A Cure For Wellness, LOGAN, ALIEN Covenant, War For The Planet of the Apes Showcased At Fox 2017 Slate Preview

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Fox Films, 20th Century Fox,  and Fox 2000 hosted a select group of media and industry insiders to a pre-holiday showcase of the 2017 upcoming blockbuster films, two action adventure films, and two Sci-Fi thrillers.

LOGAN kicked off the day with an introduction from director James Mangold, who set the scene for the FOX executives, media, publicists, and guests that filled the Darryl F. Zanuck Theater on the Fox Studio Lot, providing a teasing description, for the upcoming and by all accounts final film starring Hugh Jackman as the mutant Wolverine and the man Logan.

Previewing forty-two minutes of the upcoming LOGAN, was an unbelievable experience, with a rough and scruffy Hugh Jackman, as the Wolverine/Logan. Set in 2029, Logan is hard charging, hard drinking, living hard in the fight to stay alive and away from the shadows that stay too close and threaten.

Hugh Jackman is commanding especially in this state of disarray, down and out, living simply to outlive his enemies. Building the character, Wolverine/Logan has been the subject of torture, which is limited only by the imagination and as the previous installments have established at times the violence that the mutant/man has suffered including the murder of his wife.

LOGAN, presents a more personal portrait and brings the loose emotional ends together. The 42 minutes were over way too fast as the story is solid and the action is high tech and advanced with the director mixing it up with a combination of hand to hand, state of the art weaponry, mutant/wolverine, kick boxing and down in the dirt roadhouse fighting.

Patrick Stewart reprises his role as Charles Xavier/Professor X. LOGAN also stars Boyd Holbrook, Doris Morgado, Stephen Merchant, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Richard E. Grant, Eriq La Salle, and Dafne Keen.

LOGAN explodes into theaters March 3, 2017.

A Cure For Wellness

A Cure For Wellness, directed by Gore Verbinski, was also showcased and delivered as it presented a mind-bending thriller set against the backdrop of the Swiss Alps and a story of ancient sacrifices.

The film opens with an executive in Manhattan working deep into the night, multiple screens, setting up for the next global market opening, working the markets in 18 different time zones. Suddenly he doesn't feel well and as he is sipping a drink of water he dies of a massive heart attack.

He meets with the board and as he is next in line for advancement, an unheard of fast track, his single challenge to securing partnership is retrieving his CEO who has signed a ridiculous document indicating he is staying at the clinic indefinitely.

Next, we see a young ambitious executive working multiple screens, the market never closes and the only way to success in the financial world includes 80 hour weeks, he is on a bullet train traveling to a remote village in the swiss alps to retrieve his company's CEO from an idyllic but mysterious "wellness center."

Our ambitious soon to be partner uncovers frightening secrets, which test his sanity, as this psychological thriller unfolds.

A Cure for Wellness stars Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs and Mia Goth and opens February 17, 2017.

ALIEN COVENANT

Ridley Scott returns to the world he created with the original ALIEN bringing the newest installment, ALIEN COVENANT to the screen to kick off the sizzling summer box office 2017 season.

The ALIEN COVENANT crew is on its way to what they believe is a uninhabited planet, as they are planning on colonizing. The snippet shown began without any back story taking us right into the decent of the covenant crew into the new planet.

The snippet then skips to a breech in protocol when a spoor, a micro particle, released from a glop of gooey plant matter, travels into the air honing in on specific body temperature, and entrance, where it can rapidly gestate. Scott slows the film to show the micro-particle entering the ear canal.

The partial screening showed the chaos of the breech when two crew members are rapidly quarantined with the third watching in horror as the male, reminiscent of Scott's earlier 1979 ALIENS, begins to convulse, with his back to the camera his skin is gradating through various shades of red, and stretching with his spinal column protruding and shaking violently as the "thing" that has infected him is about to birth. Fluid, blood, and matter burst through his back with this small, white, hairless, vicious, alien monster emerging from the blood splattered congealment.   

ALIEN COVENANT stars Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, James Franco, Danny McBride, Demian Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Amy Seimetz, Jussie Smollet, Callie Hernandez, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England, Benjamin Rigby.

ALIEN COVENANT blasts off May 19, 2017.

War for the Planet of The Apes

War for the Planet of The Apes, the third installment in this blockbuster franchise, was presented "wet," with a portion of the film, as it is in CG, with the actors in CG suits, fading to the finished film and back.

Directed by Matt Reeves, the portion highlighted reveled the epic battle between the humans and the apes as they fight for dominance and control with the humans using every advantage under the direction of a new leader, a sinister and ruthless Colonel, played by Woody Harrelson.

The Apes, as many escape the trio that have been together from the beginning, Ceasar, played by Andy Serkis, Maurice played by Karin Konoval, Rocket played by Terry Notary, and Luca played by Michael Adamthwaite, and Amiah Miller.

These escape the carnage and depart to find others like themselves. The clip explained that a final cataclysmic conformation between Colonel and Ceasar happens.

Having attended a set visit for the first Planet of the Apes film in 2010, it was all very interesting to watch how these human actors motion the ape counterparts. Flawless animal motion, watching them swing on bars, rush down a platform, with authenticity as the cameras pick up the sensors on the CG suits the actors wear and projects that image onto one of four screens the director watches. The other being the set, the CG completion. While we see a set, the director sees a village or cabin or any number of scenes. Watching them swing on bars, rush down a platform, with the authenticity.

The War for the Planet of the Apes opens July 17, 2017.