Yesterday, Netflix officially announced they’ve teamed with video game developer CD Projekt Red and Japanese animation studio Trigger Studio for a new animated series titled Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. The new series will be directly set within the universe of their upcoming video game Cyberpunk 2077.
The futuristic video game set in the fictional Night City mixes RPG and first-person-shooter elements. It also takes a massive amount of visual cues from the R-rated comic book film Dredd.
Here is the official press release for the upcoming anime series.
Netflix, CD Projekt Red, and Studio Trigger announce an all new original anime series CYBERPUNK: EDGERUNNERS set in the same universe as the upcoming game, Cyberpunk 2077. The series will premiere in 2022.
CYBERPUNK: EDGERUNNERS tells a standalone, 10-episode story about a street kid trying to survive in a technology and body modification-obsessed city of the future. Having everything to lose, he chooses to stay alive by becoming an edgerunner—a mercenary outlaw also known as a cyberpunk.
CD PROJEKT RED, the company behind the Cyberpunk 2077 video game, is producing the series, with a creative team formed of talent from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Cyberpunk 2077. The team at CD PROJEKT RED has been working on this new series since 2018.
Acclaimed Japan-based animation company, Studio Trigger, will serve as the animation studio on the series and bring the world of Cyberpunk to life with their signature, vibrant style. Hiroyuki Imaishi (Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill, Promare) will direct the series along with assistant director Masahiko Otsuka (Gurren Lagann, Promare), creative director Hiromi Wakabayashi (Kill la Kill) , character designer Yoh Yoshinari (Little Witch Academia, BNA: Brand New Animal) and Yuto Kaneko (Little Witch Academia), and the adapted screenplay by Yoshiki Usa (SSSS.GRIDMAN, Promare) and Masahiko Otsuka (Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill, Promare). The original score will be composed by Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill series).
This isn’t the first CD Projekt Red project Netflix has adapted as they turned their mature fantasy game The Witcher into a series starring Henry Cavill.
They’ve also included a teaser poster for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
As mentioned before it will drop sometime in 2022.
New Zealand’s Star News says that fellow Kiwi outlet, The New Zealand Herald, is reporting from an “insider” that production on Amazon’s billion-dollar Lord of The Rings series is expected to resume shooting next month. Filming had paused in mid-March due concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amazon’s giant Lord of the Rings shoot is set to resume in West Auckland next month, an insider earlier told the Herald.
The original story is behind a paywall.
It’s certainly believable they could begin next month as last week 20th Century Studios/Disney resumed filming on James Cameron’s Avatar sequels at Wellington’s Stone Street Studios. New Zealand is also in a better position to resume film and television productions than places like the United States. As America is still dealing with a prolonged first wave of coronavirus with staggering amounts of new cases popping up in various states like Texas.
Production on the Lord of The Rings series is expected to take place in Auckland.
It’s cast is said to include Robert Aramayo (Game of Thrones), Morfydd Clark, Ema Horvath, Joseph Mawle, Markella Kavenagh, Owain Arthur, Nazanin Boniadi, Tom Budge, Ismael Cruz Cordova (The Mandalorian), Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomevete, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, and Daniel Weyman.
The new series is confirmed to take place during the Second Age of Middle-Earth which likely means the show could potentially follow the rise and fall of franchise baddie, Sauron. The Second Age is set thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings trilogy.
We’ll have to wait for official word from the show’s Twitter account that would likely be the place that an announcement is going to be made by Amazon about filming resuming.
Apple has released the first look trailer footage from their upcoming science-fiction series Foundation, based on the classic novels written by visionary author Isaac Asimov.
Foundation is set to be released on Apple TV+ sometime in 2021.
Based on the award-winning novels by Isaac Asimov, Foundation chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire.
This week’s roundup is mostly female-centric and some interesting characters might be heading to the MCU.
Salma Hayek Teasing Reshoots On The Way For ‘Eternals’
Eternals actress Salma Hayek, who plays the team’s leader Ajak, has seemingly revealed on Instagram that the film is returning for reshoots very shortly.
HAYEK: “In anticipation for reshoots, I finally had to do my roots.”
The film had been mainly shooting at Pinewood Studios UK under the working title Sack Lunch and will be getting pick-ups/reshoots like with every other MCU movie. Where the Eternals reshoots will take place is a little unclear as Georgia and California tend to be where reshoots normally happen, which might be tough considering the United States is seeing a steep rise in new coronavirus cases.
However, the United Kingdom reportedly will be reopening productions next month starting with Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion at Pinewood.
Eternals recently saw it’s release date bumped from November 6th to February 12th, 2021. Hopefully, it’s able to stick to that date and it isn’t further delayed.
J.K. Simmons Confirms He Filmed His Next Appearance As J. Jonah Jameson and Expects To Do Another One Soon
As Spider-Man 3’s production start is a bit of a question mark, actor J.K. Simmons has revealed he has filmed his next appearance as the Spider-Man character during an interview on SirusXM.
SIMMONS: “There is one more JJJ apparence in the can and from what I’m hearing there is a plan for yet another one. Hopefully, JJJ will continue now and forever.”
This would suggest he’s either showing up in Morbius or Venom 2 aka Venom: Let There Be Carnage, there had been some teases that this would be happening and Jameson might be the glue that connects all the Sony/Marvel films. The latter part would likely mean he’s coming back for Spider-Man 3, which has been assumed since the cliffhanger ending of Spider-Man: Far From Home.
When Spider-Man 3 will begin shoot isn’t concrete at the moment as it originally was going to shoot over the summer once Tom Holland wrapped on Sony’s Uncharted film.
Amanda Seyfried Passed On Gamora Role In ‘Guardians of The Galaxy’ Over The Extensive Makeup
While speaking with Comic Book, actress Amanda Seyfried revealed that the makeup was a huge reason why she passed on the Gamora role in James Gunn’s Guardians of The Galaxy, citing Jennifer Lawrence’s experience playing Mystique in X-Men: First Class.
SEYFRIED: “I think about it often [laughs]. I’m not really a Marvel movie watcher, which is, I think, why I was just like, ‘Ah, I don’t wanna be green. It’s just so much work.’ I remember Jennifer Lawrence talking about once, how long it took her to get blue. And I was like, ‘That seems like hell on earth,’ because then you get to set and you’re only there for a couple hours, and then you have to take everything off. And that was literally the reason.”
Zoe Saldana ended up in the role and is expected to reprise Gamora once again in Guardians of The Galaxy 3.
‘Loki’ Actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw Comments On The Disney+ Series
British actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw took some time to speak with Variety on their podcast The Big Ticket and gave some interesting insight to both director Kate Herron and co-star Tom Hiddleston.
MBATHA-RAW: “I feel like even though you’re dealing with this big universe, [Kate Herron] still makes it feel very intimate. She just brings it back down to character and moments and emotions.”
“Obviously, it’s a big part of our culture, so I had a huge awareness of it and it’s funny because I actually went to drama school at the same time as Tom Hiddleston. Ten years ago when I first came out here to do a TV pilot, ‘Under Covers,’ he was shooting the first ‘Thor’ at the same time. I remember him telling me about this experience of this new movie that he was doing.”
Loki paused production months back in Atlanta, Georgia when the pandemic forced the shutdown. There has been speculation that filming might resume next month but that has yet to be made official and might not be ready to begin airing on Disney+ until sometime in 2021.
Marvel Rumored To Be Considering Adding Echo, Firestar, and Lucia Von Bardas To The MCU
A handful of rumors concerning a trio of female characters that Marvel Studios wants to introduce to the Marvel Cinematic Universe had been making the rounds over the last week. As with all rumors take these a pinch of salt since where these ladies might show up isn’t being mentioned.
MARIA LOPEZ AKA ECHO (via Murphy’s Multiverse): Charles Murphy is making an excellent assumption based on a recent casting call from casting director Sarah Finn. However, admittedly wasn’t able to say definitely where she might show up and even mentioned this may be a casting call related to a Star Wars series as Finn is also tackling that franchise.
ANGELICA JONES AKA FIRESTAR (via Daniel Richtman): While the character is best known from the animated series Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends, the character being a mutant means she is secured under the Marvel Studios rights umbrella and not Sony. There are already rumblings that mutant Takeshi Matsuya aka Whiz Kid (a fellow mutant) could be showing up in Shang-Chi. Daniel is unsure where Jones might show up despite her connections to Spider-Man.
LUCIA VON BARDAS (via MCU Cosmic): This one implies that Marvel is already working on introducing Latveria as Lucia von Bardas is from the fictional nation that is led by Fantastic Four supervillain Doctor Doom, she becomes the Prime Minister of Latveria. While there had been rumblings in the past that a new Fantastic Four film was in development stages and on the cusp of an announcement, that seemed to be premature or simply false. Noah Hawley had been recently speaking with Marvel about his solo Doctor Doom movie that he was originally developing for 20th Century Fox before the merger. As with the other two rumors, Jeremy isn’t ready to proclaim or even guess where Lucia will first appear.
Another director has confirmed their involvement with the upcoming Season 2 of The Mandalorian. While speaking to Collider in a recent interview, Bryce Dallas Howard has confirmed that she indeed has directed an episode of The Mandalorian for Season 2. Bryce having previously helmed the episode titled Sanctuary in Season 1.
She joins a directing group that includes Robert Rodriguez (confirmed by myself at HN Entertainment), Jon Favreau, Carl Weathers, Peyton Reed (first revealed by Charles Murphy), and a returning Dave Filoni.
It remains to be seen if others will be confirmed as James Mangold debunked a rumor that he was involved with Season 2. Bryce had also been previously rumored for a return but this is the first official confirmation.
Also, Collider was able to speak with Extraction director Sam Hargrave earlier in the month, who confirmed to them he handled the second unit directing on the series.
HARGRAVE: “They actually came to me. It’s crazy. I was in the middle of post [-production on Extraction] and I’m editing my movie and I got a call from my buddy Colin Wilson, one of the line producers, who said, ‘Jon [Favreau] and the people over here are looking for someone to bring into the team or add to the family who has experience with action.’ The team that was there did a great job in the first season and it was just all fun. But they wanted to build on that and bring a new perspective and take it to another level for the next season. So, I was like, ‘That sounds like a fun challenge.'”
“I like the people over there — Favreau’s great — so I went over and it was a really fascinating adventure. They have a crazy way of shooting. Some of the stuff is traditionally shot, with the live-action and blue screen on the backlot, but they’ve also got this technology called ‘The Volume’ where it’s just, like, the inside of a live game engine. It’s quite insane what technology nowadays is available to filmmakers. It was really eye-opening, the potential of this technology that Jon and they guys had been working on. It was a really fun learning experience.”
Sam is best known as a stuntman/stunt coordinator but recently had his directorial debut with the Netflix action film Extraction starring Chris Hemsworth that had a script penned by Avengers: Endgame co-director Joe Russo.
Hargrave’s previous second unit work includes films such as Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde, and The Accountant.
Photography on the Star Wars series luckily wrapped up back in March before the pandemic essentially shut down most of the film and television industry. According to recent comments from Jon Favreau, post-production is moving smoothly and they’ll likely hit their targeted release date in October on Disney+.
Season 3 of The Mandalorian is said to be already in development stages with Jon Favreau returning.
Today, it was announced by Hulu via the Solar Opposites Instagram account that their mature animation series has been given two more seasons. Which means we can expect the show to become important in attracting new audiences at the streaming service.
SOLAR OPPOSITES – Co-created by Justin Roiland (Rick & Morty) and Mike McMahan (ex-writer’s assistant on Rick & Morty), Solar Opposites centers around a team of four aliens who escape their exploding homeworld only to crash land into a move-in ready home in suburban America. They are evenly split on whether Earth is awful or awesome. Korvo (Justin Roiland) and Yumyulack (Sean Giambrone) only see the pollution, crass consumerism, and human frailty while Terry (Thomas Middleditch) and Jesse (Mary Mack) love humans and all their TV, junk food and fun stuff. Their mission: protect the Pupa, a living supercomputer that will one day evolve into its true form, consume them, and terraform the Earth.
Ewan McGregor earlier in the year revealed on the Birds of Prey red carpet that the Kenobi series would be pushing it’s start date from the summer to January 2021. This was due to script issues and Lucasfilm ended up hiring Joby Harold (King Arthur: Legend of The Sword, Army of The Dead) to do rewrites for the Star Wars series that will be directed by Deborah Chow.
Ace Universe was able to speak with Ewan McGregor, where he revealed that they’re expected to be using the StageCraft visual effects on the untitled Kenobi series that were employed in Season 1-2 of The Mandalorian.
MCGREGOR: “[The prequels] were all blue screen and green screen and it was hard to imagine, but nowadays I think things have moved on so much, and I think a lot of what you see is gonna be what we see on the set. I don’t know if you’ve seen the behind-the-scenes of The Mandalorian series, but they employ that incredible screen…it’s pretty amazing. It makes you feel like you’re in the place, it’s going to feel realer for us, as actors. And I think we’ll be using some of that technology on our show.”
You can check out the entire interview conducted by ACE host Angélique Roché below.
Hopefully, they’ll be able to be able to begin shooting in January as planned and if that happens there is a good chance that we’ll end up seeing the Kenobi series ready to air on Disney+ sometime between late 2021 and early/mid-2022.
Another week, another batch of interesting stories concerning upcoming Marvel films and shows.
Anthony Mackie Says ‘The Falcon & The Winter Soldier’ Has Very Little To Do Before Wrapping
While speaking with Jimmy Fallon, MCU star Anthony Mackie revealed they only have a little bit more to shoot whenever The Falcon & The Winter Soldier is allowed to resume filming.
MACKIE: “Well, I’m happy to say we are not canceled, we are on hold. So, we’re going back, hopefully, sometime soon to finish it up. We have very little stuff to do.”
This lines-up with recent comments from Steven Soderbergh that his crime flick Kill Switch was expected to begin shooting in two weeks when productions across the globe were placed on pause. Winter Soldier’s Sebastian Stan was set for a lead role in Kill Switch, which would have meant he expected to have completed the Disney+ series by that time.
Marisa Tomei Hopes Aunt May’s Professional Life Is Highlighted In ‘Spider-Man 3’
Marisa Tomei is on the promotion tour for her new film The King of Staten Island and revealed to Screen Rant what she’d like to see happen with Aunt May in the upcoming Spider-Man sequel.
TOMEI: “Well, I’ve had her – [director] Jon Watts and I always talked about her being a community organizer. And hopefully, that track will expand and be part of this one, as well.”
When Spider-Man 3 (aka Serenity Now) begins filming is a large question mark, as it was set to shoot mostly in the United States, and the country in the middle of a pandemic. Sony Pictures had wanted Tom Holland to shoot their Uncharted feature film before moving on to the Spidey sequel, which had set to begin shooting back in March in Germany before global film production was placed on hold due to the Coronavirus.
There is now an expectation that Uncharted will resume first because pre-production was completed and sets are ready to go. While where Marvel Studios is concerning Spider-Man 3 is a bit unknown given that set construction wasn’t likely happening during stay-at-home orders.
Wolverine Villains Connected To ‘The Falcon & The Winter Soldier’ Series?
A neat little tidbit was highlighted last week by Murphy’s Multiverse concerning an image of a gang member’s jacket from the Madripoor set of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier. The site tried to decode what the Easter Egg might be concerning the symbol on the jacket.
If you’re unaware, Madripoor is a location from the X-Men comics and it’s where that a handful of solo Wolverine adventures took place. It’s located in Southeast Asia and is essentially run by criminal organizations allowing syndicates to conduct business without any interference from authorities. This has led many to believe that Marvel Studios might use the location to tease mutants and maybe even Logan.
I then pointed out on Twitter that this symbol on their jacket is most likely an homage to Ogun’s mask (taking cues from the traditional Hannya mask).
Ogun is a Japanese X-Men villain with telepathic powers that has connections to Wolverine (his mentor), Kitty Pryde (brainwashes her), the Yakuza, and the villainous organization the Serpent Society.
Captain America: Serpent Society you might remember was the fake title for Captain America 3 before Kevin Feige revealed they were tackling Civil War and announced Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/Black Panther.
The group of villains could easily become the new HYDRA for Sam Wilson’s incarnation of Captain America in the series and potentially in a new wave of solo films as well.
Ogun’s connection to a gang in the series could mean a lot of things, the Yakuza operating on the island could help establish connections to future underworld figures like The Hand or even someone like fellow Wolverine villain Omega Red (resurrected by the Yakuza). The character himself showing up could help establish that criminal villains with powers are starting to show up in the universe, either being mutants themselves or through other means. A way to possibly tease mutants are showing up in the MCU before the X-Men are rebooted.
Madripoor might also tease other Wolverine/X-Men villains.
One of the leaders of Serpent Society was Viper, who is Ophelia Sarkissian aka Madame Hydra. The villainess has a direct connection to the island nation of Madirpoor, as Viper was in control of it. Like Ogun, Viper has crossed paths with Wolverine on multiple occasions and at one point even married him. An altered version of the character was used in James Mangold’s The Wolverine, but unlike her comic book counterpart was referred to Dr. Green and was a snake-like mutant that was able to spit venom.
Marvel Studios is known to make characters fit various projects by slightly altering them for their needs. Zemo is a perfect example of that. Viper doesn’t even have to be Ophelia they could easily have Rachel Leighton aka Diamondback or Sinthea Shmidt aka Sin take that leadership role.
Originally, the series was supposed to begin airing this August or fall, but the production shutdown might have delayed those plans as Disney hasn’t officially announced new release dates for original programming other than The Mandalorian Season 2 sticking to it’s October start date.
Linda Cardellini Interested In Marvel Making A Laura Barton Movie
Avengers actress Linda Cardellini recently spoke with Collider about seeing more of her in the MCU and she brought up the possibility of her character Laura Barton getting her own film.
CARDELLINI: “I mean, you know, it was one of those things where I was sort of brought into the universe and it truly is its own universe. It’s its own entity with this fandom that is incredible and to be part of it is, I don’t know, it’s pretty fun. My daughter’s friends love it. It’s one of those kinds of things, you know? So it’s always fun. I mean, would I love to see a Laura Barton movie? Sure! But I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I think people are more interested in the superheroes.”
I don’t think this would ever happen unless they attempted to give Laura another superhero’s mantle. I personally wouldn’t be opposed to Laura becoming the hard-canon version of Mockingbird. Depending on where in the timeline that the Hawkeye series takes place, there is a good chance that Linda will return for that show giving her more to do.
Amazon is tackling another interesting series adaptation with news today of them adapting a Japanese property for western audiences. It’s been announced via outlets like Variety that Amazon Studios, Fox 21 Television Studios, and Vertigo are moving forward with an English-langue live-action series adaptation of the manga The Promised Neverland.
The manga is written by Kaiu Shirai and illustrated by Posuka Demizu. It is in it’s second season of an anime series in Japan as well.
THE PROMISED NEVERLAND – A group of the smartest kids at a seemingly idyllic orphanage uncover its dark truth when they break a rule to never leave the orphanage grounds. Once the truth is discovered, they begin to plan an escape to save all of the children.
Rodney Rothman, who co-directed the Oscar-winning animated film Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse will be helming the series with a script from Spider-Verse screenwriter Meghan Malloy.
I’m not familiar with the property but this certainly sounds interesting enough to be serialized. I’m curious how fans will react from a western adaption.
We were excited when HBO announced they would be developing a live-action series based on the Naughty Dog post-apocalypse video game The Last of Us with Neil Druckmann and Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin writing it.
THE LAST OF US – Set in the post-apocalyptic United States, the game tells the story of survivors, Joel and Ellie, as they work together to survive their westward journey across what remains of the country to find a possible cure for the modern fungal plague that has nearly decimated the entire human race.
They’ve seemingly added another creative force behind the successful Chernobyl miniseries as director Jonah Renck will be involved. Johan revealed to Discussing Film in a recent interview that he’ll be directing the series pilot and hints he could potentially direct more episodes, but seems to be unsure if that will happen.
RENCK: “I’m an executive producer on it and attached to it. It’s an ongoing TV series. So that’s not something that I will be able to take on to that extent, but I’m part of that series and I will be directing at least the pilot. Then we’ll see how it goes on further. I mean, both Craig and I, we are working with each other again and we will work with each other on other things because we like each other.”
HBO has yet to announce any casting for the series.
THE RONIN 