News Shotgun 8/27
- Two new additions to The Commuter: Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson will go from fighting ghosts to joining Liam Neeson in the upcoming thriller The Commuter. The movie reunites Neeson with Jaume Collet-Sera after Unknown and Non-Stop and finds Neeson heading home on a commuter train when a stranger (Farmiga) demands he find a specific passenger on the train before it reaches it’s last stop and Wilson plays Neeson’s friend who will probably provide some phone support outside the train.
- Vincent D’Onofrio and Dean Norris join Death Wish: Two awesome additions to the upcoming remake of Death Wish by Eli Roth, starring Bruce Willis. Vincent D’Onofrio will play Willis’ brother while Dean Norris will play a police detective investigating the vigilante justice commited by Willis’ Paul Kersey.
- Team confirmation and new writers for New Mutants: Fault in Our Stars writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber will join their Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone for a spin-off of the Fox X-Men universe focusing on the Chris Claremont created mutant team. The movie team will be Danielle Moonstar, Wolfsbane, Sunspot, Cannonball, Magik and Warlock.
- FX’s Legion will link to X-Men Movie Universe: Speaking of X-Men, the upcoming Legion show on FX, featuring mutant David Haller will be part of the future X-Men movie continuity according to Bryan Singer but that continuity is so screwed up, who knows what that could mean.
- Steve Rogers is no longer Captain America in the MCU: The Russo Brothers confirmed that Cap dropping his shield at the end of Civil War was him basically giving up the Captain America mantle, at least until Infinity War. It’s not clear if he could become his rogue alter-ego Nomad but that would be a pretty awesome nod to comics fans.
- Highest paid actors revealed: Forbes annual list of actors revealed that The Rock is the highest paid male actor for 2016, making $64.5 million, with Jackie Chan taking second with $61 million. Jennifer Lawrence was the highest paid female actor for the second year in a row with $46 million for 2016 and Melissa McCarthy took second with $33 million.
- Doug Liman directing Justice League Dark: After seemingly put on hold after Guillermo del Toro left the project, Justice League Dark is back on with Edge of Tomorrow director Doug Liman behind the camera. This means Liman will have to leave Gambit, meaning that movie will probably get delayed again. No casting for the team members has been revealed yet but the team is supposed to be Constantine, Deadman, Swamp Thing, Zatanna and Etrigan the Demon.
- The Departed series coming to Amazon: A new take on Infernal Affairs/The Departed is coming to Amazon’s Instant Video for an upcoming Pilot season, where it will be up to the Amazon users to decide which will become a series. The new show will be set in Chicago and sounds like it will not feature any of the characters from The Departed movie but have the same plot of a criminal infiltrating the police and a police officer infiltrating the criminals.
- Weird Al starring in a new DisneyXD cartoon: Weird Al will star as Milo Murphy, an upbeat and plucky kid who is cursed with genetic bad luck, causing all sorts of accidents and mishaps to occur around him every day. There’s also apparently some sort of time travel element and it’s from the team behind Phineas & Ferb. Along with Al, Sarah Chalke, Jermaine Clement, Christian Slater, Diedrich Bader, Pamela Adlon and Ming-Na Wen will lend their voices and it premieres on October 3rd.
- Idris Elba starring in miniseries about training to be a kickboxer: On Discovery Channel next year, all around bad ass Idris Elba will star in a mini-series called Idris Elba: Fighter, where he’ll travel around the world training and eventually have a fight with a professional kickboxer.
- John Cho starring in a new USA show: Cho will star in a new USA drama called Connoisseur, where he plays a con man selling fake wine for millions to rich customers and he gets drawn into a deadly bargain with a crime syndicate and becomes the focus of an FBI investigation.
- Mark Mothersbaugh will score Thor: Ragnorak: The former DEVO frontman will score the upcoming Thor/Hulk movie, directed by Taika Waititi. Mothersbaugh has previously scored The Last Man on Earth, 21 Jump St, The Lego Movie and Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday.
- Jumanji is a sequel, not a reboot: The Rock clarified on his Instagram that the upcoming Jumanji movie is a sequel to the 90’s Robin Williams movie, not a reboot of it, and there’s going to be sort of tribute to Williams’ character Alan Parrish. The Rock is starring with Jack Black and Kevin Hart and it’s directed by Walk Hard’s Jake Kasdan.