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In 2022, "Halo" fans finally got what they'd been itching to see for years when Paramount+ brought Master Chief's story to life – and they did not like the results. The biggest issue came when Pablo Schreiber as the legendary Spartan 117 did the unthinkable and removed his helmet for most of the series, seemingly trying what "The Mandalorian" had gotten away with after showing off Pedro Pascal's mug on the odd occasion. Even the show's star was unhappy with some of the creative choices that were made, which included Master Chief getting it on in the show's first season with a controversial sex scene.

Unfortunately, that and other decisions didn't hit the target correctly, and the show was canned after two seasons. But while some fans might've complained about the final short-lived project, it should've still been deemed an achievement given the numerous attempts to bring the "Halo" franchise to life before it.

One More Shot features a strong ensemble cast of familiar faces from the action genre. The main cast of the movie includes action icons Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White, and Tom Berenger. The supporting cast of the movie features a returning star and former stunt performer alongside quite a few newcomers.

The One More Shot cast contains a robust roster of fresh and familiar faces. The new movie, which premiered in theaters and via VOD in early 2024 before a streaming release on Netflix in May, is a sequel to the 2021 British action-thriller outing One Shot. Both movies were directed by James Nunn from a screenplay by Jamie Russell, though Nunn also has story credit on the pair. Other returning behind-the-scenes figures include producer Ben Jacques, composer Austin Wintory, and editor Liviu Jipescu.

The 2024 action movie is presented as a single, continuous take just like the previous installment in the franchise,...

Stars: Scott Adkins, Waleed Elgadi, Tom Berenger, Meena Rayann, Michael Jai White, Aaron Toney | Written by Jamie Russell | Directed by James Nunn

Not only is One More Shot filmed with the illusion of being one long take like its predecessor 2021’s One Shot, it does something more important. It reunites director James Nunn and writer Jamie Russell with the previous film’s leads, Scott Adkins as Navy Seal Jake Harris and Waleed Elgadi as terrorist Amin Mansur.

Following the events of the first film, Harris is escorting Mansur back to the US where they plan to get him to reveal the whereabouts of a dirty bomb set to explode during the State of the Union Address, which the President, of course, refuses to postpone. For leverage, CIA Agent Marshall has brought Mansur’s pregnant wife Niesha to meet his plane. But they’re not the only ones there to meet the flight.

For much of his childhood, Pablo Schreiber didn’t have a TV, let alone a video game system. So it wasn’t really until the 43-year-old actor was hired to star in “Halo” — Paramount Plus’ upcoming adaptation of Microsoft’s crown jewel Xbox franchise — that Schreiber sat down to play as the genetically engineered super soldier he’d been hired to embody: Petty Officer John-117, aka Master Chief.

“I quickly realized just how new I was to this medium,” Schreiber tells Variety. “I spent the first few days of my Halo experience getting killed by grunts.”

When the show premieres on March 24, it will be the culmination of 17 years of false starts and dogged striving, including a Peter Jackson-produced feature film that fell apart in the 2000s, more than six years of development by Amblin Television in the 2010s, and a pandemic-split production in Hungary for the nine-episode first...

In 1948, making a film of the stage play Rope, Alfred Hitchcock decided to try to make it appear as though the action took place in a single take. At that time, the technology didn’t exist to allow him to actually achieve this and so every ten minutes the viewer will notice a zoom on a static object, something that will allow Hitchcock to dissolve and link to the next ten minute take.

In almost 75 years, technology has advanced much further. Today, cameras allow for shooting entire features in a single take and editing has advanced to a point that transitions needn’t be the slow, awkward moments seen in Rope, meaning that films like Birdman and 1917, while shot in multiple takes over many days, can appear to be a single shot.

One Shot is a real time action film that finds Jake (Scott Adkins) and his Navy Seal team...

Stars: Scott Adkins, Ashley Greene, Waleed Elgadi, Ryan Phillippe, Emmanuel Imani, Dino Kelly, Jack Parr, Jess Liaudin, Lee Charles | Written by Jamie Russell | Directed by James Nunn

One Shot is both the title of the new Scott Adkins film, it’s also the film’s gimmick and reason for being made in the first place. Director James Nunn, working from a script by Jamie Russell, has given us a feature-length action film shot in one continuous take.

Needless to say, One Shot keeps the plotting to a minimum. CIA operative Zoe Anderson has been assigned to bring terrorist Amin Mansur (Waleed Elgadi; Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar) from a Black Site to the US for questioning. The base’s commander Jack Yorke doesn’t think that’s a good idea and is refusing to release him.

Lt. Jake Harris (Scott Adkins) and his team, Whit (Emmanuel Imani; Hold the...

“He is our one shot to fix this thing,” junior CIA analyst Zoe Anderson says during “One Shot,” and somewhere an angel got its wings, the happy result of not only the film’s title being uttered in dialogue, but its very gimmick as well.

Zoe is trying to retrieve information from a detainee on a CIA black site island prison — the only one left, she’s proudly told upon arrival — though she’s remarkably cagey about what she needs and why she needs it handled in Washington, DC. Perhaps she’d have been more forthcoming had she known her visit would coincide with Jihadists after the same man, and more than willing to slaughter anyone who gets in their path. Luckily for her — and for that detainee, Mansur — they luckily happen to have as their guide Navy Seal Lt. Jake Harris, as accomplished a marksman as he is in hand-to-hand combat,...

There’s a whole lot of ammo going blammo over the course of “One Shot,” an action movie couched as a battle in real time between Navy SEALs and insurgents on a U.S.-controlled, Guantanamo-style island detention facility, presented in what appears to be a single, continuous shot.

Of course, as in other recent films like “Birdman” and “1917,” the “real time” is an illusion created by hard-to-detect editing together of several long, elaborately blocked individual shots — this movie was shot in 20 days, not 90 minutes. Still, director James Nunn’s reunion with star Scott Adkins does effectively use that device to heighten immediacy in an effort that may not transcend their usual B-grade, adrenaline-fueled macho fare, but does bring some welcome novelty to the genre.

Seal Lieutenant Jake Harris (Scott Harris) has been emergency-tasked with flying a CIA representative to an ambiguously located high-security isle whose unwilling guests represent a “United Nations of terror,...

The zombie is cinema’s most enduring horror icon, having terrified audiences for decades, and heading our way on October 14th from Titan Books is an updated and revised version of Jamie Russell’s Book of the Dead: The Complete History of… Continue Reading →

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