Today’s Ketchup brings you ten headlines from the world of film development news, covering titles such as Barbie, Captain Marvel, The Cat in the Hat, Clue, Duke Nukem, and The Incredibles 2.
(Photo by https://twitter.com/brielarson/status/757042695537774592)
In the comics, Marvel’s Captain Marvel (also formerly known as Ms. Marvel, Binary, and Warbird) has had many costumes, but most of them have shared a similar color palette of red, blue, and yellow. So, most people understandably assumed Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel costume would be some variant on that combo, but that’s not what we saw this week as the first images emerged. As you can see here and here, Larson is sporting a version of her recent outfit, but with green and black instead. When Marvel Comics introduced their first Captain Marvel (AKA Mar-Vell) in 1967, however, his costume was mostly green and white, which, as this article explains, is probably why Brie Larson is wearing green, too. There appears to be some confusion about whether these images are from the sets of Captain Marvel (3/8/19) or Avengers 4 (5/3/19), but the older car in the background suggests the 1990s setting of Captain Marvel.
(Photo by Ben Rothstein/20th Century Fox Film Corp.)
The Weekly Ketchup normally focuses on the hottest news in film development, but Hollywood doesn’t get much bigger than the Academy Awards, so we’re inclined to cover the nominations here as well. The biggest nominee, with 13 nominations, was Guillermo del Toro’s merman romance The Shape of Water, followed by Dunkirk (8), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (7), and 6 each for Darkest Hour and Phantom Thread. The X-Men spinoff sequel Logan also made history as the first ever superhero movie to be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay (Ghost World was the first comic book adaptation, followed by A History of Violence). Netflix’s Mudbound also made history as its cinematographer Rachel Morrison became the first woman to ever be nominated in that category. There has also been some talk that Wonder Woman not receiving any nominations after being a significant achievement last year was a major snub (or at least, a huge oversight). The 90th Annual Academy Awards will be aired on ABC on March 4, 2018, and you can keep track of awards season wins right here at the Rotten Tomatoes Awards Leaderboard.
(Photo by Ursula Coyote/AMC)
The criteria for who makes a great casting choice for an animated movie can be wildly different than for other types of films. Obviously, star value doesn’t hurt, and neither does singing ability in many cases. Other actors, however, just have really cool voices. One example is Jonathan Banks, who you might recognize for his roles on TV shows like Breaking Bad (and its prequel Better Call Saul) and Community (he basically replaced Chevy Chase in Season 5). Disney and Pixar took to Twitter this week to unveil their new Incredibles 2 cast members, along with character sketches. Banks will be joined by Sophia Bush (TV’s One Tree Hill), Isabella Rossellini (Blue Velvet), Catherine Keener (The 40 Year Old Virgin), and Bob Odenkirk (also from Better Call Saul). The Incredibles 2 is scheduled for June 15, 2018, up against the Superfly remake and the movie adaptation of the playground game Tag.
(Photo by Sony Pictures Classics)
Currently showing in only 815 theaters, Best Picture nominee Call Me By Your Name has only earned $9 million thus far, which suggests that most movie fans have probably not yet seen the film. Even so, director Luca Guadagnino is already planning on following Call Me By Your Name with two more sequels to form his own equivalent to Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight trilogy. Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer starred in Call Me By Your Name as 17-year-old and 24-year-old Americans, respectively, who fall in love in rural Italy in 1983. According to Guadagnino, the sequel will be set five years later in 1988, and shift the focus more towards the height of the HIV and AIDS epidemic.
(Photo by Zade Rosenthal/Paramount Pictures)
In 2016, we first heard about an indie drama called Vox Lux about a pop music star that would feature a soundtrack of all-new songs performed by Sia. However, its star Rooney Mara dropped out, and so the film didn’t move forward last year. The production company also reportedly had financing issues, but a good deal at Sundance for Keira Knightley’s Colette is helping them move forward with Vox Lux. Natalie Portman is now officially signed to replace Rooney Mara as the film’s pop music title character, with Jude Law still attached as the male lead. Vox Lux “follows the rise of ‘Celeste’ from the ashes of a major national tragedy to pop superstardom. The film spans 15 years and traces important cultural moments through the singer’s eye, starting in 1999 and ending in the present day.” Filming starts on location in New York City next week.
(Photo by Universal Pictures courtesy Everett Collection)
For the last 20-ish years, Universal Pictures has had the rights to various Dr. Seuss childrens books, which they have adapted into both live-action (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat) and animation (Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax) movies. Universal Pictures does still have a new animated version of The Grinch (starring Benedict Cumberbatch) scheduled for this November 9th, 2018, but many other Dr. Seuss animated movies now have a new home studio. Warner Bros and their Warner Animation Group are now developing a new slate of animated Dr. Seuss movies, and it’s all going to start with a new animated adaptation of The Cat in the Hat. Netflix also has an upcoming series based on Green Eggs and Ham in the works.
(Photo by Giles Keyte/Focus Features courtesy Everett Collection)
Once upon a time, Sony’s long-in-development Barbie movie was to have been released this coming June, but then its star Amy Schumer dropped out. Anne Hathaway subsequently signed on to replace Schumer, and the release date moved to this August. However, that plan may have always been a bit optimistic, requiring quick filming and post production to finish and release the movie within a year. Australian director Alethea Jones (2012’s indie Lemonade Stand) will now have more time to complete Barbie with (ostensibly) time to spare, as Sony has moved the release date to May 8th, 2020. Anne Hathaway will star in Barbie as someone from her “Barbie world” who is rejected because she’s not “perfect” enough. This new date puts Barbie a week after a Marvel movie (which is possibly Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3), and the week before the Scooby (Doo) reboot.
20th Century Fox gambled big and it paid off well when they finally gave the greenlight to Ryan Reynolds and his Deadpool pet project ($783 million in global box office from just a $58 million budget). It’s for that reason that one has to imagine Reynolds is sort of a studio darling these days. This week, Fox made a three-year “first look” deal with Reynolds’ Maximum Effort production company, and part of the deal involved a high profile reboot of Clue, the cult favorite 1985 comedy based on the classic board game of the same name. Reynolds will play one of the classic Clue characters and will also produce, with the writers of Deadpool also on “board” (so to speak).
This year’s Super Bowl 52 is happening next Sunday, February 4th, and some people apparently forgot about that. On Friday night, a “teaser” appeared online for something called Dundee claiming to be a Crocodile Dundee sequel with Danny McBride as the elder Dundee’s American son. That was followed on Monday by another teaser with Australian Thor star Chris Hemsworth joining in on the fun. One popular early guess was that the Dundee videos might be leading up to a Super Bowl commercial for the Subaru Outback. By yesterday, the jig was up on the Dundee ruse, which turned out to be a viral marketing campaign for the Australian tourism board. The idea of a modern Crocodile Dundee reboot starring Danny McBride actually wasn’t horrible, so we’re calling this bait-and-switch a “Rotten Idea.”
(Photo by Mary Cybulski/Universal Pictures)
Movies often take a long time to make their way through development, and being based on an intellectual property sometimes doesn’t help. One type of IP that doesn’t always age particularly well are video games. There are obviously some perennial franchises (Tomb Raider, Warcraft, etc), but many others enjoy a few years of popularity before gamers move on. Duke Nukem is a first person shooter franchise that started in 1991 and stayed popular through most of the 1990s (before a 15-year hiatus that finally resulted in 2011’s Duke Nukem Forever). Regardless, Paramount Pictures is in need of new action franchises, so we’re getting a Duke Nukem movie. Michael Bay is producing Duke Nukem, and his Platinum Dunes company is talking to former WWE-star-turned actor John Cena. John Cena has been both in action movies like The Marine and 12 Rounds and comedies like Trainwreck and (briefly) Daddy’s Home. We’re calling Duke Nukem the Rotten Idea of the Week because of the very bad Tomatometer history for video game movies.
