It’s starting to look like the main threat of James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, might not be Earthbound. Folks such as Knight Edge Media have seemingly have spotted a blurry shot of what looks to be one of Starro The Conqueror’s facehugger-like alien creatures on the face of a soldier the Suicide Squad as taken out.
A villain that has already been previously rumored for the sequel via Splash Report.
I’ve tried to make the pink creature as clear as possible with my own edited screenshots which you can see below. Images were taken from the sizzle reel/behind-the-scenes video revealed during DC FanDome over the weekend.
James Gunn could have decided to use Starro as a slight nod to his sci-fi horror film Slither from 2006. While fans have assumed Taika Waititi would be voicing King Shark, there is a good chance Starro could be an option.
There seem to be more soldiers with the pink creature in the background that I can spot but are much harder to make out in the image.
This wouldn’t be the only alien character in the film as in the comic books Mongal (played by Mayling Ng) is an alien warlord.
The Suicide Squad is set to be released on August 6th, 2021.
Warner Bros. has revealed a new casting addition to Matt Reeves’ The Batman after the stunning new teaser was dropped during yesterday’s DC FanDome, which seemingly includes our first glimpses of Paul Dano as The Riddler and Colin Farrell in heavy makeup as The Penguin.
Below is an updated cast list for the film posted by Warner Bros. on their official YouTube channel alongside the teaser trailer from last night it.
There is a new name mentioned as Irish actor Barry Keoghan (Dunkirk, Chernobyl, Eternals) will play Officer Stanley Merkel.
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.
Barry most recently worked with Marvel Studios on their latest franchise Eternals.
The Batman is set to be released on Oct 1st, 2021.
A first teaser trailer was released for Matt Reeves’ The Batman.
Warner Bros. also released these three images just before the panel.
The cast led by Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne aka Batman also includes Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle; Paul Dano as Edward Nashton aka The Riddler, Jeffrey Wright as the GCPD’s James Gordon; John Turturro as Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as Gotham D.A. Gil Colson, Jayme Lawson as mayoral candidate Bella Reál, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, and Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot aka The Penguin.
Filming is expected to resume next month at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in Watford, England.
The Batman is set to be released on October 1st, 2021.
Vanity Fair reports that actor Ben Affleck will be returning as Batman for the upcoming Flash film as he agreed to to join the film’s cast this week.
Director Andy Muschietti confirmed the news and gave the following quote.
MUSCHIETTI: “He’s a very substantial part of the emotional impact of the movie. The interaction and relationship between Barry and Affleck’s Wayne will bring an emotional level that we haven’t seen before. It’s Barry’s movie, it’s Barry’s story, but their characters are more related than we think. They both lost their mothers to murder, and that’s one of the emotional vessels of the movie. That’s where the Affleck Batman kicks in.”
They also add that Michael Keaton is still part of of the film in a “substantial role”.
Affleck left the role as the solo Batman film changed over to Matt Reeves and new actor Robert Pattinson.
It’ll be interesting to see how they tackle two on-screen Batmans.
Black Adam is one of the upcoming big DC Comics projects that will getting hyped-up at their event DC FanDome and there are some expectations that some casting/details will be revealed.
The Illuminerdi is now posting a rumor that New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. is “interested” in casting Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgard in the role of Carter Hall aka Hawkman.
It’s worth noting that the Skarsgard Family has an established working relationship with Warner Bros. over the last couple of years.
Alexander recently led a Tarzan reboot for them a few years back along with roles on HBO shows True Blood and Big Little Lies. His younger Bill Skarsgard playing Pennywise in New Line’s IT and IT: Chapter Two. Their father Stellan Skarsgard is playing the villain Baron Harkonnen in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, which is being distributed by Warner Bros.
There have been plenty of fan speculation concerning the casting of the Hawkman role and a handful of shady rumors as well. Still, take with a pinch of salt as with all casting rumors.
They also mention they’re considering Scottish Sam Heughan (Bloodshot, Outlander) actor for the part as well.
Skarsgard plays the villain of the CBS All Access series The Stand from New Mutants director Josh Boone, based on the Stephen King novel.
Dwayne Johnson is set to play the titular Black Adam with Noah Centineo reportedly playing Atom Smasher.
Jaume Collet-Serra is directing from a script penned by Adam Sztykiel.
The film’s release date has been announced for December 22nd, 2021 but could easily be pushed to 2022 because of the production delays.
While we’re excited to see any footage from Legendary’s upcoming Dune movie, actor Timothee Chalamet has teased on Twitter that a trailer might be dropping this month.
Also, an in-depth interview with director Denis Villeneuve for the Shanghai International Film Festival made it’s way online recently via Secrets of Dune and he talked about finishing Dune on time during the pandemic while in Canada. Along with mentioning the casting of Timothee as Paul Atreides and Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho.
He also reveals the impact of Dune on his career and calling it his “dream project”.
You can watch that below.
They’re expected to do some additional filming in Budapest, Hungary soon.
The studio is splitting the first novel into two movies with the sequel expected to be titled Dune: Part Two and is currently being worked on by screenwriter Jon Spaihts.
Author Frank Herbert left the Denis and Legendary plenty of material to use as he wrote six rather hefty novels before son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson took over the franchise writing multiple installments in various points in the mythology.
A spinoff series in the works for HBO Max called Dune: The Sisterhood that will see Denis direct the pilot and produce the series.
Dune is set for release on December 18th, but there is a shot it could be delayed to 2021 like a majority of other 2020 films.
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”), David Dastmalchian (“Blade Runner 2049,” “The Dark Knight”), Chang Chen (“Mr. Long,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), 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”).
Another blow to the entertainment industry is on the way.
On Monday, it was revealed that WarnerMedia would be moving forward with massive layoffs with the “first wave” said to be around 600 according to a report from THR.
The layoffs are being attributed to the damage inflicted by the Coronavirus pandemic.
The laid-off employees include Warner Bros. CFO Kim Williams, Warner Bros. Worldwide Television Distribution president Jeff Schlesinger and Ron Sanders, Warner Bros. president, Worldwide Theatrical Distribution & Home Entertainment and Executive Vice President, International Business Operations.
Yesterday, news hit that the comics side of the company would be taking a huge hit as well.
The Hollywood Reporter included a list of people at DC Comics publishing that are expected to go as well such as editor-in-chief Bob Harris, Hank Kanalz, Jonah Weiland, Bobbie Chase, Brian Cunningham, and Mark Doyle.
Among those said to be losing their positions are editor-in-chief Bob Harris, senior VP of publishing strategy and support services Hank Kanalz, VP of marketing and creative services Jonah Weiland, VP global publishing initiatives and digital strategy Bobbie Chase, senior story editor Brian Cunningham, and executive editor Mark Doyle, who oversaw the rollout of the Black Label graphic novels. Jim Lee remains the CCO.
They also point out that a “majority” of people at the DC Comics centric streaming service DC Universe will also see layoffs.
There had been plenty of signs recently that DC Universe was on borrowed time after their talk show The Daily DC was canceled and multiple shows moved to other WarnerMedia services slowly making the streaming service less relevant.
This news comes days before WarnerMedia’s big star-studded DC Fandome event on August 22nd is likely going to leave fans a little sour given the state DC Comics and DC Universe will be in.
We had previously seen a bunch of layoffs at 20th Century Studios (formerly 20th Century Fox) because of some job redundancies post-merger with the Walt Disney Company, which regularly happens when media companies combine. Equally as sad but that was slightly more expected in the wake of the merger and was one of the reasons many Fox employees were quitting before the merger had even completed.
WarnerMedia recently launched HBO Max back on May 27th and seemingly hasn’t seen the growth they expected alongside the pandemic essentially stalling a majority of their various productions around the globe making.
I’m sure everyone is interested to see if AT&T/WarnerMedia will keep divisions after the cuts to staffing or instead attempt to sell them off. There had been reports that they were trying to offload Warner Bros. Interactive, their profitable video games division, but some have had the assumption that these layoffs may delay that sale.
Last week, actor Jared Leto took to Twitter suggesting that he’d like to return to the role of Niander Wallace, the overreaching villain of Blade Runner 2049. He seems to want to tackle an origin story about Wallace.
LETO: “Maybe we can do a Niander Wallace origin story one day. Would be interesting to see where this mad man came from. He must have had some history. I have some ideas…”
Maybe we can do a Niander Wallace origin story one day. Would be interesting to see where this mad man came from. He must have had some history. I have some ideas… pic.twitter.com/wdPfOezwpo
Wallace’s fate is unknown at the end of the film has he zipped off-world in a ship to one of the many human colonies. The villain is behind the latest version of the disposable workforce with his version of the Replicants.
Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve has teased in the past he’d like to return to the world of Blade Runner as well, but suggested he wouldn’t be interested in making another sequel.
A Blade Runner live-action series might not be out of the realm of possibilities as Villeneuve is producing and expected to direct the pilot for the Dune spinoff series for HBO Max titled Dune: The Sisterhood and there is already an animated series set in the universe of Blade Runner coming soon with Blade Runner: Black Lotus.
While it’s been ages since we’ve had an update concerning New Line Cinema’s DC Comics film Black Adam from director Jaume Collet-Serra. It looks like we have our first big casting addition since confirmation that Dwayne Johnson would be playing the titular character.
The Hollywood Reporter says that the studio has hired up-and-coming heartthrob Noah Centineo in the role of Atom Smasher, the DC character had been long rumored for the film.
Centineo will play Atom Smasher, a character who can control his molecular structure and is able to manipulate his size and strength.
Noah had been previously hired to play Prince Adam/He-Man in Sony’s long-delayed Masters of The Universe reboot film.
Black Adam is said to be shooting in Atlanta, Georgia. However, with the United States including Georgia seeing a massive uptick in new Coronavirus cases a production start anytime soon likely wouldn’t be smart or safe on the part of New Line Cinema.
I had also heard that a portion was expected to shoot in California, another state that is dealing with a wave of new cases.
Warner Bros. has given the film a release date of Decemeber 22nd, 2021. It remains to be seen if they’ll be able to stick that date if production is delayed into 2021.
Not too long ago there was a rumor circulating from Deadline that Henry Cavill was in early discussions with Warner Bros. about reprising the Superman role in a non-solo film, but that seemingly spiraled into a massive amount of fan speculation that ballooned into him coming back for a Man of Steel sequel and folks guessing where he’d show up next.
While speaking with Variety, Henry Cavill revealed he’s frustrated by those Superman rumors and speculation online, even more so that he can’t publicly comment on them.
However, isn’t opposed to the regular fans speculating as they normally do.
CAVILL: “They get wilder and wilder by the day. The amount of speculation, the stuff I read on the Internet, is extraordinary and sometimes frustrating. It’s when you see people stating stuff as fact. Like, ‘No, that’s not the case. That hasn’t happened, and that conversation isn’t happening’. But the important thing is that people are excited about it, and I think it’s important to be excited about a character like Superman. Superman is a fantastic character. If people are chatting about it, and even if they’re making stuff up, it’s okay, because that means they want to see the character again. And in an ideal world, I would absolutely love to play the character again.”
He also mused about using an alias to comment on those rumors.
CAVILL: “I’m not going to lie; I’ve been very tempted, but there’s something about that, that feels deeply immoral. When it’s about Superman, and if I’m representing Superman, it just feels like the wrong thing to do. I’m just going to let this all play out. Me saying something isn’t going to make a difference. What does it really matter? One day, people will know the truth, and if they don’t know it now, it’s okay.”
Henry is a little busy at the moment as he’s expected to resume production on his Netflix series The Witcher soon in the United Kingdom.
Superman had a brief cameo in Shazam! which I called back in the summer of 2018 after previously confirming the new movie was indeed set in the DCEU. Because talks broke down between the studio and Cavill he wasn’t able to portray the hero in that scene. There is a good chance since Shazam! established Cavill’s Superman exists in that film having him show up in the sequel would be a good bet to make.
THE RONIN 