News of the Week: A Barbie Spinoff About Ken Is On The Table

We’re already in December, and the end of the year is almost upon us. With the second half of the holiday movie season soon hitting theaters, there’s plenty of entertainment news to look forward to. This week finds a few exciting pieces of news regarding DC projects, a potential Barbie spinoff, and more.

As always, Atom Insider brings you a few hand-picked stories we think you’ll like. Ready? Let’s dive in.

David Ayer Is Still Hopeful His Director’s Cut Of Suicide Squad Will See The Light Of Day

While Zack Snyder is the director who gets the majority of the “Warner Bros. did him dirty” attention, the director who truly deserves sympathy is David Ayer. Ayer’s 2016 Suicide Squad was infamously meddled with by the studio and given little chance to be anything other than a disaster. Unlike Snyder, however, Ayer has never gotten the chance to remake and rerelease his box office flop as he wanted.

Still, Ayer has never given up hope that his director’s cut of Suicide Squad will see the light of day, and he recently gave TotalFilm a frank update on the resistance he’s facing. He still remains hopeful, though:

“I’m going to be hopeful. You know, there are a lot of people that are invested in certain narratives that don’t want it to see the light of day. So there’s an immense political headwind against it, because if that cut were made public, the cowardliness and the whole just general shittiness of how the film’s been treated, and how the actors have had this great work that they’d done taken away…That narrative blows up once people see the movie. But it’s coming. Something’s going to happen. Something’s going to be revealed. The truth always comes out. It always comes out.”

Reading between the lines, it certainly seems as though certain execs don’t want the movie to be released so Ayer can keep shouldering the blame for its flop. Now that fellow filmmaker James Gunn and Peter Safran are co-heads of the DC wing of Warner Bros., things are shifting. A few months ago, Ayer shared on social media that he’s been in talks with Gunn and things are going in the right direction:

“All I know is my unseen film plays much better than the studio release. The interest in my cut being show[n] seems real and organic. And Gunn told me it would have it’s [sic] time to be shared. He absolutely deserves to launch his DC universe without more drama about old projects. In a way I’m chained to this thing. I’m riding a tiger here and navigating this situation the best I can. Life is a very strange journey.”

Perhaps that journey will include a director’s cut of Suicide Squad one day.

Could We Be Getting A Barbie Spinoff About Ken? It’s A Possibility

There was arguably no movie bigger this year than Barbie, which became a box office smash as well as a cultural force to be reckoned with. And while the movie undoubtedly belonged to Margot Robbie’s Barbie, it was surprisingly just as much about Ken. Ryan Gosling’s daffy, over-the-top performance as the perpetually frustrated Ken stole every scene he was in, and he spawned countless memes before the movie even hit theaters.

It’s no surprise, then, that there have been rumors swirling about whether or not there will be a sequel or spinoff to Barbie, and, if so, would it be about Ken. In a recent interview with 60 Minutes, co-writer-director Greta Gerwig didn’t exactly shut down the idea when asked if there would ever be a Ken spinoff.

“I mean, the truth is, you know…I guess we’ll see,” she said. That in and of itself isn’t much of an answer. Considering it came after Gerwig opened up about just how much unused material they had for Ken, though, it’s definitely not a hard “no.” “We had way too much material for Ken. We would write, and write, and write,” she confessed. Considering the impact of Barbie and how Ken became an instantly iconic role, not making a movie about him would be a huge miss.

Nic Cage Is Done With Movies – But Wants To Do TV After Seeing Breaking Bad

Nicolas Cage is done with movies – well, sort of. While promoting his latest movie, Dream Scenario, Cage spoke to Uproxx about his career and how he feels about the movie industry these days – including how much longer he wants to remain in it.

“[A]fter 45 years of doing this; that in over 100 movies – I feel I’ve pretty much said what I’ve had to say with cinema. And I’d like to leave on a high note and say, ‘Adios.’ I think I have to do maybe three or four more movies before I can get there, and then hopefully switch formats and go into some other way of expressing my acting.”

As it turns out, that “some other way” is the small screen. Cage has never stepped into the medium of TV in his long career. In fact, he’s previously said in interviews that he doesn’t actually watch TV that much. His son, however, got him to watch Breaking Bad last year and his watch opened up Cage’s eyes to the possibilities of the medium of TV. As he explained

“I do want to explore other formats. I am very interested in immersion streaming with episodic television. I have seen things that can be done now with characters and the time they’re given to express themselves. I saw Bryan Cranston stare at a suitcase for an hour on one episode of Breaking Bad. We don’t have time to do that in a feature film, so maybe television is the next best step for me. We’ll see.”

Considering how excellent television writing has become in the past decade and a half, there’s almost certainly a show that would be worthy of Cage’s boundless energy and wackiness. It would be really interesting to see him move into episodic work.

James Gunn Gives Updates On Superman Legacy & The Brave and the Bold Scripts

With his takeover with Peter Safran of DC Studios, James Gunn has been hard at work with yet another reboot of the DC movie universe. With that reboot comes two of the most highly-anticipated projects from Gunn: Superman Legacy and The Brave and the Bold. Now that the writers and actors strikes are over, Gunn is back to penning the script. He recently took to social media to offer his followers a few updates on where the scripts stand.

Superman Legacy is furthest along, which is no surprise seeing as how the cast has already been assembled. “I’m always changing small things but it’s been essentially done since well before the strike,” explained Gunn on Threads, saying it is “99%” completed.

“Thanks to the efforts of our talented crew, who never lost faith during the longest strikes in Hollywood history, and who never let their foot off the pedal, continuing to barrel forward, creating the most amazing character and set designs I’ve seen in my entire career, #SupermanLegacy will be making the originally planned release date of July 11, 2025.”

Meanwhile, while the script for The Brave and the Bold isn’t finished yet, the project is moving ahead. It has already tapped Andy Muschietti to direct the movie, which is set to focus on Batman and his son Damien Wayne as Robin.

Peacemaker’s Danielle Brooks Joins The Cast Of Minecraft

News has been relatively quiet on the front of Warner Bros.’ Minecraft movie, but the project just got an exciting update. Deadline confirmed that Peacemaker star Danielle Brooks has joined the cast of the movie. Also confirmed for the cast is Sebastian Eugene Hansen (Just Mercy). The two will join the project that already previously cast Jason Momoa in the lead role and tapped Jared Hess to direct. Brooks will play Dawn and Hansen the role of Henry in the adaptation of the beloved computer game. The project has experienced some casting challenges due to the actors strike, and the writers strike. However, word on the street is that production is set to begin by the end of the year in New Zealand.