Tag: WWII

Posted on in Film News, News

James Vanderbilt’s WWII Drama ‘Nuremberg’ Starring Russell Crowe Taps ‘Napoleon’ Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski

Well-known screenwriter James Vanderbilt is looking to branch out into directing with some seriously dark subject matter. The writer known for working on scripts for films such as David Fincher’s serial killer pic “Zodiac,” the military thriller “Basic,” and the last two “Scream” movies is setting his sights on World War II and the subsequent Nuremberg Trials. Specifically, focusing on convicted Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring. Back in 2012, Vanderbilt and Laeta Kalogridis (“Shutter Island,” “Alita: Battle Angel,” “Avatar”) landed the rights to the non-fiction novel “The Nazi & The Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, & A Fatal Meeting of Minds At The End of WWII” by author Jack El-Hai with plans to turn the material into a feature film. It explores the complex relationship between American psychiatrist Dr. Douglas M. Kelley and the Nazi war criminal and Hitler’s right-hand man (Based on Kelley’s own personal notes from the Nuremberg era which had been hidden for years by his family).

Oscar-winner Russell Crowe (“Gladiator“) revealed over the summer at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival that he had been tapped to play Göring in “Nuremberg” and was expected to be his next project.

There is a minor update The Ronin can share as the project has landed a cinematographer, Dariusz Wolski, a familiar name to most. Wolski is likely mostly known these days for his lengthy string of collaborations with filmmaker Ridley Scott including “Prometheus,” “Napoleon,” “House of Gucci,” “The Last Duel,” “Alien: Covenant,” “Exodus: Gods & Kings,” “The Martian,” and “The Counselor.” Some of his other work consists of the Brandon Lee comic book flick “The Crow,” three installments of Disney’s “Pirates of The Caribbean” films, and the underrated Aussie sci-fi thriller “Dark City.”

Below are some examples of Wolski’s recent feature work.

Here is the novel’s official synopsis via Amazon which should give you a pretty good idea of where the film is going:

In 1945, after his capture at the end of the Second World War, Hermann Göring arrived at an American-run detention center in war-torn Luxembourg, accompanied by sixteen suitcases and a red hatbox. The suitcases contained all manner of paraphernalia: medals, gems, two cigar cutters, silk underwear, a hot water bottle, and the equivalent of 1 million in cash. Hidden in a coffee can, a set of brass vials housed glass capsules containing a clear liquid and a white precipitate: potassium cyanide. Joining Göring in the detention center were the elite of the captured Nazi regime—Grand Admiral Dönitz; armed forces commander Wilhelm Keitel and his deputy Alfred Jodl; the mentally unstable Robert Ley; the suicidal Hans Frank; the pornographic propagandist Julius Streicher—fifty-two senior Nazis in all, of whom the dominant figure was Göring. To ensure that the villainous captives were fit for trial at Nuremberg, the US Army sent an ambitious army psychiatrist, Captain Douglas M. Kelley, to supervise their mental well-being during their detention. Kelley realized he was being offered the professional opportunity of a lifetime: to discover a distinguishing trait among these arch-criminals that would mark them as psychologically different from the rest of humanity. So began a remarkable relationship between Kelley and his captors, told here for the first time with unique access to Kelley’s long-hidden papers and medical records. Kelley’s was a hazardous quest, dangerous because against all his expectations he began to appreciate and understand some of the Nazi captives, none more so than the former Reichsmarshall, Hermann Göring. Evil had its charms.

However, with all this said it’s unclear when exactly production would begin as the Hollywood strikes likely mean it won’t be happening anytime soon. Hopefully, the AMPTP will come to their senses and make a fair deal with the writers/actors.

Posted on in Film News

Christopher Nolan’s WWII Film About J. Robert Oppenheimer Lands At Universal & Begins Filming In 2022

Director Christopher Nolan has been shopping around a new World War II film project to multiple studios about J. Robert Oppenheimer’s development of the atomic bomb in the Manhattan Project. His work ultimately led to the surrender of the Japanese after two atomic bombs were unleashed upon the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the U.S. military, killing countless civilians in an instant and even more than that slowly/painfully over time.

Deadline has an update that Universal Pictures has landed the new project with production expected to begin shooting in the first quarter of 2022. This would end Nolan’s run with longtime studio partner Warner Bros. Pictures and remains to be seen if Universal will get first dibs on future films.

The report adds that Warner Bros. wasn’t in the mix for the WWII film, but Universal, Sony, and MGM were.

Nolan’s muse Cillian Murphy (Inception, Batman Begins, Dunkirk) had been previously mentioned for the role of Oppenheimer, but it doesn’t sound like it’s a lock.

I’m extremely curious if Christopher Nolan will attempt to document the Pacific War and the Japanese side of the story along with the civilians that were essentially erased from the planet as part of power move by the United States to end the bloody South Pacific campaign with an extreme show of force. One of the darkest moments in human history.

It’s really not that shocking that Christopher Nolan would attempt to explore this part of history, all you have to do is look at Nolan’s films The Dark Knight Rises and Tenet to understand the filmmaker’s obsession with nuclear armament.

You might remember that Christopher Nolan wasn’t terribly happy how Tenet was released during the pandemic in 2020 (conflicting trade reports blame both Warner Bros. and Nolan for that hiccup with various “sources” finger pointing to each other’s camp). However, when WarnerMedia announced their plans for a hybrid release for all 2021 releases to promote HBO Max, that seemed to be the final straw for the filmmaker and signs that his longtime relationship with Warner Bros. has come to an end.

Universal Pictures recently released F9: The Fast Saga (Nolan is admittedly a fan of Tokyo Drift), are distribution partners on No Time To Die (Daniel Craig’s final outing as James Bond), and behind the upcoming horror flick Halloween Kills.

A release date for the untitled film is likely heading towards 2023.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News

Colin Trevorrow’s WWII Movie ‘War Magician’ Officially Set To Begin Shooting In 2022; Benedict Cumberbatch Will Fight Nazis With Magic

Benedict Cumberbatch has been busy shooting scenes for Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Way alongside his Doctor Strange sequel, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, that will be directed by Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Army of The Dead, Darkman, Spider-Man 1-3) and co-starring Elizabeth Olsen as the actress reprises the Scarlet Witch role.

He’ll continue to be busy next year as French studio StudioCanal has announced via The Playlist that production on the WWII film, War Magician, will begin in 2022. Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World, Jurassic World: Dominion) will be directing from a script penned by E. Nicholas Mariani that is based on the novel by David Fisher. The movie focuses on the real-life magician and illusionist Jasper Maskelyne (playe by Cumberbatch) was enlisted by the British Army to help fight the Nazis during WWII.

Jasper Maskelyne was a world famous magician and illusionist in the 1930s. When war broke out, he volunteered his services to the British Army and was sent to Egypt where the desert war had just begun. He used his skills to save the vital port of Alexandria from German bombers and to ‘hide’ the Suez Canal from them. He invented all sorts of camouflage methods to make trucks look like tanks and vice versa. On Malta he developed ‘the world’s first portable holes’: fake bomb craters used to fool the Germans into thinking they had hit their targets. His war culminated in the brilliant deception plan that won the Battle of El Alamein: the creation of an entire dummy army in the middle of the desert.

Colin Trevorrow had famously been developing the ninth Star Wars film under the tile Star Wars: Duel of The Fates, only to exit and most of his work scrapped as J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio put together Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

A release date for War Magician wasn’t mentioned but I’m sure they’re hoping for an awards friendly fall/winter spot.

SOURCE: STUDIOCANAL VIA THE PLAYLIST

Posted on in Television News

‘Shang-Chi’s Destin Daniel Cretton To Direct WWII Series ‘Facing The Mountain’ – Explores The True Stories of Japanese-American War Heroes

Filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12) is coming off shooting the martial arts blockbuster Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings, priming audiences to embrace the first Asian-led superhero film from Marvel Studios and potentially making an impact as large as Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther. I’m hopeful that the Marvel flick will continue to bust more Hollywood myths concerning Asian/Asian-American leads being successful on a global level at the box office.

While there hasn’t been any official word concerning a Shang-Chi sequel, another project is on the horizon for Destin Daniel Cretton, according to Deadline. The outlet says he’ll direct a series adaptation of the novel Facing The Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes In World War II written by Daniel James Brown.

They came from across the continent and Hawaii. Their parents taught them to embrace both their Japanese heritage and the ways of their American homeland. They faced bigotry, yet they believed in their bright futures as American citizens. But within days of Pearl Harbor, the FBI was ransacking their houses and locking up their fathers. And within months many would themselves be living behind barbed wire.

The book focuses on the brave and patriotic Japanese-American soldiers of World War II that became war heroes. A group of fighting men that faced a paranoid United States government challenging their loyalty because they happened to be of Japanese ethnicity after the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor trusting the country into the war in the Pacific. Many Japanese-American families were sent to interment camps because the government claimed they couldn’t trust them and this led to many Japanese-American men to sign-up to prove just how loyal they were to the United States, giving up their lives and fighting for the country they loved.

It’s unknown where the series will land but Destin Daniel Cretton was originally going to direct the HBO Max crime series Tokyo Vice before Shang-Chi led to a scheduling conflict and Michael Mann was brought in to direct instead. Then again, WarnerMedia recently passed on the WWII series Masters of The Air from producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, which landed at Apple TV+ instead.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Television News

Cary Fukunaga Announces WWII Series ‘Masters of The Air’ Has Started Filming In London – Produced By Tom Hanks & Steven Spielberg

Director Cary Fukunaga is going to be following-up his James Bond movie No Time To Die with a WWII series, titled Masters of The Air, for producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks at Apple TV+. As you would expect the project is considered a sequel to previous HBO series Band of Brothers and The Pacific, except this time the series will be exploring the airmen of the war.

The filmmaker has announced on his Instagram account that they’ve completed the first week of filming in London under the working title of Whirlwind with cinematographer Adam Arkapaw. I can confirm they’ve also hired production designer Chris Seagers (Alien: Covenant, X-Men: First Class), who recently worked with Ridley Scott on the TNT/HBO Max series Raised By Wolves.

The series is based on the novel by Donald L. Miller with a cast that consists of Anthony Boyle as Major Crosby, Austin Butler as Major Gale Cleven, Raffery Law as Sgt. Ken Lemmons, Nate Mann as Major Rosie Rosenthal, Callum Turner as Major John Egan, and James Murray as Colonel Chic Harding.

Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people. Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller’s Air Force band, which toured US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. Masters of the Air is a story of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed.

Cary Fukunaga as mentioned before is coming-off the massive production on Daniel Craig’s final outing as 007 in No Time To Die with other credits that includes True Detective, Beasts of No Nation, Maniac, Jane Eyre, and Sin Nombre.

SOURCE: CARY FUKUNAGA

Posted on in Film News

Benedict Cumberbatch To Star In WWII Drama ‘War Magician’ Directed By ‘Jurassic World’s Colin Trevorrow – British Illusionist Uses Magic To Defeat The Nazis

Deadline reports that Doctor Strange actor Benedict Cumberbatch is set to star in a new WWII drama, titled War Magician, that focuses on Jasper Makelyne who used illusions/magic to defeat the Nazis. The StudioCanal film will be directed by Colin Trevorrow best known for Jurassic World and the upcoming sequel Jurassic World: Dominion. The script was adapted from the David Fisher book by screenwriter E. Nicholas Mariani. Previous drafts were penned by Richard Cordiner and Gary Whitta.

Based on the wild story of Jasper Maskelyne, a British illusionist who used magic to defeat Erwin Rommel in World War II. Trevorrow’s take features an international “magic gang” from Africa, Europe and the Middle East who conspired with Maskelyne and a female military intelligence officer to defeat the Nazis.

It sounds similar to the American counterpart project Ghost Army that had Ben Affleck (Argo, The Town) attached to direct. That film is based on the real-life group that had American military overseas during WWII creating fake tanks and mock forces to fool the Germans thinking that the allies were advancing in greater numbers. It’s not magic but there is still an illusion element to trick the enemy.

Benedict Cumberbatch has worked on plenty of war films in the past including Sam Mendes’ 1917, Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, the WWII drama The Intimidation Game, and the Cold-War era drama Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The actor has been recently shooting Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness.

It’s unclear when War Magician will begin shooting.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Television News

‘Band of Brothers’ Follow-Up WWII Series ‘Masters of The Air’ Casts Austin Butler & Callum Turner

Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg previously were behind HBO’s WWII series Band of Brothers and The Pacific about American soldiers that fought in European and Pacific campaigns. They’re currently working on a new show, Masters of The Air, that HBO passed on and landed at Apple TV+. An adaption of the novel from Donald L. Miller that focuses on bomber pilots aka bomber boys, which will be written by John Orloff and Graham Yost.

The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’s Austin Bulter and Fantastic Beasts 2 actor Callum Turner. They have landed the roles of Maj. Gale Cleven and Maj. John Egan.

Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler’s doorstep. With the narrative power of fiction, Donald Miller takes you on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people. Fighting at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air that no warriors had ever encountered before, bomber crews battled new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent: periods of inactivity and anxiety were followed by short bursts of fire and fear. Unlike infantrymen, bomber boys slept on clean sheets, drank beer in local pubs, and danced to the swing music of Glenn Miller’s Air Force band, which toured US air bases in England. But they had a much greater chance of dying than ground soldiers. Masters of the Air is a story of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed.

According to a report from Deadline from October, No Time To Die director Cary Joji Fukunaga is attached to tackle episodes. Also, I can confirm that Alien: Covenant and Raised By Wolves production designer Chris Seagers is going to be working on the series.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

Posted on in Features

Marvel Should Tackle ‘The Invaders’ In A Project Set During WWII or The Cold War

Yesterday, it was revealed by Deadline that Chris Evans was nearing a deal to reprise Steve Rogers aka Captain America in a small supporting role (similar to Robert Downey Jr. in Spider-Man: Homecoming) for an undisclosed MCU project. They also mention Evans might be returning for second thing, possibly a film but didn’t reveal what that could be either.

There are a couple of obvious options such as old Steve Rogers becoming a mentor to Sam Wilson in Captain America 4 as he takes over the mantle. Also, seeing what Steve was up to while hiding between Captain America: Civil War to Avengers: Infinity War, not unlike where Black Widow takes place in the MCU timeline. There is the multiple years between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, I’m sure there would still be threats in the wake of Thanos’ snap.

There is another option to add. Thanks to Avengers: Endgame, that Steve was able to go back in time to be with Peggy Carter and stayed there starting in 1948 just when The Cold War begins. Steve as an old man ends up handing Sam Wilson the shield at the end of the film and launching the events that will be covered in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.

The Multiverse also opens the door to other timelines allowing to them return to WWII.

I think it’s hard to imagine with all the threats surrounding him during that timeline and Peggy Carter’s work at S.H.I.E.L.D. that he doesn’t eventually jump back into the fray between his return and Avengers: Endgame. What would make a lot of sense would be Rogers leading his own team which has previously happened with The Invaders, a group mostly made up of WWII era heroes such as Namor McKenzie aka The Sub-Mariner, Union Jack, Spitfire, the original android version of The Human Torch aka Jim Hammond, Blazing Skull, and multiple other wartime heroes that could get some live-action love.

It’s worth noting that Wyatt Russell’s John Walker aka U.S. Agent, Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson, and Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes have been established members on the roster.

There is another superhero that was kicking around during WWII and The Cold War that has teamed-up with Captain America the comics that could make for another excellent addition to those ranks, that being the Canadian super-soldier Wolverine.

Luckily, since Logan doesn’t really age he can be able to time-hop to various eras of the MCU including something like WWII or even futuristic setting like with Old Man Logan.

Rebooting Wolverine is clearly a huge priority to the studio alongside the X-Men and having the anti-hero connect to various MCU characters beforehand wouldn’t be shocking since he’s, like Steve Rogers, he is part of a super-soldier program via Weapon. When his origin takes places in the MCU doesn’t seem to be set in stone and Marvel can certainly tinker with it to fit their needs but I’d personally like to see him running around WWII without his indestructible skeleton and then get it during The Cold War.

It might be a good idea to introduce Wolverine as a supporting character elsewhere so that he doesn’t dominate the main X-Men films as much. The fictional X-Men locale of Madripoor is going to be introduced in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, which had many fans jump to conclusions that Wolverine is connected to the Disney+ series, although, there hasn’t been credible information backing up these fan desires. However, it becoming a stomping ground for the mutant eventually wouldn’t a surprise.

If they’re genuinely going to bring Chris Evans back I think it is worth considering giving him another period project since while Captain America: The First Avenger canonically takes place during WWII, it felt like they copped-out by limiting how much fighting he did against the actual Axis. The Cold War era could be another fine option as Steve combating the new threat of The Soviet Union during the height of the nuclear arms race feels just as a plausible of a setting for another adventure.

X-Men villain Omega Red could be a good baddie to use as well given his connections to Soviet Union super-soldier experiments.

It’s worth mentioning we’ve previously seen Easter Eggs to canonical members of The Invaders lineup in previous Marvel Studios films.

Union Jack was teased via Iron Man 2 as Joey Chapman was listed as one of the racers going head-to-head with Tony Stark. The Human Torch is seen encased in glass and Namor’s Atlantis was briefly teased in Captain America: The First Avenger at the Stark Expo (blink and you’ll miss the underwater city nod). The S.H.I.E.L.D. boat called The Lemurian Star in Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a direct nod to Namor villains The Lemurians, a sign that something nefarious was happening onboard.

I’m sure we’ll start to get confirmation what Evans is actually going to show up in but I think fans are also quite comfortable leaving old Rogers alone as well given his satisfying ending.

Posted on in Film News

TRAILER: Chloë Grace Moretz Fights Airborne Creatures In WWII Horror Flick ‘Shadow In The Cloud’ – Produced By David Leitch

SHADOW IN THE CLOUD: During World War II, pilots of the Allies’ various air force women’s auxiliaries were called upon to ferry planes from factories to airfields — sometimes through enemy territory, often without proper navigational tools or ammunition. Writer-director Roseanne Liang pays pulpy tribute to these veterans with Shadow In The Cloud, a rip-roaring action/horror hybrid that finds one such airwoman, WAAF officer Maude Garrett (Chloë Grace Moretz), assigned under mysterious circumstances to a rickety B-17 Flying Fortress, where she is custodian of a strictly classified piece of cargo. Forcibly sequestered by the all-male crew to a ball turret hanging from the belly of the bomber, Garrett’s dizzying new-found perspective brings to light yet another unexpected passenger — one whose stealthily sinister presence may jeopardize the lives of all aboard. Moretz is dynamite as the young aviator, a Greatest Generation “Ellen Ripley” whose warnings to her deaf-eared chauvinist comrades are validated when bizarre mechanical failures manifest throughout the vessel, and enemy forces suddenly mount a surprise aerial ambush. As the put-upon Garrett’s personal motivations come into sharper focus with each perilous predicament, the action expands from the claustrophobic confines of the turret into a death- (and gravity-) defying spectacle that encompasses the plane’s rapidly disintegrating fuselage. Yet Liang never loses sight of her remarkable lead actor. The audience remains with Moretz through every white-knuckled minute, with the rat-tat-tat radio chatter of obstinate and panicky men playing partial soundtrack to wicked suspense and freaky mayhem. With resolute verve similar to that of Shadow In The Cloud’s protagonist, Liang has radically remixed wartime superstitions and a beloved pulp-fiction premise (you’ll know it when you see it) into an exhilarating vehicle of personal empowerment — one not to be marred by any surplus of unchecked and toxic testosterone.

Shadow In The Cloud will be in select theaters, VOD, and digital on January 1, 2021.

SOURCE: VERTICAL ENTERTAINMENT

Posted on in Film News

Netflix WWII Spy Thriller ‘Munich’ Adds ‘Watchmen’s Jeremy Irons and ‘1917’s George MacKay – Filming Underway

The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Netflix’s thriller Munich has landed an interesting cast that includes Jeremy Irons (Watchmen), George MacKay (1917), Jannis Niehwöhner (Mute), Liv Lisa Fries (Babylon Berlin), Erin Doherty (The Crown), Sandra Hüller (Toni Erdmann), August Diehl (A Hidden Life), Robert Bathurst (Downton Abbey), Marc Limpach (Bad Banks), and Martin Wuttke (Inglourious Basterds).

The Crown’s Christian Schwochow will be directing the thriller that takes places on the eve of WWII based on the Robert Harris book being adapted by Ben Power

The spy thriller is set in fall 1938 as Europe stands on the brink of World War II. As Adolf Hilter prepares to invade Czechoslovakia, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (Irons) is desperate to find a peaceful solution.  British civil servant Hugh Legat (McKay) and German diplomat Paul von Hartmann (Niehwöhner), travel to Munich for an emergency conference. As they see if war can be averted — and at what cost — the two old friends find themselves at the center of a political plot, with their own lives in danger.

Filming is said to be underway with an expectation it will drop sometime in 2021 on Netflix.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER