Author: Christopher Marc

Posted on in Television News

SPOILERS: β€˜The Mandalorian’ Chapter 14 Recap – Robert Rodriguez Directs A Fun Episode With A Pair of Familiar Faces

SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 14 OF THE MANDALORIAN AHEAD

The episode directed by Robert Rodriguez and sees the return of a pair of familiar faces.

Mando and Grogu head towards an ancient Jedi Temple on Tython (a planet from The Old Republic video game) to see if his path is meant towards that of a Jedi and if another Jedi will find/train him. They end up reaching the Seeing Stone at the top of mountain before a ship arrives that looks a lot like Boba Fett’s Slave-1 and Grogu activates the Seeing Stone reaching out into the force.

It’s indeed Temuera Morrison’s Boba Fett looking for his armor that Mando got from Cobb Vanth back on Tatooine revealing it was from his father Jango Fett and it was given to him by Mandalorians. Further revealing that Jango was a foundling and fought in the Mandalorian Civil Wars, which seemingly redeems the Fetts as true Mandalorians rather than scalawags.

Partnered with Ming-Na Wen’s Fennec Shand (confirms that Boba Fett rescued her) they threaten Grogu as Fett wants his armor back. During their chat another ship arrives but Mando can’t break Grogu’s force connection as a group of Stormtroopers land with Fett and Shand dispensing them. A second Imperial transport lands and Fett makes his way to the Razor Crest to get his armor finally we get the complete version of the bounty hunter.

As the Razor Crest is destroyed by Moff Gideon’s ship above thanks to the tracker and he releases the Dark Troopers (appear to be droids) who kidnap Grogu from the Seeing Stone but it seems like the little was able to make some contact. I’m sure everyone is curious who will ultimately reach out to find him.

The Dark Troopers were first teased in Chapter 12 but instead of having people inside the suits they seemed to be an Imperial combat droids and they also have the ability to fly because, what not? I have to assume given Din Djarin’s history with combat droids killing his parents this wasn’t done on a whim by Jon Favreau.

Fett and Shand agree to help Mando retrieve Grogu as he returns to Nevarro to ask Cara Dune’s help to spring Bill Burr’s Mayfeld from prison to help get on the Imperial ship. So it looks like in the next episode will be seeing the return of the surly Mayfeld.

The only thing that survives the ship being blown up is Mando’s beskar spear (bevii’ragir) that seemingly teases he’ll end up dueling with Moff Gideon’s Darksaber very soon. We’ve seen Mando have his ass handed to him on multiple occasions would he even be able to win a duel with Moff Gideon with his spear? Since we’ve really only seen him fight with guns?

I’ll be excited to see if this how they ultimately setup this Boba Fett spinoff series and it’s starring to look like Fennec Shand might be part of that cast as well.

Posted on in Television News

‘Hawkeye’: Vera Farmiga Is Set As Kate’s Mother and Fra Fee Playing Villain Clown – Florence Pugh Confirmed

Yesterday, was the official start of production on Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye series currently filming in New York City as Hailee Steinfeld was confirmed by set photos/footage in the role of Kate Bishop opposite of Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton aka Hawkeye.

Variety now reports Vera Farmiga, Florence Pugh, Fra Fee, Tony Dalton, Alaqua Cox, and Zahn McClarnon have joined the series.

Here is a rundown of the characters they’ll be playing.

Alaqua Cox is Maya Lopez aka Echo

Vera Farmiga is playing Kate Bishop’s mother Eleanor

Fra Fee is playing Kazi (thought to be villain Clown)

Tony Dalton is playing Jack Duquesne (thought to be Barton mentor Swordsman)

Zahn McClarnon is playing William Lopez (Maya’s father)

The Direct first reported Pugh’s involvement and return as Black Widow’s Yelena Belova.

Baron Strucker’s son Andreas von Strucker also took on the Swordsman persona in Thunderbolts.

It’s more of an info dump than we had been expecting considering how long it took to confirm Hailee Steinfeld as trades had really done a serious update on the Kate Bishop casting in a while. It’s interesting to see if Hawkeye will be using elements of Thunderbolts and if there will be a connection to The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.

SOURCE: VARIETY

Posted on in Television News

‘House of The Dragon’: HBO Announces ‘Game of Thrones’ Spinoff Begins Filming In 2021 – Plus New Concept Artwork

HBO has announced via the official Game of Thrones Twitter account that filming on their spinoff series House of The Dragon will begin filming in 2021. The show will be a prequel that focuses on the great house of Targaryen.

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.

They also included some concept artwork of the dragons.

Paddy Considine (Hot Fuzz, Macbeth) is the only officially announced actor and will play the role of 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.

The original series and the previous prequel pilot were shot in Belfast, Northern Ireland and are expected to shoot there as well.

SOURCE: HBO

Posted on in Film News

‘Dune’, ‘Godzilla vs Kong’, ‘The Suicide Squad’, ‘Mortal Kombat’, ‘Matrix 4’, and Other WB Films Heading To HBO Max

Today, it was announced by WarnerMedia (via Deadline) that they’ll be moving their entire 2021 slate to HBO Max for a month of exclusive domestic access the same day as the theatrical release.

Following the one month HBO Max access period domestically, each film will leave the platform and continue theatrically in the U.S. and international territories, with all customary distribution windows applying to the title.

Those features include The Little Things,Β Judas and the Black Messiah,Β Tom & Jerry,Β Godzilla vs. Kong,Β Mortal Kombat, Those Who Wish Me Dead, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, In The Heights, Space Jam: A New Legacy, The Suicide Squad, Reminiscence, Malignant, Dune, The Many Saints of Newark, King Richard, Cry Macho, andΒ Matrix 4.

Here is an excerpt from the WarnerMedia press release on Medium.

We have big news to share. As many of you know, Wonder Woman 1984Β is going to be released worldwide in theaters later this month. In the United States, we will also be making the movie available on HBO Max at no extra cost the same day thatΒ Wonder Woman 1984Β premieres in theaters (for the first month of the film’s release).

We are announcing today that, in the United States, the entire anticipated 17-film 2021 Warner Bros. motion picture slate is going to be released throughout the coming year in theaters and on HBO Max the same day. That’s a Warner Bros. motion picture just about once every three weeks.

HBO Max released this promo video as well.

This would be a massive shakeup for regular theatrical windows and it will be interesting if other studios such as Disney follows this model by placing their 2021 slate on Disney+ in a similar manner. I’m sure this move is likely due to HBO Max not hitting targeted growth given that it’s a domestic streaming service. It’s unknown if HBO Max subscribers will have to pay any additional fees but Wonder Woman 1984 is expected to be free with a subscriptions when it drops later this month on the service.

UPDATE: The films will not be given an added fee.

…we will also be releasing them the same day on HBO Max, at no extra cost, for the first month of each film’s release.Β 

In Canada, I’m with Bell Media’s Crave that has an exclusive deal for HBO and HBO Max content. It’ll be interesting to see how they plan to do this in Canada and the United Kingdom.

SOURCE: WARNER MEDIA

Posted on in Television News

‘Lord of The Rings’: Amazon Series Officially Adds 20 New Cast Members Including Benjamin Walker and Peter Mullan

Amazon Studios have announced today 20 brand new casting additions to their massive Lord of The Rings series which is currently shooting in Auckland, New Zealand. After a pause due to COVID-19 had resumed filming back in September.

Their massive announcement sees the additions of actors such as Lenny Henry, Peter Mullan (Trainspotting, Children of Men), Lloyd Owen, Augustus Prew, Peter Tait, Benjamin Walker (Heart of The Sea, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), Cynthia Addai-Robinson (Arrow, Power), Simon Merrells, Maxim Baldry (finally confirmed by Amazon), Ian Blackburn, Kip Chapman, Anthony Crum, Maxine Cunliffe, Trystan Gravelle, Thusitha Jayasundera, Fabian McCallum, Geoff Morrell, Alex Tarrant, Leon Wadham, and Sara Zwangobani.

They join a cast that already consists of Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Nazanin Boniadi, Tom Budge, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz CΓ³rdova, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, and Daniel Weyman.

Amazon has yet to give an official synopsis of the series other than it will be taking place during the Second Age and covering the ancient kingdom of Numenor that did not appear in the previous two trilogies.

However, we are hearing that the Amazon series will attempt to deviate from the Peter Jackson series by potentially ignoring the established look of Middle-Earth along with redesigning both familiar creatures and the population. There is also a much more diverse cast this time around which hints this will be different enough from the past two trilogies.

It’s looking like ILM and not Weta Digital will be handling the visual effects on the show. There sadly hasn’t been even confirmation that Weta Workshop is involved either given that they’re shooting in proximity of Weta makes this even more upsetting.

Also, the series set during the Second Age is said to cover Sauron’s perversion of the advanced kingdom of Numenor (essentially J.R.R. Tolkien’s Atlantis) leading to Morgoth (Middle-Earth’s version of Lucifer and the first Dark Lord) cults and a splintering of the forces of man in the island kingdom by fueling their hatred towards the elves because of their immortality. Sauron (a Maia just like the wizards) in a much more pleasing form allows himself to be captured and taken to Numenor corrupting the population from within stoking resentment against the Elves rather than being an unseen villainous force hiding in the shadows.

We’re expecting to see the creation of the rings of power and potentially the origins of the nine Nazgul/Ringwraiths that were once men tricked by Sauron to take rings of power turning them into his unnatural servants via dark magic. Three are supposedly Numenorean Lords including the Witch King of Angmar, who is their leader and had a significant role in The Return of The King. It’s also expected we’ll see the ultimate destruction of Numenor forcing surviving inhabitants to the mainland along with the eventual Last Alliance leading to the defeat of Sauron. The latter I wouldn’t expect to happen for a very long time.

I’ll be keen to see if they’ll also attempt to purse the eastern part of Middle-Earth as that could be an equally interesting part to explore as the two Blue Wizards (Alatar/Morinehtar aka Darkness Slayer and Pallando/RΓ³mestΓ‘mo aka East Helper) operated there during the Second and Third ages, but have only been briefly referenced in the past. One of the Nazgul, KhamΓ»l The Easterling aka Shadow of The East, is said to be a former Easterling King. We only got a glimpse of the Easterling forces in The Lord of The Rings as they were mostly made up of mercenaries or those loyal to Sauron, who had a strong presence in East along with Morgoth in the First Age.

There are also rumblings of Amazon taking a much more mature tone which wouldn’t be shocking given that director John Boorman (Excalibur, Zardoz) had once attempted a live-action film based on Lord of The Rings in the 1970s that would have included sex and hard violence for the era likely would have landed an R-rating. The Second Age is described as extremely dark in comparison to the Third Age with men’s lust for wealth/power/immortality combined with what is essentially devil worshiping cults and human sacrifices.

The streaming service has yet to announce when episodes will begin dropping on Prime Video.

SOURCE: AMAZON STUDIOS

Posted on in Television News

‘The Mandalorian’: Rosario Dawson Would Love The Opportunity To Reprise Ahsoka Tano

Last week’s episode of The Mandalorian finally brought Ahsoka Tano into the realm of live-action with Rosario Dawson playing this incarnation of the former Jedi. We learned that she is on the trail of Star Wars: Rebels villain Grand Admiral Thrawn and would suggest that she still has a path in future episodes or unofficially in her own spinoff series.

Dawson stat down with the official Star Wars website for an interview where she revealed she would love to return to the character.

DAWSON: β€œI mean, I would love that opportunity. I think it’s so cool that this show exists. I think it’s so cool that I got to show up and give information about this character, the Child, that everyone’s loved so much. You know, that she was not so much showing up as a cameo, but really being a storytelling device for new fans that have fallen in love with yet another new character that we’re getting to see grow. Little Grogu is just amazing.”

“It’s interesting watching The Mandalorian, realizing you’re not seeing lightsabers, you’re not seeing a lot of what we love about Star Wars. It was really amazing to be able to have that gift of being able to bring that into this series and into this space, and I’m really grateful for that opportunity.”

While it’s easy to see Lucasfilm/Disney moving forward with Ahsoka’s own show it’s also possible that things could be planted for future seasons of The Mandalorian, such as Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan trying to retrieve the Darksaber from Moff Gideon. It’s unknown if either Ahsoka Tano or Bo-Katan will return with only three episodes left to air on Disney+ but there is a good shot they could comeback for future seasons or spinoffs.

Rosario Dawson also recently commented to Vanity Fair in their lengthy interview about the claims of transphobia and a lawsuit filed against her family.

SOURCE: LUCASFILM

Posted on in Film News

‘Five Eyes’: Aubrey Plaza To Co-Star With Jason Statham In Guy Ritchie’s New Spy Flick

Deadline reports that comedic actress Aubrey Plaza (Legion, Happiest Season) has landed a co-starring role opposite Jason Statham in Guy Ritchie’s next film formerly known as Five Eyes (new title unknown). It sounds like Plaza has taken the role of a CIA high-tech expert.

The Fives Eyes is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, which was founded back in 1941. This should give an idea of the nationalities of the other characters in the film.

Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies wrote the film with rewrites from Guy.

The story follows MI6 guns-and-steel agent (Statham) who is recruited by a global intelligence alliance to track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology that threatens to disrupt the world order. Reluctantly paired with CIA high-tech expert, Fortune sets off on a globe-trotting mission where he will have to use all of his charm, ingenuity and stealth to track down and infiltrate billionaire arms broker.

This won’t be Ritchie’s first spy movie as he tackled the genre with The Man From U.N.C.L.E. starring Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, and Alicia Vikander.

I previously reported that Guy would be reuniting with Wrath of Man production designer Martyn Johns on Five Eyes.

Filming is expected to take place next year in Europe.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

‘Heart of Stone’: Gal Gadot Starring In Spy Film From ‘The Old Guard’ Screenwriter Greg Rucka and Skydance – Director Tom Harper In Talks

Back in July, Discussing Film first reported information that Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot would be returning to her Fast & Furious action roots for an untitled spy film from Skydance and screenwriter Greg Rucka (The Old Guard). Deadline has their own update with the film’s title, Heart of Stone, with Wild Rose director Tom Harper in talks. Also, that the script will be co-written by Allison Schroeder (Hidden Figures).

It’s unknown if the project is heading to streaming or will be released theatrical.

Gal has recently wrapped another Skydance film titled Red Notice that co-stars Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds that will drop on Netflix sometime in 2021.

SOURCE: DISCUSSING FILM & DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Jason Statham In Talks For ‘Small Dark Look’ Penned By ‘Eastern Promises’ Screenwriter Steven Knight – Focuses On The Russian Mafia In London

Deadline is reporting that British action star Jason Statham is in talks to take a role in a gangster drama titled Small Dark Look. Danish director Martin Zandvliet will be working from a script written by Steven Knight (Eastern Promises, Peaky Blinders) as the film will take place within the world of the Russian mafia in London, obviously the film is in Knight’s wheelhouse after writing David David Cronenberg’s underrated Eastern Promises.

Details on the project aren’t mentioned in the Deadline article but it had been once said to be Knight’s Eastern Promises 2 script reworked as Body Cross (via Screen Daily and Collider) which has now been given the new title of Small Dark Look.

According to Screen Daily, which broke the news, Body Cross is described a mafia tale about two immigrant brothers living in London. Collider’s sources indicate the script follows a Russian agent who rises to become a London mafia boss’ trusted lieutenant and is soon instructed to assassinate one of his fellow countrymen. As far as I know, Mortensen’s character of Nikolai has been written out of the script, or at least renamed ‘Gregory.’

Jason has been busy with Snatch director Guy Ritchie filming the armored car thriller Wrath of Man and the upcoming spy flick Five Eyes. He’s also loosely attached for a new Expendables film and a sequel to Hobbs & Shaw.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Television News

‘Hawkeye’: Hailee Steinfeld Finally Confirmed For Kate Bishop Role Thanks To New Set Video

Murphy’s Multiverse first had on set confirmation that Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit, Bumblebee, Dickinson) has taken the Kate Bishop role in Marvel’s Hawkeye series as they posted first set footage earlier today.

Now, a second video making it’s way on Twitter and Instagram has a much clearer look at Hailee Steinfeld and Jeremy Renner in the subway scene being shot in Brooklyn. Variety was first to report that Hailee was in the mix to play Clint Barton’s protege in the series who is likely to become part of the Young Avengers or a version of that team.

The Oscar nominated actress seemingly teased her involvement with a recent birthday post on Instagram that got rabid attention from fans.

UPDATE: Some high resolution photos are also on Twitter and HQ Celeb Corner as well.

Below you can see what is clearly Steinfeld alongside Renner.

The series is said to be based on the Matt Fraction run alongside villains from that comic and if they’re able to complete filming on schedule could be released before the end of 2021. Filming will return to Atlanta once the NYC shoot is completed.

We’re curious if we’ll end up seeing more cast announcements in the coming weeks as we only know about two cast members at the moment officially, despite the recent rumor of Florence Pugh joining them for an appearance as Yelena Belova.