WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE SEASON 2 FINALE OF THE MANDALORIAN
I would advise watching the Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian before reading any further.
A while ago it was reported by Deadline that a secret Boba Fett project for Disney+ had started production ahead of the Lucasfilm presentation where they revealed a heap of new films and series set in the Star Wars universe. Missing, however, was this Boba Fett project and know we know why.
Today, it was finally confirmed by Lucasfilm that the Boba Fett project is indeed happening and will be coming to Disney+ on December 2021 under the title of The Book of Boba Fett.
While the announcement itself isn’t considered a spoiler, how they did it might be.
The teaser footage was presented at the end of The Mandalorian Season 2 finale as a stinger with Fennec Shand and Boba Fett returning to Tatooine then taking over Jabba’s Palace by killing Bib Fortuna. Telegraphing that he’s now taking over that crime synicate which might tease what the upcoming project will be about, the gangs of Star Wars.
The assumption is that Temuera Morrison and Ming-Na Wen will star.
It’s still unclear if this is a full-on series with 8-episodes or simply a 4-episode limited series like Obi-Wan Kenobi.
We still don’t know who will be writing and directing the project but announcements will likely coming soon. This makes the third spinoff announced by Lucasfilm alongside series such as Rangers of The New Republic and Ahsoka, all three are assumed to be taking place within the timeline of The Mandalorian. Allowing further crossovers in the future.
Filming on The Suicide Squad spinoff series Peacemaker will begin next month in Vancouver and there are bunch of new cast/character announcements from James Gunn on his official Instagram account and HBO Max.
The four new additions include Chukwudi Iwuji as Clemson Murn, Lochlyn Munro as Larry Fitzgibbon, Annie Chang as Sophie Song, and Christopher Heyerdahl as Captain Locke.
They join a cast that already consists of John Cena as Christopher Smith aka Peacemaker, Steve Agee as John Economos, Danielle Brooks as Leota Adebayo, Robert Patrick as Auggie Smith, Jennifer Holland as Emilia Harcourt, and Chris Conrad as Adrian Chase aka Vigilante.
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.
While details about “Peacemaker” are being kept under wraps, the series will explore the origins of the character that Cena will play in the upcoming film, a man who believes in peace at any cost — no matter how many people he has to kill to get it.
Tomorrow will see the final episode of The Mandalorian Season 2 air on Disney+ and we know who will be directing that episode. During an interview with Extra, Pedro Pascal has now revealed that Peyton Reed will be back to direct the Season 2 finale.
Peyton Reed directed the fantastic second episode of this current season which featured the Frog Lady and the live-action version of the Krykna. The director is best known for Marvel’s Ant-Man, Ant-Man & The Wasp, and will shoot Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania next year.
We know that Grogu is in the hands of Moff Gideon and Mando will attempt to rescue him with a handful of his cohorts, how this all turns out remains to be seen and there have been speculation a Jedi may show up.
It’ll be a little while before we get more Star Wars as Andor just started shooting and Obi-Wan Kenobi won’t begin production until March. However, it’s very likely that Season 3 of The Mandalorian will begin filming soon if it hasn’t already. We’re getting a whole bunch of new shows on the horizon with Ahsoka, Rangers of The New Republic, and The High Republic era show The Acolyte.
We’re hearing there are more shows to be announced as well.
In a brief exchange with a fan on Vero, it looks like director Zack Snyder has revealed that his version of Justice League heading to HBO Max next year will be coming out sometime in March.
Zack Snyder has confirmed Zack Snyder’s Justice League will debut on HBO Max in March! pic.twitter.com/MnoIvmVEfe
The Ronin has been able to confirm that Skydance/Amazon has hired French director Thomas Vincent to helm an undisclosed amount of episodes for their new Jack Reacher series starring Alan Ritchson (Titans, Ghosts of War). The Amazon series is a hard reboot of the character previously played by Tom Cruise in two feature films released by Paramount Pictures and based on the novels written by author Lee Child.
The first season is said to be an adaption of the novel The Killing Floor.
Jack Reacher comes to the little town of Margrave looking for information about the mysterious death of a guitar player named Blind Blake. Instead, he finds one of the largest counterfeiting operations in history.
Vincent is likely best known for directing the first three episodes of the hit Netflix series Bodyguard that was led by Richard Madden (Game of Thrones, Eternals).
BODYGUARD – Set in and around the corridors of power, Bodyguard tells the story of David Budd (Richard Madden), a heroic, but volatile war veteran now working as a Specialist Protection Officer for London’s Metropolitan Police Service. When he is assigned to protect the ambitious Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes), Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs. Responsible for her safety, could he become her biggest threat?
We previously reported that filming is expected to kick-off around mid-April in Toronto.
They’ve also hired production designer Patricio M. Farrell, who worked on The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor.
Skydance is also behind Amazon’s Jack Ryan series starring John Krasinski and developing an original spy series starring Arnold Schwarzenegger for Netflix.
An unreliable rumor had made the rounds online that actor Pedro Pascal had a dust-up with producers over wearing the helmet on The Mandalorian and led to even more dubious claims that episodes would be reshot possibly with a new actor. All of this seems to have been debunked thanks to the episodes themselves but Pascal added his own two-cents while appearing on BBC’s The One Show to promote Wonder Woman 1984.
“That is not true, actually,” Pascal said. “It’s a really wonderful way of telling the story. It’s always been a very clear creed for the character, and the collaborative process of the whole thing has been, we’ve all been on the same page with this, I think. So I, you know, what I want is for them to make the best show possible, however they get that done.”
After the announcements from Lucasfilm that new Disney+ series Rangers of The New Republic and Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka would be set within the timeline of The Mandalorian there had been assumptions that Pascal could do crossovers. A brief comment from the actor to Comic Book suggests he’s at least open to the idea.
“Man, fingers crossed. How could you not?,” Pedro says. “This is like, this is something that’s so much bigger than all of us, and we’re all a passenger to it in a great way. And so, I find out, as it is decided and shared.”
This Friday will see the final episode of Season 2 and could inform us what to expect in Season 3.
The Obi-Wan Kenobi series will be directed by Deborah Chow (The Mandalorian) officially takes places 10 years after the events of Star Wars: Revenge of The Sith as announced by Lucasfilm during the Disney Investor Day presentation last week.
Kenobi actor Ewan McGregor made some interesting comments (spotted by The Playlist) on the upcoming Star Wars project which might hint that the limited series may actually leave Tatooine for off-world adventures.
MCGREGOR: “There’s a hunger for this character to come back. The fans have been waiting long enough, you know? We start on Tatooine, and we go on a rollicking adventure.”
What this could mean is pretty vague as some fans believe that we might get to see some gritty flashbacks to battles during the Clone Wars as General Kenobi giving more of a war-like edge to the prequels or possibly Obi-Wan reflecting on past adventures as a Jedi Knight. Also, it’s possible something else could drag Kenobi off-world like fellow Jedi in distress and during the development of the Sequel Trilogy there was chatter that Rey might have ended up part of the Kenobi family, something that could be explored in this project.
It’s worth mentioning that Hayden Christiensen is confirmed to reprise the role of Darth Vader in the series and having him arrive on Tatooine wouldn’t make a lot of sense as he simply arriving on the planet could sense a young Luke Skywalker’s presence. Then again, he had multiple interactions with Princess Leia without discovering she was his daughter. Having whatever interactions off-world with Obi-Wan Kenobi or through the force could be a better explanation of his involvement. Darth Vader is also under the impression his children died in childbirth and the Empire is possibly only seeking out former Jedi to kill them.
Having off-world adventures might be one of the ways to keep Luke Skywalker’s location on Tatooine kept a secret along with the knowledge that the Jed Knight is using the alias Ben Kenobi while hiding out on the planet or even there to begin with.
Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy confirmed that production would begin this March and that Andor is already three weeks into it’s UK production.
There are plenty of fans that are praying that the limited series could be the perfect excuse to bring in Legends characters such as Galen Marek aka Starkiller, a powerful character from the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed video games played by actor Sam Witwer (The Mist) that happened to be Darth Vader’s secret apprentice. He was slightly referenced in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story via Mads Mikkelsen’s character Galen Erso and before that with Starkiller Base in J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens. However, since he’s a Legends character he can be retrofitted to become whatever a specific project needs him to be and may simply turn Marek into one of the many force-sensitive Inquisitors that are tasked to hunt-down and kill Jedi for the Empire as seen in Star Wars: Rebels and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
The Mandalorian has established that most characters aren’t off the table for live-action adaptations as Legends character Grand Admiral Thrawn was repurposed for Star Wars: Rebels and a live-action version could show up on the Ahsoka series after being teased in Season 2 of The Mandalorian.
A release date for Obi-Wan Kenobi hasn’t been announced but sometime in 2022 wouldn’t be shocking that Andor is aiming for a release in 2022.
The Multiverse is going to be a huge part of the upcoming MCU projects and one of the more interesting one so far is the Loki series starring franchise-favorite actor Tom Hiddleston time-hopping after getting his hands on the Tesseract in Avengers: Endgame leading to him getting on the radar of the Time Variance Agency. A group of people that police the Multiverse in Marvel Comics and it looks like at some point Loki is recruited by them.
Loki is set to debut on Disney+ in May 2021 featuring the God of Mischief as he steps out of his brother’s shadow in a new series that takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Tom Hiddleston returns as the title character, joined by Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku and Richard E. Grant. Kate Herron directs Loki, and Michael Waldron is head writer.
One of the highlight of the news concerning the series seems to be Marvel’s confirmation that Lovecraft Country actress Wunmi Mosaku will be in the Multiverse show.
The trailer teases that Idris Elba‘s Heimdall could be appearing during the 1970s segment with Loki as the infamous criminal D.B. Cooper. Seeing Asgard again wouldn’t be shocking after a report from Deadline has suggested that Jaimie Alexander might be showing up in the Disney+ series as Lady Sif alongside Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love & Thunder.
After watching the series trailer, I’m really looking forward to the show as it feels like live-action version of Rick & Morty, the popular sci-fi animated series at Adult Swim.
As mentioned above Loki will begin airing on Disney+ starting in May.
During the Marvel Studios presentation at the Disney Investor Day, Kevin Feige revealed that Ms Marvel actress Iman Vellani would be co-starring with Brie Larson in Captain Marvel 2, but would be appearing first in Kamala Khan’s solo series first and would begin airing on Disney+ in late 2021.
The rest of the cast announced by Disney/Marvel will include Aramis Knight, Saagar Shaikh, Rish Shah, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Matt Lintz, Yasmeen Fletcher, Laith Naki, Azher Usman, Travina Springer and Nimra Bucha.
Ms. Marvel, launching on Disney+ in late 2021, is a new series that introduces Kamala Khan—a 16-year-old Pakistani-American growing up in Jersey City. A great student, an avid gamer and a voracious fan-fiction scribe, she has a special affinity for superheroes, particularly Captain Marvel. But Kamala struggles to fit in at home and at school—that is, until she gets super powers like the heroes she’s always looked up to. Life is easier with super powers, right?
The Badlands actor Aramis Knight confirmed on Instagram he’ll be playing Kareem aka Red Dagger.
Another interesting Marvel tidbit announced from the Disney Investor Day events last week is that the She-Hulk series has officially added director Anu Valia. Some of Anu’s credits include Love Life, A.P. Bio, Mixed-ish, and Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens. She also recently worked on the series Love, Victor.
Kat Corio had been previously named as one of the directors as well and was announced by Marvel.
She-Hulk, a new comedy series coming to Disney+, stars Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk/Jennifer Walters, a lawyer who specializes in superhuman-oriented legal cases. She-Hulk will welcome a host of Marvel characters to the series.
Kevin Feige confirmed during the Marvel presentation that the cast will include Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, and the return of Tim Roth‘s Emil Blonsky aka The Abomination. Roth previously playing the villain in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk and there had been previous rumors that Blonsky could be part of a Thunderbolts project.
Did he also tease that characters like lawyer Matt Murdock aka Daredevil or potential client Peter Parker aka Spider-Man might be showing up in the series? Check out the brief hint Kevin made below.
FEIGE: “And since Jennifer Walters is a lawyer that specializes specifically in superhero oriented legal cases you never know what Marvel characters might pop-up from episode to episode.”
I guess we’ll have to wait and see what characters he is actually teasing here.
However, it is worth mentioning that Spider-Man 3 director Jon Watts is working on a Fantastic Four film and She-Hulk at one time was a member on that roster, making her a strong contender to play a role in the MCU reboot alongside Spider-Man. Tom Holland’s Peter Parker originally made his comic book debut in the pages of Fantastic Four. However, if Holland’s finally MCU film is the Doctor Strange sequel it might be unlikely we’ll see him show up.
Filming on She-Hulk was reported to begin this March in Atlanta, Georgia which would suggest the series is heading towards a release in 2022 on Disney+.
THE RONIN 