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Jake Gyllenhaal was a perfect choice to play Quentin Beck a.k.a. Mysterio in the Spider-Man universe, but it didn’t come easy for the star of The Guilty. From being a fan of Marvel and Spider-Man to heading into the biggest franchise in the world right now, Gyllenhaal had some issues with taking on the role. Luckily, he had Tom Holland there to help calm him down and ease his anxiety about playing Quentin Beck.

On The Howard Stern Show, Gyllenhaal opened up about being on the set of Spider-Man: Far From Home and worrying about bringing Mysterio to life in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: “I was freaking out. It was a scene with [Samuel L.] Jackson, Tom…there were a number of actors in that scene…And I remember not being able to remember my lines.”

Gyllenhaal went on, explaining the situation: “And I went up to Tom Holland and was like, ‘Dude, help me out.’ He’s like, ‘It’s all good, man. Just relax.’ It was like he was me in so many situations. And I finally did. I just put a lot of pressure on [myself] because I love that world.”

But more than that, he admitted to how much he loves the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: “…I love that world, man. It’s not me coming in as an actor going like, ‘Oh, I’ve made 60 films…I know what I’m doing. It’s me coming in every time being like, ‘I love Spider-Man. I love this world. I want to kill it here.'”

To be quite honest, that might be why I loved his Quentin Beck so much. Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio was brilliant, and I think that Far From Home was an incredible Spider-Man movie despite not being set in New York City. Having people who care behind the scenes and playing these characters? It does make a difference. It’s why I love Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland so much, because they grew up loving Spider-Man and it shows in their performances.

Knowing that Jake Gyllenhaal has that same history and that he got help from Tom Holland (or, I guess, Spider-Man in this case) to calm down and have fun? That’s just an amazing story, especially given how fans have loved how close Holland and Gyllenhaal are. This story just gives us all more fuel to love their friendship.

I wish we could see more of Jake Gyllenhaal as Quentin Beck. I don’t think that we will, given his fate in Spider-Man: Far From Home, but with the multiverse, we have a world of endless possibilities. If that means Mysterio coming back to torment Peter Parker and Jake Gyllenhaal getting to be back in the MCU? Well, that’s just the icing on the Marvel cake, and I’d love to see it.

(via CBR, image: Marvel Entertainment)

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 —The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

The 355 is a star-studded affair as Simon Kinberg directs powerhouses Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, and Bingbing Fan in a spy thriller. Focusing on international female spies from around the world, the movie introduces us to the idea of the first female spy, all the way back to George Washington. What happens when a group of women from America, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, and Colombia take on the legacy of Agent 355 and the secrecy of being a spy?

With a cast as stacked as this, The 355 is sure to wow us whether or not this is a genre we typically enjoy. But this new trailer for the film gives us a deeper look into the story and the connection that these five women have not only to each other but to the characters played by Édgar Ramírez and Sebastian Stan.

The description for The 355 is as follows:

“When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, wild card CIA agent Mason “Mace” Brown (Oscar-nominated actress Jessica Chastain) will need to join forces with rival badass German agent Marie (Diane Kruger, In the Fade), former MI6 ally and cutting-edge computer specialist Khadijah (Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o), and skilled Colombian psychologist Graciela (Oscar winner Penélope Cruz) on a lethal, breakneck mission to retrieve it, while also staying one-step ahead of a mysterious woman, Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan, X-Men: Days of Future Past), who is tracking their every move. As the action rockets around the globe from the cafes of Paris to the markets of Morocco to the opulent auction houses of Shanghai, the quartet of women will forge a tenuous loyalty that could protect the world—or get them killed.”

And honestly, we need another good female spy movie in our lives. We have movies like Salt and Atomic Blonde, but there are rarely spy movies that are diverse or feature more than one female spy, so to see a cast this amazing giving us a spy thriller? Great! Sign me up for whatever they need, even if it is someone to go out and get all these spies coffees.

You can see the new trailer here!

The 355 is far from the first spy movie to heavily feature female spies at its center, but it is rare enough that a movie like this is still a relatively big deal. It shouldn’t be that way—it is 2021—but we’re used to seeing men in these types of films, and so to see a trailer like this just feels power to me? Like I can take out the bad guy while wearing a ball gown, and I’m here for everything that writer Theresa Rebeck and director Simon Kinberg are trying to sell me.

And who doesn’t want to see Lupita Nyong’o, Bingbing Fan, Penelope Cruz, Jessica Chastain, and Diane Kruger kicking ass? Sounds like an absolute dream!

(image: Universal Pictures)

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 —The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

About two and a half years ago, Spyglass Media announced it was planning a new Hellraiser movie, but there hasn’t been much news on developments since—that is, until today, when the production company dropped a multi-part bombshell announcement. Here’s what we learned in one fell swoop:

—The film has a full cast, which includes Jamie Clayton (Sense8, The L Word: Generation Q) as Pinhead.

—The movie will stream on Hulu.

—Clive Barker will serve as a producer on the film.

—The movie has already wrapped production.

This is a lot to take in in one press release! The news of Clayton’s casting is especially exciting. The Hellraiser franchise—which spans 10 films, graphic novels, merch, and more–has long been considered a key installment in the genre of queer horror. Putting LGBTQIA talent front and center is a great move.

Jamie Clayton is playing Pinhead in the new HELLRAISER film
A trans woman is playing arguably one of horror’s most iconic villains. Fucking divine pic.twitter.com/pA4EjoqCaJ

— Joe Lipsett (@bstolemyremote) October 7, 2021

Demons to some. Angels to others. @hulu #Hellraiser https://t.co/Tvhuo7P7Vn pic.twitter.com/Fj228ZPugt

— Jamie Clayton (@MsJamieClayton) October 7, 2021

For the unfamiliar, Pinhead, aka the Hell Priest, is the leader of the Cenobites—extra-dimensional beings who do not differentiate between pain and pleasure but seek extreme gratification. There’s no release date for the new movie yet but with principal photography already wrapped, hopefully we won’t have to wait too long!

Here are some other things we saw today:

• Breaking down the complicated and generally awful legacy of “Blurred Lines.”  (via Pajiba)
• Britney Spears torched her entire family on Instagram for being complicit in her conservatorship. (via Mediaite)
• Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism.” (via the NYT)
• Spooky Season Goals Part 1:
  

  @MsKathyBates @jamescaan @StephenKing

  Happy Halloween!
  Stephanie Crompton (permission given to me to post) pic.twitter.com/C3pHSEAft0

  — veganloveBOOny (@veganlovebunny) October 3, 2021

• Spooky Season Goals Part 2:
  

  Baby are you okay? You’ve barely touched your Char-spookerie. pic.twitter.com/zHGbdBrSqQ

  — Stormy Kittyhawk BLFC (@StormyKittyhawk) October 7, 2021

• Letitia Wright is apparently still going hard on the anti-vax rhetoric on the set of Black Panther 2 (via AV Club)
• Former FBI Agents blame a culture of misogyny for the botched investigation into Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics. (via HuffPost)
• This is absolutely incredible: “All the Corrections Dawn Dorland Sent Us About Our ‘Bad Art Friend’ Blogs.” (via Gawker)

What did you all see out there today?

(image: Paul Archuleta/Getty Images)
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—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

**Spoilers for Venom: Let There Be Carnage end-credits scene.**

Venom: Let There Be Carnage delivered another wild entry in the Sony/Marvel partnership, but it was the end-credits scene that truly changes the game for Eddie Brock and his favorite symbiote.

The scene sees Brock/Venom on the run, where they find themselves zapped into a strange hotel room. On the hotel television, they see J.K. Simmons’ J. Jonah Jameson onscreen talking about the death of Mysterio. Then, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) appears on the news alert. Venom growls, “That guy…” and licks the TV with Parker’s face on it.

That’s right: Eddie and Venom have entered the Marvel cinematic universe! It’s the crossover fans have long anticipated ever since the first Venom film was announced. According to our own Rachel Leishman, this means that Eddie and Venom will likely turn up in Spider-Man: No Way Home as part of the multiverse explosion caused by Peter and Doctor Strange. She writes, “Personally, I think this confirms that theory that Tom Hardy is in Spider-Man: No Way Home. In some incarnations of the Sinister Six, Venom is there with Eddie Brock, but with the way that the Venom universe has been setting up Venom/Eddie, they’re not really villains. But if both Venom and Eddie think that Peter Parker killed Mysterio … well, then maybe that falls into place for their Lethal Protector deal.”

Venom: Let There Be Carnage director Andy Serkis discussed the game-changing scene in an interview with Comicbook.com, where he said, “We wanted to leave the audience knowing that these universes are going to somehow collide and we wanted to do it in such a way that it still leaves so much open and we’re not timing anything, … The portal is not being crossed fully. It’s opening up more questions, I suppose, rather than sort of firmly saying [anything]….It is a tease. It’s a tease, in the fullest sense of the word.”

This would be the first time that Spider-Man encounters Venom since Sam Raimi’s 2007 Spider-Man 3, where Topher Grace played Brock opposite Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker. We already know that No Way Home will bring an assortment of villains from past Spidey films (like Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock) and potentially former Spider-Men Maguire and Andrew Garfield. Oh, and Daredevil might make an appearance as well because, why not?

Apparently, plans for the bombshell ending were still undecided until the very end of filming. Serkis told the Hollywood Reporter, “[The mid-credits scene was] 100 percent in flux, yeah. It couldn’t have been more in-flux-y if you tried, … Yeah, of course, it was something that they talked about from before I even came on to the movie. There were moments where [Spider-Man] was going to be in the story, potentially, and then he wasn’t. But no, we decided that we wanted to really examine the Venom-verse first. So as we were going through principal photography, the inevitable discussions had to be had, but it wasn’t until very, very late on that we reached the precise notion of the teaser that we wanted to lay in there.”

Needless to say, we’re excited to see what kind of havoc Venom wreaks in the MCU.

(via Comicbook.com, image: Sony Pictures)

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—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—