News Shotgun 3/27
- Jubilee cast in X-Men: Apocalypse: Jubilee will make her movie debut in the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse, played by complete unknown Lana Condor. In other X-Men news, Jennifer Lawrence confirmed that she will be done with playing Mystique after Apocalypse.
- Bruce Campbell playing Reagan in Fargo Season 2: Campbell will portray The Gipper as he makes his first run at the presidency in 1979 and his campaign trail makes it’s way through Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where the prequel season is set.
- Key & Peele sketch “Substitute Teacher” turning into a film: Key and Peele’s overly aggressive, mispronouncing substitute teacher is making his way to the big screen via Paramount. Keegan-Michael Key will play Mr. Garvey and the movie will find him up against a rival teacher played by Jordan Peele. Here’s a taste of what we can expect
- Idris Elba in talks to play the villain in Star Trek 3: Idris Elba is apparently in talks to be the next opponent the Enterprise crew takes on in the third installment of the reboot series. Previous Fast & Furious director Justin Lin is set to take over directing from JJ Abrams.
- Friday the 13th reboot gets new screenwriter: Nick Antosca, who has written for NBC’s Hannibal, will do a new draft for the upcoming new entry in the Friday the 13th series, that is supposed to begin shooting later this year and be out in May of next year.
- Steven Spielberg directing Ready Player One: If there’s anyone who can attempt to pull in all the various IP needed for a Ready Player One adaptation, it’s Spielberg, who has signed on to direct the movie adaptation of Ernie Cline’s love letter to everything nerdy. If you haven’t read the book, it follows a boy named Wade who attempts to try and solve a scavenger hunt left by the creator of the VR internet OASIS, which involves going into D&D dungeons, recreating scenes from WarGames and more.
- Pacific Rim ongoing comic announced: Legendary Comics is bring a new ongoing Pacific Rim comic series, Tales from the Drift, to comic shelves in November. It’s going to be a prequel to Pacific Rim and feature battles between the Jaegers and Kaijus prior to the events of the film. Legendary also announced that there will be comic versions of Trick r Treat and the upcoming Krampus anthology coming as wellSu.
- First look at Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor:
- Preacher casts vampire Cassidy: For AMC’s upcoming comic adaptation, main character Jesse Custer’s best friend, the vampire Cassidy, has been cast and he’s being portrayed by Joseph Gilgun, who was previously seen in the British show Misfits and also as one of the crazed inmates in Lockout.
- Martin Scorsese may direct an adaptation of Macbeth: Scorsese may be looking to adapt Kenneth Branagh’s most recent theatrical version of the Shakespeare classic and according to Branagh, they are “practically there” as far as getting everything figured out.
- Mortdecai being edited down to PG-13 for home release: Johnny Depp’s Mortdecai was a disaster at the box office but in an attempt to scrounge any possible money from the home video release, Lionsgate is release a PG-13 edit of the movie on VOD, with the original R rated version coming to VOD as well as Blu Ray and DVD.
- Ip Man 3 featuring Mike Tyson and a CG Bruce Lee: The third movie starring Donnie Yen as the legendary martial artist will feature Tyson as a street boxer/property developer who seems like he may be the main antagonist of the film and also a CG Bruce Lee, as Ip Man is the one who trained Bruce Lee in the art of Wing Chun.
- Game of Thrones will start spoiling the books: Based on the pace the show is going and the delays with getting the latest book in the series out, the showrunners of Game of Thrones have confirmed that the show is most likely going to outpace the books and book readers will start to get spoiled for big events. The show is taking some events and characters in different directions but the big events of the books have all lined up so far on the show. Season 5 will wrap up books 4 and 5 and then next season will start into the not yet release book 6, The Winds of Winter.
- Chris Columbus adapting I Kill Giants comic: Chris Columbus will be adapting the critically acclaimed graphic novel, I Kill Giants, into a movie. The comic follows a young girl named Barbara who is sort of an outsider and copes by imagining a fantasy world where she has to fight giants.
- Vivica A Fox returning for Independence Day 2: While Will Smith is not returning, his movie wife is as Vivica A Fox is returning to reprise her role as Jasmine in Independence Day 2, joining other returning cast members Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman.
- Liam Neeson may star in thriller Narco Sub: In development for a while and originally a project of the late Tony Scott, Narco Sub now has a new director in Brian Kirk and Liam Neeson may star in the thriller, which follows a disgraced Navy officer who is forced to transport one of the titular submarines past the Coast Guard and Navy to Ecuador.
- Carl Weathers playing Jax in Mortal Kombat X: Revealed in the info for the DLC packs for Mortal Kombat X, Carl Weathers will be playing Jax, giving us a chance at a rematch of Dillon vs Predator.
- Guest directors for Hannibal season 3 revealed: Vincenzo Natali, director of Splice and Cube, will return to direct the first three episodes of Hannibal Season 3 and Neil Marshall will direct the eighth episode of the season, titled “The Great Red Dragon”.
- The Leviathan coming from Neill Blomkamp and Simon Kinburg: Based on an excellent proof of concept trailer by Ruairi Robinson, X-men producer Simon Kinburg and Neill Blomkamp are producing a full length version of the trailer.
- Avengers: Infinity Wars being directed by the Russo Brothers: The directors of Winter Solider, Joe and Anthony Russo, will step up to direct what will be the ultimate culmination of the entire MCU, Infinity Wars Parts 1 and 2. They are working next on Captain America: Civil War and the Channing Tatum led Ghostbusters movie for Sony.
- Super Troopers 2 getting funding on Indiegogo: The sequel to cult comedy hit Super Troopers is currently raising funding on Indiegogo and it’s already surpassed it’s goal of $2 million in one day but still has a little under a month to go. Fox will distribute the movie as long as the goal was reached, so it’s officially a go at this point.
- The X-Files officially returning to Fox for limited series: Mulder and Scully are officially returning to Fox for a six episode limited series. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson will return and showrunner Chris Carter is returning as well.
- Batman: Arkham Knight delayed again: Arkham Knight has been delayed again from June 2nd to June 23rd, so not as drastic as the last delay from last November.
- Jason Segal and Drew Pearce directing a new Lego Movie spin-off: Segal and Pearce will direct “Billion Brick Race”, which will be set in the Lego Movie universe but it’s not clear what the film will be about.
- Victoria Secret model Alessandra Ambrosio cast in TMNT 2: Michael Bay continues his trend of casting supermodels as Victoria Secret model Alessandra Ambrosio has a role in the upcoming TMNT sequel. She was spotted in a scene with Will Arnett that was filming in NYC at a Knicks game recently.
- Walking Dead spin-off now called Fear the Walking Dead, coming this summer: The show will be set in Los Angeles and be set in the early days of the zombie outbreak. Kim Dickens and Cliff Curtis are starring and the first, six episode season will debut this summer.
- NBC bringing back Coach: NBC is bringing back the Craig T Nelson sitcom from the 90’s with Nelson reprising his role as Hayden Fox, the head coach of the Minnesota State football team. This new series will be sequel set 18 years after the original run ended in 1997.
- Alien Nation remake coming to Fox: Originally a movie and then a 90’s sci-fi show, Alien Nation is getting rebooted at Fox as a new drama. The show is set in a future where humans co-exist with an alien species, called Newcomers, and the movie featured James Caan and Mandy Patinkin as a human and alien cop paired together to solve a crime.
- Smurfs reboot coming in 2017: As Smurfs 2 did not exactly rock the box office, Sony is regrouping and relaunching the tiny blue creatures in a new, fully animated movie for 2017. This new movie is supposed to be closer to original cartoon and comics.
- Sony now has the rights to Robotech: In other Sony news, they have taken the rights for Robotech from WB and are now planning a live action reboot of the classic anime with producers of 300 and GI Joe at the helm.
- First Look at Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool:
- Transformers getting connected MCU style universe: Paramount has brought in Akiva Goldsman of *shudder* Batman & Robin, to help Michael Bay, Lorenzo Di Bonaventura and Steven Spielberg hire a team of writers to create a “multi-part Transformers sequel and potential spin-offs”.