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 Avatar 5, Han Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Jungle Book 2, and SpiderMan: Homecoming.
One of the lessons we might hope was learned from the critical reaction to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is that with many pop culture adaptations, people hope the movie will be, you know, fun. Warner Bros is now in a situation where they have an ambitious slate of DC Comics adaptations scheduled for the next several years that will be sequels to a movie that wasn’t particularly fun at all. The studio does, however, have lots of other properties at their disposal. This week brought the news that Warner Bros might be planning on creating yet another new “Cinematic Universe” revolving around the many different Hanna-Barbera animated characters and series that the studio has the rights to produce. It’s really quite an impressive list that includes (and this is nowhere near comprehensive): Captain Caveman, Dynomutt, The Flintstones, The Herculoids, Hong Kong Phooey, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, Josie and the Pussycats, Space Ghost, and Yogi Bear. At this weekend’s Cinema Con event, Warner Bros revealed that in 2018, the movie now called S.C.O.O.B. will be the studio’s “first shot at unlocking the whole Hanna-Barbera Universe.” That title refers, of course, to Scooby-Doo, but the abbreviation suggests that there might be a re-imagination of the premise. Might Fred, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy all belong to some sort of investigative organization, ala Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D.? Will that then tie into other Hanna-Barbera properties (that are known to be in development), like Jonny Quest, Hong Kong Phooey, and Wacky Races, and maybe also franchises we don’t know about, like Grape Ape or Space Ghost? Here’s hoping that Warner Bros does indeed make this new “Cinematic Universe” fun and joyful. We’re not sure the movie really wants to see a “grimdark” live action adaptation of, say, Huckleberry Hound or Speed Buggy.
As of this writing, it’s likely that most people have not yet seen this weekend’s big new movie from Disney, The Jungle Book. Early box office reports, however are already coming in, suggesting that it might be one of the year’s biggest early successes. The Jungle Book is also a critical success, with a Certified Fresh Tomatometer score of 94 percent. Considering all that, it’s perhaps not surprising that Walt Disney Pictures has taken quick action on developing a sequel, working with the same director (Jon Favreau) and screenwriter (Justin Marks). Although no specific stories were mentioned, Disney, Marks, and Favreau are reportedly going to adapt one of the several other stories about Mowgli written by author Rudyard Kipling. Despite the speed that Disney and their collaborators might attempt to produce their sequel, it’s likely, however, that it won’t be the next Jungle Book movie. That’s because Warner Bros and director Andy Serkis are continuing to work on their own adaptation of The Jungle Book (scheduled for 10/19/18). The impressive cast of that adaptation includes Christian Bale (Bagheera), Cate Blanchett (Kaa), Benedict Cumberbatch (Shere Khan), and director Andy Serkis himself as Baloo (via motion capture animation).
When former Batman star Michael Keaton was cast in the drama Birdman as a movie star best known for playing a superhero, the joke was obvious to the point of brilliance. This week’s news reads like a continuation of that theme, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There were three big Spider-Man stories this week, and they’re all steps in the same process. First, after recent URL registrations led to speculation about the movie being titled Spider-Man: Homecoming, Sony Pictures confirmed that yes, their reboot focusing on Peter Parker as a teenager would indeed be called Spider-Man: Homecoming. At the same time, the blog Birth.Movies.Death ran a story claiming that a villain (or possibly “the” villain) in the film would be classic Spider-Man baddie The Vulture. Back when Sam Raimi nearly directed a fourth Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie, there had been news that the villain might have been played by John Malkovich. Which leads us, finally, to the news that Michael Keaton is in early talks to play “a” villain (again, either the main villain or one of a few villains, we don’t know), in Spider-Man: Homecoming (7/7/17). That story did not specify that Michael Keaton will be playing The Vulture, but with his stylishly bald head as of late, the 64-year-old Best Actor nominee does indeed sort of resemble some depictions of The Vulture, right?
As of this writing (4/15/16), “Alden Ehrenreich” is still arguably very much not a household name. There are things going on in Hollywood, however, that suggest that within a few years, that may change. That’s because the news broke this week that after starting with an initial pool of thousands of young actors, Lucasfilm is now getting close to narrowing down their casting of the new Han Solo. It’s expected that Han Solo: A Star Wars Story (tentative title) will be the next Star Wars prequel (after Rogue One: A Star Wars Story). The film is currently scheduled for May 25, 2018, but that date may change to December 2018, to match the rest of the recent and upcoming Star Wars films. The premise hasn’t been confirmed, except that a younger Chewbacca will also be featured in the prequel. Alden Ehrenreich is currently best known for playing a 1950s singing cowboy actor in the Coen Bros’ recent comedy, Hail! Caesar. Ehrenreich is not yet officially signed, but he is reportedly the frontrunner in the final three, which also includes Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Secret Service) and Jack Reynor (Transformers: Age of Extinction).
The Google.com search bar can sometimes bring up some surprising results when you’re doing other unrelated searches. One example this writer came across while preparing this story is “Benedict Cumberbatch looks like the Grinch.” One really has to wonder if that was a factor in this week’s big news that Cumberbatch has signed with Illumination Entertainment to provide the voice of “The Grinch” in their new adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Instead of a live action movie (like the one starring Jim Carrey), this film will be an animated film from the same studio that gave us The Lorax. Universal Pictures has scheduled Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch (a title which may change) for release on November 10, 2017. Benedict Cumberbatch also made the news this week for coming on board as producer on the independent drama Guantanamo Diary, about a man who was incarcerated at the U.S. base in Cuba for 14 years without being charged with a crime.
The relative box office success of last year’s Kingsman: The Secret Service ($414 million on a budget of $81 million) has inspired 20th Century Fox to aim even higher for the sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle (6/16/17). In recent weeks, we have heard about the casting of such stars as Halle Berry, Julianne Moore, and former Game of Thrones costar Pedro Pascal. The ensemble cast grew even more this week with two big casting announcements. First, there was the news that pop singer Elton John is in talks to make his first appearance in a live-action narrative film in twenty years (the last of which was 1997’s Spice World). John’s role hasn’t been confirmed, but there is a strong possibility that he may be playing himself, because in the original The Secret Service comic book mini-series, Mark Hamill appeared as himself. (An element that was ditched for the movie, although Mark Hamill still took on a fictional role instead.) Channing Tatum also made news this week with this sequel, after he posted on his Twitter account (@ChanningTatum), that “I’m about to get all up in that Golden Circle. #Kingsman.” That came just one day after Sony Pictures confirmed the title of MIB 23, the sequel comedy in which Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum will crossover between their 21 Jump Street franchise and Sony’s lucrative Men in Black franchise. It’s not yet known to what extent Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones may (or may not?) appear in what will be the franchise’s fourth film.
People who have actively followed film development for years might be familiar with this: a beloved celebrity dies, and soon after, plans are announced for a biopic about them. These films stand out because it’s far less common that a biopic is made about someone while they are still alive (though recent examples of this do include The Theory of Everything and Straight Outta Compton). On April 6, 2016, the world and music lovers in particular were saddened to hear about the passing of country singer and songwriter Merle Haggard, who died on his 79th birthday. Merle Haggard‘s life story has always read like a movie (including a life of crime and prison time), and this week, just six days after his death, we found out that exactly such a movie is now in the works. The news broke on April 12, 2016, that screenwriter Cliff Hollingsworth is working with a new production company to option and adapt Merle Haggard’s life story into a feature film biopic. Hollingworth previously worked with Akiva Goldsman on another biopic, the boxing film Cinderella Man, starring Russell Crowe. In other biopic news, Gary Oldman is now in talks to star as Winston Churchill in the British film Darkest Hour, about Churchill’s stormy ascension to the office of Prime Minister in 1940.
Jason Statham has appeared in supporting roles in plenty of big studio releases like The Italian Job, Gnomeo & Juliet, The Expendables, Spy, and Furious 7. However, the movies in which Jason Statham was the actual solo star, like the Crank and Transporter franchises, tend to have smaller budgets and/or were produced outside the Hollywood system. That’s an important distinction to make, because this week’s news sees Statham in the starring role of a big budget tentpole release from a major studio. Jason Statham has signed with Warner Bros and the Chinese production company Gravity to star in the long-in-development adventure film, Meg. In development since the late 1990s, Meg is an adaptation of the 1997 Steve Alten novel, MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror, which one can see as being influenced by both Jaws and the 1990s publishing phenomenon that was Jurassic Park. In the novel, the central character is a Navy deep sea diver who, during a Mariana Trench dive, sees a Carcharadon Megalodon, a 70-foot-long ancestor of the modern “great white shark.” Meg will be directed by Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure, Last Vegas), who currently is at the tail end of a seven movie Rotten streak that dates back to 1995, when While You Were Sleeping earned Turteltaub his second Fresh Tomatometer score. Jason Statham also currently has a Rotten record recently (only 25 percent of his last 16 films were Fresh), which is another reason this is one of the week’s Rotten Ideas.
Over the last 25 years, there have been three major attempts at a live action Peter Pan (not counting the J.M. Barrie biopic Neverland). Steven Spielberg’s 1991 adaptation Hook was a $300 million box office hit, but earned a 30 percent Rotten Tomatometer score. Then, in 2003, Universal Pictures had a critical success with Peter Pan, but the film was a box office disappointment, earning less worldwide than its $130 million budget. And then, last year, there was Joe Wright’s Pan, which was both a box office bomb and critical flop. After two Peter Pan failures in a row, one might guess that even a studio like Walt Disney Pictures would maybe step back and skip Peter Pan in their ongoing live-action fairy tale marathon extravaganza. That guess would apparently be mistaken. Walt Disney Pictures has recruited director David Lowery to start work on a live action adaptation of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, and more directly, the studio’s classic 1953 animated film Peter Pan. David Lowery apparently earned this new job at Disney due to the studio’s happiness with his work on their upcoming remake of Pete’s Dragon (8/12/16).
A “problem” that can arise when a filmmaker like James Cameron takes as long as he does in between films (two narrative films in the last 21 years, namely Titanic and Avatar). That problem is that Cameron’s glacial pace means that he arguably does not and cannot respond to changes in audience expectations that might happen every, you know, decade or so. In the seven years since the release of Avatar in 2009, for example, 3D has gone from an exciting new gimmick to an arguably tired old gimmick. Also, unlike many other box office successes, Avatar has not benefitted from an avid fanbase (partly because unlike Marvel, DC, Star Wars, and Transformers, the movie didn’t have a pre-existing fanbase, either). With all that being said, James Cameron’s big announcement this week was all the more perplexing. That’s because he’s no longer planning on writing and directing three Avatar sequels: instead he’s planning on four Avatar sequels. Cameron and 20th Century Fox are also directly taking on Lucasfilm and Disney’s plans for releasing their Star Wars movies mostly in December, by doing the same with the next four Avatar movies. Avatar 2, Avatar 3, Avatar 4, and Avatar 5 (or whatever they end up being called) are now tentatively scheduled for the Christmas seasons in the years 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2023. And the reaction in social media has, as said, been one of befuddlement and disbelief. Overall, this was a big week for aging filmmakers and movie stars talking up their plans for sequels that may be past their due date. Russell Crowe also expressed his interest in starring in another Master and Commander movie, and Warren Beatty hopes to direct and star in a sequel to his 1990 comic strip adaptation Dick Tracy. Yes, really.
