This Week’s Ketchup brings you another ten headlines from the world of film development news, covering such titles as Creed 3, Indiana Jones 5, Jurassic World: Dominion, and Little Shop of Horrors.
(Photo by Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection)
When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, the obvious focus was on the Star Wars franchise, but Indiana Jones was another long-running property that Disney acquired at the same time. By that point, Paramount had already been developing an Indiana Jones 5 for a few years (basically since the 2008 release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), which continued until the film finally received a release date of July 19, 2019. That obviously didn’t happen, with the release date now landing next summer on July 9, 2021 (four days before Harrison Ford turns 79). With Steven Spielberg still working on his West Side Story remake (12/18/2020), there had been recent speculation about Indiana Jones 5, which was answered this week as Steven Spielberg has dropped out of directing it. Instead, James Mangold is now in talks to direct Indiana Jones 5, with Ford still attached as the film’s star. It’s unclear when Indiana Jones 5 will start filming, or if the release date will change, but Ford did just say two weeks ago that he expected to start filming in April.
(Photo by UA/Everett Collection)
For most of its first few decades, the movies in the James Bond franchise had a fairly consistent running time range in the range of two hours or so, but they started getting longer when Daniel Craig took on the role (all but Quantum of Solace were between 143 and 148 minutes). So, it may have come as surprising news this week when Regal Cinemas revealed that No Time to Die (4/10/2020) will have a running time of 163 minutes, or just 17 minutes shy of three hours. Put another way, that means that No Time to Die will be 15 minutes longer than Spectre, which had been the longest film at 148 minutes.
(Photo by MGM)
The 2018 Rocky franchise sequel Creed II ended up earning over $214 million worldwide, which was an increase over the $173 million earned by the first Creed. So, it’s unsurprising that MGM is now developing a third Creed movie for their star Michael B. Jordan. MGM has hired screenwriter Zach Baylin to start work on a third Creed. As for what Creed III will be about, there is already speculation online that Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa may not be coming back. Stallone is currently staying very busy, including both his superhero movie Samaritan (12/11/2020) and the futuristic action movie Little America .
(Photo by Warner Bros. courtesy Everett Collection)
Chris Evans is in talks to play dentist Orin Scrivello in a new Little Shop of Horrors, the role previously made legendary by Steve Martin in the 1986 movie version. Taron Egerton is in talks to play the film’s lead, Seymour, the sad-sack store clerk who tends to a man-eating monster plant called Audrey II (to be voiced by Billy Porter). Scarlett Johansson is also in talks to play Audrey I, the human lady who inspires the plant’s name. Little Shop of Horrors will be directed by Greg Berlanti, whose most recent film was last year’s Love, Simon.
(Photo by ILM/Getty Images)
The next Jurassic movie will be called Jurassic World: Dominion. This news came directly from director Colin Trevorrow, who tweeted an image of the clapper to announce the start of filming on Monday. Dominion will feature the return of three of Jurassic Park‘s original stars (Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Sam Neill) when it’s released next summer on June 11, 2021.
(Photo by Paramount/Everett Collection)
The continuing spread of the coronavirus COVID-19 is having a multiple impacts on the film and TV industry (for example, CBS has stopped filming of The Amazing Race). One of the European nations which currently has the most reported cases is Italy, which had been planned as the location for three weeks of filming of Mission: Impossible 7 in Venice, but Paramount has halted those plans for now. Paramount is expected to move its cast and crew out of Italy. It’s not yet known if the production will move back to Venice at a later point, or if perhaps a new location for those sequences will be chosen. Mission: Impossible 7 remains scheduled for release on July 23, 2021.
(Photo by TriStar/Everett Collection)
This week, two different movies related to the words “Candy Man” both made the news. It all started on Tuesday, when the first poster for Candyman (6/12/2020) appeared, before its trailer debut. Right in-between those two Candyman stories, however, there was also the news about the biopic of singer-turned-actor Sammy Davis, Jr, whose signature song was “The Candy Man,” as featured in the original Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. Paramount Pictures has hired screenwriter Charles Murray (Netflix’s Luke Cage) to work on their currently untitled project, which is reportedly to be based upon Davis’ 1965 memoir, Yes I Can: The Story of Sammy Davis Jr..
(Photo by Eli Joshua Ade. ©Universal Pictures/Everett Collection)
(Photo by Dee Cercone/Everett Collection)
Songwriter Diane Warren has been songs for both Hollywood and major recording acts for over 40 years now, which has given her 11 Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song and no wins. Following the successes of movies like Mamma Mia! and Rocketman, Paramount Pictures has started development on an untitled musical drama which will feature many of her most popular songs, and new ones as well. The screenwriter will be Tamara Chestna, who made her feature film debut last year as a co-writer of the romantic drama After.
(Photo by Universal courtesy Everett Collection)
Universal-owned Focus Features released their three entries of the Fifty Shades trilogy between 2015 and 2018. After a “heated bidding war,” Universal Pictures this week also won the rights for author E.L. James’ next book, The Mister. The book tells the story of “a wealthy British aristocrat who falls in love with his Albanian housekeeper, unaware that she is on the run from human traffickers.”
