Welcome to another week of updates in the world of film – and maybe a television story – you never know. I’ll try to keep it as absurd as possible to offset the sorrow of this week’s election results. Ugh.
In this week’s “Planning ahead” story, 20th Century Fox is already looking ahead to Deadpool 3, and they say they’ll introduce X-Force.
The X-Force are a team of super-powered mutants not unlike the X-Men, but with a darker, meaner, and more aggressive edge. We’ll have to wait and see which characters get chosen for the X-Force in the movie, but team members in the comics have included Psylocke (who was played by Olivia Munn in this summer’s X-Men: Apocalypse), Deadpool and Colossus (who were in Deadpool), and Cable and Domino (who’ll be in Deadpool 2).
Well, let’s hope they keep a similar philosophy with an X-Force movie as they have with Deadpool.
In this week’s “Paycheck Impossible 6” story, Paramount has set a date for Mission: Impossible 6, after all sorts of shenanigans regarding Tom Cruise’s salary for it. Looks like it will see theaters on July 27, 2018. And Cruise is probably laughing all the way to the bank.
In this week’s “More kaiju fighting robots, please!” story, Pacific Rim 2 has starting filming and and it has an official title. Not that it’s a big surprise, though. Pacific Rim: Maelstrom.
As previously reported, Boyega played the son of Stacker Pentecost, who was portrayed by Idris Elba in the original film. He’ll be joined by Cailee Spaeny as the new female lead, Scott Eastwood, Adria Arjona, Mackenyu Maeda, Jing Tian, and Levi Meaden. In addition, producer Guillermo del Toro has said some of the cast members from the last film will return. However, we don’t know which ones yet.
I, for one, am looking forward to this. I thought the first Pacific Rim was big, guilty pleasure fun.
In this week’s “Job security” story, actor Tom Holland has been contracted to play Spiderman in six films; three stand alone Spiderman movies, and ten three appearances in other Marvel movies.
Well, Tom Holland is certainly guaranteed to be working for a while. A career is made.
In this week’s “Speaking of Spiderman” story, we have confirmation that in Spiderman: Homecoming, actor Michael Keaton will be playing villain, the Vulture, and Zendaya remains mum on her role in the film.
Kind of a full-circle thing for Keaton, who once played DC’s Dark Knight, Batman, and now gets to play a Marvel villain. Can we get him on Comedy Film Nerds? I’d sure like to talk with that guy. Ah, dreams…
In this week’s “Please don’t make a trilogy” story, it looks like a biopic of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings writer, J.R.R Tolkien is in the works. It will be directed by James Strong (United, Downton Abbey, Broadchurch) and the script is written by Angus Fletcher.
The film will tell the story of the early years of Tolkien, revolving around his relationship with Edith Bratt and his experiences during World War I, which would later inspire the stories he would spin from Middle Earth in The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings. Before being enlisted, Tolkien chose to finish his degree first. He did end up in the Battle Of The Somme, and while there, he sent coded messages to Edith in the mail to let her know where he was.
This sounds like it has potential to be a future Oscar season film.
In this week’s “Wait, a THIRD one?”story, Neil Widener and Gavin James have been hired to write Now You See Me 3 for Lionsgate. These guys are getting to be hot in Hollywood, as they’re also writing San Andreas 2 for New Line.
Why we need either of these sequels is beyond me, but this is what Hollywood does.
Widener and James just wrote Battle Of Alcatraz, after Paramount bought the project at the pitch stage in a competitive situation last year. Pic, which is set in California’s infamous prison and based on the 1946 escape attempt by six inmates, is out to directors and marks Bridge of Spies writer Matt Charman’s first step into producing (he pitched the story and exec produces).
In this week’s “Whole lotta Dumbledore” story, director David Yates confirms that everyone’s favorite wizard (next to Harry Potter himself), Dumbledore, will appear in the five-part series of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. They haven’t chosen someone to play the role yet, though.
In this week’s “There’s a first time for everything” story, the planned remake of Andre Overdal’s 2011 film Troll Hunters is dead. Not gonna happen.
Over five years ago, director Chris Columbus’ company, 1492 Pictures, secured the remake rights to the film. So, clearly it’s been a while since anyone’s herd anything until now. But it’s just as well, really. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to risk Chris Columbus directing that remake.
Thankfully, the rights have now reverted back to Andre Overdal and the original film’s producers. Not likely to see a remake of Troll Hunters any time soon. Whew!
In this week’s “Shining Star” story, Warner Bros. has set Sept. 28, 2018, as the release date for A Star Is Born, with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper starring.
Cooper will also helm the film, which will mark his directing debut. He will produce through his 22 and Green production company along with Jon Peters, Bill Gerber and Basil Iwanyk.
The project, based on William Wellman’s 1937 film starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, centers on a fading movie star who helps an aspiring actress while his own career spirals downward.
In this week’s “OTHER comic book movie” story, actress Jesscica Chastain will be joining the super hero genre as Painkiller Jane, based on the graphic novel series of the same name. But instead of a Marvel or DC character, it’s originally from Event Comics in 1995.
Jimmy Palmiotti and Joe Quesada created the character (real name Jane Vasko), an undercover cop who develops superhuman healing powers after surviving an explosion. She then does what anyone in her position would do: leave the police force, adopt an alias and begin fighting crime as a vigilante. Because, hey, who wouldn’t?
There has been a film and TV series in the past, but this will be a new adaptation. Chastain will also co-produce.
In this week’s “What do Nicolas Cage and the film Jaws have in common?” story, Nicolas Cage is starring in a new film USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage. The film is about the Portland-class cruiser that delivered parts of the atomic bomb used to end WWII. Cage stars Captain Charles McVay as the ship is torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine and now must survive in shark-infested waters with hundreds of other crewmen.
This is Jaws-related because, for those not making the connection yet, Robert Shaw’s character, Quint, tells the horrific story of the Indianapolis one night while Sheriff Brody (Roy Schieder) and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) listen intently. It’s one of the most eerie parts of the film, or any other film for that matter.
The film co-stars Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan), Thomas Jane (Hung), Matt Lanter (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) and James Remar (Sex and the City). And guess who’s directing? This is great. The one and only Mario Van Peeples. Yep. The actor-turned director that made New Jack City. Awesome.
USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage comes out tomorrow in New York and Los Angeles. Yeah, seems like it snuck in under the radar, doesn’t it? At least it did for me.
In this week’s “Death ain’t done yet” story, actor Robert Vaughn has passed away after a battle with acute leukemia. The Man From U.N.C.L.E actor was 83.
In this week’s “Only kind of retiring” story, legendary actor Robert Redford has stated that he will retire from acting after his next two films, Our Souls at Night with Jane Fonda and Old Man With a Gun, with Casey Affleck and Sissy Spacek. According to IMDb, he will also appear in the upcoming films, The Discovery and Come Sunday.
But he says he isn’t a patient person and sitting around waiting for take after take is not his thing anymore. He would rather focus on directing and sketching/painting. Those are things in which he enjoys and he doesn’t have to depend on someone else to do.
Well, he’s 80 years old, I think he’s earned it. But it is strange to be at an age where actors you watched your whole life are retiring. Nicholson, Connery, Hackman, now Redford. At least Redford will still direct.
In this week’s ” Animated Oscar race” story, there are a record number of 27 film submissions for Best Animated Picture Oscar this year. That’s a lot. Keep in mind a few of these haven’t come out yet. Here they are:
The Angry Birds Movie
April and the Extraordinary World
Bilal
Finding Dory
Ice Age: Collision Course
Kingsglaive Final Fantasy XV
Kubo and the Two Strings
Kung Fu Panda 3
The Little Prince
Long Way North
Miss Hokusai
Moana
Monkey King: Hero Is Back
Mune
Mustafa & the Magician
My Life as a Zucchini
Phantom Boy
The Red Turtle
Sausage Party
The Secret Life of Pets
Sing
Snowtime!
Storks
Trolls
25 April
Your Name.
Zootopia
In this week’s “Is Dumbledore gay?” story, JK Rowling says “there’s a lot to unpack” in the relationship between Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald, but that the second installment of the Fantastic Beasts series will portray “quite a troubled” Dumbledore.
Rowling continued, “Well, I can’t tell you everything I would like to say because this is obviously a five-part story, so there’s lots to unpack in that relationship,” Rowling said, according to Screen Crush. “I will say that you will see Dumbledore as a younger man, and quite a troubled man because he wasn’t always the sage. He was always very clever, but we’ll see what I think was the formative period of his life. As far as his sexuality is concerned, watch the space.”
The aforementioned Gellert Grindelwald will be played by…Johnny Depp. Rowling said that they chose Depp because they wanted an iconic actor to play him. By “iconic” i assume they mean annoying.
Geez, we really do need stuff to focus on since the election, don’t we?
In this week’s “Cry me a fucking river” story, it seems Disney fell short of their projected quarterly earnings for the second time in five years. Well, boo-fucking-hoo.
Quarterly revenue also lagged slightly behind projections at $13.14 billion for the three months that ended on Sept. 30, compared to the forecast of $13.52 billion, which would have been in line with the fourth quarter in 2015. Disney has fallen short of analysts’ projections only twice in the last 20 quarters — in the second and fourth quarters of this year.
They figure the shortfall was partially connected to ESPN, who isn’t making as much money as they used to because of decreasing subscribers. And now I’m just fucking done with this story because holy crap, poor Disney didn’t make as much money as they thought they would. Waaaahhh! Fucking 3.14 billion…how dare they whine. What a bag of dicks.
And if that weren’t annoying enough, according to Disney CEO Robert Iger on the quarterly earnings call Thursday, it turns out that Disney has already prepared a but of Trump for their Hall of Presidents at Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida. Ugh.
In this week’s “Random nonsense ” story, apparently Shia LaBeouf is a free-style rapper in his spare time. He appeared on SiriusXM’s Sway in the Morning and revealed this talent. The actor’s newfound career choice may just be a pastime, but the eccentric lyrics prove he has been reflecting on his life quite a bit.
“You like it because my life is real / It’s like a highlight reel / Don’t like me check Twitter to see how the zeitgeist feel,” he raps.
Just another thing to vex me about Shia LaBeouf.
In this week’s “Special interest” story, this week the people of the town of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, did the smart thing: they elected a leader they can all trust and believe in, a dog named Brynneth Pawltro.
Yes, the pit bull was declared mayor in a landslide victory, receiving 3,367 total votes and beating out a unique group of furry and feathery candidates, including a cat, a chicken and a jackass.
“She’s a lover, she’s such a sweet dog. She is a pit bull rescue and she’s going to be quite the ambassador for that breed,” says Bobbi Kayser, who is on the board of directors for the Rabbit Hash Historical Society in Kentucky, where ballots were cast on Tuesday.
Ok, relax, folks, the election was a fund-raiser for the Rabbit Hash General store, which was devastated in a fire last February. So, you know, we can’t go back and elect a dog for president, no matter how much we might like to. But it’s good to know that the people of Rabbit Hash are in good hands. And I’m a little jealous. And yes, I know this story has nothing to do with film but it made me feel good.
Ok, this week is done. I’m done. I need to go sit a while with a bunch of puppies and kittens.
~ Neil T Weakley, your average movie-goer, signing off for this week. Until next time, chins up! I still love you even if our government doesn’t!