News Shotgun 11/15
- Shawn Levy directing new take on Ali Baba: The Night at the Museum director is in talks to direct a new take on the Arabian Nights story Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Dan Stevens, Liam Hemsworth and Evan Peters are apparently in talks to play the Ali Baba equivalent, Allen, and the movie will most likely be a modern twist on the story.
- Daniel Bruhl Captain America: Civil War villain: The Inglourious Basterds co-star will be joining the cast of Civil War as a “villain” but there’s no word on what character he will be playing.
- New Universal Monsters will be action/adventure movies, not horror: As the 10 of us who saw Dracula Untold can attest, there is nothing horrific at all about that movie, which is more a generic fantasy action movie, and that will apparently be par for the course in the upcoming reboots, the next of which was announced this week to be a new Wolf Man.
- Jude Law is the villain of King Arthur: Law is reuniting with Guy Ritchie for the upcoming reboot of King Arthur, starring Charlie Hunnam, as the villain. Idris Elba has also apparently dropped out of the movie.
- Chan Wook-Park directing thriller Second Born: The Oldboy director will be directing his second English movie with Second Born, a sci fi thriller that is set in a future where human consciousness can be downloaded to neural implants, but this leads to lots of black market body swapping and the movie follows a special agent who is killed but returns in a new body to get revenge.
- Christoph Waltz joins Bond 24: Waltz will be joining Daniel Craig, Ben Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Lea Seydoux and Dave Bautista in Sam Mendes’ follow up to Skyfall and will most likely play the main villian, which was originally going to go to Chiwetel Ejiofor.
- Guardians animated series not related to movies: The upcoming Disney XD Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon will not be tied into the movie universe, although looking at designs it will probably be highly influenced by it. There is also a comic book that will be tied into the show, in the vein of the Avengers Assemble comic that ties into that show and appeals more toward kids.
- Frequency becoming a TV series: The latest movie turning into a TV series is Frequency, originally starring Jim Caviezel and Dennis Quaid and followed a man who was able to communicate with his dead father through a radio and that led him into tracking down a serial killer.
- Uncharted movie gets new screenwriter: Mark Boal, who wrote The Hurt Locker, will be writing a new script for the upcoming video game adaptation that is now being directed by Seth Gordon. Boal is apparently a huge fan of the games and will bring it back to it’s action adventure origins after David O. Russell, the original director, was trying to go in a weird family drama direction with it.
- Suicide Squad casting rumors: Jai Courtney is apparently in talks to play Deadshot, Margot Robbie is rumored to be up for Harley Quinn and Jared Leto is rumored to be in talks to play The Joker, who probably would not be on the team but maybe be their adversary or just on the periphery.
- Gravity getting a “Silent Space” edition: If you haven’t bought Gravity yet on Blu Ray, you may want to hold off for the new version coming soon, as it will feature a special “Silent Space” edition that will remove the score and make the audio even more like how it would be like in space.
- Kevin Hart and The Rock teaming up for action/comedy “Central Intelligence”: The movie follows Hart as a formerly cool high school athlete turned accountant who reunites with a classmate who was kind of nerdy at a reunion, who has now turned into a CIA assassin, played by The Rock, who recruits Hart to help him stop a plot to sell military secrets.
- James Wolk starring in CBS’ 2015 Summer series “Zoo”: Wolk aka Bob Benson on Mad Men will be the lead of Zoo, CBS’ big new drama for next summer. Wolk plays a zoologist who tries to figure out why seemingly every animal on Earth has seemingly started to attack humans.
- Creed casts two actual boxers: The upcoming Rocky spin-off has cast two actual champion boxers, Andre Ward and Tony Bellew, in the film. They will most likely be opponents of Michael B. Jordan, who is Apollo Creed’s son who wants to follow in his footsteps and recruits Rocky Balboa to train him.
- Evil Dead: The Series coming to Starz: Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell are bringing Ash to Starz with a ten episode first season of a follow up to Army of Darkness. Set in real time, the movie picks up 30 years after AoD with Ash still working as a stock boy but having to pick up his boomstick and chainsaw when the Deadites return.
- Skyline sequel coming with Frank Grillo starring: The weird, low budget sci fi movie Skyline is somehow getting a sequel with The Brothers Strausse back directing. Seemingly going beyond their friend’s condo, the movie has cast Frank Grillo as a detective who must try to rescue his sons from an alien warship while Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian of The Raid films have also been cast as members of a resistance group against the alien invaders. It’s going to be a spin-off and not directly related to the first film.
- Saban distributing next Nicolas Cage movie: The house that Power Rangers built will be distributing the next Nicolas Cage thriller, called The Trust. The movie follows two crooked cops who discover a massive safe and then backstab and plot against each other while trying to get inside to the riches within.
- Matt Damon confirmed he will be back as Jason Bourne: Damon and Paul Greengrass are returning to deliver a fourth film featuring amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne. The movie is set for 2016 and has seemingly bumped the Justin Lin/Jeremy Renner sequel to Bourne Legacy.
- Mechanic 2 adds to it’s cast: Jason Statham is coming back for a sequel to The Mechanic and the new movie has added Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones and Michelle Yeoh, The movie follows Statham’s Arthur Bishop as he’s forced by someone from his past to conduct a series of seemingly impossible assassinations around the world.
- Hell on Wheels renewed for fifth and final season: AMC’s western will return for a fifth and final season in 2015. The show is wrapping up it’s fourth season right now.