There’s a slew of UK TV premieres on Horror Channel this April, with a new film every Saturday. As well as being great films, there are some well-known faces such as Nicolas Cage, Ray Wise, and genre legends Barbara Steele and Camille Keaton.
The films screening for the first time are:
Saturday, April 2nd – The Butterfly Room (2012)
Saturday, April 9th – Alive (2018)
Saturday, April 16th – Mercy Black (2019)
Saturday, April 23rd – Open 24 Hours (2018) (channel premiere)
Shawn Levy is in negotiations to direct Ryan Reynolds (again!) in Deadpool 3. This news comes on the heels of two very successful collaborations, the pandemic-era hit Free Guy and the recently released sci-fi adventure filmThe Adam Project.
The announcement – first released via The Hollywood Reporter – might come as a surprise to fans of the Merc with a Mouth, given that Levy has rarely strayed beyond family-friendly territory in his directorial ventures.
Fear not though, as Marvel Big Man Kevin Feige confirmed last year that the wisecracking, Wolverine-hating killer would be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as part of Phase Five AND that Deadpool 3 would keep its R-rating (that’s a 15 in the UK).
The Boys are back in town this year, with season 3 headed to Prime on June 3rd, 2022. In anticipation, Amazon has released the first official teaser for its blood-soaked, foul-mouthed and creatively horny superhero satire – rated D for “Diabolical“, naturally.
There’s a lot to discuss here, so watch the trailer below first, and then we can get started with the unpacking.
Welcome back (presumably)!
First things first: Let’s address the elephant in the room, aka Billy Butcher’s (Karl Urban) laser eyes. It seems that season 3 will see Butcher – and potentially some other members of the Boys – take a version of Vought’s Compound V that gives them superhuman abilities. From the brief glimpses in the teaser, he appears to gain the same powers as Big Bad Homelander (Antony Starr).
In the comics, Butcher injects the entire team with the compound (bar Kimiko, who doesn’t need the extra juice) and each develop their own set of powers. However, Butcher’s powers then were limited to super strength, so the Amazon series looks to be going a lot bigger with the on-screen action. Not that we’d expect anything less.
The Boys season 3’s teaser also takes the opportunity to showcase some of its new characters. As expected, most prominently featured is Jensen Ackles’ much-publicised turn as “original supe” Soldier Boy: a parody of Marvel’s Captain America, Soldier Boy is supposedly a World War II veteran with enhanced strength and speed. In the comics, he leads a group of supes called Payback, which just so happens to be the title of season 3’s first episode.
Another new character introduced in the trailer is Laurie Holden’s Crimson Countess, a spoof of Marvel’s Scarlet Witch with an apparent distaste for Homelander. We also see Gunpowder (Sean Patrick Flanery), who is The Boys‘ answer to The Punisher.
For more details on which characters will and might appear in The Boys’ season 3, as well as storylines we expect will be explored, we recommend you check out our more detailed article here on everything we know about season 3.
MacGruber’s Will Forte and Lana Condor have signed on to star opposite John Cena in Coyote vs Acme, a live-action/CG animation hybrid film centred on Looney Tunes character Wile E. Coyote.
Dave Green (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows) is directing for Warner Bros. from a screenplay by Samy Burch, based on the New Yorker humour article “Coyote v. Acme” by Ian Frazier.
Coyote vs Acme will tell the story of a down-on-his-luck lawyer (the human kind) who takes on the hapless coyote as a client in his lawsuit against Acme Corporation over its defective products. To make matters more complicated, the attorney soon finds out that Acme is being represented by his former boss.
That ex-boss will be played by Cena, with Will Forte tackling the role of the coyote’s lawyer. Forte is best known for his work on Saturday Night Live, and recently starred in television series The Last Man on Earth and The Afterparty. Condor (Moonshot, X-Men: Apocalypse) will also star in an as yet undisclosed role.
Chris DeFaria and James Gunn are producing the feature, which is scheduled to begin filming later this month. Coyote vs Acme is slated for release on July 21st, 2023.
Following news that Florence Pugh may be boarding Denis Villeneuve’s science-fiction sequel, Dune: Part II,Deadline reports that Austin Butler is in talks to become the latest casting addition to an already packed line-up.
Austin Butler is due for a big-screen breakout role this year with the release of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic, in which he plays the King of Rock and Roll himself. The actor previously appeared in supporting roles in Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood and The Dead Don’t Die.
Should the deal be made, Butler would star as villain Feyd-Rautha, the cunning nephew of the Baron of House Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). It is one of three major roles being cast right now, alongside the role of Emperor Shaddam IV – the ruler who sent the Atreides family to Arrakis in Dune – and his daughter, Princess Irulan. Pugh is in talks for the latter; the role of the Emperor is presumably still being cast. If all goes to plan, shooting is slated to begin this summer.
Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya and Josh Brolin are all reprising their roles from Dune. Villeneuve’s sequel will pick up where the first film left off, with Paul Atreides (Chalamet) fighting alongside the native Fremen to rid the desert planet of Arrakis from the Harkonnens’ brutal rule.
Warner Bros. has set Dune: Part II for release on October 20th, 2023.
A spinoff of Matt Reeves’ The Batman has officially been picked up at HBO Max, who committed to a straight-to-limited-series order for The Penguin. Colin Farrell and his prosthetics will reprise their big-screen role as underworld kingpin Oswald Cobblepot, aka the Penguin.
“The world that Matt Reeves created for The Batman is one that warrants a deeper gaze through the eyes of Oswald Cobblepot,” Farrell stated. “I couldn’t be more excited about continuing this exploration of Oz as he rises through the darkened ranks to become the Penguin. Will be good to get him back on the streets of Gotham for a little madness and a little mayhem.”
Reeves added that “Colin exploded off the screen as the Penguin in The Batman, and having the chance to thoroughly explore the inner life of that character on HBO Max is an absolute thrill.” Reeves will serve as executive producer on the series, with Lauren LeFranc (producer and writer on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) on board as showrunner.
The Penguin was one of two The Batman spinoff ideas that were in active development for HBO Max. The second was going to be centred on the Gotham City Police Department and take place during ‘Year One’ of Bruce Wayne’s career as the vigilante; however, Reeves has recently said the project would not be moving forward. In its stead, a series set in Arkham Asylum is now being developed.
Get ready to rearrange your social calendars, friends! Warner Bros.’ blockbusters release slate has just undergone a major reshuffle, with the majority of their titles being pushed back by at least a few months.
Deadline reports that this is due to a logjam that many post-production effects houses are facing right now, a knock-on effect from productions being ramped up as soon as COVID restrictions were loosened. From superheroes to underwater cities and giant sharks, many of Warner Bros.’ titles are pretty VFX heavy, and are therefore even more susceptible to post-prod effects delays.
Warner Bros. revealed a new premiere dates for many of their major projects over 2022 and 2023:
Wonka moves from March 17th, 2023, to December 15th, 2023.
Not all titles have been subject to delays, however.
Shazam! Fury of the Godsmoves up from June 2nd, 2023, to December 16th, 2022! It sets the Zachary Levi-fronted DC sequel up against Disney/20th Century Fox’s long-gestating Avatar 2 over the 2022 Christmas period.
Meg 2: The Trench has been set for August 4th, 2023. It did not previously have a release date.
Ghostbusters franchise’sErnie Hudson will star opposite Raymond Lee (Here and Now, Top Gun: Maverick) in NBC’s pilot forQuantum Leap, a reboot of the cult 1990s sci-fi series of the same name.
Written and executive produced by Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt, the reboot is set in the present day. It will follow a new team as they restart the Quantum Leap project in hopes of understanding the mysteries behind the machine, and its creator.
The original series follows a physicist (Scott Bakula) as he involuntarily leaps through spacetime during experiments in time travel, and temporarily takes the place of various people throughout the second half of the 20th century; each time, he must correct what he discovers are historical mistakes, in hopes of one day making it home.
Deadline reports that Ernie Hudson portrays Herbert “Magic” Williams in the pilot, a Vietnam war veteran and head of the time travel project at Quantum Leap. Meanwhile, Lee will play Dr. Ben Seong, a world-renowned physicist working on QL who gets stuck in the late 1980s with amnesia after using the technology. Hudson’s Williams will have to keep the Pentagon at bay and buy his team time to rescue Seong.
The film, with its returning cast including Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Stellan Skarsgård, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, is casting three major parts. Pugh is in talks to play Princess Irulan Corrino, the eldest daughter of Emperor Shaddam IV; Dune: Part 2 will also introduce the ruler who sent the Atreides family to Arrakis, the Emperor himself, as well as Feyd-Rautha, the cunning nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Skarsgård) of House Harkonnen.
THR reports there are several hurdles that will need to be overcome before Florence Pugh can sign onto the project. Firstly, the script is still being written and the Hawkeyeactress is said to be waiting for the latest draft. Secondly – and unsurprisingly, given that Pugh is one of the most in-demand actresses working right now –scheduling conflicts could arise should she land the lead role for the upcoming Madonna biopic, for which she is currently in contention.
Production is expected to start this autumn, with Dune: Part 2 due to release on October 20th, 2023.
HBO Max has just released the first trailer to their limited series DMZ, based on the DC graphic novel of the same name by Brian Wood.
The events are set in a near future, where a Second American Civil War has turned the island of Manhattan into a demilitarized zone, caught between forces of the United States of America and the secessionist Free States of America. Daredevil’s Rosario Dawson stars in the lead role as Alma Ortega, an NYC medic navigating the conflict-ridden DMZ in a harrowing quest to find her lost son.
The cast of DMZ also includes Benjamin Bratt (Doctor Strange, Coco), Hoon Lee (Iron Fist, Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtles), Freddy Miyares (When They See Us), Jordan Preston Carter (Shaft), and Venus Ariel (Exposed).
The series comes from showrunner and creator Robert Patino (Westworld), who executive produces alongside Ava DuVernay and Paul Garnes. Patino wrote the first episode, which is directed by DuVernay; The Walking Dead’s Ernest Dickerson directs the other three episodes.
DMZ is set to premiere on HBO Max on March 17th. Watch the trailer below:
