Well before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered movie theaters entirely, action stars and filmmakers had already started flocking to Netflix. They gave Michael Bay a ton of money to make the nutty 6 Underground, and they let Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg reboot a classic character with Spenser Confidential, released earlier in March. Wahlberg apparently had such a good time that he’s heading back to the streaming giant for another go.
This comes from Variety, which reports that Wahlberg is in early talks to produce and star in Our Man in Jersey, in which the actor would play, as they put it, “a blue-collar 007 James Bond-type character.” The title is a twist on Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene’s classic comedic spy novel, about an agent who starts making up reports that he sends to his superiors. It’s not clear what the plot will be, but the script will come from David Guggenheim, who penned the 2012 Denzel Washington-Ryan Reynolds thriller Safe House as well as another, very different Netflix movie, The Christmas Chronicles, starring Kurt Russell.
Spenser Confidential was, as per Netflix, a big hit, watched by over 85 million households in its first six weeks, although since they only release select streaming data — and only when something does well — such claims are to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, if they’re willing to give Wahlberg more money to make the kind of fare that once filled multiplexes, it’s safe to assume at least someone’s watching him.
The two Percy Jackson arrived with mixed results, but fans of the books have long hoped that the beloved series would get a live-action adaptation that’s on par with the Harry Potter films. You might not know it, but the two series are neck-in-neck in popularity with young readers, so there’s a very good reason why news of a Percy Jackson series coming to Disney+ was met with a groundswell of excitement.
The reveal was delivered by Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan, who has been petitioning Disney to give his books a faithful adaptation once he learned the House of Mouse would acquire the live-action rights through its purchase of Fox, and it looks like his campaigning worked. Riordan posted a video on his Twitter account announcing the new series along with the following statement:
Hey Percy Jackson fans, for the past decade, you’ve worked hard to champion a faithful on-screen adaptation of Percy Jackson’s world. Some of you have even suggested it would be a great series for Disney Plus. We couldn’t agree more! We can’t say much more at this stage but we are very excited about the idea of a live-action series of the highest quality, following the storyline of the original Percy Jackson five-book series, starting with The Lightning Thief in season one. Rest assured that Becky & I will be involved in person in every aspect of the how. There will. be much more news in the future, but for now, we have a lot of work to do! Buckle up, demigods. It’s going to be a fantastic, exciting ride!
In an especially classy move, actor Logan Lerman, who played Percy in the films, offered his support for the project and joined fans in hoping for a series that will stay true to the books this time around.
Lerman is no doubt aware of Riordan’s displeasure with the Fox films. In a lengthy 2018 blog post, Riordan got very candid about how his attempts to “save” the first movie and even shared his emails to producers where he derided their attempts to “sex up” his books that were aimed at a 9-12 year old audience. The author also revealed a little known secret that even the biggest authors have very little say in Hollywood adaptations of their works. In the same post, Riordan expressed his hope that Disney would take another stab at the Percy Jackson series even while acknowledging that this could lead to yet another scenario where he’s not creatively involved. But it certainly looks like that’s not the case, and the author appears to be jazzed to bring the series to Disney+.
On May 11, 2020, a reporter from the Washington Post asked President Trump:
“Mr. President, in one of your Mother’s Day tweets you appear to accuse President Obama of ‘the biggest political crime in American history by far.’ Those were your words. What crime exactly are you accusing President Obama of committing, and do you believe the Justice Department should prosecute him?”
President Trump answered with the most tremendous non-answer in the history of non-answers:
“Obamagate. It’s been going on for a long time. It’s been going on from before I even got elected. And it’s a disgrace that it happened. And if you look at what’s gone on, and if you look at now, all of this information that’s being released. And from what I understand, that’s only the beginning. Some terrible things happened, and it should never be allowed to happen in our country again.
And you’ll be seeing what’s going on over the next — over the coming weeks. But I — and I wish you’d write honestly about it, but unfortunately, you choose not to do so.”
Miraculously unfazed by this response, the reporter asked again: “What is the crime exactly that you’re accusing him of?”
Trump refused to say what Obama did wrong, saying only, “You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody. All you have to do is read the newspapers—except yours.”
Take that, lamestream media! How dare a reporter ask the president questions? It’s only his job. And why would you expect the president to directly answer a question about something as mundane as accusing a former president of committing the worst political crime in history?
Clearly, if you’re a sitting president and you believe your predecessor committed a serious crime, a Tweet on Mother’s Day is exactly the place and time to announce it. Not.
And why would Trump have to even know that the crime is? We have thousands of conspiracy theory-pushing minions and Russian bots and ranting YouTubers to take care of those pesky details. Duh.
Besides, we don’t need an answer. We have ample photographic evidence of the heinous crimes Obama committed while he sat in the Oval Office. In fact, his own White House photographer has leaked a bunch of them on Instagram. (Thank goodness for social media or we’d never know what’s true!)
Pete Souza shared two collections of photos that are so damning you might want to sit down before you look at them.
Reaching over a glass shield at Chipotle? HE’S the one responsible for the spread of this pandemic, isn’t he? I bet he had the novel coronavirus dripping off of that finger. #ThanksObama
And just look at how sneaky he is. Did he not think we were going to notice him holding his wife’s hand? Does he think we’re all a bunch of gullible sheep? We can see the truth with our own eyes. WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO HIDE HERE?
Sitting on a desk? So immature and unpresidential. Thank goodness he’s not around to embarrass the nation and sully the office of the presidency with his press briefing meltdowns, Twitter tantrums, and cyberbullying anymore.
But this right here, this is the final straw. A tan suit? Does he think that just because he’s finer than fine, he can get away with whatever he wants? No. The American people will not stand for this affront to the rule of law.
If you swipe through the Instagram collections and view all of the evidence with an open mind, there’s no way you can say that the man doesn’t deserve hard jail time. He and everyone who was conspired with him in these outrageous crimes should be locked up.
After all, who would know better than the White House photographer—who also happened to be White House photographer for President Reagan—who followed the President around day in and day out for eight years and took 1.9 million photos? Nobody, that’s who.
Thank you for revealing the truth at the heart of Obamagate, Pete Souza. America deserves it.
The NBA wants to come to a resolution on restarting the 2019-20 season some time in the next 2-4 weeks. It’s a monumental task, one that involves figuring out a location (or locations) for games and acquiring the sheer number of COVID-19 tests necessary to make sure the league is 100 percent on top of any possible spreads of the virus that has touched every corner of the world over the last few months.
Of course, there is still a ton that we do not know about the virus and won’t know for some time, a gigantic hurdle for the league in its efforts to get back onto the floor. To that end, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban believes that the NBA will have look to its response to a previous pandemic for inspiration on how it can proceed safely.
Cuban will appear on Vice’s Shelter in Place with Sam Smith on Thursday evening. At one point, the Mavs owner was asked about how the league’s shutdown will hurt franchises, owners, and players, and while Cuban made clear he does not have a total number, there was a serious impact. He has no clue when that will change, but he does believe that some alterations to how basketball is played could be on the horizon.
“Back when Magic Johnson announced he had AIDS, there were a lot of players who said that they would not play with him,” Cuban said. “They didn’t understand how it could be transmitted, so they were all afraid. There was a rule that was put in place called the Blood Infection Rule. And what it says was any player that had blood on their uniform, that uniform had to be cleaned or changed out before they could return to play. That rule came into play in 1991 or 1992, it’s still in effect today. We’re going to see comparable things happen where there are rules established that we think are necessary in order to maintain the health and safety of everybody involved. We’ll figure out what those are and we’ll implement them.”
Cuban didn’t go into what these potential changes could entail, which makes sense, because there just is not enough that we know about this virus. Regardless, this is something that the league will assuredly have to figure out before getting into any sort of return to play, and if the proposed timeline for coming up with a plan is to be believed, it’ll have to figure this all out sometime in the next few weeks.
Future’s new album High Off Life releases in just a few short hours, but he’s still finding innovative ways to push its buzz. But rather than simply putting out a music video for a song from the album, Future found a more interactive way to tease the release, going as high-tech as he went lo-fi for the album’s cover.
The Atlanta star shared a link to a website that teases a “leaked track” from the new album, but there’s a catch; you have to find the right URL from a list of 149 along the left side of the screen. The URLs include http://www.highoff.life, http://www.highoff.love, http://www.highoff.porn, and http://www.highoff.work, but the song jumps from link to link, so we couldn’t give it away for you if we wanted. What we can reveal is this: The song in question features Lil Uzi Vert and only plays for 30 seconds before skipping to a new URL. Good luck.
Meanwhile, there’s still plenty of music from Future out there that’s much easier to get to. “Life Is Good,” the Drake-featuring lead single is out there, along with its DaBaby and Lil Baby-featuring remix. You can also check out Future’s verse on RMR’s “Dealer” remix and Future’s own “Tycoon.”
The Wrong Missy (Netflix movie) — Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions has unleashed it’s latest outrageous comedy upon the streaming giant. This film stars David Spade as a guy attempting to text-woo his dream lady at a corporate-island retreat, but then a blind date (Lauren Lapkus) shows up instead, and this ends up being an example of texting gone wrong. Will there be a happy ending from Happy Madison, though? Gotta watch to find out.
Katy Keene (CW, 8:00 p.m.) — Katy’s attempting to gain some clarity to nab some new opportunities, but unexpected opportunities prevail, which doesn’t sound like a bad thing. Pepper’s also attempting to make things work with Jorge and Josie.
In The Dark (CW, 9:00 p.m.) — Jess is growing suspicious of Felix’s meeings with Murphy, and Dean’s attempting to keep Chloe away from Murphy as well. This Murphy sounds like bad news!
Blindspot (NBC, 9:00 p.m.) — Tattooed Jane’s attempting outreach to gain access to a high-level conference, where tattoo intrigue probably awaits, or maybe just a nice trip outside the pandemic universe.
How to Get Away with Murder (ABC, 10:00 p.m.) — Analise must contend with a surprise witness, and Connor’s trying to persuade the K3 to adapt to a different plan.
Desus And Mero: Jesse Williams
Conan: Nikki Glaser
The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon: Chris Evans, Mo Willems, Maroon 5
The Late Late Show With James Corden: Tracy Morgan, Bazzi
While promoting his recent appearance on What We Do in the Shadows, Mark Hamill generously fielded some questions about the current state of Star Wars, particularly the upcoming season of The Mandalorian.
While Hamill isn’t involved with the hit Disney+ series in any way — although, it does take place five years after Return of the Jedi, which makes a Luke Skywalker cameo entirely possible — he was prompted by his kids to watch the show, and he very much enjoyed the minimalist approach. “I thought it was more in theme with what George wanted originally,” Hamill told Entertainment Tonight. He also showed that he’s still very much steeped in Star Wars lore when asked about the recent news that Boba Fett is reportedly appearing in the second season of The Mandalorian:
“I thought he was a decade into getting digested at this point,” Hamill quips after learning of the bounty hunter’s rumored return. “There’s so many ways they can go and John Favreau and Dave Filoni are both the right people for the job. They know it better than I do.”
Hamill is, of course, referring to Boba Fett’s “demise” in Return of the Jedi when the iconic bounty hunter was unceremoniously knocked into the Sarlacc Pit by a blind Han Solo. However, since the early ’90s, there have been countless Star Wars novels and comic book series that featured Fett surviving his fate and bouncing around the galaxy, but those stories were deemed non-canon following Disney’s purchase of the franchise.
In other words, Temuera Morrion‘s reported casting as Fett would be the first official confirmation that the classic character crawled out of the Sarlacc Pit to bounty hunt again. And if that sounds confusing, just wait until the show has to explain why Boba Fett isn’t actually a Mandalorian despite looking exactly like one. It’s going to be nerdtastic.
Previously on the Ins and Outs of AEW Dynamite: Jake Roberts reminded Brandi Rhodes why they call him “The Snake,” we plotted out Cody’s secret evilness, and Kenny Omega did a damn moonsault off a scissor lift.
If you’d like to keep up with this column and its thinly veiled Best and Worst format, you can keep tabs on the Ins and Outs of AEW Dynamite tag page. You can keep track of all things All Elite here.
And now, the Ins and Outs of All Elite Wrestling Dynamite for May 13, 2020.
Mostly In: Stone Code
On this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite, Cody Rhodes goes full Stone Cold Steve Austin by (1) driving a custom truck into the arena to stomp a mudhole in somebody’s ass — if you want to see Cody Rhodes stomp a mudhole in somebody’s ass, gimme a hell yeah — and by (2) being part of a championship match on pay-per-view with Mike Tyson handling the ceremonies. Not a fan of Tyson or the entire Mike Tyson “thing,” but maybe if you combine his tattoo and Cody’s it tells you the location of the Declaration of Independence.
Jake Roberts is wonderfully corrupt here, cutting a promo about how Brandi Rhodes deserved to have a snake briefly crawl on her because women are better off at home, and I quote, “wiping babies butts … diapering them.” He also directly states that watching Lance Archer wrestle gives him a boner, which makes me wonder if carrying around a snake in a bag and being untrustworthy is why they actually call him, “The Snake.” I also liked that in theory Cody would recklessly drive his cool truck into the arena and like, crawl out onto the hood so he could take a running dive into the ring onto Archer, but in practice, Cody’s just gently bumping a security railing and then getting out while ostensibly still in the back for the fight.
AEW
boop
I feel like Cody could’ve just gotten out of the truck in the parking lot and walked around that barricade and it would’ve done the same thing. It’s dramatic, though, and dramatic’s the point. I like that Cody was actually pissed and wanted to just show up and fight this dude for helping humiliate his wife instead of, I don’t know, going to the ring at the top of the show to recap the past few Dynamites for the benefit of no crowd.
All In: The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My (Best) Friend
The opening match of the night pits a duo of best friends who hang out with a weird third wheel and might get randomly attacked by sociopaths taking on a duo of best friends who hang out with a weird third wheel and might get randomly attacked by a sociopath. One of the teams has a dinosaur. It’s fun when you’re running concurrent outside interference finishes, though. It becomes a game of which side can benefit the most from disadvantageous cheating.
Orange Cassidy’s doing his Orange Cassidy thing, helping out and being tranquilo, when Rey Fénix pops in from quarantined oblivion and karate kicks him in the fucking pineal gland. It looks like the Best Friends are going to fall victim to the damned numbers game, but MJF, scheduled to face Jungle Boy at Double or Nothing, runs interference on the Express. He sneaks up behind “Jungle Jack Perry” ( Jim Ross), shoves him into the post, and rolls him back into the ring. Chuck Taylor was definitely looking right at this but isn’t above taking a short cut to win a match — F.I.S.T. forever — so he Awfully Waffles Jungle Jack to win the match.
After the match, Luchasaurus discovers that Wardlow & Associates has beaten up Mark Stunt, because the AEW roster lined up by height for the chance to bludgeon this kid and they’re working their way down.
It turns out Wardlow’s just beating up Marko for a friend, as he’s given his spot in the Marko murder lottery to someone at the BOTTOM of the height chart, MJF. Maxwell’s going to make an example out of Marko next week, which should work well in tandem with his attack on Jungle Boy to give the MJF and Jungle Jack pay-per-view match some spice. I think the AEW equivalent to, “Is Cate Blanchett actually good or is she just tall?” is, “is MJF actually good or is he just loud?” Should be fun. I wonder if Marko’s ever going to stop being the sacrificial lamb and show up to work with a switchblade?
These two matches set up Orange Cassidy vs. Fénix and MJF vs. Marko Stunt for next week, revitalized Death Triangle’s on-hold beef with the Best Friends, and added heat to the upcoming MJF/Jungle Boy match. Compare and contrast that with Raw, who had their top tag title challengers pretend to suck at funny basketball.
All In: Hikaru Keeps It Simple And Clean
My favorite match of the week was probably the women’s division fatal four-way, with Hikaru Shida pinning Penelope Ford and thereby also defeating Britt Baker and Kris Statlander to send a message to Nyla Rose and build momentum for a no count-out, no disqualification match at Double or Nothing. Everyone got time to shine, and while it wasn’t perfect — more on that in a second — it was 10 and a half minutes of action and good character moments, such as Dr. Britt throwing the match so she can do invasive dental work on the alien who didn’t appreciate her nose-booping, and Penelope Ford being too horny to win matches. Hoping Shida manages to unseat Nyla at Double or Nothing, mostly because of how folks should’ve be licking their hands as a wrestling taunt and then touching people during a global pandemic. That’s mostly a joke.
A Night Of (Almost) Broken Necks
Last night’s Dynamite was sponsored by Necks. Need something to break? Try Necks!
The first dangerous moment came during the women’s fatal four-way, when Penelope Ford tried to hit Kris Statlander with a poisoned rana. It looks like Statlander either flipped too early, lost her grip on Ford’s feet, or maybe Ford just bent back at the wrong angle or something because Statlander backflips directly onto the top of her own head. Here it is in slow motion GIF form. It’s like an assisted version of Christopher Daniels hurting himself on Nitro.
Then, because his pants are completely full of crazy, Sammy Guevara decides to sell a Twist of Fate with a full-on headstand.
AEW
At least that one happened on purpose. Be careful with your necks! Health care’s already terrifying enough right now as it is!
Oh My God, You Killed Vanguard-1, YOU BASTARDS
Matt Hardy gets a measure of revenge on the Inner Circle by teaming up with Kenny Omega to defeat Proud and Powerful at the end of the night, but he’ll be forever scarred by what happens afterward: the tragic and unforgivable on-screen murder of sentient drone Vanguard-1 by the Inner Circle, Office Space-style.
It starts with Chris Jericho, wearing a “Pineapple Pete” t-shirt, easily defeating Pineapple Pete with the Judas Effect. Every time someone on commentary mentions a fan or wrestling in the crowd, the should have to fight them. I want to see if Tom Phillips could take Brock Lesnar Guy.
Anyway, Jericho offers up a non-blood and non-guts-related challenge to The Elite: face the Inner Circle in a STADIUM STAMPEDE match, this spring. It’s almost like some sort of … spring Stampede. Involving a couple of guys from Winnipeg! So maybe it’s a Canadian Stampede? What a nice surprise on the same night In Your House returns as a concept. Vanguard-1 foolishly flies in to accept on The Elite’s behalf, as their official spokesperon is now a toy that learned to dream and feel, and Jericho beats it to death with a baseball bat. Talk shit get hit, you glorified Flutterbye Fairy.
AEW
My favorite part is Jake Hager draping the tiny Inner Circle t-shirt over Vanguard-1 like he’s a dead body, and the entire team getting down into a broken camera with propellers’ face to trash talk it. Wrestling is deeply, fantastically weird. COVID-19 took us from War Games to a quest to avenge the death of a quadcopter, but they’re making it work.
All In: Bro Down
Dark Order truther Christopher Daniels comes face to face with the man he thought didn’t exist, The Exalted One, gets his finisher buried with a one-count kickout, and gets his head taken off (figuratively, which I feel the need to add during this era of on-screen kayfabe wrestling deaths) with a discus lariat. It’s a nice callback to the feud that was probably going to happen before the world got fractured, and Daniels does everything in his playbook to make Brodie Lee look as indomitable as possible. This all sets up Jon Moxley arriving to try to get back his stolen AEW World Championship, but being unable to do so because Brodie’s got an entire multilevel marketing scheme full of dorks in masks. Next week Moxley will have to face “10,” who is the enemy that shows up when you’ve gone through two stages of Dark Order cronies and need a visual indicator that they’re getting harder.
Moxley’s gone from Jericho to Jack Swagger to Luke Harper. I hope his next three feuds are against Matt Hardy, Shawn Spears, and Dustin Rhodes. Maybe by then Erick Rowan and No Way Jose will be over here with monster gimmicks. This is meant to be sarcastic but none of this is a bad idea.
All In: Top 10 Comments Of The Week
AddMayne
Pdragon619
Insisting on being called AEW champion without earning it is the kind of Incel entitlement that’s perfectly on brand for the Dark Order
Mox storming in like a Chad to beat up the entire AV club
Real Birdman
I don’t want, I NEED Broken Matt Hardy throwing a bunch of smashed drone bits into a lake ASAP
I just want Brodie Lee to show up with a new 7 foot tall creeper with a giant red beard sticking out of his mask & nobody to address it
dannibalcorpse
more like vanguard done amirite
Mr. Bliss
Schiavone might be commentating with Excalibur but you know he’s thinking about Jericho the whole time.
SexCauldron
And thus begun Drone Whacking day in Florida
FeltLuke
Excuse me, I have to go update Jericho’s Wikipedia to note that he once committed Technocide.
JayBone2
Luchasaurus, Damascus Hardy and JR are all best friends and in their spare time (when not in quarantine) play shuffleboard, bridge and watch Murder She Wrote. They hate that Country Charm Buffet is closed right now too.
— All Elite Wrestling on TNT (@AEWonTNT) May 14, 2020
That does it for this week’s column. Thanks for reading about Dynamite! Leave us a comment below, give the column a share on social media, and make sure you’re back here next week for the emotional ramifications of drone murder, lucha libre Orange Cassidy, and the latest, critically acclaimed installment of Marko Stunt Gets Put In A Grave. See you then!
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Jim Ross), shoves him into the post, and rolls him back into the ring. Chuck Taylor was definitely looking right at this but isn’t above taking a short cut to win a match — F.I.S.T. forever — so he Awfully Waffles Jungle Jack to win the match.
