Mike Sampson

When you’ve won five Emmys, four Tonys, one Grammy and were one Phil Collins song away from an Oscar that would’ve made you one of only 13 people to have an EGOT, what else is left to do? For South Park creator Trey Parker, you voice the bad guy in Despicable Me 3...

When Marvel Studios began ambitiously building towards the first Avengers movie, many openly wondered: how can they do this? Many times over the years, notably in Sam Raimi’s bloated Spider-Man 3, too many characters had clogged up the screen, diluting those films of any real focus. This was a legitimate concern for Marvel and for The Avengers, a movie that was going to star not one, but seven superheroes. Flash forward to 2016 and seven superheroes suddenly seems like an intimate gathering. Now Marvel has arrived with Captain America: Civil War, the latest in their progressively expanding franchise, with a lineup that includes 12 superheroes and three villains. Have we reached peak superhero? Is this finally, once and for all, just too much? NOPE.

As the story goes, corrupt government officials intentionally introduced a dangerous drug into marginalized minority communities resulting in increased power for politicians and law enforcement through the manipulated fear of the middle class. This narrative has been the subject of a number of popular conspiracy theories over the years concerning the CIA’s alleged involvement in the crack cocaine epidemic among the African American community in the mid-80s. It’s also the plot of the 55th Disney animated movie starring a group of cute, talking animals.

Bee Movie, the 2007 DreamWorks animated comedy starring Jerry Seinfeld as am anthropomorphic bee named Barry B. Benson who may or may not be in love with a human woman, is not a good movie. Even Seinfeld himself has admitted as much. But THE KIDS THESE DAYS. There is no bad movie they will not fully embrace and turn into a thing. Such is the case with Bee Movie which, over the past few months, has taken on a new life on Tumblr. Back in November, someone posted the entire script of the film on Facebook in text form, and it was shared over 4,000 times. This peculiar obsession has been taken to a new level as now a young girl had the entire text from the Bee Movie script printed on a t-shirt and her Tumblr photo has over 100,000 notes.

Though Star Wars: The Force Awakens takes place over 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi, director J.J. Abrams still found a way to work on some classic characters who had long since passed on. Kylo Ren has a conversation with Darth Vader’s helmet. Obi-Wan speaks to Rey during her Force vision. And, there was one additional cameo that ultimately was cut from the film: Yoda.

Early this morning, Sony Pictures relaunched the official site for Ghostbusters, the home of the original two movies, the cartoons and the upcoming reboot. Along with the relaunch, we got five new photos from the film, each highlighting one of the main characters from the movie, including our first look at Chris Hemsworth as the new Ghostbusters secretary. Eat your heart out, Janine Melnitz!

Though Fast and Furious 7 seemed like an obvious, but tragic way to bring the franchise to a close, there was no way Universal Pictures was going to walk away from a franchise that was still bringing in over $350 million. So, Vin Diesel did what he does: he announced a new Fast and Furious trilogy last year that would end the franchise for good (and by “for good” we mean for a few years until they reboot it with a new cast). Fast and Furious 8 had already been scheduled for a April 14, 2017 release, but now Universal Pictures has given those last two Fast and Furious movies release dates as well.

Looking at that photo above, one might think that Wiener-Dog is a charming, little movie about a dachshund. Even the synopsis of the film provided on Sundance’s official site provides this description: Wiener-Dog tells several stories featuring people who find their life inspired or changed by one particular dachshund, who seems to be spreading a certain kind of comfort and joy...

With Star Wars: The Force Awakens just about two weeks ago, it may seem strange to now look ahead to a Star Wars film that isn’t coming out until May, 2018, but when that film is Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Han Solo spinoff, you’ll forgive us for jumping out ahead. Though filming on the Han Solo project isn’t expected to begin for over a year, Lord and Miller have already started auditioning a slew of young Hollywood actors for the project and some of the names may surprise you.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Finding Nemo didn’t really need a sequel. It was a completely charming, yet contained adventure, wrapped up pretty neatly. But, it was a very, very successful Pixar movie and, these days, that means sequel. Of the first seven Pixar movies, only Finding Nemo and A Bug’s Life (which has seemed to be almost ret-conned out of existence in the Pixar universe) hadn’t yet had sequels, but that’s about to change next summer as Finding Dory opens in theaters.

When Marvel originally revealed their plans for Phase 3, conspicuously missing was a date for Ant-Man 2. There was some concern that Ant-Man may never get his sequel and would have to be content appearing in other Marvel things (like Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War), but those concerns have been allayed by Marvel who officially announced Ant-Man and the Wasp will open in theaters in 2018!

As they have grown rather fond of doing, Disney is looking back at one of their past hits in order to create some future success. After modern day versions of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Alice in Wonderland (not to mention, upcoming versions of Beauty and the Beast and The Jungle Book), Disney has hired Rob Marshall (Chicago, Into the Woods) to direct a new Mary Poppins musical based on P.L. Travers’ original children’s books.