REEL NEWS: SEPTEMBER 28TH-OCTOBER 5TH

Zendaya Starring in Ronnie Spector Biopic

Following her recent Emmy win, it is announced Zendaya will be starring in a biopic on singer Ronnie Spector.

The film will be based on Spector’s semi-auto-biography Be My Baby which she wrote with playwriter Vince Waldron.

Spector was the lead signer of the group The Ronettes, which included her sister, Estelle Bennet and their cousin Nedra Talley.

They were most popular during the 60s with songs like Be My Baby and Baby, I Love You and had the iconic beehive hairstyle.

Zendaya recently became the youngest person to win the Emmy for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series, and has a new Netflix movie, Malcom & Marie to be released soon.

If that wasn’t enough, Spector, who is involved with the film, chose Zendaya specifically to play her, which is high praise indeed.

A similar process was had when Aretha Franklin chose Jennifer Hudson in her upcoming biopic, Respect.

Along with Malcom & Marie, Zendaya can be seen in the upcoming Dune adaptation, which is supposedly out December 17th, but if we’ve learnt anything by now it’s not to get attached to release dates.

The Lion King Pre-Sequel

Barry Jenkins is working on a follow-up to 2019’s The Lion King movie.

The movie is rumoured to be a prequel-sequel hybrid, in the style of The Godfather Part 2.

This is first sequel to the recent string of Disney live-action films, and if successful, won’t be the last.

For more on the story, read the full article here.

First Image of Netflix's Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Netflix have released the first images from their film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which is to be the last on-screen appearance of Chadwick Boseman.

Viola Davis stars as Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, also known as the ‘Mother of the Blues’. The film focuses on a recording session in 1920s Chicago, where Ma Rainey clashes with her manager, producer and band members.

Boseman plays one of these bandmembers, the ambitious trumpeter Levee, who wants to make a name for himself.

Denzel Washington, who is a producer on the film, recently praised Boseman’s performance saying, “He did a brilliant job, and he’s gone.”

Davis also added her praise saying “He [Boseman] could completely discard whatever ego he had, whatever vanity he had, and welcome Levee in”.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was already an awards contender with the talent involved, and now with Boseman’s passing, that has only been heightened.

Boseman passed away from colon cancer, which he fought for 4 years in which he filmed all his Black Panther appearances and a number of other movies, including Ma Rainey.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is from director George C. Wolfe, based on the play by August Wilson and will be out on Netflix, December 18th.

Spider-Man PS4 Remaster Changes

Insomniac have unveiled the changes made for their PS5 remaster of the PS4 Spider-Man and because there are changes, people are mad.

Insomniac showed off the visual improvements to the game including a smooth 60FPS, and ray-tracing effect which offers better reflections and lighting to the game.

They also announced that the remaster will come with 3 new suits with the 1st announced is the suit from The Amazing Spider-Man.

The big reveal which got people into a frenzy was the unveiling of a new face model for Peter Parker, which looks like an uncanny valley version of Tom Holland

Ben Jordan has replaced John Bubniak with Insomniac defending the choice in the statement as “to get a better match to Peter Parker/Spider-Man actor Uri Lowenthal’s facial capture”.

Of course, people were upset with comments underneath the PlayStation blog statement like “Who TK is this kid??”, and “This feels more like a corporate mandate to find some parity with Tom Holland’s depiction of the character” and “#NotMyPeter”.

Already a #BringBackBubniak campaign on Twitter was started which will definitely sway the developers from disregarding the months of work they put into remastering this game.

Insomniac’s Creative Director Bryan Intihar later tweeted, calling out the vitriolic reaction he and other have received for their creative decision.

This is just another in the series of fanboy outrage over something trivial (see: Star Wars fandom, female Ghostbusters film, any other pop culture property) and which doesn’t retroactively erase the original property.

Annnnyway, Spider-Man Remastered is only included in the Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition which is available for pre-order now and will be out November 12th.

Ms. Marvel Cast for Disney+

Iman Vellani has been cast as Kamala Khan in the Disney+ Ms. Marvel series.

The Canadian actress has no other major credits, marking this as her debut performance.

Ms. Marvel is the first Pakistani-American superhero, and uses her body altering powers to fight crime, like her idol, Captain Marvel.

The Ms. Marvel series will be out in 2022, and among a number of other Marvel/Disney+ series.

Check here for the full story and a breakdown of Ms. Marvel, the character and the series.

Francis and The Godfather Casting

Oscar Isaac and Jake Gyllenhaal have joined the cast of Barry Levinson’s film about a film, Francis and The Godfather.

Francis centres on the legendary making of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, a legendary film in its own right.

Oscar Isaac will play the Oscar winning director of the mafia epic as well as Apocalypse Now, a film with its own wild production history.

Jake Gyllenhaal will play Robert Evans, the studio executive involved with the film.

There have been legends about the making of the film gaining the attention of the mob who were no to pleased with their illegal activities being put on screen, even if it was fictionally.

There were also risks with getting Marlon Brando, who was not a big star at the time, and financial risks of filming on location in New York and also dressing it to be period appropriate, especially when Mario Puzo’s book the movie is based on was set in Kansas.

Barry Levinson directed Good Morning, Vietnam and Rain Man and recently directed Robert De Niro (who plays Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part 2) in The Wizard of Lies, about Bernie Madoff.

It will be interesting who else Levinson casts as the rest of the crime epic’s cast which includes Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Diane Keaton and Robert Duvall.

Jamie Foxx Returning as Electro for Spider-Man 3

Jamie Foxx is confirmed to be reprising his role as the villain Electro in the upcoming 3rd Tom Holland Spider-Man movie.

Foxx last played the electrifying villain in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opposite Andrew Garfield as the Web Slinger.

Foxx was in talks earlier in the week, before he confirmed it on a deleted Instagram post.

In the post, Foxx stated that he wouldn’t be blue like he was in TASM2 which might have been why the post was deleted since he wouldn’t have much creative control on the film.

For more on the implications of Foxx return and the Marvel/Sony deal, check here.

No Time To Die Delayed till April 2021

Welp this was coming.

No Time To Die, the 25th James Bond film, has been delayed from its November release date, to global release date of 2nd April 2021.

This would mark it a year from its previous release date, where it was delayed to November.

No Time To Die was one of the first blockbuster films to be delayed as a result of COVID, with its Chinese premiere and tour cancelled due to the pandemic and later global release.

Following this, the fallout was dire as Cineworld, the UK’s largest theatre chain, considered closing all its UK theatres and its Regal Cinema chain in the US.

Now with Bond gone, and the release of Pixar’s Soul and the Ryan Reynolds-lead Free Guy up in the air at Disney, the only major cinematic releases Dune on December 17th and Wonder Woman 1984 on Boxing Day/Christmas Day.

The Witches Trailer

Finally, Warner Bros have released the first trailer and poster for their latest adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel, The Witches.

Starring Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer and Stanley Tucci, this latest reimagining of Dahl’s work is from director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future trilogy) and is co-written by Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water, Hellboy).

The Witches is a classic Dahl story where witch covens exist in every country and seek to kill all children, with a new witch arrival in England faced with a former witch hunter and her grandson.

The book is set between England and Norway, but this new movie is set in America with Octavia Spencer as the witch hunter.

One star absent from the trailer is Chris Rock who is narrating the trailer but never seen, implying he is the grown-up version of the grandson we see who is turned into a mouse by Anne Hathaway’s over-the-top witch.

The last big screen adaptation of The Witches was in 1990 which starred Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch, and Rowan Atkinson in the role now played by Stanley Tucci.

Zemeckis’ The Witches is being released on HBO Max in the US, with no clear outline for international releases on October 22nd.