Author: Christopher Marc

Posted on in Film News

Paramount’s Next ‘Transformers’ Movie To Shoot In Montreal Under The Working Title ‘E-77’

Paramount has been gearing-up their next Transformers installment by hiring Creed II director Steven Capble Jr. and reportedly in talks with In The Heights actor Anthony Ramos for a leading role.

The Ronin can independently confirm that Paramount Pictures and director Steven Caple Jr. have already assembled the film’s crew in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where it’s expected to shoot sometime in 2021 (potentially over the summer/fall).

It’s also apparently going to be using the title Transformers: Beast Alliance according to Production Weekly with the working title E-77, during production. A potential nod to this being Paramount’s Beast Wars adaption as that CGI animated cartoon series featured Optimus Primal, an ancestor of Optimus Prime. Instead of transforming into vehicles, that group of Transformers had to make due with the creatures of Earth.

Illuminerdi first reported on the shooting locale and film’s title last month stating it could begin filming this May/June, dates I haven’t been able to verify but are extremely likely.

The Canadian location has been previously used for studio films such as 300, Arrival, John Wick: Chapter 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix, Chaos Walking, Midway, White House Down, Riddick, Warm Bodies, Source Code, Punisher War Zone, Immortals, Disney’s new Home Alone movie, and the upcoming sci-fi flick Moonfall.

Paramount has given the next Transformers installment a release date of June 24, 2022.

Posted on in Film News

Ari Aster’s ‘Disappointment Blv.’ Starring Joaquin Phoenix Confirmed To Shoot In Montreal This Summer

The Ronin has confirmed that Ari Aster’s next feature film Disappoint Blv. will shoot in Montreal, Quebec, Canada as the filmmaker has already assembled it’s crew and is planning on a summer shoot in the Canadian province. Filming is said to begin in late June and continue into October, this all depends if there aren’t production hiccups due to the COVID-19 virus. Canada’s COVID-19 numbers increasing there could end up being delays if Quebec decides to also issue similar stay-at-home orders that Ontario has recently implemented.

Director Ari Aster is best known for his recent horror efforts Hereditary and Midsommar.

Deadline previously reported that Aster has landed Oscar-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix for the lead role and that A24 is involved with the project. Phoenix is also attached to reunite with Gladiator director Ridley Scott on the Napoleon film Kitbag for Apple, Scott is currently busy with his crime thriller House of Gucci starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver.

The Canadian location has been previously used for studio films such as The Fountain, Life of Pi, Arrival, John Wick: Chapter 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Dark Phoenix, Chaos Walking, Midway, White House Down, Riddick, Warm Bodies, 300, Source Code, Punisher War Zone, Immortals, Disney’s new Home Alone movie, and the upcoming sci-fi flick Moonfall.

We can also confirm that Paramount is gearing up to use Montreal as a filming location for their next Transformers movie directed by Steven Capble Jr. as they’re assembling a crew there as well.

Posted on in Television News

‘Ironheart’: Marvel Studios Hires ‘Snowpiercer’s Chinaka Hodge As Head Writer & Will Have A 6-Episode Run On Disney+

Marvel Studios has made a huge impact with their first two entries in the MCU’s live-action series at Disney+ as both WandaVision and Falcon & Winter Soldier seemed to pull-in an impressive amount of eyeballs. Either leading fans to become delighted with Kathyn Hahn’s wonderfully charismatic Agnes aka Agatha Harkness or in the case of John Walker root against him.

The studio has a steady stream of new shows coming soon with Loki, Ms. Marvel, and Hawkeye on deck for release in 2021. But more are in various stages of development including the series Ironheart that will have Dominique Thorne set in the role of Riri Williams, a child genius that is able to build her own armor suit similar to Tony Stark’s Iron Man.

Variety is reporting that Marvel has hired Chinaka Hodge as the head writer of Ironheart, after previously working as a staff writer on the TNT series Snowpiercer, a prequel to the film that was directed by Parasite’s Bong Joon-ho and based on a French graphic novel (first published in 1982) created by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette.

The Hollywood Reporter adding that Ironheart will land 6-episodes just like Falcon & Winter Soldier and that the studio hopes to get the writer’s room running by next month.

Thorne’s Riri Williams could very well have a connection to the upcoming series Armor Wars due to the technology involved with building any armor. Armor Wars sees Don Cheadle’s War Machine tracking down stolen Stark-tech that hits the black market, potentially because of Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer and the Power Broker. There has been fan speculation that Williams could end up joining a growing roster of the Young Avengers, although, Marvel hasn’t announced those plans officially.

Other shows coming in 2022 and beyond includes She-Hulk, Secret Invasion, Moon Knight, a series from Ryan Coogler connected to Wakanda, and a Hawkeye spinoff focused on the new MCU character Echo.

SOURCE: VARIETY & THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Television News

‘Shang-Chi’s Destin Daniel Cretton To Direct WWII Series ‘Facing The Mountain’ – Explores The True Stories of Japanese-American War Heroes

Filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12) is coming off shooting the martial arts blockbuster Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings, priming audiences to embrace the first Asian-led superhero film from Marvel Studios and potentially making an impact as large as Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther. I’m hopeful that the Marvel flick will continue to bust more Hollywood myths concerning Asian/Asian-American leads being successful on a global level at the box office.

While there hasn’t been any official word concerning a Shang-Chi sequel, another project is on the horizon for Destin Daniel Cretton, according to Deadline. The outlet says he’ll direct a series adaptation of the novel Facing The Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes In World War II written by Daniel James Brown.

They came from across the continent and Hawaii. Their parents taught them to embrace both their Japanese heritage and the ways of their American homeland. They faced bigotry, yet they believed in their bright futures as American citizens. But within days of Pearl Harbor, the FBI was ransacking their houses and locking up their fathers. And within months many would themselves be living behind barbed wire.

The book focuses on the brave and patriotic Japanese-American soldiers of World War II that became war heroes. A group of fighting men that faced a paranoid United States government challenging their loyalty because they happened to be of Japanese ethnicity after the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor trusting the country into the war in the Pacific. Many Japanese-American families were sent to interment camps because the government claimed they couldn’t trust them and this led to many Japanese-American men to sign-up to prove just how loyal they were to the United States, giving up their lives and fighting for the country they loved.

It’s unknown where the series will land but Destin Daniel Cretton was originally going to direct the HBO Max crime series Tokyo Vice before Shang-Chi led to a scheduling conflict and Michael Mann was brought in to direct instead. Then again, WarnerMedia recently passed on the WWII series Masters of The Air from producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, which landed at Apple TV+ instead.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Legendary Reportedly In Talks With ‘Godzilla Vs. Kong’ Director Adam Wingard For Another MonsterVerse Film – Could End Up ‘Son of Kong’

Legendary might not be winding-down plans for their MonsterVerse after all. After Godzilla Vs. Kong crossed $400 million globally at the box office over the weekend, there is talk that the studio might be already looking to secure Adam Wingard for another future MonsterVerse movie.

The Hollywood Reporter claims that Wingard is currently in talks with Legendary to direct another film in the MonsterVerse for them, potentially with the title of Son of Kong. This could make sense as the ending of Godzilla Vs. Kong seemed to hint there were further adventures for Kong in his new home in the Hollow Earth.

I have to believe that audiences would be a little more inclined to support a second solo Kong film given how well both Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla Vs. Kong have done in comparison to Godzilla: King of The Monsters. Also, that Kong seems to have a little bit more of a personality than Godzilla which goes a long way for a CGI performance from a towering monster and now that he can communicate with humans makes another film even more appealing.

Son of Kong would likely mean that there is female of Kong’s species somewhere in the Hollow Earth, but we still don’t know if that is the project they’ll end up making since they don’t even have a screenwriter attached at this point and the Son of Kong is only a rumbling of a title.

Adam is a little busy at the moment working on a sequel to John Woo’s Face/Off for Paramount Pictures and is going to make a big screen adaptation of the cult cartoon ThunderCats mixing animation with CGI for Warner Bros. as well. It’s unclear when this new MonsterVerse is expected to shoot or even be released. Normally, Legendary announces their plans on these projects way in advance and seemed like they could attempt to pause the release of them entirely.

If Adam Wingard closes a deal with Legendary it would make him the first MonsterVerse director to make two films.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Film News

Christopher Nolan Has Spoken To Netflix About Working With Them But Global Theatrical Distribution Is A Concern – Signal He Is Searching For A New Studio Home?

You might remember how heated things got when WarnerMedia announced their day-and-date release model, something depending on where you look for numbers didn’t seem to make a huge impact on subscriber growth for HBO Max in Q1. Filmmakers Christopher Nolan (Tenet) and Denis Villeneuve (Dune) came out swinging with public comments denouncing the company.

There was even a report that Nolan was unlikely to work with WarnerMedia again.

Netflix’s film chief Steve Stuber has mentioned to The Wall Street Journal (via Coming Soon) that he has spoke with Christopher Nolan about his desire to see them expand into global distribution of their original films. Nolan has been a huge champion of traditional theatrical windows and audiences having access to the theatrical experience. Apparently, he’s also talked about potentially working with them but the cinematic distribution would be a huge sticking point for that to happen.

STUBER: “I think there are aspects of global distribution in the cinema that are still appealing. Chris Nolan and I have spoken quite a bit…and that’s still something he wants deeply. If we can’t provide that, it will still be an issue for him.”

“I think we have a model that works and we’ve done well with the theaters that have played us. As these things change, we’re all having these conversations to see where it all lands and what the landscape on the other side of all of this is.”

There have been plenty of calls for Netflix to get into the theater chain business as some companies have been struggling and now that studios can legally buy-up theaters it would allow Netflix to fully embrace a hybrid model of distribution with their original films that could allow their tent to expand with more high-profile filmmakers looking to work with them, like a Christopher Nolan. Netflix has been able to convince Martin Scorsese to bring The Irishman to the streaming giant and they’ve been able to win multiple Academy Awards with their originals.

It does feel like Nolan could be directly courting studios to find a new home and making sure his movies will be released in theaters worldwide is going to be part of whatever deal he attempts to secure. At this point in his career, any place would likely welcome him with open arms alongside blank checks for future projects.

SOURCE: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Posted on in Television News

Cary Fukunaga Announces WWII Series ‘Masters of The Air’ Has Started Filming In London – Produced By Tom Hanks & Steven Spielberg

Director Cary Fukunaga is going to be following-up his James Bond movie No Time To Die with a WWII series, titled Masters of The Air, for producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks at Apple TV+. As you would expect the project is considered a sequel to previous HBO series Band of Brothers and The Pacific, except this time the series will be exploring the airmen of the war.

The filmmaker has announced on his Instagram account that they’ve completed the first week of filming in London under the working title of Whirlwind with cinematographer Adam Arkapaw. I can confirm they’ve also hired production designer Chris Seagers (Alien: Covenant, X-Men: First Class), who recently worked with Ridley Scott on the TNT/HBO Max series Raised By Wolves.

The series is based on the novel by Donald L. Miller with a cast that consists of Anthony Boyle as Major Crosby, Austin Butler as Major Gale Cleven, Raffery Law as Sgt. Ken Lemmons, Nate Mann as Major Rosie Rosenthal, Callum Turner as Major John Egan, and James Murray as Colonel Chic Harding.

Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people. Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller’s Air Force band, which toured US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. Masters of the Air is a story of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed.

Cary Fukunaga as mentioned before is coming-off the massive production on Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007 in No Time To Die with other credits that includes True Detective, Beasts of No Nation, Maniac, Jane Eyre, and Sin Nombre.

SOURCE: CARY FUKUNAGA

Posted on in Television News

HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’ Prequel Series ‘House of The Dragon’ Has Officially Begun Production

Today, it was announced by HBO via the official Game of Thrones Twitter account that their prequel spinoff series House of The Dragon, focusing on the Targaryen family, has finally begun production in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The show is based on George R.R.’s Fire & Blood.

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.

HBO previously revealed the cast and characters that will appear in the new series.

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…

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.

The House of The Dragon is expected to debut in 2022.

SOURCE: HBO

Posted on in Film News

‘Nomadland’ Director Chloe Zhao Makes History At The 93rd Academy Awards – Plus Full List of Winners

Last night saw Chloe Zhao make history as the first female director of Asian descent to earn Best Director, making her the second female director alongside Kathryn Bigelow (Hurt Locker) and third Asian filmmaker to win the award. The two previous Asian filmmakers to win Best Director were Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain and Lie of Pi) and Bong Joon-ho (Parasite). Zhao also saw her film Nomadland earn Best Picture landing her a second Oscar and Frances McDormand winning Best Actress.

Best Supporting Actress winner Youn Yuh-jung (Minari) became the first Korean actor to earn the award and second Asian actress alongside Miyoshi Umeki (Sayonara).

The rest of the winners of the 93rd Academy Awards are listed below.

BEST PICTURE

Nomadland

BEST DIRECTOR

Chloé Zhao, Nomadland

BEST ACTOR

Anthony Hopkins, The Father

BEST ACTRESS

Frances McDormand, Nomadland

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Emerald Fennell, “Promising Young Woman”

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller, “The Father”

ANIMATED FEATURE

Soul

PRODUCTION DESIGN

Mank

COSTUME DESIGN

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Erik Messerschmidt, Mank

EDITING

Sound of Metal

MAKEUP & HAIR STYLING

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

SOUND

Sound of Metal

VISUAL EFFECTS

Tenet

SCORE

Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste, Soul

SONG

Fight for You (Judas and the Black Messiah)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

My Octopus Teacher

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

Another Round, Denmark

ANIMATED SHORT

If Anything Happens I Love You

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

Colette

LIVE-ACTION SHORT

Two Distant Strangers

Posted on in Film News

‘Godzilla Vs. Kong’ Crosses $400M At Global Box Office – Will Legendary Announce More MonsterVerse Films?

While the massive MonsterVerse flick Godzilla Vs. Kong hasn’t crossed $100 million domestically, this weekend saw the Legendary event pic hit $406.5 million at the global box office, according to numbers via Box Office Mojo.

Some outlets have stated that $160-200 million budgeted project needed to reach $400+ million to turn a profit. That creative math that still puzzles me as similar budgeted movies in the past had to earn a lot more money to cover costs. Ultimately, Godzilla Vs. Kong will unlikely surpass the box office of other films in the MonsterVerse such as Kong: Skull Island ($566.6 million) or the first Godzilla ($524.9 million).

Normally, Legendary has upcoming MonsterVerse installments in the works when the movies are released and tease those projects, but at this time we don’t know if we’ll be getting more movies. There was a cryptic video thanking fans posted by Legendary that felt more like a goodbye message than “we have more movies coming.”

At one time, there had been chatter of a Mothra movie and the end of Godzilla Vs. Kong leaves the door open for a Kong sequel taking place in Hollow Earth. We’ll have to wait for Legendary to announce plans for future MonsterVerse movies or that they’re winding things down.

SOURCE: BOX OFFICE MOJO