Despite all the high-flying action roles, intricate stunt work, and engaging characters Tom Cruise has tackled in his decades-long career, the actor says that his upcoming role in Digger could be his biggest challenge to date.

The satirical comedy, directed by acclaimed Mexican filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu, sees Cruise play an eccentric and elderly oil tycoon called Digger Rockwell in a disaster movie of epic proportions. With heavy prosthetics and a delicate paunch, it's a transformative role for the Mission: Impossible star.

“There's nothing better than to physically and metaphorically stand on the edge of a cliff and go, ‘Let's do this,’” says Cruise, chatting to a group of international journalists – including GamesRadar+ – about working with Iñárritu. "I trust you, and whatever we're going to do, I know this is going to be a hell of an experience. Let's come together and let's do it. Let's all do it."

The Top Gun actor is thoughtful, excited and contemplative as he talks at a trailer launch event on the Warner Bros. Studios lot in Burbank, California. "I have never had something that could challenge me in this way," he explains. "And neither has Alejandro when we went in – ever. When you see this film, it's totally original."

If you've seen the Digger trailer, you'll know the story is about an environmental emergency that could lead to catastrophic destruction on a global scale – and the colorful vocabulary of the lead character seems to be rubbing off on Cruise.

"The director sets the frame and the lenses and the lighting," he says. "It's really my favorite thing. Alejandro, he shows me… He's like, 'I want you to look like this.' I'm thinking, 'This guy's got f*cking balls.' And I'm like, ‘I can't wait. Let's go.'"

In tackling the titular role in Digger, Cruise considered his past projects in depth: "When we're looking for characters, we're looking for humor, drama, certain constructs… How do we communicate this? Whether it's Les Grossman [in Tropic Thunder] or Interview With The Vampire, Collateral or Risky Business, I'm always asking, 'How do I communicate this?' The physicality, the makeup… That is stuff that you find as you are learning how to communicate."

The actor's enthusiasm steps up a beat as he continues to explain the development of the character of Digger Rockwell: "You really have to understand the tools. It's not one size fits all. You have to find the communication, the lenses, the color of the makeup. The level of detail of making a film like this is... [What is the] color of the cowboy boots? What are my shorts like? The sets, the color of the sets? They're beautiful on every single level, and it's all very... You look at the taste of this man. It's very special."

During the event, which was held inside the plush Steven J. Ross Theater, Cruise went on to talk about his commitment to cinema and his love of watching movies amongst film fans. "First of all, I am the audience," he tells us. "I love movies. I love all kinds of movies. I love going to opening weekend. I like being there with an audience."

With a broad smile beaming across his face, he continues: "I want people to be immersed in the movie, so whatever it takes to tell that story. And it takes all of us. Making movies is a beautiful thing because it's all of us together. Really, it is very special."

Alongside Cruise, the cast of Digger includes Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Emma D’Arcy.

Digger releases in theaters on October 2. For now, check out our guide to all the other most exciting upcoming movies.

The first trailer for Digger, Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Tom Cruise's next film, is here, and it's a seriously odd tease for the black comedy film.

In the footage, which you can watch above, Tom Cruise (transformed as his character Digger Rockwell) spends his time in a luxurious mansion taking care of his strange-looking cat. However, disaster strikes when he ignores a warning from an employee about an iceberg, which kickstarts a chain reaction that looks likely to destroy the planet.

Along with Cruise, the rest of the cast includes Sandra Hüller, Emma D'Arcy, Jesse Plemons, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Riz Ahmed, and Sophie Wilde.

The film's official logline reads: "The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything."

"Honestly, there's nothing like that experience I've ever had before, just because of how motivated, focused, hardworking, and inspiring Tom Cruise is on set. The energy he has and the positivity is crazy. It's like nothing I've ever seen before," Ahmed has said of the film. "Then Alejandro, the attention to detail, the vision, the ambition of it, as well, every day is just like, 'Wow, this is kind of nuts.'"

Cruise was last seen in last summer's Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, while Iñárritu hasn't made an English-language film since 2015's The Revenant, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy.

The film arrives this October 2. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the other most exciting upcoming movies.

Get ready comedy fans, as another 21 Jump Street movie is in the works 12 years after the sequel 22 Jump Street hit screens. However, because so much time has passed, the team has skipped right past 23 and has titled the upcoming film 24 Jump Street.

The news was announced by producer Neal H. Moritz, who shared an image of the script on Instagram, which states under the title "It took so long to make we had to skip one." The image also shows that script was written by Rodney Rothman, Jonah Hill, and Meghan Malloy. The trio also penned 2014 sequel 22 Jump Street, taking over from 21 Jump Street scribe Michael Bacall. Check out the post below.

As reported by Variety, Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, and Ice Cube are in talks to star in the third installment. In the franchise, Hill and Tatum play police officers Schmidt and Jenko, who go undercover as part of an investigative program led by Ice Cube's strict Captain Dickson. Rothman will direct the film, with 21 and 22 Jump Street producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller also set to return alongside Moritz, Tatum, Hill, Reid Carolin, and Matt Dines.

The first movie follows Schmidt and Jenko as they go undercover at a high school to find out where a new, dangerous drug is coming from. The second follows a similar premise, but this time, the boys are at college. The first movie, directed by Lord and Miller, grossed more than $200 million worldwide, and the sequel raised the bar even further, earning $331 million.

Despite the second movie seemingly sending up the idea of more sequels, as the end credits show snippets of hypothetical following movies, such as 23 Jump Street being set in medical school, no. 24 sending boys on foreign exchange, 25 set at a semester at sea, 26 at art school, and so on. However, the third installment has actually been in development at Sony for quite some time. At one point, there was even a script for 23 Jump Street. Back in 2024, Tatum told Comic Book that 23 Jump Street had "the best script that I’ve ever read for a third movie.”

According to Variety, the third movie was set to crossover with Sony’s Men in Black franchise. However, it looks like that script was scrapped, hence why the franchise is skipping ahead to 24. Who knows, maybe no. 23 actually happened, but we were just hit with a Neuralyzer. Nevertheless, we expect the new movie to touch on what the duo has been getting up to in the 12-plus years they have been off-screen.

24 Jump Street does not yet have a release date. For more, see our list of the best comedy 2010s movies, and keep up with new movies heading your way.

Scary Movie 6 brings back the Wayans family after 25 years away from the franchise. Directed by Michael Tiddes and written by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans, and Rick Alvarez, the movie is being billed as a legacy sequel to the first two films – but does it live up to expectations?

Unfortunately, reviews for the horror parody have been decidedly negative, debuting to a low 20% Rotten Tomatoes score. While it's not being called an all-out failure, several critics have been lukewarm in their critiques, saying few jokes land and the parody doesn't always feel timely. This being said, there is a fair amount of praise for the surprise celebrity cameos and this is not the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score in the franchise, either.

Empire gave the movie two stars, writing that "the posters – inspired parodies of recent horror films – are wittier than the film, suggesting that maybe next time get those ad creatives into the writers' room." Their critic Kim Newman added that it's only in the last 10 minutes that the movie "almost start[s] to be funny".

IndieWire criticized the movie for not being cutting enough in its parody. "Nobody should be looking to Scary Movie for nuanced geopolitical analysis, and only a dumbass would be genuinely offended by what the Wayans didn't mock in this movie," reviewer Alison Foreman wrote. "But great satire is often defined as much by what it excludes, and refusing to engage with any actual controversy at Paramount (outside of one very weak line involving Neve Campbell), Scary Movie 6 manages to come across as thoughtless and toothless at the same time."

Variety was lukewarm on the sixth movie in the franchise, citing it having fairly few funny gags. "I didn't laugh out loud too much at Scary Movie, which is a lot less funny than last summer's Naked Gun reboot, though it's got the relentless energy of a mad-dog comedy," critic Owen Gleiberman wrote. "The majority of the jokes come off as more asserted than delighted."

Deadline's Pete Hammond says the jokes "feel as old" as the 25-year gap that the franchise has been without the Wayans family as writers. "We get a flat-footed and predictable satire that looks like the Wayans just threw whatever tired ideas they had at the wall to see what still sticks," he writes in his review.

The Wrap's William Bibbiani writes: "Sucky or not, Scary Movie is still a broad comedy, and a lot can be forgiven if it's funny. It's frequently funny. Some of the jokes backfire, horribly, and others are so tired they're pathetic, but one out of every four punchlines hits hard. The celebrity cameo in the pre-credits sketch is inspired."

For more upcoming movies, check out our guide to all the new horror movies arriving in 2026 and beyond.

If you think of Hugh Jackman's filmography, a few stone-cold classics are likely to stand out for you. For me, it's his tortured turn in Les Misérables that landed him an Oscar nomination and his reprisal of Wolverine in arguably the best comic book movie ever made, Logan.

Well, it turns out they've got some competition as the actor now has a newly ranked top movie, according to his Rotten Tomatoes scores. The Sheep Detectives, a family-friendly mystery, is now his highest-rated film on the movie review aggregation website.

Based on 26 reviews, it's currently got a 96% score, overtaking Jackman's previous top movie, Bad Education (for those wondering, Logan is at number three with a very respectable 93%).

The Sheep Detectives stars Jackman as an amiable farmer who reads mystery novels to his beloved sheep every night. When a brutal incident happens on the farm, the talking sheep decide to solve the crime themselves. Alongside Jackman, the movie has a pretty impressive voice cast, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Patrick Stewart, Bella Ramsey, and Brett Goldstein.

Reviews have praised the new movie for its feel-good factor as well as unexpectedly moving voice acting. IGN writes that it's "the cutest, sweetest movie ever made about accepting death and confronting grief and trauma that’s probably ever been made."

Meanwhile, Peter Bradshaw gave it a solid three stars in the Guardian, comparing it to Watership Down. "It makes for a sweet-natured family comedy, and a spiky and amusing cameo from Emma Thompson certainly doesn’t hurt," he writes.

It doesn't sound too baa-d at all, right? The Sheep Detectives is out on May 2. In the meantime, there has been plenty of speculation that Jackman could return as sharp-knuckled mutant Wolverine in Avengers: Doomsday. Watch this space – and check out our upcoming Marvel movies and shows guide for all the latest on that.

It's been a long road(runner) for Coyote vs. Acme, but the first trailer for the un-canceled movie is finally here.

In the new teaser, which you can check out above, Wile E. Coyote is trying out some brand-new Acme-branded roller skates that are sure to allow him to catch the Road Runner. Except... not quite. After setting off at a snail's pace, they explode.

The movie sees Wile E. Coyote take Acme Corporation to court after every product he orders from them backfires on him in his vendetta against the Road Runner. A down-on-his-luck human attorney (Will Forte) takes on the case, who in turn discovers that his intimidating former boss (John Cena) is now representing Acme – so he's even more determined to win the case.

"Have you been horribly injured by a product made by the Acme Corporation?" Kevin asks in a TV commercial. "Not your fault! There's probably someone to blame."

"These companies think they can do whatever they want!" Kevin later exclaims, in a possible dig against Warner Bros., the studio that shelved the finished movie three years ago. "We're sick of it!"

The tongue-in-cheek digs continue with a disclaimer at the end of the trailer: "The Acme Corporation is releasing this film for account purposes only. We do not condone any of the storylines depicted."

Warner Bros. shelved the $72 million movie back in November 2023 for a $30 million tax write-off, even though the film was complete and had received overwhelmingly positive test screenings.

Although the studio initially barred the filmmakers from shopping Coyote vs. Acme to interested distributors, Warner Bros. eventually reversed this decision, but struggled to find a bidder to meet their desired price and threatened to cancel the movie for good. However, in March 2025, Ketchup Entertainment confirmed that it had bought the movie for $50 million. Phew.

Directed by Dave Green, the movie also stars Lana Condor, PJ Byrne, Luis Guzmán, Tone Bell, and Martha Kelly.

Coyote vs. Acme arrives in theaters on August 28. In the meantime, check out our guide to the other best upcoming movies on the way in 2026.

Keanu Reeves' latest movie hasn't quite received the desired outcome on Rotten Tomatoes.

Outcome, a new dark comedy directed by Jonah Hill, is currently sitting at a disappointing score of 27% on the review aggregator site, based on 26 reviews.

Per the official synopsis, the Apple TV movie follows Reeves' Reef Hawk, "a beloved Hollywood star who must dive into the depths of his hidden demons after being extorted with a mysterious video that's sure to shatter his image and end his career." The cast also includes Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer as Reef's best friends and Hill as his crisis lawyer.

Critics haven't taken kindly to Hill's latest directorial offering, though, with Collider writing, "Outcome is a fascinating mess that rides the line between sincerity and crassness."

"Whatever the right time would be for an exhausting comedy, laden with therapy-speak, about the hardships of film stardom, the current point of global distress is probably not it," reads the Financial Times' review.

Meanwhile, AV Club writes that "while there are affecting moments in Outcome about the perils of celebrity, far too often Hill comes close to true self-reflection, then quickly scurries away."

It's not all negativity, though. "There’s no denying Hill’s instinct for identifying the heart of a dramatic scene and turning the volume of the storytelling down low enough for us to hear it beating," says RogerEbert.com's review.

This is Hill's first time directing a fictional feature since 2018's Mid90s, a coming-of-age comedy about a teenager who begins spending time with an older group of skaters in '90s LA. Since then, he's also directed a documentary, Stutz, about his therapist.

Outcome is now streaming on Apple TV. For more on what to watch, check out our guide to the biggest movie release dates still to come in 2026.

A movie pulling in a perfect, 100% Rotten Tomatoes score is a rare thing these days. As rare, you might say, as finding a mythical sea creature bobbing off a Floridian marina – and yet, with Mermaid, Fallout star Johnny Pemberton manages to do both.

Written and directed by Tyler Cornack, the surreal horror-comedy is reminiscent of a slice-of-life Sean Baker flick, as it drops us into the world of Doug Nelson, a drug-addled dude who works at a neon-lit bar that's essentially a strip club meets Seaworld. He knows all there is to know about salt-water fish. Humans? Well, they're a little trickier for him to work out. After he's unceremoniously sacked for putting poems in his unrequited work crush's locker, Doug's life starts to unravel fast; his dealer, played by a terrifically funny, way-too-tanned Robert Patrick, is looking to collect an overdue $3,000 bill while his daughter's mother (Julia Larson) is desperate for him to be a more present father.

Buckling under the piling-up pressure – though you wouldn't know it from his distracted drawl and chilled-out demeanor – Doug drives a small boat out into the Atlantic and toys with the idea of doing something drastic. But he's shaken out of his stupor when he spots an injured mermaid, and takes her back to his rundown apartment to nurse her back to health. Chaos, as you might imagine, ensues.

In at the deep end

What's so tickling about the movie is that the "woman" he finds isn't some alluring damsel-in-distress with fins. Oh no, she's a flesh-eating scaly monster who bares her sharp teeth, snarls, and spits up black bile. Shots of her are used sparingly, oscillating between starkly bright wides where she's partly obscured, to darker, more close-up silhouettes, which gives the film a genuine sense of dread and tension. But, naturally, she's not the real villain here and Doug is such a sweetheart that he sees her as some sort of kindred spirit. "I've gotta be able to trust you and you gotta be to trust me. Trust. Otherwise, I don't think this is gonna work out", he urges in an early scene, before he dubs her Destiny. "You're probably scared. I'm scared. It's new territory for me. But as scary as it is, you're kinda making me feel some things, okay?"

It's Pemberton's sincerity amongst all the absurdity that makes Mermaid a must-watch. Initially a bully, Thaddeus, his ill-fated, mutating character in Prime Video's Fallout, has grown to become a fan favorite thanks to the actor's innate likeability – and it's impossible not to root for him here in much the same way, even if Doug is a bit of a creep and a deadbeat dad. As evidenced by my earlier Big Screen Spotlight features on Your Monster and Cold Storage, some of my favorite watches are where regular, kind of boring folks are thrust into crazy situations and as the actual baddies catch wind of Destiny, and try to capture her for reasons of varying degrees of twistedness, it's a chuckle-worthy delight to see Doug step up as her underachieving avenger. In a world where chosen ones and superpowered beings still dominate the big screen, I couldn't be more here for his hapless hero.

Despite being the main character, Doug acts as more of a straight man to the roster of zanier supporting players, however. Mermaid really shines – or should I say 'shimmers'? – in its more microscopic moments: Patrick's Ron filling Doug in on how his "mediocre wife of 35 gone done gay" or when he refers to the famous creator of Mickey Mouse as "Walter Disney". The fact that Ron's son is sporting board shorts and a neck brace for the entire 105-minute runtime. The awkward banter between Doug and his father's grandpa…

Kindred spirits

Mermaid's mix of humdrum and Odyssean antics is what makes it clear Cornack finds inspiration in Baker's work, but its pastel, neon-edged hues feel specifically The Florida Project-esque. It's a love letter to the Sunshine State in the same way the latter was; its characters running around and getting up to all sorts of mischief, like kids enjoying the last few hours of daylight. "I've been around this globe numerous times. I've slept everywhere that a man could possibly sleep. I've fucked everything that a man could possibly fuck. And until last night, well, I thought I had eaten everything," a particularly sinister figure explains to Doug in the final act. "No matter how many places I've been, I always manage to come back to Florida; it's the only place on Earth that can still kinda surprise me."

While Mermaid can be similarly compared to the likes of Napoleon Dynamite, Jared Hess's quirky coming-of-age tale about a socially awkward teen who vows to help his best friend become class president, and Guillermo del Toro's sci-fi romance The Shape of Water, it's a refreshingly original thrillride. As big-screen blockbusters like The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Project Hail Mary clog up theaters this weekend, I urge you to consider splashing your cash on this one. You won't regret it.

Mermaid will be in select US theaters from April 8. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

If variety is the spice of life, it's now fairly well-established that Hollywood's store cupboards have been in need of a restock for the last decade or so. There are still plenty of interesting independent films being made, of course, but the bulk of the multiplex's offerings are franchise blockbusters, and there's been a distinct lack of mid-budget movies to fill in the gaps in the 2010s and into the 2020s.

Mid-budget movies are a high risk, high reward situation and, as such, many studios have opted out of the risk entirely. Still, a few are still being produced – and Glen Powell is often in them.

After making a name for himself in Top Gun: Maverick, Powell has used his star power to lead a range of mid-budget films: crime caper Hit Man, rom-com Anyone But You and, now, How to Make a Killing (which cost $15 million to produce).

A family affair

A loose remake of 1949 British comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, Powell plays Becket Redfellow, whose mother was disowned by her uber-wealthy family for refusing to terminate her teenage, out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Although he grew up estranged from the Redfellows, Becket is still in the line of inheritance for the family fortune and, after being demoted at his retail job and running into affluent childhood crush Julia, decides to finally claim what he believes is rightfully his. All he has to do is take out the five family members standing in his way…

The Redfellows are a Knives Out-esque cast of eccentric, insufferable wealthy people – including an obnoxious Wall Street party boy, an even more obnoxious semi-famous artist, and a celebrity pastor – and they prove to be extremely easy to kill. But maybe not that easy, because we know right from the off that Becket, eventually, gets caught: the film is structured around his account to a priest who visits him in his death row jail cell. But what we don't know is how, or when, or why, which adds some necessary intrigue to the snappy 105-minute runtime.

For me, though, Margaret Qualley is the film's standout as cartoonishly amusing femme fatale Julia, who drops in with increasingly shorter skirts and threatening demands for Becket every 20 minutes or so. The character is a fun nod to the story's mid-century roots, when femme fatales were all the rage, and, I thought, a sign that we need more character roles for younger actors.

Character study

Powell is at his best in these mid-budget movies, too – he's much more convincing and charming doing character work than he is driving action sequences in, say, Edgar Wright's The Running Man. He found fame under the guidance of Maverick co-star Tom Cruise, and Cruise got his start on a similar trajectory. These films are how you make a name for yourself: big-budget blockbusters don't come around often enough to cement your name in public consciousness, and indie fare often doesn't break through beyond the already-committed theater-going crowd. If you stick to mid-budget movies, though, you remain a consistent presence on the multiplex screen – like Powell.

As he did in Richard Linklater's Hit Man, Powell plays the "everyman thrown out of his depth" role with charm and ease. The thing about mid-budget movies is that they're usually about ordinary people in extraordinary situations – but nothing completely out of the realm of possibility, thanks to the limitations posed by production funds. Rom-coms, straightforward comedies, and a good old-fashioned caper like How to Make a Killing often prove to be better vehicles for actors, who aren't going toe-to-toe with CGI aliens or distracting action sequences. More so than in The Running Man, How to Make a Killing gives Powell space to grapple with interpersonal relationships and his own morality thanks to a simpler plot that doesn't require any worldbuilding or super high stakes.

Mid-budget movies may be high risk, high reward (and How to Make a Killing isn't exactly, uh, making a killing at the box office yet), but if Powell follows in his mentor Cruise's footsteps, he could be the answer to waning ticket sales for medium-sized movie releases. I'm keen to see what he does in his next project, a JJ Abrams sci-fi blockbuster, but I hope he still finds time for a few more capers, too.

How to Make a Killing is out now in US theaters and arrives in UK cinemas on March 11. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Community movie co-writer and executive producer Andrew Guest is offering an update on the film's status, and it's a bit of a mixed bag for fans. Though Guest confirms the intent to make the Community movie is still in place, an opportunity to start filming the long-awaited spin-off of the fan favorite comedy sitcom passed them by due to unforeseen circumstances.

"We got very close to shooting that," Guest tells The Watch podcast. "As the writer strike and actor strikes were ending, all of our cast were available. All of them wanted to do it. We had a line producer. We had a script that we were in the process of starting to rewrite. And one of our actors' projects sort of came into conflict in terms of timing. I don't want to single that person out because people will shame them - you know the Community fan base. And please, Community fan base, do not be upset with any of these people."

Just about all of the original cast is signed on for the Community movie, including Joel McHale (Jeff Winger), Danny Pudi (Abed Nadir), Alison Brie (Annie Edison), Gillian Jacobs (Britta Perry), Jim Rash (Dean Pelton), Ken Jeong (Ben Chang), Yvette Nicole Brown (Shirley Bennett), and Donald Glover (Troy Barnes). The only lead member of the original cast not signed on for the film is Chevy Chase, whose character Pierce Hawthorne was previously killed off when Chase left the show.

"It's hard because they're all incredibly talented and very busy, partly because of Community," Guest continues. "But we don't want to do an Arrested Development Netflix season situation where we're shooting some people totally apart. The fun and energy of that show is the chemistry between these people in the same room, around a table. So we have to have them all in the same place."

Community originally ran from 2009-2015, with major changes in the cast for the final season. Throughout, the show had a meta gag in which pop culture obsessed Abed would call for "six seasons and a movie" of his favorite shows. With six seasons under its belt, fans are anxiously awaiting the fulfillment of the last part of the mantra.

While we wait for more news on the Community movie, check out our list of all the most exciting upcoming movies you need to know about.

Will Forte, one of the stars of Warner Bros. lamentably shelved Coyote Vs. Acme is opening up about the "white hot anger" he felt at the news that the movie would not be released in an unsparing criticism of WB's handling of the film.

"Extreme frustration, fiery frustration, a lot of anger, white hot anger," Forte tells Entertainment Weekly about his reaction to Coyote Vs. Acme being pulled. "But then ultimately, that's mixed with pride in this movie we've done. And also, who knows? Everything happens for a reason, and it is certainly possible that the crazy journey that this movie is taking will help get more eyes on it, because it's a story people know about a little bit. But I don't think we needed this crazy journey."

Coyote Vs. Acme is a family comedy starring the beloved characters of Warner Bros. classic Looney Tunes franchise. It centers on Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme corporation, which supplies all his weapons in his never ending battle to catch the Road Runner, over the continued backfiring and failure of their products.

"I remember when I first heard that Warner Bros. was shelving it, I had not yet seen the movie. I had been talking to people before and hearing about the test scores being really good, and then I was like, 'Oh, maybe it's not as good as they were telling me' when it got shelved," Forte continues. I got to see it. I love it. I was so proud of it. It was so maddening because it was this beautiful, special little movie that was something I would've been able to share with my kids."

Originally scheduled to release in summer 2023, Coyote Vs. Acme was completely finished when WB vaulted it in order to claim a $30 million tax write-off, to much public upset. WB refuse to allow any other studios to distribute it, until finally striking a deal in early 2025 with Ketchup Entertainment to release it.

Coyote Vs. Acme is now scheduled to release in theaters on August 28. For more, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming movies you need to know about.

The first Scary Movie 6 trailer may slice its way through a tried-and-tested Gen Z stereotype in its opening moments, but star and writer Marlon Wayans is hoping newer audiences will still be along for the riotous ride.

"This is the clash of the titans," Wayans tells GamesRadar+, referring to Scary Movie 6's aim to balance younger sensibilities with those who get nostalgic over the sight of Brenda and Cindy bouncing off a parade of parodies. "This is for the old heads and the new school."

"It's a perfect movie for teenage kids to go to their movies with their parents. The parents are gonna know what we're saying, and the kids – we still respect what they're saying and what their generation is," Wayans remarks.

To that end, you may have spotted uber-popular internet personality Kai Cenat popping up in one trailer moment alongside Shorty – in what appears to be a send-up of the new generation of Twitch reaction streamers. We're certain that won't be the only razor-sharp commentary on a franchise that has prided itself on being on the pulse of horror and pop culture. Indeed, Wayans himself confirms Scary Movie 6 will at least partly focus on a "new generation of characters," with plenty of material stemming from those fresh faces butting heads with the OG cast.

While the list of movies referenced so far includes a who's who of modern scarefests (The Substance, Weapons, Sinners, M3GAN, and more get lampooned throughout), there is plenty of classic Scary Movie humor. That includes, but certainly isn't limited to, sex toys, testicles, and mutilation. Naturally.

On top of that, Brenda (Regina Hall) and Cindy (Anna Faris) are back in the Scary Movie fold, but with an on-point contemporary twist.

Brenda, as you may have seen, is sporting a wickedly bad bowl cut in the fashion of Octavia Spencer's Ma, while Cindy's bedraggled look carries more than a touch of Laurie Strode's hair in 2018's Halloween legacy sequel.

Scary Movie 6, starring Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Marlon Wayans, and Shawn Wayans, hits cinemas on June 12.

For more, check out the new horror movies coming your way soon.

Marlon Wayans may have cracked the Scary Movie formula alongside his brothers Keenen Ivory and Shawn Wayans in both the 2000 original and its 2001 follow-up but, for the sixth Scary Movie it appears a different approach is in order – even if Wayans' trademark humor shows no signs of going anywhere.

"Good, smart jokes are always gonna make me laugh. I'm always gonna laugh at some scatological humor – I'm just raised that way," Wayans tells GamesRadar+. "There's always a nine-year-old inside of my body."

Yet, childish humor doesn't necessarily mean a scattershot, sugar rush style of jokecraft. The new Scary Movie trailer may be peppered with parodies and send-ups, but don't expect to be beaten over the head with the same punchlines when sitting down to watch the revival in cinemas this June.

"I've gotten older. I do stand-up now. I don't always need to go there. For me, less is more. I find myself going, 'We've got two or three of these kinds of jokes. We don't need that anymore,'" Wayans explains.

"You become a joke scientist: How many parts of this do you put in before it explodes in your face? You want just enough in – the right amount of race jokes, the right amount of pop culture jokes, the right amount of fart jokes. You want to spread it out and not do too many of one, because then there's tonnage."

Wayan adds, with a degree of caution, "I think you lose your humor if you become too sophisticated… it's just finding the right amount. It's like salt. You put too much salt on anything, it's going to taste terrible."

Scary Movie 6, starring Anna Faris, Regina Hall, Marlon Wayans, and Shawn Wayans, hits cinemas on June 12.

For more, check out the new horror movies coming your way soon.

Scary Movie is back and ready to slash its way through the blood-soaked horror hits that have stacked up since the comedy franchise last hit our screens.

The first Scary Movie 6 trailer, which you can see above, pulls no punches. From the opening M3GAN-Ghostface reveal to spoofs of The Substance, Weapons, and Sinners, it appears the Wayan brothers Marlon, Shawn, and Keenan Ivory – on scripting duties for the first time since Scary Movie 2 – firmly have modern horror in their sights.

Of course, franchise favorites Brenda (Regina Hall) and Cindy (Anna Farris) also return, with the latter rebranding as a Republican who gets very choosy about who she hugs.

There are plenty of gross-out moments cut from the same puerile cloth as previous Scary Movies, too. Perhaps that's to be expected for a movie that comes with the tagline that promises "every line will be crossed."

That includes a send-up of Terrifier's mall Santa massacre, complete with mutilated genitalia and a moment, frankly, I'm surprised made it into the final cut.

While there may be parodies aplenty in the Scary Movie 6 trailer, co-writer Marlon Wayans says the focus remains on the "core cast of characters" that have been around since the first iteration, including Ray and Shorty, though a "new generation" will also make themselves known.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ about the onrush of jokes at other properties' expense in the trailer, Wayans bristled at the suggestion: "Our brand of humor is never that. If you look at Scary Movie, Scary Movie 2, it wasn't, 'hey, let's just throw everything in there'. We threw in everything that was organic to the characters."

Scary Movie 6 hits cinemas on June 12, 2026. For more, check out the upcoming horror movies and movie release dates you still have to look forward to this year.

Ghosts is back from the dead – the beloved British comedy is returning with a big-screen outing, titled Ghosts: The Possession of Button House, which starts filming next month.

Ghosts came to an end in 2023 after a five-season run on BBC One. It spawned a US spin-off, which premiered in 2021 and is currently on its fifth season, as well as adaptations in Australia, Germany, France, and Greece.

In the show's final episode,, the series seemed to come to a logical conclusion. Alison and her husband Mike are starting a new chapter of their lives with a newborn baby and the ghosts convince them to sell Button House to a hotel firm. In a flashforward, an elderly Alison and Mike are seen checking into their "usual suite" and saying hello to the ghosts.

No plot details have been revealed for the movie yet, but all the original gang will be returning. That's Button House's human inhabitants, ghost-seeing Alison (Charlotte Ritchie) and her husband Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe), and their undead roommates: Romantic poet Thomas (Mathew Baynton), disgraced MP Julian (Simon Farnaby), former Lady of the house Fanny (Martha Howe-Douglas), Scout master Pat (Jim Howick), ditzy noblewoman Kitty (Lolly Adefope), caveman Robin (Laurence Rickard), and the Captain (Ben Willbond).

"We thought we had said goodbye to Button House at the end of the final series. We never planned to come back. But when we had the idea for this story, we all got so excited that we couldn’t resist returning to our haunted home for one more adventure," the show's creators said in a statement. "We can’t wait to be together and to welcome some brilliant new faces, to tell this soul-stirring tale of life and death."

While we wait for Ghosts: The Possession of Button House to arrive on the big screen, check out our guide to the biggest movie release dates to add to your watchlist in 2026.

Jackass 5 will be the last movie in the franchise, Johnny Knoxville has confirmed.

The celebrity stuntman, who created the original TV show with Jeff Tremaine and Spike Jonze back in 2000, revealed the news to Rolling Stone magazine recently. He went on to explain that it feels like "the natural place to end", before joking that that probably means it's "going to be absolutely awful".

Elsewhere in the interview, Knoxville noted that he and the rest of the daredevil team, which these days consists of Dave England, Danger Ehren, Wee Man, Chris Pontius, Preston Lacy, and Steve-O, have about 80% of the fifth film's skits mapped out. The rest? They'll figure out while the cameras are rolling. "Sometimes we have rainy-day ideas, when we can't shoot what we were going to shoot. One day it was just, 'OK, go get Superglue!' We got a great bit just with me and the guys messing around with Superglue."

On set, the regular roster of pranksters will get improvisational help from relative newcomers Sean "Poopies" McInerney, Zach Holmes, Jasper Dolphin, Eric Manaka, and Rachel Wolfson, who made their Jackass debuts in 2022's Jackass Forever.

While he wouldn't give any of the existing ideas away, Knoxville teased that one set-piece they're planning revolves around the saga's least well-kept secret: Dave England's singular testicle. "We do have [something] around that that we've been trying to shoot for 15 years, and we're trying to pull off our white whale for Jackass 5. I don't want to give it away," he laughed.

Jackass 5 releases on June 26. While we wait, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming movies heading our way.

Scary Movie 6 won't be relying on the classics when it slashes its way through various spoofs in the horror-comedy's belated return.

Instead, according to Dread Central, there will be plenty of standouts from the recent horror renaissance in its sights, including Best Picture nominee Sinners, Zach Cregger's Weapons, and A Quiet Place.

The first Scary Movie, released in 2000, made its name with a whipsmart parody of Scream, while sending up various horror tropes and stereotypes.

Multiple sequels followed, with the pop culture satire becoming increasingly heightened and far-reaching. It also helped usher in a cottage industry of genre takedowns, including Epic Movie and Superhero Movie. The most recent Scary Movie, released in 2013, grossed under $80 million at the box office.

"We couldn’t be more excited to be a part of the new Scary Movie and work with each other again. This is a franchise we created more than 20 years ago. We remember people laughing in the aisles and hope to see that happen again," Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Keenen Ivory Wayans said in a joint statement (via Deadline) upon the movie's announcement.

Marlon Wayans had previously namechecked several horror franchises (including, briefly, Sinners) when asked about what territory Scary Movie 6 might creep into during an interview with ComicBook.

"I Know What You Did Last Summer may have something in there. I think the Scream franchise is always a great one," Wayans said. "I think Heretic was a wonderful film. Longlegs. Get Out. Nope. There are just so many great horror films to pull from that we plan on having a field day."

OG Scary Movie stars Anna Farris and Regina Hall will also return to the franchise for the first time since Scary Movie 4. A trailer is expected imminently.

Scary Movie 6 hits cinemas on June 16, 2026.

For more, check out the upcoming horror movies and movie release dates we still have to look forward to this year.

Gore Verbinski ends his 10-year break from directing with Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, a madcap comedy that sees Sam Rockwell's Man From the Future drag a ragtag team of LA locals into his world-saving scheme. It's a timely take on technology, with Rockwell's rumpled protagonist set on stopping a kid from creating an AI that'll go on to destroy the world – and an awful lot of fun.

Ahead of its UK release (it came out in the US last Friday), we've been thinking back on some of the best time travel movies. Specifically, we've been thinking back on the best time travel movies that are kind of off-kilter and skew more comedic, like cult classic Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and French surrealist flick Incredible But True.

We've attempted to sum up why those titles are so good below, alongside four others that perfectly fit the bill. You won't find the likes of Groundhog Day or Back to the Future here, that'd be all too predictable – so we've elected to champion more obscure must-sees. Nor will you see serious, core-shaking joints such as Interstellar, since we're concentrating on films that flex their funny bones. If you'd rather focus on what's to come, our guide to all the upcoming movies.

Incredible But True

No one does surreal quite like Quentin Dupieux. So much so, in fact, that sometimes his movies can be a little jarring and difficult to watch. That can't be said for Incredible But True, a a brilliantly cohesive sci-fi comedy that sees a woman discover that the tunnel in her basement sends those who go through it forward in time 12 hours. Not only that, but it makes them three days younger too, supposedly.

It doesn't take long for Marie (Léa Drucker) to become obsessed with the tunnel, slipping through it any chance she gets throughout the day – much to the dismay of her increasingly exasperated husband Alain (Alain Chabat), who reckons they should just board it up and never think of it again.

As if that's not enough weirdness for one film, there are also characters controlling their electronic new penises from smartphones, morally ambiguous estate agents, and rotten apples full of ants. Time travel movies tend to be epic and large in scope by nature, so it's refreshing to see a darkly funny, domesticated spin on the idea.

Time Bandits

Released in 1985, Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits follows Kevin (Craig Warnock), a self-proclaimed nerd who's obsessed with all things history. One night, he gets the shock of his life when six dwarfs emerge from his closet and tell him that they used to work for the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson) and that they're now on a mission to steal all kinds of treasure from different periods.

Given his expertise, they're keen for Kevin to tag along and help them – and of course, the youngster finds it impossible to say no. Together, the ragtag troupe manage to drop in on Napoleon (Ian Holm), Robin Hood (John Cleese) and King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) before the Supreme Being catches up with them. Old-school, chaos brimming with British wit.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

I love me a stoner comedy, and there's not many better than Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Led by a totally committed Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, it's a raucous, heartfelt tale about two high school kids who enlist the help of a man from the future to help them pass a history assignment.

It's super goofy, but the best part is that its jokes aren't specific to the time in which it was released, so it's still endlessly watchable in 2026. "Be excellent to each other", the film's tagline, is perhaps an even more important phrase nowadays than it was in 1989, too.

Palm Springs

Starring Andy Samberg and The Penguin's Cristin Milioti, Palm Springs follows two 20-somethings who bond over being two of the few singletons at a destination wedding. Sarah, Milioti's character, is the bride's half-depressed half-sister, while Samberg's Nyles is more of a carefree, fun-loving spirit. At least on the surface, anyways.

After hitting it off, the twosome venture into the desert for a smooch, where Nyles is shot by a mysterious assailant wielding a bow-and-arrow and crawls into a cave. He orders Sarah not to follow him but she does – and gets stuck inside the same time loop as Nyles has been enduring for countless weeks. With that, Sarah embarks on a crash course in quantum physics, ultimately trying to stop the pair of them for enduring a surprisingly exhausting fate of repetitive partying and nuptial dramas.

Samberg and Milioti have palpable chemistry and it's the perfect combination of thrills, gags, and romance. I'm never going to complain about a film with a sunny vacation setting, either.

Army of Darkness

Long before he was directing a bloodsoaked Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien in Send Help, Sam Raimi was making Bruce Campbell do all sorts of wild things in Army of Darkness. Having tested the waters with its comedy-leaning predecessor Evil Dead II, the filmmaker turned the zaniness up to 11 with the drastically-departed trilogy capper that sees protagonist Ash Williams get trapped in 1300s Europe.

On arrival, he saves a bunch of local knights from a Deadite and is immediately hailed a hero – but getting home proves a much harder task. To return to his time, he must find the Necronomicon and, it turns out, drink a magic potion that'll let him sleep so long he'll wake up in the early 1990s.

Those looking for the scares and gore of the earlier flicks may be disappointed. But don't be fooled by the lukewarm 68% score on Rotten Tomatoes, it's a bone-a-filled... sorry, bonafide cult classic centering a gonzo performance by Campbell and a whole load of medieval mayhem.

Timestalker

If you're a hopeless romantic like me, you'll be all too familiar with the concept of lovers being destined to meet one another in every lifetime. Thanks to sci-fi and fantasy, it can sometimes play out literally across movies and TV – like Hawkgirl and Hawkman in Legends of Tomorrow and Tom and Izzi in Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. Alice Lowe's take on the trope, however, is deliciously twisted.

In the film's first act, the writer-director is introduced as lowly maidservant Agnes, who immediately falls in love with a heretical preacher right before he's set to hang. All googly-eyed and smitten, she attempts to stop his execution – and winds up getting killed in the process. When we meet her again, she's resurrected (and married to a brutish Nick Frost) in 1793. That is, until she meets her former paramour (Aneurin Barnard) again. The rub, though, is that in every era, he's kind of repulsed by her.

What follows is a kooky, giggle-worthy odyssey of sorts, as Agnes learns to accept that her crush is unrequited and why she shouldn't keep putting herself in harms' way for a man who wouldn't look twice at her. Come for the zany premise, stay for the colorful costumes, dream-like cinematography, and 90-minute runtime.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

They don't come along very often, but, occasionally, there are trailers that immediately make you sit up and take notice. Over Your Dead Body, an English-language adaptation of 2021 Norwegian dark comedy The Trip, is firmly in that category.

Jason Segel and Samara Weaving star as a married couple on the brink of calling it quits. But instead of acrimonious divorce battles and divvying up of assets, the pair retreat to a cabin for a blood-splattered weekend of… attempting to kill one another. Naturally.

What follows, as you can see in the trailer above, is a gloriously brutal battle of the wills as Samara Weaving's character discovers Jason Segel's plans to bump her off.

It's enough to make The Roses look tame, with jabs about Samara's Australian accent ("It's like British crossed with the devil," Segel's character spits in one moment), tasers, roof collapses, fistfights, and Timothy Olyphant crashing through a window.

Oh yeah, did we mention Timothy Olyphant is in this? He's statistically proven to make any project at least 20% better and, here, it looks like he could be playing Segel's friend who is drawn into the revenge plot – or (if it follows the Scandinavian original) one of three fugitives on the run.

Helmed by Popstar: Never Stop Stopping's Jorma Taccone, Over Your Dead Body smashes its way into cinemas on April 24.

For those hoping for a bloody good time elsewhere, be sure to head on over to our list of new horror movies arriving in 2026 and beyond.

New zombie horror Cold Storage is goofy as hell, and I couldn't mean that as more of a compliment. Based on the book of the same name by Jurassic Park scribe David Koepp, it follows night security guards Naomi (Georgina Campbell) and Teacake (Stranger Things' Joe Keery), who stumble across a parasitic green goo in the storage facility they work in one evening – and are inadvertently tasked with saving the entire human race from extinction. Fortunately for them, Liam Neeson's world-weary bioterror operative has faced off against the mind-controlling, body-bursting fungus before and is keen to help. If he can get there on time and not blow them up in the process, that is.

The movie is upfront about its silliness from the get-go, as we see a bunch of debris crash land on Earth and a title card reads: "Pay attention! This shit is real." But what was perhaps less expected, though, was its tangible, old-school feel that took me right back to being a kid sat grossed-out, grinning, and wide-eyed in front of the likes of Slither, Dude, Where's My Car? and Eight-Legged Freaks. (In retrospect, I can admit that Teacake's curtained, bleach-blonde hair and the use of Daniel Powter's 2005 track 'Bad Day' in the trailer should've been a big clue as to its vintage vibes).

Directed by Phoenix Nights' Jonny Campbell, which goes some way to explaining why Keery is surrounded by so many British actors in the Kansas-set flick, it's an end-of-the-world movie that realizes the benefits of keeping its narrative small-scale. Its brilliant cold-open prologue sets things up at breakneck speed: in 1979, an experimental space station fell out of orbit, and some of its fragments crashed down on our planet. Cut to 2007 – because, of course – and Sosie Bacon's microbiologist, Dr. Martins, is called out to a tiny town in Western Australia after receiving a panicked phone call from a local. "Something came outta your tank!" he shrieks. "We're dying, we're all dying. It's your tank, you have to help us!" The line goes dead.

27 hours later, Martins and Pentagon pals Robert Quinn (Neeson) and Trinny Romano (Lesley Manville) investigate the Kiwirrkurra gas station the ill-fated guy dialled in from. I won't spoil what goes down, but let's just say, things don't go well. The incident leads the United States' Department of Defense to take a sample of the goo back to a military base (as The Beach Boys' 'I Get Around' kicks in) – and forget about it for 18 years.

Suits over supes

Given its tight 98-minute runtime, it's bold of Koepp and Campbell to not have Teacake and Naomi discover the antagonistic ooze until 45 minutes in. It works, however, because the likeable characters are fun to be around as they roam around the workplace and open up about their pasts; Naomi had a daughter with a "manchild" at 18 and wants to be a vet, while Teacake got in trouble with the law 'cause he's "easily talked into things" and this job is part of his parole conditions. We bond with 'em as they bond with each other, which makes it all the more thrilling once they find themselves batting off blood-soaked, brain-dead baddies.

Keery is well-versed in going toe-to-toe with murderous monsters brought to life with gnarly effects by now, but it makes for a welcome change to see him play a chatty everyman who tries his best to be brave but can't quite wrap his head around what he's seeing at any given moment. Campbell – who's fast establishing herself as a scream queen with Barbarian and up-and-coming slasher Psycho Killer – is his perfect straight-man scene partner, too, while Neeson is in top Naked Gun-esque form as he drops phrases like "space shit" and "Pucker Factor 10".

Even though its gags aren't slapstick, Cold Storage's unlikely team-up reminded me a lot of the one in Ivan Reitman's quirky comedy Evolution (2001), which sees David Duchovny and Orlando Jones' former science professors join forces with Sean William Scott's firefighter and Julianne Moore's CDC researcher to thwart an alien invasion. They're not superheroes or action stars, which we've grown so accustomed to thanks to the big screen domination of franchises like Mission: Impossible and the MCU; they're regular people in button-up shirts and name tags. There are no Avengers headquarters here, rather staff rooms and reception desks – and it helps ground the plot's absurdity. It makes our heroes more accessible and easy to root for, too, as we dare to imagine how we'd fare in a similar situation.

Opportunistic invader

With its small cast and singular setting, Koepp gets creative inventing opportunities for gooey carnage. There's Vanessa Redgrave's Mrs Rooney, who drops by to say a final goodbye to her late husband on their anniversary. At one point, Naomi's volatile ex shows up at the facility in a tizzy about accidentally shooting his parents' cat and, naturally, becomes cannon fodder. As do Teacake's boss and his punky crew, who've driven out into the middle of nowhere to buy 4K TVs. It's all hilariously situational and mundane in juxtaposition to the wild things that are happening in, say, the corridor over.

One standout sequence, which is amusingly set to Blondie's 'One Way or Another', uses a POV tracking shot to chart the devastating organism breaking out of its containment breach and latching onto a cockroach host, evading a hungry rat, and ultimately getting run over by Naomi's ex in the warehouse's driveway. Uh oh.

For the last 10 years or so, the film industry has been obsessed with capitalizing on our '80s nostalgia. From Stranger Things and the It movies to Netflix's GLOW and legacy sequels such as Top Gun: Maverick, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Karate Kid: Legends, and more, the bygone era has influenced a lot behind the scenes. After thoroughly enjoying retro romp Cold Storage, I hope we don't make the same mistake the DoD did and lose track of the good work we were doing two decades ago – and Hollywood will start leeching off more tongue-in-cheek titles from the noughties for inspiration next.

Cold Storage is out in US theaters on February 13, and will land in UK cinemas on February 20. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Send Help may be a gory horror-comedy that sees two city-types try to survive for weeks on a desert island – but outside of a few stormy nights, all its tension and thrills come from the characters' twisted relationship rather than the setting. It did prove quite a challenging location to shoot in behind the scenes, though...

"We had to be so 'safety first'," producer Zainab Azizi recalls to GamesRadar+. "We shot on a coconut farm, so we had to clear all the coconuts, because they're actually one of the leading causes of death in areas like that.

"It's a fun fact, but also just a very embarrassing way to go," she chuckles. "We had to build stairs down to the beach. We had to learn a lot about sound on set, clearing all the footsteps and the trash – that was actually really sad, all the trash that would wash up on shore – to create this idyllic, remote setting."

Starring Dylan O'Brien and Rachel McAdams, Send Help is essentially Cast Away meets Misery, as the former's evil executive Bradley Preston gets more than he bargained for when he and his meek employee, Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams), crash land in the Gulf of Thailand. With Bradley having already passed Linda up for a big promotion, the pair's disdain for one another is evident. But things take a dark, zany turn when Linda starts exerting power over Bradley with her Survivor-learned wilderness skills and secrets from their pasts come to light. "We're not in the office anymore," she ominously says at one point. You can say that again...

"The writers really wanted us to focus on the characters, not just the situation. So it was more important for us that the island serve as a grounds of revelation," says director Sam Raimi. "They were forced to play parts in our world as the boss and the worker. The boss was horribly cruel. The worker worked hard at their job, and was trustworthy and loyal. But when the façade of that office goes away and they're placed on the island, you get to really see who they are. There's no longer this imaginary hierarchy holding them in some position of power and servitude.

"Now it's just about what determines their worth in this place. He's no good at anything, and she actually has a lot of knowledge," he continues. "We see this power dynamic change, and we watch her grow, but it wasn't all good. She didn't just grow into a better person. Sometimes things are revealed.

"The island is a place of revelation in all ways, so then you realize she had a terrible relationship with her husband and that she may be a murderess. [Bradley] actually had a reason, that didn't justify his behavior, but you begin to understand what made him into the terrible person he was. So I think the writers were more interested in using the island in that fashion, then as a place to show survival skills, even though we had fun with that too."

Send Help is out in US cinemas now, and will be released in the UK on February 5. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming horror movies heading our way.

Sam Raimi was so disappointed with how "underutilized" Rachel McAdams was in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, he made a promise to himself to work with her again after the MCU sequel.

The follow-up movie gave her more to do than the Marvel hero's first standalone flick, as she got swept up in the Sorcerer Supreme's timey-wimey shenanigans and we met Christine Palmers from other Earths – but it still wasn't enough for the Evil Dead director. Cue Send Help, his new horror-comedy that sees Dylan O'Brien's douchebag boss Bradley Preston get more than he bargained for when he gets stranded on a remote island with his dowdy employee, McAdams' Linda Liddle...

"She was the perfect person [to play Linda] because she's such a brilliant actress. I had a chance to work with her on my last film, and I saw how talented she was – and actually underutilized – and I promised myself that I would work with her again," Raimi recalls to GamesRadar+. "Then this film came up. Her warmth is wonderful, and the fact that she had not really played a dark character before – as [producer] Zainab [Azizi] pointed out to me – was the perfect set-up for the audience to be surprised. The movie is not a whodunnit, but a 'what comes next?' That's what we did.

"The movie doesn't want the audience to know what's right around the corner. It turns left when they think it's going to turn right," chuckles Raimi. "That was an important factor – and [Rachel] was great in that she's this good person that we know and love, so it's more of a shock when she becomes this terrible villain."

As Raimi hints, Send Help, which was written by Freddy vs Jason scribes Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, plays fast and loose with the terms "hero" and "villain". At the start of the movie, you're fully backing Linda, after her newly appointed CEO Bradley is cruel to her in the office and passes her up for a big promotion. Survivor super-fan Linda nurses an injured Bradley back to health after their business trip goes awry, too, but as days turn into weeks, their time on the beachfront – and new power dynamic – gets really dark. Think more Misery than Cast Away...

"Likability is so overrated. It's so boring," grins McAdams in a separate interview. "This sounded so fun, to have them flip and see if we could, like, then grab the audience back again. And it's just so much more representative of actual human beings. A little bit of good, and then some not so good."

Send Help is out in US cinemas now, and will be released in the UK on February 5. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming horror movies heading our way.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein are back with a new movie – and it's a Cold War spy thriller with a twist, starring Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh.

Reynolds plays U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant Troy "Assassin" Kelly, while Branagh is ex-KGB agent Nicolai Ustinov.

In the first look, which you can see above, Reynolds and Branagh lay side by side in the snow. Both of them seem pretty exhausted, as if they might've been fighting, or have fallen down to the ground. That's not a huge surprise, since the duo are apparently on opposite sides of the conflict... though there might be more going on than meets the eye.

"Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh team up in Mayday, a genre-bending, action-packed buddy comedy that flips the spy thriller on its head," reads the official synopsis. "When hot shot U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant Troy "Assassin" Kelly (Reynolds) is sent on a top-secret mission into Russian territory at the height of the Cold War, the operation implodes, leaving him stranded behind enemy lines.

"Discovered by Nikolai Ustinov (Branagh), a gruff ex-KGB agent with a penchant for American culture, Troy thinks he's toast – but could an unlikely alliance between the two lead to Troy's rescue, and a bond neither saw coming?"

So, by the sounds of things, this isn't going to be a straightforward Cold War thriller by any stretch of the imagination, which is something we probably should've expected from a duo like Daley and Goldstein. Sign us up for hijinks...

The cast also includes Marcin Dorocinski, Maria Bakalova, and David Morse. Daley and Goldstein write and produce as well as direct.

Along with the first look, Apple also revealed the release date: Mayday will hit Apple TV on September 4, 2026.

While you wait, check out our guide to the best shows on Apple TV or the best movies on Apple TV to fill out your watchlist.

Dylan O'Brien plays the most horrible of horrible bosses in new horror-comedy Send Help – but he would've been a little softer around the edges if it was solely up to director Sam Raimi.

Fortunately for O'Brien (and we viewers, too), the Evil Dead helmer wasn't a workplace jerk. He took the actor's suggestion on board of making Bradley, the grinning, golf-obsessed guy Rachel McAdams's dowdy assistant has to answer to, even nastier. Though he admits it took him a while to be fully convinced...

"Dylan and I had disagreements about how dark his character could be in the office," Raimi tells GamesRadar+. "I would say to him, 'Dylan, remember, we're going to do this unusual thing where we're going to have the audience stop identifying with her, and I want them to identify with you at this point? We're gonna reveal things. We're going to have actions take place that will make that happen. But I'm afraid if you push it as hard as you are, we're going to have trouble getting back.'

"He said, 'But that's what makes it worth it.' And I said, 'Okay, let's try it. Let's try it as hard as you're talking about, and we'll see what happens.' And he was right. It was only worth it by going that far – to come back and be surprised that we're now almost rooting for Dylan's character," he continues. "So, yeah, it was a game of puppets and strings to play the audience a little bit. And [Dylan] wasn't afraid to go all the way to the edge. He was gung-ho, he loved this job."

Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (Freddy vs Jason), Send Help sees O'Brien's Bradley take over his father's company, following the latter's sudden death. Great news for Bradley's lazy office bestie Donovan (Xavier Samuel), less so for McAdams' hard-grafter Linda, who was promised a big promotion by the recently deceased.

When Donovan gets given the gig, Linda kicks off, and Bradley has no choice but to bring her along for an upcoming business trip. But when the company plane crash lands in the Gulf of Thailand, the sparring pair find themselves on a remote island – and Bradley becomes dependent on Survivor-mad, slightly unhinged Linda.

"I love that. I love that. I don't know that we're ever heroes…" O'Brien laughs, when we commend the movie's ability to portray Bradley as both hero and villain. "But yeah, it was a fun game, and it was really freeing. I just don't think that, like, a flawed character necessarily equates to unlikability. I love watching flawed characters, so I guess I just don't understand that conversation, that sort of takes place behind the scenes. Sometimes people can be, like, a little scared of that. I don't know, I feel like all my favorite characters in my favorite movies are flawed."

Send Help is out in US cinemas now, and will be released in the UK on February 5. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming horror movies heading our way.

'90s kids, it's time to pour yourselves a champagne glass full of the finest orange soda, because Nickelodeon superstars Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell have a new movie in the works, and it's even weirder than their usual hilarious absurdity - because they're meeting Frankenstein (or more accurately, Frankenstein's monster).

Kenan and Kel announced the movie themselves while Mitchell was filling in as a guest host on Good Sports, Thompson's podcast which is usually co-hosted by Kevin Hart. As one might imagine, the film is simply titled Kenan and Kel Meet Frankenstein, and that is also the entire plot.

"Delivery drivers Kenan and Kel's routine drop-off at a creepy castle goes horribly wrong when they accidentally awaken Frankenstein's monster, turning an ordinary night into a terrifying fight for survival," reads the IMDb logline.

"Kel and I have always loved finding new ways to work together, and this project felt like the perfect mix of nostalgia, comedy, and something completely unexpected," says Thompson in a statement (via Variety). "We're excited to bring a fresh take on a classic monster story and have some fun doing it."

The film follows in a long tradition of horror comedy, directly channeling the spirit of 1948's classic B-movie, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. That's a favorite for me, and I'm certainly intrigued by the idea of Kenan and Kel unofficially taking up the mantle of one of the most beloved comedy duos of the mid-20th century.

Kenan and Kel have been working together on and off since their time together as cast members of Nickelodeon's teen sketch comedy show All That. They went on to star in 65 episodes of their own show, Kenan and Kel, a spin-off of All That.

No release date for Kenan and Kel Meet Frankenstein has been set. In the meantime, check out our picks for the best horror comedy movies.

Tom Cruise is one of the top leading men in Hollywood, with a reputation for bringing a level of intensity and daring to his performances. Despite the boundaries Cruise has already pushed in his craft, he's apparently breaking new ground in director Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Digger, with Warner Bros. co-chair Pam Abdy describing his performance as "nothing you've ever seen."

"Tom is extraordinary," Abdy tells The Wrap. "Nothing you’ve ever seen. That’s what's so brilliant. This is the fourth time I've worked with him. He never repeats himself, and he's constantly taking you into his mind and his vision and surprising you. And this movie does exactly that."

Digger is described as a black comedy. Along with Cruise, the film stars Jesse Plemons, Sandra Hüller, Riz Ahmed, Sophie Wilde, Emma D'Arcy, Robert John Burke, Burn Gorman, Michael Stuhlbarg, and John Goodman.

"The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity's savior before the disaster he's unleashed destroys everything," reads the IMDb logline.

Cruise is best known in recent years for his recently wrapped Mission: Impossible franchise, which solidified him as a force to be reckoned with thanks to his increasingly dangerous and extreme stunts.

Though Cruise has occasionally courted controversy, he's undeniably charismatic onscreen, with a decades long career that has split the difference between stunt-driven action and keen romantic roles. Meanwhile, director Iñárritu has also racked up his share of accolades, including five Academy Awards along with numerous other honors.

Digger is scheduled to premiere in theaters on October 2. While we wait, check out our picks for the best Mission: Impossible movies, ranked.

If you've seen the trailer for Anaconda, you'll know it's not your typical remake. Starring comedy stalwarts Jack Black and Paul Rudd, the new movie isn't just a creature feature about a giant, man-eating snake (though plenty of people get eaten) – it's an extremely meta reboot about four childhood friends who set sail to make their own 'spiritual sequel' to the '97 JLo movie.

This makes sense – there can't be many people who are crying out for a remake of the 39% Rotten Tomatoes-rated original. For stars Paul Rudd and Jack Black, it was this uniquely irreverent approach that made the film stand out in a sea of IP reboots, remakes, sequels and requels.

"I was a big fan, I know Jack was too, of the director's previous film, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," Paul Rudd notes, while talking to GamesRadar+ in London. Unbearable Weight… if you've never seen it, is a movie that riffs on Nicolas Cage's larger-than-life persona in hilarious, fourth-wall-breaking fashion. "This movie seemed to kind of scratch that same itch," Rudd continues. "Which was a meta version and a very original take on something that was clever and funny and the right mix of really smart and not as smart."

For Black, the appeal was simple: "It's just funny as hell," the Minecraft star says. "I read a lot of scripts, and none of them are funny to me. And then this one comes along, and I was like, 'Wait, this is ringing my bells.'"

Directed and co-written by Tom Gormican, the film also stars Thandiwe Newton and Steve Zahn as two other lifelong friends roped into Griff (Paul Rudd) and Doug's (Jack Black) harebrained plan to resurrect Anaconda on a budget of $48,000. The Suicide Squad's Daniela Melchior also appears as the gang's secret-concealing boat captain.

Beyond the script, a key appeal for Black and Rudd was the opportunity to properly work together for the first time, after only briefly appearing on screen once before, as John Lennon and Paul McCartney in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

"I'd always wanted to work with Jack. Always, his whole career," Rudd says, while sporting a Jack Black t-shirt featuring several of the actor's best-known characters. "We both started around the same time, and I saw Jack in a film called Bob Roberts [and thought] 'Who was that guy?' So I've been a fan of Jack's for a long time. To get to work with Jack for an entire film was really a dream come true, for sure, for me."

The feeling was mutual for Black, who says: "The fact that Paul was in it was a huge carrot dangler for me. I said, 'I want to do this so long as Paul really is in,' because sometimes they'll do a bait and switch. They're like, 'Paul's in,' and then you say, 'Yes, I'm in.' And they say, "'Actually, Paul's no longer in. He's out.' So I wanted to make sure that that wasn't going to happen!"

Anaconda releases in theaters on December 25. For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming movies heading your way in 2026.

Bob Odenkirk is back in action in new movie Normal, but the internet has noticed some similarities between the film and a British 00s classic.

Normal sees Odenkirk play Ulysses, a temporary sheriff who uncovers the dark conspiracy underpinning a small town in Minnesota after a violent bank robbery. Based on the movie's new trailer, though, several people on the internet have drawn comparisons to the same movie: Edgar Wright's action-comedy Hot Fuzz. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, though.

In the teaser, which you can watch above, a cheerful voiceover says, "Welcome to Normal, Minnesota, a charming, unassuming town where time moves slow and a friendly face is always just around the corner. You'll never be far from our local mayor, dedicated deputy sheriff, a friendly mailman, cheerful store owners, cozy eateries. Oh, and our town moose."

But, as you might have guessed, everything is not quite as it seems. "Life in Normal is quiet, peaceful, predictable. Until it isn't." Cue gunfire, broken glass, and a knife fight.

"Why are they shooting at you?" a woman asks. "I'm at a loss," Ulysses admits, before we see further shots of gunfire, explosions, and someone getting stabbed in the eye. Ouch.

"i’m so happy Bob Odenkirk is inexplicably becoming an action star but also this is just Hot Fuzz," pointed out one Twitter user.

"Hot Fuzz but he finds out in act one is a great premise," another replied. "Yea and bugs life is just seven samuri, if the movie tells the story with a new point of view or direction it's fine tbh," said someone else.

Directed by Ben Wheatley, the movie was written by John Wick screenwriter Derek Kolstad, who also previously penned the Odenkirk actioner Nobody, and the supporting cast includes Henry Winkler and Lena Headey.

Normal will arrive in theaters on April 17, 2026. In the meantime, get up to speed with the rest of next year's movie release dates.

Home Alone director Chris Columbus has pinpointed the exact moment he felt the classic franchise started to go downhill.

While speaking during a screening at the Academy Museum (via The Hollywood Reporter), Columbus says the scourge of "really bad sequels" in the home invasion series started with Home Alone 3.

While he didn't namecheck any other movies, Columbus – who also directed Home Alone 2: Lost in New York – may have also had Home Alone 4 (2002), Home Alone: The Holiday Heist (2012), and Home Sweet Home Alone (2021) in mind when passing down his judgment.

"It's been revisited with really bad sequels," Columbus said. "Sorry to insult anybody, but they've completely fucked it up. It started with Home Alone 3 and then it just went downhill from there; Home Alone 3 is sort of the best of the bunch of the bad movies."

For the director, part of the blame lies in wirework, which he feels gives the series' trademark pratfalls and slapstick an inauthentic feeling and a "false sense of the stunt."

Previously, star Macaulay Culkin had the perfect idea for a legacy sequel – involving Kevin returning with a son of his own.

"I'm working really hard and I'm not really paying enough attention and the kid is kind of getting miffed at me and then I get locked out. He won't let me in… and he's the one setting traps for me," Culkin said during a leg of the A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin tour (H/T Variety).

Culkin is next set to appear in Fallout season 2. For more, check out the Fallout season 2 release schedule and a look at the Fallout season 2 timeline.

The making of Jim Carrey's classic How The Grinch Stole Christmas wasn't a bed of roses, as a recent oral history of the production has revealed. In fact, the actor wanted to abandon the production before it even started due to the nightmarish makeup process. Luckily for everyone, he got help from a torture specialist. No, we're not joking.

With Christmas around the corner, Vulture has put together a massive collection of anecdotes – including from director Ron Howard, producer Brain Grazer, legendary special make-up effects creator Rick Baker, and the lead cast – recounting what happened behind the scenes of the 2000 film, which adapted Dr. Seuss’s beloved children’s book. It might be a beloved family comedy, but Carrey apparently had a really hard time transforming into the green-skinned antihero.

"The studio said, 'We're paying Jim $20 million, and we want to see him. Just paint him green.' But it’s not How the Green Jim Carrey Stole Christmas. It’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. He should look like a fantasy character," said Baker, who designed the character for the big screen. However, looking "like a fantasy character" came with a lot of problems.

Carrey recalled: "When it came down to actually designing the Grinch to look like the Grinch, they had to put the tip of my nose on the top of the bridge of the Grinch’s nose. So, all of the rest of it was covered and I couldn’t breathe through my nose... Ultimately, I ended up mouth-breathing through the entire movie."

The actor remembered that the suit's "unnervingly itchy yak hair" drove him "insane all day long", the "ten-inch-long fingers" prevented him from touching anything, and he had "full contact lenses that covered the entire eyeball", which posed some serious issues. "We said we could do the green eyes digitally. He [Carrey] didn’t want to do that. He wanted to have green eyes. They were like Frisbees in his eyes. He was in so much pain," said Grazer, the producer.

"Jim started having panic attacks. I would see him lying down on the floor in between setups with a brown paper bag. Literally on the floor. He was miserable," added Howard.

The situation got out of control on the first day of makeup, which finally drove Carrey to snap. "The first day in makeup took eight hours. And I went into the trailer and asked Ron and Brian to come in, and I told them that I wouldn't be able to do the movie and I was quitting," Carrey told Vulture, while Grazer recalled the actor saying: "I will give all my money back. I'll pay interest. But I quit." Carrey was being paid $20 million for the role, according to the director.

To prevent Carrey from walking away, the producers found Richard Marcinko, who had trained the military to endure imprisonment and torture. "He gave me a litany of things that I could do when I began to spiral," Carrey explained.

"Later on I found out that the gentleman that trained me to endure the Grinch also founded SEAL Team Six. But what really helped me through the makeup process, which they eventually pulled down to about three hours, was the Bee Gees. I listened through the makeup process to the entire Bee Gees catalogue. Their music is so joyful. I've never met Barry Gibb, but I want to thank him," he added.

The actor resumed his work, and the rest is film history – How the Grinch Stole Christmas is still one of the highest-grossing holiday movies of all time, and Carrey's performance is as phenomenal as ever twenty-five years later. Contact lenses, itchy hair, and all.

For more, check out our list of the best Christmas movies of all time, and see what's next in our guide on all upcoming movies in 2026.

After over 30 years, Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin says he would return to the festive franchise for a legacy sequel, under the right circumstances.

"It would just have to be right," said Culkin about returning as Kevin McCallister in another Home Alone sequel, during his A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin tour (H/T Variety).

In fact, Culkin already has an idea for the sequel. "I'm either a widower or a divorcee. I'm raising a kid and all that stuff. I'm working really hard and I'm not really paying enough attention and the kid is kind of getting miffed at me and then I get locked out. [Kevin's son] won't let me in… and he's the one setting traps for me," said Culkin.

Home Alone hit screens in 1990, making Kevin around 43 years old now, so it would make sense for the new movie to follow his son. The first movie saw Kevin battle to keep robbers out of his home after his family left him behind, and in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, he comes face-to-face with the same two criminals. However, it's interesting that he would replace the usual kid vs. robbers trope from the franchise with the kid being against his parent.

"The house is some sort of metaphor for our relationship," added Culkin, who explained that Kevin would have to "get let back into son's heart" much like the robbers were trying to get into the McCallister house in the first place, only we would guess that Kevin would have much purer intentions. "That's the closest elevator pitch that I have. I'm not completely allergic to it, the right thing."

The first two Home Alone movies were massive successes and still rank amongst the best Christmas films to date. However, efforts to reboot the franchise have since failed. In 1993 and 2002, 20th Century Studios decided to make Home Alone 3 and 4 without Culkin, which both were met with negative reviews, and in 2021, Disney released the spin-off Home Sweet Home Alone starring Archie Yates, which holds a lackluster Rotten Tomatoes score of 15%.

Just this year, Home Alone director Chris Columbus said that the Home Alone franchise should be left alone. But we have a feeling his tune may change if Culkin is involved.

Home Alone is available to stream on Disney Plus. For more, check out our guide to the best movies on Disney Plus, and keep up with upcoming Disney movies.

He’s one of the most successful movie stars ever, but even Eddie Murphy has some regrets about some big projects coming his way that he let pass him by. In an interview with Associated Press, the star of Beverly Hills Cop and The Nutty Professor mentioned three films that were monster hits in their own right, but could’ve perhaps earned a little more at the box office had Murphy’s name been on the poster.

“Ghostbusters, I was supposed to do ‘Ghostbusters,'” Murphy revealed, which would’ve rounded out writer and star Dan Akroyd’s original plan of having a Saturday Night Live dream team involved, including the late John Belushi before his passing. “Didn’t do that, and Rush Hour. Didn’t do that. Oh, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Those are my big three ‘wish I would have done’ movies.”

Admittedly, all three films went on to become major successes on their own, even without Murphy. His role in Rush Hour went to Chris Tucker, playing Detective Carter opposite Jackie Chan’s quick-fisted, fish-out-of-water Chief Inspector Lee, a film that still grossed $245 million worldwide. The film was also followed up by two sequels, and a fourth film has been in development for quite some time.

As for Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Bob Hoskins' gruff, grumpy detective forced to pair with an animated rabbit stands as a heavenly double act we didn’t know we needed. Besides being a groundbreaking entry in movie history for its special effects, it’s a great watch thanks to Hoskins' brilliant straight-man performance. It’s the kind of appearance we might never have had if Murphy had agreed to it. With that in mind, perhaps missing out on films like that wasn’t such a bad choice, after all.

Learn all about the evolution of Eddie Murphy here.

Alan Ritchson's new Prime Video movie Playdate might not have gone down as well as his first three seasons of hit action show Reacher, but the comedy has still managed to draw in viewers over on the streamer.

After hitting Prime Video on November 5, Playdate has become the most popular movie on the streamer worldwide, taking the number one spot, according to FlixPatrol (H/T ComicBook). Romantic drama Our Fault sits in second place, followed by The Rock's 2024 Christmas action flick Red One.

Playdate's streaming success arrives despite the film debuting to rather negative reviews and a measly 17% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Frank Scheck from The Hollywood Reporter called the Playdate "a compendium of clichés," and Decider's John Serba said, "The movie's primary tone is obnoxious." Ouch. However, fans seem to like the film a little more, as Playdate holds a far better audience score of 59%.

Directed by Luke Greenfield, Playdate follows Grown Ups' Kevin James as an unemployed accountant who agrees to a playdate with a charismatic stay-at-home dad (Ritchson). However, instead of a trip to the park or a picnic, James' suburban parent is "thrust into a chaotic scramble to stay alive as they are pursued by a ruthless team of mercenaries," reads the official synopsis.

The movie sounds like your run-of-the-mill parent-comedy, much like Daddy's Home or Bad Moms, which are never really regarded as great movies. However, Ritchson is no stranger to wacky comedies, as before he morphed into Jack Reacher, he starred in the Blue Mountain State series and its spin-off movie, Blue Mountain State: The Rise of Thadland. Next for Ritchson is Reacher season 4, based on Lee Child's 13th Reacher book, Gone Tomorrow, which is set to arrive in 2026.

Playdate is available to watch on Prime Video now. For more, check out our list of the best action movies and best movies on Prime Video.

Dwayne Johnson may now be known as action hero extraordinaire and, lately, as a bonafide dramatic actor thanks to his turn as MMA star Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine, but it didn't always used to be that way.

On his way up in Hollywood, Johnson became attached to an unfortunate string of box office failures or family-friendly movies that were savaged by critics.

For every Southland Tales or Walking Tall there was a Race to Witch Mountain, Game Plan, or, god forbid, a Tooth Fairy – the 2010 comedy that's currently sitting at a miserly 17% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Speaking on The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast, Johnson reflected on his early career cold streak.

"The truth is – and I can look back on that time with real clarity these days – those days, things were a little cloudy. I loved making those movies. I also think I manifested those because I don't think I was ready for anything other than easy, light, family films that made me feel good," Johnson said.

As Johnson revealed in candid fashion, his divorce from Dany Garcia (who is now his manager), led to the actor pulling back from any meaty roles in favor of lighter fare that had a "happy ending."

Johnson explained, "I was trying to figure my stuff out, and that was the only thing that I really wanted to do artistically; I didn't want anything that was going to challenge me to rip my guts out, I wanted stuff that has a happy ending, and so that's what that was."

Despite those bumps in the road, Johnson ultimately came out of his film funk thanks to his turn as Hobbs in 2011's Fast Five. From there, the parts stacked up – several Fast films, Pain and Gain, Jumanji, Moana – before becoming a household name. And to think it almost fell apart thanks to a role that was, quite literally, like pulling teeth.

Johnson is next set to star as Maui in the live-action Moana remake, set for release on July 10, 2026.

For more, check out our guide to upcoming movies.

It's official - Gremlins 3 is in the works with the original film's writer Chris Columbus on board to direct, with legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg executive producing (via Variety). It's been 35 years since the franchise last bowed in theaters with Gremlins 2: The New Batch, and by the time Gremlins 3 reaches theaters in 2027, it will have been a full 37 years between movies - and a full 43 years since the first film.

The original 1984 Gremlins film is considered a horror comedy classic, with an eccentric plot, striking creature designs, and a twisted sense of humor that is as much disturbing as it is funny. Gremlins straddles the border between horror and hilarity so well that the film, which was released in the US with a PG rating (one of the least restrictive ratings), inspired the creation of the PG-13 rating as a new category for movies too mature for children but not so mature they require adult supervision.

As a kid, I loved the movie (and just about any movie with weird monsters) so I didn't quite get just how dark Gremlins actually is. Meanwhile, its sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch, is essentially a satirical take on the very concept of making a sequel to a beloved movie with zany escalations of the Gremlins themselves and a heightened, media savvy setting.

"Few titles are as beloved and iconic as Gremlins, and we're beyond excited to bring it back for both lifelong fans and a whole new generation," says Warner Bros. Pictures president of development and production Jesse Ehrman in a statement. "It's a privilege to be working alongside Steven [Spielberg], Chris [Columbus], and the entire creative team, and we look forward to audiences experiencing the next installment of the magic, mayhem, and heart of Gremlins on the big screen in 2027."

Even as someone who has a huge soft spot for both Gremlins movies, director Joe Dante's madcap sensibilities are a big part of what makes the Gremlins franchise work. I'm skeptical enough of the current spate of decades-later sequels that I'm concerned Gremlins 3 could be a hard sell at best.

Either way, we'll have to wait till November 2027 to see Gremlins 3. While we wait, check out the 30 best horror movies that will haunt you long after the credits roll.

Edgar Wright has begun his press race for his new adaptation of The Running Man, and with it comes yet another chance for him to be probed about the prospect of making a sequel to one part of his Cornetto Trilogy. In this case, it's Shaun of the Dead, his rom-zom-com that now stands as one of the greatest horror comedies of all time. It's also a film that, even after more than two decades, Wright has absolutely no intention of revisiting.

In an interview with Polygon, Wright explained that he never considered getting a second round of pints in at the Winchester and that Shaun's (Simon Pegg) adventure ended where we left him – sat in the shed with his best mate, Ed (Nick Frost). "We weren't really interested in doing it because we didn't think there was any more story to tell," Wright explained, breaking down the common issue that can occur when films get follow-ups.

"There are a lot of franchises where the sequels don't really earn their keep because all the story has been told in the first movie," Wright added. "When a character has gone through a massive change, it's very difficult to have a second installment. Shaun of the Dead has him going from being a kind of sad sack to being a hero by the end of the movie. So it's very difficult to start the next movie when there's no obvious arc. We are very happy with it being a one-and-done."

In terms of Wright revisiting stories, The Running Man is the closest thing we've got from the director, who didn't set out to retread Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1987 action movie, but instead to adapt more closely to the book of the same name written by Stephen King. The novel was initially released under King's pseudonym of Richard Bachman, who praised Wright on his handling of the script (particularly its ending). You'll get to see how he's handled things when the film arrives in theaters on November 14.

While you wait, check out our ranking of every Stephen King movie adaptation and predict where The Running Man will finish here.

Teddy Gatz is looking for an organizing principle. The lead character in Yorgos Lanthimos' latest movie Bugonia (played by Jesse Plemons) lives in his childhood home, empty except for his disabled and easily manipulated cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) and a few beehives in the garden, and he works an unfulfilling job in a local pharmaceutical packing warehouse. It's in his free time that he strives to find purpose, researching an alien race called the Andromedans who he believes are responsible for species decline on Earth – first, the bees, and, ultimately, humanity.

Years of planning have all been leading to the main event, which kicks off the movie: the kidnapping of Auxolith CEO Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), four days before the lunar eclipse, when Teddy believes she will be able to contact her Andromedan mothership. After that, he's certain that she'll be able to get him an audience with the Andromedan emperor to negotiate a deal between the aliens and humanity and save the planet.

There are layers to his beef with Michelle, we learn. Not only is she possibly an alien responsible for Earth's destruction, but he's also an Auxolith employee – which also happens to be the company responsible for his mother's comatose state after a medical trial gone wrong. Teddy maintains that his mission is in service of the greater good, but it's impossible to disentangle the personal from the political.

Playing with expectation

Some of Bugonia's funniest moments are in its skewering of corporate culture. Michelle is insistent that her employees go home at 5.30pm to avoid burnout and foster a healthy environment, for example, but only if there's no more work to be done. Her cringe girlboss-esque persona is hammered home by a humorous needledrop of Chappell Roan's 'Good Luck, Babe!' and, in these moments, Bugonia is often as subtle as a (very entertaining) ton of bricks.

But, in other moments, it suddenly sharpens into something more unnerving and interesting. With Michelle's kidnapping the movie cleverly plays with our expectations around gender and class. Alien or not, we're constantly reminded that Michelle is an unscrupulous, uber-wealthy CEO, but the film weaponizes Stone's femininity and vulnerability – Teddy forces Don to shave her head because he believes her long hair allows her to be traced by the Andromedan mothership – to muddle where our sympathies should lie. When Teddy is violent towards Michelle, it's distressing to watch, but Michelle's company has been responsible for far worse violence, not just in Teddy's home but in the community as a whole. What are we meant to do with all that information?

Stone and Plemons are on top forms here, and they bounce off each other deliciously. Both are perfect with their roles, with their backgrounds in both comedy and drama allowing them to veer between absurdity and tragedy with an easy self-assurance. Bugonia marks Lanthimos' second collaboration with Plemons and his fifth with Stone, and he knows exactly how to get the best out of his actors.

Hard truths

Bugonia would make for an interesting double bill with another 2025 release: Ari Aster's violent madcap COVID Western, Eddington. Both movies are about angry people turning to the internet for meaning (and, in fact, Aster was a producer on Bugonia), but Bugonia is a less cynical beast. It's less actively anti-social media, for one thing; there's passing mention that Teddy first discovered the Andromedans on YouTube and that he "creates content" about the subject, but other than that there's little depiction of the internet or technology. It's not encouraging us to laugh at Teddy in the same way that we're meant to ridicule Joaquin Phoenix's unravelling sheriff, and instead we're forced to wonder just what, exactly, we feel towards him – and Michelle, and Don.

Both movies ask their audiences to examine what it means to live in a world where both everything and nothing is true, but, to me, Bugonia does this much more effectively by keeping us on our toes and not letting our sympathies sit too long with either of its leads. The great tragic irony of Bugonia is that it soon becomes apparent that no one can win, but that doesn't stop Teddy and Michelle going to any lengths possible to come out on top.

Bugonia is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

It's been over 30 years since the original Ghostbusters blasted onto cinema screens, but that hasn't stopped it being one of the most iconic movies of all time. I know I for one have watched it more times than I'd like to admit, and I know I'm not alone in my rewatch count. That's why we've pulled together this ultimate Ghostbusters quiz to see how well you really know the adventures of Peter, Ray, Egon and Winston, and all their ghostly pals.

This quiz is all about the original movie, not any of the sequels or spin-offs, so let's keep it original shall we? If you can't ace this quiz, you know who you've gotta call, don't you? Well, probably not the Ghostbusters as they'd be very disappointed.

No Other Choice, the latest movie from Oldboy director Park Chan-wook, is now certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Park's first film since 2022's Decision to Leave has scored a perfect 100% on the review aggregator site since it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in August.

Squid Game's Lee Byung-hun, who plays the Front Man in the Netflix series, stars as Man-su, a veteran employee of a paper company who's abruptly laid off. After an interview for a new job at a rival company ends in humiliating rejection, Man-su sets out on a brutal (and darkly funny) mission to eliminate his competition, combining the Vengeance Trilogy director's signature bloody violence with black comedy and social satire.

"No Other Choice isn't just Park's funniest film, but his most humane, too – and that's quite something for a comedy as violent as this one," writes the BBC, while Variety's review says calls the movie "the latest exhibit in the mounting body of evidence suggesting Park Chan-wook may be the most elegant filmmaker alive."

"The film is extremely amusing, certainly, but it's simultaneously a poignant study of the desperation of the long-term jobless and the needless cruelty of the corporate world," says Screen Daily.

Meanwhile, IndieWire writes that it's "the rare film that feels sympathetic toward its protagonist without ever rooting for him, and Lee's elastic performance as Man-su is key to the balancing act of Park's tragicomic tone."

No Other Choice hit Korean theaters in September, but the movie doesn't have an international release date yet. For more, fill out your watchlist with our picks of the other best upcoming movies on the way.

Sigourney Weaver has revealed that a version of the proposed Galaxy Quest sequel involved Benedict Cumberbatch replacing Alan Rickman as Alexander Dane.

"They were absolutely going to do it and they had a very funny story," Weaver said during an appearance at New York Comic Con (via People). There's been talk of a sequel to the cult movie since its release, but plans have struggled to leave the drawing board. They were further complicated, too, by Rickman's unexpected death from pancreatic cancer in 2016.

"I think it would've happened by now," Weaver, who played Gwen DeMarco, continued. "At a certain point, they talked about Benedict Cumberbatch playing a version of Alan [Rickman]'s part. It’s very hard to come back to it without Alan there."

Released in 1999, Galaxy Quest follows the cast of a fictional sci-fi show who get sucked into a real intergalactic conflict by aliens who think their series is a documentary. Weaver's character Gwen's Galaxy Quest alter ego was Lieutenant Tawny Madison, the ship's comms officer, while Rickman's Alexander was a Shakespearean actor who played science officer Dr. Lazarus.

The movie's cast included Tim Allen, Tony Shalhoub, and Sam Rockwell and the film was directed by Dean Palisot, who went to helm Bill & Ted Face the Music.

Next up for Weaver is Avatar 3, officially titled Avatar: Fire and Ash, in which she'll reprise her role as Kiri, Jake and Neytiri's adopted Na'vi daughter. That's not the end of her sci-fi franchise work, either – she's also set to star in new Star Wars movie The Mandalorian and Grogu as a New Republic colonel.

Avatar: Fire and Ash arrives in theaters on December 19. For more, check out our guide to the rest of this year's biggest upcoming movies.

Despite pulling some pretty gnarly stunts in action franchises like The Matrix and John Wick, Keanu Reeves says his worst on-set injury actually came from shooting his new comedy with Seth Rogen, in which he plays an angel.

When asked by Travis and Jason Kelce on the New Heights Podcast if it's true that he got hurt more filming Good Fortune than he did filming any past action film, Reeves confirmed. "My kneecap, I had a vertical break," said Reeves, explaining that his patella split in half. "The pain was banana cakes."

So, how did it happen? Was Reeves taking down a bad guy like his Point Break character Johnny Utah, or was he dodging bullets like The Matrix's Neo? No, he… tripped over a carpet. "I was shooting a scene and then I was going back to the dressing room, they had a carpet laid down," explained the star. "Then there was a little section, and I caught my foot. Then I started to fall and I spiked my left knee like bang! And spiked it."

However, Reeves didn't let the injury stop him from continuing with shooting. "I was immobilized," continued the star, "I wore a brace for basically ten weeks, but I filmed while I had that."

The injury seems kind of fitting, as in Good Fortune, Reeves plays a well-meaning but rather inept angel named Gabriel who meddles in the lives of a struggling gig worker, Arj, played by Parks and Recreation's Aziz Ansari, and a wealthy venture capitalist named Jeff (Rogen). However, when Gabriel decides to body-swap Arj and Jeff to show them that money isn't everything, he loses his wings and is forced to watch his life's work unravel around him.

Good Fortune is written and directed by Ansari and also stars Keke Palmer and Sandra Oh.

Good Fortune is in theaters on October 17. For more, check out our list of the best underrated comedy movies, and keep up with upcoming movies in 2025 and beyond.

Channing Tatum has addressed the likelihood of a third Jump Street movie being made – and is calling out one of the series' producers for not taking a pay cut on the prospective threequel.

"I get asked more about Jump Street 3 than any other movie on the face of the planet that I've ever done," Tatum told Variety. "I don’t think it'll ever happen. The problem is the overhead. It would cost as much as the actual budget of the film – if not more – because of all the producers involved. It's just too top-heavy. It falls over every time."

Those financial woes seemingly fall on one person according to Tatum – Neal H. Moritz, producer on the Jump Street, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Fast and Furious films.

“Neal's price for a producer fee is huge. And to be honest, that's what's killing it," Tatum concluded.

Tatum starred in the Jump Street series as Jenko alongside Jonah Hill's Schmidt.

Together, the pair of officers infiltrate a high school in 21 Jump Street and, in the 22 Jump Street sequel, clean up a college from drug dealers. The sequel ended with a stinger for several more spoof Jump Street sequels meaning that, even if a third movie doesn't come to fruition, we've at least had a glimpse at what could have been (including Seth Rogen replacing Jonah Hill in one instance).

In the same article, Tatum also reflected on what could have been with his R-rated Gambit movie. At least that journey has a happier ending, with the actor set to portray the X-Men hero once more in 2026's Avengers: Doomsday.

For more, check out our guide to upcoming movies heading your way over the next few months.

The first trailer for new horror-comedy Queens of the Dead is here – and it's offering up the perfect mix of giggles, glam, and gore.

Directed by Tina Romero, the daughter of zombie movie icon George A. Romero, the film centers on "an eclectic group of drag queens, club kids, and frenemies" who are forced to "put aside their drama and use their unique skills" to survive the night when their grimy Brooklyn nightclub is overrun by the undead. Talk about giving new meaning to the "death drop"...

Set to a remixed version of Day of the Dead's main theme, the promo opens with disillusioned party promoter Dre (Love Lies Bleeding star Katy O'Brian) trying desperately to salvage that evening's event. "DJ's MIA and the toilet's still clogged," she grunts to her wife (Wednesday's Riki Lindhome) over the phone, while some of the disco's performers screech that they're not ready out back.

"I've never had stage fright," Jacquel Spivey's Sam quietly admits in the dressing room, as the neon-lit festivities get underway. "What do you say you and me, we kill it," Nina West's character replies. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Drag is not life or death."

Or at least, it wouldn't be, if a bunch of brain-munching ghouls hadn't just shuffled their way onto the dancefloor. Camp, blood-splattered chaos follows, as Dre, Sam, and more fight off the zombies with anything they can find, from glue guns and cocktail shakers to hair curlers. Watch it above.

Tomás Matos (Fire Island), Jack Haven (Atypical), Shaunette Renée Wilson (Black Panther), Quincy Dunn-Baker (No Hard Feelings), Dominique Jackson (Pose), Cheyenne Jackson (American Horror Story), and Margaret Cho round out the cast.

Queens of the Dead releases in US theaters on October 24. For more, check out our list of the best horror movies, or our guide to the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way.

Amy Poehler thinks it's "some hot bulls**t" that more comedy movies aren't recognized by the Oscars.

In the latest episode of her podcast, Good Hang with Amy, the former Saturday Night Live star was joined by Olivia Colman, as she promoted her new flick The Roses. During the chat, Colman briefly called her co-star Benedict Cumberbatch, who claimed that "if you can do comedy, you can do anything." The Marvel star added: "I really do believe that."

"Of course. You don't have to tell me, babe," Poehler replied. "Every single year at the Oscars, everybody [in comedy] gets blanked and all the serious people get up and accept and accept. It's some hot bull***t! Because comedy is not easy. And I got to tell you, both you and Olivia can do both."

While the likes of The Favourite, Jojo Rabbit, Barbie, Don't Look Up, and Everything Everywhere All at Once, which actually went on to win Best Picture, were all nominated for Academy Awards in recent years, it's fair to say that the vast majority of the humor-featuring films voters highlight tend to skew pretty dark. You'd be hard-pressed to find one that doesn't boast descriptors such as "black comedy" or "satirical"... and even then, it's mostly straight drama that dominates every category each year – with sci-fi, fantasy, and horror being largely ignored, too.

Speaking of such movies, The Roses take inspiration from Warren Adler's 1981 novel The War of the Roses. It follows chef Ivy (Colman) and architect Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch), as they try to patch up their tension-filled marriage. Things hit an unexpectedly catastrophic snag, though, when Theo loses his job right as Ivy's career takes off. It's in cinemas now.

Over the years, Poehler has appeared in a bunch of critically acclaimed comedies, including Parks and Recreation, Inside Out, and Mean Girls.

For more, check out our picks of the best comedy movies of all time or our guide to the most exciting upcoming movies heading our way.

John Boyega may be done with Star Wars, but he wants to get involved with another sci-fi movie (although this one is admittedly a slight change of pace): Spaceballs 2.

"[My phone] hasn’t rung yet, so I have to come here and just say it," Boyega said during an appearance at Dragon Con (via Popverse). "They could pick up the phone and give me a call. Let me make Spaceballs legit."

The original Spaceballs movie, directed by Mel Brooks, was released in 1987 and stars Bill Pullman, John Candy, Rick Moranis and Daphne Zuniga. Although it's primarily a Star Wars movie, the film also pokes fun at franchises like Star Trek and Transformers. The sci-fi comedy follows Pullman's heroic mercenary Lone Star (and Barf, his alien sidekick, played by Candy) as he rescues Zuniga's Princess Vespa from the evil Spaceballs, led by President Skroob (Brooks) and his incompetent commander Dark Helmet (Moranis).

Spaceballs 2 has been a long time in the making and was finally announced this summer, almost 40 years after the original was released. It's set to hit the big screen in 2027 with Pullman, Moranis, Zuniga, and Brooks set to reprise their roles and some new faces joining the mix: Lewis Pullman (Bill's real-life son) as Lone Star's son, Starburst, Keke Palmer and Josh Gad.

Boyega played Storm Trooper-turned-good Finn in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. At the moment, it's unclear whether he'll ever return to the role – unlike his co-star Daisy Ridley, who's set to star in a movie that picks up with her character Rey 15 years after The Rise of Skywalker.

While we wait for Spaceballs 2, check out our guide to the biggest upcoming movies still to come in 2025.

It’s been 12 years since the last instalment in the Scary Movie franchise hit screens, and there has been a hell of a lot of great and not so great horror movies released since then. This means the upcoming spoof has a lot to play with, but fans want to know exactly which modern horror movies Scary Movie 6 will parody.

One fan took to Reddit to ask that very question, and other fans did not hold back in throwing plenty of films in the firing line. "There’ll be a scene of a girl with her head out a car window running into a telephone pole. It won’t decapitate her. She’ll just keep bonking her head on phone pole after phone pole," said one fan, referring to Ari Aster’s Hereditary. Another of Aster’s A24 flicks under attack is Midsommar. "I think the opening of Midsommar gets ridiculed as well. Like instead of car exhaust it’s just hotboxing marijuana," replied another user.

It seems as though arthouse or 'elevated horror' movies are the top picks to rip off. "They could parody Skinamarink really easily by just showing the ceiling of a room for like 5 minutes while someone whispers something stupid and then moving on," said one fan. More movies suggested include It Follows, Pearl, Nope, Get Out, and last year’s surprise hit Longlegs. "Longlegs, but someone who has really long legs," said one user.

As for horror icons, it looks like the clowns aren't safe either, as many fans suggested the movie should make fun of IT's Pennywise and even Terrifier’s Art the Clown. "Shart the Clown?" suggested one fan, to which another replied, "they can come with something even funnier or own spin on him lol Like Ghostface saying wassup on the phone was iconic."

However, we asked the same question to our follower over on Total Film’s Facebook page, and a clear frontrunner was Zach Cregger’s brand new movie Weapons. We have a feeling we might be seeing Anna Faris run with her arms out very soon, just like the missing children in Weapons.

Scary Movie 6 was announced last year, but it recently cast original stars Faris and Regina Hall, who will be reprising their roles as Brenda and Cindy. The movie also welcomes back the Wayans brothers, Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Keenen Ivory Wayans. Marlon and Shawn wrote and starred in the first two films, and Keenen wrote and directed the movies. Michael Tiddes is set to direct.

Scary Movie 6 is set to premiere in summer 2026. For more, check out our list of the most exciting upcoming movies, or skip right to our list of movie release dates.

If the answer to "What's your favorite scary movie?" is, in fact, Scary Movie, then you're in for a treat, as it's now been confirmed that stars of the original slasher spoof, Anna Faris and Regina Hall, are reuniting for the franchise's upcoming reboot. Deadline has revealed that the two will be reprising their roles as Brenda and Cindy, the two dimwitted survivors of the franchise that included a Scream-style killing spree, a stay in a haunted house, and an alien invasion occurring around the same time as a deadly Ring-like video was doing the rounds.

It's been 12 years since we got our last batch of laughs at the expense of the horror-themed franchise that poked fun at everything from Signs to The Matrix. While they might be dated in some areas, there's no denying that the films made an impressive bit of bank at the box office, with the five movies making a collective $896 million.

The new film will hopefully gather the same amount of laughs, given that the Wayans brothers, Keenen, Shawn, and Marlon, will be back on writing duty, with Shawn and Marlon reprising their roles of Ray and Shorty. It would mark their first time back to the franchise since Scary Movie 2 in 2001, as both cast members and creatives behind the scenes, which is reassuring given that the first two films are arguably the strongest of the batch. While Keenen handled directing duties for the first two films, the Wayans' former creative partner, Michael Tiddes, who helmed their other spoofs, A Haunted House and A Haunted House 2, will be behind the camera.

Talking about reuniting on the project, Faris and Hall said, “We can’t wait to bring Brenda and Cindy back to life and be reunited with our great friends Keenen, Shawn, and Marlon — three men we’d literally die for (in Brenda’s case, again).”

After the warm reception for Liam Neeson's Naked Gun reboot this year, it'll be interesting to see how this other beloved spoof series will be welcomed, and we won't have long to find out, either. Filming for Scary Movie 6 is expected to start filming in October with a release date of June 12, 2026. If you feel like a laugh now, check out our favorite spoof moments in cinema history here.

Freakier Friday star Jamie Lee Curtis has called out a "harsh" negative review of the new sequel.

"Freakier Friday is humiliating to everyone involved," reads the headline of Time Magazine's review of the movie, which the publication shared on Instagram. "No one, as far as we know, actually asked Disney for a sequel to 2003’s buoyant, surprisingly unsyrupy generation-gap comedy Freaky Friday," the post continues.

"SEEMS a TAD HARSH," Curtis commented. "SOME people LOVE it. Me being one."

Curtis reprises her role as Tess Coleman in the movie, a therapist and the mother of Lindsey Lohan's Anna. In the original film, the pair, who have a difficult relationship, swap bodies after reading a cryptic fortune cookie message and can only revert back to normal once they act selflessly towards each other.

In the sequel, over 20 years have passed and Anna is no longer a rebellious teenager. In fact, she has her own rebellious daughter, Harper (Julia Butters) and a soon-to-be-step-daughter, Harper's rival classmate Lily (Sophia Hammons).

With the new, younger generation adamant that their families shouldn't merge and Tess and Anna struggling to see their point of view, the Coleman family finds themselves in a four-way body swap.

In general, the movie has been pretty well-received. It has a critics' score of 73% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 166 reviews, and an audience score of 93%. The cast also includes Manny Jacinto, Chad Michael Murray, and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan.

Freakier Friday is out now in theaters. For more, fill out your watchlist with our picks of the best upcoming movies still to come in 2025.

Funny guy, that Eddie Murphy. Whether he's a cop in Beverly Hills or talking the ear off a grumpy, green ogre as an animated donkey, there's bound to be laughs incoming. One film that the legendary comedy star swears has some giggles that seem to be overlooked, however, was his 2007 film, Norbit.

During an interview on Complex, Murphy revealed how he still stands by the comedy that now sits as his third-worst-ranked film on Rotten Tomatoes after A Thousand Words and The Adventures of Pluto Nash, with a score of only 9%. The film also came out only a week after he'd earned an Oscar nomination for his turn in Dreamgirls opposite Beyonce, which many believe impacted his chances of walking home with the shiny gold statue.

"I love Norbit," Murphy confessed. "Norbit came out right after I got that Oscar nomination. There were articles like, ‘How can he get an Oscar, he did this?’ They’re two different movies. I wrote ‘Norbit’ with my brother, Charlie [Murphy], and we think ‘Norbit’ is funny. Here’s the thing with ‘Norbit,’ it came out and they gave me a Razzie Award for worst actress, worst actor, and worst actor of the decade. And I was like, ‘Come on now, shit ain’t that bad.’”

Directed by Brian Robbins, Norbit saw Murphy dip into his familiar schtick of playing more than one role on screen. In this case, it was the titular character Norbit, his large and very much in charge wife, Rasputia, and Chinese orphanage owner, Mr. Hangten Wong, who you can imagine has aged as badly as it sounds. But while critics might've panned the movie, the box office receipts said different, with the movie earning $159 million against a budget of $60 million, so audiences were eating it up at the time. Maybe critics just weren't in on the joke.

For now, if you feel like a laugh, check out our list of the 25 best comedies to see before you die.

Alison Brie and Dave Franco have been married for nearly 10 years, but new body horror movie Together is the first time they've played a couple on screen. Their characters, elementary school teacher Millie and 30-something aspiring musician Tim (heavy on the "aspiring"), aren't married, though, much to Millie's chagrin.

She thinks Tim isn't motivated enough, in their relationship or his own life, and she's worried that they're only still together for convenience. He's been emotionally and sexually distant since a traumatic family incident, and Millie isn't sure how much more distance she can take. Tim has a pretty good idea of how she feels and resents her for it, but still, the pair decide to pack up their lives and move out of the city for Millie's new job in a rural small town. What could be better for a resentment-breeding relationship than forcing one party to pack up their life and start afresh somewhere they don't really want to be?

Trying to adapt to their new life in the countryside (and with each other), Tim and Millie go on a hike in the woodland around their new house. So far, so good, until the pair get lost in the rain and go tumbling into a spooky, sticky subterranean cave. When they eventually make it out and get back home, strange things start happening to their bodies with horrifying consequences.

Throw yourself in

The various images of merging body parts in the movie's marketing give us a taste of Together's fair share of gross moments – it is a body horror flick, after all. But it's also very funny, as you might expect with two actors at the helm with an impressive roster of sitcoms and studio comedies under their belts. "It's not a jokey movie. It's not like we're throwing out a bunch of one-liners," Franco tells GamesRadar+ when we sit down with him and Brie in London.

"It's more [that] our characters are in the most ridiculous scenarios you can imagine, and then we played it very straight and very grounded, and hopefully the comedy comes from that. It's nice when a horror movie gives you permission to laugh and be in on the joke, and isn't too self-serious."

Both lead roles demand very physical performances from their actors as Tim and Millie's bodies start to take on minds of their own, and Brie and Franco threw themselves into the challenge – literally. "My first foray into being more physical did start with physical comedy, and then I realized how much I love involving my body in my work and I've basically just amped it up ever since," Brie says. "In comedy and horror, there's no place for vanity. We're not worried about how we look when we're in these crazy positions. You really have to give yourself over to the stakes of the situation."

"It's really just about throwing yourself around with abandon and seeing what happens," Franco, whose body repeatedly ricochets off the tiled wall of a shower cubicle in one particularly wince-worthy scene, adds. "It's not like we choreographed these moments in very specific ways. It's more like, go nuts and let's just see how weird it can get, and I think that's the same with comedy… The more unpredictable it is, even to yourself, the better."

Bodily horrors

There have been plenty of great body horror movies made over the past few decades, but these have tended to be smaller, independent or international films like Julia Ducournau's Raw. Associations with the genre are still, for the most part, entangled with David Cronenberg's '80s heyday (think Jeff Goldblum in The Fly). But now, with The Substance getting a nomination for Best Picture at this year's Oscars, it seems like body horror is having a moment in the mainstream.

"Body horror is such an interesting genre," says Brie. "Your body is the one thing that you can never escape, right? A lot of people have very complicated relationships with their body. Our bodies are always changing and growing. We're getting older. There's unstoppable forces that are pulling at your body at all times. So while people think of it as a niche genre, I actually think it's so universal and relatable to everybody, and something like The Substance is so exciting because it really brought body horror into the contemporary conversation, whereas it kind of lived in the '70s and '80s prior to now."

Franco agrees, adding, "You can use these movies that are very extreme to deal with very universal issues, like with The Substance and aging, with our film and codependency, and you can just tackle them in a very visceral way."

And, ultimately, that's what Tim and Millie are: codependent. When Millie proposes to Tim during their going-away party in the movie's opening scene, he hesitates for several beats too many, mortifying her. When they call each other "babe", which is more often than you can count, the term of endearment has never felt so empty. At times, it seems like they can barely stand to be in the same room together. And yet, neither can imagine a life without the other.

As the film progresses, the couple are brought closer together (figuratively and literally) by their rapidly deteriorating situation, but it feels somewhat unearned: they're not overcoming their relationship issues; they're just distracted by a much scarier, grosser issue. But Brie hopes that audiences find something sympathetic in Tim and Millie's story, despite it all.

"I do think the trick of this movie is that even though these characters are at odds for the first half of the film, through the challenges that they face – to put it mildly – we do see how they can work as a couple," she says. "So I do hope that people are rooting for them."

"But," Franco concedes, "you're not wrong if you think it's dreadful at the end."

Together is out now in US theaters and arrives in UK cinemas on August 15. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.