Tag: Excalibur

Posted on in News

Henry Cavill Open To Playing Captain Britain For Marvel Studios

There is a huge uncertainly with actor Henry Cavill’s future in the DCEU as Superman, as while he’s still keen on the idea of returning for a Man of Steel sequel, the studio seems to be more concerned with multiple other Kryptonian cohorts.

During an extensive chat with The Hollywood Reporter, Cavill was asked about who he might want to hypothetically play within the world of Marvel if he had the chance to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Brian Braddock aka Captain Britain seems to be of interest for him given he’s not often playing British characters.

“I’m never going to say a Marvel character that is already being played by someone else because everyone’s doing such an amazing job. However, I have the internet, and I have seen the various rumors about Captain Britain, and that would be loads of fun to do a cool, modernized version of that — like the way they modernized Captain America. There’s something fun about that, and I do love being British.”

As far as we know, there aren’t any official plans to use the Brit superhero anytime soon, however, he was briefly referenced as being part of SHIELD in the 1970s in Avengers: Endgame by Peggy Carter. It wouldn’t be terribly shocking if Braddock appeared in the upcoming Captain America 4 led by Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson as the new Captain America.

It wouldn’t be like Marvel hasn’t teased English superheroes before.

Kit Harington is playing Dane Whitman/Black Knight in the Eternals and there could be some linkage given the Arthurian connections. Joey Chapman aka Union Jack had an Easter Egg in Iron Man 2 as one of the racers competing against Tony Stark.

With the X-Men rights firmly at Marvel Studios, they could easily bring Braddock’s team Excalibur into the mix as well and allow for his MI6 Agent sister Betsy Braddock (becomes Psylcoke when her mind inhabits a Japanese woman, Kwannon) to join the MCU too.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Television News

EXCLUSIVE: Otto Bathurst Attached To Direct & Produce Arthurian Series ‘Warlord Chronicles’ For Epix

Back in January 2020, TV Line reported that Epix will be developing a series, Warlord Chronicles, based on The Warlord Trilogy from author Bernard Cornwell. The three books that take place within the world of King Arthur are titled The Winter King, Enemy of God, and Excalibur.

The Ronin has since learned that Otto Bathurst is attached to Warlord Chronicles as both director and producer. Otto’s experience with television includes shows such as Peaky Blinders, Black Mirror, His Dark Materials, and the Amblin Television live-action Halo series that will air on Paramount+ in 2022.

THE WINTER KING – A former warrior sworn to Arthur and now an elderly monk, Derfel tells the story of how Arthur became a warlord in Dark Age Britain despite illegitimacy to the throne. After being banished to Armorica by his father, the High King Uther Pendragon, Arthur returns to protect the new king, his infant nephew Mordred.

Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe novels was developed into a British television series starring Game of Thrones star Sean Bean and The Saxon series adapted into Netflix’s The Last Kingdom.

It was recently announced that Bathurst’s BBC London gangster series Peaky Blinders starring Cillian Murphy would be ending after Season 6 as mentioned by outlets like Variety.

Posted on in News

Zack Snyder Says He’s Developing Arthurian Project – “Faithful Retelling of That Arthurian Mythological Concept”

While Zack Snyder has been suggesting he’ll be moving on from DC Comics projects in the future, that doesn’t seem to have stopped his fans from demanding he return to the franchise after the release of his version of Justice League heading to HBO Max on March 18th. However, a new non-DC project was apparently revealed by Snyder during a chat with Minutemen (spotted by CBR). As the director, who is a big fan of John Boorman’s 1981 film Excalibur, has teased early development on his own project covering the iconic Arthurian mythology.

SNYDER: “I’m working on something but we’ll see. I’ve been thinking about some kind of retelling, like, real sort of faithful retelling of that Arthurian mythological concept. We’ll see. Maybe that will come at some point.”

It will be interesting to see if the project lands at Netflix, where Zack Snyder was able to sell Army of The Dead after he couldn’t secure a proper budget for the horror-action flick elsewhere. Netflix is keen on the fantasy genre with two projects taking place within the world of The Witcher and they recently landed the film/television rights to Robert E. Howard’s Conan The Barbarian.

Given that the Arthurian stuff is in the public domain it could allow Snyder to find a comfortable home for the project and getting the budget he needs to make it properly without having to worry about it being a studio IP.

John Boorman made his R-rated Excalibur after he couldn’t get his mature Lord of The Rings film together and was instead turned into an animated feature by Ralph Bakshi. Another mature feature set within the Arthurian mythology is eventually going to be released by A24 with David Lowery’s The Green Knight.

Warner Bros. attempted to launch a King Arthur/Knights of The Round Table franchise starting with the Guy Ritchie film but it failed to connect with audiences killing development of the multiple films they had been planning for each of the Knights.

I’ll be curious to see if Snyder actually wants to attempt a real fantasy project or some sort of genre hybrid. 300 has been the closest thing to a fantasy project from Zack but also happened to be a comic book adaptation.

SOURCE: MINUTEMEN