Link Tank: Celebrating 20 Years of Oceans Eleven
The iconic heist flick turns 20, fans of The Matrix have a lot to look forward to, Rogue Squadron is back on, and more in Link Tank!
It’s been 20 years since the iconic heist movie Oceans Eleven was released! Here are some fun facts you might not have known about the film.
“Has any other popcorn flick boasted a more impressive star-studded cast than Ocean’s Eleven? Well, apart from Ocean’s Twelve, Ocean’s Thirteen, and the female-fronted reboot Ocean’s 8, obviously. There was George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Julia Roberts all at the peak of their powers; past and future Oscar favorites Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, and Casey Affleck; and Hollywood royalty Carl Reiner and Elliott Gould—not to mention a cameo from everyone’s favorite German-American lion tamers Siegfried and Roy.”
So Patty Jenkin’s Star Wars movie Rogue Squadron is back on? Oh man, this is getting confusing.
“As part of the news that Patty Jenkins will now only produce her upcoming Cleopatra movie with Gal Gadot—which is now helmed by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s Kari Skogland—it was confirmed that her previously paused Star Wars movie, Rogue Squadron, as well as the next Wonder Woman film, are now Jenkins’ focus.”
“School wasn’t my bag; it was for dorks,” says an unrelenting John Cena is the latest trailer for Peacemaker, dropping on HBO Max next month.
“John Cena’s transition from the WWE into one of the best comedic actors working today was certainly not what I expected. Yet, when I think about his early time in the WWE, he always knew how to be goofy and fun, and the way he leaned into his rapper persona would give Jared Leto a run for his money. Now that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson has normalized this transition, Cena has taken it even further.”
The Matrix Resurrections is almost here, but that’s not the only thing fans of the franchise have to look forward to. Check out our first look at The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience.
“Today, Unreal Engine released an extremely short teaser trailer for its own ‘boundary-pushing cinematic and real-time tech demo,’ The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience. The teaser featured an existential Keanu Reeves looking into the camera and asking a real stumper of a question: ‘How do we know what is real?’ This has prompted many to debate whether the man himself, as glimpsed in the trailer, is real, or merely an incredibly impressive digital facsimile.”
Movies theaters are still recovering from the pandemic, and you might have missed some of these exciting titles from the past year.
“In 2019, the last year in which box office returns were unaffected by the pandemic, U.S. theaters banked $11.4 billion in ticket sales. Last year, that lofty total dropped to $2.2 billion (for context, Avengers: Endgame alone made more than $850 million domestically in 2018). While things look much better in 2021—ticket revenue is expected to approach $4.7 billion—that’s still obviously not great for businesses built on people plunking down $10 every weekend to catch a new release (and hopefully buy some overpriced popcorn while they’re at it).”
Collin Farrell is returning to play the Penguin in an upcoming TV series, even before we see his debut in The Batman this spring.
“Back in September, we reported on a story about HBO Max developing a spin-off of Matt Reeves’ The Batman that would focus on the rise of The Penguin, a.k.a. bird-like criminal mastermind Oswald Cobblepot. Penguin is being played by Colin Farrell in the movie, opposite Robert Pattinson’s The Batman and Jeffrey Wright’s The Jim Gordon, but—at least at the time—nobody had confirmed that Farrell would actually be in the show.”
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