Latest news with #RoddenberryEntertainment
Perth Now
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Chris Pine and Lily-Rose Depp added to Alpha Gang cast
Chris Pine, Lily-Rose Depp, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Doona Bae have joined the cast of Alpha Gang. The quartet have become the latest additions to the ensemble of the sci-fi comedy film from directors the Zellner brothers. They join previously announced stars Cate Blanchett, Lea Seydoux and Dave Bautista. When Alpha Gang was first announced last October, Channing Tatum, Zoe Kravitz and Steven Yeun were all set to be in the cast but have since dropped out for reasons that are unclear. Insiders have attributed their exits to a multitude of factors, including scheduling issues. The flick follows a group of alien invaders who are sent to conquer Earth disguised as a leather-clad 1950s biker gang. The extraterrestrials are ruthless in their mission until they fall victim to the most contagious human condition of them all – emotion. David and Nathan Zellner are both directing and producing the film while Blanchett and Coco Francini are producing for their Dirty Films banner. The pair said in a joint statement previously: "The Zellner brothers' work never fails to surprise and delight us. "In Alpha Gang, they have created a far-out world in order to lampoon something much closer to home: The hilarious, absurd, and peculiar truth of the human condition." Pine is no stranger to sci-fi as he portrayed Captain James T. Kirk in three Star Trek movies, although he claimed last year that he was in the dark about a fourth movie in the rebooted franchise and was shocked to find out that The Flight Attendant creator Steve Yockey had been hired to write the script for the potential project. The 44-year-old actor told Business Insider: "I honestly don't know. "There was something in the news of a new writer coming on board. I thought there was already a script, but I guess I was wrong, or they decided to pivot. As it's always been with Trek, I just wait and see." It wasn't the first time that Chris has bemoaned the lack of clarity about a possible fourth film as he complained that the cast are always the "last people" to find out about new developments. The Wonder Woman star said: "In Star Trek land, the actors are usually the last people to find out anything. I know costume designers that have read scripts before the actors. "It doesn't really foster the greatest sense of partnership, but it's how it's always been. I love the character. I love the people. I love the franchise. But to try to change the system in which things are created – I just can't do it. I don't have the energy." The fourth Star Trek movie has been stuck in development hell for several years but Roddenberry Entertainment chief Trevor Roth told fans to expect a new film in the "very near future" last year. He told Screen Rant: "I am not able to say much, but I can say that it is Paramount's intent to figure out the Star Trek side of movies and what's going on there. There's every intent of a new movie coming out in the very near future. "There's a lot of secrecy around what's going to happen there. But there is a plan getting into place. And we're very excited to see it return to the big screen."
Geek Girl Authority
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Girl Authority
Hailing Frequencies Open: 3 STAR TREK Podcasts
There are many Star Trek options for you to listen to wherever you get your podcasts. In fact, there are so many that it can be daunting to figure out where to start. For today's Trek Tuesday , we're sharing three podcasts that we enjoy. This just scratches the surface of the many podcasts devoted to our favorite Franchise. If there's one that you think we should check out in the future, be sure and let us know on social media! Women at Warp Women at Warp has a decade's worth of episodes to occupy your time. The podcast debuted in 2014. At that time the four originating hosts — Andi, Grace, Jarrah and Sue — were each doing their own online Franchise projects. But they came together to form a kind of 'Federation,' creating the Women at Warp podcast. Focused on examining Star Trek through a feminist perspective, Women at Warp explored 'Intersectional Diversity in Infinite Combinations.' In 2020, they added two more hosts to their command crew: Aliza and Kennedy. RELATED: Star Trek : 8 Women of Vulcan Over the course of the podcast's run, Women at Warp had a few different associations. From May 2014 to July 2016, Women at Warp was part of the network. And then from April 2017 through 2022, they were one of the three founding shows for Roddenberry Entertainment's Roddenberry Podcast Network. But during the other intervals, Women at Warp was an independent podcast. In March 2025, the series achieved its mission and released its final episode. However, there are a decade's worth of episodes for you to catch up on. And several of them feature guest appearances by one of Geek Girl Authority's own beloved writers, Diana Keng. In addition to the podcast, Women at Warp hosts a blog where you can read lots of articles about the Franchise, including reviews, features and more. InvestiGates Gates McFadden (Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Next Generation movies, Star Trek: Prodigy and Star Trek: Picard) is the host of the delicious Star Trek adjacent podcast, InvestiGates . Over the course of the three seasons released so far, McFadden invites many of her Franchise co-stars and co-creators to join her in some in-depth discussions. In these conversations, Star Trek is brought up from time to time. However, the podcast is not limited to discussion about the Franchise. McFadden asks her guests about their personal histories and childhoods, family histories and many other topics as well. The eclectic conversations are far-reaching and informative, including details you would never think to ask but will not forget once you've heard them. RELATED: Geek Girl Authority Crush of the Week: Beverly Crusher Over the course of InvestiGates, McFadden is joined by almost every main cast member of The Next Generation. She's also joined by cast members from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise . In later episodes, she welcomes cast members from Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Plus Terry Matalas, Michael Westmore and William Shatner appear as well. If you want to learn more about the people who put Star Trek together, then InvestiGates is the podcast for you. Hopefully, McFadden will release additional episodes in the near future. Trek, Marry, Kill Podcast In the Trek, Marry, Kill Podcast, host Bryan Murphy and a rotating guest host examine the Franchise episode by episode. At the end of each discussion, they rate the episode. They might be good ('Trek'), great ('Marry'), or 'neither good nor great' ('Kill'). However, the podcast is always clear that even when an episode is a 'Kill,' they still love it, because it's Star Trek. Along with the hook of determining whether each episode is a 'Trek,' 'Marry' or 'Kill,' the podcast also features a recurring rubric against which episodes are assessed. This includes great scenes, 'The Line Must Be Drawn Here: Great lines' and other regular assessment standards. RELATED: Star Trek Episode Trilogy: Revisiting 'Unification' In addition to the assessment, Murphy also brings plenty of facts about the episodes from Memory Alpha and other sources. And the audio for the contemporary TV advertisements for the individual episodes is often included, which adds a nice bit of additional flavor to the mix. As with Women at Warp , Geek Girl Authority's own Diana Keng guest stars on Trek, Marry, Kill Podcast as well. And she's just one of the many great guest stars who appear over the course of the series. Finally, when the host and guest disagree on the show's categorization, the tie is turned over to social media for a vote, so weekly listeners can get in on the voting fun too. STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS: 'Ad Astra Per Aspera,' a Trans Rights Allegory Avery Kaplan (she/her) is the author of several books and the Features Editor at Comics Beat. With her spouse Ollie Kaplan, Avery co-authored the middle school textbook on intersectionality Double Challenge: Being LGBTQ and a Minority. She was honored to serve as a judge for the 2021 - 2024 Cartoonist Studio Prize Awards and the 2021 Prism Awards. She lives in the mountains of Southern California with her partner and a pile of cats, and her favorite place to visit is the cemetery. You can also find her writing on Comics Bookcase, the Gutter Review, Shelfdust, the Mary Sue, in the Comics Courier and in many issues of PanelxPanel, and in the margins of the books in her personal library.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Arco' Review: France's Answer to Studio Ghibli Offers an Emotional Sci-Fi Epic
There's one particular journey the makers of 'Arco,' a soulful animated movie premiering in the Special Screenings section of Cannes 2025, are hoping to follow, whether they say it or not. The journey of 'Flow.' That animated triumph premiered to raves at Cannes in 2024 and slowly built momentum until finally winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar earlier this year. For all Cannes represents to global cinema, it had never been a particularly fecund environment for animation: The festival used to play host to splashy premieres for blockbuster hits such as 'Shrek 2' and 'Bee Movie,' not eventual Academy Award winners. 'Flow' changed all that. What would Cannes do for animation next? More from IndieWire How 'Love, Death and Robots' Season 4 Made the Ultimate Cute Little Guy 'Eddington' Review: Ari Aster's Bleak and Brilliant Look at Post-COVID America Feels Like the First Truly Modern Western This writer is no Oscar prognosticator, but it seems 'Arco' is unlikely to repeat that triumph. Not that it isn't a worthy film — though not as worthy as the wordlessly universal 'Flow,' which, at times, truly feels like a movie that's never been made before — but the path that movie took feels almost unreplicatable. For one, 'Arco,' with its copious French dialogue and unmistakably Gallic sensibility (even if dubs into other languages do eventually happen) simply doesn't have the borderless resonance. For another, it simply wears its influences on its cinematic sleeve a little too readily: A little bit of 'Peter Pan,' 'E.T.,' Studio Ghibli, even 'Star Trek' — with director Ugo Bienvenu's stated aim of presenting a positive, hopeful vision of the future in 'Arco,' and the colorful palette with which he's realized it, Roddenberry Entertainment should seriously consider coming onboard as producing partners for the U.S. release. It's that level of optimistic. As Bienvenu's first feature, 'Arco' is undoubtedly a promising start for a budding auteur who's been toiling away at short films, music videos, graphic novels, and short animations for Hermès. One of his illustrations for the French luxury house became a popular scarf called 'Wow!' which gave a comic book sensibility to the equestrian images associated with the brand. He has an eye for detail that calls to mind Ghibli, as well as the great French artist Jean Giraud, known to the world as Mœbius. But Bienvenu embraces an explosion of color that's all his own. 'Arco' introduces us to a young boy of 10 or 11 living in a far future where humanity now resides among the clouds on 'Jetsons'-like platforms on stilts. At a certain point, the population of Earth realized that a 'Great Fallow' needed to happen, that the surface of the planet needed to rest. We meet Arco himself giving feed to chickens and pouring food in a trough for pigs. This may be an extremely advanced civilization he's part of, but it's also back to basics. And soon, we discover that people, once they turn the age of 12, don a rainbow cloak with a special light-refracting diamond, and use the colorful garment to fly through the air — and go back in time. Arco isn't old enough yet to fly, but that isn't going to stop him. He steals his sister's cloak while the rest of the family is sleeping and jumps off the edge of the platform. After that, we're introduced to a raven-haired girl of about the same age named Iris. She's living on the ground in a suburban community where her primary caregiver is a robot named Mikki, and bubble-like shields pop up over everyone's homes when the climate-change-fueled thunderstorms wreak havoc or devastating wildfires break out. Her parents, consumed with work, are never even home and communicate with Iris merely by 'Star Wars'-style blue-grain holograms. Iris has a caring companion in Mikki — she asks him to play cowboy and Captain Hook, and he obliges — but she still dreams of something more fulfilling. And into her life drops Arco. Yes, Iris is living in Arco's past even if it's our future. The year for her is 2075, and the environmentally ravaged earth she inhabits is definitely a place that needs a 'Great Fallow.' The story from there becomes a tad predictable: Arco is a fish out of water, Iris quickly becomes his devoted friend, a misunderstanding causes them to go on the run. And some choices don't quite work, like the monochromatically-attired, turtleneck-wearing identical triplets who are tracking Arco — having before seen visitors from the future like him, who fly in the sky and leave rainbow trails behind them, the brothers are determined to prove their existence — and are in the story as just a particularly French kind of comic relief. As in any story like this, Iris is both trying to help Arco get home, and also doesn't really want him to leave. But Bienvenu comes up with a stirring ending, one so emotional it almost paves over the bumps in the narrative road that got us there. But it's undoubtedly a bit of connecting the dots to get to that ending, something genuinely soulful that's a bit reduced because of a plot that just went from Point A to Point B. Still, much of the film is absolute retina candy. Like 'Flow' director Gints Zilbalodis, Bienvenu built his studio around recent graduates of top animation schools, and there is a youthful energy pointing to new possibilities for the medium. He also has a unique idea animating his entire vision: Why do visions of the future have to be uniformly grim? Can't they be full of wonder also? That said, it's important to stay a bit clear-eyed about the way things are, too. Like Gene Roddenberry, Bienvenu is imagining a hopeful far-future, and a pretty miserable near-future that's a continuation of our miserable present (oh yeah, the 'Star Trek' creator foretold that the 21st century would be rough). The path ahead may be full of peril, but hope might still wait on the other side of that rainbow. And Bienvenu certainly gives us hope that animation can continue to be a vessel for epic visions and intimate musings, and can be one of the most deeply personal forms of cinematic expression there is. The artistic intentions couldn't be better. Maybe with the next film, the ability to better realize them will follow. 'Arco' premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution. Want to stay up to date on IndieWire's film and critical thoughts? to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers. Best of IndieWire The 25 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies, Ranked Every IndieWire TV Review from 2020, Ranked by Grade from Best to Worst
