A live-action Simpsons? Sort of!
And Sydney Sweeney gets a franchise
A live-action Simpsons movie is in the works — sort of
The Simpsons has been on the air as its own show, for nearly 37 years. In that time, it’s become a cultural phenomenon as iconic Mickey Mouse — and so it’s possible that centuries from now, The Simpsons will endure as a modern myth.
At least that’s the premise of Mr. Burns: A Post‑Electric Play, an acclaimed, three-act theater piece written by Anne Washburn that ran off Broadway in 2014. The play is a dark comedy about a group survivors in a post apocalyptic world, who reenact an episode of The Simpsons around a camp fire for entertainment. It then shows how that story evolves into a traveling folk legend. The episode featured in the play is season 5 episode 2 “Cape Feare, ”where Sideshow Bob gets out of prison and hunts down Bart.
Anyway, subversive filmmaker Boots Riley, best known for Sorry to Bother you and I’m A Virgo is developing a feature film adaptation of Mr. Burns A Post-Electric Play. This news was announced by Anne Washburn in a Playbill bio recently and has been confirmed by Riley on his X account. It’s unclear if this is an indie film or if he’s making it with a big studio.
So you might be wondering, is it legal for Riley to use The Simpsons intellectual property? Won’t Disney sue them for copyright infringement? Maybe, but this could be considered “fair use” as the work is “transformative” Back in 2014, Fox was aware of the play and made clear it wasn’t associated with the production, but it did not take legal action against it.
Sydney Sweeney has a movie franchise on her hands
I’m not going to sugar coat it, Sydney Sweeney is controversial. Some people really hate her and refuse to watch anything she’s a part of. And yet — she’s the co-lead in a movie that’s doing very well at the box office right now.
I’m of course talking about The Housemaid, which she stars in with Amanda Seyfried. Directed by Paul Feig — it’s based on a very popular best selling book series. Anyway, The Housemaid was shot on a $35 million dollar budget and according to The Numbers, after 4 weeks in theaters, it’s grossed $192M worldwide. That’s more than 5 times its budget, meaning 9 figure profits for Lionsgate.
And so naturally, the studio has already greenlit a sequel. Sydney Sweeney and Paul Feig are returning and the film will be based on The Housemaid’s Secret, the second book in author Freida McFadden’s thriller series, in which Sweeney’s character Millie goes to work for a different family. That said, Michele Morrone who played Enzo is also expecting to return and Amanda Seyfried told Variety she’d like to return for a cameo appearance.
This is definitely a fast turnaround for a studio to greenlight a sequel, but the box office doesn’t lie and Lionsgate must be confident in A) The franchise-ability of the books and B) Sydney Sweeney herself. It will be interesting to see if the 2nd movie does as well without Amanda Seyfried.
The cast of the live action Tangled movie looks pretty perfect
OK look, there’s no use complaining about it, we’re going to keep getting live action remakes from Disney. The reason for that is for the most part, people keep going to them. Lilo & Stitch made a billion dollars last year. But if these movies are going to keep happening at least we can ask that they be good.
And it looks like the live-action Tangled is shaping up into something interesting. First up, Australian actress Teagan Croft is playing Rapunzel. At 21 years old, she certainly is age appropriate and has the right look for the role. She only has 6 credits total on IMDB — but some of you might know her from Titans.
As Flynn Ryder, we’ve got Milo Manheim. He’s 24 years old and also resembles the cartoon character in certain pictures. Manheim has been acting since age 8, and is best known Disney’s Zombie franchise.
But the casting news that has me most excited is Kathryn Hahn as Mother Gothel. It was previously reported that Scarlett Johansson was maybe going to play this role, which would have been fine, but I don’t think ScarJo would have been mischievous enough. Hahn — who’s already shown her witchiness in Agatha All Along, on the other hand — is downright perfect. So much so, that fans had been fancasting her in this role for years. Are you looking forward to the live action Tangled?
Johnny Knoxville just gave Jackass fans the surprise of a lifetime
Here’s a fun a fact: The Jackass film franchise has grossed $487 million dollars total and considering the budgets on these films have never exceeded $20 million dollars, that’s a lot of pure profits for Paramount.
But you know the Jackass crew were young men when they first started hurting themselves on MTV 26 years ago. Johnny Knoxville is now 54, Steve O and Chris Pontius are both 51. There’s no way they’d be able to keep doing this forever. Right? Right?!
Well last week Knoxville revealed on Instagram that Jackass 5 has been shot and Paramount is putting it in theaters on June 26. Which is delightful news for fans — and I’m definitely interested to see what they’ve cooked up this time. But I can’t say I’m not concerned for these aging gen x-ers that keep destroying their bodies for our entertainment.
It actually hasn’t been that long since the last Jackass movie. Jackass 3D was 2010, Jackass Bad Grandpa was 2013 and then the franchise took a 9 year break, but came roaring back with Jackass Forever in 2022. Movie theaters were still trying to back bounce from the pandemic at the time, but Jackass Forever did a respectable $80 million dollars against a budget of just $10 million — which is exactly why Paramount made another one.
But how long can they keep this up? As a wise man once said, TIL YOUR 90.
Matt and Ben just forced Netflix to step up big time
In case you’re not aware, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are starring in a new movie on Netflix this weekend. It’s called The Rip, it’s an action thriller written and directed by Joe Carnahan.
The movie is produced by Affleck and Damon’s Artists Equity production company which they founded in November 2022 to kind of change how things are done in Hollywood. You see, they specifically wanted to give cast and crew members more ownership of the projects they work on. So on Artists Equity movies, everyone gets profit participation bonuses.
But when they brought The Rip to Netflix, they had a problem: Netflix doesn’t do performance-based bonuses. Netflix typically pays all cast and crew upfront ahead of time in full.
But Matt and Ben said no, we want to give our crew bonuses if the movie is a success and they actually got Netflix to agree to those terms. According to the Hollywood Reporter, “All 1,200 people involved in the nearly $100 million production will be eligible for a one-time bonus if the film meets performance expectations.”
Affleck told The NY Times, “We wanted to institute fairness and address some of the real issues that are present and urgent for our business. This deal is fundamental, philosophically, to the ideas we had in starting this company.”
Fantastic roundup of what matters right now. The Jackass 5 announcement is wild because there's this strange tension between nostalgia for their 2000s recklessness and the reality that these guys are now legitimatley older and more fragile. I remember watching the orignal series as a teen and thinking they were invincible, but now the stakes feel different. The franchise has made half a billion with tiny budgets, which probably explains why Paramount keeps greenlighting them despite the obvious physical risks.