New Trailers! The Bride!, How to Make a Killing & The Bluff
🎥 Jessie Buckley & Christian Bale unleash their inner monsters across 1930s Chicago, Glen Powell turns family grudges lethal & Priyanka Chopra Jonas brings steel and fury to the high seas!
🎥 “The Bride!” Trailer: Jessie Buckley & Christian Bale Raise Hell Across 1930s Chicago in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Bonnie and Clyde–Inspired Frankenstein Reimagining — Arriving in Theaters March 6th
Classic movie monsters have been getting revamped recently, from The Wolf Man to The Invisible Man to the upcoming The Mummy. It seems the new hot property in Hollywood right now is mining familiar movie monsters and reimagining them as darker, moodier, genre-bending films rather than simple creature features where the monster lurches out, grunts, and calls it a day.
Visionary filmmaker Guillermo del Toro just recently adapted Mary Shelley’s perennial Gothic horror tale of Dr. Frankenstein and his creature, turning it into a personal reflection of an obstinate “father” grappling with creation, responsibility, and the inescapable consequences of bringing life into the world, only to abandon it to its own suffering.
Now it seems The Bride of Frankenstein is getting her own reimagining. But it isn’t hailing from del Toro, rather actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. And her take on the character is certainly aiming to be far less interested in playing by the old monster-movie rulebook. Think less white lightning-bolt streak in the hair and more platinum-blonde curls of a nightclub cigarette girl.
So, picture this: It’s 1930s Chicago. Smoke-filled rooms. Packed dance clubs. Gyrating bodies. Corrupt cops running the town. Bad men running amok. And amidst all this, a freshly resurrected woman is on the verge of something dangerous as she tears through the city like a force nobody knows how to contain.
A follow-up to her 2021 Oscar-nominated feature directorial debut The Lost Daughter, Gyllenhaal writes and directs this wildly inventive take on The Bride!, reteaming with Irish actress Jessie Buckley in the lead role. Buckley, who’s currently racking up awards wins for her critically acclaimed performance in the Shakespeare biographical drama Hamnet, is essentially let loose to reinvent The Bride of Frankenstein into a 1930s reanimated spitfire looking to settle a score against a city that has allowed her murder to go unanswered.
Buckley is joined by Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s monster who, despite the 1930s attire, still carries plenty of familiar traits: face scars, thick forehead staples, a blockish head shape, and a whole lot of pent-up anger ready to boil over.
Look, there’s no hiding that one of the major influences here is a Bonnie and Clyde-style outlaw romance, as Buckley’s Bride blazes a trail of chaos through the city, running from the law with Bale’s monster acting as both her enforcer and her romantic partner. But what might be a little surprising is that Gyllenhaal appears to be mixing up several genres here: horror, noir, crime, musical, and a fugitives-on-the-run story—all jumbled up into one wild swing of 1930s excess.
Also in the cast is Annette Bening as Dr. Euphronius, who is coerced by Bale’s Frankenstein’s monster into creating him a companion from the body of a recently murdered woman (Buckley). And from the moment she opens her eyes, the story detonates. What begins as a forbidden scientific experiment spirals into murder, obsession, possession, romance, and the birth of a cultural movement within the city. It’s all a recipe for something volatile and wildly unpredictable.
It’s a bit of a family affair as Maggie’s real-life husband Peter Sarsgaard joins the fun, playing a detective sniffing around the wreckage, while Maggie’s brother Jake Gyllenhaal makes an appearance as one of the Bride’s targets. The rest of the all-star ensemble includes Oscar-winner Penélope Cruz, John Magaro, Julianne Hough, and Jeannie Berlin.
Featuring a score by Oscar-winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, with cinematography by Oscar-nominated DP Lawrence Sher—two key collaborators from Joker—The Bride! is gearing to spark a jolt through theaters on March 6th.
🎥 “How to Make a Killing” New International Trailer: Glen Powell Turns Family Resentment Into a Blood Sport in John Patton Ford’s Darkly Comic Thriller with Margaret Qualley & Ed Harris — In Theaters February 20th
Generational wealth has its share of perks, that’s for sure. Most will just wait for their family trust fund to kick in before enjoying a life of pure luxury. But not everyone is content to sit back and wait. And not everyone is perched at the top of the family tree. Some are stuck at the bottom, watching the inheritance clock tick, patiently waiting for their slice of the family pie... and maybe quietly hoping a few relatives punch out a little sooner rather than later.
But here’s an evil thought: why wait for those pesky relatives to kick the bucket when you could speed up the process yourself? What if you could make sure you’re the one deciding where the family inheritance falls... preferably right into your lap.
Well, that’s the basic gist behind Glen Powell’s upcoming darkly comic thriller How to Make a Killing, where he stars as Becket Redfellow, a man disowned at birth by his ridiculously rich family and raised on a steady diet of resentment toward his ultra-wealthy relatives. When Becket decides it’s time to reclaim what he believes is rightfully his, patience goes out the window. And if a few relatives need to disappear along the way... well, so be it. ’Cuz this family tree needs a lot fewer branches in order for Becket to finally climb his way to the top.
Loosely inspired by the Alec Guinness–starring 1949 black comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, which itself was based on the novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal by Roy Horniman, the film is written and directed by John Patton Ford, following up his 2022 critically acclaimed crime thriller Emily the Criminal, which starred Aubrey Plaza in one of the best performances of her career.
Joining Powell in the cast is Margaret Qualley as Becket’s close confidant, while Ed Harris takes on the role of the Redfellow patriarch. Jessica Henwick, Bill Camp, Zach Woods, Raff Law, and Topher Grace round out the supporting ensemble.
How to Make a Killing is scheduled to open in theaters on February 20th. So remember to bring your dark sense of humor. And maybe keep some of your family at arm’s length.
🎥 “The Bluff” Trailer: Priyanka Chopra Jonas Wields Steel and Fury in the Russo Brothers–Produced Pirate Revenge Actioner with Karl Urban — Premiering February 25th on Prime Video
Pirates! It’s been a subgenre since the inception of Hollywood. From the swashbuckling adventures of Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks to the more recent Johnny Depp–led Captain Jack Sparrow tales of the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, movie audiences have long been fascinated by these lawless buccaneers who live outside society’s rules and treat danger as both a lifestyle and a promise.
Priyanka Chopra Jonas is the latest to step into those ocean water-stained boots in this new swashbuckling action thriller that blends old-school pirate mythology with brutal hand-to-hand combat and a hard-edged revenge streak.
Yes, she wields blood-stained swords, carries a musket or two, and can drive a dagger into the heart of any poor soul reckless enough to stand in her way. But it seems she broke the number one rule of pirating: she gave up the life to become a mother. And in the process, she had to backstab her former captain to do it.
Well, as pirate lore goes, betrayal like that doesn’t stay buried for long, and she’ll have to face the consequences sooner rather than later. But if her former crew thinks she’s gone yellowbelly since becoming a mother, they’re about to learn that motherhood didn’t make her weaker... it made her deadlier than ever. ’Cuz once a pirate, always a pirate. Now combine that with being a mother, and you’ve got a force of nature that doesn’t retreat, it only hits harder and cuts deeper.
The Bluff drops Priyanka Chopra Jonas on the Cayman Islands as Ercell “Bloody Mary” Bodden, a once-notorious pirate who traded violence for family life years ago. Now living quietly with her husband T.H. (Ismael Cruz Cordova), their son Isaac (Vedanten Naidoo), and her sister-in-law Elizabeth (Safia Oakley-Green), Ercell believes she’s finally outrun her demons. That illusion shatters when her former pirate captain Connor (Karl Urban) resurfaces, hungry for revenge and ready to burn everything she’s built to the ground.
What follows is a full-throttle survival story fueled by brutal sword fights, clever traps, and up-close, knuckle-busting combat, as Bloody Mary proves she can still live up to that name—and then some. Featuring elaborate fight scenes and vicious sword duels, Chopra Jonas gets to show off her raw physicality as a mother who swore off violence to protect the people she loves, yet never forgot those brutal skills from her pirate past.
Directed by music video helmer Frank E. Flowers, who co-wrote the script with Joe Ballarini, the film is produced by the Russo brothers—Anthony Russo and Joe Russo—alongside their sister Angela Russo-Otstot under their AGBO banner, the team behind Extraction, Extraction 2, and Amazon’s Citadel.
The Bluff is set to premiere exclusively on Prime Video on Wednesday, February 25th. So sharpen those swords and get ready to sail... to the closest sofa, because this high-seas bloodbath is best enjoyed from the safety of dry land.
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