The official Avatar twitter account has posted the first official look at Edie Falco’s General Ardmore in the form of a behind the scenes set photo. The General is the new head of RDA’s operations on Pandora and likely will be behind the underwater missions.
Here’s a behind the scenes still of Edie Falco as General Ardmore, the new head of RDA activity on Pandora.
There is an assumption that the General will be the new villain given that the military forces will likely want a little payback for ouster of their cohorts and the dismantling of the mining operations on Pandora. Hopefully, we’ll get to explore a lot more of the RDA/military side of the franchise which I feel was little bit lacking in Avatar. I assume because they really had planned on spending more time world building for the Na’vi and Pandora.
We learned recently the RDA’s new base of operations will be called Bridgehead after Hell’s Gate was overtaken by rebellion forces.
It’s interesting because there is an expectation that Stephen Lang’s bombastic/intimidating Colonel Quaritch will be making a comeback as well, despite dying in the first film. I’m slightly curious if they’ll be resurrecting him through cloning methods given this has been established with the avatars in the previous film.
It might be a while before we get an official trailer for Avatar 2 given that the film won’t be released until December 16th, 2022 after production delays. However, James Cameron recently said they completed live-action filming for Avatar 2 and almost fully done with Avatar 3.
We’ll have to wait to hear if they’ll be moving on to start shooting Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 either motion capture or live-action portions considering that motion capture was mostly taking place in California and live-action in Wellington, New Zealand.
Deadline reports that Ridley Scott has completed his period drama The Last Duel and will next move on to his Gucci crime film starring Lady Gaga, but has also lined up his project after that as well with a period epic titled Kitbag for 20th Century Studios.
The Napoleon project will star Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix as the French military leader and emperor, the pair previously worked together on the Oscar-winning film Gladiator.
The film is an original and personal look at Napoleon’s origins and his swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine. The intention of the film is to capture Napoleon’s famous battles, relentless ambition and astounding strategic mind as an extraordinary military leader and war visionary.
The script was penned by David Scarpa, who previously wrote on All The Money In The World, a version of the upcoming Cleopatra film, and episodes of The Man In The High Castle.
Despite the myth, the French leader was not short but of average height.
One of the most famous unmade Stanley Kubrick films was also going to focus on Napoleon and more recently had been planned as HBO mini-series from Cary Joji Fukunaga (No Time To Die, True Detective) using Kubrick’s research as inspiration with Steven Spielberg producing.
Ridley will begin filming Gucci for MGM in Italy starting in March and when Kitbag is aiming to start shooting is a little unclear. Joining that Gucci cast led by Lady Gaga includes Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Adam Driver and Jared Leto.
It looks like Disney is starting to run out of animated films to remake into live-action.
Yesterday, it was revealed by The Hollywood Reporter by that Disney is now returning to it’s theme parks for inspiration for new film ideas and are now working on a live-action feature film based on their sci-fi themed indoor rollercoaster Space Mountain.
Logline details are being kept hidden amidst the rings of Saturn but it is described as a family adventure.
Space Mountain is an indoor roller coaster with a space-theme. The ride was first introduced in Florida’s Walt Disney World Resort in 1975, followed by installations in California’s Disneyland in 1977.
Joby Harold has been assigned to write the screenplay, who is best known for Army of The Dead, King Arthur: The Legend of The Sword, and most recently joined the Kenobi series to do some rewrites for the show. He’s also working on a Transformers film for Paramount.
Harold did uncredited writing on Edge of Tomorrow and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum that earned him producing credits.
Disney is developing two different Pirates of The Caribbean films and a new version of The Haunted Mansion. They are also releasing a feature film in 2021 based on the Jungle Cruise ride starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt.
There seems to have been some major script issues on Indiana Jones 5 that has been key to the film’s hiccups and delays. Den of Geek was able to speak with screenwriter David Koepp, who revealed he was brought back to work on the sequel after Lucasfilm hired Solo: A Star Wars Story screenwriter Jonathan Kasdan to tackle some rewrites before focusing on his Willow sequel series.
Adding that the third go-around seemed to have led Steven Spielberg to exit the film with James Mangold being hired in February to replace him and then Koepp mentioning he stepped aside too.
KOEPP: “I tried a couple different versions with Steven and they all had some good stuff about them and they all had some stuff that didn’t work, which happens. But it was just very hard to have everybody come together and have all the elements — Steven, Harrison (Ford), the script and Disney — come together at once. And it didn’t.”
“When James Mangold came in and Steven stepped out, that was a pretty logical breaking point,” Koepp says. “It’s a gracious time to step out the door because I think the last thing a new director wants is the old director’s writer. I mean, that’s a drag. The last thing you need is some guy sitting around with his arms folded saying, ‘Well, the way Steven would have done it is…’ I had one nice friendly conversation with him and then I’m sure he wanted to be able to move on anyway. Everybody was pretty polite, I thought.”
The outlet speculates that the reason we haven’t heard about a new screenwriter is likely because new director James Mangold (Logan, Ford v Ferrari) is most likely tackling it himself, although, this is not confirmed. I wish James all the luck to get the project across the finishing line.
Back in February, Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy confirmed to the BBC that Indiana Jones 5 was still having script issues and reaffirmed it would be a continuation after there had been persistent rumors of a franchise reboot.
KENNEDY: “We’re working away getting the script where we want it to be and then we’ll be ready to go…Oh, Harrison Ford will be involved, yeah. It’s not a reboot, it’s a continuation…He can’t wait he absolutely is.”
The film’s current release date of July 22nd, 2022 would suggest that Lucasfilm is aiming to begin shooting sometime in 2021.
While speaking with The Playlist, Alien: Covenant actress Katherine Waterston reaffirmed a desire to reprise the role of Daniels for another Alien prequel film, if her character is still alive.
PLAYLIST: Would you make another Alien movie?
WATERSTON: “In a heartbeat. I loved working with Ridley and I loved playing that part. I hope we can! I would love it! I hope she’s still alive!”
Katherine isn’t speaking out of school questioning if Daniels is still alive as they killed Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw off-screen when she was supposed to return in a bigger role originally in earlier incarnations of Alien: Covenant.
However, Ridley Scott spoke with Forbes recently where he suggested that if he makes another Alien film it might deviate from the last two installments and might not even connect to them.
SCOTT: “That’s in process. We went down a route to try and reinvent the wheel with Prometheus and Covenant. Whether or not we go directly back to that is doubtful because Prometheus woke it up very well. But you know, you’re asking fundamental questions like, ‘Has the Alien himself, the facehugger, the chestburster, have they all run out of steam? Do you have to rethink the whole bloody thing and simply use the word to franchise?’ That’s always the fundamental question.”
ALIEN: COVENANT – Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, members (Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup) of the colony ship Covenant discover what they think to be an uncharted paradise. While there, they meet David (Michael Fassbender), the synthetic survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition. The mysterious world soon turns dark and dangerous when a hostile alien life-form forces the crew into a deadly fight for survival.
During a one-on-one chat with Arnold Schwarzenegger on Arnold’s YouTube channel, director James Cameron has announced how much of his Avatar sequels (four of them) have completed filming at this point. You might remember that production halted just before everyone in the crew was going to return to New Zealand’s Stone Street Studios in Wellington, to do some extensive live-action shooting for Avatar 2 and Avatar 3.
Here is what Jim had to say about the status of the two upcoming Avatar films during his chat with the Terminator franchise actor. As it sounds like the filming portion for both films is almost completed.
CAMERON: “Well, COVID hit us like it hit everyone. We lost about four and a half months of production as a result of that we’ve rolled around one more full year for a release in December of 2022. That’s been announced already but that doesn’t mean I have an extra year to finish the film because the day we deliver Avatar 2 we’ll just start working on Avatar 3.”
“So, where we are right now, I’m down in New Zealand shooting the remainder of the live-action we’ve got 10% left to go. We’re 100% complete on Avatar 2 and we’re sort of 95% compete on Avatar 3.
“We’re very lucky in that we chose [New Zealand] as our production site years ago.”
There is still a heap of post-production work to finish on the two massive movies and Cameron will then expectedly move into making Avatar 4 and Avatar 5 next.
Avatar 2 has new release date of December 16th, 2022 and Avatar 3 is set for December 20th, 2024.
Not so fast with those predictions of Black Widow heading to VOD or Disney+!
Disney has announced new release dates for multiple Marvel Studios films via Variety which include moving Black Widow from November 6th to May 7th, a move that will likely disappoint fans expecting the film to head to Disney+ by the end of the year.
Eternals also will move from February 12th, 2021 to November 5th, 2021 with Matthew Vaughn’s The King’s Man taking their old spot.
Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings heads to July 9th, 2021 after Black Widow took it’s May 7th spot. The film is still shooting in Australia but seemingly won’t be getting as much of a delay as we had been bracing for all things considered.
There is a good chance that is way more visual effects work and possibly extra shooting that needs to be done on Eternals that would see the film getting bumped all the way to later part of 2021. The Deviants still haven’t been revealed by the studio who are most likely going to be motion-capture/CGI characters in the film.
In two new social media posts from Disney+ on Twitter the streaming service has seemingly confirmed Marvel’s WandaVision will begin airing sometime in December.
A teaser video titled “Coming In 2020” was posted featuring WandaVision.
This is the way… to get pumped for the coming months. Start streaming favorites like Hidden Figures, X2, and Big, plus Originals like The Right Stuff from @NatGeo, Clouds, @MarvelStudios’ WandaVision, and a new season of The Mandalorian. Coming soon on #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/PrS1LovFq4
WandaVision is a key project to future projects (along with Loki) as it’ll likely connect to stuff like Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love & Thunder, Captain Marvel 2, and Ant-Man 3. The series will introduce audiences to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s cosmic counterpart S.W.O.R.D. along with the adult version of Captain Marvel’s Monica Rambeau played by Teyonah Parris, who becomes a superpowered heroine herself.
There are also rumors of the series potentially giving us members of the Young Avengers after twins Speed and Wiccan were confirmed in teaser footage, as babies.
In a post-COVID-19 world, it looks like Disney is looking to adopt safer methods of production which includes expanding the use of the StageCraft technology used to shoot the first two seasons of The Mandalorian. Using this technology means less production crew would be potentially put in harm’s way for set construction and also limit the number of secondary exterior locations as productions traveling to multiple countries might not be the wisest idea at the moment.
The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that ILM’s StageCraft technology will be used for Marvel Studios’ Thor: Love & Thunder (MCU Cosmic mentioned this previously) at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
This comes after writer and director Taika Waititi had used the technology when filming the final episode of the first season of Lucasfilm’s Star Wars series The Mandalorian.
There has been an expectation that Thor: Love & Thunder will begin shooting sometime between January-February of next year as director Destin Daniel Cretton is trying to finish up production on Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings allowing Taika to move in for the Thor sequel.
THR adds that they’ll also be adding StageCraft to the Pinewood Studios UK facility.
In addition, ILM is building a StageCraft volume at Pinewood Studios in London (expected to open in February), and a larger custom volume at Fox Studios Australia that will be used for Thor: Love and Thunder. Waititi previously used virtual production when he helmed the final episode of The Mandalorian season one.
Actor Ewan McGregor previously confirmed that his Star Wars series Kenobi directed by Deborah Chow (The Mandalorian) would be implementing the technology during an interview with Ace Universe back in June.
The next Marvel Studios feature film to shoot at Pinewood Studios UK is expected to be Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man 3, who happened to direct an episode of The Mandalorian for Season 2 just like Taika and may also be familiar with StageCraft after his own experience with that show.
Yesterday, I posted an update of sorts on Ant-Man 3 via Twitter that they are deep in pre-production and that we should expect some massive action sequences given they’ll be moving filming from Pinewood Atlanta Studios to Pinewood Studios UK, the latter facility has been used for the Star Wars films and traditional all of the James Bond movies as well.
We should expect this installment to feel more like an event.
#AntMan3 is well into pre-production and "big" is going to be an understatement… there is a reason this movie is moving to the stages home to BOND and STAR WARS.
I was also able to confirm Marvel/Disney is aiming to release the film sometime in 2020, however, release dates for the next little while will be in flux and most will unlikely be set-in-stone for the foreseeable future given multiple projects will begin production in 2021 meaning that some projects may have be delayed to 2023.
Peyton Reed recently mentioned that the film would be “bigger” and “sprawling” while speaking on The Jess Cagle Show and reaffirmed via Yahoo! Entertainment that Evangeline Lily’s Wasp would be getting equal billing on the sequel.
REED: “They’re a partnership, and she’s a very, very important part of that. And that was a very gratifying thing, I guess technically we were the first Marvel movie with a female hero in the title of the movie. Finding that balance in that movie, that’s very important to me because that’s very much a men’s playing field, historically. But that’s really, really changing now in a great way.”
I’m personally holding out the hope that we’ll see the film morph into some sort of MCU version of Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim as Peyton Reed hasn’t been shy about how the films have been influenced by Japanese kaiju projects like Ultraman. Moving the setting of the film outside of San Francisco might also help shake things up given that Scott Lang might be allowed to move a little more freely around the world after the events of Avengers: Endgame.
Most recently the Pinewood facility has been used for Black Widow and Eternals both films are expected to be larger in scale than Ant-Man or Ant-Man & The Wasp. There is also an expectation that the Moon Knight series will spend some time there as well and we should be getting some updates on that show in the near future.
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness is confirmed for Longcross Studios in Surrey, England and it’s unknown at this point if they’ll have access to the StageCraft tech, but it’s possible.
This new technology certainly would cut-down costs and post-production time, the safety element is simply a massive benefit.
We’ve all been extremely interested in what direction the Alien franchise could be getting in the wake of the Disney merger with 21st Century Studios, as it had been confirmed by Ridley Scott himself that he was speaking with studio executives about making a third movie that had once been referred to by the title Alien: Awakening.
While promoting his upcoming science fiction series Raised By Wolves, Ridley Scott has confirmed to Forbes that there is still active development on a third untitled Alien film and potentially gives insight on a new direction for the film, rather than continuing his string of prequels trying to make a new path via Michael Fassbender’s David.
Scott doesn’t come out and say this third movie will be a new take, he alludes that it might not be similar or connected to Prometheus and Covenant.
Here is that quick blurb from his interview with Forbes.
SCOTT: “That’s in process. We went down a route to try and reinvent the wheel with Prometheus and Covenant. Whether or not we go directly back to that is doubtful because Prometheus woke it up very well. But you know, you’re asking fundamental questions like, ‘Has the Alien himself, the facehugger, the chestburster, have they all run out of steam? Do you have to rethink the whole bloody thing and simply use the word to franchise?’ That’s always the fundamental question.”
Some of the ideas for Alien: Awakening were to fill gaps between the events of the last two films or directly seeing David getting his hands on Covenant’s colony of human settlers for future xenomorph experiments leading into the original Alien from 1979 explaining how the derelict ship got on LV-426. However, a lot of fans are not really in favor of Scott misidentifying that element of the original movie.
Another idea for the film was that surviving Engineers from other planets seeking out David to avenge his mass murder on Paradise.
I was a massive fan of all the Engineer and bio-weapon stuff from Prometheus but when Alien: Covenant abandoned all that to become a generic sci-fi slasher it sort of left a bad taste in my mouth. Such wasted potential after Scott spent all that time focusing on the Engineers being such important figures in the Alien universe/mythology only to have David commit genocide against them.
There had been a huge fan response to Neill Blomkamp’s purposed Alien 5 and the return of Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley, the normally coy actress had already been convinced by a pitch from Neill and was on board even before the studio agreed to allow him to develop it formally.
Alien 5 was expected to negate the events of Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, making it a direct sequel to James Cameron’s beloved Aliens with characters such as Newt, Hicks, and Bishop expected to make a return. Cameron seemingly was a fan of the film’s script calling it “gangbusters” during the Aliens 30th Anniversary panel at San Diego Comic-Con in 2016.
Jim’s comments contradicted statements made by Ridley that a script didn’t exist.
The idea had been that while Ripley would have been the main hero of the film, Newt (most likely recast with a new actress) would have taken over the mantle in a hypothetical Alien 6 movie as previously outlined by Neill Blomkamp when he was explaining his vision for his film and how it could revitalize the franchise.
However, there seemed to be a bit of a power struggle behind the scenes between Ridley Scott’s desire to get Alien: Covenant made and fandom’s overwhelming support to see Sigourney return to the Alien franchise with Blomkamp’s film. The two projects may have been in direct competition and Ridley was in a position of power as a producer on Alien 5 to have 20th Century greenlight his sequel instead.
Scott was so hellbent on getting Alien: Covenant made he handed the reigns of Blade Runner 2049 over to Denis Villeneuve and stepped down as that project’s director.
Blomkamp has since moved on to other projects and doesn’t seem very keen on the idea of returning to Alien 5 anytime soon.
This year a new treatment for Alien 5 was making news after franchise screenwriter Walter Hill revealed that he and his partner David Giler tackled a script dated March 2020 that may or may not feed into Blomkamp’s idea of removing Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection from franchise canon, teasing those events may have been a dream.
Scott himself is a busy bee as he has to finish filming his period thriller The Last Duel and is planning on shooting his drama Gucci sometime in the next year or so. At one point, Ridley was attached to direct a Merlin prequel film for Disney but for whatever reason pivoted to other projects instead.
Raised By Wolves debuts today on HBO Max.
RAISED BY WOLVES – The ambitious new sci-fi series centers on two androids tasked with raising human children on a mysterious virgin planet. As the burgeoning colony of humans threatens to be torn apart by religious differences, the androids learn that controlling the beliefs of humans is a treacherous and difficult task.
THE RONIN 