Explore every episode of the podcast WTF Happened To....?!

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Julia Roberts was one of the dominant Hollywood stars for a good twenty-year period. From her breakout role in 1988’s Mystic Pizza, Roberts skyrocketed to the top of the A-list when she starred opposite Richard Gere in Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman. An unlikely Cinderella story about an escort that falls in love with a high-powered executive, it’s a movie that is definitely a Hollywood fairytale, but one that a lot of people loved in 1990, with it being one of the year’s top-grossing movies. From there, Roberts made a string of hits, including Flatliners, The Pelican Brief, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Notting Hill and many more, but respect in more heavy vehicles eluded her. Movies like Mary Reilly and Michael Collins were embarrassing for how miscast she was, and for awhile, it looked like she would be stuck doing lightweight but highly profitable rom coms.

However, that changed in 2000 when she played the lead in Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich. Based on a true story, the movie finally won her the Academy Award that had long eluded her. It earned her serious cred, and her fame took on a whole new dimension, with roles in Oceans’ Eleven, Mona Lisa Smile and Eat Pray Love all big successes. Yet, as the business began to change, emphasizing tentpole movies, Roberts seemed to struggle more than contemporaries like Sandra Bullock to find her place. Eventually, she made a move into TV Prime Video’s Homecoming. Still, it’s notable how low-key the release of a show like Gaslit was despite the names involved. There was a time when Julia Roberts doing a TV series would have been an event. 

While Marvel fans got an incredible send-off for Hugh Jackman's Wolverine in James Mangold's Logan, another Wolverine movie was planned a few years earlier that would've taken the character in an edgier direction. Indeed, Darren Aronofsky was all set to reunite with his The Fountain star Hugh Jackman for the second spin-off sequel for the character, The Wolverine. In the end, Aronofsky left the project, with James Mangold taking over. While the finished film wasn't particularly well-loved by fans, it did pave the way for Logan, with Mangold arguably taking the franchise into an even darker direction than Mangold would have. In this episode of WTF Happened to this Unmade Movie, we look at Aronofsky's unmade Wolverine movie and try to figure out precisely what it might have been like. This episode is written by Bryan Wolford, edited by E.J. Tangonan, produced by Taylor James Johnson and narrated by Bronwyn Kelly-Seigh. 

Released 16 years after the original, this sequel feels like too little too late, or too much too late? It's hard to tell here because it's kind of both. Through a lot of twists and turns, most of them either nonsensical or uninteresting, we get to meet a gang of werewolves hosting parties for victims, a stepfather who searched for a cure, a tenuous connection to the first one, and ultimately, the last third that is just so 1990s, it almost hurts. So, what happened here? Let's find out WTF Happened To This Horror Movie?

Robert Zemeckis was one of the most prominent directors of the eighties and nineties. His string of hits is almost unmatched. Think about it - Romancing the Stone, the Back to the Future Trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, Cast Away, What Lies Beneath, etc. This is why it’s so bizarre that a live-action Disney Pinocchio movie directed by Zemeckis and starring his best favorite leading man, Tom Hanks, was essentially dumped to streaming. It came and went without much fanfare, while it would have been a cinematic event fifteen years ago. WTF Happened?

In this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, we dig into Zemeckis’ career, which began with the underrated pair I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars before Romancing the Stone made him an A-lister. We dig into how he was actually fired from Cocoon because the Fox brass thought Romancing the Stone would flop, leading to him making Back to the Future with pal Steven Spielberg. We dig into the then-impossible idea of mixing live-action and animation in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, show some love to Forrest Gump, and examine some underrated gems like Death Becomes Her.

But WTF Happened to Robert Zemeckis? In the 2000s, Zemeckis became a proponent of Motion Capture technology, leading to The Polar Express and Beowulf, movies which are a little uncanny valley if you revisit them today. Even if he’s not quite the mega-watt hitmaker he once was, with films like Welcome to Marwen being disastrous, he’s still capable of making gems like the fantastic Denzel Washington movie Flight. In this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, which is written (with Mathew Plale), narrated and edited by Taylor James Johnson, we dig into the director’s life, legacy and future. 

If you weren’t alive in the nineties, it’s hard to do justice to just how popular Beavis & Butt-Head were. Their MTV show was cutting-edge stuff, notably, because the two Mike Judges creations often mocked the very same artists the network had only years earlier played to great success (just ask Kip Winger). In the show, Beavis and Butt-Head’s adventures were intermingled with them providing commentary on music videos, something which would eventually be phased out as the brand grew in popularity beyond MTV. It was all part of MTV’s strategy to branch out beyond music videos, with its launch coinciding with The Real World and the start of MTV Films. The latter, of course, wanted to turn the teenaged animated phenomenon into a movie. After years of prodding, Mike Judge finally agreed to make Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. 

A Christmas of 1996 release, the film was a sizeable hit, grossing $63.1 million domestically. Still, oddly enough, it took decades for there to be a sequel, and even then, it was a streaming premiere tied to a new series rather than a full-feature. Perhaps it was due to Mike Judge being busy with King of the Hill and his features Office Space and Idiocracy. Whatever the case, in this nostalgic episode of WTF Happened to this Movie (written by Brad Hamerly, edited by Cesar Gomez & narrated by Mathew Plale), we look back at how the film came together and how the power couple of the moment, Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, ended up being part of the voice cast. 

Today, we focus on one master of horror in particular and one of his final movies in his incredible filmography. Try to count how many cross-dissolve shots are in this thing as we dig into John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars and find out What Happened To This Horror Movie?

Billy Bob Thornton is an unlikely but enduring movie star. He blasted onto the scene as a character actor in movies like One False Move and Tombstone before his 1996 passion project, Sling Blade, earned him a best screenplay Academy Award while also netting him a Best Actor nomination. Made for just over $1 million, it was a solid box office hit, grossing 30 times its budget, and from there, Thornton’s career went into high gear. While his directorial career went on the back-burner after Harvey Weinstein cut his Cormac McCarthy adaptation, All the Pretty Horses, to shreds, his acting career was white-hot, earning a best-supporting actor nomination for Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan and leading movies such as Monster’s Ball, Friday Night Lights, The Man Who Wasn’t There, and netting high profile supporting roles in Armageddon, Primary Colors, Bandits, Love Actually and so many more.

His career really gained momentum when he signed on to play the lead in perhaps his most iconic film, Bad Santa, which became an R-rated Christmas classic. At the same time, the public became fascinated by Thornton’s eccentricities, including the fact that he and his then-wife Angelina Jolie wore pendants of each other’s blood and his well-known aversion to antique furniture. There’s also his viral CBC interview in which he sparred with the now-cancelled Jian Ghomeshi, but through it all Thornton has stayed firmly on the Hollywood A-list, with him especially prominent on TV thanks to roles on Fargo and Goliath. We dig into his career in this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, which is written (with Brad Hamerly), narrated and produced by Taylor James Johnson, and edited by Adam Walton.

When it comes to the all-time craziest and most unbelievable true stories ever committed to celluloid, Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon (starring Al Pacino and the late, great John Cazale) tops the list. Ripped right from the headlines, the stranger-than-fiction true-crime story about three men attempting to rob a bank during broad daylight in the dead of summer in New York - only to become a grueling 14-hour hostage situation and high-profile media circus - will forever live in infamy due to how incredibly outlandish the details are. While the names of the primary players have been changed for the big-screen adaption, and while many fascinating tidbits about the case were slightly altered or omitted from the final film, the overwhelming majority of what transpires in Dog Day Afternoon really happened on one sweltering summer day in August 1972. Come closer y’all, it’s time to separate the wheat from the chaff and find out What The F*ck Really Happened to Dog Day Afternoon!

Zombies have been all the rage for decades at this point. Just when you think they're going to fade, there's another movie that comes along that revitalizes the sub-genre. But back before the days of The Walking Dead, zombies were considerably less popular. With 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake came fast zombies and a renewed interest in zombies. This meant the Godfather of Zombie himself could finally make another film in his Dead series. So we're diving into it all as we figure out what happened to George A. Romero's Land of the Dead.

There was a time that Ozzy Osbourne was considered the most wildly unpredictable, dangerous man in heavy metal. This was the guy that bit the head off a live bat during a concert in 1982, drank Vince Neil’s urine and snorted a line of ants like cocaine amid a bender. The former Black Sabbath front-man was a legend, to the point that many of us, as kids, weren’t allowed to listen to his music or - God Forbid - watch his music videos. But here’s the thing - Ozzy mellowed. First, in the late eighties/early nineties, he became more of a conventional metal guy with his killer album, No More Tears, but that was nothing compared to how, in the early 2000s, he became an unlikely pioneer of reality TV. His MTV show, The Osbournes, introduced us to his loving family, including his brilliant wife Sharon (responsible for much of his success being his manager), Kelly and Jack. Suddenly Ozzy became - family-friendly. One might even say the formerly Satanic rocker became wholesome in his old age. In this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, we look at Ozzy’s hard-partying days and contrast them to the more mature Ozzy seen in recent years.

This episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity is written (with Brad Hamerly), narrated, edited and produced by Taylor James Johnson. Let us know what you think of Ozzy these days in the comments! 

I know what you’re thinking - WTF Happened to The Avengers? Nothing, it was one of the biggest hits ever. Not so fast - we’re not talking about the Marvel superhero team-up that shot the MCU into the stratosphere. Instead, we’re talking about 1998’s misbegotten remake of the classic British spy series, The Avengers.

On paper, this should have been a great movie. The Avengers was a classic British TV series starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg as super spy agents John Steed and Emma Peel. Their “will they or won’t they” chemistry influenced everything from Cheers to Moonlighting, and the show still runs daily in the UK. Given that the show was always considered the best Eurospy franchise outside of James Bond, it should have turned into a massive franchise for Warner Bros. The cast was next-level, with Uma Thurman playing Emma Peel, Ralph Fiennes as John Steed, and James Bond himself, Sean Connery, as the main villain, Sir August de Wynter. So what went wrong? Just about everything, as we’ll dig into in this episode of WTF Happened to this Movie.

For one thing, the finished version of the film clocked in at 89 minutes, about a half hour shorter than intended. Director Jeremiah Chechik found himself saddled with a finished film that didn’t make a lick of sense. Given the issues with the cut, instead of being a summer blockbuster, it was dumped to the same late-summer dumping ground we find ourselves in right now (there’s a reason nothing really opens until after Labor Day). So dig in and check out this tale of the spy franchise that wasn’t.
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Most of us know Cursed as the terrible Wes Craven Werewolf movie, right? This film's troubled production dragged out for years and resulted in an entirely different movie in the end. But what about that first cut? The one that featured Skeet Ulrich, Robert Forster, and Mandy Moore. So join us as we take a look at the original cut of 2005's Cursed.

The sequences of a Final Destination film will play through your head over and over long after the film ends. They're visceral and have a certain quality that really allows you to put yourself in the situation. So by the time the third entry came along, they had to up the ante to really shock audiences. Heck, the second outing had a legendary highway sequence. How could they possibly top that? We'll see if they managed it as we cover the rollercoaster mayhem of Final Destination 3.

They say, "In space, no one can hear you scream." But we've seen through eight Alien films that plenty of people can hear you scream if you're in a spaceship. The Xenomorphs have no problem causing their victims a lot of pain. Even though we've seen them in many films, fans will mostly agree that after Aliens, the franchise was never the same. 

In 2015, filmmaker Neill Blomkamp announced he had been working on a new Alien project. This was even a surprise to Fox, which owned the series. Fans seemed excited by the prospect of the director taking on the project after the imaginative sci-fi films he had been releasing. Ultimately, Neil Blomkamp's Alien 5 would fall apart after some starts and stops. Let's find out exactly why here on What Happened To This Unmade Movie

Megan Fox was the “It Girl” of the second half of the 2000s. When she showed up as the love interest in Michael Bay’s Transformers, she quickly became one of the most desired women on the planet, but Hollywood didn’t quite seem sure what to do with her for the longest time. While Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was a hit, she was famously written out of the third film. Her roles in movies like Jonah Hex fell flat, while her big star vehicle, Jennifer’s Body, was a flop - albeit one that’s been reappraised recently. 

While a lot was made over the fact that she compared her Transformers director, Michael Bay, to Hitler, there seems to be no love lost between the two, with him casting her in his two big-budget Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies as April O’Neil. They failed to launch an enduring franchise, and now Fox is mainly known for the notoriety of her relationship with Machine Gun Kelly. But, and here’s the kicker - while her low-budget movies haven’t been particularly well-received, her acting in them has often been quite good, surprising critics that otherwise pan the movies. With a prominent role opposite Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham in The Expendables 4 (aka Expend4bles), could a legit comeback be on the horizon? We dig into it in this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, written and narrated by Taylor James Johnson and edited by Juan Jimenez. 

Yo ho mateys! One of the most unlikely franchises to become a multi-billion dollar grossing juggernaut was indeed Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean series. Led by Johnny Depp’s iconic Jack Sparrow, the series has run five instalments (to date) and grossed an estimated 4.5 billion dollars worldwide. This is pretty incredible considering that, in 2003, the first film was seen as a huge gamble. Pirate-based swashbucklers hadn’t been popular since the days of Errol Flynn, and modern attempts to revitalize the genre, including 1983’s Nate & Hayes, Roman Polanski’s Pirates and 1995’s Cutthroat Island, were all notorious flops. Add to that the fact that Johnny Depp was going pretty far out with his “hero” Jack Sparrow, who looked much more like Keith Richards than Errol Flynn, and you had one nervous studio. However, the resulting film was an absolute smash, leading to four sequels of varying quality. In this episode of WTF You Need to Know About This Franchise (written, edited and narrated by Kier Gomes and produced by Tyler Nichols), we dig into the saga and give our picks for which Jack Sparrow adventures you should go on and which ones you can skip. 

When director Sean S. Cunningham set out to make the original FRIDAY THE 13TH, he was trying to craft a cinematic rollercoaster ride. His little independent production was such a crowd-pleasing thrill ride it became one of the biggest hits of 1980. And spawned a franchise that is still going on to this day. So let’s celebrate FRIDAY THE 13TH by looking back and figuring out WTF Happened To This Horror Movie?

Now, I know what you’re thinkin’ punk; what’s the deal with making an episode about WTF Happened to this Celebrity about Clint Eastwood? Nothing happened to him. He’s still making movies at ninety-two. Indeed, you would be correct - but we here at JoBlo are such massive fans of Eastwood that we couldn’t help but whip together an awesome WTF episode exploring his life and legacy. The fact is, it’s unlikely any other actor has ever had the impact that ol’ Clint did. Sure, others were maybe better actors, but were there better “stars”? And not only that, but he’s been directing movies since the seventies, and some of them are all-out masterpieces such as Unforgiven, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, and so many more. In this episode, we trace Clint’s humble beginnings, as a second lead on the show Rawhide, through his breakout as the “Man with No Name” in a trilogy of westerns with Sergio Leone, through the Dirty Harry series, his passion projects like Bird and so much more. So sit back, relax and enjoy WTF Happened to Clint Eastwood, written (with Brad Hamerly), narrated, produced and edited by Taylor James Johnson.

It’s not a stretch to say that James Cameron’s The Terminator might be one of the most influential movies of all time. Produced on a shoestring budget, The Terminator introduced the world to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 and Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor, mother of the human resistance. In this original classic, Arnie’s T-800 is a terrifying figure, much different from the heroic character we’d come to love in the sequels. Here, he’s sent back to kill Sarah Connor before she can give birth to her son John Connor, only to be protected by a heroic soldier from the future, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn). With its iconic, menacing score by Brad Fiedel and novel FX via Stan Winston, The Terminator is considered by many to be one of the best sci-fi action hybrids ever. Still, the road to the big screen was not easy for James Cameron’s epic. We’ll dive right in on this week’s WTF Happened to this Movie, written and narrated by Dave Davis and edited by Juan Jimenez. 

John Carpenter’s The Thing didn’t go over well when it was released in 1982. Ignored by movie-goers, it was a box office failure. Reviled by critics, it even saw Carpenter labeled a pornographer of violence by some reviewers. It was such a disappointment for the studio they took another project away from Carpenter as punishment. But it gradually found its audience, building up a cult following. And soon, a legion of fans and critics alike began calling it one of the greatest horror movies ever made. It didn’t take long for THE THING to go from being known as reprehensible trash to being considered an all-time classic. So let’s take a look at the making of this classic with a new episode of WTF Happened to This Horror Movie?

Every kid of a certain age grew up wanting to be Jackie Chan. A legend in Hong Kong and most of the world from the late-seventies on, Jackie Chan also, at long last, became a superstar in North America after the release of his 1996 classic Rumble in the Bronx. Supercop, First Strike and more dubbed versions of his Hong Kong movies would follow, but it was 1998’s Rush Hour, which paired him with Chris Tucker, that made him a phenomenon in the United States. It was as if, at long last, the United States was let in on a secret the rest of the world already knew.

Jackie Chan emerged in the late nineties after a failed attempt to make him into a Bruce Lee clone. Never wanting to be a typical martial arts star, Chan opted to mix comedy and martial arts in a way that made him a household name throughout much of the world in the eighties. His movies like Police Story, Wheels on Meals (you read that right), Dragons Forever, Armour of God (which almost killed him), and more were giant hits worldwide. The U.S did indeed try to use him in a few films, with him having minor roles opposite Burt Reynolds in The Cannonball Run and its sequel, and he got solo action films (in English) with The Big Brawl and The Protector. Neither film’s director knew how to use him, especially in The Protector, which tried to make him into a Clint Eastwood-style tough guy, a formula that didn’t mesh with Chan at all, leading to him temporarily swearing off U.S movies. Finally, in the nineties, he could do it his way, and in this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, written (with Mathew Plale), narrated, and edited by Taylor James Johnson, we trace his career and where he’s at now. 

Jupiter Ascending was a movie sci-fi fans were really looking forward to. It would mark the long-awaited return of the Wachowskis to the sci-fi action genre, something they left behind when Speed Racer flopped theatrically. This promised to be a large-scale fantasy epic that fans hoped would be the new Matrix. Alas, things didn’t work out that way, with critics savaging the film when it came out and audiences staying away in droves. Complaints included a muddled sci-fi universe, a bizarre choice to make Channing Tatum’s hero part dog, and the fact that newly minted Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne’s acting was so over the top that people thought he should have his award taken back. A charming performance by Mile Kunis as the heroine and a solid score by Michael Giacchino was not enough to save this turkey. It would mark the Wachowskis' swan song as a team, with Lilly Wachowski stepping away from directing. Lana would rebound with the decisive sequel, The Matrix Resurrections, which would also prove to be a financial flop.

So WTF Happened to Jupiter Ascending? Let's unpack this well-intended and fun (in a camp way) sci-fi fantasy in an episode edited by Diane Baldwin, written by Daniel Woburn, and narrated by Mathew Plale.

If one were to list the greatest rock n’ roll frontmen of all time, Van Halen’s David Lee Roth would be near the top. With a swagger and look that seemed tailor-made for the MTV era, Roth was riding high in the eighties and, for a while, was among the biggest rock stars on the planet. From 1974 to 1985, he was Van Halen’s lead singer, but after the release of 1984, their biggest album, Roth departed from the band. He would reunite with them for brief stints in 1996 and 2001, before a mostly permanent reunion in 2007, but even without the band backing him up, some of his solo work has been iconic. In this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, we look at a true rock n’ roll legend!

Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder memorably satirized both the Hollywood war film and the often ridiculous lengths actors will go to in order to "capture" the characters they're playing. While the notion that Robert Downey Jr's Kirk Lazarus would dye his skin to play an African-American might be hard to swallow, it wasn't entirely out there fourteen years ago. Hollywood's self-seriousness was arguably at its zenith at this moment in time, and Stiller's film brilliantly satirizes some of the more infamous performances of the era, such as Sean Penn in I Am Sam, Eddie Murphy in Norbit & The Klumps, and more. It's also just a damn funny film (with Tom Cruise as you've truly never seen him before in a Harvey Weinstein/Scott Rudin satire that went over a lot of heads back then), as we dig into Tropic Thunder in this episode of WTF Happened to this Movie!

While there have been plenty of horror remakes over the years, there's only one directed by Martin Scorsese. And while that should be enough to garner limitless interest, add in Robert De Niro and Jessica Lange and you've got a recipe for something spectacular. So join us as we dive into the maniacal world of Max Cady in Cape Fear.

A long time ago in a movie theater not too far away . . . a series of films came out that captured the imagination of movie fans everywhere. The Star Wars franchise has been a giant among the most loved movies ever made. The original trilogy has been held up as sacred. When it came time for the Prequels, original fans were let down, but young fans embraced them. They have finally aged into their place in Star Wars canon.

When Lucasfilm was sold to Disney for a staggering $4.5 billion fans knew it was only a matter of time before we finally got some films with some of our favorite characters returning to the big screen. The first two divided audiences, but the third may have been the one that really made fans wonder what was happening behind the scenes. There didn't seem to be a plan for the new films and every director went by the seat of their pants. Originally, film director Colin Trevorrow was supposed to come in and direct the final film, capping off this trilogy and paying off on storylines from the first two films.

When The Rise Of Skywalker was released fans began to wonder what the original plan for the film was back when it was titled Duel Of The Fates. Why did Trevorrow leave? What was the actual plan for the film? Let's find out all that and more here on What Happened To This Unmade Film

The last two years have not been good for Armie Hammer, and things will likely only worsen. With Discovery’s docuseries - House of Hammer - on the way, we look back at how exactly one of Hollywood’s most promising young stars ended up an industry pariah. 

Before he went off the deep end, Hammer was considered a top-notch leading man. After making heads turn in David Fincher’s The Social Network, where he famously played Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in a dual role, Hollywood was keen to make him their next big star. He immediately hopped into leading roles in big tentpoles. He was The Lone Ranger, and he starred in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., but both pricey movies tanked at the box office. Suddenly Hollywood wasn’t so sure he was bankable, but then a co-starring role in Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name unleashed his full charisma and once again put him at the head of casting lists, with him nabbing leads in the price Netflix remake of Rebecca and Kenneth Branagh’s Agatha Christie adaptation, Death on the Nile.

Alas, this is where things took a turn when it was alleged Hammer had certain “proclivities,” which led to abuse allegations from several women. At the same time, his alleged drug use became wildly known, but the allegations (which made people think he was a cannibal) sealed his fate in Hollywood, especially once text messages and D.M.’s were leaked. As quickly as his star rose, it fell to the point that he was recently apparently selling timeshares to make ends meet. Is this the end of Hammer? Hollywood loves a comeback, but will there be a way forward post-House of Hammer? We dig into it in this episode of W.T.F. Happened to this Celebrity, narrated and written (with Brad Hamerly) by Taylor James Johnson, and edited by Juan Jimenez.

Aeon Flux is often forgotten when discussing Charlize Theron's action roles. Before Mad Max: Fury Road turned her into a legitimate genre icon, a status re-affirmed by Atomic Blonde and The Old Guard, her first attempt at headlining an action flick, 2005's Aeon Flux, had been largely forgotten. At the time, Theron was mostly known for prestige drama. She had won an Oscar in 2004 for his role as Aileen Wuornos in Patty Jenkins' Monster. She chose to follow this up by trying her luck at leading an action franchise, as female-driven action films were having a moment thanks to the success of the Underworld franchise. Directed by Karyn Kusama and based on the cult MTV Animated series, Aeon Flux seemed to have everything going for it. Still, the film was a notorious bomb that temporarily derailed Kusama's career, while Theron would avoid action movies until being lured back by George Miller. 

So what happened? We explain how studio battles, dulling cuts of the film and a fetishized heroine derailed what could have been a big franchise for all involved in this episode of WTF Happened to this Movie, written by Gaius Bolling, edited by Paul Podeyn, and narrated by Mathew Plale. 

Pitting two titans of cinema against each other has been in the public consciousness since Frankenstein, and The Wolfman met up in 1943. And in the years since, we've seen many different iconic figures do battle: Batman vs Superman, Godzilla vs Kong, and even Freddy vs Jason. Yet there was one film that brought together two of the greatest sci-fi monsters ever, and so today, we're looking into the making of 2004's AVP: Alien vs. Predator!

If you grew up in the nineties, you undoubtedly grew up a massive fan of The Sandlot. A coming-of-age story centering around a group of baseball-loving kids who hang out every day in a Sandlot, the movie didn’t make much of a peep in theatres back in 1993. However, the box office didn’t tell the whole story, with the movie becoming a cult film on VHS, cable and later DVD, with writer-director David Mickey Evans eventually returning to make a DTV spin-off, The Sandlot 2, while a prequel is still in development.

But what happened to all of the kids in The Sandlot? Unlike a movie like Stand by Me, there were no megastars like River Phoenix to emerge, but the cast still fared well in the years to come. Many have gone on to everyday lives, while others continue to work (successfully) in showbiz almost 30 years later. In this special episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, we catch up with The Sandlot kids, including Patrick Renna (Ham), Tom Guiry (Smalls), Chauncy Leopardi (Squints), Marty York (Yeah Yeah), Brandon Quintin Adams (Kenny), Mike Vitar (Benjamin) and more!  

This episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity is written (with Brad Hamerly), produced, edited and narrated by Taylor James Johnson! Let us know if you have fond memories of The Sandlot in the comments!

When it comes to leaving a mark on cinematic history and scaring the bejesus out of people while doing it, John Carpenter would be on the Mount Rushmore of Horror. Known for directing some of the most iconic and influential films in horror history, Carpenter is responsible for helming Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York, The Thing, Christine, Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, and Prince of Darkness, to name a few. Each of the films mentioned above has left an indelible mark on film history, with many filmmakers crediting Carpenter as a source of inspiration for their chosen careers.

In addition to helming a handful of cinematic gems, Carpenter is also an award-winning composer, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He’s a Swiss Army knife of talent, but not every career isn’t without a few scars. In 2001, Carpenter released Ghost of Mars, a sci-fi horror film that received raised eyebrows and a few thumbs pointing downward. Don’t you haters ever come for In the Mouth of Madness, though. We’ll mess you up!

Still an integral part of the filmmaking industry, Carpenter has contributed to several Halloween projects, including short films and David Gordon Green’s recent trilogy. There is seemingly no end to Carpenter’s creativity, and we’re about to explore much of it in today’s WTF Happened to John Carpenter presentation.

There are few horror films that are able to surpass the genre and make it to Awards season. But the winning combination of Rob Reiner, Kathy Bates, and James Caan proved to be too much, and Academy voters were no longer able to ignore the often-forgotten genre. Yet why, of all the films, was this able to surpass those unfair expectations? Join us as we tell you all about it as we dive into Stephen King's Misery.

Let us preface this by saying that we know Jennifer Lawrence is still a massive star. After all, she’s got several movies coming out this year and, by all accounts, delivers an excellent performance in the TIFF-bound drama Causeway. But, it has to be said that Hollywood tends to anoint young actors as the next big superstar and then ditch them after one or two flops. In the wake of The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence was everywhere, winning an Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook and solidifying her box office power with a long-running role as Mystique in the X-Men prequels. But, when The Hunger Games series ended, and she had a few high-profile flops, including Mother, Dark Phoenix and the surprisingly great Red Sparrow, Lawrence all but disappeared from view for two years. 

She re-emerged last year in Don’t Look Up, but what happened, and why isn’t Lawrence still leading massive tentpole movies? Where’s her big franchise? Or was this lower-key return Lawrence’s idea, as she looks to re-establish herself in roles far removed from the ones that made her famous? It makes sense if you consider that much of her early career was defined by two franchises. One, The Hunger Games, showed Lawrence at her best, but it can also be argued that the X-Men series showed her at her worst, with many complaining her performance as Mystique began to grow listless by the time the franchise finally came to an end with Dark Phoenix. We dig inter her career in this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity!

2016’s Gods of Egypt was meant to be a significant franchise starter for Lionsgate, mixing Egyptian mythology and fantasy in a way that should have been explosive but landed with a thud. Director Alex Proyas, who directed a few seminal classics, including The Crow and Dark City, did his best to deliver an exciting fantasy film. Still, critics were savage, and audiences stayed away. In the end, it lost an estimated $90 million, despite the presence of Gerard Butler and Game of Thrones’ favorite Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Is it as bad as people remember? Check out this episode of WTF Happened to this Movie!

As with many film adaptations based on a title in any medium loved by many, it’s hard to get the right tone to satisfy a die-hard fan. Well, I’m here to tell you that one has seemingly been overlooked in the praise department. One that captures the tone and spirit of the game completely. Fasten your seatbelts and keep your eyes on the road as we take a trip to find out WTF Happened To Silent Hill?

With WB/DC's The Flash finally hitting theaters this Friday, fans have no doubt noticed that the movie's star, Ezra Miller, is nowhere to be seen. Usually, the star of a tentpole movie would be out promoting the heck out of it, but Miller is such an issue for the studio that the actor has been sidelined. What's ironic is that Miller's performance has earned raves, and many people are saying The Flash is one of the best superhero movies ever made. Surely now should be a time for celebration? 

Alas, Miller's involvement is why some think the film may under-perform, and many don't want to celebrate anything involving the controversial figure. In this video, we unpack Miller's once-promising career and ask ourselves, is there a way back for the actor?

In this episode of WTF Happened to this Movie, we look at Zack Snyder’s divisive big-screen adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Hollywood tried for years to turn this into a film, with directors such as Paul Greengrass, Terry Gilliam and more attached. In the end, Snyder, who was coming off of another ambitious graphic novel adaptation, Frank Miller’s 300, was the one who made it work. Boasting a unique cast of character actors and a period 1980’s setting, Snyder made a mostly faithful adaptation that was attacked by some critics, hated by others, and divided fans. In this episode, we dig into the film's origins and reception.

Blair Witch, for those unaware, is a sequel to the 1999 surprise hit The Blair Witch Project and is a definite return to the series roots in terms of story and filming style. It came as a surprise that a film was shot under the title The Woods and revealed to be a Blair Witch sequel at San Diego Comic-Con 2016. For many, the return to the roots of the franchise was a welcome sight after Books of Shadow: Blair Witch 2. So let's dig in and find out WTF Happened to This Horror Movie?

When it comes to leaving a mark on cinematic history and scaring the bejesus out of people while doing it, John Carpenter would be on the Mount Rushmore of Horror. Known for directing some of the most iconic and influential films in horror history, Carpenter is responsible for helming Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York, The Thing, Christine, Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, and Prince of Darkness, to name a few. Each of the films mentioned above has left an indelible mark on film history, with many filmmakers crediting Carpenter as a source of inspiration for their chosen careers.

In addition to helming a handful of cinematic gems, Carpenter is also an award-winning composer, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He’s a Swiss Army knife of talent, but not every career isn’t without a few scars. In 2001, Carpenter released Ghost of Mars, a sci-fi horror film that received raised eyebrows and a few thumbs pointing downward. Don’t you haters ever come for In the Mouth of Madness, though. We’ll mess you up!

Still an integral part of the filmmaking industry, Carpenter has contributed to several Halloween projects, including short films and David Gordon Green’s recent trilogy. There is seemingly no end to Carpenter’s creativity, and we’re about to explore much of it in today’s WTF Happened to John Carpenter presentation.

What do you think of John Carpenter, and what’s your favorite movie from him? Let us know in the comments!

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that in 1994, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction revolutionized popular cinema. While 1992’s Sundance breakout, Reservoir Dogs, made Tarantino an indie icon, Pulp Fiction made him a household name, spawning a “cool crime” genre that dominated the second half of the decade, even as the director himself moved away from the genre. The movie revitalized the career of star John Travolta, whose career had bottomed out in the nineties but soon became a $20 million a film A-lister, and put Uma Thurman on the map in a pretty big way. It also gave Bruce Willis some street cred as a movie star willing to dip his toe into indies while also making Samuel L. Jackson one of the most iconic character actors of our era. In this episode of WTF Happened to this Movie, we look at the making of Tarantino’s crime epic, from its humble origins, casting hurdles, development with Miramax, controversial Cannes’ Palme d'Or win and more. 

Stephen King adaptations are a dime a dozen these days. It seems like every month, there's a King story being adapted to the world of cinema. But it all had to start somewhere. So join us as we cover the debut of one of the greatest authors of all time with 1976's Carrie.

As far as rock stars go, they don’t get much bigger than Axl Rose. As the front-man of Guns N’ Roses, he became an instant legend when their debut album, “Appetite for Destruction” was released in 1987. Spawning hits that are still iconic twenty-five years later (with the soundtrack for Thor: Love and Thunder featuring them prominently), including “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Paradise City,” and “Sweet Child of Mine,” the album broke out from the hard rock/heavy metal genre to become one of the biggest selling albums of all time. Throughout the late eighties and early nineties, they were one of the biggest bands in the world, with “Use Your Illusion 1 & 2” also major sellers. Axl Rose was everywhere, especially when the band started doing ballads like “Don’t Cry” and “November Rain.”

Yet, after the release of their covers album, “The Spaghetti Incident,” Guns N’ Roses started to fall apart, with iconic guitarist Slash and Duff McKagan leaving acrimoniously. Rose would spend most of the next decade working on a follow-up album, “Chinese Democracy,” with an ever-revolving lineup of members, with the album in question a critical and commercial disappointment. 

In the meantime, rumours about Rose’s behaviour and sobriety ran rampant. In this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, we try to separate fact from fiction and celebrate the fact that Rose has since reunited much of the original band and that they still sell out stadiums worldwide.

You sunk my Battleship! That’s probably what the executives at Universal Pictures were thinking the weekend Battleship, Peter Berg’s megabudget adaptation of the board game, opened in theaters. Costing a massive $200 million, Battleship was meant to kick off a franchise, but it landed with a thud both critically and commercially. While star Taylor Kitsch unfairly took a lot of blame, with it one of two back-to-back flops for the unproven lead (alongside the excellent John Carter), there was a lot about Battleship that didn’t make sense, with them turning the board game, which was all about strategy, into a generic alien invasion thriller. In this episode, we dig into the many things that went wrong, including casting Liam Neeson in a role with no action, killing Alexander Skarsgard in the first act, etc. Not even Rihanna could save this one from a grisly box office fate, as we explain in this week’s WTF Happened to this Movie!

Anthology films are the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to being a horror fan. It allows so many different tropes and sub-genres to be explored while still providing bite-sized fun. So what happens when two of the greatest creators in all of horror combine forces for their very own anthology film? One of the best out there, of course! So join us as we cover George A Romero and Stephen King's Creepshow.

When it comes to the most disappointing comic book movies that were planned but never produced, which one tops the list? Is it Tim Burton’s Batman Continues? Guillermo del Toro’s Doctor Strange? Perhaps JJ Abrams’ Superman: Flyby? Nah, there’s only one correct answer: Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4, a movie that continues to breathe potential flickers of life nearly 15 years after it was declared dead by Sony Pictures. Indeed, with the exciting new announcement that Tobey Maguire’s version of Peter Parker may not be extinct after all, the real question of the day is, WTF Happened to Sam Raimi’s unmade Spider-Man 4?

There was a time in the mid-nineties when Pauly Shore was a very big deal. Rising to fame as a VJ on MTV, he parlayed his alter-ego “The Weasel” into unlikely big-screen stardom. His first movie, Encino Man, introduced the world to Brendan Fraser as a caveman, and Shore was such a hit in it that he got his own solo comedy Son in Law (opposite a young Carla Gugino), which was a money-maker. His follow-up, IN the Army Now, also made money, but that would be the end of Shore’s short-lived reign as a star. His next two movies, Jury Duty and Bio-Dome, would be flops, and a TV show, Pauly, would be cancelled after five episodes. Clearly, Shore’s reign at the top was short-lived.

Yet, there’s still something very likeable about “The Weasel,” mainly because Shore has always had a sense of humour about his place in pop culture. While he’s no longer a household name, most people who grew up in a particular era still hold a lot of affection for Shore, and in this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity, we look at his rise to fame, his fall, and where he is now.

Ben Affleck’s Argo was a runaway hit in 2012. His highly anticipated follow-up to The Town, it finally won Affleck the respect from his peers that he always deserved, with it earning a Best Picture Oscar, despite the man being shut out as director in a controversial move. Audiences and critics alike raved about the movie, but it wasn’t without controversy. Some involved with the original “Canadian Caper” that the film was based on slammed it for various inaccuracies. However, these were largely dismissed as the film set out to be entertainment rather than a documentary, which is fair enough. 

In this episode of WTF Really Happened to this Movie, we dig into the true story behind Argo, including the truth behind the CIA operative Affleck played, Tony Mendez, who, as the film depicts, cooked up a scheme where he pretended to be scouting locations for a sci-fi pic to rescue hostages in the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979-1981. We dig into the Canadian and American roles in the caper, as well as the actions of diplomat Ken Taylor. He played a small part in the film but was credited by many (including then-President Jimmy Carter) as the real hero behind the operation. 

This episode of WTF Really Happened to this Movie is written by Jake Dee, narrated by Steve Seigh and edited by Paul Cooper. Let us know in the comments whether or not you think Argo’s inaccuracies are a serious issue or if this is just a regular Hollywood occurrence in the pursuit of entertainment. 

The final girl, the opposite of horror villains, is a character defined by her innocence, intelligence, and girl-next-door charm. She's a survivor who outwits supernatural evil to protect her friends and neighbors. This archetype was pioneered by Jamie Lee Curtis, a legendary horror actress who transitioned into a top-tier film career. In this episode of "WTF Happened To This Horror Celebrity," we explore the journey of Jamie Lee Curtis, one of the horror genre's reigning queens.

These days, horror and comedy are no stranger to each other with recent films such as Bodies Bodies Bodies, Freaky, and the Happy Death Day series. But in the early eighties, blending the two genres was practically unheard of. Enter John Landis, who had already established himself as a successful comedic director with The Blues Brothers and Animal House, to change the formula with 1981’s An American Werewolf in London. Grab your best flannel and keep clear of the Moors as we find out WTF Happened To This Horror Movie?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few months, you’ve probably had your fill of the name Amber Heard. The court case between her and ex-husband Johnny Depp played out in all of its Livestream infamy recently and ended with a decisive victory by team Depp. In many ways, the disgraced star was redeemed in the public eye when a jury found Heard defamed him in an op-ed about being a survivor of “sexual violence” and “domestic abuse.” As revealed in the trial, the facts behind their relationship and Heard’s allegations of abuse were far from black & white, showing that Depp himself was also a victim of domestic abuse at her hands.

Perhaps the most surprising development was the social media reaction, which was mainly in Depp’s favor. This was a far cry from when Heard made the abuse allegations several years ago, at the height of MeToo, when many took her side. In the end, Depp’s persona has rebounded, and many expect him to one day make a successful movie comeback, while Heard’s career is in tatters. Her reputation is in the gutter now, and many wonder whether or not she will ever work again, especially now that it’s been revealed that her Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom role has been dramatically reduced. In this episode of #wtfhappenedtothiscelebrity we look at Heard’s rise and fall and whether or not there’s a way forward for the controversial actress.