News Shotgun 8/2
- Danny Trejo is still a Bad Ass: If you haven’t seen it yet, stop what you are doing and check out Danny Trejo’s movie, Bad Ass, on Netflix or wherever. Back? Ok, now you know how awesome it is that a sequel is in the work called Bad Asses and Trejo will be joined by Danny Glover as the two partner up to get justice for one of Trejo’s murdered boxing proteges. It should be out sometime next year.
- Universal planning a new Bourne with Jeremy Renner: Chem powered super soldier Aaron Cross will return in a new Bourne movie. Universal has hired Sherlock Holmes screenwriter Anthony Peckham to write the script and Jeremy Renner will return to star.
- Walking Dead Monopoly and Risk coming to a store near you: The Walking Dead is invading all aspects of pop culture and there are now versions of Monopoly and Risk featuring the TV show coming soon. Monopoly will be straight up Monopoly with Walking Dead specific pieces and properties, trading food and fuel instead of money. Walking Dead Risk will feature a map of the Southeast US and players will be warring gangs of survivors trying to gain territory with random zombie hordes attacking at random times.
- Mary Lynn Rajskub back for 24: Live Another Day: Jack Bauer can count on the one person who always has his back, Chloe O’Brien, being there for 24: Live Another Day when he returns next spring, as it was announced that Mary Lynn Rajskub will reprise her role as everyone’s favorite computer analyst.
- Universal planning reboot of Scarface: Universal is putting a remake of the cocaine fueled gangster classic into production with Harry Potter director David Yates at the helm. The movie will be set in modern times but keep the same “rags to riches” rise to power of the main character, who may or not be Tony Montana.
- Len Wiseman drops out of Mummy reboot: Universal had multiple scripts in the works for a reboot of the Mummy franchise but now director Len Wiseman has dropped out of the project due to “scheduling conflicts”. The movie is being produced the duo of Kurtzman and Orci.
- Rashida Jones and Rob Lowe leaving Parks & Rec: We’ll have to bid good bye to Ann Perkins and Chris Traeger as the characters will be leaving the show midway though the upcoming season.
- Billy Bob Thorton cast as big bad of Fargo TV show: One of the upcoming additions to FX’s drama catalog is a new take on Fargo, the Coen Bros classic crime dramedy and the first big casting was announced with Billy Bob Thorton playing the main villain of the show, Lorne Malvo.
- Fede Alvarez signs on for sci fi movie, “Machina”: The director of the excellent new Evil Dead has signed to direct a sci fi film called Machina. No real details yet about plot, casting, etc.
- Flash series coming to CW: DC is still trying to play catch up with Marvel but they seem to have latched onto the idea of introducing the lesser known members of the Justice League in TV form before the movie, as Arrow has been pretty successful and there is the upcoming Wonder Woman show Amazon. The CW just announced this week that they will now also be adding a Flash show, simply titled “Flash” to their lineup, which will feature the most popular Flash, Barry Allen. Flash will most likely be introduced in an episode of Arrow before jumping to his own show.
- You can help get a Ghostbusters Lego set created: With the successful fan voting to get the Back to the Future Lego set created, there is the chance for another classic 80’s franchise to get the Lego treatment as there is a Ghostbusters Ecto-1 set currently on Lego’s fan voting site, Cuusoo. If it gets enough votes, it will go to the Lego higher ups for approval and then potentially become an actual, official set.
- The Simpsons looking to make deal for next year: After two decades, The Simpsons will finally be coming to cable in syndication next year. There’s no official word on what networks it would be on but FX or FXX are very safe bets and possibly also Turner networks like Cartoon Network or TBS. Whatever company gets the deal will most likely be able to sign a deal to get all episodes of the show for an insane $1.5 million per episode, which considering there are currently 530 episodes of the show would be almost a $1 billion deal.
- Jamie Foxx “aggressively pursuing” a Spawn reboot: Jamie Foxx is going to be the villainous Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 next year and he seems to want to play another comics character, the demonic superhero Spawn. Foxx has apparently been talking with Spawn creator Todd McFarlane to reboot the character in a new film.