News Shotgun 4/3/21
- Mojo Jojo and Professor Utonium cast for live-action Powerpuff Girls: The CW recently found its trio of actresses for their pilot of a live-action Powerpuff Girls show and now they have their Mojo Jojo and Professor Utonium. Nicholas Ponday will play Mojo Jojo’s son, Joseph “Jojo” Mondel Jr., who was obsessed with the Powerpuff Girls as a kid, despite his father’s hatred of them. Donald Faison will play Professor Utonium, the Girls’ father who created them out of sugar, spice, everything nice, and Chemical X. With the Girls now grown and bitter, Utonium has to try and repair his relationship with them.
- Warner Bros shelves New Gods and The Trench: Warner Bros has shelved two of its upcoming DC movies. Ava Duvernay’s New Gods, based on the Jack Kirby created cosmic characters and the Aquaman spin-off The Trench, produced by Aquaman director James Wan, are no longer in development. WB was vague in their reasoning, saying their DC slate required some titles to be shelved. In the extremely rare chance either of these movies gets picked up again, WB said the talent working on them would be brought back on.
- Batman: The Long Halloween voice cast revealed: The voice cast for the upcoming adaptation of the beloved Batman story The Long Halloween was revealed this week. Jensen Ackles will voice Batman, the late Naya Rivera will voice Catwoman, Josh Duhamel will voice Harvey Dent, Titus Welliver will voice Carmine Falcone, David Dastmalchian will voice Calendar Man and Troy Baker will voice The Joker. The movie will follow the comic’s storyline where Batman finds himself in the middle of a mob war between the Marconi and Falcone families while also hunting a killer named Holiday, who kills and leaves cryptic notes every major holiday. Like The Dark Knight Returns adaptation, The Long Halloween will be two parts, with the first part arriving this summer.
- Netflix buys Knives Out sequels: Netflix paid a shocking $450 million for the exclusive rights to Knives Out 2 and 3 from director Rian Johnson. Johnson will direct both sequels and Daniel Craig will return as Benoit Blanc, investigating new star-studded murder mysteries. There is a chance that these movies may get a limited theatrical release but they will mostly be Netflix Original Films on streaming and used as ammo in the ongoing streaming wars to keep subscribers and lure in new ones.
- CSI returning on CBS: The OG CSI is coming back with a revival sequel series called CSI: Vegas that will air on CBS (and be available on Paramount+ as well). William Petersen and Jorja Fox are returning as Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle and will join a new team of Las Vegas crime scene investigators for new cases in Sin City. Wallace Langham, who played David Hodges on the original series, will also be back. The series got picked up with a straight-to-series order by CBS.
- Stallone is writing a Rocky prequel series: Over on his Instagram, Sylvester Stallone announced he’s working on a Rocky prequel series that he wants to turn into a television show, most likely pitched to a streaming service. It’s not clear what the prequel show would actually be about and if Stallone would return and digitally de-age himself or if they would cast a new, younger actor as Rocky. There doesn’t really seem like a lot to explore that wasn’t explored in the first Rocky movie, he was a small-time boxer who worked as a loan shark enforcer and it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot more story to mine, but if this happens I guess we’ll see.
- American Gods canceled at Starz: After the most recent third season wrapped up in late March, Starz announced this week that they have canceled American Gods, based on Neil Gaiman’s critically acclaimed novel. The show had a ton of upheaval behind the scenes, with multiple showrunners coming in and dropping out and cast members quitting or being fired from the series, including Orlando Jones and Gillian Anderson. Neil Gaiman took to Twitter and said they will try to find a new home for the series and continue the story but he’s currently working on the adaptation of his Sandman comic for Netflix.
- Adam Wingard directing a Thundercats movie: Godzilla vs Kong director Adam Wingard has lined up his next project, which is an adaptation of the beloved 80s cartoon Thundercats. Warner Bros is rebooting the series as a hybrid CG/2d animated film and Wingard will direct and rewrite the script with screenwriter Simon Barrett. Wingard is apparently a massive Thundercats fan and wrote a screenplay for a movie version back when he was in 10th grade.
- Russell Crowe joins Thor: Love and Thunder: Russell Crowe has joined the upcoming Thor sequel Love and Thunder in a cameo appearance that was spoiled by on-set photos. Christian Bale is playing the villain, Gorr the God-Butcher, and Thor will team back up with Valkryie and the Guardians of the Galaxy while Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster will return and become Mighty Thor, following her character’s comic storyline. Taika Waititi is back to direct and the movie is looking at a May 6th, 2022 release.
- Black Adam release date: Dwayne Johnson revealed the release date for Black Adam during March Madness and the DC movie is coming on July 29th, 2022. Johnson is playing Black Adam, who finds himself pitted against the Justice Society of America after he escapes from thousands of years of imprisonment.
- MODOK show gets new cast members: One of the only Marvel shows left after a slate of shows was announced for Hulu, MODOK announced new cast members recently. Jon Hamm will voice Iron Man while Nathan Fillion will voice Wonder Man. Whoopi Goldberg and Bill Hader were recently announced as well. Patton Oswalt is starring as MODOK and Melissa Fumero, Aimee Garcia, Ben Schwartz, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Beck Bennett, and Jon Daly were previously announced as cast members and the show follows MODOK as he gets ousted as the leader of AIM and tries to rebuild his evil empire while dealing with his family. The show debuts on May 21 on Hulu.