There has been a long-gestating remake of “The Saint” in the works at Paramount Pictures that previous had a popular TV series from the 1960s and a lesser-known feature film remake starring Val Kilmer (“Heat”) and helmed by Phillip Noyce (“Clear & Present Danger”) that released back in 1997. A new report from Deadline has revealed things are up and running again with Doug Liman (“Bourne Identity”) set to direct and actor Regé-Jean Page enlisted for the role of Simon Templar. A master of disguise, not that dissimilar to Ethan Hunt, who uses the names of Roman Catholic saints as his aliases while on various impossible missions.
The British actor will be replacing his “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” co-star Chris Pine (“Star Trek”), who had originally been attached to the remake back when Dexter Fletcher (“Eddie The Eagle”) was set to direct. Pine had previously attempted to restart the Jack Ryan film franchise for Paramount before his installment was unsuccessful and eventually the studio selected John Krasinski to lead the Amazon Prime series. So, Pine’s hiring was always a bit bizarre after their experience on “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.”
Page has recently dabbled in the spy genre playing a heel in The Russo Brothers’ Netflix action pic “The Gray Man,” but didn’t really get a chance to do much action in that one in comparison to the other actors in it.
It’s maybe worth mentioning that Roger Moore, the original actor from the ’60s TV series would eventually take over the James Bond role in the early 1970s after Richard Lazenby decided not to return for more installments. Page (35) has been long considered by UK tabloids as a strong contender to become the next 007, although, EON/MGM have yet to announce who they’ll actually cast other than a desire to hire an actor in their 30s.
Here is the official synopsis for the 1997 incarnation:
Based on the popular spy series, this film follows suave international thief Simon Templar (Val Kilmer), who is contracted by Russian oil magnate Ivan Tretiak (Rade Serbedzija) to steal a formula for cold fusion. So Templar, nicknamed “The Saint” because of his use of Roman Catholic saints as aliases, finds scientist Dr. Emma Russell (Elisabeth Shue), seduces her, and steals the information. However, because the formula was incomplete, Tretiak now wants to kill Templar and kidnap Russell.
Like “Mission: Impossible,” “The Saint” has an earworm of a theme song that got reworked by Orbital for the 1997 film.
Paramount has been trying to put together Star Trek 4 for ages now. There had been some hope after hiring Matt Shakman to direct that things would be moving forward but when the studio announced they secured the returning cast, that was refuted by the actors in question that deals haven’t been finalized. Well, it looks like Shakman has already started the pre-production stage and is putting together a crew of his own.
The Ronin can reveal that Shakman is looking to reunite with WandaVision production designer Mark Worthington as he’s been added to the anticipated sci-fi adventure project. Worthington is no stranger to the Star Trek franchise as he’s worked on Star Trek: Discovery in the past. His credits as a production designer and art director include things such as Lost, Tombstone, Austin Powers In Goldmember, HBO’s Watchmen, and American Horror Story.
We can also confirm that the film’s working title will be Riverside. If you’re unfamiliar with franchise lore, the production title that will be used during filming is a direct nod to the hometown of James T. Kirk that is Riverside, Iowa.
At one point, an incarnation of the fourth film would have used time travel to see ChrisPine‘s Kirk meet up with his father George, who was played by Chris Hemsworth in the first reboot installment from 2009 before becoming Thor in the MCU. George, of course, dies and changes many of the events of Kirk’s life. However, those George Kirk resurrection plans seemingly dissolved when the actors and studio couldn’t agree on contracts/pay.
Despite Paramount’s optimism to get cameras rolling by the end of the year, it’s possible another delay could be on the horizon as Shakman is expected to shoot the Godzilla & The Titans series next.
A surprise attack in outer space forces the Enterprise to crash-land on a mysterious world. The assault came from Krall (Idris Elba), a lizard-like dictator who derives his energy by sucking the life out of his victims. Krall needs an ancient and valuable artifact that’s aboard the badly damaged starship. Left stranded in a rugged wilderness, Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the rest of the crew must now battle a deadly alien race while trying to find a way off their hostile planet.
Co-director John Francis Daley has officially announced on Twitter that filming on Paramount Pictures’ new Dungeons & Dragon movies has wrapped, after spending time shooting in Belfast, France, and Iceland.
Dungeons & Dragons is based on the beloved table top game that eventually incorporated various universes including elements from the Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser series of novels created by American fantasy author Fritz Leiber. It remains to be seen what Paramount’s angle will be with the new movie, if they’ll be setting it simply in a fantasy world or will be slightly inspired by the recent Jumanji film from Sony Pictures.
The beloved table-top fantasy game that recently got a resurgence with a new generation thanks to Netflix’s Stranger Things and it growing popularity again in the gaming community.
It originally had Chris McKay (The Tomorrow War, The Lego Batman Movie) attached to direct before Paramount pivoted to Game Night filmmakers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. The duo, who previously wrote Spider-Man: Homecoming will tackle the script as well.
The Dungeons & Dragons cast members are Chris Pine (Star Trek, Wonder Woman, Hell of High Water), Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar, F9, Alita: Battle Angel), Rege-Jean Page (Bridgerton, The Gray Man), Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu, Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom), Sophia Lillis (It), Chloe Coleman (Avatar 2, Gunpowder Milkshake), Daisy Head (Shadow & Bone), Hugh Grant (The Gentlemen, Five Eyes) is reportedly playing a villain.
Their production team consists of cinematographer Barry Peterson (Game Night), production designer Raymond Chan (The Falcon & The Winter Soldier), and stunt coordinator Brad Martin (Underworld, The Falcon & The Winter Soldier).
Paramount will unleash Dungeons & Dragons on March 3, 2023.
Paramount Pictures released Star Trek Beyond in 2016 and has been mulling over the next steps for Star Trek 4 for ages now. They’ve been churning-out multiple Star Trek series but for some reason just couldn’t settle with the right incarnation for the fourth installment, directors S.J. Clarkson (Jessica Jones) and Noah Hawley (Fargo, Legion) previously being attached to helm the sequel.
Deadline is now reporting a third candidate has stepped in, as Paramount has hired WandaVision director Matt Shakman to hopefully bring Star Trek 4 past the finish line after various hiccups uring the project’s development. The outlet adds that a new script has been penned by Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet with an aim to get cameras rolling by next spring.
This announcement would seemly nudge to us that Hawley has joined Clarkson by exiting.
J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot are returning to produce. It’s also assumed that we’ll see the return of Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, and new addition Sofia Boutella as well.
An earlier incarnation was going to involve time-travel and allow Pine’s Captain Kirk interact with his father George Kirk, who was played by a young Chris Hemsworth before he was cast by Marvel for Thor. Apparently, contract negotiations fell apart leading to the project dissolving.
Quentin Tarantino and Mark L. Smith (The Revenant) had been developing their own film based on the gangster episode of the original series. However, that project doesn’t seem like it will be happening.
Star Trek 4 likely won’t be ready for release until spring or summer of 2023.
STAR TREK BEYOND – A surprise attack in outer space forces the Enterprise to crash-land on a mysterious world. The assault came from Krall (Idris Elba), a lizard-like dictator who derives his energy by sucking the life out of his victims. Krall needs an ancient and valuable artifact that’s aboard the badly damaged starship. Left stranded in a rugged wilderness, Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the rest of the crew must now battle a deadly alien race while trying to find a way off their hostile planet.
Filming is underway on Paramount’s new Dungeons & Dragons movie but there is yet another casting announced that has arrived. Game Night directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein are behind the project.
British actress Daisy Head, the daughter of Buffy’s Anthony Head, has landed a role in project led by Chris Pine, according to Deadline. Daisy is likely best known from Underworld: Blood Wars, the new Wrong Turn film, and the Netflix series Shadow & Bone.
A potential plot synopsis was spotted online and an Icelandic outlet confirmed last month the country is being used as a filming location. Other filming locales include Belfast and France.
An ex-Harper turned thief escapes from prison with his partner, a female barbarian, and reunites with a no-talent wizard and a druid new to their team in an effort to rob the cheating conman who stole all their loot from the heist that landed them behind bars, and used it to install himself as the Lord of Neverwinter. Only the traitor is allied with a powerful Red Wizard who has something far more sinister in store.
On the crew front there is another impressive addition.
Brad Martin confirmed on his Instagram account that he’s officially the second unit director and supervising stunt coordinator on the fantasy remake. He was the second unit director on the Underworld franchise and was the stunt coordinator on action flicks such as Underworld, Live Free or Die Hard, Tropic Thunder, The Other Guys, Safe, The Expendables 3, Gemini Man, Greenland, and Martin most recently tackled the stunts on Marvel’s series The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.
The rest of the fantasy film’s production team consists of cinematographer Barry Peterson (Game Night) and production designer Raymond Chan (The Falcon & The Winter Soldier).
Other Dungeons & Dragons cast members are Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar, F9, Alita: Battle Angel), Rege-Jean Page (Bridgerton, The Gray Man), Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu, Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom), Sophia Lillis (It), Chloe Coleman (Avatar 2, Gunpowder Milkshake) and Hugh Grant (The Gentlemen, Five Eyes) is reportedly playing a villain.
Paramount will unleash Dungeons & Dragons on March 3, 2023.
Paramount Pictures alongside Game Night directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein are attempting a new feature film adaptation of the fantasy table-top game Dungeons & Dragons. And it’s been announced that production is finally underway in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the main filming location of HBO’s Game of Thrones series.
Filming has officially begun according to co-director Jonathan Goldstein via Twitter.
— Jonathan Goldstein 🐉 (@JM_Goldstein) May 1, 2021
It’s growing cast includes Chris Pine (Star Trek, Wonder Woman), Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar, F9, Alita: Battle Angel), Rege-Jean Page (Bridgerton, The Gray Man), Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu, Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom), Sophia Lillis (It), Chloe Coleman (Avatar 2, Gunpowder Milkshake) and Hugh Grant (The Gentlemen, Five Eyes) is reportedly playing a villain.
Production will be taking place under the working title Chainmail with locations said to include Belfast, Northern Ireland and France. The fantasy film’s production team consists of cinematographer Barry Peterson (Game Night) and production designer Raymond Chan (The Falcon & The Winter Soldier).
Paramount will unleash Dungeons & Dragons on March 3, 2023.
After the merger between Disney and 21st Century, the film and television rights to live-action X-Men projects reverted back to Marvel. This has led to the announcement of Jon Watts directing a reboot of The Fantastic Four, another group of characters that came home to Marvel in the wake of the merger. Marvel Studios doesn’t seem to be in any rush to introduce mutants into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the biggest task they’ll have is recasting the Wolverine role.
Getting the X-Men and Wolverine on the big screen took a bit longer than you might imagine. Apparently, development goes back to 1984 as Wolverine co-creator Roy Thomas (Conan The Barbarian, Conan The Destroyer, Red Sonja) and Punisher co-creator Gerry Conway (Fire & Ice, Conan The Destroyer) wrote an X-Men film for Orion Pictures before the studio had financial issues.
Another incarnation had James Cameron producing a version with Near Dark director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker) and a script titled Wolverine & The X-Men was penned by Gary Goldman (Total Recall, Big Trouble In Little China, Navy Seals) around 1991 for Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment and Carolco Prictures. When Carolco went bankrupt the project was essentially dead.
In 1994, producer Lauren Shuler Donner got her hands on the X-Men rights and brought it to 20th Century Fox hiring screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven, The Wolfman, 8mm, Sleepy Hollow, Fight Club, Event Horizon, The Game) to work on a script, he was also assigned to write a Silver Surfer movie for the studio that never saw the light of day. After multiple tweaks to the X-Men script from various writers (some uncredited like Christopher McQuarrie and Ed Solomon), David Hayter would eventually get the screenwriting credit. It was eventually shot in 1999-2000 in Toronto/Hamilton/Burlington, Ontario, Canada by director Bryan Singer (attached since 1996) and released in 2000 earning an impressive $296.3 million globally on a budget of $75 million.
The Hugh Jackman era was certainly a bumpy road as the Australian actor was a last minute replacement for the Wolverine role as Scottish actor Dougray Scott had a scheduling conflict as he was busy shooting John Woo’s Mission: Impossible II. During the Cameron/Bigelow incarnation, Bob Hoskins had been considered. Much later on actors such as Russell Crowe, Viggo Mortensen, and Keanu Reeves had been in the mix for Wolverine.
The commercial success of the first X-Men movie is often cited by many as the turning point for Marvel projects being appealing to wide-range of audiences. Alongside Blade, proved to Marvel that people were willing to go see popcorn films featuring their characters which at the time had been considered a niche audience as a multitude of comic book movies had failed to make money in the 1990’s. Many studios tried to chase the box office returns achieved by Tim Burton’s Batman movies only to lose a lot of money in the process.
Due to Wolverine’s popularity he ended up landing his own film trilogy at 20th Century Fox starting with the forgettable mess, X-Men Origins: Wolverine that was plagued with studio brass,Tom Rothman, meddling with production and threatening to fire director Gavin Hood. A workprint of the film had been leaked online ahead of the officially release with incomplete visual effects and wasn’t much better than the theatrical version, as it clearly had half-cooked effects and godawful digital claws. The horrible effects only highlighted how bland the film was.
Luckily, The Wolverine was helmed by James Mangold (replacing Darren Aronofsky) and became one of the better films of the X-Men franchise and led to a stellar final bow for Hugh Jackman in the sequel Logan. Hugh would announce his retirement as Wolverine following the success of Logan, even turning down multiple pleas from Ryan Reynolds to make a Wolverine vs Deadpool movie.
Marvel Studios is now in the perfect position to reboot the X-Men and remove all the silly timeline issues along with the character deviations that started with Singer’s first installment giving us faithful versions of the mutants. The only mutant project they’re currently working on is the R-rated Deadpool 3 starring Ryan Reynolds as they recently hired Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Loeglin to write it.
The Falcon & The Winter Soldier has introduced Logan’s stomping-ground Madripoor and I hope we’ll see the location in future X-Men projects. I’d love to see Marvel give Wolverine a faithful origin covering his adventures during WWII/Cold War, confrontations with Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, connections to the Canadian mutant team Alpha Flight or in the Weapon X Program as Marvel Studios would likely be able to explore this stuff in a Disney+ series as not to distract from the main X-Men team.
We’re still waiting on Marvel to announce the creative team working on their X-Men reboot.
Hiring the next Wolverine is gong to be a pivotal moment for Marvel Studios because Hugh Jackman has been the face of Logan for over 20 years and to some fans their entire lives. It’s sort of tough coming up with the “perfect list” of casting hopefuls to play the MCU’s Wolverine because those are big shoes to fill. However, I came up with a group that might skew a little older but I felt had the well-rounded careers that could be solid enough to be in consideration along with being names that I assume Marvel would want to target. Given that Moon Knight’s Oscar Isaac is in his forties it wouldn’t be that hard to imagine older/seasoned contenders for Wolverine.
HENRY CAVILL (AGE 37): Mission: Impossible – Fallout, The Witcher, Man of Steel, The Count of Monte Cristo, Stardust, Immortals, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Enola Holmes, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Justice League.
CHRIS PINE (AGE 40): Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek Beyond, Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman 1984, Hell or High Water, Outlaw King, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Unstoppable, Smokin’ Aces, This Means War, and The Finest Hours.
TOM HARDY (AGE 43): Band of Brothers, RocknRolla, Black Hawk Down, Locke, Taboo, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Peaky Blinders, Dunkirk, Legend, The Revenant, The Drop, Lawless, Warrior, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Bronson, Marie Antoinette, Star Trek: Nemesis, and Layer Cake.
CILLIAN MURPHY (AGE 44): 28 Days Later, Inception, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Peaky Blinders, Red Eye, Sunshine, Dunkirk, Free Fire, TRON: Legacy, Cold Mountain, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, and A Quiet Place II.
Paramount Pictures has announced a string of new dates for their upcoming feature film schedule and they’ve delayed the release of Dungeons & Dragons by almost an entire year.
They’ve officially moved the fantasy adventure film from May 27, 2022 to March 3, 2023.
Game Night’s John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein are directing and writing.
The growing cast includes Chris Pine (Star Trek, Wonder Woman), Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar, F9, Alita: Battle Angel), Rege-Jean Page (Bridgerton, The Gray Man), Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu, Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom), Sophia Lillis (It), and Hugh Grant (The Gentlemen, Five Eyes) is reportedly playing a villain.
The Ronin previously confirmed production under the working title Chainmail will be taking place in Belfast, Northern Ireland and France. The film’s cinematographer will be Barry Peterson (Game Night) and production designer Raymond Chan (The Falcon & The Winter Soldier).
Dungeons & Dragons is based on the beloved table top game that eventually incorporated various universes including elements from the Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser series of novels created by American fantasy author Fritz Leiber. It remains to be seen what Paramount’s angle will be with the new movie, if they’ll be setting it simply in a fantasy world or will be slightly inspired by the recent Jumanji film from Sony Pictures.
There is also a live-action series in the works from John Wick creator Derek Kolstad (The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, Nobody).
Deadline reports that Paramount Pictures has added veteran actor Hugh Grant as the villain of Dungeons & Dragons and IT actress Sophia Lillis in another role in the high-profile fantasy film about to begin shooting soon in Belfast. Grant has been working closely with director Guy Ritchie on his films The Gentlemen and Five Eyes, the latter currently deep into production.
The pair join Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Rege-Jean Page, and Justice Smith.
It’s a little odd that they’ve hired this many American actors for a fantasy film, hopefully, they’re going to be using their regular accents and not attempting bad British ones. Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings movies had a bunch of Americans but they were able muffle their accents for the most part. There is nothing more distracting than an American forcing a bad British accent for the entire runtime of a feature film. Luckily, we’ve sampled Chris Pine’s Scottish accent in The Outlaw King, which was sort of impressive given he’s not really known for it.
Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley will be directing and writing. We currently don’t have any real solid plot details but there is a good shot the duo is creating an original take while using existing mythology as source material.
Dungeons & Dragons is being set for release on May 27th, 2022 and already is being expanded with John Wick’s Derek Kolstad being tasked to develop a live-action television series set withing the fantasy world.
A casting update for Paramount Pictures’ new Dungeons & Dragons film from The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Bridgerton actor Rege-Jean Page has closed a deal for a role in the fantasy film that will be directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein .
Dungeons & Dragons is based on the beloved table top game that eventually incorporated various universes including elements from the Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser series of novels created by American fantasy author Fritz Leiber.
Page joins a cast that includes Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, and Justice Smith.
The Ronin previously confirmed production under the working title Chainmail will be taking place in Belfast, Northern Ireland and France. The film’s cinematographer will be Barry Peterson (Game Night) and production designer Raymond Chan (The Falcon & The Winter Soldier).
John Wick franchise creator Derek Kolstad (The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, Nobody) is also developing a live-action Dungeons & Dragons series for Hasbro/eOne as reported last month by The Hollywood Reporter.
Paramount Pictures has given the film a release date of May 27th, 2022.
THE RONIN 