News Shotgun 6/26/21
- Good Girls canceled at NBC: NBC has been clearing house lately and Good Girls ended up on the chopping block after four seasons. The Christina Hendricks led drama was not a strong performer in the live ratings for NBC but it was strong digitally and, like the recently canceled Manifest, also strong on Netflix. The show will not be shopped to another network, like Netflix, so it is 100% dead.
- Zack Snyder’s Justice League coming to home media: If you don’t have HBO Max or just want a physical copy of it, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is coming to 4K, Blu-Ray, and DVD in the fall. The movie will be out on September 7th but it seems like a very bare-bones release with not a lot of special features and not even the “Justice is Gray” black and white version.
- Supernatural prequel in development: A prequel of the wildly popular CW series Supernatural is in development that will focus on the parents of Sam and Dean Winchester and tell the story of their relationship and battle against evil, told from the perspective of Jensen Ackles’ Dean. Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Samantha Smith played John and Mary Winchester on the main series but it doesn’t seem like they would be reprising their roles for the prequel. Ackles is producing the series with his wife Daneel Ackles but there was some drama after the announcement as Jared Padalecki was apparently not informed of the new series and does not have any involvement. He’s currently playing Cordell Walker on The CW’s Walker, Texas Ranger reboot.
- AMC developing Interview with The Vampire series: AMC is getting into the world of Anne Rice as they are developing a TV series based around Interview With The Vampire and the Vampire Chronicles series of books. Rolin Jones, the showrunner for HBO’s Perry Mason, is showrunning the new series and it will arrive in 2022.
- The Deep House coming from Blumhouse: Blumhouse has picked up the distribution rights to The Deep House, a new horror movie that is set in a haunted house that is underwater. Two YouTubers dive down to explore but find the horrors hiding within. Blumhouse will release the movie on Epix, although no release date is set for the US. It will open in France on June 30th.
- New Tower of Terror movie in development: Disney is working on a new movie based on their iconic Tower of Terror ride. Scarlett Johansson will star in the movie but there are no real plot details yet. Josh Cooley, who directed Toy Story 4 and wrote Inside Out will be writing the script. Tower of Terror got a TV movie back in 1997 that starred Steve Guttenberg, Kirsten Dunst, and Nia Peeples that aired in the 90s reboot of The Wonderful World of Disney, but it’s currently available anywhere digitally and only released on DVD.
- Space Jam: A New Legacy getting a game tie-in: Space Jam: A New Legacy is getting an Xbox exclusive tie-in game coming out shortly before the movie hits theaters and HBO Max. The game will be available on July 1st exclusively for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers and then will be free to play for everyone on the Microsoft store on July 15th. The game is an old-school beat ’em up that sees Lebron James, Bugs, and Lola fighting the various creations of the evil AI Al G. Rhythm.
- Solar Opposites gets fourth season renewal: Tons more Solar Opposites is coming soon to Hulu as the streamer as renewed Justin Roiland’s animated series for a fourth season before the third season has even released. The third season will release next year and then the fourth season some undetermined time in the future.
- Dolph Lundgren and Frank Grillo teaming up for a new action movie: Dolph Lundgren and Frank Grillo will co-star in a new World War II set action movie called Operation Seawolf. The movie sees Germany sending one of their last remaining U-boats on a mission across the Atlantic to try and strike at New York City. It’s not clear who Lundgren and Grillo will be playing but it seems like a safe bet that maybe Dolph is the captain of the U-boat and Grillo is an Allied agent trying to stop them. The movie will be out sometime next year.
- Transformers: Rise of the Beasts announced: Paramount has officially revealed the next movie in the Transformers film franchise, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Steve Caple Jr, the director of Creed II, is directing the movie and it will be set in 1994. Optimus Prime, in his old-school G1 appearance that we saw in Bumblebee, will be the main Transformers character along with characters from Beast Wars, including Optimus Primal and Rhinox. The main villains will be Terrorcons, evil Transformers created from dead Transformers and powered by Dark Energon. On the human side, Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback will co-star. The movie will be out on June 24 next summer.
- Manifest officially dead: Despite its performance as one of the most-watched things on Netflix, Manifest is 100% dead and Netflix will not pick up the canceled NBC drama for new seasons. Creator Jeff Rake had a six-season plan for the show planned out but the show only got three seasons before this cancelation and most of the show’s mysteries will remain unsolved.
- Steven Spielberg signs a film deal with Netflix: Steven Spielberg and his Amblin Partners have signed a massive deal with Netflix to produce exclusive, original films for the streaming giant. There are no details about what we might expect from the deal but the companies previously collaborated on The Trial of the Chicago 7, which Amblin produced original with Paramount but then got sold to Netflix. It’s also not clear if Spielberg will direct any of these new Netflix movies; he’s currently working on a semi-autobiographical story about his childhood for Universal.
- Christoph Waltz and Willem Dafoe co-starring in western: Christoph Waltz and Willem Dafoe will co-star in Dead for a Dollar, which is being directed by the legendary Walter Hill. The movie finds Waltz as a bounty hunter (a role he’s had a bit of experience with) who is hired by a wealthy Santa Fe businessman to recover his wife, who he believes was kidnapped by a Black army deserter. Waltz tracks down the pair but finds that it wasn’t a kidnapping but the pair are in love and fled to Mexico. Dafoe plays Waltz’s rival, a professional gambler and outlaw. It’s been five years since the last Walter Hill movie, the somewhat problematic action movie The Assignment, which starred Michelle Rodriguez.