Category: Television News

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Liam Neeson Says Lucasfilm Didn’t Approach Him To Reprise Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn In The ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Series

Production is underway on the Obi-Wan Kenobi show in California but it sounds like we might not see the return of Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn despite The Phantom Menace star’s previous interest in reprising the Jedi Knight, even as just a force ghost.

The Irish actor appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to promote his upcoming action film The Ice Road and was directly asked about appearing in the Star Wars series.

Liam Neeson responding with the following statement after being asked if he would show up, “I heard Ewan McGregor was gonna do a series. No, I don’t think so. No, I haven’t been approached.”

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.

Thinking Neeson would return isn’t coming out of the blue, as fallen Jedi have been known to return as force ghosts and Star Wars: Revenge of The Sith directly mentioned that Qui-Gon Jinn had learned this ability to communicate from beyond the grave before he was killed at the hands of Darth Maul in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

The cast already consists of Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi aka Ben Kenobi, Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, Indira Varma, Kumail Nanjiani, Sung Kang, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Benny Safdie, Rupert Friend, Joel Edgerton as Uncle Owen, Moses Ingram, Bonnie Piesse as Aunt Beru, Maya Erskine, and Simone Kessell.

The inclusion of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru has all but confirmed we’ll see a young version of Luke Skywalker.

Deborah Chow (The Mandalorian) is directing with Joby Harold (Army of The Dead) acting as the showrunner.

There is an expectation that Obi-Wan Kenobi will debut on Disney+ sometime in 2022 and has seen it’s episode count bumped to six.

SOURCE: JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!

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‘The Book of Boba Fett’: Temuera Morrison Confirms Robert Rodriguez Directed Episodes & Explores The Bounty Hunter’s Past

At the end of Season 2 of The Mandalorian, it was announced that we would be getting a spinoff series The Book of Boba Fett, as there was a sequence with Fett taking over the criminal syndicate on Tatooine after the events of The Rescue. The scene also confirmed that Temuera Morrison and Ming-Na Wen would be reprising their roles.

We were shocked when Lucasfilm announced it would be the next live-action Star Wars series and it was eventually revealed that The Mandalorian Season 3 would be taking a back seat as Deborah Chow’s Obi-Wan Kenobi started production on those same California stages and The Volume located at Mahattan Beach Studios.

It had all been assumed when Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror, Desperado, Alita: Battle Angel) was announced as part of the producing team he would be directing as well. Actor Temuera Morrison has now confirmed this while speaking with Rotten Tomatoes and mentioned how the Star Wars series would tackle the Bounty Hunter’s past.

“Well, we can’t say too much, but we’re going to see his past and where he’s been since The Empire Strikes Back. Somebody pointed out he’s been kind of stuck in this one place, and now’s the time to actually go back in time and check out his journey and find out more about him.They brought Robert back in to direct a few more. There’s some wonderful directors involved,” Morrison told Rotten Tomatoes.

There is a previous assumption that Favreau and Filoni have helmed episodes too.

Filming has wrapped on The Book of Boba Fett as revealed on Twitter by Fennec Shand actress Ming-Na Wen showing off some wrap gifts. I guess we’ll have to wait patiently for confirmation about who will be appearing from The Mandalorian and what new actors have joined the Star Wars project.

Disney announced that The Book of Boba Fett will debut later this year.

SOURCE: ROTTEN TOMATOES

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‘She-Hulk’: Marvel Taps Jameela Jamil To Play Super-Strong Baddie & Gamma Flight Member Titania In The Disney+ Series

Marvel’s She-Hulk series is well into it’s production with Emmy-winners Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) and Mark Ruffalo starring. We finally have a villain on the show as it was originally reported by The Illuminerdi that Jameela Jamil (The Good Place) would be playing Titania, which was later backed-up by the trades.

Titania aka Mary MacPherran Creel, happens to be the wife of Hulk super-villain Carl “Crusher” Creel aka The Absorbing Man, the two happen to be on the Gamma Flight roster. A character the appeared in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (non-canon series) and was reworked in Ang Lee’s Hulk movie giving Bruce’s father David Banner that power-set.

We believe there is a good shot we might see an official Marvel Cinematic Universe incarnation of Creel in the show given his connection to Titania alongside the need to have super-strong and formidable villains that can give Jennifer and Bruce a run for their money. That’s likely a big reason that The Incredible Hulk’s Tim Roth is back as Emil Blonsky aka Abomination, we’ll keep our fingers crossed that Marvel will give the villain a design overhaul for the series incarnation since the last version was terribly inaccurate and didn’t really work.

The 10-episode series will be directed by Kat Coiro and Anu Valia with Emmy-winner Jessica Gao (Rick & Morty) set as head writer. It’s crew consists of 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 recently posted by actress Anais Almonte (Gotham, The Punisher) confirmed her involvement and officially announced that production is indeed happening in Atlanta, Georgia.

She-Hulk will likely debut on Disney+ sometime in the second half of 2022. Given the extensive visual effects involved and multiple motion-capture characters, we shouldn’t expect to see it arrive before the summer of next year, but we’ll certainly update if that changes.

SOURCE: THE ILLUINERDI

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EXCLUSIVE: Otto Bathurst Attached To Direct & Produce Arthurian Series ‘Warlord Chronicles’ For Epix

Back in January 2020, TV Line reported that Epix will be developing a series, Warlord Chronicles, based on The Warlord Trilogy from author Bernard Cornwell. The three books that take place within the world of King Arthur are titled The Winter King, Enemy of God, and Excalibur.

The Ronin has since learned that Otto Bathurst is attached to Warlord Chronicles as both director and producer. Otto’s experience with television includes shows such as Peaky Blinders, Black Mirror, His Dark Materials, and the Amblin Television live-action Halo series that will air on Paramount+ in 2022.

THE WINTER KING – A former warrior sworn to Arthur and now an elderly monk, Derfel tells the story of how Arthur became a warlord in Dark Age Britain despite illegitimacy to the throne. After being banished to Armorica by his father, the High King Uther Pendragon, Arthur returns to protect the new king, his infant nephew Mordred.

Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe novels was developed into a British television series starring Game of Thrones star Sean Bean and The Saxon series adapted into Netflix’s The Last Kingdom.

It was recently announced that Bathurst’s BBC London gangster series Peaky Blinders starring Cillian Murphy would be ending after Season 6 as mentioned by outlets like Variety.

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‘Andor’ Series Will Have Forest Whitaker Reprising His ‘Rogue One’ Character Saw Gerrera

Lucasfilm is still shooting the 12-episode run of of their Rogue One: A Star Wars Story prequel series, Andor, focusing on the Rebellion spy played by Diego Luna.

There is now news that a familiar face from Rogue One is indeed returning.

Actor Stellan Skarsgard has revealed in a new interview with Swedish radio station Sverige Radio (spotted by The Playlist) that Rogue One’s Forest Whitaker will reprise the role of Saw Gerrera in the Andor series and the two will share some screen time together. If you’re confused, Andor takes places years before the events of Rogue One allowing the character to return for the series.

Whitaker also reprises the Gerrera role in the video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

Joining Luna and Skarsgard in the Star Wars show will be Adria Arjona (Morbius), Denise Gough, Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma, Robert Emms (Chernobyl), Fiona Shaw, and Kyle Soller. 

Toby Haynes (Sherlock, Doctor Who, Utopia, Black Mirror) will be directing with a writing team that includes Tony Gilroy (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler), Beau Willimon (House of Cards), and Stephen Schiff (The Americans).

Andor’s 12-episode run will debut on Disney+ sometime in 2022.

SOURCE: SVERIGE RADIO

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‘Kong: Skull Island’ Actor Eugene Cordero Reunites With Tom Hiddleston In The First ‘Loki’ Episode

There was an interesting reunion in the first episode of Loki as comedian Eugene Cordero (The Good Place, Star Trek: Lower Decks) has a small role as a Time Variance Agency employee named Casey.

Cordero appeared alongside Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, and Samuel L. Jackson in the Monsterverse film Kong: Skull Island playing one of the soldiers. He also appeared in Season 1 of The Mandalorian as one of the farmers that begs Mando to protect their village from bandits, making the comedian part of two rather large universes now.

Loki tracks down Casey to get his hands on the Tesseract, only to discover that in the TVA cosmic and magic power doesn’t work. His desk drawer is full of infinity stones as they’re just shiny objects that are often used as paperweights in the office.

We’ll have to keep watching the series to see if Eugene’s character is just a one-time thing.

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EXCLUSIVE: Marvel’s ‘Secret Invasion’ Adds ‘Future Man’ Cinematographer Sylvaine Dufaux

The Ronin has been able to confirm that Marvel Studios’ big Skrull crossover event series Secret Invasion has added French-Canadian cinematographer Sylvaine Dufaux (Future Man) to the production team as they continue to assemble the cast. Dufaux also did various camera/director of photography work on films such as Solo: A Star Wars Story, Source Code, The Fountain, Destin Daniel Cretton’s The Glass Castle, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, John Wick: Chapter 2, and The United States vs. Billie Holiday.

You can check out some of her recent work on Season 3 of the Hulu sci-fi comedy series Future Man below.

In the comics, Secret Invasion focuses on the reveal that multiple people in power and even superheroes have been replaced with an alien race with the ability to shape-shift, called the Skrulls. They were first introduced in Captain Marvel as peaceful cosmic refugees and covered for Nick Fury and Maria Hill while they were seemingly off-world having a space station built (for S.W.O.R.D.?), as seen at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home.

We previously revealed the Disney+ show’s working title will be Jambalaya, while shooting in the United Kingdom. Other Marvel projects confirmed to shoot across the pond are Moon Knight, The Marvels, Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, and Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3.

Secret Invasion’s impressive cast already consists of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Ben Mendelsohn as Skrull leader Talos, Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (The Favourite, Hot Fuzz, The Crown), four-time Emmy nominee Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, Solo: A Star Wars Story), Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night In Miami, Peaky Blinders) said to be playing a villain, and most recent addition to the Marvel series is character actor Christopher McDonald (Hacks, Happy Gilmore).

I wouldn’t be shocked if cast members from The Marvels ended up appearing in Secret Invasion, given the two projects are expected to have S.W.O.R.D. playing a major role in them.

The show’s head writer is Kyle Bradstreet with directors Thomas Bezhucha (Let Him Go) and Ali Selim (The Looming Tower) recently announced.

Secret Invasion will debut on Disney+ sometime in 2022.

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‘Halo’: Pablo Schreiber Teases The Paramount+ Series Has Finally Wrapped Filming

A few months back, it was announced that a brand new live-action Halo series from Amblin Television would be moving from Showtime to Paramount’s streaming service Paramount+, formerly known as CBS All Access.

An epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant. Halo will weave deeply drawn personal stories with action, adventure and a richly imagined vision of the future.

The sci-fi streaming series will see Den of Thieves and American Gods actor Pablo Schreiber (younger brother of Liev Schreiber) playing Master Chief in the 10-episode run.

The Canadian actor has been posting regularly on his Instagram account giving fans updates on Halo’s shoot. Cameras eventually started rolling again last November as announced by the actor and it looks like things have wrapped or are about to, thanks to the latest Instagram post from Schreiber teasing he’s about to leave Budapest, Hungary.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPyLSZYBBm-/

Budapest stages have been previously used for high-profile sci-fi projects such as Blade Runner 2049 and Dune.

We should expect some high-level action sequences as stunt coordinator Tom Struthers worked on the first season before recently moving on to Season 3 of Jack Ryan at Amazon. Struthers’ impressive feature film credits include Dunkirk, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, X-Men: First Class, Terminator Salvation, John Carter, and Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune remake.

Halo’s cast consists of Bookem Woodbine, Charlie Murphy, Olive Gray, Kate Kennedy, Yerin Ha, Jen Taylor, Shabana Azmi, Bentley Kalu, Natasha Culzac, and Danny Spani.

Otto Bathurst, Joanthan Liebesman, Roel Reine, and Jessica Lowery are directing various episodes.

At one time, director Neill Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson were developing Halo as a feature film for 20th Century Fox before the project was killed as Blomkamp and Jackson pivoting to make District 9 instead.

Halo will officially debut on Paramount+ in 2022.

SOURCE: PABLO SCHREIBER

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‘Star Wars’ Spy Series ‘Andor’ Adds Robert Emms From ‘Chernobyl’

Lucasfilm is deep into production in England on their Star Wars series starring Diego Luna as the rebellion spy Cassian Andor from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but there has been another addition to the show’s cast. British actor Robert Emms has nabbed a mystery role in the Disney+ series according to a report by Deadline. He’s been seen in things such as His Dark Materials, Chernobyl, and War Horse.

Joining Diego Luna will be Adria Arjona (Morbius), Denise Gough, Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma, Stellan Skarsgard (Thor, Dune, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), Fiona Shaw, and Kyle Soller. Originally, Alan Tudyk was announced to reprise his role as the smart-mouthed droid K-2SO, but had recently revealed to Collider that he was unlikely going to be involved with Season 1 due to changes made by Tony Gilory when he joined the project and rewriting episodes. He also inadvertently teased Andor would be getting multiple seasons.

TUDYK: “They’re shooting it right now, I’m not in it. But, if it stays on the air, stories keep getting told, I’ll end up in there.I’m going to be in the show. It’s just that the story that Tony [Gilroy] is telling doesn’t involve K-2SO until later on… I can’t be too specific, but I can definitely say that I’m not going to be in the first season.”

Given the show’s setting is five years before Rogue One, this could allow them to cover multiple seasons exploring the Rebellion spy.

Toby Haynes (Sherlock, Doctor Who, Utopia, Black Mirror) will be directing with a writing team that includes Tony Gilroy (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler), Beau Willimon (House of Cards), and Stephen Schiff (The Americans).

Some photos from the set of Andor in England have made their way online and confirm that the Shoretroopers, introduced in Rogue One: A Story Story, will be making their return on the show, which takes place five years before the events of Rogue One. The well-designed troopers had previously appeared briefly on Season 2 of The Mandalorian.

Andor’s 12-episode run will debut on Disney+ sometime in 2022.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

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EXCLUSIVE: Brad Anderson Joins The Directing Team On HBO Max Series ‘Peacemaker’

The Ronin can confirm that veteran director Brad Anderson is the latest person added to the directing team on James Gunn’s Peacemaker series starring John Cena. Anderson’s credits include the Christian Bale thriller The Machinist, Beirut starring Jon Hamm and Rosamund Pike, Fringe, Boardwalk Empire, The Wire, The Shield, Treme, The Killing, Almost Human, The Man In The High Castle, Treadstone, and Titans.

The HBO Max show is a direct spinoff of Gunn’s upcoming film The Suicide Squad.

Oh f*ck, it’s Peacemaker! HBO Max is set to explore the origins of the Peacemaker character, the master of weapons from the highly anticipated upcoming The Suicide Squad film, in the new Max Original action-adventure-comedy series Peacemaker. HBO Max has given a straight-to-series order of eight episodes for the first season of the show. John Cena will reprise his role from The Suicide Squad movie to star in the series, and the film’s acclaimed writer/director James Gunn will write all eight episodes of Peacemaker and will direct multiple episodes, including the first.

We previously reported that Jody Hill (Observe & Report, Eastbound & Down) is also directing on the DC Comics series alongside James Gunn and Rosemary Rodriguez (Jessica Jones).

Peacemaker is said to debut January 2022 on HBO Max.

THE SUICIDE SQUAD – Welcome to hell—a.k.a. Belle Reve, the prison with the highest mortality rate in the US of A. Where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out—even join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X. Today’s do-or-die assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2, Savant, King Shark, Blackguard, Javelin and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn. Then arm them heavily and drop them (literally) on the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Trekking through a jungle teeming with militant adversaries and guerrilla forces at every turn, the Squad is on a search-and-destroy mission with only Colonel Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave…and Amanda Waller’s government techies in their ears, tracking their every movement. And as always, one wrong move and they’re dead (whether at the hands of their opponents, a teammate, or Waller herself). If anyone’s laying down bets, the smart money is against them—all of them.