Emily Blunt

Let’s say you’ve been given three wishes by one of those C-list celebrities that keep appearing as the Ghost of Christmas Whatever in Hallmark specials. What do you wish for? Since I like to think of myself as a good person, I’d probably spend the first two wishes ridding the world of hunger and violence or cleaning up our carbon footprint with a snap of my fingers. But my third? That one I might waste on unlimited money, so I could continue to make movies that solidifies Emily Blunt as the biggest action star of our generation. Forget Scarlett Johansson; after The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Sicario, and Edge of Tomorrow, Blunt is the woman to beat in my book.

Colin Firth, America’s favorite dashing Brit (sorry, Hugh Grant), is currently in negotiations to join Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda in Mary Poppins Returns, the sequel to Disney’s original Mary Poppins movie.

For the third week in a row, SNL is letting a newbie take the reigns. Following a Margot Robbie premiere and last week’s ten-dollar founding father Lin-Manuel Miranda, The Girl on the Train star Emily Blunt is making her SNL hosting debut, grabbing a slice with Beck Bennett in the first promos.

Time will tell if SNL manages to up its Season 42 ratings surge with Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, but the latter two weeks of October are shaping up nicely as well. Not only is Emily Blunt confirmed for October 15, but so too will Tom Hanks and Lady Gaga make their SNL returns.

A year before Paula Hawkins’ debut novel hit the stands, Universal secured the rights to what was sure to be the next ‘Gone Girl’ — a mystery thriller about three women and the disappearance that ties them together. Sure enough, ‘The Girl on the Train’ became a bestseller, and the film adaptation, which stars Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett, Rebecca Ferguson and Justin Theroux, hits theaters this weekend. As is typically the case, there are some notable differences between the book and film, but just how many changes were made from page to screen?

It’s no wonder Paul Hawkins’ debut novel, The Girl on the Train, novel was quickly pegged “the next Gone Girl,” and that DreamWorks scooped up the rights a year before the novel hit shelves. It’s a murder mystery told by an unreliable narrator full of twists, sex and violence. It has all the makings of a hit. But here’s a hot take: despite topping the bestseller list, Hawkins’ book isn’t good. Piggy backing on the hype of Gillian Flynn’s work, the novel uses a gimmicky narrative structure to glorify melodrama and violence. That could’ve been salvaged as a high-intensity thriller that indulged in the trashy source material, but director Tate Taylor’s (The Help) adaptation falls ill to the same shortcomings of the novel, resulting in a sluggish mess of self-seriousness.

If ever we thought SNL was keeping unusually coy with Season 42, the floodgates are open now. After this morning’s news of Lin-Manuel Miranda hosting next week, our first premiere promos with Margot Robbie have arrived, along with reports of a third host for October.

In what is shaping up to be the most pleasant of Disney’s new live-action offerings, the consistently pleasant Ben Whishaw is in talks to join the similarly quite pleasing Emily Blunt and the equally personable Lin-Manuel Miranda in the indubitably enjoyable Mary Poppins sequel. It may be fairly unsurprising news, but that doesn’t make it any less wonderful.

Rejoice, it’s a ‘Devil Wears Prada’ and an ‘Into to Woods’ reunion!

We’re so close, guys. So close to the end of summer movie season and the start of the fall, when the weather cools down and the movies start to get interesting again. I don’t know that The Girl on the Train is going to be an awards contender, but it certainly looks like a juicy thriller.