News Shotgun 5/8/21
- More cast members join the Nash Bridges revival: Nash Bridges is coming back with Don Johnson and Cheech Marin reprising their roles and more cast members joined the TV movie this week. Diarra Kilpatrick, Bonnie Somerville, Joe Dinicol, Alexia Garcia, Angela Ko, and Paul James all signed onto the movie, which finds Nash Bridges and his partner Joe Dominguez still working as investigators for the San Fransisco PD in the Special Investigations Unit and it sounds a bit like Bad Boys for Life, as most of the new cast members are younger and more tech-savvy members of the SIU.
- Idris Elba teaming with Extraction director for a new action movie: Idris Elba is teaming with Sam Hargrave, the director of Extraction, for a new action movie called Stay Frosty. Elba plays a man that is shot in the head by an assassin and left for dead. He survives and needs to try and figure out who wants him dead and stop the assassin while trying to make it home in time for Christmas with his son.
- Muppets Halloween special coming to Disney+: The Muppets are getting their first-ever Halloween special this coming October with The Muppets Haunted Mansion on Disney+. The special will send The Muppets into the iconic Disney ride location, where Gonzo is challenged to spend one night in the haunted house. In true Muppets fashion, there will be celebrity cameos and new music.
- Paramount+ releasing a new movie every week in 2022: Paramount+ is doubling down on original movie content next year with a promise to release a new original and exclusive film to the streaming service every week in 2022. The service is getting a boost this summer with the acquisition of a Mark Wahlberg sci-fi thriller, Infinite, which is skipping theaters for a Paramount+ release in June of this year. The movie was directed by Antoine Fuqua and follows Wahlberg as a man who has skills and memories of things he’s never done or seen and is taken into a secret world where it’s revealed he is an “infinite” and he is recalling past lives. The movies next year will be a variety of budgets and genres and also include projects from Nickelodeon and Awesomeness.
- John David Washington teaming with Gareth Edwards for a new sci-fi movie: John David Washington is teaming with Gareth Edwards, director of Godzilla and Rogue One, for a new sci-fi movie called True Love. There are no plot details but Edwards wrote and is directing the movie. This will be Edwards’s first project after directing Rogue One.
- New Red Sonja cast for live-action adaptation: There have been attempts to bring Red Sonja back to theaters since 2008 and the latest version of the project has found its titular warrior with Hannah John-Kamen being cast as Red Sonja. Kamen played Ghost in Ant-Man and The Wasp and also appeared in Black Mirror, Ready Player One, and Tomb Raider. Joey Soloway is directing this new version of the project with Tasha Huo co-writing the script.
- Freaky and Happy Death Day team developing new movie: The team behind wonderful horror mash-ups Freaky and the Happy Death Day movies are developing a new project called Time Cut that is being described as “Back to the Future meets Scream”. Chris Landon, director of the Happy Death Days and Freaky, is producing Time Cut and Michael Kennedy, who wrote those movies, is writing the script. Hannah MacPherson, who directed the Into the Dark entry “Pure”, is directing Time Cut and Madison Bailey and Antonia Gentry have been cast to star.
- The Flash losing two main cast members: Two mainstay cast members of The Flash won’t be back for Season 8 of The CW show. Carlos Valdes, who plays Cisco, and Tom Cavanaugh, who has played various versions of Harrison Wells, are both exiting the show with Valdes’ final episode being this season’s season finale and Cavanaugh, who already left as a series regular but was still a special guest, may return for a few additional episodes of the current season. The Wells plot was basically wrapped up in Episode 3 of the current season.
- TV cancelations and renewals: Netflix has canceled their supernatural, Sherlock Holmes-adjacent series The Irregulars after one season while ABC has renewed Big Sky for a second season and The CW renewed Kung Fu for a second season and Stargirl for a third season.
- RIP Olympia Dukakis: Legendary, Oscar-winning actress Olympia Dukakis passed away this past week at age 89 in New York City. Dukakis was best known for Moonstruck, where she won Best Supporting Actress, and was also in Steel Magnolias, Look Who’s Talking, Working Girl, The Cemetary Club, Mighty Aphrodite, and more.
- Showtime developing an Al Capone series: Showtime is developing a new show based on the book Scarface and The Untouchables: The Battle for Chicago by Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz. The show will follow the lives of both Capone and Elliott Ness as the series goes from the 1920s into the Great Depression and the book it’s based on featured new insights as it had decades of research, including personal documents from Ness. Alex Kurtzman is producing the series via his Secret Hideout production company.