Emma Stefansky

When you’re part of a giant franchise, there are going to be toys of you. That’s just how these things tend to work. Star Wars is in a realm all of its own, with toys ranging from giant Star Destroyer LEGO sets to Elan Sleazebaggano action figures, and, naturally, the stars of the franchise have their favorites and least-favorites. Mark Hamill recently shared his opinion on what he thinks is the worst Luke Skywalker toy, and it’s quite a doozy.

The end of one month means the start of another, which also means that new things are coming to a streaming platform near you. Netflix’s July instant releases are stacked, and include a few classic cartoon dinosaur movies, the premieres of a new Netflix original shows, and one Star Wars Story.

The Fantastic Four haven’t had a ton of luck in the cinematic arena, mostly due to their movies being somewhere in the range of bland-to-terrible, but because humanity is, by and large, a stubborn bunch of carbon-based organisms, we’re gonna keep making these movies until something sticks and we land on a good one. The infinite monkey theorem does state, after all that an infinite number of monkeys working an infinite number of typewriters will eventually come up with a passable Fantastic Four movie.

It’s no secret that Hollywood has an ageism issue. While most actresses over 45 are doomed to playing mothers, grandmothers, or not getting any work at all, male actors’ careers are easily extended into their more distinguished decades. The last time Tom Cruise had a female co-star close to his age was Miranda Otto in 2005’s War of the Worlds. Which is why it’s so refreshing these days to see actresses past their thirties get a younger love interest. Or, is it? The Home Again trailer is here to test that theory.

Mission: Impossible 6 is currently filming on location in Middle Earth — I mean, New Zealand, and director Christopher McQuarrie is still taking Instagrams of the cast. Today, McQuarrie posted a fantastic portrait of Henry Cavill in his spy outfit sitting in what’s probably a helicopter. There’s no telling whether he’ll actually be in a helicopter in a movie or if this was taken while the actors were being flown to whatever location they’d be filming in. It is New Zealand, after all.

Tom Cruise’s The Mummy is the beginning of a new Dark Universe for Universal Studios, and as such is tasked with connecting this film to a bunch of other ones in the franchise. The Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Bride of Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, and a bunch of others will soon be hitting the big screen, all under the Dark Universe umbrella. So, what fits them all together? The plot device — I mean, the Prodigium, of course.

Universal’s Dark Universe is kicking off with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, which is only a week away(!!!). While we know that this movie will, indeed, feature a mummy who is hunting down Tom Cruise for some reason (I mean, weren’t we all, at some point in our lives?) a few things still remain a mystery. What is Russell Crowe’s Dr. Jekyll’s role in all this? How did Cruise and his team of archaeologists stumble upon the mummy’s tomb anyway? And why does she want Tom Cruise so badly?

The Star Wars saga might end with Episode IX, coming out in 2019, but Lucasfilm has already been hard at work expanding the universe and planning for more Star Wars and Star Wars-adjacent movies far, far into the future. We’ve already gotten Rogue One, which occurred, chronologically, somewhere between the prequels and the original trilogy, and focused on a group of small characters who turned the tide of the war whose names we might never had known. Then, we’ll get the Han Solo spinoff, something of a prequel in its own right, in summer 2018. But what’s next after that? Kathleen Kennedy says we’ll know in about a month.

It’s gotta be tough for actors and directors when folks don’t like their movie, especially when a lot of those folks are the critics driving the scores on review aggregation websites before the movie has a chance to hit theaters. Baywatch has officially been out since Wednesday, and the critical reception has been… less than great. Some regular non-critics seem to dig the film, which The Rock was quick to pick up on.

Tom Cruise’s The Mummy is about to hit theaters and launch a new cinematic universe, which, arguably, was the first cinematic universe ever, according to Mummy director Alex Kurtzman in a new featurette. Universal seems pretty optimistic about the quality of The Mummy (or they wouldn’t have announced this whole shared universe thing just yet), which makes us hopeful too. And, come on, Tom Cruise has been in, like, maybe two truly terrible movies throughout his career.