News Shotgun 12/4/21

Here’s all the TV and Movie news for the week, it’s the News Shotgun

• New Texas Chainsaw movie gets a release date: Along with some first look photos, a new article in the latest Entertainment Weekly revealed that the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie will hit Netflix on February 18th, 2022.  Evil Dead director Fede Alvarez is producing the movie and Mark Burnham is the new Leatherface and Elsie Fisher, Sarah Yarkin, Jacob Latimore, Alice Krige, Olwen Fouéré, Nell Hudson, Jessica Allain, Sam Douglas, William Hope, and Jolyon Coy co-star.  David Blue Garcia directed the movie and it seems to be pulling a Halloween and will be a direct sequel to the Tobe Hooper original and ignore the other sequels and remakes.
• Ana De Armas reteaming with Chris Evans for Ghosted: Ana De Armas and Chris Evans are reuniting after co-starring in Knives Out for the Apple TV+ original movie Ghosted.  The movie is described as a sort of Romancing the Stone style action romantic comedy and Evans was originally supposed to co-star with fellow Avenger Scarlett Johansson but she had to bow out from scheduling conflicts.  De Armas and Evans are also co-starring in the upcoming Netflix action movie The Gray Man from The Russo Brothers.
• Cobie Smulders back for Secret Invasion: One of the many of the upcoming Marvel Disney+ shows is Secret Invasion, which will follow up on the tease from Captain Marvel of Nick Fury working with the Skrulls and that some characters have actually been Skrulls for a while.  Cobie Smulders will return as Maria Hill along with Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Olivia Colman, Emilia Clarke, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Christopher McDonald, and Killian Scott.
• Lives of the Mayfair Witches coming to AMC: Along with the upcoming Interview with a Vampire series, another Anne Rice series is coming to AMC with The Lives of Mayfair Witches.  The first season will be 8 episodes and will be on both AMC and AMC+.  AMC bought the rights to Anne Rice’s works and more potential projects could be on the way.
• White Men Can’t Jump remake in development: A remake of the Wesley Snipes/Woody Harrelson basketball movie White Men Can’t Jump is in development at 20th Century Films.  Calmatic, who directed the House Party remake, is directing this remake as well and he previously worked in music videos, including “Old Town Road” for Lil Nas X.
• André Øvredal directing Tarot movie: André Øvredal, director of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, is directing a movie called Tarot for eOne and Fuller Media.  The movie is described as a high-concept thriller based on Tarot cards.  Øvredal is currently in post-production on his Dracula movie Last Voyage of the Demeter, which tells the story of Dracula’s journey from Transylvania to London where he stealthily dispatched the entire crew of the ship transporting him, the Demeter.
• Nicolas Cage playing Dracula for Renfield: Speaking of Dracula, the one and only Nicolas Cage will be playing the legendary vampire in the upcoming Universal movie Renfield.  The movie follows Dracula’s deranged assistant, who will be played by Nicholas Hoult in the movie.  Awkwafina was cast this week to co-star as well and Chris McKay, who directed The Tomorrow War earlier this year, is directing the movie.
• Zorro 2.0 reboot in development: A bizarre spin on the iconic Mexican swashbuckling action hero is in development with Zorro 2.0.  Alex Rivera will write and direct the new movie, which is set in the modern-day and reimagines the character as a hacker with the handle z0rr0 who battles a secret government unit that attacked his mother.  It’s not clear how you get from sword fighting pulp hero to modern-day, Mr. Robot-style hacker but we’ll see if this ever comes to fruition.
• Kurt Sutter developing Western for Netflix: Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter is working on a Western series for Netflix called The Abandons.  The show will follow the origins of La Cosa Nostra aka the Mafia, who began as peasant farmers in the American West that banded together to fight off and get out from under the thumb of greedy land barons and aristocrats.
• Chucky renewed for season 2: Chucky will be back for another season of mayhem as the USA/SyFy series has been renewed for a second season.  The season 1 finale aired this past Tuesday and the entire season is now available to stream on Peacock if you missed it live. Brad Dourif, Fiona Dourif, Devon Sawa, Christine Elise, Alex Vincent, and Jennifer Tilly are all returning for the second season.
• Gorillaz movie in development at Netflix: Animated band Gorillaz is getting a feature-length Netflix movie, which is currently in development.  Band member Damon Albarn is currently writing the movie and it will feature some form of the iconic animation style from band member and animator Jamie Hewlett.
• Tom Holland returning for three more Spider-Man movies: Sony executive Amy Pascal revealed this week that Tom Holland will return as Spider-Man for three more movies, making him the longest-running cinematic Spider-Man.  The movies will be made in partnership with Disney but it’s not clear if any of them will include the characters that Sony is developing independently, like Venom and Morbius.  Spider-Man: No Way Home is out on December 17th this month.
• Metal Men getting an animated movie: DC Comics characters the Metal Men are getting an animated movie, although it seems like it won’t be the typical DC Animated movie but a higher budget movie that could potentially hit theaters or be an HBO Max exclusive.  John Musker and Ron Clements, legends from Disney who worked on The Little Mermaid among other movies, are producing and wrote a treatment for the movie.  The Metal Men are a group of robotic heroes led by brilliant scientist William Magnus and each robotic warrior has powers based on the metal they are made of.