This week’s Ketchup includes movie development news stories about movies such as Captain America: Civil War, and new remakes of 1984 and Going in Style, and a new Tinker Bell movie. There’s also new roles for Andrew Garfield, Melissa McCarthy, Chris Pratt, and Keanu Reeves.
As has been expected for months, we learned this week that 20th Century Fox is looking for a young actress and actor to play Jean Grey (Marvel Girl) and Scott Summers (Cyclops) in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse. Presumably, they would continue to star in future X-Men movies after that as well, as the new chronology stretches out of the 1980s (of Apocalypse) and into the 1990s and beyond. Based on the six names we heard about this week, it looks like Fox wants an established young actress for Jean Grey, and more of a “fresh face” for Cyclops. For Jean Grey, the three actresses mentioned are Chloe Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass), Elle Fanning (Maleficent), and Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit). Three of the young male actors reportedly in talks to take over the Cyclops role from James Marsden are Timothee Chalamet (Interstellar), Ben Hardy (a recent EastEnders star), and Charlie Rowe (Walking with Dinosaurs 3D). Director Bryan Singer is returning for X-Men: Apocalypse, which starts filming in early 2015, and is scheduled for release on May 27, 2016.
Right now, we’re in the middle of something of a post-apocalyptic golden age — well, except, sometimes, for the “golden” part. Especially in the YA genre, “post apocalyptic” is a hot keyword right now, with such movies as The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, The Giver, and Divergent all being set in distant (and usually dirty) futures. Might this be the cue for one of the most admired modern directors to take on one of the urtext novels that helped found the genre? Director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, Captain Phillips) is now attached to direct a new adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984, which is being developed by Sony Pictures and producer Scott Rudin. There have been a few previous adaptations of 1984, but the one most of us know was actually released in 1984, and starred John Hurt, Richard Burton, and lots and lots of disturbing nudity. It will take some time for 1984 to be developed, and in the meantime, Paul Greengrass will next be directing a return to the Bourne franchise, along with star Matt Damon.
A late breaking news story last Friday came from Marvel, but there wasn’t enough time to sneak it into the Weekly Ketchup, so you get to see it here, finally. German actor Daniel Brühl (Rush, The Fifth Estate, Inglourious Basterds) has been cast as “one of the villains” in Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Civil War, but what we don’t know is which villain that is, exactly. Fans over the weekend quickly started a guessing game, with Baron Zemo winning out most often (being both one of Captain America’s classic villains, and also the leader of the Thunderbolts, a team of villains pretending to be heroes, a theme that could play into Civil War). Something that potentially complicates such speculation is the mention by Variety that Brühl might also be the main villain in Doctor Strange. It’s unclear if this means the same character, or two different characters (something Marvel doesn’t repeat very often). If it is two different characters, one way to explain it could be that Brühl could provide the voice for Dormammu, Doctor Strange’s otherworldly villain whose face and head is just a big fireball. Or maybe Variety got their wires crossed. Anyway, Disney and Marvel will release Captain America: Civil War on May 6, 2016, and Doctor Strange on November 4, 2016.
Coincidentally (or not), in the same week as the release of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (stretching a 390 page novel into over four hours of movies), there were three different stories about similar moves. The less surprising of them concerns Stephen King’s The Stand, a post-apocalyptic novel with over 1,000 pages which was previously expected to be squeezed into just one or two movies. Director Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) revealed this week that after he had indeed turned in a script that boiled The Stand into a single movie, Warner Bros asked him if he would instead like to do several films, and so that is now what he’s working on: The Stand as four movies. Another franchise that looks like it’s expanding is the rebooted Planet of the Apes, which Andy Serkis said this week might be four or five movies instead of the trilogy it was originally expected to be. Of course, this idea of stretching movies out could eventually lead to franchises wearing out their welcome. What if, for example, we start seeing more franchises going into double digits? That’s what might happen for the Fast and Furious franchise, if Universal does indeed make another three movies past Furious 7, as mentioned this week.
In 2014, a comic book adaptation basically turned Chris Pratt from the chubby guy on Parks and Recreation into a legitimate movie star. For one of the first major deals he’s made since the success of Guardians of the Galaxy, Pratt has chosen another comic book, but this time, it has nothing to do with Marvel. Chris Pratt is now attached to star in Universal Pictures’ adaptation of the indie comic book Cowboy Ninja Viking. The title might make you think of Cowboys & Aliens (also a Universal Pictures adaptation of an indie comic book), but that’s where similarities end. Cowboy Ninja Viking is a spy thriller about a program in which assassins are programmed with multiple personalities called “triplets,” and in the case of this movie’s star, the three identities are a cowboy, a viking, and a ninja. Now, imagine Chris Pratt play-acting like all three of those (sometimes at once), and you can sort of imagine the potential comedic hijinks.
Directors — especially big-time directors with recently acquired Oscars like 12 Years a Slave helmer Steve McQueen — frequently have multiple projects that they’re working on. Every once in a while, you see a director talk about one of them, and soon after, a completely different project (that might be closer to happening) gets announced, so as not to have the other, potentially less certain film, get all of the press. This writer suspects something like that happened this week. First, Steve McQueen talked in New York at an event about his desire to direct a biopic about the life of singer, actor and activist Paul Robeson. The next day, Variety covered Steve McQueen’s next film… and it has nothing to do with Paul Robeson. Instead, McQueen will direct a “heist thriller” based on the 1980s British TV mini-series Widows, about four women who come together to finish the robbery that their husbands died trying to pull off.
Are we ready for Mel Gibson’s comeback yet? How about as a director? Braveheart was pretty good, right? There have been almost-movies in recent years (like the Viking project with Leonardo DiCaprio), but nothing has happened yet. Now, Mel Gibson might have found the right combination in the form of Hacksaw Ridge, which is based on a true story from the Pacific theater of World War II. The Amazing Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield is in talks to star for Mel Gibson (also in talks) as Private Desmond T. Doss, who was drafted into service, but refused to fight on religious grounds. Ostracized for his beliefs, Private Doss (spoiler!) went on to save over 70 of his fellow soldiers during the Battle of Okinawa, going on to earn three Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars, and a Congressional Medal of Honor. If Gibson does make Hacksaw Ridge his next movie as director, it will be his first such film since 2006’s Apocalypto.
If movies could only be judged on their visual spectacle, Tarsem Singh might be a three time Academy Award winner. With movies like The Cell, The Fall, Immortals, and (less so) Mirror Mirror, Tarsem Singh has given us some amazing bits of eye candy. The Fall came closest to being Fresh (at 59 percent), but usually, Singh’s films are criticized for other factors (pacing, tone, acting, etc). Can Keanu Reeves help him turn things around? We might find out if he signs on to star in Singh’s next film, called The Panopticon. The project is described as an “action thriller” about a man who receives “a pre-recorded message from himself, warning that the world is about to end and only he can save it.” There’s no word yet about whether The Panopticon will depict dream-like hallucinations and generous yards of red fabric blowing in the wind.
Melissa McCarthy is certainly a box office phenomenon, with Bridesmaids, The Heat, Identity Thief, and The Hangover Part III all making over $100 million domestically (also, breaking news: Melissa McCarthy was in The Hangover Part III). But her record seems a lot less impressive when you look at her Tomatometer, which shows that, of her last eight films, only Bridesmaids and The Heat earned Fresh Tomatometer scores. And don’t even get us started on director Shawn Levy (Just Married, The Internship), who, by this point, we sort of wish would lay off announcing new films so we could stop including his stories in the Rotten Ideas section. Having said all that, we haven’t even gotten to the really crazy part, which is that Melissa McCarthy is attached to star as Tinker Bell in an untitled comedy that Shawn Levy is attached to direct. J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is now in “public domain,” which unfortunately means that Tinker Bell is pretty much fair game for this sort of comedy.
Time has a way of making some movies much bigger deals for younger generations than they were at the time, and for other movies, it does sort of the opposite. Take for example, the 1979 caper comedy Going in Style, which was a modest hit for stars George Burns and Art Carney, and basically launched the career of director Martin Brest. Having said that, very few people today probably even remember Going in Style ever even existed. Maybe that’s actually why Zach Braff wants to follow up Garden State and Wish I Was Here by directing a Going in Style remake. Or why Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Dustin Hoffman want to be in talks to star in the same remake. We’re calling this one a “Rotten Idea” not so much because critics didn’t love Wish I Was Herebut because actors of a certain age keep trying to make these comedies about old guys going oout in style, and it keeps not working. Whether it’s Morgan Freeman in The Bucket List (40% Rotten) or Morgan Freeman in Last Vegas (47%)… Well, maybe it’s just Morgan Freeman, or the premise, or maybe both.
For more Weekly Ketchup columns by Greg Dean Schmitz, check out the WK archive, and you can contact GDS via Facebook.
