For Anthony and Joe Russo, choosing their next project after making the all-time highest-grossing film “Avengers: Endgame,” was not easy. But after reading the novel “Cherry” by Nico Walker, the filmmaking duo saw a personal connection to the opioid epidemic that they witnessed first-hand within their community and their own family.
From a script by their younger sister Angela Russo-Otstot, which she co-wrote with Jessica Goldberg, it’s a dramatic departure from their other work. The same goes for Tom Holland’s performance, after his portrayal of Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In an interview with Variety, the brothers discuss their origins and the personal connection to the story of “Cherry.” They also open up about some of their cinematic influences, such as Steven Soderbergh and the Coen brothers, and if solo projects could be in their future.
Liam Neeson as Jim Hanson and Jacob Perez as Miguel act out a scene from “The Marksman.”
SOURCE: Cleveland Jewish News | McKenna Corson
January 15, 2021
About a decade ago, Chris Charles went to writing partner Danny Kravitz with a bare bones idea for a movie.
Charles, who’d always been interested in the U.S./Mexico border area, told Pepper Pike native Kravitz that the border area was rich with interesting stories and people waiting to be depicted on the big screen.
Dreaming of seeing a screenplay of his turned into a film, Kravitz told the CJN he immediately agreed, and the two set about crafting the screenplay and script.
SOURCE: Entertainment Weekly | Devan Coggan
January 14, 2021
EXCLUSIVE – For Tom Holland, playing the title character in Cherry is more like tackling four different roles in one.
Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, the sprawling film follows Holland’s protagonist from college student to soldier to drug addict to bank robber, as his mental and physical health unravels along the way. It’s based on Nico Walker’s partially autobiographical novel of the same name, which he wrote while in prison and published in 2018. Like its source material, the Russos’ film adaptation is a wild, circuitous tale that can be grimly funny in one moment and devastating the next.
EW can exclusively debut the trailer for Cherry, which introduces Holland as the film’s haunted antihero.
Liam Neeson stars as “Jim” and Jacob Perez as “Miguel” in director Robert Lorenz’s THE MARKSMAN, an Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment release. (Credit: Ryan Sweeney / Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment)
SOURCE: Cleveland.com | Joey Morona
January 13, 2021
CLEVELAND, Ohio –Now in his late 60s, Liam Neeson has enjoyed a second act as an unlikely action star. The once Oscar-nominated actor has appeared in so many action movies in the 13 years since “Taken” was released, he has become the face of the so-called “geri-action” sub-genre.
You’ve no doubt seen this type of movie before. Neeson usually plays a damaged (i.e. drunk, absentee father, his wife is dead, etc.,) yet honorable man with a particular set of skills (i.e. ex-CIA, former military, etc.,) minding his own business when he is unwittingly thrown into the middle of a sinister, yet fairly generic plot. He spends the next two hours exacting revenge on the bad guys (i.e. Mafia, human traffickers, trade federation, etc.,) who kidnapped his daughter, murdered innocent people or pissed him off in some other way. When somebody later asks you if you’ve seen this movie, you’ll pause for a beat and reply, “I think so?”
SOURCE: The Jeremiah Show | Jeremiah Widmer
January 13, 2021
The writers of The Marksman starring Liam Neeson chatted with us about writing their first movie and shooting it here in Cleveland (Danny went to Orange High School).
SOURCE: Deadline.com | Anthony D’Alessandro
January 12, 2021
Before its Feb. 12, 2021 release, Warner Bros.’ Fred Hampton movie Judas and the Black Messiah will make its world premiere at this year’s Sundance.
The movie, directed and co-written by Shaka King, will premiere on Monday, Feb. 1 at 6:00pm Mountain Time on the digital platform, and will also play at several satellite screens listed at the end of this article.
In addition, making its world premiere in the World Documentary Competition Section is Egypt’s Captains of Zaatari from filmmaker Ali El Arabi. The movie will premiere at Sunday, Jan. 31 at 7pm MT.
The 24-year-old actor stars in the upcoming crime-drama film Cherry based on the 2018 book of the same name by Nico Walker, in which he plays a young Army medic with post-traumatic stress disorder who starts robbing banks to fund his addiction to opioids.
In a teaser that dropped Friday, Holland, as the titular character, walks into an Armed Forces Career Center, where he is shown explaining to a recruiter that he wants to joint the Army for perspective.
Tom Holland in “Cherry,” premiering globally March 12, 2021 on Apple TV+.
SOURCE: Cleveland.com | Joey Morona
January 11, 2021
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Movie fans are getting their first look at “Cherry,” the filmed-in-Cleveland drama directed by native sons Joe and Anthony Russo.
The brothers released the trailer for the movie over the weekend. In the 70-second teaser, Tom Holland (“Spider-Man: Far From Home”) is seen enlisting in the army to serve in the Iraq war.
SOURCE: WKYC 3 Studios | Ryan Haidet
January 11, 2021
CLEVELAND – It has been more than a year since Cleveland’s own Russo brothers brought Cherry — their latest production — to film in Northeast Ohio.
Now, we’re getting our first official look at a clip from the movie, which stars Spider-Man actor Tom Holland, ahead of its March 12 release on Apple TV+.
SOURCE: Cleveland Scene | Vince Grzegorek
January 9, 2021
The Russo Brothers film adapted from Nico Walker’s best-selling and critically acclaimed novel “Cherry” and filmed in Cleveland finally has a trailer and a release date.
Written by Walker while serving time in federal prison, the book was a semi-autobiographical tale of his time in the army, his resulting PTSD, his spiral into painkiller addiction after returning to Cleveland, and the desperate string of bank robberies he committed afterward to feed his habit.
