‘Thor’ Actress Jaimie Alexander Teasing Role In Fantasy Action Flick ‘Red Sonja’?

Are we getting another casting addition to the Red Sonja remake from director Joey Soloway? Red Sonja was a supporting Conan The Barbarian character that was born in the Marvel Comics run, she eventually got her own solo film in 1985 starring Brigitte Nielsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Sonja was created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith for Marvel Comics’ Conan the Barbarian comic in the early 1970s and was an amalgam of several characters from Conan creator Robert E. Howard. The character, fiery and strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Conan while refusing his advances, proved popular enough to get her own book, continuing to this day even as the Howard and Conan licenses have moved through several companies. Millennium is saying their movie is based on the comic published by Dynamite Entertainment

Thor franchise actress Jaimie Alexander has posted an image of herself reading the new Red Sonja script on a flight. The image below was posted on her Instagram stories. Normally, actors don’t humble-brag about reading high-profile scripts unless they’ve joined the project or are at least considering it.

At one time, Jaimie Alexander was in the mix to play Wonder Woman before Gal Gadot ultimately took the part for Batman v Superman. She talked about losing out on the major superhero part to Variety back in 2016.

Fellow Marvel actress Hannah John-Kamen (Resident Evil, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Ant-Man & The Wasp) took the titular role recently, which could mean that Jaimie might be taking a supporting role as either friend or foe.

If I had to guess what the role might be, The Pirate Queen Belit could be an interesting choice for Jaimie Alexander. However, we don’t know if they’re even allowed to use Belit as she is a cohort/lover of Conan The Barbarian.

Speaking of Conan, Netflix secured the rights to make films, series, and animated projects based on the iconic character created by Robert E. Howard. So, it’s possible that Belit might be connected to that package.

It’s more likely an original character crafted by the screenwriters or from the extensive run of comics.

Alexander is best known for her series Blindspot and playing Lady Sif in the MCU. She is reportedly set to appear in both Marvel’s Loki series and Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love & Thunder.

RED SONJA – Power-hungry Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman) captures the priestesses guarding the Talisman, a mystical orb that created and can destroy the world. But one of the priestesses escapes and seeks out her warrior sister, Red Sonja (Brigitte Nielsen), to warn her about Gedren’s plan for world domination. Lord Kalidor (Arnold Schwarzenegger), the Talisman’s keeper, insists on helping Sonja, and though she scorns the assistance of any man, she soon gains respect for Kalidor’s fighting prowess.

SOURCE: JAIMIE ALEXANDER

‘Wheel of Time’: Amazon Has Officially Greenlit Season 2 As Season 1 Wraps Filming

Amazon has multiple high-profile series as they’re still shooting the Second Age era Lord of The Rings series in Auckland, New Zealand and they’ve just announced that Season 1 of Wheel of Time has completed production in the Czech Republic.

Adding to that news they’ve officially greenlit a Season 2 of Wheel of Time, which is based on the Robert Jordan series of novels.

The cast consists of Rosamund Pike, Josha Stradowski, Madeleine Madden, Marcus Rutherford, Barney Harris, Zoë Robins, Daniel Henney, Álvaro Morte, Hammed Animashaun, Johann Myers, Priyanka Bose, Taylor Napier and Emmanuel Imani.

Below is the official press release from Amazon.

As Season 1 wraps production in the Czech Republic, Amazon Studios today announced it has greenlit a second season of the upcoming fantasy series The Wheel of Time, based on Robert Jordan’s series of best-selling novels. Both seasons, co-produced by Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television, will exclusively stream on Amazon Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

The Wheel of Time is one of the most popular and enduring fantasy series of all-time, with over 90 million books sold. Set in a sprawling, epic world where magic exists and only certain women are allowed to access it, the story follows Moiraine, a member of the incredibly powerful all-female organization called the Aes Sedai, as she arrives in the small town of Two Rivers. There, she embarks on a dangerous, world-spanning journey with five young men and women, one of whom is prophesied to be the Dragon Reborn, who will either save or destroy humanity.   
 
Based on Robert Jordan’s best-selling fantasy novels, which have sold more than 90 million copies worldwide, The Wheel of Time was adapted for television by executive producer/showrunner Rafe Judkins (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Hemlock Grove). Larry Mondragon and Rick Selvage of Red Eagle Entertainment (Winter Dragon), Ted Field and Mike Weber of Radar Pictures (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Winter Dragon), Darren Lemke (Shazam!, Goosebumps, Winter Dragon), Marigo Kehoe and Uta Briesewitz will also serve as executive producers, with Briesewitz set to direct the first two episodes. Rosamund Pike will serve as Producer and Harriet McDougal and Brandon Sanderson as consulting producers. The Wheel of Time is co-produced by Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television.
 

SOURCE: AMAZON

Paramount’s ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Movie Has Officially Started Filming

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.

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.

SOURCE: JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN

Netflix Should Offer Zack Snyder Their ‘Conan The Barbarian’ Reboot

It was recently suggested by WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff in an interview with Variety that they don’t have plans to continue or restore the Snyderverse. Which means that Zack Snyder is finally free to make all the wacky film ideas he’s been cooking up over the last decade. He’s talked about making action film about George Washington and taking a crack at the Arthurian legend.

What’s interesting is that he’s now established a working relationship with streaming giant Netflix with his upcoming action-horror flick Army of The Dead, that is coming out on May 21, 2021.

This could mean that Snyder and Netflix will continue working on stuff in the future potentially leading to an over-all development deal at some point.

There is a newly acquired IP at the streamer that feels tailor-made for the filmmaker. As Netflix got their hands on the film and television rights to Robert E. Howard’s sword and sorcery hero Conan The Barbarian last year. The character has multiple stories written by Howard and other writers that continued Conan’s adventures over the decades including folks like Wheel of Time’s Robert Jordan.

In my opinion, there is really only one solid live-action adaptation and that is the fantastic John Milius movie from 1982 that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Earl Jones. The film got made thanks in part to the books popularity in the 1970’s and the string of comic books that were published by Marvel Comics.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982) – Orphaned boy Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is enslaved after his village is destroyed by the forces of vicious necromancer Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones), and is compelled to push “The Wheel of Pain” for many years. Once he reaches adulthood, Conan sets off across the prehistoric landscape of the Hyborian Age in search of the man who killed his family and stole his father’s sword. With beautiful warrior Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) and archer Subotai (Gerry Lopez), he faces a supernatural evil.

I have to assume given Zack’s obsession with John Boorman’s Excalibur that something like Conan The Barbarian might also be a fantasy film that resonates with him and could be an established IP that Netflix could offer Snyder.

We’ve seen with 300 that Zack could bring something visually interesting to a mature fantasy adventure epic like Conan The Barbarian. At it’s core, the 300 comic from Frank Miller and the Zack Snyder film owes a lot to things like Conan.

The world of Conan can be a blank canvas for someone like Snyder to develop something into his own and Netflix isn’t likely going to micromanage because box office isn’t even a factor with their originals as streaming is a complete different. You can tell with his DC stuff that he’s itching to tackle something like this.

The less said about Jason Momoa’s 2011 Conan reboot the better. Since then, the actor has developed a more charismatic on-screen persona with stuff like Game of Thrones and taking on the Aquaman role. I wouldn’t be opposed to giving Jason another shot at playing Conan given that he’s grown as an actor and has an existing relationship with Snyder.

Anyways, I’m hopefully that Netflix’s interest with expanding Snyder’s Army of The Dead into their own franchise means that they’ll at least consider him for other stuff like Conan The Barbarian as it feels like it could be a good fit for him.

‘Willow’: Ruby Cruz Replaces Cailee Spaeny In Disney+ Fantasy Series – Will Play A Character Named Kit

Deadline is reporting that Castle Rock actress Ruby Cruz has replaced Cailee Spaeny in he role of Kit in the Disney+ sequel series based on the 1988 Ron Howard-directed fantasy film Willow.

The rest of the cast includes Warwick Davis reprising the role of Willow Ufgood, Erin Kellyman (The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Green Knight) is said to be up for the role of Jade, English actress Ellie Bamber (Nocturnal Animals) as Dove, and Tony Revolori from the Spider-Man films is in talks for a role.

Jonathan Entwistle, who is attached to direct the Power Rangers reboot, is set to direct the pilot after Jon M. Chu exited the fantasy series from Lucasfilm.

According to Lucasfilm, production on Willow is set to begin this March in Wales.

WILLOW – Enter the world of Willow. Journey to the far corners of your imagination, to a land of myth and magic, where dream and reality live side by side … to a place that never existed, a time that never was. It is a world where a young man named Willow lives out an adventure that explodes beyond the boundaries of his own hopes and fears.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

George R.R. Martin’s ‘In The Lost Lands’ Getting Film Adaptation From Director Paul W.S. Anderson With Milla Jovovich & Dave Bautista Starring

Deadline is reporting that George R.R. Martin’s fantasy short story In The Lost Lands is going to be getting a big screen adaptation from Resident Evil franchise director Paul W.S. Anderson and FilmNation. Martin is most best-known for creating the Game of Thrones franchise, so the project should have some increased interest given the connection to the author.

They also reveal that Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista are attached to star in the fantast-action film as the sorceress Gray Alys and a drifter named Boyce.

Anderson is adapting the short into a script.

The movie will follow a queen, desperate to obtain the gift of shape shifting, who makes a daring play: she hires the sorceress Gray Alys (Jovovich), a woman as feared as she is powerful. Sent to the ghostly wilderness of the ‘Lost Lands’, Alys and her guide, the drifter Boyce (Bautista), must outwit and outfight man and demon in a fable that explores the nature of good and evil, debt and fulfillment, love and loss.

Milla’s action roles go back to Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element and got most of international notoriety from leading the profitable Resident Evil film franchise, she was most recently seen in Lionsgate’s Hellboy reboot.

Bautista is coming off his involvement with Marvel’s successful Guardians of The Galaxy franchise with a third installment on the horizon along with appearing in the box office juggernauts Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. He recently worked with Zack Snyder on the zombie flick Army of The Dead and is attached for an alien bounty hunter movie, titled Universe’s Most Wanted, directed by Brad Payton.

The film’s distribution rights are being sold at the European Film Market’s virtual event.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

‘Dungeons & Dragons’: Paramount Reportedly Adds ‘Bridgerton’ Actor Rege-Jean Page To Their Fantasy Remake

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.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

‘Willow’: Lucasfilm Hires ‘Power Rangers’ Director Jonathan Entwistle To Helm Disney+ Series

Lucasfilm has finally found their replacement for Jon M. Chu on their sequel series Willow on Disney+. This news from The Hollywood Reporter comes after the Crazy Rich Asians director announced his exit from the project citing an upcoming baby as the reasoning behind leaving directing duties on the fantasy show’s pilot.

The studio has now reportedly hired Jonathan Entwistle for the pilot but it’s unknown who else will be directing episodes.

Jonathan is likely best known for the series End of The F***ing World, and he was recently hired to tackle the latest feature film reboot of the Power Rangers as Hasbro has big plans for the franchise after acquiring the property. 

The cast includes Warwick Davis reprising the role of Willow Ufgood, Erin Kellyman (The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Green Knight) is said to be up for the role of Jade, Cailee Spaeny (Pacific Rim: Uprising, Bad Times At The El Royale) playing Kit, English actress Ellie Bamber (Nocturnal Animals) as Dove, and Tony Revolori in talks for a role.

According to Lucasfilm, production on Willow is set to begin this March in Wales.

WILLOW – Enter the world of Willow. Journey to the far corners of your imagination, to a land of myth and magic, where dream and reality live side by side … to a place that never existed, a time that never was. It is a world where a young man named Willow lives out an adventure that explodes beyond the boundaries of his own hopes and fears.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Jodie Turner-Smith To Play Éile In Prequel Series ‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’

Deadline is reporting that Nightflyers and Without Remorse actress Jodie Turner-Smith has been tapped for a lead role in The Witcher prequel series The Witcher: Blood Origin from streaming giant Netflix.

Declan de Barra is the show’s executive producer and showrunner.

Set in an elven world 1,200 years before the world of The Witcher, Blood Origin will tell a story lost to time – the creation of the first prototype Witcher, and the events that lead to the pivotal “conjunction of the spheres,” when the worlds of monsters, men, and elves merged to become one.

Turner-Smith will play Éile, an elite warrior blessed with the voice of a goddess, who has left her clan and position as Queen’s guardian to follow her heart as a nomadic musician. A grand reckoning on the continent forces her to return to the way of the blade in her quest for vengeance and redemption.

Jodie will be seen next in the Tom Clancy feature film adaptation Without Remorse opposite Michael B. Jordan, the film will focus on the journey of Jack Ryan cohort/Navy SEAL John Clark (Jordan) to become a field agent for the C.I.A. and the movie recently moved from Paramount Pictures to Amazon Prime Video to become a streaming release.

Netflix is currently shooting the second season of The Witcher and last year secured the film/television rights to Robert E. Howard’s Conan The Barbarian franchise allowing them to explore another adult-oriented sword and sorcery world.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

‘Game of Thrones’: HBO Finally Developing ‘Tales of Dunk & Egg’ Series

House of The Dragon won’t be the only Game of Thrones prequel series in the works at HBO based on established work written by George R.R. Martin. Today, Variety reports that HBO is in early development on Tales of Dunk & Egg, a new series adaptation based on Martin’s A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms, a collection of the three novellas focused on characters Ser Duncan The Tall (Dunk) and a young Aegon V Targaryen (Egg).

A young, naive but courageous hedge knight, Ser Duncan the Tall towers above his rivals – in stature if not experience. Tagging along with him is his diminutive squire, a boy called Egg – whose true identity must be hidden from all he and Dunk encounter: for in reality he is Aegon Targaryen, and one day he will be king. Improbable heroes though they be, great destinies lie ahead for Dunk and Egg; as do powerful foes, royal intrigue, and outrageous exploits.

There had been rumblings for ages that the duo would be perfect fodder for an HBO series adaptation. Their adventures takes place 90 years before the events of the main novels and the Game of Thrones series.

Writers and showrunners aren’t mentioned but there is an expectation that Martin will be closely involved creatively along with being the show’s executive producer.

House of The Dragon, another prequel that has been given a full series order at HBO for a debut in 2022 with a cast that consists of Paddy Considine as King Viserys Targaryen, Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen, Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower, and Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen. Directors on the first season of that show are Miguel Sapochnik, Clare Kilner, Geeta Patel, and Greg Yaitanes.

SOURCE: VARIETY