News Shotgun 1/16
- CW might spin-off Atom, creating a Vixen web series: Brandon Routh’s Ray Palmer may be the latest character to spin-off from Arrow, as The CW is apparently in discussions to give the new owner of Queen Consolidated his own show a la Flash. Palmer is currently using his new acquisition to build an armored suit, code named Atom, to fight crime in Starling City. The network is also definitely creating a web series based around DC comics superhero Vixen, who was the powers of a various animals, which will be on CW’s web service Seed and will be an animated series following Vixen’s adventures. Flash and Arrow will guest star on the show.
- David Fincher remaking Strangers on at Train: Fincher will reteam with his Gone Girl star, Ben Affleck, to remake Alfred Hitchcock’s classic, Strangers on a Train, except this time the strangers will meet on an airplane and enter their deadly agreement.
- Community Season 6 release date: The fabled sixth season of Community will debut on Yahoo on Tuesday, March 17th with two episodes and each Tuesday after will feature 1 new episode for the 13 episode season. Paget Brewster and Keith David are joining Joel McHale, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, Jim Rash and Ken Jeong as recurring characters.
- Gillian Flynn says there could be a Gone Girl sequel: The author and screenwriter said she’s definitely open to a sequel to Gone Girl, picking a few years down the line and seeing where the characters are, which according to her, would not be a great place. The one condition would be that David Fincher, Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck would all have to return.
- Tom Hardy drops from Suicide Squad: It was announced this week that Tom Hardy had to drop out of playing Rick Flagg in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie. He’s currently shooting a film called The Revenent and then has to do summer promotion for Mad Max, so that would take him away for most of the Suicide Squad shoot this spring. The talk is that Jake Gyllenhaal may replace him.
- Doug Liman and Tom Cruise reteaming for 80’s drug movie: Although it didn’t get the attention it deserved at theaters, the team behind Edge of Tomorrow will reunite for a film called Mena, set in the 80’s and focused on an TWA pilot who became a drug smuggler for the Medellin Cartel.
- Release date shuffling: In the Heart of the Sea has been pushed back to December 2015, letting Run All Night move up to it’s March timeslot. Meanwhile, the Avatar sequels have all been pushed back, with Avatar 2 now scheduled for 2017 and 3 and 4 the following years. Disney announced the their live action Jungle Book will come in April 2016 instead of October and the Pete’s Dragon remake will be in August 2016. Meanwhile, the Ghost in the Shell movie is set for April 2017.
- Tons of casting for Netflix’s Wet Hot American Summer series: Despite pretty much all blowing up, almost all the original cast will be returning and they’ll be adding new characters played by the likes of Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel, Jayma Mays, Lake Bell, John Slattery, Michaela Watkins, Josh Charles and Randall Park.
- Rumored agreement reached between Sony and Marvel for Spidey appearance: Although Sony has denied the rumor, the word on the streets is that Sony and Disney/Marvel reached a deal to have Spider-Man appear in Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 as part of the effort to stop Thanos.
- Monopoly movie shooting this summer: The latest Hasbro property heading to theaters is Monopoly, which was described by one of the producers this week as a “Goonies-esque family adventure”. It will shoot in the summer and casting and director news should arrive in February.
- Escape from New York rights now at Fox: After years in development, the rights to Escape from New York are now at Fox, who are looking to reboot the series into a new franchise. Way back in the day, Gerard Butler was supposed to have been cast as Snake Plissken but that has long since passed. John Carpenter will be an executive producer on the new film.
- Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale starring in The Big Short: Going in a slightly more serious direction than usual, Adam McKay will be writing and directing an adaptation of Moneyball author Michael Lewis’ book, The Big Short, detailing the events that led to the housing and credit bubble of the 2000’s. The a-list trio has been cast with possibly more actors joining later.
- Focus Features developing The Dirt with Jeff Tremaine: The Jackass director has been attached a Motley Crue bio-pic based on their tell all book called The Dirt and now Focus Features has signed on to back and distribute it.
- Zachary Levi joins Heroes Reborn: The former Chuck and Thor Warrior Three is joining the Heroes reboot in a “key role” and joins returning cast member Jack Coleman as the only two confirmed cast members.
- Ouija getting a sequel: Despite abysmal reviews, Ouija was a pretty big success, making $50 million domestic last year, ten times it’s budget and now a sequel has been announced by Platinum Dunes.
- Fantastic Four doing reshoots: The impending disaster that is Fox’s Fantastic Four reboot is doing some reshoots soon in Louisiana and we’ll also finally get our first look at this possible trainwreck when the teaser is attached to Kingsman: The Secret Service in February.
- Black Widow returning for Civil War: The Russo Brothers confirmed that Scarlett Johansson will be back in Captain America: Civil War, alongside Cap, Iron Man, Black Panther and Falcon. Frank Grillo is supposed to return as well and should be fully transformed into Crossbones.
- Weird Al voicing a Batman villain: In the upcoming Batman vs Robin animated movie, Weird Al will voice the New 52 version of the Dollmaker.