city Charm, county Kings: Last News

Secret Headquarters, starring Owen Wilson, has set a record on Paramount+ as the most-watched original movie in the first seven days since its release on the streaming platform.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter The upcoming Apple TV+ series “Government Cheese” has filled out its main cast with four new additions, Variety has learned exclusively. Jahi Winston (“We Have a Ghost, “Charm City Kings”), Evan Alexander Ellison (“She Came to Me,” “Devil in Ohio”), Jeremy Bobb (“The Knick,” “Russian Doll”), and Louis Cancelmi (“Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Billions”) have all joined the show. They will appear alongside previously announced series lead David Oyelowo as well as cast members Simone Missick, Bokeem Woodbine, Sunita Mani, and Adam Beach.

Warner Bros. Pictures’ Blue Beetle will make its streaming debut on Max next Friday, November 17.

DC’s latest addition to superhero cinema, Blue Beetle (★★☆☆☆), seems to thread together two disparate films that the makers struggle mightily to fuse into a satisfying, cohesive whole.At its most successful, the movie, directed by Ángel Manuel Soto (Charm City Kings), introduces Mexican college grad Jaime Reyes, played by Cobra Kai’s Xolo Maridueña, along with Jaime’s loving, but financially imperiled family. Dad Alberto (Damián Alcázar), mom Rocio (Elpidio Carrillo), younger sister Milagro (Belissa Escobedo), crazy conspiracy theory-addled uncle Rudy (George Lopez), and feisty matriarch Nana (Adriana Barraza, who almost steals the show) all rally around Jaime when a mysterious sapphire-blue scarab latches onto his body and consciousness, making him an unwilling host to a “world-destroying weapon.” Time spent with Jaime and the Reyes family, steeped in authentic Latino culture, humor, and relationships, plays like the warmly comic pilot episode of a sitcom I’d gladly binge.Each episode could include a flashback to the adventures of Nana Reyes, which, based on the hints she drops, would be as thrilling and dangerous as anything Jaime encounters in his new scarab-assisted superhero form as Blue Beetle.That brings us to the other, less successful counterpart to the Meet the Reyes Family sitcom: the relatively lame-ass origin story of another DC Comics hero that’s so clearly intended as a setup for future appearances that it fails to do anything interesting with the character’s big-screen debut.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Oscar-winning costume designer Mayes C. Rubeo is no stranger to designing superhero costumes. Her credits include “WandaVision,” “Thor: Love and Thunder” and “Werewolves by Night.” But when it came to working on “Blue Beetle,” Rubeo says, “It took a long time to develop.

Angelique Jackson Amid the ongoing Hollywood strikes, Warner Bros. and DC Studios launched “Blue Beetle” on Tuesday night in Los Angeles with a star-free “fan screening” in lieu of a splashy blue-carpet premiere. Despite the fact that the film’s actors — including Xolo Maridueña, Bruna Marquezine, George Lopez and Oscar winners Adriana Barraza and Susan Sarandon — could not attend due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, there was still plenty of fanfare outside the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

McKinley Franklin editor The first reactions to DC Studios’ “Blue Beetle,” starring Xolo Maridueña, are flying in, with early viewers calling the film a “huge surprise.” While some of the reactions quibble with parts feeling shaky or playing things a bit too silly, they mostly praise the film’s action, heart and specific touchstones to Latino culture. The film, which hits theaters on Aug. 18, follows teenager Jaime Reyes (Xolo Maridueña) and his encounter with an alien relic that attaches to his body, bestowing the adolescent with extraordinary powers.

Blue Beetle” director Ángel Manuel Soto is an eternal optimist. It was January 2020 when Soto’s coming-of-age story “Charm City Kings” debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, winning the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Prize for ensemble acting.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director When Warner Bros. contacted “Charm City Kings” filmmaker Angel Manuel Soto about potentially directing a DC comic book tentpole, he geared up to pitch the studio on a much different movie. “I wanted to pitch ideas, and one of them was the Bane origin story,” Soto recently told Den of Geek magazine.

Marking the DC superhero’s first time on the big screen, Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Blue Beetle” hits theaters later this summer.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter The upcoming Peacock drama series “Hysteria!” is rounding out its main cast. Anna Camp (“Pitch Perfect” franchise, “True Blood) Emjay Anthony (“Physical,” “Chef”), Chiara Aurelia (“Cruel Summer,” “Luckiest Girl Alive”), Kezii Curtis (“Charm City Kings,” “Secret Headquarters”) and Nikki Hahn (“Magnum P.I.,” “American Housewife”) have all been cast in the series. They join previously announced cast member Julie Bowen. The show was originally ordered at Peacock in August 2022. Per the official series description, “When a beloved varsity quarterback disappears during the ‘Satanic Panic’ of the late 1980s, a struggling high school heavy metal band of outcasts realize they can capitalize on the town’s sudden interest in the occult by building a reputation as a Satanic metal band, until a bizarre series of murders, kidnappings, and reported ‘supernatural activity’ triggers a leather-studded witch hunt that leads directly back to them.”

EXCLUSIVE: Emjay Anthony (Physical), Chiara Aurelia (Cruel Summer), Kezii Curtis (Charm City Kings) and Nikki Hahn (Magnum P.I.) have joined the cast of Peacock’s coming-of-age thriller Hysteria! as series regulars.

Blue Beetle” film. Warner Bros. has revealed the first trailer for the upcoming comic book film, showing “Cobra Kai” star Xolo Maridueña taking flight as the superhero.Maridueña stars as Jaime Reyes, the third person to take up the mantle of the Blue Beetle in the DC comic books. In the trailer, when Jaime goes for a job interview, he’s handed a mysterious alien scarab inside a fast food container. He waits to open the container until he’s with his family, at which point the scarab attaches itself to Jaime’s body and transforms into a super suit — a surprising subversion of the classic comic book trope that the titular superhero has to hide his identity from his family and friends. In “Blue Beetle,” they know Jaime’s a superhero from the start.

EXCLUSIVE: Fast-rising filmmakers Travon Free and Martin Roe have signed with CAA for representation, at the same time announcing the Paramount Pictures film Razorblade Tears, based on the New York Times bestselling novel by S.A. Cosby, as their next project.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorWarner Bros. Discovery has been quietly culling content from HBO Max — including several Warner Bros.

Caroline Framke Chief TV Critic“Menudo: Forever Young” won’t mark the first time that members of Latin America’s iconic supergroup have tried to reveal the truth of what it took to be a part of it. As the new docuseries from directors Angel Manuel Soto (“Charm City Kings”) and Kristofer Rios (“Havana Skate Days”) details again and again, each time more revealing than the last, Menudo alums have been speaking plainly for years about the exhaustion, neglect and sexual abuse they allegedly suffered under the thumb of Edgardo Diaz, the man who masterminded the boy band.Over four episodes — two of which premiered at the Tribeca Festival, and all of which will be available to stream June 23 on HBO Max — “Forever Young” does its best to balance tributes to Menudo’s undeniable legacy with disturbing testimonies about the working conditions the group endured.

upcoming DC movies roster is Blue Beetle, which reportedly started rolling its cameras this week in Atlanta, Georgia, with Cobra Kai’s Xolo Maridueña set to play the titular hero and Susan Sarandon portraying the film’s big bad. With the production underway, a rumor started floating around that none other than Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis could be part of the DCEU project as well. So is he joining Blue Beetle? The roots of the rumor come from a since deleted casting call (via Comicbook.

Manori Ravindran International EditorLotfy Nathan, the director of Un Certain Regard title “Harka,” is set to make an elevated horror feature with the producers of “Armageddon Time.”Following the Cannes premiere of “Harka,” Nathan is moving forward with his sophomore film, which is tentatively titled “Son,” based on the apocryphal infancy gospel of Thomas, about the childhood of Jesus.The film continues the relationship between the U.S. director, Spacemaker Prods.

HBO Max will release Menudo: Forever Young, a new documentary about the Latin American boy band from filmmakers Angel Manuel Soto (Charm City Kings) and Kristofer Ríos (Havana Skate Days), on June 23. The premiere will follow the project’s debut at the 2022 Tribeca Festival on June 11.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterDigital sensation JoJo Siwa has bounced from her planned feature film debut.The YouTuber, “Dancing with the Stars” contestant and highly visible LGBTQ figure told Variety that she is no longer attached to a movie adaptation of “Bounce,” based on the YA book by Megan Shull. Furthermore, insiders familiar with the project said that Paramount Pictures has also removed the project from its development slate.“That project got put on hold, and then went away,” Siwa told Variety at the GLAAD Media Awards on Saturday.

Ethan Shanfeld Sharon Stone has been tapped to play villain Victoria Kord in DC’s upcoming “Blue Beetle,” its first superhero movie starring a Latino character, Variety confirms. Victoria Kord is a new character created for the film, which will premiere in theaters on Aug.