As Hollywood collectively prepared for (or got an early start on) their long Labor Day holidays, film development news seemed to slow down to almost a halt, but there were still some stories (possibly to take advantage of the news drought). 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 Spider-Man: Homecoming and the Jumanji sequel, and new roles for Bryan Cranston and Anne Hathaway.
Within seconds of when the news first broke that J.K. Rowling had approved a two-part play called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (based on her own story idea), there were probably already thousands of people wondering if it would be a movie someday. This week, there was a story in the New York Daily News claiming that sources within Warner Bros (the studio behind all of the Harry Potter movies) is hoping to secure precisely those rights. If the story is true, the plan would be to adapt the five hours of the two parts of the play into a new trilogy, possibly starting as early as 2020. (We should point out since Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 3 is already scheduled for release on November 20, 2020, it seems unlikely WB would schedule both films in the same calendar year.) Five hours split three ways is 100 minutes each, but one could also guess that the movies would have special effects-filled sequences that would probably add about twenty minutes to each film. Anyway, also in the “well, yeah, duh” category, the story claims that Warner Bros is hoping that Daniel Radcliffe would agree to reprise the role in what would be his 9th, 10th, and 11th movies as Harry Potter. Radcliffe will turn 31 on July 23, 2020.
UPDATE: RT has received a notice from Warner Bros. stating that there are currently no confirmed plans to adapt the stage play into a film (or multiple films, for that matter).
Director Richard Linklater is no stranger to sequels (having made a trilogy that started with Before Sunrise in 1995), but those films were also his own sequels. Now we know that Linklater is preparing to direct an adaptation of the novel Last Flag Flying, which author Daryl Ponicsan wrote as a sequel to his 1970 novel The Last Detail, which was itself adapted into the Oscar-nominated 1973 film of the same name starring Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, and Randy Quaid. In the original film, Nicholson and Young played two Navy sailors assigned to escor another sailor (played by Quaid) to prison; on the way, misadventures are had. Richard Linklater has already cast the three leads in Last Flag Flying, but we only know for sure one of the characters that the actors will be playing (for a rather obvious reason). Laurence Fishburne will play the African American sailor played by Otis Young, and the other two characters will be played by Bryan Cranston and Steve Carell. We’re going with the guess that Cranston is playing Nicholson’s role, and Carell is playing Quaid’s, but that’s really only based on the age difference of six years between Cranston and Carell. In Last Flag Flying, the character that Quaid played asks the other two sailors for their help in getting the body of his son returned to the USA after he is killed while fighting in Iraq. Amazon Studios is currently the frontrunner for distributing Last Flag Flying, but that does not necessarily discount the possibility of a theatrical release.
Today is the release date of The Light Between Oceans, the third feature film directed by Derek Cianfrance, after Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines (all three of which received Fresh Tomatometer scores). Cianfrance (and his agents) are not wasting any time in lining up his potential next film, as the director has made a deal with Warner Bros for an untitled historical biopic — which Derek Cianfrance also cowrote — based upon the S.C. Gwynne nonfiction book Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History (which obviously wouldn’t fit on a marquee). As the title suggests, the book tells (and the movie will tell) the true story of Quanah Parker, the last chief of the Comanche tribe, who led one of the last large Native American raids against European Americans. Cianfrance is expected to be casting largely from the Comanche nation, but there are also two major roles for European American actors (Quanah Parker’s mother, and the cavalry officer who helped him settle the Comanche on a reservation).
Director Steven Soderbergh‘s next theatrically-released film after Magic Mike in 2012 will be Logan Lucky, about two brothers who attempt to pull off a heist during a major NASCAR race in North Carolina. The film is already in production, and the cast list is so long that most people would have been justified in thinking that Soderbergh was done adding major names. The cast currently includes (and this isn’t even everybody): Daniel Craig, Adam Driver, Katherine Heigl, Seth MacFarlane, DJ Qualls, Hilary Swank, Channing Tatum, and Katherine Waterston. This week’s late arrival to Logan Lucky is Sebastian Stan (AKA Marvel’s “Winter Soldier”), who will be playing a three-time NASCAR champion who is returning to the sport after time “away” (though why he was “away” is not yet known).
Ben Affleck is currently filming his third film as Batman, next year’s Justice League (11/17/17). This week, the actor and director also posted a video of an actor (or stuntman) dressed in what appeared to be the costume of the DC Comics anti-hero Deathstroke the Terminator (sometimes just called “Deathstroke” to avoid confusion with the movie character played by Arnold Schwarzenegger). It’s not yet known (for sure) if that means that Deathstroke will be appearing in Justice League, but it has been confirmed that Deathstroke will be the “main antagonist” in the solo Batman movie which Ben Affleck will be starring in and directing. If Deathstroke does not appear in Justice League, it might just be that Affleck and Warner Bros are getting an early start on testing out the costume.
We’ve known for several months now that Robert Downey Jr. will be appearing as Tony Stark in next summer’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, continuing the relationship between Stark and Tom Holland’s Peter Parker that began in this year’s Captain America: Civil War. There’s still no indication that, say, Gwyneth Paltrow might also be in Spider-Man: Homecoming, but this week, we learned that Jon Favreau will be returning as Stark’s friend and chauffeur, Happy Hogan. Spider-Man: Homecoming is scheduled for release on July 7, 2017.
(Though for some of us, it’s either too late, or was never really an option.) Like many major movie stars, Anne Hathaway is moving towards producing more of the films she stars in, after making her producer debut with 2014’s Song One. Hathaway’s latest venture as both a star and a producer will be set up at Warner Bros., and the film will be called Live Fast Die Hot, an adaptation of a collection of essays of the same title by actress Jenny Mollen. Jenny Mollen is also married to American Pie star Jason Biggs, but it’s not yet known if Biggs will reprise his role as, well, himself, after starring in the real-life rehearsals that inspired Mollen’s book. It’s also possible the film will fictionalize Mollen’s husband, or just cast a completely different actor who’s sort of Jason Biggs-ish.
It’s becoming more and more common that feature films are being adapted from short films, often by the same filmmakers; recent examples include the horror films Mama and Light’s Out. The latest such short film to be expanded beyond its original 14 minute running time is Bag Man ( which you can watch on YouTube here). For the feature film version, the title is being changed to Kin, and the stars will include James Franco, Jack Reynor, Zoe Kravitz, and Dennis Quaid. The film is described as “science fiction” and depicts an ex-con (Reynor) who is forced to go on the run with his brother as they are being chased by an evil “vengeful” criminal.
Fans of the more recent revival of TV’s Doctor Who probably know Karen Gillan from that show, but for movie fans, Gillan might be best known for playing Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy (and in next year’s sequel). This week, Gillan joined yet another franchise, though the jury is still out on whether Jumanji will have the fan cachet of the other two. Karen Gillan is described as playing the “female lead,” but the same article also mentions that there are five main leads, which suggests that the new Jumanji has four male leads and, well, Karen Gillan. We already know that Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart are continuing their on screen partnership after Central Intelligence, and Jack Black is also one of the stars, which leaves one other male star (possibly Nick Jonas). Johnson also revealed concept art for his Jumanji character this week, and it’s rather notably similar to Indiana Jones. The Jumanji sequel doesn’t have a title yet, but Columbia Pictures has given it a release date of July 28, 2017 (up against one of Disney’s “live action remakes”, though we don’t know yet which one that might be).
Every once in a while in casting, someone involved will say, “we should get someone like [fill in the blanks],” and then they end up just going ahead and casting the person they were talking about. For Transformers: The Last Knight, (6/23/17) which apparently is partly set during the rein of the “real” King Arthur, something similar sounds like it might have happened. That’s because the role of King Arthur in this fifth Transformers movie will be played by Liam Garrigan, who also plays King Arthur on the ABC TV series Once Upon a Time. We’re calling this the Rotten Idea of the Week because all four of the previous Transformers movies have received Rotten Tomatometer scores (and progressively so).
