- Andrew Lynch
REEL NEWS: AUGUST 17TH-AUGUST 24TH
Planes Trains Automobiles Remake
The John Hughes classic road trip comedy Planes, Trains & Automobiles is getting a remake.
Paramount are developing the film with Will Smith and Kevin Hart starring in the roles made famous by Steve Martin and John Candy.
The film sees a classic odd couple pairing (one reserved and tense and the other aloof and wild) travel across America to make it home for Thanksgiving.
The original is praised for its classic Hughes touches of memorable laughs with emotional character depth.
The remake will be written by Aeysha Carr, marking her first feature debut after working on shows like Brooklyn 99.
The star power of Smith and Hart combined with a remake of a classic comedy marks this as one Paramount are hope for a box office success.
Enola Holmes Release Date and Teaser
Netflix have released a not-that-cryptic, cryptic teaser announcing the release date of their upcoming Enola Holmes.
The tweet showed a brief teaser of the film with various characters including Henry Cavill’s Sherlock Homlmes saying ‘Enola’ before Millie Bobby Brown herself ends with a Fourth-wall breaking acknowledgment.
The caption was a series of jumbled letters that rearranged spell “Enola Holmes September Twentythird.
The film also stars Sam Claflin as Mycroft Holmes and Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Holmes, the mother who Enola is searching for in the film.
While brief, the teaser promises a wild, self-referential, teen sleuth film that is sure to bring in a number of views on Netflix, boasting a all-star cast.
Enola Holmes will be out on Netflix 23rd September.
Space Jam 2 Uniform
The most important piece of marketing for the most important film of the decade has been unveiled: the uniforms for Space Jam 2.
The UNINTERRUPTED Twitter account (founded by LeBron James and Maverick Carter) tweeted out the video of LeBron wearing the updated uniform.
Instead of the classic white jersey in the original, the new uniform is more colourful and matches up with the Looney Tunes intro logo with the orange barrel on the side.
LeBron James stars in the sequel to the 1996 live-action, animation hybrid film which saw Michael Jordan plays basketball with the Looney Tunes.
The sequel also stars Don Cheadle and is a movie made purely to capitalise on Millennial and Gen Z nostalgia for what is a fever dream of a movie that definitely created a number of Furries.
Death on the Nile Trailer
The first trailer for Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot sequel, Death on the Nile.
The film is based on Agatha Christie’s classic murder mystery novel of the same name and boasts an incredible cast.
Joining Branagh are: Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Annette Bening, Letitia Wright, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Rose Leslie and Russell Brand.
This is the second Poirot film from Branagh after 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express which had an equally impressive cast including Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad, Judi Dench, Willem DaFoe and Penelope Cruz.
Death on the Nile looks to be an extravagant, romanticised period piece, mystery much in the same vain as Orient Express which has a 61% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Death on the Nile will be released in theatres (good luck with that), October 23rd.
Batfleck in The Flash
Ben Affleck is returning as Batman for the upcoming The Flash movie.
Vanity Fair reports that Affleck is only returning for the speedster's film and will be an integral part of the film
Muschietti said, “The interaction and relationship between Barry and Affleck’s Wayne will bring an emotional level that we haven’t seen before"
Affleck seemingly left the role after the tumutluous filming of Justice League and Batman v Superman, and being replaced by Robert Pattinson.
Affleck joins Michael Keaton as another actor returning to the Cape and Cowl for The Flash film which will see the Scarlet Speedster travelling through multiple dimensions and realities.
For more on the announcement, read up on it here.
Sony/Marvel Film Webs Up Directors
Sony have found directors for two of their upcoming Marvel projects.
The first is Olivia Wilde who is signed on for an unknown project with the only details being that it will be female-centred.
There are a number of options for which female characters the film could focus on, including Spider-Woman, Black Cat, Sivler Sable, Silk or the animated Spider-Gwen film spinning off from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
The strongest contender is a Spider-Woman film as Wilde retweeted a Deadline article with a spider emoji.
The second announcement, from Deadline, is that Triple Frontier director J.C. Chandor is directing a Kraven The Hunter movie.
Kraven (alias of Sergei Kravinoff) is a Russia big game hunter/turned animal conservationist who wishes to hunt and kill the most dangerous game: Spider-Man.
These films will not be associated with the MCU but Sony’s own Spider-Man focused Marvel Cinematic Universe (Sony Pictures Unvierse of Marvel Characters or SPUMC (catchy)).
This universe was kickstarted with Tom Hardy’s Venom and continues with Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Morbius.
Sony will keep pumping out Marvel movies until they use Spider-Man proper in their films, with the Sony-Disney deal on Spider-Man expiring after 2 more Spider-Man appearances in the MCU.
Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War
Activision have announced the title for their annual entry in the Call of Duty franchise.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is the 5th CoD game to have a Black Ops sub-title, but the first to be set during the Cold War.
Now for those not up on their history, the Cold War is called so because of a lack of physical encounters between the US and Soviet Russia, with more espionage tactics.
How the classic CoD FPS combat will be forced-I mean, implemented into the story will be interesting to say the least.
The announcement came with a teaser trailer that used archival footage of KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov’s warning to America about the fallout of Russia winning the Cold War.
There was no gameplay footage shown, just the promise of a typically insensitive depiction of war amongst arcade style shooting that the CoD franchise has churned out for the last 10 years.
Gameplay footage will be show on August 26th, with no release date confirmed.
GDT Pinnochio Cast
Netflix have revealed the voice cast for Guillermo del Toro’s stop motion Pinocchio film.
The film introduces Gregory Mann as the would-be boy, Pinocchio; Ewan McGregor as Jiminy Cricket and David Bradley as Gepetto.
The rest of the voice cast include; Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson and Del Toro staple, Ron Perlman.
Along with the announcement came an image of the director holding the stop-motion puppet of Pinocchio.
The puppet looks to be as gothic as to be expected from the Hellboy director and looks reminiscent of the art design for Laika’s Coraline.
Pinocchio is set for a release some time in 2021.
Warner Media Investigating ‘Toxic’ Set of Justice League
Ray Fisher has confirmed that Warner Media are investigating his claims of a ‘toxic’ and ‘abusive’ environment on the set of the troubled Justice League.
Fisher made the announcement on Twitter saying that “After 5 weeks…Warner Media has officially launched an independent third-arty investigation to get to the heart of the toxic and abusive work environment created during Justice League reshoots”
Fisher made the accusations back in early July where he first backtracked praises he made of Joss Whedon at 2017 San Diego Comic Con.
He then included executive producers Geoff Johns and Jon Berg in his accusations saying they ‘enabled’ Whedon to be “unprofessional and abusive” during the film’s controversial reshoots.
It is not a fun time to be an executive at Warner Media, as a similar investigation is held into the Ellen show which has also come under fire for being a toxic and hostile work environment.
Fisher’s news comes just days before the big DC FanDome event which promises big reveals, including a trailer for the Snyder Cut of Justice League.
DC FanDome Wrap Up
Finally, DC hosted their first online convention, DC FanDome where they hosted virtual panels with cast and crew of their upcoming films.
The big reveals where the first trailer for Matt Reeves’ The Batman; Zack Snyder’s Justice League Snyder Cut; upcoming games Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and a new trailer for Wonder Woman 1984.
There was also a behind-the-scenes feature and casting announcement for James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and concept art and news for The Flash and Black Adam.
The entire showcase was covered here and below are the articles that cover each event in greater detail.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
There was also some smaller reveals including James Wan confirming that Ocean Master will return for Aquaman 2, which will be a “more serious” and “relevant” film than the first.
Also the title for the Shazam! sequel was confirmed to be Shazam!: Fury of the Gods and in a meta turn, Sinbad will cameo.
The joke is in reference to a 1996 movie called Kazaam which starred basketball player Shaquille O’Neal.
This then got Mandela Effect-ed where audiences believed that stand-up comedian, Sinbad starred in the same film but that it was called Shazaam, but now, Sinbad will actually appear in a Shazam movie.