Tag: James Wan

Posted on in Film News

‘Aquaman 2’: Jason Momoa Wrote The Sequel’s Story Treatment & Confirms A July Production Start – Shooting At Warner Bros. Studios In Watford, England

Warner Bros. is in an interesting position with their DCEU franchise as The Batman has seemingly finished-up production, The Suicide Squad releases this summer, with production started on The Flash and Black Adam respectively. Shazam: Fury of The Gods is also set to begin shooting soon as well.

The next big DC Comics film will be James Wan’s sequel to the billion-dollar hit Aquaman and Jason Momoa has confirmed during an interview with The Drew Barrymore Show that production will begin this July, adding that he contributed to the film as a writer working on the sequel’s story treatment and originally pitching the idea to the studio.

The Ronin can confirm that production will be taking place at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in Watford, England. It’s a facility commonly used for DC Comics shoots including Wonder Woman 1984, The Flash, The Batman, and Justice League. The previous Aquaman film was shot mostly under in Australia at Village Roadshow Studios and it’s unclear why they decided to stick with Watford, England this time around.

Amber Heard is confirmed to reprise the role of Mera with Danish actor Pilou Asbæk (Game of Thrones, Overlord, Ghost In The Shell) joining the sequel’s cast.

Momoa has been filming projects in Canada recently such as the Netflix film Slumberland.

Aquaman 2 is still set to be released by Warner Bros. on December 16, 2022.

AQUAMAN – Once home to the most advanced civilization on Earth, the city of Atlantis is now an underwater kingdom ruled by the power-hungry King Orm. With a vast army at his disposal, Orm plans to conquer the remaining oceanic people — and then the surface world. Standing in his way is Aquaman, Orm’s half-human, half-Atlantean brother and true heir to the throne. With help from royal counselor Vulko, Aquaman must retrieve the legendary Trident of Atlan and embrace his destiny as protector of the deep.

SOURCE: THE DREW BERRYMORE SHOW

Posted on in Film News

‘New Gods’ & ‘Trench’ Movies Given The Ax By Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. and DC Films have been developing a heap of feature films based on DC Comics characters along with a few spinoffs of existing projects set within the DCEU. There was a time when announcing projects felt like they’d never follow through with the volume of press releases.

Yesterday, it made huge waves when The Hollywood Reporter announced that Warner Bros. won’t be moving with Ava DuVernay’s New Gods movie she was writing with comic book writer Tom King, featuring the cosmic characters created by Jack Kirby. Some appeared in the Justice League (Granny Goodness & Darkseid) and were expected to play a bigger role in Zack Snyder’s never-made sequels.

It’s not the only project getting the boot.

Aquaman’s James Wan was working to develop a horror spinoff from his Aquaman film with Trench, a horror flick that was penned by Noah Gardner and Aidan Fitzgerald. Wan and Peter Safran (Black Adam, Shazam!) were producers on the project that was expected to have a much smaller budget than it’s superhero counterparts. It’s also not moving forward as well.

Wan is about to shoot Aquaman 2 and produced the Mortal Kombat reboot set to be released later this month. Ava is also working on a CW series Naomi and a DMZ series for HBO Max. So their working relationships with WarnerMedia don’t seem to be tarnished over this decision.

This what the studio had to say in a statement suggesting they might consider circling back in the future.

“As part of our DC slate, some legacy development titles including New Gods and The Trench will not be moving forward. We thank our partners Ava DuVernay, Tom King, James Wan and Peter Safran for their time and collaboration during this process and look forward to our continued partnership with them on other DC stories. The projects will remain in their skillful hands if they were to move forward in the future.”

Ava posted on Twitter her reaction to the news praising co-writer Tom King.

This news comes after WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff revealed to Variety last month they weren’t interested in restoring the Snyderverse and hoped to continue moving forward with new projects instead.

I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if the studio started announcing other things they won’t be making, officially. Projects like Steven Spielberg’s WWII flick Blackhawk I suspect will go the way of Sgt. Rock, Joker & Harley Quinn, Lobo, and the purposed Cyborg movie.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Film News

Timo Tjahjanto To Direct New Line Cinema’s ‘Train To Busan’ Remake Produced By James Wan

New Line Cinema and producer James Wan have seemingly found the director for their remake of the South Korean zombie flick Train To Busan as Deadline reports that Timo Tjahjanto is currently in negotiations for the gig.

Timo is likely known for the action film Headshot that starred Iko Uwais.

Sang-Ho Yeon was behind the original that spawned a action-packed sequel that released in 2020. They’ll really have to knock it out of the park with this remake given that the original is beloved and most people are puzzled why a studio is even attempting it.

TRAIN TO BUSAN – Life-or-death survival in train bound to Busan. A divorced man, Seok-woo is always caught up at work, leaving him no time to spare with his daughter Su-an. He offers to take her on the train to see her mother in Busan. As the train departs, an abnormal virus spreads from a girl who is infected, and people start to transform to zombies. Will Seok-woo and Su-an make it out alive? 

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

‘Mortal Kombat’: Watch Bone-Breaking First Trailer For The R-Rated Reboot Produced By James Wan

Today, New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. dropped the first trailer for their R-rated reboot of the Mortal Kombat franchise in an attempt to revitalize the property for a new generation of fans. The reboot is produced by James Wan’s Atomic Monster and is the feature film debut of director Simon McQuoid.

It will feature different incarnations of fan-favorite characters along with Lewis Tan playing Cole Young, a brand new heroic figure created for the film.

Mortal Kombat will debut on April 16th in theaters alongside HBO Max.

Take a look at the new red-band trailer below which reveals that Goro is officially in the film.

In “Mortal Kombat,” MMA fighter Cole Young, accustomed to taking a beating for money, is unaware of his heritage—or why Outworld’s Emperor Shang Tsung has sent his best warrior, Sub-Zero, an otherworldly Cryomancer, to hunt Cole down. Fearing for his family’s safety, Cole goes in search of Sonya Blade at the direction of Jax, a Special Forces Major who bears the same strange dragon marking Cole was born with. Soon, he finds himself at the temple of Lord Raiden, an Elder God and the protector of Earthrealm, who grants sanctuary to those who bear the mark. Here, Cole trains with experienced warriors Liu Kang, Kung Lao and rogue mercenary Kano, as he prepares to stand with Earth’s greatest champions against the enemies of Outworld in a high stakes battle for the universe. But will Cole be pushed hard enough to unlock his arcana—the immense power from within his soul—in time to save not only his family, but to stop Outworld once and for all?

The diverse international cast reflects the global nature of the brand, with talent spanning the worlds of film, television and martial arts. The ensemble includes Lewis Tan (“Deadpool 2,” Netflix’s “Wu Assassins”) as Cole Young; Jessica McNamee (“The Meg”) as Sonya Blade; Josh Lawson (“Bombshell”) as Kano; Tadanobu Asano (“Midway”) as Lord Raiden; Mehcad Brooks (TV’s “Supergirl”) as Jackson “Jax” Bridges; Ludi Lin (“Aquaman”) as Liu Kang; with Chin Han (“Skyscraper”) as Shang Tsung; Joe Taslim (“Star Trek Beyond”) as Bi-Han and Sub-Zero; and Hiroyuki Sanada (“Skyscraper”) as Hanzo Hasashi and Scorpion. Also featured are Max Huang as Kung Lao; Sisi Stringer as Mileena; Matilda Kimber as Emily Young; and Laura Brent as Allison Young.

McQuoid directed from a screenplay by Greg Russo and Dave Callaham (“Wonder Woman 1984”), from a story by Oren Uziel (“Mortal Kombat: Rebirth”) and Russo, based on the videogame created by Ed Boon and John Tobias. Richard Brener, Dave Neustadter, Victoria Palmeri, Michael Clear, Jeremy Stein and Larry Kasanoff served as executive producers.

SOURCE: WARNER BROS.

Posted on in Film News

New ‘Mortal Kombat’ Movie Now Set For Release On April 16th – Coming To Theaters & HBO Max

The other day it was officially announced by Warner Bros. that the New Line Cinema reboot of the Mortal Kombat film franchise is now coming to theaters and streaming exclusively on HBO Max on April 16, 2021. The martial arts film produced by James Wan‘s Atomic Monster is expected to take a new angle on the franchise which is based on the supernatural fighting tournament arcade video game. It’s the feature directorial debut of Simon McQuoid with a script penned by Greg Russo.

There is an expectation the reboot will land an R-rating as it will involve the brutally violent fatality moves made famous from the video games, the two original movies were PG-13.

The cast consists of Lewis Tan as a new character described as a family man, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion, Chin Han as Shang Tsung, Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, Josh Lawson as Kano, Joe Taslim as Sub-Zero, Tadanobu Asano as Raiden, Mehcad Brooks as Jax, and Sisi Stringer as Melina.

The film has been undergoing reshoots with main actors in South Australia at Adelaide Studios and wasn’t going to be ready for it’s previous release date of January 15th, 2021 regardless. They had originally wrapped principal photography back in December 2019 but had to wait until recently to do reshoots because of the pandemic restricting international travel.

Mortal Kombat is part of a controversial announcement from WarnerMedia that they would be adding 17 upcoming films from their 2021 feature film slate to both HBO Max and theaters on the same day.

A trailer is likely coming in the near future.

Posted on in Film News

‘Van Helsing’: New Movie Coming From ‘Overlord’ Director Julius Avery and ‘Black Widow’ Screenwriter Eric Pearson – James Wan Producing

At one time, Universal Pictures tried to develop a new film focusing on the famous monster hunter Van Helsing with director Guillermo del Toro and Tom Cruise starring. The character best known as the nemesis of Count Dracula in multiple installments from Hammer Films played by Star Wars actor Peter Cushing. More recently played by Anthony Hopkins in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula from 1992 and Hugh Jackman in the less scary Van Helsing adventure film from 2004.

Back in 2015, Universal then attempted to developed another reboot from screenwriters Jon Spaihts (Dune, Prometheus) and Eric Heisserer (Bloodshot, Arrival, Lights Out). This took place when the studio was assembling their Universal Monsters franchise called Dark Universe, which crumbled after the misstep of The Mummy reboot starring Tom Cruise flopped at the box office.

Deadline has an update on the project that will see James Wan’s production company Atomic Monster getting involved along with Overlord director Julius Avery now attached for the horror reboot. They also mention that a new script was penned by Eric Pearson (Black Widow, Thor: Ragnarok, Godzilla vs Kong, Agent Carter) that will now get rewrites from Avery.

Julius had once been attached to direct a reboot of Flash Gordon for 20th Century before the the merger with Disney led to the project’s demise.

Fellow Australian director Leigh Whannell (Upgrade) was tapped to reboot The Invisible Man with help from Blumhouse Productions and is now working on a new Wolfman movie that will star Ryan Gosling (Blade Runner 2049, Drive). There is a Dracula movie in the works from director Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body, Destroyer) with other more comedic projects in various stages of development.

They had also been trying to reboot both Bride of Frankenstein and Creature From The Black Lagoon.

It’ll be interesting to see if Universal will want to make an R-rated film given the graphic nature of vampires to begin with and making PG-13 movies with vampires tend to be toothless concerning the horror angle being hindered without the use of blood/gore. I’m slightly curious if Avery’s film will be connected to Karyn’s Dracula film.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Amber Heard Says She’ll Be Returning For ‘Aquaman 2’ and They’ll Begin Filming In 2021

Despite multiple fan-petitions to remove actress Amber Heard from the role of Mera in Aquaman 2, she has now confirmed her return to Entertainment Weekly with production expected to begin sometime in 2021.

HEARD: “I’m super excited about the amount of fan love and the amount of fan appreciation that Aquaman has acquired and that it has garnered so much excitement for Aquaman and Mera that it means we’ll be coming back. I’m so excited to film that.”

There had been an assumption that filming could return to Australia at Village Roadshow Studios with director James Wan attached.

It’s worth noting that studios normally ignore most online petitions with either positive or negative demands and there had been plenty of calls to remove other actors in Warner Bros. franchises that never went anywhere.

Aquaman 2 has a release date of December 16th, 2022.

SOURCE: ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

Posted on in Film News

‘Get Out’ Actress Allison Williams To Star In Robot Horror Flick ‘M3GAN’ From Blumhouse and James Wan

Deadline reports that Get Out star Allison Williams will be reuniting with Blumhouse for a new technology horror film titled M3GAN. Williams will star as the lead character, Gemma, a brilliant robotics scientist.

She will produce alongside James Wan’s Atomic Monster as well.

Williams plays Gemma, a brilliant roboticist at a toy company. She uses artificial intelligence to develop M3GAN, a life-like doll programmed to be a kid’s greatest companion and a parent’s greatest ally. After unexpectedly gaining custody of her orphaned niece, Gemma enlists the help of the M3GAN prototype – a decision that has unimaginable consequences.

The project sounds interesting with a script penned by Akela Cooper (Malignant, The Nun 2, Luke Cage) based on a story by James Wan and will be directed by Gerard Johnstone (Housebound).

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

DC FANDOME: James Wan Calls ‘Aquaman 2’ More Serious Than First Film – Patrick Wilson’s Ocean Master Officially Returning

The Aquaman panel was short and sweet.

Director James Wan confirmed the Aquaman 2 will be more serious taking cues from modern themes and that Patrick Wilson will be returning as Ocean Master.

Warner Bros. has given Aquaman 2 a release date of December 16th, 2022. This would suggest they would attempt to begin shooting by the end of next year, if not sooner.

Filming on the first installment took place at Village Roadshow Studios in Australia and there is a good shot they’ll return to that facility.

SOURCE: DC FANDOME

Posted on in Television News

Netflix Announces ‘Usagi Yojimbo’ CGI Animated Series Titled ‘Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles’ – Produced By James Wan

Today, it was announced that Netflix will be making a new CGI animated series titled Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles based on Stan Sakai’s beloved Usagi Yojimbo comic book series. The streaming service will be teaming up with Gaumont and James Wan’s Atomic Monster.

The character also famously did crossovers with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and was part of their toy line.

88 Pictures, who previously did the animation for Trollhunters will be working on the series.

Below is the official press release.

Netflix and Gaumont announce new comedy-action CGI animated series Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles based on the globally successful 35-year-old comic book, Usagi Yojimbo, from award-winning creator Stan Sakai. 

The series takes place in the far future, set in a world that mixes modern high-tech images with classic Japanese references. It follows the teenage Rabbit Samurai Yuichi, descendent of the great warrior Miyamoto Usagi, on his epic quest to become a true samurai. But he isn’t alone! He leads a ragtag team of misfit heroes – including a roguish bounty hunter, a cunning ninja, an acrobatic pickpocket and a faithful pet lizard – as he battles depth-charging moles, metal-tipped winged bats, and monsters from another dimension, all in the pursuit to become the best samurai Usagi! 

The series is produced in partnership with Stan Sakai, the legendary creator, writer and illustrator of the comic-book series who will serve as Executive Producer, along with Gaumont (Executive Producers Nicolas Atlan, Terry Kalagian, Sidonie Dumas and Christophe Riandee), Dark Horse Entertainment (Executive Producers Mike Richardson, Keith Goldberg and Chris Tongue), and Atomic Monster (Executive Producers James Wan, Michael Clear and Rob Hackett). Candie and Doug Langdale (Maya and the Three, The Book of Life, Puss in Boots, Niko and the Sword of Life, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness) are attached as executive producers and showrunners. Ben Jones (Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teen Titans, Iron Giant) is Supervising Producer while Khang Le (Big Hero 6, Little Big Awesome) will serve as Art Director on the series. 

Mumbai-based 88 Pictures (Trollhunters, 3Below: Tales of Arcadia, Fast & Furious Spy Racers) has been appointed as the CGI animation studio. 

The acclaimed comic series has received a number of awards over the last three decades, including Parents’ Choice Award, an American Library Association Award, and the YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) Award. Usagi Yojimbo has also been named on Empire Magazine’s Top 50 comic-book characters of all time, IGN’s Top 100 comic-book characters of all time and Rolling Stone’s Top 50 non-superhero graphic novels. Sakai is a six-time Eisner Award winner, the recipient of multiple Haxter Awards, and won the Best Cartoonist Harvey Award in 2016.

SOURCE: NETFLIX