- Andrew Lynch
REEL NEWS: OCTOBER 5TH-OCTOBER 12TH
Free Guy Trailer 2
One of the few films left in 2020, Free Guy, has a new trailer which still promises a 2020 release date.
Free Guy stars Ryan Reynolds as Guy, an NPC (non-playable character) in a Grand Theft Auto-style game who becomes aware of his existence. Aided by a player (Jodie Comer), the pair must work to stop the game developer’s (Taika Waititi) from shutting the game down.
The movie looks like an action packed, video game version of The Truman Show that pokes fun at video game tropes and has that Ryan Reynolds, dry humour he uses as Deadpool and Detective Pikachu.
The film is confirmed to be released December 11th 2020 but don’t hold you breath.
The stars and directors are aware of the film’s tentative release date, filming a teaser for the trailer with the stars reading through various release dates including Pine Cone Appreciation Day.
Directed by Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum, Stranger Things) and penned by Zak Penn (The Avengers) and Matt Lieberman (The Addams Family) the film also stars Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, Matty Cardarople and Utkarsh Ambudkar.
Free Guy is set for December 11th 2020(?)
Netflix’s GLOW and Teenage Bounty Hunters Cancelled
In a shock announcement, Netflix cancelled two of its female lead series citing financial costs and delayed production.
Teenage Bounty Hunters, which was released this year was scrapped after its first season and joins a long line of shows that Netflix did a one and done, as recently with The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance series.
The 80s, female wrestling dramedy GLOW was scrapped before filming on its 4th and final season could be finished.
Filming on the first 2 episodes of the final season had been completed before the virus shutdown, and Netflix pointed to the delays expanding budget costs as why the show was unceremonisouly canned.
Another reason cited is the difficultly to film the series in the pandemic since the fights require close physical contact that can’t be worked around with on set restrictions.
It is still frustrating that Netflix, who will dump piles of cash on trashy shows and movies, refuse to fund 8 more episodes of a heartfelt, funny series about wrestling that was a part of their early line-up that brough audiences on board.
The cast of GLOW were sad to say goodbye to the show, with heartfelt farewells to the GLOW "family", and a piece written by star Betty Gilpin for Vanity Fair.
Amongst it, cast members like Marc Maron have called out Netflix to at least finance a 2-hour movie/special to give the cast and crew the chance at closure.
Resident Evil Cast
Resident Evil’s reboot cast has been unveiled and after nearly 20 years, they’ve finally started to base the movies on the games.
The new entry in the zombie franchise will be a combination of the first and second games in the Capcom series and be an origin for the movie series.
Set in 1998, the year the first game came out, the story will be set in Raccoon City on the night the zombie virus is unleashed.
The cast includes:
Kaya Scodelario (The Maze Runner) as Claire Redfield
Hannah John-Kame (Ant-Man and The Wasp) as Jill Valentine
Robbie Amell (Code 8) as Chris Redfield
Tom Hopper (The Umbrella Academy) as Albert Wesker
Avan Jogia (Zombieland: Double Tap) as Leon S. Kennedy
Neal McDonough (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) as William Birkin
Director Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down) said “With this movie, I really wanted to go back to the original…and re-create the terrifying visceral experience I had”.
This film is not to be confused with the Resident Evil project at Netflix, even though it is still produced by Constantin Film who produced the six previous, Mila Jovovich and hold the rights to the video games.
Robert Kulzer, the producer of the franchise said “After a dozen games, six live-action movies…we felt compelled to explore the secrets hidden in the walls of the Spenser Mansion and Raccoon City”.
After 6 movies spent on a character no one knew, and films that were never critically acclaimed (and $1.6 billion worldwide gross), perhaps the ‘Video Game-Movie Curse’ may finally be broken.
Jurassic World Dominion Delayed, Poster and COVID-Cases
A herd of Jurassic World: Dominion news stampeded out over the week (did that analogy work? I don't know).
It started with the announcement that the film would be delayed a full year from 2021 to June 10, 2022.
The news came out following Warner Bros. string of delays, and delay of No Time To Die which has dealt serious blows to the cinema industry.
Along with this, the news came with the first poster for the film with the traditional Jurassic Park logo.
A cool detail about the poster is that the silhouette is placed over a circle of amber, which mimics the head of the cane of Dr. John Hammond, the park’s creator, and the amber which held the mosquito’s who had the blood of dinosaurs trapped inside.
Days after this, there was the confirmation of a number of COVID cases amongst the production of the film.
In the tweet, it was said that “a small amount of positive tests” were found to be false-positive by follow up tests.
Even still, production has been halted, and initial positive cases have been put into isolation.
To cap it all off, Jeff Goldblum recreated his iconic shirtless scene from Jurassic Park in a horny attempt to get Americans voting in the upcoming election.
Gemma Chan & Kiki Layne Join Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling
The cast of Olivia Wilde’s all-star Don’t Worry Darling has grown even more, with 1 new cast member and 1 replacement.
Gemma Chan (Crazy Rich Asians, Captain Marvel) joins Florence Pugh, Olivia Wilde, Chris Pine and Harry Styles on the cast.
Kiki Layne (The Old Guard, If Beale Street Could Talk) on the other hand, replaces Dakota Johnson who had to leave due to scheduling conflicts.
This is the second case of cast replacement with Harry Styles (Dunkirk) replacing Shia LaBeouf who also left due to schedule conflicts.
Wilde revealed on Instagram her excitement for the new cast, as well as teasing the film is 12 days away from Principal Photography.
Makes sense if she wants to keep the cast attatched, since they keep dropping like flies.
Don’t Worry Darling is said to be a psychological-thriller set in the 1950s, Southern California desert about a housewife (played by Pugh) whose idyllic life is upended.
Wilde has become a sought-after director following her breakthrough success, Booksmart with Darling and her work on an untitled, female-lead Sony/Marvel movie.
The 355 Trailer
Comign from no where, the first trailer for the female-lead, action-spy The 355 has been released.
The 355 stars Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong’o and Bingbing Fan as various international spies who work together to stop a world domination or something equally generic.
Directed by Simon Kinberg (writer and producer on the X-Men franchise), the film feels like the spy equivalent of Ocean’s 8, just without the fun.
The trailer, besides the all-female team, felt more like it belonged on Netflix with trailer and spy cliches including: a slowed-down version of a pop song (JAY-Z’s Run This Town); revealing too much story details; and most egregiously, the ‘disappear behind a large moving vehicle’ trick.
Was half expecting someone to whisper, ‘Mah gahd, it’s Jason Bourne’ at one point.
But, there have been bad trailers for good movies, so hopefully this comes as a surprise when it hits theatres January 15th, 2021.
Invincible Trailer
At New York Comic Con, Amazon debuted the first trailer for their animated adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s highly praised superhero comic, Invincible.
The series follows Mark, the son of Omega-Man, a Superman-esque hero, who develops his own superpowers and has to adapt to them, becoming a superhero, and facing the truth about his father.
The comic ran for 144 issues over 16 years and comes from Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead and is an outlandish, gruesome and mature take on superheroes.
The Amazon Prime animated series features a stellar voice cast including Steven Yuen, J.K. Simmons, Sandra Oh, Gillian Jacobs, Seth Rogen, Zachary Quinto, Zazie Beetz, Walton Goggins, Jason Mantzoukas, Mae Whitman and Mark Hamill.
The animation is true to the original series art by Ryan Ottley, hopefully allowing the show to adapt the more ambitious parts of the show that could be presented easily in animation.
Amazon have a history with post-modern takes on superheroes, having finished production on The Boys Season 2 and working on Season 3.
Invincible will be released sometime 2021.
Hulu’s M.O.D.O.K
Also at NYCC, Marvel released the first trailer for their Hulu streaming service animated show, M.O.D.O.K.
Produced by and starring Patton Oswalt as the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, the show looks like a long-form version of the Robot Chicken pop culture skit show.
With its Claymation-style and doll-like appearance and its subversive, work place comedy vibe, the series feels much like the Seth Green-comedy.
The clip showed off the budgetary strain of running an evil organisation like A.I.M which felt much like the jokes about supervillains in the Austin Power’s films.
M.O.D.O.K has been a joke in comics for his grotesque appearance as a giant headed baby, which has now turned into cult status with calls for him to appear in the MCU.
M.O.D.O.K is out on Hulu in the US, and various other platforms outside the US, sometime in 2020.
Mank Trailer
Netflix keep piling on the awards contenders with the first trailer of David Fincher’s movie about THE movie.
Mank is about the making of Orson Well’s Citizen Kane which is regarded as the greatest movie of all time, with its revolutionary filmmaking and storytelling techniques.
Mank star Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz, the screenwriter of Welle’s masterpiece who struggles with addiction and the pressure of a media mogul that inspired the film.
Oldman is joined by Amanda Seyfried, Lilly Collins, Charles Dance and Tom Burke as Welles himself.
The trailer is a stunning and loving recreation of films of the 1930s, with the classic certification at the start, the Netflix logo mimicking the logo for RKO (the studio behind Kane) and even the cinematography taking reference from the 1941 film.
This is David Fincher’s first film since 2014’s Gone Girl, having spent time working on Netflix’s psychological crime series, Mindhunter.
Award winners Fincher and Oldman, working on something Hollywood loves (movies about itself) and about the making of Hollywood’s most revered movie…this is anything but a sure fire awards winner.
Mank is out in some theatres in November and on Netflix, December 4th.
Green Lantern HBO Max Series
Finally, Lantern’s might has resulted in a Green Lantern series being made for HBO Max.
After early rumours, it is confirmed that Greg Berlanti, the spearhead behind the Arrowverse (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Batwoman), is developing the 10-episode series for the new streaming, prestige platform.
Plot details are scarce, but we now know that each episode will focus on individual adventures of well-known Green Lanterns.
The characters include Alan Scott, Guy Gardner, Jessica Cruz, Simon Baz, Kilowog and Sinestro.
Notable mentions include Hal Jordan, John Stewart and Kyle Ranner who are the most popular and powerful Green Lanterns in the comics.
Perhaps this is intentional so as to save them for their own solo movies, with the series acting as a side story.
Each of the choices for the series are important and interesting in their own right.
Alan Scott was the first human Green Lantern, created in the 1940s, who is later revealed to be gay.
Guy Gardner is the wild card of the Lanterns, who was the back-up choice to Hal Jordan, usually being abrasive to everyone and sporting a ridiculous bowl cut haircut.
Jessica Cruz and Simon Baz are recent inclusions to the Lantern Corp who work together. Both overcome hardships to demonstrate their worth of wielding the Lantern rings. Cruz suffers from intense anxiety and depression while Baz is a Muslim-American.
The last two, Kilowog and Sinestro, are not Earth Lanterns, with Kilowog usually training new recruits and Sinestro betraying the Green Lantern Corp and form the Yellow Lanterns as its opposite.
Green Lanterns has gone straight to series order, with Marc Guggenheim and Seth Graham-Smith writing the pilot and Graham-Smith on as showrunner.
A new Green Lantern property has been in the works for a while, following the disastrous Ryan Reynolds starring movie in 2011, with a cancelled sequel and then a movie apart of the initial line-up of DCEU films before they were all scrapped and started over.
Warner Bros. are following Disney’s model, with a combination of film and streaming properties apart of their superhero universe.
Along with Green Lanterns, there is also a Gotham City PD prequel series to The Batman and a Peacemaker solo series based on John Cena’s The Suicide Squad character.