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Nicole Kidman Heads Back to Television, Joins Paramount+’s ‘Lioness’ from Taylor Sheridan

Published

11 months ago

January 8, 2023

Nicole Kidman has been more hands-on in taking part on-screen for her producing ventures recently. Now, she’s joining the long list of actors who are joining the Taylor Sheridan-verse for Paramount. Though there were many months of speculation, Deadline confirmed yesterday that the Oscar-winning actress would be joining Lioness alongside Zoe Saldana and Laysla De Oliveira.

Kidman signed on as producer for the project when it was first announced, however, Paramount was trying to keep her role in the series under wraps. Lioness is based on the real-life CIA program and follows a young female marine named Cruz Manuelos (played by De Oliveira) who is recruited to join the prestigious program to take down a terrorist organization from within. Saldana will play Joe, a station chief of Lioness who is tasked with training and managing all the female agents within the CIA branch. Kidman will play Kaitlyn Meade, a senior supervisor to the program who is always involved in a political scheme.

This is far from Kidman’s first foray in television in recent years as she won an Emmy back in 2017 for her lead role in Big Little Lies for HBO. Kidman has done some other work in streaming in recent years including The Undoing for HBO Max, Nine Perfect Strangers for Hulu and appeared in an episode of the anthology series, Roar for AppleTV+. Taylor Sheridan, who created Lioness is something of a renaissance man for Paramount as he’s single-handedly shepherded the biggest series for their streamer Paramount+ and their cable network, Paramount Network. He created Yellowstone as well as the accompanying spinoff series, 1883 and 1923. Additionally, he created the Michigan-set crime series, Mayor of Kingstown starring Jeremy Renner and has Land Man starring Billy Bob Thornton currently filming as well.

Kidman most recently starred in The Northman and will return to her role as Atlanna in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom in December. She is also set to star in Lulu Wang’s Expats for AppleTV+ in 2023 as well.

FILM RATING

Action

Godzilla Minus One | Official Trailer #2

Post war Japan is at its lowest point when a new crisis emerges in the form of a giant monster, baptized in the horrific power of the atomic bomb

Published

3 weeks ago

November 6, 2023

Staff

Genre:

Action, Adventure, Drama

Release Date:

December 1, 2023

Director:

Takashi Yamazaki

Cast:

Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada

Plot Summary:

Post war Japan is at its lowest point when a new crisis emerges in the form of a giant monster, baptized in the horrific power of the atomic bomb

FILM RATING

Action

The Continental Review: Not The Prequel We Needed

Published

2 months ago

October 4, 2023

Kevin Verma

Ever since Lionsgate greenlit this series in early 2017, fans of the franchise have been eagerly anticipating to see how the John Wick universe expands. 4 movies in, the John Wick franchise is widely known as one of the greatest action movie franchises of all time with our titular character (a.k.a Baba Yaga) becoming one of the most iconic and bad-ass figures ever in Hollywood. The Continental: From The World of John Wick is a prequel series that tells the story of Winston Scott and how he became the manager of New York’s The Continental branch.

The miniseries was developed by Greg Coolidge, Kirk Ward and Shawn Simmons. It is executive produced by Paul Wernick, Rhett Reese, Derek Kolstad, David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, the director of all four John Wick movies. It is structured as a 3-night event told through three 90-minute episodes. The series was originally supposed to air on Starz, but the network sold it to Peacock in 2022. After 6 years in development, it finally aired on Peacock this September.

A lot has been made of the subtitle of the project ever since it was announced. The fact that the makers needed to include it says a lot about the show. It almost felt like the prime marketing asset for it many times as the other promotional material didn’t necessarily create a lot of hype for the show. Albert Hughes directed the first and third episodes, while Charlotte Branstrom directed the second, and disappointingly both directors do not bring the same novelty or creative prowess that Chad Stahelski managed to bring in the John Wick movies.

The show also surprisingly lacks any real star power. This franchise is one of Lionsgate’s most prized assets, so you would imagine that they would make sure to get a big cast and crew for this prequel miniseries, but they didn’t. Colin Woodell as Winston Scott is the clear standout among the cast despite delivering only a decent performance, which says a lot about the acting standards in this 3-episode miniseries. Many have criticized the casting of Mel Gibson in the series, but I personally had no issue with his performance and he’s also the most recognizable member of the cast despite having no real audience pull anymore.

The writing doesn’t offer too much to ponder upon or any seriously shocking turns in the story as most of the focus is on making the product as epic, badass and action-packed as possible. Some of the characters had some interesting layers to them, especially Charon (Ayomide Adegun) and Lou (Jessica Allain). Lemmy (Adam Shapiro) provides some much-needed comic relief with his witty dialogues. The structuring of the story works really well as a 3-night event which sets the high stakes and sets a standard of intensity for the narrative.

But the thing that people were most looking forward to, was the action and how it fared against John Wick. Unfortunately, that department was inconsistent as well. Ben Robson’s fight sequence in the early part of the first episode was great and it makes you optimistic that the action would get better from here on, but it never does. Most of the action blocks here involve explosions and guns rather than the hand-to-hand combat John Wick franchise is known for. Some of the action was awesome and some of it sadly wasn’t.

The Continental: From the World of John Wick brings a lot of glamour as it tries to expand its world but fails to engage with its paper-thin plot. The characters are mostly dull with a formulaic villain and misses the presence of a magnetic protagonist like Wick. A prequel about Wick’s backstory would’ve been much more interesting than this inconsistent prequel event saved by its style and some great action. It has almost enough to be its own thing but doesn’t quite have enough to match its parent movies.

The Continental: From the World of John Wick premieres on Peacock in the US and Prime Video in the UK and Australia on 22 September, with new episodes weekly.