Category: Film News

Posted on in Film News

‘John Wick 4’: Ian McShane Officially Returns

Winston is officially back!

We all assumed that Ian McShane would be back for John Wick: Chapter 4, given the cliffhanger of the third movie. But, it’s now official as Deadline has confirmed with Liongate that McShane has closed his deal.

Production is taking place in Berlin with plans to shoot in Paris and Japan.

Shay Hatten and Michael Finch wrote the fourth installment with Chad Stahelski back to direct.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum ended with John Wick surviving the fall from the roof of The Continental hotel after Ian McShane’s Winston shot him. Winston’s motivations weren’t entirely clear as he didn’t seem shocked that Mr. Wick got away and could be giving The High Table a false sense of security. Wick eventually lands at the feet of Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King, who had his organization taken away from him by The High Table and convinces John to go to war with him against the mysterious group of criminal syndicate puppet masters. 

The newest additions to the cast consists of Japanese action star Horiyuki Sanada as Watanabe, Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen playing Wick’s old pal, British martial artist Scott Adkins (The Expendables 2, Doctor Strange), Marko Zaror (Machete Kills, Alita: Battle Angel), Atomic Blonde’s Bill Skarsgard, Stowaway’s Shamier Anderson, and the film’s female lead played by Japanese-British singer Rina Sawayama. 

Other returning actors are Lance Reddick as Charon and Laurence Fishburne back as the Bowery King. Meanwhile, we’re still in the dark about established characters played by Halle Berry, Asia Kate Dillion, John Leguizamo, Peter Stormare, Common, Jason Mantzoukas, Anjelica Huston, Said Taghmaoui, Yayan Ruhian, and Cecept Arif Rahamn making an appearance in John Wick 4.

John Wick 4 will hit the big screen on May 27, 2022 and Lionsgate had confirmed plans to make John Wick: Chapter 5, but will no longer shoot back-to-back with the next installment. Franchise creator and architect, Derek Kolstad, stated that he won’t be involved in the next two films and suggested John Wick 5 could be the final pic.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

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Warner Bros. Rejected ‘L.A. Confidential’ Sequel Set In 1970s Starring Chadwick Boseman Alongside Original Cast

1997’s neo-noir film L.A. Confidential is easily a huge turning point in Hollywood, it earned Kim Basinger an Oscar while essentially making Australian actors Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce stars. The film’s success is undeniable, however, when a sequel was pitched a few years back, Warner Bros. seemingly didn’t want anything to do with it.

The original’s Oscar-winning screenwriter Brian Helgeland spoke with The Ringer (via The Playlist), revealing he had developed a direct sequel set in the mid-70s with author James Ellroy (his novel was adapted for the first movie). He had even secured original cast members Crowe and Pearce to reprise their roles. The kicker is that he wanted the late Chadwick Boseman to play a youg cop, the pitch was ultimately rejected by the studio.

A few years ago, the Oscar-winning filmmaker Brian Helgeland went to Warner Bros. with what seemed like a dynamite movie pitch: a sequel to L.A. Confidential, the 1997 Hollywood cop drama he cowrote with director Curtis Hanson. Helgeland had already secured a top-tier cast, including returning Confidential costars Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, alongside Chadwick Boseman, who’d be playing a young police officer. He’d developed a new story with L.A. Confidential novelist James Ellroy, one that would be set in the mid-’70s.

“We worked the whole thing out. It was great. And Warners passed,” Helgeland told The Ringer.

Yet another example of studio executives having terrible taste when selecting or rejecting film projects.

L.A. CONFIDENTIAL – Three policemen, each with his own motives and obsessions, tackle the corruption surrounding an unsolved murder at a downtown Los Angeles coffee shop in the early 1950s. Detective Lieutenant Exley (Guy Pearce), the son of a murdered detective, is out to avenge his father’s killing. The ex-partner of Officer White (Russell Crowe), implicated in a scandal rooted out by Exley, was one of the victims. Sergeant Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) feeds classified information to a tabloid magnate (Danny DeVito).

SOURCE: THE RINGER

Posted on in Film News

Dwayne Johnson Wraps Filming On DC Comics Movie ‘Black Adam’

Black Adam has been shooting in Atlanta and star Dwayne Johnson has announced on Instagram that filming has wrapped. The character is best known as the antagonists of Captain Marvel, now know as Shazam!, and Johnson has spent over a decade trying to get the DC Comics film going finally getting cameras rolling this year after various hiccups.

Interestingly enough, while there have been downplays of a crossover with Zachary Levi’s Shazam! until a Black Adam 2 or Shazam! 3. This despite Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of The Gods shooting at the same time in Atlanta recently.

The supporting cast includes Aldis Hodge as Carter Hall aka Hawkman, Noah Centineo as Al Rothstein aka Atom Smasher, Quintessa Swindell as Maxine Hunkell aka Cyclone, Pierce Brosnan as Doctor Fate, Sarah Shahi as Adrianna Tomaz aka Isis, and Marwan Kenzari expected to play the film’s villain.

“Honored and proud to say that’s an official wrap on BLACK ADAM. I knew many years ago, the opportunity for me to make BLACK ADAM would be a ONCE IN A CAREER EVENT. It has been my true honor to go shoulder to shoulder with over 1,000 brilliant and hungry crew of filmmakers and storytellers to bring the antihero known as, BLACK ADAM to life. This has been one for the ages and easily the hardest labor and toughest grind mentally and physically of my entire career. Worth. Every. Second.”

SOURCE: DWAYNE JOHNSON

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MGM’s ‘Thomas Crown Affair’ Remake Starring Michael B. Jordan Lands Screenwriter; Produced By The Russo Brothers

MGM Studios is looking to be acquired by Amazon for a massive $8.45 billion and is chugging along with various high-profile projects in development, speaking of which, there is an update on their third Thomas Crown Affair incarnation that will be led by Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther, Without Remorse, Creed) as the titular gentleman thief.

The project, produced by The Russo Brothers via AGBO, has finally landed a screenwriter. Deadline says that Wes Tooke has been enlisted to help with the remake, his credits include Roland Emmerich’s WWII actioner Midway and the Universal Monsters comedy from Lord/Miller.

A director has yet to announced, but given how quickly the Russo Brothers jumped into projects like Cherry and the big Netflix spy action flick The Gray Man, it’s possible the sibling duo could consider directing the remake themselves.

Thomas Crown was previously played by Steve McQueen and Pierce Brosnan in their respective versions.

Michael B. Jordan is a busy guy as he’ll make his feature directorial debut with Creed III that might co-star Jonathan Majors (Lovecraft Country, Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, Da 5 Bloods, Devotion) along with his potential follow-up to Without Remorse as Rainbow Six could move forward at Paramount/Amazon. Jordan has also mentioned a desire to return to the Killmonger role if/when Marvel wants him, despite the character’s death in Black Panther.

THOMAS CROWN (1999) – Bored billionaire Thomas Crown (Pierce Brosnan) decides to entertain himself by stealing a Monet from a reputed museum. When Catherine Banning (Rene Russo), an investigator for the museum’s insurance company, takes an interest in Crown, a complicated back-and-forth game with romantic undertones begins between them. In an attempt to find out where Banning’s loyalties lie, Crown returns the painting and essentially turns himself in, hoping that Banning’s feelings for him will lead to an escape.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

‘Doctor Strange 2’ Stunt Coordinator Team Includes ‘Overlord’s Jo McLaren & ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’s Liang Yang

Director Sam Raimi is returning to the world of Marvel Comics films with Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, which has wrapped filming at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England. Raimi’s Spider-Man movies alongside Blade and X-Men helped launch the popularity of the characters leading to the formation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at Marvel Studios. 

One of the interesting elements of the production are the folks assembled to handle the action in the Doctor Strange sequel. The team of stunt coordinators consists of seasoned vets such as Jo McLaren and Brycen Counts, with Liang Yang taking the role of fight coordinator. Their combined knowledge and vast credits in the stunt community should give the sequel a bit of an elevated edge when it comes to action sequences. 

McLaren did stunt double work for Angelina Jolie in the original Tomb Raider movies before rising up the ranks working as a stunt coordinator on things like the J.J. Abrams-produced WWII horror film Overlord, Annihilation, Enola Holmes, The Favourite, Doctor Who, and the Alex Garland tech-thriller series Devs. 

In December 2019, McLaren confirmed her involvement with the sequel during an interview with FanSided. 

Brycen Counts has the most experience with Marvel Studios as he was the assistant stunt coordinator on Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Ant-Man & The Wasp, and did additional work on Black Panther. He was recently the stunt coordinator on Charlize Theron’s hit comic book film The Old Guard at Netflix. 

Yang (Morbius, Wonder Woman 1984) is likely more recognizable out of the trio thanks to his standout on-camera scene in Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout where he beats the stuffing out of both Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill during the big Paris bathroom fight scene. He also was Emily Blunt’s stunt double on Edge of Tomorrow alongside working on big action sequences for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. 

Marvel has been hiring some impressive stunt people lately such as Olivier Schneider (No Time To Die, Taken, Spectre, Fast & Furious 6) for Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight series, which is filming in Budapest.

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness will hit screens on March 25, 2022, and we’ll likely have the first trailer by the fall. 

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‘WandaVision’s Matt Shakman Becomes Third Director Hired For ‘Star Trek 4’; Paramount Aims For Spring 2022 Production Start

Paramount Pictures released Star Trek Beyond in 2016 and has been mulling over the next steps for Star Trek 4 for ages now. They’ve been churning-out multiple Star Trek series but for some reason just couldn’t settle with the right incarnation for the fourth installment, directors S.J. Clarkson (Jessica Jones) and Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) previously being attached to helm the sequel.

Deadline is now reporting a third candidate has stepped in, as Paramount has hired WandaVision director Matt Shakman to hopefully bring Star Trek 4 past the finish line after various hiccups uring the project’s development. The outlet adds that a new script has been penned by Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet with an aim to get cameras rolling by next spring.

This announcement would seemly nudge to us that Hawley has joined Clarkson by exiting.

J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot are returning to produce. It’s also assumed that we’ll see the return of Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, and new addition Sofia Boutella as well.

An earlier incarnation was going to involve time-travel and allow Pine’s Captain Kirk interact with his father George Kirk, who was played by a young Chris Hemsworth before he was cast by Marvel for Thor. Apparently, contract negotiations fell apart leading to the project dissolving.

Quentin Tarantino and Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) had been developing their own film based on the gangster episode of the original series. However, that project doesn’t seem like it will be happening.

Star Trek 4 likely won’t be ready for release until spring or summer of 2023.

STAR TREK BEYOND – A surprise attack in outer space forces the Enterprise to crash-land on a mysterious world. The assault came from Krall (Idris Elba), a lizard-like dictator who derives his energy by sucking the life out of his victims. Krall needs an ancient and valuable artifact that’s aboard the badly damaged starship. Left stranded in a rugged wilderness, Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the rest of the crew must now battle a deadly alien race while trying to find a way off their hostile planet.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

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Deadpool & Korg React To The ‘Free Guy’ Trailer; Could We Get An MCU Team-Up In ‘Deadpool 3’?

Using that Disney hype machine to help promote their upcoming film Free Guy, co-stars Ryan Reynolds and Taika Waititi have teamed-up to reprise their Marvel Comics characters to do a parody reaction video highlighting the trailer for Free Guy coming next month to theaters.

Interestingly enough, this is sort of the first film Wade Wilson has ever interacted with a character directly from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (granted this likely isn’t official canon or is it?) since being acquired by Disney. We’re also seeing him in a very PG-13 format which might be new for some given his raunchy foul-mouthed antics.

It’ll be neat to see if Deadpool and Korg do eventually feature together in a future Marvel project as Deadpool 3 feels like a good spot for that interaction. Reynolds had previously teased an idea he had for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine to appear in a road trip film and now I can’t only think about how cool it would be if Taika’s Korg took that spot instead.

As it sits, Deadpool 3 will officially kept it’s R-rating and has a script being penned by The Molyneux Sisters (Bob’s Burgers), however, a director hasn’t been named. I think it would be nifty if Taika Waititi, a noted workaholic, tried to sneak in and direct Deadpool 3 before another Thor installment or possibly even his Star Wars movie. Taika works fast and could likely churn-out a sequel pretty quickly as fans are patiently waiting for the mutants to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Posted on in Film News

‘Wheel Of Time’ Film Trilogy In The Works With Zack Stentz Penning First Installment ‘Age Of Legends’

Not too long ago, Amazon Studios and Radar Pictures revealed that they had wrapped filming on Season 1 of their live-action fantasy series based on The Wheel of Time novels and were moving forward with Season 2 ahead of the show’s premiere on Prime Video, an impressive announcement given how costly a show like that would be.

Expansion of the franchise is continuing even further as it was announced today via The Hollywood Reporter that Radar Pictures is also moving forward with a planned film trilogy set in the fantasy world of author Robert Jordan. Screenwriter Zack Stentz (X-Men: First Class, Thor) will tackle the first installment, Age of Legends, that takes place thousand years before the events of the Amazon series.

Zack Stentz, co-writer of Thor and X-Men: First Class, has begun work on a script for Age of Legends, to be based on Jordan’s bestselling series of books, The Wheel of Time, which is already the subject of a long-gestating TV show at Amazon Studios. The fantasy and sci-fi film will be produced by Rick Selvage and Larry Mondragon of iwot productions and Ted Field and Justin Smith of Radar Pictures.

Details on the other two films weren’t mentioned.

Here is the official rundown of the upcoming series debuting on Prime Video:

The Wheel of Time is one of the most popular and enduring fantasy series of all-time, with over 90 million books sold. Set in a sprawling, epic world where magic exists and only certain women are allowed to access it, the story follows Moiraine (Rosamund Pike), a member of the incredibly powerful all-female organization called the Aes Sedai, as she arrives in the small town of Two Rivers. There, she embarks on a dangerous, world-spanning journey with five young men and women, one of whom is prophesied to be the Dragon Reborn, who will either save or destroy humanity.   
 
The Wheel of Time was adapted for television by executive producer/showrunner Rafe Judkins (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Hemlock Grove). Larry Mondragon and Rick Selvage of Red Eagle Entertainment (Winter Dragon), Ted Field and Mike Weber of Radar Pictures (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Winter Dragon), Darren Lemke (Shazam!, Goosebumps, Winter Dragon), Marigo Kehoe and Uta Briesewitz will also serve as executive producers, with Briesewitz set to direct the first two episodes. Rosamund Pike will serve as Producer and Harriet McDougal and Brandon Sanderson as consulting producers. The Wheel of Time is co-produced by Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Film News, Trailers

TRAILER: Disney Releases First Footage For Transformation Flick ‘Turning Red’ Teases Canadian Setting; Coming March 2022

Today, Pixar and Disney have released the first teaser trailer for their very next big feature film release. Apparently, won’t be dumped on Disney+ like Soul or Luca. Directed by Chinese-Canadian director Domee Shi, who won an Oscar for the Pixar short Bao, it focuses on a young teenage girl Mei Lee (voiced by Rosalie Chiang), who turns into a giant red panda when too excited.

It’s interesting that there are some clues to this potentially being a Pixar film that is set in Canada, mainly, because Mei is sporting a Canadian flag shirt in one scene and has a Canadian pin on her backpack. Worth pointing out the panda and logo are also using the Canadian flag colors. You can also see the CN Tower at one point which means this takes place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Yippie!

Canadian actress Sandra Oh (Killing Eve) voices Mei’s mother as well.

TURNING RED – Growing up is a beast. Check out the new trailer for the upcoming all-new original feature film “Turning Red” from Pixar Animation Studios’ director Domee Shi, who won an Oscar® for her 2018 short film, “Bao.” Young actress Rosalie Chiang lends her voice to Mei Lee, a 13-year-old who suddenly “poofs” into a giant red panda when she gets too excited (which is practically ALWAYS). Sandra Oh voices Mei Lee’s protective, if not slightly overbearing mother, Ming, who is never far from her daughter—an unfortunate reality for the teenager. Directed by Shi and produced by Lindsey Collins, Disney and Pixar’s “Turning Red” releases March 11, 2022.

SOURCE: DISNEY

Posted on in Film News

‘Black Widow’ Screenwriter Eric Pearson Explains Reason For The MCU Revamp Of Taskmaster

***WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD FOR BLACK WIDOW***

Marvel’s Black Widow finally released over the weekend, ending the journey of Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff and allows Florence Pugh to continue in sequels/spinoffs as she is set to reprise the Yelena Belova role in the Hawkeye series.

While I had my own gripes with the action sequences not meeting the hype from Johansson comparing the pic to projects like Terminator 2: Judgement Day, one of the things I did enjoy was the reworking of Taskmaster. Screenwriter Eric Pearson spoke with Comic Book and explained the switch-up from the comic book counterpart, Anthony Masters.

“Well, there was a previous draft where it was a Tony Masters character, but it did… It was hard because we had certain things that we knew certain constants. One of the constants was we were right after Captain America: Civil War and before Avengers: Infinity War which meant our great threat, the Red Room… One of the bigger kind of complications was figuring out a villain plot that could succeed and go unnoticed, which ultimately, I think kind of works out for a spy thriller film and also for Dreykov as an ultimate villain because he is a bit of a cowardly man who wields power from the shadows, but spends most of his time isolated, like a weird Howard Hughes, just talking about how big he is to himself because he’s too scared to actually kind of like get out there in the world,” the screenwriter told Comic Book.

Pearson adding their reasons for pivoting from Masters to Dreykov’s daughter, “Tony Masters didn’t seem to really fit into that. And meanwhile, we had this mystery of ‘What happened to Dreykov’s daughter?’ And I don’t know it seemed like because Natasha Romanoff’s story is always going to be more grounded, but you still want some Marvel fun, fantastic in it. The idea of an accident going wrong and we’ve already got this facility now in the Red Room that is constantly with working on and the idea of mind control and rebuilding and controlling the human brain, the idea of an accident going wrong with a loved one and using the technology to reconstruct that person’s mind finding something new, finding the photographic reflexes in rebuilding that mind that felt like a good Marvel comic book addition to an otherwise more grounded spy thriller thing.”

One of the biggest theories early on was that Mason (played by O-T Fagbenle) was going to be Anthony Masters or a version of him. That would also explain Fagbenle’s large credit on the posters only for him to ultimately appear in three minor scenes.

Adding to this idea that the gender swap happened much later on, British stuntman Andy Lister posted an image on Instagram of himself in the Taskmaster costume during the third act scenes (when Taskmaster’s identity is revealed to Natasha) and potentially confirms that they changed the villain’s identity/gender later on in the production.

SOURCE: COMIC BOOK