News Shotgun 1/19
- Unsolved Mysteries coming back to Netflix: The original series has been available on Amazon Prime and Pluto.tv but Netflix has ordered a full reboot of the classic true crime/mystery show Unsolved Mysteries. Shawn Levy, the producer of Stranger Things, is producing alongside original show creators, John Cosgrove, and Terry Dunn Meurer. The new show will be 12 episodes for its first season and each episode will focus on a single mystery, as opposed to the multiple stories of the original, and there’s no word on who will host the new show.
- Power Rangers fighting game coming to console in April: The Power Rangers will be hitting the Switch, PS4 and Xbox One in April with a new fighting game called Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, which seems to be an enhanced version of the mobile game, Power Rangers: Legacy Wars. The game features Rangers from all eras and will cost $19.99.
- New Creepshow TV Show adapting disgusting King short story: The Walking Dead producer Greg Nicotero is working on a Creepshow TV series for Shudder and it was announced this week that the show will be adapting arguably Stephen King’s most disgusting short story, Survivor Type. The short was in his collection Skeleton Crew and was about a surgeon named Richard Pine who is shipwrecked alone on an island with no food and he slowly amputates his own body parts to eat. Creepshow is debuting sometime this year on Shudder.
- New Netflix Movie “The Devil All the Time” gets all-star cast: Netflix movies are getting bigger and bigger stars and one of their upcoming movies, The Devil All the Time, has announced a ridiculously stacked cast. Chris Evans, Tom Holland, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson, and Bill Skarsgard are all starring in the “gothic drama” that takes place across multiple generations and features a serial killer couple, a faith-testing preacher and a corrupt sheriff. Antonio Campos, an executive producer of USA’s crime series The Sinner, is directing.
- Anne Hathaway starring in new The Witches: Anne Hathaway is the new Grand High Witch in Robert Zemeckis’ new adaptation of The Witches. Based on the novel from 1973 that was adapted into a cult classic in 1990 with Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch. Zemeckis is directing, writing and producing The Witches and Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo Del Toro are producing as well.
- Disney rebooting The Hunchback of Notre Dame into live action: Disney is not stopping with their live-action reboots of their animated classic and The Hunchback of Notre Dame is the latest reboot greenlit. The new movie will be called Hunchback and it’s rumored that Josh Gad may play Quasimodo along with being a producer and Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz will be handling musical duties.
- Steve Carrell starring in new Netflix comedy Space Force: Steve Carrell is re-teaming with The Office creator Greg Daniels for a new Netflix comedy series called Space Force. The show will be a parody of President Trump’s declaration that a sixth branch of the military called Space Force is needed and Carrell’s character will be one of the people tasked with making the Space Force happen.
- SyFy cancels Channel Zero: SyFy’s excellent horror anthology series Channel Zero has been canceled after it’s the fourth season, which aired in October last year. The series never got the recognition it deserved, as flashier but inferior series like American Horror Story drew more attention but showrunner Nick Antcosta hinted there might be a chance for more, which he didn’t elaborate on but an educated guess might be on Shudder, as Shudder is the exclusive streaming service for Channel Zero.
- Jason Reitman directing a new Ghostbusters movie for 2020: Announced completely out of the blue this past week, it was announced that Jason Reitman has been working on a new Ghostbusters movie that will be released in Summer 2020. Reitman’s father, Ivan Reitman, obviously directed the original two films and this new movie will be set in the same universe as the 80s movies, with nothing tied to the 2016 reboot, and will follow four teens who become the new Ghostbusters and Ernie Hudson hinted that all the original Ghostbusters (minus the deceased Harold Ramis) will appear as their characters in this new movie.
- Danny Glover joins Jumanji 2: Danny Glover is the latest cast member to join the upcoming sequel to Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle in an unnamed role. Along with the original quartet of The Rock, Jack Black, Kevin Hart and Karen Gillan, Awkwafina and Danny DeVito have joined the cast as well and is set to come out around Christmas this year.
- EA cancels open-world Star Wars game: EA continues to draw the ire of Star Wars fans and gamers by canceling yet another Star Wars project. Codenamed Orca, the open-world game that was canceled would let the player be a bounty hunter or other scoundrel in the Star Wars universe and travel between multiple planets completing missions. This game was put into development when EA canceled a game codenamed Ragtag that was being developed by now-defunct Dead Space developer Visceral Games. There is now a third game in this debacle being developed that is a more scaled down and manageable game that is looking to launch on the next generation of consoles.
- Sopranos prequel movie adds cast members: Sopranos creator David Chase is working on a prequel movie called The Many Saints of Newark, which is set in 1960s New Jersey. A bunch of big names were added to the cast this week including Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Corey Stoll, and Billy Magnussen, all in roles that have not been disclosed. The only cast member with a known role is Alessandro Nivola, who is playing Dickie Moltisanti, the father of Sopranos character Chris Moltisanti.
- Just Dance getting a movie adaptation: Ubisoft’s insanely popular dancing/rhythm game series Just Dance has been picked up for a movie adaptation by Screen Gems. There are no director, producer or writer announced and the games have no narrative whatsoever, so who knows what the hell this movie is going to be.
- NBC may be developing their streaming service: NBCUniversal seems like they are developing their own, ad-supported streaming service that would feature NBC shows, Universal movies and original content exclusive to the service. The big power move that NBC could use against the likes of Netflix is they could remove The Office, one of the most watched things on Netflix, and make it exclusive to this streaming service. NBC is looking to launch this new service in 2020.
- Netflix upping prices soon: Netflix will be raising prices soon, or immediately if you are just signing up right now. The basic plan will be $9, the HD Standard plan will be $13 and 4K premium.
- Christopher McQuarrie directing and writing MI 7 and 8: In an unprecedented move for the Mission: Impossible series, Christopher McQuarrie will continue to be in the director’s chair for the seventh and eighth installments in the franchise and he will be writing both movies as well. The movies will be shot back to back and Tom Cruise will obviously be back and Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, and Simon Pegg will most likely be back as well but nothing is really confirmed as of yet.
- New Perry Mason cast for reboot TV series: The Americans star Matthew Rhys has been cast as the new Perry Mason for a reboot limited series that will air on HBO. Robert Downey Jr was originally going to star in a movie version as the famous defense attorney but his other film commitments made that not possible but he and his wife, Susan Downey, will be producing the limited series under their Team Downey production company.
- Paramount rebooting TMNT again: TMNT is getting rebooted again by Platinum Dunes and Paramount after the previous two live action movies. Platinum Dunes’ Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller are producing and Andrew Dodge will be writing the new script.
- Uncharted movie gets a new director: The adaptation of Uncharted has gone through a ton of directors and actors and iterations but Sony is still trying to get the movie made and 10 Cloverfield Lane’s Dan Trachtenberg has signed on as the latest director to try and get the project underway. Trachtenberg also directed the Black Mirror episode “Playtest” and was one of the co-hosts of The Totally Rad Show, where he reviewed Uncharted 2 along with tons of other games, and he seems like a perfect choice to really nail the style and tone of the game series.
- Michelle Yeoh Star Trek show coming to CBS All Access: Michelle Yeoh will star in a spin-off series from Star Trek: Discovery that will focus on her character Georgiou, a villain from the Mirror Universe who found herself in the Discovery universe and became a member of Section 31, the black ops unit of the Federation that handles the less savory dirty work that needs to get done across the galaxy.
- Breaking Bad getting a mobile game: Breaking Bad: Criminal Elements will be coming to iOS and Android sometime this year and will let you attempt to build your own criminal empire in the Breaking Bad universe. Walt, Jessie, Gus Fring, Saul, and Mike will all be featured in the game and creator Vince Gilligan has thrown his full support behind the project.