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A cinematic obsessive with the filmic palate of a starving raccoon, Rob London will watch pretty much anything once. With a mind like a steel trap, he's an endless fount of movie and TV trivia, borne from a misspent youth of watching monster movies on TV, perusing the sun-faded goods at the local video rental shop, and staining his fingers with ink from the Video Movie Guide. Areas of interest include science fiction, film noir, horror flicks, '70s disaster pictures, Bond movies, '90s action, giant robots, dinosaurs, super heroes, and the exuberantly schlocky output of Cannon Films. He also enjoys both Star Trek and Star Wars when they're good, and maybe even more when they're bad. As a Canadian, he also has a vested interest in Canadian movies and TV shows, especially the cheesier ones dubbed "Canuxploitation."
An expert on Marvel Comics, he has also written for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and is a member of the Marvel Research Team. He can frequently be found pontificating on comic-book continuity or bemoaning the misfortunes of the Toronto Maple Leafs on his Twitter account.
It's been seven years since his last film, but one of the titans of the New Hollywood era is returning to film-making. Brian De Palma, the visionary director behind Carrie, Blow Out, and Scarface is set to direct a new film this summer. He'll helm Sweet Vengeance, a true crime-inspired thriller.
According to reports, cameras will roll on Sweet Vengeance in Portugal this summer. It was initially planned to film as far back as 2018, with production intended for Montevideo, Uruguay. Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, of Narcos and The Secret Agent, was cast in the lead role, but it is unclear if he is still attached to the project. At the time, De Palma revealed the project is inspired by the media frenzy around true-crime cases: "I’m interested in how they tell the story of the crime, so I’ll do it the way [they] do on television, based on two real cases." More information on casting is expected to follow.
Who is Brian De Palma?
A contemporary of Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas (De Palma even edited the opening crawl of Star Wars), De Palma directed a number of independent films, including Phantom of the Paradise, Sisters, and Obsession, before scoring a breakout hit with Carrie. The adaptation of Stephen King's best-selling novel became a critical and box office smash, and made De Palma an in-demand director. A fan of Alfred Hitchcock, De Palma often homaged the master of suspense in thrillers like Dressed to Kill, Body Double, and Raising Cain. De Palma's slick style produced a number of huge critical and commercial hits, including his stylish adaptation of The Untouchables, his hyper-violent gangster epic Scarface, and his franchise-launching Mission: Impossible. However, his reach occasionally exceeded his grasp, as it did with his much-maligned adaptation of Bonfire of the Vanities or his science fiction misfire Mission to Mars. Since the turn of the millennium, his output has declined, although his neo-noir erotic thriller Femme Fatale has become a cult classic.
De Palma's most recent film was 2019's Domino, a Nikolaj Coster-Waldau-Guy Pearce thriller that was plagued with production issues. De Palma claimed he had "never experienced such a horrible movie set," and frequently clashed with the film's financiers. He planned to follow it up with a horror movie inspired by the crimes of film executive Harvey Weinstein; the fate of that project is unknown.
Sweet Vengeance, Brian de Palma's return to directing, will begin production this summer in Portugal. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
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