Author: Christopher Marc

Posted on in Television News

‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’: Ewan McGregor Teases Lightsaber Fights & Comments On Young Luke Skywalker Showing Up

The Obi-Wan Kenobi series has had a long journey originally designed to be a feature film similar to Rogue One and Solo until Lucasfilm pumped the breaks then pivoted to a series that would be directed by Deborah Chow. Ewan McGregor was officially confirmed to return to the Kenobi role alongside other prequel actors including Hayden Christensen playing Darth Vader.

The story begins 10 years after the dramatic events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith where Kenobi faced his greatest defeat, the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker turned evil Sith Lord Darth Vader.

Indira Varma, Kumail Nanjiani, Sung Kang, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Benny Safdie, Rupert Friend, Joel Edgerton, Moses Ingram, Bonnie Piesse, and Simone Kessell. Joel and Bonnie reprising their prequel roles of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. A huge sign we’ll be seeing a young Luke Skywalker after the character returned for Star Wars: The Last Jedi and The Mandalorian Season 2 finale.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Ewan McGregor says that photography hasn’t started but has been doing screen tests with other actors, and teased it could be for young Luke Skywalker.

While principal photography has not yet commenced, McGregor says he “has done some screen tests with Deborah and other people, and I can see that she is a really, really good director.” Might some of those screen tests be with a young Luke Skywalker? He flashes that famous Ewan McGregor grin. “That’s very possible,” he says. “I don’t know.”

He also hinted that he’s been training hard for future lightsaber battles in the show after previous teases that we’ll see the series tackle other locations other than Tatooine. Suggesting we might not being seeing the boring hermit wondering the desert for the entire run of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

MCGREGOR: “For months, we’ve been doing these monster, two-and-a-half-hour sessions of sword fights and hand-to-hand stuff.”

Kenobi will have 6-episodes and debut on Disney+ sometime in 2022.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Film News

‘Judas & The Black Messiah’ Actress Dominique Fishback Joins Anthony Ramos With Lead Role In Paramount’s Next ‘Transformers’ Movie

Yesterday, it was revealed by Deadline that Paramount has hired Judas & The Black Messiah actress Dominique Fishback for a leading role in their next Transformers alongside Anthony Ramos (In The Heights) as production is expected to take place in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Details on the project is scarce but Collider had mentioned that the film will feature Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots. It will be directed by Creed II’s Steven Cable Jr. from a script penned by Joby Harold (Obi-Wan Kenobi).

The Transformers franchise is in interesting place as the studio is coming of a soft-reboot with Bumblebee and seemingly are attempting to move beyond the Michael Bay era. They’re also reportedly working on a Cybertron film and another one adapted the CGI series Beast Wars, the latter focused on a group of Autobots that transformed into Earthbound animals instead of vehicles.

Transformers is set for release by Paramount Pictures for June 24, 2022.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

David Cronenberg’s Sci-Fi Thriller ‘Crimes of The Future’ To Star Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux & Kristen Stewart

We finally have some solid confirmation about Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg’s next feature film as Deadline has revealed that he’ll write and direct the science fiction thriller Crimes of The Future that will be distributed in the U.S. by Neon, according to a report from Deadline. Filming is set to take place in Athens, Greece over the summer, a location that is said to be used for Rian Johnson’s sequel to Knives Out.

Crimes of The Future will be David’s first original script in over 20 years and uses the title of his 1970 film that takes place in 1997 but seemingly will attempt a difference route.

While some embrace the limitless potential of trans-humanism, others attempt to police it. Either way, “Accelerated Evolution Syndrome” is spreading fast. Saul Tenser is a beloved performance artist who has embraced Accelerated Evolution Syndrome, sprouting new and unexpected organs in his body. Along with his partner Caprice, Tenser has turned the removal of these organs into a spectacle for his loyal followers to marvel at in real-time theatre. But with both the government and a strange subculture taking note, Tenser is forced to consider what would be his most shocking performance of all.

The outlet also mentions the cast so far includes Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, Kristen Stewart, Scott Speedman, Welket Bungué, Don McKellar, and Lihi Kornowski. Mortensen and Cronenberg have worked together previously with A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, and A Dangerous Method.

David previously directed genre flicks such as The Fly, Videodrome, Naked Lunch, Scanners, Dead Ringers, and eXistenZ.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Television News

‘Moon Knight’: ‘No Time To Die’ Stunt Coordinator Olivier Schneider Confirmed For Disney+ Series

The Ronin can confirm that stunt coordinator Olivier Schneider will indeed be working on Marvel Studios’ upcoming Disney+ series Moon Knight starring Oscar Isaac as Marc Spector. Olivier is likely best known for his work on the Bond franchise being the supervising stunt coordinator on Daniel Craig’s No Time To Die and the fight coordinator on Spectre. His other credits include Fast & Furious 6, Liam Neeson’s Taken, the French gangster flick A Prophet, Safe House, and The Rhythm Section.

Moon Knight, aka Marc Spector, a mercenary who has numerous alter egos — cabbie Jake Lockley and millionaire playboy Steven Grant — in order to better fight the criminal underworld. But later he was established as being a conduit for the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. Most recently, the character was a consultant who dresses in all-white and goes by the name Mr. Knight. 

Olivier has been hinting to his involvement via Instagram posts and is currently in Budapest preparing for the show.

You’ve likely watched the behind the scenes footage of Moon Knight star Oscar Isaac training for the series, which should give you an idea how action-focused it will be. The directing team consists of Mohamed Diab, Justin Benson, and Aaron Moorhead with a supporting cast that includes May Calamawy as the female lead and Ethan Hawke reportedly playing the villain. More casting announcements are expected to be made in the coming weeks and months.

Moon Knight will be shooting in both Budapest, Hungary and the United Kingdom under the working title Good Faith, and the 6-episode run is expected to debut on Disney+ in 2022.

Posted on in Film News

‘Eternals’: Chloe Zhao Reunites With ‘Songs My Brother Taught Me’ Actress Jashaun St. John – Will Appear In Upcoming Marvel Movie

A new casting tidbit for the Marvel Studios film directed and co-written by Oscar-winner Chloe Zhao has been revealed. An article from that L.A. Times has mentioned that actress Jashaun St. John, who starred in Zhao’s film Songs My Brother Taught Me has been given an undisclosed part in Eternals.

Reaffirming that vote of confidence, Zhao cast St. John again in her upcoming Marvel superhero saga “Eternals,” scheduled to be released on Nov. 5.

Word on the street is that there are plenty of actors that are in Eternals that haven’t been announced outside of the main cast and I’m super curious if they’re indeed big names or other actors Zhao was worked with previously.

The rest of the cast includes Gemma Chan as Sersi, Kit Harington as Dane Whitman aka Black Knight, Barry Keoghan as Druig, Richard Madden as Ikaris, Angelina Jolie as Thena, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Kumail Nanjani as Kingo, Salma Hayek as Ajak, Lia McHugh as Sprite, and Don Lee as Gilgamesh.  

I’ll be keeping my fingers-crossed that Marvel will be able convince Zhao to stick around for a trilogy of movies given that she had approached the studio with the idea of tackling the Jack Kirby characters after meeting with them to direct Black Widow. She very well could end up becoming the architect of the franchise, not unlike James Gunn with Guardians of The Galaxy.

Eternals is set for release on November 5, 2021.

SOURCE: THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Posted on in Television News

Marvel’s ‘Loki’ Series Will Spend Time Filming In The United Kingdom

The Ronin has learned that Marvel Studios is expected to shoot something related to the upcoming Loki series in the United Kingdom in the near future. However, it’s unknown if this will be for the first season of the Disney+ series, brief reshoot, shooting a simple end credit scene as seen in the last two Marvel series or if Season 2 will be moving from Atlanta to London.

Unlike the previous two projects, WandaVision and Falcon & The Winter Soldier, there have been reports that Season 1 writer Michael Waldron would be returning for a second season in some capacity and would suggest we are indeed getting Season 2 of Loki. It’s unknown if director Kate Herron would be returning. If Marvel moved Season 2 to the United Kingdom, it would be a slightly more comfortable situation and accommodating as a lot of the people working on the show are British.

Marvel Studios has recently made a big push to have many of their projects film in the United Kingdom including Black Widow, Eternals, and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. The studio is also planning to have Moon Knight, Secret Invasion, Captain Marvel 2, Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, and Guardians of The Galaxy 3 shoot in the United Kingdom as well.

Tom Hiddleston is currently in the United Kingdom shooting another series for Apple TV+ called The Essex Serpent.

Season 1 of Loki will debut on Disney+ on June 11, 2021.

LOKI – Picking up immediately after Loki steals the Tesseract (again), he finds himself called before the Time Variance Authority, a bureaucratic organization that exists outside of time and space, forced to answer for his crimes against the timeline and given a choice: face deletion from reality or assist in catching an even greater threat.

Posted on in Film News

‘Black Panther 2’: Lupita Nyong’o Talks About Returning To The Set Without Chadwick Boseman

While everyone at Marvel Studios alongside the cast and crew of Black Panther are still mourning the loss of actor Chadwick Boseman to colon cancer last year, the studio and director Ryan Coogler are pressing on with the sequel set to begin shooting this July in Atlanta under the working title Summer Break.

Fans are still extremely curious how they’re going to continue without Boseman’s T’Challa.

Yahoo! Entertainment‘s Kevin Polowy was able to speak with Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o during an interview to promote her animated project Super Sema. During their chat the subject of returning for Marvel’s Black Panther 2 was brought up and Lupita talked about the emotion surrounding the upcoming production alongside director Ryan Coogler’s

NYONG’O: “People will ask me, ‘Are you excited to go back?’ Excitement isn’t the word. I feel like I’m in a very pensive and meditative state when it comes to Black Panther 2. His passing is still extremely raw for me. And I can’t even begin to imagine what it will be like to step on set and not have him there.”

“But at the same time we have a leader in Ryan, who feels very much like we do, who feels the loss in a very, very real way as well. And his idea, the way which he has reshaped the second movie is so respectful of the loss we’ve all experienced as a cast and as a world. So it feels spiritually and emotionally correct to do this. And hopefully, what I do look forward to, is getting back together and honoring what he started with us and holding his light through it. Because he left us a lot of light that we’re still going to be bathing in. I know that for sure.”

We’re heard similar sentiments from other cast members and we’re still in the dark to how exactly Ryan and Marvel are going to approach the film without recasting T’Challa. The studio has repeatedly stated they don’t have plans on using a digital version of Chadwick and with the summer shoot looming you’d think they would have shared their angle by now.

Black Panther 2 is set for release on July 8, 2022 and we should start hearing more casting news in the coming months.

SOURCE: YAHOO ENTERTAINMENT

Posted on in Film News

‘Captain America 4’: Director Kari Skogland Game To Tackle The Next Installment & Writer Malcolm Spellman Downplays His Involvement

Last Friday, there was a scoop from The Hollywood Reporter that revealed Marvel Studios was already moving forward with Captain American 4 hiring screenwriters Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson to begin working on a script.

This new was coming off the success of the Disney+ series Falcon & Winter Soldier, where Spellman was the head writer. That 6-episode series followed the journey of Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson transforming into the new Captain America alongside acknowledging the dark-side of the super-soldier program via Isiah Bradley’s history of being the first black Captain America, but his story being kept from the public and his subsequent 30 year imprisonment. It’s been all but confirmed that Mackie would end up leading Captain America 4 and potential further installments.

However, this has yet to be announced by Marvel/Disney and Malcolm Spellman doesn’t give a strong impression the project is a lock. When asked about the report by Comic Book, Malcolm has seemingly downplayed how involved he currently is with Captain America 4 and points back to Kevin Feige being the one that makes these things official.

SPELLMAN: “Who said it? Did Kevin say it? I would not put faith in anything you do not hear directly from the man himself!”

While we’ll have to wait for some official confirmations about Captain America 4, Falcon & Winter Soldier director Kari Skogland has revealed to Cinemablend’s Reel Blend podcast that she would be game if the offer came her way.

SKOGLAND: “I think if Marvel called me to do anything, if they called me to film the phone book, I would do it. … The Marvel characters are all very, very rich. I’ve become friends with Anthony and Sebastian, and I really enjoyed working with them. And Emily and Daniel Bruhl. I mean, I’ve worked with them for a couple of years, so of course, I have a special place in my heart. But as I said, if Kevin (Feige) picked up the phone, I would answer it.”

I’m pretty sure we’ll end up seeing some cross-pollination between Don Cheadle’s Armor Wars and Captain America 4, given that the heroes and villains are essentially mingling in similar government circles.

SOURCE: COMIC BOOK & CINEMABLEND

Posted on in Film News

‘Eternals’: Kevin Feige Reaffirms Gemma Chan’s Sersi Is The Film’s Main Character

After Chloe Zhao making waves over the weekend earning two Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director for her fantastic film Nomadland, we’re all waiting to see footage from her next feature film, Marvel’s Eternals.

It’s based on the characters created by King Jack Kirby that mixed elements of Greek/Roman mythology alongside notions of aliens seeding Earth via Swiss author Erich von Daniken’s novel Chariots of The Gods, work that heavily influenced Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus and the idea that humans are a science experiment of an alien race. In the case of Eternals, they are created by the the giant alien creatures known as the Celestials (first seen in Guardians of The Galaxy) alongside their antagonists The Deviants and early humans have the mutant gene hidden within them to later become the mutants we know from the X-Men.

While speaking with Variety, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige reiterates that while it’s a team project, the film’s main character is Gemma Chan’s Sersi, who is expected to become a full-fledged members of the Avengers just like the comic books.

FEIGE: “So for Sersi, for instance — and if there was a lead in this ensemble, it is Sersi, it is Gemma Chan — we looked at and read all sorts of women for that part. And ended up really believing that Gemma was best for it. And thankfully, she’s proven that to be the case in the final movie.”

While it was originally announced that Sersi would be the main character of the film in early casting reports, that was when trade outlets were under the impression that Oscar-winner Angelina Jolie was going to be landing that role. Instead, Angelina is playing the equally interesting heroine Thena and Marvel hired Captain Marvel’s Gemma Chan for her second MCU role. This new one is likely going allow her to stick around for much longer than she previously would have and allows the Marvel franchise to add another talented Asian lead.

The rest of the cast includes Kit Harington as Dane Whitman aka Black Knight, Barry Keoghan as Druig, Richard Madden as Ikaris, Angelina Jolie as Thena, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Kumail Nanjani as Kingo, Salma Hayek as Ajak, Lia McHugh as Sprite, and Don Lee as Gilgamesh.  

Sequels to Eternals are extremely likely could see the team go head-to-head with folks like Hercules/The Olympians and Hyperion/Squadron Supreme. I think it all depends if Marvel Studios is able to convince Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao to return for multiple films after co-writing the script and directing the first installment, set to be released on November 5th, 2021. However, Zhao has been tapped by Universal for a new Dracula film and could be one of the projects that could whisk her away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a couple of years.

SOURCE: VARIETY

Posted on in Film News

‘The Tomorrow War’ Teaser Trailer: Chris Pratt Fights Aliens In Time-Traveling Action Flick Releasing This July On Amazon Prime Video

In The Tomorrow War, the world is stunned when a group of time travelers arrive from the year 2051 to deliver an urgent message: Thirty years in the future mankind is losing a global war against a deadly alien species. The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians from the present to be transported to the future and join the fight. Among those recruited is high school teacher and family man Dan Forester (Chris Pratt). Determined to save the world for his young daughter, Dan teams up with a brilliant scientist (Yvonne Strahovski) and his estranged father (J.K. Simmons) in a desperate quest to rewrite the fate of the planet.

It stars Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, J.K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Edwin Hodge, Jasmine Mathews, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, and Keith Powers.

The sci-fi film directed by Chris McKay (The Lego Batman Movie) was originally going to be released theatrically by Paramount Pictures only for the film to be sold-off to Amazon Prime Video for the hefty price of $200 million and will be streaming starting July 2, 2021.

Tomorrow War isn’t the only Paramount Pictures action movie picked-up by Prime Video as the Michael B. Jordan franchise starter Without Remorse will hit Amazon this Friday. Without Remorse focuses on John Kelly/Clark, a CIA operator that lives in the world of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan franchise. You might be aware of Amazon’s popular Jack Ryan series led by John Krasinski, which likely made the film very attractive to the streaming giant.

It remains to be seen if either The Tomorrow War or Without Remorse will lead to sequels, despite originally signing-on to reprise John in a Rainbow Six movie too.