News

• Sam Mendes has officially stated that he won’t return for a third Bond outing after Spectre… but by now, of course, we pretty much know to take these sorts of “confirmations” with a grain of salt. Mendes also teased that we might expect the artist of the theme song to be made public sooner rather than later.

• Another Accidental Franchise Sam (this one’s Raimi) has given his blessing to Marvel’s high-school approach to the new Spider-Man. So, yeah. Rest easy.

• We noted how weird the career of David Gordon Green is in our review of Manglehorn, wherein we also lauded the fact that he’s leaned toward smaller indie-feel projects like Manglehorn and Joe. Now Green will allegedly be directing Stronger, one of the many adaptations concerning the Boston Marathon Bombing, thus remaining one of the most unpredictable directors in Hollywood.

• It Follows is now available on Amazon Instant Video and several other platforms, so your excuses for not watching it are really starting to thin out (you know who you are).

Trailers

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s highly anticipated follow-up to the brilliant Birdman is The Revenant, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy:

Chris Evans’s directorial debut Before We Go conveniently casts Alice Eve as his love interest. Must be nice:

For more trailers, check out last week’s teaser-happy news roundup.

In Cinemas

Ant-Man and Minions currently rule the roost with Inside Out still playing strong; Jake Gyllenhaal’s Southpaw could be a contender (get it?) for box-office dominance this weekend.

On TV

True Detective is still chugging along despite massive critical backlash/indifference (hey, I like it) and is matched in grittiness only by Little People, Big World, which returns tonight if you care about that sort of thing (or even if you don’t).

On Netflix

Both Magnum P.I. and Leave It to Beaver are leaving Netflix at the end of the month, which isn’t noteworthy for the fact of their leaving so much as it is an excuse to mention Magnum P.I. and Leave It to Beaver in the same sentence.

Review of the Week

In anticipation of The Revenant, here’s our review of a probably-less-intense version from 1971 called Man in the Wilderness.