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 titles as The Flash, The Mummy, Slender Man, and X-Men: The New Mutants.
After a months long casting process that started with Disney and Lucasfilm considering (reportedly) over 2,000 young actors, we finally know who will be the second live action Han Solo. Triumphing over finalists like Taron Egerton and Jack Reynor, Alden Ehrenreich has landed the potentially career-making role in Han Solo: A Star Wars Story (tentative title). Some of the story angles that the prequel might depict (we think) could include how Han Solo first met Chewbacca, won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian, and first made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. Or maybe it’ll be about something we’ve never even heard about (who knows!). The Han Solo prequel will be the next film directed by the team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, following their recent successes with 21 Jump Street, The LEGO Movie, and 22 Jump Street. Walt Disney Pictures and Lucasfilm have scheduled the Han Solo movie for May 25th, 2018, but there continues to be speculation that the film could be moved to December, 2018 to fit in with the December releases of the other Star Wars movies (like this year’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, scheduled for December 16, 2016). As for Alden Ehrenreich, he’s a young (26) actor who has been bubbling up in mostly supporting roles for a few years now, but he was the male lead in 2013’s Beautiful Creatures, and many Coen brothers fans might remember him recently as the singing cowboy in Hail, Caesar! There are also rumors that Ehrenreich may actually make his debut as Han Solo in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as well, which might be why casting was done so early for the film (even though the Han Solo movie doesn’t start filming until early 2017, several months from now).
It’s probably due to the competitive nature of Hollywood, but frequently in film development news, we see randomly matched movies make the news within the same week. This week, for example, it’s Dr. Jekyll (a la Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). Although Jekyll and Hyde are something of a literary ur-text (if only for providing the template for 50+ years of The Incredible Hulk), it’s not exactly one of those classic horror stories that one necessarily thinks of as having a rabid fanbase (unlike, say vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc.). This week of Jekyll news started with the bigger story, which is that Russell Crowe is in talks with Universal Pictures to costar in The Mummy (6/9/17) as a “Dr. Jekyll-type role” (which most writers are interpreting as actually being Dr. Jekyll). The Mummy is the first film in what Universal Pictures is hoping will be a new “cinematic universe” revolving around modern reboots of their classic monsters. Johnny Depp is already known to be attached to star in a reboot of The Invisible Man, and new versions of Dracula, Bride of Frankenstein (possibly starring Angelina Jolie), and The Creature from the Black Lagoon are also expected to be part of the mix eventually. Likewise, it’s expected that if Russell Crowe’s appearance as “Dr. Jekyll” in The Mummy is successful, a solo movie for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde will part of this new cinematic universe. The Mummy will be released next summer on June 19, 2017, and it will be followed by unknown movies on April 13, 2018 (possibly the date for Depp’s The Invisible Man) and February 15, 2019 (this one might be Bride of Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). The Russell Crowe story was followed a day later by news that comedienne Ellen DeGeneres is producing a new feature film adapting the 2007 six-episode mini-series Jekyll, in which James Nesbitt playesa modern day descendant of the original Dr. Jekyll. Apparently, DeGeneres really liked Jekyll. In related news (circling back to Russell Crowe again), there was also a story this week about Russell Crowe starring in an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. That one didn’t last long, however, because as it turns out, the producers hadn’t actually secured the rights to make such a movie, so the deal has already fallen apart.
The fans who bought their opening weekend tickets for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice helped the movie ensure a very robust opening weekend, but once news of the Rotten Tomatometer for the film hit, its box office take became sluggish. This has led in recent weeks to reports/rumors that within Warner Bros, there might be pressure to make future DC Comics movies, you know, more “fun” (a formula that seems to work for Marvel Studios). For some movies, this sort of course correction is particularly difficult (such as the first Justice League movie, which director Zack Snyder has already started filming). One movie that it’s potentially still early enough to change is The Flash, which this week, screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith decided would not be his directorial debut, due to “creative differences.” Grahame-Smith is best known for writing the novels Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, as well as adapting Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows. This news comes even as the second season of the fan favorite TV series The Flash nears its end (which some fans would love to see be adapted as the movie instead of the version starring Ezra Miller). There was also a story this week that Fast 7 director James Wan was beginning to feel a “tremendous amount of trepidation” about directing DC Comics’ Aquaman. In response, Wan tweeted out a picture of himself under a mural of Aquaman, saying (in reference to BMD writer Devin Faraci), “Please, there’s no absolutely no need to attack Devin, or anyone.” Which wasn’t a confirmation or a denial of Faraci’s story (and indeed, a director could have “trepidation” about directing a movie, and still stay committed to directing it). As for how Warner Bros might be attempting to make Justice League Part One as successful as possible, this week, we learned that costar Ben Affleck will also be assisting Zack Snyder as one of the film’s executive producers. Warner Bros has scheduled Justice League Part One for release on November 17, 2017.
Some of his stories might lead to changes that eventually make his stories archaic, but one thing you can give Devin Faraci of Birth.Movies.Death credit for lately is that his reportage is being read by people very far up the filmmaking ladder (directors, producers, executives, etc). So, this week, there were two different DC Comics stories from BMD that both received a lot of social media attention. The first was about Aquaman (see above), and the second was about Ben Affleck’s solo Batman movie (which he’s also writing, directing, and producing). Faraci claims that he has heard that Ben Affleck’s screenplay is “going to be crammed with Bat villains, which means that just about every major bad guy you’ve ever wanted to see in a movie will be in this movie.” Faraci’s story does not go on to clarify which villains exactly he’s talking about, but a short list of the major Batman villains would have to include (correct us if we forget any) at least: The Joker, Catwoman, The Penguin, The Riddler, Bane, Black Mask, Calendar Man, Clayface, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Ra’s Al Ghul, Scarecrow, Solomon Grundy, Two Face, Victor Zsasz, and if we’re being TV show completionists, let’s thrown in King Tut and Egghead, too. If this story plays out as mostly correct, that would mean that Ben Affleck (and Warner Bros) are playing much contrary to the popular sentiment that too many villains usually results in a less satisfying superhero movie. Or is it possible that Ben Affleck is exactly trying to defeat that notion? And if he’s right, and this works for The Batman, might we see future superhero movies (including Marvel’s) featuring more “villain ensembles?”
Depending upon a) your knowledge of Marvel’s The New Mutants and b) your skepticism about how superhero movie casts are devised, this might either be an exciting revelation or an annoying non-story. Wherever you fall, this was still a story picked up by multiple sources, so we’re calling it one of the week’s top 10. Director Josh Boone used his Instagram account this week to post a series of comic book images which are being interpreted as announcing the cast of his next film, X-Men: The New Mutants. The resulting list of seven characters is composed of all of the original New Mutants (except Vietnamese mind controller Karma), and two of the most popular later members (Magik and Warlock), but not Warlock’s best friend (Cypher), or the star of the X-Men: Legends video game (Magma). To be specific, the characters Boone seemed to confirm are: Cannonball, Mirage (Dani Moonstar), Sunspot, Wolfsbane, Magik, and Warlock (who himself is an alien, not a human mutant, though some interpret him as being an alien mutant). Warlock’s inclusion is also interesting because Marvel has another character called Warlock (aka Adam Warlock), who might be included in a future film (either Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, or one of the Infinity War movies, which probably won’t be called that after all). In other Marvel news (which there was a lot of this week, thanks to Captain America: Civil War), there was a possible revelation about one of the heroes that might debut in the next Avengers movie, as well as talk about whether or not Black Widow will ever get a solo movie.
Daisy Ridley is obviously going to be very busy in the next few years starring in the next two Star Wars episodes, but her agents are busy keeping her (likewise) busy in between those shoots. (And that’s despite Alicia Vikander landing the Tomb Raider reboot instead of her.) One such project made the news this week, and its title pretty much gives away exactly what it is: Ophelia. Daisy Ridley will star as the titular character in Ophelia, which is a revisionist adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, seen from the perspective of his great love, the daughter of Polonius. Naomi Watts will also costar as Queen Gertrude, and none of their male costars have been announced yet.
Over the years, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-running Broadway musical Cats has been the subject of jokes in everything from Saturday Night Live to Team America: World Police (NSFW). What has eluded Cats since its Broadway debut 35 years ago is its own big budget feature film adaptation. Such a movie now appears to be nearing reality, as Universal Pictures has signed director Tom Hooper to produce and direct a a big screen adaptation. Based on poems by T.S. Elliot, Cats depicts through song and dance (and “furry” style costumes and makeup) the lives of the cats of the Jellicle tribe with names like Munkustrap, Asparagus, Old Deuteronomy, Rum Tum Tugger, and of course, the Magical Mister Mistoffelees. Tom Hooper previously worked with Universal Pictures on their adapation of the hit musical Les Miserables in 2012, which was both a box office success, and the winner of three Academy Awards.
It was just about two weeks ago that the news broke that the U.S. Treasury was going to add the face of anti-slavery activist and abolitionist Harriet Tubman to future printings of the $20 bill. That may have prompted some producers in Hollywood to realize that the life of Harriet Tubman has been portrayed in feature films a lot less often than one might expect. And that is our cue to mention director Seith Mann, who has worked mostly on TV shows like Showtime’s Homeland, Nurse Jackie, and Californication. Mann has started development on a biopic called Harriet, about the abolitionist icon who was born into slavery in 1822, but escaped in 1847 to become a spy for the Union Army, and a key element of the Underground Railroad, running missions to save at least 70 slaves. Mann plans to start filming Harriet in early 2017, working from a screenplay by Gregory Allen Howard (Ali, Remember the Titans). Harriet Tubman is not expected to first appear on the $20 bill until 2020, so this movie will probably be able to be produced and released before Tubman makes her paper money debut.
Director/producer Adam McKay started his career on Saturday Night Live, and then directed such Will Ferrell comedies as the two Anchorman movies, Step Brothers, and The Other Guys. Most recently, McKay directed the Academy Award-nominated financial dramedy The Big Short. With this week’s news, he prepares to move into the world of superhero movies, but he’s not doing it by adapting a title published by DC or Marvel (or even Image or Dark Horse). Instead, McKay is now attached to direct Fox’s adaptation of the Boom! Comics title Irredeemable, which ran for 37 issues from 2009 to 2012. Mark Waid (Kingdom Come) created and wrote Irredeemable, about a superhero called “The Plutonian” who went from being the most loved superhero on Earth to becoming a supervillain attempting to destroy all human life (with the comics’ analogy to the Justice League opposed to him). Adam McKay will be working from a screenplay by Tommy Wirkola, who is also himself the director of movies like Dead Snow, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, and the gonzo horror comedy sequel Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead.
If you grew up in the world before “social media” (and especially before The Internet took off in the 1990s), how you interpreted things as a child might have been different from how (some) kids are growing up today. That, at least, might have been a lesson that some people took away from the news, about two years ago that two 12 year old girls had stabbed another girl trying to impress the fictional character called Slender Man, who has appeared in various forms as part of an extensive “Internet meme” that include short stories, “true story” testimonials, YouTube videos, and video games. Ever since the whole Slender Man thing took off, it was probably always inevitable that someone, somewhere would adapt it as a horror film. And now we know that exactly such a film is in the works, thanks to Screen Gems and Mythology Entertainment. That production company is also currently developing The Overlook Hotel, a prequel to Stephen King’s The Shining.
