News Shotgun 1/27
- CBS orders pilots for new Magnum PI, Cagney and Lacey and a reboot of Murphy Brown: CBS is continuing to reboot every 80’s show with new pilots ordered for reboots of Magnum PI and Cagney and Lacey. The former will now be about an ex-Navy SEAL who returns from Afghanistan to become a private investigator while the new Cagney and Lacey will be about female detective partners in Los Angeles. CBS is also doing the en vogue thing of bringing back a classic series for a sequel season with a new season of Murphy Brown, the sitcom starring Candice Bergen as the titular investigative journalist. Bergen will return and the show will comment on the current era of news and politics.
- Mike Flanagan directing Doctor Sleep movie: After directing the critically acclaimed Gerald’s Game adaptation for Netflix, Mike Flanagan will be taking on another King novel with The Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep. The book follows a middle aged Danny Torrance as he rediscovers his psychic abilities and connects to a 12 year old girl who is in danger from a group led by an evil being named Rose the Hat.
- Spielberg directing a reboot of West Side Story: Following up Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg will be rebooting West Side Story for a new cinematic musical. Spielberg is apparently looking for unknowns for the four main roles but there’s not really any other details. The original is a classic that won 10 Oscars back in 1961.
- Jurassic World stage show coming in 2019: Fans can actually go to Isla Nublar in 2019 as an arena show based on Jurassic World and it’s sequel where the audience will experience a new story featuring humans and dinosaurs and it seems like maybe the dinosaurs will be walking through the audience and some of them will be up to 40 feet long.
- The XFL is returning in 2020: Vince McMahon announced this week at a press conference that he is rebooting his ridiculous early 2000’s football league, the XFL, for a new season in 2020. The new season will feature 8 teams who will compete in 10 games, 2 semi-final games and a championship and will feature faster play and different, looser rules than the NFL.
- Mission: Impossible 6 gets a title: The title of the upcoming MI movie was revealed this week as being Mission Impossible: Fallout and there was also some promo shots from Tom Cruise’s new official Instagram where he’s hanging out of a helicopter and possibly doing some sort of building to building jump.
- Netflix might be getting the third Cloverfield movie: Netflix is apparently in talks to get the rights to the upcoming third entry of the Cloverfield umbrella of films that includes the original and 10 Cloverfield Lane for a Netflix original. It’s been in the works as God Particle for years and it stars Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, Aksel Hennie, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris O’Dowd, John Ortiz, David Oyelowo and Zhang Ziyi as the crew of a space station which has a particle accelerator on board. An accident with the accelerator causes the crew to lose visual contact with Earth and they also start picking up traces of another space station nearby.
- Michael Jai White teases a new Black Dynamite: On his Twitter, Michael Jai White has teased the long awaited sequel to Black Dynamite, hinting that it may come out or at least some major news about it will occur this year. The tease also seems to confirm what White and Byron Mann have been saying for years since the first movie that they wanted to take BD into a blaxploitation western, as White has a cowboy outfit on and is lighting a pack of dynamite with a cigar.
- New Robocop sequel coming from MGM: MGM is apparently developing a sequel to the original Robocop and have hired the original screenwriter, Ed Neumeier, to write a script. It seems like they might be doing what a lot of horror franchises have done and retcon everything but the original movie and make this new movie the “true” sequel. No word on if Peter Weller would come back or if they would hire a new actor to be in the iconic original Robocop costume.
- ABC developing a Mighty Ducks TV show: Not to be confused with the bizarre animated action series, ABC is developing in-house a TV show based on The Mighty Ducks movie trilogy. Obviously it will follow a team of misfit hockey players but there’s really no details of how they will turn 90 minute sports movies into 13+ episodes. It’s also not clear if Emilio Estevez or Joshua Jackson would return or if it will be a full reboot or be set in the continuity of the trilogy.
- John Cena in talks to play Duke Nukem: Paramount and Platinum Dunes are developing a movie based on the iconic video game action hero Duke Nukem and John Cena is apparently in talks to star. Duke has had a rocky time in recent years with the long in development Duke Nukem Forever finally coming out and being a horrific disaster.
- Ryan Reynolds starring in a reboot of Clue: Reynolds has apparently signed on to star in a reboot of the stone cold classic 1985 adaptation of the board game Clue with Tim Curry. Reynolds may take over Curry’s role as the butler/instigator Wadsworth or taking over Michael McKean’s role of Mr. Green. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the writers of Deadpool, will be writing the script for this reboot as well.
- What We Do in the Shadows getting an FX TV show: Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement will be executive producers for a new show based on What We Do in the Shadows, their insanely great vampire mockumentary. The new show will not star them but instead feature a new cast of vampire buddies played by Matt Berry, Kayvan Novak, Natasia Demetriou and Harvey Guillen who are living in America. There are also hopefully two other spin-off still coming with a New Zealand TV show based around the cops from the first movie and a sequel focused on Rhys Darby and his werewolf clan called We’re Wolves.