News Shotgun 8/22
- Penny Dreadful: City of Angels canceled after one season: Showtime has canceled their follow-up series to the original Penny Dreadful after on season. City of Angels set things in 1938 Los Angeles instead of the Victorian England of the original series and it wasn’t nearly as well-received and lacked a central presence like Eva Green on Penny Dreadful. There doesn’t seem to be a definitive reason for the cancelation.
- Kraven the Hunter movie in development: Sony is expanding its Spider-Man side universe with a Kraven the Hunter movie announced to be in development. Sony has hired Triple Frontier director JC Chandor to direct the movie, which is supposedly going to be influenced by the iconic comic storyline “Kraven’s Last Hunt”. There is no casting yet for Kraven and it’s not clear if Tom Holland will appear in any capacity as Spider-Man.
- Ben Affleck back as Batman for The Flash: Ben Affleck will return at least one more time as Batman for the upcoming The Flash movie directed by Andy Muschietti. It was revealed that Affleck will appear in the long in development movie and it will also feature Michael Keaton returning as Batman as well, apparently setting things up for some crazy multiverse shenanigans. There may be more news later today at DC Fandome and The Flash is scheduled for a June 3, 2022 release.
- Drunk History and Tosh.0 canceled at Comedy Central: Comedy Central is doing some housecleaning and is ending Drunk History and Tosh.0. Drunk History had actually been renewed for a seventh season but the pandemic delayed the production and Comedy Central decided to instead cancel the show, as they are focusing on adult animation like the reboots of Ren & Stimpy and Beavis and Butthead. Tosh.0 had also already been renewed for multiple seasons in a prior deal but that deal was reversed and the 12th and final season of the show will air in September.
- Netflix confirms the date of the second batch of Unsolved Mysteries: Netflix confirmed that the second batch of new Unsolved Mysteries will arrive on October 19th. One of the episodes will focus on a ghost mystery and two of the episodes will be international mysteries.
- Guillermo Del Toro adds more cast members to his Pinocchio movie: Guillermo Del Toro has been developing a stop-motion version of Pinocchio for years and Netflix has picked up the movie along with signing a multi-year deal with Del Toro. Cate Blanchett, Ron Perlman, Tilda Swinton, Tim Blake Nelson, Burn Gorman, John Turturro, Christoph Waltz, and Finn Wolfhard have joined the voice cast of the movie. Ewan McGregor was previously cast as The Cricket. As with a lot of Del Toro projects, this expected to be a darker take on the classic story.
- The Exorcist reboot apparently in development: Production company Morgan Creek is apparently working on some sort of reboot of The Exorcist, according to a brief listing of upcoming projects on an article at Deadline. Morgan Creek has a large library of older IP and has been working on getting some of them developed into reboots or remakes. Most recently it was announced they are turning Stay Tuned into a TV series and they also previously announced projects based on Ace Ventura, Young Guns, and Major League. Fox had an Exorcist TV series that ended in 2017.
- Firewatch movie in development: Critically acclaimed indie game Firewatch is becoming a movie and/or a TV show with the production company behind Blindspotting, The Guest, and You’re Next. Shoot Entertainment has the rights to a movie of Firewatch, which put you in the shoes of Henry, a fire lookout working at a national forest in Wyoming. As you went about your job around the park, Henry had constant conversations with his supervisor Deliah and a larger mystery started to develop. Rich Sommer voiced Henry in the game and Cissy Jones voiced Deliah and the game featured iconic art design from artist Olly Moss.
- Jensen Ackles joins The Boys: Supernatural is finally wrapping up but Jensen Ackles is already in another big project as it was announced this week he is playing Soldier Boy in the upcoming season of The Boys. Soldier Boy is basically the Captain America of The Boys universe, the first superhero to arrive on the scene but he was an incompetent and stupid soldier that got his team in World War II killed.
- Will Smith and Kevin Hart co-starring in a Planes, Trains, and Automobiles reboot: Kevin Hart seems intent on rebooting every iconic 80s comedy, as he currently has reboots of The Great Outdoors, Scrooged and now Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Hart will co-star with Will Smith in the P, T, and A reboot with writer Aeyesah Carr writing the script. It’s not clear which actor will be taking over for Steve Martin and which will be in the John Candy role.