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Ben Wheatley and Tom Hiddleston Re-Team for Frank Miller, The Year’s Biggest Box Office Flops, & a…

By  · Published on November 24th, 2016

Movie News After Dark

Ben Wheatley and Tom Hiddleston Re-Team for Frank Miller, The Year’s Biggest Box Office Flops, & a Trailer Roundup

The day’s top headlines in bite-size portions.

Director Ben Wheatley and actor Tom Hiddleston are set to team up again after High-Rise on a project that will bring yet another Frank Miller property to the big screen. The project in question is Hard Boiled, a miniseries from the early 90s published by Dark Horse Comics that tells the story of Carl Seltz, a resident of a dystopic L.A. (is there another kind?) who works as an insurance investigator until he becomes a violence-prone tax-collecting cyborg. Hell yes that’s the plot. And personally, I can’t think of any actor currently working who’s better suited to play a technologically-enhanced insurance rep than Hiddleston, who’s face screams “middle-management-induced-psychosis” in the best possible way. Furthermore, this kind of not-so-distant, not-so-far-fetched sci-fi is right up Wheatley’s unconventional alley, as High-Rise proved. I’ve read Hard Boiled, and I can see every scene coming to life in the hands of these guys, and it looks glorious. Watch out, Sin City, Wheatley’s coming for the Best Miller Adaptation crown (until Burton and Keaton re-team for The Dark Knight Returns). Deals are still being inked, but if this goes forward expect to see it late next year or even 2018.

Forbes has released its annual list of the year’s biggest flops at the box office (that opened in 2,000 or more theaters before November 1, 2016) and these are your top five, America: Oliver Stone’s Snowden (which made $34.3 million against a $40 million budget), Sacha Baron Cohen vehicle The Brothers Grimsby ($28.7 million against $35 million), the Tina Fey comedy Whiskey Tango Foxtrot ($23 million against $35 million), the Matthew-McConaughey-led Civil War drama Free State of Jones ($23.2 million against $50 million), and claiming the number one spot, a film I’ve never even heard of, and I work here: Max Steel, which took in a measly $4.4 million against its $10.4 million budget. Max Steel, so IMBD tells me, is about “the adventures of teenager Max McGrath and his alien companion, Steel, who must harness and combine their tremendous new powers to evolve into the turbo-charged superhero Max Steel.” Sounds terrible. Andy Garcia and Maria Bello cashed checks for this one, and Stewart Hendler, director of 2008’s Sorority Row has to claim responsibility. Check out other notable failures at the link above.

A handful of trailers have dropped in the last 24 hours, the first and foremost among them the long, long-awaited – like 28 years long – first look at Martin Scorsese’s Silence starring Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, and Liam Neeson. Our own Chief Film Critic Rob Hunter has your first look right here. Then there was the first international trailer for T2 Trainspotting which features some new footage and which I threw into this post about elements of the first film. There were also three clips (one two three) as well as a second trailer for the Jennifer Lawrence-Chris Pratt sci-fi romance Passengers. And in case all that looks too good to you, there’s always The Last Face, Sean Penn’s latest directorial outing starring Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem that was unceremoniously booed at Cannes earlier this year. See why here.

The 2016 Independent Spirit Award nominations were announced yesterday morning, and Andrea Arnold’s American Honey leads the pack with seven including Best Feature, Director, Female Lead, Supporting Female and Supporting Male. Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight is a close second with six nods, followed by Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea and Pablo Larrain’s Jackie with five and four nominations, respectively. The actual awards will be handed out on February 25th, 2017, in a ceremony that will air on IFC. Check out the complete list of nominations below.

Best Feature:

American Honey
Chronic
Jackie
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Best Director:

Andrea Arnold, American Honey
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Pablo Larraín, Jackie
Jeff Nichols, Loving
Kelly Reichardt, Certain Women

Best First Feature:

The Childhood of a Leader
The Fits
Other People
Swiss Army Man
The Witch

Best Female Lead:

Annette Bening, 20th Century Women
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Sasha Lane, American Honey
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie

Best Male Lead:

Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
David Harewood, Free In Deed
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Jesse Plemons, Other People
Tim Roth, Chronic

Best Supporting Female:

Edwina Findley, Free In Deed
Paulina García, Little Men
Lily Gladstone, Certain Women
Riley Keough, American Honey
Molly Shannon, Other People

Best Supporting Male:

Ralph Fiennes, A Bigger Splash
Ben Foster, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Shia LaBeouf, American Honey
Craig Robinson, Morris from America

Best Screenplay:

Barry Jenkins, Moonlight (story by Tarell Alvin McCraney)
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Mike Mills, 20th Century Women
Ira Sachs & Mauricio Zacharias, Little Men
Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water

Best First Screenplay:

Robert Eggers, The Witch
Chris Kelly, Other People
Adam Mansbach, Barry
Stella Meghie, Jean of the Joneses
Craig Shilowich, Christine

Best Cinematography:

Ava Berkofsky, Free In Deed
Lol Crawley, The Childhood of a Leader
Zach Kuperstein, The Eyes of My Mother
James Laxton, Moonlight
Robbie Ryan, American Honey

Best Editing:

Matthew Hannam, Swiss Army Man
Jennifer Lame, Manchester by the Sea
Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders, Moonlight
Jake Roberts, Hell or High Water
Sebastián Sepúlveda, Jackie

John Cassavetes Award:

Free In Deed
Hunter Gatherer
Lovesong
Nakom
Spa Night

Robert Altman Award:

American Honey
Moonlight (winner)
Morris from America

Best Documentary:

13th
Cameraperson
I Am Not Your Negro
O.J.: Made in America
Sonita
Under the Sun

Best International Film:

Aquarius (Brazil)
Chevalier (Greece)
My Golden Days (France)
Toni Erdmann (Germany and Romania)
Under the Shadow (Iran and U.K.)

Piaget Producers Award:

Lisa Kjerulff
Jordana Mollick
Melody C. Roscher & Craig Shilowich

23rd Annual Kiehl’s Someone to Watch Award:

Andrew Ahn, Spa Night
Claire Carré, Embers
Anna Rose Holmer, The Fits
Ingrid Jungermann, Women Who Kill

22nd Truer Than Fiction Award:

Kristi Jacobson, Solitary
Sara Jordenö, Kiki
Nanfu Wang, Hooligan Sparrow

Movie News After Dark is going to be taking the next couple nights off for Thanksgiving, so here’s hoping everyone celebrating has a happy and healthy holiday. We’ll see you back here next week.

Novelist, Screenwriter, Video Essayist