Today, a virtual event from Paramount Pictures revealed the official title for Steven Caple Jr.’s Transformers 7 as Transformers: Rise of The Beasts and confirming that Optimus Prime will indeed be the lead Autobot.
That’s not all that was revealed.
An official synopsis posted on Collider confirmed Beast Wars factions will be appearing.
Returning to the action and spectacle that first captured moviegoers around the world 14 years ago with the original Transformers, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will take audiences on a ‘90s globetrotting adventure and introduce the Maximals, Predacons, and Terrorcons to the existing battle on earth between Autobots and Decepticons. Directed by Steven Caple Jr. and starring Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback, the film arrives in theatres June 24, 2022.
Deadline adding some specific robot characters that we’ll see in the seventh installment.
During Paramount’s virtual event, Caple and Di Bonaventura also touched on a wide range of Transformers appearing in the film, sharing early designs for Mirage, Arcee, Nightbird, Air Razor, Rhinox, Optimus Primal, the “ruthless and scary” Terracon leader known as Scourge, and a new “off-road” Camaro version of Bumblebee.
Also, Anthony Ramos is playing a Brooklyn military vet named Noah and Dominique Fishback is playing an artifact researcher at a museum.
Marvel Studios has outed Sophia Di Martino’s Lady Loki variant character in a new promotional poster, but some clues point towards her not actually being a true Loki variant. Sophia’s character was attributed to be Lady Loki from her original casting and was photographed in costume on set in Atlanta early in production, so fans were quite aware of her existence before the appearance in Episode 2.
Interestingly enough, she doesn’t want to be called Loki and there might be a good reason for that. Her name isn’t Loki and there is new evidence to what the real name might be.
Sylvie Laufeydottir shows on a file spotted by Fandom and is likely a direct nod to Sylvie Lushton, a more modern incarnation of The Enchantress and has a connection to The Young Avengers (members are slowly being introduced to the MCU). The name also appears in new merchandise spotted by The Direct.
Given the surname, it’s possible that Sylvie is actually Loki’s sister or simply a female variant. However, it’s interesting they’d select a name attributed to Loki’s blonde female counterpart and Asgardian partner, Amora The Enchantress. Lady Loki, in the comics, is traditionally depicted with dark hair.
There is the possibility they’ve combined Lady Loki, Amora The Enchantress, and Sylvie into a single character.
It feels like we might get some more information on “Lady Loki” in the next episode.
FX On Hulu is moving forward with a brand new limited series titled Class of ’09 focusing on a group of FBI agents in a near future setting as artificial intelligence has transformed the U.S. criminal justice system. The news comes from Deadline, who also add that it will be led by Brian Tyree Henry (Widows) and Kate Mara (House of Cards).
The eight-part limited series is from Tom Rob Smith, Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson
Follows a class of FBI agents set in a near future where the U.S. criminal justice system has been transformed by artificial intelligence. A group of FBI agents who graduated from Quantico in 2009 are reunited following the death of a mutual friend. Spanning three decades and told across three interweaving timelines, the series examines the nature of justice, humanity and the choices we make that ultimately define our lives and our legacy.
There are also character breakdowns for the two main leads.
Henry will play Tayo Miller, one of the most brilliant and unorthodox Agents ever to join the Bureau, a man who seeks not merely to make his mark on the institution but to remake it entirely. Mara will play Amy Poet, a woman who never imagined joining the world of law enforcement and finds herself at the center of its most pivotal moment of transformation.
Brian Tyree Henry has been a busy bee with recently roles in Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, Joker, Child’s Play, Hotel Artemis, White Boy Rick, Widows, Godzilla Vs. Kong, Brad Pitt’s Bullet Train, and plays an openly gay MCU character in Chloe Zhao’s Eternals.
Disney is focusing on making a steady stream of live-action films based on their iconic animation library and one of those upcoming projects is Marc Webb’s Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs, a live-action incarnation of the classic 1937 movie.
There is finally a casting update on the Disney flick.
Actress Rachel Zegler has officially joined the project as reported by Deadline and will play Snow White in the live-action fairy tale film, which will begin shooting sometime in 2022. Zelger stars in Steven Spielberg’s Westside Story remake and recently joined David F. Sandberg’s DC Comics sequel Shazam! Fury of The Gods, the latter film is currently filming in Atlanta.
Director Marc Webb was behind 500 Days of Summer and The Amazing Spider-Man.
Snow White & The Huntsman and Mirror, Mirror were previous efforts to bring the story to the big screen with Kristen Stewart and Lily Collins starring as Snow White in their respective pics.
SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN DWARFS – The Grimm fairy tale gets a Technicolor treatment in Disney’s first animated feature. Jealous of Snow White’s beauty, the wicked queen orders the murder of her innocent stepdaughter, but later discovers that Snow White is still alive and hiding in a cottage with seven friendly little miners. Disguising herself as a hag, the queen brings a poisoned apple to Snow White, who falls into a death-like sleep that can be broken only by a kiss from the prince.
When the Walt Disney Company acquired 21st Century Fox, the rights to Marvel Comics projects such as Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Silver Surfer returned to Marvel. We know that Jon Watts (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Cop Car) is attached to direct their Fantastic Four reboot, Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool 3 is officially in the works with The Molyneux (Bob’s Burgers) handling the script, and writer/director Adam McKay (The Big Short, Vice, Ant-Man, Don’t Look Up) has been publicly interested in tackling a solo Silver Surfer movie.
What seems to be something that won’t be anytime soon is their X-Men reboot, which likely won’t get a release date before 2025, as hinted to by Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige. How they’re going about with Fantastic Four could suggest that Marvel Studios may end up looking at their existing director lineup to handle the X-Men reboot.
A director that is quickly becoming a strong standout is Loki’s Kate Herron, as the series has a strong cinematic feeling and look despite being a Disney+ series. It also echos what Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are doing with The Mandalorian slightly more than the two previous Marvel/Disney+ shows.
I bring up Kate Herron because she recently revealed in an interview with Trey Mangum that her first introduction to Marvel was the X-Men cartoon series that originally aired domestically on Fox in the 1990s.
“Basically, my first introduction to Marvel was that I loved the X-Men cartoons growing up, I was obsessed with it. I remember trying to turn my dolls into Storm…but I’d always play X-Men with my toys. I think loved it because they were outsiders and I connected with that, I was really drawn into that story,” Kate Herron said.
Having a director with that sort of connection with X-Men would be the complete opposite of Bryan Singer, who was notoriously ignorant of the source material (altering characters at whim) and according to Hugh Jackman, actively banned the comics from the set. Herron has proven she has a visually striking eye and the ability to have the scope needed for a project as big as X-Men, also being able to juggle a good amount of characters as each episode of Loki adds more players into the mix.
It wouldn’t hurt to have someone that might champion the Jim Lee era costumes that were highlighted in the Fox Kids cartoon. Going that route with the character designs would also help separate itself from the Fox films and allow Marvel Studios have their own stamp on the live-action X-Men.
I also think one key element of the X-Men franchise is the high-volume of female characters on the roster, something that wasn’t always handled properly with Fox’s era of the franchise as Bryan Singer/writers/producers took liberties with characters like Rogue and Storm. Those characters alongside Psylocke didn’t get proper adaptations with the previous incarnations. Herron’s Loki series has a strong/diverse female presence and those characters have been given a little more depth, there is hope that she could give a bigger stage to female members of the team.
While some fans will likely be keen to see The Russo Brothers return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for X-Men, they’ve been clear that what they actually want to tackle is Wolverine and Secret Wars. If they were to oversee the Secret Wars event, the X-Men would likely be involved and scratch that Wolverine itch.
I could see Kate Herron fitting nicely as the architect or godmother of the new era of the X-Men and fans like myself may feel more comfortable with the franchise in her hands after seeing her impressive work on Loki.
Another interesting project has come up at the Cannes Film Market this week as Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler) and Vanessa Kirby (Pieces of A Woman) are attached to play a couple in a new Studiocanal thriller from Rust & Bone screenwriter Thomas Bidegain, according to Deadline. The project is based on the novel Soudain Seuls by French author Isabelle Autissier and will focus on a couple that is stranded on an island. Suddenly sounds like it could be a solid character-focused film for the acting duo.
A couple who becomes stranded on an island in the South Atlantic and must fight for survival when their dream journey becomes a nightmare.
Bidegain was previously behind the French gangster film A Prophet and wrote on the Gyllenhaal’s The Sister Brothers.
Gyllenhaal has been busy lately completing production on Michael Bay’s Ambulance, leading the Antoine Fuqua-directed 911 dispatch thriller The Guilty, and is still attached to co-star with Jessica Chastain in a feature film adaptation of the video game The Division for Netflix with Red Notice director Rawson Marshall Thurber recently replacing David Leitch (Bullet Train, Atomic Blonde, John Wick). It’s unknown if we’ll see Jake Gyllenhaal return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Quentin Beck as he died in Spider-Man: Far From Home and his death is being used to frame Peter Parker for murder, it’s possible the death was staged but we’ll have to watch Spider-Man: No Way Home to know for sure.
Kirby has been getting praise for her dramatic work in Pieces of A Woman and The World To Come. She’s been recently shooting the high-octane action sequel Mission: Impossible 7 for writer/director Christopher McQuarrie during the pandemic and is expected to return for Mission: Impossible 8 as well. There is an assumption that Vanessa Kirby could reprise the Hattie Shaw role in a potential sequel to Hobbs & Shaw, when/if Universal Pictures decides to announce those plans officially.
RUST & BONE – Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), a former boxer and single father, meets Stephanie (Marion Cotillard) when he saves her from a brawl at the nightclub where he works as a bouncer. Their casual acquaintance develops into something much more after Stephanie, who trains killer whales at a marine park, suffers a horrible accident and loses both her legs above the knee. As Stephanie draws on Ali’s physical strength, an unexpected courtship slowly comes to life.
Lucasfilm is making a giant push with their live-action Star Wars shows and one of the more interesting projects is Leslye Headland’s (Russian Doll) The Acolyte, a series set directly at the tail-end of The High Republic that seemingly focuses on the presence of the Sith (I’ll keep my fingers crossed for Darth Talon).
The Acolyte is a mystery-thriller that will take the audience into a galaxy of shadowy secrets and emerging dark side powers in the final days of The High Republic era.
The showrunner recently spoke to the AV Club about the assembling the writers’ room and also staying true to George Lucas’ original vision by ignoring fan demands to stay away from covering politics. Something voiced heavily by the closed-minded corner of Star Wars fandom that have serious trouble understanding what the franchise was influenced by or is even about.
When it came time to hire writers for the show, Headland was looking for solid writers with a different perspective rather than amazing knowledge of the Star Wars Universe, “Mostly what I looked for were people that I felt could execute a great script, number one. And then in the job interview, just really talking to people who had different life experiences than I did, and had different connections to Star Wars than I did.”
Headland continued, “What I also learned about hiring my room is that everyone’s fandom was very different. No one had the same experience with Star Wars. There were people like myself that were like later-in-life [Dave] Filoni acolytes. I literally had one writer that was like, ‘I have never seen any of them. I’ve never seen any Star Wars media.’ And she’s texting me before we started the room, she’s like, “Luke and Leia are brother and sister, what the…?” [Laughs.] And it was so great, because I would really love to know from someone who is not fully immersed in this fandom, what do you think about the pitch we just made?
She also talked about bucking various “feedback” suggesting that any future Star Wars project should stay away from politics. It makes sense considering that George Lucas made a direct point that his films would be infused by politics and it’s sort of shocking that many fans watch those movies having zero idea they were influenced by things like the Vietnam War, Nazi Germany/Nazi Occupied Europe, the Iraq War, and British Colonialism.
“I mean, it’s funny, because a lot of the feedback that I’ll get—and I use the term feedback very lightly—but when I do go on social media, the feedback is ‘Don’t make Star Wars political.’ I’m like, ‘George Lucas made it political. Those are political films.’ War is, by nature, political. That’s just what’s up. It’s truly what he was interested in talking about and looking at and digging into. So it’s kind of impossible to tell a story within his universe that doesn’t have to do with something that has to be that the characters see externally reflected in whatever’s happening in the galaxy at that particular time period of when it takes place. You know? That’s another thing that we all kind of inherited from him as well, and hope to kind of keep reflecting in the work, hopefully,” the showrunner told The AV Club.
While I could careless about Lucasfilm’s publishing efforts with The High Republic, I am really excited to see the studio tackle an era of Star Wars that could open the door for a wave of brand new characters and not just recycling things we’ve seen from the nine films or the animation side over and over.
Filmmaker Ari Aster is ramping up to shoot his third feature film, Disappointment Blvd, after tackling horror with Hereditary and the Swedish-set Florence Pugh film Midsommar. Production on the A24 flick will take place in Montreal, Quebec, Canada this summer and wrap sometime in October and the film’s star, Joaquin Phoenix, finally has some company.
The Ari Aster film has reportedly added Nathan Lane (The Birdcage, The Producers, Penny Dreadful), fellow Broadway star Patti LuPone, Oscar-nominee Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone, Bridge of Spies), and Kylie Rogers to the new film’s cast. The new additions are mentioned in a report from Deadline.
Disappointment Blvd is described as an intimate decades-spanning portrait of one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time. It’s unclear if the film will share a similar tone Aster’s other two pics or will become a bit of a departure for the director.
The Ronin recently revealed that Aster has added Oscar-nominated production designer Fiona Crombie (Cruella, The Favourite) and is expected to reunite with his Midsommar cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski (Nobody).
Phoenix is coming off the massive success of the Joker earning him a Best Actor Oscar and making over a billion dollars at the global box office. He’s also attached to co-star with Jodie Comer (The Last Duel) in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon epic Kitbag set to begin shooting sometime next year and recently was announced for director Lynne Ramsey’s next protect, Polaris, starring alongside Rooney Mara (The Girl In The Dragon Tattoo).
A24 is said to be seeking distribution partners at the Cannes Film Market and the latest casting news will likely help with the bidding.
With Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow covering the events between the end of Captain America: Civil War and the start of Avengers: Infinity War. Not to mention, her Russian roots that are at the center of the new film. There has been some curiosity from fans if Marvel Studios would attempt to explore more prequel projects or do deep dives into the past of certain superheroes.
Well, while speaking during Black Widow’s virtual press conference (via The Direct), Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige was asked just that
“Well, certainly this film and this story is a particular case for Natasha, but the notion of exploring the past, present, and future of the MCU is certainly in the cards for all of our characters. This particular story, this particular cast, is very personal, very specific, to Natasha,” Kevin Feige said during a virtual press conference.
It’s not really a ringing endorsement or even giving us any insight to where they could be going next, but it does sounds like they’re keeping the door open and won’t end that notion with Black Widow’s release on July 9.
There are a couple of examples that come to mind such as the events between Steve Rogers meeting up with Peggy Carter in the late 1940s and when Old Man Steve gives Sam Wilson the shield. It’s a possibility that Marvel could explore a 1950s or 1960s incarnation of S.H.I.E.L.D. with Rogers leading his other well-established comic book superhero team, The Invaders.
It’s also hard to ignore that X-Men’s Wolverine (barely ages if at all) could certainly have his origin told in prequel projects set during World War II or the Cold War with the Soviet Union, finally giving fans a more authentic version of the Weapon X Program and his extensive military service as the studio plans to reboot the franchise alongside Fantastic Four.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
BLACK WIDOW –In Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff 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. Directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige, the movie stars Scarlett Johansson reprising her role as Natasha Romanoff. Florence Pugh stars as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian, and Rachel Weisz as Melina Vostokoff.
Today, it was announced by streaming giant Netflix that they’ll be partnering with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners to develop multiple new films per year for the streaming service, which includes banners such as Amblin Entertainment, Amblin Television, and DreamWorks Pictures.
This likely means that Amblin is going be increasing it’s output of feature films and that upcoming projects such as their vampire flick Last Voyage of The Demeter along with ones still in development stages, could end up being released by Netflix and likely won’t have as much trouble getting financing. On paper it like a win-win for both media companies.
Here’s is the official press release.
Amblin Partners, the global film and television studio led by Steven Spielberg, and Netflix have announced a partnership that will cover multiple new feature films per year.
“At Amblin, storytelling will forever be at the center of everything we do, and from the minute Ted and I started discussing a partnership, it was abundantly clear that we had an amazing opportunity to tell new stories together and reach audiences in new ways. This new avenue for our films, alongside the stories we continue to tell with our longtime family at Universal and our other partners, will be incredibly fulfilling for me personally since we get to embark on it together with Ted, and I can’t wait to get started with him, Scott, and the entire Netflix team,” said Amblin Partners Chairman Steven Spielberg.
Netflix’s Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said, “Steven is a creative visionary and leader and, like so many others around the world, my growing up was shaped by his memorable characters and stories that have been enduring, inspiring and awakening. We cannot wait to get to work with the Amblin team and we are honored and thrilled to be part of this chapter of Steven’s cinematic history.”
The two companies previously worked together on the Academy Award-nominated The Trial of the Chicago 7, and are currently collaborating on Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein film, Maestro, which is in pre-production.
It’ll be interesting to see what this means for Amblin’s participation with the theatrical experience and this is a sign they could end up walking away completely, outside of deals with Universal Pictures and Disney.
Amblin’s recent projects include the Paramount+ sci-fi action series Halo debuting in 2022, James Mangold’s Indiana Jones 5 at Disney, and Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World: Dominion at Universal Pictures.
THE RONIN 
