News Shotgun 1/12
- Final Destination getting a reboot: The Final Destination series is getting rebooted by New Line Cinema with Saw writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan writing a script. The slightly unusual thing with the Final Destination franchise is that, unlike other franchises that ran out of steam, the FD series had arguably two of it’s strongest entries, at least financially and critically, with the last two movies but it also lends itself perfectly to a reboot, as there’s not a lot of overarching mythology to worry about.
- Mortal Kombat animated film may be in the works: Warner Bros may be looking into making an animated movie based on Mortal Kombat. A new live-action film has been in development for years but it hasn’t really had much progress and suffered a blow last year when producer James Wan dropped out. According to site Revenge of the Fans, this potential new animated movie may feature Joel McHale and Jennifer Carpenter doing voices, with an educated guess putting them possibly in the roles of Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade.
- Coming to America 2 announced: Eddie Murphy is returning to one of his most beloved and famous roles, Prince Akeem, for a sequel to 80s classic Coming to America. Coming to America 2 will feature Murphy’s Akeem will have to return to the States to find his long lost son, who is now the heir to the throne in Zamunda. Craig Brewer, who directed the biopic Dolemite is My Name along with Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan, is directing and it’s hoped that cast members like Arsenio Hall, Shari Headley, John Amos, and James Earl Jones will return to reprise their roles.
- World War Z 2 may start shooting in March: The David Fincher directed sequel to World War Z was reportedly looking to start shooting in June this year but things are apparently moving along much more efficiently and the movie may now start shooting in March. Brad Pitt is returning and the movie will shoot in places like Thailand, Spain and Atlanta, GA.
- New SEGA Nomadesque device announced at CES: Retro-Bit, makers of some of the best new retro controllers and consoles, featured an upgraded version of the classic SEGA Nomad console at their booth as a prototype. The console came out in the 90s following the Game Gear and allowed you to plug in Sega Genesis cartridges and play them on the go, making the Nomad essentially a portable Genesis console. There’s no word on when the device would be available yet but it does feature an LCD screen and HDMI. The company also announced they would be re-releasing the cult favorite NES game Metal Storm on a cartridge.
- Al Pacino co-starring in The Hunt for Amazon: Al Pacino will star in a new Amazon Prime series called The Hunt that will be produced by Jordan Peele. The series will have a 10 episode first season and is set in 1977 where a group called The Hunters, which includes Pacino and Logan Lerman, discover that there are hundreds of high ranking Nazi officers living among them in New York City who are plotting to create a Fourth Reich and The Hunters track and kill them in bloody fashion. There’s no word on when the show will debut.
- What We Do in the Shadows series gets a release date: The TV version of the instant classic vampire comedy What We Do in the Shadows will arrive sometime in March on FX. The show follows a new group of vampire roommates who live in the States with Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement producing and Matt Berry, Kayvan Novak, Natasia Demetriou, and Harvey Guillen starring.
- New movie from The Babadook director coming from IFC Films: Jennifer Kent, the director of The Babadook, has a new horror movie coming that was picked up for release by IFC Films. The Nightingale is the new film and it follows Clare, an Irish convict in Tasmania who is the victim of a horrible crime following the conclusion of her sentence and she teams with an Aboriginal tracker to help her get revenge while “The Black War” between the colonizers and the Aborigines rages in the wilderness.
- Gunpowder Milkshake all-female assassin movie announced: Guardians of the Galaxy co-star Karen Gillan will star in a new all-female assassin movie called Gunpowder Milkshake directed by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, who directed the Israeli horror movie Big Bad Wolves. There’s not a lot of plot details just that it will be, “in the assassin genre with a story that spans multiple generations”.
- Dune reboot adds new cast members: Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming reboot of Dune has added two cast members this week. Dave Bautista will reunite with Villeneuve following Blade Runner 2049 and will play one of the villains, ‘Beast’ Rabban, a nephew of the sadistic Baron Harkonnen, who was also cast this week with Stellan Skarsgard. Timothee Chalamet was cast as the heroic Paul Atreides and Rebecca Ferguson is playing his mother, Lady Jessica.
- Sony trying to develop a Spider-Verse TV series: With it’s Golden Globe win and global critical and commercial success, Sony is going full steam ahead Into the Spider-Verse and are apparently looking to create a TV series based in the universe. The main obstacles are finding a network to air it, as Sony TV doesn’t have a lot currently on the air beside a few hits like Better Call Saul and they would have to make a deal with Disney, as part of the MCU deal was Sony giving up TV rights to Spidey.
- Fright Night finally coming to Blu-Ray: Speaking of Sony, the company is finally releasing the cult 80s horror favorite Fright Night on Blu-Ray with a ton of extra features, including a 3.5 hour long behind the scenes documentary. The movie starred Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, and Roddy McDowell and followed teenager Charley Brewster as he realized his next door neighbor is a vampire.
- The West Wing may be getting rebooted: The beloved and critically acclaimed political drama The West Wing may be getting a reboot, or at least the idea is floating around. Former co-star Richard Schiff said he has spoken to show creator Aaron Sorkin about the possibility of a reboot and Sorkin apparently wants to make it happen. If a new version did get made, it would most likely follow a new administration in the White House but Schiff apparently pitched an alternate version that takes place more at the state and local levels of politics which Sorkin apparently loved.
- Game of Thrones prequel series gets cast and director: The Game of Thrones prequel has finalized its main cast and the director of its pilot. SJ Clarkson, who was going to direct Star Trek 4 before it was scrapped, will direct the pilot and executive produce alongside Jane Goldman and the main cast features Naomi Ackie, Denise Gough, Jamie Campbell Bower, Sheila Atim, Ivanno Jeremiah, Georgie Henley, Alex Sharp, and Toby Regbo and Naomi Watts and Josh Whitehead in the lead roles. The show takes place thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones and will follow Westeros’ descent into darkness from the Golden Age of Heroes and also explore things like the origins of the White Walkers.
- 24 getting a Japanese remake: Japan is going to be getting some real-time action in the near future as a Japanese version of 24 will be heading there in 2020. The show will be set in present-day Japan and seems like it will be more like the first few seasons of the show, although there’s no casting or if there will be a Japanese version of Jack Bauer. The original show was a massive hit in Japan, with DVD box sets of each season selling out almost as soon as they hit video stores.
- Netflix getting animated anthology series from David Fincher and Tim Miller: Filmmakers David Fincher and Tim Miller are teaming up to bring an adult animated anthology series to Netflix. Called Love, Death, and Robots, the series will feature completely different animation styles each episode, of which there will be 18, and will span genres like sci-fi, horror and fantasy. There’s no word on a release date yet.
- Alien: Blackout game coming to mobile devices: A new Alien horror game will be hitting mobile devices called Alien: Blackout. Featuring Alien: Isolation protagonist Amanda Ripley, the game puts Amanda and her crew on a Weyland-Yutani ship infested by Xenomorphs and you’ll have to survive seven levels where you’ll be remotely guiding Amanda and hacking into the ship’s damaged systems to open doors, view surveillance cameras and monitor a motion tracker. The game will be on iOS, Android and the Amazon App Store soon.