Sylvester Stallone Has Thoughts On The New Cliffhanger Remake Plans

Sylvester Stallone Has Thoughts On The New Cliffhanger Remake Plans

Did you know they're making another Cliffhanger movie? Sylvester Stallone starred in and co-wrote the screenplay for the 1993 movie directed by Renny Harlin. New reports say Ana Lily Amirpour will be directing the reboot/remake, with Aquaman himself Jason Momoa in talks for a key cameo and the lead played by an actress they are now casting.

We've been talking about a Cliffhanger sequel for over a decade, and a remake for at least five years. Apparently there was a long tug-of-war to get the rights from StudioCanal, and now Fast and The Furious franchise producer Neal Moritz will produce, with the first draft of a new script by Sascha Penn (Creed II) expected in a few weeks.

That's the word from Deadline, and it sounds like Sylvester Stallone is excited about the new film and wishes the team well:

Hang in there, he says! Since he was already talking about Cliffhanger, Sylvester Stallone dug up some old photos and shared a little bit more about how that sausage was made:

It doesn't sound like it was the easiest film to make, and there were some struggles in post-production too. Back in 2006, Sylvester Stallone answered a fan's question on whether there were plans for a director's cut release of the film, since the theatrical and DVD versions were supposedly "very cut." Here's Sly's response, via Ain't It Cool News:

No, actually the director’s cut was met with a lot of disapproval at the screening and received some alarmingly low scores. Mainly because the stunts were absurdly overblown. For example, the average man can jump maybe twelve feet across a gorge, and the stunts had me leaping maybe three hundred feet or more, so situations like that had to be pared down and still then were fairly extreme… so you’re probably better off with this cut. By the way, the 2nd unit crew that filmed the majority of the action was extraordinary.

No offense, Renny Harlin? The 1993 Cliffhanger made $255,000,211 worldwide off a reported production budget of $70 million, per Box Office Mojo. Not too shabby.

According to the Guinness World Records, Cliffhanger had stuntman Simon Crane perform the most expensive film stunt in air. It was performed just once, and his trick of moving between two jets at an altitude of 15,000 feet cost $1 million. Sylvester Stallone is said to have offered to reduce his salary by $1 million to make sure the stunt happened.

Sylvester Stallone is pretty good about sharing behind-the-scenes details. He just noted that he would be going to the Cannes Film Festival for a career retrospective and to show portions of Rambo V: Last Blood, which opens in theaters on September 20.

Sly had previously mentioned that Rambo 5, unlike some past films, was going "beautifully" in the editing process. He also recently plugged the upcoming 40 Years Of Rocky documentary, which he narrates himself. It was also just announced that Stallone's Escape Plan: The Extractors -- co-starring Dave Bautista and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson -- will be released on Digital, Blu-ray, and DVD on July 2.

And we're still waiting on more updates for The Expendables 4, which will hopefully bring back the whole gang. If Sylvester Stallone is into the idea for this Cliffhanger remake, maybe he'd even be up for a cameo? We'll have to see how this plays out as the new movie moves forward. Keep up with everything that already has a 2019 date attached with our handy movie schedule.

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Marvel’s Shang-Chi Movie Just Took A Big Step Forward

Marvel’s Shang-Chi Movie Just Took A Big Step Forward

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is ready to continue make history following the thunderous response to its more inclusive titles, Black Panther and Captain Marvel. The studio has just hired Asian-American director Destin Daniel Cretton to helm a film for martial-arts hero Shang-Chi, the first superhero movie lead by an Asian protagonist.

While Marvel’s official future slate hasn't been announced to the public yet in order to focus on the events of Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home first, the comic series inspired by martial artist Bruce Lee’s pop culture prominence in Enter the Dragon will soon be adapted to the cinematic universe.

The project is certainly starting to shape up as Destin Daniel Cretton is now attached as director, in addition to Chinese-American writer Dave Callaham writing the screenplay, via Deadline. Up next, Marvel will also enlist a primarily Asian cast to the movie as well.

Ironically enough, Destin Daniel Cretton has spent much of his directing career teaming up with Captain Marvel actress Brie Larson in Short Term 12, Glass Castle and for his upcoming drama Just Mercy, which will will have her playing opposite Black Panther’s Michael B. Jordan. Maybe Larson played a part in Marvel’s decision to enlist Cretton for the project. It's food for thought.

Shang-Chi was first announced back in December, when reports said Marvel Studios was fast-tracking the movie with script writer Dave Callaham, who created the Expendables franchise and story for 2014’s Godzilla reboot. The writer also co-wrote the Wonder Woman 1984 script and has signed on to the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sequel.

The hero debuted in Marvel Comics in 1973, at a time when martial arts films were at an all-time popularity high. Shang-Chi grows up and is educated in the confines of a compound in China, where he intensely trains in the ways of martial arts to an expert level. His father allows him to go into the outside world under his orders, but Shang-Chi eventually finds out that his father is a centuries-old villain whose various identities include Fu Manchu and The Devil's Doctor. The father and son become sworn enemies.

Following the achievement of Black Panther, the highest-earning movie of 2018, Marvel’s first Best Picture contender and winner of three Academy Awards, the studio has placed a new focus on diversity in the upcoming films. Kevin Feige teased that Black Panther is just the beginning. The recent release of the first female-fronted flick Captain Marvel is another step in that direction and Shang-Chi follows this mission.

This news certainly puts the Shang-Chi movie in the running to be part of Marvel’s Phase Four slate, along with the Black Widow solo film, Black Panther 2, The Eternals, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Doctor Strange 2. Until then, you can read up on the comic book character with our Shang-Chi guide.

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Horror Directors Who Later Made Superhero Movies

Horror Directors Who Later Made Superhero Movies

What is it about horror directors that draws them to make comic book adaptations? While it may feel like Aquaman and Shazam! are the start of a new trend in hiring horror talent for superhero stories, history shows that there are quite a few directors who have moved between both worlds. And in some cases, there’s pretty prolific films on both sides of the aisle, stemming from those who decided to walk the line between screams and dreams. Some might surprise you, while others are pretty standard; but all made their mark in these twin worlds of fantasy. So without further ado, let's go down the list, shall we?

Richard Donner

Arguably the most classic example of the worlds of comics and horror crossing over, director Richard Donner’s resume spans work from varied genres, with two big films sticking out. The Omen from 1976 and 1978’s Superman: The Movie were Donner’s big, back to back contributions to horror and heroes, and taking them both into account, the filmmaker kind of made the same film twice - telling a story of a family taking in and raising an incredibly powerful being. The big difference is that Damien doesn't leap tall buildings in a single bound, and Superman doesn't flip out when approaching a house of worship. But the same steady hand guided both stories, and while Donner didn't get to do everything he'd set out to with his Superman films, his work still remains as the gold standard for the character.

James Gunn

Everyone knows James Gunn’s work from Guardians of the Galaxy as his major calling card in the industry today, and having made two films of comedy, music, and heart, he’s just been brought back to do a third one. But before it was all about Star-Lord’s famous Walkman and awesome mixes, Gunn had a different film that shocked the world into paying attention to him, and it was called Slither. A creature feature of the highest order, it was the film that brought Gunn together with the likes of Michael Rooker and Nathan Fillion, enabling him to cast them in later projects - including both Guardians movies. Of course, it also showed how well he worked with disgusting monsters that threaten a ragtag group of heroes.

James Wan

Back when films like Saw and Dead Silence were director James Wan’s bread and butter, if you had asked anyone if he’d be their first choice to direct an Aquaman movie you’d probably get a lot of laughter. But that’s exactly what happened, as the man who was crafting a whole cinematic universe of scares with The Conjuring films was brought in on the King Tide to send Jason Momoa’s titular hero shooting up the box office charts. Now, with Aquaman 2 obviously in the water, we just might be seeing the same hands that put reverse bear traps and creepy puppets into our nightmares spinning tales of superpowered heroism again in the near future.

David F. Sandberg

Speaking of The Conjuring, it’s only taken three years and three movies for the talented David F. Sandberg to go from horror newbie to superhero newbie, and with the results have been impressive. Back in 2016 we saw Sandberg adapt his short film Lights Out into a blockbuster horror hit, which eventually sent him to not only rehabilitate the Annabelle franchise with its sequel Annabelle: Creation, but eventually landed him in the position to call the shots on the aforementioned Shazam! Judging by the reaction we've seeen to that film so far, from both critics and fans alike, it sounds like Sandberg is going to fit into this long legacy of filmmakers just fine.

Guillermo del Toro

Yes, even Guillermo del Toro directed a superhero feature. While some modern comic book movie fans might not remember the Blade franchise, 2002’s Blade II was brought into the world by the steady hands of del Toro himself - doing a wonderful job actually mixing to two genres. What’s even better about this particular example of a horror and comic enhanced resume is the fact that Guillermo del Toro never stopped making horror films, and didn’t stop at one superhero film either. From Chronos to Pan’s Labyrinth, he's always been scaring the pants off of audience, and the man also found time to sneak in two Hellboy movies onto his dance card.

Sam Raimi

Debuting with a film like The Evil Dead immediately helped Sam Raimi establish himself in the horror world, and eventually direct his career to create a foundation based on the genre of screams. But eventually those howls turned to fantasies, as 1990’s Darkman saw Raimi break into superhero storytelling with pretty fantastic results (while still including a few jumps). That being said, it's still not the man's greatest achievement in the realm, as a little over a decade later the director brought the world our first ever Spider-Man movie, and then two sequels. It was a film that really changed big screen comic book movies forever, and one could argue that the landscape wouldn't be what it is today without it.

Scott Derrickson

Scott Derrickson is a man who has made one hell of a living off of the horror genre, later making the successful jump into the world of the caped and the courageous. Derrickson made his big splash as a director with The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and only continued to frighten the world with features like Sinister and Deliver Us From Evil for quite a long stretch of his early career. Proving clearly adept with genre storytelling after turning Doctor Strange into a smashing success, Derrickson looks like he’ll continue to play both sides of the fence, as Doctor Strange 2 is basically confirmed, and at least one other horror flavored project, Two Eyes Staring, looks to be in his future as well.

Ruben Fleischer

Zombieland was all it took for director Ruben Fleischer to become a hot new talent in the year of 2009. An irreverent zombie film that didn’t skimp on the kills or the laughs, the film became a pop culture hit almost instantly. However, it took another nine years for Fleischer to make the jump into superhero films, with one of the most horror fueled entries in the genre’s recent history: Venom. While the movie wasn't all that well-received by critics, there's also no arguing about its incredible success, as the Tom Hardy hit from last year is on track to be the basis for a whole new superhero continuity. And in the meantime, Fleisher is set to return to his horror roots with Zombieland: Double Tap currently filming and set to be released later this year.

Wes Craven

You might want to prepare yourself for a bit of a shock with this next one, because while Wes Craven is mostly known for bringing audiences face to face with their nightmares, he also took a superhero film on as a project in the earlier days of his career. By the time Craven had Last House On The Left and The Hills Have Eyes under his belt, he found himself wandering into the world of Swamp Thing, bringing the DC hero to life for Hollywood in 1982. Here’s the fun part though: you’ll notice that there’s one particular film that wasn’t made at that point, as A Nightmare On Elm Street wouldn’t exist for another two years. Seeing as that film was a box office smash, and Swamp Thing became a cult classic at best, Craven can’t be faulted for staying in the realm of horror.

Tim Burton

Picture this: you’re a young hot shot director named Tim Burton, and you’ve always kind of been taken with the world of gothic horror. After making Pee Wee’s Big Adventure the success that it is, what’s the first project you choose to do? Naturally, you'd cash in those favors and swing for a home run in your genre of choice, like Burton did with 1988’s horror-comedy classic Beetlejuice. That decision proved to be a classic success, because after turning on the juice and seeing the box office magic that shook loose, Tim Burton was brought in to usher a new era of superhero films into being. Using his gothic sensibilities, Burton jumpstarted Batman in 1989, and the rest was Danny Elfman enhanced history, continuing with Batman Returns three years later. In the years since he's not only continued to occupationally dabble in the world of horror - such as with the Oscar winning Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - but his aesthetic is still having an impact on comic book movie storytelling 30 years later.

Zack Snyder

For our last example, we’ve saved quite probably the most interesting. In recent years, director Zack Snyder has become primarily known as the director that tried in vain to get the DC Extended Universe off of the ground. After comic hits like 300 and Watchmen, Snyder graduated to Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Justice League. But before any of those films, the man had a pretty impressive claim to fame: he directed the 2004 remake of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, created with a script from the aforementioned James Gunn. Though more than half of his filmmography is now superhero movies, Snyder's feature roots are in horror, and to it he is returning to the genre next with the Netflix film Army of the Dead.

Looking at this list, maybe some directors best known for superhero movies should think about taking a page from the books of these intrepid filmmakers and pull a reverse migration into the world of horror. If the results are as promising as the stories we’ve recounted above, the scariest genre could see an even bigger boost than the one its currently experiencing.

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We Saw New Avengers: Endgame Footage And It Revealed The Heroes' Plan To Take On Thanos

We Saw New Avengers: Endgame Footage And It Revealed The Heroes' Plan To Take On Thanos

We’re going to get into a spoilery-ish scene we screened from Avengers: Endgame today in this piece. If you want to go into the upcoming Marvel movie fresh – and I totally don’t blame you – please hop out now and check out one of our other lovely articles. If you love reading everything you can about the movie, forage on!

We’re so close to Avengers: Endgame I can taste it. In fact I got a taste of it today at CinemaCon 2019 when Disney shared a lot of brand new footage and other content from its upcoming 2019 slate of films. (No Star Wars Episode IX though, sorry.) Among these moments was an extended scene from Avengers: Endgame that captured more of Captain Marvel interacting with some of the other Avengers as well as revealed a little bit about the heroes’ plan to take on Thanos.

First and foremost, the scene opens with some footage we’ve seen snippets of in the trailers so far. Cap, Rhodey and some of the other Avengers are strategizing about when and how to take down Thanos. Captain Marvel really feels like it’s her fight, but the other Avengers assert “it’s our fight too.”

As it turns out, it’s also Nebula’s fight. We’ve known for a while now that Nebula would play a key role in Avengers: Endgame. In fact, actress Karen Gillan previously revealed she believes Nebula will sway the audience in a different way this time around noting:

She's evolved from a villain to someone we've developed empathy towards. I think she's going to be a character we're all rooting for.

In the new clip, Nebula reveals that while she was busy attempting to earn Thanos’ approval and please him, he always talked about wanting to go to The Garden. (Hilariously, Rhodey quips that’s it’s just peachy Thanos “has a retirement plan.”) The Avengers use some fancy technology to track an energy signature that seems to be a second use of the stones. Assumedly that’s a tie-in to Thanos terraforming the planet.

The team then spends the next few minutes deciding they’ll need to go into space, find the planet, take on Thanos, and then use the stones to undo what happened prior during Avengers: Infinity War.

There’s a little bit of a debate about what will be different this time around. Captain Marvel quietly and effectively says "me," but it seems there may still be some skeptics among the other heroes. I'm assuming they don't know the whole breadth of what the character can do or they wouldn't rib her so much, but it's hard to tell given the context.

You’ve seen part of this clip in a recent trailer for Marvel's Avengers: Endgame, in which Thor stands up, retrieves Stormbreaker and declares about Carol Danvers, “I like her.”

This whole scene fits in line with recent footage we’ve seen. In the last trailer, Thanos noted:

You could not live with your own failure. Where did that bring you? Back to me.

That seemingly implied at the time the Avengers were the ones tracking down Thanos in order to restore balance to the universe and eventually found him, but now we know how they get started. The clip ends with a shot of plenty of Avengers in a space ship: Captain Marvel, Bruce Banner, Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, Nebula, Rhodey and Rocket. That’s footage, too, that was confirmed in a recent trailer.

Still, seeing an extended moment confirmed a little bit more of the plan, it got me even more pumped to get into the nitty gritty of what happens and it reminds me that although a lot of the marketing for Avengers: Endgame has been serious, this movie is going to have some new team-ups among the heroes. In addition, the clip confirmed it’s going to be fun to have Captain Marvel be “the new kid” in the gang, and the convos she has with the other heroes are pretty amusing.

We won’t have much longer to wait to see how this whole story plays out. Avengers: Endgame is finally out on April 26 and if you don't have tickets yet for opening weekend, they seem to be selling quickly.

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John Wick 3 Filming Was Hijacked By A Thousand Ballsy Cats

John Wick 3 Filming Was Hijacked By A Thousand Ballsy Cats

So far, 2019 has been the year of the movie cat -- between Captain Marvel’s Goose and Church in Pet Sematary. So while the John Wick franchise has always centered on dogs, including the upcoming third chapter, felines marked their territory.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum director Chad Stahelski recalled a particular cat invasion during the filming of the sequel in Essaouira, Morocco. The sequence features Keanu Reeves’ Wick and new character Sofia (played by Halle Berry) and her pair of Belgian Malinois hound protectors fighting off a small army of assassins. Here’s what happened, in Stahelski’s words:

The Moroccans are not big on canines. Love a fucking cat, though. There had to be thousands. We went there in the winter when we scouted and they weren’t that prevalent. We were like, There’s a few cats here, we’ll get a cat department, and we’re going to move all the cats out. We show up to shoot and there were literally a thousand cats, okay? And the cats have balls of steel. They’re not afraid of anything.

The irony! The director told Entertainment Weekly that, as a result, the crew had to build massive cages to house the cat residents while they shot the scene. They also tasked themselves with feeding them, Chad Stahelski commenting that there were more felines to feed than cast and crew members put together.

Halle Berry’s hounds, who she trained herself, were to be a major component of the scene in Morocco. But, as you can imagine, thousands of cats are distracting. Chad Stahelski continued with these words:

What do Belgian Malinois love to chase? Fucking cats! While Keanu Reeves is killing ten guys over there, Halle is killing ten guys over here, and [there is the] stunt guy the dog’s got to focus on. You want that dog focused on what he’s supposed to bite, and what he’s not supposed to bite. Hit the mark, right? And there’s ten cats walking around and you’re going, ‘Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.’ You’re sitting behind the monitor going, ‘What’s the dog looking at? What’s the dog looking at? Oh my god oh my god, he’s going to bite — Argh!’ It got a little crazy between cat-wrangling, and dog-wrangling, and people-wrangling. And you’ve got the studio back [in America] going, ‘Why are you a little behind? Just get the dog to do [it].’ And you’re like, I don’t speak dog. If I did I’d be fucking rich! Anyway, that was kind of fun.

Sounds like a bit of a mess… but it makes for a great story and hopefully some great content for the John Wick 3 bonus features. The crew did not expect to run into cats, of all problems on set -- especially during a scene featuring dogs, no less.

In addition to working closely with the hounds -- such as a sequence where one of the dogs jumps off her back, scales a wall and takes someone down from above -- Halle Berry also trained hard to do her own badass stunts during the movie’s fight scenes. The actress has the bruises to show for it because she actually broke three ribs during rehearsal. She doesn’t know how it happened but considers it her "badge of honor."

Unexpected cat setbacks aside, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is shaping up to be a highly-anticipated release. It's already being highly praised by critics, with one reviewer deeming it an “action masterpiece." The movie is expected to make $30 to $40 million during its opening weekend, making it the biggest debut for the franchise yet. John Wick hits theaters on May 17.

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There Are Two Things Keanu Reeves Really Wanted In John Wick 3

There Are Two Things Keanu Reeves Really Wanted In John Wick 3

After the first two action smorgasbord John Wick movies, its almost hard to know how John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum ups the ante even further and gives Baba Yaga something new to do beyond just adding to his body count. Fortunately, Keanu Reeves had some ideas, and there were two things that the actor really wanted to see in the third film. As he explained:

I wanted John Wick in desert, passing a dune. Saudi Arabia. Lawrence of Arabia, in a suit John Wick. ... And I wanted John Wick on a horse.

John Wick of Arabia? Keanu Reeves seemingly wanted to put his character in situations that we haven’t seen him in before, ones that are foreign to him and the audience. As Keanu Reeves told Collider, he wanted to put the hitman in the desert like Lawrence of Arabia and separately, have him ride a horse. As we’ve seen in the trailers for John Wick 3, Keanu Reeves got his wish on both accounts.

In the trailers, we see John Wick in the desert, traversing a dune in a suit. He looks completely out of his element and out of the context we are used to seeing him in. Keanu Reeves wants John Wick to suffer, and not being appropriately dressed in the desert looks pretty miserable. That said, John Wick does still look cool in his suit and maybe he’ll meet up with the new Men in Black who will also be going to the desert in Men in Black: International.

John Wick on a horse is also quite the sight because we are used to seeing the assassin on foot or in a car, so to see the ultimate badass riding a horse through the city like a knight of old is pretty cool. Keanu Reeves also elaborated a bit on these elements and the broadening of the world of John Wick. He said:

I thought it would be cool if John Wick escaped on a horse, so we got John Wick riding some horses, fighting with some horses. That was fun. I thought would be cool if John Wick was in a suit in a desert, somehow. So, we’re going to go some desert. We got some cool story there that is opening up the world. We’re really fans of the world. I love the character, so I was like, "How do we get John Wick on a dune?" We came up with an idea – we’re opening up the idea of the High Table, the world—the levels, architecture. If 1 and 2 were The Continental, and we kind of started to hear about the High Table, and now we’re going deeper into the High Table.

Normally you might think that bending the story so that you could do something that looks cool would be ill advised, but the John Wick franchise is all about doing badass stuff that looks cool and, in this instance, these elements are opening up the world of the film. John Wick: Chapter 2 moved the franchise international and John Wick 3 looks as though it will have even more globetrotting.

It sounds like part of what takes Baba Yaga to the desert is the deepening mythology of the series that will happen in this film. The existence of The Continental was what first showed us that John Wick wasn’t just a normal revenge tale or hitman movie, it had a mythology to it. In John Wick: Chapter 2 we began to see that there was an organization that seemed to govern these international establishments and set the rules for the assassins, The High Table.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is set to take us further into The High Table and show us more about how this underground world of assassins works, and that should give fans plenty to be excited for -- in addition to seeing John Wick do battle on horseback, trek through the desert, and swordfight with ninjas on motorcycles.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum gallops into theaters on May 17. Check out our 2019 release schedule to keep track of this year’s biggest movies, and for all your movie news stay tuned to CinemaBlend.

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Watch Keanu Reeves Show Off His Duke Caboom Toy Story 4 Poster

Watch Keanu Reeves Show Off His Duke Caboom Toy Story 4 Poster

You didn't forget Keanu Reeves was going to be in Toy Story 4, did you? Yes, right after fighting for his life in John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum in May, Reeves is going to shrink down for his mighty role as new motorcycle daredevil character Duke Caboom in Pixar's 2019 Toy Story movie.

Disney has been gathering the new Toy Story 4 stars to show off their special character posters, so here's Keanu Reeves unveiling "the man, the myth, the legend -- Duke Caboom!"

YES! That's Ally Maki with him, and she voices Officer Giggle McDimples in Toy Story 4. She reposted Disney's Duke Caboom video with her own very relatable fangirl gushing over Keanu Reeves, adding that "he is so hilarious in this movie":

Only watched Speed 837 times as a kid in preparation for this moment. The man the myth the legend Keanu Reeves. He is so hilarious in this movie.

Keanu Reeves may not be known for comedy post-Bill & Ted, but just go find a copy of I Love You To Death and enjoy it because his comic timing is perfect. He really should be in more comedies, and I'm looking forward to what he does with Duke Caboom.

Duke Caboom was actually first introduced as an Easter egg in Incredibles 2, although fans didn't know that toy in the background would be showing up in Toy Story 4 -- and voiced by none other than Keanu Reeves.

Tim Allen (Buzz Lightyear) is the one who first told fans Keanu Reeves would be playing a role in Toy Story 4:

Keanu Reeves has got a great part. Actually, a little inside story, even [Reeves] said --- gentle, wonderful guy that he is --- 'This sounds too much like Buzz Lightyear.' And his character does have an edge to that. And the guy said, 'So we calmed him down a little bit,' and they reminded me his toy is only that big.

Keanu Reeves later explained he got a call out of the blue "from the lovely people at Pixar" and they pitched the character to him. They let him "kind of riff on it," he said, and it was a lot of fun.

Keanu Reeves later added to EW that he figured Duke should love what he does, since he's the greatest stuntman in Canada, so he wanted Duke to constantly be doing poses on his bike while he was talking. A motorcycle enthusiast himself, Reeves teased more of his character's story in the movie:

Duke becomes an important part of trying to save Woody and Bo’s mission. They take his skills as a motorcycle daredevil and ask him to confront his fear of failure in order to help the greater good.

Speaking of failure, Keanu Reeves said he wanted Duke to be an extrovert, but also have a bit of a sad backstory. (That appears to be going around in the Toy Story world.) Every kid has their toy, and apparently Duke let his kid down when he couldn't do what a commercial said he could do:

So he’s a wounded person! He’s needing to have some, I don’t know, catharsis. Some feeling. I wanted him to have a real sensitivity and a soft heart.… I also saw him as a character that has a really wide dramatic bandwidth in the sense of being so big. ‘Kaboom! Kapow! Let’s go!’ But who can also then share his wounds, like, ‘You have a kid? I had a kid. I let him down!’ And he can get quiet. So it was really a lot to play with on the playground.

Director Josh Cooley told EW Keanu Reeves added a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and ideas for the character:

Once Keanu came to the table, he was just asking all of these great questions about the character… and it made us realize that we weren’t digging deep enough for this character and there’s a real opportunity to have him support Woody’s story in a much bigger way.

I'm looking forward to seeing more from Toy Story 4, beyond the already intriguing and funny clips. It should be quite an emotional ride, based on previous teases from both Tim Allen and Tom Hanks (Woody). Toy Story 4 opens in theaters on June 21 as one of the many movies to keep track of through our 2019 movie release date schedule.

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