Rick Moranis is back for a big sequel

And Deadpool gets a perfect new actor

A perfect new actor is taking on Deadpool

And Ryan Reynolds just called him a butthole over it. Sometimes an actor and a role fit so perfectly together. It’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the part. And that’s the definitely the case with Ryan Reynolds and Deadpool.

But last week we learned that the Marvel character is getting his own VR game on the Meta Quest system and Neil Patrick Harris has been tapped to voice the character.

No offense to Ryan Reynolds, but Harris is a great choice for Deadpool, as he’s definitely shown the required amount of attitude, wit, and charm in projects like Harold and Kumar, How I Met Your Mother, and Starship Troopers. And he’s voiced superheroes like Spider-Man, The Flash, and Nightwing in the past.

In response to this news, Ryan Reynolds posted a video parodying Doogie Howser and said, “"Today, I learned a lesson about buttholes they don’t teach you in medical school. People who steal your signature role are the biggest buttholes of all."

Reynolds is of course joking and the video is one big promo for the VR game. Reynolds also says in the video, "I don’t blame Meta Quest. Neil Patrick Harris is an amazing actor with the nurturing voice of an angel, but even though I haven’t hit puberty yet, I still know when you’re getting totally screwed."

He even roped in Doogie Howser co-star Robin Lively, who just happens to be his wife’s half sister. The game comes out later this year.

---

Rick Moranis is back for a major sequel

Remember Rick Moranis? He was in classic 80s and 90s movies like Little Shop of Horrors, Ghostbusters, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and Little Giants. But when his wife Ann died in 1991, he became a single parent of two young kids. So in 1997, he took a step back from acting. And while he’s done voice over work, Moranis has not been in a live-action feature film in 28 years.

But that’s about to change. As Moranis has signed on to the Spaceballs sequel to reprise his role as Dark Helmet. But wait, it gets better: Bill Pullman is also returning and bringing along his son Lewis Pullman, as well as Keke Palmer. AND 98-year-old Mel Brooks will once again play Yogurt.

Brooks, who wrote and directed the original 1987 parody of Star Wars, is executive producing, and he consulted with writers Josh Gad, Benji Samit, and Dan Hernandez on the script. Barb & Star filmmaker Josh Greenbaum will be directing.

In a video promoting the project, an enthusiastic Mel Brooks says, "After 40 years, we asked, 'What do the fans want?' But instead, we're making this. May the Schwartz be with you!" The promo video also mocks Hollywood for its endless parade of sequels and prequels, reminding us that there’s never been a better time for another Spaceballs.

---

A24 just hired a 19-year-old to direct a big budget horror movie

And no, he’s not a nepo baby. Paul Thomas Anderson was 27 when he made Boogie Nights. Orson Welles was 26 when he directed Citizen Kane. While Kevin Smith was 23 when he made Clerks.

But Kane Parsons has them all beat. At 19 years old, he’s about to become the youngest person to ever direct an A24 film. And get this, Parsons isn’t the child of some Hollywood bigwig. His dad is reportedly a VFX professional in the video game industry.

Instead, Parsons is a YouTube maverick, who created the popular viral horror series The Backrooms. Since 2022, his eerie short films have amassed more than 190 million views and his channel Kane Pixels has 2.69 million subscribers. And these days, that’s more than enough to get you a greenlight at a major studio.

So he’ll be directing The Backrooms feature, based on his shorts, starring BAFTA and Olivier winner Chiwetel Ejiofor and Cannes award winner and BAFTA nominee Renate Reinsve. James Wan and Shawn Levy are also on board as executive producers

Production on The Backrooms is set to start this summer. According to Indiewire, this is “one of Hollywood’s most significant investments in intellectual property that emerged from the internet.”

---

Sinners just broke a wild box office record

As it continues a nearly unprecedented run in theaters. When Sinners first opened back in April, some of the trades actually tried to frame it as a failure. But pretty quickly we saw, that is definitely not the case.

Sinners is a massive hit and after 8 weeks in theaters, Ryan Coogler’s masterpiece is still in the top 10 at the box office. That’s impressive on its own, but here’s the big news:

Sinners hit $275 million dollars at the domestic box office this week, meaning it surpassed Gravity, which made $274 million domestic in 2013, to become the most successful original movie in the U.S. in 15 years. It still sits behind 2010’s Inception - which made $292 million domestic, but if Sinners holds on for a few more weeks, it could beat that movie as well.

Sinners had a reported budget of $90 million dollars. To date, it’s made $360 million dollars total worldwide. Conventional wisdom says a movie needs to gross twice its budget at the box office to break even. So it seems Sinners has turned a profit of approximately $180 million dollars, which should land it among the most profitable movies of the year.