Exclusive: 'Creed II' Filmmaker Steven Caple Jr. Attached to Direct Issa Rae’s 'Set It Off' Reboot for New Line

Happy Monday, folks!

Over the weekend, I saw Aziz Ansari’s not-so-angelic comedy Good Fortune, as well as Kelly Reichardt’s quiet indie thriller The Mastermind, though the art heist that played out in real life at the Louvre has been decidedly more interesting over the past few days.

Both films were fairly major disappointments featuring leads who didn’t help matters, for with all due respect to Keanu Reeves and Josh O’Connor, I thought both made questionable decisions with the material.

I also saw Black Phone 2, which performed a notch about expectations with $27.3 million at the domestic box office. Blumhouse needed a win pretty badly, and I’m glad they got one here, though I’m worried the company will be pressing its luck if it brings back the Grabber for a third movie. I’m not sure we need to make this a trilogy.

Look how well that went for Tron: Ares, the third film in the Tron franchise, which is poised to lose more than $100 million for Disney. I suppose the studio will chalk some of that loss up to marketing for its new Tron lightcycle attraction at Disney World. Again, the future of this IP — if it has a future — is on Disney+, not the big screen.

As for Black Phone 2, I thought Scott Derrickson’s sequel was okay — I suppose it was on par with the original, which I wasn’t a big fan of to begin with — but the director has been relying on the same visual tricks since Sinister. Sadly, Ethan Hawke isn’t in BP2 nearly as much as I was led to believe, though I can’t complain too much, since young Madeleine McGraw held the screen quite admirably in his absence. She’s the reason the sequel works to the extent that it does — I’m just so sick of ghosts needing their bodies to be found so they can rest peacefully in the afterlife. Stir of Echoes did the same thing 25+ years ago, and better, too.

I also watched the new Netflix documentary The Perfect Neighbor, which I found to be absolutely gut-wrenching. The film presents a tricky case involving Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, and I wasn’t 100 percent sure what the ending would be, which means that director Geeta Gandbhir did her job well. This documentary is practically a lock to be nominated for an Oscar, so watch it on Netflix soon before its powerful revelations are ruined for you.

Today, Deadline confirmed my scoop from Sept. 2 about Phil Lord and Chris Miller shopping a buzzy Christmas comedy titled The In-Claus. Netflix has won a bidding war for the project, which boasts a script from Travis Braun, based on a short story he co-wrote with Gabrielle Meyer. Lord and Miller are producing with Aditya Sood and Lucy Kitada. Clearly, if you want to be “in the know,” it pays to be an InSneider subscriber…

For example, tonight, you’ll find out who New Line has tapped to direct the Set It Off reboot it has been developing for six years with Issa Rae.

There are also items about the Gloria Estefan biopic, Netflix’s new series about the Kennedy clan, George Clooney’s new romance movie, Taraji P. Henson’s Netflix deal, and the casting of the Cowardly Lion in Wicked: For Good. Plus, a look at the trailer for Neon’s other Oscar contender, The Secret Agent, which is said to feature a stunning performance from Brazilian superstar Wagner Moura.

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