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 Dark Tower, Kingsman 2, San Andreas 2, and Star Wars Episode VIII.
When the news first broke last year that Walt Disney Pictures was planning on reviving the Mary Poppins franchise with a new sequel, the obvious question involved casting. Julie Andrews starred in Mary Poppins in 1964, but obviously a new actress would be required to reprise the character in a setting only 20 years after the first film. (Not only is Julie Andrews now 80, but she lost her singing voice following an operation in 1997.) Well, we now know who Disney hopes will fill Julie Andrews’ shoes (if a deal can be made), and the answer is… Emily Blunt! Although Blunt is perhaps best known for starring in action movies (Sicario, Edge of Tomorrow, Looper), she did recently work with Disney as The Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods. The sequel will reportedly draw storylines from multiple books that P.L. Travers wrote after the original Mary Poppins. The film will be set 20 years later, in the 1930s, as everyone’s favorite nanny returns to help the now grown up Michael Banks needs help with his own children. The Mary Poppins sequel will be directed by Rob Marshall, whose previous musicals include Chicago, Nine, and the aforementioned Into the Woods.
We’ve known for a while that Sin City and Guardians of the Galaxy costar Benicio Del Toro was going to add another franchise to his filmography as one of the villains (reportedly) in 2017’s Star Wars: Episode VIII. But this week, we found another star known for a major franchise, Jurassic Park, has also been cast in the movie. That’s because the official announcement of the start of filming revealed that Laura Dern has been cast in a new mystery role. The new characters played by Benicio Del Toro and Laura Dern will also be joined by newcomer Kelly Marie Tran, who appears to be playing the new young female character that such actresses as Olivia Cooke, Tatiana Maslany, and Gina Rodriguez were in the running to play. Dern, Del Toro, and Tran join the returning ensemble cast that includes John Boyega, Gwendoline Christie, Adam Driver, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, and Daisy Ridley. Star Wars: Episode VIII (or whatever it ends up being called) is currently being directed by Rian Johnson (Looper, The Brothers Bloom, Brick), and is scheduled for release on December 15, 2017.
Like many films, The Revenant had a long road through development, and along the way, there were other actors besides Leonardo DiCaprio that might have starred in it. In addition to Samuel L. Jackson (yes, really), Christian Bale was also attached to star in The Revenant for a while. Now, Bale is attached to star in another film which seems to share thematic and setting similarities with The Revenant. The project in question is called Hostiles, and like The Revenant, it is a 19th century (1892) drama about a harrowing journey through dangerous territory (New Mexico to Montana) controlled by a Native American tribe (the Comanches). Christian Bale will play “a legendary Army captain who agrees to escort a dying Cheyenne war chief and his family back to tribal lands.” Hostiles will be directed by Scott Cooper, whose latest film was Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp. Filming is expected to start on location in July, 2016, suggesting a possible awards season release in late 2017.
When Mark Millar’s The Secret Service comic was adapted as the movie Kingsman: The Secret Service, it was only “loosely adapted.” For the sequel, then, that means we really don’t know where the story might go next. What we do know is that Taron Egerton (Eddie the Eagle) will be back, and so will director Matthew Vaughn, but they won’t be joined by Colin Firth. In addition, the sequel will see Egerton’s British agent heading to the USA for his next espionage adventure. This week’s news doesn’t tell us more about the premise, except that the main villain will be a woman. And if her deal goes through, that villain will be played by Julianne Moore, who is probably looking for a new franchise, post-The Hunger Games. 20th Century Fox is expecting to start filming Kingsman 2 in May, aiming for a release date next summer on June 16, 2017.
Two concurrent trends converged this week on two different stories, in basically the same way. Those two trends are the growth of “crowdfunding” as a way for fans to support the movie projects they want to see happen, and also the way movies can find new life for fan favorite TV shows (such as with the crowdfunded Veronica Mars movie). Having said all that, our first story this week is actually a case of crowdfunding skipping the “crowd” altogether. That’s because Happy Endings star Casey Wilson revealed to Entertainment Tonight that an anonymous fan of Happy Endings wants to invest in a movie that will wrap up any lingering loose ends for the beloved-but-cancelled ABC ensemble comedy. Happy Endings only ran for two seasons from 2011 to 2013, until it was cancelled due to low ratings. However, the series has become something of a renewed social media sensation ever since Hulu started carrying the entire show. True crowdfunding is behind the other possible movie version of a beloved TV show, and it’s a lot older than Happy Endings. That’s because the original cast of the 1974-1979 sitcom Good Times have taken to Kickstarter to produce a new movie they’re calling The Original Good Times Cast Movie. The project is somewhat unusual, because this Good Times movie is starting outside participation from the show’s producers or copyrights owner (namely, Sony). The Kickstarter campaign has thus far not yet taken off, with only $7,000 of the $1,000,000 target currently reached (in other words, 0.7%). Although it’s unclear exactly what this movie will be, Jimmy Walker describes it in the campaign’s video as being a “docu-dramedy comedy.”
After years of true “development hell,” it’s really starting to sound like Stephen King’s The Dark Tower books will finally be adapted as feature films. After hearing rumors and “wanted” type stories, this week’s casting news basically confirms two of the leads, which is in itself pretty major news. Let’s start there, which is that Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey are both now signed for two of the saga’s major characters: Roland Deschain the Gunslinger (Elba) and the Man in Black, AKA Randall Flagg (McConaughey). This week’s news, however, gets a little confusing after that. Abbey Lee, who played “The Dag” (the most blonde “wife”) in Mad Max: Fury Road, has been cast as the first movie’s female lead, who is called Tirana. The reason this is confusing is that the character Tirana doesn’t show up in the novels until the seventh book, and even then, she’s a very minor character. Of course, characters in King’s Dark Tower books sometimes go by different names, so it’s possible that the character they’re calling Tirana is someone else entirely. The first movie based on King’s Dark Tower books will be directed by Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair). And just as we’re hearing about further forward movement for one ambitious Stephen King adaptation, another seems to be going in the other direction. It was revealed this week that Warner Bros’ rights to make movies based on The Stand have reverted back to CBS Films. This probably explains why director Josh Boone is now working on another Stephen King adaptation, Revival, instead.
For most of his time as one of Marvel Comics’ most popular characters, Deadpool has been portrayed as dispatching bad guys in violent ways (or as violent as his particular comic would allow). It was for that reason that it wasn’t surprising that the Deadpool movie was R-rated. Many people found the idea of an R-rated superhero movie refreshing, at least partly because studios had long assumed a PG-13 rating would help ensure bigger box office returns. However, there have been R-rated superhero movies before, such as the three Blade movies, the three Punisher movies, the two Judge Dredd movies, the two Kick-Ass movies, and Watchmen. In addition to being R-rated, however, something else that a lot of these movies have in common are Rotten Tomatometer scores. Some examples we can give you are Blade: Trinity (25%), Judge Dredd (18%), and Kick-Ass 2 (30%). So, it’s not necessarily welcome news that the success of Deadpool might mean more R-rated superhero movies. The most official news this week of an impending R-rated superhero movie is next year’s Wolverine III (title pending, 3/3/17), if the source you can find here moves past “anticipated” to receiving an official R rating from the MPAA. 20th Century Fox may also have R-rated plans for Deadpool’s super team friends X-Force, and of course, when Cable joins Deadpool in their sequel, that film will also be R-rated. Finally, Todd McFarlane also mentioned this week that he hopes for a new Spawn movie to now get a green light, and an R rating as well.
As so often happens (and arguably should), the huge box office success of Deadpool is already leading to new deals for the film’s star. We’re speaking, of course, about Ryan Reynolds, who is now in talks to star in a science fiction movie called Life. If he signs on, Reynolds would be joining Rebecca Ferguson, who shot to fame in the USA last year as the female lead in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. Life is described as a “big scale film” about a Mars mission which encounters some form of intelligent alien life. The film is a reunion for Ryan Reynolds in two ways, as Life will be directed by Daniel Espinosa (who directed Reynolds in Safe House), and was written by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, who also wrote Deadpool. Life is being produced by Skydance Productions, the same Paramount-based company behind such upcoming films as Star Trek: Beyond, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (both in 2016), and Geostorm and World War Z 2 (both scheduled for 2017). Daniel Espinosa currently only has one Fresh score out of the three film he has on his Tomatometer as director, which is why we’re calling Life one of the week’s Rotten Ideas.
Now that he’s firmly a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Ant-Man, one might expect that Paul Rudd will be needing to set aside a lot of his schedule to appear in movies like Captain America: Civil War. Rudd is, however, still signing on for other movies. The latest is An Ideal Home, a dramedy in which Rudd and Steve Coogan will star as a gay married couple. Coogan will play a “demanding, popular celebrity,” and Rudd will play “his more hesitant partner and sidekick.” The film’s story will revolve around a grandson Coogan’s character didn’t know about, who shows up one night at “their fancy dinner party with nowhere else to go, [and] the couple reluctantly takes him in.” An Ideal Home was written and will be directed by Andrew Fleming, with whom Steve Coogan previously worked on Hamlet 2. Only two of Fleming’s eight feature films as director have received a Fresh Tomatometer score, which is why we’re calling this story one of the week’s Rotten Ideas.
After earning over $473 million globally last year, the earthquake disaster movie San Andreas is set to get a sequel. New Line Cinema is now moving forward with exactly that plan, and the studio expects Dwayne Johnson to return as his pilot character again. This time around, the focus may be moving to the area called “The Ring of Fire” (is that the possible subtitle right there?), which is a band of volcanos and earthquake hotspots around the Pacific Islands. In addition to Johnson, New Line Cinema also hopes that his costars Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, and Paul Giamatti will also return for the sequel. Whatever San Andreas 2 is called or is about, the sequel will also see the return of Brad Peyton, whose three films to date have all received Rotten Tomatometer scores (50% for San Andreas, 42% for Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, and 14% for Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore).
