News Shotgun 3/23
- Supernatural ending next season: The CW’s longest-running series is coming to end with next year’s 15th season, which will be 20 episodes. Stars Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, and Misha Collins revealed the news on Instagram.
- Animated Scooby-Doo movie finds Daphne and Fred: Warner Bros. upcoming animated Scooby-Doo movie has found the voices for Daphne and Fred with Amanda Seyfried and Zac Efron. Will Forte was cast as Shaggy previously along with Gina Rodriguez as Velma. Tracy Morgan will voice Captain Caveman and the legendary Frank Welker will voice Scooby, a role he had on Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
- Movie Shang-Tsung returning for MK 11: The great Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is returning to MK as Shang Tsung for the upcoming Mortal Kombat 11. Tagawa is lending his voice and likeness to an older version of Shang Tsung who will be available as DLC for the new game.
- Jurassic World: The Ride details: Universal Studios Hollywood has been in the process of revamping their version of Jurassic Park: The Ride and it was revealed this week what we can expect from Jurassic World: The Ride. The ride system will be the same, as visitors will board rafts and travel through jungle exhibits at Jurassic World and eventually find themselves in a battle between the T-Rex and a new monster dinosaur before falling 84 ft down a waterfall. The new version of the ride will open sometime this summer.
- Danny Trejo joins Dora the Explorer: Danny Trejo has joined the Dora the Explorer movie as Dora’s faithful companion Boots the Monkey. The movie is offically called Dora and The Lost City of Gold and is starring Isabela Moner as Dora, on a quest to find her parents who went missing on an expedition to the titular Lost City. The movie is out on August 2nd this summer.
- Talented Mr. Ripley TV series in the works: Steve Zaillian, creator of HBO’s The Night Of and writer on movies like Gangs of New York and the first Mission: Impossible, is developing a TV series based on Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley series, which includes the first and most recognizable title, The Talented Mr. Ripley. The show is apparently gaining a lot of attention and a major network will most likely grab it soon.
- Danger Girl movie in the works: IDW’s Danger Girl, which has been around since the 90s in comic book form, is becoming a movie with Kick-Ass 2 and Truth or Dare director Jeff Wadlow directing. The comic follows secret agent/adventurer Abbey Chase as she travels the world with her partners Sydney Savage and Natalia Kassle finding rare artifacts and stopping the evil Hammer Syndicate. Wadlow is currently working on Blumhouse’s reboot of Fantasy Island.
- Toxic Avenger remake finds a director: Legendary’s remake of the trashy Troma masterpiece The Toxic Avenger has found a director and writer in Macon Blair. Blair directed Netflix’s “I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore” and acted in movies like Blue Ruin, Murder Party, and Green Room.
- Terminator 6 gets new official title: Terminator 6 is now officially Terminator: Dark Fate. James Cameron has returned as a producer and the movie will be a direct sequel to Terminators 1 and 2, pretending the other sequels didn’t happen or are some other timeline. Linda Hamilton is returning as Sarah Connor and Arnold is back as well with Mackenzie Davis, Gabriel Luna, Natalia Reyes, and Diego Boneta as new additions. Deadpool’s Tim Miller is directing the movie and it’s out November 1st this fall.
- Rory Kinnear returning for Penny Dreadful: City of Angels: Rory Kinnear is returning to Penny Dreadful but unfortunately not as The Creature. Kinnear will play a new character in City of Angels, Dr. Peter Craft, “a successful German pediatrician and the head of the German-American Bund, an organization he hopes will keep the United States isolated from the growing threat of war in Europe”. There’s no premiere date for the new series but it’s expected to begin production this fall.
- Ewoks series rumored to be in the works for Disney+: Another week, another Disney+ rumored series. This time around, there might be new series based on Return of the Jedi’s beloved teddy bears, the Ewoks. Nothing is official yet but the rumor is that a series focused on the Ewoks could be part of a second wave of Star Wars shows debuting a year or so after Disney+ launches. The Ewoks got two TV movies following Return of the Jedi and also an animated series that ran on ABC.
- Bird Box sequel novel coming in the fall: Author Josh Malerman revealed that a sequel to his novel Bird Box, which became the insanely popular Netflix original movie last December, is coming on October 1st. The novel will be titled Malorie and will continue the story of the character played by Sandra Bullock in the movie. There’s no word on also a movie sequel but it’s almost a sure bet that Netflix will definitely be making one.
- Die Hard board game coming soon: Coming from USAopoly, Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist will be a new asynchronous board game where one player will take on the role of John McClane while the others will be the criminals trying to pull off the heist. The game will be available sometime in the spring.
- Disney/Fox merger completed: Officially completed this week, Disney now owns all of the 20th Century Fox’s properties and assets, excluding Fox News which is now its own separate company. Along with the Marvel characters of Deadpool, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, Disney now owns such properties as Avatar, Predator, Alien, Die Hard, The Simpsons, Family Guy and more along with a controlling stake in Hulu and ownership of the Fox and FX networks.
- Florence Pugh joins Black Widow movie: Fighting with My Family star Florence Pugh has joined the upcoming Black Widow solo movie. Director Cate Shortland has been hired to direct and Scarlett Johansson is starring with the movie expected to possibly begin production in late summer this year.
- The Three Musketeers getting a reboot at Netflix: The Three Musketeers is getting a modern remake at Netflix, who are turning Alexander Dumas’ classic adventure into a spy action movie in the vein of Mission: Impossible. The most recent take on the novel was The Musketeers from the BBC, which was an extremely solid and fun action/adventure show that felt like a throwback to the 90s era of syndicated shows like Hercules and Xena.
- Amazon starts casting it’s Dark Tower series: Despite the utter failure of the movie adaptation of The Dark Tower, Amazon is moving forward with their TV series version of the Stephen King epic and has cast it’s two main characters. Sam Strike, most recently seen on SyFy’s Nightflyers, has been cast as a younger Roland the Gunslinger and Jasper Pääkkönen has been cast as The Man in Black. The show is going to be a prequel that follows a younger Roland as he trains to be a Gunslinger and has his first encounter with The Man in Black.
- New app from MoviePass founder: Stacy Spikes, one of the founders of MoviePass, has a new entertainment venture coming soon called PreShow. PreShow will be an app that will let you earn free movie tickets by watching 15-20 minutes of branded content. The app will have a somewhat creepy eye-tracking ability, so if you look away from the content, it stops until you look back, so you have to actively engage in order to earn your tickets. The app is currently on Kickstarter and passed its goal of $10,000.
- He-Man found for Masters of the Universe reboot: Noah Centineo, co-star of Netflix’s To All the Boy’s I’ve Loved Before, is in talks to star in the upcoming Masters of the Universe reboot from Sony. The movie is being directed by Aaron and Adam Nee, who directed the extremely indie comedy Band of Robbers and Adam is a regular cast member on Drunk History.
- New insane sounding Nicolas Cage movie announced: After the double shot of greatness from Nicolas Cage last year with Mandy and Spider-Verse, Cage is apparently looking to reach even higher heights of craziness with his upcoming projects. One of those projects was revealed this week as Jiu Jitsu, a martial arts/alien invasion movie. Alain Moussi, star of the new Kickboxer series, is starring alongside Cage and Cage is the leader of an ancient martial arts order that works to protect the Earth every six years from an alien force that tries to invade. Dmitri Logothetis, the director of Kickboxer: Retaliation, is directing.
- Christopher Nolan starts casting new movie: The next movie from Christopher Nolan has begun to get underway with the first three additions to the cast. Elizabeth Debicki, Robert Pattinson and John David Washington have all signed on to the movie but there are absolutely no details about what the movie is, not even its title. The movie is arriving next summer on July 17, 2020.
- Castle Rock Season 2 details: The highly anticipated second season of Castle Rock has gotten its first details and it was revealed that the second season will be inspired by Misery, with Lizzy Caplan playing Annie Wilkes. Wilkes will get waylaid in Castle Rock and finds herself caught between two warring families. Tim Robbins, Elsie Fisher, and Garret Hedlund have also been cast in the second season but it seems like it won’t have anything to do with the story of the first season.
- Bill and Ted 3 officially confirmed: Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves officially confirmed this week that Bill and Ted Face the Music is coming on August 21, 2020. The duo will reprise their iconic roles as Bill S Preston and Ted “Theodore” Logan and the plot concerns them going on a journey to figure out the song that is the lynchpin of peace and harmony across the galaxy.
- Spider-Man comic strip ending: A staple of many Sunday newspaper comic sections, the Spider-Man comic strip is coming to an end after 42 years. Last Sunday was the final new Sunday strip and the daily comic will soon be ending as well. Stan Lee started the comic strip back in 1977 and it’s run continuously ever since.
- Michael B Jordan starring in a new monster movie from Jordan Vogt-Roberts: Vogt-Roberts, the director of Kong: Skull Island and who is attempting to get a Metal Gear movie made, is working with Michael B. Jordan for a new, untitled monster movie set in Detroit. The pair will be co-producers with Jordan starring and Vogt-Roberts directing.
- Game Night directors directing horror/comedy The Creeps: The duo behind last year’s hilarious Game Night, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, have signed on with Universal to make a new horror/comedy called The Creeps. The duo will write and direct the movie that is being described as “coming-of-age comedic horror”. The duo also wrote Spider-Man: Homecoming and were also supposed to be directing WB’s stand-alone Flash movie but the latter seems like it is going to forever be in movie limbo.