News Shotgun 10/30/21

Here’s all the movie and TV news to know from the past week, it’s the News Shotgun

• John Woo directing a wordless action movie starring Joel Kinnaman: Suicide Squad star Joel Kinnaman is teaming with action legend John Woo for a new action movie called Silent Night that won’t feature any dialogue but with tons of explosive John Woo action.  This will be the first US film made by Woo since Paycheck in 2003, as in recent years he’s stayed in Hong Kong to make films for the Asian market, like Red Cliff and The Crossing.
• 3 Body Problem Netflix Series adds cast members: The next series from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, 3 Body Problem, has found a bunch of new cast members, including Benedict Wong, John Bradley, and Liam Cunningham.  Jovan Adepo, Tsai Chin, and Eiza González are co-starring as well and the series is based on a Chinese book trilogy by author Liu Cixin that details humanity’s first contact with aliens.
• Ana De Armas is in talks to star in John Wick spin-off: We got to see her action chops in No Time to Die but Ana De Armas is in talks to join the John Wick universe in the spin-off movie Ballerina.  De Armas would play a character who was trained as a dancer/assassin at the school briefly seen in John Wick 3.  When her family is killed, the ballerina goes on a mission of revenge.  Underworld director Len Wiseman has signed on to direct the movie and Shay Hatten, who has screenplay credits on Army of the Dead and John Wick 3, is writing the script for Ballerina.
• Disney+ National Treasure series finds lead: Disney has found the lead for its upcoming National Treasure Disney+ series with Lisette Alexis as Jess, who is seeking answers about her family and their ties to a lost treasure.  The show is set in the universe of National Treasure but it’s very unlikely that any of the film characters will appear in the series.  Jerry Bruckheimer and National Treasure film director Jon Turteltaub are executive producing the series.
• Josh Lucas starring in shark movie The Black Demon: After most recently appearing in The Forever Purge, Josh Lucas is taking on a bloodthirsty shark for his next movie, The Black Demon.  Lucas plays an oilman who heads to Bahia Azul with his family.  Heading out to inspect a nearby oil rig, his family joins him but they are soon attacked by a gigantic Megalodon known as The Black Demon, and they have to figure out some way to survive.  The movie is being directed by Adrian Grunberg, who directed Rambo: Last Blood.
• Arcade1up putting out T2: The Arcade Game cabinet: Arcade1up continues to top themselves with each new arcade cabinet release and they are putting out a version of Terminator 2: The Arcade Game that you can purchase and have in your home.  The new cabinet features two-player action with Uzis that are wired to the cabinet but not attached to the cabinet like the original version, allowing you to pick it up and fire from a more comfortable position.  The cabinet will only have T2: The Arcade Game as the sole game and pre-orders go up on November 1st.
• Liam Neeson playing a retired assassin in In the Land of Saints and Sinners: Liam Neeson is reteaming with the director of The Marksman, Robert Lorenz, for a new thriller set in Ireland, In the Land of Saints and Sinners.  Neeson plays a retired assassin who ends up in a cat and mouse game with a trio of vengeful terrorists.  Ciaran Hinds co-stars.
• Derek Cianfrance directing the new Wolfman movie: Ryan Goslin is reuniting with his Place Beyond the Pines and Blue Valentine director, Derek Cianfrance, for the reboot of the Universal Classic Monster, The Wolfman.  Gosling is starring as the Wolfman and it’s believed that it will be a modern spin like 2020’s The Invisible Man, but there are no plot details revealed yet.
• Iko Uwais battling The Expendables in The Expendables 4: Action superstar Iko Uwais will battle Sly Stallone and the other Expendables in the upcoming fourth entry in the franchise.  Uwais is playing a former military officer who has become an arms dealer with a private army.  Scott Waugh, who directed Act of Valor and Need for Speed, is directing the movie that will also feature Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, and Randy Couture returning along with new cast members Andy Garcia, Megan Fox, Jacob Scipio, and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.
• Succession renewed for Season 4: After only a few episodes of Season 3, HBO has renewed Succession for a fourth season.  The current season began on October 17th and is nine episodes and it’s not clear if Season 4 will also be nine episodes or when it is expected to air.
• Dune Sequel greenlit: Everyone who saw and loved Dune last weekend was waiting with bated breath for word on Part Two and Warner Bros. and Legendary officially announced that Part Two was greenlit and will release on October 20th, 2023 exclusively in theaters.  Denis Villeneuve will return to direct, produce and co-write the script.
• Canceled “The Trench” DC movie was a solo Black Manta movie: Initially revealed as a horror spin-off of Aquaman featuring the creatures who live in The Trench, it was revealed this week that The Trench was secretly a Black Manta solo movie.  Presumably, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II would have returned to star but there are no other details about what the movie would have been about.
• Brendan Fraser cast as the villain of Batgirl: The Brenaissance continues as everyone’s favorite Brendan Fraser continues to return to the spotlight in big, high-profile projects.  This week Fraser was cast as the villain of the upcoming HBO Max Batgirl movie, where he’ll face off against Leslie Grace’s Batgirl.  Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the directors of Bad Boys for Life, are directing the movie and while his exact role was not revealed, fan speculation believes Fraser may be playing Firefly, which would tie in to a particular arc from the Batgirl comics.