Quentin Tarantino has been hyping the next film (his tenth) will be his final entry into the world of theatrical feature film directing as he’s mused about writing more books and making series/miniseries such as “Bounty Law” in his upcoming phase of “retirement.” While we know some of the plot beats and that the title is “The Movie Critic,” we’re still mostly in the dark concerning the all-important element, the film’s casting.
The main lead of the film is said to be a movie critic working in Los Angeles (Tarantino just got approved for a $20 million California tax credit for shooting in the state) for a “porno rag” in 1977 (the year “Star Wars” was released) and is loosely based on a real person (assumed to be someone that Tarantino is familiar with). Tarantino has compared the lead character to that of the Robert De Niro character Travis Bickle from the classic NYC thriller “Taxi Driver” that hailed from director Martin Scorsese and legendary screenwriter Paul Schrader. Taking place in Los Angeles in the late 70’s will certainly give the film a different feel from other things that Tarantino has made, even “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.”
There is a new rumor that suggests at least one actor might be or have been in the mix for that lead role. According to Daniel Richtman via Patreon, he claims that actor Paul Walter Hauser had been offered the unnamed lead role in the pic before the strikes.
Hauser has been gathering steam with standout roles in projects like Spike Lee’s “BlakKklansman” and “Da 5 Bloods,” “I, Tonya,” Disney’s “Cruella,” Clint Eastwood’s “Richard Jewell,” and most recently landing an Emmy nomination for his prison drama “Black Bird” that he co-stars alongside Taron Egerton.
While it’s certainly a name that feels like a good fit for Tarantino, it’s still just a rumor at this point. As with all unsupported rumors that aren’t being echoed by industry trade outlets, take it with a grain of salt. It’s also worth mentioning that Daniel is quick to point out this information was brewing ahead of the Hollywood strikes which is an indicator this could change.
Tarantino isn’t as out of the public eye as he used to be to comment on these sorts of things and does interviews on a regular basis alongside a podcast. So, I would assume he could debunk or support this rumbling if it ends up being brought to his attention. Previously, Tarantino gave clarifying statements when the rumor of the lead character was going to be based on Pauline Kael, a noted female movie critic from the New York Times. This was quickly dismissed as inaccurate information that was circulating. It’s not like mistakes haven’t already been made when covering this upcoming project.
Despite previous working relationships with both Sony Pictures and Netflix, “The Movie Critic” is without an official studio/distribution partner which is expected to change in the very near future as it sounds like Tarantino has figured out financing for the film if he’s applying for tax credits ahead of the shoot, likely sometime in 2024 given the strikes. We have assumed since the film was first announced that longtime cinematographer Robert Richardson would reunite with the filmmaker after first working with him on the two “Kill Bill” installments and “The Movie Critic” would make this their 7th film together.
December 8 will see the North American wide release of Studio Ghibli‘s high-anticipated animated film, “The Boy & The Heron.” A new original film that saw beloved Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki pull himself out of retirement and what may actually lead to more than just that upcoming supernatural post-war tale.
The revered studio’s vice president, Junichi Nishioka, spoke with CBC’s Eli Glasner on the red carpet for the Toronto International Film Festival. It opened the festival with an introduction from Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro (“Pinocchio”) praising the animated film and reminding the audience they were the first outside of Japan to experience it in a theater. Nishioka apparently revealed that “The Boy & The Heron” isn’t likely to be the final film for Miyazaki, as he’s still coming into the offices with “new ideas.”
“[Exciting] news for fans of Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli VP Junichi Nishioka tells us ‘The Boy & The Heron’ is not Miyazaki’s final film and that he is already coming into the office with new ideas,” Glasner said in a tweet on Thursday night.
However, it’s unclear what those “ideas” could be and if they will ultimately materialize into a script someone else at the studio directs. Another option could be that Miyazaki makes the project himself, again. I’m sure die-hard fans of the studio and filmmaker will be delighted to hear any tidbits/details about that project.
There are more rounds of reviews for “The Boy & The Heron” as it screens at TIFF and you can check out the film’s first-look trailer below alongside the film’s official synopsis.
“A young boy named Mahito yearning for his mother ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning. A semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death, and creation, in tribute to friendship, from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki.”
Exiting news for fans of Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli VP Junichi Nishioka tells us The Boy and the Heron is not Miyazaki’s final film and that he is already coming into the office with new ideas. #TIFF23pic.twitter.com/u9DyyPhJwu
“The Crow,” a mature comic book film released in 1994, has seen a handful of soft reboots/remakes over the years with three follow-up installments and a Canadian television series “The Crow: Stairway To Heaven” led by actor Mark Dacascos (“John Wick 3”) that looked to first reboot the Eric Draven story. Played by the late Brandon Lee in the original film, Draven is an aspiring musician who is killed alongside his fiancee and is returned to the land of the living (via a supernatural crow) to get revenge against a local group of gangsters/thugs in Detroit. The long-gestating feature film reboot finally getting made was only just a matter of time and has gone through various stages over the years such as having actors like Jack Huston (“Boardwalk Empire”) and Jason Momoa (“Game of Thrones”) attached at different points to play the lead before eventually Swedish actor Bill Skarsgård (“IT”) landed the part for director Rupert Sanders (“Ghost In The Shell”).
The film had been seeking distribution partners and Deadline has revealed that Lionsgate has made a deal to handle the film’s domestic distribution as part of the film market linked to the Toronto International Film Festival with CAA Media Finance putting this eight-figure deal together.
Skarsgård had recently played the main villain of Lionsgate’s “John Wick 4” and joined the cast of Robert Eggers’ vampire pic, “Nosferatu.” Other actors among the cast of “The Crow” include FKA Twigs, DannyHuston, Laura Birn, Sami Bouajila, and Jordan Bolger. Production on the remake took place in Prague, Czech Republic, and Munich, Germany.
A release date wasn’t mentioned in the report, but it’s assumed that it could come out sometime in 2024.
Below is the logline for the original 1994 film:
The night before his wedding, musician Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) and his fiancée are brutally murdered by members of a violent inner-city gang. On the anniversary of their death, Eric rises from the grave and assumes the gothic mantle of the Crow, a supernatural avenger. Tracking down the thugs responsible for the crimes and mercilessly murdering them, Eric eventually confronts head gangster Top Dollar (Michael Wincott) to complete his macabre mission.
Marvel Studios is attempting another two-part Avengers event with “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” coming from director Destin Daniel Cretton (“Shang-Chi,” “Wonder Man”), and “Avengers: Secret Wars” is currently without a director (That will change in the near future). The latter film has slowly turned into an extremely uninspired reason for fans online to speculate on the avalanche of variants/cameos that may show up in “Secret Wars” from actors who nearly played roles or brought old ones back. Marvel already did this with “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness” and is expected to do the same with “Deadpool 3” using various Foxverse actors before an assumed reset of the franchise ahead of the “X-Men” and “Fantastic Four” reboots.
A fourth attempt to cram in variants or toothless actor cameos in such a bigger film than those would sort of feel like recycling something they’ve already done too often. It would be so much more compelling if they instead used characters that specifically could be used for the next two “Avengers” films that make sense and aren’t just an extended piece of fan service with a movie’s runtime. I’m not sure having a bunch of random actors/variants that won’t really contribute to the story/plot/character development will actually do very much to propel the film other than play out some action-figure dreams of a niche group of fans that just want to see things appear rather than think about how it would actually improve things.
Now, how do you try to outdo a villainous threat like Thanos and The Black Order after they instituted the Infinity Gauntlet, the snap killing half the universe as a cliffhanger, and time travel? Thanos wasn’t just solo in those films as The Black Order or The Children of Thanos did minion work for him in “Avengers: Infinity War” and returned for the climax action sequence at the end of “Avengers: Endgame.” It would have been nice if they had more character depth to them though beyond alien henchmen.
Marvel is under the impression that the Multiverse and Kang The Conqueror will still be engaging enough with audiences to get the excitement levels growing in the next two event films.
I think people were genuinely excited when a Kang variant was introduced in the first season of “Loki” and that character attempted to foreshadow the doom and gloom of unleashing his more dangerous variants with his death. However, Marvel seemed to undercut that promising threat with the wishy-washy audience reaction to Kang being the main villain of “Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania.” This might signal that they’ll need something more to make Kang a bit more compelling/threatening when we’re talking about him going after the entire team roster after tangling with one of the less powerful heroes. It seemed like a big miscalculation on Marvel’s part and exposed that their new event-level villain might need help beyond his horde of variants (I don’t know how compelling this angle is going to be).
Thankfully, Kang has access to the endless possibilities of the Multiverse and other points in time, making him able to assemble his own competing team that could cause extra trouble for The Avengers if need be.
He’s connected to a team that might be worth exploring on the big screen and that would be The Squadron Supreme (I’ve been campaigning for their MCU debut for many years now). A group of characters mirroring DC Comics’ Justice League that were introduced in Avengers comics as The Squadron Sinister, back in 1969, and originate from the Multiverse being from Earth-712. Making them a way more sensible narrative choice than overloading a film with variants of existing characters. Of course, the Multiverse would have a team that could go toe-to-toe with The Avengers and potentially kill some of them in the process. They were first put together by Jeff Goldblum’s The Grandmaster to combat Kang’s champions (The Avengers), however, the MCU incarnation would most likely see Kang being that puppet master or could easily be the team that fills the void of The Illuminati on Earth-838 after Scarlet Witch killed them. I first mentioned Earth-838 potentially becoming a threat to the main MCU universe last year after seeing “Doctor Strange 2” and theorized Baron Mordo gathering a new team or unleashing something as destructive as Dormammu against that universe to avoid any future murderous encroachments from those inhabitants.
That lineup of Squadron members consists of Mark Milton aka Hyperion (Superman proxy that is an Eternal), Zarda aka The Power Princess (Wonder Woman proxy that is sort of a Multiverse version of an Inhuman as the Utopians were another Kree experiment), Kyle Richmond aka Nighthawk (Batman proxy that became a member of The Defenders) Kenji Obatu aka Doctor Spectrum (Green Lantern proxy), Kingsley Rice aka Amphibian (Aquaman proxy), Skymax aka The Skrullian Skymaster (Martian Manhunter proxy that is a heroic Skrull), Stanley Stewart aka Blur (Flash proxy), Acranna (Zatanna proxy), Wyatt McDonald aka Golden Archer (Green Arrow proxy), Linda Lewis aka Lady Lark (Black Canary proxy), Thomas Thompson aka Tom Thumb (Atom proxy), and Thundra (Femizon from Earth-715 that was introduced in the pages of Fantastic Four as part of the Frightful Four).
Seeing Earth-838 taking revenge or aligning themselves with Kang to see two different universes going to war is another way this could go. Potentially taking place on a version of Battleworld (an abandoned alien world could be fun) to avoid any major collateral damage on their versions of Earth, the losers seeing their universe essentially erased from existence could make for good stakes (“Loki” has established the pruning method). Folks have also talked up the potential of DC Studios and Marvel Studios coming together for a massive Marvel/DC crossover film in the future…since that feels like a decade away using The Squadron Supreme against The Avengers could be a nice substitute to that idea.
Marvel would have a chance to establish The Squadron as a much more deadly group than The Illuminati by having them possibly kill a handful of members in their first skirmish or at least put a serious beating on them as they sort of first reunite since the events of “Endgame.” I don’t think we’re going to see them be as cohesive as they once were and might have to step up a bit over the two films.
I wouldn’t be that terribly shocked if they attempted to beef up the roster by replacing some of the less exciting Justice League proxies with members of The Agents of Atlas since they’ve sort of altered the lineup in more recent comics allowing for some of the older members to potentially make the jump to the Squadron.
It’s a Marvel team featuring some extremely old/obscure comic characters that pre-date the Avengers and even the main Marvel brand. Making them perfect fodder for a Multiverse team being put together by Kang.
Led by a very different incarnation of Agent Jimmy Woo (1956) than we’ve been introduced to in the MCU and also features Namora (1947) last seen in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Some of those other members that could be added to The Squadron Supreme include Kenneth Hale aka Gorilla-Man (1954), M-11 aka Human Robot, Venus (1948), Robert Grayson aka Marvel Boy/Uranian (1950), Chuck Chandler aka 3-D Man (1977), and their pal Jane Hastings aka Jann of The Jungle (1954).
The first incarnation of the team appeared in a What-If…? issue published in 1977 that explored the idea of what The Avengers would have looked like if they had been formed in the 1950s instead of the 1960s.
Having The Squadron Supreme as the main formidable obstacle for this new version of The Avengers, which will have to endure without the likes of Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, and potentially more fallen heroes feels slightly more menacing than simply having Kang variants overwhelm them or have to kill/defeat them one-by-one. There would be a little more complexity with pulling from Squadron/Atlas since they wouldn’t simply be variants like with the Illuminati and could have their own unique power sets alongside character designs that would move beyond simply the variants of existing Marvel heroes/villains.
I’m not really going to get into the current speculation/rumblings about where/when the Squadron could be showing up. But it is worth mentioning it was once rumored they’d first appear in Season 1 of “Loki” and that never happened, so always take unconfirmed rumblings with a pinch grain of salt. Possibly more of that rumor/guessing is going to keep happening until their involvement is actually confirmed by the studio but, to me, the most sense is when The Avengers have to combat a Multiverse threat like Kang.
We have to assume that things like “The Marvels,” “Captain America: Brave New World,” “Deadpool 3,” “Armor Wars,” and “Loki” Season 2 might give us a better sense of what to expect from these next two “Avengers” movies.
Actor Giancarlo Esposito has been getting multiple second-winds thanks to his renewed popularity from shows like “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” allowing him to continue exploring various genres such as sci-fi fantasy with playing a minor Imperial villain in “The Mandalorian” series (Each season having varying levels of screentime). But he seems to be embracing calls from the internet to take on comic book roles within the worlds of Marvel and DC.
While speaking with a crowd at Comic Con Panama, the actor revealed (See video below via Mint Doom on Twitter) that he’s had an early chatter with DC Studios co-head James Gunn about potentially joining the newly reset DCU, which had officially kicked off earlier this month with “Blue Beetle.” However, a character wasn’t declared nor were the subjects discussed in that talk assumed to have taken place before the strikes.
“I have been talking to James Gunn about the possibility of being in a movie – so who knows?”
What we do know is that Gunn is on the hunt for actors to play multiple roles in “Superman: Legacy,” but the names being mentioned for someone like Lex Luthor have been attributed to actors like Alexander Skarsgård, Bill Skarsgård, and previous Clark Kent hopeful, Nicholas Hoult. Fans might want to pigeon-hold the actor to only being right for villains, but Esposito seems to be keen to rebuff that notion. Planet).
In the past, Esposito has mused about a personal desire to play more heroic comic book characters such as Professor Charles Xavier from the “X-Men.” While fan sites/accounts have made massive leaps about Esposito taking certain roles, none of that has actually been backed up by more credible sources like the studios themselves or trades. More or less when the actor has on occasion brought up characters, it has been his personal reaction to internet fan-castings and not likely something he’s actually been offered.
Things like this might not even materialize into a role and could simply be a meeting of the minds that goes nowhere. Then again, we could see him being a good fit as a more cheerful version of, Perry White, Clark and Lois’ boss at the Daily Planet. There are also multiple other high-profile DCU projects in the works as well such as “The Brave & The Bold,” a second season of “Peacemaker,” an animated project focused on the “Creature Commandos,” and even more on the horizon.
Few days ago I was at an event in my country, and I got to see and meet Giancarlo. He answered lots of questions 👀 This one I recorded left me surprised (someone asked if he had a chance to appear in DC films) #dccomics#jamesgunnpic.twitter.com/GPH5ET3QrS
It has been a moment since filmmaker Gareth Edwards tackled an original project after helping to launch the lucrative Monsterverse franchise for Legendary with his “Godzilla” reboot and helped usher in the modern era of “Star Wars” thanks to “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” The last film Edwards worked on his own thing was “Monsters” back in 2010. Well, he’s coming back with a vengeance in his upcoming film “The Creator,” which he compares to a Vietnam War film with a glossy sci-fi paint-job.
During a recent Q&A (See videos below) session where they showcased some new IMAX footage from the film, the director explained to Deadline how the film’s lead, John David Washington, first met with Gareth and had to come clean about being a massive “Star Wars” fan even to the point he was mulling over not wearing his “Star Wars” mask to the pandemic-era meeting as not to offend but said it “wouldn’t be true to himself” as he had been wearing that mask consistently in that time.
He also talked about the other lead of the film. Madeleine Yuna Voyles is the youngster that was cast in the role of Alfie, the new artificial intelligence “threat” that Joshua aims to protect from human hands and Edwards explains how he came around to filling that key role. He was a bit worried that during her audition the actor was being too well prepped before doing an emotional scene that made them all cry, but ultimately ended up doing it again and realizing that she was indeed the actor they needed to play Alfie.
“I don’t know what we would have done if we hadn’t found the right kid, we got really lucky but the version of this movie where we didn’t find Madeleine…I’m glad I live in the universe where that happened. I hate movies with little kids because they can be so annoying, that was my biggest fear making this movie…so it’s the biggest relief when she’s beyond her years it’s like she’s reincarnated or something,” Edwards said of discovering his co-lead that would make or break his movie.
The film focuses on the military threat of A.I. after it started dropping bombs and while the film’s setting is 2070, Edwards jokingly thinks he might have gone too far into the future.
“I have a trick with A.I. is to get the timing as a sweet spot window where it’s before the apocalypse and not after, which I think is in November — maybe December — and so, I think we got really lucky. The joke would be that when you write a film, especially a science fiction film, I try to avoid putting a date … at some point, you have to so, I picked 2070. Now I feel like an idiot because I should’ve gone for 2023 ’cause everything that’s been unfolding in the last few months is kind of scary and weird.”
It’s also a war movie where Edwards describes the pic as a mix between Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” and Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War pic “Apocolypse Now,” the latter is fitting since they shot on location in Vietnam. One of “80 locations” Edwards claims to have been used in the making of the film.
I have to gush a little bit about the potential of “The Creator.” Honestly, we don’t often see an original film of this scale get major backing from a major studio like 20th Century Studios/Disney after being originally developed at New Regency. I can’t express how important it is for original blockbusters to wiggle their way into the marketplace this didn’t used to be as uncommon as it is now in the era of cinematic universes/reboots. I don’t know how studios expect to get to the next “Star Wars” or “Avatar” without taking risks with original projects from visionary directors and screenwriters.
It also doesn’t hurt that there is some “Dune” and “Star Wars” lineage mixed in here with Hans Zimmer composing the film’s score and Oscar-winning cinematographer Greig Fraser having contributed to the film’s visuals as well.
As much as still enjoy the work of director Neill Blomkamp (“The Creator” certainly feels like it shares DNA with his work) after becoming such a creative voice within the sci-fi genre with “District 9,” “Elysium,” and to a lesser extent his visually brilliant pic “Chappie” (I still think most of the production design on the film is top-tier). It feels like he sort of has fizzled out after attaching himself to high-profile franchise sequels like “Alien 5” and “RoboCop Returns” potentially getting drained creatively trying to work within a frustrating studio system while developing his own video game and shooting a bunch of various short films on his own dime. However, he recently ended up with his first number one at the box office in a long time with his sports drama “Gran Turismo.”Rooting for more genre-focused material from Blomkamp, but I’m still grateful that folks like Edwards can pick up the slack and that studios like New Regency are still willing to make such fantastic-looking sci-fi that isn’t based on existing material when other studios/executives repelled by spending big bucks on original ideas (“The Creator” is said to have cost something in the neighborhood of $86 million).
We’ve already seen this summer what audience-friendly originals can look like at the box office with Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” out-earning “Inception” and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” (Not a sequel/reboot/remake) inching closer to becoming Warners’ highest-grossing film. It’s worth mentioning that 20th Century is indeed investing more than expected on various IP-focused sci-fi projects such as new feature film installments in both the “Alien” and “Predator” franchises in the shadow of something as massive as the “Avatar” films.
Amidst a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, Joshua (Washington), a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife (Chan), is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war… and mankind itself. Joshua and his team of elite operatives journey across enemy lines, into the dark heart of AI-occupied territory… only to discover the world-ending weapon he’s been instructed to destroy is an AI in the form of a young child.
“The Creator” will be heading to theaters on September 29 and you can watch a neat featurette about the sci-fi pic below.
Gareth Edwards mentions Francis Ford Coppola and Ridley Scott as influences of his as he notes #TheCreator is “a mix of ‘Blade Runner’ meets ‘Apocalypse Now’” pic.twitter.com/QcXAaJCpFt
Gareth Edwards on the timing of #TheCreator, which follows a future war between the human race and artificial intelligence, being aligned with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes this year pic.twitter.com/9UM5zCc6N6
American filmmaker Michael Mann is behind some of the most thrilling action and dramatic pieces of cinema from his film “Manhunter” introducing the world to Hannibal Lector years before “Silence of The Lambs” to the crime masterpiece “Heat,” the director seemingly has a sixth sense about what it takes to put extremely cool elements and imagery onto the big screen. Mann returns this year with “Ferrari” a film that explores the life of Formula 1 driver and car magnate, Enzo Ferrari, played by the dashing and aptly named Adam Driver (A role originally meant for Aussie actor Hugh Jackman).
A new first-look trailer (See below) has been released online and we now have a better idea of what to expect from the biopic, which will seemingly mix the elements of the thrill of racing alongside the equally dramatic home life of Ferrari. Joining Driver on the call sheet includes Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Sarah Gordon, Gabriel Leone, Jack O’Connell, and Patrick Dempsey.
The film also boasts Oscar-winning cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, who also worked on another film that will be screening at the Venice Film Festival with David Fincher’s assassin thriller “The Killer.”
NEON, the film’s distributor, has released the following synopsis for “Ferarri”:
It is the summer of 1957. Behind the spectacle of Formula 1, ex-racer Enzo Ferrari is in crisis. Bankruptcy threatens the factory he and his wife, Laura built from nothing ten years earlier. Their volatile marriage has been battered by the loss of their son, Dino a year earlier. Ferrari struggles to acknowledge his son Piero with Lina Lardi. Meanwhile, his drivers’ passion to win pushes them to the edge as they launch into the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the Mille Miglia.
While the film makes its debut at the Venice Film Festival, a fitting tribute to the Italian subject/setting, audiences will have to wait a bit longer to experience “Ferrari” for themselves as it will be released in theaters on Christmas.
If you weren’t already aware, Universal Pictures is putting together a live-action incarnation of their beloved animated franchise, “How To Train Your Dragon.” The young cast members have been announced already as director Dean DeBlois has selected Mason Thames (“The Black Phone”) to play Hiccup and Nico Parker (“The Last of Us”) in the role of Astrid. Despite the strikes halting multiple major Hollywood productions across the globe, it does seem like a few productions planning on shooting in the United Kingdom and Europe are, at least, gearing up in the prep/pre-production stages.
There are two key crew additions to “How To Train Your Dragon” that we can now share.
The Ronin can confirm that production designer Dominic Watkins has joined the fantasy film. Some of Watkins’ credits consist of “Snow White & The Huntsman,” “The Huntsman: Winter’s War,” “Kate,” “Bad Boys II,” and “The Bourne Supremacy.” Of course, “Snow White” is one of his more complex projects, hopefully, he’ll be able to tap into that dark fairytale imagery with “Dragons” and there are some expectations that the project will attempt to incorporate as many practical sets as the budget will allow. Fingers crossed for an actual Viking village being built.
We previously reported earlier in the month that cinematographer Bill Popehas been added to the crew as well with credits that include “The Matrix” trilogy, “Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings,” “Baby Driver,” “Spider-Man 2,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” “Alita: Battle Angel,” and “Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania.” A fantastic director of photography who surely will add a slick visual element to the remake.
If you haven’t watched the animated films, here is the first film’s synopsis:
Hiccup is a Norse teenager from the island of Berk, where fighting dragons is a way of life. His progressive views and weird sense of humor make him a misfit, despite the fact that his father (Kongkrapunt Sangsuriya) is chief of the clan. Tossed into dragon-fighting school, he endeavors to prove himself as a true Viking, but when he befriends an injured dragon he names Toothless, he has the chance to plot a new course for his people’s future.
Well-known screenwriter James Vanderbilt is looking to branch out into directing with some seriously dark subject matter. The writer known for working on scripts for films such as David Fincher’s serial killer pic “Zodiac,” the military thriller “Basic,” and the last two “Scream” movies is setting his sights on World War II and the subsequent Nuremberg Trials. Specifically, focusing on convicted Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring. Back in 2012, Vanderbilt and Laeta Kalogridis (“Shutter Island,” “Alita: Battle Angel,” “Avatar”) landed the rights to the non-fiction novel “The Nazi & The Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, & A Fatal Meeting of Minds At The End of WWII” by author Jack El-Hai with plans to turn the material into a feature film. It explores the complex relationship between American psychiatrist Dr. Douglas M. Kelley and the Nazi war criminal and Hitler’s right-hand man (Based on Kelley’s own personal notes from the Nuremberg era which had been hidden for years by his family).
Oscar-winner Russell Crowe (“Gladiator“) revealed over the summer at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival that he had been tapped to play Göring in “Nuremberg” and was expected to be his next project.
There is a minor update The Ronin can share as the project has landed a cinematographer, Dariusz Wolski, a familiar name to most. Wolski is likely mostly known these days for his lengthy string of collaborations with filmmaker Ridley Scott including “Prometheus,” “Napoleon,” “House of Gucci,” “The Last Duel,” “Alien: Covenant,” “Exodus: Gods & Kings,” “The Martian,” and “The Counselor.” Some of his other work consists of the Brandon Lee comic book flick “The Crow,” three installments of Disney’s “Pirates of The Caribbean” films, and the underrated Aussie sci-fi thriller “Dark City.”
Below are some examples of Wolski’s recent feature work.
Here is the novel’s official synopsis via Amazon which should give you a pretty good idea of where the film is going:
In 1945, after his capture at the end of the Second World War, Hermann Göring arrived at an American-run detention center in war-torn Luxembourg, accompanied by sixteen suitcases and a red hatbox. The suitcases contained all manner of paraphernalia: medals, gems, two cigar cutters, silk underwear, a hot water bottle, and the equivalent of 1 million in cash. Hidden in a coffee can, a set of brass vials housed glass capsules containing a clear liquid and a white precipitate: potassium cyanide. Joining Göring in the detention center were the elite of the captured Nazi regime—Grand Admiral Dönitz; armed forces commander Wilhelm Keitel and his deputy Alfred Jodl; the mentally unstable Robert Ley; the suicidal Hans Frank; the pornographic propagandist Julius Streicher—fifty-two senior Nazis in all, of whom the dominant figure was Göring. To ensure that the villainous captives were fit for trial at Nuremberg, the US Army sent an ambitious army psychiatrist, Captain Douglas M. Kelley, to supervise their mental well-being during their detention. Kelley realized he was being offered the professional opportunity of a lifetime: to discover a distinguishing trait among these arch-criminals that would mark them as psychologically different from the rest of humanity. So began a remarkable relationship between Kelley and his captors, told here for the first time with unique access to Kelley’s long-hidden papers and medical records. Kelley’s was a hazardous quest, dangerous because against all his expectations he began to appreciate and understand some of the Nazi captives, none more so than the former Reichsmarshall, Hermann Göring. Evil had its charms.
However, with all this said it’s unclear when exactly production would begin as the Hollywood strikes likely mean it won’t be happening anytime soon. Hopefully, the AMPTP will come to their senses and make a fair deal with the writers/actors.
**** WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ‘JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4’****
Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stahelski have put together quite an entertaining group of action films with the four installments of the “John Wick” franchise. Earlier in the year, “John Wick 4” ended up becoming the highest-grossing film in the batch which is likely why it’s a bit puzzling why the team decided to end “Chapter 4” with the way they did. If you haven’t seen the film, there is a duel in Paris that is assumed to have left John dead from multiple gunshot wounds. While we do see Winston looking down at John’s grave, we don’t actually see the master assassin die on camera, or his body laid to rest for that matter. Potentially, this could have been a constructed way to both end the films there or leave a hypothetical window open for Wick’s “resurrection” in a couple of years by stating the coffin was empty with Wick going off to rest/recover in peace away from The High Table after settling his debt to them.
Despite earlier plans to shoot both “John Wick 4” and “John Wick 5” back-to-back in Germany, they ultimately only made one film and gave everyone involved an out if they truly wanted it. Stahelski recently spoke about the sequel to Josh Horowitz on his podcast (Horowitz suggests we follow Wick into the afterlife/purgatory), Happy Sad Confused, where it was explained that while Keanu Reeves would happily make another one, the director is a bit more apprehensive about it and says waiting for a good reason/idea before jumping into production is key. Citing his worry that it could be seen as treating the loyal audience like idiots for doing a death fake-out.
“If you asked [Keanu] right now, he’d say ‘fuck yeah.’ But, then he’d look and go ‘Well, what is it? I have no fucking clue.’ Look man, we’re going to do our other stuff for a little bit but if…an idea hit me within 30 seconds I’d be on the phone with Keanu and we’d be riffing. We have a lot of set pieces. We have a lot of ideas that didn’t go or we didn’t do. I have no doubt we’ve come up with a lot of great [action} pieces, its just what’s the main thread?…But if we found that moment and found that thread, yeah. I don’t think you’d find anyone invovled with ‘John Wick’ that wouldn’t want to do another one,” the director told Horowitz.
Stahelski still has his own concerns about rushing into it as he brings up the ambiguity of the western “Shane,” where the audience isn’t exactly sure if the hero actually has died, but it’s assumed he has. While also harping on the fact they haven’t cracked a great idea for that return and likely would hinge on that aspect before moving forward.
“I don’t think we bring John Wick back without a real reason. It can’t just be a hook, it’s got to draw people back in. Cause I think most of the audience would like to see Keanu back they just don’t want to be treated like they’re idiots. They don’t want to be treated like ‘Gimmie your fourteen bucks and we’ll bring back the dude to shoot people in the head.’ I’m part of the audience and I would feel ripped off if I did something like that. None of us are opposed to doing five but we just don’t know how to do it, we’re not that smart.”
Interestingly enough, the upcoming spinoff film “Ballerina” starring Ana de Armas and helmed by Len Wiseman (“Underworld”) sidesteps this issue as it takes place between the end of “John Wick 3” and the start of “John Wick 4” allowing for characters like Charon and Wick to appear despite their on-screen deaths (many of us are still mourning Lance Riddick’s tragic off-screen death). There could be room to go back into John’s past with the Ruska Roma and explore those events, even if that means hiring a younger actor to fill Keanu’s shoes. What “John Wick 5” ends up looking like might depend heavily on how audiences receive things like “Ballerina” and potentially other spinoffs like the one teased with the end credit scene telegraphing an Akira-centric movie that possibly sees her attempt revenge against Caine for killing her father in Osaka.
It’s also worth pointing out that “other stuff” Stahelski mentions is an ever-growing number of unmade film projects he’s previously attached himself to over the years that he wants to make before tackling a “John Wick 5.” Some of those that standouts include a reboot of the “Highlander” franchise with British actor Henry Cavill still attached for a key role, the “Rainbow Six” movie at Paramount that would see Michael B. Jordan reprise the role of C.I.A. operator John Clark, and another ambitious project, a feature film adaptation of the samurai PlayStation video game, “Ghost of Tsushima.” The latter would see an all-Asian cast with the hopes that it could be done mainly in the Japanese language.
You can watch/listen to that full interview below.
THE RONIN 