Author: Christopher Marc

Posted on in Film News

‘The Falcon & The Winter Soldier’ Production Designer Raymond Chan Confirmed For Paramount’s ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Reboot

The Ronin has been able to confirm that production designer Raymond Chan has indeed been added to the production team of Paramount’s new Dungeons & Dragons reboot, a fantasy film based on the beloved table-top game from directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein.

Chan recently worked on the Disney+ series The Falcon & The Winter Soldier along with previous MCU credits as the supervising art director on Thor: The Dark World, Guardians of The Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Doctor Strange, and Avengers: Infinity War.

Filming will be taking place in Belfast, Northern Ireland and exterior shots in France.

It stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, and Justice Smith.

Dungeons & Dragons could become a huge franchise for Paramount if successful given the game’s revitalized popularity in the last couple of years (Stranger Things is partly to thank) with the demographic they’re aiming for, mainly, kids under the age of 18. Television has been skewing more in the realm of mature content concerning recent fantasy projects which leaves kids missing out on the genre, something that Paramount could capitalize on.

Posted on in Television News

‘The Falcon & The Winter Soldier’: Erin Kellyman Is Playing A Female Version of Captain America Villain Flag-Smasher

Some merch spotted by Comic Book Movie has revealed that Erin Kellyman’s character in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier is Karli Morgenthau, a young female incarnation of Captain America villain Flag-Smasher.

Morgenthau was the leader of an anti-nationalist organization known as ULTIMATUM (Underground Liberated Totally Integrated Mobile Army to Unite Mankind) in the source material, and while Karli is sporting a very different costume, it looks like she will take on a similar role in the Disney+ series.

Karli is seemingly in league with Baron Zemo’s plot to end superheroes and as set photos have revealed will likely have some interactions with George St. Pierre’s Batroc The Leaper.

The Falcon & The Winter Soldier begins airing on Disney+ starting March 19th.

SOURCE: COMIC BOOK MOVIE

Posted on in Film News

‘Captain Marvel 2’: Zawe Ashton Tapped To Play A Villain – Will She Play Skrull Queen Veranke?

Deadline was the first to break the news that Marvel Studios has hired actress Zawe Ashton to play an undisclosed villain in Captain Marvel 2.

Candyman’s Nia DaCosta is directing a cast that consists of Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Ms. Marvel’s Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan, and WandaVsion’s Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau.

Given that Secret Invasion is said to be a crossover event series on Disney+, there is a good shot that Ashton is playing a Skrull, possibly Queen Veranke. When the Fantastic Four rights reverted back to Marvel they also got full control of the Skrulls, ability to use various characters such as the Super-Skrull and their ability to mimic/copy the power-sets of superheroes. A female version of Super-Skrull could be nifty as well, even though that character is primarily known as a Fantastic Four baddie.

However, there are plenty of other cosmic villains Ashton could end up playing.

Moonstone could be another option as well.

Secret Invasion might help established the events that will be later explored in Captain Marvel 2 as both productions are expected to take place in the United Kingdom later this year. Captain Marvel introduced the Skrulls as the enemies of the Kree Empire, only to reveal they were refugees seeking a new home and we might end up villainous incarnations surface which could become a big problem for Earth.

This a good chance that we could see Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Randall Park, and Kat Dennings take roles in the sequel as well given the likelihood S.W.O.R.D. will have a large part to play and depending on how their respective Disney+ series end.

Captain Marvel 2 currently has a release date of November 11th, 2022 and could suggest a production start in summer/fall.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

‘Black Widow’: Marvel’s Kevin Feige Reportedly Opposed To A Hybrid Release

Yesterday, Disney CEO Bob Chapek reaffirmed their plan is to keep Black Widow as a theatrical release. A new report from Variety is suggesting that Marvel Studios president and Marvel chief creative officer Kevin Feige is opposed to the spy flick heading to Disney+ or given a hybrid release.

Here is that tidbit from Variety.

According to insiders, that’s partially because Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige, the lead architect behind the meticulously constructed Marvel Cinematic Universe, was opposed to a hybrid rollout. Having produced many of the studio’s highest-grossing movies, including Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, Feige’s opinion certainly carries considerable weight at Disney. But that doesn’t mean the powers that be can’t eventually convince Feige to change his mind — or overrule him completely.

It’s debatable if the film will even stick to it’s current release date of May 7th as plenty of other spring and summer movies are being pushed to the fall and early 2022. Seeing the Marvel flick bumped to later in the year sounds like what will happen at this point as they’ve been simply delaying previously.

BLACK WIDOW – In Marvel Studios’ action-packed spy thriller Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

SOURCE: VARIETY

Posted on in Features

SPOILERS: ‘WandaVision’ Episode 6 Challenged Some Developing Theories This Week

WARNING! ARTICLE CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR WANDAVISION EPISODES 1-6

Last week’s episode revealing that Evan Peters is playing Wanda’s dead brother Pietro Maximoff got people thinking that Marvel Studios was about to bring the mutants into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and potentially the Fox era franchise actors as well.

However, this week might have nixed that right off-the-bat.

We get a glimpse of Pietro as a corpse suggesting that like Vision he’s dead too.

There is a point where “Pietro” explains he was “shot in the street like a chump” before showing up at their door and this was revisited when dead Pietro appeared later on in the episode with three bullet wounds in his chest. It doesn’t seem like Peters is going to be sticking around as fans imagined or usher-in Fox version of X-Men to the MCU and possibly is just a reanimated corpse that will eventually disappear.

An excellent red herring if that was their aim.

There is also the potential reveal that Agnes is really just another person being controlled by Wanda as her interactions with Vision gives the impression she’s just another hostage and not the mastermind. This was sort of amplified when Wanda herself started increasing the volume of the Westview bubble which turned the S.W.O.R.D. base into a circus.

While the intentions of S.W.O.R.D. towards Vision is wonky at best as they are revealed to be tracking his movements (is he some weapon of mass destruction?). It is starting to look like Wanda is the one controlling the bubble here, unless someone is manipulating her either by the townspeople or without her knowledge.

One thing that Pietro points out is the children that came out of nowhere in Westview seemingly just for the Halloween episode as we’ve mostly only have been shown adults in the town. I’m slightly curious if they are constructs like the twins or something else.

I guess we’ll have to wait for more shoes to drop in the next couple of episodes.

Posted on in Film News

‘Black Widow’: Disney CEO Bob Chapek Insists Marvel Movie Still Heading To Theaters

Despite consist demand from Marvel fans, it doesn’t look like Disney is going to be dumping Black Widow on their streaming platform Disney+ at this time. Disney CEO Bob Chapek reiterated the studio’s position from December where they reaffirmed the Scarlett Johansson spy flick would indeed be released in theaters as planned. This statement coming from Disney’s quarterly earnings call where many had expected to hear plans to finally release Widow on streaming as it’s coming up on being delayed for a full year soon.

Our good friend Nicholas Whitcomb aka Whos Nick was listening to the Q1 earnings call yesterday and was able to tweet this out about the comment made by Bob Chapek. However, things are fluid and another possible release date push is likely coming given the amount of studio films that have already exited the winter/spring.

Disney has had plenty of opportunities to pivot from their theatrical plans for Black Widow over the last year and didn’t seem to be terribly swayed by the HBO Max day-and-date announcement. It likely doesn’t help that Wonder Woman 1984 reportedly is going to lose Warner Bros. over a $100 million because of it’s dismal box office performance.

We’ll have to wait to see if they ultimately push the release to the fall or finally cave-in with a hybrid model releasing the film earlier.

It’s current release date is still set for May 7th.

BLACK WIDOW – In Marvel Studios’ action-packed spy thriller Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

SOURCE: DISNEY

Posted on in Television News

CBS Orders A ‘True Lies’ Series Pilot With James Cameron Producing & McG Directing

A while back director McG (Terminator Salvation) revealed to Collider during a video podcast interview that he was working on a True Lies series, potentially for Disney+. However, that doesn’t seem to come together as CBS has nabbed the project giving it a pilot order with James Cameron executive producing, McG set to direct it’s pilot, Matt Nix writing the script, and Disney’s 20th Television will be still involved as well.

The update on the project coming from The Hollywood Reporter.

Instead of a direct sequel, it is starting to look like a reboot of sorts as stated in the article. The original 1994 release written and directed by James Cameron is actually a remake of the 1991 French film La Totale!.

Shocked to discover that her bland and unremarkable computer consultant husband is a skilled international spy, an unfulfilled suburban housewife is propelled into a life of danger and adventure when she’s recruited to work alongside him to save the world as they try to revitalize their passionless marriage.

Rebooting isn’t all that shocking as CBS is already airing reboot series such as The Equalizer and Clarice.

They’ll have to knock it out of the park with the casting as scaling-back the action for a network television budget likely isn’t going to woo fans of the original film that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis, the latter getting multiple scene-stealing moments in the action-comedy. I remember seeing the film at the drive-in during the summer of 1994 and was one of my best movie-going experiences at the time.

Speaking of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor is currently busy with his own untitled spy series for Skydance and Netflix that will focus on a father-daughter dynamic with Top Gun: Maverick’s Monica Barbaro in the daughter role.

McG recently worked on the Disney+ series reboot of Turner & Hooch.

TRUE LIES – Secretly a spy but thought by his family to be a dull salesman, Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is tracking down nuclear missiles in the possession of Islamic jihadist Aziz (Art Malik). Harry’s mission is complicated when he realizes his neglected wife, Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), is contemplating an affair with Simon (Bill Paxton), a used-car salesman who claims he’s a spy. When Aziz kidnaps Harry and Helen, the secret agent must save the world and patch up his marriage at the same time.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Film News

‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ Director Adam Wingard & ‘The Guest’ Screenwriter Simon Barrett Reuniting For A Direct Sequel To John Woo’s ‘Face/Off’

Deadline broke the news yesterday that Paramount Pictures has hired Adam Wingard (Godzilla vs. Kong) and screenwriter Simon Barrett to rework a Face/Off film that had been in development at the studio. The project is based on the 1997 film directed by Hong Kong action director John Woo that had actors John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in the main roles.

FACE/OFF – Obsessed with bringing terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) to justice, FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) tracks down Troy, who has boarded a plane in Los Angeles. After the plane crashes and Troy is severely injured, possibly dead, Archer undergoes surgery to remove his face and replace it with Troy’s. As Archer tries to use his disguise to elicit information about a bomb from Troy’s brother, Troy awakes from a coma and forces the doctor who performed the surgery to give him Archer’s face.

Adam and Simon previously worked together on the underrated Dan Stevens action-thriller The Guest.

Wingard’s latest film Godzilla vs. Kong broke records for online views for it’s first-look trailer and debuts on March 31.

However, while the reports claimed that the project was a remake, Adam Wingard took to Instagram to clarify that the film they are writing is actually a direct sequel and not a remake/reboot.

You can see that post below.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CLK_-uUFVqY/

SOURCE: DEADLINE & ADAM WINGARD

Posted on in Film News

‘Killers of The Flower Moon’: Lily Gladstone Joins Leonardo DiCaprio & Robert De Niro In The Martin Scorsese Crime Thriller

Variety has revealed that actress Lily Gladstone has joined the next Martin Scorsese film Killers of The Flower Moon, which already stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.

Eric Roth adapted the script from David Grann’s novel.

Based on David Grann’s best-selling book, the Apple Original Film adaptation takes place in 1920s Oklahoma and depicts a string of brutal murders of Osage Nation Native Americans, which came to be known as the Reign of Terror. The Osage Nation, who were the richest people per capita in the world, were killed one by one after oil was discovered on their land. As the death toll rose, the newly-created FBI took up the case and unraveled a chilling conspiracy and one of the most monstrous crimes in American history.

Gladstone, a descendant of the Blackfeet and Nez Perce tribes, will play the role of Mollie Burkhart, an Osage married to Ernest Burkhart, who is nephew of a powerful local rancher. 

SOURCE: VARIETY

Posted on in Television News

‘House of The Dragon’: Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Rhys Ifans & Sonoya Mizuno Join The ‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel Series

WarnerMedia has announced today four new cast members have joined their Game of Thrones prequel spinoff series, titled House of The Dragon.

Based on George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, the series will tell the story of House Targaryen (a.k.a. the House that gave us the Mother of Dragons herself, Daenerys Targaryen) and take place 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones.

Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon aka “The Sea Snake.” The lord of House Velaryon, a Valyrian bloodline as old as House Targaryen, “The Sea Snake,” is the most famed nautical adventurer in the history of Westeros. He built his house into a powerful seat that is even richer than the Lannisters and that claims the largest navy in the world.

Eve Best as Princess Rhaenys Velaryon. A dragonrider and wife to Lord Corlys Velaryon, “The Queen Who Never Was” was passed over as heir to the throne at the Great Council because the realm favored her cousin, Viserys, simply for being male.

Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower, the Hand of the King, who loyally and faithfully serves both his king and his realm. As the Hand sees it, the greatest threat to the realm is the king’s brother, Daemon, and his position as heir to the throne.

Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria. She came to Westeros with nothing, sold more times than she can recall, and could have wilted…but instead she rose to become the most trusted — and most unlikely — ally of Prince Daemon Targaryen, the heir to the throne.

They are joining previously announced actors such as Paddy Considine, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, and Matt Smith.

Paddy Considine as King Viserys Targaryen. Viserys was chosen by the lords of Westeros to succeed the Old King, Jaehaerys Targaryen, at the Great Council at Harrenhal. A warm, kind, and decent man, Viserys only wishes to carry forward his grandfather’s legacy, but as we’ve learned from Game of Thrones, good men do not necessarily make for great kings.

Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower. She’s the daughter of Otto Hightower, the Hand of the King, and the most comely woman in the Seven Kingdoms. She was raised in the Red Keep, close to the king and his innermost circle; she possesses both a courtly grace and a keen political acumen.

Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen. The king’s first-born child. She is of pure Valyrian blood, and she is a dragonrider. Many would say that Rhaenyra was born with everything…but she was not born a man.

Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen. The younger brother of King Viserys and heir to the throne, Daemon is a peerless warrior and a dragonrider who possesses the true blood of the dragon. But it is said that whenever a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin in the air…