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WIRE Buzz: The Simpsons' new short hitting Disney+; Domhnall Gleeson on Hux's Star Wars fate; more
The new short "Playdate With Destiny," the Simpsons mini that played before Pixar's Onward during the film's curtailed theatrical run, is coming to Disney+ tomorrow, April 10. This was confirmed on Instagram via a special handwritten message from The Simpsons creator Matt Groening.
"The response was so gratifying, we wanted everyone to see it. So here ya go...," reads the note.
Directed by David Silverman, "Playdate With Destiny" finds Maggie (the mostly tacit and pacifier-loving member of the Simpson household) falling in love with a fellow toddler at the park.
Onward, which made a little over $100 million during its time in theaters before the coronavirus pandemic shut down the world, is now streaming on Disney+ and available for digital purchase.
General Hux's betrayal of the First Order was certainly a welcome surprise in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but the execution of him switching sides left something to be desired. Even Domhnall Gleeson was a little let down by how the final entry in the sequel trilogy handled his character arc.
“It would’ve been nice to stick around a little bit longer, for sure,” Gleeson recently told IndieWire. “It would’ve been nice to see the spy thing play out a little bit, but J.J. [Abrams] knows what he’s doing, and I heard a kind of gasp in the cinema when it happened, so I guess he was right."
In an earlier draft of the project's screenplay, Hux was supposed to turn himself in to the Resistance at an earlier point in the film. In the finished product, however, Hux anonymously feeds information to them. He later reveals himself as the spy by helping Finn (John Boyega), Poe (Oscar Isaac), and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) escape from a First Order Star Destroyer. Before letting them go, he asks them to shoot him (non-lethally, of course) to make it look like they overpowered him. Allegiant General Pryde (Richard E. Grant) sees through the ruse and kills Hux himself.
“The film is what the film needed to be, I think," Gleeson added. "There’s always stuff that you would like to see more of, but you can’t have a 17-hour film, I’ve been told. Apparently that’s not allowed, so I was happy with what was there."
Buckle up with the official trailer for The Stranger, Quibi's upcoming thriller series about a young rideshare driver (It Follows' Maika Monre) who is stalked by a murderous sociopath (A Cure for Wellness' Dane DeHaan).
Joining forces with a convenience store cashier (Zombieland: Double Tap's Avan Jogia), the driver endures a terrifying 12 hours as she "navigates the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles in a spine-chilling game of cat and mouse."
Watch below:
The Stranger premieres on Quibi this coming Monday, April 13.
The show was created, written, and directed by Emmy-nominated Veena Su (The Killing).
