All posts tagged: Franchise

Call of Duty movie gets release date officially confirmed as mammoth gaming franchise heads to big screen

Call of Duty movie gets release date officially confirmed as mammoth gaming franchise heads to big screen

Published by Daniella Wilson

Gaming adaptations are ten a penny in Hollywood at the moment – and so it was only a matter of time before one of the biggest video game franchises of all time, Call of Duty, hit the big screen. And Paramount has now confirmed that the film adaptation of the games will be released in cinemas in just over two years time, with an official release date of Friday 30 June 2028 unveiled during the studio’s presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. The film is being directed by Peter Berg (Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon) and will be scripted by Taylor Sheridan, best known for his vast empire of US TV shows including Yellowstone, Tulsa King and Landman. Want to see this content? This page contains content provided by Google reCAPTCHA. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as Google reCAPTCHA may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, choose ‘Accept and continue’ to allow Google reCAPTCHA and its required purposes. Accept and continue In a video message that played during the …

Top Gun 3 officially confirmed after huge success of Maverick – and Tom Cruise’s future with franchise revealed

Top Gun 3 officially confirmed after huge success of Maverick – and Tom Cruise’s future with franchise revealed

Published by Daniella Wilson

A third Top Gun movie is officially in the works – and unsurprisingly, Tom Cruise will once again be back as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. The news was confirmed by Paramount during their presentation at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, while it was also revealed that veteran producer Jerry Bruckheimer is returning. It’s not yet clear who will be directing this next instalment, with Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski already attached to several other upcoming projects, including a Miami Vice remake and an untitled UFO conspiracy thriller. However, Mission: Impossible director and frequent Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie – who had a screenplay credit on the previous film along with Ehren Kruger and Eric Warren Singer – was previously revealed to be working on the script for the third entry. Want to see this content? This page contains content provided by Google reCAPTCHA. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as Google reCAPTCHA may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, choose ‘Accept and continue’ to allow Google reCAPTCHA and its required purposes. …

Why James Bond’s biggest ‘failure’ was actually a trailblazing moment for the 007 franchise

Why James Bond’s biggest ‘failure’ was actually a trailblazing moment for the 007 franchise

Published by Daniella Wilson

Add Licence to Kill to your watchlist It’s not often that you’ll see Licence to Kill celebrated as the best of Bond – too frequently, Timothy Dalton’s second outing as 007 languishes near the bottom of lists, written off as a misjudged attempt to compete with violent ’80s action cinema. The film strayed too far from the classic Bond formula, its critics would argue, and failed to connect with audiences as a result. Not helping its muddied reputation is the fact that following its release the Bond franchise went on a then-unprecedented six-year hiatus, with Dalton replaced as leading man when the series did eventually resume with 1995’s GoldenEye. It’s true that the film is a significant departure from what came before. Drawing more heavily on the source material of Ian Fleming’s novels than any movie in the series since the early Sean Connery entries, Licence to Kill sees Bond on a mission of vengeance, our hero ousted – at least temporarily – from MI6 as he seeks bloody retribution against Franz Sanchez (played by …

Rock League is giving curling its first true professional franchise league

Rock League is giving curling its first true professional franchise league

Published by Jenni Sidey

The sweepers are out front, and curling is trying to move faster than it ever has before. Just over a month after the Winter Olympics put the sport back in front of a huge global audience, the new Rock League is set to open in Toronto from April 6 to 12. It will offer something curling has never had before: a professional league built around franchises, team branding and a broadcast-ready format. The league will feature six mixed-gender franchises and events across men’s, women’s, mixed team and mixed doubles competition. According to The Curling Group, which operates the league, games will run about two hours. The company also owns the Grand Slam of Curling series. Additionally, it has brought in former Olympic champions Jennifer Jones and John Morris as strategic advisors for rosters and format. For chief executive Nic Sulsky, the timing was the point. The league will feature six mixed-gender franchises and events across men’s, women’s, mixed team and mixed doubles competition. (CREDIT: Rock League) “Curling is always among the most watched winter Olympic …

Gina Gershon says she turned down cult horror franchise over ‘exploitative’ topless scene

Gina Gershon says she turned down cult horror franchise over ‘exploitative’ topless scene

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Gina Gershon has said she was offered the lead role in the cult classic slasher Friday the 13th Part 2, but declined due to the film’s “exploitative” nude scene. Gershon, 63, made the revelation in her memoir, AlphaPussy: How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs, published earlier this month. “At the time, those kinds of slasher movies always had girls dying with their breasts exposed,” she wrote. “My character would be killed by a stake through the heart, blood dripping down her tits. That seemed pretty lame to me: exploitation 101.” The role would have been her onscreen debut. “And of course, I was so excited to act in movies,” she told Fox News in a new interview. However, the character’s death scene in the 1981 film “definitely felt kind of exploitative to me and a little …

Project Hail Mary flies past huge sci-fi franchise to become highest grossing film of the year in the US

Project Hail Mary flies past huge sci-fi franchise to become highest grossing film of the year in the US

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Project Hail Mary is still soaring at the box office — and has overtaken a major franchise to become the highest-grossing Hollywood film of the year. Ryan Gosling’s sci-fi flick brought in $54.5 million in its second weekend, bringing its domestic gross to $164.3 million and putting it at the top of the United States box office chart for 2026, according to studio estimates Sunday. The blockbuster overtook James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash, which had dominated the box office for the first three months of the year. The Avatar franchise’s latest installment, which was released in December, has earned $153.7 million domestically so far in 2026. Project Hail Mary, directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, has broken several records already in its two-week run. The Amazon MGM film cost $200 million to make and has already grossed $300.8 million …

Will there be more Dune spin-offs? HBO boss speaks on franchise future

Will there be more Dune spin-offs? HBO boss speaks on franchise future

Published by Daniella Wilson

HBO boss Casey Bloys has addressed the future of the Dune TV universe, suggesting that while more spin-offs are possible, the network is taking a careful, quality-first approach. Dune: Prophecy, a prequel to the Denis Villeneuve films Dune and Dune: Part Two, premiered on HBO in November 2024, with a second season now in the works. Fans have already begun speculating about what other stories from the franchise could make it to screen, but Bloys (chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content) made clear that nothing is being rushed into production. “I think with all of these properties, you could see… I mean, putting aside that there are various constraints about what you can and can’t do, show-by-show… but I think with any show, you can imagine various prequels, sequels, whatever,” he told Radio Times. “But even with that, I go back to… I look at it script-by-script. You know, just because something is big IP in terms of viewership or fan base, nothing guarantees that people are going to tune in… well, maybe …

Lucifer favourite Tom Ellis’s latest US show set in established TV franchise gets future confirmed

Lucifer favourite Tom Ellis’s latest US show set in established TV franchise gets future confirmed

Published by Daniella Wilson

Fans of Tom Ellis’s latest US venture CIA will be pleased to hear it has been given the greenlight for a second season. The spin-off show, set in the well established FBI universe, stars the Lucifer actor as CIA Agent Colin Glass alongside American actor Nick Gehlfuss, known for Shameless and Chicago Med, as FBI Special Agent Bill Goodman. It follows the unlikely partnership between the pair as they tackle threats to national security, pairing a rule-breaking intelligence officer with a more by-the-book FBI agent. CIA only debuted last month with its first season still currently airing, but has already been renewed. Its launch was received well by fans of the TV franchise, pulling in 8.4 million viewers across broadcast and streaming within its first seven days. Nick Gehlfuss and Tom Ellis. CBS The official synopsis for the show reads: “When by-the-book FBI Special Agent Bill Goodman (Nick Gehlfuss) is loaned out to a clandestine CIA/FBI task force, he finds himself teamed up with secretive and roguish CIA case officer Colin Glass (Tom Ellis). “Together they …

Bachelorette alum Rachel Lindsay claims franchise is ‘over’ after season gets pulled

Bachelorette alum Rachel Lindsay claims franchise is ‘over’ after season gets pulled

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Former Bachelorette lead Rachel Lindsay has claimed that the franchise is “tainted” after Taylor Frankie Paul’s upcoming season of the dating show was canceled. ABC pulled the series Thursday after a violent video of Paul’s 2023 assault involving her ex, Dakota Mortensen, was leaked just days before the season was slated to premiere and prompted widespread backlash. Lindsay, who became the first Black woman to lead the show during season 13, has claimed the series cannot move forward after the events that unfolded in the past week. “I think it’s over,” she said during Friday’s episode of her podcast, Bachelor Party. “I was trying to think of a scenario where it could be different. Because this isn’t just, ‘Oh, we put it all on a person. This person did this.’ This is the system that allowed this to happen.” The Independent …

Time to End the ‘Bachelor’ Franchise After Taylor Frankie Paul Scandal

Time to End the ‘Bachelor’ Franchise After Taylor Frankie Paul Scandal

Published by Daniella Wilson

ABC and Warner Horizon, the network and studio behind The Bachelor franchise, knew about Taylor Frankie Paul‘s guilty plea on a 2023 assault charge when they hired her to lead season 22 of The Bachelorette. The incident involving her ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen was, after all, a story point in the very first episode of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, the Hulu reality show that brought Paul and her fellow “MomTok” influencers a much larger degree of fame than they previously had on social media. The case initially carried charges of domestic violence in the presence of a child and misdemeanor child abuse, both of which were dropped in exchange for Paul’s guilty plea to aggravated assault. News reports from the time indicate that police saw video footage of the altercation and that it showed Paul’s then-5-year-old daughter was struck when she threw a metal chair at Mortensen. But until Thursday, when TMZ published the video, ABC was going full steam ahead in promoting Paul and The Bachelorette. A preview of the season aired after …