Director James Wan confirmed the Aquaman 2 will be more serious taking cues from modern themes and that Patrick Wilson will be returning as Ocean Master.
Warner Bros. has given Aquaman 2 a release date of December 16th, 2022. This would suggest they would attempt to begin shooting by the end of next year, if not sooner.
Filming on the first installment took place at Village Roadshow Studios in Australia and there is a good shot they’ll return to that facility.
We already know that Dwayne Johnson will be playing the titular character Black Adam in the upcoming DC Comics film with Noah Centineo playing Atom Smasher.
During the DC FanDome event today it was confirmed by Johnson that Doctor Fate, Cyclone, and Hawkman coming together alongside Noah’s Atom Smasher to form the Justice Society.
Sadly, no new casting announcements were made.
Jaume Collet-Serra is set to direct the project sometime next year as Johnson still has to complete Netflix’s Red Notice, which is expected to resume filming in September.
There is an expectation that we’ll see Black Adam and Shazam! eventually crossover.
Black Adam is set for release on December 22nd, 2022.
Vanity Fair reports that actor Ben Affleck will be returning as Batman for the upcoming Flash film as he agreed to to join the film’s cast this week.
Director Andy Muschietti confirmed the news and gave the following quote.
MUSCHIETTI: “He’s a very substantial part of the emotional impact of the movie. The interaction and relationship between Barry and Affleck’s Wayne will bring an emotional level that we haven’t seen before. It’s Barry’s movie, it’s Barry’s story, but their characters are more related than we think. They both lost their mothers to murder, and that’s one of the emotional vessels of the movie. That’s where the Affleck Batman kicks in.”
They also add that Michael Keaton is still part of of the film in a “substantial role”.
Affleck left the role as the solo Batman film changed over to Matt Reeves and new actor Robert Pattinson.
It’ll be interesting to see how they tackle two on-screen Batmans.
In a brief report from Variety they state that Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson will resume production on The Batman starting early next month at Warner Bros. Studios Leavedsen.
Although, they point out the studio hasn’t confirmed the restart.
Shooting on the Batman reboot was taking place in England and Scotland when the pandemic led to a pause in global film production.
The cast led by Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne aka Batman also includes Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle; Paul Dano as Edward Nashton aka The Riddler, Jeffrey Wright as the GCPD’s James Gordon; John Turturro as Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as Gotham D.A. Gil Colson, Jayme Lawson as mayoral candidate Bella Reál, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, and Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot aka The Penguin.
This will be the first installment in a new trilogy.
Director Matt Reeves also revealed in a new promo video for DC FanDome they will be showing fans new footage from the film, as we’ve only had some quick test footage of the suit released officially previously.
Black Adam is one of the upcoming big DC Comics projects that will getting hyped-up at their event DC FanDome and there are some expectations that some casting/details will be revealed.
The Illuminerdi is now posting a rumor that New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. is “interested” in casting Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard in the role of Carter Hall aka Hawkman.
It’s worth noting that the Skarsgard Family has an established working relationship with Warner Bros. over the last couple of years.
Alexander recently led a Tarzan reboot for them a few years back along with roles on HBO shows True Blood and Big Little Lies. His younger Bill Skarsgard playing Pennywise in New Line’s IT and IT: Chapter Two. Their father Stellan Skarsgard is playing the villain Baron Harkonnen in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, which is being distributed by Warner Bros.
There have been plenty of fan speculation concerning the casting of the Hawkman role and a handful of shady rumors as well. Still, take with a pinch of salt as with all casting rumors.
They also mention they’re considering Scottish Sam Heughan (Bloodshot, Outlander) actor for the part as well.
Skarsgard plays the villain of the CBS All Access series The Stand from New Mutants director Josh Boone, based on the Stephen King novel.
Dwayne Johnson is set to play the titular Black Adam with Noah Centineo reportedly playing Atom Smasher.
Jaume Collet-Serra is directing from a script penned by Adam Sztykiel.
The film’s release date has been announced for December 22nd, 2021 but could easily be pushed to 2022 because of the production delays.
Another blow to the entertainment industry is on the way.
On Monday, it was revealed that WarnerMedia would be moving forward with massive layoffs with the “first wave” said to be around 600 according to a report from THR.
The layoffs are being attributed to the damage inflicted by the Coronavirus pandemic.
The laid-off employees include Warner Bros. CFO Kim Williams, Warner Bros. Worldwide Television Distribution president Jeff Schlesinger and Ron Sanders, Warner Bros. president, Worldwide Theatrical Distribution & Home Entertainment and Executive Vice President, International Business Operations.
Yesterday, news hit that the comics side of the company would be taking a huge hit as well.
The Hollywood Reporter included a list of people at DC Comics publishing that are expected to go as well such as editor-in-chief Bob Harris, Hank Kanalz, Jonah Weiland, Bobbie Chase, Brian Cunningham, and Mark Doyle.
Among those said to be losing their positions are editor-in-chief Bob Harris, senior VP of publishing strategy and support services Hank Kanalz, VP of marketing and creative services Jonah Weiland, VP global publishing initiatives and digital strategy Bobbie Chase, senior story editor Brian Cunningham, and executive editor Mark Doyle, who oversaw the rollout of the Black Label graphic novels. Jim Lee remains the CCO.
They also point out that a “majority” of people at the DC Comics centric streaming service DC Universe will also see layoffs.
There had been plenty of signs recently that DC Universe was on borrowed time after their talk show The Daily DC was canceled and multiple shows moved to other WarnerMedia services slowly making the streaming service less relevant.
This news comes days before WarnerMedia’s big star-studded DC Fandome event on August 22nd is likely going to leave fans a little sour given the state DC Comics and DC Universe will be in.
We had previously seen a bunch of layoffs at 20th Century Studios (formerly 20th Century Fox) because of some job redundancies post-merger with the Walt Disney Company, which regularly happens when media companies combine. Equally as sad but that was slightly more expected in the wake of the merger and was one of the reasons many Fox employees were quitting before the merger had even completed.
WarnerMedia recently launched HBO Max back on May 27th and seemingly hasn’t seen the growth they expected alongside the pandemic essentially stalling a majority of their various productions around the globe making.
I’m sure everyone is interested to see if AT&T/WarnerMedia will keep divisions after the cuts to staffing or instead attempt to sell them off. There had been reports that they were trying to offload Warner Bros. Interactive, their profitable video games division, but some have had the assumption that these layoffs may delay that sale.
Last year, Constantine actor Keanu Reeves revealed to Variety he would be open to the idea of making a sequel and reprising the role of John Constantine.
REEVES: “I’ve always wanted to play John Constantine again. I just love that world too and I love that character. Yeah, I just had a blast playing that character.”
Director Francis Lawrence has now weighed-in while speaking with our pals over at Slash Film, revealing he has spoken with Keanu and producer/screenwriter Akiva Goldsman about the prospect of a sequel. However, mentioned that the character is out of their hands potentially referring to the Justice League Dark series being developed for HBO Max by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot.
LAWRENCE: “I think we all wanted to do it. It was successful enough. We wanted to make a responsible, more R-rated movie. By responsible, I mean we’d make a movie that wouldn’t cost quite as much as the original, which we thought was going to be PG-13. We worked on the sequel for a while. It was tricky to come up with where to take it. What I really liked about the first one was it was a really personal story, so I thought it’d be a mistake to get caught up in the supernatural gobblygook. The idea of a personal story was really interesting, and that was the hard thing to come across. We have been talking about it recently. It’s always stuck with all of us because we all love the movie, and especially realizing there’s a real cult following for this movie, it’d be fun to make. Keanu, Akiva, and I have actually talked about it. “
“Unfortunately, I don’t even remember who has it, but with all these shared universes that exist now, with Constantine being a part of Vertigo, which is a part of DC, people have plans for these shared universes. You know, possibly different Constantines and things like that. Right now, we don’t have that character available to us for TV or movies, which is a bummer. We all investigated it, but I think it’s kind of crazy when you have Keanu, who would love to do another Constantine, and us wanting to do another Constantine, and people are like, ‘Uh, no, we got other plans’. We’ll see what happens.”
We still don’t know if John Constantine will play a role in the new HBO Max series but that makes the most sense at the moment.
Due to Keanu’s recently career resurgence thanks to the John Wick franchise, there might be a reason for Warner Bors. to at least consider having him reprise the role whenever the character resurfaces.
CONSTANTINE –As a suicide survivor, demon hunter John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) has literally been to hell and back — and he knows that when he dies, he’s got a one-way ticket to Satan’s realm unless he can earn enough goodwill to climb God’s stairway to heaven. While helping policewoman Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz) investigate her identical twin’s apparent suicide, Constantine becomes caught up in a supernatural plot involving both demonic and angelic forces. Based on the DC/Vertigo “Hellblazer” comics.
While it’s been ages since we’ve had an update concerning New Line Cinema’s DC Comics film Black Adam from director Jaume Collet-Serra. It looks like we have our first big casting addition since confirmation that Dwayne Johnson would be playing the titular character.
The Hollywood Reporter says that the studio has hired up-and-coming heartthrob Noah Centineo in the role of Atom Smasher, the DC character had been long rumored for the film.
Centineo will play Atom Smasher, a character who can control his molecular structure and is able to manipulate his size and strength.
Noah had been previously hired to play Prince Adam/He-Man in Sony’s long-delayed Masters of The Universe reboot film.
Black Adam is said to be shooting in Atlanta, Georgia. However, with the United States including Georgia seeing a massive uptick in new Coronavirus cases a production start anytime soon likely wouldn’t be smart or safe on the part of New Line Cinema.
I had also heard that a portion was expected to shoot in California, another state that is dealing with a wave of new cases.
Warner Bros. has given the film a release date of Decemeber 22nd, 2021. It remains to be seen if they’ll be able to stick that date if production is delayed into 2021.
Today, it was announced by WarnerMedia and HBO Max that they’ll be developing another DC Comics series for their new streaming platform. This will be the first live-action series to be directly connected to the feature films as the series will be set in the universe of Matt Reeves’ The Batman focusing on the Gotham Police Department.
They’ve given the series a commitment and it will be written by Terence Winter. Winter is a seasoned veteran at HBO thanks to his fantastic crime series such as Sopranos and the prohibition era Boardwalk Empire produced by Martin Scorsese. He also wrote the script for Martin’s excellent Wolf of Wall Street.
Terence’s involvement would suggest the series would likely focus on the seedy and corrupt nature of the police in Gotham City. It will also likely be much more grounded than the previous Jim Gordon series Gotham.
The Batman director and co-writer Matt Reeves will also be directly involved as the show’s producer via his production company 6th & Idaho.
Here is the official press release.
HBO Max announced today that it has given a series commitment to an original DC drama set in the Gotham City police department from The Batman filmmaker Matt Reeves, Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter, The Batman producer Dylan Clark, and Warner Bros. Television. The groundbreaking television series to be written by Winter is set in the world Reeves is creating for The Batman feature film and will build upon the motion picture’s examination of the anatomy of corruption in Gotham City, ultimately launching a new Batman universe across multiple platforms. The series provides an unprecedented opportunity to extend the world established in the movie and further explore the myriad of compelling and complex characters of Gotham. This marks the first television project for Reeves under his recently announced overall deal with the Warner Bros. Television Group.
Reeves’ 6th & Idaho production company will produce the series in association with Warner Bros. Television. Reeves and Emmy® winner/Oscar® nominee Winter (The Sopranos, The Wolf of Wall Street) will executive produce with Clark (Bird Box, Rise, Dawn, and War for Planet of the Apes). The drama, which is based on characters created for DC by Bob Kane with Bill Finger, will also be executive produced by 6th & Idaho’s Daniel Pipski (From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series) and Adam Kassan (Tales from the Loop); Rafi Crohn (Tales from the Loop) will co-executive produce. Warner Bros. International Television Distribution will distribute the series globally.
Reeves is currently at the helm of Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Batman, which will be released in October 2021. He previously co-wrote and directed War for the Planet of the Apes, directed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, wrote and directed Let Me In, and directed Cloverfield, among other films. Recent 6th & Idaho television series include Amazon Prime Video’s Tales from the Loop, starring Rebecca Hall and Jonathan Pryce; the upcoming Netflix drama Away, starring Hilary Swank; and FOX’s The Passage. Reeves previously co-created (with J.J. Abrams) and executive produced the hit series Felicity, directing the pilot and several additional episodes.
Winter was nominated for 12 Emmy® Awards and won four during his tenure on the landmark HBO drama series The Sopranos, twice for Outstanding Drama Series and twice for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. He created the HBO drama Boardwalk Empire, which ran for five seasons and earned Winter two additional Outstanding Drama Series Emmy® nominations. He was nominated for an adapted screenplay Academy Award® for writing the Best Picture–nominated film The Wolf of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese, who had previously helmed the Boardwalk Empire pilot. He and Scorsese subsequently co-created (with Mick Jagger and Rich Cohen) the HBO drama Vinyl.
We’ll have to wait and see if we’ll end up getting Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon or John Turturro’s mob boss Carmine Falcone in the show, but there is a good shot it’ll happen.
It’s unknown when we’ll ultimately see the show come together and this isn’t the only DC Comics series coming to HBO Max, they’re also working on bringing Green Lantern to life as well.
HBO recently cracked the comic book series code with Damon Lindelof’s excellent Watchmen and has seemingly set a high bar of quality for these other shows. I’m hopeful that having Terence Winter involved that they’ll be able to do something a little more than simply recreating a regular police procedural.
This announcement is kind of ballsy as there have been prominent protests rallying against police brutality over the last couple of months. DC Comics or not, they’ll likely be getting an earful for pushing forward with this when people are fed-up with police in entertainment media.
THE RONIN 