News Shotgun 12/19
- Locke & Key renewed for a third season: The second season of Netflix’s comic adaptation Locke & Key is debuting sometime next year but the show has already been renewed for a third season. The show follows the Locke siblings, who move into their family’s ancestral home, Keyhouse, after the death of their father and discover that the house holds numerous keys with magical powers and have to face off against a demon who has been trapped at Keyhouse and wants the keys for nefarious purposes.
- Boba Fett getting Disney+ show: As revealed in the after-credits scene of the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian, Boba Fett is getting his own series on Disney+ called “The Book of Boba Fett”. Temeura Morrison will reprise his role and, if the after-credits scene is any indication, Ming-Na Wen will co-star with him as Fennec Shand. The show will debut in December of 2021.
- RIP Jeremy Bulloch: Speaking of Boba Fett, in sad news the OG Boba Fett, Jeremy Bulloch, passed away this week at age 75. Bulloch portrayed Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and had a cameo as a different character in Revenge of the Sith. He was extremely active with the fan community and was an official member of the 501st Legion and appeared in numerous fan films.
- The Green Knight gets a new release date: A24’s intriguing-looking new take on the legend of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight starring Dev Patel was supposed to have come out earlier this year but got pushed back due to the pandemic. The movie finally got a new release date and will arrive on July 30th, 2021 in theaters.
- Chaos Walking delayed: Despite just getting a trailer a few weeks ago, the long-delayed Chaos Walking, starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, has been delayed again. Originally looking at a January 22, 2021 release, the movie has moved to March 5, 2021, almost two years removed from its original release date of March 1st, 2019.
- Matthew Rhys returning to FX: Matthew Rhys is heading back to FX with a new series based on a Dark Horse Comics series, Wyrd. Rhys will star as an alien who was sent to Earth to study humanity. When his species seemingly abandons him, Wyrd has to assimilate and pretend to be a human while investigating paranormal events as a private investigator and trying to figure out a way to get home. It sounds like it will combine both his Americans and Perry Mason experience into one character. Rhys will executive produce alongside his Americans co-star, and wife, Keri Russell.
- HBO Max is finally on Roku devices: HBO Max and Roku finally settled their dumb pissing match and the HBO app on Roku devices turned into the HBO Max app on Thursday this past week. The two companies were in a stalemate over how HBO Max would have been available on Roku. Roku wanted it included in their “Channels” section of The Roku Channel, which is similar to how Amazon does premium subscriptions where you would subscribe within that app and not have a standalone app while HBO Max only wanted the standalone app. The details of what each side actually eventually got were not revealed.
- Seth MacFarlane producing a Revenge of the Nerds reboot: Seth MacFarlane is producing a remake of the beloved, but problematic, 80s comedy Revenge of the Nerds. The Lucas Brothers, who appeared in 22 Jump Street and other recent comedy projects, will be writing and starring in the movie, which will be more of a “reimagining” and explore what it means to be a nerd in the present day.
- Night Court getting a sequel series: The beloved 80s sitcom Night Court is getting a sequel series from The Big Bang Theory’s Melissa Rauch and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s Dan Rubin. The show will follow Abby Stone, the daughter of the late Judge Harry Stone, played by Harry Anderson on the original series, who brings an optimistic sense of justice to the weird proceedings of a Manhattan arraignment court’s night shift. John Larroquette is returning to reprise his role as prickly prosecutor Dan Fielding but it’s not clear if any other Night Court alum will return as well.
- More possible casting for Spider-Man 3: The possible casting of the upcoming third Tom Holland Spider-Man movie continues to get more and more exciting and crazy. Along with possibly Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield appearing as their Peter Parkers, there have been numerous potential returns from both prior film series and this week there’s news/rumors that Willem Dafoe and Thomas Haden Church may return as their Raimiverse villains Green Goblin and Sandman respectively. If everything turns out to be true, they would join Jamie Foxx and Alfred Molina as returning villains.
- Fantasy Island reboot coming from Fox: Fox has ordered a reboot of the TV series Fantasy Island for next summer on the network. The show will keep the anthologyesque nature of the original show and follow new travelers who arrive every week on the mysterious island of Mr. Roarke. The visitors get to experience their greatest fantasy but also learn something about themselves and explore moral and philosophical issues. It doesn’t seem like it will take the horror route of the recent, not well received, movie reboot by Blumhouse.
- Black Adam finds it’s Cyclone: Black Adam has added another member to the Justice Society team that will face off against The Rock with Quintessa Swindell cast as Cyclone. Noah Centineo was cast as Atom Smasher and Aldis Hodge was cast as Hawkman, which only leaves casting Doctor Fate. The Justice Society is called in when Black Adam, played by The Rock, escapes his imprisonment of 5000 years, which was the result of him using his powers to initially save his people but his methods were too cruel and brutal for the Council of Wizards, who gave Black Adam his powers. Black Adam has a December 22, 2021 release date.
- Ben Affleck joins Houdini movie from Dan Trachtenberg: Dan Trachtenberg, the director of 10 Cloverfield Lane and the first episode of The Boys, is directing a movie based on Harry Houdini but also based on the book The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America’s First Superhero by William Kalush and Larry Sloman. The book sets up Houdini as a secret agent who investigated the occult and Ben Affleck has joined the movie, though not as Houdini. Affleck will play another secret agent that works with Houdini.
- Helstrom canceled by Hulu: Shocking no one, Hulu canceled it’s pseudo-Marvel series Helstrom after one season that seemingly no one watched. The show was initially heavily branded as based on the Marvel Comic Helstrom but that branding disappeared after Disney bought Fox and wiped the TV slate clean to make way for the MCU-tied Disney+ shows. Helstrom was the final series that was overseen by Marvel TV’s Jeph Loeb, who left Marvel last year. Kevin Fiege now oversees all Marvel properties, both TV and film, and all the Disney+ shows are under him with more direct and important ties to the MCU movies.
- Chris Pine starring in Dungeons and Dragons movie: Chris Pine will star in a new take on the long-running Dungeons and Dragons franchise, which is coming from Paramount and Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley, who directed Game Night. There are no plot details and it’s not clear if it will be a straight-up fantasy/action movie or something more meta, like possibly a group of people playing D&D and it becomes real or you see their adventure in fantasy sequences. The last D&D movie attempted was the atrocious 2000 film starring Jeremy Irons.