James Cameron’s Avatar released back in 2009 was a huge phenomenon and became the biggest box office release globally at $2.79 billion, but eventually lost that spot when Avengers: Endgame took the record away earning $2.797 billion. Now, there is word from The Hollywood Reporter that China has approved a re-release of Avatar later this week.
China’s Film Bureau has approved a surprise plan for the director’s 2009 sci-fi epic Avatar to get a wide re-release in the country on Friday, according to two sources at Chinese movie theater companies, which were informed of the arrangements. The technologically trailblazing blockbuster will be made available to exhibitors for a nationwide release in both Imax 3D and ordinary 3D.
They point-out if Avatar earns $7.4 million it will regain the box office record.
Bringing the film back to China is a good way to prime a new generation for the upcoming sequels and reminding previous audiences about the franchise, since many likely haven’t seen it or haven’t watched it over the last ten-plus years.
James Cameron has been shooting Avatar 2, Avatar 3, and parts of Avatar 4 between California and Wellington, New Zealand. The first sequel, Avatar 2, is set to be released on December 16th, 2022.
AVATAR – On the lush alien world of Pandora live the Na’vi, beings who appear primitive but are highly evolved. Because the planet’s environment is poisonous, human/Na’vi hybrids, called Avatars, must link to human minds to allow for free movement on Pandora. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paralyzed former Marine, becomes mobile again through one such Avatar and falls in love with a Na’vi woman (Zoe Saldana). As a bond with her grows, he is drawn into a battle for the survival of her world.
Viggo Mortensen and Canadian director David Cronenberg are apparently trying to work together on a new film as the actor revealed in a recent chat with GQ Magazine, revealing that the film will see Cronenberg going back to his “origins.” The project might even end up in the thriller or horror genre depending how you take in Viggo’s answers below during the interview.
Adding that filming could begin as early as this summer.
GQ: Are you two in talks for another collaboration sometime soon?
MORTENSEN: “Yes, we do have something in mind. It’s something he wrote a long time ago, and he never got it made. Now he’s refined it, and he wants to shoot it. Hopefully, it’ll be this summer we’ll be filming. I would say, without giving the story away, he’s going maybe a little bit back to his origins.”
GQ: So, body-horror type stuff?
MORTENSEN: “Yeah, it’s very interesting. It’s almost like a strange film noir story. It’s disturbing and it’s good, I think. But since his origins, he’s obviously developed in terms of technique and self-assurance as a director.”
I’m sure the “origins” comment would lead many to believe he’s talking about David’s early work in the horror genre but we’ll likely have to wait on more concrete details.
At one point, David tried to get 20th Century Fox (pre-Disney merger) to make a film within the same universe of his remake The Fly. Here is how the filmmaker described the project to The Playlist back in 2012 calling it more of a sequel/sidebar than a full-on remake.
CRONENBERG: “It wasn’t really a remake, it was more of a sequel or a sidebar. It was a meditation on fly-ness. None of the same characters or anything and, of course, with an understanding of modern technology. It was something I was very pleased with and it was a disappointment not to get it made.”
THE FLY – When scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) completes his teleportation device, he decides to test its abilities on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a housefly slips in during the process, leading to a merger of man and insect. Initially, Brundle appears to have undergone a successful teleportation, but the fly’s cells begin to take over his body. As he becomes increasingly fly-like, Brundle’s girlfriend (Geena Davis) is horrified as the person she once loved deteriorates into a monster.
Viggo and David have previously worked together on the comic book adaptation A Historyof Violence, the Russian gangster film Eastern Promises, and A Dangerous Method. Interesting enough, a spiritual sequel to Eastern Promises is moving forward with Jason Statham’s Small Dark Look that was penned by screenwriter Steven Knight and that had been originally planned as a direct follow-up with Cronenberg expected to direct (formerly known as Body Cross) before budget issues killed it.
Yesterday, there were more feature film delays announced by studios with The King’s Man, a prequel set in the Kingsman franchise, has been bumped to August 20th from March 12th. The action film directed by Matthew Vaughn is expected to be part of wave of sequels and spinoffs as Disney seemingly has plans double-down on the mature action franchise.
THE KING’S MAN – As a collection of history’s worst tyrants and criminal masterminds gather to plot a war to wipe out millions, one man must race against time to stop them. Discover the origins of the very first independent intelligence agency in The King’s Man.
Disney/20th Century Studios also announced that their animated flick Bob’s Burgers has been pulled from the schedule entirely after being etched-in for a release of April 9th and hasn’t been given a new spot. It’s possible that Disney is busy trying to determine where they want to place it with more switch-ups on the way.
This is expected to be the first of many Disney projects that they’ll moving around as their 2021 and 2022 slate is obviously going to be altered as other studios move their feature films out of the spring and summer. Black Widow and Shang-Chi are key Disney blockbusters that are likely going to get new dates.
Fans of Alita: Battle Angel have been hoping that with Disney taking over 20th Century Studios they’d end up landing sequel given the built-in franchise potential of the sci-fi movie adapted from the Japanese manga. The James Cameron project had been always envisioned as a trilogy as the source material allowed for that to happen.
There had been some optimistic comments from producer Jon Landau about a sequel last year talking with CinemaBlend.
LANDAU: “Absolutely. … When Jim [Cameron] was going to direct us, which he was at point, in his mind he had plotted out two additional stories of where we would go very specifically.“
“Well, I won’t speak specifically about Alita. I would just tell you that I think Jim [Cameron] and I love the opportunities that streaming and these other avenues of distribution are offering people today. And you know, we would love to get into those playgrounds and play in them, no matter what the title is.“
Now while speaking with Forbes to promote his Netflix film We Can Be Heroes, director Robert Rodriguez revealed he’d be open to make a Alita: Battle Angel sequel even if it landed at Disney+ as Robert has an established with Disney/Disney+ via The Mandalorian and the upcoming series The Book of Boba Fett.
RODRIGUEZ: “I think anything is possible. Disney bought Fox, and they have Disney+, so that is worth the conversation. I know other people would love to see another, and I would love to do another one. As far as where it would go or how it would be made, I think streaming has opened up many opportunities such as sequels. It’s already a pre-sold concept, it’s already got a built-in audience that wants to see it, and then it’s delivered to them in a way that’s the easiest for them to consume. So, it’s not a bad idea.”
As far we know, there aren’t plans at Disney/20th Century to make any new Alita project but it’s worth mentioning that Rodriguez is busy with his Star Wars series The Book of Boba Fett currently shooting along with his Ben Affleck thriller Hypnotic on the horizon.
I personally enjoyed the film even in the final third act spent most of that time setting up a sequel instead having a standalone conclusion. Hopefully, something comes together eventually given the first installment ended on a cliffhanger and introducing Edward Norton‘s Nova as a main antagonist.
Avatar franchise producer Jon Landau posted on Instagram that they’ve finally completed live-action photography on Avatar 3, after finishing up Avatar 2 months ago. This means they can move closer to finishing them while also moving on to Avatar 4 and Avatar 5.
The image looks to be from a wrap party. Just so people are aware that New Zealand is currently free from COVID-19 which explains why they’re interacting so closely in the photo below as the country has returned to normalcy.
LANDAU: “Celebrating the wrap of live action photography—with Jemaine Clement, Brendan Cowell and James Cameron. Congrats to the entire crew in both New Zealand and Los Angeles. Incredible work!”
Kingsman is one of the many film franchises that Disney inherited when they bought 21st Century Fox. The big news coming from Marv Group CEO Zygi Kamasa at the UK Finance Summit from last week via Deadline is that Matthew Vaughn is plotting “something like seven more Kingsman films” as Marv Films hopes to make more projects as part of their expansion plans.
KASAMA: “We have a Kingsman TV series in the works and there are two-three other franchises that are being developed alongside the Kingsman world.”
A prequel film titled The King’s Man is completed with a release date for February 12th, 2021.
It’s cast consists of Ralph Fiennes as The Duke of Oxford, Harris Dickinson as Conrad, Gemma Arterton as Polly, Djimon Hounsou as Shola, Charles Dance as Arthur, Daniel Bruhl, Stanley Tucci, Matthew Goode as Tristan, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Tom Hollander, and Rhys Ifans as Rasputin.
THE KING’S MAN: As a collection of history’s worst tyrants and criminal masterminds gather to plot a war to wipe out millions, one man must race against time to stop them. Discover the origins of the very first independent intelligence agency in The King’s Man.
Kingsman 3 is also in development stages with Taron Egerton and Colin Firth set to return. Matthew Vaughn had recently suggested to Empire Magazine he wanted to direct the third installment after there had been talk of someone else taking over directing duties.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle introduced an American branch called The Statesman, which could also get their own films.
Disney has had huge success with their family-friendly streaming service Disney+, however, the service is indeed geared towards families and younger audiences which means other Disney-owned content can’t really appear there.
A new report from Collider claims things might be changing soon with sources suggesting that their domestic service Hulu is being prepared to be folded into Disney+, Disney is a majority owner of Hulu and plenty of people have suggested this becoming an option given that Hulu doesn’t have an international presence being a domestic service but could with some help from Disney/Disney+ take the leap into the global realm like Netflix.
Sources say Disney is looking to combine its two streaming services into a single juggernaut.
For more than a year now, there has been speculation that Disney might one day fold Hulu into its Disney+ streaming service, and sure enough, Collider is hearing that multiple Hulu executives have been leaving or let go from the streaming service in anticipation of the move, which makes a lot of sense from a business perspective.
They phrase the report’s headline as a question which could mean this might be more of a rumor circulating among reliable people they’re talking to.
If this officially happens, Disney+ adding Hulu’s content, the 20th Century Studios library and their multiple television offerings from 20th Television/FX would add a massive under served demographic to their international streaming service. Another upside is that Disney might be forced into developing mature content with the Disney branding moving into the 21st Century as the media company will need to attract adult audiences as well and move beyond children’s entertainment.
We’ve already seen this with 20th Century Studios moving forward with Predator 5 and Marvel Studios hiring screenwriters for Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool 3, both expected to be R-rated offerings. This could be a way for Disney+ to start making mature shows using their budgets that they’ve used for Star Wars and Marvel series. I’m sure that Alien series that Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) wanted to make wouldn’t have as much trouble getting the budget it would need to look proper. It also gives a home to franchise films like Die Hard, Alien/Predator franchises, Logan, and Deadpool.
Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video are doing a lot to attract older subscribers with original content which to some extent HBO/HBO Max is doing as well but like Hulu isn’t on the global stage.
Speaking of HBO Max, does this mean Disney announces this and then throws their entire 2021 slate of films on the combined service? We don’t really know if they’re going to mirror HBO Max’s new release model for 2021 and if this happens it could be another ding on the theatrical runs of future films. Alongside their potential to earn the billions at the box office that Disney is accustomed to. Hulu could be placed in an odd spot here and might see massive layoffs as jobs become redundant.
A while back it was reported that Fargo and Legion series creator Noah Hawley had attempted to pitch 20th Century Fox to develop a series at FX set within the Alien universe which was ultimately rejected before the merger with Disney.
An Alien series wouldn’t be the first new project that was purposed.
District 9’s Neill Blomkamp had tried to finally get an Alien 5 movie (Ridley Scott and James Cameron pitched a version before AVP years ago) off the ground with Sigourney Weaver attached to star and Ridley Scott producing but that never materialized. As Scott has been talking up a third installment of his Alien prequel, a follow-up to Alien: Covenant that had been once called Alien: Awakening and more recently has been indicating that it’s in development stages. Franchise screenwriters/producers Walter Hill and David Giler seemingly inspired by Blomkamp’s concept of erasing the two sequels had written a couple of drafts for Alien V with Weaver reading an early draft of it.
It was announced that Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Land, Black Mirror) would be directing Predator 5 aka Skulls, that according to him had been in the works for almost four years. An old synopsis for the project suggested it could be taking a period western setting with the main human character being “a female Comanche warrior”.
There had been some hints that Disney might want to circle back to Noah’s Alien series idea and Deadline asked him about it in their interview for Season 4 of Fargo. Admitting he’s since had talks about the show since the merger which sounds like new interest in making it as Deadline suggests a deal for a show is incoming.
DEADLINE: Are you still involved with the Alien reboot TV series? I understand deals are trying to be done.
HAWLEY: “I know that there’s an effort to reshuffle a lot of things post-Disney takeover and it was a conversation that I had a couple years back. And I have not in the last few weeks been having those conversations about it. But I know that like any studio that there’s a great desire to make the most of one’s library so I wouldn’t be surprised to see something like that.”
DEADLINE: But you’re involved in it?
HAWLEY: “Ya know, I have conversations from time to time but I’m not committed.”
DEADLINE: And there isn’t a hard conceit to it yet?
HAWLEY: “No, I haven’t — nothing is at that stage.”
Back in September, Noah gave some insight to Observer what he wanted to do and hinted that he would like to explore a character-driven series set in the universe that may have focused on the humans behind the Weyland-Yutani company and those underneath them. An interesting proposal given that filmmakers have really only scratched the surface of what that futuristic universe looks like.
HAWLEY: “Alien is on some level the complete opposite of Stark Trek. It’s sort of about humanity at its worst. There’s this moment in the second film when Sigourney says, ‘I don’t know which species is worse. At least they don’t screw each other over for a percentage.’ If you look at what Aliens tends to be, it’s usually a trapped story – trapped in a ship, trapped in a prison, etc. And because the Alien has this life cycle to it, where it goes from egg, to chestburster, to xenomorph, there becomes a certain routine to it.”
“I thought it would be interesting if you could expand. If you’re going to make something for television, you’ve got 10 hours let’s say. Even if you have a lot of action, like two hours, then you’re still going to have eight hours left. So what is the show about? That’s what I tried to talk to them about. As I did with Legion, the exercise is: Let’s take the superhero stuff out of the show and see if it’s still a great show. What’s the show about? Let’s take the Alien out of the show. What’s the show about? What are the themes, who are the characters and what is the human drama? Then we drop the aliens back in and we go, ‘This is great. Not only is there great human drama, but there’s aliens!’”
We had heard a while back there had been some interest in Ridley Scott getting involved with a Hulu series, the streamer now has a strong relationship with FX’s programming post-merger and would be a perfect home for an Alien series if/when it come together. If there were to be any Alien series Scott is most likely landing an automatic executive producer credit given his current status on the franchise and previous involvement with Alien 5 as a producer.
It’s also worth noting that Ridley Scott’s sci-fi series Raised By Wolves (formerly at TNT) had been touted by HBO Max as their most successful original series and that could help influence folks at Disney, 20th Century Studios, FX, and Hulu to give Noah’s series a second look as it sounds like they might already have.
We’re excited to finally get to see some footage from James Cameron’s Avatar sequels and during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, franchise actor Stephen Lang sort of broke how how much filming he’s done so far on the projects as he is reprising the role of Colonel Miles Quaritch. Revealing he’s shot for two years already for Avatar 2 (finished filming) and Avatar 3 (expected to be finish soon) along with a scene already for Avatar 4.
LANG: “I haven’t shot anything in probably close to a year. But I’d shot for two years before that, so I’m good. I know there is still a huge amount of work to be done. As far as I can tell, Avatar 2 — it’s shot.”
“I have no doubt that when Avatar 2 does come out, it’s going to be the movie he feels it needs to be. I’d say the same for 3, 4 and 5. We haven’t got to 4 or 5 yet, even though we have shot a scene from 4.”
In a world of cloning and new “avatar” bodies a resurrection for the very dead Colonel Quaritch isn’t terribly strange but they haven’t really explained how they plan on bringing him back. I have to assume that RDA has the kind of money laying around to clone a bunch of Colonels installing them all over their off-world operations.
Quaritch isn’t the only baddie in the new movies as Sopranos star Edie Falco will play General Ardmore, who is heading up a different RDA installation on Pandora called The Bridgehead.
I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll start showing us more polished promotional materials beyond set photos.
Yesterday, it was revealed by Deadline that 20th Century Studios and Disney would be moving forward with a new Predator film loosely being referred to Predator with Dan Trachtenberg (The Boys, Black Mirror, 10 Cloverfield Lane) set to direct. The project was unknowingly revealed by Discussing Film late last year under the working title Skulls and had been kept under the radar thanks to the working title/vague logline throwing people off the scent. This new report from Deadline first revealing it’s ties to the Predator franchise and Disney’s desire to keep things chugging along.
According to Dan on Twitter, they’ve been working on Predator 5 for much longer than a year, closely to four years. He also seemingly suggests they had been planning on quietly making and releasing the film as a surprise. I have to assume hearkening back to how his film 10 Cloverfield Lane was shot as something else and then connected to the Cloverfield franchise.
TRACHTENBERG: “This was meant to be a surprise. Been working on this for almost 4 years now. I am very sad that what we had in store for how you could discover this movie will no longer happen. It’s a bummer. But also…YAY!”
The film is expected to be a period piece focusing on a female Comanche human character. It sounds like a potential Native American proxy to expanded universe character Machiko Noguchi (a Japanese human inducted into a predator tribe) and would mean it could skew more in the western genre but other than that we don’t know too much about the project. It had been established back in Predator 2 that the aliens had been coming to Earth for hundreds of years to hunt and placing this new film in the past could be one way to make a film different enough from the previous four installments.
Maybe we’ll see Julia Jones (The Mandalorian, Westworld, Wind River) in the role?
Fans like myself were bummed-out when we finally got a look at Shane Black’s 2018 film The Predator and it was a giant mess with a bizarre sequel bait ending that landed flat on it’s face. Hopefully, this means that Alien 5/Alien V is seriously being considered after that spec-script tease from franchise screenwriters David Giler and Walter Hill was making the rounds on social media.
THE RONIN 