Author: Christopher Marc

Posted on in Film News

‘Knives Out 2’: Edward Norton Joins Daniel Craig In Rian Johnson’s Whodunit Sequel

Another high-profile addition to Rian Johnson’s Knives Out 2 has been revealed.

A report from Deadline announces that Edward Norton has joined the murder mystery alongside Daniel Craig and Dave Bautista. Norton is a three-time Oscar nominee with credits such as Birdman, Fight Club, Moonrise Kingdom, The Incredible Hulk, American History X, Primal Fear, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Bourne Legacy, Kingdom of Heaven, 25th Hour, Red Dragon, Rounders, Alita: Battle Angel, and Isle of Dogs.

Craig plays southern crime novelist Benoit Blanc, who also moonlights as a detective and in the sequel will be needed during another murder in the very scenic country of Greece. Other plot details are being kept under lock-and-key which is a good thing as there is an expected twist that hopefully isn’t spoiled before it’s release. While this will be a sequel, from what we understand Daniel Craig is expected to be the only returning cast member.

It remains to be seen if we’ll be seeing another family focused murder plot or something a little different to the formula.

Production will begin next month in Greece and Netflix spent a massive $400+ million to secure Rian Johnson’s two sequels. The big payday will see both Rian and Daniel Craig land $100 million each, opening the door for Netflix to get another franchise under their belt.

Folks are trying to do their own sleuthing as Rian recently followed actress Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, A Most Violent Year, Crimson Peak, Interstellar) on Instagram, which might signal that she might have landed a role, but it’s only speculation for the moment.

KNIVES OUT – The circumstances surrounding the death of crime novelist Harlan Thrombey are mysterious, but there’s one thing that renowned Detective Benoit Blanc knows for sure — everyone in the wildly dysfunctional Thrombey family is a suspect. Now, Blanc must sift through a web of lies and red herrings to uncover the truth.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Watch New Trailer For A24’s Eerily Gorgeous Arthurian Fantasy Film ‘The Green Knight’ – Coming July 30

Many films over the last year have seen their release dates pushed due to the pandemic and one of the projects I’ve been personally anticipating is David Lowery’s stunningly beautiful and dark take on the Arthurian legend with The Green Knight, an R-rated take on the classic tale Sir Gawain & The Green Knight.

The fantasy film’s stellar cast consists of Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire, Lion), Alicia Vikander (Jason Bourne, Ex Machina, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Tomb Raider), Joel Edgerton (Warrior, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Zero Dark Thirty), Sarita Choudhury (Blindspot, Jessica Jones, Homeland), Sean Harris (Macbeth, The King, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Prometheus), Kate Dickie (The Witch, Game of Thrones, Prometheus), Barry Keoghan (The Batman, Eternals) and Ralph Ineson (Game of Thrones, The Witch).

At the moment, A24 has moved the film’s release date to July 30, 2021 and the studio has released a brand new trailer, which you can watch below.

THE GREEN KNIGHT – An epic fantasy adventure based on the timeless Arthurian legend, The Green Knight tells the story of Sir Gawain (Dev Patel), King Arthur’s reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the eponymous Green Knight, a gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men. Gawain contends with ghosts, giants, thieves, and schemers in what becomes a deeper journey to define his character and prove his worth in the eyes of his family and kingdom by facing the ultimate challenger. From visionary filmmaker David Lowery comes a fresh and bold spin on a classic tale from the knights of the round table.

Lowery is currently busy with his Disney film Peter Pan & Wendy, but I’ll be hopeful that he’ll return later on to continue making films in this R-rated fantasy world as they have plenty of other adventures from Knights of The Roundtable legends to turn into subsequent movies.

SOURCE: A24

Posted on in Television News

‘She-Hulk’: ‘Lovecraft Country’s Elena Albanese Confirmed As Production Designer

The Ronin can confirm that Elena Albanese is indeed working on Marvel’s She-Hulk as the show’s production designer. Elena’s previous credits as an art director includes Captain Marvel, HBO’s Lovecraft Country, Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.2, and Netflix’s Ozark.

She-Hulk is the heroic alter-ego of defense lawyer Jennifer Walters, who after a blood transfusion develops her own Hulk powers. The series has Rick & Morty’s Jessica Gao as the head writer which shouldn’t surprise people they’re aiming for a comedic bend and will also explore Walters’ job as a lawyer defending various heroes/villains of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The 10-episode series will be directed by Kat Coiro and Anu Valia.

Filming is underway in Atlanta, Georgia under the working title Clover with a cast that consists of Emmy-winner Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk, Mark Ruffalo is officially returning to play Jennifer’s cousin Bruce Banner aka Hulk, Tim Roth is finally back as Incredible Hulk villain Emil Blonsky aka Abomination, Renee Elise Goldsberry as Amelia, and Ginger Gonzaga.

I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if William Hurt’s Thunderbolt Ross or Emily VanCamp’s Sharon Carter made appearances.

Other live-action Marvel shows on the horizon include Loki, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, Secret Invasion, Armor Wars, Ironheart, Ryan Coolger’s Wakanda series, and a spinoff featuring Hawkeye’s Echo. Loki is set to release on June 9, 2021, moving to Wednesdays instead of Fridays.

Marvel Studios will debut She-Hulk on Disney+ in 2022.

Posted on in Film News

Zack Snyder Reveals Brainiac & Faora Could Have Appeared In ‘Man of Steel’ Sequel

Zack Snyder’s next feature film Army of The Dead is getting some early buzz ahead of it’s theaterical and Netflix debut this month. The filmmaker is making the press rounds to promote the action-horror film and spoke with Bro Bible’s Post-Credit Podcast revealing some ideas about villains that could have been used for a direct Man of Steel sequel, something we never really got as the studio seemed hellbent on rushing the DCEU to get to Justice League instead of flushing out the heroes in multiple solo films first.

Snyder reveals they were indeed musing about using Brainiac, a villain long rumored to make his debut on the big screen but never came together. He also mentioned the possibility of bringing back Antje Traue’s Faora from the original film, who he previous suggested survived the ordeal and is currently in the Phantom Zone.

SNYDER: “We talked about a Brainiac movie. But I do think that the Kryptonians that are in the Phantom Zone are probably still around. And there was always a possibility for their return. Faora and whoever’s left. That was a thing that was always out there that we talked about as a possible sequel. I just think it’s best to give Superman these extaterrestrial challenges because I think you’ve got to be careful with — other than Lex Luthor, because, of course, you have to continue with Lex, because Lex is his real nemesis — but I think you really have to look outside of the Earth for challenges for him because of how powerful he is.”

It seems like WarnerMedia has closed the door for future Snyder installments alongside the Snyderverse, but, hopefully, if they do ultimately bring back Henry Cavill’s Superman they’d at least consider using the two villains.

At the moment, Warner Bros. is busy trying to find a director for their new Superman film that will see a black actor portray the next incarnation of the Kryptonian hero alongside Sasha Calle hired to play Supergirl in The Flash movie.

SOURCE: BRO BIBLE

Posted on in Film News

‘Knives Out 2’: Dave Bautista Reunites With Daniel Craig For Rian Johnson’s Murder Mystery Sequel

Rian Johnson is looking to turn his wonderful comedic murder mystery film Knives Out into a full-fledged franchise and has partnered with Netflix to make that happen. A historical deal worth upwards of $400 million was made back in March that would see both Rian Johnson and lead actor Daniel Craig make $100 million each. The hefty deal includes the next two installments that are yet-to-be-titled and I assume if they want to do more Netflix will be all-ears.

We won’t have to wait too long before getting our hands on Knives Out 2 as filming is reportedly set to begin in Greece starting in late June.

Deadline is reporting that Daniel’s Spectre co-star Dave Bautista has landed an undisclosed role in the sequel and we’ll be excited to find out what his character will be. I’m going to lean towards fellow detective but there are likely less obvious choices as well. There is an expectation Knives Out 2 will focus on an entirely new group of characters excluding Craig’s southern detective Benoit Blanc and the Greece setting during a summer shoot will likely be a fantastic visual contrast to the original movie.

Dave Bautista’s upcoming projects includes Zack Snyder’s Army of The Dead and will be reprising the Drax role for James Gunn’s Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3. Hopefully, he’ll be able to showcase his comedic chops in Knives Out 2 as he’s been known to be extremely assuming when given the chance.

It’ll be interesting to see if Rian will cast other former co-stars of Daniel Craig in various roles. Personally, I’ll be rooting for Casino Royale’s Eva Green to show up and give us another fantastic femme fatale.

KNIVES OUT – The circumstances surrounding the death of crime novelist Harlan Thrombey are mysterious, but there’s one thing that renowned Detective Benoit Blanc knows for sure — everyone in the wildly dysfunctional Thrombey family is a suspect. Now, Blanc must sift through a web of lies and red herrings to uncover the truth.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

James Gunn Teases Tackling More ‘Guardians of The Galaxy’ Movies – “Never Say Never”

While there had been previous hints by writer/director James Gunn that he might end his Marvel tenure with Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3, the filmmaker has now suggested on Twitter that might not exactly be the case and even leaves the door open for Guardians as well.

https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/1390858962778664960

It was thought that his dramatic firing and rehiring might have soured his feelings towards both Disney and Marvel Studios, which might be understandable given that the company eventually backtracked from their choice to remove James from the Guardians sequel. However, the opportunity allowed him to play in the DCEU sandbox making The Suicide Squad for Warner Bros. and the spinoff series Peacemaker for HBO Max, so it wasn’t all bad.

We don’t know for sure if he’ll come back to make more installments of Guardians of The Galaxy or move towards other things he’s been itching to tackle like the Thunderbolts, Marvel’s version of the Suicide Squad.

One of his screenwriting tasks for 20th Century Fox early in his career was working on incarnation of the solo Silver Surfer movie that never materialized. The property now back at Marvel Studios is one project that Ant-Man’s Adam McKay has been keen on developing for a while now. Perhaps, we could see James and Adam join forces for a Silver Surfer movie, that could be rad, right?

We’ll have to see how Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3 ends and if Gunn still has ideas he wants to pursue with those oddball cosmic characters for another wave of feature films or Disney+ projects. He has somewhat teased more DC Comics stuff could be on the way but what that might be is a little unclear at the moment.

The Suicide Squad is set for release by Warner Bros. on August 6, 2021 and Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3 will shoot in the United Kingdom in the near future with a release date of May 5, 2023.

SOURCE: JAMES GUNN

Posted on in Film News

‘Venom 2’: Director Andy Serkis Says Characters Are Unaware of Spider-Man & Reveals Stephen Graham Is Playing Patrick Mulligan aka Toxin

In a trailer breakdown video from Venom: Let There Be Carnage director Andy Serkis posted by IGN, the filmmaker confirmed that the film takes place in it’s own world and that Stephen Graham plays an a police offer named Mulligan, who is most likely Patrick Mulligan the host of the symbiote known as Toxin.

SERKIS: “Obviously, there are links between Venom and Spider-Man in the Marvel Universe and the Spider-Man story, but in this, we’re treating this very much as it’s his own world, the Venom story is his own world. There are nods and little moments just like this, the newspaper Daily Bugle, of course, but on the whole, he’s unaware, they’re unaware, at this point of other characters like Spider-Man. So that’s the way we’ve chosen to play this particular episode of the movie but well, we’ll wait and see, what little things you can pick out of it.”

There is a strong possibility that Stephen Graham’s Mulligan could become Toxin leading to a new villain for Venom 3, the Netflix/Sony deal recently inadvertently confirmed plans for a third movie. However, Sony Pictures has yet to officially announce they have a script or even a director for it.

Stephen Graham is notorious for play gritty characters with credits such as Snatch, Boardwalk Empire, and The Irishman. It doesn’t hurt he co-starred with Tom Hardy on his series Taboo, which likely means working together on multiple films could be fun for the two friends.

I’m still curious if they’ll attempt to combine Naomie Harris’ Shriek with the symbiote Scream given the slight overlap or have someone else as the human host. The comic storyline Separation Anxiety would make for a good final movie.

SOURCE: IGN

Posted on in Film News

Watch First-Look Trailer For ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ – Tom Hardy Lands Story Credit On Sequel

Today, is finally the day that Sony Pictures has dropped the first-look trailer for Venom: Let There Be Carnage giving fans a glimpse at Marvel supervillain Carnage (played by Woody Harrelson), the spawn of the alien symbiote known as Venom, and his partner Shriek (played by Naomie Harris). The film is the sequel to the Spider-Man spinoff that is part of the Sony/Marvel universe and remains to be seen if will directly connect to the MCU or not.

It’s directed by Andy Serkis, who worked as the second unit director on Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy.

The trailer confirms a previous scoop I posted at HN Entertainment last year while they were still shooting.

VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE – Tom Hardy returns to the big screen as the lethal protector Venom, one of MARVEL’s greatest and most complex characters. Directed by Andy Serkis, the film also stars Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris and Woody Harrelson, in the role of the villain Cletus Kasady/Carnage.

Interestingly enough, Tom Hardy broke the film’s story with screenwriter Kelly Marcel as the actor has landed a story credit on the film, according to the studio.

The sequel is part of Sony Pictures big plans for their own cinematic universe with Morbius coming in January alongside other films in development such as director J.C. Chandor’s Kraven The Hunter, Olivia Wilde’s rumored Spider-Woman movie, a Madame Web film, a Jackpot film, a Nightwatch film, a Black Cat film, and a Silver Sable film. However, it’s perplexing to see Michael Keaton’s Vulture appear in the Morbius trailer, when it hasn’t been confirmed if other Sony movies will take place directly within the Marvel Cinematic Universe just like with the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies made by Marvel Studios.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is expected to be released in theaters on September 24, 2021.

SOURCE: SONY PICTURES

Posted on in Film News

‘Uncharted’ Stunt Coordinator Stephen Dunlevy Confirmed For ‘John Wick 4’

The Ronin can confirm that John Wick: Chapter 4 will see Stephen Dunlevy as the sequel’s stunt coordinator as people are being assembled for the production team. As previously mentioned, director Chad Stahelski returns with Keanu Reeves set to reprise his badass role as the Baba Yaga aka John Wick.

In last installment, we saw John Wick and The Bowery King (played by Laurence Fishburne) make an alliance to got to war against The High Table, the international group of criminal puppet masters who control the world of assassins.

JOHN WICK 3 – After gunning down a member of the High Table — the shadowy international assassin’s guild — legendary hit man John Wick finds himself stripped of the organization’s protective services. Now stuck with a $14 million bounty on his head, Wick must fight his way through the streets of New York as he becomes the target of the world’s most ruthless killers.

Stephen isn’t a stranger to the John Wick franchise as he worked with 87Eleven Action Design and played goons that were dispensed in John Wick 2-3. He most recently was in Berlin,Germany as the stunt coordinator on Tom Holland’s video game action flick Uncharted and the assistant stunt coordinator on Lana Wachowski’s Matrix 4. The Aussie stuntman also appeared in George Miller’s action-heavy Mad Max: Fury Road in a couple of roles and played X-Men villain Angelo Macon (member of The Reavers) in James Mangold’s Logan.

We’ll keep our fingers crossed that Halle Berry’s Sofia Al-Azwar will be making a return, which sounds like a strong possibility.

According to Collider, filming will begin next month with locations to include New York City, Paris, Berlin, and Japan. They added that Mike Finch (American Assassin, Predators) will be the main writer on the script after Derek Kolstad revealed he wouldn’t be writing the next two chapters.

Mike Finch co-wrote the Lionsgate genre action flick Arcana that has Chad Stahelski attached to direct. The many other projects being developed by Chad include a feature film based on the samurai video game Ghost of Tsushima for Sony Pictures, a New Line Cinema film titled Classified described as Die Hard meets Indiana Jones, will produce a remake of The Man From Nowhere, an untitled car action movie for Paramount, and has been attached for ages to Lionsgate’s reboot of the Highlander franchise.

Lionsgate is set to release John Wick: Chapter 4 on May 27, 2022 and the studio has talked-up plans to make a John Wick: Chapter 5, franchise creator Derek Kolstad has suggested that Chapter 5 could be the final film.

That won’t be the last we’ll see of this world as Starz is moving forward with a prequel series that focuses on the NYC hotel The Continental with a young version of Winston set during in the 1970s. Lionsgate previously hired Underworld director Len Wiseman to tackle their John Wick spinoff movie Ballerina written by Shay Hatten.

Posted on in Film News

‘Predator 5’ Adds ‘Den of Thieves’ Production Designer & ‘Damnation’ Stunt Coordinator – Filming Begins Next Month In Calgary

The Disney-owned 20th Century Studios is moving forward with a fifth Predator film directed by 10 Cloverfield Lane’s Dan Trachtenberg and is said to be a large departure from previous installments. As instead of muscle-bound soldiers or cops, it’s rumored that the main human protagonist is going to be a young female Comanche warrior. 

Dan will be reuniting with cinematographer Jeff Cutter, the two previously worked together on Bad Robot’s 10 Cloverfield Lane. 

The Ronin has now learned that two more folks have joined Predator 5’s production team with Den of Thieves production designer Kara Lindstrom and stunt coordinator Steven McMichael (Damnation, Wynonna Earp) have boarded the sci-fi action flick. Steven was once Hugh Jackman’s stunt double in the original X-Men movie and has moved up the ranks in the stunt world since. 

Kara has been posting amazing landscape pictures from Alberta on Instagram. There has been talk they’ll be using beautiful and remote areas in Alberta for various exteriors needed for the shoot. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/COYDY2IhzkS/

Production in Calgary, Alberta, Canada is confirmed to begin June 7 and wrap by August 20.  There is an assumption we’ll start hearing some casting news with the production less than a month away.

The previous installment The Predator from director Shane Black was meant to lead to multiple contemporary sequels as teased with that ridiculous predator-killer suit post-credit scene. However, this next film isn’t expected to continue that story or characters, which might relieve a lot of fans that weren’t thrilled with how The Predator turned out.

Every Predator sequel since Predator 2 has attempted to coax Arnold Schwarzenegger to return as his iconic franchise character Dutch, but it remains to be seen if they’ll even attempt that if Predator 5 is going to taking place too far in the past for that to make sense.

Neither Disney nor 20th Century Studios have officially given the Predator sequel an official release date or announced the film’s release date.