News Shotgun 6/18
- RIP Ron Lester: Character actor Ron Lester passed away due to liver and kidney failure this week at age 45. Lester was probably best known for his role as Billy Bob in Varsity Blues.
- Lego Movie 2 delayed to 2019: The sequel to the amazing Lego Movie has been pushed back by WB from May 18th, 2018 to February 8, 2019, no reason was given for the swap.
- Paramount may be rebooting The Saint: Paramount may be looking to turn The Saint into another action franchise, as they’ve secured the rights to the original book series. There was a TV series starring Roger Moore in the 60’s and a movie starring Val Kilmer in the 90’s.
- New Robotech comic series on the way: Titan Comics is launching a new Robotech series in early 2017 based on the cult 80’s anime, the entire run of which is currently available on Crackle.
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance may be coming to the current gen consoles: The fantastic beat em ups from Activision that brought together basically every Marvel character are possibly coming to PS4 and Xbox One based on a listing from a game ratings board website. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron may also be getting ported and/or remastered current gen.
- 30 minutes of The Day the Clown Cried are online: Possibly the most infamous lost movie of all time, Jerry Lewis’ holocaust drama The Day the Clown Cried has been under lock and key by Lewis and was never released in theaters or home video. It may become available in 2024 based on an arrangement Lewis made with the Library of Congress but this week 30 minutes of footage came online. The movie follows Lewis as a clown in a concentration camp during World War II who is forced to distract children as they are led to the gas chambers by the Nazis.
- James Wan directing a new pilot for the MacGyver reboot: We got a look at the new MacGyver series starring Lucas Till last month during the upfronts but now it seems CBS is scrapping that whole pilot and have brought in Furious 7/Conjuring/Saw director James Wan to direct a new one. Till and George Eads are still starring but the rest of the cast has been replaced, with the first new edition being Justin Hires, who is coming off playing Carter in the short lived Rush Hour show.
- Skylanders show coming to Netflix: Activision announced during E3 this week that their insanely popular toy/video game hybrid Skylanders is coming to Netflix as a new animated series called Skylanders Academy. The show is the first product from Activision/Blizzard’s internal production studio and the show will feature voice acting from Justin Long, Ashley Tisdale, Susan Sarandon, Jonathan Banks and Norm MacDonald.
- Martin Starr, Donald Glover and Logan Marshall Green join Spidey: Homecoming: Spider-Man: Homecoming got a bunch of great talent this week as comedians Martin Starr and Donald Glover joined the movie along with Logan Marshall Green from Prometheus and the recent thriller The Invitation.
- Wicked movie coming in 2019: Universal is adapting the insanely popular Broadway musical Wicked, which is the Wizard of Oz told from the Wicked Witch’s perspective, for a movie in December 2019.
- Superman cast for Season 2 of Supergirl: Teen Wolf’s Tyler Hoechlin was cast as Superman/Clark Kent for the upcoming second season of Supergirl on The CW. Clark will be visiting his cousin Kara during the first few episodes of the new season but there’s still no word on how Supergirl will fold into the Arrow/Flash universe, as it’s still an alternate Earth as of the end of the first season of all three shows.
- Wild Dog cast in Arrow: Speaking of Arrow, Rick Gonzalez, most recently from Mr. Robot, has been cast as vigilante Wild Dog for the upcoming fifth season of the show. He’s “…a new vigilante in Star City whose reckless and cocksure nature prompts Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) to take him under his wing.”
- Evil Dead 2 board game in development: Space Goat Productions are developing a board game based on Evil Dead 2 and a Kickstarter is launching for it in just under 2 weeks, so head over there then to learn more.
- Conjuring 2 spin-off coming featuring Evil Nun: Much like Annabelle in the first Conjuring, the Evil Nun of Conjuring 2 stole the show and is now getting her own spin-off movie, called The Nun. James Wan is producing and script is being written by David Leslie Johnson.
- Stallone starring in new thriller from Jim Mickle: Stallone is starring as an ex-con who learns his son has been killed and he leaves his solitary life to protect the remaining family he has and avenge his son. Mickle directed Cold in July along with Stake Land and We Are What We Are.
- Michael Bay getting into VR: Michael Bay has joined up with The Rogue Initiative to produce interactive, cinematic VR experiences for all the major current and upcoming VR devices. Based on some concept art, it looks like the experiences will be action/sci-fi based.
- Helen Mirren joins Fast 8: Dame Mirren has previously mentioned her love for both the Furious movies and Vin Diesel before and now she’s finally joining the series for the upcoming eighth film. It’s not confirmed who she is playing yet but our hopes is that she’s the mother of Jason Statham and Luke Evans’ Shaw Brothers.
- Transformers 5 plot details revealed: Details on the story for the upcoming Transformers: The Last Knight were revealed this week and it will follow Optimus Prime as he learns that he may have had a hand in destroying Cybertron and also learns of an artifact back on Earth that could restore the planet. This artifact has ties to Merlin, who was given magical powers by a Transformer back in Medieval England. While Optimus is off planet, Bumblebee is leading the team, which includes the return of the Dinobots. Anthony Hopkins is most likely voicing a Transformer called The Creator, who may have ties to the origins of the Transformers.
- Weird Al box set coming next summer: The complete Weird Al album set is coming next summer and the albums will come in an accordion case and will be available in both CD and Vinyl. The set also includes bonus rarities and a 100 page book.
- Jeff Garlin headlining Netflix movie Handsome: Goldbergs patriarch Jeff Garlin will star in an upcoming Netflix movie called Handsome, where he’ll play a Columboesque detective named Gene Handsome.
- Beverly Hills Cop 4 moving ahead with new directors: Belgian directing team Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah have been hired by Paramount to direct the long in development fourth installment of Beverly Hill Cop. This fourth movie is still starring Eddie Murphy and will apparently send him home to Detroit for a new case. The directing duo have a movie called Black, a modern day Romeo & Juliet, that played at TIFF and SXSW this year.
- Curb Your Enthusiasm coming back for a ninth season: Larry David is coming back to HBO for a ninth season of his critically acclaimed show Curb Your Enthusiasm. It’s been 5 years since the last season but HBO gave David carte blanche to return whenever he wanted to do more seasons. It’s not clear yet when the new season will debut.
- The Predator starts shooting in the fall: Shane Black’s new Predator movie will start shooting this fall in Vancouver. The movie is shooting for February 2018 and Black co-wrote it with his Monster Squad writing partner Fred Dekker and it will be a direct sequel to the 1987 original and possibly ignoring everything else that came after.
- Scarlet comic coming to Cinemax: Cinemax is getting another comic series added to it’s lineup with Brian Michael Bendis’ Scarlet. Part of Marvel’s Icon imprint, Scarlet follows a young woman named Scarlet Rue who fights back against the corruption of her society and ends up sparking a full on revolution.
- Nick Kroll animated series coming to Netflix: Kroll and John Mulaney will co-star in a new animated series coming to Netflix called Big Mouth, which has the duo voicing awkward teens trying to survive high school and puberty. The first season will be 10 episodes and will debut sometime next year.
- DC’s Super Hero Girls getting animated film: Just before possibly the darkest animated film in DC history comes out, DC’s 6-12 year old girl targeted line Super Hero Girls is getting it’s own animated film, Hero of the Year. The toy line and web series follows Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl, Harley Quinn, Katana and Poison Ivy, who are all teen students at the same high school and they join forces to take on various villains.