• Paul Schrader — the 79-year-old writer-director behind Taxi Driver, First Reformed, and The Card Counter — delivered the keynote at the fourth annual AI on the Lot conference at Amazon/MGM Studios in Culver City on Thursday, despite facing backlash from fellow artists when he announced he would speak
• Schrader predicted that AI-generated synthetic performers will eventually become genuine box office draws, arguing that the real commercial future of AI in film is not visual effects but fully artificial protagonists: “The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist, not a hybrid, and that movie makes money”
• “You do the new Clint Eastwood via text prompt,” he told the audience — sketching a future in which studios generate star-caliber performances digitally rather than hiring actors
• Schrader warned that Hollywood is “barely keeping a step ahead of the monster” on AI, and used the speech to question whether film schools and extras will remain relevant as the technology matures

Paul Schrader knew the invite was going to cause problems. When he posted on Facebook that he would keynote the AI on the Lot conference, the response from fellow writers and artists was, in his words, swift and hostile. “There was very much of a backlash,” he told the audience Thursday morning on a soundstage at the Amazon/MGM Studios lot in Culver City. “A lot of negative comments. Some of them were in fact insulting.” He went anyway — and laid out a vision of the film industry’s future that did nothing to soften that reception.

His central argument: the AI revolution in Hollywood isn’t really about monsters and spectacle. “I don’t think the real future of AI commercially is in all this flash, all these monsters — that’s just jacked-up special effects on steroids,” he said. “The real tip of the spear is when we can create an AI protagonist, not a hybrid, and that movie makes money.” He predicted audiences will eventually embrace fully synthetic stars the way they’ve embraced any new kind of performer, per The Hollywood Reporter.

‘The New Clint Eastwood Via Text Prompt’

The most quotable moment of the speech came when Schrader described what AI star-making could look like in practice: “You do the new Clint Eastwood via text prompt.” The line crystallized his argument that the end state of AI in entertainment isn’t a tool for filmmakers — it’s a replacement for the star system itself. Schrader also questioned whether studios still need to pay extras at all, and predicted upheaval for film schools as the craft knowledge they teach becomes less essential, per Deadline.

The LA Times reported that Schrader described Hollywood as “barely keeping a step ahead of the monster” — a framing that positions AI not as a tool the industry controls but as a force it is running from. Schrader, who has previously said he “procured an online AI girlfriend” (who he says dumped him), is an unusual advocate: an old-school auteur genuinely engaged with the technology rather than dismissing it, per the Los Angeles Times.

The post Paul Schrader Says AI Protagonists Will Be Box Office Draws: ‘You Do the New Clint Eastwood Via Text Prompt’ appeared first on Cream.

• Lionsgate announced Thursday that John Rambo — the origin story prequel to the Sylvester Stallone franchise — will open in theaters on June 4, 2027
• Noah Centineo stars in the title role, taking over the character Stallone originated in 1982’s First Blood; James Franco co-stars, and the film is directed by Jalmari Helander, who broke out internationally with the Finnish action film Sisu
• The film will open the weekend after Disney/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: Starfighter, the Ryan Gosling-led Star Wars film directed by Shawn Levy, making for a high-stakes early summer frame
• The story is set before the events of First Blood, exploring the formative backstory of the iconic soldier character

The new John Rambo has a date. Lionsgate announced Thursday that John Rambo — the prequel origin story starring Noah Centineo in the title role — will hit theaters on June 4, 2027, per Deadline.

The film is directed by Jalmari Helander, the Finnish filmmaker who generated serious action-movie buzz with Sisu, his 2022 WWII revenge thriller. His sensibility — brutalist, kinetic, unsparing — makes him an interesting choice for a franchise that has historically traded in the same qualities. Centineo, best known for his rom-com work in the To All the Boys franchise, takes on the physically and tonally demanding task of playing a young John Rambo before the events of Stallone’s First Blood. James Franco co-stars.

The June 4 date positions the film in the week after Star Wars: Starfighter — the Ryan Gosling-led Lucasfilm project directed by Shawn Levy — which is tracking as one of the biggest releases of 2027. Opening in its wake is a calculated play: let the Star Wars audience clear the multiplexes, then capture the action crowd looking for something next, per Collider.

The Franchise Math

The Rambo series has spanned five films since 1982, with Stallone appearing in all of them through 2019’s Rambo: Last Blood. A prequel with a new lead is a different kind of bet — Lionsgate is essentially asking audiences to accept a recast of one of action cinema’s most recognizable faces. Centineo’s casting has drawn varying reactions since it was announced, per Just Jared. The June 2027 date gives the film roughly a year of runway to build its case.

The post Noah Centineo’s ‘John Rambo’ Prequel Has a Release Date: June 4, 2027 appeared first on Cream.

• Bandai SH Figuarts action figure listings have leaked plot details for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, describing Peter Parker as living “alone, erased from everyone’s memory” and undergoing “uncontrollable transformations” — language widely interpreted as pointing toward a Man-Spider arc
• A separate figure listing confirms Savage Hulk (not Smart Hulk) will appear in the film; Mark Ruffalo’s presence as Bruce Banner was shown in the first trailer, but Marvel had not officially confirmed his green alter ego would appear
• The film is also bringing back organic web-shooting — a power Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man had in Sam Raimi’s trilogy but that never carried over to Tom Holland’s MCU version, which uses mechanical web-shooters
• Kevin Feige told press the film is “focused on the classic elements of Spider-Man” — a significant reset from the cosmic and multiversal stakes of Holland’s previous three films
• Brand New Day, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, is releasing this summer; the cast includes the Hulk, the Punisher, Tombstone, and Scorpion, alongside new images spotlighting Daredevil villain connections

Two months out from release, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is keeping most of its plot under wraps. That changed this week — not through an official Marvel announcement, but through toy listings.

Bandai’s SH Figuarts line of action figures, sourced via French retailer France-Figures, included product descriptions that are doing a lot of narrative heavy lifting. Per ComingSoon, the Peter Parker figure’s description reads: “Peter Parker lives alone, erased from everyone’s memory. In Brand New Day, he faces new threats in New York while undergoing uncontrollable transformations.” A separate listing for a Hulk figure confirms he appears in Savage form — the out-of-control green version, not the calm, articulate Smart Hulk seen in recent MCU entries.

The “uncontrollable transformations” language, combined with the teaser footage that showed Parker with black eyes and what appeared to be organic webbing growing from his wrists, has fed months of speculation that the film will feature a Man-Spider arc — a storyline from the comics in which Peter Parker’s spider-half begins to take over his human biology. Nothing has been officially confirmed, but the toy copy isn’t exactly subtle.

Back to Basics — With a Twist

Kevin Feige, speaking to press ahead of the film, framed Brand New Day as a deliberate course correction after three films that sent Spider-Man to space, into the multiverse, and up against Thanos. “Brand New Day is focused on the classic elements of Spider-Man,” Feige told Comic Book Movie. Peter Parker is back in New York, broke and anonymous, fighting street-level crime after the events of No Way Home wiped him from everyone’s memory.

Part of that classicism includes a notable callback: organic web-shooting is returning. In Sam Raimi’s trilogy, Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man generated webs biologically, a controversial departure from the comics that many fans actually came to love. Holland’s MCU Spider-Man has always used mechanical web-shooters built by Tony Stark. The return of organic webbing — apparently tied to Peter’s physical changes in the film — reconnects the character to both the Raimi era and his comic origins simultaneously.

The full cast picture is still coming into focus. Images released this week spotlight connections to Daredevil’s villain world. Confirmed appearances include the Hulk (in Savage form, per the toy leak), the Punisher, Tombstone, and Scorpion. Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, is at the helm. Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives in theaters this summer.

The post Toy Leaks Just Revealed Major ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Plot Details — Savage Hulk, Organic Webs, and a Man-Spider Transformation appeared first on Cream.

• The final trailer for Disclosure Day — Steven Spielberg’s first sci-fi film in eight years — dropped Thursday, and Spielberg himself narrates it, saying: "I am much more inclined now than I was when I made Close Encounters to really believe that we’re not the only intelligent civilization in the universe"
• Early critic screenings are generating significant buzz: Collider’s Steve Weintraub called it "another towering home run," adding that Emily Blunt is "incredible" and the film could factor into awards season
• The film stars Emily Blunt as Margaret, a Kansas City weather anchor whose eyes are opened by a strange experience on live television, and Josh O’Connor as Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity expert turned government whistleblower threatening to release proof of alien life
• The cast also includes Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, and Eve Hewson; the screenplay is by David Koepp, who previously wrote Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for Spielberg; John Williams is scoring
• Disclosure Day opens in theaters June 12 from Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment; fans are already speculating it may be a secret sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Steven Spielberg has been quiet on the sci-fi front for eight years. That ends June 12.

Universal Pictures dropped the final trailer for Disclosure Day on Thursday, and it comes with something unexpected: Spielberg himself on camera, speaking directly to the audience. "I am much more inclined now than I was when I made Close Encounters to really believe that we’re not the only intelligent civilization in the universe," he says, before the film’s footage takes over.

The premise follows Daniel Kellner — played by Josh O’Connor — a cybersecurity expert who has stolen long-held government secrets about proof of living beings not from Earth and threatens to release them to the public. Emily Blunt plays Margaret, a Kansas City weather anchor who gets drawn into the story after something strange happens to her on live television. The official synopsis frames it simply: "If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? This summer, the truth belongs to seven billion people. We are coming close to … Disclosure Day."

The final trailer is the first to show the aliens directly — previous trailers leaned into mystery and suggestion. What’s on screen, per ComingSoon, confirms Spielberg is "ready to fully lean into the extraterrestrial aspect."

The Early Reactions

Critics who’ve seen the film early are not being quiet about it. "In a shock to absolutely no one, Steven Spielberg has delivered another towering home run with Disclosure Day," Collider’s Steve Weintraub wrote. "I could go on and on about what I loved, but I was lucky enough to see the movie knowing almost nothing, and I strongly recommend you do the same. Stop watching the trailers. The one thing I will say: Emily Blunt is incredible."

CBR’s roundup of early reactions describes the film as "top tier Spielberg" and notes the early consensus that Blunt’s performance could put her in the awards conversation — an unusual development for a summer blockbuster.

The Team Behind It

The script comes from David Koepp, who has worked with Spielberg more than any other living writer. His Spielberg credits include Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The film is produced by Kristie Macosko Krieger, whose recent credits include The Fabelmans and West Side Story, and John Williams is returning to score — his first Spielberg film since The Fabelmans in 2022.

Spielberg’s alien films have a particular legacy: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and War of the Worlds (2005) are all part of it, and the new trailer’s deliberate callbacks to that history have fans speculating that Disclosure Day may be a stealth continuation of that universe. No confirmation from the studio, but the conversation is already running.

Disclosure Day opens June 12 from Universal Pictures. Tickets are on sale now.

The post Spielberg’s ‘Disclosure Day’ Gets Early Raves — Emily Blunt Is Already in the Awards Conversation appeared first on Cream.

• ElevenLabs has partnered with Stan Lee Universe to add the late Marvel Comics legend to its Iconic Marketplace — a commercial licensing platform featuring AI-generated celebrity voices and likenesses
• Lee’s AI voice, built from professional recordings, will narrate audiobooks through the Eleven Reader app, starting with Treasure Island as the first entry in the new Stan Lee Book Club of the Month
• His likeness is also available in comic book panel-inspired templates, available to users starting Wednesday
• Stan Lee Universe is a joint venture between Genius Brands International and POW! Entertainment — the latter being the company Lee founded after his Marvel era
• Fan reaction on social media has been largely negative, with responses on X ranging from “corny” and “weird” to “even in death he’s still being exploited”

Stan Lee died in November 2018. This week, his voice showed up in an AI product catalog.

ElevenLabs — the AI audio company that raised $500 million at an $11 billion valuation — has announced a partnership with Stan Lee Universe to add Lee to its Iconic Marketplace, a commercial licensing platform where companies can pay to use AI-generated celebrity voices. The deal covers Lee’s voice, his image, and his likeness. Per Variety, ElevenLabs built the voice model using professional recordings of Lee made during his lifetime.

Stan Lee Universe is a joint venture between Genius Brands International and POW! Entertainment — the company Lee founded after his Marvel era — built specifically to manage and license his name, likeness, and intellectual property. His estate had already granted Marvel Studios the rights to use his likeness in films and at Disney parks back in 2022. This deal extends that logic considerably further: instead of controlled appearances in specific Marvel productions, his voice is now available as a licensable commercial product.

What the Deal Actually Lets You Do

Through the partnership, companies can license Lee’s AI voice and likeness for commercial projects. Individual users get access to comic book panel-inspired templates featuring his image. And through ElevenLabs’ Eleven Reader app, listeners can hear audiobooks narrated in Lee’s voice — the first title in the new Stan Lee Book Club of the Month is Treasure Island, scheduled for next month.

ElevenLabs also included superhero-themed music presets in the package — presets with names like “Superhero Cinematic Swells” and “Retro Hero Fanfare” — for anyone who wants an authentic comic-book soundtrack alongside the AI voice. Lee shares the Iconic Marketplace alongside Michael Caine, David Hasselhoff, Judy Garland, John Wayne, Ricardo Montalban, and Albert Einstein.

Chaz Rainey, an attorney and board member for Stan Lee Universe, framed the partnership as an extension of how Lee engaged with fans in life: “Stan always believed in meeting his fans where they were: in the pages of a comic, at a convention, or in a quick on-screen cameo. This partnership is a way of continuing that. Fans have always told us that when they read his comics, they hear the words in Stan’s voice, and now, thanks to ElevenLabs, we can make that a reality.”

The Reaction

The announcement landed with mixed to hostile reception online. On X, responses to posts about the deal included words like “corny” and “weird,” and at least one user wrote simply: “Even in death he’s still being exploited.” Others directed criticism at Lee’s family and associates for allowing the likeness acquisition — a charged topic, since multiple people close to Lee in his final years have faced accusations of behavior that AARP has described as potentially consistent with elder abuse.

The deal arrives at a moment when the broader AI-likeness conversation is particularly fraught. SAG-AFTRA fought a nearly four-month strike in 2023 in part over AI protections for living performers, and that fight is ongoing. Using the voices and images of people who can no longer consent to any of it adds a layer the union contract negotiations haven’t fully addressed.

Lee co-created Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four, among dozens of other characters. He was 95 when he died. A generation of Marvel fans knows him as much from his cameos as from the comics — the quick appearances in nearly every MCU film, always delighted, always in on the joke. Whether an AI audiobook narration of Treasure Island is a fitting continuation of that legacy or something else entirely is the question fans seem to be arguing about right now.

The post Stan Lee’s Voice Is Back — ElevenLabs Just Licensed It, and Fans Are Not Happy appeared first on Cream.

• Collider’s Summer Preview dropped a new image of Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El flying hands-forward in full Supergirl costume — fans immediately compared it to the iconic Christopher Reeve Superman gatefold pose from 1978
• James Gunn also shared a behind-the-scenes photo of Alcock alongside David Corenswet, the first image of the two Kryptonian cousins together on set
• New TV spots have debuted showing Superman and Supergirl’s first on-screen meeting, which is a major moment for the DCU’s second year
• Supergirl hits theaters this summer from Warner Bros., following directly from last year’s Superman; the film also stars Eve Ridley and Matthias Schweighöfer
• Before Supergirl arrives, My Adventures with Superman Season 3 premieres in June — giving DC fans their Superman fix first

The new Supergirl image does exactly what a good superhero photo is supposed to do: it makes the character feel inevitable.

Collider released the exclusive look as part of their Summer 2026 preview, and the image of Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El — arms stretched forward, in full flight — landed with immediate force. Superman Homepage noted the obvious parallel right away: the pose mirrors the famous Christopher Reeve gatefold image from the 1978 Superman: The Movie soundtrack release. Hands forward, full speed, unstoppable. It’s a deliberate echo, and it works.

James Gunn added to the week’s DC energy by sharing a behind-the-scenes photo on social media featuring Alcock alongside David Corenswet — the first image of the two Kryptonian cousins together. Gunn had originally posted the same photo back in 2025, but the repost landed differently now, with Supergirl‘s theatrical release weeks away and anticipation at its highest point yet.

Where We Left Kara

Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El was introduced in last year’s Superman, James Gunn’s DCU reboot starring Corenswet as Clark Kent. When the credits rolled, Kara was picking up Krypto from Clark’s after a weekend of heavy drinking on some Red Sun planets — where, as A.V. Club’s preview notes, her alcohol tolerance doesn’t hold up the way it does under a yellow sun. It was a light, character-establishing moment that told you this version of Supergirl was going to be different from previous iterations.

In her solo film, she’ll be paired with Ruthye (Eve Ridley) on a quest to hunt down Krem of the Yellow Hills, played by Matthias Schweighöfer. The story leans into the DCU’s intergalactic side — further from Metropolis, further from the familiar Earth-bound superhero template. New TV spots have started surfacing that preview Superman and Supergirl’s first real meeting in the film, which is the kind of scene the internet will be dissecting frame by frame before the opening weekend arrives.

The Buildup

DC Studios is managing the rollout carefully. Before Supergirl opens, My Adventures with Superman returns for its third season in June — the animated series had been on a two-year hiatus, and its comeback gives fans an earlier return to the Superman universe while the theatrical marketing ramps up.

The brand extension goes further. Ulta Beauty has launched a DC Studios collaboration tied to the film, with three Supergirl-inspired makeup collections — Power Glam (bold blue eyeshadow, sharp liner), Grunge Romance (smudged shadow, blurred berry lip), and Iconic Shimmer (playful shine). It’s the kind of lifestyle tie-in that signals a studio betting on a character landing as more than just a box office event.

After Superman became the DCU’s most-discussed relaunch in years, the pressure on Supergirl is real. Gunn is betting that Alcock — who came into the role already carrying critical momentum from House of the Dragon — can hold a film on her own. The new image suggests she’s ready.

Supergirl opens in theaters this summer from Warner Bros.

The post Milly Alcock’s Supergirl Has a New Image — and It’s Giving Full Christopher Reeve appeared first on Cream.

• A24 dropped the first teaser trailer for Primetime, in which Robert Pattinson plays To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen — the film is set in 2006, the year the show both peaked and imploded
• Director Lance Oppenheim (Ren Faire, Some Kind of Heaven) makes his narrative feature debut; script by Ajon Singh
• Co-stars include Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Anna Faris, and Phoebe Bridgers; Pattinson is also a producer
• Ari Aster’s producing partner Lars Knudsen is among the producers; the film is an A24 release targeting Fall 2026 — likely awards season
• This is Pattinson’s fifth film of the year: he’s already got The Drama, The Odyssey, Dune: Part Three, and Here Comes the Flood — plus The Batman: Part II in production for 2027

The first thing you notice isn’t the face. It’s the voice.

In the new teaser trailer for Primetime, A24’s upcoming film about To Catch a Predator, Robert Pattinson opens his mouth and what comes out is an uncanny reconstruction of Chris Hansen — the flat Midwestern delivery, the performative gravity, the slight edge of a man who knows the cameras are rolling. Hollywood Reporter described it as Pattinson taking on Hansen’s “vocal patterns and tics with an eerie, off-kilter precision.” That lands. The vocal transformation is the whole show in this teaser, and it suggests something genuinely strange is coming in the fall.

The Film

The logline is short: “In 2006, To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen sets out to make television history.” It tells you almost nothing and everything at the same time.

For anyone who needs the background: To Catch a Predator was a segment on Dateline NBC that ran from 2004 to 2007, eventually spinning off into its own series. The format was ritualistic — Hansen and a camera crew, working with law enforcement and adult decoys posing as minors online, would lure suspected predators to a sting house, then Hansen would walk in and deliver the confrontation. “You see how this looks, right?” Pattinson’s Hansen asks in the trailer. “At the end of the day, a man must be held accountable for the decisions that he makes.” The show ran for 20 episodes and drew millions of viewers per installment before becoming one of the most-watched true crime franchises in early YouTube history.

2006 was its apex and its collapse. In November of that year, Kaufman County assistant district attorney Bill Conradt shot himself as law enforcement and an NBC camera crew approached his home as part of a sting in Murphy, Texas. The operation had already yielded 25 arrests. Conradt’s death prompted the local district attorney to decline prosecution on all cases from the sting, triggered a wrongful death lawsuit from Conradt’s family, and led directly to the show’s cancellation. Deadline noted the trailer’s resemblance in texture to Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler — “Jake Gyllenhaal as a shady, ambulance-chasing L.A. stringer” — and the parallel is sharp. Both films appear to ask what happens when someone optimizes for camera-ready drama regardless of what it costs in the real world.

The point of view of Primetime isn’t explicit in the teaser. But the final line Pattinson delivers — “I’m Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC, and you’re about to be a part of television history” — carries a chill that doesn’t feel like admiration.

The Director

Lance Oppenheim is not a household name yet, but among people who pay attention to documentary filmmaking, he’s been one to watch. His 2020 film Some Kind of Heaven observed the retirees of a Florida retirement community with a mixture of warmth and existential dread that was hard to shake. Ren Faire, his 2024 HBO series, tracked the eccentric king of the Texas Renaissance Festival across a single year and turned into one of the stranger character studies in recent nonfiction television.

Primetime is his first narrative feature. The script is by Ajon Singh. Producers include Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Fred Berger, Pattinson himself, Brighton McCloskey, Lars Knudsen (Ari Aster’s producing partner, who has been attached to some of the more interesting A24 projects in recent years), and Tyler Campellone. TheWrap also noted that Ari Aster is among the producers, which tells you something about the tone this film is apparently going for.

The Cast

Beyond Pattinson as Hansen, the film stars Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Anna Faris, and Phoebe Bridgers. Wever has spent the last several years doing the kind of character work that earns critical attention without always getting mainstream traction; Gisondo has been quietly impressive in supporting roles for years. Bridgers is a notable presence — she’s appeared in a handful of film and TV roles but this is the kind of project that suggests someone is being taken seriously as an actor, not just a musician with a SAG card.

Pattinson’s Year

At this point the list of Robert Pattinson’s 2026 films sounds like something a publicist invented to win a bet.

The Drama, his first A24 collaboration of the year alongside Zendaya, became the studio’s fourth-highest grossing film of all time — behind Marty Supreme, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Civil War. Hollywood Reporter’s review praised his “natural, appealing performance, convincingly playing a relatively normal guy who begins to realize that his comfortable life with his quirky dream girl is not nearly as settled, or normal, as he once thought.”

After that: Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this summer. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three later in the year. Fernando Meirelles’ Here Comes the Flood with Denzel Washington. And now Primetime in the fall, which BroBible pointed out will be Pattinson’s fifth film this year — before he wraps The Batman: Part II for Matt Reeves, which began production earlier this month with a 2027 target.

The man who spent years politely escaping the shadow of Twilight is now, improbably, one of the most in-demand actors working. That he’s doing it by playing a Midwestern TV journalist who made his name catching child predators on camera — and doing it for the same studio that gave him his career renaissance — is the kind of detail that feels too fitting to be coincidence.

Primetime does not yet have an official release date. A24 says fall 2026. Given the company’s history with awards season, that probably means it won’t stay quiet for long.

The post Robert Pattinson Is Unrecognizable as Chris Hansen in the First Trailer for A24’s Primetime — and His 2026 Is Just Getting Started appeared first on Cream.

• A24’s Backrooms is in theaters now, directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons (YouTube: Kane Pixels), whose original web series racked up 78 million views
• Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Clark, a failing furniture store owner who stumbles through a wall and into an endless liminal nightmare; Renate Reinsve plays his therapist
• James Wan and Osgood Perkins are among the producers
• Critical consensus: the atmosphere and dread are genuinely exceptional — the storytelling is where reviewers are split
• Collider called it “near-flawless”; Polygon said it’s “the best horror movie since Weapons“; Hollywood Reporter called it “creepy but underbaked”

In 2019, someone posted a photo to 4chan. Just a photo — a big, carpeted room with fluorescent lights, everything cast in a sickly shade of yellow. A second poster gave it a name and a mythology in a single paragraph:

“If you’re not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in.”

That’s it. That was the whole thing. No author. No story. Just dread in paragraph form.

Five years later, a teenager named Kane Parsons turned it into a YouTube web series that got 78 million views. Now he’s 20, and A24 just released his feature film.

The Movie

Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is not doing well. His furniture store — Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire — has no customers. His wife kicked him out. He’s been sleeping in the shop and seeing a therapist named Mary (Renate Reinsve) to cope. The film is set in 1990 California, and the specificity of the period and setting gives it an anchored, lived-in feel before everything comes apart.

One night, checking the circuit breaker in the store’s basement, Clark walks through a wall.

What’s on the other side is the Backrooms: never-ending chambers lined with yellow wallpaper and fluorescent lighting, like vacant office spaces designed by someone who only half-remembered what offices look like. There are piles of furniture. Shrunken doors. A stop sign. A cardboard cutout with a cassette player saying hello in different languages. Clark eventually describes the place as though it was “made by a bunch of construction workers on acid.”

James Wan and Osgood Perkins are among the producers. The cast is genuinely arthouse-caliber for what started as a meme.

What Critics Are Saying

The reviews are split in an interesting way — not good-vs-bad, but more like: the first two acts versus the third.

Collider was the most effusive, calling it a “near-flawless horror film that demands to be seen” and pointing to the broader wave of YouTuber filmmakers making serious genre work — the Philippou Brothers with Talk to Me, Mark Fishbach’s Iron Lung — as evidence that Parsons isn’t an outlier. He’s the next wave.

Polygon was nearly as enthusiastic, putting it alongside Zach Cregger’s Weapons as the best horror of the year so far: “deeply unnerving… haunting… leaves lingering shivers and ongoing anxieties.” The key observation there is that the film is smart enough to leave mysteries intact — not every corner of the Backrooms needs to be explained, and Parsons knows it.

Hollywood Reporter took the more cautious read. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve are bona fide arthouse stars, the studio is buzzy, the concept is genuinely unnerving — but the storytelling is “underbaked.” The Backrooms, as internet mythology, was always more atmosphere than narrative, and the film has trouble converting that into a satisfying third act.

CBR landed somewhere in the middle: the dread is real, the thread gets lost. MovieWeb used almost the same language — “eerie and atmospheric” but “loses its own message.”

The AP review cut to the core of it: “Where Backrooms came from is more interesting — and potentially meaningful — than the result.” That’s not a dismissal. It’s an acknowledgment that the origin story is genuinely remarkable and the film captures something genuine — it just can’t quite figure out what to do once it has you inside.

Why Kane Parsons Matters

To understand the scale of what Parsons has done, you have to understand where he started. His YouTube channel (Kane Pixels) began posting Backrooms shorts when he was still a teenager. The videos are found-footage fragments — mostly atmospheric, mostly unexplained, almost no conventional narrative. They suggest a larger world without building one. They scared people anyway. The most popular episode hit 78 million views.

CBR noted the context directly: “We’re in a veritable golden age of indie original horror, and 2026 might be its apex.” The year has already produced Iron Lung, Hokum, and Obsession. Backrooms is the one with the most mythology behind it and, now, the most debate in front of it.

Twenty years old. A24. Chiwetel Ejiofor. A 4chan post from 2019.

Whatever you think of how the film sticks its landing, that sentence is still going to need a minute to sink in.

The post A24’s Backrooms Reviews Are In: Kane Parsons Made a Horror Film at 20 That Critics Can’t Stop Arguing About appeared first on Cream.

• Early tracking for Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow projects a $47M–$65M domestic opening weekend
• The film cost $175M to produce plus an estimated $75M in marketing — putting break-even around $500M globally
• It opens June 26 and is the second film in James Gunn’s rebooted DC Universe after Superman
• Milly Alcock stars as Kara Zor-El; the film is directed by Craig Gillespie
• Analysts note the numbers would fall significantly below last year’s Superman debut

The early numbers for Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow are making people nervous.

Box Office Theory projections cited by industry observers suggest the Warner Bros. film — opening June 26 — is currently tracking for a domestic debut somewhere between $47 million and $65 million. For a superhero tentpole with a $175 million production budget and roughly $75 million more in marketing costs, that puts break-even around $500 million globally. A $65 million opening doesn’t get you there.

The figures would also represent a significant step down from last year’s Superman, which opened the James Gunn-era DCU on stronger footing. As the second chapter in that reboot, Supergirl was supposed to build momentum, not create doubt.

What’s Behind the Numbers

Directed by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya), the film stars Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El — the same Alcock who made a brief cameo in Superman and generated genuine excitement in the role. The creative case for the film exists. The commercial math, at least at this stage, is what’s raising eyebrows.

Early tracking is not destiny. Films can overperform projections based on reviews, word of mouth, and marketing pushes in the final weeks. But when analysts are already flagging concern this far out, it tends to shape the conversation going into release.

The Bigger Picture

For Gunn’s DC reboot, the stakes are real. Superman was the proof of concept. Supergirl is supposed to show the universe can sustain itself beyond its hero. A soft opening wouldn’t sink the project — but it would complicate the story Warner Bros. wants to tell about where the DCU is heading.

June 26 will tell us a lot.

The post Supergirl’s Early Box Office Tracking Has Hollywood Worried appeared first on Cream.

• Alfred Molina confirmed in a new Variety interview that he would return as Doc Ock — “I would do it again”
• He revealed details about an original three-movie deal for the role that fans didn’t know about
• Molina currently stars in two Netflix projects: The Boroughs and Remarkably Bright Creatures
• His Doctor Octopus appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home alongside his original Spider-Man 2 run
• Whether Marvel/Sony will actually call is a separate question

Alfred Molina is not closing any doors.

In a new interview with Variety, the actor confirmed what fans have long hoped: he’d be happy to return as Otto “Doc Ock” Octavius in another Spider-Man film. “I would do it again,” he told the outlet, adding that the conversation about coming back has never really gone away.

More surprising was what he revealed about his original deal: Molina disclosed there was a three-movie arrangement attached to the Doc Ock role from the beginning — a detail that reframes everything fans thought they knew about why the character returned so seamlessly in Spider-Man: No Way Home. The contractual groundwork, it seems, was laid back in the Sam Raimi era.

The Character’s Legacy

Molina’s Doc Ock in 2004’s Spider-Man 2 is still widely considered one of the best superhero film villains ever put on screen — tragic, intelligent, genuinely threatening. His return in No Way Home gave fans the reunion moment they’d been waiting for, and by most accounts, he delivered again.

Den of Geek argues he could return but perhaps shouldn’t — the concern being that over-revisiting legacy characters risks diluting what made them special in the first place. It’s a reasonable counterpoint. But Molina’s own enthusiasm, combined with the original deal structure he described, suggests this isn’t just wishful thinking from fan corners of the internet.

What He’s Up to Now

While the Marvel/Sony machinery decides what it wants to do, Molina has been busy. He’s currently on Netflix in The Boroughs, playing a retiree battling aliens, and in Remarkably Bright Creatures, voicing a giant Pacific octopus — which is either a coincidence or a very deliberate piece of casting symmetry.

Doc Ock or not, the man is not sitting still.

The post Alfred Molina Says He’d Play Doc Ock Again — and There’s Already Been a Conversation appeared first on Cream.