This month sees a grand return to George Miller’s wasteland with “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” a prequel exploring the origin of Imperator Furiosa, first played by Charlize Theron in “Mad Max: Fury Road” and now has Anya Taylor-Joy in the role as we explore Furiosa’s journey from The Green Place of Many Mothers, to the clutches of a roving biker gang led by Dementus, and to Immortan Joe’s Citadel. However, “Furiosa” won’t be the end of the stories told within the “Mad Max” universe if Miller has any say in that.
Miller has revealed to Entertainment Weekly that he’s hopeful that his long-gestating idea for a third movie that developed alongside “Furiosa” 15 years ago when “Mad Max: Fury Road” was on hiatus with Miller and his creative team hashing out backstories for all their characters, will get made down the line as he’s keen if he gets the chance to do it. Confirming that Max is indeed lurking in the background during the events of “Furiosa” and he’ll have a minor cameo in the new film.
“In doing what we did in the preparation of ‘Mad Max: Fury Road,’ we also wrote what happened to Max in the year before we encounter him in [that film],” Miller said of his third film idea taking place a year before the events of “Fury Road” and where we’d see the grizzled antihero. “And as we get towards the end of this movie, the chronology… Basically, we had to see that Mad Max was lurking around somewhere because we do know what happened. The writers know what happened to Mad Max in that year before, and we have a whole story of that, which I would like to do sometime if I get the chance.”
What exactly would a Mad Max prequel set a year before “Fury “Road” look like?
This isn’t the first time a prequel tie-in has been brought up as a comic book and video game (had featured Gastown) seemingly took some of these elements as we saw Max’s connections to Glory The Child, the phantom girl portrayed by Coco Jack Gillies that haunts Max during the events of “Fury Road,” and her mother, Hope. As those flashbacks would suggest, the fate of Hope and Glory doesn’t lead to a happy ending, alongside other potentially dead cohorts Max wasn’t able to save before redeeming himself in “Fury Road.”
Nothing says that Miller couldn’t attempt to incorporate a Furiosa B-story taking place elsewhere in the wasteland and opposite to what Max is up to, allowing Theron to reprise the role one more time.
“Furiosa” will speed into theaters on May 24 with a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and we’ll have to wait to see how many more adventures in the wasteland that Miller is willing to give us.
As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland, they come across the Citadel presided over by The Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.
Apple TV+ has been positioning itself as the streaming service for adults and it’s reflected with the projects they’ve secured since launching back in 2019. This is only highlighted with of the their latest television series acquisition that has been announced as Lazarus that will see Øystein Karlsen write, executive produce and direct the serial killer thriller.
The news first broke at Deadline with the outlet revealing the show’s two high-profile leads will be Tom Hardy (Taboo) and Zazie Beetz (Altanta) with Hardy playing the serial killer at the center of the show that is said to be similar to Silence of The Lambs with Beetz playing a detective that goes undercover in a hospital to learn fate of her sister. Lazarus is a co-production between A+E Studios and Range Studios based on the Joona Linna book series by Lars Kepler that has been popular enough to sell 17 million copies and they’ve provided a synopsis which you can read below.
An emaciated young man is found wandering along a train track. Thirteen years earlier, he and his sister went missing, presumed victims of the notorious serial killer Jurek Walter. To find the sister, police detective Saga Bauer must go undercover in the maximum-security psychiatric hospital where Walter has been kept since his arrest years ago.
This pairing is certainly not something we would have cooked-up but I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if their scenes together are electrifying. The two actors have comic book projects in common as Beetz is currently working on the sequel to the billion-dollar hit Joker and Hardy is leading his third Venom movie that recently promoted franchise screenwriter Kelly Marcel to director. It’s unclear when Lazarus is expected to being production as that information wasn’t mentioned.
Netflix is developing a new crime action film from director Gareth Evans, the main man behind the two fantastic installments on The Raid franchise. The new project, Havoc, sounds like it will be a solid crime flick with Tom Hardy and Forest Whitaker headlining the project.
The action pic takes place after a drug deal gone wrong and centers on a bruised detective who must fight his way through a criminal underworld to rescue a politician’s estranged son, while unraveling a deep web of corruption and conspiracy that ensnares his entire city.
Variety reports a string of casting additions have joined Havoc, they include Timothy Olyphant (The Mandalorian, Justified, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood), Justin Cornwell (Training Day, Umbrella Academy), Jessie Mei Li (Shadow & Bone, Last Night In Soho), Malaysian actress Yeo Yann Yann, Quelin Sepulveda, character actor Luis Guzmán (Boogie Nights, Carlito’s Way), Sunny Pang (Heatshot), and UFC MMA fighter Michelle Waterson.
The project is part of Evans’ exclusive deal with Netflix.
Sony Pictures is mapping-out their own cinematic universe featuring the multiple heroes and villains they’re able to give feature films and television shows to thanks to owning the Spider-Man rights. It’s become increasingly confusing what their ultimate plan is going to be with the various spinoff films as the original Venom was rumored to include a cameo from Tom Holland but that never happened and fans have been sort of kept in the dark officially about other Sony/Marvel projects too.
While we might eventually see Holland start to appear in these movies at some point, new quotes from Sony Picture Motion Pictures Group President Sandford Panitch during an interview with Variety gives us the impression that they studio hopes their spinoff films don’t even need Spider-Man to hook audiences.
Sanford Panitch is quick to point out that Sony Pictures doesn’t see their cinematic universe as a “Spider-Verse,” but actually their own Marvel universe while alluding to these projects holding their own without the iconic superhero. This is highlighted when Panitch admits that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man won’t be appearing with Tom Hardy’s Venom in the upcoming sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage. But also teased the two characters may meet up, eventually.
PANITCH: “We don’t really think of our 900 characters as the Spidey-verse. We have a Marvel universe. The volume of characters we have — you know, wait until you see this next Venom. You don’t miss Spider-Man…It’ll be exciting if they do meet, right?”
This sentiment was recently echoed not too long ago by Venom 2’s director Andy Serkis while speaking with IGN about the first-look trailer. Serkis mentioning that these the characters in the Venom sequel aren’t aware of Spider-Man and “treating this very much as it’s own world.”
SERKIS: “Obviously, there are links between Venom and Spider-Man in the Marvel Universe and the Spider-Man story, but in this, we’re treating this very much as it’s his own world, the Venom story is his own world. There are nods and little moments just like this, the newspaper Daily Bugle, of course, but on the whole, he’s unaware, they’re unaware, at this point of other characters like Spider-Man. So that’s the way we’ve chosen to play this particular episode of the movie but well, we’ll wait and see, what little things you can pick out of it.”
The original Venom, earned a massive $856 million at the global box office without Spider-Man, so it’s possible the studio believes other films could replicate this success on their own.
VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE – Tom Hardy returns to the big screen as the lethal protector Venom, one of MARVEL’s greatest and most complex characters. Directed by Andy Serkis, the film also stars Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris and Woody Harrelson, in the role of the villain Cletus Kasady/Carnage.
Today, is finally the day that Sony Pictures has dropped the first-look trailer for Venom: Let There Be Carnage giving fans a glimpse at Marvel supervillain Carnage (played by Woody Harrelson), the spawn of the alien symbiote known as Venom, and his partner Shriek (played by Naomie Harris). The film is the sequel to the Spider-Man spinoff that is part of the Sony/Marvel universe and remains to be seen if will directly connect to the MCU or not.
It’s directed by Andy Serkis, who worked as the second unit director on Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy.
The trailer confirms a previous scoop I posted at HN Entertainment last year while they were still shooting.
VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE – Tom Hardy returns to the big screen as the lethal protector Venom, one of MARVEL’s greatest and most complex characters. Directed by Andy Serkis, the film also stars Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris and Woody Harrelson, in the role of the villain Cletus Kasady/Carnage.
Interestingly enough, Tom Hardy broke the film’s story with screenwriter Kelly Marcel as the actor has landed a story credit on the film, according to the studio.
The sequel is part of Sony Pictures big plans for their own cinematic universe with Morbius coming in January alongside other films in development such as director J.C. Chandor’s Kraven The Hunter, Olivia Wilde’s rumored Spider-Woman movie, a Madame Web film, a Jackpot film, a Nightwatch film, a Black Cat film, and a Silver Sable film. However, it’s perplexing to see Michael Keaton’s Vulture appear in the Morbius trailer, when it hasn’t been confirmed if other Sony movies will take place directly within the Marvel Cinematic Universe just like with the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies made by Marvel Studios.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage is expected to be released in theaters on September 24, 2021.
After the merger between Disney and 21st Century, the film and television rights to live-action X-Men projects reverted back to Marvel. This has led to the announcement of Jon Watts directing a reboot of The Fantastic Four, another group of characters that came home to Marvel in the wake of the merger. Marvel Studios doesn’t seem to be in any rush to introduce mutants into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the biggest task they’ll have is recasting the Wolverine role.
Getting the X-Men and Wolverine on the big screen took a bit longer than you might imagine. Apparently, development goes back to 1984 as Wolverine co-creator Roy Thomas (Conan The Barbarian, Conan The Destroyer, Red Sonja) and Punisher co-creator Gerry Conway (Fire & Ice, Conan The Destroyer) wrote an X-Men film for Orion Pictures before the studio had financial issues.
Another incarnation had James Cameron producing a version with Near Dark director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker) and a script titled Wolverine & The X-Men was penned by Gary Goldman (Total Recall, Big Trouble In Little China, Navy Seals) around 1991 for Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment and Carolco Prictures. When Carolco went bankrupt the project was essentially dead.
In 1994, producer Lauren Shuler Donner got her hands on the X-Men rights and brought it to 20th Century Fox hiring screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven, The Wolfman, 8mm, Sleepy Hollow, Fight Club, Event Horizon, The Game) to work on a script, he was also assigned to write a Silver Surfer movie for the studio that never saw the light of day. After multiple tweaks to the X-Men script from various writers (some uncredited like Christopher McQuarrie and Ed Solomon), David Hayter would eventually get the screenwriting credit. It was eventually shot in 1999-2000 in Toronto/Hamilton/Burlington, Ontario, Canada by director Bryan Singer (attached since 1996) and released in 2000 earning an impressive $296.3 million globally on a budget of $75 million.
The Hugh Jackman era was certainly a bumpy road as the Australian actor was a last minute replacement for the Wolverine role as Scottish actor Dougray Scott had a scheduling conflict as he was busy shooting John Woo’s Mission: Impossible II. During the Cameron/Bigelow incarnation, Bob Hoskins had been considered. Much later on actors such as Russell Crowe, Viggo Mortensen, and Keanu Reeves had been in the mix for Wolverine.
The commercial success of the first X-Men movie is often cited by many as the turning point for Marvel projects being appealing to wide-range of audiences. Alongside Blade, proved to Marvel that people were willing to go see popcorn films featuring their characters which at the time had been considered a niche audience as a multitude of comic book movies had failed to make money in the 1990’s. Many studios tried to chase the box office returns achieved by Tim Burton’s Batman movies only to lose a lot of money in the process.
Due to Wolverine’s popularity he ended up landing his own film trilogy at 20th Century Fox starting with the forgettable mess, X-Men Origins: Wolverine that was plagued with studio brass,Tom Rothman, meddling with production and threatening to fire director Gavin Hood. A workprint of the film had been leaked online ahead of the officially release with incomplete visual effects and wasn’t much better than the theatrical version, as it clearly had half-cooked effects and godawful digital claws. The horrible effects only highlighted how bland the film was.
Luckily, The Wolverine was helmed by James Mangold (replacing Darren Aronofsky) and became one of the better films of the X-Men franchise and led to a stellar final bow for Hugh Jackman in the sequel Logan. Hugh would announce his retirement as Wolverine following the success of Logan, even turning down multiple pleas from Ryan Reynolds to make a Wolverine vs Deadpool movie.
Marvel Studios is now in the perfect position to reboot the X-Men and remove all the silly timeline issues along with the character deviations that started with Singer’s first installment giving us faithful versions of the mutants. The only mutant project they’re currently working on is the R-rated Deadpool 3 starring Ryan Reynolds as they recently hired Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Loeglin to write it.
The Falcon & The Winter Soldier has introduced Logan’s stomping-ground Madripoor and I hope we’ll see the location in future X-Men projects. I’d love to see Marvel give Wolverine a faithful origin covering his adventures during WWII/Cold War, confrontations with Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, connections to the Canadian mutant team Alpha Flight or in the Weapon X Program as Marvel Studios would likely be able to explore this stuff in a Disney+ series as not to distract from the main X-Men team.
We’re still waiting on Marvel to announce the creative team working on their X-Men reboot.
Hiring the next Wolverine is gong to be a pivotal moment for Marvel Studios because Hugh Jackman has been the face of Logan for over 20 years and to some fans their entire lives. It’s sort of tough coming up with the “perfect list” of casting hopefuls to play the MCU’s Wolverine because those are big shoes to fill. However, I came up with a group that might skew a little older but I felt had the well-rounded careers that could be solid enough to be in consideration along with being names that I assume Marvel would want to target. Given that Moon Knight’s Oscar Isaac is in his forties it wouldn’t be that hard to imagine older/seasoned contenders for Wolverine.
HENRY CAVILL (AGE 37): Mission: Impossible – Fallout, The Witcher, Man of Steel, The Count of Monte Cristo, Stardust, Immortals, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Enola Holmes, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Justice League.
CHRIS PINE (AGE 40): Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek Beyond, Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman 1984, Hell or High Water, Outlaw King, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Unstoppable, Smokin’ Aces, This Means War, and The Finest Hours.
TOM HARDY (AGE 43): Band of Brothers, RocknRolla, Black Hawk Down, Locke, Taboo, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Peaky Blinders, Dunkirk, Legend, The Revenant, The Drop, Lawless, Warrior, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Bronson, Marie Antoinette, Star Trek: Nemesis, and Layer Cake.
CILLIAN MURPHY (AGE 44): 28 Days Later, Inception, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Peaky Blinders, Red Eye, Sunshine, Dunkirk, Free Fire, TRON: Legacy, Cold Mountain, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, and A Quiet Place II.
Yesterday, Sony Pictures announced that they’ve now moved their Venom sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage from it’s summer release date of June 25th to the fall. The Sony/Marvel movie will be out in theaters on September 17th with Spider-Man: Now Way Home set for December 17th and Jared Leto’s Morbius on January 21st, 2022.
As the title suggests, Venom 2 will feature Woody Harrelson’s Cletus Kasady as the film’s villain as the dangerous murderer is the human host to Carnage. The violent Marvel supervillain will be paired up with Naomie Harris’ Frances Barrison aka Shriek. We’ll see the return of Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock aka Venom and the new addition of The Irishman’s Stephen Graham taking a role as well.
The sequel was directed by Andy Serkis, who shot second unit on Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy and most recently made Mowgli: Legend of The Jungle. It goes without saying that Serkis has a lot of experience with motion-capture and visual effects.
The first Venom installment originally dropped in October and having the release closer to the fall might be a good way for the studio to recoup their costs.
It looks like Tom Hardy has found his next project as he’s taken the lead role in the Netflix film, Havoc, from writer/director Gareth Evans, the filmmaker has a new deal with the streaming giant and the action-thriller will be part of it.
The story is set after a drug deal gone wrong, when a bruised detective must fight his way through a criminal underworld to rescue a politician’s estranged son, while unraveling a deep web of corruption and conspiracy that ensnares his entire city.
Evans is best known for The Raid and The Raid 2 along with his British crime series Gangs of London. He was also developing a Deathstroke film for DC Films and Warner Bros. at one time.
Tom has been known for taking various kinds of projects including The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Dunkirk, Mad Max: Fury Road, Venom, and this summer’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage. He was recently attached to star in the Vietnam War film The Things We Carried.
Deadline reports that Rupert Sanders (Foundation, Ghost In The Shell) will be directing a new Vietnam War film titled The Things They Carried with an all-star cast that includes Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road), Tye Sheridan (Mud, X-Men: Apocalypse), Pete Davidson (The Suicide Squad), Bill Skarsgard (IT), Ashton Sanders (Moonlight), Martin Sensmeier, Moises Arias, and Angus Cloud.
The news comes from sales at the American Film Market.
Blue chip firm MadRiver has boarded world sales rights and will launch the buzz title this week for the AFM ahead of a planned early 2021 shoot in Thailand. CAA Media Finance is arranging financing and will co-rep North American rights.
Tom Hardy is no stranger to war projects previously having roles in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, HBO’s Band of Brothers, and Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk.
The film is being adapted from the writings of Tim O’Brien by screenwriter Scott B. Smith (Westworld, A Simple Plan).
Pulitzer Prize-finalist O’Brien served in Vietnam in the late 1960s and his experiences course through his work. In The Things They Carried, which is often taught in middle schools and high schools across America, he tells the story of the young men of Alpha Company, a platoon of soldiers sent to fight on the ground during the War. Trekking from village to village amidst chaos and confusion, the young men struggle to navigate a growing labyrinth of physical, mental, and emotional terrains as they battle for the survival of their sanity, innocence, and each other.
Filming is said to begin early next year in Thailand.
THE RONIN 