This week’s Ketchup brings you another ten headlines from the world of film development news (those stories about what movies Hollywood is working on for you next). Included in the mix this time around are stories about such movies as Alien: Covenant, the Bride of Frankenstein remake, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, and Bubbles (about Michael Jackson’s pet chimp).
Ever since Marvel Studios hit upon box office success with their string of films, the term “cinematic universe” has become one of the Holy Grails of major Hollywood film development. “Cinematic Universe” refers to a setting that is shared by multiple films (and in Marvel’s case, TV shows), which provides a sense of continuity, but is also pretty great for “franchises.” In various stages of development, there are now cinematic universes for DC Comics, Universal’s Classic Monsters, 21 Jump Street/Men in Black, and even Robin Hood’s Merry Men. The toy company Hasbro arguably already has one in the form of Transformers (and its upcoming spinoffs and prequels). This week, Hasbro announced that some of their other toy brands will also be coming together in a new cinematic universe centered around G.I. Joe. (at least at first). G.I. Joe will be joined by Micronauts (tiny aliens and robots who see our world as a planet of giants), ROM: Spaceknight (who’s also a popular Marvel Comics character), M.A.S.K. (another paramilitary group not unlike G.I. Joe), and Visionaries (their subtitle Knights of the Magical Light says it all, pretty much). (You can find another guide to these characters in this article). It’s not yet known how the various characters will be combined and/or featured, or in what order, but it seems likely that the first film will focus on G.I. Joe (with other characters possibly introduced as well, ala Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice). Hasbro has been known to be working on a Micronauts movie for some time now, so for many comics fans, the big news in all of this is the notion of a ROM: Spaceknight movie. As part of a licensed deal with Hasbro, Marvel Comics published 75 issues of ROM: Spaceknight from 1979 to 1986, and the character remains one of Marvel’s most popular “cosmic” characters, especially among older fans. Marvel can’t use ROM: Spaceknight and Micronauts in their own movies because they’re licensed characters, but it looks like that won’t mean they won’t get their own movies, eventually.
Since 2005, “The Black List” has been an annual survey of Hollywood insiders appraising the current batch of unproduced screenplays that are actively in development. Since this is a weekly column about film development, the Black List is most definitely one of our “big deals” here. Well, the 2015 edition arrived this week, and the quickest take away we can give you is that “biopics” and other “true story” scripts did very, very well, representing 4 (or 5) of the top 10 screenplays, including the #1 and #2 spots. Those scripts are called Bubbles and Stronger, and they tell the stories of Michael Jackson’s pet chimp (who serves as the film’s narrator), and Jeff Bauman, one of the survivors of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Two baseball biopics also made the top ten: Rocket* (about baseball pitcher Roger Clemens and his disqualification from being a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame), and True Fan (about Steve Bartman, the Chicago Cubs fan who was accused of costing the team their first pennant since 1945). Other screenplays involving real people are Reagan (a fictional comedy), White Boy Rick (a successful 1980s Detroit drug kingpin), All the Money in the World (the Getty kidnapping case), The Virginian (young George Washington), Mayday 109 (JFK during WWII), Nyad (swimmer Diana Nyad), Hunting Eichmann (about the Nazi fugitive), Battle of New Orleans (Andrew Jackson and the War of 1812), and Chappaquiddick (see below).
We still don’t know who Star-Lord’s dad is (and really, at this point, do we want to?). However, the people at Marvel Studios certainly do, and when they think of him, the guy they want to play him is Kurt Russell. That’s right, if Marvel can make the deal, the same actor who starred in Escape from New York, John Carpenter’s The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, and is currently in Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, will also be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel has been stepping up their casting game recently, with their latest “big get” being Cate Blanchett, who will costar in Thor: Ragnarok. Marvel Studios has scheduled Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 for May 5, 2017.
Scarlett Johansson is currently in talks with Sony Pictures to star in an R-rated comedy called Move That Body. Described as a cross between The Hangover and Weekend at Bernie’s, the comedy is about five friends who accidentally kill a male stripper at their bachelorette party, and so they have to dispose of the body. (A more specific comparison would be to 1998’s Very Bad Things, but Hollywood publicists almost always go with “popular” over “precise” with their analogies.) Move That Body was written by Broad City participants Lucia Aniello (director) and Paul W. Downs (writer/actor), and Downs is also expected to costar in the movie.
Ever since Sigourney Weaver starred in the first Alien, there have been later female roles that joined the Alien franchise, such as those played by Sanaa Lathan and Noomi Rapace, that begged inevitable comparisons. With the Prometheus sequel Alien: Covenant, which will start a new trilogy of Alien prequels, it has been expected for a while that the female lead will also become the new “franchise lead” as well. So, it was something of a big deal for many young actresses working today, no doubt. This week, we learned that this sought after role has gone to Katherine Waterston, who is probably best known for costarring with Joaquin Phoenix in Inherent Vice. (Katherine Waterston also happens to be the daughter of Sam Waterston, of Law & Order fame.) Michael Fassbender is also returning as the android David in Alien: Covenant, which will be directed by Ridley Scott, in what will be his third film in the Alien franchise (after Alien and Prometheus). 20th Century Fox has scheduled Alien: Covenant for release on October 6, 2017.
If you know two things about Harry Houdini, it’s probably that he followed a) his career as an escape artist with b) a second career as a debunker of mystics who claimed to speak to the spirits of the dead. There are a number of competing movies about the life (or chapters in the life) of Harry Houdini, and this week, another one joined the fray. Mama director Andres Muscietti has signed to direct an adaptation of the non-fiction book The Witch of Lime Street: Seance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World, by David Jaher. As sometimes happens with books with lengthy subtitles, David Jaher also basically put the premise of this movie right there on the book’s title. More specifically, this film will be set in the 1920s and focus on Houdini’s efforts to debunk a spirit medium known as “Crandon.”
We recently heard about how Universal Pictures is hoping to recruit Angelina Jolie to star in their remake of Bride of Frankenstein (the rumor/story goes, that’s partly how her film By the Sea got its greenlight). This film is, along with the new female-centric version of The Mummy (3/24/17) (starring Sofia Boutella from Kingsman: The Secret Service), part of Universal’s upcoming “Classic Monster Cinematic Universe.” Even though Universal is talking to Jolie about this contemporary new film, what they don’t have right now is a script. And that’s when we mention that screenwriter David Koepp has signed on to write Universal’s remake of Bride of Frankenstein. David Koepp‘s credits include Spider-Man (the first, really good one), David Fincher’s Panic Room, Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, and the two latest Hanks/Howard films, Angels & Demons and the upcoming Inferno. (David Koepp also wrote Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but his Tomatometer is still mostly Certified Fresh.)
Although Chadwick Boseman has only starred in five movies to date, already two of his biggest roles have been in celebrity biopics, as Jackie Robinson in 42 and as James Brown in Get On Up. Lately, the press about Boseman has been about either his casting as Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War and his own solo film. Add to those movies Chadwick Boseman’s upcoming portrayal of the god Thoth in Gods of Egypt, and his filmography is almost entirely made up of figures famous outside the movies (both real and fictional). Well, this week, yet another famous figure was added to that list, as Chadwick Boseman has signed to star as Thurgood Marshall in the historical film Marshall. Thurgood Marshall was of course, the first African American Supreme Court Justice, but Marshall will focus on a case much earlier in his career, when he represented a “black chauffeur against his wealthy socialite employer in a sexual assault and attempted murder trial that quickly became tabloid fodder.” Marshall will be directed by Reginald Hudlin (The Ladies Man, Boomerang, House Party), whose string of four Rotten Tomatometer ratings in a row is why this is one of the week’s “Rotten Ideas.”
If you’re under a certain age, it’s very possible the word Chappaquiddick means absolutely nothing to you. It probably looks like a character’s name from Duck Tales or something. For older folks (or those who have boned up on their political history), Chappaquiddick possibly has a lot of meaning indeed. On July 18, 1969, Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy accidentally drove his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, MA, killing his female passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. Ted Kennedy was the last surviving Kennedy brother, and had until that point been seen as a likely president candidate for the 1972 election against Richard M. Nixon. (The news about the accident also broke the day before the historic Apollo 11 moon walk mission launched.) There has never been a major Hollywood movie about the Chappaquiddick scandal, but that’s about to change. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson (Fifty Shades of Grey, Nowhere Boy) is now in talks to direct a movie simply titled Chappaquiddick. The script, which was written by newcomers Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan, recently landed a spot on this year’s Black List of Unproduced Screenplays (see above). Chappaquiddick is described as a “political thriller” which details the events of seven days of Senator Kennedy’s life before (presumably) and after the accident that took Mary Jo Kopechne’s life. We’re calling this story a borderline “Rotten Idea” just because Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Tomatometer currently has two movies below 26%, and only one Fresh rating.
Being the star (or at least, one of two stars) of one of the biggest movie franchises of all time has its privileges. For Vin Diesel, we’re talking about how he has helped Universal Pictures make the Fast and Furious franchise what it is. And one of his rewards has been the ability to keep the Riddick science fiction series going, despite none of the films ever being box office smashes in their own right. Critically, the Riddick movies have never been beloved either, with their Tomatometer scores being 57% (Pitch Black), 29% (The Chronicles of Riddick), and 58% (2013’s Riddick). We know that the Riddick franchise is being kept alive because Vin Diesel took to his Facebook account this week to announce two new projects. The first is an upcoming TV series called Merc (basically a Riddick spinoff), and the second is an origin story for Diesel’s Riddick character called Furia (which might be expanded to something like The Chronicles of Riddick: Furia). Vin Diesel’s plan is to film the Furia origin story movie in early 2017, which suggests a release date probably in 2018. We’re calling this the “Rotten Story of the Week” because Vin Diesel is critically batting 0 and 3 with the Riddick franchise.
