STARFLEET ACADEMY Series In The Works

Star Trek universe adds Starfleet Academy to upcoming slate

Yet another Star Trek show, this one titled Starfleet Academy, is in development for Paramount+. Sharing its name with the 1990s PC simulation game, this series follows cadets in the Starfleet college as they are mentored for leadership roles in the United Federation of Planets space force.

As per Deadline‘s sources, Absentia co-creator Gaia Violo is currently developing the series pitch, which will likely follow the Michelle Yeoh-starring Star Trek spinoff Section 31 – which is expected to get a pickup soon.

Star Trek currently has Star Trek: Discovery on its fourth season, Star Trek: Short Treks, Star Trek: Picard (with its second season releasing imminently) and the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks on the Paramount streaming platform, and the brand new Star Trek: Strange New Worlds coming in May this year. The latter is a spinoff from Discovery and will serve as a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, following Christopher Pike and the crew of the USS Enterprise. Meanwhile, once a pickup is confirmed for Section 31, the Emperor Philipa Georgiou-centred show is expected to air by 2023.

 

 

 

 

 

FOUNDATION Announces Season 2 Cast

Lee Pace as Brother Day in Foundation series

After it found great success amongst audiences and critics last year, Apple TV+ wasted no time renewing its expansive science fiction series Foundation for a second season. Based on Isaac Asimov’s novels, David S. Goyer’s series follows the stories of four individuals transcending space and time as they face deadly crises, shift loyalties and tackle complicated relationships, all of which will ultimately determine the fate of humanity.

Lee Pace and Jared Harris as Brother Day and Hari Seldon first look at Foundation season 2

Season one starred Lee Pace and Jared Harris as Brother Day and Hari Seldon, alongside rising stars Lou Llobell and Leah Harvey as Gaal Dornick and Salvor. Now, Apple TV+ has announced a host of new talent will be joining Foundation’s second season:

  • Isabella Laughland as Brother Constant, a cheerfully confident Claric whose job is to evangelize the Church of the Galactic Spirit across the Outer Reach. Constant is a true believer, whose courage and passion make her hard not to love.
  • Kulvinder Ghir as Poly Verisof, High Claric of the Church of the Galactic Spirit. Whip-smart and sardonic, he’s also a terrible drunk – intelligent enough to see the path he’s on, but too cynical to change.
  • Sandra Yi Sencindiver as Enjoiner Rue, the beautiful, politically savvy consigliere to Queen Sareth. A former courtesan to Cleon the 16th, Rue parlayed her status to become a royal counsellor.
  • Ella-Rae Smith as Queen Sareth of Cloud Dominion. Used to being underestimated, Sareth employs it to her advantage, charming her way into the Imperial Palace with biting wit, all while on a secret quest for revenge.
  • Dimitri Leonidas as Hober Mallow, a master trader with a sarcastic personality and questionable morals, who is summoned against his will to serve a higher, selfless cause.
  • Ben Daniels as Bel Roise, the last great general of the Superliminal Fleet and would-be conqueror of the Foundation. Bel is noble to a fault, but his fealty to the Galactic Empire is waning.
  • Holt McCallany as Warden Jaegger Fount, the current Warden of Terminus and guardian of its citizens against external threats.
  • Mikael Persbrandt as The Warlord of Kalgan, a monster of a man, coiled with muscle and possessing powerful psychic abilities, and fuelled by hate in his quest to take over the galaxy.
  • Rachel House as Tellem Bond, mysterious leader of the Mentallics.
  • Nimrat Kaur as Yanna Seldon, a member of Hari Seldon’s family.

Pace and Harris are of course returning from Season 1 – the announcement includes a first look at their characters in Season 2, which you can see above – along with Llobell, Harvey, Laura Birn, Terrence Mann and Cassian Bilton. No premiere date has yet been announced, but likelihood is that we will see the next chapter of Foundation hitting screens late this year or early in 2023.

Justin Kurzel’s MORNING Taps Benedict Cumberbatch, Laura Dern

Doctor Strange's Benedict Cumberbatch to star in Morning from Justin Kurzel

It’s a good year to be Benedict Cumberbatch. High off the incredible success of Spider-Man: No Way Home, enjoying Oscar buzz for his role in The Power Of The Dog, and soon (but not soon enough!) to headline Sam Raimi‘s Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, the actor has already lined up his next role. He will star alongside Laura Dern and A Quiet Place‘s Noah Jupe in Morning, a sci-fi thriller from director Justin Kurzel.

Morning is set in a near future where society has a pill that does away with the need to sleep. With the added help of an artificial sun, there is no end to morning daylight, living and work. However, as a young generation grows up deprived of the world of sleep, they consider rebelling to reclaim their dreams.

Cathy (Dern) may have been an early advocate of a sleepless world, but as she and her son Danny (Jupe) pick up the pieces of their lives following the death of her husband Frank (Cumberbatch), she finds the universe she helped to build is starting to crumble around her, whilst memories she fought so hard to repress are bleeding into her waking life. As Danny is further drawn into a subversive underworld of dreamers, Cathy must confront her nightmares and fight hard not to lose her son.

Morning was written by Sam Steiner; Cumberbatch, Dern, Jayme Lemons, Adam Ackland, Leah Clarke and Marnie Podos are all aboard to produce. Kurzel, meanwhile is best known for directing True History of the Kelly Gang, Assassin’s Creed and 2015’s Macbeth, starring Michael Fassbender. His latest, Nitram, played in competition at Cannes and saw lead actor Caleb Landry Jones be awarded the festival’s Best Actor prize.

 

 

Prepare For A Sci-Fi Cry Fest With AFTER YANG Trailer

A24 trailer for After Yang starring Justin H. Min and Colin Farrell

After it gathered well-deserved praise at Cannes and Sundance, A24 has just dropped the trailer for their latest science-fiction film, After Yang. 

Coming from visual artist and Columbus director Kogonada, After Yang is set in a near-future where androids are brought in as house helpers. The eponymous Yang (Justin H. Min, The Umbrella Academy) is one such android, brought in to look after Colin Farrell and Jodie Turner-Smith’s adopted daughter and to teach her about her Chinese heritage.

Sadly, when Yang malfunctions, Jake (Farrell) searches for a way to repair him. In the process, Jake discovers the life that has been passing in front of him, reconnecting with his wife Kyra (Turner-Smith, Nightflyers) and daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) across a distance he didn’t know was there.

Haley Lu Richardson, Sarita Choudhury, and Clifton Collins Jr. also star. After Yang releases March 4th.

Check out the trailer below:

 

Netflix Releases Gory Trailer For TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE

Official trailer for Netflix reboot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre

After nearly 50 years since the original, Leatherface returns in Netflix’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre to terrorize a group of idealistic young friends who accidentally disrupt his carefully shielded world in a remote Texas town.

The newest entry in the horror franchise follows Melody (Sarah Yarkin, Fort Salem, Happy Death Day 2U), her sister Lila (Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade, Castle Rock), and their friends Dante (Jacob Latimore, Detroit, The Maze Runner) and Ruth (Nell Hudson, Outlander, The Irregulars), who move to Harlow, Texas in hopes of kickstarting their new business venture. Things take a turn for the worst when they disrupt the 60-year-old serial killer’s home (Mark Burnham, replacing the late Gunnar Hansen), provoking him to begin his murderous rampage anew. Olwen Fouéré (Mandy, Beast) also joins the cast as Sally Hardesty, the only survivor of Leatherface’s killing spree from the original film. She replaces the late Marilyn Burns.

Much like 2018’s Halloween did for its own franchise, Texas Chainsaw Massacre looks to ignore all the sequels, prequels, reboots, etc. and serve instead as a direct sequel to Tobe Hooper’s original 1974 slasher. This entry has been produced by Fede Alvarez (director of Don’t Breathe) from a script by Chris Thomas Devlin, and directed by David Blue Garcia. Garcia was hired late on after previous directors Ryan and Andy Tohill were fired from the production a mere week into shooting.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre releases to Netflix February 18th. Watch the trailer below:

 

Ridley Scott-Produced BERLIN NOBODY Casts Eric Bana, Kiernan Shipka

Eric Bana To Star In Berlin Nobody - still from Dirty JohnPhoto by: Nicole Wilder/Bravo

Eric Bana (Star Trek, Hulk) and Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, The Silence)  are set to star in the Ridley Scott-produced thriller Berlin Nobody, writes Deadline. Jordan Scott (known for her Eva Greene and Juno Temple-starring debut Cracks) writes and directs from a script inspired by Nicholas Hogg’s 2015 novel Tokyo.

The Berlin-set film follows American social psychologist Ben Monroe (Bana) in his investigation of a local cult connected to a disturbing event. While he immerses himself in his inquiry, his teenage daughter Mazzy (Shipka) gets involved with a mysterious local boy, who introduces her to Berlin’s underground scene. As these two worlds are set on a collision course, Mazzy finds herself in too deep, and Ben will need to race against the clock to save her.

Scott and Michael Pruss are production under their Scott Free banner, alongside Augenschein’s Jonas Katzenstein and Maximilian Leo, and Georgina Pope.

“Berlin Nobody is the ultimate package – a tense and taut psychological thriller produced by two companies at the top of their game, helmed by a new and exciting visionary director, Jordan, and led by the fiercely talented Eric and Kiernan,” stated George Hamilton, Chief Commercial Officer at Protagonist Pictures (the company is handling worldwide sales on the title). “We can’t wait to introduce this project to distributors around the world, in partnership with Jonathan Saubach and our friends at Augenschein.”

Berlin Nobody is due to begin filming in September, with a release date TBA.

 

STAR TREK: PICARD Season 2 First Look At Whoopi Goldberg’s Return

Star Trek: Picard season 2 sees Whoopi Goldberg return to the Trek universe as Guinan

“Welcome to the road not taken,” announces John de Lancie’s Q in the latest trailer for Star Trek: Picard season 2. The latest preview for the show, which will air on Prime Video from March 4th, also gives fans their first look at Whoopi Goldberg’s long-anticipated return to the Star Trek universe as Guinan.

Season 2 will see Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) cross paths once again with Q, an omnipotent alien and long-time nemesis of the Enterprise Captain (now “retired” Admiral) ever since his first appearance in Star Trek: The Next Generation. This time, Q throws Picard and his crew into a warped reality where the Federation has become a totalitarian force on Earth.

In order to return the world to its original state, Picard seeks out his old El-Aurian friend Guinan (Goldberg) for advice before travelling back in time to 2024 Los Angeles – with the help of a new Borg Queen (Annie Wersching) – to identify and prevent the event that changed their reality.

Alison Pill, Jeri Ryan, Evan Evagora, Michelle Hurd, Orla Brady, Santiago Cabrera, Isa Briones, and Brent Spiner all return to season 2.

Watch the latest trailer for Star Trek: Picard below, with new episodes streaming from March 4th.

 

Ray Harryhausen Awards Open for Submissions

harryhausen awards

The Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation has announced a new film awards programme, established in honour of the legendary master of stop-motion animation.

Submissions are now open with the following categories:

Best Feature Film Animation

Best Short Film Animation

Best Student Film Animation

Best Commercial Film Animation

Best Online Film Animation

Best Television Animation

Harryhausen Hall of Fame Award

Entries need to be in before the deadline of April 15th 2022.

Head over to www.harryhausenawards.com to submit your film.

Vanessa Harryhausen, Ray’s daughter and Trustee said of the awards: “Dad always recognised the strong educational aspect of his work. I hope that these awards will encourage a new generation of animators to be inspired and follow their own dreams,”

John Walsh, Filmmaker and Trustee added: “Ray Harryhausen’s influence on cinema past and present is truly titanic. I devised these awards in Ray’s name to recognise new standards of excellence in the growing field of animation.”

The first awards will be held on June 29th, 2022, with a screening event to follow at the Edinburgh Filmhouse.

Lucy Liu To Star In Blumhouse Adaptation Of Stephen King’s LATER

2021 novel Later by Stephen King adapted by Blumhouse

Stephen King’s novel Later may have only released last year, but already Blumhouse Television has landed the rights to turn it into a limited series and tapped Lucy Liu to star.

Raelle Tucker created the series and wrote the pilot script, having previously collaborated with Blumhouse on the anthology series Sacred Lies and Sacred Lies: The Singing Bones. Her other credits include work on Supernatural, Jessica Jones, The Returned, and True Blood, the latter for which she received an Emmy nomination.

King’s Later centres on Tia, a literary agency owner and single mum to her son Jamie, who finds herself on the brink of professional ruin when her star author client dies before turning in the manuscript that would have saved her agency from bankruptcy. Thankfully, it turns out that Jamie has a supernatural ability to speak to the dead, all of whom must tell him the truth. He talks with the dead author and feeds the contents of the book to his mother, who writes it herself and publishes it under the author’s name, to great success.

Things take a turn when Tia’s police detective girlfriend figures out what the boy can do and, in an act of desperation, drags him into a deadly case to help her stop a bombing. As always when King mixes kids with the supernatural though, Jamie soon finds himself in way over his head.

On the project, King stated that “I’ve wanted to work with Jason Blum for years, and now we have two projects together. Go, me!” The other project in question is an adaptation for Netflix of Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, a short story from the If It Bleeds anthology; Donald Sutherland and Jaeden Martell star, with John Lee Hancock directing.

Liu, meanwhile, will next appear in Shazam! Fury Of The Gods. 

 

 

MORTAL KOMBAT Sequel Hires MOON KNIGHT Scribe

Scorpion in 2021 film Mortal Kombat

A Mortal Kombat sequel is officially going ahead, according to a Deadline exclusive. The first film of the rebooted franchise premiered last years in cinemas and on HBO Max, receiving mixed-to-poor reviews from critics, yet became one of the streaming service’s biggest releases.

New Line has tapped Jeremy Slater (Fantastic Four, Death Note) to write the untitled sequel, hot off his role as head writer on the upcoming Marvel series Moon Knight, which stars Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke, and the late Gaspard Ulliel. Slater is also known for having developed The Umbrella Academy for Netflix and The Exorcist for FOX; upcoming projects include scripting Travis Knight’s vampire thriller Uprising and the James Wan-produced adaptation of Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers. 

2021’s Mortal Kombat, a reboot of the 1995 film series, itself an adaptation of the video game franchise, followed a washed-up MMA fighter named Cole Young (Lewis Tan) on a mission to seek out Earth’s best fighters and help them face off against the warriors of a realm known as the Outworld, battling it out for no less than the fate of the universe.

As of yet, no announcements have been made regarding the sequel’s cast nor have any plot details been released, so be sure to stay tuned!