Charlize Theron

It might be okay if Laika just continues to release trailers for Kubo and the Two Strings. The studio’s latest stop-motion adventure looks to be their most beautiful, immersive and epic story yet, and it’s hard to complain about so many trailers when each one is so darn pretty. Note to Laika: Either put this movie in theaters, like, tomorrow, or please continue to release a new trailer for it every day until August.

The Huntsman: Winter’s War is a prequel, a sequel, a spinoff, a mashup, a bit of a remake, and almost a movie. It contains many recognizable elements from actual films — plot, characters, scenes, imagery, music — almost all of them inspired by (if not outright stolen from) other far more original movies and television shows. There are bits and pieces shamelessly swiped from Frozen, Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, plus a few odds and ends from the production it is ostensibly following, 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman. It’s almost like the movie version of a pod person from Invasion of the Body Snatchers; superficially indistinguishable from the real thing, but lacking any semblance of a soul.

Before you carelessly toss this news in the "obviously" pile, please remember all the reports of tension between Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy on the set of Mad Max: Fury Road — and all the interviews after the film hit theaters, where it seemed like Theron wasn't particularly eager to work on a sequel with George Miller. And while Hardy has signed on for at least two Mad Max sequels, Theron has not, which definitely makes her enthusiastic response to the prospect of playing Furiosa again pretty exciting.

The death of Paul Walker left some mighty big shoes to fill in the Fast & Furious franchise. Some film series might have packed it in after the death of one of its biggest stars, but the Fast-verse is a little bit different than your average blockbuster property. For one thing, characters have been coming and going from its ever-expanding storyline from the very beginning. For another, Furious 7 was the biggest movie in the series to date by a very large margin; it’s worldwide box office total was almost double that of Fast & Furious 6. So these movies aren’t going anywhere. But they do need some new stars.

Please cancel the rest of Monday because movie news will not get better than this. Young Adult was Jason Reitman’s last great film, and arguably his best film, period. Just as Young Adult’s Mavis returned home to reunite with her ex-boyfriend in an attempt to recreate her “best self,” so will Reitman reunite with Charlize Theron and screenwriter Diablo Cody in an attempt to recapture his best work.

Snow White and the Huntsman was a pretty decent fantasy-action update on the classic fairy tale with some solid action sequences in the vein of Game of Thrones — which makes The Huntsman: Winter’s War and its blatant riff on Frozen all the more baffling. The latest trailer for the super-weird prequel has arrived, and if nothing else, we can all agree that A. The cast is great, and B. This movie looks BONKERS.

The biggest event on the global cinematic calendar is nearly upon us, with the 69th Cannes Film Festival set for May 11-22. The selection committee won’t release their picks for the titles screening In Competition and the festival’s many sidebar programs until mid-April, but to stoke the fires of anticipation just a little, they’ve gone and revealed the official poster for this year’s proceedings

Its goofy title aside, Netflix’s Mindhunter is officially pulling off the fringe. The David Fincher-Charlize Theron Netflix investigative drama has its second lead hunting minds, as Fringe alum Anna Torv joins the series.

HBO’s loss was Netflix’s gain, or rather re-gain, as former House of Cards director David Fincher previously set his streaming return with Charlize Theron’s Mindhunter. Now, Looking and Glee alum Jonathan Groff has booked the lead role, with Fincher set to direct the pilot.

There are ordinary, everyday ripoffs and there are thefts so bold they’re almost impressive in the degree of their thievery. What I admire about The Huntsman: Winter’s War, the sorta-prequel to 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman, is that very shamelessness. They basically swapped out Snow White (she’s a baby here; she grew up to be Kristen Stewart in the first movie) for Elsa from Frozen. They’re not even pretending. They just want all the little girls who loved Frozen and are now three years older to come check out this movie.