Some days, there are bits and bobs of news that don’t have quite enough meat on the bone for a full article. Still, they’re cool tidbits worth getting some love. We round them up for you in our Quick Hits column.
‘The Batman’ Writer To Make His Feature Directorial Debut With Sci-Fi Thriller ‘Mother/Android’
With Netflix’s grounded superhero movie Project Power and the upcoming The Batman under his belt, writer Mattson Tomlin is making the jump to directing with Mother/Android. Chloe Grace Moretz is set to star in the sci-fi thriller as Georgia, a young, pregnant woman who, along with her boyfriend, Sam, makes a break to escape their country, which has been plunged into a war with artificial intelligence. With only days before her due date, Georgia and Sam must figure out a way to get past No Man’s Land, the android stronghold, in order to reach safety. Tomlin loosely based the story on his birth parents, who escaped Romania during the Romanian Revolution in order to keep him safe. Excitingly, The Batman director Matt Reeves is on board as one of the producers. It sounds like a fascinating story. We’ll definitely be keeping our eyes on this one.
A Silk Live-Action Marvel TV Series Is In Development At Sony
It’s been a busy month for Sony’s growing Marvel universe of Spider-Man characters. Following the news of Olivia Wilde directing a Spider-Woman movie and J.C. Chandor directing Sony’s Kraven the Hunter movie comes word that Sony is now expanding that universe to TV. According to Variety, Sony Pictures Television is developing a series based on Spider-verse character Silk. Born Cindy Moon, she’s a classmate of Peter Parker’s whose origin story is rather complicated, but she gains powers very similar to Spider-Man. As one of the first Korean-American superheroes, Sony has tapped an appropriate writer for Silk’s story: Lauren Moon, whose credits include Good Trouble and Atypical. Phil Lord and Chris Miller will be producing under their Lord Miller banner and Amy Pascal will be producing for Sony Pictures Television. Excellent news all around.
Jason Statham & Guy Ritchie Reteaming For Spy Thriller ‘Five Eyes’
Here’s some early news out of Venice Film Festival: STXfilms has nabbed the distribution rights for Guy Ritchie’s spy thriller Five Eyes, with Jason Statham attached to star. Statham will play MI6 agent Orson Fortune, who is recruited by the global intelligence collective “Five Eyes” to stop the sale of a new weapons technology that threatens to throw the world into chaos. The script was written by Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies, with Ritchie handling revisions and polish. Atkinson will also serve as producer alongside Ritchie. This is the third collaboration between Statham and Ritchie, who previously worked together on Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Production is expected to start this October in Europe.
Zack Snyder’s ‘Army Of The Dead’ Is Getting A Prequel Movie And Anime Spinoff Series
Even before Zack Snyder’s zombie movie Army of the Dead releases, Netflix is apparently going all-in on the universe. Last month, it was announced Tig Notaro would be replacing comedian Chris D’Elia after sexual harassment allegations. Today breaks the news that it’s getting a prequel and an anime series spinoff, which may be the first time Netflix has ever greenlit more content from an IP whose movie or series hasn’t even debuted yet. Led by Dave Bautista, an international cast of characters play mercenaries who attempt to pull off an enormous heist in the middle of zombie-infested Las Vegas. The prequel movie, however, will not be directed by Snyder but by Matthias Schweighöfer, while Shay Hatten, one of the Army of the Dead writers, will be penning the scripts for both the prequel movie and the anime series, Army of the Dead: Los Vegas. The series will follow Dave Bautista’s character and his rescue crew during the early days of the zombie outbreak in Vegas.
‘The Witcher’ Gets A Spinoff Show About The Making Of ‘The Witcher’
The live-action adaptation of The Witcher, based on the series of books by Andrzej Sapkowski and starring Henry Cavill in the titular role of Geralt of Rivia, has unquestionably been a huge hit for Netflix. Season 2 has recently resumed filming, but until then, Netflix is tiding over fans with a bunch of content from behind the scenes. A few weeks ago, the documentary Making the Witcher was released. Now the streaming platform has just dropped The Witcher: A Look Inside the Episodes, an entire series of 10-minute episodes with each one dedicated to showing the making of an episode from the first season. Add that to the previously-announced prequel spinoff series The Witcher: Blood Origin and the anime movie The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, and it looks like we’re getting ourselves a whole Witcher extended universe.
Keanu Reeves Has High Praise For The Story Of ‘The Matrix 4’
Keanu Reeve is one of the busiest actors in Hollywood. Currently, the king of our hearts is busy filming The Matrix 4 in Berlin, where he’s been for months. While stopping by Andy Cohen’s SiriusXM to promote Bill & Ted Face the Music, Reeves was naturally asked about the fourth Matrix movie. He gushed about the script writer-director Lana Wachowski has written, saying she created “a beautiful story and a beautiful script” before adding with his trademark gratitude, “And I am really grateful to be here and be a part of this story.” Yeah. Consider us hugely excited for this one.
‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Reveals Its Premiere Date
Good news for Star Wars fans: The release date for The Mandalorian Season 2 has been revealed. Episodes for the second season of the series, which is a weekly release on Disney+, will start streaming on October 30th according to the official Twitter account.
With the productions and release dates of a number of upcoming Disney+ series up in the air thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, it wasn’t clear when The Mandalorian‘s second season would air. But unlike the other projects, The Mandalorian had wrapped shooting well before the pandemic hit so it was just a matter of getting it through post-production. Looks like we’ll learn the fate of Baby Yoda in two months’ time.
‘The Boys’ Star Jack Quaid Set To Star In ‘Scream 5’
Actor Jack Quaid, best known for his work in Amazon’s The Boys series, is set for a major feature film role. He’s reportedly set to star in Scream 5, Paramount’s rebootquel of the Scream franchise. He joins a cast that already includes Courtney Cox reprising her longtime role as reporter-writer Gale Weathers and David Arquette reprising his role as Dewey Riley, along with franchise newcomers Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega. Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Ready or Not) with a script from James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, Scream 5 follows a woman who returns to her small hometown to discover who has been committing a series of crimes. It’s unclear at the moment who Quaid will be playing, but it should be a fun role for a young actor learning to carve a name for himself in the industry while following in the footsteps of his parents, Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan.
‘Ant-Man’ Director Peyton Reed Offers Update For The Third Movie
Since Marvel has wrapped up its sprawling Infinity Gauntlet saga in the MCU, it’s seemed in no rush to push all sequels to the screen, instead preferring to balance them with introducing new characters. But a third Ant-Man movie is on the way and director Peyton Reed offered an intriguing update during his appearance on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show on Monday, saying it will be quite different than the two movies that came before. “The third Ant-Man movie is going to be a much bigger, more sprawling movie than the first two,” Reed said. “It’s going to have a very different visual template.” Considering Scott Lang unlocked the secrets of the Quantum Realm during the events of Ant-Man and the Wasp and Avengers: Endgame, it’s almost impossible to think the third Ant-Man movie would have been as small a scope as the first two. It will be interesting to see how the world expands in a post-Endgame universe.
Gerard Butler To Co-Lead Action-Thriller ‘Copshop’ With Frank Grillo
Good news for action fans: Gerard Butler is set to star in an extremely Gerard Butler sort of movie. The newly-relaunched Open Road Films has signed him to star alongside Frank Grillo in action-thriller Copshop. Frequent Liam Neeson collaborator Joe Carnahan (The A-Team, The Grey) is set to direct. Kurt McLeod wrote the original screenplay based on a story by McLeod and Mark Williams and Carnahan wrote the latest draft. Butler will play a professional hitman who finds himself in a three-way shootout in a small-town police station when he, a backstabbing con man (Grillo) and a savvy rookie female cop (not yet cast) all collide with different agendas. Shooting is set to start this October in Georgia and New Mexico.
Adam Driver Set To Star In Sony Sci-Fi Thriller ’65’
Adam Driver is one of the rare Hollywood actors in a position elevated enough to be able to pick and choose his projects. Deadline reports the next one he’s set his sights on is Sony’s sci-fi thriller 65. A Quiet Place duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods will write and direct the project, as well as produce under their Beck/Woods banner. They’ll be producing alongside Sam Raimi, Zainab Azizi and Debbie Liebling for Raimi Productions. Details about the story and plot are being kept under wraps and it’s unclear where this will slot into Driver’s busy schedule: He has yet to finish shooting Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, which had its production pushed back due to COVID-19 and recently signed on to star opposite Lady Gaga in Gucci, which Scott is also directing.
Disney’s ‘Black Panther’ Airing & Chadwick Boseman Tribute Generate Huge Ratings
It may be TV news, but it’s a tribute worthy of a fallen king: On Sunday, Disney decide to air a commercial-free viewing of Black Panther on ABC, followed by a half-hour tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman, who tragically passed away on Friday at age 43 after a long and private battle with colon cancer. He was beloved, both for the icons he played and for the clarity of his purpose, and fans across the country tuned in to give ABC its best Sunday ratings of the summer and more than doubled the next-closest network. The airing of Black Panther generated 6.09 million viewers and a 1.4 rating among adults 18-49 and the half-hour tribute to Boseman brought in 4.72 million viewers and a 1.1 rating in the 18-49 demographic. A sign of how very loved and respected he was.
DC Sets Official Date For Batman Day 2020
After its wildly successful DC FanDome virtual fan event, DC has set its sits on its next big event: Batman Day 2020. The media company announced the official date for this year’s celebration, which will be held on Saturday, September 19. The annual celebration of the Caped Crusader is always packed with neat tributes and fun events and this year is no different, despite being mostly virtual. GPS app Waze is releasing a new “Batman and the Riddler” theme to make you feel like you’re in the Batmobile, with longtime animated Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy voicing Batman and Wally Wingert voicing The Riddler. Also included in the Waze package are special DC Superhero and DC Villain playlists available in the Waze Audio Player. Other partnerships include the Batman Virtual 5K/10K Run, new Batman content in the Injustice 2 mobile game, DC Legends and DC Universe Online games, discounted digital Batman comics, and DC’s subscription service DC Universe promising “exciting news you won’t want to miss.” You can check out the full details at the official Batman Day website.
Hugh Jackman Dancing With His Dog Is Adorable
No details here. It’s just a video of Hugh Jackman dancing with his French Bulldog, Dali, because the world is literally and figuratively on fire and sometimes you just need a dose of happy.
Jeff Goldman And Taika Waititi Are Talking About Working Together On Another Secret Project
It’s no secret that Disney loves to work with people it trusts, with actors and filmmakers crossing over between Marvel, Star Wars and Disney proper. What is a secret is the potential future project that Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi and co-star Jeff Goldblum have been talking about doing. During a recent interview with Insider, Goldblum was asked if he’d ever want to appear in The Mandalorian and Goldblum said he’d work with anything Waititi chose to do before revealing this interesting nugget: “We’ve talked about doing something else that has to be secret right now but I would do anything with him, sure.” Considering Waititi is currently working on developing a Star Wars movie, could it be that he has a role in mind for Goldblum? Or is it something that has yet to be announced? Either way, count us in for a Star Wars universe that includes a Jeff Goldblum character. The Force, uh, finds a way.
