Matt Singer is the editor and critic of the website ScreenCrush.com. For five years, he was the on-air host of IFC News on the Independent Film Channel, hosting coverage of film festivals and red carpets around the world. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, he’s been a frequent contributor to the television shows CBS This Morning Saturday and Ebert Presents At the Movies, and his writing has also appeared in print and online at The Village Voice, The Dissolve, and Indiewire. His first book, Marvel’s Spider-Man: From Amazing to Spectacular, is on sale now.
Matt Singer
‘Groundhog Day’ Is Coming to Broadway (Over and Over and Over and Over…)
We’re big fans of Groundhog Day here at ScreenCrush — I mean, we did just pick it as number one on our list of the 25 Best Comedies of the Last 25 Years — so this news, via The Hollywood Reporter, has us excited: Groundhog Day is coming to Broadway on January 23, 2017. A new version of Groundhog Day! It feels like we’re living the same story over and over and over again! But with, like, music this time.
‘Furious 7’ Review: One Last Ride, and It’s a Good One
Furious 7 almost certainly won’t be the last Fast & Furious movie. But at times it feels like a series finale. There are numerous callbacks and homages to the franchise’s entire 15-year history. The setpieces are bigger and crazier than ever; it’s hard to imagine anyone topping them. And before the chases really get rolling, the mood is often downright mournful. Two different scenes are set in graveyards, and characters talk about taking “one last ride” together.
Jason Segel Is Working on a ‘Lego Movie’ Spinoff
The LEGO Movie proved audiences’ appetite for charming, mildly subversive animated movies about talking toys. Now Warner Bros. is testing that appetite with a whole line of LEGO movies. There already announced Ninjago film in 2016, a Lego Batman Movie in 2017, and The Lego Movie 2 in 2018. Per The Hollywood Reporter, that onslaught will also includes a fourth film, a LEGO spinoff titled The Billion Brick Race, which will be co-written and directed by Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Muppets’ Jason Segel.
It’s Judgment Day For a New ‘Terminator Genisys’ Living One-Sheet and Images
It’s a poster! It’s a YouTube teaser! Actually, it’s a “living one-sheet” for the upcoming Terminator Genisys, featuring Mr. T-800 himself, Arnold Schwarzengger with his skin peeling off to reveal his metal endoskeleton. I like this sort of thing! Partly because it involves Arnold Schwarzenegger, and there’s not too many way you can go wrong there, but mostly because it’s different than your typical barrage of posters and one-sheets, along with micro-trailers and whatnot.
Vivica A. Fox Will Return For ‘Independence Day 2’
When Bill Pullman dumped that big “We will not go quietly into the night!” speech at the end of Independence Day, he really wasn’t kidding. Even though Will Smith will not return, Independence Day 2 is still moving forward, like an enormous alien spaceship slowly approaching the Golden Gate Bridge. Late last night, Roland Emmerich tweeted the latest original Independence Day cast member to join the film:
‘Deadpool’ Production Begins, Superhero Lineup Officially Confirmed
It’s fitting that Deadpool’s main super-power is his accelerated healing factor; you just can’t kill this guy. For years, they talked about making a Deadpool movie featuring Ryan Reynolds (who played a largely unrecognizable version of the character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine). For years, Deadpool languished in development; long enough to kill most projects. But that damn healing factor kept Deadpool alive.
‘Dredd 2’ Definitely Isn’t Happening, According to Writer Alex Garland
Most people who saw 2012’s Dredd, a dark reboot of the classic British comic book anti-hero Judge Dredd, dug it. Almost 20 years after Sylvester Stallone made a thoroughly campy mess of the property in Judge Dredd, director Pete Travis, screenwriter Alex Garland and star Karl Urban produced a far more faithful version of Dredd with a bleak tone, gritty action, and a hero who never takes off his signature helmet.
The Cast and Crew of ‘Goodfellas’ Will Reunite For a 25th Anniversary Screening
Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas won just one Oscar (for supporting actor Joe Pesci) at the 1991 Academy Awards. (The year’s Best Picture winner was Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves.) But the film seems to grow more popular and critically acclaimed every year, to the point where it’s now considered one of Scorsese’s masterpieces, one of the best movies of the 1990s, and perhaps the best gangster film ever made without the word “godfather” in the title. Astonishingly (at least it feels astonishing to an old man like me), it’s been 25 years since Goodfellas made its debut in theaters, an anniversary Scorsese and his cast and crew will celebrate next month with a 25th anniversary screening and reunion at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.
You’re Caught: On The Bombshell Finale of ‘The Jinx’
When I first wrote about the true-crime documentary series The Jinx a couple of weeks ago, I was the only person I knew who was watching it. A few weeks later, it’s all anyone is talking about. It’s been one of the top trending topics on Twitter for three days straight, and my personal feed is clogged with debates about the case and the ethics of the filmmakers’ behavior. As I left my hotel in Austin yesterday morning, pundits were discussing the show on CNN; as I wrote most of this piece at the Austin airport, two men at the table next to me in the food court were talking about it as well. I spent a month recommending the show to people who looked at me like I was crazy (“The Jinx? Like the kid’s game?”). The show went from total obscurity to inescapable pop-cultural phenomenon in a matter of hours.
Disney Officially Announces ‘Frozen 2’; Original Creative Team Set to Return
The news out of Disney’s shareholder meeting keeps on coming. This one isn’t much of a surprise: Disney is making Frozen 2. In a related story, the sky is blue and water is wet (until a princess with freezing powers comes along and turns it into ice).