The creative team behind the 2025 cult-dinosaur feature PRIMITIVE WAR has released a first teaser for an ambitious new project currently in development.
WAMG loved PRIMITIVE WAR and in our positive review, we said “you do get what you want… dinosaurs, and LOTS of them.” The film stars Ryan Kwanten (“True Blood”), Tricia Helfer (“Battlestar Galactica,” “Lucifer”), Nick Wechsler (“The Boys”) and Jeremy Piven (“Entourage”). Check out the film streaming on HULU.
Inspired by the artwork of creator Shaun Keenan and expanded into an original cinematic universe by filmmaker Luke Sparke, the project blends western frontier mythology with a world where dinosaurs and humans have existed side by side for generations.
The brief teaser offers only a glimpse of the world and marks the project’s public debut ahead of the official Kickstarter campaign scheduled to launch in 20 days.
“This is an opportunity for dinosaur enthusiasts , Primitive War fans and cinema buƯs to be a part of the production process and create something the world has never seen. We want to create something that feels completely fresh while still capturing the sense of wonder and adventure that first made us fall in love with dinosaur stories,” said Sparke.
The full trailer, project title, exclusive rewards and more will be unveiled when the official Kickstarter campaign goes live on July 7th 2026.
In his Sundance 2026 review, First Showing.net’s Alex Billington called THE WEIGHT “one of the best films from the 2026 Sundance Film Festival – an instant favorite that’ll probably remain somewhere on my Top 20 list by the end of the year.”
The first trailer for director Padraic McKinley’s film dropped today.
When Samuel (Ethan Hawke) is torn from his daughter and sent to a brutal prison, Warden Clancy (Russell Crowe) offers him a high-stakes proposition: smuggle gold out of a remote mine with a dangerous crew of prisoners and he’ll win his freedom.
Pete Hammond of Deadline writes, “Matteo Cocco’s superbly atmospheric and moody cinematography fills the bill perfectly, as do all the period production elements, as well as the excellent music score from Shelby and Latham Gaines. All the actors deliver here, with standouts including Amelio and Jones (the rare female character in this type of story). Crowe is again playing the villain of the piece, and coming right on the heels of his Nazi commandant Hermann Göring in Nuremberg, he manages to make Clancy three-dimensionally slimy in his few scenes. As for Hawke, it must be catnip to get to play a guy like Murphy. This is undoubtedly a role Paul Newman would have coveted in his prime — a little “Luke” a little “Roy Bean,” a little “John Russell.” Hawke makes it his own in a solid portrayal of a man driven to do extreme things for the chance of seeing his daughter again. That aspect gives the role a strong emotional hook that has us rooting for the man to make it out alive.”
Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as “Man” in director Robert Eggers’ WERWULF, from FOCUS FEATURES. The studio released this first look at the upcoming film, due in theaters December 25th.
Official Synopsis: Witness Robert Eggers’ most visceral and haunting experience yet. Focus Features presents WERWULF, a harrowing tale of devotion, damnation and the devil within.
Previously starring in Eggers’ 2024 hit, NOSFERATU, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe and Lily-Rose Depp once again feature in Eggers’ new movie. NOSFERATU earned four Academy Award nominations, including Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling. The film is streaming on PEACOCK.
In a recent interview with Esquire, the director said of the WERWULF wolves: “We worked with wolf-dog hybrids, which we also worked with in Nosferatu. But Aaron spent time with a real wolf, and we learned a lot about the wolf’s behavior. We incorporated a lot of what we learned into his performance, and his interactions with Lily, and some of the other things that he does in the film.”
As a farmer, he must be somebody who lives remotely, lives on the land. What’s the world like for this man?
It’s a really brutal, unforgiving, merciless, grotesque world. More than ever, it’s mud and blood and dung and rain and pain and suffering. Aaron’s performance is incredibly harrowing. We’ll say without a doubt that it’s his best performance, and the stuff that he does physically in the transformation scenes are incredibly extreme. The emotional intensity he brings to role is equally as extreme.
Who is in his life? Lily-Rose Depp is in the movie. Both of them are working with you again after Nosferatu.
Lily, she is the heart of the movie. Lily is truly transformative. There’s a very clear physical change in her body and her makeup, but she inhabits a very different person that’s very different from her and very different from any character she’s ever played. She’s Aaron’s wife, and she’s a mother of several children and also a farmer. She’s sort of the most gracious person in the film.
What can you share about Willem Dafoe’s character? Everybody’s curious to see what you do with him since you’ve worked so closely with him over the years in all of your films.
It’ll be clear from the trailer that Willem is a hunter.
From Focus Features and Working Title comes an irresistible new take on Jane Austen’s iconic SENSE AND SENSIBILITY: a charming, witty, and deeply relatable story of love and sisterhood starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles.
From director Georgia Oakley and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Esmé Creed-Miles, Caitríona Balfe, Frank Dillane with George MacKay and Fiona Shaw, watch the first trailer for SENSE AND SENSIBILITY.
Jane Austen’s story has had three TV adaptations and two previous film versions including the well known 1995 film directed by Ang Lee. Actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
As we’ve come to expect for the last several decades (the past three or so), Summertime is a “super-time” at the multiplex (and the box office). Bonnie’s toy box burst open the season officially last weekend, so it’s time for a comic book crusader to literally swoop in and rescue us from the warm-weather duldrums. Mind you, we met lots of aliens a couple of weeks ago with Spielberg’s newest, so film fans should be primed for an even friendlier “strange visitor from another planet”. Nope, it’s not the newest version of “big blue”, but rather his cousin. This harkens back to the strategy of the producers of his “touchstone” big screen outing of 1978. The late, great Christopher Reeve donned the cape for three outings before a “spin-off”. Of course, the dynamic team of James Gunn and Peter Safran, the keepers of the DC film franchise, isn’t following that “playbook”, so now we’re meeting the “girl of steel”, SUPERGIRL.
In the story’s opening moments, the title character, AKA Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock), has been “over-celebrating” her 23rd birthday. She’s trying to “sleep it off”, but her faithful puppy Krypto will have none of that. Neither will her cousin Clark AKA Superman (David Corenswet), who transmits a video “B-day” greeting to her spaceship/crashpad. That vessel is parked on a “red sun” planet, so Kara’s enduring a full-on hangover. Down the way, the home of a weapons crafter named Elias Knoll gets a most-unwelcome visit from the sadistic leader of the space pirates known as the Brigands, Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts). The tension escalates into a brutal attack that leaves a single survivor of the Knoll family, teenager Ruthye (Eve Ridley). Later, she shows up at a “watering hole”, seeking an “agent of revenge”. This leads to Ruthye befriending Kara, who takes her back to her ship. Unfortunately, the Brigands are there to steal it. Krypto breaks free and charges Krem, who shoots the pooch with a poison dart. After the thieves escape, Kara takes her pet to a vet who explains that unless she gets the antidote from Krem, Krypto will be heading to that “farm up north”. Kara has no choice but to accompany Ruthye on her “trackdown” of the Brigand “king”. Even if Kara can get to a “yellow sun” planet, will her superpowers be enough to save her poor canine pal in time? And what happens when their quest leads to the savage, surly space-hoppin’ bounty hunter Lobo (Jason Momoa)? The clock is ticking…
After a steady acting career, mainly in several TV shows (broadcast and streaming), Ms. Alcock puts a very different spin on this iconic hero. There’s little of the wide-eyed innocence of Helen Slater in the 1984 flick, nor the feisty “working gal” energy of the CW’s Melissa Benoist. Instead, she goes dark, conveying the character’s traumatized past and her need to self-medicate. Kara needs a reason to soar again. Luckily, we get a glimpse of her sunny side as she interacts with the ever-adorable “fuzz-faced” Krypto. Alcock is more than up to this daunting challenge. Oh, that “reason” is Ruthye played with steel-eyed focus and determination by the engaging Ms. Ridley. Her road to revenge leads her to a new family: a needed “big sister” in Kara. These actresses work well with each other, even as they share exchanges with the movie’s big scene-stealer, Momoa, as the ill-tempered, gamma-irradiated boss biker Lobo. His grungy charm and snarky asides propel the often dour space opera. Though he was a JLA member in the “Snyder-verse”, Momoa appears to be having a lot more fun as this DC comics fan favorite “anti-hero”. He fares much better than the talented Schoenaerts, who isn’t given a real chance to shine as the underwritten Krem. With his “bedazzled” face, he looks as though he took a wrong exit off “Fury Road”. Krem exists to inflict cruelty as he mugs and sneers at the heroes. Speaking of heroes, it’s great to see Corenswet return as the caring “blue boy scout” mentor to his cousin (though it feels like a “big brother/lil’ sis” dynamic).
Unlike last Summer’s “super spectacle” from James Gunn, this is helmed by an action flick “newbie” Craig Gillespie (I, TONYA, CRUELLA, and DUMB MONEY). In many ways, the film doesn’t harken back to SUPERMAN, but rather Gunn’s work at Marvel on the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY trilogy, with the countless slimy “beasties” and exotic alien backdrops. However, it’s a lot tougher to see these creative designs (unlike the GoG flicks) in the barely-lit scenes, giving everything a muddy look, rather than the “lived-in” STAR WARS aesthetic. This makes it doubly difficult to follow the chaotic fights and stunts. We eventually get too comfortable with the weird (did we need the “potty” gags?) and try to latch on to the familiar. A big contributor to that inertia is the cliche-ridden screenplay, based on a popular comic book miniseries. It takes its main idea from TRUE GRIT as Ruthye is a sword-wielding Mattie Ross (with nods to CAT BALLOU and even THE SEVEN SAMURAI). This leads to lots of “plot point” tropes as the hero is wounded and must heal before a final throw-down (we saw that a few weeks ago in THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU). I did find the flashbacks to the destruction of the planet Krypton compelling, along with life on the floating rock called Argo City, even as the talented David Krumholtz, as Kara’s pop Zor-El, provides SF-science babble in Kryptonese (couldn’t they have switched to English after a few lines of it). And, as I mentioned earlier, Lobo is a welcome shot of adrenaline in his “drop-bys” (I’m sure a solo flick is in the works). I recall that several DC comics films were stopped because Gunn and Safran stated that the scripts “weren’t there”. As this film lurched to its too-protracted finale, I wondered why this one was “ready to go”. And I also counted the weeks until that webbed-wonder swings in for a welcome return visit. But we’re concerned with “the guys down the street” (as Deadpool says), and this is a pretty “meh” follow-up to last Summer’s triumphant “reboot”. That one soared while SUPERGIRL, despite a superb cast, barely gets off the ground.
2 Out of 4
SUPERGIRL opens in theatres everywhere on Friday, June 26, 2026
Before audiences and fans get a first look at the brand new trailer for DIGGER, which debuts on July 13, Warner Bros. Pictures has released a video profiling the works of the biggest movie star on the planet – Tom Cruise!
It’s a great video showing Cruise’s movies before transitioning into a first look at director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s latest film. Kudos to whoever cut this teaser!
“everything you’ve done has come to this…”
Cruise’s latest film is a sure bet for Best Picture, Best Director, and several technical categories, including editing, sound, and cinematography. The actor could finally walk away with a Best Actor Oscar for the film.
Tickets are on sale now for EVIL DEAD BURN – from the director of INFESTED.
EVIL DEAD BURN unleashes the franchise’s most savage and terrifying ride to date, blazing onto big screens with an all-new chapter of carnage and demonic mayhem.
After the loss of her husband, a woman seeks solace with her in-laws in their secluded family home. As one by one they are transformed into Deadites—turning the gathering into a family reunion from hell—she comes to discover that the vows she took in life live on… even in death.
EVIL DEAD BURN stars Souheila Yacoub, Tandi Wright, Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, Errol Shand and Maude Davey. The film is directed by Sébastien Vaniček and written by Sébastien Vaniček and Florent Bernard.
It is produced by Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi. The executive producers are Bruce Campbell, Romel Adam, Sarah Spurway, Jose Cañas and Lee Cronin.
Vaniček is joined behind the camera by director of photography Philip Lozano, production designer Nick Connor, editor Maxime Caro, makeup and effects designer Jane O’Kane and costume designer Sarah Voon. The music is by Double Danger.
New Line Cinema and Screen Gems present a Ghost House Pictures production, EVIL DEAD BURN. It will be distributed domestically by Warner Bros. Pictures and is set to open in theaters in North America on July 10, 2026.
(L-R) MAUDE DAVEY as Polly, SOUHEILA YACOUB as Alice, TANDI WRIGHT as Susan, and HUNTER DOOHAN as Joseph in New Line Cinema’s “Evil Dead Burn,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Duncan Jones’s ROGUE TROOPER had its World Premiere at Annecy International Animation Festival in France and was met with stellar reviews. Jones films include Moon, Source Code, Warcraft, and Mute.
Synopsis: An animated science fiction feature from Rebellion and Liberty Films, Rogue Trooper tells the story of 19, a ‘Genetic Infantryman’, who finds himself the sole-survivor of an invasion force. Desperate to track down the traitor who sold him and his comrades out, the super soldier is accompanied by three killed-in-action squad mates, whose personalities have been stored in his gun, helmet and backpack.
Based on the classic 2000 AD comic series created by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons, Rogue Trooper has been written and directed by Duncan Jones(Moon, Source Code, Warcraft, Mute). It will star breakout talent Aneurin Barnard(The Goldfinch, Dunkirk) as the eponymous Rogue Trooper, alongside Hayley Atwell(Captain America: The First Avenger, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One),Jack Lowden(Slow Horses, Dunkirk), Daryl McCormack(Bad Sisters, Good Luck To You Leo Grande) and Reece Shearsmith(Inside No. 9, Saltburn).
Rounding out the cast is an incredible ensemble, which includes Jemaine Clement(Avatar 2: The Way of Water), Matt Berry(What We Do in the Shadows), Diane Morgan(Cunk on Earth),Alice Lowe(Black Mirror),Asa Butterfield(Sex Education, Hugo) and Sean Bean(Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings).
Deadline‘s Damon Wise says: “Jones lays some of this aesthetic in the opening credits, the best of the year alongside Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma: While Bear McCreary’s tongue-in-cheek, faux-jingoistic theme “The Rogue Trooper March” plays, Jones uses black-and-white frames from the original comic-book, giving his director credit a well-earned speech bubble that says, quite simply, “BTHOOM”!” and the “‘2000AD’ Adaptation Is A Fast, Funny, Visually Mind-Blowing Old-School War Movie.”
Wendy Ide of Screen Daily says: “…there is much to admire in a picture which delivers plenty of space-ship crunching action and regional British insults but also manages to critique the cynical economic motivations of endless, pointless wars.”
“A hellzapoppin’ comic book adaptation,” says Drew Taylor at The Wrap, who praised the fact that the film was made independently and looks far better than that would normally suggest. “It’s an absolute hoot,” he writes. “An otherworldly war movie populated by anthropomorphic weapons, arcane mythology and the kind of go-for-broke 1980s fantasy movie spirit that is (sadly) in short supply these days.” While “gloriously overstuffed” and “packed with characters and bits of lore, technology and philosophizing” he says that “encyclopedic knowledge” of the source material “isn’t necessary to have a good time”.
When asked by Deadline in April what prompted the BAFTA Award Winning director/writer to make the film:
JONES: They’ve got an absolute treasure trove of characters, and there’s a lot of them that I would’ve been gagging to do and absolutely would love the chance to do. But Rogue was always the one that felt most appealing to me. It’s funny, when I was in school, I was a big fan of Plato’s Republic and the tripartite division of the soul between the head, the stomach, and the heart. And I always read Rogue Trooper thinking of that division of the soul, with the characters of Bagman, Gunnar and Helm. And when we started making the film, I finally had the opportunity to talk to the authors and ask them if that had been in their thinking. Obviously, it wasn’t. [Laughs.] It wasn’t at all! but it meant something to me.”
I think 2000 AD’s got an amazing library of characters, and I think what’s great about them is that they don’t feel like the same man and woman, just in a different uniform, which some comic movies tend to feel like. There’s some really interesting, bizarre stories that are in 2000 AD for those who want to have a play. Again, leaning into the Britishness or at least the Europeanness of 2000 AD, I would love to see more British filmmakers come on board and make this a bit of a renaissance for the kinds of British films that we haven’t really ever had the chance to make. The way that we made Rogue Trooper really does open up the opportunity to do some things at this scale on a UK indie budget. [Laughs.] Come and join us. It’ll be fun.”
For more on the film, check out the interview with Duncan Jones and Stuart Fenegan as they “Break Down the DNA of Their New Sci-Fi Movie, ‘Rogue Trooper’” HERE.
A24 Films has released the first preview for director Jesse Eisenberg’s film THE DEBUT.
When Mona Friedman is cast in a bit part at a small community theater, she transforms from a shy, unassuming housewife into a zealous method actor willing to do anything to protect the artistic integrity of her marginal role – even if it means waging war against the show’s domineering director.
Starring Julianne Moore, Paul Giamatti, Halle Bailey, Jesse Eisenberg, Cara Buono, Craig Bierko, Eldar Isgandarov, and Bernadette Peters, here’s a first look at the brand new trailer.
Giamatti has received two Academy Award nominations throughout his career. He has not yet won an Oscar. He was nominated for Best Lead Actor for THE HOLDOVERS in 2024 and lost to Cillian Murphy for OPPENHEIMER and in 2006 for CINDERELLA MAN and lost the Best Supporting Actor Oscar to George Clooney for SYRIANA. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, Giamatti was left out of the Best Actor race for SIDEWAYS.
The below-the-line artists for THE DEBUT include Director of Photography Drew Daniels, Production Design by Anne Ross, Editing by Robert Nassau ACE, Costume Design by Stacey Battat, Music and Lyrics by Jesse Eisenberg with Music by Emile Mosseri.
The last time I reviewed this light-hearted French series “Art of Crime” was 18 months ago, ending with Season Seven. Here is the usual link to previous reviews to prep you for this pair of two-part mysteries for our cop and art expert duo to solve in the latest round: https://www.wearemoviegeeks.com/tag/art-of-the-crime-season-7/
In Season Eight, Florence (Eleonore Bernheim) and Antoine (Nicolas Gob) are still up in the air about their romantic status. By now, he’s ready to take the plunge, but too emotionally bottled up to just say it. Not really a problem, since she’s too hyper with conflicts over such a big decision to listen, anyway. The unfortunate one stuck in the middle is their beleaguered boss, Alex Pardo, (Benjamin Egner), who finds himself separately enduring their travails as if he were a shrink for both. Perhaps more accurately, a referee.
The first case involves the murder of a popular romance/crime novelist’s researcher. The author, Patricia Richter (Catherine Marchal) might be either another potential target or the perp. Her upcoming novel would kill off her long-standing studly hero, greatly upsetting a large, avid fan base. “Heresy!” they shout, in various ways, including some laced with menace. The novel was to be based on a few Raphael paintings, making Florence’s expertise key to the solution. Since the nascent tale includes a florid, if not lurid, love element, the script ups the ante from her usual imaginary chats with the artist du jour by showing the principals mentally enacting scenes from the book as they read it, providing a delightful, elaborate sendup of soap opera histrionics. Two 45-minute segments provide just the right running time for the material. It’s one of the better scripts from Angele Herry-Leclerc and Pierre-Yves Mora, who have written almost all of the series’ 26 episodes. Credit also to Florian Crepin’s direction – especially in those fantasy sequences.
The second pair offers a different type of attraction, via an opening sequence showing considerable boobage in a misty, languid Turkish bath sequence based on paintings by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (Either they’re running out of artists I’ve heard of, or my inner troglodyte is showing). The designer of a virtual reality game arising from his work – particularly the longstanding mystery surrounding the whereabouts of a missing valuable original – is the victim. Again, several have motives to sort through, requiring the usual form of effort by the stars and a few key supporting characters.
Florence’s amusingly annoying art historian father, Piere (Philippe Duclos) manages to reinsert himself into both cases. He’s always a welcome addition for viewers, if less so for his long-suffering daughter. Alex also plays a bigger role in their efforts this season than he often has, lending a stabilizing presence to the emotional pinballing of the two leads. Season Nine aired in France a couple of months ago. Let’s hope it finds its way across the Atlantic faster than this one did.
RATING: 2 1/2 out of 4 stars
THE ART OF CRIME Season 8 Episode 1 will stream June 23, 2026 in the U.S. and Canada on MHz Choice.
