Author: Christopher Marc

Posted on in Film News

Paramount’s ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Movie Adds Hugh Grant & Sophia Lillis – Grant To Play A Villain

Deadline reports that Paramount Pictures has added veteran actor Hugh Grant as the villain of Dungeons & Dragons and IT actress Sophia Lillis in another role in the high-profile fantasy film about to begin shooting soon in Belfast. Grant has been working closely with director Guy Ritchie on his films The Gentlemen and Five Eyes, the latter currently deep into production.

The pair join Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Rege-Jean Page, and Justice Smith.

It’s a little odd that they’ve hired this many American actors for a fantasy film, hopefully, they’re going to be using their regular accents and not attempting bad British ones. Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings movies had a bunch of Americans but they were able muffle their accents for the most part. There is nothing more distracting than an American forcing a bad British accent for the entire runtime of a feature film. Luckily, we’ve sampled Chris Pine’s Scottish accent in The Outlaw King, which was sort of impressive given he’s not really known for it.

Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley will be directing and writing. We currently don’t have any real solid plot details but there is a good shot the duo is creating an original take while using existing mythology as source material.

Dungeons & Dragons is being set for release on May 27th, 2022 and already is being expanded with John Wick’s Derek Kolstad being tasked to develop a live-action television series set withing the fantasy world.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Jodie Comer Reuniting With Ridley Scott For Napoleon Film ‘Kitbag’ Starring Joaquin Phoenix – Will Play Josephine

Deadline reports that Jodie Comer has been selected by director Ridley Scott for the role of Josephine in his upcoming Napoleon feature film Kitbag, starring Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix. Comer recently worked with Scott on his period drama The Last Duel, that sees Jodie co-starring with Matt Damon and Adam Driver.

However, the actress is only in early talks for the key role in the new film.

Filming is expected to begin in early 2022.

The film is an original and personal look at Napoleon’s origins and his swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine. The intention of the film is to capture Napoleon’s famous battles, relentless ambition and astounding strategic mind as an extraordinary military leader and war visionary.

Ridley and Phoenix previously worked together on Gladiator.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

‘Thor: Love & Thunder’ Set Photos Confirm The Loki Play Has Returned & Melissa McCarthy Spotted In Hela Costume

Filming has been underway on Thor: Love & Thunder in Sydney, Australia and some new set photos posted by the Daily Mail released confirmed that the Loki play is coming back with Melissa McCarthy taking a new part.

You can see in the set photos that Melissa McCarthy is in Cate Blanchett’s Hela costume along with the return of Matt Damon’s Loki and Luke Hemsworth’s Thor. This would suggest that Damon’s return was indeed to reprise this Asgardian actor character from Thor: Ragnarok and could mean that McCarthy is also playing another Asgardian.

New Asgard is expected to be a tourist location on Earth as revealed in concept art shown last year by director Taika Waititi during an Instagram stream. Which could explain the return of the play despite the destruction of Asgard.

Multiple Guardians of The Galaxy actors were also spotted on set previously.

SOURCE: DAILY MAIL

Posted on in Film News

George R.R. Martin’s ‘Sandkings’ Getting A Netflix Movie Directed By Gore Verbinski

Another George R.R. Martin adaptation is on the way at Netflix.

Collider reports that Martin’s novelette Sandkings will be getting a feature film at Netflix from director Gore Verbinski and Dennis Kelly writing the script.

Veteran director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) is teaming with original Utopia creator Dennis Kelly on a feature adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s 1979 novelette Sandkings that is currently in the works at Netflix, Collider has exclusively learned.

Here is what the story is about.

The story follows a wealthy playboy named Simon Kress who collects dangerous, exotic animals. One day, he stumbles across a mysterious establishment called Wo & Shade, where he purchases a terrarium filled with four colonies of creatures called sandkings, which grow to fill whatever environment they are kept in. Each colony consists of a large female called the maw, and numerous insect-like mobiles that she controls via telepathy. In addition to finding food for the maw, the mobiles also construct a sandcastle around her to protect the maw from invading colonies. Indeed, the four colonies — white, black, red and orange — often engage in coordinated wars with one another, especially once their new owner makes them fight over food by starving them. Simon begins taking bets on the outcomes of these wars, which leave some of his friends impressed, and others disgusted. Eventually, the sandkings escape Simon’s terrarium and begin to take over his house as their hunger — and Simon’s desperation — intensifies.

Sandkings was adapted into an episode of The Outer Limits in the 1990s and takes place within Martin’s Thousand Worlds universe, which is also the setting of his sci-fi horror story Nightflyers that got a feature film and short-lived series.

Martin is busy producing multiple spinoff series at HBO set within the Game of Thrones franchise.

Verbinski directed films like The Ring, The Mexican, Disney’s Pirate of The Caribbean trilogy, and a lackluster Lone Ranger film. He famously attempted to make a feature film based on the video game BioShock that went nowhere and was one of the many directors that tried to make a solo Gambit film for 20th Century Fox before the X-Men rights returned to Marvel. Gore most recently made A Cure For Wellness.

SOURCE: COLLIDER

Posted on in Film News

‘Ant-Man 3’: Marvel Won’t Be Asking T.I. To Return As Dave

It looks like Marvel Studios won’t be bringing back rapper turned actor T.I. for their upcoming Ant-Man sequel as The Hollywood Reporter says the studios don’t have plans for him to return to the role of Dave in Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. This likely stems from fallout due to the multiple sexual abuse allegations made by women against the actor and his wife, but hasn’t been confirmed as a direct connection.

T.I. will not be returning for Marvel Studios’ upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The embattled rapper and actor is not a part of the cast, The Hollywood Reporter has learned, but it’s unclear whether this is related to recent accusations of sexual abuse he is facing alongside his wife, musician Tiny.

You can read more about those allegations in the THR’s report from the link below.

While Disney hasn’t given the sequel a release date, filming is set for this summer and they’ve been aiming for a spot in 2022.

Lovecraft Country actor Jonathan Majors is set to play Marvel Comics villain Kang The Conqueror, which could mean he’ll appear in multiple films.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Television News

‘Game of Thrones’ Actress Indira Varma Reportedly Joins ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Series In Mysterious Role

A report from Deadline posted yesterday revealed that British actress Indira Varma has taken an undisclosed role in the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series which already stars Ewan McGregor as Ben Kenobi and Hayden Christensen reprising the Darth Vader role. 

Varma is likely best know for her supporting role in HBO shows such as Game of Thrones and Rome. However, the outlet isn’t sure who exactly she’ll be playing in Star Wars series that takes place many years before Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: A New Hope as Luke Skywalker will still be a child during this era in the timeline. 

Deborah Chow, who previously worked on Season 1 of The Mandalorian is directing the spinoff series focusing on the former Jedi Master/General and according to McGregor, Kenobi will begin shooting in Los Angeles around late spring. 

Lucasfilm is busy as they’re currently filming The Book of Boba Fett and Andor with a Willow sequel series starting production in Wales this month as well. Other live-action Star Wars shows announced back in December include Season 3 of The Mandalorian, Rangers of The New Republic, Ahsoka, Lando, and The Acolyte. The studio has its hands full as Patty Jenkins will be directing the next feature film, titled Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, and has a release date of December 22nd, 2023. 

The Book of Boba Fett is expected to be the next Disney+ series to release in the fall. 

SOURCE: DEADLINE 

Posted on in Film News

Russo Brothers Say Sony Resisted Casting Tom Holland As ‘Spider-Man’ Due To His Age

During an interview with GQ Magazine to promote Cherry, directors Joe and Anthony Russo talked about originally casting Tom Holland for Captain America: Civil War and while Marvel Studios/Kevin Feige were onboard, Sony Pictures resisted. Apparently, Sony had some serious second thoughts about hiring a real teenager for Spider-Man.

JOE RUSSO: “We talked with Feige at Marvel about Holland and he got excited and then we went to Sony…And they were like, ‘Let’s think about it for a minute.’ We could tell we were meeting resistance from Sony. So we brought [Holland] back, brought him back, brought him back, and we were relentless in our pursuit of jamming him down the throat of the studio who owns this IP. It came down to a fight, yet Sony just kept dragging their feet.”

ANTHONY RUSSO: “Sony’s reservations were: ‘Are we loaning it? Or are we giving it to them to help us reinvent it in a way that adds value for us?’ It was the first time Spider-Man had ever been cast as an actual teenager, right? Which was very important to us; there was a distinct nervousness of casting a kid.”

Spider-Man: No Way Home will be Holland’s fifth and potentially his final film as the actor is aware that could be a possibility despite his openness to reprise the role. Tom has previously stated his Marvel Studios contract has ended and plans to take a break.

HOLLAND: “I really don’t know what the future holds, so I am just savouring every moment, as it could potentially be the last.”

Sony has set the release date for Spider-Man: No Way Home on December 17th, 2021.

SOURCE: GQ MAGAZINE

Posted on in Film News

Idris Elba Reprising Heimdall Role For ‘Thor: Love & Thunder’? – Spotted With Chris Hemsworth & Matt Damon In Australia

Actor Idris Elba is currently in Australia shooting the George Miller film Three Thousand Years of Longing and given the proximity to Marvel’s Thor: Love & Thunder production there is some speculation he could end up reprising the Heimdall role.

There is a potential hint that could end up happening.

A new Instagram photo posted by Chris Hemsworth over the weekend on from an 1980s birthday party features himself with Matt Damon and Elba.

You might be asking why would Heimdall be coming back? He was killed-off in Avengers: Infinity War. True, but there are teases from the Loki trailer Elba might have shot a cameo for that Disney+ series (Loki mentions Heimdall by name) alongside Jaimie Alexander’s Lady Sif (also expected for Love & Thunder). There are a few ways to have Heimdall come back, The Multiverse and flashbacks being the most reasonable options.

Oscar-winner Christian Bale was confirmed by Marvel Studios in December as playing the film’s alien villain Gorr The God Butcher.

Filming has been underway since last month at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney with multiple Guardians of The Galaxy actors spotted on the set.

However, unlike other actors we know that Idris is specifically there for another movie production and his presence in Australia doesn’t automatically mean he’ll end up in the film. There is just an extremely good chance that it happens.

SOURCE: CHRIS HEMSWORTH

Posted on in Television News

‘Band of Brothers’ Follow-Up WWII Series ‘Masters of The Air’ Casts Austin Butler & Callum Turner

Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg previously were behind HBO’s WWII series Band of Brothers and The Pacific about American soldiers that fought in European and Pacific campaigns. They’re currently working on a new show, Masters of The Air, that HBO passed on and landed at Apple TV+. An adaption of the novel from Donald L. Miller that focuses on bomber pilots aka bomber boys, which will be written by John Orloff and Graham Yost.

The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’s Austin Bulter and Fantastic Beasts 2 actor Callum Turner. They have landed the roles of Maj. Gale Cleven and Maj. John Egan.

Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people. Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller’s Air Force band, which toured US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. Masters of the Air is a story of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed.

According to a report from Deadline from October, No Time To Die director Cary Joji Fukunaga is attached to tackle episodes. Also, I can confirm that Alien: Covenant and Raised By Wolves production designer Chris Seagers is going to be working on the series.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Posted on in Film News

Neill Blomkamp Teases Interest In Making A ‘Starship Troopers’ Movie

Today, we learned that District 9 director Neill Blomkamp is working on a script for a sequel to his debut sci-fi action film, titled District 10. That’s not the only thing he teased on Twitter. A fan asked him if he’d make a Starship Troopers film and candidly seemed to agree with him with “I’ll do it”, while dismissing someone else’s call to do something in the Star Wars universe.

https://twitter.com/NeillBlomkamp/status/1365163570472701952
https://twitter.com/NeillBlomkamp/status/1365164612472070147

Interestingly, a Starship Troopers reboot was announced back in 2016 at Sony Pictures as first revealed by The Hollywood Reporter. The bad news was that producer Neal H. Moritz is attached, who was behind the horribly generic PG-13 remakes of RoboCop and Total Recall. Along with the screenwriters behind the long forgotten Baywatch movie.

Five years later and there really hasn’t been a concrete update on the project.

Starship Troopers was based on the novel by Robert A. Heinlein, the book helped inspire James Cameron’s Colonial Marines in Aliens and Microsoft’s Halo franchise. It landed a Japanese anime, feature film from director Paul Verhoeven released in 1997, a kids CGI animated series, multiple low-budget film sequels, and animated projects.

It’s worth mentioning the Blomkamp hasn’t had the best luck when trying to turn existing IP into feature films as he was originally set to make his film debut with 20th Century Fox’s Halo film before pivoting to District 9. More recently he exited 20th Century Fox’s Alien 5 (a direct sequel to James Cameron’s Aliens) and MGM Studios’ RoboCop Returns (a direct sequel to Paul Verhoeven’s original) before moving on to his own stuff.

Neill would certainly be a strong pick for a new Starship Troopers film and given the lack of status updates from Sony it doesn’t sound like they’re about get that earlier reboot incarnation into production anytime soon. Then again, tweeting interest doesn’t mean it will come together but teasing stuff on social media is how Blomkamp eventually got a development deal for Alien 5 at Fox.

STARSHIP TROOPERS – In the distant future, the Earth is at war with a race of giant alien insects. Little is known about the Bugs except that they are intent on the eradication of all human life. But there was a time before the war… A Mobile Infantry travels to distant alien planets to take the war to the Bugs. They are a ruthless enemy with only one mission: Survival of their species no matter what the cost…

SOURCE: NEILL BLOMKAMP