The Verge’s Chris Welch has posted a photo of a local production notice on his Twitter account confirming something for the upcoming Hawkeye series (working title Anchor Point) will be shooting in Brooklyn on December 2nd along with a list of the areas they’ll be filming.
Disney+ Hawkeye show gonna be doing some filming in downtown Brooklyn next week. pic.twitter.com/J2bWdr9TQ4
It’s possibly some exterior scenes like was done recently with Spider-Man 3 and it’s unknown if any cast members will actually be involved as the main shoot for the series is taking place in Atlanta, Georgia. Flying in actors doesn’t seem terribly necessary given the status of the pandemic. It’s worth mentioning that Shang-Chi had also shot stuff in San Francisco without their main cast.
Keeping the cast in as few locations would be in their best interest to avoid exposure to COVID-19 during the shoot. Given the technology available to these Marvel Studios shows they could simply film their surroundings then add actors later in the post-production stage.
We’re still waiting on if actress Hailee Steinfeld will be confirmed to play Kate Bishop or another yet-to-be-named actress has signed on to play Clint Barton’s protege. Hopefully, we start getting some new casting information concerning the series soon along with confirmations concerning the high-volume of character rumors that have been circulating.
However, this would yet again confirm that Hawkeye is next up with She-Hulk expected to be the next Atlanta series and will start-up sometime in March.
Chapter 13 is written and directed by Dave Filoni which leads to our first and possibly only look at Rosario Dawson as the live-action version of Ahsoka Tano.
Our first sequence on Corvus is a battle between Ahsoka Tano and a group armed men from The Magistrate aka Morgan Elsbeth (played by Diana Lee Inosanto), during a duel at the end it’s reveal Morgan’s master is Grand Admiral Thrawn (introduced into canon via Star Wars: Rebels) and Ahsoka is trying to find him. The action sequences are pretty neat and there is a huge Princess Mononoke vibe in the episode, it’s also nice to see her cut through the grunts with lightsabers.
The village of Calodan also seemed to take some visual cues from The Labyrinth.
Michael Biehn (Aliens, Terminator) shows up as the Magistrate’s hired-gun, possibly ex-military according to Mando.
When Mando is assigned by The Magistrate to kill Ahsoka Tano for a berskar spear. He eventually meets up with her and she reveals The Child’s real name is Grogu along with a bit of his origin story that he was at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant being trained during the Clone Wars. The Child is not a clone of Jedi Grand Master Yoda as previously suspected by fans but one of the few young Jedi that were able to survive Order 66.
Ahsoka seemingly refuses to train Grogu seeing darkness in him and instead tasks Din Djarin to take The Child to 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.
Tython is a planet located within the Tython System of the Deep Core. It is the planet where the first society of Force-users in known history gathered, which would eventually become the Jedi Order. It is the starting world of the Jedi Knight and Jedi Consular character classes.
The planet is also home to the Flesh Raiders and if they are on Tython it would be their first live-action debut as they were created for The Old Republic video game.
As she hopes another Jedi can be reached through placing The Child on the Seeing Stone at the top of the mountain and if he reaches out to the Force another Jedi will sense his presence to find/train him.
This feels like endless side-missions at this point and it’s getting to be a bit of headache but it’s nice to get some hard information about Baby Yoda. But it’s nice to hear we might be seeing another Jedi, although, I’m unsure it’ll be Luke Skywalker.
It’ll be interesting to see if Ahsoka ends up getting her own solo series from Dave Filoni or if this Thrawn thread is ever pulled because it does seem like this stuff will get wrapped in The Mandalorian. I think a live-action version of Thrawn showing up in something like the Cassian Andor series could be fun or elsewhere. Thrawn was a Legends character from the novels that got a second life when he was added in Star Wars: Rebels and officially joined canon.
In an official press release from Warner Bros., they have confirmed that Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Casino Royale, Hannibal, Doctor Strange) has replaced Johnny Depp as the Fantastic Beasts franchise villain Gellert Grindelwald. Depp announced his forced resignation of the role on social media and this led to a Deadline report that placed Mads as director David Yates’ top contender to fill the part.
Filming is already underway on Fantastic Beasts 3 at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in Watford, England.
He joins fellow cast members Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Callum Turner, William Nadylam, Poppy Corby-Tuech, Jessica Williams, Victoria Yeates, and Jude Law.
The studio is also developing Fantastic Beasts 4 and Fantastic Beasts 5. We have to assume that Mikkelsen will be playing the role in those films as well.
Fantastic Beasts 3 will be released on July 15th, 2022.
With Mercedes Varnado aka Sasha Banks’ debut as a Mandalorian cohort of Bo-Katan (played by Katee Sackhoff) there was some assumptions that there characters could play a bigger role in Season 2 of The Mandalorian. That doesn’t seem to be the case.
According to Mercedes herself while speaking with Comic Book, she only shot a single episode which means her character Koska Reeves won’t be showing up again, at least in this season. She does sound keen on reprising the role just as much as Katee.
VARNADO: “I can only hope that the fans get to know more, I’m only in this episode. It’s awesome but we can only hopee for more stuff. So, if I can pray and manifest anything, I just hope myself and Katee, Bo-Katan, can hopefully get the Darksaber one day. But we’ll have to see, I don’t know.”
I’m not entirely sure if this means we won’t see Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan again in this season but it is a possibility. We’ll have to see if the trio will get a bigger stage in Season 3 or in spinoffs.
Deadline reports that Amazon will renew The Expanse for a sixth and final season.
I’m sure this heartbreaking news to fans as the news was announced before the Season 5 premiere. The expensive series had been cancelled by SyFy after three seasons before it was picked-up by Prime Video for Season 4.
Cast member Cas Anvar will not be returning after sexual misconduct allegations.
The Expanse is set in the future where humanity has colonized the solar system and the people of Earth, Mars and the Asteroid Belt have long been in opposition with one another. When the crew of the Rocinante uncovers an ancient alien technology, a vast conspiracy begins to emerge — one that will bring the solar system to the brink of war.
It’s unknown if the show will find a new home or will end forever with Season 6.
The Ronin can now confirm from multiple sources that cinematographer Jo Willems will be reuniting with director Francis Lawrence for the upcoming Netflix film Slumberland. The cast of the film includes Jason Momoa (Aquaman, Dune), Kyle Chandler (Godzilla vs Kong), Chris O’Dowd, and Marlow Barkley.
Jo and Francis previously worked together on Red Sparrow and his three Hunger Games films. Also has a history with Jason as well working on the Apple TV+ series See. Other credits include Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night, and Limitless.
We can also confirm that production designer Dominic Watkins (The Mummy, Green Zone, Bad Boys II) has joined the film’s crew as well.
Slumberland is said to be taking cues from Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo: Adventures In Slumberland.
Filming on Slumberland will take place from February to mid-April in Toronto.
Filming paused on the Japanese crime series Tokyo Vice back in March but according to The Hollywood Reporter the HBO Max series will resume filming this week in Japan.
Heat’s Michael Mann is set to direct all 10-episodes of the series starring Ansel Elgort (Baby Driver), Ken Watanabe (Inception, The Last Samurai), and Rinko Kikuchi (Pacific Rim, The Brothers Bloom). The new series is loosely inspired by the real-life experiences of American journalist Jake Adelstein chronicled in his 2009 memoir, Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter On The Police Beat in Japan. Adelstein covered crime for the one of the largest newspapers in Japan becoming one of the few Westerners to do so and spent 12 years there.
Originally, Destin Daniel Cretton was tapped to direct the show but there was a scheduling conflict with Marvel’s Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings and Michael Mann was brought on as a replacement. Mann is best known for being the architect of the popular 1980s series Miami Vice but never directed an episode. However, he did make the 2006 reboot film starring Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx.
HBO Max has yet to announce when they expect episodes will begin airing on the streaming service.
The Ronin can now confirm that Marvel’s Hawkeye series under the working title Anchor Point is about to begin shooting (if it hasn’t already) in Atlanta, Georgia. This would make the Jeremy Renner project to be the next series entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe to shoot after Ms. Marvel officially started filming last week.
Jeremy Renner is reprising the Clint Barton role and will be mentoring a young female protege named Kate Bishop, one of the Young Avengers.
A previous report from The Hollywood Reporter stated that She-Hulk (Atlanta) and Moon Knight (London) wouldn’t begin their shoots until March. With WandaVision and The Falcon wrapped (Loki about to wrap) this gives Marvel the extra space needed to shoot both Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye simultaneously.
There was also a production grid making the rounds suggesting a September start which obviously wasn’t accurate as the pandemic led to extended shoots on Falcon and WandaVision not leaving much room for new shows to jump in. COVID-19 has been throwing production dates into a tizzy for months and as studios adopt bubbles they might be able to avoid future delays once filming starts.
Also filming in Atlanta, is Spider-Man 3 aka The November Project which is rumored to be using a production bubble to keep cast and crew safe during filming on the Spidey sequel.
There still isn’t official confirmation about who exactly has taken the Kate Bishop (Barton’s young protege) role in the show despite Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit, Bumblebee) being in the mix for the part early on as reported first by Variety. It’s expected to become a key role not just in the series but for future MCU films as well.
Renner posted this image on his Instagram stories yesterday leading fans to believe this means filming has started, although, could have been connected to a workout picture he posted from the gym.
Another Disney+ show on the horizon includes a Nick Fury series starring Samuel L. Jackson and written by Kyle Bradstreet (Mr. Robot) that could end up tackling the Skrulls/S.W.O.R.D. depending when and where it’s set in the timeline.
There are also other shows in development stages that have yet to be made official by Marvel/Disney.
WandaVision is the the first Disney+ series to release and will officially debut on January 15th.
The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively learned that Hulk actor Mark Ruffalo and veteran actress Catherine Keener (Get Out, Out of Sight, Being John Malkovich) have joined Shawn Levy’s upcoming sci-fi action film The Adam Project, Ruffalo becoming the fourth actor from a Marvel Comics film. The time-travel film coming from Skydance Media and will land at Netflix.
The pair will be joining Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Guardians of The Galaxy), and Jennifer Garner (Daredevil, Elektra).
Ruffalo and Garner worked together on 13 Going On 30 back in 2004.
Reynolds is starring as a man who travels back in time to get help from his 13-year-old self. Together, they have to find their late father, who is now the same age as Reynolds, and set things right in order to save the future.
Ruffalo is playing Reynolds’ dad, a brilliant physicist. Keener will play the movie’s villain, a woman who has stolen powerful technology from the physicist.
We previously confirmed that Brian Smrz will act as the second unit director on The Adam Project and will be overseeing the film’s action sequences. Brian’s credits include X-Men 2, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Iron Man 3, Terminator Genisys, The Predator, Rise of The Planet of The Apes, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
A sign to the scale Skydance could aiming for with the action scenes.
Filming is already underway in Vancouver.
Mark Ruffalo had a stellar role in Best Picture winner Spotlight as he’s been mostly working on Marvel Studios films with The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and is expected to play Professor Hulk in the upcoming Disney+ series She-Hulk.
She-Hulk begins filming in Atlanta around March when The Adam Project is said to wrap.
Director Shawn Levy (Real Steel, Stranger Thins) and Ryan have already worked together on the 20th Century Studios film Free Guy.
Back on Friday, there was finally an update on the status of Deadpool 3 with Marvel Studios moving forward on the sequel by hiring The Molyneux Sisters (Bob’s Burgers) to write the script. Along with it reaffirmed that the project will keep it’s R-rating, which is something that Disney/Marvel brass have been relaying to the press for years now, although, every couple of months it becomes newsworthy again.
I’ve come up with a list of mutants I’d personally like to see in Deadpool 3 and that would fit this R-rated corner of the MCU very nicely. The rating should discourage Marvel from trying to cram the main X-Men lineup into a violent Deadpool adventure which seems like bad idea when they have access to all these other cool X-Men characters that would fit the mature tone. I still suspect they’re going to allow them to work with a larger budget than the 20th Century Fox films.
Anyways, here is who I’d like to see show up in Deaddpool 3.
PSYLOCKE: Psylocke or Kwannon has a bit of a checkered past as the body of the Japanese woman that Betsy Braddock (sister of Captain Britain) inhabits was once an assassin under the purview of both The Mandarin (as Lady Mandarin) and The Hand/Yakuza. The character is more than weird and I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if they simply go with the Kwannon character instead of the messy body-swap stuff.
Kwannon is sort of more interesting given the connections to The Mandarin (the villain of Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings) and The Hand via Yakuza boss Matsu’o Tsurayaba (Wolverine villain). Having Psylocke start out as a villain for criminal syndicates then redeemed to become a superhero joining the ranks of the X-Men and the more violent X-Force would make for an interesting character reboot since she didn’t even get an origin in X-Men: Apocalypse. Actress Olivia Munn has gone on the record with her frustration with Simon Kinberg and Brian Singer’s lack of knowledge.
Psylocke also has ties to the country of Madripoor which is being introduced in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier. The fictional Southeast Asian island nation could become a pivotal locale in future projects like X-Men films or something like Deadpool 3, as I think it’s about time they moved filming outside of Vancouver and explore some more different locations.
It would also be nice to see another Earthbound female Asian character outside of the Shang-Chi franchise kicking some ass in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, I wouldn’t rule-out having her moonlight as an assassin for the Atlas Empire or The Ten Rings. Then again, when Deadpool 3 shoots they’ll have full access to The Hand again.
OMEGA RED: Interestingly enough, Matsu’o Tsurayaba also connects to the next mutant.
Arkady Gregorivich Rossovich aka Omega Red originally had a bigger in Deadpool 2 as there was concept artwork making the rounds suggesting he was going to be a bruiser like The Juggernaut but he did briefly “cameo” in the mutant prison scenes. I’m not sure anyone would have noticed unless has had pointed it out and means the villain could get a second chance in the MCU.
In the comics, Arkady was a failed super-soldier experiment cooked-up by the Soviet Union and is considered to be one of the most dangerous mutants, giving Wolverine a run for his money. He’s worked has muscle for criminal syndicates like The Hand and feels within the wheelhouse of both Wolverine and Deadpool. I’m not shy about my desire to get this character on the big screen.
Since he’s Russian it could be a good excuse to connect him to Colossus’ time there.
X-23: Ryan Reynolds has been desperate to make his Wolverine vs Deadpool film, while Hugh Jackman isn’t likely return to the role anytime soon, Marvel is going to recast the role for the MCU making that a possibility in the future.
There is zero sign that Wolverine will be ready to go for Deadpool 3 but there is an established character they might want to use in the meantime that could make for an excellent surrogate, X-23.
We’ve seen Marvel Studios give second chances to J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson and Jamie Foxx as Electro for their Spider-Man franchise, so there is some hope they could soft-reboot Laura Kinney aka X-23 while keeping Dafne Keen in that role for their X-Men/Deadpool franchises. It’s a bit of stretch to think they’d ask Keen to return but if they’re unable to use the new Wolverine, X-23 would be an excellent surrogate as her origin has already been covered in James Mangold’s Logan and you can fill in the blanks later.
MISTER SINISTER: There had been some suggestions that Sinister was going to be part of the never-made Gambit film starring Channing Tatum and he certainly is an untapped X-Men baddie that Marvel Studios could use for multiple films. He essentially could become the less conflicted than Magneto and take secure reigns as the main villain of the X-Men franchise before they attempt to bring in Apocalypse or others.
You could easily have Sinister, a former human geneticist turned mutant, be one of the people behind “the Workshop” from the first film and we ultimately see what has happened to those collared mutants that were sold-off as weapons on the black market. Possibly having him as a puppet master of a character like Sugar Man leading to Sinister being a bigger threat in other X-Men films.
ALPHA FLIGHT: Wade is Canadian and there happens to be Canadian Government sanctioned group of mutant heroes called Alpha Flight that have been long over due for a live-action adaptation. Adding Department H to the MCU could be one way to give a better origin to Wolverine and potentially expand the X-Men universe by including the obscure Canadian mutants. I’ve been championing that Alpha Flight be given their own Disney+ series as there is enough there to deserve a series over a feature film. Wilson is eventually going to get on Department H’s radar and could attempt to recruit him to disastrous results, they’re also goofy enough that they’d add to the comedic nature of the film.
CABLE & DOMINO: I’m still of the belief that Marvel will ultimately keep actors like Josh Brolin and Zazie Beetz in their respective franchise roles while potentiality giving their character designs a soft-reboot to look a little more like their comic book counterparts. They’re lower on the list because I think it’s less of a worry that they’ll get tossed. Although, hiring new actors wouldn’t be shocking given that Marvel can replace them if they chose to do so.
There are now plenty of examples of actors playing dual roles in the MCU and having Brolin return to the Cable part after playing Thanos wouldn’t be the strangest move they could make.
I’m sure we’ll start learning more about Deadpool 3 once Marvel Studios does an official panel for it.
THE RONIN 