javier bardem

For a movie directed by a well-regarded arthouse stalwart with mainstream appeal and starring an actress who was the biggest movie star on Earth as recently as three years ago, it’s weird that mother! has remained almost entirely shrouded by secrecy. We know that Darren Aronofsky’s new movie stars Jennifer Lawrence, it’s some manner of home-invasion psychothriller, and the cast includes Javier Bardem, Kristen Wiig, Ed Harris, and Michelle Pfeiffer. We saw the poster, which finds JLaw ripping her own heart out in a lush vernal scene like Mola Ram on vacation in Argentina. But apart from that, it’s a big, strange question mark. Word on the street says a trailer is on its way, and yet it’s still impressive that a project this high-profile has gotten so far while remaining almost totally incognito.

Universal is going dark.

When last we saw Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow he was, I don’t know, doing pirate stuff probably? After the first Pirates of the Caribbean, 2003’s The Curse of the Black Pearl, all these movies began to blend together. Some sword fights, a mystical MacGuffin, an all-powerful bad guy, a couple battles at sea, blather, mince, repeat. Even though the latest, Dead Men Tell No Tales, comes from a new pair of directors (Kon-Tiki’s Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg), it’s basically indistinguishable from the three previous sequels, except that it’s even worse than they were.

After the fourth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean saga debuted to a critical shellacking, many believed the film would be a franchise-killer for the swashbruckling adventure series. (“Swashbruckling” is an industry term for Jerry Bruckheimer-produced films that include swordplay.) But because On Stranger Tides also raked in a cool billion dollars worldwide, yet another sequel was inevitable. Between the dire notices for the most recent film, the six-year gap between entries, Johnny Depp’s declining public profile, and the motivator of a financial imperative, fans braced to greet No. 5, Dead Men Tell No Tales, as more studio-mandated pap. What this article presupposes is... it might not be?

For many movie fans, international trailers are an afterthought, an attempt to repackage previously released footage for a new market. But given the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies abroad, it’s probably safe to say that Disney takes its international footage pretty seriously. After all, the previous film in the franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, grossed a total of $240 million domestically and $804 million internationally. Put another way: the film failed to make back its budget ($250 million) in the United States but tripled it abroad.

There’s a famous part of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland where an ominous voice says “Dead men tell no tales!” So I guess this is an adaptation of that line? These Pirates of the Caribbean movies are getting really granular.

These famous couples discovered romance on set, and it lasted well after they shot their last scenes together.

Javier Bardem, who struck Oscar gold for playing the heavy in 2007′s ‘No Country For Old Man,’ has confirmed he has been cast as the villain in the next Bond film.