SPOILERS are ahead for Mike Flanagan’s The Life Of Chuck movie. Go see it in theaters before reading on.

Wow, The Life Is Chuck has to be one of the best 2025 movies, right? While I wasn’t sure what to expect out of the latest of Stephen King adaptations which was made it plain and clear in its trailer it’s not a horror title, I left the theater feeling really affirmed about the beauty and pain that comes with living life, and was very moved by how writer/director Mike Flanagan took me on a journey as an audience member. Even though I watched it a week ago, it’s a movie that’s continued to stick with me, and there’s one element I want to spend some time talking about: the locked room.

The mysterious locked room is first shown in Act III (the first act of the movie in this case) when Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character, Marty Anderson, looks over at it in his home while dealing with the end of days for his world. But the locked room doesn’t start to earn meaning until Act I (the third act of the movie). As I’ve thought about The Life Of Chuck all week, I’ve continued to think about the poetic sentiment surrounding this element of the film, and how it really made the movie special for me.

What Is The Locked Room In The Life Of Chuck?

In Act I of The Life Of Chuck, we learn that everything we watched in Act III was from the brain of an accountant named Chuck in his mind’s “universe” as he was dying at the age of 39. Marty and Felicia were people he knew in his childhood who were witnessing the end of Chuck, and their world as they knew it, as the character died from cancer. So, everything from Act III was taken from Chuck’s life and mind. And in Act I, we find out that the locked room from Act III was specifically from Chuck’s childhood home, where he was raised by his grandparents, Albie and Sarah (played by Mark Hamill, who’s actually done a King adaptation before, and Mia Sara).

Chuck has a lot of curiosity about the locked room, as any child would, and one night, when his granddad is drunk, he gets some information out of him regarding what’s inside. Albie suggests that there are ghosts in that room, and references seeing some people in their community and family who have died. This only makes Chuck more curious about being in the room, and one night he finds a way to open it. But before he can look inside, Albie gets in the way and makes a very concerned, scared face once he opens the door instead of his grandson. But just like Chuck, we don’t see what’s inside.

Later, we learn that inside the room of the locked door, people can see death, and in the case of Albie, he probably saw his death and his wife’s during that final look inside. Chuck then experiences their deaths during his childhood, and at the end of the movie, once they have both died, a teenage Chuck gets the keys to the locked door. When it opens, he sees his own death. But, rather than look at the sight with fear like Albie did, he recites something his teacher told him, which is that “I contain multitudes” and suggests he’ll live his life to the fullest. He is not afraid of the room like his granddad was.

I More Think About The The Locked Room, The More I Realize Its Deeper Meaning

While you could certainly take the ending of The Life Of Chuck literally as there being a ghost story smack in the middle of it, I don’t think it’s supposed to be a literal film at all. As I’ve thought about the device of the locked room more, I’ve realized that it’s a symbol for the ongoing curiosity of death. And I find it so clever that author Stephen King chose to make the locked room something that Chuck is endlessly curious about in his childhood, specifically.

Because wanting to know about how you’ll die oddly does feel like it should be likened to ruminating on a random room in your childhood home. It’s one of those things you simply cannot help thinking about, no matter what you do, but in the end, if you did know, and you opened the door, you’d probably be disappointed with what you saw. Death isn’t something we aspire to, and seeing one’s death doesn’t really change anything. It just will happen, and it exists. It’s absolutely like opening a random room in your house you're not supposed to go in, because I don’t think how we actually die is going to be as interesting as your mind imagines it might contain. Once we get there, it’s the living we did that matters a lot more.

I Find It So Powerful How Young Chuck Reacted To The Room

So, that brings me to talking about that final moment where teen Chuck (played by Jacob Tremblay) enters the room and sees himself dying. I really love how he reacts, because it is disappointing to him, as it should be. But rather than looking death in the face and being afraid of it, he kind of spites death in a way, by basically announcing how beautiful it is for him to be alive and “contain multitudes.” I love that he doesn’t linger in the room or kind of study the moment of his death that’s in front of him. Rather, he acknowledges that the curiosity is there, and he will die, but doesn’t really give it the time of day.

What a lovely message to be delivered! By the end of the movie, it feels like The Life Of Chuck is trying to remind its audience that while one cannot help but wonder about death, and have to face it one way or the other, death itself isn’t as important as the life you live. I’m so grateful a movie reminded me of this, and I simply cannot wait for more from this year of Stephen King adaptations after being so moved by Mike Flanagan’s movie.

Actor Jacob Tremblay has made an impressive career for himself over roughly a decade's worth of work. Starting with his star-making role in director Lenny Abrahamson’s adaptation of Room, Tremblay went on to do everything from Pixar movies to his latest voice acting project on which he serves as one of the leads -- 2024 movie schedule entry Orion and the Dark. Amid the release of the movie, CinemaBlend spoke to the young actor, who reflected on his "really good career" after graduating.

I was recently able to sit down with him and co-star Paul Walter Hauser, as part of the picture's press day. While the discussion included topics like "deep" kids movies that inspired Orion and the Dark's cast and creatives, there was also an opportunity to dig into the young actor's process a little further.

That subject couldn't have come at a more appropriate time, as Jacob Tremblay announced that he had recently graduated during our conversation. With that, he proceeded to reflect on the good fortune he's had professionally over the past several years. Looking back on it all, the young star shared the following sentiments with CinemaBlend:

The timing of our Orion and the Dark interview only put a finer point on this discussion, as well as Tremblay’s performance as the eponymous protagonist. The character is a middle-schooler who’s wise beyond his years, to the point where the poor kid’s afraid of everything. Viewers ultimately see this boy befriending Paul Walter Hauser’s Dark in an effort to get rid of his skittishness. It’s material that all ages can dig into, but Jacob Tremblay especially felt equipped to take it on.

Watching the young actor’s skills refining over the years has been a treat as a fan of his work. When we last spoke to the actor, during press for the Netflix film My Father’s Dragon, the subject of Jacob Tremblay’s earlier/heavier works came up. At the time, he acknowledged that even he knows how to get method when it comes to the parts he plays. So. naturally, his acting technique was locked into the process; and that’s why I asked how growing up has helped him as he keeps playing younger characters. 

The answer he provided also tied into another aspect of his work previously discussed, thanks to his traumatic Doctor Sleep scene coming “from the heart.” Which honestly sounds like it ties into the good childhood that he’s been able to maintain while working as a performer. It’s a personal balance that’s yielded some fantastic work, even if moments like his big Mike Flanagan death scene freaked out cast and crew alike while on set. 

The future is also bright for Jacob Tremblay, as the next projects on his docket are The Toxic Avenger remake starring Peter Dinklage, as well as a role in the cast for The Life of Chuck. He'll reunite with Mr. Flanagan yet again, and that upcoming Stephen King movie will also see the young man tackling more material from this master of horror. Which leaves another fun question to ponder: could Jacob land a role in Mike’s Dark Tower series for Amazon? It's hard to say but, at this point, I'm just happy to see this talented young man continue to expand upon his impressive career.

DreamWorks Animation's Orion and the Dark is currently streaming for all with access to a Netflix subscription, and it’s an absolutely sweet family film that deserves an audience. 

As far as the subgenre known as the “kid’s movie” goes, there’s a wide variety of tones and messages you could spot in any given corner. Just looking at the 2024 movies aimed at younger audiences, as there are titles like Inside Out 2 and Netflix’s Orion and the Dark that continue to prove that you can go pretty deep when it comes to a younger audience.

So it only seemed fair to ask actors Jacob Tremblay and Paul Walter Hauser, the people playing Orion and Dark, respectively, about the first time a kid’s movie did just that. I was able to pose that question to director Sean Charmatz and producer Peter McCown as well, seeing as we were all on hand to celebrate Orion and the Dark’s recent addition to what could be considered among the best movies on Netflix.

Paul Walter Hauser And Jacob Tremblay’s Favorite Deep Kid's Movies

For the record, Hauser and Tremblay’s answers were hysterical; not because they were particularly offbeat, but rather because they both had the same answers in mind. This only came after Paul prefaced his answer with the fact that he thought they never would have picked the same movies.

Sure enough, CinemaBlend was on hand to observe that beautiful bit of symmetry you can witness in the video above. Both Toy Story and The Lion King were the movies that saw Paul Walter Hauser and Jacob Tremblay bonding in this interview experience, which makes even more sense considering the movie they recently starred in. 

As far as how Toy Story kicked things off, Paul Walter Hauser shared some deep questions it made him ask about life with CinemaBlend. In asking those questions, Jacob Tremblay added some insightful feedback of his own: 

"Paul Walter Hauser: ‘Are my toys sentient? Is this a thing? Do they have feelings? Should I not be throwing them across the room unthinkingly?’

Jacob Tremblay: That just made playing with toys so much better, I think. Just thinking that they could be real."

Dreamworks Animation and breaking out of the usual animated box of storytelling is as natural a fit as Jacob Tremblay and Paul Walter Hauser. In Orion and the Dark, poor Orion (Tremblay) is afraid of pretty much everything, which leaves him with a lack of friends. But Dark (Hauser) wants to change that through helping our young hero face his fears of darkness and many other perils of life.

Seriously, this kid’s afraid of everything from murder clowns and mosquitos to death itself. Some shared nighttime adventures start to take place, as the lead of this Netflix project is shown the secret world of night. Which, naturally, sounds like the hidden life aspects of Toy Story definitely pair well with this new animated film.

Also, when you're talking about one of the best Pixar movies ever to have done it, that cross-generational appeal kind of makes sense. That same sort of energy applies to the second movie that both Paul Walter Hauser and Jacob Tremblay shared in this regard. 

Heralded as one of the best Disney movies from the company's 100 years in operation, 1994's The Lion King happened to be the other title that Paul threw out for Jacob to preemptively catch. When it came to that story, the Richard Jewell actor had a fantastic tie-in to the film we were discussing at that very moment: 

Without going into too much detail, Orion and the Dark plays with its own circle of life. Only instead of birth and death being present, the exercise of storytelling is what's handed down as a legacy. Which is absolutely fitting as this brainy kid's movie was adapted from author Emma Yarlett's book by none other than Charlie Kaufman. 

Nothing says "deep kid's movie" like a film penned by the man who gave us Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That only opened the door to further mind blowing experiences of kid's movies "going deep," as at this point it's time do dig into producer Peter McCown and director Sean Charmatz's answers to that same question.

How Stephen King, Don Bluth, And Steven Spielberg Went Deep For Young Sean Charmatz And Peter McCown

Not to be outdone, Orion and the Dark’s producer and director team had their own touchstones of children’s cinema that hammered home some emotional spikes. And as any ‘80s/’90s kid will tell you, the filmmakers behind these movies are masters at crafting such formative films.

Starting with Peter McCown, here are the deep kid’s movies that inspired both he and Sean Charmatz; and how they still affect them to this day: 

You can definitely see the DNA of both former Disney animator Don Bluth and Steven Spielberg in Orion and the Dark. As both of those creative titans ruled the roost of more mature kid's movies with an iron fist in the ‘80s and ‘90s, their influences are still felt to this day.

However, while director Sean Charmatz would throw out the joint Bluth/Spielberg venture An American Tail as an influential kid's film, a pretty fitting Stephen King adaptation fell into the mix as well. Here's what Charmatz had to say:

To be frank, I kind of always thought of Stand By Me as one of those kid's movies that was never overtly made for children, but played perfectly for an audience of the right age. Rob Reiner's adaptation of Stephen King "The Body" kind of engrained itself as such in the pop culture consciousness, as the film is widely regarded one of the best films of the 1980s. 

Wrapping it all up with a bow, however, is one Steven Spielberg movie that Peter McCown and Sean Charmatz mentiond as a beloved favorite. If you've already seen Orion and the Dark, you might have already guessed this one. But just in case, here's the common thread these men shared in our interview room: 

"Peter McCown: Oh, another one is E.T. It’s not dissimilar from this story, in the fact that Elliot is very smart, very wise beyond his years. And he’s scared of this alien, for obvious reasons, at first. But then, over the course of this film, he gets to know him. And then that you can love something so deeply, that you previously were terrified of, was really special.

Sean Charmatz: E.T. was a big one for me as well. … I cried at the John Williams [concert]. John Williams played E.T. and Indiana Jones, and when they played the music for E.T. I was crying."

Looking back on the deep kid's movies stories I got out of Orion and the Dark’s cast and creatives, the care and depth this new Dreamworks movie exhibits is even less of a surprise. After having seen the picture myself, I kind of want to pair it with at least a handful of the titles mentioned above and have a bit of an "inner child" movie marathon. 

Teaching life lessons in overcoming fear and sticking up for yourself, as well as others, Orion and the Dark is something that Netflix subscription holders should seek out. You’ll be able to do just that, as DreamWorks Animation's latest is currently streaming for all who seek it, whether you watch your movies with the lights on or off.

One of the fun things about being a Mike Flanagan fan is seeing the way he casts his projects. Actors who sign on to a Flanagan movie or show regularly return for another – with standout names including Henry Thomas, Carla Gugino, Rahul Kohli, Bruce Greenwood and Kate Siegel (who is also the writer/director's wife) – and it's equally fascinating to see what new stars join his ever-expanding troupe. 

The filmmaker has already added a dash of both to his new movie based on Stephen King's novella The Life Of Chuck, with The Fall Of The House Of Usher's Mark Hamill and Flanagan first-timer Tom Hiddleston on-board – and now we have news that more fresh and familiar faces have signed on to the developing feature.

According to Deadline, The Life Of Chuck has added three names to its growing cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, and Jacob Tremblay. The Stephen King adaptation will mark the first time that Ejiofor has worked with Mike Flanagan, but the other two have prior experience collaborating with him. Gillan previously starred in the outstanding 2014 film Oculus (Flanagan's breakout feature), and Tremblay is featured in both 2016's Before I Wake and 2019's Doctor Sleep (where he memorably plays the ill-fated Baseball Boy a.k.a. Bradley Trevor).

As noted, The Life Of Chuck is based on the novella of the same name, which is featured in the 2020 Stephen King collection If It Bleeds. It's a fascinating and surreal story that plays out in reverse, beginning with the titular Chuck's death and ending with his childhood. Unfortunately, the trade report does not mention who Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, and Jacob Tremblay will be playing in the film, which has started production this month in Mobile, Alabama. If all goes according to plan, it will hopefully extend Flanagan's streak of annually delivering a new movie or TV show (a streak that goes back to 2016), but a release date has not yet been announced.

The Life Of Chuck is Mike Flanagan's third King adaptation, as he previously made 2017's Gerald's Game in addition to the aforementioned Doctor Sleep (a film so phenomenal that it actually helped changed Stephen King's opinion of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining). Both movies are among the best Stephen King movies of all time, and there are high hopes that his latest will have a matching reputation.

In addition to The Life Of Chuck, Flanagan is also in the process of developing his dream project, which is an adaptation of what many consider to be Stephen King's magnum opus: The Dark Tower series. You can find more details about it as well as every other King film and show in the works in our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.

There has been a lot of buzz around the upcoming live-action remake of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, which is just one of a number of big family-friendly movies coming out this summer. Unfortunately a lot of the chatter has been racist backlash against Halle Bailey being cast as Ariel. Audiences will soon be able to draw their own conclusions about the portrayal – and that of the other actors, including Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder and Daveed Diggs putting his own mark on Sebastian – when the director Rob Marshall's film hits theaters on May 26. While we wait, let’s take a look at the reviews.

The latter two actors also faced some trolling – or at least their meme-worthy characters did – after movie posters were released showing the animated versions of Ariel’s crab and fish friends. Despite some apparent wariness from fans loyal to the 1989 movie, the first reactions to the remake were positive, with moviegoers lauding Halle Bailey, saying she proves herself, both with her singing voice and in the way she embodies the classic Disney character. In CinemaBlend’s review of The Little Mermaid, Corey Chichizola agrees, rating the movie 4 out of 5 stars and calling the actress a “bonafide superstar” in one of Disney’s best live-action adaptations. He continues: 

Alyssa Mora of IGN rates The Little Mermaid a “Good” 7 out of 10, saying Halle Bailey gives a star-making performance in a movie that is an acceptable, if not always successful, adaptation of the animated original. The critic concludes: 

Brian Truitt of USA TODAY rates the film 2.5 out of 4 stars, warning skeptical viewers that Rob Marshall’s The Little Mermaid is a different animal than the 1989 classic – and nearly an hour longer. This critic joins the others in saying Halle Bailey is the selling point of this remake, but says the original music from Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda stick out against the beloved originals: 

Caryn James of BBC rates it 3 stars out of 5, calling the lead actress “captivating” as Ariel, while Daveed Diggs is the perfect comic voice for her crab companion. James says it’s a “spectacle with an allure and vitality of its own,” but like the critic above, she says the new songs don’t measure up to the original soundtrack offerings. The review states: 

Leigh Monson of AV Club grades the movie a C+, admitting that this Disney live-action remake is better than others that have come before, but that doesn’t mean that it’s good. The critic continues: 

It seems like the critics are all praising Halle Bailey, with plenty of love for Melissa McCarthy, as well. However, the skepticism that surrounds the movie, which follows several highly criticized live-action remakes from the House of Mouse, seems to center around the new music written for the movie and the additions that extend its runtime by 52 minutes, compared to the 1989 original.

These reviews shouldn’t and won’t keep audiences from checking The Little Mermaid out in theaters, though, after its release Friday, May 26. Be sure to also take a peek at our 2023 Movie Release Schedule to see what else is coming soon, and see what other upcoming Disney movies you can look forward to. 

Over the last few years, Disney has made a habit out of adapting beloved animated blockbusters into live-action. We’ve seen this to various levels of success including projects like The Lion King and Beauty and The Beast. The latest of these heading to theaters is The Little Mermaid, helmed by the great Rob Marshall. Anticipation for the upcoming Disney movie has been steadily building, but there was some criticism online about the way the appearance of the animal characters like Scuttle and Sebastian. And Jacob Tremblay recently reacted to Flounder’s meme-worthy design.

Despite only being 16 year-old, Jacob Tremblay has had a wildly successful career thanks to projects like Room. He voiced Ariel’s best friend Flounder, but as more footage and Little Mermaid trailer were released, fans have been poking fun at the character’s realistic appearance. Tremblay was asked by People about all the memes floating around (pun intended), and he responded saying:

There you have it. While Flounder has been meme fodder online, Tremblay likes the way that his character’s design was executed in Little Mermaid. We’ll just have to see if the public’s opinion changes once the movie is finally released in theaters. Only time will tell.

Aside from the memes about animal characters, the early reception for The Little Mermaid has been super positive. The movie’s visuals have been getting a ton of praise, as has lead actress Halle Bailey for her performance in the titular role. This stands in stark contrast to the racist hate Bailey experienced as a result of her casting. And as more footage from the movie makes its way online, it seems naysayers are being converted.

As for whether or not audiences will come around on Flounder remains to be seen. The 1989 original Little Mermaid movie has a special place in generations of Disney fans’ hearts. But Rob Marshall’s film is giving the animals a more realistic appearance, despite their ability to speak and sing songs like “Kiss The Girl.” Flounder looks different as a result, losing his round appearance and rich yellow and blue coloring. 

Luckily the wait is nearly over, as The Little Mermaid will arrive in theaters later this month. It should be fascinating to see how well it performs, and how that might influence the production of future Disney movies. The studio recently confirmed the Moana live-action movie is coming, with Dwayne Johnson revealing the news himself. 

The Little Mermaid will arrive in theaters on May 26th. In the meantime, check out the 2023 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience. 

Updated with video.

Look people, I tried to warn you. Back in the summer of 2019 I told everybody that the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid was going to have a serious problem that nobody had considered. Specifically, the fact that making photo-realisitic versions of the animal characters from the animated movie was going to mean creating versions of Flounder of Sebastian that were not nearly as adorable as the ones we already had. And now here we are.

The live-action remake of The Little Mermaid will be hitting theaters at the end of the month, and while the buzz around this one is absolutely off the charts, not everybody is completely excited by all aspects of it. First, the internet took aim at Scuttle, now it’s been getting a look at what Sebastian and Flounder are going to look like in the new movie that has fans scratching their heads.

It can’t really be argued that Sebastian and Flounder look pretty realistic, which is fitting for a movie that is otherwise live-action. But not everybody is on board with this. These characters actually look more than a little creepy and fans on Twitter are not on board with these designs. 

But then what was the digital effects team supposed to do? The Little Mermaid is a live-action adaptation so all the human and mermaid characters are played by people. What exactly are the animal characters supposed to look like? As one response points out, the digital effects people did their job, and honestly did it well, but the expectation of realistic characters was only ever going to create this. 

If the characters didn't need to talk and were just animals, that would be fine. But they also need to have the human characteristics that make the audience connect with them and allow them to do some human-like things, like speak. We saw this problem with The Lion King remake. The technology to make the animals look real was amazing, but it sacrificed the ability of the characters to properly emote. When you bring the need for "realistic" and "speaking like people" together you get some Island of Dr. Moreau-looking monster… 

It’s legitimately hard to find anybody who really loves these designs. Even a Texas Department of Public Safety decided to get in on the Twitter dogpile and call this one a literal crime. 

Maybe, once we actually sit down and watch The Little Mermaid, we’ll all get used to these looks and they’ll be ok. It’s possible that we’ll get over our initial hesitation. However, there’s also the possibility that we will spend the entire movie just wondering what in the hell it is we are staring at. Anybody who had the misfortune to watch Cats understands what that is like.

Maybe Flounder and Sebastian aren’t actually in that much of the movie, so it won’t bother us that much. Or maybe the voice performances from Daveed Diggs and Jacob Trembley and the rest of The Little Mermaid cast are so good we’ll overlook the look. We can only hope. 

The new movie release My Father’s Dragon is a Netflix original that tells the story of a young boy, a perilous journey and the dragon that ties both together. Jacob Tremblay provides the voice of Elmer Elevator, the young man at the heart of it all, which is a far cry from earlier projects that have seen him put through the emotional ringer. One of the most memorable parts in that regard has to be Tremblay’s traumatizing appearance in Doctor Sleep, and the actor had some special memories about how he prepared for such a horrifying scene.

As I spoke with both Jacob Tremblay and director Nora Twomey during Netflix’s press day for My Father’s Dragon, the subject of the Room actor’s earlier career came up. So, of course, while discussing the heavier roles that prepared Tremblay to tackle animated adventure, writer/director Mike Flanagan’s legacy-quel to The Shining had to come up.

After asking how his 12-year-old self could have prepared for such a moment, Jacob Tremblay told CinemaBlend about his process on Doctor Sleep. The answer was as method as you would have thought, as this is what he had to say: 

It’s amazing what childhood imagination can do for an actor trying to get into the right headspace. Nowhere is that more true than Jacob Tremblay’s gruesome birthday celebration, in which the True Knot cult brutalizes his character, “Baseball Boy” Bradley Trevor. Led by Rebecca Ferguson’s Rose the Hat, it’s a sustained scene of blood, screams and steam - the life force these pseudo-vampires feed on to stay young. 

Before I go any further, you really need to watch this scene, as it cannot be understated that Tremblay put in a performance so raw it actually freaked out everyone else on set. If you don’t mind some fictional child endangerment and want to truly get a feeling for what Jacob Tremblay did with his big scene in Doctor Sleep, here’s that clip: 

While some might argue that pretending to be a Jedi, especially a youngling Padawan, is the right experience for this scene, it’s another brilliant performance from Jacob Tremblay that shows his acting talents. By tackling this sort of darkness at a young age, Tremblay noted that he was ready for roles like the one in My Father’s Dragon that embrace childlike adventure with a more serious edge.

Still, the young man understood just how important it was to shake off his horrific fate once the take was in the can. As he further explained the day on set, Jacob Tremblay discussed how using the skills that helped him pretend to die a cruel and unfair death also helped him know when it was time to give his dad a high five and brighten the mood.  

One could imagine the career that Jacob Tremblay has ahead of him, especially when getting comfortable with some really dark stuff. As he admitted, honing one’s craft on such things only makes playing lighter, but still bittersweet animated roles all the easier. 

You can hear the results of such an approach when you watch My Father’s Dragon, which is currently streaming for those with a Netflix subscription. Meanwhile, if you want to watch Doctor Sleep, which is always something worth suggesting, you can stream the theatrical cut with an HBO Max subscription. 

For a relatively young actor, Jacob Tremblay has done quite a bit of heavy dramatic acting in his career. Room and Doctor Sleep are just two of the credits the young man has racked up, with quite a bit of emotional heavy lifting required in both. Lately, Tremblay has been heard in family animated films like the new movie release My Father’s Dragon.

Believe it or not, those earlier, weightier performances helped out when it came time for Jacob Tremblay to voice the character of Elmer Elevator. Serving as the lead of the Netflix original adaptation of author Ruth Stiles Gannett’s classic children’s tale, the young actor was able to put the skills he’d learned on those previous films to rather good use. 

I learned this firsthand, as I was invited to speak with Tremblay, along with My Father’s Dragon director Nora Twomey, on behalf of the Netflix press day supporting its release. Comparing his previous work to the more recent animated output he’s been involved in, Jacob Tremblay revealed to CinemaBlend these advantages of a young career built on heavy drama:

Those skills were certainly put to work when it came to recording My Father’s Dragon, which has debuted as part of Netflix’s November 2022 new release slate. Voicing the role of Elmer, and portraying his quest to help save an island in danger, while also trying to win over the company of young dragon Boris (Gaten Matarazzo), the voyage has its own twists and turns. 

Though it doesn’t get anywhere near as dour as Jacob Tremblay’s previous works, especially that traumatic Doctor Sleep performance director Nora Twomey reinforced in our interview that the film doesn’t sugarcoat the issues in Elmer’s life before his big trip. As he continued to discuss his experience on this beautiful children’s saga, Tremblay also complimented his work with Stranger Things star Gaten Matarazzo.

Since the two were fortunate enough to record their lines together during the 2019 production, the experience making My Father’s Dragon led to some pretty method happenings in its own right. Jacob Tremblay said as much, as he shared this special memory of the process:

Some actors use method acting as an excuse to sometimes do really extreme things. Whether it’s Christian Bale’s old habit of changing his body or a variety of weird and off-putting behaviors from Jared Leto, everyone has their way of getting into the zone. For Jacob Tremblay, all he needs is some time to get acquainted with the space, and in this case a good crying partner, to land the takes that make the beating heart of My Father’s Dragon.

You can see the end result for yourself, as My Father’s Dragon is currently showing in selected theatrical release, as well as streaming. If you’re interested in enjoying this film in the comfort of your own home, you’ll need a Netflix subscription to make the trip.

Also, a box of tissues might be a good idea, as you will shed some tears during this heartfelt adventure about a boy and his dragon. While you’re at it, you should probably take a look at the 2022 Netflix movie schedule, to see what other original films you may have missed from this streaming giant.

It was less than a year ago that Stephen King’s Later hit bookshelves everywhere, but already there is an adaptation in the works. Late last month it was announced that Blumhouse Television is now developing a miniseries based on the novel, and in addition to having Raelle Tucker (Supernatural, Jessica Jones) on board as a writer, the project has also brought aboard Lucy Liu to star.

The project is still in early days, but it’s never too early to start building excitement, and today that’s taking the form of fan casting – albeit with a twist. Just as I did for the upcoming remakes of Firestarter with Zac Efron and Edgar Wright’s The Running Man, I’ve imagined the ensemble of Later only using actors who have previously starred in Stephen King adaptations. So what does this ensemble look like? Let’s start with the part that I’m keeping my fingers crossed is being reserved for Lucy Liu:

Lucy Liu As Elizabeth "Liz" Dutton

When an actor signs on to a project when it is in the earliest stages of development, generally speaking they are being set up to play a protagonist. In the case of Later, however, I’m hoping that the adaptation bucks that trend and has Lucy Liu aboard to play Elizabeth “Liz” Dutton. Not only is it a more substantial part in the larger scheme of things (she is the book’s primary antagonist), but also a more complex role that Liu could do great things with. In the novel, Liz is introduced as a police officer and Tia Conklin’s girlfriend, but her arc takes a turn toward the dark side as some really terrible and selfish decisions have major consequences.

Carla Gugino (Gerald’s Game) As Tia Conklin

If Lucy Liu does end up playing Liz in Later, Carla Gugino would be a wonderful choice to take on the part of Tia Conklin – and not just because she is excellent in everything she does. It’s a role that requires a perfect blend of grit and sweetness, as Tia is a single mother who runs her own literary agency through a mix of financial ups and downs and always fights to keep her head above water. She moves to the background of the story more in the back half of the book, but she has a vital role in the opening, and the Gerald’s Game star would be brilliant.

Jacob Tremblay (Doctor Sleep) As Jamie Conklin

Admittedly the pool of age appropriate actors who could play Jamie Conklin and have previous Stephen King experience is spectacularly small, but Jacob Tremblay would be the number one choice for the part even without that extra parameter. Jamie is the main character in Later after all, so why not go for the best child actor in the business right now? Tremblay delivered a gut-wrenching performance as Bradley Trevor a.k.a. The Baseball Boy in Doctor Sleep, and he would unquestionably do amazing things in this miniseries as a child who can see and talk to the dead.

George MacKay (11.22.63) As Kenneth Therriault a.k.a. Thumper

George MacKay is probably best known for his spectacular turn as the protagonist of Sam Mendes’ 1917, but a few years back he played a great supporting part in Hulu’s 11.22.63 miniseries, and I get the sense that he could do wonderful things with a psychotic character like Kenneth Therriault a.k.a. Thumper in Later. Therriault in the book is a serial bomber who ends up haunting Jamie Conklin in terrifying fashion, and MacKay has the skills to make him pop as a terrifying villain in the adaptation.

Bruce Davison (Apt Pupil, Kingdom Hospital, “The Word Processor Of The Gods”) As Professor Martin Burkett

When Jamie finds himself plagued by his supernatural ability and advice for dealing with Kenneth Therriault, he makes a wise decision: he turns to the smartest person he knows. This happens to be his old neighbor, Professor Martin Burkett, and it’s with Martin’s help that the protagonist is quite literally able to face his demons. Bruce Davison, who has a plethora of Stephen King experience, certainly has the geniality to play the role, and can give off the necessary air of intellectual authority.

Steven Weber (Desperation, The Shining, Nightmares & Dreamscapes, “The Revelations Of ‘Becka Paulson”) As Regis Thomas

Regis Thomas has a relatively small role to play as a character in Later, introduced as Tia Conklin’s golden goose client who passes away prior to writing the conclusion to his long-running book series – but if a bit of stunt casting is on the table, Steven Weber would be a terrific fit. Not only are his credentials in the legacy of Stephen King adaptations spectacular, but his reading of IT makes for one of the all-time great audiobook listens. Seeing him make a quick appearance in the Later miniseries as the novel’s recluse mystery writer would be delightful.

Gary Sinise (The Stand, The Green Mile) As Uncle Harry

Lastly we have another small but significant supporting role in Later. The character is referred to only as Uncle Harry, as that is his relationship with Jamie, and admittedly it is not a terrifically vocal role, as Harry unfortunately has early onset Alzheimer's and is in a care facility from the very beginning of the story. That being said, he has a moment at the end of the book that deserves to be performed by an actor with real gravitas, and Gary Sinise would be a wonderful choice. It wouldn’t be work unlike his one-scene role as Burt Hammersmith in The Green Mile, and also the actor’s first Stephen King adaptation since that 1999 movie.

Later is still very much in the early development stages, so we may have to wait a while before learning about any of these roles being cast – but you can be sure that we’ll have all the updates for you here on CinemaBlend as the project progresses. In the meantime, you can keep track of every Stephen King adaptation in the works with our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I’d go to see a Disney movie I loved as a kid, a hopeful trip to the Disney Store following it was a cherished tradition. The studio has always nailed it when it comes to accompanying merchandise with its movies, and Pixar’s Luca is the newest addition to the pack. What’s extra special about the streaming release is its main roles are played by young actors who get to experience having a character with their own toys and such, and their reactions to having their own merch is precious.

The lead role of Luca is voiced by 14-year-old Jacob Tremblay, who has already had a whirlwind of a career thus far, previously venturing into the award season circuit at the age of eight for Room. Now the actor can check being a Pixar character off the bucket list. When CinemaBlend talked to Tremblay, he shared what it’s like to have toys based on his latest role:

In the video (above), you can check out Jacob Tremblay showing off some of the merchandise of Luca he already got his hands on. The actor was a huge Pixar fan as a younger kid, so of course it's a big deal. He continued to share his experience with these words:

Can you even imagine? Being in a Pixar movie is one thing, but while you’re still a kid? My mind would have launched itself out of my skull. Newcomer Emma Berman, who plays Guilia in her first movie credit ever, said the following about seeing her character have merchandise whilst being surrounded by her own during the interview:

It’s not everyone’s first rodeo though. The voice actor behind Luca’s friend Alberto, Shazam’s Jack Dylan Grazer, shared his unique experience with having his own merchandise:

Jack Dylan Grazer has a DCEU role in the Shazam films and played Eddie in the IT movies based on Stephen King’s iconic novel about Pennywise. It’s a massive accomplishment to have at the age of 17. The young actors make up the trio at the center of Luca, which premiered exclusively on Disney+ instead of theaters last week.

The sea monster story centers on a friendship between Luca and Alberto as they decide to ditch the deep blue for the Italian Riviera. Check out the full voice cast of Luca and stay here on CinemaBlend for more exclusive interviews.

CinemaBlend participates in affiliate programs with various companies. We may earn a commission when you click on or make purchases via links.

One of my favorite things about the Pixar movies does not have as much to do with actually watching the movies: looking up who voices each character later on or even beforehand. For instance, Jacob Tremblay - acclaimed young star of Room and horror movies like Doctor Sleep - and Jack Dylan Grazer - the acclaimed young star of DC movies like Shazam! and hit horror movies It and It: Chapter Two - play a pair of sea monsters who disguise themselves as humans to have an adventures on land by the Italian Riviera. Take a look at what other familiar voices you may recognize, and some you may be hearing for the first time, from the Luca cast, starting with the remarkably talented actor in the title role.

Jacob Tremblay (Luca Paguro)

At only 14 years old, Jacob Tremblay has become one of the hardest-working and critically praised performers of his generation since his breakout role in 2015’s heart-wrenching, Oscar-winning A24 drama Room in 2015 after first making his feature-film debut in The Smurfs 2 in 2013. Ironically, he did not play one of the titular animated blue creatures in said sequel, but Luca is not his first time playing an animated character either having lent his voice to TV series like Amazon Prime’s Pete the Cat (as the title role) and HBO Max’s Harley Quinn as Robin. Tremblay is also voicing Flounder in Disney’s upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid remake, but you may have seen his face from movies like Mike Flanagan’s Netflix exclusive thriller Before I Wake, the inspiring family drama Wonder, and the raunchy but heartfelt Good Boys from 2019.

Jack Dylan Grazer (Alberto Scorfano)

Playing Luca’s friend and fellow sea monster Alberto is another young veteran of recent horror movie hits Jack Dylan Grazer, who played the parentally inflicted hypochondriac Eddie Kaspbrak in 2017’s It cast after debuting in one of the most underrated horror anthology movies, Tales of Halloween, in 2015. The now 16-year-old also played the teenage version of a character also played by Saturday Night Live’s Bobby Moynihan and John Laroquette on the short-lived sitcom Me, Myself and I and a younger Timothée Chalamet in Beautiful Boy. Outside of the animated, Italy-set, coming-of-age movie Luca, Grazer stars in an Italy-set, coming-of-age series on HBO Max called We Are Who We Are, will next voice another supporting character in the animated Ron’s Gone Wrong in 2021, and is reprising his role as Freddy Freeman in Shazam! Fury of the Gods, which is currently filming.

Emma Berman (Giulia Marcovaldo)

In addition to Luca’s fellow sea monster companion Alberto Scorfano, the curious hero of the newest Pixar movie also, for the first time in his life, befriends a human named Giulia. The adventurous young girl is voiced by Emma Berman, who is actually making her cinematic debut with Luca. So far, the 12-year-old up-and-comer’s only other acting credit is another voice acting role from an April 2021 episodes of the Netflix original animated children’s series Go! Go! Cory Carson as Winifred Wings - an airplane who is afraid of flying.

Maya Rudolph (Daniela Paguro)

Playing Luca’s mother also marks one of multiple voice roles in 2021 alone for former Saturday Night Live cast member Maya Rudolph after playing Linda in The Mitchells vs. the Machines, reprising Aunt Cass on Big Hero 6: The Series, and the upcoming Big Mouth Season 5 on Netflix. Her previous animated roles include Shrek the Third as Rapunzel, Turbo alongside Ryan Reynolds, both The Nut Job movies, and two films inspired by mobile phone activity: 2016’s The Angry Birds Movie and The Emoji Movie from the following year. She has also appeared in person in films like the Adam Sander/Drew Barrymore rom-com 50 First Dates, Mike Judge’s frighteningly relevant futuristic satire Idiocracy, the SNL sketch spin-off MacGruber, and 2011’s Bridesmaids, which also has a famous SNL connection as her co-star Kristen Wiig was nominated for an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay.

Jim Gaffigan (Lorenzo Paguro)

The most notable writing credits of Jim Gaffigan are many acclaimed stand-up specials, his short-lived TV Land sitcom The Jim Gaffigan Show, and Pale Force - a series of animated shorts starring him as the voice of superhero Pale Man and his young sidekick, Conan O’Brien, which were presented on Late Night during the talk show host’s NBC years. As an actor, the comedian (who voices Luca’s father) is known for an a-meow-sing Super Troopers cameo, director Sam Mendes’ Away We Go (also starring Maya Rudolph), and some dramatic roles as of late, such as in Chappaquiddick, and a gig with CBS Sunday Morning. Other animated roles include Henry Haber on a few Bob’s Burgers episodes, himself on Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, and his voice will also be heard in 2021 when he reprises Van Helsing in Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, which is now in post-production.

Sandy Martin (Grandma Paguro)

Playing the grandmother of the titular character in Luca is Sandy Martin, whose best known role as the grandmother of the titular character in 2004’s Napoleon Dynamite - which is only one other instance of her history playing a family matriarch on screen. The 72-year-old actress also played Joy’s grandma on the My Name is Earl cast, Mac’s mother on the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia cast, and also Sam Rockwell’s mother in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in 2017. Audience may also recognize Matin from brief appearances in films as old as 1982’s 48 Hrs. or as recent as 2010’s Marley & Me and on TV shows as funny as 2 Broke Girls or as serious as Ray Donovan, on which she has a memorable recurring role as Jon Voight’s onscreen sister-in-law, coincidentally named Sandy Patrick.

Sacha Baron Cohen (Uncle Ugo)

Another undersea relative of Luca’s is his uncle, Ugo, voiced by multi-talented actor and controversial prankster artist Sacha Baron Cohen, who was recently nominated for two Academy Awards - one for his supporting role in Netflix’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 and the other for co-writing the screenplay for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, which premiered exclusively on Amazon Prime in 2020. The 49-year-old Brit’s first and other most famous acting gig was as the royal lemur Julien in the Madagascar movies as he is better known for live action characters in comedies like Jean Girard in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby or more serious films like Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street from 2007. The Who is America? host has recently been cast in the title role of the long-awaited Mandrake the Magician, based on the iconic comic strip.

Marco Barricelli (Massimo Marcovaldo)

As Giulia Marcovaldo’s father, Massimo - an intimidating, yet kindhearted, fisherman and cook - we have Marco Barricelli, who is best known for his long history as an actor, writer, director, and educator in the world of theatre. However, for those who those who do not seek entertainment from the stage, the veteran performer has eight screen credits to his name - the most recent being Luca. He debuted on a 1987 episode of the popular daytime soap opera Guiding Light, appeared on the NBC legal drama L.A. Law in 1991, and had a four-episode stint on the dramedy The Book of Daniel (which only lasted twice as long in 2006), to name a few gig. Barricelli has even lent his voice to a few video games, including 1996’s Clandestiny and Manhunt 2 in 2007.

Francesca Fanti (Maggiore)

As a movie set in Italy and directed by an Italian born filmmaker (Enrico Casarosa), it would only make sense that Luca cast also empty Italian-born actors as well. Among them is Francesca Fanti, who is best know to American audiences from the 2009 musical Nine (which also starred Daniel Day-Lewis), the Emmy-winning FX miniseries The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story as the murdered fashion icon’s mother (coincidentally named) Francesca “Franca” Versace, and a couple of uncredited voice roles in Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted alongside the aforementioned Sacha Baron Cohen.

Saverio Raimondo (Ercole Visconte)

One of Italy’s most popular comedians is Saverio Raimondo, who stars in Luca as a young bully named Ercole Visconte, whom Luca comes at odds with in the Pixar film. The animated movie is Raimondo’s first (partially) English-language project, having previously appeared in a modest number of projects originating from his home country - including the 2016 pilot for the comedy Dov’è Mario, in which a renowned Italian intellectual (Corrado Guzzanti) suffers a car accident and gains a split personality that makes him a crude stand-up comic by night. Speaking of stand-up, for a taste of what Raimondo’s comedic stylings, try his 2019 Netflix original comedy special Saverio Raimondo: Il Satiro Parlante.

Pixar has shed light on various cultures, such as Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos in Coco in 2018. It will do the same for Italy, as seen through the eyes of a young, adventurous sea monster in Luca, streaming on Disney+ Friday, June 18, 2021.

Over the years, Pixar Animation has taken us to all sorts of beautiful places through its 3-D animation style, whether that be inside our heads with Inside Out, into the afterlife of Soul or through the Great Barrier Reef in Finding Nemo. And for Pixar’s latest Luca, audiences will be transported to a beautiful Italian coastal town called Portorosso. The setting is based on the real atmosphere in Italy’s beautiful riviera and the Pixar filmmakers did some awesome research on location in Europe to bring it to life.

Ahead of Luca, which is coming exclusively to Disney+ this month, you can get ready to experience the sweet summer storyline with an exclusive featurette of the making of the film above. In the clip from Pixar, the filmmakers and cast focus on how the breathtaking setting was animated and transformed into the backdrop of the tale of two sea monster friends who decide to explore the human world.

Portorosso itself is a fictional town off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, but it is very much rooted in the real appeal of the Italian Riviera. And thus, the filmmakers and animators of the project went on a trip to Italy to get inspired by the region it was influenced by. It also helps that the film’s director Enrico Casarosa was born in Genoa, Italy and spent his own summers in the region as a kid and teenager.

Casarosa pitched the idea of Luca to Pixar after spearheading the memorable Pixar short La Luna. Luca is his first time directing a Pixar movie and he brings his own flavor to it, including his love for Hayao Miyazaki movies like Spirited Away or Kiki’s Delivery Service. When CinemaBlend spoke to the director about his inspirations for the film, here’s what he told us:

Luca comes from a place of personal nostalgia for its filmmaker as it takes its audience on a fun adventure through the eyes of sea monsters who have never experienced the world beyond the sea before. As the clip shows, Pixar really wanted to capture the feeling of coastal Italy, along with telling a touching story about friendship.

The movie stars Room’s Jacob Tremblay as Luca andShazam’s Jack Dylan Grazer as Alberto, the movie’s best friends. Also among the voice cast is Maya Rudolph, Jim Gaffigan and newcomer Emma Berman as Giulia. Luca will be available to stream on Disney+ on June 18.

B-movie and Troma fans, get ready to lose your minds, because a low-key beloved classic is getting a reboot soon! Troma Entertainment’s arguably most popular film The Toxic Avenger is getting a reimagining led by Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage. Not much is released about the reboot film yet, however it has been announced that Dinklage will be joined by a Doctor Sleep star.

According to Deadline, Doctor Sleep’s Jacob Tremblay will be starring opposite Peter Dinklage in the upcoming reboot of the low budget, yet iconic movie The Toxic Avenger. While it’s already confirmed that Dinklage will be playing the titular character of normal dude-turned-mutant vigilante, it’s unknown what role Tremblay will play in the film, which Arnold Schwarzenegger was once reportedly attached to.

Jacob Tremblay is only the second cast member to be announced, so it’s probable that he will appear as one of the iconic figures of the original film. Conversely, maybe he's playing brand new character who has a large role in the reboot. It’s worth noting that Tremblay, although having become quite the name in Hollywood already, is only 14 years old, so that narrows the selection of characters down quite a bit.

While the original Toxic Avenger centered around a man who was the butt of all the jokes getting mutated into a monster and using his new form to fight seemingly random bad guys, this new reboot seems to be starting out with a bit more plot to it. While the idea of toxic waste transforming the lead into a mutant holds true, the reboot will center around the Toxic Avenger saving his son and community from corruption. With this new version of the Toxic Avenger having a son before he turns into the mutated, superhuman monster we all love, it leads to the possibility that Jacob Tremblay will be playing this son.

Even though he is still a young face in Hollywood, Jacob Tremblay has a resume that is nothing to dismiss. He is probably most famous for his role as Jack in Room with Brie Larson, for which he won a number of awards at just 9 years old. Since then, he’s been spitting out a number of projects every year and has major voice acting roles in the upcoming Luca and The Little Mermaid, both of which are large Disney productions.

There’s really not a lot that has been announced about the upcoming Toxic Avenger reboot. We don’t have a full cast list or production start date, so a release date may be pretty far off. However, with what we do know and two major actors who have a proven track record with putting their best foot forward on screen, there seems to be a lot to look forward to in terms of the reboot’s potential. We will keep up to date with this story and bring you more mutant news when it becomes available!

Jacob Tremblay is a national treasure. The 14-year-old wunderkind instilled heart into the Wonder adaptation, helped Brie Larson win an Oscar for Room, and scared the shit out of Rebecca Ferguson by playing Baseball Boy in Doctor Sleep. I was all set to poke fun at the kid for showing up in a Justin Bieber video, but then I watched the video itself, and got really emotional. We’ll dive into the video for the new track, “Lonely,” in a moment.

First, Jacob Tremblay was opening up to The Loop about how he ended up in the “Lonely” video playing a young version of Justin Bieber. We watch Tremblay backstage, getting ready to rehearse. But it’s not glamor and glitz. It’s isolation and emptiness. That wasn’t the case when Tremblay was preparing for the gig. He said he had to flee a crowded grocery store just to talk to the pop superstar:

Oddly enough, the two do look very similar, though it just might be the purple sweatshirt and white denim in his Never Say Never concert video. But when Justin Bieber knew that he needed a talented young actor to sell the loneliness that’s mirrored in the new song’s lyrics, he made the absolute right choice, because Jacob Tremblay really knows how to act. Here, watch the music video for yourself, but be prepared, because it’s more emotional than you might expect:

The video is a tremendous hit. It had amassed 3.8 million views in the first 14 hours (and counting), and is garnering tremendous comments for its authenticity. They are calling Justin Bieber a trendsetter, a great musician, and are renewing their inner “Beliebers,” a term we haven’t used since 2009.

But I’m also chalking this up as another notch on Jacob Tremblay’s acting belt, which is littered with memorable performances even though he’s barely a teenager. My favorite? It has to be his performance as Baseball Boy in Doctor Sleep, where his vicious performance terrified his co-stars (for reasons I can’t reveal), and will leave audiences trembling for Tremblay. Yeah, I went there. Sue me.

Mike Flanagan's Doctor Sleepis a fantastic film end-to-end, but there is most definitely one particular scene that stands out in the memories of all who watch it: the death of the Baseball Boy. Movie fans have developed an affection Jacob Tremblay ever since his his brilliant performance in Lenny Abrahamson's Room, and watching him get torn apart in the Stephen King adaptation is effectively horrifying. What only makes it more memorable is the behind-the-scenes knowledge that the young actor filmed the sequence on his birthday – and now we have this remarkable photo to celebrate the anniversary:

Jacob Tremblay turns 14 today, but when he was turning 12 back in 2018 the celebration was held on the set of Doctor Sleep as he filmed what is unquestionably the most gruesome scene of his career thus far. Knowing this since the film came out last year, it's been fun to think about what Tremblay's day was like, but now we have this brilliant behind-the-scenes shot that seems to capture the energy perfectly.

You have to love that the Good Boys star is practically beaming in this photo, shooting a thumbs up to the camera, and meanwhile Rebecca Ferguson seems to be in full Rose The Hat mode, grabbing a tuft of his hair and holding a prop knife – and of course the whole shot is bathed in fake blood. It's wild to think that minutes before and/or after this captured moment Tramblay was lying on a patch of dirt screaming and crying in pain while a group of fellow actors pretended to carve him open and inhale psychic gifts in steam form.

It's funny to think about this in contrast to the experience that actor Danny Lloyd a.k.a. the original Danny Torrence had on the set of The Shining, as the five-year-old actor wasn't even made aware that he was making a horror movie. Obviously Jacob Tremblay is much older, but it was probably also a comfort that he had prior experience working with Mike Flanagan, as they previously made 2016's Before I Wake together.

To get even more background on the most traumatizing scene in Doctor Sleep, I recommend clicking play on the video below, which features clips from my interviews with Mike Flanagan and Rebecca Ferguson discussing the experience filming the death of the Baseball Boy:

With Halloween now just a few weeks away, now is the perfect time of year to start binging horror movies – and if you haven't seen Doctor Sleep, or at least haven't seen it since theaters, you are doing yourself a disservice! The Shining sequel is available to stream on HBO Max (and that includes the superior Director's Cut that is about 30 minutes longer), and those who aren't subscribers can also purchase/rent the film digitally, and find it on 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD.

This story contains spoilers for Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation, Doctor Sleep**. You might want to stop reading this if you haven’t yet seen the movie. And really, go see the movie. It’s incredible.**

There are a half dozen ways your typical 12-year-old boy might celebrate his birthday. A three-hour session at a local trampoline park. A sleepover with some close friends. Or, if you are Wonder and Good Boys star Jacob Tremblay, you ring in your 12th birthday covered in sticky movie blood and screaming your throat raw as a family of bohemian vampires maim and torture you so they can “drink” your steam.

Hollywood. Where dark, demented dreams do come true.

Jacob Tremblay was a surprise addition to Doctor Sleep, mainly because those who know the book understood that there was no role he really could play. Rumors speculated that he’d be young Dan Torrance in flashbacks, though we all knew he was too old for that.

As it turns out, Mike Flanagan cast the Hollywood child star as Baseball Boy, a cameo role with a significant part to play. He shows up briefly, is established as someone with a reasonable amount of Shine (he can read a pitcher’s thoughts and know what pitch is coming in his Little League games), and then falls victim to The True Knot in a scene so uncomfortable, Stephen King HIMSELF asked Flanagan to tone it down when he watched an early cut.

It’s the scene that almost every Doctor Sleep viewer has been talking about since the movie made its debut in November. And now that the movie is finding new life on home video and HBO, people are wondering about the behind-the-scenes facts for Tremblay’s brutal murder. They are FAR weirder than you even imagined. Flanagan came on our ReelBlend podcast recently to dive deep into Doctor Sleep, and all things Stephen King. And when we got to the Baseball Boy scene, he shared a number of amazing stories.

The cast and crew were excited to terrify young Jacob. It backfired.

Mike Flanagan worked with Jacob Tremblay before. After Room put Tremblay on the map, the two did Before I Wake in 2016 with Kate Bosworth and Thomas Jane. Do Flanagan knew how good Tremblay was, and how professional he would treat a gig. He called the actor and offered him the Doctor Sleep role of Baseball Boy. He said Jacob was really excited to work with Mike again, and to see a lot of the same crew. But because he was busy on a different movie, he didn’t have to rehearse. So he practiced the scene at home.

Flanagan told ReelBlend:

Flanagan went on to explain that this is typical for younger actors. Their parents often will run scenes with them before they ever get to the set. And Flanagan says it makes his job a lot easier when the actor shows up uber-prepared. He remembers Tremblay being really confident heading into his death scene.

At this point, it’s expected that the adult cast is going to get the better of young Jacob Tremblay. The True Knot is about to drain his essence, and it’s going to hurt. But the tables were about to be turned. Flanagan remembers:

Traumatic, right? Deeply disturbing, right? You have to assume that young Jacob Tremblay needed time to recover from the horror he just endured. Well, not so much. In fact, not at all. As Flanagan explained:

You win this round, Tremblay.

The scene was filmed on Tremblay’s 12th birthday.

That fact amazes me. On the day he turned 12, Jacob Tremblay had to act out everyone’s worst fear: dying. And in horrible fashion. But according to Mike Flanagan, none of this fazed him, even though his performance devastated the rest of the cast and crew.

Flanagan recalled:

It took them a while, though. Ewan McGregor and Cliff Curtis didn’t share a scene with Jacob Tremblay, so they weren’t on set for the murder. They showed up after, genuinely curious how things had gone. They knew that the Baseball Boy death was important to the story, and believed in Tremblay. They just weren’t prepared for how devastated the Doctor Sleep cast was going to be. Said Flanagan:

Thankfully for the cast, Mike Flanagan had the perfect stand-in for Jacob Tremblay.

Jacob Tremblay’s body double on Doctor Sleep was named Fake-ob Tremblay.

There’s a scene later in Doctor Sleep where Ewan McGregor and Curtis’ characters drive to Iowa to dig up the baseball glove Tremblay’s character was holding. Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran) knows that one of the True Knot held it, and if she can retrieve it, she can use her Shine to track the group down.

Mike Flanagan didn’t make Tremblay lay in the dirt so that they could recreate his corpse being unearthed (though, it sounds like Tremblay would have been more than game to do that scene). Instead, they created a dummy. And they named him Fake-ob Tremblay. Flanagan said:

It was incredibly cool. That’s easily the greatest story that has ever been told on ReelBlend. Want to hear the entire conversation with Mike Flanagan? Of course you do. Press play on this one.

And then look for Doctor Sleep, available on Blu-ray and DVD, as well as on HBO Max.

This story gets into spoilers for Doctor Sleep, so if you haven’t yet seen Mike Flanagan’s masterful adaptation of Stephen King’s story, go watch it right now, and then circle back here.

When Mike Flanagan agreed to adapt Stephen King’s novel Doctor Sleep for the big screen, you have to imagine that the one review of the film that meant the most to him was King’s. Doctor Sleep is a sequel to The Shining, and in tackling it, Flanagan not only brought the book to life, he drew a deeper visual connection to Stanley Kubrick’s Shining movie, which King notoriously disliked.

As it turns out, there was one scene in the movie that Stephen King did ask the director to reconsider, though it had nothing to do with the Overlook Hotel, which dominates the movie’s third act. On a recent episode of The Kingcast, Flanagan opened up and said:

Jacob Tremblay of Room and Good Boys shows up for a brief but crucial cameo in Doctor Sleep. He plays Baseball Boy, a character who is killed by The True Knot, and it’s a horrifyingly brutal death sequence. The True Knot essentially are vampires, and they feed on the “steam” let off by characters who have the Shine. Baseball Boy has it, and the Knot get it from him in a vicious fashion.

But when Mike Flanagan showed his cut of Doctor Sleep to the author, Stephen King noted it probably needed to be dialed back a tad. And Flanagan goes on to explain that King told him to go back and read the passage in the actual book again, because King does leave details out of the sequence, and writes around the killing of Baseball Boy. As the director went on to comment about the scene, he said:

I can’t begin to tell you how much better the Director’s Cut of Doctor Sleep is. And the theatrical cut already was spectacular. The story of redemption for Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) and the return to the hallowed ground of The Shining breathes easier and includes crucial details that fans of the book likely missed.

You can get the longer cut of Doctor Sleep on the film’s Blu-ray, on digital platforms, and on HBO’s streaming services at the moment. Make time for it. It’s remarkable. Yes, even Tremblay’s brutal scene.

If 2019 has taught us anything, it’s this: Keanu Reeves is iconic. Some of us already knew it the instant he said “Whoa” in Bill & Ted, but now it seems a new generation is discovering the actor’s talents. Reeves is even an inspiration to R-rated comedy Good Boys’ 12-year-old Jacob Tremblay, who said this of his standout scene in this weekend’s top earner:

It sounds like an awesome scene to shoot that was tons of fun! The Good Boys action sequence allowed Jacob Tremblay and his other co-stars to play around with paintball guns, even channelling the classic moves from The Matrix when the cast dodges the bullets in slow motion while doing backflips, martial arts and such.

Wait up… isn’t The Matrix rated R? The hilarious bit about the marketing for Good Boys is that the movie’s stars wouldn’t be able to walk into a theater and buy a ticket to their own. You can say the same about The Matrix circa 1999 before Tremblay was even a concept. The Matrix is one of the greats and doesn’t have nearly as many F-bombs, sex toys and all-around adult content than the Keanu Reeves-led movie ever did anyway. By the way, Tremblay watching The Matrix as a kid, even if he didn’t get through the whole thing, was a good call: it’s mind-blowing and sticks with you.

Jacob Tremblay's Good Boys costar Brady Noon agreed that the paintball sequence when explaining his choice favorite scene to Vulture. In his words:

Yep, breaking a board over someone’s back is awesome, and Brady Noon can now say he did it in the No. 1 movie at the box office. Good Boys topped the weekend with a surprising $21 million haul, taking down Hobbs & Shaw in its third weekend after a solid opening night. The R-rated comedy earned mainly positive reviews from critics, with a certified fresh score of 79 percent on Rotten Tomatoes (CinemaBlend gave it 4 out of 5).

Good Boys follows three middle-schooler best friends played by Jacob Tremblay, Brady Noon and Keith L. Williams, who get into plenty of hilarious antics on the day leading up to a spin-the-bottle party. None of the “Bean Bag Boys” have kissed a girl before and their nervousness for the event has them getting into unlikely situations.

Check out Good Boys in theaters now!

The new comedy Good Boys promises to be every bit the mature, vulgar, bawdy comedy that you would expect from a producer like Seth Rogen. Everybody going to see the film this weekend is likely expecting a decent share of gross out comedy, but as it turns out, making the movie was actually so gross that one scene nearly made Jacob Tremblay vomit.

You won't see the scene in question in Good Boys, as it was cut from the film, but there was nearly a musical sequence in the movie. It took place in a mall, and apparently involved the kids squirting condiments into the air. As Jacob Tremblay explained to our own Eric Eisenberg, one should not try and eat anything that's not designed to be eaten on a movie set. Check out the clip below.

It's not clear what possessed Jacob Tremblay to taste the mayonnaise that was being used in the scene. It doesn't appear from what he says that it was required for the shot. If it had been, they certainly wouldn't have been using old mayo. Honestly, I'm not sure what possesses any human to eat mayo for any reason, but that's another story.

Since the mayo didn't need to eaten, it was apparently decided that old stuff could be used, it was likely cheaper and easier, but it made the actor nearly throw up when he tried it.

From listening to co-stars Keith L. Williams and Brady Noon, Tremblay wasn't the only one who came close to getting sick on the set. There was apparently an incident with a pickled onion that also had the kids gagging.

While this all sounds pretty disgusting, it's far from surprising. The entire gimmick behind Good Boys is the idea of seeing these young kids, doing very adult, and very gross things. It sounds like it all worked out as planned.

Honestly, the fact that Good Boys doesn't include a musical dance number in a mall is the most upsetting thing I've heard today. All movies should include dance numbers and I can only hope that this scene is include in a future Blu-ray release. The world needs to see it.

Based on early word, it looks like Good Boys lives up to its names. The first reviews have started to hit and the movie is doing quite well with critics. It's just and vulgar, childish, and gross, and you would expect, but in all the best ways.

R-rated comedies have been a difficult proposition recently. While there have always been those that have done well at the box office, it's mostly because they tend to be cheap to produce, and so profit is a easier to achieve. However, it's been a while since we've seen a R-rated comedy that wasn't a Deadpool movie really break the box office. Maybe Good Boys will be the film that breaks the streak. The film hits theaters this weekend.

In an era when superheroes, horror, and musical dramas are thriving, one genre that has been doing a good amount of floundering is the R-rated big studio comedy. It was only 10 to 15 years ago that audiences were flocking to see titles like The Hangover, Wedding Crashers, Superbad, and Knocked Up, but the landscape has now totally changed. With rare exception, these aren’t the movies that make $100 million at the domestic box office anymore.

The exact cause of this lull is debatable, but there is one bright spot in the lackluster atmosphere. While conversation is dominated by talking points about poor quality and audience disinterest, it allows for certain titles to emerge like diamonds in the rough. They may not have made blockbuster money coming out in the last few years, but we can still appreciate the hell out of films like Blockers and The Night Before. And while it’s too early to say how it will ultimately perform, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky’s Good Boys is a new title to add to that short list of fantastic new additions to the genre.

The general premise is one that we’ve seen countless times, as it’s structured like your average coming-of-age story, but what makes this one special and different is that it’s not about kids graduating from high school and starting their lives as adults (which we’ve seen hundreds of times, from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to this summer’s Booksmart). Instead, this is about the trials and tribulations of going through adolescence – and while there are some recognizable themes and character arcs, what normally reads familiar feels fresh and repurposed with new context, and the film is able to unwind some unique, hilarious scenarios.

Max (Jacob Tremblay), Thor (Brady Noon), and Lucas (Keith L. Williams) are introduced as an inseparable trio of 12-year-olds – a.k.a. the Bean Bag Boys – who have been friends as long as they can remember. They are starting to grow up into very different teenagers, however, and their differences start to be spotlighted when Max is invited to a make-out party at the house of the most popular kid in class.

Though they each express it in their own way – Max wears his earnestness on his sleeve; Thor fakes as a tough guy, but is full of hot air; and Lucas possesses a totally black and white view of morality – one thing the three leads still share in common is a very real innocence. That becomes a real problem in the face of taking part in a more mature activity. These are boys who have never kissed a girl before, and they are terrified to be exposed to their classmates as being totally uncool. The solution is that they need to watch and study those with experience.

The good news is that Max has access to a drone that his dad (Will Forte) uses for work, and a neighbor, Hannah (Molly Gordon), who is regularly seen necking with her boyfriend. The bad news is that an argument over the controls results in a crash landing and Hannah capturing the device. So not only do they still need to prepare for the most important party of their young lives, they also must try and get the drone back to Max’s house before his dad gets back from a business trip.

The biggest concern one might have with this premise is that the movie could potentially keep hitting the same note over and over again – specifically that the kids keep getting into situations and involved with things they don’t fully understand. But while there is a lot of comedy that operates in that sphere, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky really do expand beyond that arena by legitimately exploring the experience of being 12 years old.

It starts with simple things – like the characters seeing a four mile bike/walk to the local mall as an impossibly long journey, or believing more than three sips of a beer makes you an alcoholic – but it also digs surprisingly deep into subjects like the motivations behind relationships that you have at that age. As Hannah tells the trio in one revelatory moment, friends you have when you are young are dictated less by common interests than they are geographic vicinity and parents getting along well. While providing big laughs along the way, Good Boys is all about its leads growing to understand that, and it’s honestly weird (in a good way) how emotional it gets.

Poignant as it can be at times, though, it’s comedy that is always steering the ship, and the movie is littered with fantastic and memorable sequences. Sometimes it goes big, like when Max, Thor, and Lucas find themselves needing to cross a freeway, or get in a paintball battle in a frat house, but it also gets huge laughs with more simple setups – like the boys unknowingly taking inventory of sex toys, or running afoul of an off-duty cop (Sam Richardson) in a convenience store. It plays at many speeds without veering too far away from reality, and is consistently funny.

Part of what makes the movie such a surprise is just how impressive the three leads are – particularly knowing there are plenty of adult stars who struggle under the weight of carrying a big studio comedy. Each role demands something special from the actor, and not only are all three young performers exceptionally well cast, but they possess a fantastic chemistry together.

Jacob Tremblay is certainly the most recognizable among the main three, but not only does his performance totally live up to his reputation, it makes for a fantastic showcase of his range (given that neither Room nor Wonder, the two most notably titles on his filmography, are exactly laugh riots). Being lesser-knowns, Brady Noon and Keith L. Williams have the opportunity to really surprise, and they absolutely do – the former with both a funny attitude and an outstanding singing voice, and the latter by delivering some of the most hysterical lines of dialogue uttered thus far in 2019 with perfect timing.

Modern audiences are pulled in many directions when it comes to entertainment, but Good Boys is a movie that deserves the theatrical experience. It’s essentially the chance to join in uplifting laughter for 90 minutes with a community of adults with similar sensibilities, and it’s a blast. At a time when excellent R-rated studio comedies are in short supply, this one is well worth your time.

It’s no secret Disney has found success with its live-action remakes/adaptations lately, especially when it comes to reimagining the animation studio’s renaissance in the ‘90s. When’s it Ariel’s turn? Wouldn’t she love to break box office numbers up above? Rob Marshall’s The Little Mermaid adaptation is on the way and looks to be starting to come together with word of two of the Disney Princess’ best friends being cast.

Room’s Jacob Tremblay may play Ariel’s adorable tropical fish buddy, Flounder, and Crazy Rich Asians’ Awkwafina could be Scuttle, the eccentric seagull known for imparting wisdom of the land above to the young mermaid, known for such phrases as “dinglehopper.” The news comes from a post from journalist Kris Tapley on Twitter and has not yet been confirmed by Disney.

These two are exciting choices for the live-action Little Mermaid! Jacob Tremblay is just about the most famous 12-year-old working in Hollywood today, with recent roles in Wonder and The Predator under his belt. He’ll also soon star in The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep and the raunchy comedy Good Boys. Flounder is known to have a youthful voice and is a cute and loyal sidekick to Ariel. Tremblay can certainly do this, along with bringing more range to the role!

Awkwafina has had a whirlwind year since her scene-stealing role as Peik Lin in last summer’s hit Crazy Rich Asians. The rom-com was even in Oscar conversation! Since then, she’s been nabbing roles left and right, such as in the upcoming Jumanji sequel and in voice roles such as The Angry Birds Movie 2, Netflix’s The Dark Crystal: The Age of Resistance, and she was just cast in The Prom musical adaptation starring Meryl Streep.

The actress brought some especially hilarious moments to Crazy Rich Asians and would undoubtedly do so teaching Ariel about “snarfblats” and “thingamabobs” in the live-action adaptation. Days ago, it was also reported that Melissa McCarthy may be The Little Mermaid’s Ursula as well. Talk about a star-studded cast to go under the sea with!

The musical will be directed Rob Marshall, who recently helmed Mary Poppins Returns and feature the classic music from Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, along with additional songs from Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also worked on Disney’s Moana. Mary Poppins Returns screenwriter David Magee is also writing the script, and Miranda and La La Land’s Marc Platt are both producing.

There's no word on Ariel, Prince Eric or King Triton yet, but past rumors have placed Zendaya at the center of the adaptation. While the Spider-Man actress said she hasn’t been approached, she showed her interest in taking Ariel on!

The Little Mermaid would follow the blockbuster success of live-action versions of The Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and the upcoming The Lion King, all based on highly-successful and beloved animated films from Disney’s Renaissance.

What do you think of the potential casting of Flounder and Scuttle? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

We’ve entered the era of Jacob Tremblay getting into raunch comedy. The adorable 12-year-old kid from Wonder and Room will next star in Good Boys, a raunch comedy about three friends who get into trouble while trying to figure out how to kiss girls. You can can check out the ridiculous premise, as well as sex toys, drones, drugs and more in the full trailer below.

As you can probably tell with the early explanation to this trailer it’s Red Band and thus NSFW.

Jacob Trembley is joined by fellow actors Brady Noon and Keith L. Williams in the Good Boys trailer. The Red Band look at the movie has a funny intro featuring Seth Rogen, who produced the flick alongside Evan Goldberg, Joe Drake, Nathan Kahane and James Weaver. Basically the gist is that the middle schoolers in the movie can’t actually watch the red band trailer because they aren’t old enough, even though the were the ones tasked with dropping f-bombs and more here.

Although the kids are much younger in this trailer, obviously this movie has some of the same “kids getting into shenanigans” narrative that Superbad did more than 10 years ago. Universal Pictures and Good Pictures make a point to connect the new movie with “the guys who brought you Superbad.” (Superbad was written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.)

It’s always a little bit of a shock factor when 12-year-old boys are dropping f-bombs, but that’s something they often do with their friends. Otherwise, despite the references to Molly and the specific and varied uses of dildos, this trailer is witty and heartwarming.

Seriously, though, there are so many sex toys here.

Also, there are plenty of f-bombs from the youngsters who aren’t Jacob Tremblay and more. The general plot is that these kids are trying to figure out how to kiss. They use a drone to spy on some nearby women, which then leads to them stealing a purse to exchange it for the drone. Unfortunately, there are drugs in the purse and shenanigans ensue.

These shenanigans involve frat boys, stealing beer from a gas station, watching porn and seemingly causing a major traffic accident on a freeway. Just a regular Saturday for these young men. (Actually they are in way over their heads.)

Good Boys doesn’t currently have a release date, but we’ll let you know as soon as the Universal Pictures movie does get a date. In the meantime, take a look at the full movies schedule to see what else is coming up in 2019. If you are keeping tabs on Jacob Tremblay's career at all, you'll also be able to catch him in Doctor Sleep and The Twilight Zone coming up.

The Predator franchise has been laying low since Nimrod Antal's Predators back in 2010, but the cinematic return of the legendary extraterrestrial killer is imminent. In the summer of 2014, 20th Century Fox announced that they were going to be bringing the series back, and now we find ourselves less than a year away from the finished product's release. But who is involved? What will it be about? Those are questions that we are here to directly address.

As we do here on CinemaBlend with all major upcoming films, we've constructed the guide below to provide you with all of the latest details and news about The Predator. We will regularly update this feature as more information comes in and we get closer to the release date, but for now, here's what we know so far:

What Have We Seen From The Predator?

Through early 2018, the answer to this question was: not much. But, on May 10, 2018 a teaser for the new film finally dropped, and it showed off some important aspects of what we can expect from The Predator, while subsequent trailers did an even better job of letting audiences know what's in store. Of upmost importance will be the fact that, while this creature will look much the same as the others we've seen on the big screen, apparently the race has begun co-opting bits of tech or biological factors that they find useful among the races they encounter on the planets they visit. Meaning, of course, that there will be some surprises afoot for audiences when our heroes begin to fight the alien this time around.

What Is The Predator Release Date?

Given that John McTiernan's original Predator was released in 1987, it would have been nice if the latest addition to the franchise was able to come out in 2017, celebrating the sci-fi/action classic's 30th anniversary. Sadly, this was a ball that was kind of dropped by 20th Century Fox, but the ultimate good news to take away is that fans will be seeing The Predator in theaters on September 14, 2018.

While September 2018 isn't a complete dead zone, the month isn't exactly packed with potential blockbusters, either, meaning that The Predator has a pretty good chance of finding and keeping an audience in that slot. The dark suspense film A Simple Favor, starring Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick, and directed by Paul Feig, debuts the same day. Meanwhile, The House with a Clock In Its Walls, with Jack Black, Cate Blanchett and Kyle MacLachlan, will open a week later. The last weekend of the month will see the animated Smallfoot, starring the voices of Channing Tatum, Gina Rodriguez and Zendaya, and the comedy Night School, with Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, hit the big screen. Can any of these films take potential viewers away from The Predator? We'll have to wait and see.

What Is The Predator Rating?

When it comes to movies about the Predator, audiences have really only seen a slight fluctuation in the ratings department. With the exception of Alien vs. Predator, which was given a PG-13 pass by the MPAA, every other film in the continuity/series -- including Predator 2, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, and Predators -- has been rated R. This is thankfully a tradition that will continue with The Predator as well.

While official decisions about ratings typically aren't made until a film has put together a theatrical edit to show the MPAA, we already know about The Predator's rating because the blockbuster's director has been very open about it. As production on the movie was starting up in February 2017, writer/director Shane Black took to his personal Twitter account and wrote, "And, just to be clear... PG-13 is for pussies. Spines bleed... a lot" (a reference to the fact that the titular alien species collects spinal columns as trophies). Basically, this is a feature that is not being made with young kids in mind as the target audience.

What Will The Predator Be About?

Writer/director Shane Black and screenwriter Fred Dekker haven't written a script together since 1987's The Monster Squad, but the duo is back in action writing the script for The Predator -- which most definitely fits within the continuity of Predator, Predator 2 and Predators and is absolutely not a reboot. The movie will be set in the present day -- which is to say the year 2018 -- and much like the original, it will primarily feature soldiers as its central protagonists.

Full details about The Predator plot haven't been revealed yet, but we do know that the story will center on Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), a former marine who discovers evidence that a Predator is on Earth. Unfortunately for him, nobody actually believes his claims, leading him to personally try and do something about it -- part of which is assembling a team that can help him out. And, from what actor Thomas Jane revealed about the plot a few months ago, it sounds like putting this team together won't be as cut and dry as it usually is in these types of films.

Actor Keegan-Michael Key also told us that reshoots on the film earlier this year actually rewrote about three-fourths of the final act, making it sound like something was amiss with the film's resolution. And, reports at the end of July indicated that even more reshoots were underway. While this doesn't sound good for a film that's due in theaters in just a few weeks, at least the team seems dedicated to getting it right. As you can see, though, the setup alone is pretty wild, which leads us to believe that The Predator will really be something special to behold.

Who Is The Predator Director?

Shane Black made a huge splash in Hollywood as the young hot shot writer of Lethal Weapon, and after spending years establishing himself with consistently great action/noir scripts (like The Long Kiss Goodnight, and The Last Boy Scout) the turn of the century saw him make the transition into the director's chair. He made his debut in 2005 with the cult hit Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and has since followed it up with both Iron Man 3 and The Nice Guys -- and now he's making his return to the blockbuster world with The Predator.

While Shane Black's talent should be enough to get anyone excited for the sci-fi feature, it's also funny to note that the project is a homecoming of sorts for the director. Back in the late 1980s, 20th Century Fox tried to get Black to work on rewrites for the original Predator -- and this eventually led them to offer the young filmmaker the part of Hawkins -- one of Black's very few performances as an actor. Given that Hawkins wound up suffering a rather awful death in the movie, we probably shouldn't expect him to reprise the role in The Predator.

Boyd Holbrook

Boyd Holbrook's rise in the film industry has been slow, but certainly notable. He started by getting small roles in movies by talented directors, such as Gus Van Sant, Rob Reiner, Scott Frank and David Fincher, and then made a significant move in 2015 taking on a big role on the Netflix series Narcos. More recently, however, he's been starting to take on a bigger blockbuster presence, and after playing a critically-acclaimed villain in James Mangold's Logan, he will be playing hero Quinn McKenna in Shane Black's The Predator.

It's been widely reported that Boyd Holbrook was not the first choice for the lead role, as offers first went out to both James Franco and Benicio Del Toro -- but the young actor is certainly at a place in his career where it is time to test out his abilities as a leading man. Given what we've seen from him, we definitely have confidence in his skills, and it doesn't hurt that he's surrounded by a stellar supporting ensemble cast.

Trevante Rhodes

Buddy characters have been a staple of Shane Black movies from the very beginning. After all, he is the man who introduced Riggs and Murtaugh to the world, and since then basically all of his films have been built around the two hander approach. We can't say for certain yet if this will be the case with The Predator, but it certainly looks like the movie is being set up to have Boyd Holbrook's Quinn McKenna have Trevante Rhodes' Nebraska Williams as his sounding board.

Rhodes broke out in 2016 thanks to his brilliant performance in the Best Picture-winning Moonlight, and The Predator will be his first experience working on a blockbuster. When we spoke to him in early 2017, he described Nebraska Williams as a "Special Forces cat" who winds up becoming best friends with Quinn McKenna. Thanks to his military background, we can definitely expect that he knows what he is doing around a gun, which means that he should be a significant ally in the battle against the eponymous alien threat.

Jacob Tremblay

Jacob Tremblay may only be 10 years old, but he has already managed to capture the attention of cinefiles the world over. After taking on a few smaller roles, the young actor blew critics and audiences away starring in the dark drama Room opposite Brie Larson (who won an Oscar for her performance). Since then, Tremblay has become one of the most in-demand young actors in the industry, but easily one of his biggest upcoming projects is The Predator.

At this stage we don't really know how Jacob Tremblay will fit into the larger narrative of the blockbuster, but we do have a few character details. Specifically, we know that he will have a close relationship with Quinn McKenna, who is his father. Adding an extra twist to the part is that the young kid suffers from a form of autism -- an aspect of the role that we have full confidence in Tremblay to portray.

Olivia Munn

While small details have leaked out about a few of the main characters in The Predator, the role set to be played by Olivia Munn is being kept an interesting mystery. When the actress first signed on to the project, the only description of the part provided said that she is a scientist - though we have no idea what field she is working in. The good news is that there are many scientific areas of study that could be helpful in taking down a Predator.

Many will remember that Olivia Munn got her start as a host on the video game network G4, but she has spent the last few years building up her resume as an actor starring in movies like Magic Mike and Ride Along 2. In 2016 she landed her first superhero role playing Psylocke in Bryan Singer's X-Men: Apocalypse, but we're definitely hoping that The Predator has more for her to do than that film.

Keegan-Michael Key

Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele have spent years tied at the hip in popular culture - starring in everything together from Key & Peele to Fargo to Keanu - but now their work is taking both of them in interesting separate directions. Peele recently made his incredibly successful directorial debut with the horror movie Get Out, and soon fans will be able to see Key on the big screen taking up arms against The Predator.

At this point, very little is actually know about the part that Keegan Michael-Key will be playing in Shane Black's upcoming blockbuster - but judging from the gun he's handling in the first look image, he is very likely another character with a military background ready to kick some serious ass. Given the tone of past Predator movies, the role could very well wind up being one of the most serious on the actor's filmography, but that doesn't mean we still don't expect him to crack one or two jokes within the movie's runtime.

Sterling K. Brown

When it comes to antagonists in The Predator, we fully expect that the titular creature will rank as the biggest threat in the movie - but that doesn't mean that the film is totally without humans trying to stand in the way of the heroes. Specifically, it's been reported that when Sterling K. Brown is first introduced in the movie, he won't be playing for the good guys, as he'll be a government agent who stands in Quinn McKenna's way. Fortunately, he winds up having a significant change of heart when he realizes the gravity of the situation the world finds itself in.

While Sterling K. Brown does have a fair share of movie roles on his resume, the actor has spent the bulk of his time on the small screen. Truth be told, the actor has actually gained a significant amount of popularity in recent years due to his work on television - namely on The People vs O.J. Simpson, and the on-going series This Is Us. That being said, Brown actually has two huge blockbusters in theaters in 2018, as he is not only a part of the Predator ensemble, but also the cast of the hugely successful Black Panther.

The Rest Of The Cast

So far in this guide we've introduced you to the main ensemble featured at the center of The Predator - but the movie's cast extends even beyond all of those awesome names. We don't really have much information about the individual parts that they will be playing within the film's narrative, but it has been reported that the rest of the cast will include Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck), Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones), Augusto Aguilera (Chasing Life), Edward James Olmos (Blade Runner 2049) and Jake Busey (Starship Troopers).

Will Arnold Schwarzenegger Be Back?

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Dutch was the first cinematic hero to go toe-to-toe with a Predator and survive, and yet we really have no idea what happened to the character after his adventure in the jungle. Because of this, there has been some question as to whether or not The Predator will offer up some answers. Sadly, it doesn't sound like that will be the case.

Boyd Holbrook has gone on the record about the possibility of Arnold Schwarzenegger showing up in The Predator, and he made it sound pretty clear that a cameo won't be happening. In explaining this choice, he noted that having a cameo from the original Predator protagonist would be a "gimmick" that might undermine the seriousness of the horror/sci-fi/western that is being constructed.

Of course, the biggest hint we have that Dutch showing up in the new film will be a no-go is confirmation from Schwarzenegger himself, who said:

So, unless something's changed in the months since Schwarzenegger revealed this info, it looks like The Predator will be an Ahnold-less affair.

When we think of extreme make up techniques on motion pictures, we lean toward horror thrillers and creature features, or fantasy epics that bring magical beasts to life. You might not initially think of a tender, grounded emotional drama like Wonder, Stephen Chbosky's outstanding adaptation of R.J. Palacio's best-selling book. But when you see this incredible video about the make-up process that Jacob Tremblay underwent to transform into "Auggie" Pullman for the film, you will appreciate his performance -- and the effort of the Wonder team -- all the more.

This clip is part of the DVD and Blu-ray release of Wonder, which will street from Lionsgate films on digital January 30, followed by the 4K Ultra HDTM Combo Pack, Blu-ray Combo Pack, and DVD on February 13. And even though we were amazed at the make up used to enhance Jacob Tremblay's performance in Wonder, watching the full process that this 11-year-old boy had to endure is nothing short of gobsmacking. I have two boys. They wouldn't sit still in a chair long enough to receive this treatment if I paid them. They wouldn't do it for ONE day. Tremblay did it for several days on the set of Wonder. His effort earned him a Critics' Choice nomination, while the makeup has earned an Oscar nod.

Wonder tells the heartwarming tale of August "Auggie" Pullman, a child with a facial deformity who, in the source book, we never get to see. All we do is read and learn about people's reactions to Auggie's looks, and how those experiences shape him. That wouldn't work for a movie -- film is a visual element -- so it was up to Chbosky and his team to devise a method to turn Tremblay into this on-screen realization of the boy readers around the world had grown to love.

Wonder was a hit for Lionsgate when it reached theaters in November, posting a healthy $130 million at the domestic box office off of solid reviews, and an additional $135M in international tickets sold. The book's popularity helped, but having lead actors like Jacob Tremblay, Owen Wilson, and Julia Roberts puts audiences in seats. But critics and crowds liked what they say, so I expect people will want to add this movie to their personal collections with the physical Blu-ray or DVD hits shelves on February 13.

Want to know what else is coming to theater this year? Bookmark our guide to the 2018 Movie Releases and stay up to date on every new release.

Every novel adaptation comes with its own specific challenges. After all, books and film are two completely different mediums with very different benefits and restraints, and those factors are key in the way that a story is ultimately told. Stephen Chbosky's Wonder is a perfect example, just given that the way we look at protagonist Auggie Pullman changes our perspective on the narrative -- and the director recently explained to me why that specifically was the hardest challenge in making the movie:

Paired together, Stephen Chbosky and author R.J. Palacio both participated in the Wonder international press day in London, England earlier this month, and I had the immense pleasure of getting to sit down with them and discuss the movie. One of my questions was in regard to the challenges of turning the story of Wonder from a novel to a film, and Chbosky explained why getting the makeup right, and the casting perfect was ultimately paramount for the drama.

Adapted from R.J. Palacio's book by Stephen Chbosky, Steve Conrad and Jack Thorne, Wonder tells the story of Auggie Pullman (Jacob Tremblay), a young boy who was born with a medical facial deformity, causing him to look very different than most kids his age. While he has a pair of loving parents (Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson), and a loving sister (Izabela Vidovic), his world is thrown for a complete loop when he's told that he'll be completing fifth grade in public school. As you would imagine, being able to actually see Auggie's face has a specific effect on how the story is told and absorbed, making Chobsky's challenges understandable.

As for R.J. Palacio, watching Wonder get turned into a film wasn't exactly a walk in the park either. Instead, there was an important process involving removing herself from the machine and letting the filmmakers do their work. Fortunately, at the end of the day she was thrilled with what Stephen Chbosky and company had made:

You can watch the author and the writer/director discuss their work on Wonder and the challenge of the adaptation by clicking play on the video below.

Wonder, which also stars Daveed Diggs, Mandy Patinkin, Noah Jupe and Bryce Gheisar, is in theaters now -- and be sure to stay tuned for more about the film here on CinemaBlend!

Julia Roberts and Jacob Tremblay have a special relationship in director Stephen Chbosky's Wonder. The latter plays a child with a rare medical facial deformity, and the former plays his adoring mother -- forcing a tremendous closeness between the two. Adding an extra layer to the performances, of course, is the heavy makeup that Tremblay wears, but it turns out that it wasn't really a barrier on set, as Roberts never saw her young co-star's face between the table read and the press junket. They recently told me,

I had the great pleasure of sitting down with Julia Roberts and Jacob Tremblay earlier this month when they reunited in London, England for Wonder's international press day. My first question to the duo was about their prep time and how much time they had to work together before production -- but I quickly learned that the answer was "no time at all." But that's just modern Hollywood.

On the same subject of scheduling, it was the real reason why Julia Roberts and Jacob Tremblay never interacted with him outside of his Auggie makeup. Labor laws already prohibit children from working a certain number of hours on film sets, and part of Wonder's production required Tremblay to dedicate some of that chunk time to the makeup chair. Roberts evidently worked around this period, thus she never really saw the face of her co-star:

Julia Roberts had many compliments to share about Jacob Tremblay during our conversation about Wonder, but that extended to our talk about his time in the makeup chair as well. While she obviously wasn't there in person, she heard nothing but amazing things about his temperament -- and he put the cherry on top with an adorable explanation as to why it wasn't so bad:

You can watch Julia Roberts and Jacob Tremblay discuss their work together on the set of Wonder by clicking play on the video below!

Wonder, which co-stars Owen Wilson, Daveed Diggs, Mandy Patinkin, and Izabela Vidovic, is in theaters this Friday, November 17th, and stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more from our press day interviews!

It takes a special kind of person to battle a Predator, so how do you improve your chances of vanquishing the extraterrestrial killer? Put together your own team of badass killers. At least, that's what the cast of The Predator looks like in their first official photo together. See for yourself!

Director Shane Black (who appeared in the original Predator movie) went on Twitter early today to post the first official image from The Predator set to celebrate production kicking off. From left to right, we have This Is Us' Sterling K. Brown, Moonlight's Trevante Rhodes, Logan's Boyd Holbrook, X-Men: Apocalypse's Olivia Munn, Keanu's Keegan-Michael Key, and at the bottom, we have Shane Black kneeling next to Room's Jacob Tremblay. Oh don't underestimate that last actor, folks. I suspect Tremblay could unleash his inner fury towards the Predator if properly provoked. As Black noted, this is just some of the cast assembled, and we'll be seeing more actors announced/featured in the near future. For instance, it was reported last month that Thomas Jane will appear. Just don't expect Arnold Schwarzenegger to show up.

So who exactly is this group of individuals who will be fighting a new Predator for the franchise's fourth installment? (Sixth if you count those Alien crossovers.) Although last summer Shane Black said that the main hero, who is now being played by Boyd Holbrook, would be named Quinn Mackenna, none of the characters have been officially identified yet. Fortunately, we do some details about most of them. Holbrook is playing a Special Forces Commando, Olivia Munn is playing a scientist, Trevante Rhodes is playing an ex-Marine and best friend of Holbrook's character, Keegan-Michael Key is playing a man who will team up with Holbrook and Rhodes' characters, Sterling K. Brown is playing a government agent who imprisons the main protagonist before having to rely on him for help against the Predator, and Jacob Tremblay is playing the main protagonist's son, who is autistic and is the key to communicating with the Predator. Quite the lineup we have here.

It's also worth mentioning that a few days before posting the cast photo, Shane Black confirmed that The Predator will be rated R, listing the reason for this in the tweet below.

No specific plot information concerning The Predator has been revealed yet, although Shane Black debunked the report about the blockbuster taking place in a suburban setting. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more information about the The Predator as it comes in, and with shooting now officially underway, surely something interesting will arrive soon.

The Predator will wreak havoc in theaters on February 9, 2018. Let us know what you think of the movie's cast so far in the comments below.

If there are two things Shane Black knows how to work with, it's working with smart kid actors and the Predator franchise. So naturally his return to said series with The Predator was going to include yet another young talent, and that talent happens to be Room's Jacob Tremblay. While he may be young, he certainly knows his Predator references - or at least, someone close to him does. Take a look at his celebratory tweet below:

Fans of Tremblay's could find this hysterical tribute on Twitter, which shows the young actor ready to take on the legendary alien hunter. However, given that Jacob Tremblay will be playing an autistic child who can decipher the language of the Predator species, there may not be as much carnage between him and his extraterrestrial co-stars as we thought. Still, should there be any sort of fighting between Tremblay and The Predator, we wouldn't be surprised if there's some sort of ace up his sleeve that equals the playing field.

Who could blame Jacob Tremblay for celebrating, as landing his role in The Predator is probably his biggest gig in his post Room career. Though that's not to say he hasn't been busy as he's still been racking up credits in films like Shut In and Before I Wake, as well as TV shows and specials like The Last Man on Earth and Funny or Die's Donald Trump's The Art of The Deal: The Movie. Still, knowing Shane Black's work with both dialogue and action, this could possibly be the most challenging role for Tremblay in his career.

We must admit, after Jacob Tremblay dropped that epic Schwarzenegger reference, we've been hearing those magic words ringing through our heads. And we bet you've heard them, too. So let's just take a moment, and relive the classic moment from Predator that we've all been waiting for. Feel free to quote along with us, courtesy of the video below.

The Predator will hit theaters on February 9, 2018, while Before I Wake still looking for a release date at some point this year.

Fox’s The Last Man on Earth has been a surprisingly funny series that managed to turn what should have been an impossible premise for a comedy – following the journey of the last surviving man on the planet – into something often hilarious. Of course, the show was helped by the fact that Last Man on Earth’s titular last man Phil Tandy Miller didn’t remain alone for very long, but a lot of what works about the series is due to creator and star Will Forte. The second half of Season 2 will see Forte giving viewers a look at a young Phil #1 with the casting of Jacob Tremblay.

According to a report from Deadline, Tremblay’s turn as Tandy will occur in an episode slated to air this spring. Considering that Last Man on Earth is not exactly a time travel spectacular, we can probably safely assume that Tandy will be flashing back to pre-apocalyptic days of his youth.

Young Phil/Pre-Tandy will undoubtedly be played well, no matter what the context. Tremblay has been a busy boy in showbiz in the nine years of his life. His first role came back in 2013 in an episode of TV series Motive, though in the years since, he’s spent most of his professional time working on films. His latest project was rather high-profile as he took on the role of Jack opposite Brie Larson in the Oscar-nominated Room. Tremblay has received a breakthrough performance award from the National Board of Review and the Critics’ Choice Best Young Actor Award, in addition to a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. Brie Larson isn’t the only big name performer with whom Tremblay will be accumulating big screen experience, as The Book of Henry will see him work with the likes of Naomi Watts, Sarah Silverman, and Dean Norris, while Burn Your Maps will set him alongside Vera Farmiga.

All things considered, it’s somewhat surprising that a boy with a resume such as Jacob Tremblay's would find himself playing a small part in a half-hour Fox comedy series, but at least we can expect that he’ll be pretty great in the role. The Last Man on Earth has done more exploration of Tandy’s past in Season 2, usually by dropping hints and clues. The likelihood of Jacob Tremblay playing Tandy in a flashback means that we’ll be getting a firsthand look at the child behind the man...child.

Unfortunately, there’s no word just yet of the exact spring date that The Last Man on Earth will be returning from hiatus, so we still have a bit of a wait ahead of us before we see Jacob Tremblay as a young Tandy. Luckily, there are plenty of great shows that have already been scheduled for 2016, and you can check out our list of TV premiere dates here.