new members this year (their total prior was about 86). It was uncertain if the HFPA would even announce nominees and winners for the films of 2021, but on October 15th they confirmed they would hold a ceremony in some capacity, with nominations to be announced December 13th at 6 A.M. PST. 

A consequence of the chaos this year for prognosticators is that we don’t actually have confirmation on what films will be campaigned in comedy or musical, making predicting films like CODA much more difficult. So in my predictions below I’m also predicting category placements.

Motion Picture Drama

If Belfast, Dune, King Richard, and The Power of the Dog don’t all show up here, I’d be shocked. In my mind that leaves open one slot for a wildcard to sneak in. Part of the challenge predicting this year is that we don’t know which films will be slotted in comedy or drama. If CODA is in drama, I think it has a shot here. Despite underwhelming reviews, we shouldn’t underestimate Nightmare Alley or Being the Ricardos either. Spencer and The Tragedy of Macbeth could certainly contend, as could either of Ridley Scott’s films: House of Gucci and The Last Duel. Right now I’m hesitantly predicting CODA, but I expect to be swapping out this slot up until nomination morning.

Drama Actor

Will Smith (King Richard), Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog), and Denzel Washington (The Tragedy of Macbeth) are near-locks in this category. The remaining two slots are tricky, as much of the competition they’ll face at the Oscars is on the comedy/musical side. Joaquin Phoenix has a shot for his understated performance in C’mon C’mon (assuming that’s in drama), and though it's a long shot, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Nicolas Cage sneak in for Pig. For now, I’m predicting Javier Bardem for his portrayal of Desi Arnaz in Being the Ricardos, and Bradley Cooper for Nightmare Alley.

Drama Actress

Don’t bet against these four: Kristen Stewart (Spencer), Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye), Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos) and Lady Gaga (House of Gucci). As for that final slot, Penélope Cruz and Olivia Colman are certainly in the conversation for their roles in Parallel Mothers and The Lost Daughter respectively, but those films could be a little under the radar for the Globes. They love actors who play musical icons (see Andra Day’s shocking win last year), so I’m predicting they’ll nominate Jennifer Hudson for her portrayal of Aretha Franklin in Respect. 

Motion Picture Comedy / Musical

This was the best year for musicals in recent memory, and unlike some years, the Globes have plenty of riches to pick from in this category. West Side Story, Tick, tick… Boom!, Cyrano, and In the Heights all have a great shot to make it into this lineup. But they’ll be competing with comedies Licorice Pizza and Don’t Look Up. I expect the lineup will be pulled from these six films. In the Heights and Cyrano are probably the most vulnerable of the musicals. Though recency bias would favor Cyrano, I’m predicting it to miss, as it’s the least acclaimed the bunch. Or maybe both will show up at the expense of Don’t Look Up, whose divisive reactions could work against it.

Comedy / Musical Actor

There are four actors in this lineup that no one should be betting against: Andrew Garfield (Tick, tick… Boom!), Peter Dinklage (Cyrano), Leonardo DiCaprio (Don’t Look Up), and Anthony Ramos (In the Heights). The final slot is keeping me up at night. I would love for them to go with Simon Rex for Red Rocket, but that’s probably wishful thinking. I could honestly see them going for Ansel Elgort in West Side Story, but in a year where the organization is on thin ice, I think they’ll know better than to bring that sort of controversy their way. I’m perhaps optimistically going with Cooper Hoffman for Licorice Pizza. Although he is young and hasn’t been as seriously in the awards conversation as his co-star Alana Haim, it certainly helps that he is part of a bigger overall contender. 

Comedy / Musical Actress

The two no-brainers here are Alana Haim for Licorice Pizza and Rachel Zegler for West Side Story. I also expect Emma Stone may pretty easily get a nomination for Cruella, considering that things start to get a little thin beyond here. If CODA is in comedy, Emilia Jones will be nominated. And if Haley Bennett is lead for Cyrano, I’d say the same. If not, the most realistic options in my mind are Melissa Berrera (In the Heights), Jennifer Lawrence (Don’t Look Up), and Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World). I am far too cynical to pick the latter, but I would jump for joy if it happened. I’m settling for Berrera and Lawrence for now.

Supporting Actor

I’m expecting both Ciaran Hinds and Jamie Dornan will make it in for Belfast and Belfast respectively. Jared Leto has a shot here for House of Gucci, especially considering he was surprise nominated for The Little Things last year. For the remaining two slots there are a lot of options. Jon Bernthal has a great shot at coat-tailing off of King Richard. And I’d love to see Robin de Jesus in for Tick, tick… Boom!, a film I expect they’ll adore. I’m predicting those two for now. Kodi Smit-McPhee has been garnering lots of critics awards, but I’m skeptical he’ll perform as well with certain major precursors. Troy Kotsur has been gaining steam for CODA, but like Yuh-Jung Youn or Paul Raci last year, he may be too unknown for the HFPA. I’m also watching out for Mike Faist (West Side Story), Bradley Cooper (Licorice Pizza), and Ben Affleck (The Tender Bar). Unfortunately I don’t have much hope for Jason Isaacs (Mass).

Supporting Actress

Four performances widely expected to be nominated here are Ariana Debose (West Side Story), Caitriona Balfe (Belfast), Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard), and Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog). Fighting for that last slot we have Cate Blanchett (Nightmare Alley), Meryl Streep (Don’t Look Up), Ruth Negga (Passing), and Ann Dowd (Mass). I am also considering Rita Moreno for West Side Story. Though this is somewhat of a long shot, it could be a great moment for the Globes to pick a veteran all-star for what will likely be their favorite musical there. But considering how CODA seems like it’s starting to take off, I’m going with Marlee Matlin.

Director

The contenders who seem most likely here are Steven Spielberg (West Side Story), Kenneth Branagh (Belfast), Denis Villeneuve (Dune), and Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog). Many are predicting Paul Thomas Anderson for Licorice Pizza. I am skeptical. The director has never been nominated for a Golden Globe before. We can’t count out Adam McKay (Don’t Look Up), who was nominated for Vice and The Big Short. Nor should we underestimate Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard) or Guillermo del Toro (Nightmare Alley). However, I’m going with Lin Manuel Miranda for Tick, tick… Boom! Some would call this a long-shot, but I think the film is stronger than many are assuming and this feels like just the kind of celebrity actor-director nomination they’re notorious for embracing.

Screenplay

To make up for the director snub, I’m predicting Paul Thomas Anderson will land his first Golden Globe nomination in screenplay for Licorice Pizza. I also feel confident writer-directors Jane Campion and Kenneth Branagh will be nominated for their widely celebrated films. Despite Being the Ricardos’ lackluster reviews I cannot in good conscience underestimate 7-time nominee, 3-time winner Aaron Sorkin in this category. I’ve got my eye on Don’t Look Up here, as well as King Richard. But I feel the love for West Side Story will be so strong that Tony Kushner will take a nomination.

With the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award nominations both taking place Monday the 13th, there will surely be a lot to discuss in terms of how it shapes the Oscar race. Check back here on Cinemablend for more awards analysis in the coming weeks.

Satire might not be impossible in a post-Trump existence, but Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up at the very least proves it’s going to be very difficult for storytellers to out-wacky the actual events we have lived through over the past couple of years, or spoof the absurd headlines that escaped the Hollywood studios and played out on our nightly news broadcasts. Politicians too concerned with the upcoming midterm elections to be bothered by news of an impending global crisis? Been there. A vapid citizenry more invested in the latest hot celebrity couple than they are in legitimate and disturbing warnings delivered by scientific experts? Done that. 

Taking its cues from the European folk tale Chicken Little, Adam McKay sends two Midwestern astronomers (Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence) to Washington D.C. to warn the President of the United States (Meryl Streep) that a planet-killing asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. In pitting these analysts against an indifferent political administration and distracted media landscape, Adam McKay has recruited a constellation filled with Hollywood stars, but handed them a script containing precious few original insights, and even fewer laughs.

Don’t Look Up isn’t comedic. It’s realistic. 

Maybe that was Adam McKay’s intent? While he absolutely has sharp, absurdist comedies such as Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Step-Brothers on his resume, McKay has allowed his interests in politics and current events drive his most recent pictures. Films like Vice and The Big Short inform while they terrify, and when we’re laughing, it’s usually out of shock that factual events like a recession can be so ludicrous. McKay’s recent scripts excel when they figure out how to make the extreme seem palatable, cleverly asking Margot Robbie to explain risky sub-prime mortgages from a bubble bath, or getting the late Anthony Bourdain to clear up junk bonds with a seafood analogy.  

Don’t Look Up lacks any such sugar to help its medicine go down, so the entire sit is a bitter, nasty pill. From the moment the asteroid is discovered by Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), the movie falls into a cynical and steady march towards oblivion. Almost every character introduced on screen is despicable, and they personify the easiest cliches. McKay takes aim at a million targets, most of them glaringly obvious, and the points raised by the increased stream of incompetence aren’t fresh and surprising – mainly because it feels like we’ve recently just lived through a Don’t Look Up Scenario of our own.  

The Asteroid in Don’t Look Up is basically the pandemic. It’s too soon for that to be funny. 

Don’t Look Up could have been McKay’s version of Michael Bay’s Armageddon, meaning it’d have half a brain. McKay’s a noted advocate for climate change (alongside his leading man DiCaprio), and the two should boast more than enough collective knowledge about what is being done – or not being done – about the looming, lasting effects of global warming to aim a precise laser at the critics of science. But the asteroid in Don’t Look Up instead plays like a surrogate for COVID 19, and DiCaprio gets shaped into a stand-in for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the medical mouthpiece we turned to regularly for televised guidance from the White House press room in 2020 (which too many of us went on to ignore).    

The situations that follow the announcement of the impending asteroid impact aren’t exaggerated because we saw them play out in real time, and the wounds inflicted by our government’s handling of the pandemic are too fresh to provide any real amusement. It should be ghastly to see politicians in a film gamble with our lives for the betterment of their party’s gain, or news anchors sexualizing scientists so as if to strip them of any credibility. Even when Mark Rylance enters the scene as a soulless amalgamation of Jeffrey Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, the impersonation and his actions barely cut deeper than an inch beneath the surface. 

When Don’t Look Up finally finds genuine emotion, it's just in time for the movie to end.

What’s frustrating is that once Adam McKay has pushed every expected button pertaining to a blatant spoof of our ongoing resistance to facts and science, Don’t Look Up finally approaches something that the first two-thirds of the movie lacks and desperately needs: genuine human emotion. Fed up with the idiocy that’s suffocating all reason, Kate finds solace in a skate punk (a scene stealing Timothee Chalamet) who’s quietly a devout Catholic. And in the closing moments, Randall finds comfort in the company of his immediate family around a dinner table for a memorably sentimental scene. Don’t Look Up needed a lot more of that, because the rest of it is just a downer. 

One of the final movies set to premiere before 2021 concludes is Netflix’s Don’t Look Up, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence in their first film appearances since Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Dark Phoenix, respectively. The black comedy from Anchorman’s Adam McKay sees the actors playing low-level astronomers trying to warn the general public about a comet on a collision course with Earth. There’s a lot of anticipation surrounding Don’t Look Up, and now reviews for the movie have arrived.

So what do critics think about Don’t Look Up? To kick things off, Germain Lussier from Gizmodo was pleased with the Netflix movie, calling it “funny without being slapstick, dramatic without being melodramatic, and brutally honest about the state of the world.” But in Lussier’s mind, what truly made Don’t Look Up great was its “universal malleability” with its exploration of subject matter like climate change deniers and criticism of the media.

Next, ScreenRant’s Mae Abdulbaki was also impressed with Don’t Look Up, commending both the story itself and the cast’s performances, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence’s costars including Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet and Ariana Grande, to name a few. Abdulbaki said that if The Big Short and Vice weren’t proof enough, Don’t Look Up sees Adam McKay “settling into the world of satire with great ease.”

Chris Evangelista from Slashfilm was much more critical towards Don’t Look Up, giving it a 4 out of 10 score and describing the Adam McKay-helmed movie as being “a smug, shrill, obvious satire that has nothing to say other than ‘Humanity is screwed.’” Evangelista thought the the story ideas in the movie aren’t bad, but they could have been done more justice with a different satirist.

Finally, Empire’s Ian Freer stamped Don’t Look Up with 4 out of 5 stars. Freer felt Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence’s characters were “likable, if not especially complex” characters to follow along with in this insane story, and while he thought the movie might have had “too much going on, and not all of it works,” Adam McKay ultimately stuck the landing “beautifully.”

These are just some of the Don’t Look Up reviews that have been published, so you’re welcome to look around elsewhere on the interwebs to learn what other critics thought about the movie. We’ll have to wait and see how this movie ends up comparing to McKay’s prior, tonally-similar two movies, the aforementioned The Big Short and Vice, but either way, the filmmaker will be sticking around the streaming realm. It was announced today that Bad Blood, his movie with Jennifer Lawrence about Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, will be housed at Apple.

Don’t Look Up’s limited theatrical release begins this Friday, December 10, followed by its Netflix premiere on December 24. Our December 2021 Netflix guide is available for those curious what else the platform is delivering in this year’s final weeks.

Aside from Jennifer Lawrence briefly showing up in the last X-Men movie as Mystique, it’s been over three years since she's led her own movie. Well, the Hunger Games actress is finally returning for Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up this Christmas, which is set to premiere on Netflix. Although her latest movie marks a long time away from the screen for the 31-year-old, she already has another exciting movie coming up that is moving right through the development process behind the scenes. 

Jennifer Lawrence is set to make her second film with Anchorman and The Big Short filmmaker Adam McKay following Don’t Look Up, and it will be called Bad Blood. The movie will see Lawrence playing Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, who has made headlines for becoming the youngest and wealthiest self-made female billionaire in America before multiple investigations made claims of fraudulent activities in regards to her blood-testing startup’s procedures. 

Jennifer Lawrence and Adam McKay have been attached to making Bad Blood since 2016, but the movie has finally taken a step forward with Apple Original Films now on board to finance and distribute the movie, per Deadline. Considering the news comes just after Don’t Look Up recently screened, it’s possible the positive buzz for the satire boosted interest in finally getting Bad Blood off the ground. 

The movie will be co-produced by Legendary Pictures and be an adaptation of the 2018 book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, John Carreyrou. Jennifer Lawrence and Will Ferrell are also among the people producing Bad Blood. 

Elizabeth Holmes is currently embroiled in a criminal-fraud trial about her company Theranos, which she founded in the Silicon Valley in 2003 and rose to become a prominent billionaire at the age of 30. However, WSJ journalist John Carreyrou received a tip from a medical expert about her business and began a months-long investigation into Holmes and Theranos. 

Elizabeth Holmes could face up to 20 years in prison over charges of defrauding investors and patients due to being deceitful about Theranos' core blood-testing technology, per The Guardian. Jennifer Lawrence has played a real person before in 2015’s Joy, where she portrayed Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano. 

Aside from Bad Blood, Jennifer Lawrence recently wrapped work on a mysterious A24 movie called Red, White And Water. Adam McKay is additionally working on an HBO series about the Los Angeles Lakers. While we wait for Bad Blood, their first collaboration, Don’t Look Up, is quickly becoming one of the most anticipated movies of the Christmas season. 

Don’t Look Up stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence as low-level astronomers who discover that a massive asteroid is headed toward Earth to kill us all. The movie features an all-star cast including Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Cate Blanchett, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi and Chris Evans. It hits Netflix on December 25. 

For years, Adam McKay and Will Ferrell, who first worked together on Saturday Night Live, delivered popular comedy movies to the masses, including Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, alongside other accomplishments. like launching the Funny or Die website. Then in 2019, McKay and Ferrell went their separate ways. Last month, Ferrell shared why the two aren’t working together anymore, and now McKay has given his side of the story, which paints a significantly more dramatic picture than what the Ron Burgundy actor had shared and involves the filmmaker having “fucked up.”

For those who missed Will Ferrell’s explanation in late October, he attributed his creative breakup with Adam McKay to simply having differing priorities. Ferrell said he didn’t have the “bandwidth” for the kind of producing endeavors McKay was interested in, but it sounded like the two had broken up on amicable terms. However, during an extensive interview with Vanity Fair, McKay revealed that it’s actually quite the opposite, and that he and Ferrell are no longer speaking to due an incident involving McKay’s upcoming limited series about the 1980s Los Angeles Lakers team.

Why Adam McKay And Will Ferrell No Longer Work Together

Following the release of his Academy Award-nominated movie The Big Short, Adam McKay began considering dissolving his creative partnership with Will Ferrell so that he could tackle more projects he was interested in. The last time these two worked together was when McKay came aboard to try to “help on the edit” of Ferrell and John C. Reilly’s Holmes & Watson (a Gary Sanchez production), but by that point the 2019 movie “was just in rough shape.”

In 2015, Adam McKay fired his manager, Jimmy Miller, who also managed Will Ferrell, and in 2019, McKay departed Funny or Die after the website took a sponsorship from Shell Oil. That said, despite having talked with Ferrell on at least three occasions about breaking up Gary Sanchez Productions, McKay was hesitant to do so, as he was worried doing that would hurt Ferrell’s feelings. Nevertheless, supposedly tensions started building within the company between McKay’s people and Ferrell’s people, and then it all collapsed during the development of the aforementioned HBO limited series based on the book Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s.

Although Adam McKay originally casted Will Ferrell to play Jerry Buss, who owned the Los Angeles Lakers in the ’80s, the actor was never his first choice for the role. As McKay explained:

Instead, Adam McKay wanted John C. Reilly to play Jerry Buss, but he wanted to be respectful to Will Ferrell and not hurt his feelings. In the end though, McKay recast Reilly in the role and neglected to tell Ferrell ahead of time, and the actor was “infuriated.”

Where Adam McKay And Will Ferrell Stand Now

According to Adam McKay, the last time he and Will Ferrell spoke was in a phone call to confirm that they were breaking up Gary Sanchez Productions, and the conversation ended with Ferrell essentially telling him to “have a good life,” to which McKay thought, “Fuck, Ferrell’s never going to talk to me again.” McKay has since tried to reconnect with Ferrell over email, but he not received responses. After he acknowledged that he “fucked up” the way he handled replacing Ferrell on the HBO series, McKay said the following:

So as things stand now, Adam McKay and Will Ferrell are no longer on speaking terms, despite the former’s attempts to patch things up. While it would be nice if these two could repair their relationship someday, like Bill Murray and Harold Ramis did before the latter’s passing, clearly the groundwork isn’t laid for that to happen anytime soon. As far as McKay’s show about the ‘80s Los Angeles Lakers, filming began in April and concluded at the end of October, but a premiere date hasn’t been set yet.

Adam McKay’s next movie, Don’t Look Up, premieres on Netflix December 24, while Will Ferrell recently finished shooting the Apple TV+ adaptation of A Christmas Carol called Spirited with Ryan Reynolds. Look through our 2022 release schedule to learn what movies are coming out next year.

The end of the world can be a filmmaker’s dream canvas, as stories of intense hope or biting satire can come to life with great clarity. Co-writer/director Adam McKay is taking full advantage of that latter stage, as his latest film Don’t Look Up is a dark comedy with planetary stakes. It only seems fitting that a movie about a threat from the stars would include an A+ cast, including Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ariana Grande, Tyler Perry, and Timothée Chalamet.

Teasing a film “based on real events that haven’t happened yet,” Netflix released its second trailer for this all-star apocalypse. Possessing just as much biting wit as the previous look, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence still act as the logical center to a cast of performers really hyping up the craziness of this world. What’s more, we get a better look at how this universe operates, and it’s as crazy as you’d expect from an Adam McKay picture. 

Just how weird is this universe of lunacy? Consider this: when Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) discover this “planet killer” of a comet, it gives the authorities six months to try and do something. In any other disaster movie, like Deep Impact or even the Gerard Butler drama Greenland, this would be the time for the government to put together a plan and look solemnly out the Oval Office windows. That’s the polar opposite of what Meryl Streep’s President Orlean does, as she and her son/chief-of-staff (Jonah Hill) aren’t exactly feeling any urgency. 

Blowing up the scale of Don’t Look Now’s global crisis, we see DiCaprio and Lawrence’s characters try morning news meltdowns, appeals to worldwide celebrities, and any other method they can think of to leak their discovery. Somehow, the world is just as meh about the entire thing as its governments. The audience for the film will probably feel a bit different, especially when everyone from Cate Blanchett and the ever busy Tyler Perry to Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, and Timothée Chalamet pops in to lend a hand in some way. 

However, let’s talk about the massive hero in both this latest trailer, and the previously released footage: Ron Perlman. We've seen that the man is going to get blasted off into space, and now he's even resorted to shooting a handgun in his frustration against the massive planet killer. While it remains to be seen how either potential solution works out, at least the man who was once Hellboy is still trying to save our skins. 

All-star craziness will break out when Don’t Look Up makes impact in limited theatrical release on December 10th, with its Netflix streaming debut set for December 24th. While you’re waiting, the official rundown of Netflix original films from this past year is also available to help plan your movie watching schedule accordingly. You can take your time though, as it's not like it's the end of the world.

For a few years, it seemed like Adam McKay and Will Ferrell were a match made in comedy heaven. The Anchorman writer-director and star teamed up several times and gave us some of the funniest movies of the 21st century. After they parted ways creatively, some fans may have wondered why -- and, now, Ferrell is explaining what caused the split. 

As co-writers, the pair had a streak of huge hits with Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Step Brothers, The Other Guys, and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. In 2006, the director and actor founded Gary Sanchez Productions, which expanded their presence in the comedy world. The production company was behind everything from Eastbound and Down to Funny or Die. In 2014, it helped launch a female-focused spin-off company, Gloria Sanchez Productions. 

Given the sheer number of products Gary Sanchez Productions has going, it may have come as a surprise in 2019 when Adam McKay and Will Ferrell announced they were calling it quits on their formal creative partnership. The actor told The Hollywood Reporter that the move wasn’t the result of bad blood but rather a product of differing priorities: 

In his conversation with THR, the beloved actor alluded to the fact that he’s not totally comfortable with building an empire of sorts. He turned down a huge payday for Elf 2, for example, because he didn’t want to make a film with a “rehashed premise.” That doesn’t mean Ferrell has stepped back from Hollywood altogether. As the trade points out, he’s been working behind the scenes and is producing plenty of projects, including HBO’s Succession. He’s also got a slew of upcoming projects where he’ll be front and center on screen, including the Apple+ series The Shrink Next Door, co-produced by Gloria Sanchez Productions. 

As for Adam McKay, he’s spent the last few years experimenting with his filmmaking. After trying his hand at politically-charged The Big Short and Vice, the latter of which was co-produced by Gary Sanchez Productions, he confessed that he was itching to return to making sillier comedies. His upcoming Netflix film, Don’t Look Up, could be a return to form in that respect. 

While the pair are no longer working together on their company, that doesn’t mean they’ll never collaborate again. Even though it’s been eight years since they teamed up on a film together, fans are still holding out for Step Brothers 2. 

What would you do if you knew there was a chance that life on Earth was about to end? If you were Leonardo DiCaprio, you might have a panic attack in the bathroom. Or, if you were Jennifer Lawrence, you would perhaps order two more glasses of wine at lunch. At least, those are the strategies their characters take in the first trailer for director Adam McKay’s Netflix original film Don’t Look Up. And to be fair, they have a pretty good reason for doing so, as they’re playing two people who’ve discovered that a life threatening asteroid is headed straight for Earth.

But unlike most other “killer rock” movies, like say Deep Impact or Armageddon, the world of Don’t Look Up just doesn’t feel that concerned. And it’s a pretty star studded universe, with Mark Rylance, Jonah Hill, Ariana Grande, and Meryl Streep playing some of the figures we’ll see navigating this particular crisis. But as you can see in this short first look at Don’t Look Up, the only problem bigger than the asteroid hurtling through space is the species that needs to act in the name of its self-preservation.

From the moment they discover this gigantic threat to life as we know it, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence’s Don’t Look Up protagonists are sent on a wild ride. Visits to the White House, andspots on cable news with anchors played by Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry ensue, all with the goal of getting the world to care about impending disaster. But of course, how harsh could this reality be when you’ve got Ron Perlman playing an astronaut, who looks like he’s ready to blow up this scourge of humanity? Clearly, that’s a solution that's bound to work, right?

Co-writing and directing his first fiction narrative since 2010’s The Other Guys, Adam McKay looks like he’s made a return to the world of dark comedy in a way that crossbreeds films such as that with his more recent output. The man behind politically charged films like The Big Short and Vice, you can tell that McKay is still very interested in commenting on modern society. Only this time, the comedy is based somewhere outside of our reality.

If you were to take Deep Impact, and replace scenes of Morgan Freeman sternly meeting his advisers with Meryl Streep and Jonah Hill declaring the apocalypse as “boring,” you’d basically have Don’t Look Up. And from the looks of things in this first teaser, that’s a concept that could work like a charm. Especially when Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence are our guides through a very familiar, yet totally exaggerated, world.

Don’t Look Up collides with a limited release in theaters on December 10th, with Christmas Eve marking the day Netflix subscribers can enjoy the film on the streaming platform. While you might not want to look up for the time being, you can definitely look at the 2021 Netflix movie schedule, which shows what other delights are headed to that streaming library in the months to come. Though if you want to see Timothée Challamet or Chris Evans on the big screen a little sooner, the 2021 release schedule is the key to planning your next dreamy night out at the movies.

Jonah Hill has come a long way from being the aggressively funny kid from Superbad. In fact, it’d be pretty tough to recognize the Wolf of Wall Street star now thanks to his wild blonde hair, muscled biceps and skin art. Despite being at a completely different level professionally and a better place in life, Hill has no problem rehashing the time at the beginning of his Hollywood career. For instance, he recently recalled how he met other funny guys like Will Ferrell and Adam McKay while he lived in Seth Rogen’s old apartment, and it’s honestly pretty wholesome.

Will Ferrell and Adam McKay are older than Jonah Hill, and they hit it big in Hollywood well before Hill even made his first movie, having both done substantial stints on Saturday Night Live. In an interview with McKay for GQ Magazine, Hill told the story of how McKay was eating tacos with Ferrell when Hill happened upon them, and how elated he was when the pair wanted to talk to him. In Hill's words:

I don’t know what is more satisfying to think about: Will Ferrell and Adam McKay chilling at a taco stand together or the fact that Jonah Hill’s friendship with Seth Rogen allowed him to take over Rogen’s apartment lease when he upgraded to homeownership. Actually, it may just be the internal monologue of Hill getting to chat with some of the comedians he adored at a time when they were all in the earlier days of their careers.

Now all of the people involved in the story are at completely different points in their life. While still pretty hilarious, Adam McKay and Jonah Hill are both making more serious types of films rather than the pure comedies of the early 2000s.

In fact, Jonah Hill is set to appear in Adam McKay’s upcoming Don’t Look Up, which also stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. You can check out the film in limited theaters starting December 10, and then streaming on Netflix on December 24. You’ll also be able to catch Hill in another Netflix comedy with Eddie Murphy in the future, so we have plenty of Hill to look forward to.

The Silver Surfer is one of the most beloved characters in the Marvel universe, having endeared himself to comic book fans through his tragic backstory and later heroic endeavors. With this in mind, it’s kind of surprising that the character has only been seen on the big screen once in his nearly 50-year history. Though if director Adam McKay had his way, the Surfer would have his own solo film, and the director has keen thoughts on why such a movie would be a great idea.

Adam McKay, known for his work on films like Anchorman, Step Brothers and The Big Short, expressed interest in working with Marvel Studios on a Silver Surfer movie, after serving as a co-writer on 2015’s Ant-Man. While McKay was passionate about the proposed movie, nothing ever materialized and, when he was recently asked his thoughts on the project, he provided some insight into why it did not come to be:

So it sounds like Adam McKay did indeed take steps to develop the film but, as is the case in Hollywood, the pieces just couldn’t come together for it to take off. Still, the director has plenty of interest in the project. As McKay explained on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Marvel stories can serve as allegories to relevant topics in our own society, and he thinks the Silver Surfer, through his origin story, can tackle one subject in particular:

When you think about it, Silver Surfer really does fit the mold of an environmental story. As the herald of Galactus, he’s meant to examine the state of a planet, before its consumption by his master, so there is room for a bit of commentary.

Whether or not Silver Surfer finds his way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe at some point remains to be seen. But there is potential for him, especially since Marvel is currently developing a Fantastic Four film. Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige previously expressed a willingness to meet with McKay about the Silver Surfer, so maybe the director could eventually find his way back to the MCU after all. Only time will tell but, when it comes to Marvel, just about anything is possible at this point.

Jennifer Lawrence’s highly-anticipated new Netflix film, Don’t Look Up, had to temporarily halt production this week when the Oscar-winning actress was reportedly injured on set. The Adam McKay-helmed comedy has been shooting on location in Massachusetts -- and this was the latest delay, albeit a temporary one, that the film has endured.

Don’t Look Up has been in production since November. According to The Boston Globe, the set was shut down early in the morning on Friday, February 5 after debris from a special effects explosion struck Jennifer Lawrence. While there’s no official word as to the extent of her injuries, sources told the newspaper that she was hit with fragments after a trash can went through a window. A medic was called, and Jennifer Lawrence was taken off the set. She was seen holding her face, and the injury may have been near or in her eye.

The Boston Globe also reported that Jennifer Lawrence’s team has not responded to questions about the incident. There is speculation from the crew that production may resume next week.

Don’t Look Up is Adam McKay’s first film since the Oscar-nominated Vice, and Jennifer Lawrence’s first film since 2019’s Dark Phoenix. It’s the first time the director-writer and actress have worked together -- though since they both have a knack for irreverent comedy, it seems like a great potential pairing.

Jennifer Lawrence is no stranger to big action sequences, obviously -- starring in The Hunger Games and X-Men franchises has given her plenty of experience with on-set special effects. What might be surprising is that she was navigating them on the set of a comedy film. However, the synopsis makes it a little bit clearer as to why that might be the case.

Don’t Look Up centers on a pair of astronomers who launch a media tour to inform the world that it’s about to be hit by a huge asteroid. However, they struggle mightily in getting the word out, because no one takes them seriously. While it’s hard to say for sure how the special effects that led to Jennifer Lawrence’s injury fit into this story, any “end of the world” scenario in a movie usually comes with at least a couple of big explosions.

Adam McKay and Jennifer Lawrence’s new movie was first announced in February 2020. Late last year, we learned that she will lead an intriguing all-star cast including Leonardo DiCaprio, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Meryl Streep and Jonah Hill. Production was initially slated to begin in the spring of 2020 but, like many other films, it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Don’t Look Up is currently scheduled to premiere on Netflix in 2021, though there’s no word as to whether any of the delays in production will change that.

Back in February we got the news that Jennifer Lawrence was going to be teaming up with writer/director Adam McKay on Don't Look Up, a comedy about the end of the world, and we instantly got excited. After all, what's not to be excited about when it comes to one of the best actors in the business working with one of the filmmakers in the business? Now, however, it turns out that Lawrence is just one of many A-listers who are a part of this project.

Jennifer Lawrence has been joined in Don't Look Up by a talent roster that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Jonah Hill, Himesh Patel, Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Matthew Perry, Rob Morgan, and Tomer Sisley. The official Netflix Twitter account announced the news on their timeline, and it's made all the more impressive by it's accompanied collection of headshots:

Set to be written, produced, and directed by Adam McKay as his follow-up to the Academy Award-winning Vice, the story will follow a pair of "low-level" astronomers who discover that the Earth will soon be destroyed by a giant asteroid that is on a collision course with the planet. Together they set out on a media tour to try and warn the world, and knowing McKay's sensibilities it will probably not be the easiest gig.

Acknowledging the filmmaker's advocacy in regard to climate change, it wouldn't exactly be surprising to find that the movie will serve as a metaphor of that particular crisis and the struggle to convince everyone of its extreme danger.

According to Deadline, most of the stars announced as part of the cast today have been "loosely attached" for months now, but that the big fish that the project found tricky to reel in was Leonardo DiCaprio. This wasn't because of a lack of interest; in fact, its quite the opposite. Don't Look Up has apparently been in front of the Once Upon A Time In Hollywood star for a while now, but he has been struggling to find a way to make both it and Martin Scorsese's next film, Killers Of The Flower Moon, which are developing simultaneously. Now the schedules have worked out that allow him to do both, hence this announcement.

Unfortunately we have no idea at this stage who is playing what part in Don't Look Up, but really, does it matter? With this murderer's row of talent involved, it's hard to imagine anyone not streaming this film as soon as possible when it hits Netflix. Now that the cast is set, hopefully production will be able to start soon, and if that's the case it's possible that it could be ready for release in the second half of 2021.

We'll most definitely be keeping a close eye on the development of this project, so stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for all of the latest news and updates.

Jennifer Lawrence has been known for her candid and fun interviews in recent years, but unlike some of her celebrity peers, she hasn’t been super open or active on social media. That is, until this week, when Lawrence made the decision to become the latest celebrity to join Twitter in a move to highlight an organization she supports.

She’s not big on following a lot of people right now, as her Twitter account only follows RepresentUs and the NAACP Legal Defense’s Sherrilyn Ifill. However, she has gotten the blue checkmark and amassed a slew of followers all in the name of social justice and “getting corruption out of politics,” as she previously told Vogue about her organization.

Jennifer Lawrence has been on the board of directors for Represent.Us and has been a part of that organization for several years. She’s also on the list of donors for the organization and often does PSAs and other work for the nonprofit, which strives to work toward anticorruption legislation. David O. Russell and Adam McKay, whom she will work with on an upcoming comedy, are also members of the organization. Her first couple of tweets focused on issues related to Represent.Us, including this one:

It makes sense that one of her early tweets would be about Breonna Taylor, a young nurse who was killed by the Louisville Metro Police Department after they entered the wrong home in March. Jennifer Lawrence is originally from the same city and grew up in Louisville before being discovered in New York and embarking on an acting career.

Now, at 29, Jennifer Lawrence said a while back that she would be taking a break from work to focus on other matters that are near and dear to her heart. In 2018, she said she would “take the next year off” to focus on her work with Represent.Us. The next step seems to be to add her voice to the social media platform.

She’s not the only celebrity to join social media well after he or she became famous. Johnny Depp is a recent addition to Instagram, for example, and Jennifer Aniston only joined social media late last year.

What’s been interesting to watch is how celebrities have used their platforms, some to entertain and keep celebrities relevant, some as a way to reach people about charities and other organizations and some as a way to promote brands and productions they are working on. The best follows probably do a little bit of each. (Is that last line an opinionated pitch advocating for following The Rock? I’ll let you decide.)

Meanwhile, Jennifer Lawrence’s year of no filming is over, albeit perhaps a little delayed by current global events. Next up, the actress has a Lila Neugebauer Project, as well as Don’t Look Up, Mob Girl, and Bad Blood, another flick with McKay featuring the story of Elizabeth Holmes, who created a biotech company that supposedly did wonders with blood testing, allegedly creating technology that later turned out to be a hoax. We'll let you know as soon as those move forward.

The number of Hollywood A-listers who’ve starred in Netflix movies keeps growing. And now another iconic star is joining in on the trend. Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence has just signed on for Adam McKay’s newest comedy -- and it’s coming straight to the streaming platform.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jennifer Lawrence will star in Don’t Look Up, the newest film from the Vice and The Big Short writer-director. The film will be Jennifer Lawrence’s first project made exclusively for a streaming platform. Though this is the first time she and Adam McKay have teamed up, in a recent statement he made it clear that he is thrilled to have her on board:

According to THR, Don't Look Up follows two scientists who, upon discovering that a meteor will strike the Earth in six months, go on a media tour to try to warn the world but find an unreceptive and unbelieving populace.

Jennifer Lawrence made a name for herself for powerful dramatic performances in films like Mother! and The Hunger Games trilogy. But though Don’t Look Up will be her first pure comedy film, it’s not a surprise that she’s turning toward the genre. She won the Best Actress Academy Award in 2013 for Silver Linings Playbook, which was every bit as funny as it was moving.

What may be surprising is the fact that she’s joining the ranks of other actors who’ve taken on Netflix projects, since thus far she’s mostly built her career on a mixture of huge franchise films and prestige dramas. But, then, Jennifer Lawrence has made a name for herself by doing the unexpected.

And at this point, it may be time to stop being surprised when another huge star shows up in a Netflix film. Despite a debate as to whether or not the streaming platform really “counts” as a legitimate studio, it’s distributed some of the most acclaimed films of the last few years. Prominent and beloved directors -- from Alfonso Cuaron and David Fincher to Martin Scorsese and recent Oscar-winner Bong Joon-ho -- have all released projects through Netflix. It was only a matter of time before stars began to follow suit.

In the past few years, everyone from Will Smith and Brad Pitt to Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Aniston have lent their star power to Netflix films, with varying degrees of success and critical reception. And the platform has made an especially welcome home for comedies -- Adam Sandler and Eddie Murphy have both found huge success with their recent Netflix films. In other words: Jennifer Lawrence will be in some pretty decent company.

Though there’s no official release date for Don’t Look Up yet, but THR reports that production will begin this spring, and Netflix is hoping to release the film later this year. In the meantime, check out the other 2020 Netflix releases.

Parasite just won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film this past weekend, and the buzz surrounding the movie has recently taken a new turn. A detour into television, that is. As you probably suspected, the internet has an opinion on the film becoming a TV show, and it's not great. First, some context.

News recently broke that negotiations had begun with HBO for Bong Joon-ho’s critically acclaimed movie, Parasite, to be adapted into a limited series for the premium cabler, per Deadline. The series would be based on the film. Further details regarding the plot and other elements relating to the nature of the show, have not been revealed yet. And, this has led to lots of open questions for the internet to speculate on.

Parasite’s director, Bong Joon-ho, and Succession producer Adam McKay, are set to team on the project for HBO. This deal was struck after Bong Joon-ho was reportedly courted by Netflix. The duo will be collaborating on the television adaptation with Parasite’s backing studio CJ Entertainment, McKay’s Hyperobject Industries, and Dooho Choi’s Kate Street Picture Company. Unfortunately, the internet is largely against the Parasite series.

A Change.org petition has already been launched in hopes of giving voice to those who do not want a series based on 2019’s highest-grossing foreign film in the United States. The Parasite TV show has not aired yet, but it already has a petition! Check it out:

The person who posted the petition actually seems a little bit blasé about it with their "LMAO," but others have not been so pleasant about a Parasite show:

Twitter has been home to some reactions that were more enthusiastic over the Parasite TV show. While some are content with leaving the movie’s story where it ended and not continuing the beloved film, others are more open to seeing what happens with it. One commentator brought up a recent adaption and hit show to make their point. Check it out:

Bong Joon-ho's involvement is a vital component that series has in its corner. As for Watchmen, it had a well-received first season on HBO. Meanwhile, the HBO drama Succession is heading into Season 3 with more support behind it than ever. Still, others are not as enthused by the prospect of a Parasite TV show, and, for a very good reason if you're a fan of the film:

It's still way too soon to tell what HBO's Parasite will have in store for viewers, but there was a Twitter user ready to embrace the bright side to the news, even though this person clearly isn't totally on board:

More films from Bong Joon-ho are definitely a great thing for fans to look forward to. The future is looking fantastic for the director, who has weighed in on superhero movies. Following Parasite’s Golden Globe win, all eyes are on the breakout hit and its awards season run. The Oscar nominations are right around the corner!

The internet will have to wait and see what happens with the Parasite TV show. It is still in the early stages, and as more details are revealed, opinions may swing any number of directions. Television is an ever-growing canvas for creatives to work their magic!

Considering the early stages of the project, there is currently no premiere date for the Parasite series on HBO. While you await one, you can check out this winter’s premieres.

Like Detectives Gamble and Hoitz, racers Ricky Bobby and Cal Naughton Jr., newspeople Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone, and stepbrothers Brennan Huff and Dale Doback, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay have been an unstoppable team, finding success in Hollywood for over a decade. But all good things must come to an end, and Will Ferrell and Adam McKay are breaking up, creatively.

The two men have decided to go their separate ways for future creative endeavors, thus ending a creative partnership that has lasted 13 years. Together Will Ferrell and Adam McKay formed the comedy generating production company Gary Sanchez, which spawned a spinoff company, the female-centric Gloria Sanchez. Those Paramount-based production companies will see through development and completion of their existing projects, but will probably be winding down as Will Ferrell and Adam McKay move on to new things.

In a statement released to Deadline, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay confirmed the split while ending things on a thankful and positive note. The statement reads:

Although they may be breaking up from their formal creative partnership, this parting is not an unhappy one, as the two seem to be quite thankful and proud of the time they spent together and projects they worked on. This is not an acrimonious split, but an amicable and mutual decision. While their business relationship is coming to an end, their personal one is not, and Will Ferrell and Adam McKay remain close friends.

This isn’t the end of their work together either. As they say in their statement, they will continue to work together creatively. The two still have a huge slate of shared projects, so although this is the end of one chapter of the Ferrell/McKay partnership, we may still see Adam McKay and Will Ferrell’s name in the credits of future movies (fingers crossed Step Brothers 2 will reunite them one day).

The two have begun to diverge in their creative pursuits, with Adam McKay moving more towards politically charged films, like last year’s Vice, while Will Ferrell continues with the more traditional comedy fare that has made him a household name. As far as the future is concerned, the details are still being worked out, but both Ferrell and McKay will explore new endeavors and projects individually, and they are each expected to form new ventures for their post-Gary Sanchez careers.

So ends a partnership that is probably best measured in the number of laughs delivered. In addition to collaborating as producers on films like Daddy’s Home, Adam McKay directed Will Ferrell in a slew of modern comedy classics, including Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Anchorman and Anchorman 2, The Other Guys and Step Brothers.

Will Ferrell will next be onscreen later this year in James Franco’s long-delayed Zeroville, a star-studded film about Hollywood in 1969, not to be confused with Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which is also a star-studded film about Hollywood in 1969. That should make for an interesting double feature.

After his multiple Oscar nominations for Vice, Adam McKay is next attached to direct Bad Blood, another ripped-from-the-headlines story, this one about biotech entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes. The film is supposed to star Jennifer Lawrence and Will Ferrell is also attached as a producer.

Check out our 2019 release schedule to keep track of all the movies coming to theaters this year, and let us know your favorite Will Ferrell and Adam McKay film in the comments below.

Last week, Vice writer and director Adam McKay expressed interested in making a Silver Surfer movie, and since Norrin Radd is among the many characters who will finally be able to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe once the Fox-Disney merger is finalized, that means McKay would need to chat with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige about that. While such a project currently (or at least publicly) isn't in the works for the MCU, Feige appears open to the idea of collaborating with McKay again. When asked if McKay had gotten in touch with him about a Silver Surfer movie, Feige responded:

Yes, as bizarre as it may sound to those of you who haven't seen Vice, the Dick Cheney biopic did indeed feature an image of Galactus, Devourer of Worlds and Silver Surfer's former master, further showing off Adam McKay's comic book cred. As Kevin Feige pointed out while speaking with MTV News, McKay already has a prior relationship with Marvel Studios for his work rewriting Ant-Man with Paul Rudd, and the company actually approached McKay about succeeding James Gunn as director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. He turned down that opportunity, but maybe he and Feige could work out some kind of arrangement with Silver Surfer.

So far, Silver Surfer's only live action appearance has been in 2007's Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, where he was physically portrayed by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne. It was rumored last year that Silver Surfer would appear in Avengers: Infinity War, but directors Joe and Anthony Russo later debunked that claim, noting that he was among the characters they couldn't use. It was also reported that 20th Century Fox is developing a Silver Surfer movie, although with the studio set to soon be absorbed into the Disney empire... I mean, family, who knows if that particular project will still be moving forward.

As far as what kind of Silver Surfer movie he wants to make, Adam McKay said he wanted to make it a visual spectacle that would be like the MCU's version of Speed Racer. Considering how cosmically crazy the Silver Surfer mythology is by even by Marvel standards, this sounds like a decent basic concept to start with. And at the very least, a Silver Surfer movie would ideally finally give us a faithful adaptation of Galactus, as opposed to another giant cloud.

As far as what the future holds for the MCU cosmically speaking, The Eternals and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 are in development for Phase 4, although the latter is arriving much later than originally planned due to Disney and Marvel not rushing with finding someone to fill James Gunn's directing shoes. Though he was introduced in the Fantastic Four comic book, Silver Surfer's had numerous solo adventures out in space that a movie could pull from, so he'd be a welcome addition to the MCU's cosmic realm.

Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for any news on if a Silver Surfer movie, whether or not it's helmed by Adam McKay, gets the green light. For now, check out our MCU movies guide to learn what else this superhero franchise has coming down the pipeline.

Adam McKay's Vice is a film that is massive in its scope. While there are many biopics that choose to cover their subjects by highlighting one particularly notable event that sums up the person's life, the Dick Cheney movie covers decades that the politician spent in Washington. Taking this approach was always going to mean leaving certain details on the cutting room floor, but for McKay, one part of the story he wish he could have kept in was Cheney's impact when it came to protecting (or more accurately, not protecting) the environment:

Every film has to kill certain darlings as they make their way through development, and Vice was no exception. The movie does a great job serving as both an expose and a highlight reel -- shining lights in dark places, and also hitting on all the huge events everybody remembers -- and squeezing all of that material in required some cuts. For Adam McKay, who I had the chance to sit down with last month prior to the release of the biopic, it was apparently the global warming material in particular that he wishes he didn't have to remove, especially because of world events and revelations that we've seen/heard about in the months since production.

Of course, it should be noted that the movie definitely does touch on Dick Cheney's record with the environment -- it apparently just doesn't go as far with it as it could. As Adam McKay notes, there is still a sequence where the solar panels at the White House, installed by the Jimmy Carter administration, are removed when Ronald Reagan takes office, but that's not all. The film also goes into detail on how the conversation around the issue was completely changed specifically by Cheney and his people by using certain kinds of spin, like getting the public and media to call it "Climate Change" instead of "Global Warming."

This is obviously a significant part of the story in terms of the lasting impact of Dick Cheney's political career, but it's also apparently one of many things that couldn't be fully addressed in Vice because of the inherent storytelling limitations present in narrative filmmaking. Adam McKay cited global warming as something he wished he didn't have to cut when I specifically asked him for an example, but he began his answer by saying there's a good 45 minutes of extra content that existed in early cuts of the movie that had to be whittled out over the course of post-production.

At the same time, however, the filmmaker discovered that there was a certain art to telling the life story of Dick Cheney, specifically because the man has done so much to try and stop his story from being told in this fashion. Vice was certainly created to shine a light on one of the most significant political figures of the last fifty years, but it also had to mold itself to fit its unusual subject. McKay explained,

Fortunately, anything that didn't get the chance to be fully covered in Vice is still out there in the world, and any interested individual can now start doing their own personal dig into the man-shaped mystery known as Dick Cheney. What's brought to life through Christian Bale's performance was never going to be the entire story, but for those fascinated by the subject matter it can definitely be a starting place.

One person who was certainly left fascinated by the Vice experience is Adam McKay himself, who admitted during my interview that he has a certain respect for what the man did -- even while recognizing the horrific consequences of a lot of it. Dick Cheney, unlike anyone else in history, is a person who figured out how to play the United States government like a musical instrument, and the intelligence required to pull off something like that is unquestionably rare and impressive. Said McKay,

Click play on the video below to watch Adam McKay discuss killing darlings for Vice, including the global warming material that didn't make the finished cut:

Based on an original screenplay by Adam McKay and starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell, Steve Carell, Jesse Plemons, Tyler Perry, and more, Vice is now playing in theaters everywhere in wide release. We're sure to continue hearing a lot more about it as we get deeper into awards season, so stay tuned for all of that, and to take a look ahead at what else is going to be hitting the big screen in the coming months be sure to check out our 2019 movie release schedule.

While Adam McKay's movies are certainly more serious than they used to be, he also has clearly not lost his sense of humor. He may be tackling issues like the subprime mortgage crisis and the political ascension of Dick Cheney, but he tells those stories with a special light tough and some surprisingly big laughs. It's kind of a strange mix, but the filmmaker partially believes it's because of the tone of the times we live in that he can pull it off:

Adam McKay's particular tonal balance was an especially important aspect in my personal appreciation of the film, so I felt that I had to bring it up when I sat down with the writer/director earlier this month at the Los Angeles press day for Vice. I asked about his philosophy and approach to the new denser material, and his approach towards placing those aforementioned touches, and he explained that the world kind of did the work for him in that regard. It's both ridiculous and insane that one of the most powerful figures in modern politics can wear the shield around him that he does, and that blend told McKay how to tell the story.

Going further, there is no question that the humor also makes the material a great deal more digestible than if it were presented as straight, serious drama. It's specifically why The Big Short has Margot Robbie and Anthony Bourdain cameo to entertainingly explain complex financial terms, but also why Vice has Dick and Lynne Cheney's discussions about taking on the Vice Presidency spoken in Shakespearean verse. Adam McKay gets to have his cake and eat it too: still exercising his comedic impulses and sensibilities, while also whipping some need-to-know history at his audience.

All in all, Adam McKay basically thinks that the world has changed enough in recent years that this kind of filmmaking can thrive. We don't need to put things in specific boxes anymore, and instead movies can mix it up. Making Vice he found himself both laughing and crying throughout, and he gives a lot of credit to the atmosphere in which the film was made and is being released. Said McKay,

You can watch Adam McKay's full comments about mixing up tone and his specific approach by clicking play on the video below:

Vice, which stars Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell, Tyler Perry, and Jesse Plemons, is now playing in theaters everywhere.

The new movie Vice reunites writer/director Adam McKay with a number of familiar talents, including Christian Bale (The Big Short) and Steve Carell (The Big Short and both of the Anchorman features), but you may have forgotten that this is his second time working with Amy Adams as well. Their first collaboration was a good time ago, and the actress didn't have the largest part in the film, but she was a part of the ensemble that made Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby. That was 12 years ago, and a lot has changed for Adams and McKay in the time since, but according to the former, she still sees a lot of same creative energy in the director that she witnessed when he was making super silly comedies:

I had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with Amy Adams earlier this month during the Los Angeles press day for Vice, and my first question for her was about her relationship with Adam McKay, and how it's changed since they first worked together. For her personally it was certainly a different experience making the Dick Cheney biopic, as it took a lot living in Lynne Cheney's skin, but what was remained consistent between both productions was the energy she witnessed from the writer/director, who she recognizes as a creative who dives head first and deep into the world of whatever material he's bringing to life.

It's something you'd expect McKay to do with his more recent and seriously-minded features, The Big Short and Vice, but evidently he had a similar work ethic and attitude making his more ridiculous movies as well.

In Talladega Nights, Amy Adams played Susan, who doesn't really make a huge impact on the story until the third act - which is when she delivers the key motivational speech that inspires Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) to get his act together and ready to complete in the race that would turn his life around. The movie was released one month before Junebug, the film that resulted in her first Academy Award nomination, and since then she has been nominated for an Oscar four more times. Much like McKay, her career has completely changed in recent years, but that really just made now the most perfect time for them to bring their energies back together.

Case in point, there is a lot of heat surrounding Amy Adams' performance in Vice, as she is seen as a strong contender in this year's awards season. She has already received attention from the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards for her performance, and she has been nominated for prizes from many different critics groups. And while the Academy Awards won't be announcing competitors in their categories until the new year, it is expected that she will be up for Best Supporting Actress.

You can watch Amy Adams talk about her experiences working with Adam McKay on both Talladega Nights and Vice by clicking play on the video below.

In addition to Amy Adams, Christian Bale, and Steve Carell, Vice also co-stars Sam Rockwell, Tyler Perry, Justin Kirk, LisaGay Hamilton, Jesse Plemons, and more. The film will be arriving in theaters everywhere on Christmas Day, December 25th, and we'll have more from my interviews with the cast and filmmakers coming you way in the next few days.

Christian Bale has been a professional actor since he was 12 years old, and in that time has both won an Oscar and played the lead role in of one of the most successful franchises of all time. What he's not particularly known for, however, is comedy. There are few titles on his filmography that are built specifically for laughs, and it's certainly not what he's known for. But while that may be true, Bale recently revealed he would be more that game to star in one of Vice director Adam McKay's "sillier" movies:

Christian Bale and Adam McKay have developed a strong relationship in the last three years, collaborating on not only on Vice, but also the Best Picture-nominated The Big Short. Of course, those titles are far different from what we are used to seeing from McKay, whose most notable works include Anchorman and Step Brothers. During the recent Los Angeles press day for the Dick Cheney biopic, I asked Bale if he would be game to work with the writer/director on material that was a bit less serious, and his enthusiasm was real.

It should be noted that while The Big Short and Vice are primarily dominated by weighty material, both highlighting and exposing the closed-door horrors of the early aughts, they are films that are also highlighted by smart wit and big laughs. Whether he's Dr. Michael Burry stressing how subprime mortgages are going to collapse the housing market, or, as Dick Cheney, talking to President Gerald Ford about putting clown wigs on their penises and dancing on the White House lawn, he's demonstrated some legitimate comedic timing.

And would anyone be surprised if Christian Bale was secretly great at comedy? The man somehow is both an A-level star and a total chameleon -- which is only accentuated by his dedication to his craft and willingness to totally transform his body (as seen in The Machinist, The Dark Knight, The Fighter and now Vice). Nobody has ever won money betting against Bale's skills, and working with Adam McKay, who is both familiar and one of the most gifted comedic directors around, would certainly be a great way to enter the scene.

You can watch Christian Bale discuss potentially working with Adam McKay on a comedy, and his admiration for the filmmaker by clicking play on the video below.

We will be crossing our fingers that this opportunity comes together (Adam McKay did tell me he wants to get back in the comedy game), but until then we can be satisfied with the arrival of Vice. The movie arrives in theaters everywhere on Christmas, and features two of the best performances of the year -- from both Christian Bale as Dick Cheney, and Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney. See the film on the big screen this week, and stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more from my interviews with the director and stars.

Adam McKay's career as a writer/director took a big left turn when he made The Big Short in 2015. He was previously a filmmaker known for much lighter material, and suddenly he made a serious movie that earned a Best Picture nomination. That tonal trend has continued with his new feature, Vice, but would he be game to going back to his sillier stuff? Based on what he told me in a recent interview, that door is wide open:

What The Big Short and Vice have in common is that they both take on important historical material with a sharp edge and wit, and that approach has changed the way that Adam McKay now takes on projects. This was evident when I brought the subject up earlier this month when I sat down with the filmmaker during the Los Angeles press day for his new movie.

Of course, fans will note that Adam McKay was taking on more pointed and political material long before he started to work on The Big Short. While the 2015 film was a head-on story about the subprime mortgage crisis, the writer/director used the subject of major and topical financial crimes to fuel the plot in the 2010 comedy The Other Guys. That movie, which is more a parody of buddy copy flicks than anything, is absolutely hilarious, so I actually have little doubt that McKay could find a way to make a comedy with deep-rooted commentary about global warming.

All that being said, the filmmaker did seem to be legitimately open to another shift in gear that would take him back to the material that that started his career in the film world. Discussing a conversation he had with a colleague, Adam McKay added that his life could benefit from doing something with a bit less weight. Said the director,

The suggestion that I offered? Literally anything with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, as their chemistry under the guidance of Adam McKay is absolute perfection.

You can watch Adam McKay discuss his potential return to films more in the vein of Step Brothers and Anchorman by clicking play on the video below.

While Adam McKay meditates on what the future holds for him, Vice is arriving in theaters in time for Christmas Day, on December 25th. The film, starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Tyler Perry, and Sam Rockwell, is one of the best of the year -- and be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more from my interviews with McKay and the stars.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been on a roll in Phase Three, with every installment resulting in critical success and strong box office performance. But the future of the MCU is largely a mystery, especially when it comes to the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. James Gunn was fired by Disney back in July, with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 placed on indefinite hold by the studio.

Finding a replacement director for James Gunn seems like an almost impossible task, given how much of the director/writer is infused into the franchise. There have been quite a few names tossed around by the fans, and now we know one director that has been approached by Disney: Anchorman's Adam McKay. When asked if those talks had happened he confirmed, saying:

It seems that Adam McKay is one of the directors Kevin Feige has been discussing the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise with. The House of Mouse and Marvel Studios are no doubt trying to nail down a replacement soon, as Guardians 3 was originally going to be the second movie released after Avengers: Endgame.

Adam McKay's comments from the Happy Sad Confused podcast may be a surprise to some, considering the director's career in the film industry. McKay is largely known for his work in comedy, collaborating with Will Ferrell is projects like Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers. And while the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise is certainly comedic, it's also a massively expensive franchise that connects to the MCU as a whole.

On the other side of the coin, the improvisational style of acting that Adam McKay's projects often encourage might lend itself to the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. While the movies are carefully written, there is some room for improvisation on sets. For instance, Dave Bautista improvised Drax's "Why is Gamora?" in Avengers: Infinity War. The Guardians are a motley crew that lean into campiness, so Marvel could find a worse director than McKay.

Adam McKay is also having a big year as we get deeper into Awards Season. He directed the Dick Cheney biopic Vice, which has already picked up a whopping six Golden Globe nominations. Clearly he's a director who can't be pigeonholed, and taking on a franchise in the Marvel Cinematic Universe might be another way McKay can continue to move forward in his career.

The Guardians of the Galaxy will return to the MCU when Avengers: Endgame arrives in theaters on April 26th, and you can catch Vice starting on Christmas Day. In the meantime, check out our 2019 release list to plan your trips to the movies in the New Year.

Adam McKay is evolving into a fascinating auteur. In 2015 he made a sharp left turn in the subject matter department, going from movies about goofy anchormen and step brothers to the 2008 housing market crash -- but he maintained continuity in one crucial area: tone. The Big Short is far more serious material than Talladega Nights or The Other Guys (which, admittedly, has its own subtle economic commentary), but it's also a film highlighted with tremendous wit, laugh-out-loud material, and a perfect comedic touch.

We now have its spiritual sequel, Vice, which is, once again, a look back at the critical historical events that helped mold the world in which we currently live -- particularly those in the first decade of the 21st century. The subject is Dick Cheney, a man the film outright admits in its opening moments is an excessively secretive figure, and it in equal parts plays as both a highlight reel and dramatic expose -- showcasing many of the sinister and disturbing machinations that were kept hidden from public knowledge at the time. It's weighty, credible and at times shockingly intense, but what makes it sing is that McKay Touch.

Rather than being an adaptation, like The Big Short was, Vice is based on an original screenplay by Adam McKay, and those deeply embedded fingerprints drive what is one of the best films of the year. The movie takes you on a surprisingly epic journey, chronicling his rise from drunken college fail out to Vice President of the United States, and weaves a phenomenal story that is a complex mix of oddity, awfulness, revelation, and devastation... and that's all without mentioning the all-timer performances from its remarkable leads.

We first meet Dick (Christian Bale) as a slovenly drunk, hitting a turning point in his life when he gets arrested for driving while intoxicated. Motivation from his would-be wife, Lynne (Amy Adams), drives him to start to fix himself, and seven years later he finds himself a path via a congressional internship. With no actual ideology of his own, just an attraction to power, Dick hitches his wagon to Richard Nixon's brash and blunt Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, Donald Rumsfeld (Steve Carell).

This was in 1969, and from there he finds his way into every Republican administration, his title becoming more prominent with each new President. His coup de grace, however, is performed in the year 2001 when he is able to exploit the presidency of George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell) to essentially become the most powerful man in the world and orchestrate some of the most significant events in modern history.

Biopics like these are occasionally problematic, as opting for a sprawling narrative over something more specific can sometimes make a film feel disjointed or slow, but Dick Cheney is, frankly, too fascinating a figure to succumb to these issues. He's not a particularly passionate or captivating persona (emphasized when shown on the campaign trail delivering a speech to a totally disengaged audience), but his stoicism and strategic mind keep you on the edge and curious about his process -- even if it's all history that you already know about. And, of course, these key chess moves all play out around Cheney's multiple heart attacks, telling Senator Patrick Leahy to go fuck himself on the floor of the Senate, and the infamous time he shot a man in the face during a hunting expedition.

Like he did with The Big Short, Adam McKay also includes some smart fourth-wall breaking to help handle some of the complex-yet-necessary exposition -- particularly through the film's mysterious but important narrator, played by Jesse Plemons -- and it's here where the writer/director's style is extra important and effective. As dirty as the word may seem in a world of entertainment, Vice can be described as an educational movie, but it's an easy-to-swallow pill because of the style and charisma of the teacher. We don't have Margot Robbie in a bubble bath explaining complex financial terms to us in this one, but we do have Dick Cheney's exemplary persuasion skills illustrated with a discussion about putting clown wigs on penises during a meeting with President Gerald Ford.

The story and storytelling are the reward you get for purchasing a ticket to Vice, but what is clearly selling the film are the transformative performances by Christian Bale and Amy Adams -- both of whom live up to the hype in every single way. In the case of the former, I'm still wondering how anybody considered the star of The Dark Knight and The Fighter and said, "That guy could look like a perfect clone of Dick Cheney," but the ultimate truth is that the results are absolutely stunning (with tremendous credit also belonging to the makeup department). The actor utterly vanishes into this part, matching every mannerism of the notorious politician, and it's a sight to behold. It's remarkable that Bale can be both a headliner star and the chameleon that he is, but it's a true testament to his incredible gifts.

Amy Adams' turn is more subtle on the transformative side of things, but she is a force to be reckoned with here. It's easy to make Lady Macbeth/"woman behind the man" comparisons, but that makes them no less accurate, as it's her relationship with her husband that motivates him to be the grimacing, power-hungry golem he becomes. And Adams makes you believe it. It's a power unlike anything she's wielded in any performance before -- long removed from Susan in Talladega Nights -- and some of the best work of her career.

It's always been easy to love Adam McKay's work, as his collaborations with Will Ferrell stand as some of the most hilarious, re-watchable comedies of the young millennium, but the work he is doing now is definitely next level. Vice is vital and important filmmaking, delivered in a unique and incredible way by an exceptional filmmaker. One can pray that he doesn't only delve into these arenas going forward, as the world needs his goofiness as well, but what's guaranteed is that anything he now takes on deserves special attention.

When director/writer Adam McKay talks about pouring his heart into his films, after his work on Vice, he's not joking one bit. The upcoming biopic about Dick Cheney (played by an unrecognizable Christian Bale), who redefined the influence of the position of a United States Vice President, was a tedious project that required tons of research and production challenges, leading to some ill effects on McKay's health by the time principal photography had wrapped. Here's what McKay said:

In an interview with Deadline, Adam McKay discussed the toll his latest project had on his heart. While he was working on Vice, his family noticed the unique intensity he was giving to the film that's giving an inside look into one of the most powerful Washington insiders. Dick Cheney has suffered a few heart attacks, leading later to a heart transplant, a detail that is touched upon in Vice. McKay suffered a mild heart attack after filming the movie, but a prior conversation with Christian Bale regarding the actor's research on the symptoms of one saved his life. In his words:

Wow, that's quite the story! Adam McKay can thank Christian Bale for the in-depth research he did for his character study of Dick Cheney for Vice. It's also quite incredible how the public figure's life came into play just as McKay was starting to have health issues with his heart. A week after the incident, McKay said he called Bale not sure whether to thank him or Dick Cheney for saving his life.

Adam McKay's brush with death ended up appearing in the film due to its close ties with the themes of Vice. The director asked his doctor for a copy of the black and white picture of his blocked heart and placed it in a scene in the film. According to McKay, his heart is in a moment in Vice when Dick Cheney is becoming paranoid and feelings of mortality and fear are kicking in. He said they were going to add an image of a heart in the scene already, so it fit seamlessly into the final cut. The cameo of sorts certainly adds a personal touch to Vice to look for when it is released.

Since the heart attack, Adam McKay has quit smoking and lost the weight he needed to. The filmmaker's last project was The Big Short in 2015, which later became an Oscar winner. Vice looks to also be among award season conversation with Christian Bale's transformation at center, along with Amy Adams playing Lynne Cheney, Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush and Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld. Vice comes to theaters on December 25, alongside many other exciting holiday releases.

For several decades, Dick Cheney was an architect of policy and bureaucracy, through various administrations, and in Washington D.C.'s political culture. This eventually culminated in his ascension to the post of vice president under George W. Bush's administration, a moment that saw the office being granted the greatest level of power and involvement it ever saw. And now that story's about to be told through the lens of filmmaker Adam McKay, as you'll see in the first trailer for his film, Vice, which you can see below.

While we had already our first look at the footage of Christian Bale's insane transformation into Vice's Cheney yesterday, actually watching him play the role is a totally different experience. In particular, hearing his take on Dick Cheney's voice is as spot on, despite how recognizable Bale has become in the last decade. This fact is only exacerbated by the fact that director Adam McKay's got a hell of a supporting cast backing Christian Bale's clearly killer performance.

Co-starring in Vice alongside Bale are Amy Adams as Dick Cheney's wife Lynne, Steve Carell as former colleague Donald Rumsfeld, and Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush himself. Each member of the cast gets their moment in the trailer, and giving cinephiles their first full look at what's sure to be an awards contender this year. All three co-stars have positions to challenge Bale's work as Cheney, and as we saw with Adam McKay's last film, The Big Short, he knows how to keep everyone's plate full and spinning, while telling a singularly threaded narrative. And for those of you playing at home, Carell's casting in particular feels like a sweet reference to the eventual fate of his Anchorman character, Brick Tamland.

Adam McKay is certainly no stranger to this type of film, especially when The Big Short saw him nominated for tons of awards--with a big win coming for his work as a co-writer on the film's script. Given the director's history and Vice's concept, the movie seems destined to take on a reputation as one of the political firebrands that'll be making the rounds this winter. McKay's views on politics are certainly not private, and if Vice is half as political as The Big Short, we're in for an equally interesting film that could start out as a comedy, before sliding into something much more dark and disturbing.

When he first entered the political dramedy circuit, Adam McKay might have been a surprise contender that needed some selling to the general public. But watching the trailer for Vice, and keeping his recent history in mind, this looks like a confident progression of genres for McKay. The end result will be released to the public starting this Christmas, but if you're wondering about any other politically charged biopics headed your way throughout the rest of this year, we've got you covered with our 2018 release schedule.

It has been ten years since Adam McKay's Step Brothers debuted in theaters, and the story of Dale (John C. Reilly) and Brennan (Will Ferrell) remains a modern comedy classic for many fans of the genre. The movie ends with the promise of more adventures for the maladjusted men, leading some to wonder if Step Brothers 2 could ever happen. Insiders have chimed in on the topic over the years, and Kathryn Hahn recently addressed the possibility and noted that it could definitely work because of how flexible the Step Brothers brand is. The Bad Moms star explained:

She kind of has a point. The original Step Brothers felt built mainly on improv between its main ensemble of actors, and it was not a particularly narrative-driven film. If Adam McKay wanted to get the gang back together for another movie, there would be a lot of flexibility and room for comedy. All they would really need to do is wind up Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Adam Scott, and all of the rest of the cast, and it would take care of itself. It's an interesting prospect, and as Kathryn Hahn noted in her recent chat with ET, she would quickly involve herself in the process if it ever gets that far, ideally to do a story that returns to the (fucking) Catalina Wine Mixer.

If you are a fan of the original Step Brothers, then it should be reasonably easy to get behind the possibility of Kathryn Hahn coming back as Alice Huff. Just look at one of her best (and very NSFW) scenes from the movie, below!

Of course, we should also take the time to point out that ideas for a possible Step Brothers sequel have been suggested in the decade since the first film debuted on the big screen. For example, during the recent promotional campaign for Daddy's Home 2, Will Ferrell spoke out and noted that the team behind the original film has toyed with the possibility of doing a sequel involving Dale and Brennan as they go to live at a retirement home.

With all of that said, we may need to wait quite a while before we see Step Brothers 2. During an interview with CinemaBlend earlier this year, Director Adam McKay specifically noted that the follow-up to the 2008 comedy could wait on the grounds that the potential for comedy doesn't diminish as Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly age. Many people are interested in making Step Brothers 2, but it doesn't sound like a priority.

At this point, it's anyone's guess as to whether or not Step Brothers 2 will happen. If nothing else, it's comforting to know that the folks who were involved in the original movie seem interested in coming back if the stars ever align. Until then, make sure to head over to our 2018 movie premiere guide to see what other films are coming to theaters this year.

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With a decade of hindsight, it's now evident that 2008 was an excellent year for an assortment of different genres. However, in the realm of comedies, there's one specific movie that has managed to stand the test of time: Adam McKay's Step Brothers. The hard-R, crude comedy has become one of the most re-watchable flicks of the last decade, and McKay recently joined CinemaBlend for an interview to dive into anything and everything that makes the story of Dale Doback (John C. Reilly) and Brennan Huff (Will Ferrell) so beloved.

From the spark of the idea for this bizarre premise to the iconography of some of its best scenes to the future of comedy and the Step Brothers brand itself, we're going to run through anything and everything that you want to know. On that note, let's kick things off by talking about Adam McKay's idea for where Step Brothers came from in the first place.

Apparently, Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, and John C. Reilly went through a ton of movie ideas before deciding to make Step Brothers. Step Brothers may seem like a no-brainer for guys like Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, but it wasn't the only idea that Adam McKay and his actors toyed around with. During his chat with CinemaBlend, McKay explained that several premises (albeit most of which weren't entirely formed) were thrown out, including the possibility of making Ferrell and Reilly portray guys who saw a UFO and couldn't convince anyone of it, as well as a story involving two LAPD cops. Per McKay:

As noted by McKay in that comment, some of these ideas were eventually used in later projects. In fact, the Step Brothers idea had particular significance to them after completing Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

This is why Adam McKay made Step Brothers right after Talladega Nights. Adam McKay and Will Ferrell have collaborated several times over the years, and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby brought John C. Reilly into the equation and turned the creative duo into a trio. With the team assembled for a new project, Adam McKay went into Step Brothers with a desire to make something a little weirder that would also rely more heavily on a small scale and improv. As McKay put it:

And that's ultimately how the film turned out. Step Brothers mainly plays out within the confines of one location, but it also took Adam McKay and Will Ferrell to new territory for their partnership by moving from PG-13 to an R-rating.

There's a reason why Step Brothers intentionally aimed for an R rating. Step Brothers ultimately became a hit and earned a commendable 54% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is pretty good for a broad comedy like this. However, McKay and Will Ferrell weren't sure how the film would perform in the earliest stages of its development, so they eventually opted to go all out and aim for an R-rating instead of the PG-13 label that they had for Anchorman and Talladega Nights. McKay told us:

In the end, because Step Brothers was so unrestricted in its approach to comedy, Adam McKay ultimately walked away feeling incredibly satisfied on a creative level. In fact, the director continued and explained that he feels like it's the collaboration with Will Ferrell that's the most faithful to his own sense of humor. McKay explained:

However, despite the fact that Step Brothers has such a pure feeling to it, it also has some previously unknown connections to other films directed by Adam McKay -- which is the next topic discussed in our interview with the director.

Wait, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, and The Other Guys take place in the same universe? We live in an age defined by cinematic universes like the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the DCEU, but it turns out that many of Adam McKay's films actually exist in a shared world as well. When we asked him about the presence of Hugalo's pizza in Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, the filmmaker explained that several of his films are meant to exist in the same universe. McKay said:

This apparently started out just as a way to prevent having to continually come up with fake labels to use movie after movie. However, they eventually realized that they were fond of the concept of a shared universe and embraced it in a way not dissimilar to that of Quentin Tarantino's films. Addressing the similarity, McKay explained:

This quality gives many of Adam McKay's comedies a timeless and classic quality, but that leads to the bigger question of why we haven't seen as many great comedies like Step Brothers in recent years.

Adam McKay has a theory on why so few good comedies are getting made. The last few years have seen a notable downturn in the number of broad comedies that have become hits with audiences, and that's something that has not gone unnoticed by Adam McKay. Addressing the dearth of reliable comedies in the modern era, the man behind Step Brothers offered up a rationale by explaining that there's currently no one specific comedic voice that defines the world in 2018, saying:

The success of Girls Trip has potentially positioned Tiffany Haddish as a leader in the current comedy conversation, but Adam McKay seems to think that there's no clear answer yet. Having said that, he doesn't think there's a lack of talent in the comedy field, and he has even expressed an interest in returning to the world of broad comedies to see what he can bring to the conversation. As he put it:

Of course, if Adam McKay does return to the world of broad comedies, he will have a lot to live up to when we consider Step Brothers' overwhelming iconography. Shifting gears to that element of the film's legacy, we continued in our interview and talked about the enduring appeal of the fucking Catalina Wine Mixer.

Adam McKay still can't believe the Catalina Wine Mixer became a real thing. Out of all the jokes in Step Brothers, one of the most instantly memorable is the sheer amount of passion that every character has for the Catalina Wine Mixer. The fictional event has seeped into our culture over the course of the last decade, and it has even become a go-to theme for parties in "bro culture." When we discussed this element of the film with Adam McKay, he made sure to note that it's equally flattering and bizarre, saying:

It will be interesting to see if Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, and John C. Reilly can create something equally iconic in Step Brothers 2. That said, don't hold your breath on seeing the long-awaited sequel anytime soon, because McKay made sure to note that the highly-anticipated sequel has a very long shelf life.

Why Step Brothers 2 can wait. If you're one of the many fans who continue to hold out hope for Step Brothers 2, then we have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Adam McKay could easily see Step Brothers 2 happening at some point, and there are even potential story ideas already in place. However, he also doesn't seem to be in any rush because the core concept behind Dale Doback and Brennan Huff only gets funnier as John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell get older. McKay addressed the wait for the sequel and said:

Make sure to stay tuned for more awesome content related to the anniversary of Step Brothers and let us know if you want to see the sequel in the comments, below! As for 2018's movies, you can hop over to our movie premiere guide to see what's on the calendar for this year!

Adam McKay's Step Brothers turns ten years old this year, which means that it's time to look back on the legacy of the comedy classic. Many of the film's scenes have become memorable in the decade since it hit theaters, but in a recent chat with CinemaBlend, McKay revealed a cut sequence from the original script that he would've kept in retrospect. Specifically, it would've involved Robert (Richard Jenkins) and Nancy (Mary Steenburgen) taking Dale (John C. Reilly) and Brennan (Will Ferrell) to a series of mental health professionals. As McKay explained:

As the film stands now, it's never fully explained whether or not Dale and Brennan have something legitimately diagnosable that stunts their maturity. This cut scene would've established that Dale and Brennan were mentally and physically able to live normal adult lives, but they simply chose not to on the grounds of laziness and entitlement. Adam McKay obviously made sure to note that he still thinks the film works without those scenes, but he did concede that they would've offered a better "point of view" in hindsight. Of all the changes that could've been made to the movie (one of which included sending Dale and Brennan to Fallujah), this one makes plenty of sense.

All of this stemmed from Adam McKay's desire to tell a story about two men who encapsulate lazy "consumer culture." Elsewhere in his conversation with CinemaBlend, the Anchorman director addressed his core goal with Step Brothers and said:

On that note, it's still entirely possible that a version of this scene could eventually make its way into the Step Brothers world. Adam McKay and Will Ferrell have talked about doing a sequel for years, and we even recently reported on Ferrell's idea of sending Dale and Brennan to a retirement home to live with their parents in Step Brothers 2. Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen, but the basic description of the scene makes it seem like there's potential room for it in another movie.

CinemaBlend will bring you more exclusive content from our chat with Adam McKay in the days to come, so make sure to keep an eye out for all of our Step Brothers anniversary coverage. For now, head over to our 2018 movie premiere guide to see what other films the year has in store. As for McKay, you can check out his latest directorial effort when his Christian Bale-fronted Dick Cheney biopic, Backseat, debuts in December.

Anchorman is one of those movies with fans bordering on the obsessive. That dedication eventually led to a sequel. It seems unlikely there will ever be an Anchorman 3, but if there is, we know what it will be about. Our own Conner Schwerdtfeger had a chance to sit down with Anchorman writer/director Adam McKay, who gave us details on where he sees Ron Burgandy going if there ever was a third installment. It's an idea we've heard before, indicating the writer really likes the concept and may be wanting to see this movie happen. According to McKay...

This isn't the first time that Adam McKay has mentioned the idea of embedding Ron Burgandy and company with the military, having first suggested the idea a couple of years ago. However, the fact that the idea is still there, and the fact that McKay isn't talking more about details of the idea, would seem to indicate that he's still interested in making the movie. If the chances of making Anchorman 3 were zero, he'd likely be more forthcoming, but he doesn't want to say too much.

It's a far cry from where Adam McKay was around the time that Anchorman 2 came out, when he basically wrote off the idea of ever doing an Anchorman 3. It seems that he may have softened to the idea over time as he now seems to be sold on this particular story. Previously, McKay had also toyed with a "new media" focused movie, that saw the Anchorman team, one assumes, in a modern setting having to deal with the world of the internet, but now it appears he's decoded on the embedded reporter idea.

Of course, none of this means that we should expect Anchorman 3 anytime soon. While Will Ferrell has taken a "never say never" approach, it doesn't appear like anybody is really pushing to make another Ron Burgandy movie happen. There are almost certainly fans who would love to see it, but behind the camera, everybody appears to be doing fine with other things and there isn't a serious desire to see this one happen. Still, we never thought we'd see Anchorman 2 before that one went into production, so perhaps there's some hope that we'll see Ron Burgandy and friends reporting on a war somewhere down the line.

Released back in 2015, the Will Ferrell-Kevin Hart comedy Get Hard didn't exactly receive the warmest reception when it hit theaters. It faced accusations of racism at its SXSW World Premiere, was bruised by a primarily negative critical response, and then failed to justify its $40 million budget with a $111 million global box office take. It's not exactly a great Hollywood tale, but now it's getting stranger, as the movie is caught in the middle of an odd lawsuit

Variety is reporting that screenwriter Victor Dean is suing the production company Codeblack Enterprises, claiming that they had a hand in his original idea being stolen and turned into the movie we know as Get Hard. Dean says that he originally wrote a treatment titled Prison 101 back in 2009, telling the story of "a securities broker who has to learn how to survive prison from a 'streetwise individual.'" He allegedly brought the idea to the Codeblack (a division of Lionsgate), and apparently went as far as to suggest that the project could star Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell. The project did not move forward as a feature from there, but Dean claims the company gave Get Hard producer Adam McKay access to his treatment and also showed him Dean's self-produced version of Prison 101 that was made as a four-episode web series.

The lawsuit has gotten a response from Codeblack Enterprises, though it certainly doesn't sound as though they are taking the whole thing too seriously. In a statement, Codeblack CEO Jeff Clanagan said,

Get Hard is credited to multiple individuals, with Adam McKay, Jay Martel and Ian Roberts receiving "story" credits, and director Etan Cohen sharing "screenplay" credits with Martel and Roberts.

Jeff Clanagan isn't completely without connection to Get Hard, as he is a business partner of Kevin Hart's. That said, Hart himself wasn't even a producer on the comedy, simply credited as a star, and Clanagan was not in any way credited with the comedy's development or production.

There is no number figure put on Victor Dean's lawsuit against Codeblack Enterprises, though the grievances listed include "breach of confidence, conversion and unfair business practices." In addition to requesting damages, he is also requesting that all copies of the Prison 101 treatment in the company's possession be destroyed. We'll have to wait and see how the case ultimately progresses.

Adam McKay has a lot of experience putting together outstanding ensembles, from Anchorman to The Big Short, and he's been putting together yet another amazing cast for his developing Dick Cheney movie. Christian Bale is playing the lead, but the movie has surrounded him with the likes of Amy Adams (Lynne Cheney), Steve Carell (Donald Rumsfeld), Sam Rockwell (George W. Bush), and Bill Pullman (Nelson Rockefeller). Now we can add Tyler Perry's name to that list, as it's been revealed he will be playing Colin Powell in the feature.

Deadline has the news about the casting, which is apparently a done deal rather than being an "in talks" situation. The untitled movie, which is based on a script that Adam McKay wrote himself, will center on Dick Cheney's time as the Vice President of the United States and his efforts and activities involving the Iraq War. Those who follow history/politics know that Colin Powell is a key player in this story, as he served as the Secretary of State during the Bush administration, and famously gave a presentation to the United Nations about weapons of mass destruction that we eventually learned didn't actually exist.

Of course, Tyler Perry is best known as a writer/director and the creator of the Madea franchise - but part of that is because he doesn't act in many films that he isn't also helming. A few of the exceptions include the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, David Fincher's Gone Girl, and J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, so it obviously isn't a hard and fast rule. He'll next be seen on the big screen in the sequel Boo 2: A Made Halloween, but he also has a voiceover role in the animated religious feature The Star.

The Dick Cheney film is another big step in the evolution of Adam McKay as a filmmaker. His past includes stupid, funny movies like Step Brothers, The Other Guys, and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, but his more recent work has been a bit more serious. The Big Short, which came out back in 2015, earned him his first Oscar (for Best Adapted Screenplay), and he clearly has a passion about the true life stories he's telling, so it's an exciting time to watch him develop as a director.

The timing of Tyler Perry's casting is a bit odd, as the Dick Cheney biopic is now a few weeks into production, having started filming in late September. The project doesn't have a release date just yet, so we're not entirely sure when we'll get to see the finished product, but the smart money says it will be sometime in the fall of 2018 (right when the Oscar voters are starting to think about the best movies of the year). As it doesn't look like the project is done adding big names to the cast, we'll continue to keep an eye on it, so stay tuned for more updates.

After one Oscar win and two further nominations Christian Bale is clearly one of the most talented actors working in Hollywood today. But he is going to have to stretch his prestigious talents to the extreme with his next role, though, because it has been reported that the Welsh actor is in talks to portray the former United States Secretary Of Defense and the 46th Vice President Of The United States, Dick Cheney.

If he decides to sign on to the dotted line for the still-untitled Dick Cheney biopic, it's going to mark something of a reunion for Christian Bale. That's because writer and director Adam McKay, who directed Christian Bale to one of his Oscar nominations in The Big Short, has written the screenplay and will direct it, too.

It's not just Adam McKay and Christian Bale who will be reuniting on the proposed film. That's because Steve Carell, who also featured in The Big Short and previously starred in the two Anchorman films that were written and directed by Adam McKay, has already agreed to portray Donald Rumsfeld. Meanwhile, Variety's source have also confirmed that The Fighter and American Hustle's Amy Adams will join the party as Lynne Cheney, which if true means that the film will have one of the stand-out casts of the year. McKay is developing the film through his Gary Sanchez Production company, while Brad Pitt's Plan B is also on board, and, if all goes according to plan, it will eventually be released through Paramount Pictures.

The companies involved clearly have high hopes for this project, because they are hoping to get it into production at some point in the spring, which would then allow them to give it a huge awards-season push. This would see it follow the same trajectory as The Big Short. Adam McKay's take on the economic crisis of 2008 not only went on to gross $133.3 million at the box office, it was also nominated for five Academy Awards. Writers Adam McKay and Charles Randolph were lucky enough to pick up the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for their work.

Dick Cheney is one of the most divisive political figures in modern history. As Vice President, he was heavily involved in the George W. Bush administration's response to the September 11 attacks, which also saw him coordinate the Global War On Terrorism. Dick Cheney previously served roles in the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and was CEO of Haliburton, while Adam McKay has recently confirmed that he has been spending his days researching the political figure.

Adam McKay has also been busy trying to convince Christian Bale to sign onto the project, and even though he's clearly quite close to doing just that, he should remember that the actor originally agreed to take the titular role in Steve Jobs before dropping out. But if Christian Bale decides to stay the course, then the combination of his potential performance as Dick Cheney and Adam McKay's irreverent approach to the film will make it a must watch.

The Flash may be The Fastest Man Alive, but his first solo theatrical movie is having trouble moving forward. Earlier this year, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter's Seth Grahame-Smith departed as director of The Flash, but he was soon replaced by Dope's Rick Famuyiwa. Unfortunately, on Monday it was announced that Famuyiwa exited the project due to "creative differences" (supposedly he wanted to do an edgier take than what Warner Bros and DC wanted). Now The Flash has lost two directors, and with only a few months to go until principal photography is set to begin, they need to find someone soon and, like the eponymous hero, they need to be fast.

While The Flash's situation behind the scenes is definitely troubling, we've come up with a list of candidates who would be worthy successors to Famuyiwa. They all come from different backgrounds, but they have what it takes to pick up the pieces and move forward to make this DC movie the best it can be. First up, let's start with someone who assisted DC's biggest rival in a time of need...

Adam McKay

Most of you know Adam McKay through his collaborations with Will Ferrell, like Anchorman and Step-Brothers. However, he does have some superhero experience under his belt thanks to re-writing the Ant-Man script with Paul Rudd. McKay is expected to also tackle the Ant-Man and the Wasp story, but as far as we know, that's the extent of his involvement. The Flash would be the prime opportunity for him to helm his own superhero movie, and if necessary, he can make adjustments to the script. For those who think McKay's body of work is too goofy for him to be a serious Flash contender, you need to check out his 2015 hit, The Big Short. That Academy Award-nominated movie proved he can handle a drama infused with comedy, which is something The Flash is expected to be.

Drew Goddard

Drew Goddard has waited a long time to fully oversee a superhero project. He was originally the showrunner for Daredevil and wrote the first two episodes of Season 1, but he left before shooting kicked off. He was also supposed to direct the Sinister Six movie, but after Sony scrapped the Amazing Spider-Man universe in favor of bringing a new Wall-Crawler into the MCU, that project was axed. Given his experience with science fiction, ranging from writing episodes of Lost to penning The Martian, The Flash would be an excellent movie for him to put his skills to work. After all, Flash is one of the more sci-fi heavy corners of the DC universe thanks to The Rogues, the Speed Force and more.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon has spent most of his career in Hollywood as a second unit director, but he recently stretched his muscles as the man in charge helming 2014's The Town That Dreaded Sundown and 2015's Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. He would hopefully bring the same comedy-drama elements from that second movie to The Flash. Remember, just because one hasn't directed a blockbuster before doesn't mean they're not capable of delivering a good one on their first attempt. That was the case with Rick Famuyiwa, but because of his work on Dope, Warner Bros felt he would be a good fit for the Scarlet Speedster (for a time). The same could work for Gomez-Rejon, as long as he remembers to inject those quieter personal moments so the characters feel more real.

Lexi Alexander

Punisher: War Zone may not be the most beloved superhero movie, but many Punisher fans believe it was better than Frank Castle's 2004 movie and felt closer to the source material. The movie's director, Lexi Alexander, recently jumped back into the live action superhero game when she directed the Arrow episode "Beyond Redemption" and the Supergirl episode "Truth, Justice and the American Way." She was also one of the names tossed out for directing Wonder Woman years back. It's about time Alexander receives a second chance at helming a cinematic superhero tale. If you follow her on social media, you know she's a "think outside the box" kind of person, so ideally that means she would bring a unique flair to the Scarlet Speedster's first solo adventure.

Ruben Fleischer

From what we've learned so far, The Flash is aiming to be a lighter action movie, more similar to Suicide Squad than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Well, when it comes to that kind of tone, Ruben Fleischer would be in his wheelhouse. He has plenty of experience in the action-comedy realm from directing Zombieland (and its upcoming sequel) and 30 Minutes or Less. He also explored the world of organized crime through Gangster Squad, so helming a superhero movie would be an interesting step from there. As seen in Suicide Squad and the Justice League preview, this version of Barry Allen is more humorous, so you need someone who can effectively expand on his charm, as well as make sure the other characters have interesting personalities.

F. Gary Gray

F. Gary Gray has been directing movies since the 1990s, with his resume including Friday, The Italian Job and Law Abiding Citizen. However, the last few years have been particularly kind to him. Following the enormous success of Straight Outta Compton, he was tapped to direct Fast 8, which hits theaters on April 14, 2017. Needless to say he's on a role, so Warner Bros and DC would be wise to snatch him up for The Flash. He'll be hot off overseeing a high-octane adventure, and his other credits prove he knows how to make an exciting movie, which The Flash needs to be and then some. All this being said, if Gray is hired, Warner will need to delay blockbuster's principal photography, because currently its launch date overlaps with Fast 8's post-production period and press promotion.

Edgar Wright

Most of you reading this list know that Edgar Wright's past experience with superhero movies hasn't been great. In 2006, a few years before the Marvel Cinematic Universe launched, he boarded Ant-Man as its director, but in 2014, he departed the movie over "creative differences." It's understandable if he would be hesitant about trying his hand as another movie in this genre, but The Flash would nonetheless be an excellent opportunity for him. Not only is Wright more than capable of directing a funny movie, but he's also a comics fan, which is a nice bonus. Plus, look at his 2010 movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It was frantic, funny and unique. That's what The Flash will be like...but with less absurdity. Things didn't work out with Marvel, but maybe Wright would have better luck at DC.

It's amazing. You put a couple of Oscar winners together for a new film that already sounds like an award contender, and suddenly everybody wants to make it. Just last week Jennifer Lawrence was attached to the film about entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes, to be directed by The Big Short's Adam McKay. As you can imagine, a bidding war broke out over the project, but that war has now been won by Legendary, so the film, titled Bad Blood, can move forward.

Bad Blood will follow the life of Elizabeth Holmes, the woman who founded the blood testing company Theranos. At one time the company was valued a $9 billion, but recently that value has collapsed following news that the company is under investigation for inaccurate testing procedures. This subject matter is so hot that, unlike Adam McKay's last film, which was based on a book, the package Legendary just purchased is actually the rights to a book proposal. That proposal is an idea from journalist John Carreyrou, according to The Hollywood Reporter, who covered Theranos for the Wall Street Journal. They couldn't even wait for the actual book to be written. McKay is on board to both write and direct Bad Blood.

While this subject matter doesn't sound like any laughing matter, we would have said the same thing about the financial collapse that led to the Great Recession, yet Adam McKay successfully turned that into a humorous movie, The Big Short, which got him an Oscar nomination for Best Director and a win for Best Adapted Screenplay. While we have no idea if Bad Blood will take quite the same tone with its subject matter, we certainly won't be surprised, if we are in fact surprised, by what Bad Blood turns out to look like.

While the topics in The Big Short were a few years old, Bad Blood is as recent as right now. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced this past April that they are seeking to ban Elizabeth Holmes from owning or operating a blood lab for a period of two years. It feels like the biggest problem the new film may have, is that its story may not be over by the time they need to have a finished script ready.

The role of Elizabeth Holmes feels like a strong departure for Jennifer Lawrence. Whether or not Holmes will be portrayed in the movie as a sympathetic character, it's highly unlikely that she'll be the "hero" of the story. As it stands, it doesn't look like the issues regarding Theranos are going to end positively. Seeing Lawrence play somebody who doesn't come out on top will be a nice change of pace.

Time will tell how this movie shakes out, but with a strong lead actress and a great writer and director behind the camera, this one certainly feels like the Oscar contender that Legendary certainly hopes it will be.

Right now, 20th Century Fox’s main superhero movie properties consist of X-Men and the Fantastic Four. The former has enjoyed a lot of success with its main movies and spinoffs, while the latter has failed to take off across two separate series. Now Fox wants to expand its lineup of superhero material, but they’re looking outside of Marvel for material. Instead, they’re tapping Anchorman director Adam McKay to helm a big screen adaptation of the BOOM! Studios series Irredeemable.

The McKay-directed Irredeemable movie will be penned by Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters writer and director Tommy Wirkola. According to Deadline, Fox is intending to build a new superhero movie universe with Irredeemable, but this one significantly more edgy than most of their X-Men material. This will be the second superhero movie McKay has worked on, previously re-writing Ant-Man with Paul Rudd.

Written by Mark Waid, Irredeemable was a 37-issue series (plus one special) published from 2009 to 2012. The story followed the Plutonian, a Superman-like hero who goes insane and starts killing millions of people across the globe. The world’s remain superheroes join together to form The Paradigm, the only group that stands a chance of ending Plutonian’s reign of terror. As the series continued, readers watched as The Paradigm dealt with their own personal issues in the midst of trying to neutralize the Plutonian, as well as learned about Plutonian’s background and what caused him to snap.

Irredeemable was later joined by the spinoff series Incorruptible (also written by Mark Waid), which followed the Plutonian’s former arch-nemesis, Max Damage, reformed and trying to be a superhero in his own right. Although Deadline didn’t mention anything about an Incorruptible movie, if Irredeemable is indeed setting up its own universe, than it’s more likely than not we’ll also see Max Damage in live action eventually.

It should be noted that the Irredeemable series was not kid-friendly in the slightest, and judging by the article, Fox won’t be shying away from its heavy violence and adult material. Although R-rated comic book movies are nothing new, Deadpool’s recent performance showed that they can be critically and commercially successful if adapted with the right creative vision. Irredeemable can enjoy the same kind of success, though McKay should take note that this can’t be nearly as comedic as Ant-Man or the other movies he’s worked on.

Superhero movies are at the height of their popularity now, but Marvel and DC are the main sources of these kinds of tales for moviegoers. By using stories from other comic book companies, like BOOM! Studios’ Irredeemable, it allows audiences to learn about lesser-known characters in the same theatrical setting. If Valiant Entertainment gets their movies off the ground, then the Big Two will have some serious competition on their hands.

Only a few years ago the basic concept behind Uber probably seemed insane to a large segment of the population. Sharing a car with a total stranger through an Internet app? It objectively sounds like a ridiculous notion. However, Uber now has a firm grip on a huge portion of modern consumers, and the service has evolved into an incredibly common method of transportation. In fact, the service has become so ubiquitous that two separate films lampooning its concept are now racing to hit theaters first.

According to a new report from THR, two separate films focusing upon the major ride sharing service have entered development. Developed at Universal and FOX, respectively, these films will both be comedies centered on the absurdity of Uber, and the idea that anyone could get into a driver's car at any given time. Universal’s film sold for well over $1 million, and is set to star modern comedy legend Will Ferrell. Although we don’t yet know very much about the film, we do know that the film will follow the story of an Uber driver who picks up a sadistic criminal while on the job. In addition to starring in the film, Ferrell will also produce the movie alongside his frequent partner Adam McKay. Beyond that, the film has yet to finalize a title, or even a fully completed script.

On the other side of the aisle, FOX’s Uber-centric comedy already has a title: Stuber. In a similar fashion to Universal’s Uber comedy, Stuber will follow an Uber driver who picks up an old, grizzled cop in the midst of a career-making case, and the antics the two of them get into over the course of a single night. Although Stuber has yet to cast any of its main characters, FOX already has a finished script to work with, effectively giving them an overall advantage over Universal with regards to getting their Uber movie produced first.

As previously mentioned, Uber has managed to become a central part of modern life in only a few short years. Aside from its inherent usefulness, the company has also managed to tap into numerous aspects of pop culture. These stunts range from the incredibly minor – such as offering copies of Madden to those who use the service – to the insanely major – such as having drivers operate in Mad Max: Fury Road inspired cars. Uber has effectively changed 21st century culture, and as such, it’s now time for the service to become properly ridiculed by Hollywood.

Considering the sheer ridiculousness of Uber as a service, and the wonderful opportunities to have some fun at the popular app’s expense, we can’t wait for either of these films to come out. No matter who wins or loses this race, we as audiences will reap the benefits. We will bring you more details related to both of the upcoming Uber comedies as they become available to us.