After a decidedly long and stressful time away, I’m back with some mind-occupying and fascinating stories of goings-on in the film arena!
In this week’s “Tetsuo returns” story, Get Out director, Jordan Peele, i son the list of directors being eyed for the long-in-planning Akira remake. Warner Bros. is courting Peele for the job aggressively, supposedly, and the talks seem “promising”.
Akira blew my mind back when it came out and it still holds up. a live-action version could be really cool. Akira is being produced by Leonardo Dicaprio’s Appian Way Productions and Andrew Lazar (American Sniper).
In this week’s “Harcourt Fenton Mudd, thief…” story, Star Trek: Discovery has cast Rainn Wilson as the irrepressible scoundrel and con man, Harry Mudd. I look forward to Wilson with a handle-bar moustache. I still have doubts about the show itself, however. Of course I’ll still watch it and see.
In this week’s “Batgirl goes solo” story, Batgirl is indeed getting her own stand alone film. And if that didn’t excite you enough, Joss Whedon is going to direct it. In fact, Whedon is close to closing a deal to write, direct, and produce the film. If anything is going to give the DC film Universe a boost, it could be this. Whedon is like the JJ Abrams of the Marvel/DC worlds. First he gives us Marvel stuff, now he’s going to go to do DC stuff.
Smart move for Warner/DC – and for Whedon, I guess. But will it be good for the rest of us?
The project will also feature other characters from the world of Gotham.
Batgirl first appeared in DC Comics in 1967 as Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Gotham City police commissioner James Gordon in “The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl!” by writer Gardner Fox and artist Carmine Infantino.
Warner Bros. is also developing a Suicide Squad sequel and Gotham City Sirens, a spin-off to Suicide Squad with Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn character; The Batman, starring Ben Affleck with Matt Reeves directing; a Shazam film and a Black Adam spin-off starring Dwayne Johnson; and projects based on the Flash and Cyborg characters.
In this week’s “Speaking of” story, Ben Affleck is not directing his Batman movie, but in fact accomplished director Matt Reeves (Planet of the Apes reboots) will. Don’t know if that’s going to make us like it any more, though.
In this week’s “America, the messed up” story, Netflix is taking their first step into animated features by using some of its’ $ 6 billion budget to producing America: The Motion Picture, an R-rated take on the founding of our country.
Ok, that has me intrigued. And what’s more intriguing, Matt Thompson is directing, with David Callaham writing the script, and producing along with Thompson and his partner at Floyd Country, Adam Reed, who are behind edgy animated series Archer. Archer is hilarious, so this could be a delightful satire – and hopefully not your typical white-washed version of history.
George Washinton is a featured character and will be voiced by Channing Tatum, who is also producing.
in this week’s “If you film it, they will come” story, director Paul Thomas Anderson is shooting a new film due out by Christmas of this year. And it stars his There Will Be Blood collaborator, Daniel Day-Lewis. The film doesn’t even have a title yet, but folks will surely show up in theaters to see it no matter what.
In this week’s “Apes vs Humans” story, the new trailer for War for the Planet of the Apes is available online to watch. Woody Harrelson and Andy Serkis will battle for supremacy in this next installment of the Planet of the Apes remake franchise. I’m loving these so far, so I’m totally on board.
In this week’s “Logan the Ringleader” story, actor Hugh Jackman, currently being awesome as Wolverine for the last time in Logan, debuted some footage of his new film, The Greatest Showman, at CinemaCon. It’s the rags-to-riches story of P.T. Barnum of Circus fame, and it’s a musical to boot. Jackman is a ridiculously multi-talented human that certainly includes song and dance, so it could be chock full of entertainment.
In this week’s “More Marlowe” story, Liam Neeson is joining forces with writer William Monahan (The Departed) for a Philip Marlowe film called Marlowe, based on author Raymond Chandler’s character. Neeson will play the hard boiled private eye, Philip Marlowe, in a film based on the book The Black-Eyed Blonde, by Benjamin Black.
The story follows the tough as nails private detective the early 1950s where Marlowe is as restless and lonely as ever, and business is a little slow. That is until a beautiful blonde client comes in and asks Marlowe to find her ex-lover. He soon comes to find out that the ex-lover’s disappearance is just a part of bigger mystery and soon has Marlowe wrapped up with one of the more powerful families in Bay Cities who are willing to go to any length’s to protect their fortune.
Liam Neeson appears to be done with his action movie phase, as he said he would.
In this week’s “Box Office Gold” story, Lionsgate has a film coming out this August that could be fun. Samuel L. Jackson is a wisecracking hitman, and Ryan Reynolds is his button-down bodyguard. It’s called The Hitman’s Bodyguard. Yeah, ok, that’s not exactly a creative title, but these two guys together could be a hoot.
In this week’s “Creepy is as creepy does” story, apparently actor Val Kilmer REALLY loves Cate Blanchett. Like, a lot. He went on twitter talking about how much he loves Cate. The 57-year-old actor’s Twitter spree about his admiration for the Oscar-winning Australian actress was apparently a bit much – and ended up deleting a few of the tweets — which he addressed on Wednesday during his appearance at the Irvine Improv in Irvine, California.
“I wrote nice things about Cate Blanchett on Twitter and now I’m a pervert,” he said. “I don’t know why loving an actor that’s so talented is creepy, but I guess I’m creepy.”
I’d love to say it all ends there, but Kilmer responded after some people wagged their finger at him on Twitter:
“I’ve never done said or written a single idea that wasn’t of the highest respect and admiration for #cateblanchett or any other great talent,” he wrote in now deleted tweets. “She’s a friend of mine and I’ve met her husband thru the years and we’ve all gotten along just fine. Anyone who thinks I need to curb my enthusiasm for a great rare artist doesn’t understand how difficult the job is and how we artists count on the respect of our peers.”
Ok, fine. I was hoping for more ammunition to poke fun at Kilmer, but alas, he doesn’t seem as crazy as he was while filming The Island of Dr. Moreau with Marlon Brando.
Let’s call it a day. Stay tuned for next week with more news about movie stuff.
~ Neil T Weakley, your average movie-goer, trying to get back into the swing of things.