Cinema isn’t just about the latest Disney/Pixar project or Star Wars spin-off. Memorable storytelling is happening all over the film industry, from Hollywood’s box-office-busting superhero smashes to small, innovative indie experiments. The Verge’s film section is here to help you sort through the latest Hollywood news and reviews, from favorite genres like sci-fi, fantasy, and horror to the independent movies that matter.
In light of all the bad faith noise that’s been made about Ryan Coogler securing a very good contract with Warner Bros. for Sinners, the director stopped by Democracy Now! to point out how odd (and telling) it is that he’s being singled out for his deal when a number of other filmmakers have been able to do the exact same thing.
There’s no word on whether she’ll be playing Zoe or Mio, but Variety reports Sydney Sweeney has been cast in the upcoming Split Fiction film adaptation that will be directed by Wicked’s Jon M. Chu and written by Deadpool & Wolverine scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.
To bring Sinners to life, director of photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw had to focus on the big picture.
HBO just dropped a trailer for Mountainhead, the new film from Succession creator Jesse Armstrong, which hits HBO and Max on May 31st.
While Succession skewered the media, Mountainhead has its sights on big tech. Steve Carell, Cory Michael Smith, Ramy Youssef, and Jason Schwartzman play Silicon Valley billionaires holed up in a mountain retreat while the outside world works through some crises, and I’m guessing they’ll have one or two of their own.
Summer is still a few months away, but there’s a new trailer for director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s I Know What You Did Last Summer, which looks fine save for the conspicuous lack of Brandy Norwood’s Karla Wilson. The movie’s out July 18th.
After the success of Sonic, Mario, and (most recently), Minecraft, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter say that Universal has found its next videogame-to-movie adaptation: OutRun.
Yes, the arcade racer with little more than a convertible driving down a road scrolling into infinity reportedly has Michael Bay attached to direct and produce, along with actress Sydney Sweeney as a producer, and Jayson Rothwell (Polar) writing the script.
[hollywoodreporter.com]
Instead of selling Sinners-themed popcorn buckets, IMAX theaters are giving out commemorative film strips, which is feels like a stroke of genius.
Warner Bros.’ unsettling new teaser for writer / director Zach Cregger’s latest film Weapons doesn’t reveal all that much. But the movie’s promotional website makes it seem like we might be in for an expansion of the Barbarian universe when it hits theaters on August 8th.
Andor’s final chapter feels like a series of mini-movies about how wars for freedom are won in fits and starts.
After a long struggle to find a distributor — one producer told World of Reel it was seen as “unreleasable” because of how gross it is — the Dinklage-starring remake of The Toxic Avenger is finally due for theatrical release on August 29th in the US.
In its second teaser, Dinklage’s Winston Gooze, AKA Toxie, seeks help for a mysterious illness from the head of his company, played by Kevin Bacon. And yeah, it looks gross.
Hayden Christensen will return to Ahsoka as Anakin Skywalker and rebel commander Admiral Ackbar will go “head-to-head” with Grand Admiral Thrawn, series creator Dave Filoni told the audience at Star Wars Celebration in Japan last night.
That’s according to Deadline, which also writes that the series will feature Rory McCann as the fallen Jedi Baylen Skol, following the May 2023 death of actor Ray Stevenson.
A Warner Bros. exec indicated to the Financial Times that A Minecraft Movie will probably get a sequel:
“I mean, we’d be foolish not to,” says [Jesse] Ehrman. “The fans want more, so hopefully we’ll be able to figure something out.”
Sports are already pretty scary if you’re a Maple Leafs fan like me, but Him somehow looks even more terrifying. Directed by Justin Tipping and produced by Jordan Peele, the movie follows an up-and-coming quarterback (Tyriq Withers) dealing with “potentially career-ending brain trauma” after an attack from a fan. Things only get darker from there. The movie hits theaters on September 19th.
It’s been a while since Darth Maul last appeared Star Wars Rebels, but during this year’s Star Wars Celebration, Luscasfilm announced that the horned Sith is set to star in a new animated Disney Plus series due out in 2026.
Star Wars: Beyond Victory - A Mixed Reality Playset is a new podracing-focused experience for Meta’s Quest headsets that will be shown at Star Wars Celebration 2025.
You won’t actually race from the cockpit of a podracer, but that’s probably a good thing to prevent the game from being a “puke factory,” as one of my colleagues eloquently put it.
Ryan Coogler’s latest feature feels like a classic southern vampire tale with movie magic running through its veins.
It seems like there are actually going to be quite a few uninfected humans running around in 28 Years Later. The film’s latest trailer is filled with survivors and soldiers armed with lethal weapons, but once Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his son Spike (Alfie Williams) leave from the safety of their remote home, they’ve got to fend for themselves to keep the rage-fueled ghouls at bay.
Available for preorder today for $59.99 and shipping on May 1st, 2025, Lego has announced a 700-piece buildable version of the iconic Star Wars logo created by graphic designer Suzy Rice.
The black support structure supporting the yellow lettering is covered in detailed Lego greebling, while inside the letter T you’ll find a tiny hidden Star Destroyer pursuing the Tantive IV.
Though we knew Toho had plans for a follow-up to Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One, the studio has just announced that it is spending $830 Million over the next three years to energize the classic franchise’s global future.
[bloomberg.com]
If The Brutalist’s 3+ hour runtime kept you from seeing it in theaters, some good news: you’ll be able to stream the movie at home on Max starting May 17th.
Because trashing theaters has become part of how some fans engage with A Minecraft Movie, the feature now opens with a PSA encouraging people in the audience to stop throwing buckets of popcorn that someone is eventually going to have to clean up.
Writer / director Drew Hancock’s new thriller Companion stands somewhere between M3gan and Lars and the Real Girl with its story about a man (Jack Quaid) whose girlfriend (Sophie Thatcher) doesn’t know that she’s actually a sophisticated android. The movie’s an inspired entry in the growing canon of AI panic horrors, and if you missed it during its theatrical run, you’ll be able to catch it on Max beginning April 19th.
One of the many decisions a director has to make is what format they’ll use to shoot a movie. Ryan Coogler, the director of Black Panther, Creed, and the upcoming Sinners (hitting theaters on April 18th, 2025) breaks down the various analog film formats still in use today, their aspect ratios, and the creative reasons why a director would opt for one format over another.
The company is partnering with Range Media with AI on Screen, a program to “commission films about the relationship between humanity and AI,” according to a blog post.
Two films are already in the works for a scheduled release later this year.
[blog.google]
If you’re headed to Star Wars Celebration in Japan later this month, Audio-Technica has announced a pricey souvenir for you, as spotted by Notebookcheck. Unlike its Star Wars-themed wireless earbuds, only 10 of these ATH-AWSW DV headphones, featuring wooden ear cups adorned with images of Darth Vader made using traditional Japanese crafting techniques, will be available.
Each pair is priced at 990,000 yen, or around $6,817.
This new trend of people in Minecraft movie screenings having meltdowns when Jack Black references Chicken Jockeys was already getting weird. But maybe seeing Jimmy Fallon trying to get in on the hype will make everyone realize that trashing movie theaters for fun is kind of terrible, actually.