Tag: Fox Studios Australia

Posted on in Features

Marvel Studios Needs To Hire The Creative Team Behind FX’s ‘Mr. Inbetween’ For A ‘Wolverine’ Series

Earlier in the week, I mentioned a desire to see Loki series director Kate Herron tackle Marvel’s X-Men reboot. Keeping with the mutant topic, I’ve been watching the Aussie hitman series Mr. Inbetween from FX (now it’s in it’s third season) lately and I can’t help to get huge Wolverine vibes from this show. I’m come to the conclusion that the show’s creator/writer Scott Ryan (also stars as Ray) and director Nash Edgerton (brother of actor Joel Edgerton) could be the perfect duo to bring a solo Wolverine series to life for Marvel Studios.

The show is dark, emotional, funny and action-packed something that I believe would be extremely attractive to Marvel. Nash Edgerton, like the John Wick fellas Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, is a director with a background as a stuntman.

If you’re unfamiliar with the show here’s a rundown and trailer from Mr. Inbetween.

Mr. Inbetween stars Scott Ryan as Ray Shoesmith, a hitman for hire who makes a life out of balancing his criminal activities with his obligations to friends and family. He tries to be a father to Brittany (Chika Yasumura), his daughter with his ex-wife, a loving boyfriend to Ally (Brook Satchwell), and a good caretaker to his sick brother Bruce (Nicholas Cassim). Ray also covers for his friend Gary (Justin Rosniak) when needed, and follows his boss Freddy’s (Damon Herriman) orders without question.

Marvel hasn’t officially announced any upcoming plans for any Wolverine projects despite online rumors of a Wolverine show potentially being in the works. Officially, they are indeed moving forward Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool 3 with writers working on the script and lacking any real updates are expected to reboot the X-Men movies sometime in the future.

Giving Wolverine his own series could be a way to properly tackle his military service during World War II that has been teased a couple of times, a real version of the Weapon X Program, Logan’s connections to Department H/Alpha Flight, his time in Japan/Madripoor, and potentially what he was up to during the Cold War against the Soviet Union. It could also help give other characters on the X-Men roster to take more leading roles in the MCU reboot.

We don’t have any idea who’ll ultimately take the Wolverine role from Hugh Jackman, but I’m leaning towards former Batman contender Cillian Murphy (The Dark Knight Trilogy, Peaky Blinders, 28 Days Later, Dunkirk, A Quiet Place Part II). The Irish actor has rubbed shoulders with plenty of MCU stars co-starring with Brie Larson in Free Fire, Chris Evans in the sci-fi thriller Sunshine alongside appearing with Thor’s Chris Hemsworth and Spider-Man’s Tom Holland in Ron Howard’s In The Heart of The Sea.

He’s a little bit older, however, not too much older than Moon Knight’s Oscar Isaac (42) or Doctor Strange’s Benedict Cumberbatch (44). While Cillian is slightly younger than Marvel’s new Blade actor Mahershala Ali (47).

Murphy is one of the few cast members from Danny Boyle’s Sunshine that hasn’t landed an MCU role as Chris Evans became Captain America, Benedict Wong plays Doctor Strange pal Wong, Hiroyuki Sanada briefly appeared as sword wielding Yaukza boss killed by Clint Barton in Avengers: Endgame, and Michelle Yeoh will be seen in Shang-Chi this September.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8BSlqHAhuY

If they wanted to hire a younger actor, Aussie lad Dacre Montgomery (Power Rangers, Stranger Things, Baz Lurman’s Elvis Biopic) wouldn’t be a horrible choice and he happens to have family connection to Canada. His Power Rangers co-star Naomi Scott took the Princess Jasmine role in Disney’s live-action Aladdin movie with Stranger Things leads playing Marvel characters as David Harbour is The Red Guardian in Black Widow and Charlie Heaton played Cannonball in The New Mutants.

I can’t help but be reminded that Legion and Fargo showrunner Noah Hawely was developing a Doctor Doom film for 20th Century Fox before the merger, who knows if that will ever see the light of day. However, Hawley has since pivoted to an Earthbound series set within the Alien universe for FX On Hulu that has Ridley Scott (Raised By Wolves, Prometheus, Alien, Blade Runner, Alien: Covenant) attached to produce. I wouldn’t be shocked if we eventually saw Marvel Studios also look at the creatives at FX and Hulu to develop shows for them like Scott Ryan and Nash Edgerton.

Hiring a couple of Aussies could help the idea of shooting a would-be Wolverine series at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Fox Studios also happens to be where Mr. Inbetween is shot.

It’s the same studio facility used for The Matrix, Star Wars: Attack of The Clones, Star Wars: Revenge of The Sith, Superman Returns, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Wolverine, Mad Max: Fury Road, Alien: Covenant, Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings, Thor: Love & Thunder, and George Miller’s upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road prequel Furiosa.

Anyways, we’ll keep our fingers crossed Marvel will consider them for a hypothetical Wolverine series.

Posted on in Film News

ILM’s StageCraft VFX Will Be Implemented For Marvel’s ‘Thor: Love & Thunder’ In Australia – ‘Ant-Man 3’ Will Most Likely Use It At Pinewood Studios UK

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. 

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.