It looks like another Star Wars series has begun production!
Rogue One actor Diego Luna mentioned on Jimmy Kimmel Live that filming on his untitled Cassian Andor prequel series has started in London (we have to assume he’s referring to Pinewood Studios UK). We’ll keep our fingers crossed he’ll finally have his wished granted and be able to touch Jabba.
Back in September, it was announced that Black Mirror’s Toby Haynes would be taking over as director as Tony Gilroy couldn’t do it. However, there is a chance Tony will be able to direct episodes later on. The cast for the Star Wars series includes Luna, Alan Tudyk, Adria Arjona, Denise Gough, Genevieve O’Reilly, Stellan Skarsgard, and Kyle Soller. Andor will skew more in the spy genre and might continue the tone established in Rogue One.
Since this series takes place before the ending of Star Wars: Rebels there is a good chance they could include the live-action incarnation of a character like Grand Admiral Thrawn that recently got a nod by Ahsoka Tano in The Mandalorian and we might eventually see the Imperial villain show up on Disney+ at some point. A series like Andor would be a perfect excuse to use him.
When the show is expected to drop on Disney+ remains a bit of mystery since they’re said to be currently shooting a Boba Fett project and Season 3 of The Mandalorian is going to be starting up soon. Ewan McGregor also said back in October that Kenobi would begin production sometime in March with Deborah Chow set to direct that series.
There are plenty of rumors concerning future Star Wars shows in development at Lucasfiilm with teases that Bo-Katan and Ahsoka Tano could land their own shows. Lucasfilm also announced an official one is coming from Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland that is reportedly going to be female-centric with martial arts elements.
The episode directed by Robert Rodriguez and sees the return of a pair of familiar faces.
Mando and Grogu head towards an ancient Jedi Temple on Tython (a planet from The Old Republic video game) to see if his path is meant towards that of a Jedi and if another Jedi will find/train him. They end up reaching the Seeing Stone at the top of mountain before a ship arrives that looks a lot like Boba Fett’s Slave-1 and Grogu activates the Seeing Stone reaching out into the force.
It’s indeed Temuera Morrison’s Boba Fett looking for his armor that Mando got from Cobb Vanth back on Tatooine revealing it was from his father Jango Fett and it was given to him by Mandalorians. Further revealing that Jango was a foundling and fought in the Mandalorian Civil Wars, which seemingly redeems the Fetts as true Mandalorians rather than scalawags.
Partnered with Ming-Na Wen’s Fennec Shand (confirms that Boba Fett rescued her) they threaten Grogu as Fett wants his armor back. During their chat another ship arrives but Mando can’t break Grogu’s force connection as a group of Stormtroopers land with Fett and Shand dispensing them. A second Imperial transport lands and Fett makes his way to the Razor Crest to get his armor finally we get the complete version of the bounty hunter.
As the Razor Crest is destroyed by Moff Gideon’s ship above thanks to the tracker and he releases the Dark Troopers (appear to be droids) who kidnap Grogu from the Seeing Stone but it seems like the little was able to make some contact. I’m sure everyone is curious who will ultimately reach out to find him.
The Dark Troopers were first teased in Chapter 12 but instead of having people inside the suits they seemed to be an Imperial combat droids and they also have the ability to fly because, what not? I have to assume given Din Djarin’s history with combat droids killing his parents this wasn’t done on a whim by Jon Favreau.
Fett and Shand agree to help Mando retrieve Grogu as he returns to Nevarro to ask Cara Dune’s help to spring Bill Burr’s Mayfeld from prison to help get on the Imperial ship. So it looks like in the next episode will be seeing the return of the surly Mayfeld.
The only thing that survives the ship being blown up is Mando’s beskar spear (bevii’ragir) that seemingly teases he’ll end up dueling with Moff Gideon’s Darksaber very soon. We’ve seen Mando have his ass handed to him on multiple occasions would he even be able to win a duel with Moff Gideon with his spear? Since we’ve really only seen him fight with guns?
I’ll be excited to see if this how they ultimately setup this Boba Fett spinoff series and it’s starring to look like Fennec Shand might be part of that cast as well.
Yesterday, was the official start of production on Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye series currently filming in New York City as Hailee Steinfeld was confirmed by set photos/footage in the role of Kate Bishop opposite of Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton aka Hawkeye.
Variety now reports Vera Farmiga, Florence Pugh, Fra Fee, Tony Dalton, Alaqua Cox, and Zahn McClarnon have joined the series.
Here is a rundown of the characters they’ll be playing.
Alaqua Cox is Maya Lopez aka Echo
Vera Farmiga is playing Kate Bishop’s mother Eleanor
Fra Fee is playing Kazi (thought to be villain Clown)
Tony Dalton is playing Jack Duquesne (thought to be Barton mentor Swordsman)
Zahn McClarnon is playing William Lopez (Maya’s father)
The Direct first reported Pugh’s involvement and return as Black Widow’s Yelena Belova.
Baron Strucker’s son Andreas von Strucker also took on the Swordsman persona in Thunderbolts.
It’s more of an info dump than we had been expecting considering how long it took to confirm Hailee Steinfeld as trades had really done a serious update on the Kate Bishop casting in a while. It’s interesting to see if Hawkeye will be using elements of Thunderbolts and if there will be a connection to The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.
HBO has announced via the official Game of Thrones Twitter account that filming on their spinoff series House of The Dragon will begin filming in 2021. The show will be a prequel that focuses on the great house of Targaryen.
Based on George R.R. Martin’s book Fire & Blood, the series will tell the story of House Targaryen (a.k.a. the House that gave us the Mother of Dragons herself, Daenerys Targaryen) and take place 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones.
They also included some concept artwork of the dragons.
Paddy Considine (Hot Fuzz, Macbeth) is the only officially announced actor and will play the role of King Viserys Targaryen.
Viserys was chosen by the lords of Westeros to succeed the Old King, Jaehaerys Targaryen, at the Great Council at Harrenhal. A warm, kind, and decent man, Viserys only wishes to carry forward his grandfather’s legacy, but as we’ve learned from Game of Thrones, good men do not necessarily make for great kings.
The original series and the previous prequel pilot were shot in Belfast, Northern Ireland and are expected to shoot there as well.
Amazon Studios have announced today 20 brand new casting additions to their massive Lord of The Rings series which is currently shooting in Auckland, New Zealand. After a pause due to COVID-19 had resumed filming back in September.
Their massive announcement sees the additions of actors such as Lenny Henry, Peter Mullan (Trainspotting, Children of Men), Lloyd Owen, Augustus Prew, Peter Tait, Benjamin Walker (Heart of The Sea, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), Cynthia Addai-Robinson (Arrow, Power), Simon Merrells, Maxim Baldry (finally confirmed by Amazon), Ian Blackburn, Kip Chapman, Anthony Crum, Maxine Cunliffe, Trystan Gravelle, Thusitha Jayasundera, Fabian McCallum, Geoff Morrell, Alex Tarrant, Leon Wadham, and Sara Zwangobani.
They join a cast that already consists of Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Nazanin Boniadi, Tom Budge, Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, and Daniel Weyman.
Amazon has yet to give an official synopsis of the series other than it will be taking place during the Second Age and covering the ancient kingdom of Numenor that did not appear in the previous two trilogies.
However, we are hearing that the Amazon series will attempt to deviate from the Peter Jackson series by potentially ignoring the established look of Middle-Earth along with redesigning both familiar creatures and the population. There is also a much more diverse cast this time around which hints this will be different enough from the past two trilogies.
It’s looking like ILM and not Weta Digital will be handling the visual effects on the show. There sadly hasn’t been even confirmation that Weta Workshop is involved either given that they’re shooting in proximity of Weta makes this even more upsetting.
Also, the series set during the Second Age is said to cover Sauron’s perversion of the advanced kingdom of Numenor (essentially J.R.R. Tolkien’s Atlantis) leading to Morgoth (Middle-Earth’s version of Lucifer and the first Dark Lord) cults and a splintering of the forces of man in the island kingdom by fueling their hatred towards the elves because of their immortality. Sauron (a Maia just like the wizards) in a much more pleasing form allows himself to be captured and taken to Numenor corrupting the population from within stoking resentment against the Elves rather than being an unseen villainous force hiding in the shadows.
We’re expecting to see the creation of the rings of power and potentially the origins of the nine Nazgul/Ringwraiths that were once men tricked by Sauron to take rings of power turning them into his unnatural servants via dark magic. Three are supposedly Numenorean Lords including the Witch King of Angmar, who is their leader and had a significant role in The Return of The King. It’s also expected we’ll see the ultimate destruction of Numenor forcing surviving inhabitants to the mainland along with the eventual Last Alliance leading to the defeat of Sauron. The latter I wouldn’t expect to happen for a very long time.
I’ll be keen to see if they’ll also attempt to purse the eastern part of Middle-Earth as that could be an equally interesting part to explore as the two Blue Wizards (Alatar/Morinehtar aka Darkness Slayer and Pallando/Rómestámo aka East Helper) operated there during the Second and Third ages, but have only been briefly referenced in the past. One of the Nazgul, Khamûl The Easterling aka Shadow of The East, is said to be a former Easterling King. We only got a glimpse of the Easterling forces in The Lord of The Rings as they were mostly made up of mercenaries or those loyal to Sauron, who had a strong presence in East along with Morgoth in the First Age.
There are also rumblings of Amazon taking a much more mature tone which wouldn’t be shocking given that director John Boorman (Excalibur, Zardoz) had once attempted a live-action film based on Lord of The Rings in the 1970s that would have included sex and hard violence for the era likely would have landed an R-rating. The Second Age is described as extremely dark in comparison to the Third Age with men’s lust for wealth/power/immortality combined with what is essentially devil worshiping cults and human sacrifices.
The streaming service has yet to announce when episodes will begin dropping on Prime Video.
Last week’s episode of The Mandalorian finally brought Ahsoka Tano into the realm of live-action with Rosario Dawson playing this incarnation of the former Jedi. We learned that she is on the trail of Star Wars: Rebels villain Grand Admiral Thrawn and would suggest that she still has a path in future episodes or unofficially in her own spinoff series.
Dawson stat down with the official Star Wars website for an interview where she revealed she would love to return to the character.
DAWSON: “I mean, I would love that opportunity. I think it’s so cool that this show exists. I think it’s so cool that I got to show up and give information about this character, the Child, that everyone’s loved so much. You know, that she was not so much showing up as a cameo, but really being a storytelling device for new fans that have fallen in love with yet another new character that we’re getting to see grow. Little Grogu is just amazing.”
“It’s interesting watching The Mandalorian, realizing you’re not seeing lightsabers, you’re not seeing a lot of what we love about Star Wars. It was really amazing to be able to have that gift of being able to bring that into this series and into this space, and I’m really grateful for that opportunity.”
While it’s easy to see Lucasfilm/Disney moving forward with Ahsoka’s own show it’s also possible that things could be planted for future seasons of The Mandalorian, such as Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan trying to retrieve the Darksaber from Moff Gideon. It’s unknown if either Ahsoka Tano or Bo-Katan will return with only three episodes left to air on Disney+ but there is a good shot they could comeback for future seasons or spinoffs.
Rosario Dawson also recently commented to Vanity Fair in their lengthy interview about the claims of transphobia and a lawsuit filed against her family.
Murphy’s Multiverse first had on set confirmation that Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit, Bumblebee, Dickinson) has taken the Kate Bishop role in Marvel’s Hawkeye series as they posted first set footage earlier today.
Now, a second video making it’s way on Twitter and Instagram has a much clearer look at Hailee Steinfeld and Jeremy Renner in the subway scene being shot in Brooklyn. Variety was first to report that Hailee was in the mix to play Clint Barton’s protege in the series who is likely to become part of the Young Avengers or a version of that team.
The Oscar nominated actress seemingly teased her involvement with a recent birthday post on Instagram that got rabid attention from fans.
UPDATE: Some high resolution photos are also on Twitter and HQ Celeb Corner as well.
The series is said to be based on the Matt Fraction run alongside villains from that comic and if they’re able to complete filming on schedule could be released before the end of 2021. Filming will return to Atlanta once the NYC shoot is completed.
We’re curious if we’ll end up seeing more cast announcements in the coming weeks as we only know about two cast members at the moment officially, despite the recent rumor of Florence Pugh joining them for an appearance as Yelena Belova.
Filming on Marvel’s Hawkeye series has officially started as a section of shooting is now taking place in a Brooklyn subway under the working title of Anchor Point.
The Hawkeye set, at least for today, is underground in the subway. Good luck getting any leaks. pic.twitter.com/4Pj1vmP5uu
Murphy’s Multiverse has posted what looks to be the first official footage from the Hawkeye set. The footage looks to be taken from someone’s phone from some distance and we don’t get a great look at Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton or what is expected to be Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop (according to the person who recorded the footage).
I personally can’t make out if it’s Hailee or not because of the quality of the video but my opinion likely doesn’t mean too much.
Because of the pandemic 2020 was the first year in ages that we didn’t get a brand new Marvel Studios release and 2021 looks like it will be an overload of content.
The Ronin first revealed back in August that The Falcon & The Winter Soldier’s debut had been bumped to 2021 and added a production order for upcoming shows which had been mostly on-point. We have another update tidbit to share as we’re hearing that both Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye are still expected to debut at some point in 2021 despite production hiccups due to COVID-19.
However, what is the plan now might change as time goes on.
The key thing will be how Disney+ plans to rollout their multiple MCU shows as WandaVision will kick-off on January 15th with Falcon, What-If…?, and Loki unclear where they’ll land on the streaming service’s schedule. WandaVision and Falcon’s delays will certainly help Disney+ keep more eyeballs on the service for the first half of the year.
She-Hulk and Moon Knight will not begin filming until March suggesting they won’t be ready until 2022.
Here is a reminder what the MCU film slate looks like.
Black Widow – May 7th 2021
Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings – July 9th, 2021
Eternals – November 5th, 2021
Spider-Man 3 December 17th, 2021
Thor: Love & Thunder – February 11th, 2022
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness March 25th, 2022
Black Panther 2 – May 6th, 2022 (Subject To Change)
Captain Marvel 2 – July 8th, 2022 (Subject To Change)
Deadline reports that Lucasfilm’s Disney+ series Willow, a sequel based on the original 1988 film, is in negotiations with a trio of actresses to take lead roles in the fantasy series from Solo: A Star Wars Story screenwriter Jonathan Kasdan and co-showrunner Wendy Mericle with star Warwick Davis expected to reprise the role of Willow.
Erin Kellyman (The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Green Knight) is said to be up for the role of Jade, Cailee Spaeny (Pacific Rim: Uprising, Bad Times At The El Royale) playing Kit and English actress Ellie Bamber (Nocturnal Animals) as Dove.
They also included some character information which you can see below which sounds like the show will be mostly female driven.
According to circulated casting information for the series, it revolves around a group on a mission to save a kidnapped prince. The members of the team include Dove (Bamber), whose backstory resembles that of Willow from the movie. Dove is an unassuming kitchen maid who proves that she is the “chosen one” as she embarks on the journey. She is joined by Kit (Spaeny), the princess whose twin brother was abducted. She is destined to be a leader and ultimately the queen. Kellyman plays Jade, a servant who is Kit’s best friend and moral compass. She is on her way to becoming the best young warrior in the kingdom. Also part of the group is a guy who echoes Val Kilmer’s character in the movie. A thief and liar, he joins the quest in exchange for getting out of prison.
Erin did her scenes in Solo: A Star Wars Story alongside Willow lead Warwick Davis.
Disney officially announced the series was moving forward last month in a press release.
Filming will be taking place in Wales with Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) set to direct the pilot.
WILLOW – Enter the world of “Willow.” Journey to the far corners of your imagination, to a land of myth and magic, where dream and reality live side by side … to a place that never existed, a time that never was. It is a world where a young man named Willow lives out an adventure that explodes beyond the boundaries of his own hopes and fears.
THE RONIN 