Tag: The Batman

James Gunn Debunks Rumblings Of A 'Joker' Series With Barry Keoghan In Development
Posted on in News, Television News

James Gunn Debunks Rumblings Of A ‘Joker’ Series With Barry Keoghan In Development

Not too long ago, there was a buzzy rumor about a “Mr. Freeze” movie being in development. Well, it didn’t take long for DC Studios‘ co-head James Gunn to take to the internet and pour cold water all over that one. Another project is being rumored that would see Barry Keoghan (“Saltburn”) reprise the Joker role from “The Batman” in a new series (not unlike “The Penguin“).

Gunn has now also disputed that tidbit as well on his official social media account.

“Turn on threads, and everyone is asking me about this. No, there is absolutely no truth to this. A Joker series is not being discussed, nor has [it] even come up at this time. Sorry,” Gunn announced on Threads.

Fake DC Comics project rumors will have a much harder time these days because Gunn will be asked about them directly by fans and will quickly denounce the bogus ones. Waiting until Gunn has chimed in before getting too excited as well could help ease the disappointment.

Keoghan’s return as the Joker has yet to be made official, although, given he’s currently residing in Arkham Asylum (a series was once in development in that setting) alongside The Riddler, a potential appearance in the next two films from writer/director Matt Reeves wouldn’t be entirely surprising. Even more interesting is the existing relationship between Barry and Colin Farrell (Oz Cobb, aka The Penguin), as the two Irish actors have previously worked together on “Killing of A Sacred Deer,” and “The Banshees of Inisherin” (the two had been living together during that shoot). In theory, having them work off each other as two Batman rogues would be something I’m sure many fans of their acting would like to see down the road (wishful thinking, it may be).

“The Penguin” is about to wrap up its first season on HBO/Max, and “The Batman: Part II” is set for release in theaters on October 2, 2026. Fans will just have to be patient to see if more series are indeed on their way to expand Reeves’ Gotham and Batman universe further.

SOURCE: JAMES GUNN VIA THREADS

James Gunn Squashes 'Mr. Freeze' Movie Development Rumor: "There's No Truth To It At All"
Posted on in Film News, News

James Gunn Squashes ‘Mr. Freeze’ Movie Development Rumor: “There’s No Truth To It At All”

Superhero project rumors can come from all different places, and a new one making the rounds online from Production Weekly (picked up by various geek circles and websites over the week) claimed that Matt Reeves (“The Batman,” “The Penguin”) was producing a “Mr. Freeze” film. Days later, the studio revealed that the rumor wasn’t true, and over the weekend was officially debunked by DC Studios‘ James Gunn.

The studio executive chimed in on the DC project rumor on threads where he admittedly liked the idea of a Freeze project but would go on to say, “There’s no truth to it at all.” Gunn has been one of the more vocal studio presences online and goes out of his way to interact with fans on social media. That includes responding to and debunking/confirming the various rumors about his projects at DC Studios.

“It’s not a bad idea, so I wouldn’t say never, but no, there’s no truth to it at all,” Gunn said in response to the rumbling on Threads (See below).

There is a possibility that the upcoming Bane/Deathstroke film (“Suicide Squad 3”?) in development at DC Studios (first reported by THR last week) could have led to the incorrect entry in Production Weekly, but I think it’s more a case of folks needing to exercise caution with reposting their information which can be fabricated or at best, very inaccurate.

Fans have been curious to see if Reeves would attempt to use Freeze in his more grounded take on Gotham City with “The Batman” films led by Robert Pattison, and that has led to speculation about him potentially showing up in the upcoming sequel. Although it has mostly come off as wishful thinking from the fan community rather than something that is 100% going to happen.

I’m sure we’ll end up seeing Mr. Freeze at some point, but this rumor seems to be dead for the time being, and we don’t exactly know when/where the Batman rogue will make his grand return to live-action.

SOURCE: JAMES GUNN VIA THREADS

Posted on in Film News, News

Denis Villeneuve Might Consider Tackling Batman & Arkham Asylum

Dune director Denis Villeneuve made his thoughts public on both superhero films and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, however, doesn’t seem to dislike everything about the genre and has an affection for one particular superhero.

During a recent interview with the Happy Sad Confused Podcast, the French-Canadian filmmaker revealed that Batman is the only comic book character he could “relate to” suggesting he’d be open to tackling him in the future.

“Batman would be probably the only character that I could relate to. From what I read, like ‘Arkham Asylum,’ a book like that, I got in contact with when I was an adult. It’s for me, the character that I could connect to.”

Villeneuve is already in the scripting phase of Dune: Part Two and has mentioned a potential fall 2022 production start, assumed to take place in Budapest again. He’s started talking up his desire for a third Dune movie to round-out a trilogy, adapting the second book, Dune Messiah.

After Villeneuve’s public comments on WarnerMedia/Warner Bros. Pictures it’s unclear if Batman will ever land on his lap with Matt Reeves currently tackling a trilogy of films starring Robert Pattinson. Interestingly enough, Ben Affleck’s solo Batman film would have focused on Arkham Asylum.

Dune will hit theaters on October 22.

DUNE – A mythic and emotionally charged hero’s journey, Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence—a commodity capable of unlocking humanity’s greatest potential—only those who can conquer their fear will survive.

The film stars Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet (“Call Me by Your Name,” “Little Women”), Rebecca Ferguson (“Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep,” “Mission: Impossible – Fallout”), Oscar Isaac (the “Star Wars” franchise) Oscar nominee Josh Brolin (“Milk,” “Avengers: Infinity War”), Stellan Skarsgård (HBO’s “Chernobyl,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron”), Dave Bautista (the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, “Avengers: Endgame”), Stephen McKinley Henderson (“Fences,” “Lady Bird”), Zendaya (“Spider-Man: Homecoming,” HBO’s “Euphoria”), Chang Chen (“Mr. Long,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), David Dastmalchian (“Blade Runner 2049,” “The Dark Knight”), Sharon Duncan-Brewster (“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” Netflix’s “Sex Education”), with Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling (“45 Years,” “Assassin’s Creed”), with Jason Momoa (“Aquaman,” HBO’s “Game of Thrones”), and Oscar winner Javier Bardem (“No Country for Old Men,” “Skyfall”).

SOURCE: HAPPY SAD CONFUSED PODCAST

Posted on in Film News, News

‘BRZRKR’: Keanu Reeves Reveals That They’ve Hired ‘The Batman’ Screenwriter Mattson Tomlin For His Violent Comic Book Movie

Keanu Reeves is currently shooting John Wick 4, but is also lining up future projects including a feature film adaptation of his newly released Boom! Studios comic book, BRZRRK, that was picked-up by Netflix.

Here is the official press for the comic book.

BOOM! Studios is proud to announce BRZRKR, a twelve-issue limited series from the iconic Keanu Reeves in his Must Read comic book writing debut alongside New York Times bestselling co-writer Matt Kindt (Folklords, Bang!) and acclaimed artist Ron Garney (Wolverine, Captain America), colorist Bill Crabtree (BRPD), and letterer Clem Robins (Hellboy) in a brutally violent new series about one immortal warrior’s fight through the ages.

The man known only as B. is half-mortal and half-God, cursed and compelled to violence…even at the sacrifice of his sanity. But after wandering the world for centuries, B. may have finally found a refuge – working for the U.S. government to fight the battles too violent and too dangerous for anyone else. In exchange, B. will be granted the one thing he desires – the truth about his endless blood-soaked existence…and how to end it.

Reeves has given Collider a tiny development update on the BRZRKR film, revealing they’ve landed screenwriter Mattson Tomlin to tackle the script for the live-action film. Tomslin previously worked on The Batman with director Matt Reeves, the Netflix film Project Power, a Mega Man movie, and is developing an anime series set within the Terminator universe for the streaming service.

“We’re working on trying to set up a company with the animation and we’ve hired a writer for the film Mattson Tomlin. He’s been cool and just starting to put things together. That’s where we’re at.”

A director has yet to be announced but we’re hopeful that a seasoned filmmaker with action chops lands the gig. Given that they’ve just started developing a script there isn’t likely a production start in mind and unlikely conflicts with plans for John Wick 5 or potential Matrix sequels.

SOURCE: COLLIDER

Posted on in Television News

‘Terminator’: Showrunner Mattson Tomlin Shares Update On His Netflix Anime Series Being Made By ‘Ghost In The Shell’ Animation Studio

Writer Mattson Tomlin might not be a household name but he’s been behind the Netflix superhero flick Project Power and co-wrote Robert Pattinson’s The Batman with director Matt Reeves. One of his upcoming projects that people seem to have forgotten he’s involved with is a Netflix anime series from Japan’s Production I.G set in the dystopian cyberpunk world of James Cameron’s Terminator that launched in 1984.

Well, the writer/showrunner has teased that he’s completed a draft or currently working on one as the title page credits both James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd.

THE TERMINATOR – Disguised as a human, a cyborg assassin known as a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) travels from 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). Sent to protect Sarah is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), who divulges the coming of Skynet, an artificial intelligence system that will spark a nuclear holocaust. Sarah is targeted because Skynet knows that her unborn son will lead the fight against them. With the virtually unstoppable Terminator in hot pursuit, she and Kyle attempt to escape.

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY – In this sequel set eleven years after “The Terminator,” young John Connor (Edward Furlong), the key to civilization’s victory over a future robot uprising, is the target of the shape-shifting T-1000 (Robert Patrick), a Terminator sent from the future to kill him. Another Terminator, the revamped T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger), has been sent back to protect the boy. As John and his mother (Linda Hamilton) go on the run with the T-800, the boy forms an unexpected bond with the robot.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Japanese animation company Production I.G, they were behind the original Ghost In The Shell, Ghost In Shell 2: Innocence, Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Ghost In The Shell: Arise, Blood: The Last Vampire, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth, Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion, and they made the anime segment in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol.1 that covered the origin of O’Ren Ishii.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ji2-_wdUY

SOURCE: MATTSON TOMLIN

Posted on in News

Robert Pattinson Signs Overall First-Look Deal With Warner Bros. – Will Include Future Film & Television Projects

British actor Robert Pattinson has been having a huge career resurgence lately with a large role in Christopher Nolan’s time-bending action film Tenet that was released last summer and landed the titular role in Matt Reeves new Batman movie, The Batman.

It sounds like Warner Bros. wants to continue to work with Robert Pattinson for the foreseeable future as The Hollywood Reporter reveals that the actor has singed a first-look deal that will allow him to be considered for projects at Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Television/HBO, and the streaming service HBO Max.

The deal could allow Pattinson to appear on the HBO Max spinoff series Gotham PD, a prequel that will take place during the first year of Bruce Wayne acting as the vigilante known as The Batman. However, they might be more interested in having the British actor leading other original projects other than things connected to the DC Comics franchise because his Batman contract likely has him attached to sequels and Matt Reeves has talked-up his plans to make a trilogy.

Most people first noticed Pattinson when he appeared as Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire back in 2005 and led the popular Twilight films. Since then, he’s developed as an actor working with filmmakers such as David Cronenberg, The Safie Brothers, Robert Eggers, Christopher Nolan, James Gray, Claire Denis, and David Michod.

Having Robert Pattinson has the face of WarnerMedia could help them after heavy-weights such as Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve signaled their frustration after the day-and-date announcement, Nolan has been signaling that he won’t work with the studio again and might already be looking for a new home.

The WarnerMedia-Discovery merger has led to rumblings within the business news community that this could be the beginning of a sale, although, this is unconfirmed as potential buyers haven’t been mentioned.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Film News

WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar Suggests Blockbusters Will Return Exclusively To Theaters In 2022 Before Landing On HBO Max

As Godzilla Vs. Kong ended up having a better than expected international and domestic debut at the box office, it sounds like WarnerMedia won’t be carrying over the day-and-date model into 2022 at the same level.

WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar spoke with Vox on their podcast Recode Media, revealing that 2022 is expected to see blockbusters return to more traditional release windows with a theatrical run and landing on HBO Max later on.

KILAR: “I think it’s very fair to say that a big, you know, let’s say a big DC movie … it’s very fair to say that that would go exclusively to theaters first and then go to somewhere like an HBO Max after it’s in theaters.”

Their 2022 lineup includes The Batman on March 4, Fantastic Beasts 3 on July 15, Black Adam on July 29, The Flash on November 4, and Aquaman 2 on December 16.

However, only specifically mentioning the bigger movies might mean that movies like Judas & The Black Messiah won’t get the same theatrical exclusivity as the the massive blockbusters that would still need a large box office return to turn a profit.

This comes after AT&T CEO John Stankey had been quoted last year suggesting the day-and-day model would be something they’d considering continuing beyond the pandemic as the standard release window, something that had been controversial at the time.

We still don’t know if a film like Legendary’s Dune will even land on HBO Max later this year, as a deal has yet to be made official and director Denis Villeneuve has argued that it could seriously damage the sci-fi films’ franchise chances. It’s worth noting that Dune is only part one of a two-part story as they’ve split the first Dune book into two planned films, the 2021 release will end on a cliffhanger. Denis hasn’t even shot the second film and could screw-up Legendary’s plans for future installments (there are six original novels from author Frank Herbert).

SOURCE: VOX

Posted on in Film News

Ben Affleck’s Unmade ‘Batman’ Movie Would Have Featured Batgirl According To Deathstroke Actor Joe Manganiello

The unmade Batman film starring, co-written, and directed by Ben Affleck sounded sort of interesting. There had been previous talk that Arkham Asylum would have been a featured location with Joe Manganiello’s Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke being set up as the film’s big bad.

Manganiello dished a few more details to Comic Book’s podcast Phase Zero (spotted by The Playlist), where he name dropped Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl needing to get involved as Batman couldn’t handle Deathstroke on his own. Adding that Wilson would be more of a horror character citing Steven Spielberg’s shark movie Jaws.

MANGANIELLO: “There was like a big huge showdown, I think between Batgirl…Batgirl jumps in to try and help Bruce because Deathstroke is so fast. He can anticipate Bruce’s movements. That leads to this big climactic battle through the streets of Gotham in the end. It’s like a real-life psychological thriller with Deathstroke. He was like a horror movie, like a shark, kind of like Jaws.”

We’ll likely never see this ever fully realized but it’s certainly interesting tidbits of information none-the-less. Affleck is said to be appearing one more time as Batman in The Flash movie and might be his last time in the role.

Matt Reeves is busy with his own Batman trilogy starring Robert Pattinson and it was revealed by DC Films that it takes place within the cinematic universe’s version of Earth 2. This allowing the studio to populate new/rebooted versions of DC Comics heroes in that world starting with The Batman.

SOURCE: PHASE ZERO/COMIC BOOK

Posted on in Film News

Director Matt Reeves Announces ‘The Batman’ Completes Shooting Today

Director and co-writer Matt Reeves has taken to Twitter to give a big update on the production of The Batman, as he’s declared Saturday is the last day of principal photography. The film is part one of a new Batman trilogy from Reeves with Robert Pattinson in the role of Bruce Wayne and according to DC Films takes place in Earth 2.

Filming on the DC Comics reboot hasn’t been as smooth as the studio would have liked as they originally had to halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then had to pause again after resuming due to Robert Pattinson testing positive.

The Flash is the next big film to shoot on the Warner Bros. stages in Watford, England. Funny enough, that superhero flick is expected to include two Batman actors with both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck set to appear.

The Batman’s teaser trailer from the summer seemed to make a huge impression given the limited footage they had to work with and has become one of the most anticipated films from the studio after some initial hesitation from fans with the casting news of Robert Pattinson playing Batman for the foreseeable future.

Warner Bros. has given The Batman a release date of March 4th, 2022.

THE BATMAN – From Warner Bros. Pictures comes “The Batman,” with director Matt Reeves (the “Planet of the Apes” films) at the helm and with Robert Pattinson (“Tenet,” “The Lighthouse,” “Good Time”) starring as Gotham City’s vigilante detective, Batman, and billionaire Bruce Wayne.

Also in the star-studded ensemble as Gotham’s famous and infamous cast of characters are Zoë Kravitz (“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” “Mad Max: Fury Road”) as Selina Kyle; Paul Dano (“Love & Mercy,” “12 Years a Slave”) as Edward Nashton; Jeffrey Wright (the “Hunger Games” films) as the GCPD’s James Gordon; John Turturro (the “Transformers” films) as Carmine Falcone; Peter Sarsgaard (“The Magnificent Seven,” “Black Mass”) as Gotham D.A. Gil Colson; Barry Keoghan (“Dunkirk”) as Officer Stanley Merkel; Jayme Lawson (“Farewell Amor”) as mayoral candidate Bella Reál; with Andy Serkis (the “Planet of the Apes” films, “Black Panther”) as Alfred; and Colin Farrell (“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” “Dumbo”) as Oswald Cobblepot.

SOURCE: MATT REEVES

Posted on in Television News

‘Terminator’: Netflix & Production I.G Developing Anime Series With ‘The Batman’s Mattson Tomlin Set As Showrunner

The Terminator franchise isn’t dead according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Japanese animation studio Production I.G, Skydance, and Netflix are teaming up for a new anime series set within the Terminator universe with Mattson Tomlin set as writer and showrunner. Tomlin worked with Netflix on the superhero film Project Power and co-wrote The Batman with director Matt Reeves.

James Cameron’s Terminator franchise has had a rocky-road with varying degrees of success with sequels. The last entry directed by Tim Miller, Terminator: Dark Fate, was supposed to kick-off a brand new trilogy that producer Cameron was excited to explore but had a bit of trouble at the box office.

The new anime project could breath new life into the franchise when repeated attempts at reviving the films (three times) has been exactly what filmmakers had hoped.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER