News Shotgun 3/4
- Terminator 2 3D re-release confirmed: One of the greatest action movies of all time will return to theaters on August 25th this year with a new 3D conversion. The original 35mm prints were scanned and converted first to 4K and then into 3D and has been worked on for over a year.
- Michael K. Williams joins Han Solo movie: The Wire star has joined the young Han Solo movie in an unspecified role.
- Disney may be rebooting Tron: Hopes for Tron 3: Ascension are most likely dead as the latest rumor seems like Disney is going to reboot the franchise with Jared Leto in the lead role. This new movie may chop out some of the ideas that were sketched out by director Joseph Kosinski after Tron: Legacy but he and the cast of the movie are most likely not returning.
- Star Wars Rebels renewed: The crew of the Ghost will return for a fourth season starting this fall on Disney XD. The current season has been great with tie ins to Rogue One and the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn into the new continuity and the much anticipated rematch between Darth Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi is coming up as well.
- Jason Statham’s Meg delayed: The adaptation of the giant killer shark book Meg starring Jason Statham has been pushed back from March of next year to August of next year, specifically August 10, 2018.
- Tobin Bell returning for Saw: Legacy: The original Jigsaw will return in some capacity to this year’s Saw: Legacy, although most likely in flashbacks, as the plot seems to be that bodies are starting to turn up a decade after Saw: The Final Chapter and it seems like the Jigsaw Killer is back.
- Bumblebee movie gets a director: The spin-off from the main Transformers movies focusing on the vocally challenged Bumblebee will be directed by Kubo and the Two Strings director Travis Knight and is rumored to be a prequel to the original Transformers movie.
- TMNT cartoon getting rebooted: The current Nick cartoon will be wrapping up this year and a new 2D cartoon called Rise of the Ninja Turtles will begin in 2018. Current TMNT showrunner Ant Ward will produce alongside Andy Suriano, who was one of the character designers on the revival of Samurai Jack, so if we get a Samurai Jack style TMNT cartoon, I’m down.
- Donnie Yen leading Sleeping Dogs movie: Based on the video game, Donnie Yen will star in Sleeping Dogs as lead character Wei Shen, who is an undercover police officer trying to bring down the Triads in Hong Kong. Neal Moritz, the producer on Fast & Furious and other projects, will be producing Sleeping Dogs but no director has signed on yet.
- Fox’s X-Men show casting: Fox’s upcoming X-Men show by Matt Nix has cast Amy Acker and Stephen Moyer as the non-mutant parents of the show, who are on the run from the government with their mutant kids, while Emma Dumont was cast as the mutant Polaris.
- Inhumans casting: Hell on Wheels star Anson Mount will star as Black Bolt, Graceland star Serinda Swan will be Medusa and Force Awakens and former Lost co-star Ken Leung will be playing Karnak. Iwan Rheon was cast last week as Maximus the Mad.
- Ra’s Al Ghul cast for Gotham: The Demon’s Head will be heading to Gotham with Game of Thrones’ Alexander Siddig cast for a role later in this third season as *possible spoilers* the man pulling the strings behind the Court of Owls.
- Google offering a “skinny bundle” for TV streaming: Jumping into the Hulu, Sling and Playstation Vue streaming TV service arena, Google will offer Youtube TV for $35 a month that will give you 40 channels. The big four networks (ABC, Fox, NBC, CBS) are on board but other networks like MTV and CNN are not. It will launch sometime later this year.
- Remaster of Rogue Trooper game hitting current gen: 2000AD’s blue genetically created super soldier Rogue Trooper had a game in 2006 that hit Wii in 2009 called Rogue Trooper: The Quartz Zone Massacre and a remastered version of that game will hit PS4 and Xbox One later this year. The game is a third person cover shooter similar to Gears of War.
- Vera Farmiga joins Godzilla: King of the Monsters: Coming from Bates Motel, Vera Farmiga will play Millie Bobby Brown’s mother in the upcoming Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Kyle Chandler will be playing Farmiga’s husband and Brown’s father as well.
- Batman: TAS board game coming out: Based on the excellent episode “Almost Got ‘im”, the game will feature the players playing Batman rogues like Two-Face, Joker, Poison Ivy and Killer Croc, who have gotten together to play poker but one of them is secretly Batman. Similar to Werewolf or Mafia, the players have to figure out who among them is Batman and unmask him before Batman takes them all out. The players actually play poker as well and, depending on the hands they create, they can get special abilities. It’s out now from Cryptozoic Entertainment for $20.