Muggles will do anything to be a part of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Universal Orlando opened up its newest ride this week at its version of Hogsmeade, the village that surrounds Hogwarts castle. Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure takes wannabe wizards and witches on a twisting, high-speed flight through the mystical Forbidden Forest.
Diehard fans began waiting overnight outside the park in anticipation of the ride, and it looks like just about everyone had the same idea. At 8:30 a.m. on opening day, the line was already eight hours long, and quickly stretched to 10 hours long by 10:30 a.m., CNN reports.
The line is worth the wait for many fans of the franchise. As Potterheads already know, Rubeus Hagrid, beloved friend of Harry Potter and the gang, has a special affinity for mysterious creatures. So who better to see the beasts of the forest with than the half-giant?
Participants on the ride can choose to sit in Hagrid’s sidecar or in the driver’s seat. The winding track includes appearances by some of our favorite wizards, like Arthur Weasley, and creatures benevolent and otherwise, such as Cornish pixies, massive spiders, and the three-headed dog, Fluffy.
Fans aren’t the only ones wanting to experience the ride. Some of the stars of the film series had a little reunion in Orlando this week to celebrate the opening, including Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley), Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) and Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood).
So fun to reunite with my ‘students’ from #Hogwarts at @UniversalORL for the opening of ‘Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure’. They are all quite ‘charming’! pic.twitter.com/L5IrICj7VQ
The original Jurassic Park seemed impossible to follow when it hit theaters in 1993, but to paraphrase Ian Malcolm, franchises find a way. The movie inspired four sequels, with each one introducing new dinosaurs and new characters for them to terrorize. For the next installment, the series is going back to its roots. As Entertainment Weekly reports, stars Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, and Laura Dern are joining Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard for Jurassic World 3.
When many fans think of Jurassic Park, they picture Alan Grant, Ian Malcolm, and Ellie Sattler. But the three main characters from the first movie have had an inconsistent presence in the sequels: Goldblum returned as Malcolm for the The Lost World and had a brief cameo in Fallen Kingdom, while Neill and Dern reprised their respective roles as Grant and Sattler only in Jurassic Park III.
Jurassic World 3 will mark the first time since the 1993 film that the three original stars appear together on screen. They will act alongside Pratt and Howard—the stars of the current phase of the franchise.
Colin Trevorrow, the director of Jurassic World and the upcoming Jurassic World 3, announced the news at a screening of Jurassic World in Los Angeles on September 24. How large a role the three characters will play is still unclear. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ends with escaped dinosaurs running free on the mainland, and Trevorrow hinted that the new film could pick up where that one left off.
Jurassic World 3 is set to premiere on June 11, 2021. If you plan on rewatching the original movie to satisfy your dino craving in the meantime, here are some things to look for.
Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it’s frequently more entertaining. Thanks to the Netflix acquisition team, the streaming service offers hundreds of documentaries that chronicle everything from riveting tales of true crime to stories about bare-knuckle fighters and extreme Method actors. To help you sort through their formidable selection, we’ve selected 15 films currently streaming that will either make your jaw drop, bring a tear to your eye, or both.
What do you do when you find out that a large stash of cocaine worth millions has been buried somewhere on a Caribbean island? If you're one of the amateur drug smugglers in this darkly comic documentary, you try to dig it up. Florida small business owner—and budding one-man cartel—Rodney Hyden participates in his own reenactments. Tony Montana he isn't.
Juan Catalan is that most compelling of true crime clichés: an innocent man being railroaded for a murder he didn’t commit. With law enforcement dismissing his alibi, his lawyers make a last-ditch effort to prove that Catalan was at a Los Angeles Dodgers game at the time of the assault. How they do that—and which famous comic actor plays a role—is best left to discover on your own.
Anti-virus software tycoon John McAfee was one of the internet’s biggest success stories. Flush with money, power, and a desire to reinvent himself, McAfee relocated to Belize, where his story began to take on echoes of Marlon Brando’s Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. When all of McAfee’s whims are tended to by locals, questions over a neighbor’s murder take on sinister connotations. Michael Keaton is set to play McAfee in a feature film version.
The bonds of brotherhood are explored in this arresting feature about siblings Delbert, Roscoe, and Lyman Ward, farmers in upstate New York who close ranks when police begin to suspect one of them murdered their other brother, William.
When Jim Carrey stepped into the role of the late comedian Andy Kaufman for director Milos Forman’s 1999 biopic Man on the Moon, he didn’t so much imitate Kaufman as become him. That process was documented in behind-the-scenes footage that was buried in studio vaults for years and revealed here for the first time. Executives feared people would consider Carrey—who alternately charms and antagonizes people on the set by never behaving as “Jim”—as being exceptionally difficult to work with. Perhaps, but Carrey’s modern-day reflections on inhabiting the eccentric Kaufman even when the film cameras weren’t rolling are a fascinating study of both the performer’s commitment and the nature of identity.
College student Amanda Knox seized headlines in 2007 and beyond for being the prime suspect in the murder of fellow student and roommate Meredith Kercher while both were studying in Perugia, Italy. The competency and motives of Italian police are examined in this documentary, which features the first time Knox has spoken at length about her trials (yes, there was more than one) and struggles in a foreign justice system. Plenty of ink was spilled in the American media over her suspected guilt: Knox’s unflinching stare into the camera as she tells her side of the story will likely persuade you to think otherwise.
Sun. Models. Booze. Would-be mogul Billy McFarland promised a lot and delivered little more than cold cheese sandwiches at his 2017 music festival debacle, which collected a small fortune in admission and ancillary profits and then wound up leaving hundreds of guests stranded on an island to fend for themselves. Pairing Netflix’s examination of the debacle and its fallout with Hulu’s Fyre Fraud makes for a fine double feature (even if you might be left with more questions than answers).
8. The Power of Grayskull: The Definitive History of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2017)
Toy and nostalgia fans will get a kick out of this rewind to the early 1980s, when Mattel’s He-Man dominated retail stores and syndicated television. The feature examines the toy line’s origins—which involved dueling toy designers and a failed attempt to secure a Conan license—and its later incarnation as a low-budget 1987 movie. (Yes, Dolph Lundgren makes an appearance.)
Director Ava DuVernay delivers a powerful (and Oscar-nominated) indictment of the U.S. justice system and takes a closer look at how incarceration and sentencing feeds into widespread inequality. Peering through DuVernay’s lens, viewers may feel the scales of justice are tipped in favor of privatized and profiteering prisons.
The cat-and-mouse game between drug testing agencies and cheating athletes is put under a microscope in director Bryan Fogel’s Oscar-winning documentary, which uncovers the lengths competitors will go to in order to push past their physical limits. As Fogel digs deeper into the world of pro cycling and its high-ranking political influences, you may discover that drugs are so pervasive that athletes aren’t necessarily looking to cheat—they’re simply looking to even the playing field.
The steroid scandal that's long plagued Major League Baseball is explained in this winning, comic-tinged documentary by director Billy Corben (Cocaine Cowboys). Dealers and dubious doctors in the orbit of players like Alex Rodriguez narrate their rise and fall while being portrayed in reenactments by adolescents.
There are bad cops, there are dirty cops, and then there’s Mike Dowd, a Brooklyn officer who used his badge to siphon money from criminals and exploit the very community he was tasked with protecting. Dowd’s downfall ushered in one of the biggest police corruption scandals of the 1990s. The film features Dowd’s unabashed account of his dirty deeds.
Acclaimed journalist Gay Talese stumbles upon what he thinks is the story of a lifetime: A Colorado motel owner named Gerald Foos who modified his guest rooms so he could spy on his occupants. Not all of Foos’s recollections of his voyeur’s playground hold up to scrutiny, and the film sometimes wonders who’s really in control of the narrative—the directors, Talese, or the enigmatic Foos.
In the 1970s, Kurt Russell’s father, Bing Russell, started a rogue minor league baseball team, the Portland Mavericks. Playing without any Major League affiliation, the ragtag team barnstormed their way through several seasons, with an electric group of MLB castoffs making up the roster. It’s a fun look at a group that rivals the Bad News Bears in dropping the ball.
The Price is Right superfan Ted Slauson studied retail pricing structure to nail answers from the cheap seats during tapings of the show. What happens when one of his answers winds up being a little too accurate? Fanaticism and math intersect in this winning portrayal of a man who may have been a little too smart for his own good.
