Category: Television News

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‘Wheel Of Time’: Amazon Announces Fantasy Series Will Debut In November

Finally, Amazon has announced that their series adaptation of Robert Jordan’s fantasy novels The Wheel of Time will be heading to Prime Video on November.

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, 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.   

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.

Wheel of Time’s cast consists of Rosamund Pike, Josha Stradowski, Madeleine Madden, Marcus Rutherford, Barney Harris, Zoë Robins, Daniel Henney, Álvaro Morte, Hammed Animashaun, Johann Myers, Priyanka Bose, Taylor Napier and Emmanuel Imani.

The project is such a priority for Amazon as they’ve already started filming Season 2 this week and Radar Films (Amazon’s partner on the show) is also developing a trilogy of feature films. Amazon must be seeing something with the dailies or Season 1 episodes that they believe enough in the show to move forward with Season 2 even though audiences haven’t seen a trailer for the first season.

SOURCE: AMAZON

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‘Dune’ Prequel Series ‘Dune: The Sisterhood’ Lands New Showrunner Diane Ademu-John; Denis Villeneuve To Direct Pilot

You might remember that Legendary and HBO Max would be partnering for a spinoff series set within the Dune universe acting as a prequel to the upcoming film helmed by Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Arrival, Prisoners, Blade Runner: 2049). The show, Dune: The Sisterhood, originally had Dune co-writer Jon Spaihts set to showrun the project, but exited to help work on Dune: Part Two.

Dune: The Sisterhood is told through the eyes of a mysterious order of women known as the Bene Gesserit. Given extraordinary abilities by their mastery of the body and the mind, the Bene Gesserit expertly weave through the feudal politics and intrigue of The Imperium, pursuing plans of their own that will ultimately lead them to the enigmatic planet Arrakis, known to its inhabitants as Dune. It will serve as a prequel to the films.

A new report from Variety has revealed that they have hired Diane Ademu-John as the new showrunner of the the sci-fi series at HBO Max. She has previously worked on shows such as The Haunting of Bly Manor, Empire, The Originals, and The Vampire Diaries.

Denis Villeneuve is a producer on Dune: The Sisterhood and will still direct the pilot.

Dune, of course, is coming soon with a release date of October 22 as it will hit both theaters and HBO Max on that date.

DUNE – A mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence—a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential—only those who can conquer their fear will survive.

SOURCE: VARIETY

Posted on in News, Television News

‘She-Hulk’ Reportedly Adds ‘Arrow’ Actor Josh Segarra

Marvel’s She-Hulk has been shooting for months in Atlanta and the newest superhero series is aiming to begin airing on Disney+ sometime in 2022. Tatiana Maslany’s (Black Orphan) Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk is the cousin of Avengers member Dr. Bruce Banner aka Hulk and after a blood transfusion from Bruce is granted her own Hulk powers becoming She-Hulk.

The series officially will see the return of Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky aka Abomination (the new updated design recently revealed in Shang-Chi trailer), Mark Ruffalo back as Banner aka Professor Hulk, Jameela Jamil (The Good Place) was recently announced to be playing the super-strong villain Titania, Renee Elise Goldsberry as Amelia, and Ginger Gonzaga.

Another addition to the cast has been uncovered, as Deadline has revealed that Arrow actor Josh Segarra has nabbed an undisclosed role.

The 10-episode series will be directed by Kat Coiro and Anu Valia with Emmy-winner Jessica Gao (Rick & Morty) set as head writer. Its crew consists of cinematographer Florian Ballhaus (RED, The Devil Wears Prada), production designer Elena Albanese (Lovecraft Country), costume designer Ann Foley (Godzilla Vs. Kong, Altered Carbon), and stunt coordinator Monique Ganderton (Loki, Avengers: Endgame).

Set photos posted by actress Anais Almonte (Gotham, The Punisher) confirmed her involvement.

Fans got a quick glimpse at the redesign of Tim Roth’s Abomination in the latest trailer for Shang-Chi, which might give us a preview of where Emil is in the world post-snap. Hopefully, we’ll get to see a lot more of the character just like when Marvel decided to bring back William Hurt’s Thunderbolt Ross for multiple projects (like Captain America: Civil War and Black Widow) and we very well might might see other characters from The Incredible Hulk show up in She-Hulk.

There is also going to be a lot of motion capture in the series which might mean we won’t see the series air on Disney+ until later on in 2022.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in News, Television News

‘Wheel Of Time’: Amazon Announces Season 2 Has Started Shooting With Director Thomas Napper

We’re still waiting on a trailer and release date for Season 1 of Amazon’s big fantasy series The Wheel of Time, based on the series of Robert Jordan novels. The streaming service announced plans to move forward with Season 2 even before anyone has got a real good look at the show and even crazier they have officially started filming the next season this week.

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, 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.   

Season 1 only just wrapped production in the Czech Republic back in May.

Wheel of Time’s cast consists of Rosamund Pike, Josha Stradowski, Madeleine Madden, Marcus Rutherford, Barney Harris, Zoë Robins, Daniel Henney, Álvaro Morte, Hammed Animashaun, Johann Myers, Priyanka Bose, Taylor Napier and Emmanuel Imani.

The official Wheel of Time series account on Twitter announced on Monday that they started shooting Season 2 with Thomas Napper behind the camera as that episode’s director.

It’s still unclear when Amazon will begin airing Season 1 of the show, but they have been stating it will hit Prime Video sometime in 2021. The amount of money involved is insane to jump forward with a second season without even knowing if audience will even embrace the series.

The Hollywood Reporter revealed earlier this month 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.

SOURCE: AMAZON

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‘Armor Wars’: Don Cheadle Says They’re Still Only In Early Development On The Disney+ Series

Coming off a bizarre Prime Time Emmy nomination for his extremely brief cameo in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, actor Don Cheadle is getting primed for his own solo series Armor Wars. However, during an interview with Colldier the actor revealed that show isn’t as far along as many imagined, as they’re only now breaking scripts in the next couple of weeks.

“All I know is that we’re going to go into the room in a couple of weeks and actually start trying to break the spine of the story and figure out who, what, when, and where for all of it. It’s super early in the development stages so I couldn’t even spoil it if I wanted to. I don’t know what happens,” Don Cheadle said of Armor Wars’ current status at Marvel Studios.

The project is expected to be an MCU adaptation of the Iron Man comic book run of the same name and will likely bring back folks like Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer and Emily VanCamp’s Sharon Carter/Power Broker.

What I think most will be curious about is if Armor Wars will connect to Dominique Thorne’s Marvel series Ironheart, which focuses on young prodigy Riri Williams, who builds her own armor suit. Given that Rhodey will be pursuing rogue Stark-tech, it’s possible the two could cross paths and I think fans wouldn’t mind a little superhero mentoring along the way.

This news on the status of Armor Wars isn’t all that surprising given that She-Hulk and Moon Knight are currently shooting with Secret Wars (their Skrull event series) expected to begin soon in the United Kingdom under the working title Jambalaya (still an expectation of a crossover with The Marvels cast). We also don’t have writers or directors officially attached to the series either.

This likely means Armors Wars won’t begin shooting until sometime in 2022 and won’t be ready for Disney+ until 2023, but that is only speculation on our part.

SOURCE: COLLIDER

Posted on in Television News

‘House Of The Dragon’ Pauses Production Due To COVID

WarnerMedia is going all-in on Game of Thrones as they’re developing multiple spinoff shows with House of The Dragon currently shooting in Watford, England. The project is based on George R.R. Martin’s novel Fire & Blood and focuses on various members of the powerful Targaryen family 300 years before the events of the original series.

Filming had begun in April, but Deadline has learned that production has paused for two days after a crew member has tested positive for COVID-19.

Deadline understands that a production member tested positive and in compliance with industry guidelines, will isolate and close contacts are required to quarantine. Production will resume on Wednesday.

The cast consists of Paddy Considine as King Viserys Targaryen, Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower, Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen, Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon (The Sea Snake), Eve Best as Princess Rhaenys Velaryon, Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower (The Hand of the King), Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria, Milly Alcock as Young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, and Emily Carey as Young Alicent Hightower.

Martin recently signed a five-year deal with HBO and could see even more Game of Thrones projects being developed. There have been previous reports that George R.R. Martin’s Knight of The Seven Kingdoms will be turned a series, titled Tales of Dunk & Egg, along with other projects in development such as Sea Snake aka The 9 Voyages, 10,000 Ships, and three animated projects as one will focus on The Grand Empire of Yi Ti (a fantasy version of Imperial China).

A Flea Bottom show has been killed by HBO, we’ll likely see more projects not make the finish line. The Long Night/Bloodmoon was a prequel series about the origin of The White Walkers that only shot a pilot and didn’t get a series pick-up.

House of The Dragon will begin airing sometime in 2022.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Television News

Season 3 Of ‘The Mandalorian’ Might Be Currently In Production & Won’t Air Until 2022

It looks like The Mandalorian will be ready to air on Disney+ sometime in 2022.

American Cinematographer has seemingly revealed that Season 3 of The Mandalorian has begun filming after doing a rundown of various productions using new advanced filming techniques, including ILM’s StageCraft. Below is an excerpt from their lengthy article where they mention the new season has started shooting.

Shows that planned to leverage in-camera VFX from the start include two that will be shot using StageCraft, Industrial Light & Magic’s real-time animation pipeline for LED volumes: The Book of Boba Fett, which will be released later this year, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, set for release in 2022. Both series will use the same volume initially built for The Mandalorian in Manhattan Beach, Calif. More Star Wars shows, including Andor, are in production at Pinewood Studios in England, where ILM has built another large StageCraft volume. Season 3 of The Mandalorian is now in production.

While they have zero reasons to make up news like this, normally, it helps to have either a trade or Lucasfilm/Disney to back this up. However, they’ve been sort of cagey with production details lately and we had to learn about Obi-Wan Kenobi’s shoot directly from Ewan McGregor as other folks weren’t talking to the press about it.

Season 2 ended with Grogu leaving with Luke Skywalker to be trained as a Jedi and Mando has acquired the Darksaber, making him the ruler of Mandalore and will likely lead to Bo-Katan challenging him at some point. It feels like a bigger Imperial threat has yet to be uncovered.

The Ronin can confirm that production designer Andrew Jones is back after working on Seasons 1-2 and The Book of Boba Fett.

Interestingly enough, Pedro Pascal’s The Last of Us series for HBO begins shooting this month in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and will likely pause shooting to allow him to film his scenes for Season 3 of The Mandalorian.

Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are coming off shooting The Book of Boba Fett with Robert Rodriguez along with both Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi still in production. It seems like Lucasfilm is burning the candles on both ends to double-up on their Star Wars content for Disney+ in the next year or so. However, it’s unclear when stuff like Ahsoka, Lando, The Acolyte, and Rangers of The New Republic will begin their shoots.

SOURCE: AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER

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EXCLUSIVE: FX’s Samurai Series ‘Shōgun’ Adds ‘Reprisal’ Director Jonathan van Tulleken

FX is finally moving forward with their long-gestating series remake of Shōgun that originally aired back in 1980 and starred legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune (Yojimbo, Seven Samurai) as Lord Yoshii Toranaga. Their new incarnation of the samurai series will be led by Hiroyuki Sanada and British actor Cosmo Jarvis.

It was written by Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, which is based on the novel from author James Clavell.

Shōgun is set in feudal Japan. It charts the collision of two ambitious men from different worlds and a mysterious female samurai: John Blackthorne (Jarvis), a risk-taking English sailor who ends up shipwrecked in Japan, a land whose unfamiliar culture will ultimately redefine him; Lord Toranaga (Sanada), a shrewd, powerful daimyo, at odds with his own dangerous, political rivals; and Lady Mariko, a woman with invaluable skills but dishonorable family ties who must prove her value and allegiance.

The Ronin can exclusively reveal that director Jonathan van Tulleken (Trust, Misfits, Top Boy, Reprisal) has signed on to the samurai series and will helm an undisclosed amount of episodes.

Sanada is currently busy with Chad Stahelski’s John Wick: Chapter 4 taking a role alongside franchise star Keanu Reeves and will appear in David Leitch’s Japanese-set action pic Bullet Train starring Brad Pitt. Other Hollywood credits include Westworld, The Last Samurai, Mortal Kombat, Army of The Dead, The Wolverine, Avengers: Endgame, Sunshine, Rush Hour 2, and 47 Ronin.

Production on will take place from late August to June of next year in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Speaking of Toshiro Mifune, Bryan Cogman (Game of Thrones, Amazon’s Lord of The Rings) is developing a contemporary series remake of Akira Kurosawa’s classic Yojimbo, that originally starred Mifune. Remakes from the west aren’t new for Yojimbo, as Sergio Leone did his version with A Fist Full of Dollars starring Clint Eastwood and there is the lesser known gangster version Last Man Standing from director Walter Hill that starred Bruce Willis.

Shōgun likely won’t be ready to drop until later in 2022.

Posted on in Television News

AMC Settles ‘Walking Dead’ Lawsuit From Frank Darabont & CAA For $200M; More Lawsuits Pending

Frank Darabont (The Mist, Shawshank Redemption) has been battling AMC in court for nearly a decade trying to get money owed from AMC Network as he was due to earn profits from the show The Walking Dead series, a billion-dollar franchise. Darabont was the writer/director that helped develop and launch the zombie drama series back in 2010 and essentially made AMC their name alongside Vince Gilligan’s superb Breaking Bad.

Yesterday, it was announced (via Variety) that AMC had settled with Darabont and CAA for $200 million.

The deal calls for AMC Networks to pay Darabont and CAA a total of $200 million. They will continue to receive a share of future profits from streaming deals tied to “The Walking Dead” and spinoff “Fear the Walking Dead.” But for all other “Walking Dead”-related content, the settlement buys out the plaintiffs’ rights.

Interestingly enough, Frank Darabont isn’t the only one suing to get their Walking Dead money from AMC as Gale Anne Herd, Glen Mazzara, Robert Kirkman, David Alpert, and Charles Eglee are also fighting them in court and launched their own suits back in 2017.

After Darabont and CAA filed the first salvo, “Walking Dead” executive producers Gale Anne Hurd, comic book creator Robert Kirkman, showrunner Glen Mazzara and exec producers David Alpert and Charles Eglee filed a similar suit in 2017.  That suit is still pending in Los Angeles Superior Court, with a trial expected to begin in November.

Everyone involved is rightfully owed money and AMC for whatever decided to stiff the majority of people involved with the series. Hopefully, they don’t have to wait a decade to see results. It’s amazing how much money AMC must have wasted on legal fees to only end up paying $200 million in the end, it’s almost like they should have honored the contracts to begin with. I guess greed is a huge motivator.

SOURCE: VARIETY

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‘Loki’ Director Kate Herron Announces She Won’t Be Involved With Season 2

This week, Marvel Studios finally confirmed their intentions to move forward with Season of Loki after the season finale ended on a Multiverse-shattering cliffhanger. However, not everyone will be returning for that second season as director Kate Herron has informed Deadline that she will not be returning and has seemingly exited the show.

“I’m not returning. I always planned to be just on for this and to be honest, season 2 wasn’t in the — that’s something that just came out and I’m so excited. I’m really happy to watch it as a fan next season, but I just think I’m so proud of what we did here and I’ve given it my all. I’m working on some other stuff yet to be announced,” Herron told Deadline in a recent interview about the end of the Loki series.

The director also said this about current plans to work with Marvel in the immediate future, “No, I’m just focused on my own stuff at the moment. I love Marvel and I’d love to work with them again, but my outing with Loki is what I’ve done with them.”

Kate Herron was a massive reason why Loki was such a fun experience and we’ll gladly follow her with whatever her future projects will be.

On a brighter side, head writer Michael Waldron is reportedly going to be still involved with Season 2 in some capacity and it’s expected the we’ll see a bulk of the cast return as well.

The Ronin caught word a while back that show would be filming something in the United Kingdom, but that didn’t end up happening and suggests that Season 2 might be moving location from Altanta to the London area. This still needs to be confirmed but it looks the United Kingdom might become a hub location for some of the Marvel/Disney+ shows as Secret Invasion is getting ready to shoot there in the very near future.

SOURCE: DEADLINE