News Shotgun 3/10
- Kristen Wiig confirmed as Cheetah for Wonder Woman 2: After being rumored a week or so ago, director Patty Jenkins confirmed that Kristen Wiig will be playing Cheetah for the upcoming Wonder Woman 2. It’s not 100% clear what version of the character will be featured but the most recent version in the current Rebirth run is Dr. Barbara Minerva, an archaeologist who gains the ability to transform into a powerful half human/half cheetah from a tribe in Africa. Wonder Woman 2 is supposed to be set during the Cold War 80’s era.
- Vin Diesel cast as Bloodshot: Valiant is trying to get their comics onto the big screen for their own cinematic universe and they took a huge step this past week as Vin Diesel has been cast to play Bloodshot for the first movie in a starting trilogy that also includes Harbinger and Harbinger Wars. Bloodshot is a genetically engineered super soldier whose body contains nanobots that can heal him from almost any damage and gives him superhuman abilities but he has no memory of who he was before being transformed. Jason David Frank is playing Bloodshot in an upcoming webseries, Ninjak vs the Valiant Universe.
- New Joker movie seems inspired by The Killing Joke: The still insane sounding Todd Phillips/Martin Scorsese 80’s set origin movie for The Joker, that may be played by Joaquin Phoenix, seems like it’s going to be taking cues from The Killing Joke in portraying The Joker as a failed comedian who gets involved in criminal activities that leads to him falling into the acid that transforms him.
- Alamo Drafthouse opening a free to rent video store: Alamo Drafthouse is opening Video Vortex at it’s Raleigh, NC location that will offer free VHS movie rentals and VCR rentals along with serving over 40 craft beers. The store will reportedly have over 75,000 titles, a patio and bar, board games curated by Mondo, special Alamo Drafthouse events and much more. No word on opening but we are definitely going to look at how much plane tickets to Raleigh are.
- His Dark Materials reboot on the way: Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series tried to get started in 2007 with The Golden Compass movie with Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman but the BBC is producing a new adaptation with King’s Speech director Tom Hooper directing and Dafne Keene and possibly Lin-Manuel Mrianda starring. The adaptation will be an 8 episode miniseries.
- Extreme Universe coming to Netflix: Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld has signed a deal with Netflix to bring his Extreme Universe comic books to the streaming service. Akiva Goldsman will lead a writer’s room for the projects, which will be Netflix original movies that will form a shared universe.
- David Chase working on Sopranos prequel movie: Sopranos creator David Chase is working on a film called The Many Saints of Newark that will be a return to the Sopranos universe. The movie will be set in Newark in the 60’s when the area was seeing tons of rioting and the Italian and Black communities were at each other’s throats. Characters like Tony’s father Johnny Boy and his uncle, Junior, will appear played, obviously, by younger actors.
- Mackenzie Davis joins the new Terminator: Tim Miller is directing a new Terminator with James Cameron executive producing and Arnold and Linda Hamilton returning. The movie will retcon everything after T2 and be a direct sequel to that classic and Halt and Catch Fire/Blade Runner 2049 star Mackenzie Davis has signed on to join the cast as a “soldier/assassin from the future”. Cameron is apparently still looking for an actress to play their main character, an 18 year Latina named Dani Ramos. The movie is looking at a July 2019 release.
- Jurassic World getting a mobile game: Following in the footsteps of Pokemon GO, Jurassic World is getting a location based mobile game called Jurassic World Alive, where you will use your phone’s GPS and camera capabilities to track down dinosaurs in the real world. You can gather dino DNA and grow your own dinosaurs to battle other players.
- Jon Favreau writing and producing a Star Wars series for Disney Streaming: Disney continues to build up their upcoming streaming service and announced this week that Jon Favreau will be writing and producing a Star Wars TV series for the service. Favreau obviously has directed movies like Iron Man and The Jungle Book for Disney and Favreau actually guest starred on The Clone Wars cartoon, so he has some prior Star Wars experience. There are no details about what the show will be about or when we can expect to see it.
- Michael Bay lines up next two projects: It seems like Michael Bay is finally living up to his word and taking a break from the Transformers series and has signed on for two new projects. The first is a movie called 6 Underground from the Deadpool screenwriters which is being described as “The Rock meets Suicide Squad” and that seems to imply a team of six distinct operatives having to infiltrate some sort of location. Bay also signed on to take over the adaptation of the novel Robopocalypse, which was previously going to be directed by Steven Spielberg, and is about a global war between robots and humans.
- Fred Durst directing a thriller with John Travolta: Fred Durst, yes, lead singer of Limp Bizkit Fred Durst, is directing a thriller movie called Moose that will star John Travolta as the title character, who becomes obsessed with his favorite action star, Hunter Dunbar, who will be played by Devon Sawa.
- Goosebumps 2 adds more cast members: Goosebumps 2 has added a trio of incredible comedic actors to it’s cast with Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ken Jeong and Chris Parnell signing on. There are rumors that this sequel could be set at the Goosebumps universe’s evil amusement park, Horrorland.
- Luke Cage Season 2 gets a release date: Luke Cage Season 2 has a release date of June 22nd this summer with Mike Colter reprising his role as Luke and Rosario Dawson and Simone Missick returning as Claire Temple and Misty Knight.
- Rampage changes release date: The first big Dwayne Johnson movie of 2018, Rampage, has moved up a week to get out of the way of Avengers: Infinity War, which moved up a week last week. Rampage will now be out on April 13th.
- The Crow remake gets a possible release date: The long delayed and seemingly cursed Crow remake is finally seeming like it will happen with a release date set for October 11, 2019. Jason Momoa is currently set to star as Eric Draven and Corin Hardy, director of The Hallow and the upcoming Conjuring spin-off The Nun, is directing.
- Logan’s Run remake gets a director: X-Men producer Simon Kinberg, who is making his directorial debut this year with X-Men: Dark Phoenix, will be directing the remake of 70’s sci-fi classic, which is set in a world where, when people turn 30, they are forced to be killed and anyone who tries to escape become “runners” hunted by the government.
- Netflix greenlights Black Mirror Season 5: Netflix greenlit a fifth season of the incredible sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror, which will most likely be another 6 episodes but nothing was 100% confirmed, like a release date. There’s also a Black Mirror anthology book in the works.
- Fear getting a remake: The 90’s “classic”(?) Fear, which starred Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon, is getting a remake at Universal with Straight Outta Compton screenwriter Jonathan Herman working on script. The movie followed a girl who falls for a seemingly normal boy who turned out to be a psychopath who threatens her and her family.