I think we were all shocked when a fourth installment in the Matrix franchise was announced with original cast members returning to their roles after rumblings of a possible prequel or reboot being in the works with a Young Morpheus.
Carrie-Anne Moss and Keanu Reeves recently spoke with Empire dishing that they were both impressed with the script for Matrix 4 penned by Lana Wachowski, David Mitchell, and Aleksandar Hemon. Citing the script as a key reason for why they were willing to return to their respective roles of Trinity and Neo.
MOSS: “When it was brought to me in the way that it was brought to me, with incredible depth and all of the integrity and artistry that you could imagine, I was like, ‘This is a gift.’ It was just very exciting.”
Reeves echoes Moss’ comments on the script and adding that he was eager to work with director Lana Wachowski again.
REEVES: “Lana Wachowski wrote a beautiful script and a wonderful story that resonated with me. That’s the only reason to do it. To work with her again is just amazing. It’s been really special, and the story has, I think, some meaningful things to say, and that we can take some nourishment from.”
Filming had moved onto the German leg of the production after tackling some scenes shot in San Francisco, California before the Coronavirus pandemic paused things and there had been some suggestion that they’d resume sometime soon.
The rest of the cast includes Jada Pinkett Smith returning as Niobe, Jessica Henwick (Godzilla vs Kong, Iron Fist, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) playing a new Neo-like character, Neil Patrick Harris (Starship Troopers, Gone Girl), Toby Onwumere, Erendira Ibarra (Sense8), Ellen Hollman (Into The Badlands), and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Watchmen, Aquaman).
Originally, Warner Bros. had given Matrix 4 a release date of May 21st, 2020 and a new date is most likely going to be announced shortly.
Keanu Reeves is set to shoot John Wick: Chapter 4 once they complete filming on the Matrix sequel.
The Evil Dead franchise is officially getting another movie!
Bruce Campbell has just revealed to Empire that Evil Dead Now, the fourth Evil Dead film, is already in the works with Lee Cronin (The Hole In The Ground) writing and directing the horror-comedy.
CAMPBELL: “We’re just getting off the phone with Lee Cronin, who is writing and directing the next Evil Dead. It’s called Evil Dead Now. Sam handpicked Lee – he did a cool movie called The Hole In The Ground. We’re going to get that sucker out as soon as practical.”
However, Bruce says that Ash isn’t going to be in the film and seemingly confirms Evil Dead Now will have a female protagonist instead.
CAMPBELL: “From this point forward, they kind of have to stand on their own. Which is fine. And liberating. You could have different heroes, different heroines in this case. This one is gonna be a little more dynamic. We just want to keep the series current. And the mantra, really, is that our heroes and heroines are just regular people. That’s what we’re going to continue.”
It is unclear if this means that Jane Levy will be reprising her role of Mia from the reboot or if they’ll be pursuing a new actress attempting a second reboot.
Also, when they plan on shooting it.
THE HOLE IN THE GROUND – One night, Sarah’s young son disappears into the woods behind their rural home. When he returns, he looks the same, but his behavior grows increasingly disturbing. Sarah begins to believe that the boy who returned may not be her son at all.
Here is is a collection of some interesting news, tidbits, and rumors concerning the world of live-action Marvel projects from the last couple of weeks.
Chris Evans Isn’t Interested In Reprising ‘Captain America’
While addressing if he is truly done with the Captain America role, Chris Evans said the following on The Graham Norton Show (via Digitial Spy).
EVANS: “Yes, I think it is. It was a great run and we went out on such a high note that it would be risky to revisit it in my opinion. It was such a good experience and I think it’s better left that way.”
Despite establishing that Old Man Rogers is alive at the end of Avengers: Endgame, Chris Evans tells that he isn’t eager to return to the Captain America role anytime soon. This isn’t shocking given that the mantle is being passed on to Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson with the transition taking place in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.
J.K. Simmons Says He’s Signed On For Multiple ‘Spider-Man’ Movie
In Spider-Man: Far From Home, it was revealed that J.K. Simmons would be reprising the role of Spider-Man’s media nemesis J. Jonah Jameson after playing the character in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. The character is the one to reveal to the public that Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is Spider-Man and attempts to frame him for the murder of Quentin Beck.
Simmons has briefly mentioned to PeopleTV (via Entertainment Weekly) that he is signed-on for sequels but the studio isn’t exactly obligated to have him return.
SIMMONS: “I don’t know if I would use the word expect. It’s great to have the opportunity, as these things evolve, to be one of the holdovers from the previous version.”
This could mean that he’ll be returning for Spider-Man 3 but likely hasn’t been told if he is or not. An assumption I think we all made after the cliffhanger ending of the last film that could allow him to play a much larger role in future films. It might also support previous online rumblings pointing towards J. Jonah potentially showing up in films like Morbius and Venom 2, given that Sony Pictures seems keen on establishing their Spider-Man Cinematic Universe.
Josh Trank Says 20th Century Fox Blocked Him From Casting A Black Actress To Play Sue Storm In ‘Fantastic Four’
While speaking with Geeks of Color recently to promote his Tom Hardy gangster film Capone, Fantastic Four director Josh Trank revealed that he was pushing for a black actress to portray the role of Sue Storm in Fantastic Four.
Josh indicates that 20th Century Fox was behind that not happening, despite allowing him to cast Michael B. Jordan as her brother Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch.
TRANK: “There were a lot of controversial conversations that were had behind-the-scenes on that. I was mostly interested in a black Sue Storm, a black Johnny Storm, and a black Franklin Storm. But when you’re dealing with a studio on a massive movie like that, everybody wants to keep an open mind to who the big stars are going to be.”
“When it came down to it, I found a lot of pretty heavy pushback on casting a black woman in that role.”
Studios being fearful of women of color in leading roles isn’t shocking or new.However, superhero diversity is something I think we can all rally around given and we’ll be curious to see how Marvel Studios ultimately recasts both their Fantastic Four and X-Men reboots.
Trank also mentioned on Twitter (before deleting/deactivating his account) that he isn’t interested in releasing a director’s cut of Fantastic Four.
Rumored Working Title of ‘Hawkeye’ Series Is ‘Anchor Point’
Our pal Charles Murphy over at Murphy’s Multiverse is claiming that the working title for Marvel Studios’ upcoming Hawkeye series will be Anchor Point. Working titles are normally used strictly during pre-production and the shooting of projects.
However, when that show might begin shooting is a little unclear at the moment with a handful of other Disney+ shows that haven’t fully completed their filming and there is some uncertainly concerning when new stuff like Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, and Moon Knight that hasn’t even started will begin production given the backlog they’re undergoing at the moment due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
If filming is indeed going to move forward this fall in Atlanta, Georiga on Hawkeye, we’re likely to get some official casting news concerning the Kate Bishop role in the not too distant future.
Evan Peters Rumored For Mystery Role In ‘WandaVision’
Another cool story coming from Charles Murphy suggests the possible casting of X-Men and American Horror Story actor Evan Peters in a mysterious key role for Marvel’s WandaVision.
However, the report clearly is under the impression that Peters is playing a new character and is unlikely standing in for Aaron Johnson’s Pietro Maximoff aka Quicksilver.
Despite blog and fan speculation that this could mean the Singerverse is carrying over to the Marvel Cinematic Universe if Peters is indeed playing a character other than Quicksilver, this would finally cement that Marvel is rebooting the main X-Men franchise (excluding Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool) and going to recast all of the roles, not just Wolverine.
‘WandaVision’ Might Resume Filming This July In Los Angeles
Speaking of other Marvel shows that haven’t completed their productions, Paul Bettany has seemingly revealed to the Tampa Bay Comic Convention that he cannot attend their convention this summer because the resumed filming of WandaVision is taking place next month.
Here is what the event posted on their Facebook page.
“We finally received word from Paul Bettany’s representation, and unfortunately Paul had to cancel his appearance at TBCC this year due being called back by Disney for WandaVision filming in July, in Los Angeles. We’re working on guest additions!“
However, it’s hardly confirmation as Marvel/Disney hasn’t made any official statements concerning the resuming of any of their projects. It’s worth considering Disney could be asking principal actors in their major projects to be on stand-by for the summer, just in case they do want to resume production sooner rather than later.
There have been indications that WandaVision is much further along than both The Falcon & The Winter Solider and Loki, so the filming needed to be done might be limited or potentially additional footage.
Will ‘Shang-Chi’ Resume Production In Australia Soon?
On the live-action front, Australia and New Zealand seem to be in much better shape to resume feature film productions sooner than the United States and possibly the United Kingdom.
Avatar 2 could very well resume production by the end of the month or sometime in July after director James Cameron and producer Jon Landau arrived in New Zealand last week.
We can theorize that Australian projects like Shang-Chi might be some of the first to resume even before major projects in other countries.
Shang-Chi unlikely projects like Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness and Spider-Man 3 was shooting when Coronavirus outbreaks in the country led to the government telling studios to put a pause on filming.
When stuff like the Spider-Man and Doctor Strange sequels will be able to begin shooting is less clear given that Tom Holland is expected to shoot Uncharted first and if that production is delayed beyond the summer likely means Spider-Man 3 won’t begin shooting until 2021.
Doctor Strange 2 was undergoing new rewrites from Loki’s Michael with new director Sam Raimi jumping in for Scott Derrickson. While the UK government is keen for filming to resume in the country it might not be safe to resume this early, the same could be said about shoots in the United States as well.
Shang-Chi was also going to shoot in San Francisco (Agent of Atlas connection?) and Los Angeles which could likely happen later in the year. However, what is a bit unknown is if they’ll be able to shoot exterior stuff in the various Asian locations they wanted to use before the pandemic.
Has Actress Fala Chen Joined The Cast of ‘Shang-Chi’?
Some social media detective work from Murphy’s Multiverse writer Lizzie Hill suggests that newcomer Fala Chen might have joined the cast of Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings.
They also recently figured out that Solo: A Star Wars Story actress Erin Kellyman is expected to have an unnamed role in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.
Simon Kinberg Open To Directing Another ‘X-Men’ Film For Marvel Studios
Lastly, Dark Phoenix writer/director Simon Kinberg suggested to IGN that he’d be open to the possibility of returning to the X-Men franchise under the new management of Marvel Studios.
Simon Kinberg would absolutely direct an X-Men film for Marvel, if the opportunity came up. "I've dedicated a lot of my life to Logan and Deadpool and the X-Men and would love to do a fresh take." #XMen#DaysofFuturePast#WFHTheaterpic.twitter.com/Le0HwO8Rmg
After Dark Phoenix losing 20th Century Studios (owned by Disney at the time of release) around $100-130 million, I find it hard to believe that Marvel would consider having Kinberg anywhere near their new X-Men franchise. Having new creatives involved isn’t the worst idea and it’s about time to have more passionate people tackling these characters.
One of the many interesting feature film projects on the cusp of shooting before the Coronavirus pandemic included the new crime flick Kill Switch from Logan Lucky director Steven Soderbergh.
A 1950s crime drama set in Detroit about a trio of criminals who carry out a home invasion, only to wonder if they’ve been double-crossed when the job goes sideways.
It was previously revealed back in March that Jon Hamm was in talks to replace Josh Brolin in a leading role alongside Don Cheadle and Sebastian Stan.
The filmmaker revealed during a video interview with Flaviar that they were two weeks away from the production start in Detroit, Michigan before the lockdown. He confirms a bulk of actors in the film including new additions such as Benicio Del Toro, George Clooney, Ray Liotta, Amy Semietz, and Frankie Shaw.
SODERBERG: “Kill Switch, we were two weeks from shooting. Look, I want to get back there, this was a movie I had been working on for a long time. It’s a great script, we had a great cast together, it’s a period crime film set in 1955.”
When asked who would be starring in Kill Switch, Steven responded with the following. Adding they’re hopeful they’re eager to resume production as soon as it’s safe to.
SODERBERG: “It was written for Don Cheadle…Benicio Del Toro, Sebastian Stan, Jon Hamm, Ray Liotta, George Clooney, Amy Seimetz, Frankie Shaw…”
Steven and Steven have previously worked together on films such as Out of Sight, Solaris, Ocean’s 11, Ocean’s 12, Ocean’s 13, and The Good German.
Benicio Del Toro won his Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work in Soderbergh’s Traffic and their reunion is extremely exciting.
There has been some speculation from Collider that Kill Switch could land on HBO Max.
Jon Favreau recently spoke to Vanity Fair’s Anthony Breznican, who was moderating the virtual panel for the ATX Television Festival (via The Hollywood Reporter) where Favreau gave a brief update on the status of The Mandalorian Season 2.
It sounds like things in the post-production phase are indeed moving along nicely and they’ll be able to hit that targeted drop date in October.
FAVREAU: “We were lucky enough to have finished photography before the lockdown. Thanks to how technology-forward Lucasfilm and ILM are, we have been able to do all of our visual effects and editing and post-production remotely through systems that had been set up by those companies for us.”
Luckily for The Mandalorian, they wrapped photography back in March giving them a slight edge over their fellow Disney+ shows from Marvel Studios that still need to finish filming.
Directing episodes in Season 2 include Jon, Carl Weathers, Dave Filoni, Alita: Battle Angel’s Robert Rodriguez, and Ant-Man’s Peyton Reed.
The new additions to the upcoming second season reportedly include Rosario Dawson, Timothy Olyphant, Temuera Morrison, and Michael Biehn. There is a good chance we could see these Season 2 characters getting a spinoff series as previously telegraphed by Bob Iger not too long ago.
We already know that Season 3 of The Mandalorian is in the works with Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor and Ewan McGregor’s Kenobi series expected to begin shooting by next year.
I’m slightly curious when Lucasfilm and Disney will announce plans for future live-action shows.
When various reports surfaced that Martin Scorsese’s next film Killers of The Flower Moon had its budget balloon to $200-230+ million it seemed like Paramount Pictures wouldn’t likely move forward with it.
The project is based on the novel Killers Of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI by author David Grann with a script penned by screenwriter Eric Roth (Dune, Munich, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button).
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON – A mystery about a series of murders of wealthy Osage Native Americans in Oklahoma in the early 1920s, after oil deposits were discovered beneath their land. The ensuing investigation established the FBI and was a pivotal moment in the evolution of America from its frontier era.
Oscar winners Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro are set for the lead roles. Leo and Robert haven’t worked together since the 1993 film This Boy’s Life, where De Niro played Leo’s abusive stepfather.
Multiple suitors had been in the mix to help finance including Universal, MGM, Apple, and Netflix.
Deadline first reported that a deal seemingly has been struck with Apple partnering to help cover the costs. The film will be distributed first theatrically by Paramount and the film would later become an exclusive streaming title on Apple TV+.
Production was expected to take place this spring/summer in the state of Oklahoma before the Coronavirus and budgetary issues delayed things.
Apple had recently acquired the Tom Hanks WWII film Greyhound from Sony Pictures as another Apple TV+ exclusive.
Hopefully, we’ll start hearing more casting news shortly.
The University of California’s Associated Students Program Board was able to speak with filmmaker Ari Aster (spotted by Slash Film) best known from his horror films Hereditary and Midsommar.
The writer/director revealed to them that his next untitled film will be a “nightmare comedy” that will be 4 hours long.
Aster revealed that he is working on a “nightmare comedy,” having just finished a new draft, and said, “ All I know is that it’s gonna be four hours long, over 17 [years of age].”
It’s unknown at this time if Ari will split that film into two parts or release as one massive film. I’m not sure how many moviegoers are going to be able to watch a film with that length of runtime in a single sitting.
I’m a huge fan of Midsommar as it was one of my favorite films of 2019, despite being late to the game. I enjoyed the flashes of dark humor in Midsommar much more than my experience watching Hereditary, but that could come down to personal preference. I’m extremely intrigued to see if he’ll attempt more of a horror satire or an actual straight-up comedy set within the genre being the backdrop. My money is on the former.
MIDSOMMAR – A couple travel to Sweden to visit their friend’s rural hometown for its fabled midsummer festival, but what begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult.
Paramount Pictures was one of the first studios to halt production on their major film projects as a portion of Mission: Impossible 7 was set to film in Venice, Italy where the Coronavirus in Europe was spreading rapidly. The studio did the responsible thing and placed production on pause out of concern for the safety of the cast and crew.
While speaking with Variety, franchise actor Simon Pegg has reinforced statements made by first assistant director Tommy Gormley to the BBC’s Radio 4 program Today, that Paramount is planning on getting filming up and running sometime in September. Gormley adding that he’s convinced they could complete production by April or May.
Simon also revealed they’ll be focusing more on the outdoor scenes, to begin with, and isn’t exactly sure how they’ll be executing the testing.
PEGG: “That will begin with the outdoor stuff. That feels fairly doable, and obviously, there will be precautions put in place.”
“People that are involved in any close proximity stuff, it will have to be determined that they’re safe to do that. I don’t know what the testing situation is, how that works, or whether they’ll be able to be tested regularly.”
Christopher McQuarrie will be both writing and directing the two untitled sequels that are expected to shoot back-to-back.
Filming in the United Kingdom under the working title “Libra” (Fallout’s working titled was Gemini) was confirmed to take place at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in Watford, England.
There was a recent casting shake-up as character actor Esai Morales (Ozark, Titans) has replaced Nicholas Hoult as the film’s villain after Hoult had to bow-out over a scheduling conflict.
The rest of the cast includes Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Shea Whigham, and the original film’s cast member Henry Czerny.
The studio had recently bumped the release dates for the pair of action sequels due to the production delays, those new spots in the release calendar are November 19th, 2021, and November 4th, 2022.
Earlier in the week, there was some exciting news concerning the next project for Victoria Mahoney, the 2nd unit director on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Victoria (Power, American Crime) is currently in negotiations with Paramount Pictures to direct their feature film adaptation of the Kyle Starks graphic novel Kill Them All published by Oni Press. She most recently worked HBO’s upcoming series Lovecraft Country produced by Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams.
The comic book project sounds a lot like The Raid and Dredd according to the rundown provided.
Kill Them All tells of a betrayed murderess on a revenge campaign and a hard-drinking former cop who team up to take down a crime lord. Their nemesis rules from atop a 15-story Miami high-rise, so the duo must go floor by floor cutting through assassins, murderers, Luchadore gang bosses, ex-boyfriends, and office workers.
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol screenwriters Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec are producing with a script penned by newcomer James Coyne.
When they plan on filming is currently unknown and I’ll be excited to see who they ultimately pick for the two leads.
Despite original reports that Wes Ball’s new Planet of The Apes film would be a hard reboot of the franchise, the director has come out publicly to debunk that the film will be ignoring or undoing the work of the last three films.
While speaking with Discussing Film, Wes dropped an interesting tidbit about the creative team working on the new Apes film that includes Avatar 2 and Terminator: Dark Fate screenwriter Josh Friedman tackling the script.
BALL: “We were using the same material, the same kind of technology, we were using a lot of the same people involved – I had asked Andy Serkis to join Mouse Guard. So it was kind of natural fit. I understand where it came from and my big thing was: what do you do for a Planet of the Apes sequel? One, those last three movies are one of the great trilogies we have in modern movie history. They are just so well done. They honored the original movies they sprang from, the Charlton Heston movies, but they grounded it in a modern sensibility and it just worked. Caesar is one of the great movie characters that we’ll have throughout time. So what do you do to follow that up, right? At the same time, I wasn’t interested in doing a part four either. We want to also do our own thing.”
“We have a take. We have a way of staying in the universe that was created before us, but we’re also opening ourselves up in being able to do some really cool new stuff. Again, I’m trying to be careful here. I’ll say this, for fans of the original three don’t worry – you’re in good hands. The original writers and producers that came up with Rise and Dawn, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, they’re also on board with this. Josh Friedman is writing this thing, a lot of the same crew is kind of involved. We will feel like we’re part of that original trilogy, but at the same time we’re able to do some really cool new stuff. It will be really exciting to see on the biggest screen possible.”
It sounds like that “technology” tidbit would infer that Weta Digital will be making a return for his incarnation. Weta had previously worked on all three of the recent films.
Interestingly enough, Wes worked closely with Weta Digital in the past on his Maze Runner sequels Mazer Runner: The Scorch Trials and Maze Runner: The Death Cure.
He was also set to work again with Weta for his fantasy film Mouse Guard before Disney and 20th Century Studios pulled the plug on it post-merger. The graphic novel adaptation was going to be produced by Matt Reeves with Andy Serkis taking a lead role as the villain.
The director also mentions they’re still in the scripting and production design phase of the film but could begin “virtual production” soon.
BALL: “Well, Planet of the Apes is moving forward and we have a giant art team cranking away on some incredible concept art. We’ve got the screenplay continuing to move forward, that will take the time that it takes and so that’s all good. Planet of the Apes is moving forward baby! Not only that, but we could actually be in virtual production relatively soon because it’s largely a CG movie.”
I’m really curious if they’re going to push the franchise deep into the future side of things. As the recent trilogy only covered the settings of the final films in the franchise that took cues from the final two installments, Conquest and Battle.
I think it’ll be interesting to see what the ape society looks like in two thousand years or at the very least a couple of hundred years. Wes can surely honor the look and legacy of the first three films while pushing the franchise in a new direction to give it new life along with showcasing what ape cities could like in the future. It also allows them to bring back Andy Serkis to play another chimpanzee character, not unlike how Roddy McDowall played Cornelius and then later on his son Caesar.
THE RONIN 