Tag: Netflix

Posted on in News

Marvel Studios Producer Nate Moore Says Disney+ Is The First Time Their Film & Television Universes Have Been Interwoven

While fans are patiently waiting for some official confirmation that their favorite Marvel Television actors might be making their way to the hard-canon Marvel Cinematic Universe by reprising their roles, it’s starting to sound like Marvel is indeed moving on from all that and might see the Disney+ shows as the true cohesive connection between film and television.

The Playlist’s Rodrigo Perez caught this statement from longtime Marvel Studios producer Nate Moore from the Marvel Studios: ASSEMBLED special covering the filming of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, where he essentially states that the Disney+ shows is the first time that their cinematic and television universes have been combined, seemingly ignoring the Jeph Loeb era of Marvel Television on ABC and Netflix.

MOORE: “When Disney+ was announced we realized that there was an opportunity to interweave a cinematic universe with a television universe which has never been done before.”

While the audio is a little fuzzy you can watch that clip below.

WandaVision seemingly helped to tease things like Captain Marvel 2, Secret Invasion (Skrull cameo) and the motivations of Wanda in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. Falcon & Winter Soldier obviously could be directly connected to Captain America 4 and could also link to things like Armor Wars and whatever project that will use John Walker’s U.S. Agent. Unlike things like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Netflix shows, there isn’t a grey area, all these projects take place directly in the hard-canon Marvel Cinematic Universe and sort of impact each other.

The only real time that the films acknowledged the show was with Avengers: Endgame’s Jarvis cameo using Agent Carter actor James D’Arcy briefly in the role. It’s worth mentioning that Carter was a Captain America: The First Avenger spinoff show executive produced by Kevin Feige that had been co-created by Avengers: Endgame screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Agent Carter was originally spawned from a short directed by Marvel Studios’ Louis D’Esposito. Louis and Avengers: Endgame’s Joe Russo directing an episode a piece in Season 1.

This isn’t terribly surprising as when Kevin Feige was becoming Marvel’s chief creative officer and re-branding Marvel Television as Marvel TV Studios, a bulk of the television projects had been given the axe including the Netflix shows starting the path for Marvel Studios to have complete oversight on the television side with the exit of Jeph Loeb. While there has been a huge focus on those character rights reverting back to Marvel, the studio has yet to announce any plans to use them in the near future outside of Kevin Feige’s comments about being simply open to the idea.

SOURCE: MARVEL STUDIOS

Posted on in Film News

Christopher Nolan Has Spoken To Netflix About Working With Them But Global Theatrical Distribution Is A Concern – Signal He Is Searching For A New Studio Home?

You might remember how heated things got when WarnerMedia announced their day-and-date release model, something depending on where you look for numbers didn’t seem to make a huge impact on subscriber growth for HBO Max in Q1. Filmmakers Christopher Nolan (Tenet) and Denis Villeneuve (Dune) came out swinging with public comments denouncing the company.

There was even a report that Nolan was unlikely to work with WarnerMedia again.

Netflix’s film chief Steve Stuber has mentioned to The Wall Street Journal (via Coming Soon) that he has spoke with Christopher Nolan about his desire to see them expand into global distribution of their original films. Nolan has been a huge champion of traditional theatrical windows and audiences having access to the theatrical experience. Apparently, he’s also talked about potentially working with them but the cinematic distribution would be a huge sticking point for that to happen.

STUBER: “I think there are aspects of global distribution in the cinema that are still appealing. Chris Nolan and I have spoken quite a bit…and that’s still something he wants deeply. If we can’t provide that, it will still be an issue for him.”

“I think we have a model that works and we’ve done well with the theaters that have played us. As these things change, we’re all having these conversations to see where it all lands and what the landscape on the other side of all of this is.”

There have been plenty of calls for Netflix to get into the theater chain business as some companies have been struggling and now that studios can legally buy-up theaters it would allow Netflix to fully embrace a hybrid model of distribution with their original films that could allow their tent to expand with more high-profile filmmakers looking to work with them, like a Christopher Nolan. Netflix has been able to convince Martin Scorsese to bring The Irishman to the streaming giant and they’ve been able to win multiple Academy Awards with their originals.

It does feel like Nolan could be directly courting studios to find a new home and making sure his movies will be released in theaters worldwide is going to be part of whatever deal he attempts to secure. At this point in his career, any place would likely welcome him with open arms alongside blank checks for future projects.

SOURCE: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Posted on in Film News

Sony & Disney Make Domestic Streaming Deal For Marvel Properties From 2022 To 2026

Sony Pictures recently signed a lucrative deal with Netflix for post-theatrical release Pay 1 window, but that doesn’t end there. Variety states that Disney and Sony have made a new streaming deal for their Marvel properties that will see their films jumping to Disney+ after their post-theatrical run at Netflix. The deal kick-ins in with 2022 releases likely starting with Jared Leto’s Morbius and subsequent Marvel releases from Sony up until 2026.

Disney will also get access to other Sony content.

The wide-ranging deal, which runs through Sony’s 2026 theatrical slate, also calls for Sony titles to run across Disney’s array of streaming and linear platforms, making it unprecedented in scope as it covers Disney Plus, Hulu, FX Networks, ABC, Disney Channels and Freeform. It also includes a significant number of library titles that will be spread among various outlets.

There are heap of Spider-Man spinoffs in the works at Sony with Tom Hardy’s Venom 3 (quietly announced with the Sony/Netflix deal), J.C. Chandor’s Kraven The Hunter, Olivia Wilde’s Spider-Woman, Madame Web, Jackpot, Nightwatch, and Sinister Six (if they end-up resurrecting it). The sequel to Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is likely part of the deal and the other animated Marvel projects in the works at Sony Animation Studios.

In September, it was reported that Amazon and Sony were in negotiations to bring their Marvel television projects such as Silk to the streaming giant that is already home to The Boys and Invincible.

It seems like a win-win for Sony Pictures as the studio didn’t have a streaming service and now has two homes allowing them to make revenue post-theatrical without having to launch a new service during a crowded market, which has been an extremely costly venture for other studios.

SOURCE: VARIETY

Posted on in Film News

’47 Ronin’ Sequel Set In The World of Cyberpunk Will Be Written By Aimee Garcia & AJ Mendez

Last August, it was reported by Deadline that Universal 1440 and Netflix would be teaming-up for a sequel to the fantasy adventure film 47 Ronin starring Keanu Reeves, Horiyuki Sanada, Tadanobu Asano, Rinko Kikuchi and Ko Shibasaki. The 2013 movie was a fictional Hollywood take on the real-life historical event that took place in Japan during the 18th century.

47 RONIN – In feudal Japan, Lord Asano rules his province with fairness. However, jealous Lord Kira (Tadanobu Asano) fears that the shogun favors Asano over him and hatches a plot that ends with Asano’s ritual suicide. After Asano’s death, his samurai, led by Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada), are forced to live as outcasts. Oishi wanders for several years but realizes that he must turn to Kai (Keanu Reeves), a mixed-blood warrior he once rejected, to help him and his ronin comrades take revenge on Lord Kira.

The sequel directed by Ron Yaun is said to take place 300 years in the future with a cyberpunk angle. Things such as Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, The Matrix Trilogy, Ghost In The Shell, Akira, Upgrade, RoboCop, Total Recall, Dredd, The Terminator, Ready Player One, and Alita: Battle Angel are feature film examples of the cyberpunk genre alongside the recent video game Cyberpunk 2077 (also features Keanu Reeves).

Deadline is back with more information on the creative team as they’ve hired actress Aimee Garcia (M.O.D.O.K., Lucifer) and former WWE wrestler AJ Mendez to write the sequel. The pair are behind the Glow comic book based on the Netflix series that focused on women’s wrestling. They’ve also tackled Dungeons & Dragons for IDW and Wonder Woman for DC Comics.

Production was supposed to take place this year but is looks like they’re still in the development stage with the announcement of these two screenwriters joining the 47 Ronin sequel. It’s unknown if they’ll attempt to wrangle Keanu Reeves for a cameo as he’s about to begin shooting John Wick: Chapter 4 this summer.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

‘Kong: Skull Island’ Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts & Brian K. Vaughn Team For Live-Action ‘Gundam’ Movie

Legendary and Netflix is moving forward with a live-action Gundam movie, according to IGN. As the streaming giant has set Jordan Vogt-Roberts to direct a script from Lost’s Brian K. Vaughn. Legendary will distribute the film in China while Netflix will exclusively stream the film globally.

It’s unclear if they’ll be adapting the original anime series or attempt a new incarnation.

In the war between the Earth Federation and Zeon, a young and inexperienced crew find themselves on a new spaceship. Their best hope of making it through the conflict is the Gundam, a giant humanoid robot, and its gifted teenage pilot. It is the year 0079 of the Universal Century.

Vogt-Roberts is likely best known for his Monsterverse installment Kong: Skull Island that rebooted King Kong for the Legendary franchise and recently cast Oscar Isaac (Dune, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Moon Knight) for his Metal Gear Solid film at Sony Pictures.

Brian K. Vaughn is an established comic book writer and had once been tasked to write a solo Silver Surfer movie for 20th Century Fox before the merger with Disney nixed those plans. He’s behind comics such as Saga, Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina.

It’s starting to sound like Legendary and Netflix will attempt to grow their relationship after recently working together on Enola Holmes. You might remember that Netflix offered the studio a massive $200 million deal to secure Godzilla vs. Kong, as WarnerMedia crushed that deal to place the film on HBO Max for free alongside the theatrical release. I’m curious if we’ll see big projects like this at Legendary offered to Netflix in the future instead of Warner Bros. for distribution.

SOURCE: IGN

Posted on in Film News

Netflix Secures Multi-Year Deal Landing Streaming Rights To Sony Feature Films Starting In 2022

Many people had been curious why Sony Pictures hadn’t started-up their own streaming service or attempted to sign a deal with an existing streaming player. That has all changed as there is news today via The Hollywood Reporter that Sony and Netflix have signed a lucrative deal giving the them the streaming rights to their feature films starting in 2022 after the theatrical/home video windows.

Sony has inked a multi-year, exclusive first pay window licensing deal in the U.S. that will allow Netflix first pay window rights to Sony Pictures titles following their theatrical and home entertainment windows, the studio announced Thursday. (The typical pay one window is 18 months.)

Over the course of the deal, Netflix has also committed to financing a number of titles from the studio’s motion picture group. These will encompass the films that Sony intends to make directly for streaming from inception or decides at a later point to license for streaming. The announcement notes that Sony’s theatrical output will “continue at its current volume.

The new deal also gives them access to Sony’s Spider-Man franchise which is going to continue to expand for the foreseeable future as they’ll have dibs on future Spider-Man (mentioned by THR) and Venom films. It will seemingly include upcoming spinoff movies such as Olivia Wilde’s Spider-Woman film, J.C. Chandor’s Kraven The Hunter, Madame Web, Jackpot, Black Cat, Silver Sable, and Nightwatch.

Upcoming releases part of this deal include Uncharted, Morbius, Bullet Train, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse 2, and other films released within the deal.

There was always a hint that Netflix was going to seek a studio partnership after Disney+ became their main competition and HBO Max started throwing the new releases from the Warner Bros. slate on the streaming service.

It’ll be curious if Netflix will attempt to develop exclusive series based on Sony franchises as well. In September, it was reported that a Silk live-action series was in the works with Amazon being considered with Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Amy Pascal producing. Cindy Moon aka Silk is a spinoff character from Sony’s stable of Spider-Man universe heroes.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Television News

Jodie Turner-Smith Exits Netflix’s Prequel Series ‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’

Netflix is looking to expand The Witcher franchise as the flagship series starring Henry Cavill recently wrapped filming on Season 2. The streaming giant is assembling a cast for their spinoff series The Witcher: Blood Origin, a prequel that takes place many years before the adventures of Cavill’s Geralt of Rivia.

Set 1,200 years before the world of The Witcher, Blood Origin will tell the story of 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.

Originally, Netflix had cast rising star Jodie Turner-Smith, who will be seen later this month in Michael B. Jordan’s upcoming Amazon action flick Without Remorse, in a prime lead role of Eile. Scheduling issues has led to Jodie exiting the fantasy project, according to a report from Deadline. A new actress hasn’t been named at this time but the warrior role will indeed be recast.

Irish actor Laurence O’Fuarain (Game of Thrones, Vikings) had recently joined the series in the role of Fjall.

The original series is based on the novels by Polish fantasy author Andrzej Sapkowski that was eventually turned into the internationally popular video game franchise from CD Projekt Red. Netflix is also developing an 10-episode anime series based on their new game release Cyberpunk 2077 that will be titled Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and seems like only a matter of a time before a live-action project is announced.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Netflix Shelling-Out $450M For Rian Johnson’s Next Two ‘Knives Out’ Sequels Starring Daniel Craig As Benoit Blanc

Earlier in the week it was announced via a report from Deadline that Netflix was looking to finance and secure the next two Knives Out sequels from writer/director Rian Johnson. The untitled sequels will see Daniel Craig reprise the role of Southern crime novelist/detective Benoit Blanc. The character is a take on Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot mixed with Jessica Fletcher from the series Murder, She Wrote.

The streaming giant was said to be looking spend $400 million on the two films with Variety stating in their own write-up that the number is actually closer to $450 million. The number likely has to do with the original film earning an impressive $311.4 million at the international box office on a modest budget of $40 million, Netflix seeing the value in having the next two films being part of their originals lineup.

Knives Out originally was at MRC and distributed by Lionsgate, however, the companies didn’t make deals for potential sequels leaving the door open for Amazon, Apple, and Netflix to compete for the rights. Netflix seemingly landing them.

Filming on the second installment isn’t far away as Deadline says that production is set to begin this June 28, 2021 in Greece. The location moving out of the United States could allow for international cast and fans of the originally are dying to see what actors Johnson ends up hiring as there is expectations for another large cast.

The Benoit Blanc role could be a huge deal for Daniel Craig trying to get away from the shadow of the James Bond franchise as he’ll be exiting after the release of No Time To Die. It would be nice if Craig was able to have his character Benoit Blanc as notable to his career as Bond. The only way that is going to happen is if these next two films knock it out of the park.

KNIVES OUT – The circumstances surrounding the death of crime novelist Harlan Thrombey are mysterious, but there’s one thing that renowned Detective Benoit Blanc knows for sure — everyone in the wildly dysfunctional Thrombey family is a suspect. Now, Blanc must sift through a web of lies and red herrings to uncover the truth.

SOURCE: DEADLINE & VARIETY

Posted on in Features

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.

Posted on in Television News

‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’ Adds ‘Vikings’ & ‘Game of Thrones’ Actor Laurence O’Fuarain In The Lead Role of Fjall

It looks like Jodie Turner-Smith (Without Remorse) will have some company in Netflix’s prequel/spinoff series The Witcher: Blood Origin. A new casting report from Deadline states that Irish actor Laurence O’Fuarain has been placed in the leading role of Fjall.

They also provided a character breakdown.

Born into a clan of warriors sworn to protect a King, Fjall carries a deep scar within, the death of a loved one who fell in battle trying to save him. A scar that won’t let him settle, or make peace with himself or the world around him. In his quest for redemption, Fjall will find himself fighting beside the most unlikely of allies as he carves a path of vengeance across a continent in turmoil.

The main series is currently in it’s second season and is led by Henry Cavill as the iconic Witcher character Geralt of Rivia. Blood Origin has six episodes and takes place 1,200 years in the past.

Set 1,200 years before the world of The Witcher, Blood Origin will tell the story of 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.

SOURCE: DEADLINE