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.
While George Lucas has been hands-off with the franchise since selling it to Disney back in 2012, fans have sort of wondered what the reasoning was behind handing over the franchise to Disney beyond the billions they gave him.
Author Paul Duncan has posted on Twitter an excerpt from his new book The Star Wars Archives Episodes I-III giving some insight, in the pages he asks George Lucas why he ultimately sold the rights to Disney and stepped away from making the Sequel Trilogy himself. Lucas’ answer seems to be more about having free time and not having to spend the next decade working on film trilogy.
DUNCAN: I wonder why you passed control of Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012?
LUCAS: “At that time I was starting the next trilogy; I talked to the actors and I was starting to gear up. I was also about to have a daughter with my wife. It takes 10 years to make a trilogy, Episodes I to III took from 1995 to 2005.”
“I was 69. So the question was am I going to keep doing this the rest of my life? Do I want to go through this again? Finally, I decided I’d rather raise my daughter and enjoy life for a while.”
“I’m one of those micromanager guys and I can’t help it. So I figured I would forgo that, enjoy what I had, and I was looking forward to raising my daughter. Also, I wanted to build a museum, which I’d always wanted to do, so I was thinking ‘if I don’t do this now, I’ll never get that done’.”
“I’ve spent my life creating Star Wars, 40 years, and giving it up was very, very painful. But it was the right thing to do. I thought I was going to have a little bit more to say about the next three because I’d already started them, but they decided they wanted to do something else. Things don’t always work out the way you want it. Life is like that.”
Lucas previously dished to Duncan about what some of his ideas for the new trilogy were that didn’t ultimately get used by Disney including the villains and how the Luke would started a new wave of Jedi with help from the survivors of Order 66.
The latest episode of The Mandalorian released back on Friday brought back Boba Fett with prequels actor Temuera Morrison playing the role and finally getting to wear the armor as well. Morrison previously playing Jango Fett and the Clone Troopers in the prequel films.
In Chapter 14, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni seemingly restored Jango Fett and Boba Fett (by proxy) status as Mandalorians after there had been hints from the animation side that they were frauds that happened to obtain the armor. This leading fans to proclaim that neither Fetts were “real Mandalorians”. This apparently has been patched-up with some dialog in the new episode with Boba Fett revealing that his father Jango Fett was a foundling just like Din Djarin and fought in the Mandalorian Civil Wars.
DIN DJARIN: “You’re father was a foundling?
BOBA FETT: “Yes, he even fought in the Mandalorian Civil Wars.
DIN DJARIN: “Then that armor belongs to you.”
The episode also attempts some image repair on the Boba Fett character making him an effective soldier rather than the joke he was in Star Wars: The Return of Jedi and even seems a bit heroic, this likely has a lot to do with his own series.
Does this mean that both Boba Fett and Bo-Katan will become regulars on the show given that The Mandalorian title could now end up referring to all three of these characters? That remains to be seen as Deadline reported last month that a secret Boba Fett series began shooting without word who was director or even writing.
I’m slightly curious if we’ll end up seeing Bo-Katan or even Boba eventually take over the series if Mando happened to get killed-off possibly in a duel with Moff Gideon as he wields the Darksaber.
When I first exclusively reported at HN Entertainment that The Mandalorian would get a Season 2 (the first Star Wars series to get multiple seasons) I suggested that Lucasfilm could use an anthology model allowing them to pivot to different Mandalorian characters in various seasons. Given that we have zero information about this Boba Fett series and Jon Favreau hoped to begin shooting before the end of 2020, I wouldn’t be shocked if the Fett project might actually be Season 3 of The Mandalorian (only my speculation).
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.
Chapter 13 is written and directed by Dave Filoni which leads to our first and possibly only look at Rosario Dawson as the live-action version of Ahsoka Tano.
Our first sequence on Corvus is a battle between Ahsoka Tano and a group armed men from The Magistrate aka Morgan Elsbeth (played by Diana Lee Inosanto), during a duel at the end it’s reveal Morgan’s master is Grand Admiral Thrawn (introduced into canon via Star Wars: Rebels) and Ahsoka is trying to find him. The action sequences are pretty neat and there is a huge Princess Mononoke vibe in the episode, it’s also nice to see her cut through the grunts with lightsabers.
The village of Calodan also seemed to take some visual cues from The Labyrinth.
Michael Biehn (Aliens, Terminator) shows up as the Magistrate’s hired-gun, possibly ex-military according to Mando.
When Mando is assigned by The Magistrate to kill Ahsoka Tano for a berskar spear. He eventually meets up with her and she reveals The Child’s real name is Grogu along with a bit of his origin story that he was at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant being trained during the Clone Wars. The Child is not a clone of Jedi Grand Master Yoda as previously suspected by fans but one of the few young Jedi that were able to survive Order 66.
Ahsoka seemingly refuses to train Grogu seeing darkness in him and instead tasks Din Djarin to take The Child to an ancient Jedi Temple on Tython (a planet from The Old Republic video game) to see if his path is meant towards that of a Jedi.
Tython is a planet located within the Tython System of the Deep Core. It is the planet where the first society of Force-users in known history gathered, which would eventually become the Jedi Order. It is the starting world of the Jedi Knight and Jedi Consular character classes.
The planet is also home to the Flesh Raiders and if they are on Tython it would be their first live-action debut as they were created for The Old Republic video game.
As she hopes another Jedi can be reached through placing The Child on the Seeing Stone at the top of the mountain and if he reaches out to the Force another Jedi will sense his presence to find/train him.
This feels like endless side-missions at this point and it’s getting to be a bit of headache but it’s nice to get some hard information about Baby Yoda. But it’s nice to hear we might be seeing another Jedi, although, I’m unsure it’ll be Luke Skywalker.
It’ll be interesting to see if Ahsoka ends up getting her own solo series from Dave Filoni or if this Thrawn thread is ever pulled because it does seem like this stuff will get wrapped in The Mandalorian. I think a live-action version of Thrawn showing up in something like the Cassian Andor series could be fun or elsewhere. Thrawn was a Legends character from the novels that got a second life when he was added in Star Wars: Rebels and officially joined canon.
Deadline reports that a new untitled period thriller is in development at the Disney owned Searchlight Pictures as three high-profile casting additions are announced. Director Tom George (This Country) is assembling a cast for his untitled murder mystery that includes Irish actress Saoirse Ronan (The French Dispatch), Sam Rockwell (Jojo Rabbit), and David Oyelowo (The Midnight Sky).
Here are plot and characters details of the film penned by Mark Chappell.
The story is set in 1950s London, where a desperate Hollywood film producer sets out to turn a popular West End play into a film. When members of the production are murdered, world-weary Inspector Stoppard (Rockwell) and overzealous rookie Constable Stalker (Ronan) find themselves in the midst of a puzzling whodunit within London’s glamorous Theatreland and sordid underground.
A production start isn’t mentioned but will seemingly be shot in United Kingdom.
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.
Deadline has announced a huge update concerning the future of the Predator franchise as Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) has been hired by 20th Century Studios/Disney to direct an untitled Predator 5 that will have a script from Patrick Aison (Treadstone, Jack Ryan).
The film isn’t expected to be a sequel to Shane Black’s soft-reboot The Predator.
Apparently, Discussing Film caught-wind of the project’s production grid information almost a entire year ago and didn’t make the connection it was part of the Predator franchise as it was under the working title of Skulls (the Predator collects skulls).
…will follow a Comanche woman who goes against gender norms and traditions to become a warrior.
It’s unconfirmed if Skulls’ logline is the official one they’ll actually be using as that information is year old and could have changed since then as films normally do over a year or more of development/script changes. The Predator and Alien franchises always have multiple incarnations in the development stages before the cameras roll on each installment.
However, the crux of Skulls does sound very similar to Machiko Noguchi, a Japanese human character that is inducted into a predator tribe after proving herself worthy.
A new Predator film so soon have the box office disaster of 2018’s The Predator would obviously signal Disney’s commitment to continuing 20th Century Studios’ legacy franchises and might mean that new Alien projects could be next.
They’re already moving forward with a new Planet of The Apes film from director Wes Ball along with a new spec-script for Alien V from franchise screenwriters/executive producers David Giler and Walter Hill.
Yesterday, Just Jared posted the first set photos of Ms. Marvel from filming in Atlanta over Wednesday’s shoot which showed Iman Vellani in character as Kamala Khan wearing a Captain Marvel alongside a teenage friend, who happens to be The Walking Dead’s Matt Lintz as there multiple shots of Matt with Iman which looks like some sort of costume party.
Matt’s role in the series has yet to be confirmed but is likely playing a classmate.
Kamala Khan is a practicing Muslim Pakistani-American teenager living in New Jersey, who is a massive fan of Captain Marvel and develops her own superpowers (canonically is group of The Inhumans) then adopting the name Ms. Marvel (Carol’s original superhero name in the comics).
The series showrun by Bisha K. Ali has a group of directors that include Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah, Meera Menon, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.
The Disney+ series is expected to debut in late 2021.
THE RONIN 