Posted on in Film News

Boyd Holbrook Reflects On The Disappointment of ‘The Predator’

While speaking with The Hollywood Reporter to promote his new Quibi series The Fugitive, actor Boyd Holbrook reflected on the disappointing audience reaction to The Predator, the fourth film in the solo Predator franchise. 

THR: Through no fault of your own, The Predator didn’t go as everyone had planned, but looking back, was it one of those classic Hollywood examples of too many cooks in the kitchen?

HOLBROOK: “I just think the first one [Predator] caught lightning in a bottle. And with people wanting to do more, maybe you should just let a sleeping dog lie, sometimes. That was a big takeaway for me.”

The film having multiple endings to set up sequels, forcing so much awkward comedic moments, and third act reshoots removing some awesome scenes with predators fighting alongside humans. It seems like the script and editing process was a giant mess that is fully on display when you watch the film.

Not to mention the film’s budget-saving setting of a small town that just echoed the horrid Alien vs Predator: Requiem.  

Ultimately, it doesn’t look like 20th Century Studios/Disney is considering sequels or new installments anytime soon. 

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Film News

Seth Rogen Confirms Sony Didn’t Make ‘Pineapple Express 2’ Because They Wanted Too Much Money

While speaking with Howard Stern on his SiriusXM show to promote his upcoming HBO Max film An American Pickle, comedic actor Seth Rogen confirmed leaked Sony Pictures emails that the reason a sequel to Pineapple Express ultimately wasn’t made was over a dispute over the film’s budget. 

ROGEN: “We tried to make one and thanks to the Sony hack you can actually find the email when Sony decided to kill the movie and not make it. It was something we were very open to several years ago, but Sony was not that interested in it.”

I think we probably wanted too much money. 

Pineapple Express was a bit of a financial hit for Sony as the film ended up earning $101.6 million on a budget of $27 million alongside profits from the home video market with at least $47.9 million.

However, leaked emails from the Sony hack revealed that they were looking to get $50 million for the sequel, almost double the original’s budget. Sony wanted more of a budget in the realm of $40-45 million, the expectation the higher budget would go to salaries since Rogen admits to Stern people weren’t really paid much on the original film despite the film being a success for Sony Pictures. 

The Sony hack was directly connected to Seth Rogen’s North Korean assassination comedy The Interview, which the North Korean government didn’t take too kindly and led to international death threats on the actor.

It’ll be interesting to see if the sequel could find new life in the world of streaming, that’s if Seth and Evan Goldberg wanted to return to it in the future. 

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS – Stoner Dale Denton’s (Seth Rogen) enjoyment of a rare strain of marijuana may prove fatal when he drops his roach in a panic after witnessing a murder. Upon learning that the fancy weed can be traced back to them, Dale and his dealer (James Franco) go on the lam, with a dangerous drug lord (Gary Cole) and crooked cop (Rosie Perez) hot on their heels.

SOURCE: THE HOWARD STERN SHOW

Posted on in Film News

Joey King To Co-Star With Brad Pitt In Sony’s Action Flick ‘Bullet Train’

Deadline reports that young actress Joey King is currently in negotiations to play the role of Prince in Sony’s action film Bullet Train from director David Leitch (Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde). Oscar-winner Brad Pitt is set to play an assassin named Ladybug. 

The film is based on the novel Maria Beetle from Japanese author Kotaro Isaka, it will focus on a group of assassins on a bullet train. 

King’s credits include The Dark Knight Rises, The Conjuring, White House Down, The Act, and most recently with Netflix’s The Kissing Booth 2. 

Filming is expected to begin this fall in Los Angeles, California. 

However, that will likely be dependant on how the city/state is doing with the pandemic and if there is a second wave that shuts down productions. 

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Jared Leto Wants To Return To The World of ‘Blade Runner 2049’ With An Origin Story For Villain Niander Wallace

Last week, actor Jared Leto took to Twitter suggesting that he’d like to return to the role of Niander Wallace, the overreaching villain of Blade Runner 2049. He seems to want to tackle an origin story about Wallace.

LETO: “Maybe we can do a Niander Wallace origin story one day. Would be interesting to see where this mad man came from. He must have had some history. I have some ideas…”

Wallace’s fate is unknown at the end of the film has he zipped off-world in a ship to one of the many human colonies. The villain is behind the latest version of the disposable workforce with his version of the Replicants. 

Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve has teased in the past he’d like to return to the world of Blade Runner as well, but suggested he wouldn’t be interested in making another sequel. 

A Blade Runner live-action series might not be out of the realm of possibilities as Villeneuve is producing and expected to direct the pilot for the Dune spinoff series for HBO Max titled Dune: The Sisterhood and there is already an animated series set in the universe of Blade Runner coming soon with Blade Runner: Black Lotus. 

SOURCE: JARED LETO

Posted on in Film News

Courtney Cox Officially Returns For ‘Scream 5’ Reprising Gale Weathers Role

It’s official! 

Radio Silence has confirmed to Deadline that actress Courtney Cox, as assumed, will reprise her franchise role of reporter Gale Weathers in the fifth installment of Scream. The new film is expected to incorporate a new set of characters alongside original ones like David Arquette’s Dewey, Cox’s Gale, and presumably Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott. 

Ready or Not directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett will be making the film based on a screenplay by James Vanderbilt (Murder Mystery, Amazing Spider-Man) and Guy Busick (Ready or Not, Castle Rock).

While trades keep calling the horror project a “reboot”, Scream 5 now has the main three franchise actors expected to return in their original roles. Hardly a traditional full-on reboot if they’re going to treat this as a sequel set within an existing cinematic universe.

The original film had a string of gory murders that would ultimately be connected to the murder of Sidney Prescott’s mother, who had been killed the previous year. Sequels would see various new characters play copycat which turned the satirical horror franchise into a guessing game of “who will be revealed as Ghostface” in this installment. It’ll be interesting if creatives on Scream 5 genuinely have a fresh take to run with or will instead try to beat-a-dead-horse as other studios have with their established horror revivals. 

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Guillermo del Toro Still Wants To Make ‘At The Mountains of Madness’ and A ‘Frankenstein’ Trilogy

While speaking with Collider to help promote the upcoming horror film Antlers, producer Guillermo del Toro revealed that he is still extremely keen on making feature films based on the H.P. Lovecraft story At The Mountains of Madness and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. 

Teasing he’d like to make a trilogy about the latter.

DEL TORO: “I’ve always imagined it as a two to three-part story, because in order to encompass the book you have to change points of view and it’s a complex exercise.”

Both projects had been in various development stages in the past before Guillmero was ultimately pulled away from those films to focus on other stuff. Seemingly, when he was developing At The Mountains of Madness it got the furthest along as Tom Cruise and his Hellboy actor Ron Perlman had been attached for roles until the budgetary issues with Universal Pictures put the horror project on ice for the foreseeable future. 

The director was hellbent that Mountains needed to be R-rated and was likely another issue between himself at the studio. 

Universal had been tinkering with trying to resurrect their Universal Monsters with a Bride of Frankenstein reboot starring Oscar-winners Angelina Jolie and Javier Bardem. The studio had been reportedly courting new directors which included Sam Raimi before he took over duties from Scott Derrickson on Marvel’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. 

Here is del Toro speaking about Bride of Frankenstein back in 2012 at the Academy screening series A Monstrous Centennial: Universal’s Legacy of Horror at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. 

Guillermo is expected to resume filming on his period thriller Nightmare Alley this fall in Toronto and had been previously attached to direct a remake of the sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage for a pre-Disney owned 20th Century Studios. 

SOURCE: COLLIDER

Posted on in Television News

Netflix Announces New Series ‘The Witcher: Blood Origins’ – Prequel Takes Place 1200 Years In The Past

Today, Netflix took to Twitter to announce a new prequel series spinoff set in the world of The Witcher. The prequel titled The Witcher: Blood Origins from Declan de Barra and Lauren Schmidt Hissrich will focus on the first Witcher taking place 1200 years in the past. 

The fantasy series is based on the novels turned video game franchise. 

The Witcher starring Henry Cavill as the infamous Geralt of Rivia is currently in the middle of filming Season 2 (expected to resume filming in the United Kingdom next month). 

SOURCE: NETFLIX

Posted on in Film News

Natalie Portman Says ‘Thor: Love & Thunder’ Aims To Begin Shooting Early 2021 In Australia

Natalie Portman appeared in a video on Tennis superstar Serena Williams’ Instagram account where she revealed the potential new production start date for the upcoming Thor installment. 

PORTMAN: “We’re shooting at the beginning of next year in Australia.”

As announced at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, Natalie is set to return as Jane Foster but will be taking on the alter ego of Lady Thor in Thor: Love & Thunder allowing her to potentially take on the mantle in future films. 

It’ll be interesting to see if Lady Thor has a connection to The Multiverse via the Loki series or if there is another route they’ll be going to explain how Jane was able to receive the power of Thor. In the comics, Thor has a human alter ego named Dr. Donald Blake (who transforms into Thor taking cues from Shazam!) which has never really been touched upon and could be easily handed over for Jane/Lady Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Other characters expected to return alongside Chris Hemsworth’s Thor and Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie include Taika Waititi’s Korg (I previously reported last summer of an increased role for his character in the sequel) and Korg’s pal Miek. 

Oscar-winner Christian Bale (The Dark Knight, American Psycho, Ford v Ferarri) is said to be playing the film’s villain and is the first of the new additions to the franchise. 

We should be hearing more casting news before the end of the year. 

Filming on Love & Thunder had originally been slated to begin shooting next month at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. That wasn’t able to happen because Shang-Chi had to pause production after the COVID-19 outbreak in Australia led to director Destin Daniel Cretton cautiously quarantine himself during production and the film paused for multiple months until it was safe to resume. 

Production dates, in general, should be taken with a grain of salt for upcoming new projects even when it is coming from actors because they’re extremely fluid in the age of COVID-19. However, there is a really good chance this one sticks because Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings (hasn’t officially resumed filming) could be completed by then and Australia is certainly in better shape than other countries where Marvel films are expected to shoot. 

Fingers crossed there aren’t any further delays on Shang-Chi that could lead to more headaches for the Thor sequel. 

Marvel Studios and Disney recently updated Thor: Love & Thunder‘s release date to February 11th, 2022, but this could easily change in the coming months if the Black Widow release has to be bumped to February 12th, 2021 from November 6th. 

SOURCE: SERENA WILLIAMS 

Posted on in Television News

Peter Shinkoda Says Marvel Promised Him Nobu Would Be The Lead Villain In ‘The Defenders’ Before Sigourney Weaver Took That Spot

Daredevil actor Peter Shinkoda has been highlighting his experiences working with Jeph Loeb and Marvel Television, highlighting some racism behind the scenes at the production company concerning his character Nobu and Wai Ching Ho’s Madame Gao.

After pointing out that Loeb had told writers/showrunners to throw away plot lines for Nobu and Gao because “nobody cares about Chinese people or Asians”, the pair of actors were never invited to the Season 2 premiere despite having decent sized roles in the series.

Peter has now taken to Twitter to further state that Marvel promised him a larger role in The Defenders, as the show’s main villain which instead went to veteran actress Sigourney Weaver.

https://twitter.com/PeterShinkoda/status/1287502670962388992

All these things combined seem to reveal a huge bias towards both the actors and characters.

SOURCE: PETER SHINOKDA

Posted on in Television News

‘Daredevil’ Showrunner Doug Petrie Pitched An Asian-American/Mixed-Race Version of ‘Iron Fist’ To Marvel Television Early On That Was Rejected

It seems like Marvel Television didn’t only have issues with Asian villains in Daredevil having flushed-out storylines, they also weren’t too keen about having Danny Rand in Iron Fist being Asian-American or possibly mixed-race. 

During a panel for #SaveDaredevil on YouTube, the subject switched from Daredevil to almost having a mixed-race version of Danny Rand and this potentially was pitched to Marvel at some point in the development process by showrunner Doug Petrie (Daredevil, The Defenders).  

Daredevil actor Tommy Walker revealed that Doug attempted to pitch a progressive version of Iron Fist that was ultimately rejected while teasing that version of Danny might have been mixed-race. 

WALKER: “A very good friend of mine Doug Petrie, the showrunner of Season 2 of Daredevil, he was on Season 1 as you know and then an executive producer on Defenders. I think I can say this much safely that man came up with some brilliant pitches for Iron Fist early on before Iron Fist was well into production…but they were along those lines, very very thoughtful very progressive for the time.”

At the time of Iron Fist‘s casting Shang-Chi hadn’t been announced and Marvel didn’t have any public plans to give fans an Asian superhero, so there was an effort by fans to see various Asian-American actors considered for the role.

Ultimately, Danny was played by British actor Finn Jones and the character seemingly will be under the management of Kevin Feige in the not too distant future. 

SOURCE: #SAVEDAREDEVIL