Deadline is reporting that director George Clooney is looking to cast Ben Affleck (The Way Back, Gone Girl) is his next film as the actor is currently in negotiations to join the Amazon drama titled The Tender Bar. It’s unclear if Clooney will also take a role but the outlet suggests it’s a possibility.
Based on the J.R. Moehringer memoir about growing up in Long Island seeking out father figures among the patrons at his uncle’s bar, the film originally was set up Sony with Ted Melfi directing. When Melfi fell off, Sony put the film into turnaround, allowing Amazon to grab it.
Clooney latest directorial effort is the Netflix sci-fi film The Midnight Sky.
Affleck’s other recent projects include the erotic thriller Deep Water, Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, and leading Robert Rodriguez’s crime thriller Hypnotic. The latter will see Affleck playing a detective that becomes entangled in a mystery involving his missing daughter and a secret government program, while investigating a string of impossible high-end heists.
Deadline reports that Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley is negotiations with Disney+ to play Trudy Ederle in an upcoming drama from director Joaquim Ronning, who previously worked with Disney for Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Disney+ is negotiating for Daisy Ridley to star and Joaquim Ronning to direct Young Woman And The Sea, a Jeff Nathanson-scripted drama based on the book by Glenn Stout that chronicles the daring journey of the first woman to ever swim across the English Channel. Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle made the 21 mile swim in 1926.
The daughter of a German butcher from Manhattan, Ederle was a competitive swimmer, who won gold in the 1924 Olympics when she decided to attempt crossing the channel. She undertook the feat after first swimming 22 miles from Battery Park in New York to Sandy Hook, NJ, setting a record that stood for 81 years. She contracted with two newspapers and sold her story, thereby financing her quest. There was actually a race among women who would be first to cross as only five men had done so before.
Daisy Ridley is coming off making three massive Star Wars movies for Disney, she also has a Lionsgate film titled Chaos Walking co-starring Tom Holland. Disney+ is expected to have many more original films developed for the streaming service and picking-up more dramatic features might be an attempt to attract an older demographic.
After actor Idris Elba caught COVID-19 earlier this year while getting ready to shoot the George Miller film Three Thousand Years of Longing, production on the film halted and Elba returned to the United States to film another project while the project was given time to pause.
According to Deadline, filming has resumed on the secretive project in Sydney, New South Wales Australia and they plan of having the film ready for release by September 2021. The production team for the film budgeted at $60 million includes cinematographer John Seale (Mad Max: Fury Road), production designer Roger Ford (Peter Pan, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian), and composer Tom Holkenborg aka Junkie XL (Deadpool, Mad Max: Fury Road).
Ford previously working with Miller on the two Babe movies.
The Sydney-based production, which is observing numerous on-set Covid safety protocols, is in fact 20 days into its 62-day shoot. The team will break up over Christmas and reconvene early next year before wrapping in the early spring for a planned September 2021 delivery. Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba are starring in Miller’s latest, whose plot details are being kept under wraps. The visionary filmmaker previously described the project to us as an “anti-Mad Max” with plenty of interiors and dialogue but also punctuated with action scenes.
George Miller is also prepping a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road focusing on a younger version of Charlize Theron’s Furiosa with a cast that is said to include Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. The Mad Max sequel likely won’t begin until either the fall of 2021 or sometime in 2022.
When news hit that Paramount Pictures would be rethinking the Star Trek franchise placing Noah Hawley’s Star Trek 4 on pause it was revealed by Deadline that the Quentin Tarantino project penned by Mark L. Smith (The Revenant, Overlord, The Midnight Sky) may have been influenced by a classic Star Trek episode titled “A Piece of The Action” that featured a 1930s gangster setting.
Tarantino dropped out as director, but the project is still viable based on an episode of the classic Star Trek series that takes place largely earthbound in a 30s gangster setting — might serve the franchise best as Logan-like spinoffs when the core franchise has been revitalized.
SFX Magazine (via Games Radar) spoke with Mark L. Smith and he certainly indicated that Captain Kirk would have been part of it. We have to assume they would have wanted Chris Pine back in that role given Tarantino’s previous supportive comments on Pine.
SMITH: “I wrote a Star Trek with Tarantino, and that was a sci-fi script on which I could have fun and lean into some bigger, broader things. Kirk is always just so fun. Tarantino and I had so much fun with him, because Kirk is just William Shatner, y’know? It’s like: you’re not sure who is who, so you can kinda lean into that. Because you watch Chris Pine and he’s playing Kirk, but he’s also playing William Shatner a touch.”
How Paramount moves forward with the franchise is a little unclear as Star Trek 4 isn’t happening anytime soon and the studio seems to be more keen to grind-out various television shows for it’s streaming service. Tarantino also has been public that he is going to be working on books and is prepping a television series of Bounty Law as well.
Before Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson’s The Batman, there had been plans for Ben Affleck to co-write, star, and direct a solo Batman film. Creative differences and Affleck’s apparent frustration eventually led to him first exiting the project as director then later leaving the Bruce Wayne/Batman role altogether.
We don’t know a lot of about the unmade project but there had been confirmation from cinematographer Robert Richardson (Live By Night, Kill Bill, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Inglourious Basterds), who had been once attached to the Affleck film, that the film would involved the infamous Arkham Asylum.
RICHARDSON: “I wanted to shoot Batman with Ben [Affleck] cause that was the next film we had. There was a script, but not a loved script. There was a lot of work he was doing to it to change it.Well, he was going into the more insanity aspects.He was entering more into the Arkham, he’s going into where everyone was bad.“
Deathstroke actor Joe Manganiello had been expected to reprise the Slade Wilson part for Ben’s Batman solo project allowing him to later get a meatier role than his small cameo in Justice League. While speaking with Yahoo Entertainment, Joe compared the purposed Affleck project to David Fincher’s underrated Michael Douglas thriller The Game and gave some details about the tone they were attempting to go for.
MANGANIELLO: “There were similarities to The Game…It was a really dark story in which Deathstroke was like a shark or a horror movie villain that was dismantling Bruce’s life from the inside out. It was this systemic thing: He killed everyone close to Bruce and destroyed his life to try and make him suffer because he felt that Bruce was responsible for something that happened to him…It was really cool, really dark and really hard. I was very excited for it.”
Joe confirmed his return to the Deathstroke role in Zack Snyder’s extended version of Justice League for HBO Max on social media, but remains to be seen if he’ll ever play the role again.
THE GAME (1997) – Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) is a successful banker who keeps mostly to himself. When his estranged brother Conrad (Sean Penn) returns on his birthday with an odd gift — participation in a personalized, real-life game — Nicholas reluctantly accepts. Initially harmless, the game grows increasingly personal, and Orton begins to fear for his life as he eludes agents from the mysterious game’s organizers. With no one left to trust and his money gone, Orton must find answers for himself.
The David Fincher connection isn’t shocking given that Ben Affleck had recently worked with the director on the thriller Gone Girl and Matt Reeves incarnation is essentially taking cues from Fincher’s entire movie library. I’ve spotted multiple homages or nods to Zodaic, Seven, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Panic Room, and even the aforementioned film The Game in the teaser trailer.
Matt’s movie seems to be taking a similar dark tone and might be picking up on what Affleck wanted to do.
Ever since Spider-Man: Far From Home was released there has been an assumption or speculation that Matt Murdock would be called in as a lawyer. Over the summer of 2019 there was all sorts of speculation concerning what would happen to Peter Parker now that he was being framed for the murder of Quentin Beck aka Mysterio.
The rumors kept swirling and even caught the attention of director/podcaster Kevin Smith, who off-handedly mentioned the rumor on his podcast Fatman Beyond back in March and had to clarify he wasn’t confirming anything.
Perspective: While I, too, hope this rumor is true, please remember that I only talked about it with @marcbernardin on #FatManBeyond after I read about it on the internet, just like everyone else. This means I have no inside info. Much like everybody else, I’m just a hopeful fan. https://t.co/t8Kn080UIY
In April of this year Daredevil star Charlie Cox spoke to Comic Book denying any involvement and even suggesting if the character was indeed part of Spider-Man 3 he wasn’t going to playing him.
COX: “I hadn’t heard those rumors, but it’s certainly not with my Daredevil. I’m not involved in it. If that’s true, it’s not with me. It’s with another actor.”
Murphy’s Multiverse, who are notably often accurate about production news are claiming that Cox has closed a deal with Marvel to reprise the role in Spider-Man 3 months ago but are unsure the scale of his appearance.
Murphy’s Multiverse has learned that Charlie Cox, star of the beloved Netflix show, is set to make his grand debut in the MCU in the third Spider-Man film in a deal that has been set in stone for several months now.
What happens beyond that appearance wasn’t elaborated to us but any logical person would think that a series is slated at some point in the MCU’s future.
If true, there might be some possible clues in recent casting calls spotted by The Ronin for the Spidey sequel.
A while back there were Spider-Man 3 casting calls in Atlanta for extras to play protesters and shoot for multiple days which suggested it might be for court house scenes. I could see folks outside the court protesting the trial of Parker but that would need to be confirmed once those set photos come in revealing what the protests are actually about via signs or slogans. They’ve been casting high school students for scenes at Parker’s school and one casting call for various people to play “Madison Citizens”, what’s interesting is that the law offices of Nelson & Murdock is mentioned on one of the Wikis as being located in or near Madison Avenue and that Marvel Comics offices used to be there as well.
They are also casting various detectives and criminals for Spider-Man 3, further pointing towards legal/court troubles for Peter.
These scenes are expected to take place in January and some like the ones featuring protesters will be shot outdoors.
If there is a deal in place a trade will likely attempt to confirm the information as The Hollywood Reporter recently did with GWW’s scoop that Alfred Molina would be reprising the role of Doctor Otto Octavius aka Doctor Octopus (despite dying in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2) in Spider-Man 3.
Collider recently echoed previous online rumors that Andrew Garfield and Kirsten Dunst would be returning for Spider-Man 3 alongside talk of there are plans to have Tobey Maguire and Emma Stone come back as well.
Filming on Marvel’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness (working title Stellar Vortex) has been underway at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England with Sam Raimi taking over the project after former director Scott Derrickson exited the film over “creative differences” with the studio.
The Ronin can now confirm that production designer Charles Wood is working on the Doctor Strange sequel. His credits are mostly Marvel Studios films such as the original Doctor Strange, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: The Dark World, Guardians of The Galaxy, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and most recently with Scarlet Johansson’s Black Widow.
The cast so far consists of Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Stephen Strange, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch, Benedict Wong as Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Baron Mordo, and newcomer Xochitl Gomez.
It’s script was penned by Jade Halley Bartlett and Loki’s Michael Waldron.
As the title would suggest the film will explore the Multiverse with expected connections to WandaVision, Loki, and possibly even Spider-Man 3.
Disney has given Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness a tentative release date of March 25th, 2022.
Warner Bros. and director Doug Liman have been trying to put together a sequel to the Tom Cruise sci-fi action film Edge of Tomorrow that co-starred Emily Blunt. The original film focuses on cowardly military officer that focuses mainly on PR for the war between an invading force of aliens. His big mouth leads to him being stripped of his rank and thrown into the meat-grinder with the rest of the grunts leading to his death, however, he is covered in alien blood that allows him to relive the same day over and over (similar to Groundhog Dog). Until he runs into another soldier that previously had the same ability and they work together to finally put a stop to the alien horde that leads to her training him into a soldier tough enough to survive the battlefield and stop the aliens from conquering Earth.
A script for Edge of Tomorrow has been kicking around for a while now but the busy schedules of both Tom and Emily has been a huge issue. While recently speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Blunt revealed that the script is “really promising” but the as previously pointed out multiple times that scheduling has been a huge headache to getting production started on the sequel.
BLUNT: “Yes, [the script] is really promising and really, really cool. I just don’t know when everything’s going to sort of align, you know what I mean? Between all of our schedules, it would just have to be the right time. But there is something in the works, for sure, that’s a great idea. A great idea.”
Tom Cruise is really busy completing Mission: Impossible 7, Mission: Impossible 8, and a new film with Doug Liman that will be shot in space for Universal Pictures budgeted at over $200 million. Liman had also been preoccupied with finishing the Lionsgate sci-fi film Chaos Walking starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley.
EDGE OF TOMORROW – When Earth falls under attack from invincible aliens, no military unit in the world is able to beat them. Maj. William Cage (Tom Cruise), an officer who has never seen combat, is assigned to a suicide mission. Killed within moments, Cage finds himself thrown into a time loop, in which he relives the same brutal fight — and his death — over and over again. However, Cage’s fighting skills improve with each encore, bringing him and a comrade (Emily Blunt) ever closer to defeating the aliens.
A new rumor from Collider makes the claim that both Andrew Garfield and Kirsten Dunst will be showing up in Marvel’s Spider-Man 3. Also they’re suggesting that Tobey Maguire and Emma Stone might be coming back as well, although, seemingly less confident they’re currently attached.
Just like Jamie Foxx’s Electro, Andrew Garfield will be back, and if Sony/Marvel can close a deal with Tobey Maguire, he’ll be back too. Kirsten Dunst will return as MJ, and I expect Emma Stone to reprise her role as Gwen Stacy, pregnancy permitting. Why? Because this third Spider-Man movie starring Tom Holland will delve into the multi-verse, just like its animated counterpart Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I don’t think that’s a big secret at this point, so why do we pretend it is? Because we love the pageantry of it all.
However, the tone of the article is all over the place and I can’t really tell if this is actually sourced reporting or Collider simply echoing established online rumblings that have been circulating for months that Spider-Man 3 is expected to be some Spider-Verse/Multiverse combo along with the return of the aforementioned Spider-Man franchise actors. Possibly trying to make the connection from the confirmation that Alfred Molina is back as Doctor Octopus and Jamie Foxx as Electro.
The Multiverse theory is certainly one with teeth.
Benedict Cumberbatch is officially set to return as Doctor Strange in the Spider-Man sequel but the size of the crossover hasn’t been established since he’s filming Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness at the moment in Surrey, England with Sam Raimi (tackled the original Spider-Man trilogy) directing. Showing up in Spider-Man 3 would suggest that the Multiverse could be involved.
Spider-Man 3 is currently filming in Atlanta under the working title of The November Project and is set to be released on December 17th, 2021.
Last month, GWW reported that Spider-Man 2 actor Alfred Molina was spotted on the set of Spider-Man 3 sparking the rumor that he’d be returning to the role of Doctor Otto Octavius aka Doctor Octopus.
A source within Disney/Marvel has informed GWW that Alfred Molina will be returning to the Spider-Man franchise to reprise his role as the famed Doctor Octopus. Plot details are of course scarce as they always are with the super secretive Marvel productions, but we were informed Molina arrived on set a bit ago to work on some stunt choreography and has started filming his scenes in the past couple weeks.
Alfred Molina is putting back on the metal arms and will reprise his role as the villainous Doctor Octopus, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.
This is starting to feel like Marvel Studios is indeed assembling The Sinister Six as the villains of the film given that they’ve also brought back Jamie Foxx as the villain Electo and while this might seem like more confirmation of a Multiverse project. J.K. Simmons is another actor from the Sam Raimi era that seemingly has made the jump to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as seen returning to the role of J. Jonah Jameson in Spider-Man: Far From Home, but not back in the version from the original Raimi films.
One way for Marvel and Sony to simply use The Sinister Six without giving all six villains new origins and backstories is to bring back familiar faces that audiences already know as these characters. This is a neat way to bring back villains without too much of a heavy handed reboot of them, although, I personally believe Marvel may end up giving both Electro and Doctor Octopus character updates for the MCU. Even J. Jonah Jameson doesn’t seem his campy self and has certainly been altered to fit Marvel’s superhero universe as he looks to be more like an Alex Jones-type rather than an old timey newspaper man obsessed with Spider-Man photos.
Two other members could easily be Michael Keaton’s Vulture and Michael Mando’s Scorpion both could be part of the prison break suggested in the trailer for Jared Leto’s Morbius. Scorpion’s origin in the comics has a direct connection to J. Jonah Jameson but they’ve already established that he hates Spider-Man since he scared his face and sent him to prison.
Quentin Beck aka Mysterio faking his death also could be a possibly.
Its also worth pointing out that Sam Raimi is working on a Multiverse film with Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness (currently shooting at Longcross Studios) and Benedict Cumberbatch is reprising his role as Strange in Spider-Man 3, however, the scale of the superhero crossover isn’t known.
Spider-Man 3 is currently filming in Atlanta under the working title The November Project and is expected to swing into theaters on December 17th, 2021.
THE RONIN 